the sieve and the sand

a leap for life
for some is a literal
bullet dodged, or a grenade avoided

but for you a leap for life
is a mere plane flight.
a ticket purchased
such that life blood can stop being
clotted at the source

and with new oxygen flowing to the brain
hope arrives and strikes you
startling you like the bullet would
had it made an impact on the other
for whom that life-giving leap was not metaphorical
and struck by hope, you’re taken aback
and furious that you stalled — knowing the steps required for forward momentum, for life, and not taking them.

new life, a change, bought cheap, rearranged;
sometimes one leap’s too short for “in”, but never-wager folks don’t win

an island bypassed
on foot we continue on
mud betwixt our toes

the muffling of sound
the sun hidden behind the white engulfing the trees
and the constant reminder of our
forced submission to nature
our true blindness
able to overcome polio, leprosy, even tuberculosis
but unable to see down the street
past the corner with the 10 car pile-up soon to be 11
because of the way the sun is hidden behind the white engulfing the trees
and the fully muffled….
the silence.

a birth bore with choice to stoop so low
we’d believe He understood
humility unmatched

thanks eh.
though we don’t often show it
we mean it

for want of a pant line he had hip injections
for want of a butt crack he trained to be a plumber
for want of reason he played sudoku
then for want of friends
he purchased gift cards to his wonderful hip-injection doctor gave them to his acquaintances
then for want of acquaintances he moved, ran for president, and claimed stupidity

Near,
And in addition to near also far,
Really, wherever you might be at all,
It is compatible with my belief system that the heart doth persevere,
And then one more time,
You unlock and then open the door,
And you will find yourself here inside of this dwelling place I call my heart (please do not intervene with the blood flow, it is surprisingly essential to my ability to live)
And my heart will persevere and then persevere some more.

Whew.

I’d gird up my loins if I could with something other than these old suspenders, but you see, lack of proper loin-girders is the primary reason for my sloth. How dare I run when in an un-loin-girded state?

third graders gather on the floor and ask about toilets and school uniforms in a land they cannot fathom and who am i to introduce them to it? i’ve brought pictures to say the things my words cannot, and speaking of eating dog, rabbit head, or pig lung, may inspire exactly the wrong kind of awe, i fear, but do my best as they gaze in bleary wonder knowing all this time one or two may be moved to drop their lives and leave a world where a child must have 100 crayons if they’re to be expected to color, where three simply would not do. sewage runs through streets in images i’ve taken of places where the scent overwhems any bad feeling one might have from the way things look, and it’s been five of my six months and all i can think of the whole time i’m showing these pictures is how much i miss home, and the “grind” and being on the winning team. to know the work i’m a part of ultimately wins when i feel like away, i’m more of a bump on a log than an addition to society, and snow is not near as romantic as i remember it, and consumerism literally makes me want to vomit in these cities where people are virtually strangling their children, choosing to suck the life out of them so they can have a swimming pool in their back yard, and while i’m not foolish enough to believe this is the case everywhere in this great country, i nonetheless catch a glimpse of the vastness of the nationwide epidemic as i get reports from the “bud light sports desk” during the “coors light half time show” where you spend the whole day in awe that infinite jest had this thing figured out years ago and it seems like only a few years ago i read that book (part of that book) and

laughed at the absurdity of the extremity of it all

i like woids
and the way they’re formed
with building blocks called
shletters
gwammer is awesome when proper
and in large blocks we complete
ideas in cent-instances
if we master the basics we’re given some freedom to destroy convention and set out on our own (or so they said in college)
so we form our own conjunctivitises like hithertothereforewithoutwhich
and stream together brilliance in zombie movels.
because our English linguine-age is incredi-malleable
we raise our noses and look down them at morons without.

it’s raining like crazy
and i’m not outside running
my feet are dry and my morale is sinking
the sun is rising and here i am
not out in the elements
rather i lay
on carpeted floor
my soul slowly withering
inside the quesadilla that is my is head and buttox

ford focused my three hour drive
from raleigh to graduation
now that’s master, twitch, master roger
(to you)
which, after much consideration, i’ve decided i prefer over double master rog

Ingredients:
Mixed grains, milled cane sugar, textured soy protein, french fried eyeballs swimming in a pool of blood, brown rice syrup, chicory root fiber, partially hydrogenated corn oil, and less than 2% of the following: elmer’s glue, stainless steel staples, gopher guts, tocopherols (vitamin E to maintain freshness)

I have a desire to maintain them like some do when playing Texas Hold Em
Or to fold them and/or let them give me another card and then increase the stakes (please don’t fold), I find this enjoyable
Both good fortune and a gut feeling guide me in my decision making process with my cards and frequently I choose to start with a Spade (Because I don’t really understand the game)
But then following obtaining the other’s heart as my own, through deception like in a card game, I will choose to play a card that he wants me to play.

Oh, Ooooh, Oooooo
I bet I can raise his temperature slightly, and demonstrate to him what is that I have
Oh, Ooooh, Oooooo
I bet I can raise his temperature slightly, and demonstrate to him what is that I have

You’ll find that you are unable to discern my, yea, you’re unable to discern my,
Yea, you find it difficult to discern my face which I am holding in an indiscernible way as in a game of cards
You’ll find that you are unable to discern my, yea, you’re unable to discern my,
Yea, you find it difficult to discern my face which I am holding in an indiscernible way as in a game of cards

(better when sung to the tune of “Oh Christmas Tree”)

if you are both happy and in addition to being happy you are also aware of it clap your hands
if you are both happy and in addition to being happy you are also aware of it clap your hands
if you are happy and also find that you yourself are aware of your happiness and you decide that you would like to also make the world aware of your current state of happiness
if you are both happy and in addition to being happy you are also aware of it clap your hands

but
a dog will die if left to it’s own devices
and a dog lacks the help of an army of
writers
and a dog
is not fed on poetry

however
it hurts like a dying dog
to be disconnected from a love of mine
like this pup
when i just want to rock and hold it
but i’m overwhelmed with life
(for the um…. 20th time three years)
children have a way of doing that

but if you hear it on the radio
then it must be true.

i think our belief what we read in
a book labelled “non-fiction” should
be taken at face value comes from our
judeo-christian roots where we accept
one book as true, therefore the others
but be as well.

what you read on twitter is probably
false, unless it concerns feces. afterall
who tweets about their poo unless they’re
telling the truth.

here’s where we miss the slacker. one timmy
mc-timster, a friend of mine in college
who took credit for everyman’s farts
and then he actually crop dusted and claimed
it as his own, the crowds didn’t believe him.

brilliance can become incarnate in so many
strange forms.

And other such adages such as how you can get
peanut butter in the jelly jar but you don’t want jelly in the peanut butter jar

most normal people
(when they’ve saved the money)
dont wrestle with wondering
if those who make his paycheck possible
will be offended by the purchase

most normal people
(when they’ve been given gift certificates)
dont wonder what it’ll be like to both ask for money for the adoption
and at the same time spend money
on an idevice

but then i’m reminded
most normal people
are downright weird when you get to know them.

and normal feels more and more subjective
and less and less feasable.

i find a lot of joy in my upgrade
from generation 1 to 5
my old one almost 4 years old.

no one keeps a phone that long.

*tear*

“I’m sorry siri, I’m so very very happy.”

i grew me one long and sexy
but the wife
she disagrees
and now i stare down my
buzzer knowing what stands
between me and him is at least
six weeks.

but there are some powers
my wife maintains through
threats of witholding
things i don’t do well without.

she wins.

i’ll miss you my friend
you made me look pubescent
and then sort of kinda manly.
now you’ve grown long enough
to make me amish, or at least
a “fundamentalist”.

i knew thee far too little.

every moment of the regular season is spent in anticipation of the
final game of the post season

the final game (or series as the sport may call for) arrives
and we cower in the corner more comfortable in our
anticipation than our excitement at what has arrived

and like that loneliness we’ve come to love and mourn
(albiet briefly and irrationally)
when we marry

we miss the feeling we know more than we enjoy the
moment when it arrives.

in the great scheme two weeks is hardly
worthy of notice

in the six years of agony two weeks
is anything but
unworthy of notice

minute passes slower than each previous
minute

worthy of painful notice

my watch has received more “face time”
than my wife.

and she’s getting mad.

i figure when the hare
(running full speed towards the finish)
had the ribbon in his view,
he sped up saying to himself
“almost there, almost there, almost there”
and doing all he could to hang on
placed one foot in front of the next
and hoped for the best.

i identify in this stage
but beg the Lord when I cross
the line I will not find I’ve lost
the race to a stinky,
slow, slimy, animal who drags
his home with him wherever he goes.

i’d tell you more
but i assure you
my words are being nearly
sucked dry by vocations
i choose not, but choose me.
and thus i’m left
like a used rag — used.
and tired.
my fingers too empty
for any further verbal
diarrhea.

i wrote this in the margin
of the notes i was taking for class
i meant it be poetic
but instead it came out crass

the prof was speaking of revelation
and i was writing of poo
the writing was slightly distracting
and i failed to think his words through

so i kept on writing of feces
while the prof droned on over details
my mind downstairs in the restroom
where i planned to unloaded my entrails

pillow soft.
but donut ring around beer
perhaps challenges
pillow soft
for place of love
in my heart

with stacks and rows of words
bound with glue in glorious
long-form i sit and study being
mocked by the fact i’m still told
what to consume when deliciousness
surrounds me like a child in a candy
shop i’m handed a carrot and told
to eat while gazing with longing
at peach rings and runts
my computer open before me
and books written by fools with their
heads in the clouds but academic
degrees they fancy while in the
company of hemmingway and salinger
i drool, for, like that child, i know not
how to ignore exactly what i know i’m
missing