the sieve and the sand

We can not fathom
what we do not know
of the things that we
dedicate our
entire
be
ing
to mastering.

And that truth
and that terror
is glorious.

two days ago,
at just this time,
you weren’t.

and then you were,
with screams,
with kicks,
with little, furious fists
mad at the world,
making sure that you were heard.

and now you’ve somewhat mellowed,
allowing me to think:
about who you are;
and who you were;
and who you yet will be;
about what you will do to me.

What is in a dream, that I should dream awake, breathlessly and sorrowfully? I who has yet to live.
Days push me around and each second weighs in on me- judging the flicker in my eye- I am not a woman of substance.
I have fallen in love with many a dead men… Oh how they light up the beat room of my existence !
They do not cringe at my awkward aura, twist my thoughts into ugly monsters, or laugh when the earth buries me.
When poverty rides my back, they borrow light from the sun and salt from the sea so that I may stand straight.
They make me believe that even if nothingness ruptures inside, the universe may still breath through me …

I spend a lot of time driving.
In that time, the music blasts
and everything is perfect
even weighed against the ice
that builds up on unheated
windows in the winter time.

when despair sets in like loneliness
i take out a plate
penut butter and jelly and
i sing along to R Kelly

if that bastard can be famous for those
words

i can probably touch the sky

do you have a music permit?
the cable guy was late,
i brought a shotgun
WHEN?
they ask,
WHEN
WILL HIS SWITCH FLIP?
this public menace,
without a music permit
(they’re only mad
cuz the dayquil aint’
workin’).

The gaudy painting seemed out of place
At least until I saw the colossally kitschy tapestry nearby
And while I was staring at it
Soggy meat from my unwieldy taco dripped on the throw rug.

Dangit! I thought,
I hope there’s a napkin in the car.

There wasn’t.
Used a scraggly hat instead, figured I’d wash it later.

Back at the concession trailer, some sinister looking guy
Sold me a slice of pizza with too chewy cheese
That easily could have been skin
And the sweat tasting grease didn’t help any.
Of course he had a napkin.

I set my paper plate on a mound of mildewing books,
Manila and stained in all their glory.
There was a tangled cluster of yarns
For Joseph’s Technicolor dreamcoat, I guess.
A bloated box of chains,
Maybe for—never mind.
A 60-pack of knockoff batteries,
And a perfume canteen that smelled like baby barf.

I bid on a telescope and some sketchy bottled wine,
Which, had I won, I probably would’ve uncorked
One of them suckers on the drive home.

I think I saw a dinosaur bone back there too.
Who the hell buys this stuff?

The accident in the street
may as well be the front yard
with all the bright lights
flashing
filling my
windows
tearing my
eyes to midnight shreds
as they’re not so used to
blues,
at so late an hour

The cruisers running block
after block
all around
my sweet, sweet
sanctuary.
Enough,
to drive someone
insane

But,
my soul is filled with birdsong
and other sweet music,
and my eyes will close
to better listen to it,
and midnight blues
are not so blue again.

It has not been so long.
It has not been so taxing.
The days pass as they
always have.

Strange that
every day we’re apart
feels like a missed connection.

Well that seven chord makes my
hand feel funny
and every other part feel right as rain

and the barre might hurt but I’m
jammin’ now, so
I’ll bash right on through the pain

i’d think you’d have
compassion
‘cuz you stole all of
mine
take off your colored
glasses
for all the hues have
died
the stench will kill your
olfactors
when your livin in a
stie
but i digress, you
progress
to make my happiness
fly
like a paper plane in the
summer
whose nature the ground drew
nigh

A Mystery! A Mystery!
How many morns of merriment
may end in such sad sweet songs
of pleasing past pictures gone into putridity
of little lying lives – lifelessness
change consuming the creativity of childhood,
Until only an old oppressed imagination
exists to be blown below a bed
and adulthood advancing against all
the youthful yearning, and devastating
dreams of doing deeds destined to remain
restlessly for reasons reproduced generation
to generation, grandfather to grandchild, gaining
great gravity as a familiar family fortitude, flourishing
til the ghastly grave greets us.

says the roll to
two sheets on a nose in blow
“lucky basterds”

Lurch for dispersing clouds
Clutching insufferably at comfort
Or was it fear?
Trickling to archives of unconscious
Never to be seen until…
Palpitation.
Palpitation.
Palpitation.
Don’t go. Come back.
I’m tethered.
It’s warm here.
Don’t be afraid.
The shadow is shaking
Or a vapor still hanging
Onto to something that was there
I’d write every word down
A masterpiece. An opus.
But it’s all gone.

There is death in that water
I can smell it.
It reeks it’s odorous presence
through to my soul and there it
sits,

grabs hold,
just around the thinner parts
that aren’t so staunch
against the
creeping
terrors all about

Questions.
What if
questions are just
questions, nothing
more? but soon the
questions turn to
worries turn to
terror turns to
I-can’t leave-the-
house-any-more

But those are just the
little parts,
so I still drink that water.

And here I sit
breathing death
with every waking
instant

i am truly taking the
last hits
of this bag
and am thinking
how i let you down,
and died at the
end of this dream.

i hear them knocking
all day,
these days,
but i wanna spend
my minutes between
you and the sad
winter sun
before i awake
and consciousness comes.

pictures paint words and all
but who’s to translate
painted word into digital vomit?

your words translate themselves
to pictures in your dreams and you
wake and find you fail to understand
the pictures;
the poetry
behind the prose.

In Boston
I see boxy blue cars.
Tired blue buzzards.
On roads, I can’t
Tell if they come or go.
Parked, I don’t know the front
From the back.

They have flown cross country.
Seen deserts and
Churning snow storms.
Fine Swedish engineering
You wish would last forever.

But I ride the train.
I come and go.
In giant, clanky lunch pails
On wheels.
Peeling and rusting on rails.
Full of boots and coats and earbuds
And more blank stares.

这么爱那个
坐被破的沙发上
永久未来变

love like this
seated on broken sofas
futures forever changed

aint poetic in the least
they stream like uneducated
ebonics flow from a non-minority’s
mouth

it aint pretty
it aint even funny
and they damn aint poetic

every piece
of packing tape
comes peeling off
the bits
it’s meant
to hold together

Packing tape
as substitute
for roofing gun
and superglue?
Never.

Everyone
gets just one
first mistake
however.

the problem with the digital age
is the lack of analog
‘digital’ reproduces in my brilliance
in too strong of color for the average
man to take in all at once

you’d like me better softened
by the blur of wear and tear.