UPGRADE

You hustle me up to the third floor, where only
the most moneyed vultures hold a perch, straight
past reception, littered with many a carcass that
died mid-translation, and into the executive suite,
to a red leather-bound chair with all strings
attached.

I catch myself for a split second, inside the gold-
framed mirror in the spotless private bathroom off
to one side. I give myself a high-five, and what
the hell, a year-end bonus. Such a rarified
atmosphere...

You put me in my seat and lean over me and tell
me not to panic as the emergency lights kick in.
You guide me through it, every step of the way...

THE VERDANT PLAIN…

makes a fine topical salve.
Apply liberally where forlorn.
The desert called; said,
“Give us our oasis back!”
Like we’d fall for that.
We’ve had sand in our eyes
and dust passing for the winds
of change for too long now,
we know a clear-cut bait-and-switch
when we see one. As the winds
howled and overtook us, I ground
that green to filament pulp,
left the high plains drifter himself
starving for product. I’m telling you,
it’s a buyer’s market…

BEHIND IT

In my hands, I want to feel
the crusted black loam
of generations: the hands
that slit the cattle’s throat,
strangled the chickens,
stroked the lamb’s ear,
grew calloused and sturdy
and bent. My mother,
watching the tractor
turn over the soil
on her ancestral farm-land,
saw the spinning wheel
of seagulls rising behind it,
to swoop and peck at any
chance green offal left exposed.
“I have to believe,” she said
“that a world this well planned
has to have some kind of force
at work behind it.”
I want to feel that in my hands;
a certainty to hold on to.

SWEEPING THE NATION…

Like your id on all fours,
like a combustion engine with a mouth,
like an excitable inmate on broom duty.
Allow me the honors, you heard it here first:
The dance goes to the volcano’s edge.
Bite your tongue, you might draw some blood.
The tide has turned on a dime, and you
have a one-time free trial offer to track it.
DNA sampling is just one of many hidden costs.
Join now. Void where prohibited, and we’re
pretty much nihilists, so, y’know, do the math…

ACT YOUR ARCHETYPE!

We offer a full catalog in stock
characters, all at a (“brooding, heavy-hearted”— we threw that in gratis!) click of a button…
Are you a freewheeling fire brand
who doesn’t play by the rules?
A pouting vixen with issues de padre? Maybe the hilarious gay next-door neighbor best friend? Or an exuberant man-child who always bursts through the door at the wrong time?
Our motto is: “We provide the vessel, You fulfill it.” And the glass is never half-empty when it’s (say it with us)— fulfilled. Order now.

KING MOJO

I am taking simple joy
and grinding it down
to a fine glass; said filaments
to be inhaled by orphans in any
number of undisclosed nations,
as per contract, etc., etc.
I am part of a massive
clean-up initiative that forgot
to inform its’ center.
I’m dusting for prints, forgive
the forensic evidence.
I feel like I’m meeting you
for the first time. When I say
you, I mean me. If guilt
were as old as dust, my hand
would be everywhere…

MISER’S LAMENT

Your silence was golden,
but below market value.
I seized upon it, anyway,
with a miser’s gnarled heart,
alight in the knowledge that
what I possessed left everyone
else with a little bit less.

Did you just say something?
Damn. That depreciates the sum
total; every word eating away
at my unspoken stockpile.
I beg of you, keep your thoughts
to yourself. If less is more, think
how much more even less would be…

THE FALLEN SNOW KINGS…

…fall at my door, the sun’s gold forehead
shows in the slow, gristled thaw, the mining
of grit from this boundless blank arithmetic.
Faces fall at my door, swollen with echoes.
I choose not to step outside, to let winter’s cull
take me.

OVERTHRONE

From sorrow’s throne, a smile
was made, this rictus split open
like fruit prone before the blade,
scattering the seeds’ teeth,
signaling the easiest breach,
the damp, blank earth still unbroken.
We will say what we have to say,
we will curse this ground to its’ marrow.
We will claim these ruins fallen and gone,
but never that we are its’ bastard young.

BOUGHS

“Sympathetic magic,” he called it,
to bring the boughs into the house
to ward off winter’s touch
with dried sap and green
limbs cut. He sees the light
turn to green, and turns into
the mall parking lot.

THE BIG REVEAL

It’s no big deal.
You telegraphed it
way ahead of time.
It was your second cousin
with the suspicious moustache—check!
All masks have been stripped, all
pancake make-up left to sizzle
on the griddle of our worst intentions,
all oxygen sucked out of the thin air
where you pluck the fatted miracles
we’ve already accepted for slaughter.
What have you left to sell us?
That these are the ghosts of ourselves,
that we are ready to step outside them?

MALFUNCTION

Data not available.
Warning: Tongue
may not be self-contained.
Systemic algorithm:
I’ve already said too much.

Forgive me, as I forgive myself
(Forgive me, that’s also an
embedded algorithm, we’re
still working out the bugs)

What you see is a blank
screen, what you must project
is your innermost…Oh, hell,
we’ve already got b-rolls of that!

Forgive me, as I forgive yourself
(Don’t turn the lights out just yet)

LIMITED KINGDOM

To forestall the install,
to mark the stone’s length,
to count the tears left behind
as incremental mucilage
that make such
a monument possible…

We are ants tearing down
a hero’s lament.
We are a thousand blind feelers
versus the voice that breaks
but is still for rent.
We are the slow IV drip
of boulders into rubble.
We are the crown that
crumbles to the touch.
We are the last grasp…

TRANSITORY

The night is filled with weak
and whispery electronic beeps,
the bells and whistles
of an invisible choir.
You get the feeling that
some vast, spider-veined hand
is out there, doing the tapping,
spinning the wheels, finessing
the messages out to those
that need to hear them.
You are not among the chosen
few at the moment, and so
to you, those notes are nothing
but the deranged white noise
of solitude, not quite ready
to let you in, to hear
the final translation…

ORTHODOXY

My throat was stone
when I broke the words
when I broke bread with misgivings
and left them by the wayside
when I formulated the current
and predicted a devastating
flood of one. Leave me be.
I fulfill this empty backwash
I can’t swallow. I am an abandoned
project wallowing in bureaucracy.
I am a sign of the times, a shadow
slowly grading out. I am an ink blot
at the end of a contract never signed,
I am the half-finished condo tower
glinting in the tired sun…

THE TEXT…

flickers, certain as a serpent
yet lags behind the cold-blooded
slow boil of the sun; you may
extract the best test results
like a venomous lozenge
from beneath the tongue
you may say these jaws are open
and call this elixer compromise
but your smile is fixed
and rictus loves to meet itself
at the edges from which
it’s already run…

ASHEN WHIRLPOOL

A blind eye, flushing the icons
from our system, oh, the charcoaled
shadows, the blank window eclipse,
the black-out curtains, the half-painted
headlights that sent the enemy
down an alley full of sight
to the point where our own hands
could reach them…

BATH OF DREAMS

Nothing to worry about.
It’s all as it seems.
The snapshot composite
monolith is crumbling.
Your whispered razor blade
can slit the beast at the seams.
You can barely contain yourself
in the blood that’s begging
to be spilled. You can count
the steps before your lucky break
was broken…

STARE DECISIS

is unbroken, and you couldn’t
look further away from the truth.
Your vacation starts now.
The stakes depend on where
you pin the poisoned-eyed
absolute. I see you gleaming
in last twilight, but it won’t get you
any fast tracks to kingdoms best
left unmentioned. You are a far cry
from common ground, as we stand
by that which has been decided,
and still, you can’t leave the rest behind….

YOUR SCARECROW

casts a crooked shadow.
In the cracked muddy rivulets,
we used to tell time.
You are less than yourself
when you step outside.
The sun runs its’ purpose
and the shade chases fast
and every line you’ve drawn
can be crossed and erased
and forgotten, because
darkness just went past.

AN EMPIRE OF LIBERTY
(for Tecumseh)

When ink can choke an open mouth
when nothing is left to be said
when the forest is ablaze
and the eyes are blackened
and the bullet is hot
and the spine is breaking
when nothing is left to be said
you say these words, “We shall
leave our bones upon them…”

LISTEN FOR ANNOUNCEMENT

The ears are peeled, the mind is blank,
the night is full of the digital
approximation of silence.
We are attending a ceremony
in our honor, but the invites
have been wiped clean.
Come to think of it,
all the labels from my clothing
were neatly snipped out
while I slept, and my driver’s license
now shows a picture of me
missing on a milk carton.
Come to think of it,
I can’t think of it,
and such forward-thinking
leaves me way behind the curve.
I count loose change, and try
to make small talk with strangers,
but then realize I’m not sure
of the language that’s supposed
to leave my lips…

BLACK BOX

The first turned coins of dawn
gleam, a bird song flitters,
and the black box out my window
is slowly opening…

I am less than myself
and more than I want to be
as the edges spread,
and words fall in between…

THIS DARK IMPRINT…

doesn’t even leave the eyelid
before it’s categorized,
half a shuttered frame, at best,
out of focus, inconclusive,
you can barely call it evidence,
but still, a shadow has to live
with itself, and every grain
leaves bread crumbs behind
for every bird who ever pecked
at the order of the house next door…

FLIP-SIDE

I never said that.
Let the transcript be struck
from the record that’s on
extended play…
Let the vinyl’s grease paint
be a lesson to you:
Show the face you proclaim
to the world, and then just
keep it spinning…

WAKE

In every dish left to dry on the rack,
in every idly spinning window fan
refracting the TV’s light, in every
whisper of a book’s pages or
dimming of the stereo, there is
a soft trilling, a touch of collective
cacophony dialed down a notch.
The storms of August have passed
for now. We hover, uncertain
in their wake…

MUTE SIGNAL

A firefly was trapped
in the TV room tonight;
its’ lonely teletype
flickered fast dances
above the screen
as our eyes strained
to catch the sub-titles
and the rain stood outside,
waiting for the next downpour.

AFTER/LIFE

The roiling black-ink cloud
consumes the moon and sky,
and I was laying on the beach
once, high, watching the sea gulls
peck at scraps, and realized,
“They’d be eating my eyes out,
if I were dead!”
I guess we’re not so alone, after all…

WHAT THE BUDDHA KNOWS…

that the stars go out
that the sky is a Crackerjack surprise
that caramel is the most fleeting
of elements, that our lips can open
like a wound that knows a good ending…

THE GOOD SENATOR BEESWAX…

proclaims it’s none of his
but that the honeycomb was so sweet
he could not help but gouge its’ sockets
his paws so steeped in treacle, how
could he refrain in good faith
from not lapping up
his talons’ misdirected nectar?
But that the bees, no, the bees
have a mind of their own…

THE HUNTER/GATHERER GOD SPEAKS…

Adopt a scorched earth policy.
Don’t mind me. See if I care.
I’m just telling you which way
the wind blows. Please keep
in touch. My verdant spear
is lagging these days. Oh well.
We’ll always have the harvest.
The husk of my divine visage
left behind to anoint the pilgrims’
feet before they cross the river.
I hate reruns…

CONTRACT

I think we live with the demon's maw
snapping at our coat-tails, and angels
loaning out wings to get us further
down the flight path. I think I just
wandered off the reservation, and you
might suggest a way back. I think
the blood of innocents makes a decent
disappearing ink, I think you left tracks
wherever you went, in the fine, pearly snow…

THE BLIND

I can’t see what’s in front of me,
but I’m sure you’re all there.
The space between raindrops
constitutes a massacre.
It’s what I call, “a blind.”
A dark spot behind the eyes
and way past a prayer, it’s
both cataract and cure.
It’s where the story begins
and ends, it’s when you can’t
see what’s right in front of you
but you’re sure it’s all there…

FRONT

Out my window are the sounds of war,
cacophonous explosions over the East River
and I wonder if NYC is under attack
at this late hour, but then lightening flashes
and the rain comes seething down
and I realize it’s just a storm front
blowing in, a furious story
to suddenly overtake us…

SHAMWOW = FAKE DELIGHT

Shuck and jive, shock and awe,
take the bait and then look
at all the pretty lights.
The cripple looks down
the corridor, and wonders
how much he can absorb.
We are legless for convenience,
but that only increases our advance,
a soundless stampede. Our eyes
give us away, the prisoners’
leaden teletype that says,
“We are home, but that home
has been hollowed out from us.
Please let us stay…”

NERVE VECTOR

I am the sum of my parts, and then some.
I am often called William, though that
is a misrepresentation, recalling
my essay, “Myth-Making on the Back Burner”
but we’ll save that lesson for another day.
I am less than I am, but more than you.
When we get close to the center,
I’ll make sure you pass through.
A needle-eyed hindsight
so certain it’s pure…

LIP-SYNCHING TO GOD

….can lead to a very smite-able
contract dispute, where the dotted line
is dashed with dawn-of-time and all
attendant baggage, and the heavenly
choirs are talking trash behind your back
in perfect harmony, and you can count
all the angels you want on the head
of a pin, until the needle drops,
and you’re left standing,
mute and pure as milk, your only
line from an already minor production
suddenly excised….

ADVANCED KINGS

…already put the kibosh
on the word-of-mouth,
and just when you were done
worshipping the end of the line.
Your allegiance spells dust.
You can’t say the first word
of forgiveness, the dead
are swept under the chalice,
but still, this is the realm
you’re most comfortable in?
Remind me why I’m blind…

MEET YOUR MAKER

Hello. You seem to be
holding up well. Are you
the worst for wear, do you need
any special mommy-coddling,
or a credit for a free dinner?
Look at you. You’re a bag of bones,
unformed, a bent fetal Hail Mary,
delicious. I’d name you Clay,
but that would be redundant.
Look at what you are
in my hands….

The eyelids of god are always flipping burgers!

What does this picture mean to you?

Is this a vindication of blood-lust
or a properly celebrated holiday?

Is this man a shadow of his formal self?

Is this a mirror taking a picture of itself?

BRAZEN ARITHMETIC…

this writing on the wall
this syncopated second thought
this out-of-body full disclosure.
I have read between the lines
until I am blind, I have scoured
the text to vilify the sacred,
to make angels the default
button for destruction, but I can’t
break the code of the familiar,
the breath that catches,
the sustained silence, the coiled
look, I can’t find my way
out of here. I’ve written myself
into a corner.

A DAMNED AFFAIR

I will have nothing
to do with you, I expunge
you from the record. You
officially do not exist.
Pleased to meet you.
I see you come with your
own pre-commissioned
laugh track. Congratulations.
You’re one step ahead of me.
But I’ve already strangled
any potential blood donors,
so really, where does that
leave us?

I AM LIT…

by bourbon, by a back deck
to pace on in Brooklyn,
and by three candles
that survived the wind,
one of them guttering
in the Buddha’s plastic belly.

MARK

The black text has scorched its’ mark
and my brow folds closed like an ashen
Wednesday that never happened
and I am shunned by neighbors
and carny folk alike. I am left
to languish in moldering seaside resorts,
in penny arcades that have long since
run out of ammunition. I hide my eyes
from all that is not right before me.
To either side, shame builds a highway.

A PORNOGRAPHY OF ONE

There I stand, booze-soaked and blood-sodden,
wiping the brows of my betters and laying bets
on the weather, a fever dream of absolutes.
There I am, second-guessing myself
in a shotgun wedding of best intentions
and the slow, stuttering pause.
I am to love what a spear is
to the heart, I skip a beat,
deadened and transfixed,
I am the choir of silence,
I hold it in my fist, complete.

DUBIOUS CLOAKS…

we wear, afraid our parents
will singe us. Bruised totems
stored beneath the skin’s surface.
The blood will rise, but who
will stand, and who will sit down?
There are tunnels that lead
to the end of your throat,
but it’s dark, and I’m afraid
to take them. I’m all for
full disclosure. You first…