The search for self and exiting the path

Has thou faced the mirror of self
No?
Has thou ignored it?

Has thou strayed from the path alotted you
No?
You didn't break out

You ignored both path and self
Going onward invisible
A smile that says you know

Eyes that say you've lived
Yet thou is just a screen watcher
Neither loyal to sacred veering

Neither interested in knowing the deepness
Maybe you proved there was nothing underneath
Taught me that my meager attempts also failed

Or I have come to believe I am further into my spirit
Than my sensitive skin
Privations self made or otherwise are sacred gifts too

Has though self sabotaged to know the world has traps
Have you deprived yourself because life deprives
Have you never wondered what lurks under skin and bone

Rio Bonito

 They own the land by the river
Floods have driven them broke
They didn't bother trying to adapt
Every curse was allowed to fix itself in

Two meter depth of the narrow stream
Zig zagging across the land
hydrating the cattle
irrigating the crops

But these folks didn't bother evolving
In their slow death name us culpable 
But we were simply visitors observing land
The crow's tantrum matches my laughter

Your shacks are falling down 
Because you have not replaced the boards
Or banged in tiles or fixed screws and nails
Delapidation is your attitude

The fields are overgrown with pest weeds
So tell me what does life owe you?
What right do you have to neglect your land
To fatten yourself and give nothing in return

Positano barber

 Italian Barber shop
Tiny space
The line was long 
A celebrity was served first

I looked into the glass
The back of the man's neck
tense as he used the razor
To clean the tiny hairs off the jawline

Lucertola

These pools full of life
Distracted by the freak waves that push through
By the late summer sun that recruits the blue
Burns the pavement of vicolo 

The thick rock walls as old as roman times
Housing lizards loose and foolish
looking over the turbulant pools
Toward the restaurants above

Each wave rushes into the pool
As if timed to the city clock
to the influx and out flow of people
moving the seaweed inward then outward

The lizard looks into the water
small minnows dart
Their tiny silhouttes
Sliding over the pools boulder floor

The water itself interferring with time
The sun analyzing it lighting it up
In the positano pre autumn
late morning of the lucertola

Winning double decker

 They say life is double decker
Coming in these sturdy amounts
Chasis diamonds rowdy
Anticlimax snacks
 tasteless loud

Who knows maybe a spot of luck
An imaginary ticket to win
Life is double decker
Chance on spin
Challenge and overshare

Suddenly the book is open 
There's your reservation
Hot ink on the page
stuck painted kiss on pale face

Double decker privilege
Something to share
Get a wanter or a needer
It all comes in and no way to deal

social media deluge

The world comes in to decieve

Friendly parameters here

simulated sentiment there

Cute little platitudes to share

Well timed political correction

Shove you in the right direction

Modern morality sewer layer stew

Sculpted double standards renewed

The unpopular forced popular

The unreal forced real in dead thread light

every single human searching for their right

when the poor and ignorant stay put

Equinox forest entity

 Upon a pond
Something boosts
Crashing out of the undergrowth
Huge and gruesome

A monster of the pines, oaks and yews
suddenly in the summerlight
Agoraphobia
Bewildered in the water

Thrashing in the shallows
The murk bubbling and darkening
Fury and shadows loom
Observing from the undergrowth

Glaring like night bonfires

Temperature drops the yew trees bow
Upon the pond is  hardening
Moster retires joining phantom observers
Frost twinkles over the pond

freezes over
Like it never happened

Sanitized words

He doesn't walk
Months in bed
Nights that whisper
Words so hard to hear

The mind presses 
Crushing pressure
Questions have burned
Ambiguous answers

Hours of painful internal inquisition
Pain comes the mental imposing on the physical
And vice versa
Agony walks

Souless doctor
Lisp and click
Air is sanitized
By his words

Electrocuted twice

 They botched the execution
The head gets thrown to and fro
Twists and untwists
Extreme convulsions

The violent rapid clicks
Body clench hip swivel
Skin frizzle blood boil
The steel sparks

Buttocks bubble
Bones crack
The charge hits the heart
The face freezes in gasp

The machine was not rigged properly
The young man survived
But the memories burned
Until his final execution two years later

Noble face

 Scowl of the heir
Shift of the eyes
Let light inside
Greeting furnished in charisma

Smooth facial skin
A house for a brain
One with cypresses
And greco roman columns

Pale glow of the face
colonial porridge
tweaked honesty
The air of nobility

I'll out-train you

 You have done well my fitness leech
rounded muscle and pumped up speeches
If I out train you, you'll be left reaching
Nothing comes when we seek desperately

They've mocked and I've learned steadily
Then they come in timid states to beseech me
Before they spasm arrogance against the carpet again
You've done so well not an ounce of effort pushed in vain

Yet it is all vanity pie that sees you stunted
And cutting it easily the filling is abundant
And filled with unattainable delictable cream
That never meets lips but taints and slashes dream

Lo I've merged and messed with the ugliest parts
Carving out what the world fears to lose
Smoothing and sculpting curating illusions
You want to do the same, sweet and fast

Follow the path
Through these forests dark
How many times was I devoured by my own fears?
My warnings fall on your convinced deaf ears

You who knows all when you train you carve it up
Distribute the knowledge as if you were the arbiter
The fool is boundless the universe a canvas for the clown
In your expectations there exists only fuel for frowns

Beneath the humdrum

 Nothing will suffice as urge rises from within
marking my skin like intricate tattoos
Showing I am an obvious wanter a dreamer
A prisoner of my own heart born lust

Obvious to the world
unable to hide sentiment
the hollowness groans
There is no remedy

This human appearance I carry
Is just a rockface of a mountain front
A canyon inside hides a calefaction
Further in abberant abyss

So deep hides many worlds
Each running on concupiscence
Power plants feeding the collective
Radioactive embers of yen glowing

 Illicit zeal radiates from it´s dire incandescence

Truck of roses

 The driver looked at the passenger
Changed gear and urged the engine forward
Not a kiss was exchanged
but glances repeated

They pulled into the first florist
Carried a load of roses
Sunny greetings and morning puns
then back onto the road

Exhaust smoke deluge
Over the rough stone tarmac
Steering wheel requires force
carrying passion

Glances are traded
On one occasion contact is made
Holding two hundred meters from the curve
He knows her and she knows him

Courage is a form of love
In a truck that distributes such possibility
To so many unwilling lonely hearts
The driver and passenger among them 

Ghost in the hallway

 Flick blank
I can see you from the corner of my eye
Sacred ghost
You flicker toward me then disappear

You seem more afraid of me than I am you
Flash glance
I feel your presence linger
A soft shadow at the doorway

I could almost give you a name
And not judge you
Or find you sinister
Simply let you exist 

sometime after your death

Realizing optimism

 You may realize
left foot forward then swing hips
Right foot now
you saw yourself walking

Playing toward the backyard
Half smile demands contact
Demands sunlight
footsteps and optimism

You may realize
take time, sit down
slowly reflect
Your grace intact

Change screams inconvenient truths
The first one is absolutely no fixing
The second the past holds no answers
The third letting go is the only option

You may realize
All good things come
You can feel them
coming from the great nothings
into a wonderful tangible place in reality

Twas a pandemic

 twas an empty place
Abandoned by all
Bacteria up the walls
Twas a pandemic

Crawling with the residue of extinction
The play ground held no children
suddenly realize the sense of solitude
The rooms are furnished

Though no living soul goes there
Not even the old
It is is a place of eternal rest
It was a pandemic!

I stand in the street
Both sides are free
there is no thoroughfare
Civilization has given up

Silence is an answer

 Where there is no reciprocity
Where there is no emotion
You pour yourself out
No of the flow returning

Silence is an answer

Make your needs known
Be met with incredulity
Where there is no trust
Where there is no goodwill

Silence is an answer

Where you speak
But noone listens
Where you give
and recieve not

Silence is an answer

Colonize

 Traveling the sea
Fear is diluted in the ship wake
Just how deep it is beneath
Noone wants to know

The table sits at the bow
we study maps
Great tracts of land
Shape of organs

Continents and islands
distances too far
Places of deprivation
and abundance

For both reward
And punishment

The penny for the frog

 The frog barked
seriously
Didn't leap nor croak
Someone slipped a penny into the fountain

The frog bit down on it
Teeth marks left
After it spit it out
Sending it flipping out of the brick work

Into the hands of a small boy
Who stared at the large motionless eyes
Tucked the coin into his pocket
when to utter a word

A splatter of rain hushed him
He looked up undisturbed by the frog barking presently
To see a pale silver sky sprinking random thin droplets
smaller than tears

Gangs of mosquitoes came in from a nearby forest canopy
That will shut the frog up the toddler thought
He'll be watching them to see where they land
But the frog kept on barking like a dog

Not leaping or croaking
Eyeing the toddlers pocket
The toddler picked the penny out
Held it up to the weak glare of the silver sky

And realized it was an ancient coin
Of amazing value
One day he would sell it
And buy the fountain

And keep the frog and it's barking offspring
He examined the bite marks
and looked at the frog 
He flicked the coin back to the frog and said to himself

I don't need to own any of this.

Missing ingredient

 You used to be an ingredient that i put in my coffee
Now I feel that sense of something missing
The brew is slightly bitter but I'm fussy
But still good to keep me busy

I usually add cinnamon and cocoa
Just a dash of you even in doubt
But the jar is empty, it's a no show
we're all out

Sweetness used to give me such a headrush
I miss it all the same, dark bean crushed
The strange sweetness enriches the warm drink
That would make me move, make me think

Root of rage

 Born again into the portrait
Flames from mouth
obscurity
schist

Short cut lawns
abandoned there 
By a wealthy world
left static

rock melts
The forests above observes
The land shakes
The slope speaks

Bamboo knocks and whistles
Minion of ghosts gripe and wail
Dead ancestors look down from the window
Come to enslave you

Blow fire
Labor for the century
Out do you
Press forward

Maim the adversary
Advance

Smirk of the barrow

 It was getting full now
It sat rusted smiled somehow
Brimming over with garden waste
My mind suggested rest, limbs haste
The front wheel sinking into the mud
the iron soil red like blood
I threw another handful of weeds
The beds were clean as was need

My hands approached and curled around handles
Assuming the weight barrow's contents demand
raising it up in confidence for forward motion
Physics came to disprove my simple notion
sadly the wheel did not turn nor budge
Over-acquainted with deep red mud
Should I endeavour now to empty part
I shove and press not moving the cart 

The mystery was how my energy never dulled
I picked it up again like a tide a ship's hull
An energy rose in my humble bones
The wheel turned under my own groan
That grin it wore inside the eaten metal rust
Now but a scowl as I urged and thrust

Now vanished

 Too seen 
Too exposed infront of everyone
Pack the little you brought
Your presence a secret

Little fidget
Long fingers wittle love
Now out of the way
Top shelf sugar

Forbidden rapport
feel that restlessness
Would love bring calamity
A few blocks across

Dwelling on something
The sense of absence
The mind here is quiet
Once so generously bustling

In agitation
In wonder
Now mercy be
All is tranquil

Alas being shook up was elation
clashing eyes were thrilling
A relief for the mind
A frost for the heart

The uncertain philosophy of the ocean

 Lying on a floating block a nameless pier
I investigated the rays moving underneath
It looked like bait but hunger was universal
An uncertain philosophy

Yellowish meat should have been chicken
but wasn't
The line slowly slipped into the water
I lifted my legs
afraid something might bite

The line was running faster
almost no time to set the bait
before it disappeared,
luring some poor fish

The waters were so abundant
As if there were no predators
I slip beneath the surface
and become the shark

 Tropical fish
swimming inside irony
an aquarium
uncertain philosophy

Always swimming
putting on a show
then escaping a million schools
while the fish swim up

Tickling their desires
the salt water had to be perfect
in an imperfect world
one moment bitter with silence
the next overwhelmed by noise

Colors flashing on their bodies
Grace moving through the water of fame
The appeal from outside
The call from within

What a reef

Ankle slitter

 The man was sooty now,
five hours under the car,
he had just lied there
and choked on exhaust cloud blues

His leather pants and jacket skimmed and scratched, 
against the coarse concrete floor.
But he didn't care, he almost drifted off.
Every canter of footsteps would awaken him fresh.

He dreamed of an achilles heel severed
and was willing to wait the whole day.
Just to see the flesh above the high heel or boot open
and over the pale gray tarmac spill.

Then he would covort with himself,
between the chasis and the concrete.
The deepest sense of fiendsish freak.
As the man or woman fell and on impact coming face to face.

The responsible for their undeserved pain.
As one wrythed in shock and pain.
The other in strange deranged pleasure,
before rolling out redfaced and bushwhacked.

Getting on his motorcycle and riding back to his cabin near a slum.

Eye Under The Sun

 The glare hid a galaxy of sight.
A patchwork of every cream and yellow.
Sun stained nimbus.
Built painstakingly by an enthusiastic morning.
So dedicated to show off the eastern sky.

The warmness of which moves me to motion.
Virtue is movement.
The morning holy therefore.
For building the inspiration to get me mobile.

To creating one single firey eye observing me.
As I earnestly exercise after dawn.
To wear myself into the first hours,
like weening at the front door of life.

Yes the eye captures any and all who are up and exposed.
To the early architecture of a common tuesday.

Gray manning it

 Dressed in the long beige trenchcoat, panic cream. Black top hat and dark glasses
Taking steps to follow in unison. 
Unwary crowds swarmed and separated.

The gray manner kept it up, even reproduced clever gestures.
Both absurd and refined from those infront and those behind.
Creeping, entering and exiting shops surrepticiously

Little undertakings of purchasing, timed and executed to fit back into the false safety.
The invisible danger of going incognito, not understood.

Coming up to the car, the head turns left and right to capture any potential harmdoers.
Several clung to the brick out of sight.

They crouched with evil grins, despotic eyes, insane brows, behind the walled corner.
Their shadows hostile and unpleasant, touching out and making the gray manner drop her keys.
Slipping from her hand and mouth cursing.

Luckily trapped in the grate not falling through.
Panic cream didn't take, for the hand quickly went down to grab, white knuckles, gray man. 
Half because of the horrid shadows

Half because she was afraid the keys would slip down further. Pushed by the evil shadow fingetips.
As she arrived home in her safe bubble of a car. On the safest route back to her address

She unlocked the door and closed it behind her. Taking off the colored rainbow scarf inside her trenchcoat.
And taking a deep breath out as if she was holding it the entire time.
She threw the scarf down next to the bumper stickers demonstrating her political opinions and sense of humour idem.
There was much to celebrate. She had survived another trip to town. Unidentified. Undisclosed.
In that sweet illusion of safety.
 

Maiden in court

 There in court
from the throne beady ones staring
Maiden blushes
The new fantasy

The flavor of the year
The unhad sex in the air
The unborn heir
Her cascading hair

There in court
Smirk in quiver
Heart in armor
sense of passion

The dance that makes the body sway
The movement shows seductive ways
The sense of urgency makes king brave
New mistress those bedsheets crave

The pale supermarket clerk

 Pale clerk
Pink pale skin
A mouth that wants to smile
A disability in the body

Some deficiency in the mind
But a will to joy nevertheless
Down the aisle to replace lost items
Heavy steps and a light aura

The other clerks move around
half embarassed in their normal skin
Yet this pale clerk moves through
For she belongs

Her condition hasn't limited her
The place is hers
ownership radiates
simply being who she is

A friend that doesn't say hello

 Round the park he walks
Alone headphones in
Looking ahead not talk
Walking at a pace

Rigid stance he fosters
Fully introverted
Straight posture
Forward inspired

Graying toward mid fifty
Youth not forgotten yet
keeping brisk step
No opening for regrets

Cap and rucksack
Ready to go
A silent friend
Barely says hello

What Jenny is

 You puncture the night
You grate whimsy
Explore every possible pun
Every well pointed quip

Yet shed the glow of goodness
Inside the night you punctured
Inside the lost person you hungered
Yes you shone

An ignis fatuus that enlightens what is dim in me
You come quiet as a phantom
Awkward as a maimed zebra to wreck my illusions
For that I am grateful as you gallop on my skull

black and white, black and white etc etc

Your sensitivity is supernatural, gorgeous
and captures me offguard
instills a sense of danger
Of total exposure

Of every hidden and forbidden texture
That makes interaction with this fumble of a world
In a way I am clean by your doing
In a way I am clear in my sight

Yet in a way I am a fool by your fire
One you enjoy as eternal kindling

Of metaphors and spirit animals

 Strange metaphors come forward and morph into who I am
The blocks piled upward
Toward the sense of who I am
What may I become next in your imagination

Am I your muse or you perhaps mine
Who inspired who
Did my spirit animal survive the last ice age
And since hence come out to play

With an appetite for the millenia unfed
Empty underwater lodges the old world dead
The lake surface flat like a joke, a lie nay a deception
So that the desperate would swim

And their bottom halves be dragged under
into the deepest lair
To the core collapse of all ideas
where there they like my thoughts will be digested

Affront the moon

 Something stirs within the moon
A spirit of a dragon
Serpentine and growing
Lifting me from slumber
pushing me into the world
To seek what I must conquer

Something breaks through
It is neither humble nor mild
And it is hungry it needs to feed on the earth
It is so restless and golden
It is so hot
without it's membrane
All will burn

It sends me onward with sight and strength
Passion for the land
Fire in my heart
obsessed with the heat
That is of me
But not of me
Something lives inside
Something rages

I observe the city
I worship the mountains
The forests
The God within
The external God
The heat and the euphoria
The clarity and confusion
The everything 
The total total nothing

I open my hands
and give thanks

Peter knew it all

 In Ludwigsfeld Came MiliPeter
Ohst Milibauer obst und gemüse
And who the hell am I to interfere
Through the rows and crops

Under ten meters of topsoil
The hexe's bones lies
Peter knew everything
The sun shone on his bald head

Flattering blades of sarcasm
When I look into you
With the emptiness I bring
From the edge of the world

You guess what I am doing here
A misguided direction to nostalgia
A will to shock oneself of the past
A misunderstanding of existance

The distillation of high proof apathy
I make clay figures of your nihilism Peter
One eyed clay figures
That turn hard inside the oven

Then I dance like a crow
On the freshly harvested crop
Above the witch's bones
Knowing fog's damp and manure stench

Peter as you know everything
Tell me of the ghosts swarming in the cornfields
The sprigs can hear their discontent
Peter Milibauer judge me spiritually naive

I come crawling and scrambling by dawn
You have your doctrine
Your sense of justice
I unfold a different reality

You look down at the page
Consumed with your resistance
You are kidnapped by absurdity
Your sarcasm falls on deaf ears

The corn is mute and dumb
Only the witch's bones stir
The one your descendents burned
Roads were straighted so you could give your speech

Your perception of a universe that doesn't bow to your ideals
A reality that taunts your certainty
As youth claim the world is unfair
As you Peter puritanical claim to know the world

The way things should be according to your personal doctrine
Your love of deep formality clashing with pollen
discomfort in the inevitable contamination
Reinheit und gesundheit

Gott hat dich geliebt

Unter dem Baum
zählst du deine Probleme
jedes einzeln nacheinander
suchst nach Lösungen

Aber da ist nichts
nur Verwirrung
das Leben ist kein Fluss
auch kein Berg

Es ist alles mein Schöne
der Frieden und der Krieg
tiefes Leiden mein Schatz
seelischer Schmerz meine Hübsche

Bist du blind weil Gott dich liebt
aber du siehst es nicht
und alles ist zerbrochen und vorbei
doch ich stehe dir bei

Mit seiner Kraft
lass uns tiefer gehen
Verwirrung und Leidenschaft
lass uns alles verlieren

The soul wrapped in beauty

 Wrapped inside that package you wear
I wonder if you truly are as beautiful on the inside
As you appear to be on the outside
Or is it just fancy gift paper?

Will we not find anything inside
Fingers unpeel you to get a feeling
Yet you won't open
In the shade under the tree you sweat

I come with cool water
Attempt to convince you the world is not as bad as you think
But words don't come 
can I convert silence into meaning?

Absence into presence
To see what's inside of you
Is it something sparking?
Something to accompany me

Or just some elaborate game?
for broken hearts and rainy days
Partially opened, my eyes have dipped inside
T'was not something I recognized

Just a deeper mystery
I want to feel with entire being
With my heart and every thought
With the electricity of birth

With the raging static of death
I want in, I know this mine may be viable
May have what I have for a lifetime sought
I therefore unwrap your rock

Protected from the southerly

 Protected from the southerly wind

The palm tries to survive

The worst of frosts will pass

It will stay straight and spread

The wellington train will pass it

Looking into the back garden where it grows

It's deal of fame unknown

It's audience almost always the same

But number of observers always different

It shouldn't be growing there a boy said to his mother

Trees like that only grow in the tropics

His mother looked out at the trunk and fronds

Maybe it will die this winter she thought to herself

Years later when the woman had retired

her son gone to Australia

she still saw it there in that back yard, protected from the southerly

Amenities of the plaza

There was both an icecream shop
And a cinema inside the hotel
The cinema was open
The icecream shop closed

In the open foyer
Gardens were lit up
Suddenly there seemed no reason to leave
Morning was almost gone

Midday was calling 
And it was time to return
Cross the city somewhere closer to home
But in the warm end of the morning

Tranquility stole the skin and worry
It was unnecessary or even a crime to rush
 

The pope's inheritance

 The pope's special families
congregated around the lower level of the house
Disputing how they would share in the forbidden money
How it would be practical

Each family stating how they were related to the pope
And how much money they thought they were entitled too
It was a life time of deliberation
In the the end it was distant relatives with the gift of the gab

Hotel vagabond plaza

 I couldn't get into the motel
The gate was locked and wrapped in wire
It was impossible 
The way the wires were tied
It looked like it could be electrified
The dark short hair and fat framed glasses
Looked into me as I attempted to jiggle the door
I wanted in and clerk wanted me out
There were so many repairs to make
Why was the clerk doing those things
There was no distracting the clerk
But I waited for hours
Slipped in unnoticed
Walked over the ancient thin beige carpets
Got lost in the labrynth of corridors
Searching for a courtyard
To breathe fresh air again

Atop the shelf

 On top of the library shelves
It took hours to get there now finally
I am two stories high
trying to keep my balance

One whole shelf fell as I climbed
I steady myself here on top
And find strange items there
An ashtray and a houseplant

The librarian doesn't see me
She towers seven feet high
slipping books into gaps
A literary nun

I look down from the shelf top
Stuck there between an ashtray and houseplant

Dust igniter

 Walking slowly up the drive way 
Under the plaza hotel hitherto utter calm
I carry a chain almost as thick as my arm
dozens of car carcasses littered the lane

Mechanics and thieves worked under the overhang
A tunnel entrance that had caved in and looked like a garage
The chain moved like a thick python in my hands
I swung it and hit it against the dry soot and sand

Dust plumed and drifted until the all was obscured
So thick was it, that the eyes were assaulted sick
Unable to make out shapes encouraging panic
I swing the chain it's tip hitting panels, windows

Occasionally flesh
Often just the air
But dust did settle
And not soul had remained in the lane

Under Plaza hotel

THe sham of pleasure

 Cheap pain
Chief aim
Achieve the same
day in, drains
out

Cheat lie lame
sheath names
sheen aid
no doubt

Cheap pain
shins inflammed
Seen as tame
No way out

Sheet rain
Sins infect blame
sweet as shame
sweats like gout

Preparation of Kitty

 At the tower
One day before
The condemned asked for the block to be delivered
The jailer brought it to her cell

Put her head down on it
The forbidden humm of it
Salty lines of old small pools
from older offenders

Unseen consequences
or ignored
As she slid her fingertips 
Along the dull cold surface

Imagining the next morning
The homage to the king
The beveled edge dropping
Divine separation

Sleeping there over the block
sweetly side on toward the door
In case of sudden visitors
The only fright would be the axe

You have been gone

 Where have you been

Where is your wife she said

It's been such a long time 

Her eyes crossed over

A wonderful flash of interest

A sudden pretending

A fluke awkwardness

Then back to business

Selling life to the hopeful

What did you see in one

and not another?

Not a breakfast kid

 Spoiled grandchild looks down at porridge
Looks up at busy grandmother 
and exerts discontent
Items go from pantry to table top

Finding their rightful places
Eyes watch grandchild
Patiently waiting for him to eat
The hiss of a fry pan continues

The chimes of cutlery
But the child won't eat
He just stares at the table
The table fills his interest empties

He gets up takes his school bag from the hook
And runs out the door his plate still full
on the breakfast counter

For the time lost

 Taxi waiting downstairs.
The women were late.
One said hurry.
The other "let him wait".
And slowly in their own time.
Dawdled even after warning sign.
Burning through the minutes.
The driver becoming impatient.
And off he drove in angry heat.
The two women searched for him on the street.
Then gave up and walked back upstairs.
The taxi driver only hit the steering wheel once.
He accelerated as if on the run.
Cursed in three languages rage wash grin.
And swerved on purpose to hit a pigeon.
Just to hear it squash under tyre.

Smash and smoulder.
The taxi crashed bonnet folding.
Several blocks down from the women's apartment
A sliding door opened on teh escarpment.
For teh women heard it the bash and went out to see.
But it was out of sight, but not out of curiosity.
They leaned on the railing to be able to get a better look.
The screws were loose and the metal slipped off it's hooks.
Both women fell five stories onto pavement below.
Their dying breaths heavy laboured and slow.
Yet they could see the smoking mess of the taxi in distance
And said to one another "Look karma really exists"
Then they bled out on the sidewalk.

The mystic the thinker the seer

 When Alexander came with all of his minions and armies.
I simply went out to meet him.
Jerusalem would be burnt to the ground.
So I cast the dream way and showed him.
This land was not to be conquered.

But take your fire and arrows and blades.
And smash Persia.
And apart from the disease of ambition.
I'll let you sleep in peace.

Dirty grains of sand

 Within the lounge

A sandbank in place of a sofa
The flicker of the t.v the only light
A shovel to mound the sand

To find comfort
In the thick of selfishness
To find oneself
Those tiny grains scratching skin

Weeks and months droop
The sand is filthy
The t.v flickers
Laughter overpowering the chest

The sound of it absorbed into the sand
The volume the t.v turned down
To focus on each burst of laughter
Legs and stomach submerged in the dirty sand

It seems we sink into the ghastliest of our habits
The t.v vibrates light giving long speeches in flashes
But eyes cannot see for the body is below sand
Starving for air

kiss sun farewell

 Varanda
See the last of the day
As if it were the very last of light
That existance would be swallowed

Never to be given up
Never to be renewed again
That morning would never swing again

That knives would find places at belts
The world betrayed
A blade away

A soft sky
Dressed in thicker cloud
The last beams paint 
the nature of a farewell sun

In light I was born and subjugated
In darkness I rise
The eyes of my soul restless up there
screaming at the evening birds retirement

Warning them
It would be the last time
Blick blink
Varanda

That search for joy

 Searching for joy
A kind less known
In little bundles
Very hidden

A part of me at the surface
ready to dive in
What do I treasure?
Following the boat across the water

The sun across the sky
Sky looks upon me
Catches me looking for the light
In daylight it seems more illusive still

Following the sense of goodness
It took me an eternity to learn
Searching for illusive joy
Sense of wonder

Disagreeing with the bay

 when i woke up
I was clinging to the side of the mountain
My head turned and looked out to sea
neither wind nor sun would speak to me

The rough stone of the coastline
is my conversation with the sea
Argument is tide
Rage and tempest

No harbor friendly to keel
No sandy flat beach welcomes
Just dark craggy edges
The long sharp saw

Softening the sea
Again and again

Never be the wiser

 Her side of town, fancy feelings and things like her. And in her mind, things were suave.

That rope between her mind and her heart sometimes tying romance. In my head, I'd connected that rope. The one I'd climb down, got cut.

Now I'm swinging between the two ends, sometimes upside down, somewhere she can't even see, sometimes getting her choked up.

The deeper secret is the infatuation rolling around, tied inside a little chest in me, begging to get out and tie those two pieces of rope together.

Picture threads as mouths, lips to lips, tongue to tongue, swinging from breathless lungs. A fire that never can be quelled, burning the south side of her heart, smoking her out behind her eyes, keeping that steam engine on its tracks.

Long hours disconnected— I need jump-start cables. It all becomes another unrealistic fantasy. A drop of it infects my thoughts, seeking your reality through fantasy. I'll pretend it didn't come from you, like the rest of my delusions.

Lips to bouncing thighs, you ruse. I'll read you head to tippy toe; you read my behaviour so the yearn grows.

The dreams you sew so neatly never reach me. Your confession never realized.

Mine I've couriered from my heart to you through my eyes.

But if you ever really felt anything, I'd never be the wiser.

Effortless karma

 They didn't know how to say my name
The laugh goes inside and outside of them
Happy safe times are no longer there
Anything can happen

These two look at me and decide some narrative
But they have little idea about where or what is happening
happy safe times are no longer possible
It is not by my hand or desire

It is the natural conclusion of ignoring the truth
Wrapping action and routine in lies
Things don't go your way not because I say
I just sit parallel and it unfolds like that

Elbow grease. (Anxiety)

 Morning holds a cup of anxiety
Heart they say Jenny
Is just a liability
We attempt to teach it
But it teaches us

Morning holds a plate of indigestion
let it sit beside the sink
Then slide its contents into the trash
heart can be a guide but never a teacher
Only the divine and centered mind

Don't run from the dread
Dress yourself in those layers
Feel the fabric of them come undone
Until they are ripped up
Then use them to clean up the mess

Cauldron of gossip

 I told you that it wasn't me
Stubborness in your disbelief
It wasn't me back then
What has your insistance cost you
Present day a fortune

See through the gossip
But it's already true for you
I am whatever the consensus
if only you had taken caution
A cheap outlook

In the train of life
We cross and meet between carriages
You are adamant 
But not diamond
In error

time culminates into certain wells
Where fairness speaks
Take the time now to rue
To spend it in the skull and stew
Your mistake

Feldspar constant

 It lies infront of the car dealership.
Oddly shaped.
Gray speckled white.
Kicked a few dozen times.

Sometimes landing closer to the gutter.
Sometimes closer to the road.

It's hardness always.
It's immutable state.
How it takes up space inside a hand.
And here near the park how it stands out of place.

Above a smooth surface.
Waiting for a car tyre.
Or a shoe connected to a foot.
Or maybe even a deluge.

It will slowly move a block down.
Exist in the form it is.

Unlike us of flesh.
Remaining exactly as it is.
Unchanging.
Stone.

Season of the creeper

 Out there left for dead I was the scarecrow
In your mind the tailor sewing dream
Out there in the field packed with hay
Won't you say hello

Through the pines
Winter caused the world to be abandoned
Foraging wendigo
Bones cracking in the frost

Loud as whip cracks
Icicle falls sharp end into earth
A small statue
Destined to melt away

Further into the wildernerness
Where absurdity exists
I am the mirror hanging on the stairwell
Exposed to the elements

Dying breaths
Exhaustion
Hunger unrecognizable
Dogged searching

Those who are lost
Come face to face
Deplorable and ominous
Calling you deeper

Career action plan

 They move in lines
See how they die
The battle field once dry
Now wet and plight

The fires roll and rise
Escape flames caught me trying
Ill exit burning bombs flying
Scolding skies

Tanks ramble and drones motor high
Ballistic missiles glide
City blocks dive
They move forward in lines

The land where stale mate is applied
Noman's potmarked land is frying
Craters where corpses still lie
Friendly rifle, friendly fire

Lodge a complaint
Conglomerate human resources department

Shade and the golden ones

Prudish and pompous
Who could embody 
Not all of the grandchildren
Only those that fit in 

Their bathroom in perpetual shade
Near pictures of the family
My face not here
The dark side of the house

Cool all year round
Overgrown bamboo
Shuts out the others
Chosen neglect

what gets left in the shade
Get's overlooked
Ignored at the dinner table
Anger is the only residue

As the others struggle to grow
Seemingly no mercy
Self absorption
recycling the fat

The over achievers were chosen for compliance
Their concealment of hidden flaws
Their biggest feat yet

Ribbon speed

 Dog sprints
Up to the highway
Beside the lorry
Another dog runs into the distance

Dog watches him go
Could have been a her
Probably a smell my one knew
He looks back to me

Deluge between us
Roads turn to shallow lakes
He sprints into it
and swims back to me

Problematic mammal
Love him

Gym routine

 Adjusting the weight
Making way for others
Pushing up
dreams harden

reality begs to be mixed
for it may curdle
Move the seat level
change the position

Exhaust yourself there
So much to prove
Noone to turn to
sweat and effort

thoughts subside
Intensity diminishes
A kind of freedom flexes
Needing to be fed everyday

I'm boring

 Sometimes I speak.

She gives me silence.

Sometimes she speaks
to fill the void.

Perhaps she sees it now:

I'm boring.
I want my space.
No crowds.
No dancing.
No desire.

Just work.
Just work.
Until I disappear.

But work is empty too.

So what remains
when the music dies?

Why keep reaching
for nothing?

Why keep searching
when I can't find
me,
you,
or why
I began?

The lab on the abandoned highway

 Down to the flat two kilometers before the bridge
Where the old sheds stood
Random mediocre macracarpa
Sewagey trees with nothing but big trunks
A peppering of native bush hanging on

There set up your laboratory
Your sophisticated prison
There we can take the other ones
See what they really really believe

Tap into the depths of their mystery diseases
Put them away like cattle inside fences
Kill their parents make it look like suicide
Test the new pop drugs on these ones

See how readily veins buzz and euphoria dwells
Strap them in and see it all shake like those moments
Just before impact during a car accident
Sewage minds will flow

The cattle will be greased
And set alight to distract the cameras

Watch you shiver

 No way across you want to get to know yourself
Sinking half way back to shore
Soon alone feel the heat as if it were cold
Those who said they'd be there and just ignore

Saw you coming on the sand and avoided
Walked back in the opposite direction before you get dry
What did you owe them what did they owe you
What a game to keep score

To hurt deep down to withdraw again
Just to return to the same disgrace
How you feel the tickle of outrage
creeping up on you again

The salt water slowly evapourates
But you've no towel to dry off
And curse the man that offers
And worship the man who took yours

They make it to the floor

 She stared down and began to cry
Life was over
she tried to look up
tears flooded in
down hands together to pray
But no faith

They separate again
How gray it all seems
Tears make it further and further
Her resignation prevents her from wiping
They make it to the floor

Drops dry dreadfully into dust
She cries the rest of me out of her
She'll leave me behind pretty soon
Sharing her misery piece meal with someone else 

Stardom and bloodloss

 Blood from the face
The celebrity lays back on the grass
his nose surgery went awry
Now he bleeds on his beach towel

The gorgeous women in the water unbeknownst
It flows out and panic hooks in
He attempts to stand but shame keeps him prostrate
It keeps coming out
Did the surgeon do a rush job

Was it a mistake to demand the discount 
This would cost him dearly come film time
I'll just wrap my face in the towel, he said to himself
A crow sat on the edge of a solar panel

It seemed to snarl
It looked at the celebrity with hunger
Did it want to eat my nose, he thought
He grabbed his face in his towel and race to his car

He fainted as he opened the door
Doing more damage to his face
The fate reading crow got his prize
Entourage girls kept frolicking picture perfect 

Teenage want and slaughter

 If we had just given up on wanting
We would have more than enough by now
More than we ever had before

There goes I living in the conditional

We lean on the cattle gate
Inside the slaughter shed
Labrynth of sheep death

Teenagers refused
If we had just gone with the flow
We'd be millionaires

It might have been mostly mine

Past the rock
on Devil's elbow
Past the old church nursery

The dead mulberrry
The governor's meager palace
If we had just given up on wanting

But noone ever warned us on the contrary

And we chased the absurd
Were refused and denied 
Were so much less than we thought

Even the sky would shape the cloud into promises

None to grant
Just to steep the hunger
In a mountain tea above a makeshift abattoir

Working for your keep

 The packs were becoming a tall pile
The monitor called us to organize
We were told we could stay if we helped
So we did as we were told

Cleaning the cloak rooms
fixing the broken rides
unseen worker bees
Spanners and screw drivers

Blue uniforms
Though thank god
New shoes over holy socks
three round meals

Maintenence for the park
Voyeurs of the rich
Our grease stained uniforms
Not very good camouflage

Bowie and fish

 David Bowie's eyebrows swam
like two tropical fish
His irony the aquarium
Unsure of his own philosophy
His charities unseen

Always singing
Putting on a show then
escaping his million fans
seeking this hero
The fish swim up

Tickling fan's desires
The salt water had to be perfect
In an imperfect world
One minute bitter from silence
The other overwhelmed by noise

The colors on their bodies
The grace in the water of fame
The appeal from outside
The call from withing
What an aquarium

The road in socks

 Dry summer
long hot daunting days
We are down to our socks
Our tears don't make it to our cheeks
For the sun dries them up

Make our way to the tiny town of waikanae
Our shoes have busted and no longer lace
We continue along the chalky stones in socks
Sunstroked and hopeless

Roadworkers chortle
Point and riff raff rattle
Their junk food faces judge
As we pass emaciated

What charity will have us
What side of God shall will pray to?
As we come to the sanctuary
Muted by Exhaustion 

Pastel colored cars

 These pastel colored amusement park cars
A wall of faces
surrender envy
make me feel
make me feel

The way they ride around seemingly forever
The children laughing gleefully
Their parent's silent competition
Make them feel
something beyond this envy

How they stand now empty
But yearning faces still look on
Imagining driving over smooth
Turnstyle's stuck
Ticket man is absent

It's all beeen traded in for a zoo
So surrender your envy
Or they might just cage you
With the rest of the furry critters
from where the pastel colored cars would sit.

With malice, hornets and brown sauce

 With malice it could be done
Not with sword not with gun
Under a thick dosage of sauce
Brown sauce

Terribly misunderstood steak so thick
The hornet's nest is absent mindedly kicked
And out spin the stingers blood to bleed
You'd think a helping of hyperdermic needles
might jostle the mind inside indeed

With malice he cursed from under his breath
For assasination dwelled in thought
oh whose thought question brought?
The sinew will bake from within
Resistance will dry I'll have mine

Then salted with extracted saline 
to dampen it by force of spin
finishing once again with brown sauce on chin
malice as sweet and overpowering as cinammon

Terribly misunderstood authority inflatted
Malice sunk into the temples of the law creater
brown sauce slipping from the side of the mouth
down like hostile treacle
down like shipwreck

Sinew pulls 
Resistance tries
The begger and the pauper smile
The pretender cries
Maybe a hornet or two will jostle the mind

Failed somatic reclamation

 Some where back in southern Germany.
Where summer sunset took over an hour.
Fucking in an abandoned hospital.
Next to a race track.
Step sons and permanence.

Desperate passions,
quite like huge government projects.
They will tax you.
And you'll never feel like you got to the bottom of it.
Sunsets and fucking are supposed to feel romantic.

But it all felt like a routine checkup.
The woman was enigmatic, euphoric even.
But abandoned hospitals don't bode well for allure.
And going straight for the home run,
felt like a cheap "all you can eat" with a time limit.

The race track near the hospital also empty.
No speeding motors tearing it up on the track.
The thought accelerated me so I could get it done with.
When it was done we took the Johnny gowns off.
Put our regular clothes back on, nothing was better, 

We were still two hurt people inside an abandoned hospital, next to an empty race track.

Walking past my past-self

 I walked past myself on the way to the dairy.
pick up somethings because night would be quick.
Cold afternoons breeze sharp and uncomfortable.
The elm on the corner yellow but it wasn't autumn.

I sought signs in my surroundings.
Like I had been here before.
This life I had absorbed into.
This body I was looking out of.

What I was supposed to be.
What I was supposed to do.
I walked past all that too.
Left it on the footpath.

Walked in the bell chimed.
Went straight to each item without thinking.
The man behind the counter was polite.
The exchange was short almost pleasant.

Out I went looking down at the ground outside the dairy.
The concrete so well stepped on, smoothed over even.
I walked past myself leaning against the wall of the shop.
Smoking a cigarette and pretending not to care, pretending...

Bullies and how they work.

 There's literally no grimmer punishment than getting humiliated by your peers when you are young at school.
Notice how adults as mediocre as we are, quickly forget how terribly dreadful it was to fall into the trap of, or become by proxy the butt of someone's joke, a joke that will involve the participation of the whole class or even the whole year.

And how ridiculous the concept of safe is in schools, when the irony is there is nothing safe. It is a place of social danger. Bullying exists at the same level as always, it was just upgraded.

It has become more of a challenge. And also much more rewarding. Instead of leveraging the sensitive prejudices the bully find himself navigating and engineering situations to make his target seem like the tyrant. And as children naive many get sucked into a situation that paints them the bigot.

The bully continues unaffected. And the teacher pretends that level of manipulation does not exist.
The shame and agony of becoming a pariah when your greatest hope was to belong is worse than losing your job as an adult. Possibly worse than a break up.

Because they haven't built the emotional fortitude to deal with being blindsided on such a level.

Never underestimate a bully.

Shaded vestige

 Merging with grey,
Loves only night.

Daggers drag against hardened cement.

Enemy of day,
blemish upon white.

Teeth that should be crushed are sharpened.

Contrarian of light,
Ingredient of the afraid.

Wings that can be read, their shapes absorbed into tarmac

Concealed from sight,
The human soul it's prey

Almost a whisper

 Calmly I touch you on the shoulder
Neck skin folds 
Head sedately moves round
Lips part briefly

Words spill
As eyes glue
Anticipation meets action
You breathe a word

Calmly I listen to your wonder
Fondness folds
Curiosity gingerly positions herself
The mind wanders

Those who can't....

 
The thing about being a teacher reflects what my father told me a million times.
Those who can, do, those who can't teach.
But those who learn are incredible, their evolution is divine.
And although I struggle with feelings of being no one or nothing,
I see value in what they take.
I have become a gardener of ideas.
I have recycled and pieced together many crazy ideas.
My students have taught me more than I could have ever learned by myself.
I see my biases and my disgusting laziness of thought.
Most of them are smarter than me.
Some of them appear godlike. And If i wasn't born with the right language in my mouth.

I might just have become the nothing that I was taught I was. In the place I was raised.
A negative on society.
An addict.
A tax.
A vandal.

As I couldn't fit in, isn't it justified I became a teacher.

Ring leader

 Lambert creek
venemous caterpillar
Oak that trembles in winter
Unwilling to shed leaves
Feeding the prefrost pests

Cursing the land
as the boy in the sandpit
Tightens his jacket in gale
Positions his soldier figurines

Citizen salt
Ash and so hygienically clean
Not a leaf brown or rusted
Litters the street

Sitting on the Thonet
Contemplating 
scribbling in black book
Pondering excrutiating death

Rallying the restless
Harnessing their inadequacies
Into a tangible hate refined arcane
rehearsing for the scourge

Noble Aim Conundrum

 The intoxication of social prestige
 Pushed the prosperous to kill 
Their original altruistic goals
Overidden by an indulgnet sense of power

The group convinced of their modis
From pew to tank pray mantis divine
New found authority
A strange cull is undertaken

Armed to punish the world
According to their doctrine
The victims all happenstance pedestrians
Suffering and dying at their hands

The social prestige pushing them to do their worst,
predators for recognition
Shaping their words to sculpt
the uneasy realities of their atrocities

From the inside

 Beating your head on the inside of the door
locked in and subject to the reoccuring frustrations
The door is too thick
straightjacket unwilling
banging and banging

No resolve
No relief
No reprieve

The thick wood and brick
Sealed within
A tomb
Asylum mania
Brain damage
Skull fractures

Beneath the castle

 I was born into a prison
Floor strewn with hay
No guard outside the bars
Just a servant to poke food through at the end of the day

Mother's face
Forbidden legacy
Kept in secret 
in captivity

Bars thin but unbreakable
unrustable
The skin sweat coating
from long hours of reflection

of incarceration
of keeping my small body strong
In the still air of the dungeon
Beneath

Rest stops, homesteads and Arnold Sage

 She drove me to the moutain retreat in texas transpecos.
The heat of summer still heating the highway there. 
Sarah conner scenic.
She changed gears as we got to the foothills.
Would show me the big vegetable garden.
And teach me a thing or two about gardening there.

The day clear as a linda hamilton apron.
Pre egg insertion.
Jenny turned to me and asked-
"Rest stop?"
I nodded slowly distracted by the ponderosas.
The brakes slowly squeaked.
A concrete structure appeared over the rise.

A steel skeleton stood propped up next to the seven eleven sign.
A mother and her Furlong in a stroller walked briskly past.
Light purple flowers hung from the texas Arnold sage bushes.
Massive bulging branches holding thick bracts of flowers.
Each one being targeted by drone like bees.

"How did you know, that was there?"
"I could see it in my mind." Jenny said
A small convenience shop and bathrooms came into view.
Snacks and relief later back into those foothills.
Climbing just high enough to see the vegetation change.
There is it was the smile on her face told me.
Pulling in to a narrow dusty driveway.

Old train station of purgatory

 The old train station sitting in the forest
The roof gray damp and gathering moss
The southern side in shade
Old graffiti faded barely readable
Each letter a latent spirit hanging
Draping down in different uneven shapes
Eyes squint to decipher them

Morning trades places with afternoon
It all merges again into a different form
Extending like icicles pointing down
Cold and accusing
The ferns at the base of the wall
Curl up to keep fronds from touching

The empty small building
Waiting to be inhabited

The yellow flowers of heaven

  I see you clothed in yellow flowers
I see them falling
 I no longer see the mists
The one that came down like hot water to dispatch you

Oh the far away goddess
I dreamed of being loved by you for a lifetime
The world wanted to see strength
I guess i can pretend

Disdain makes such strange fuel
But I'm glad I was there to show you how far I'd go
Every piece of the son or the child soured over into
such a cynical older man

You are separated and so far
Celebrations bring the may breeze
And those abundant yellow flowers
That cover the path you married on

Big dreams were lived and new ones sown
Go on with the old illusions
wrapped for a chrstmas that will never come
Like leaves dried and flattened in a book
labeled and forgotten

Am I one of those to you woman?
Am I one of those to you world?
Am I just waiting to be the dehydrated page you open
Reminisce that I might have shared a piece of myself

I imagine dying slowly running out of breath
as my heart fights my lungs for not reaching for more
Does that do for comedy
These tears absurd

In your perfect bubble on the ass end of the world
You might pour a glass to toast the wandering offspring 
Who could not corner his prey
Who lost his bounce

Who sees the gates there resplendent
With those yellow flowers
That got you an inch closer to a truth
Palatable to a world of labels

Back to the lights

 I left the tall forests walking slowly back toward the townlight
I avoided a swamp and some hissing reptillian in the grass before me
Wrists and ankles humming with electricity
Moving witht he slow drifting cloud
Painted with the reflection of city light

A town I didn't know loved me
That would welcome me back
Even though I need the altitude
The delusions and comfort of highplaces
The world may never move there

So I'll move myself
Like an ambitious orphan
teaching himself the way back to
The city of light

I left it all and felt the shape fo the rock in my hands
What was I thinking as a four year old boy
When I had been here to investigate in dreams
Up here in the forbidden peaks of the Mantiquera 

innocent heat

 In the innocent heat
I wrote your name with my finger
steam and wist
A star blink

Longing comes when the day is gone
How we wish thing were different
Casting spells instead of talking
Giving offerings but saying nothing

I could see the outline of something forming
coming through the street
The hush has fallen over the city
Must we wonder what could have been

In the innocent heat
The kind that tests sanity
That make me forget this aging vessel
The spirit of something manifesting

Blowing steam against a cold window
wistfully painting that name
Hope always there to take
reality a fickle finders keepers sort of goblin

Squeeze the world for color

 The dripping of reality
mutlicolored liquid 
slipping into the world
a drop into the eyes
A drop on the surface of the land

Each color an aura 
A drama under the wig
Inside the shocked face
swirling inside teh gaping mouth

Mixing and souping in the gravity
Thoughts and observations
Merging internal reflections
Erroneous perceptions

Taking the viewer further out into the depths
Of a multicolored lake inviting them to slowly drown
In those over pinked and over purpled delusional fantasies
In those depths there is abundance of feeling

Just zero oxygen

Open house and other projections

 Big bleached hair on the skinny man
Here to ask for the price of rent
be showed through the homes
Let him in

Tolerate the overexcitement
The convincing approach
he is here to sign a contract
Yet he is pushing the argument

He is underweight
running on the fumes
On the suds
On the euphoria of the last lay

Skin leathery up close
But shining and radiant from afar
Almost a lowlevel politician
Too separate too unknown

You judge this man
Not even unfolding the lease
He reminds you to much of yourself
In a world where honesty is pure vulgarity

Weather remind me

 I forgot who I once was
calling down from the cliff
my voice lost somewhere near the bottom
Where drafts shift and circle back
Compund ghosts of the past fight amongst themselves for direction

I paced back and forth upon the summit
Moon says hide
daylight sun says confront
Wind taunts with tone of dead empires
Invisible fingers on my shoulder

I look down to where the ocean hits the rock below
Slurping and spitting a slow sense of the sea at feast
The mist of it rises and freshens me
Every voice of the climate
calling me to stand and remember 

Beach cabin hardly walk

 The two cabins on the beach front sat passive resigned
Waiting for retired couples to fill them
Their whispers and murmurs almost audible
over the crashing waves

They sit like tired toddlers
Slowly nodding to each other
beige faces window eyes unwinkable
Squatting there near the sand

As if freshly placed within the play pen
But the two children are still
Rubbing eyes and waking
Unworried and unaware of the world

Awaiting human hosts to give them real souls
To routine them into magical existence
walls bulge slightly outward
healthy mother's milk 

An old couple is taken for the tour
they go through each room
and feel slightly more glum
They walk out wondering why anyone would live in either

When you forgot your vanity

 The mirror looks out
Theres nothing in the room
No human, not even a spirit
Would be good just to see a pair of eyes but no

The presence invades the empty house
vain voids and fresh pain
hanging cords but no chandelier
the sense of birth death and a short infancy lost to the backrooms of another universe

The mirror coughs
a stream of water bursts from the glass
It screams in a distraught english accent -are you having a laugh
A tooth came flying out blood tipped

The clean clothes on the bed tongued the sheets
The floor burped 
footsteps came up the stairs toward the bedroom
A person entered avoiding the stale entity in the mirror

Floating table and food hell

 Ten meters above the party I was standing on floating table
Every side featured a person who was eating from a big bowl
Some for of chip and some form of dip
the only sense of it all was pure gluttony

I tried to steady myself on the floating table
It went up and down, I almost fell off
Things were so precarious
But I was the newcomer

The rest of the people here had been here for centuries
Feeding on their big bowl of overflavored favorite snack
The table was so unstable I was sure to fall
Forced to move with it's ups and downs

Asked to feed with the fixed souls
As they kept eating and invited others to eat
I craved some sort of balance there was none
I craved some sort of medicine

Only present in my sense of equilibrium

The railway checkpoint

 In the gully there was a checkpoint on the traintrack
Where the local trains ran through
I approached and was stopped by a guard
He inquired as to what i was doing

Before I could answer a crowd of people had formed
They were pushing from behind
The guard separated the crowd with a boomgate
I got stuck on the side on the tracks

I imagine a train arriving
Getting flattened with the three or four fomopeople
The guard hauled out an empty wagon platform
We stood on it and it carried us off to nowhere

The evening saw my face

 Partially disguised running on the platform
People in their thirties walked in pairs and trios
Some drunk and some stoned
The evening inhaled the last breaths of the afternoon
Came walking and crossed my path like a black cat

This night no trains were coming in, just longing
Big bulb lamp light was just starting to glow
She saw my face under the scarf
I failed to conceal myself 
People search faces, I wouldn't give mine

The night forced me into an embrace, tempted me kindly
I had no idea of who she was
I wasn't inebriated so searched my memory
But the only memory I had was the current one being created

The villian Señor Adriel Júpiter Cat chef

 His name was Jupiter he was from southern Argentina.
The cold edges near the bottom of the continent.
He was a villain.

He kidnapped some local pets, cats and dogs and even some birds.
Prior to this, He had spent three months building a giant blender in his back yard.
He shaved pets and plucked the feathers pet birds. 
The afternoone in question late spring almost november, he put the pets inside the blender.
Then he turned it on.
He was expecting to hear the animals screech as they were chunked inside the machine.
But it was so fast Mr Jupiter started crying. He had kicked himself for sharpening the blades inside the shredder too much.

To make matters worse the spinning blades hadn't liquified the animals.
The bones had become lodged in the small gaps within the gyrating center.
 The think shut down.
There was nothing left living inside. But it was all so roughly cut it was minutes before the sun caught on and sent a rotting smell through the neighborhood.

He grabbed buckets and started shoveling the chunky mess in and taking it down to his basement. There he had an older man in his late fifties on a maneuvrable crucifix.
In his panic he turned the crucifix to the sleeping position so the old man would stop moaning.
He tipped the contents out into a big container.
Then ran upstairs and came rushing down again with buckets full.
Emptying them again. 
After twelve trips he sat inside the basement staring at the vat.

He took out some of the slop put it in a bowl and mixed with flour. took it upstairs to his kitchen and made some patties.
He brought several patties back down and fed himself and the older man on the crucifix.¿Me vas a dejar ir de acá alguna vez, o simplemente me vas a matar? ¿Cómo puede darte satisfacción mi dolor? Ya ni siento el cuerpo.

Cerrá la boca, pedazo de gil. Comé y agradecé el descanso. Si pensabas que este era el final de tu sufrimiento, entonces ya me diste más que suficiente satisfacción. Es como azúcar en la lengua y merca en la vena. Qué bicho soso que sos. Recostate y listo, que total yo me voy de acá en un toque. Tengo una licuadora que arreglar.

Before Adriel made his way back upstairs he glaced back at the gloop.
A single eye perhaps a cat's one, that was positioned in a way that made it look like it was staring.
Adriel stood hypnotized as they eye somehow managed to blink then open even wider.
Adriel flipped the crucifix back up putting the old man in terrible pain.
He showed his middle finger and said

Ah, el Diablo. El Diablo está envidioso otra vez. Pero esto no es una competencia. Andá y hacé la tuya. No vengas acá a sacar ideas.

Secrets of expanding dark

 Darkness falls and folds into itself
The realm of light cringing
The dark doubles over into itself
Light turns it's back

Dark compounds and intensifies
Sewing itself deeper within itself
Light turns up it's nose in disgust
Then darkness expands outward

A shameless blobby blotch spreading
A furious void consuming the exit of light
A thatching dark network layers of blackness
And throughout it, a true sense of nothing

It came to me showed me friendship
When the light turned itself off
Now it's about delving
Understanding the strangeness

Adapting and submerging
Until I too become the void entirely 

Deepening lines of heaven

 Lines scribbled over heaven
Smile deepens slightly
forward offered tucked tightly
given freely

I recieve them
Lines of heaven soothe nerves
surrender curiosity
desert waves heart deserves

Just to observe now
wealth in arousal
flushed from brain down
I grow into the day

Send a form of joy like mail
Tease but don't mock
blond hair in that pony tail
Sports your life

Sneak a smile sign
Noone else saw
It was salty and divine
ready to kiss

But never lips of mine
You are but an invention
Concocted...
from my mind

I don't exist to you
I'm infront, you are blind

When Orcus Rises

 Happy animals
They smile with glee
humm and bark happily
on the rocks above the water

Gossiping together that way
Then singing in unison
Between splashes of waves
the rhythm of the music

Satisfied up on those rocks
their little click on craggy steps
They shimmer in the sun
I can see their skin from the depths

A small group jumps in
I feel urgency in my fins
I brace for impact
collect the mammal 

crunch down and devour through
surface red my jaw feels relief
Soon stomach will too
I don't care for your words

I just want to eat you

Chris knew

 I've come to talk to you about the dilemmas
Unfinished tower
I know I'm going backward
Just to go forwards

You were the one that had both sides
Navigated the drama
Played the fool
Maybe the taste of it still haunts you

Like a neglected construction site
Several hazards before you get in the door
I don't deserve your advice
Because I just blamed you

I just became someone's animal
But there is no solution to give
There is the chaos of life
drink it down

The renovation is waiting

 The dead end
The sad smile
the sleepless night
hands fold into each other

Think about the things never built
The things on pause
Just routine to sustain
the rest undone

unsigned way of life
unknown path
With dead ends and sad smiles
with comfort and predictability

The slow separation
the dread of farewell

Going unseen

I don't want to be seen anymore
Not by anyone anywhere
Noone can recognize me
No place in anyone's life

I'll just invade and enjoy the void
I will furnish it all out
Play the game of solitude
Ignoring admiration I had for the world

Once I tried conversation
Valuable exchange
Remember odd event eyes met
Explain it all away in the head

Allocate me to oblivion
A man can be an island
Impossible to admit feelings
yonder smooth sand, mystery

Offend the heart
Recover then...
feel or experience it all
Pretending none of it affects

Bright beginnings, sudden ends
Songs of life with memorable choruses

Truths and small talk

 Wander around the periphery. Never give up on those footsteps, Their way through any given morning. Glimpse the way it moves.

Rewire my mind.
Taste the connection.
Push everything away.
State how unknown it all is.
Life is love is learning too.
All of those things so true.
Needs or wants, life as pretend.
Eyes meet is all the honesty there is.
Addictions driven by delirious dreams.
Quiet politeness reveals nothing of inner storm.
Shyness rarely broken.
Forbidden eye contact.
Deep truth through some soft surface.
Every affection and service.
The physical person undiscovered.
Excited or bored with personal information.
Provide perfect icebreaker. We only share silence.
So be it.

The Commuters Crisis

Sense of together
Rush tests patience
Streets are days
Vans and trucks run hours by

Blue smoke gushes
daylight combustion

Urgency spreads yoga armas and legs
Traffic jams in every direction
The mind is a distracted goose chase
Through smog and laughter and backfiring motorbikes

Garages have undergound arms
The boom gate keeps you out you are empty handed.

Impulsive horn violent imposing
Burst into well timed tears of a person burning out
Heated temples rapid heartbeat unable to hug themselves
The greenlight shines down accelerate only to break

Catatonic in the queue

 

Desire to sleep in ultimate peace
Long to bathe in tomorrow's sun
Many seek to reconnect themselves
Attempting to love but falling for need

Offer presents of favors
Specific things you wished
Just to get you to notice
Before you turn away again

Mysteries seem to make everything bigger
Mute when the day demanded a voice
Dismissive when attention was needed
All prefer love, all prefer to be known

Each person carrying their hearts like containers
Lining up infront of the same unavailable shops
Falling asleep in the queue
Dreaming of this ideal person

Some graffiti the walls
Some attempt to break windows
But they don't break they just look outward
Like eyes surveying these desperate people

Am I free to leave this line?
Will I linger the way you imagined?
Do you smirk from the inside?
Do you tease me pointing at the locked door?
Or feed me with subtle smiles and turns of the head?

A live mannequin behind the thick glass
More alive than I and the empty wanting people
Shaping the scenery with the grace in your gesture
Sleeping bags roll out night chill arrives
Some consider losing their place in line

Turning back to the candle light on the otherside of the glass
Supercharging their fantastic fantasies
They sit or lay there in the queue
Shutting eyes and entering sleep
While I stare through the window catatonic

Mountain drifter

 The path seems narrow
rocky and uncertain
There is a crutch under my right shoulder
I have been using it for the steeper climbs
and to support my injured leg

Following this path this vein
Around the mountain
I trust it gets me there
To That place i've dreamed
For now just trudge

Or is this the place
This narrow track
Stoney and uneven
Yet on this path i can stop
I build sticks and stoke

Berries grow at knee height
Here the mountain protects me from the south wind
Maybe I need to build it right here
Where few monsters dare to climb
There is no material, will i live in a cave?

There are few trees and I have no tools
What must I do

Groceries and heatwaves in winter

 The heat wafted through the carpark
Blasted faces as we exited
Exit routine
Exit ourselves

Put overfilled bags down on bench
Sweat beads join to blind
Then the overbright haze
clumsy woman leaves cart

Eyes meet disdain glows
But is lost in the shimmer
Hands wrap around the handles
pulling it all up its too heavy

The car pulls up
The man inside has taught himself to be happy
He doesn't recieve requests from anyone
But we ask him which is it

but the answer doesn't come
There is no satifaction
The heat spoke and said
Hold onto your burdens 

The line between life and death

 Yesterday was beautiful
That was the day i died
yeah, it was incredible
But now it seems a hundred years ago
Is it?
Has it been that long?
From my death realm I touch the present
And see within the bubble a present that is not mine
As if time has accelerated since my earth life
As if things just kicked off once I left

And the clicking sound my finger makes
As it enters the bubble and allows me to see in
It can only be the ticklish God that put me in here
The death realm all colors and ecstacy
But it's not heaven
They are still fitting it out apparently
I'm sure I could add a feature or too

But souls are just supposed to hangout here
Take a look at the world's progress
Sip some kind of thick liquid that makes you change shape
Yes I never knew I would die
But as I pierced the line I could hear God shouting
Maybe they got the order wrong
Maybe it wasn't my time
Maybe it was voodoo technology

But now im here in the death realm
Pancaked ont he ceiling for amusement
I have my solace and euphoria
My unrealistic expectations
And deep down that feeling that heaven should be ready
so nothing really changed.

Not a suitor

 Her father came out
Light ginger brown hair fat spectacles
A slight sign of relief on his face
Unless it was his pretend greeting for all face

But I'd never seen him before
I was there to indulge a strange wish
And then the man went on to tell me
All the wonderful things I had done

Some of them real some embellished
Some were absolute flukes
Others projects I nourished
I was flattered and confused

Cousins and brothers still in their early teens
Ran through the house causing accidents 
The high ceiling and huge living room
made the place look inviting for horseplay

Then the mother came out
She looked slightly like her daughter
something her daughter deep down never liked
Seeing as a curse of future self

She was vigilant andstared into me with beady eyes
She thought I was a suitor
But I didn't want to be there
Seems digging into the past just reveals more dead bodies 

Frontal impact test

 Your new man is interesting looking
What have you come searching for?
Or better yet why do you want me here?
Just to play a game, truth or dare?

Want me to replace him, you look happy enough
Why don't you take this chance and settle?
Feelings are fleeting life is rough
Did he fail when you tested his metal?

When you appeal and charm then go hot and cold
When you overcare then vaccum like a black hole
Tell me was he bothered. How did he feel during those?
Show love for another, did his affection still grow?

How a child's love killed

 The baby rabbit in it's shell
The animal kicking inside it's easter egg
The gardens around the homestead filled with curious children
Wanting to touch and own the animals

One child in particular had become enamoured to the egg
And grabbed it and started to think of ways to reach it
To help it escape from it's outer shell
Mostly as to hold it

This baby rabbit wasn't coming out
The child carried the egg it was in, around
like a sacred artifact over the grass
Through the mud, over rocks

The child carried the baby rabbit everywhere
Into the house to see inside the egg's small hole
To the child's despair the rabbit was dead
Too much shaking and wanting

World a teacher

 Tell me, who am I to question so much?

Why do I look around and feel so out of touch.

See the world out here feel it hard to breathe

They accept at face value yet I cannot believe

I would ask you big world

Why I've misplaced desires

I dread you will respond

each one is a lie

Impossible to fulfill

even when they seem in reach,

Do you just cut us off 

when there's nothing left to teach


Who am I to question

 tell me why I should fuss

The earth a strange teacher

from birth to dust 

A fool's prayer

 God, what am I
that I question everything so much?

Why do I look around and see the rest of the world
accepting so much at face value?

I would ask you

Why have you given me so many desires
that seem impossible to fulfill?

And why,
when they finally seem within reach,
have some of them already lost their excitement?

Have I played a trick on myself,
or is this really the name of the game?

Why should I continue to chase my dreams
and invite you to collaborate?

But I do...

Invading the Amygdala

 One billion demons
cloud the mind
one climbs over the other
each one famished

their claws and horns a tangle
Like an ants nest in frenzy
crawling over each other 
to find my fear center

limbs are exhausted
neurons are sleep starved
the hoard encroaches
There's a burning smell

Images from the worst of nightmares
Projecting into me
swarming
searing and blistering

Their paradise is close
As they breach the arachnoid matter
They come like a galaxy of pestilent bad dreams
Will i just use their wrath and digest them

David, Alberta and the blood of Brook

 He convinced his superviser that all was well
A week from that day they would never see him again
Things at the meatworks were going bad for him
His hours were reduced, rumours he was lonely

He changed out of his bloodstained gear
The air and darker days spoke to the onset of winter 
Like the beginning of a movie you don't want to watch
He suddenly realized his budget would tighten

He could no longer afford his favorite beer
No longer go to the bar with friends saturday afternoon
Had to ration fuel and junk food
Had to ration anger at vegetarians

He gulped watered down coffee
sipped depression
Rewinding one's trajectory
A specific torture

Empty highway after clocking out
Scattered leftovers from morning's snow
The heart doesn't beat it farts
short lifeless farts

Too many feelings to digest
He pulls into his small rundown cabin
Wood rotting under the white ten year old paint
He turns the key in swift motion

heart farting like pre-diarrea squirts
He turns on the two bar
dives into his sleeping bag
and bathes himself in screenlight

Useless, hopeless consumed by his own darkness
The lonliness so foreign to his dwindling highschool self
It was only two years ago in Edmonton so optimistic
Now friendless and just on broke in Brooks

Stop running son

 Stop running he said
Just take a rest here you are exhausted
-Who are you talking to, the old man by the baitshop asked.
Oh I was just...

Calm your head, life is going to test you
Nothing is ever set
Boy it groans, tis a mess
Just slow down mate, I feel sickened by the rush

Stop running right here
it makes no difference
-Son are you in trouble? The old man asked again.
I met eyes but words couldn't break the membrane

Take it easy here. Why are you still running.
Noone cares. It's a quick life then you die.
I looked back at the hills behind.
My voice opened up like a yodel

"You have a fucking quote for everything"

Silence was the response and the old man from the baitshop walked off.
Is all of this effort really necessary?
Would you like to tell me these are the obsessions that age us
That fade our animo and vitality, wear us out

I dig you up and I hold your skull up
and scream inside to make you listen
Pentrate that thick bone so that you might get an inkling
"I must build and prosper"

Instead of silence I can hear you laughing then chuckling
Not the sickly on that would have you in a coughing fit
But the healthy one that went on for far too long
As if the notion I could out do you was a joke

Slow down sun
Stop running...

When the ship leaves

 Moored not far from the abode
The ship would depart for england that afternoon
Something they were convinced was important
Raising flags and giving speeches

Would I be on that ship
Or left back here at port
loitering around beachfront shops
purposeless and lost

No I'd be stuck in the bungalow
writing words forming roots
That traveled like the ship
Underground mycorrhiza for my creativity

The smell of salt and confusion
The pen runs dry of ink
The islands and inlets that inspired me
remain unmentioned

pieces of the land and people I wanted to grace
In an empty state stuck on this thin chunk of coast

Smooth seas

 We can all pretend
Awkardness is avoided like this
The partner meets the desire
They converse there dockside

Desire wants to throw a curveball
Asking what the other would do for a hungry child
Perfect humanitarian responses and on time
There was recognition

Almost a clang of rapport
Or so the heart of the man in the middle wished
On the dock there, congratulating each other
Kind souls in theory and throwaway conversation

Find a way to relate for my sake
common ground around the elephant
crushing dock planks
push smiles, try eyecontact

The two of you don't have to be in the same room
The ocean reflects the sun but storms are coming soon
The two of are welcome to trade illusions
Before the typhoon