In the landfill I am found

 Into the landfill my hands
soiled and contaminated
Where things go and seldom come out
Where the methane cloud bloom

Painting the hallucinations of walking phantoms
who circle the landfill from the last dregs of day
To the decaying darkness of first dawn
And in this wasteland we find ourselves

The residues of ourselves
What never belonged to us
Yet what was spilled on us and made us stink
And instead of bathing we swam in the trash

Of a society built on the anxious electricity
Of software and luxury brand human resources
Dogmatic canine feces
censoring your very spirit

Hygenizing your emotions
compliance leveraging you
So look at me filthy
Look at me diseased I am human

The underachieving pariah 

Into the landfill, my hands are stained
Soiled by the things that men have drained
Where nothing leaves and nothing heals
Where methane blooms beneath the wheels

I paint the phantoms, pale and thin
Who circle where the dead things spin
From the last weak light of dying day
To dawn that crawls through filth and gray

And in this wasteland, here we stand
The residue of human hands
What never belonged, yet clung like skin
Was spilled on us and soaked within

And rather than wash, we learned to swim
Through overflowing, festering grim
A society wired and electrified
Where anxious souls are sanitized

Software gods and luxury brands
Human resources with clean white hands
Dogmatic canine excrement
Censoring the soul’s dissent

Hygienizing every emotion
Compliance dressed as devotion
Leveraging the fear in me
Then calling that humanity

So look at me: contaminated
Look at me: diseased, degraded
I will not bleach what makes me free
I am filthy, I am me

The underachieving pariah
The unprocessed, unwanted fire

Unidentified antiques

 Tommy Timms was an awkward twenty eight year old. Digging in the smelly wasteland.

He was bent over and lifting something out of the lower reaches of the Landfill.
Tommy wasn’t a quick study and he spent a good ten minutes eyeing it over.
Using both hands to turn it around and tilt it to every angle.
He thought it might be a cooking device as it appeared to be two pans joined together.
He began walking toward the exit where a grand quarry stood with many severe cuts into the hill of it.
He dipped the contraption into a steel container that had filled with water from the previous night’s rain.
Gray and brown oil residue slipped across the water surface.

An old man in a tow truck turned up, Henry was his name.
“Hello young mister Timms what the hell are you doing in the quarry this morning then?”
“Oh hi Henry, take a look at this closed cooking pan I pulled out of the landfill.”
“That’s not a closed cooking pan, it’s a bed warmer from probably about two hundred and fifty years ago.”
“Look at the underside of the pan, look for a maker’s mark.” Henry said.
Tommy pointed it up again under the overcast sky.
The words Dexter came to his eye.
“It says Timothy Dexter.”

Henry scratched his head.
“I wonder if that is one the bed warmers of old famous Timothy Dexter?”
Tommy looked again at it.
“Wow it’s so old and by now it’s probably useless. Do you want it?”
“Yeah why not.” Henry said amused
He lifted it again with both hands and placed it on the back of the pick up truck.

Henry took it down to the NewburyPort Museum Massachusetts.
“I’m sorry, so you are saying that this was one of the famous bedwarmers supposedly destined for the Caribbean?” The lady clerk said.
“I am.” Henry said.
“Where’s the evidence for the claim.” She said.

Henry turned the pan upward showing the makers mark.
The words Timothy Dexter were legible.
“Oh wow, so this is probably valued at around 3 million dollars. We can afford to pay you 2.5 million. You are welcome to try other museums.”
“Not that will do fine.” Henry said pleased with himself.

A year later Henry pulled up to Newbury transfer station and the abandoned quarry. His new Range rover.
An Old friend called Tom hailed him down.
“Hey Henry, long time no see. How did you get enough cash to buy a range rover. Towing cars must be paying out well.”
“Um long story, listen you see a young man around here his name is Tommy Timms?”
“Oh the salvage boy right? No he’s been missing. Rumor has it, he fell into the landfill looking for treasures.”

A tricycle devolution

My foot got caught as I hauled a broken red tricycle from the mess. It was stained with the leftovers of black and yellow paint. One or two of the tassels still pouring out of the sides of the handle bars. 
The seat was ripped and the wheels buckled with the strips of rubber coming off the rims.
It was impossible to know if the thing had been thrown out in the trash because of wear and tear. Or whether the thing had met with misfortune.

The steel back step of it was rusted through.
I carried it with me over to the quarry so I could clean it up.
It looked almost impossible to fix.
But I spent that week picking through hundreds of meters of trash just to find little substitutes until I had everything I needed to fix it up.

At the back of the quarry there was a shed with welding equipment.
I hooked it all up and started welding the tricycle together again.
Mist came in and with it heavy drizzle, the nearby pines stunk of their resin.
Even with the blow torch melting the metal.
Putting off that crisp aroma.

I used some reasonable fresh leftover paint someone had dumped.
Painted the thing blue and white and tucked in and glued some more tassels to it.

There was mold inside the shed from the constant rain and drizzle.
I took the tricycle out of the driveway where the entrance gate was.
Noone ever visited this landfill anymore, as a young man it was a refuge when times were tough.
To remind me I wasn’t the only thing thrown away.

Here I stood almost six foot, too tall for the simple tricycle.
So I cast the spell to shrink myself to just under a meter.
And in a short span of time I was one meter high. I slowly positioned myself comfortably on the tricycle and rode enthusiastically to the small town below.

I couldn’t believe how small I had become. Everything slowly becoming new again.
The town looming up ahead as the wheels rolled faster and faster.
As if years in my mind were turning back.
Like the mile gauge before a used car is imported.
A slow backward journey from the landfill to the small town people thought mattered, until of course it died.

That Gull eye sees

 It stuck to the ground as if it was glued there as if whatever material under it had melted its wings there to plastic bags and flattened food wrappers.

One tiny green yellow eye with a defined pupil looked back at me. It was like the bird had lost it’s body and yet it’s head was clean and free from death rot.
As if there was another rot inside it’s neck eating anything that came up or into the skull.
The head completely preserved in a sinister display of focused power through the one eye.
What made it unsettling was when people were absent one could observe the living seagulls dive down and surround the dead one. Circling it and bowing heads like eyes wide shut.
Crowing and wailing. Not in homage or commiseration but in deep focused worship.
As humans approached the colony would launch off and scatter.
Looking back down mockingly at the human encroacher. For the landfill was theirs.
But they didn’t launch off when i approached and continued their ritual for which I am sharing with you today.
I didn’t know whether to be offended or flattered.
The gulls stood at a strange angle as if picking up a lost transmission from their corpsed brother.
Their own eyes shone with a brightness not of this world.
There was no bickering or squabbling as the gulls slowly moved in a semi circle once to the left and once to the right.
One more bow, the gull closest to me looked back at me in one rapid motion.
Gave me a half nod and the colony took flight in an organized flight over the yonder shining pines.
Another twenty meters back stood a vulture couple. Regal and dark.
Slightly adjusting themselves under the sun.
They stood like guards of the seagull corpse.
I came within some meters of the dead seagull and greeted it as if it was living.
I bowed my head as the seagulls had done.
It’s one eye following my motions. And so I began my own solemn ritual. As if I was one of them.
Not out of ridicule, but with deep desire to tickle out whatever supernatural business was going on here.

I could feel my heart churn as the pupil followed me
I could feel my energy change into something more chaotic yet with some substantial underbelly to it. As if there was a fat spiritual energy slowly filling my gut.
The landfill became dead quiet. A greyish tinge started to affect my vision.
The vultures kicked legs and winged off in different directions.
I blinked and looked around, my sight clearer. My perception sharper.
I bowed once again.
Turned and walked back to my beat up car.
Looking at the way the sky had arranged itself. As if it had participated in the whole ceremony.
My eyes had never been clearer, my sight had never been so incredible.
Funnily enough the hunger of ambition that hampered me much in years passed now felt like it made sense.

The shape you are post pecking order

 who you thought you were perhaps wasn't you.
We live in a fantasy world pretending we can be who we want to be
When in fact we trimmed and shaped ourselves through adolescence
Under the brutal preening of jealous or malicious peers

No matter what I do to convince you
You will believe the lie that you are who you were born to be
When infact you modified many parts of yourself to fit into a nitpicking society
And not nitpicking for the better, arbitrary ridiculous trends

To let this go first you must admit your are false which you will never do
Because you have bought into the layers of false belief that make you up
You are performing when you impose your convictions
Not for me or those who question but for the fools who shaped you

Don't follow the hoofmarks

 Even the impossible became possible
we spend our lives giving ourselves over
Trying to adapt to someone elses measures
Someone elses philosophy

We quote their rubbish and flatter them colorful words
Never intending to live like they did
 Never really understanding who they were
Then blabbing like we understood them

Those that created an idea
sitting in academia waiting to be brought up in a classroom
the few real fans obsessed with their biographies
Learning their formulas and theories

Deepening the shape of their hoofmarks
in history's good mud
And thinking that shape and depth so sacred
Never examining their own weird hooves

Therefore this is not my barbecue
This is not my foster family
I am not included at the feast
I do not share the same allergies

I take my own feather ink
and curl it into my hand
Design another reality
One unlike any of yours

One that can withstand your limited understanding
and derision
Not because it's bigger or better than your cliche
But because it exists in the intangible energy

of my literary mojo
This has no known limits
Maybe inside you it is the same 

Illegal filming

 Jetting down beside the symmetrically planted pines
Only a few kilometers from town
emotion said almost
sky glowed take it in step

Down the side road out toward nowhere
Dusty embankment road
Grass said dare
river concealed by vegetation

Walking up the side
Bonified trespasser all my life
Forbidden human
But it was all a set up

As I looked behind and saw these hacks and their film crew
Not able to get a clue beyond me and my mediocre
With their t rex cameras booms and movie star children crews
Come to steal a page of my script

scribble a mainstream name and adher my anbstract 
to their sense of the world
Right up here riverside
Yes between the glistening pines

On the dusty metal road
caravans as long as buses
to park up next to the piece of the dream 
That feeds my life force