The pressboard underneath you
will only hold you up for so long.

I fear you are in the waiting
for a long, hard fall.

Try not to take anyone else out
on your way down.

you’d not want a black soul like mine
which would suck the color from the
dandelion fields who breath only for sun.
and on the days when children’s laughter
sounds like a trainwreck approaching.

you’d sit and say “let there be nothing
but which i approve” and dig yourself
a hole somewhere out in the woods.
and in there it would be warm
even during the coldest hours
emanating enough heat for just you.

this cup better than yours.
these thoughts hung on for hours.
on this here flooring,
we grow shag carpeting,
and swear these drugs aren’t ours.

With a pipe in his mouth and a stern
unscolding look beneath it Mr. Hugo
climbed in to the passenger seat of
the large, weathered Luxury car from
another era which I had recently taken
to driving and we began, floating
easily down the roads and byroads
of the town in which we had found ourselves

We spoke softly of the other cars
on the road, which seemed to speed
past us with abandon and an uncaring,
foolish sort of gait. We considered that
the drivers had no real concept of the
power they were handling. That they
did not know they could change the world.

I changed lanes easily as the powerband
shifted and before I knew it we were on
a highway heading north and out of town.

Though another poor woman who we passed
was not so lucky in her green minivan,
we did not kill a soul that day
and so the topic ended
as the blue lights flashed
and we digressed.

nothing to read
no inspiration to write
i cannot browse the interwebs
for much longer without
a slow atrophy of my
creativity.

nothing to read
no inspiration to write

Our wonder soon turned to the ways
and wiles of our fellow woman, particularly
a wife that Mr. Hugo had taken and
had run in to a stretch of rather
unfortunate luck with concerning her
comings and goings and other parts.

There were conclusions made, but alas
none could be delivered so surely for
the mind of the human being is a strange
and difficult-to-manage thing, so even
with all the thought and consideration
that we two could muster, eventually
we found to cede to be a simpler way.
Soon the thing had drifted
and we pair did digress.

I spoke with Mr. Hugo some time ago
and asked him, from his professional
point-of-view how the gentleman in question
had come to so vegetative a state as
his current delusion would require of him

He responded simply that he did not know
and that it was not so important, was it?
That the gentleman in question was
roiling as a signal through an out-of-phase
loudspeaker should be topic enough
to pontificate upon,
and so we digressed.

I get to this point and I’ve nothing to say.
So what then, where to?
At least the sentence can end with a preposition; this is poetry after all.
But that’s not enough; there has to be more.
I’m aching for it: diagnosable withdrawal.
The way one would notice the absence of food,
or at the very least, the recognition of malnourishment.
Where’s the proof?
In the un-inspiration, complacency even.
Dragged out, beat down, by a lack of production.
Gears grinding in un-oiled oxidation.
Akin to exercising: tiring, yes, but in actuality, producing more energy.
Need a first step, ball rolling, build momentum.
Finally achieves kinetic.
The pen scrawls unabashed fervor;
some junkie who feels the high even before the needle penetrates his skin.
And squeeze: there’s the release.
Orgastic even—teeming with life.
Here, let’s make it happen.
Fertilizing eggs of miscellaneous; goulash of the brain.
Grow and hatch into something beautiful, mysterious, titillating, compelling,
Albeit doubtlessly incongruous.
But in some acceptable fashion be squared off and wrapped up with an ink bow
or spoken disclaimer, “it’s only the first draft.”
A neatly presented gift from the patchwork of my mind;
A quilt for your viewing pleasure.

i won’t tell you how to use your legs
i will let you lie, and sip my drink
for i’m a man who can describe himself
and my morality borders so closely the line
of acceptability that i’m interesting
and someone who can walk will come and sit
next to me and sip delicately on their drink
in tandem and we’ll sit far above the floor.

i will discuss with them.
and my compatriots.
dying.

put your dreams on hold and
remove your shoes to enjoy the
silence the sun is creating with
beams so thick it’s absorbing the
sound and your toes moving through the
grass with a distant echo of
some child laughing is the only
input your senses can manage.

put your dreams on hold and
take in the meaninglessness of your
life for a moment.

put your dreams on hold and
recognize your creator. this is for you
and you never even notice.

and your dreams are so easily worthless.

He avoided the dread monsters of the New World
and passed peacefully from the back to the front,
stepping jovially and uncarefully and stopping
just beneath the longest, tallest bridge and he said
he didn’t much mean to cross it for fear of
being blown in to the ice water – a cold wet grave –
but he’d have to give it a shot and so he
climbed up the hill to where he’d pay his toll, and
when he did not have quite enough change the man
was very nice and let him walk on anyway.
so he went and made it half-way along the longest
tallest bridge, but the wind had picked up and,
it is such a shame that a man who avoided
the dread monsters of the New World, would
be blown so unceremoniously in to the coldest
water he had yet been in. It then became
his everlasting grave, oh what a shame it is.

for letting me gush
to pour out rants i knew not were bottled up
for the beer words to have a home
alongside the words i’ve rolled around
in my head for weeks and slowly trickled
out like the Power Balls every week.
(that’s what she said).

you have been more than a friend to me.
you all have been more than friends to me

beer for this upset stomach
less to self-medicate
more to prove to myself
great love covers over pain.