Nursing the lazy retina

Sloping eyes are hills
at the city dump; I want
to lick the corners.

credit

Sale: 1.99!
One dollar for sale! Now for
just 1.99!

A cup of coffee from 20 years ago

An old empty room.
Where monitors display us,
dust accumulates.

The air, the light, the past and the future

Everything is
recording us, but no one
watches anymore.

Beam

The moon comes crashing
in needing money. It's drunk
and getting drunker.

...

A mother, a goose,
runs fast after her children,
screaming bad fables.

...

In a world where ducks
don't sit, you're a sitting duck.
And you can't get up.

...

If you weren't a mouse
pulling thorns from lions' feet,
the grass would still grow.

...

This is how it works:
You're the peanut gallery,
I'm the elephant.

First Last And Forever Repeated

There's no one more time,
no next time, last time. Only
this time or no time.

12:05 PM

Nevermind, I don't
want anyone but Jesus.
Join us this Sunday?

11/17: How things change

I'm out of money.
You have been dead for 6 days.
A man rings the bell.

11/11

When the war ended,
I got up, walked out the door,
started it again.

12:03 PM

I want to be your
friend you stupid fucking bitch.
I'm so fucking drunk.

Hope

Masses walking. A
thousand mile trek. Only
plants cross the border

...

Half a house. Trains in
trees. Boats in the park. Burnt cars.
It's autumn again.

...

Closed shops. Looted stores.
Rotted groceries. Looking
for work. Please help me.

...

-- Can you donate more?
-- No, this is all that I've got.
-- Enter the third room.

Finally

-- Have you heard the news?
-- Please stop talking to me. Please.
-- We're going to die.

...

Silent arrests. Back
rooms. Contracts. They will drop
the bombs tomorrow.

5 Year Plan

Beatings. Long car rides.
A brand new welfare program.
Bulldozed into pits.

...

Machines in the street.
People with wires in their heads.
We are connected.

...

Open positions.
Benefits. Perks. Time off.
The only option.

They Said It Doesn't Effect Men

Birds falling from trees.
A dog in the yard, wheezing.
We could breath the air.

...

Interrogation
sex tactics. Ground maneuvers.
Lubricate the gun.

...

Millions still missing.
Traffic stopped. Emergency
broadcast. Stop breathing.

...

A constant buzzing.
They are building something here.
You are part of it.

...

-- We can go tonight.
-- I won't leave without my wife.
-- She's already left.

...

Fences along the
shoreline. Forest watch tower.
Vines climb the houses.

...

Air raid. Broad daylight.
Report to facility.
Get down on the ground.

...

Foot steps down the hall.
Demilitarized zone. A
baby in the dirt.

...

Evacuate. Hide.
Gas mask. Needle. Injection.
Get in the long line.

...

Book's lining. No codes.
Under floor boards. Still nothing.
No one's talking. Loud.

Streetlight, drizzle

Collar up. Phone booth.
One ring. Two rings. Pause. Five rings.
Confirmed: she is dead.

...

A window pane cracks.
Unseen sirens sing to you.
Ice enters the heart.

Tell us: who is your wife sleeping with?

Flashlights in your eyes.
Broken bare bulbs swing slowly.
More roadside bombings.

...

Men with guns. Wheat fields.
Search lights over farm houses.
They kick the doors in.

...

Co-workers huddle.
Doors close. Bank accounts freeze.
What is that? Moaning?

...

Crossed phone lines, missed calls.
A van outside the house. Some
hands reach up the drains.

...

Invitations slipped
under the door. Threats on car
windows. Don't listen.

...

Neighborhood watch.
Eyes around corners. Whispers.
We have many friends.

quietly at the post office

-- Who is that man there?
-- He says he's a union man.
-- Can he be trusted?

...

Stopped winds. Dimmed sunlight.
Chemical fog. Mouths are
then magnetic.

...

Moving cameras.
Mechanical arms. Networks
of files, papers.

...

Two explosions in
the tunnels below. Subways
close. Bridges collapse.

...

Hushed meetings outside
Washington. Weeds grown over
an old monument.

Without Fuel

Abandoned outpost.
Forgotten canned goods. Quiet.
The road is empty.

...

Night comes on early.
Barbed wire windows. Two men
demand your papers.

A Wave

Busy terminal.
Leaking pipes. Silent alarms.
Why are they screaming?

...

Electrical lines.
Freight trains carrying unknown
cargo. Keep sleeping.

...

A crowd of people.
A distant helicopter.
Water levels rise.

While We Are Talking

Our messages
speak secretly to themselves,
birthing each other.

repetition and rhyme in rural industrial america

Smoke stacks stacked in stacks
of smoke slowly drip upward
along steel-rung tracks.

...

Streaks of maroon -- stretch
of lemon: the tall beechwoods
lounge in wet hammocks.

...

Anal beads tangle
like an abacus giving
new calculations.

...

Smiles fertilize
unharvested soil like
a pile of fish.

...

I taste you breathing.
I hear it. I touch it, too.
I like you breathing.

Communist, Socialist, Anarchist, Capitalist or Fascist

It doesn't matter.
Either way, you'll still answer
a lot of questions.

Self Discovery

When I slip off my
skin, there's a tie underneath.
Under that? More skin.

High School Reunion

We are older, bald,
and volunteer to check the
prostates for the breasts.

Learning

Children split into
wires. Twisting, they blossom
into steel framed buds.

...

Kitchens littered with
shattered breast plates clambering
back to themselves.

The Abraham effect

God presses pause just
before the autumn harvest;
No one's ever died.

It's not mine, nothing is.

Winter prayers of
your baby's crumbling temple;
return to me, love.

Froth on the sea

Green as our bloated
faces beyond the movie
screen, bobbing a head.

I Will

Toss the night off and
drape you across the sky like
a quilt on the moon.

...

Deep-sea fish sifting
through pockets of loose change lost
in the wash: You're thieves.

...

The men assemble
in nerve tuxedos, tendrils
goosing loose axons.

Forever

Enormous machines
drag the Earth up from the Earth,
toss it to the Earth.

...

The two of us stand
face to face with two more of
us. The knives come out.

Pride

In a mountain, in
the center, we dig outward.
But that's all there is.

...

Eyes burst open, reach
with branches toward plants that grow
off your short fibers.

My veins knot in all
anticipation of waking,
waking -- waking here.

1,000 years ago

Stomachs walked tight ropes
of gas and marrow. Birds pecked
at the hats and canes.

...

Laser beam smiles
cut through glass teeth and burn
through oaken tongues, lips.

Squids reach out to feel
and I bat them back with coats,
hats, shoes, socks, papers.

Safety Directive

When change comes, brace doors
and windows with wood and nails
and tape your mouths shut.

The sea knocks three times,
comes in for tea, smiles, then
gets lost in the cup.

Late October

Pavement curls up
around my neck to warm me
like some old cocoa.

I tell you again and again and again

The only honest
answer is the one you want
to hear but still can't.

...

Wash woman, can you
scrub me against the metal,
ring me on the wood?

456

The train goes slowly
up your nostrils and out, years
from now, your remains.

Sweet potato pie
melts across autumn's branches.
Close your eyes and chew.

...

Chamomile currents
rake our skin -- and I'm still
chasing the dander.

Morning

Cucumber belly,
freezer burn waist: I reach through
you. The frost tastes great.

Large fleets break through sands,
anchors dragging cacti to
the mirage up shore.

Please?

Something rips, ruptures,
and breaks: hold my hand as it
floats off my body.

...

Blood clots around strings
of your face, past and present,
a blur through the tubes.

orange

Burning finances
to remember the dead, your
shawl matches the wind.

Paper Decisions

With no choice -- but all
these choices -- I wonder who
gets to write my will?

...

I hurt my pelvis
when your bones tried to wriggle
their way inside me.

...

There was despair etched
on her limbs, salt harvested
under a full moon.

Dread Nothing Because

I've traveled around.
Lazy men flush winters in
single serve toilets.

け は 火
い す 傷
ち い で
つ し す
ぶ ま
ん し
べ た
ん

Recipe For Cake

Step 1: Make a Decision
Don't ask whether or
not you want to eat it, just
get ready, do it.

Step 2: Gather What You Need
Measure out the hurt,
see that it's too much, decide
to go for it still.

Step 3: Erase Your Memory
Remember that hurt
is not an ingredient
in cake, then "forget."

Step 4: "Enjoy"
So -- great, now you can
have your cake and eat it too.
But it isn't cake.

Pseudoephedrine

As autumn peels skirts,
nipples form on my sadness,
tongues choke stirred embers.

While Taking The Building Apart

The concrete crumbles,
reveals steal framing and a
trained set of nerves, veins.

A Society With Only Two Classes

There's me and there's my
camera man. He films me.
I do not film him.

i'll be so happy

go now, jizz on my
forehead with a fucking knife,
and i'll be happy.

out of the courting stage

I settled for it,
it didn't settle for me:
still the judge applauds.

Universal Health Coverage

I.
The hospital wing
spirals out the lobby, sinks,
flaps back down our tubes.

II.
In all directions
patients are flying, wheel chairs
falling from the sky.

III.
From a distance, the
sick are like balloons, held to
earth by long IVs.

IV.
The hospital floats
away, collapses in the
ocean and chokes fish.

V.
The tide rushes in,
tossing pieces of people
and things to the sand.

VI.
Now, ambulances
drive emergency patients
straight into the sea.

Gavage

She keeps my liver
full, as winter spreads its thick
black braids of mucous.

It all looks neon to me.

Colors of Asia
in her blisters--An osprey
alights on my chest.

After Billions of Years, It's Time You stop

Corked up genitals,
DNA growls, determined:
you ain't getting out.

so let's go to the opera

Birth, sex, death, eating?
They're all just more bumpy rides
in a salty sac.

Paper Trail

We bought what we still
think ain't real - new breasts and them
landing on the moon.

otto:

"they call them fingers
but I've never seen them fing--
oh wait there they go..."

Oh, I'm very, very thin

Desperate, I try
a Chinese slimming secret.
I'm still desperate.

Culminate

Percentages that
eat one inch per hour of
flesh: I eat you, too.

Metamorphosis

Bodies running low
on RAM: making dust into
man can't really happen.

...

We breathed dead people:
Did we gain magic powers?
No, emphysema.

Please Cheer Up In The Face Of Any and All Setbacks Forever

Sure, chunks of life will
first define you, but later
they'll just be dumb words.

I can't feel you!

Our lives unraveled,
we wrap our free cords around
knobby trees, loose bark.

...

Bleeding horizon,
captioned earth. God on the screen
in Times Square, laughing.

The Snake and The Salamander

As one hand reaching,
babies squirt out with a pop,
stronger at each birth.

Responsibility

Cancelled bone marrow
left over an old dispute
in the kitchen sink.

Tubs

Bowls where we ate you,
succulent conservative;
bad indigestion.

En route to the Orient

Despite modern signs --
a leaking of mammaries,
milk wagons pulled still.

Mute testimonies to the ravages of war

Victory tower
sees only desolation,
premature motion.

Clear Mountain Air

We fight with fake swords
and conceal our women.
Beckon the llamas.

Lost Enzyme

Somewhere on the path
of evolution, between
rabbits and man: tolls.

Migrate

Herds of buffalo
lope across your mammary
'lands, lapping up milk.

Art and Feathers

A kiss for all the
castrated potential; el
pollo mas bueno.

And

Now the poem pulls
its pistil on me, like an
arrogant flower.

The Season Starts to Strip

Nature squats, rolling
her drenched breasts from hand to hand,
soft billiard balls.

Need Attention?

Ride down the slalom,
teeth bared and hands gesturing
for help you don't need.

Because What Else Can Yo do?

Blood orange opens
the filing cabinet,
finds you waiting there.

He's naked on us

For a damp leather
and what's contained, thought's shallow
reign - it's clothes enough.

IBS

The hum of old things
in your belly, like Jacob
Marley's ham sandwich.

Bitters, laced

Slipped in stockings, down
and cotton, you mummified
what? I dentured you.

against your simmering throat

happy to be here
and sad, amongst the thrush necks
pulsing low, weeping.

I will die, but there is always

the cycle of life:
birth, debt, kissing you. I sprayed
lysol on your lips.

Turning one hundred

It is what it is
and it is too many for
the number 40.

simmer to boil

Experience bleedsLanguages secrete

Ideas. Events want toEvents. Ideas want to

be said, repeated.

Parts of Nobody

Halving the words hung
on tongues, hooded and gagged 'neath
a blundering lip.

...

Cancer claimed his eyes.
They were surgically removed.
Cancer is a doctor.

Recipe For Hummus

Two cans chick peas, one
cup tahini; lemon juice,
garlic, cumin. Dill?

The Virgin Middle East

The adventurer
seeks for eons, then nets her
fucking like fruit. Whore.

Two Teratomas

Ovaries, testes:
two tumors find each other.
Love, replicate, die.

Love

Spacetime drags around
me in the direction of
your long rotation.

Sacrament

When breaking bread with
the Lord, I so hanker for a
pastrami on rye.

Snowed-In Eyes, Sadness Lingers

Thin Russian forehead,
A tit bigger than my fists,
4 broken knuckles.

The Law

You don't exist, you
aren't really alive, 'til you've
been served papers, sued.

Commitment

When your legs give out,
I will replace them with old
bent wire hangers.

Stumbling Forward

Wireless and huge,
the connection dreams of you --
plots to import you.

Canopy

Lathes and breasts; the shape
of my skin skinned taut above
the pine-forest floor.

The Scoop

The mob is jealous
because I am the concrete
dried up to my knees.

Untitled

Who's to win, with the
Delicatessens of our
Love, slicing us thin?

Self Confit

On a bed of plums
We ate ev'ry part of the
Beast, even her tears.

Hell

We emerge frightful
and deserving, with old plans
to build new gardens.

Oh oh oh, I love you, I really do

I hand you a gun.
You aim it at my mother.
We discuss taxes.

ether

Underwear hung from
one finger, you just listen.
Like it's a seashell.

home cooking

Today the rain tastes
like broccoli, broccoli
like rain -- and I eat.

draft-dodging

penetration, please
save me from this holy war;
rich pink suicide.

....

though these thoughts are not
true, i still have to say them
or they will be true

above her silly head

a halo just thin
and flexible enough to
butterfly a trout.

there are lines running down every chest

in August's heat, still
the dead show more skin than me;
a cute black number.

they bicker

compartmentalized,
my past exchanges motives
with the present tense

the river comes whether you are a fish or a beaver

there's a familiar
feeling inside me stirring:
it boils, it plans

...

With plate-glass windows
severing your every
move, drunk on autumn.

moon cycle

The waning gibbous
breaks the sound barrier, breaks
the table in two

foreign food

your name hieroglyphs
the way an Egyptian scribe
might have eaten it.

Real estate

It's not where you live.
It's why you live there.
Any questions? Call Agent.

lying

i split three ways and
edit my pixels to match
the backlisting tracks

...

my ankles give out
complimentary presence
in the near future

something my mother told me

Undeniably,
chemotherapy travels
telepathically

when it comes down to it/given enough time/ideals aside

Eventually,
you'll choose people because they'll
sleep with you. That's it.

when compared to 5 7 5

some argue four
five four is more like
the Japanese

Psychology

Custom plans/buys in
each market tied to local
market behaviors.

no matter how much you eat

e to the power
of (i times pi) plus one?
still equals 0

After circling the garden for days, I thought

Old weeping hemlock,
cover me now. Purple heart,
spider wart, slap me.

human anatomy

ideas are organs:
stringy blood filled places in
your thorax -- huge, red

Ha ha.

Put up my shit, but
I'll still need some comedy,
But I'll get through it.

...

Let go my ego;
I hate waffles so fucking
much, like passing trains.

Supermarket

Lady pushes cart:
Nothing but tits, sweat, and thumbs.
And sometimes just thumbs.

Work

Drilling holes in heads,
we snack on calcium, piling
warm bones into pails.

[ ]

Closing clauses with
Parentheses, brackets, and
Braces – that ends here.

come on -- be reasonable

.sʇuǝɯǝɹınbǝɹ 1ɐıɔǝds
uıɐʇɹǝɔ ɹoɟ ɯıɥ sǝıɟıpoɯ
ʇı -- buoɹʇs opɐuɹoʇ

Searching through the trash for a Playboy

Many times we lose
control. Can we lose control
outside each other?

The last thing friends said, before tearing each other to shreds, lovingly

Well, we all agree
we can be open with each
other. Now let's talk.

The captain's sad tonight, luffing

Licking the bottom
of his ship; a starless night
turning into wind.

outside the cabin, by the lake

"Why won't you touch me?
What the fuck happened to you?"
"Um...I quit smoking."

titled

what kind of logic?
gynecologic -- that's all
the reason i need

loyalty

i kept one tooth to
suck on, though it stopped tasting
like you long ago

trying to hear the words yes or i love you?

just become a cockroach
molded around every
corner -- flat, liquid

Ballad of every person who has ever lived in the southern United States

Old lady left me.
My pickup could use a wash.
I am a cowboy.

Thank You For Your Urgent Attention to this Matter

Would you hurry up?
This bowel movement is not
gonna take itself

longing

most of my head? was
rented out years ago -- just
summer real estate

holiday returns

christmas bangs against
the door, drunk and wanting your
gums -- ripped open, cooked

a little more skin

lean back, relax, flex
those pectorals, flash that big
winning smile, work it

The truth # 2

And like you are a
bunch of meaningless sores on
a beach in L.A.

titled

Now they all spent a
day writing a haiku and
will hate each other

Yes indeed

You don't have to plan
to think you do it before
you even think that.

The truth

Girls choking on cum,
guzzling gasoline; friends
in the wintertime.

What I think is happening

My body is just
A damp moon, revolving round
My white, vapid, farts.

In the wake

Suspicious package,
One day you'll be truly free
To implode instead.

Untitled

Hey you! Yeah you, punk.
Made you a knuckle sandwich
With all the trimmings

Untitled

"People just don't take
Bubble-baths at this hour,"
Spoke the irate cop.

Beginner's Luck

I don't really have
A knack for writing Haiku;
This is my first one.

Ambition

Running, my face starts
to come off, turn around and
talk to me, laughing

The Only Thing We've Ever Said To One Another

oh, honey you've got
a little something on your
chin -- is that mustard?

This Feeble Folio

Doctors won't treat it.
Sick & tired limbs; Autumn
fingers a new page.

Insulin

What crawled up your ass
and died? You did, she replied,
adjusting her skirt.

slow, slow breadth

in between the sounds?
contagious children flown in
by helicopter

analog instinct

a fuse blows across
the prairie, wheat grass bending
you over, then in

First Accolade

Beautiful horse,
mythology beckons you
to kick in my face.

Big Band Beat

when I met you bab-
y, I thought you was the on-
ly scar in the sty

And throwing punches at the moon

Sucking pink little
switch nipples, like a foamy
ghost choking on tea.

Evacuation Instructions

You flush your head in
the toilet. I pickle your
breath with a feather.

Kitchen Cthulhu

Change the pipes tonight.
You can never be too sure
about what comes through.

Untitled

Slipping through glaciers,
I have burned all of my spoons
Because she told me too.

Expert Opinion

Cat's got your tongue now
rolled into falafel balls
down the laundry shoot

Proofreading

Double dagger mark
number sign, parallel mark
dagger repeated

Of Fashion

The ghosts of fashion,
We walk the runway like we
Walk the plank. We _____.

Untitled

Still sexually
Viable, newsprint lingers
On lips; geese through fog.

From Bushwick, with love.

Drive-by shootings in
Rose colored landscapes; I want
To fuck your accent.

  No one wants me
 To go to the store
 With a child here
 Cause its dangerous

 

  I can’t tell the difference
 Between rocks and hard faces
 But we don’t mind that really
 It’s quite alright here you know
 Never too quiet really

 

   Don’t remember me
 Simply no answer
 Not only the dead
 Just remember me

You Have a Problem

Shutup and listen
I don’t drink anymore, now
I sip, it's diff’rent

Go

In peril, I’s run-
ing, still nothin’ ever pass
still still pair of eyes

Glory Earth, Hallelujah!

ol' Global Warming
give me the big reach-around?
I's shoot a cold one.

Untitled

Kicked her labia,
But it wasn't about sex,
Sometimes we pretend.

Rainbow #2

Dissect a rainbow.
Remove all its foggy gray
innards. Milk the rest.

Untitled

Kissed her labia,
But it wasn't about sex.
Not everything is.

Oxycontin

Teeth cut my gums in
Vestigial desperation
I feel their wisdom.

Untitled

Haiku must be made
Exclusively by fucking
Assholes, right Buddha?

Rainbow #1

All their oil slicks
Have such quaint little rainbows
Skimming the surface.

Untitled

The family that I
Live for only breathes the air
That smells of combat.

-Unknown Warrior

Untitled

Flowers with fingers
Severed below the knuckles
Can let the dew drop.