i pasted letters of hatred
death threats on my wall

By the pocketful
by the absolute bucket
there is forward motion
via funnel and pump
and adding machine
there is forward motion
from the spinning wheels
and thrusting pistons
and jet engines on passenger ships
though the dirigible has long since
been abandoned
there is forward motion
leaving animals behind
leaving modest means askew
leaving fresh air as a
commodity
there is forward motion

Let’s take a few steps back.

overwhelmed with emotion
floored by beauty
i want to appreciate
the soft conclusion
of narrative thread
hold it in my hand
soak in the silence
drink the darkness
at curtain’s close

but

conversations intrude
lights come up

it’s over.

You smell just like you came home from a radio show
and you read just like the communist manifesto
Well I think I’m probably rather fond of you
and not just the thought

Well you feel like all the cold brick streets had softened up
and you sound like every songbird singing ‘ all shook up’
oh the theories runing through my head don’t compensate
for the bit I swear I didn’t think I thought

and night is day,
everything seems
just the same;
and sleep recedes;
and sleep returns;
and in the same moment
pain is found,
as is peace
and hope that someday,
hopefully soon,
we’ll be able to better commune,
and finally understand each other.

repetitious pounding of heel to cement
slowly (faithfully) produces delusions of grandeur
and
i run not for exercise but to flee
cognitive stagnation

then dreams flow in

you’re God not man and your power
not limited by my dreams
is by all means larger than i fathom
(should i choose to try…
when i choose to try)

so when i pray to tug your heart strings
to change
for transformation on the city/province/country
scale

i know my dreams too small
i beg for bigger
i run much harder
thinking

if i can numb the pain in these joints
over time
perhaps i may numb the walls i’ve built around you

a little more
one bigger dream at a time.

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 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