this december calm, pale blue sky
reigning over the glistening concrete
practically, purposefully ground down
and slathered into planks
fortified for the constant shuffle of
feet - today is empty. left to
breathe an aching sigh of relief.

in the careening seconds,
the silence yields to
the solemn slam of a car door,
which presently reminds that
some still have no place to go.
shifting with encrusted eyes,
caked over by the regret of another
listless year. the remaining days deadend,
muting the acoustic rhythms of life
like the incantation of a retrospective quality
resounding in a vacuum. flitting memories
sucked back into perpetual darkness.
annually constructed with an eerie precision,
depicting the facets of emotional limits.

it remains, for us, stayed -
lines fed beneath the surface.
no signs of ever leaving
or relenting its manufactured magic.
a lack of authenticity with
an illusion of change,
positioned like a fantasy of
synthetic, sterile experience.
a pseudo-affection for gathering
in numbers to exhibit the permeability
of expected love ringing with
the false declaration of proclivity.
as if it was best because it's better,
and automatically tethered
to a place on a calendar already printed
for next year.

in the silence of stillness
the waist breaks inward
and a seat is procured
wherever one sees fit
through transference
the image goes beyond
the literal meaning
of the message
the wind's wistful rhythms
match the pacing of the heart
for those that look out and
see everything at once
the broken, damaged
shape of our grammar
restricts the ability to
communicate with shifting
frames in motion
out of control, the
world turns in on itself
the dissolution of
convention causes shaking
in the somber crowd
as they nullify their presence
along a track of
dependence
misappropriating trust in
things they never thought about

fear rising on jagged metal spires against the moonlit sky
glistening in their purposed composition
the team of hands that fed them
that gave them arms and legs and throats
the pulse they send on aftermath into the ground
transpiring into thoughts polluting airwaves in the parking lot

cars keep passing along that godforsaken conveyor belt
all in tune to another station I’ve never heard of
dismantling the pleasant illusion dreamt up before restrictions left me lying in the
           wake of lost tenderness

my mother said to me, “Allow for a moderation of emotional investment”
I know now she meant – keep a tight cap on the exposure of yourself to others
the pain and decay translated into insipid breaths, an effect which I no longer feel
           anymore

there’s a certain level of cultural assimilation into one’s personality that, once the
           threshold has been breached, the two become virtually indistinct
no more room for the right to receive
the shadows move on the spires I see
an echoing wind, I mean me
ground zero, the origin, sings to reveal a slow, unknown shift

I was too late too soon to comprehend the little battles for personal wealth dividing
            strands along the trail, where the specter of levity
            and sincerity came down to cut the rope of my dumb
            collected hopes kept compartmentalized inside a dirty
            box that I hoarded as a coping mechanism for all my
            future doubts
self-storage for all the things that had no place inside my house

I sought solace in secret resolutions and didn’t tell a soul
surrounded by the confusion of this ever-changing world
if I had asked, I know they would have spouted that same old sentiment:
           wait, you must wait for it
words from some private conversation on despair held long ago
I’ll rework this a thousand times and still never let it go

the independence from fate grows into concern, and though I try to see both sides,
            my observation always turns back toward the axis
            mundi where I become tangled in its roots
a faulty introspection lain down as I sit and stoke the flames
           with so many lines to include in such a limited space
the finite reasoning in a loose embrace where the toils of
           censorship invade all sense of duty
the buying and selling of self-approval while fixating on the
            junction of every moment conspiring to make us move
            on one another in the dwindling fire

tell me, do you feel this way?
tell me, can we cry?
tell me we’re not living just to die

lead me to the universal
lead me to the why
lead me to the path of the blooming will of mankind where and when the commendations
           for being alive are lauded for futile attempts to find
            meaning in the light
the outliers stretch through time reddening our eyes, elusive
to the voice calling,
           “don’t you see that shine?”
the grains that lead to absolution, falling in the night

on the other end of the question, on the ridge of work, another life –
           with a careful, quiet satisfaction that if you
           wait, just wait, everything will be all right

Truncated approbation -
they meditated on success,
on the pinnacle. The end
of wanting more, and
no more sleepless nights
fearfully constructing lists
that unravel off the edge
into blackness spread
across an exorbitant
expanse of time. Together,
they gathered and harvested
their thoughts, ideas, hopes,
dreams, and wishes. They
bent back over tables
pointing up toward the sky.
Stationary, fixed having
observed many fingers
outstretched in exhaltation.
Some leaving their mark, their
soft scent, their fragrance in
the air. Others dissolving
unseen, unheard, unremembered
like rags in the street. But
all forever reaching.

what
if anything
can redeem
this violence
roaring up
from the
bottomless
depths
of the sea
surfacing
with vile ferocity
to swallow whole
the sons
of a new beginning

-----------

in solitude
the levy
broken, with
shame the
mirrored eyes
did see
they cast a
glance of
restitution
dredging up the
sunken part of
me

-----------

to keep afoot
within tradition
to sample
all that those
did skew
and find
through feeble
intuition
the right
alignment
for renewal

-----------

though the
crossbow breaks
uneven,
its feigned
resistance
nearer to,
the innocence of
perseverance
and the
severance of the
idle few

-----------

with an obdurate
stance against
the pattern
match, a
trifling
inconclusivity
sways between
the path, the
pine, and the
sun on the
horizon

-----------

the path
embraces the
folly
and recklessness
of its object
of desire,
emerging
from the
imagined,
insatiable void
of the
unconscious

-----------

the listless
charmer bears
witness to the
crutch of
connection, and
like a masked
caricature,
calls to release
an unspoken love
siphoning
emotions with a
truncated touch

-----------

to expel a wash
in blue for an
effulgent manner
will subvert the
natural tendency
toward
suspicious
reservations
folded neatly
beneath the
surface of self-
preservation

-----------

the holistic
stretch is
radiant and the
blocks you use
to build your
life are beaming
back against the
power of
perception

-----------

linear
perspective and
the politics of
communication
hang from wooden
rafters with the
suspense of
waiting
for the light to
burn out

This series is an exploration of philosopher Walter Benjamin's term, optical unconscious. Benjamin was highly influenced by psychoanalysis and surrealism, both of which found their way into his work. Ideas of fluid imagery, the unthought known, and the divide between the virtual and reality were all present in his writings. Optical Unconscious plays with each of these concepts and attempts to address the way in which we produce and consume images, and our unconscious lack of awareness to the digestion of unexamined images.

This is transient. I seem to be missing that fact. I seem to be consumed by the taste of her mouth. I seem to be forgetting that the rapt edge of metal bathed in neighborhood light will draw me in like a moth in the full glow of the moon. My gaze is pulled toward gravel, rock shards that make up a poorly constructed parking lot. The adjacent stairs are calling for a climb and up at the top I imagine a clear view into an unrealized future, but the shadowplay clouds the beginning in darkness. A point in time of emergence. It weighs heavy as it all falls down. It talks to me in whispered nouns, trying for attention and grabbing at anticipated expectations but everything remains the same.

From the very first and coming down, she seized the rope that hung above a sign that read < No Outlet >

At the head of a single thread, recursion spread rapidly. An eight-sided generation split into four where space and time connected to form a whole. She applied pressure along a complex curve that slid around an increasing line to nowhere. Incessant division into points too small to comprehend like examining the crystals in each grain of sand.

Impulse variability slips in, toying with the knot. Will it ever spin to unweave its web allowing for our innocence to be released? Sipping at last call, a carried movement against style and grace. We downgrade the largest things to build up insignificance, and thumb at torn and worn down pages in which we know the way the story ends.

A syncopated ripple across a pool of disbelief, an empty chair across the room calling out our name. We whisper back into the silence of the trees that loom outside the window, and count the seconds against the passing traffic for some small hope of an answer. Those memories seem so far away now, dulled, perverted, and parodied. How time changes things like severed, short stills swaying in the wind.

What if I split off and turn the table around to make you feel uncomfortable in order to tear you apart? The breeze blows quickly in the swift summer night and everything I thought I knew disappears into the vacant moonlight. These kids will never understand the inscription on the street. I see it in their smiles and the way they spread their teeth. Watching with my voyeur eyes, a drink is passed in favor of camaraderie. It’s an imaginary connection that does more to disgrace the nature of the situation than a passerby with his hands stuffed in his pockets. It’s a show. It’s a story that they’ll take and file away. A dance, a small charade, the gates chained with division. Their howling grins reassure the public, “We’re only entertaining this fool for a short period.” This is the page they’ve turned over like swallowing the same pill with their hands gripped securely around their secret parts in agreement.

When the crack of a can turns around against the move that I should not have taken, I know I’m thinking of nothing and begin to prepare for a future where I'm absent. An alternative to a wish left cold and broken. Ask me a question about what I wanted, and I’ll tell you it was something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. When we shifted in the park it showered down upon us, and the statues stood still, bleak and coming through. The ground soaked my clothes, moist yet unremissive. The soil became me for a moment. We hurried up to keep from getting wet, and solved the riddle in the hallway before I left and never came back. Following the sea of green against your side, I moved on as the door closed. It was always kept inside the room where you slept in a world I was never a part of.

Until time came along, the tempo remained unclean in an overwhelmingly present need to respond to everything immediately. When a circle meets the other side, it spins in a never-ending succession toward nowhere. We felt the pinch of motion as the line connected, and turned away from the top to look down at the bottom. It was destined to come back around. A call in the dark was all I ever dreamed of. Looking at the clock as if the hands could be manipulated, giving in to the complexity and the excitement of your grip. We were willing to shake with each and every second. We wanted to know what life would be like if sleep was inconsistent. Breathing in sync with the tides of the ocean, turmoil unreviewed like a current split by finely documented disorder in the depth of disappointment.

The traffic disrupts the silence. There are many forms of justice and some you can't control. Remembering once down silent hill, a tainted town with yellow painted skies of ashen laden fire. The camera spins to create confusion in her head, a suspenseful effect to smash and wreck the unrelenting love that leads her to dark places. The screen stays black for ten whole seconds. Wonder swallowed by insufferable apathy. We've all lost our light, our childhood.

Through the darkness, she returned to the ocean, deep and wading in as a single ray of light shone down dragging golden lines of solar tension to dissolve the dust that covered her. She methodically recounted what really happened in the passing year. Then the echo of an air raid siren reverberated through the darling stairway into hell, and the water dripped like rainfall and the beat of a mechanical drum.

To our right is a path previously forged. Its gnarled, inert limbs grasp at every step we take, slipping in between the loops of our shoelaces. The path itself in dimly lit though distinct and definitive in form and breadth. We've always been here, stuck still at the mouth of this unchanging route, an enchanting sign of infinite darkness. There is no destination. The path is resistant. It welcomes us with a stale warm breath, open claws, and gnashed teeth contorted in a jagged grin. The path embraces the folly and recklessness of its object of desire, merging with the imagined, insatiable void of the unconscious like patterns on the wall fit full of youthful restriction.

Turning over uncomfortable dissatisfaction in a last ditch effort to come to terms with yourself. Unpleasant dreams snatch away reality and leave you tucked away sleeping soundly in your bed. I came to this town for a reason. Moving unassumingly, a makeshift serpent, sliding beneath the wet soil discovering that the dirt sticks together in formless clumps. A slight shift with eyes locked on the surface knowing that you left it all above on the table. Such vulnerability, functioning on a certain frequency, but when we wake up we want different things.

We drip with a last ditch effort to disguise a hidden meaning. The time before was so different. We spun our web with intricate patterns and toasted to success beneath the glow of frosted lanterns. We laughed at screwy behavior. We stretched the moments long and thin leaving behind the subtle bliss of intimacy. Such a graceful acquittal to numb our taste buds and bitter everything that rose up on the spoon. We were made in desperation, pumping around. Tribunal restitution fled in burning disarray where hope is laid to rest, devoid of direction like a bent pipe highway.

In an instant, he dragged Linda to the basement with high hopes to find himself. The camera on the floor surrounded by inscrutable instruments covered in blood. A slow clock sat ticking as she clutched her locket to her chest. The score settled on small tragedies of sisterhood and the lost trance of what could but wouldn't happen. There is no liberty for us in the implemented order of you. A threat manifest on the toppled staircase of regret. Enshrined far from comfort scratching at her bleeding wound. The warning bell rings in the sky-lit green. She sighs resigning as he tightens the chains unleashing all of his pitiful exhibitionist tendencies.

He said, “Wait. Don't move, you’re mine" and took another drink around the corner where the particles of dust kicked up from the floorboards. With control, the warning bell tolls on the hour, expressing faith in a promise land where no one has been before. The sound chases after wishful thinking and moments of imagined freedom. This began with a narrative and devolved into disorder. She exhaled lament in pacified agreement while her healthy disguise crawled out of harmony into the belly of the old frontier. There was always subtle wonder within the destruction of mysterious darkness. Action poised with friction, a calm manipulation of everything. Time rolled out flat and the more she moved, the more it pulled her down. Her quiet cry to go home muffled like music in a padded room.

This is the life of inappropriate misunderstanding. The sections run down beneath unremorseful feet. So we freeze as the glitter showers us in ignorant delight. Small black seeds leave behind sickening stalks in the wake of growth. A terrible depiction of what's to come. The lies will eat us alive in broad daylight and liberate us from the cold outside. The way we were is the way we are. Fleeting sentences burned in another old library. Reproachful statements from the quiet few who have decomposed and dissolved into new chemicals. Swallow slow, for the words have come to coat our throats and flow like conclusions to nonexistent issues.

There's a corridor which extends in the space between the length of three years. The lights flicker in meandering patterns, igniting a trail of tears. She is swollen in the valley of her own discontent, impatiently pushing past the mile markers that line the path. Tall self talk won't feed her food, and as the hair bristles on her neck she turns her head to signal for more. She winds to snap, the words fall back and her vision blurs. Sometimes supplementary moments can stand the test of time and where you think you should be isn't where you belong. Idea-free violence touches on a node of indefinable pain and her knees buckle as she crumbles to the floor with no purpose to lift her up. The outline of her nakedness left like a leaning shadow against the wall.

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing Heaven, and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,—
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
- Percy Shelley, To the Moon

a fragment pale for weariness
disillusioned in the fray
passion dissipates within a flame
fighting for a form
of some perceived control

she awoke inside a polished house
beneath the shadow-wake of obscure prosperity
strung out but not so loose
as to disregard her self-constraint
for the mirror allowed concessions,
with the cycle steady stirred,
a small fraction curved and bent alert

but she moved the way she always had
so things remained as is
corkscrewed and loving nothing but to live
she appeared near the distal zone
avoiding the fury of the quake
upright upon a precipice
peering out over imagined maria lakes
competent and skillful, she stood alone
waiting for no one

over time, space witnesses an isolated few
who torn between split-line connections
suffer greatly under ruse

to speak in subtle metaphor
of a girl she thought she knew
amplified in air removed
from the vacuum rolled out in pain
with her gaze upon the moon

awoken space
in defiance of the four
crises of moral order
searching for completion
beyond the earthly door
it eradicates the local,
deep depletion of totality
between seamless drops
of honey, suckled
from the people we love

we know this man
we are him
when we were then

a meshed, abstract resemblance
of plastic coated meaning
all about the time
we were on our way
but if there was a time to go
now is the time to stay

to peel away the strips
that keep the phrase divided
to lacerate the walls
of capture that leave
us tripped up hiding

we popped the pod
to lay down memories
of advanced grit + openness
a cell turned inside out
that slings us back past rapture

when you articulate your wants
and tell me what you need
we’ll come back from waiting
to fill the holes + pull
the weeds

a room full of elbows
bent and kneading through
on New York Avenue
stuck with the scent of
another burning sunset
a reference point
built on the taste of her lips

spirited sublimation
that drops the heart like a beat
skinless percussion
beneath her unfastened feet
every day I'm growing older
the sound harder to hear
the belief in faithful waiting
for the right light to reappear

my tongue drifts
as the melody pairs
with the trial of discomfort
sending notes in a feedback
to make motion aware
to transcend
the slick weight of time upon
internal receiving
without her standing there

There is a tale retold:
that love is like a lost city,
the city that never was
a green beam glowing
you slowly move on

born to live
born to die
born to lose yourself in
this lonely fight

a whisper with dawn
on the eastern seaboard
your fingers slide along
my side

I tingle in the
dust of morning light

shifted lover come quick
lay me down and
break me in
remove the lid
in brief
breathless contact
so slight against my skin

I lose all purpose
my frame bends
a momentary lapse
in pattern recognition

I'm crying out
pull back the sheet
can't you see it's blinding me

sleeping sound
sinking in
to cushions fit full
of feathers that fall
around me in a dream
those phantom hands of yours
are make believe

Roanoke, you're gone
you came and went
they're telling stories of a love
that never existed

back against the ocean
the tide rolls in
a wild force wraps
around my hips
and pulls me down
toward a recollected end
my fingers fight to anchor
in the sand
but it swallows me whole
just like you do
and only then do I remember

the lines look identical
9 days in
he feels it all
cut clean
and running thin
quells the coming storm
then leaves
on a second-guessed trajectory
threaded through a burning seat
unalleviated tendencies
to flee the city after…

shuffling back and forth
main-lining all experience
muffling a choked throat
suppressing nervousness
under the heat of thirty bulbs
two strip lights, face aglow
standing on stage
stark and exposed
a grip on his neck
fingers tight to check the sweat
water dripping from the loft above
drenched in the comfort of familiar pools
and an empty bottle of alcohol

a driving force
whispers to his feet
so he gets up
craving to be free
he shifts against the grey
and plays to empty eyes
along that lost highway
the darkness settles in
filled with never and no hope
it'll be a long time
before he finds his way back home

the grit that churns on grainy steel
piercing every vein
waning, dies his confidence
he turns to rust and falls away

he stumbles back
to that dingy brick bar
plucked from fumbling travels
along unknown roads
a spun return
situated to the final track
he bends his fingers back
moves slow to the stage
singing all of doom
about that lost highway

skinned, shaven
he stands again
beneath the power of thirty light bulbs
unholy hands
still stark and exposed
a silent room
as if everyone knows
that when he’s gone
he’s gone for good

midpark, seething
you walk to find me

I'll be reading a paperback
completely disconnected
thumbing through the pages
absent and unaffected

prodding like a wanton shape
with a smile-on, innocent face
I'm all in white
yet, you don't know
I won't look over my shoulder

the line, what is
a pattern printed on my back
calling out to come foward
just a little bit more
my wall with painted symbols
of tommorow afternoon

the loser liquidated space
and gave me room to live in
never call that shine
a right I didn't put in time for

you're decorated cool + clean
against the blue screen sky
I snap a photo to remember
what this will mean tonight

from the body of alone
holding on for my own
the words come from a note
written in the fold

ooh, the solitude of every
blade of grass
you stick your fingers in the ground
they call that style and class

when you leave without a sound
like a moderated fader
there's a secret wish for tears
in the pool of daily bathers

you're looking at me loose
because I'm losing all my color
free from repeated tendencies
and a shifted point of view

a quickly toggled turn
of the stick said she
alright girl you're straight
but you'll never find me

I back myself into a corner
and my body folds into
the crease where the two
walls meet
as my skin slips from the bone
it blends in with each layered
coat of paint
that feeds the feeling
in the room
I loose my limbs in the fabric
of the ambient mood
lonesome like the eyes that
stare into the pattern
and forget there ever was a reason
for moving forward
toward the door and out
into the world
where the ceiling lifts its lid
unto the piercing sky
an unrelenting emptiness
full of stars reeling back
the time

I'm probably romanticizing
the stellar death of atoms
but I'm just trying to decide
what to do when the daylight breaks
and the moment
can no longer be captured
acceptance is relevant
only when measured against the
length of a walking stick
that's travelled much further
than these two legs have gone
thus far
loving in a second what I want
for a lifetime
a slow, purposeful development
that is just beyond my understanding
a tipping glass of water
placed along a slanted ledge
when entropy takes hold
I'll be a perched fool with a wet lap

perfection is irrelevant,
but the ideal is like a coin that
won't stop spinning
because my index finger snaps
to flick it back across the table

I pray one day that arthritis slips in
and crushes this incessent movement
that surges through my blood,
I fanticize about the twisting of
my muscles into geometric
atrophied knots, quelching the motion
that makes this music

the vacuum silences
be quiet, be still
we try so hard and gain to loose
we get up
we move

I pull the key out from under the mat
then twist the knob as I turn the deadbolt back
a candle faintly burns at rest on
the kitchen counter
how can anyone find what they are looking for?

all these plants are dying
sadly stretching for the light
sometimes I lie
and say "don't worry, they'll be just fine"
because the music that is playing sings
so sweetly to them in the dark

in the next room,
the bed is unmade and various articles of clothing
are strewn about the floor
this place is a mess
why I didn't I see it before?

it was blurred behind the warm shadow
of our bodies
just a face in place of loneliness
like a dreamless veil I mistook for a good night's sleep

but I'll wake up

I extend my limbs along the length of time,
fold my hands behind my head and close my eyes

the ceiling I picture in my mind is ornate and shameless, it's design is dripping wax pulling at the corners of my smile as the air chills my teeth I freeze and coalesce into a museum figurine waiting for the pressure to split a crack

in this grand mysterious vision of my future life, denial dissolves and the image rejuvenates in flight, quickly calling the song changes key on a greater scale than you and I

a lady of the night
restless, intriguing
eyes pass over
her figure and go blind
along her slender silhouette
her fingers send
terror slowly fleeting
she will breathe lies into your mouth
with the touch of her tongue
sucking the blood out of
everything you’ve ever known
the eponymous hunter
snatches up her prey
a caravan of men
carried off into the
silent city
lost beneath the bridge
          haunted
          frenzied
hypnotic manipulation
her vacant illusion maddens
the crest, twisting
their screams in straightjackets
past pathological conclusions
they gather in mass confession
their dwindling strength
drops them to their knees
in a crash of depression, her
unstoppable force pierces
like an incurable shadow knife of motion

she glides forward
vacant-eyed and reaching out
like a mirror bent backward
her elusive touch
stroking the tender space
along the reigns

and to think a doctor followed her
around in her youth with a
stethoscope

"You haven’t been on this side of things!"
her voice desperate and shrill
shaking at the same frequency as her body,
interfering with her position.
"You don’t understand and you
don’t care. You never listen."

He stood staunch in the kitchen, trying
to ignore his native inclination to
lean back against the counter and
stare up at the ceiling. This time
he didn’t.

Instead, he surveyed
her face, as each tear crossed the
threshold of her bottom eyelid,
spilling over the edge in
small but violent waves.
Her silk lashes glistening,
aggregating with one another.

Per habit he kept his silence
suspended in the room, flooded
with hormones exacerbating the
deleterious mood of
a recycled argument that had
dug its heels into the floorboards
years before.

"Have it your way. Take your swollen tongue
to the grave. There is no resolution with you."
Quips of intimacy flake like skin and
float along the trajectory of
the air-conditioned drafts emitted
from the vents.

Stubborn self-validating
blame, fortifying deficiencies in
communication with condescending
threats and ultimatums.
She cried herself a path of tears
into the bedroom that they shared.

His laconic voice enervating her past
the point of no return. "It can’t go on
like this much longer. We must
talk about this or agree not to
talk at all."

A tender plea, her poignancy,
completely lost
on him.

these insistent
small talk milestones
in dual occupied elevators
the useful numbness of
no cross back speak
protests against the future
tugging on elaborate layers
of an infinite mirror
conversant reflections
hollow in themself
a peeled recession
full plot determined
by lapsed transgression

the forward march is on sabbatical
clairvoyance has taken leave
would-be people sound of static
convoluting open frequencies
squat shifts within a frame
hung among the cables
the inert panel
abreast along the shaft
corresponding levels of influence
sway under false forbearance
ensnared between floors
cement board room enjambment
lacking entwined parallel moments
coming closer to the
other side –

to enter vying for new life

“Tell me a story,” she asked as she swaddled herself in anticipation hoping for an elongated lie to conclude the circuit of every open-ended conduit. She’d been guessing for far too long now.

| It’s distilled in a small factory on the periphery of your vision. It’s a sight developing in the distance, in the dark theatre of existence, confessing like a quarter-choked motor in sync with despair. You see this setting is like salt in a wound; an opaque eye with one finger inside, almost consumed. |

There is a broken flight of stairs, ever rising toward callous habitation, a place where no one can find her.

| Here, in this factory, feelings manufacture dreams against relentless will. They breed flowers atop of nightmares. |

She imagined even more like a city in full bloom, gracious open space and subdued agoraphobic tendencies. She recalled the false opinions of her father, who always knew just what to do.

Don’t answer back… leave it be, he always said, if you pick at it enough it will scar. Counsel not limited to scabs for a slow return to memories will burn them all to ash. You’ll find static if you turn the dial too much.

Don’t answer back… leave it be, he always said.

“Where will she go after the factory?” she wondered out loud, her muffled voice caught in the gummy air appropriating every particle in the room.

| She never leaves. She fears the calling of a cold frontier. She lies in waiting, speaks in tongues, and drinks her beer. |

It was fear that paralyzed her; in pain her feet cultivated roots that dug into the floorboards beneath her shoes. She slipped the creek to write truth clean. At an early age, baptism drowned her future in disbelief.

Swallowed by unsung phrases from every love that passed, she cast a shadow over reward in favor of solitude, to leave the introduction in a clause all to its own where the comfort of silence is met with unspoken words.

If you can shake the leaves free – they’ll die and decompose and never having moved you’ll still experience the sensation of growth. A grounded capsule buried deep beneath tear-ridden soil forces the build up of oxides, which in time will rust the dirt.

“What happens next? Tell me more.”

| She sits and waits. |

“Why?”

| Because she is a caricature of yourself. The story is you; the lines are your veins. The blood is circulating out of your mouth into the grail, and the viscous spit you ejaculate wets your lips to tell this story to a mirror reflecting the truth back to your face. |

the truth you wanted
waiting for clearance
joyous + dreaming of vocal liberation
the sensation of water dripping from the fountain
liquid consummation
still in the sunlight
stunned + shining through soft particles
dusting every sentence in shimmering echoes
slipping slowly from her parted lips
the final moment...

unspecific speculation
showering over emotional experience
she leaps into the street
forgetting what she really needed

midnight passes + the phamplets
blowing in the wind
reflect the thoughts inside her head
she rolls her cufflinks back to grab at them
later- in the future,
she will be glad the wind took them
broken perfection left her flesh open for release
a footnote for a reference diminishing
in the presence of something bigger than fear + regret
the insignificance of light letdowns
along the path forged in lines selfmade

who did you draw them for?

bound by goodbyes + farewells coming
you can borrow all my hope for the future
you can borrow my future to make sense of the past

slipshod

          sling sad eyesight

a vexed + crooked glance
her concentric mortal coil
unravels in my hand
dulcet humming, “Quicksilver, be still”
in the lamplight
the slow warp of time
steady + true
like your hand on the wire
smiling in the sun

you spit chemicals to clean my headache
you drip sound over the insufferable buzzing
          of interminable thoughts

she holds the token for one moment
every knuckle knocked
fingering the details

a curtsy in the foyer
daubing acid on her lips
I bend to lick the language
from her kiss

at 2:am,
the new goes dark
her warlike drum
deluded siren drone
seductive polyrhythm
cascades down

a costal refrain
when the wave-halos
reign over our insignificance

…but when you wade out
you’ll be surprised
by how little the echo
in the background
moved you

enclosed inside the patio
a window-box suite
metamorphic changeling
from grey to shifting green
the static street
is raining upside down
the curb is bending backward
over hallowed ground
a worm beneath the surface
taken by the sound
squirming in his skin
under levels in rhythm
with his fallen father
his flesh is flaking
it begins to smell
I know I shouldn't be here
but I can't leave now

empowering small spaces
emergence, coming home
the layers decay around us
a tonal breakdown on the corner

THIS   IS   DANGEROUS

         I must see for myself
         I must know his true form
         I won't rely on what I have been told

a schism in the track
distorted elongation of
an outstretched neck
his nostrils flair to sniff
for an estate he never had
upon which motion
his head cracks open
to let his master in

{2019}

{2018}

{2017}

{2016}

{2015}

{2014}

{2013}

{2012}