The Detritus Protocol

Sending Insanity To An Informed Source

I Am Unlimited, Sayeth The Code

Bleak Machines, Running Rote

An Endless Bureaucracy of Gods

The Hunch-Backed Crucible

Stripped To A Strangers Clothes

That Fever Dream Just Went Up In Smoke

The Long, Quiet Wind Parts Our Unshackled Dust

The Hidden Claws of The Misbegotten

Strip The Flesh To The Carpet Bare

A Desiccated Age of Too Many Options

This World Was Made With Elliptical Engineering

The Outer Space of My Comfort Zone

Guidance In The Storm

The Redundancy Continuum

Taking A Fractal Bath

The Viral Hereafter

 The Holy Wonder

A Bone-Strung Orchestra

A Multitude of Absolutes

The Maw of Reason

THE LAST RECALL

I recall myself, for parts

deficient and memory lacking.

I don’t recall any parts

independent of the whole,

but an overall review might

be in order, to draw up

a hierarchy among the fragments.

I can’t recall that time you’re

talking about, but will accept

second guesses as assurances

that I was actually there.

You’re sure I said that?

I was that shadow seen through a keyhole?

That thin-as-a-whisper asshole?

I take it back, I take it back,

I take it back…

Radiator heat

clicks on like stuttering speech

noises in the dark

Bundled Christmas trees

outside Flatbush grocery

yellow cabs flash past

    Like a blind man’s sight

    rain patters across rooftops
    tracing an outline

Rain thrashes briefly 

then quiets to a whisper 

like memory’s pulse

Rain hits suddenly
as if to a stricken land
someone smiles in sleep

The Braille of raindrops
falls on all our blind faces
nothing to read here

A flesh-pink half moon
last mist left after the storm
both dissolve away

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Detect language » English

AfrikaansAlbanianArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBasqueBelarusianBulgarianCatalanChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)CroatianCzechDanishDetect languageDutchEnglishEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchGalicianGeorgianGermanGreekHaitian CreoleHebrewHindiHungarianIcelandicIndonesianIrishItalianJapaneseKoreanLatinLatvianLithuanianMacedonianMalayMalteseNorwegianPersianPolishPortugueseRomanianRussianSerbianSlovakSlovenianSpanishSwahiliSwedishThaiTurkishUkrainianUrduVietnameseWelshYiddish⇄AfrikaansAlbanianArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBasqueBelarusianBulgarianCatalanChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)CroatianCzechDanishDutchEnglishEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchGalicianGeorgianGermanGreekHaitian CreoleHebrewHindiHungarianIcelandicIndonesianIrishItalianJapaneseKoreanLatinLatvianLithuanianMacedonianMalayMalteseNorwegianPersianPolishPortugueseRomanianRussianSerbianSlovakSlovenianSpanishSwahiliSwedishThaiTurkishUkrainianUrduVietnameseWelshYiddish

Detect language » English

AfrikaansAlbanianArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBasqueBelarusianBulgarianCatalanChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)CroatianCzechDanishDetect languageDutchEnglishEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchGalicianGeorgianGermanGreekHaitian CreoleHebrewHindiHungarianIcelandicIndonesianIrishItalianJapaneseKoreanLatinLatvianLithuanianMacedonianMalayMalteseNorwegianPersianPolishPortugueseRomanianRussianSerbianSlovakSlovenianSpanishSwahiliSwedishThaiTurkishUkrainianUrduVietnameseWelshYiddish⇄AfrikaansAlbanianArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBasqueBelarusianBulgarianCatalanChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)CroatianCzechDanishDutchEnglishEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchGalicianGeorgianGermanGreekHaitian CreoleHebrewHindiHungarianIcelandicIndonesianIrishItalianJapaneseKoreanLatinLatvianLithuanianMacedonianMalayMalteseNorwegianPersianPolishPortugueseRomanianRussianSerbianSlovakSlovenianSpanishSwahiliSwedishThaiTurkishUkrainianUrduVietnameseWelshYiddish

Detect language » English

STARVED HOUSES

The groundwork has been laid;
the drywall, the mortar, the pestle.
The frame is sound. It will stand.
It will give us this day, minus the bread,
and forgive us the trespasses
we make against ourselves.
We are less than whole
within these walls, we lay
down and expect the leveling.
We are the wasp’s thirst, dry as rain
that doesn’t know another drop exists,
we are stronger than the storm
that hasn’t come yet.

Dying DVR
clicks and whirrs like ghost crickets
how new is that sound?

VISION QUEST-PAK

How many times have I gone so far away
I couldn’t find my way back, and relied
on the bread crumbs of strangers to
both sustain myself and establish
a reliable GPS perimeter?

How many times have I closed
the tunnel door to the past
and declared this dungeon
a baggage free zone?

How many times have I felt lighter
than air, but cooked the molecules
till they’re lighter than that,
just to watch them burst and scatter
like soap bubbles, and know that even
less than that is what holds me here…

blind white rock of moon
fall foliage blazes red
a beautiful death

I gather my thoughts
like gutted animal skins
drying in the wind

I’m bending toward sleep
crickets sound like cracking backs
fall sway the weary

The brush of my breath
strums the broken-down guitar
that sits behind me

Window-frames rattle
in the last wind from Brooklyn
yup, I’m outta here

The wick still flickers
in a candlelight vigil
for the flame itself

How dim the star is
reaching above tree branches
like a supplicant

Blinking red tower
casts a lonely semaphore
an owl hoots his own

TASK @ HAND

Oh, the Zen of it:
empty boxes piled high
waiting to be filled

Fireflies at dawn
the stars are finally gone
light comes from within

Release me, Brooklyn
from the skin I’ve grown
but still take me in

An epiphany
can be a slip of paper
hanging from your fridge

How small a corner
as a hurricane rages
two crickets still chirp

The night is alive
A cicada symphony
cut with speeding cars

Lightening flashes through
burns a wild, erratic fuse
the stars are scrubbed clean

I should walk a mile
on another man’s egg shells
before I can crack