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

They are carpet-bombing the Holy Land
as if there were only one

and I am laying in bed
typing at my computer
trying to figure out
what I can do to convince you
that things just aren’t
as bad as they seem

but the bodies keep piling up
in Congo and Palestine
and Burkina Faso and Venezuela

and I dreamed my brother fell
off of a ship in the Indian Ocean
and he dreamed his son died from cancer
in Ohio in a hospital
so I guess even dreams are bad now

and I am laying in bed
typing at my computer
while the power grid flickers in Tbilisi
wondering if I should even bother
getting back up
when the alarm goes off

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

and the history i’m listening to on
japanese war tactics during world
war two is depressing as hell even
though there are some good things
to be learned from the chaos. nuance
is hard to hear or learn tho from a
sufficiently bad situation so instead
we write it off completely which feels
better morally

so i go back to work and i put my
shit back together and i
bumble along till something
happens to what i own but cant
make go
make it go for forks sake

I watched
for a train
every night
on Mosel
near the river
for years

in rain
in darkness
in snow
I waited
every night

one night
it was cold
I saw
no train
so I left

I saw
no train
on Mosel
after years
watching
dead
track

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

time cannot travel
backwards

and that deserves
repeating

the sins of the Father
are naught but Holy Ghosts

but the plastic in your blood
is real

and your tired bones
don’t get better
at being tired

wrap your legs
for surety

lash down the mainsail
tight

but forge on
and fearlessly!

for God is out
on these shifting seas

Impatient
but still waiting

time cannot
travel backwards

and that deserves
repeating

its been five in the morning
for many nights now
struggling to find the darkness
in the vibrating glow of you
but all the lamps are unplugged
and the window is cracked
and you could always just leave

yet you haunt the black corners
just beyond closed eyes
and then the foundation shakes
the queen bed lurching
as the hot and the red comes up
through the fissures in the floor

so now I am descending
pulled by reaching tendrils
down from the Great Below
and I see your smile in the dim
and I feel your sparkling eyes
and you cold always just leave
but you didn’t
did you

I thought about the time
you and I got whiskey drunk
and drove to North point Beach
in Van Buren
at 11:00 p.m.
because you didn’t believe me

the cell phone flash
walked us through the secret path
and our drunken feet
climbed the back of the dune
and we watched Lake Micihgan
in a fever pitch
capitulate in the cold
for hours

I wasn’t thinking about death
perched that Christmas morning
with you
overlooking the north side
from an ancient gravestone
atop the second tallest hill

The cold seeped through me
from the marble slab we sat on
slowly honing back the dull
from the alcohol
as the clouds flew by
though there was no wind
to speak of

every now and then
we could see the moon
while we talked about history
all the frieinds
we don’t call anymore
the houses we lived in
there, and there

the trees like fossils
accenting muddied grass
as far as we could see
in the cool poluted city light
we talked about old parties
the drunk and the wet
and the foolish

and I wasn’t thinking about death
in that cemetery
on that Christmas morning
even after all the signs

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