would it be better that they found your
decomposing corpse several miles off trail
on accident, long after the manhunt canceled
than for you to hang on to the coattails
of this massive morass of meat machines marching
to the tick of the time-clock?

have you made a big mistake
looking for yourself
rather than simply being
what is already there?

among the list of crimes
that you help commit
is making March 27th, 2025
another insanely unremarkable day
why, you’ve forgotten, that they’re
all supposed to be
very important

a day that could be perfectly heavenly
now put through your fatty system
and out the other end, like fertilizer
on a factory farm

for what you incorrectly define
as happiness

i worked on the computer all day
while she sang opera
i had 3 cats who i treated like children
i drove a 2014 toyota rav 4

i want to go back i want to go back

there was love in the house at all times
like being alone and together at the same time
we practically radiated love
as if you could see it in the air
i want to go back

i want to go back i
want to go back

even if i would get distracted
or angry about something
it was like playing pretend
because we were always safe, together

completely safe and comfortable

comfortable and how we would touch
as a family would, a deep kinship
and consistent like how a clock works
how i want to go back

i want to go back
i want to go back, i want to go back
i want to go back
i want
to go
back
i want to go back

i even knew then, that i’d want to go back
it only gets worse from here
it only got worse from there
from then on
it only got worse
and i would want to go back

i was making enough money to keep them off my back
she was doing what she loved
and we loved each other
i am certain of it
and it’s a time that can only happen once
you’ve got a narrow window to not fuck it up
and if you don’t fuck it up, anyway
it will get worse

and you will want to go back
you’ll want to go back

you’ll want to go back want to go back
want to go back
want to go
back

to subtle purrs and snoring and a clicking ceiling fan as the saturday morning sun peaks through the window
and you eat german breakfast while staring out the window as the world just flashes by you like a montage
until you look back and it becomes different, somehow
any, how

and you’re going to want to do it all over again
you’re going to wish you could go back
and do something different
be better somehow
breathe deeper somehow
chew slower
think deeper
kiss longer
somehow

you’re going to want to go back
and that’s the one thing you cannot do

i am eating shit and
drinking piss
at the encore hotel and casino
and i hear someone
screaming, in the distance
but i don’t care and
i won’t go looking for them

because i’m a lazy killer
it could take me a lifetime
and blame lies with the beholder

sounds of bugs and birds chirping
as the sounds of plants growing

look for food until
you get tired
look for sleep until
you fall into it

thoughts chattering in the meantime

whether your imagination lives in the ancient language of metaphor
or not

whether superpositioned wormholes allow for space travel
or not

it does not matter

there is nothing
for you
to do

torn out to sea
on a lazy sunday
didn’t heed the warning
a fine swimmer, or not
he couldn’t fight the ocean
alone

Everywhere you are
Is paradise

Every breath you take
We take together

Every dream with you in it
Is a wish

Every moment with you
Is forever

I will be here with you
As long as I am alive

And always I will keep you
In my heart and in my mind

Every day a wish fulfilled

i thank sc johnson
for the clean smelling shirt
as i fly over the yellow sea
with munitions to erase
the human mind
and lucky me that
my prayers kept the cancer
(colon, esophageal, pancreatic, et al)
at bay, long enough
and at least for these few more hours
to reflect on where
romance lives, far away
probably, with the pain
that started all of this

name it and give it rules
so that in the future you can replicate
something similar, but not the same
a soulless and shallow masked figure
with just you underneath
you

you you you

reify, hyperbolize, generalize
trick your god into believing
that you love him
so you can make it a part of
you

you you you

i am driven by something foreign
like an alien-human body
stumbling around target

i am driven by a 2.5 litre 4-cylinder
engine made by toyota across
a bridge built in the early 1960s

where it smells like death
when the air gets stale
next to the garbage plant
of course it does

of course it does
dead dinosaur bones pile up
by the side of the road
and no one picks them up

when I was younger
and a wild oat
roaming freely
I could sit on air
and watch the sunset
without sorrow
and spend all day staring
out a window taken
from wood not far from here
as a lowly bug biting with
compassion and not trading
stocks in silence or attention

bounce back
piss on my pants
cherry hill new jersey
amc
where desperate birds chirp
at night
conflicting visions not unto me
we all seem to know that
every sad thing is happening
all the time
irrespective

if i knew
what shallow pools i swam
what otherwise,
a sunny day i
would forever love
yet after god had
banished me
for months without rain
i find myself dying,
here

and shallow still
are their eyes
as i lie gasping for air,
even
they are uneasy to stay
because the school moves on

it is hard for those
who are fleeting
and flittering away
wasting away
and not resting, at all
not resting even a bit
to not see the last
moments as the longest

and their closests friends
more greatly scared to share them
than their love extends
because the school
moves on

the cat birds have moved on without me
of course
now replaced by the house finch

i’d hoped to be here waiting
alive still, with the oak tree
whatever shape we were both in

but i sense the inevitable
snapping back of the rubber band of time
closer, now

can i make peace with them going on
without me?
if for no other reason than
to make myself feel better

as is all that man, and cat birds, and house finches,
and all we can all ever do

riding the back of some big thing
smiling
scared
excited
crying

the underbelly of the crushing
machine is a beautiful red
from the blood of its enemies
as the miasmic soup of reasons
that people stand in the way
are mixed together with the cacophony
of screams just like their bones and
blood and reasons are mixed together
creating the beautiful red

oh brother, brother
aurora borealis
ouroboros

look at what you’ve done

now florida is dissolving into
the atlantic ocean

why don’t you take a long look
at my father’s mirror?

and look upon your sinful heart
whose desires were so strong

that we simply had to divide up
the middle east into irreconcilable parts

and we had to fill your blood with
sugar and plastic

because we are just so giving
to our brothers and sisters

who are fatty little piggies who
eat eat eat and get fat

look at what you’ve done

if you shut the fuck up
i’ll make an offer you
can’t afford

lest you work for the rest of your days

i will make a machine that will
filter your blood
because i am so kind, and wise

and if you give me, say
half of your things
i will levy the ocean-side
and save the resorts and
sea-side villas

i will do this in spite of your
fat filled piggy heart
who dreams of fairy tales
and sugary piggy pies
sleeping standing up
in piles of shit
before the hammer gun
shatters your spinal cord

that is what i have done

the cat birds will no longer find perch on
south greylock soon
because the oak tree there is
starting to die
and the grey squirrels almost
fall off the thin branches
when the cat birds land

I am an astronaut
made of
a million or
so bugs

and i look down upon
cosmic rain washing the city

although, not god
I see my own reflection
on the oceans

walking in space
each step, another miracle
“I am not god”
I say to myself

just an astronaut
walking through
space, although

of all things I wield the most terrible power

to your children the beach is magical
but they are only excited by the novelty
of fresh neurons firing

that is for you to know
and them to find out

and their bodies are not much more
than a carbon copy
of yours

and the beach really looks like shit
i mean, it looks just like a
soggy
and impoverished
wet plane
where trash and debris wash up

but we love the beach, daddy!

like how a lion loves the warm and
gushing blood of a gazelle
as it’s limbs go cold and
its life fades away