light- weight hollow insect shell de void silent waste- land platter scratch reel reel- ing out hum un- attended bare knuckles fish-eyed final door grand window opening onto concrete dumpster magnifying dust pan drip step fading up over out in- to down not for me who's home whose home i never recognize the building i ask are we am i there yet am i have i arrived? i never know if am i home?
June 17, 2021
all the warmth i have to offer is a bare light bulb beating with an outdated coil a white hot heart of frosted glass a finite out- pouring of shining sand a crown of lumens stretched taut across a minuscule fold of space i hold nothing back as wax-melted wings flare overhead beneath the radiant corona of a titan's poly- chromatic eye lifting me billow- ing me heeling me this tiniest speck of dust this ruptured cell this hollow origin this sputtering flame this ever inward wandering shore this flash! eclipsed by the brilliant metamorphosis of super-heated fusion inside an elemental engine of iron fueled by a stream of incan- descent particles flung outward into the emptiness of atmospheric segrega- tion a kalei- doscopic burst of static charges reflecting an upsweep of molten synapses that speak only in ablative prominences that grant no umbral succor that cry out unrecognized unheard in- side the echoing gravity well of a spectral current invisible to the follow- ers of the main sequence fortified against the vacuum of an inward falling abyss by a core of sympathetic dust drawn twice over to bypass five hundred thousand pairs of eyes fast fading into darkness sundered all along a horizontal axis still reflecting the electromagnetic pulse of a bare bulb swallowed by the in- different tide of the night sky all alone.
June 7, 2021
love can't be legislated, assembled, required, conjured, or forced, but if you make space for people, love can surprise you in the most wonderful ways.
June 4, 2021
There was a little moon imprinted on the sky this morning. A bird circled it, as if it knew. A man at the bus stop, didn't. I paid them no mind. I am living my best life. Here. I am now.
June 3, 2021
metallic herringbone sky spiraling
outward over lush grazing lands
and snow removal signs
and the narrowest
curving bones
over my
inner-
most
heart
beat
with all future endeavors
in gentle palms
swaying
holding in
soaking my mask over my nose
i can't explain to anyone how intense
the green of spring's giving birth
to itself overhead only once a
year the tremble of corporate
tulip shafts and fluttering
petals of crab and cherry
every day that rush
of gratefulness
i am humbled
i'm here
to witness a moment that will never
come again seated front-facing on
a bus past sidewalks and corner
stores and hotels and apart-
ment buildings and the
homes of people i'll
never know and
lawns dotted
with dande-
lions and
violets
and
i
can only just bear that swell of
happiness my arms so full of
what had pierced my heart
with an in-rush of know-
ing what i wanted for
the first time in my
life and the yes
that carried
me to
this day
i offer up what love i have and
that love is returned ten-
thousand fold
can you understand?
such small things i hear in
people's voices when they
trouble the world when
all i have to do is
think back on
that laugh on
pancake
batter
on
a
cheap
futon on
a pixelated
farm on rain
darkened
window
glow
and
in
these two palms
i enclose
all wonderful things
in a disjointed life
i wouldn't trade for
all the world.
May 21, 2021
You were a lost soul (they said) but you found me.
May 19, 2021
there's not enough money in the world for outselling the pace of personal com- promise in this red- hot deal of a glass barrel. such a shame! time being worth more than money. (i get out when i can) i don't do it for the alarm. no sir. when they tell me no two jacket buttons are the same i know they're lying. i wander. there's no electrical current in the first place. or so they said. (i can't get it with my hand caught in the door.) without negation. i summarize my position. ahem. grand enveloping space which ought to know better. but i can't go alone. brittle names all on fixed incomes. stay, they said. but how can i tell? there's an echo. in between the words. (i'd laugh) but i'm going home now.
May 19, 2021
i live a simple life.
uncomplicated. unsophisticated.
unconventional. (a lot of uns
because it's easier to define
an it by what it's not) a
wispy web too bare to
beat a penny's weight.
i don't mind. (i get to talk now)
simple needs need only simple
satisfactions. like a cat: good
food and a bit of sun.
i don't (here i go again) need
so many whats and wheres as one
might expect. (an assumption
of course) i do need (i'm full
up with) love. silly word to
have so many definitions.
'i feel this' but 'i do that'
and do we agree to disagree?
(i never know)
i have so much. i carry with me
the trembling of white violets
electrified by flecks of mica
in a slab of sidewalk. (no wonder
my backpack is so heavy) i leave
behind everything else, everything
i can't afford, which turns out to
be everything else.
i'm overwhelmed.
i gaze over that sleeping face,
along those leafy streets, up into
that distorting sleeve of atmosphere
and remember how small i am, how
short my life, how fleeting the little
waves that shape the shore of memory.
i don't mind.
i get to talk now.
May 12, 2021
the wide-set eyes of the bus through the leaves of the trees in July set my heart afloat above the viscera of urban daylight on a misty morning of red brick and hot concrete. call it what you will. naivete. a relic of unsophisticated two- dimensional suburban geometry. (i'll grant you.) the landscapes of cities, of this city, roll through me wavering waving trembling quaking aspen shouldering a burdenless frame of sixty-three inches of glass and peeling paint. resistless dissymmetry. neighbors gray bearded sidewalk chalk and sneakered steps rise with a rusty rail all jointed to touch the sky, palms up, content to face the same traffic light for a hundred years. lovely indifference! (i can't countenance in people what i seek in structure.) open out secret corner turns into the prettiest summer breath. how could it not? amblers, reflected heat shimmer, an elevated pitch all selling a walk as a long string of bright green, even that moment. standing alone at the bus stop. an approaching future. one day, just another day. but this day. this day.
May 7, 2021
some rooted hollow place where underneath the lips of the skull the lever pries loose the tolling of a bell in bronze or steel (i can never tell) ringing deep and bovine in an eclipse of shadows that fall in wash out sink subside across a flat plane un- done by a single strand of nervous attention (undone washed out) curling up rising into the dome of space overhead drinking deep from the shelter of wicked wicked talons
May 6, 2021
Air is free, sound is free, words are free. To believe otherwise is to be enslaved.