i overheard and turned to see thankfully a moment too late but the sound will stay with me forever
as the bone broke under the weight
of the bus
the roll of head under body
and what was left of the muffled scream

i aways knew i’d grow old and find
this food i was not so secretly ingesting
was the key to superhuman strength

alas human-made green goo emboldens not,
strengthens not, and just generally does’nt do much
for me besides aid me in attention grabbing.

yea, im the guy who holds my finger away from
my face between picking and consuming to first
judge the succulence and then later partake

The solid-gold pavement
has been scrapped in for
full market value,
leaving us with your
garden-variety,
run-of-the-mill,
tarmac-style blacktop,
but that’s alright, because
it walks, bikes and rides
just the same, and
it only burns the soles
of your feet a little bit
as long as you learn to
walk fast.

At last, as though two long-lost sisters, they have found eachother. Two meteorites colliding, making a BANG, and take over the gaseous nothing which surrounds them. They combine their forces as the great Dynamic Duo that has finaly realized their strength together. What can they do now? O what possibility! they have as a double-force of ignorant weight-throwing, refusing to back down. They hate themselves, eachother, and everything around their pocket of nothingness. They are drawn together, somehow, against nature, by their negative poles, though Nature herself deemed it so to happen! Fuckin’ finally! Two chicks to cluck about neither hide nor hair, together, thinking their askew’d thought The Word.

Headache sitting on my head like a succubus
He says, she says
Sink back in the warm womb of covers, child
This is my Sabbath
Eel skin sibilance soaks slippery in the sheets

Could have resuscitated from a charcoal coma
In time to see overweight ladies in circus hats shaped like beehives and hula-hoops
Come drooling out from between the two red teeth of God’s mouth

But the course faltered as discolored toenails acquainted rug fibers

Watching a face pockmarked by acne and adolescence
Proceed with grated jaw, high cheekbones,
A bruise swelled to a yellow and russet rotting apple

His sticky eyes distinguish
Hands transforming the topography of his shoulders’ canvas
As shuttered eyes and burdened heads bow
To celebrated the boy who said yes

And a voice from the seats whispers to me,
This is the most beautiful example of love I’ve ever known

It is on the wind and
will arrive first thing
tomorrow afternoon.

Last night I swallowed
my French heritage.
It was everything It could be-
soft murmurs incomprehended;
foreign.
Breathing into me, knowing
I understand.
A dream unbelievable
Hours of my wildest imagination
right before me
at
last.

I have not yet woken up.

i place my words carefully
each in order
so as to construct
my mind.
and i’m finding
she ain’t purdy.

among the purple
blossoms: one
ringed with white.

i’ve a system for filing my brilliance.

as a phrase, paragraph, poem, or book idea passes by my brain
i think “brillaint”
and then forget it.
filed away into my mental box labelled “invisible”.

this way it’s accessable any time i open my “invisible” box.
which is to say — never.
it’s a very difficult box to find.

but once my brilliant idea concerns finding invisible boxes (or boxes merely labelled invisible), and I’m wise enough to not file it away into the same….
well, i’m certain like a salinger people will pour out their guts to see every last word i’ve written.

The dusk soon vanished in to a chill, dark night
which our elderly sedan cut through expertly,
it’s headlamps discovering new trees with
each sweeping turn that we mad around each
smooth country curve.

there were no stars that we could see.
They were there, though, Mr. Hugo assured me,
despite our lack of visual proofs.
I could not deny his theory any more
than he could prove it, however, and
just as well, for then it began to rain.

The droplets came slowly at first, only
bubbling on the surface of our windshield.
Then, all at once, the shower became a downpour
and it was easily classified as torrential.

Mr. Hugo suggested that we retire from the road,
but I insisted that we keep on. After all, I said,
We had no campgear, there were no clearings,
and it was only rain, after all. He shrugged,
as was his way. Alright was all he said.

The downpour soon doubled it’s efforts, and
despite their fervor, our windshield wipers could
hardly take the blur away.
The world became
a wash of looming trees and yellow light,
which I compared off-hand to the reports
of a near-death experience.

Then, the road began to jag.
The road had slicked from the sudden wash,
and though my foot came up so slightly from the throttle,
it was not up quite enough,
and the very next zig had us spinning.

Goddamnit, I heard Mr. Hugo say
and though I fought the wheel there was no use
as we flew from the road and in to a stand of
strong, unyielding Spruce trees, and to what would be,
unfortunately,
Our final digression

today i’ll celebrate like a six year old girl on her way to an ear-piercing, princess-dress-up, Justin Bieber birthday party
because hey
i never was a six year old girl
and there are some things
you just cant afford to miss

He was teaching you to walk
and you got up to run
away you went
looking and walking anew
seeing with untrained eyes
touching with shallow
translucent
skin

then you tried to speak to me
and though i understood your sounds
and their order
i felt the shortness of breath
behind every syllable
and i realized
that you can’t even breathe right

and here you are trying to talk to me.

Over years and years
like some sort of slowly-evolving serpent
you have rubbed away your vestigial
limbs of sorts: Your heart and soul and
your sense of reason. But I am confident
that somewhere deep inside of you,
near your core or just a little before it,
there’s a part of you that’s still alive, but
this is a confidence that roots on hearsay
and it. Is. Wavering.

I stumbled on a flock of geese this evening
basking in the sun just beyond
a browning stand of evergreens
and it’s cruel insects

The fowl were soaking in the last
and reddest stretch of daylight
and they did not speak or crow
or flap or quack as they soaked.
They soaked and nothing more.

I had not disturbed them
so I watched very quietly
and did not move to lift my hunting rifle.
I scratched away an insect
and I hummed a bit
and the beautiful birds kept soaking
while the sun kept sinking
But as it went, so the stretches of daylight
got redder and redder
until everything finally and suddenly
went black.

There were no stars in
what I assumed must be the sky,
and I could not make out even the faintest
silhouette of my found flock, and when
I turned, I found my stand of trees
had blackened instead of browned.
It worried me, and I began to run.

I left my hunting rifle somewhere in that glade
and my hat flew away as a breeze picked up
and my heart was pounding as my lungs
pumped furiously to keep me whole
and soon, I was overtaken by a thick,
unyielding dread.

It sat in my chest as a 3-year old
thinking he was winning a wrestling match
might sit. It crushed in deep and I,
without thinking, shattered myself
as I raced away.

I was lost for eternity, I’m sure,
as I stumbled through the clawing woods
and strangling sounds of the wild.
Soon I could not breathe.
Shortly after, I could no longer run.
Finally I failed to stand and then,
like the end of every nightmare,
the dark and foul overtook me.

the new degree came.
in laud.
and brought with it a void where i anticipated a feeling of pride
you always look at these other folks as something different. made from something different. and now i’m one of these folks. and i feel of the same substance.

transubstantiation would have made me feel a little better.
but i — master roger — cant live my whole life
acting as though i’m not better than you.
(nor have i).

even if my actions never reflect it, my poetry will be brutally self-serving. my prose overwhelmingly prideful. i will be that unabashed ass. because i can.

today, just a run of the mill guy.
tomorrow, if all goes well,
a master.

they actually write this on a piece of paper
and give it to me.

a master.

thats master roger to you.

It is a trifling spirit and nothing more
that wails across the stones and valley.
It is inconsequential.
it screams and lies without a breath.

I saw it this evening. It spoke to me
with harsh tones and chattering teeth
but I was not one to listen to the Dead.

It gnashed it’s gnarled maw and spat
and sputtered but I would hear no more.
It squealed and boiled over but I
was in no heart to be offended.

I climbed the stones and out
of the valley, and I stood and watched
for just a moment, before I left
that poor, dead trifling spirit
to wailing, and nothing more.