The daffodils I keep

in the bottom of my pocket

Are only there
To be crinkled and crushed,

turning to warm dust

So to smear, with the index
of fingers onto your cheeks

while you sigh and say "it's not the sidewalks fault
that people die on Sunday afternoons, and no, I won't blame the moon"

Preface

if there is nothing greater
than waiting to remember, several feet stepping
through the wherewithal of the evening
if you can never really step outside
of whatever time you occupy, (you can't create the texture of time you know)
perhaps the embroidered tissue of that sweltering groove
could embody a reminder, etc, an answer.

I want to be the needle

fourty two years ago-
Graining against the starched midnight vinyl
Of her mothers phonograph player,
(she is sitting on the floor with her knees bent, feet in the air)
But I couldn't, not with this electric flesh.

I'd have to wander to where the birds gather in groups
Scattered on shingles in their innate silence
In order to understand historys language.
If I were to ever appreciate all these broken telegrams, all these empty postcards
All these yellow papers and Sunday afternoon stares
(I have never written cursive the way he wrote his name on the inside seam of the suitcase.)

(I cannot reflect upon that which I am within,
there is no mirror, absent to itself,
which returns the life while
it's witnessed)

the day imitates the dream
and we are shrewd evaluators
of the cost of the calender, the state of the legislature

we've been fooling around
with the parameters.

I wanted to be plastered
against idealized platforms
of red and white,
families and mirrors.


You've made this into
a game of intentions.
I'll hold your wallet
if you take my medicine.

anyway
what is worth being written?
when we are driven away from the origin,
the fraction of affection that signals our connection.

If only we were aware, of the inside, the incidental
every abrupt bit of implicit information
the things only our cells will ever know.

I wanted to watch myself being witnessed, encase my mind
in the carcass.

The only way you wanted it was worthless.
the only thing you thought you knew was knowledge.

I lose a little piece of myself when I'm with you,

the snare of my ear, the words where I writhe

I never know where to put them anymore,

the soft curdled shape,
the firm bite of your chest.

You would never let them wipe away your rear view,
they can't cut the stars out of your space
I just throw them, I toss all my lungs, all my nerves

You never had a knowledge you could walk towards.
We were just a buried cliff, several tense cremations and a bottle of laments.
I always wanted to know where you made

this
into

A pile of disheveled evenings coming home newborn.

all we are talking about here
is the human mind

after all

such a self manufactured mechanism….

it shouldn't be this difficult, there's only one apartment.

"This is a hedonistic affair" mumbled the old men as they [passed the apples]

Collapse with these creations, (I really meant to let you know that I've always wanted to smile)
But you keep wrapping, turning, these newspapers-(thermometers) I don't know what to make of this anymore.

We wind like the curbs.

I'd swear, I swear, seriously, honestly, this door opens to another room and we can go there.

Your frustrating me.

Why would you say that? I never even wanted to wear your colors anyway.

Take it back.
I've had enough of you and your tourist traps.

If I can't come over here and relax I might as well stay home.

i only miss you because i miss myself, i know (it's sad) .

Some people will sit
With their eyes nearly closed
Each lid half slit
Without a thought to be known

Then there are those that can be seen
Straddling fencepoles, drizzling on a Sunday stirrup
With eyes standing awkward at the end of the avenue
These are the ones that will be awake in the morning
These are the ones which will wear all of our warnings.

Though I do admit, I wonder on occasion
Why you would be someone instead of another.
As if you were only a single dimension
Of everything that could ever happen.

After all
There are only thin shields of differences
That calculate themselves in the burden of a characteristic
The traits that craft a sentence with it's

subject

object,

it's period.

Despite all the desires that we share
(The ones that make us want to disappear)
this is why I have to sit over here, a little further from where you are

I need to know that my eyes see beyond themselves
I need to be aware, of your shape, it's slope, each angle that turns
If it weren't for the light that lingers long enough
For me to capture you and carry your concerns
I would never remember why I need to think.
Why I would ever have to understand or comprehend
The reasons why you were born.

And no, I won't try to make you see yourself anymore.

if i were not the world
perhaps it would be

blank

a smooth sheet of paper untarnished
a field with sledded snow

one could trace out several forms
in the brisk empty field

to shadow the sense of a self
that holds no ground in a world so white

then perhaps i could stand in a state
that would be a face that strangers pass

there would be no roots in a past

no path

and all that comes through me then
would be reborn blank without any feathers attached

the pink end of the pencil would balance
the way we write our regrets with the permenance

of such a pure emptiness.

And you may welcome winter
As you wrap yourself in the wind
And walk with fingers clenched.
As you sit beside the window, wrapped
In blankets in the backseat.

And I would want to tell you that
I do believe your skin would render itself
Supple, humid and full of folklore if it were
To be against mine in the late afternoon

to be honest
you are crowding
my consciousness
with implants and incidents
errors of a circumstance
that led me off a shortened ledge

but instead we'll all linger in well lit wooden rooms
with glasses of brandy and scarves that sing acoustic
But anyway
All these people
Are only made of complaints
And all they are
are only the expired intentions
of an excuse for comfort, a facsimile of affection.

we are the skinned shelves of an elm
the veined branch that circles its age
and though we share each others pockets
this is not a dime store romance
it is withered thumb rubbed parchment
the dampened bristle of a leaf piled penchant
for cotton, for lilac, the touch of reddened plaid
and a warmth that we've never had

and we are awash in non-existence
there are two pools of glass inside the cabinent

and we huddle around a common mishap
and we are awash in non-existence

or perhaps the depth of a morning imagined
the question curves itself answered

but that's not the end of it

there were slots that led themselves around the neighborhood
when all the mattresses were pulled out to the curbs
we drove ourselves through the city sleeping

only inches away from where our nose ends the head

since we consider so often
so much that has so little

substance

or

touch.

we are awash

and we wade

with white t-shirts, flickering monitors
dying batteries and stains on the carpet.

i had wanted time to be tangible.

i wanted to weigh it with our diversions

to see if we could add i up to the same solid number

that we toss between

push and pull

the bulk of ourselves is another

(you sit with our hands splayed upon several smooth moving disks orienting each one into a reasonable location on a board that has small tubes connected to it from underneath where it links into a reason- Light under the glass screen- (you can't organize ideas) we could make them out of letters) I'm certain that they will rot after time)

and you are awash

there is something
peculiar

about the directness of the day

the feeling that for once
i am inside of a summer
or within a sundrenched winter

that despite the fact
that i feel detached
the toe hinges
against
the latch

and i catch myself crossing the muddened
campus sidewalk

slipping in sync
with the oncoming expectation

(but we have to extract the words from their definitions)

and i don't want to forget
that i thought the trees were illuminated

(i saw your details in the light of the basement)

yet there is a weighted slouch
dragging down the burlap shoes
onto the pennystone pavement

i am infatuated with a hesitation

inflated by the gullible encounter
of a delayed attempt at comprehension

i want the words
to be drenched

with the

stolen temperature of the day
smeared onto the page the waxy dew of the soggy leaves
i measure the lives i miss by the length of their eyes.

She knows enough of me by now, doesn't she?
To predict such a flinch, as we walk down the steps, we'll step back, start to kiss, but then she left,
I digress.
I mean our memories, they were always ill anyway,
stretched out upon the table, a few breaths left before death.
Sitting back to relax, a glass in palms grasp.
A statement started, abruptly halted, "oh do not ask, what is it".
They all wear suspenders underneath their vests.
These days, a rubix smoothed, the colors muffled by our comments.

The ladies dawdle in the hall,
Speaking of andy warhol.

The bartender beneath the staircase says that it's last call.
And I've already known tonight, all the nights I'll live, I've lived them all.
The glass clinks and spools of slipping time spread themselves in shadows on the wall.
And how should I resume? To walk once more, streets unknown?
She turned, transfixed, a single point, each foot half arched and me, maladroit.



I thought of Christmas, with her maybe morning, I'd be smothered by blankets, we would stand in the snow melting. I could see both our shadows. (when our skin was still white)
The mailbox- empty, as always, no letters, she's standing, beside me, I'm glancing, she's squandered.
We wander, with wishes, we might grow closer towards them.
But such burials, retreats, are always half-lived.
She curls her turtleneck above the nape, over her lips.

The ladies dawdle in the hall,
Speaking of andy warhol.

The bartender beneath the staircase says that it's last call.
And I've already lived tonight, I've lived them all.

And how should I resume?
To smudge my skin, thread my hair, flatten each wrinkle? Why would I bother?
Peel away, tissues of scar, mend the tears, alter an image. Why do I, deserve another?

I could have been a smattered scroll of celluloid.
smashed under her background noise.

Instead shall I think, that she stays in the pieces, I keep several letters, they're tattered, she sent them.
I can smooth them with my fingers, stretch my legs across hardwood.
Hips rolled in attics, cardigans in suitcases, I keep many remnants, none of them are worthless.
A single sheet of paper, scrawled with ink, her hands one evening, writing silent, "Everything exists-
you just can't see all of it."
The clothesline of our time is one worn by terse remarks
Of closed eye moments, mere blades of grass crumpled.

And there is always the morning, the morning when we stretched our arms,
Maybe we noticed, oh what is it that they say, that they say of age, of growth, decay?
The morning, when we stretched, until the evening there were creases, I forget,
The bed was bloody, (I keep strands of her hair inside lockets) we tried to hold onto a second.
But our cells were growing thin.
As we stand alone, side by side in empty wooden rooms
Playing violins carved from each others skin.
No, but I meant to say, I meant to explain
There was only enough time, only enough time to try
At least we had our instants, (I needed them to understand distance)
But she knows me enough already by now, doesn't she?
And in short, I was lying.



And could it have been what we wanted, anyway?
Your hands were not made to make apple pies, you know.
A picket fence, greener grass, someone made from you and I
Would it have been right, to live a life that was a lie?
None of these rooms have ever worn a wedding ring anyway.
All the red blankets, all the yellow lights, all the empty evenings
Would never suffice.
Canceled checks, coffee stains, after all the after alls.
Would it have been worth it? I doubt it.
After all, keyless locks are not a new concept.

And if, when her eyes, with no lids leaving leverage
Could turn from me towards a knowledge, the knowing of a curvature
The subtle movement of her index finger, mimicking a message.
Her awareness of her body beside mine, the heavy weight of the tired bracelet,
Tracing a direction, a voice asking "pardon, where is the exit?"
I will be besides, anyway there are always other lives.
We often leave, shrugging love aside
Beneath the roads others walk.
A splash of light escapes the pavement
As you stutter to think of what you could say-

Though there is no one now, nor anymore, in this empty room
Except the room itself, perhaps I wonder, I am speaking into a spoon.
The voice curves into itself, a hollowed parabola of letters,
each word siphoned slowly, through the choking voicebox filter,
puckered and flicked and gutted like a thin sheet of clear plastic
bending between the thumb and the index,
bouncing out and falling towards
the silence of a ground so tarnished.

Though I know, I do
That what I've heard, it was not true.
Spoons do not speak to me.
Mere distortion, an amputee.
We have lingered in the chambers
Of this human sea, reality
And we wait here, watching, waning
The tides breaking against eternity raining.
After all, they break, regardless
Of you, or of me.
They break, they break, and they were broken
By the way we came to be.

sketch

night antigone


It's hardly a very visual crime
It hides itself under your t-shirts in the corner
It might be encountered, much like depressions
The undercoating, slip and pull self
That you unplug behind the counter
Find it buzzing
In the morning

A small red reminder
A welt, a wick
What have you, when
You wear where you've been
Underneath the cloth of a concern
That other layer, the one that records

Each unadultered mark,
The smooth white paper dent
Of every idea you've ever crushed
They all kneel before your crooked skull
Each tarot, lines of endless
Keepsake moments that you shelter inside lights
The honest immaculate, tethered to the air you drag

And I will keep each one hidden, each one new.
Every tattered remnant that reminds me of you.



::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

And I thought that the kitchen was empty, that the phone was off the hook, that no one

Would cook dinner

Anymore

And I thought you were gone

I had a dream that you died

And my life had never been so empty
There was no one to talk to
And you work so hard you work yourself to death and back
And I'd rather have you than a new cabinet or a lamp
Forget about the living room
Just keep living

And then I dreamed that you killed an alligator
And a man was stealing eyes
The alligator was flimsy
You wanted dinner
He stuck his two fingers in the sockets
My eyes are bleary and my skin runs deep.

I clearly feel
Pseudo-somber
And unsure
Coffee buzz / cigarette
Almost filling in the blanks

As you drag your childhood beside you
That tattered bundle of smiles
As others appear
Standing in corners,
seeming as if they were never born.




As it is,

The world seems to be

Compiled of slow hands
Moving motions in a morning
In distinct light, one with
A closed grasp, the edges sewn
A silhouette
The planes each grown with light
as each side unfolds

A gait eternal
A swagger compressed
A room you always walk out of
A liquid hip upon an assemblage of equipment
Each instrument, a fine gleam

A circumference that caves at it's center
It is not a vat
It is an angle.
It is not an answer
But rather, the meaning of its core..

We've run out of all the right words
To salvage this sordid lot
To convey the couple
Breaking up on the night train
This public display of
Devastation
From the moment we enter crimes
To the exit signs in our eyes
When the trees are a transition
With their sprawling shorn skin
Some say "a subtle reminder"
Maybe they've just grown tired

I feel like a splattered scroll of celluloid

A grainy screen of smudges grey

The wafting in between, the smoke in the rafters
The blistering figure that dances so slowly

A montage, a decoy, an ode to dismay
A pattern of fuzz, an intermission
A wry slide of a matinee

Think about every other evergone family
Their attics, their closets, the times they cleaned their rugs
The papers in plastic, family albums, heirlooms, attics
A silence, a sequence, a slowly torn down heritage
A spool, uncoiled.
The clothes that they keep wrapped up in sheets
So many lives that are gone mean nothing to me
Squander




Description of Dream 249

We live in segments

Solitary individual units
The center of a centipede

Each fully groomed, accomedated with the finest necessitites
Water grown tea and small sprial formed larvae

(there is a singe, the one that splices, the one that connects)

and each hostile, environment, eco-friendly
by sedentary actions, small, minute movemnts of the palmstroking sections,

the intermingling
there is a special section

the one (you) always dwell through

splicing of the edges of carrots
knitting your tupperware and selling children for another generation

we all like to catch a break now and then
with your fully customized lawn, rotar tractor

secure environments

we contain skys, oh, we capture them of course
on full display a small, tiny section of time reduced
capture this, for a smoke, for a walk in the park well, what else would you do anyway?
We rotate, move from here to there, mingle, hold hands, smash secrets
The everloving testament to the night, so bloody
I don't care about your time anymore

We're already old anyway
Where else would you expect us to go
We study animals
We reduce vitamins

I have many pereogatives

And none of them have anything
Anything to do
Anything to say
About You or who you could or would have might have been