sometimes they go to bed hungry
or find places to hide
where no one will see them cry

every day their smiles get heavier
until they are too heavy to hold

all around me i see people who could fix it
all around me i see people who could prevent it
all around me i see weak people who
can’t even lift their own smiles, anymore

who could possibly forgive us, now?
for the mothers and fathers have gone

now as much as ever
(more than ever?)
to stop and think and write
poorly if we must
the world has ended. art is no more
the machines can fake it with words, rhyme, rhythm
better than we ever could
a limerick for free. this theme
these words
that meaning
instantaneous
fucking free
sometimes damn delightful

and then we lose our ability to pause
and measure
is this what I want?
how would I know? I can’t write it down how do I write?

doesn’t something else think for me?

this. this gives me more money and more freedom and more go right now
but in the long term less money and less freedom just go right now
be someone’s bitch? there are advantages! or no one would take it

be all the someone’s bitch? but what if it doesn’t work? what if it fails?

more important than ever to write it down. to face my fears. to find that
then I write it out… I’m scared a shit

why won’t the AI tell me that?

like a currency 
we pass each other back and forth
never quite spent
though inflation cuts the value down 
bit by little bit
and I try to stretch it
just for a day or two
but there's always another bill
or beer or tab or ticket
so by and by the money's gone
til you come back by one night
with fresh groceries for me
and a brand new list

I can feel you 
vibrating
just inside the resolute bone
of my skull
not quite to the brain matter
but my eye twitches 
nonetheless
like a control center has been
disrupted
or a nerve has been
obliterated
and there you are
pulsating 
like a palsy
as my lips snarl back
uncommanded
then there's the buzzing
that creeps in
ear by ear
and my teeth feel thicker
now
as the swell in my tongue
starts and

oh

and there goes 
the rest of me

a sun makes god of
dust mote

dancing
in the window-
frame

and an altar
of the fly’s green husk
silent
on the sill. the same
light warms
the new leaf and the broken glass

holding both
not named

your voice

a thrown coin

like answered static
via dead channels
the low hum of
wired wall

a quiet house
of all words
homeless

the sky is a locked
brass lid

you must cartograph
slow roots

slow
secret language

of a deep spring

awaiting in dark
neath all

thirsty, asking
and begging

and boy does it hit hard
when suddenly the years of pent up
stress and rage and fear and hope and anger and
god the stress
they find a home
a place it can stay
and thrive
and maybe have a future?

a future not completely fucked up or literally imprisoned by the justice system

and the tears start. sadness. hope. relief. hope. fucking relief

and you cry and you cry and you cry
but because this was the best

dear god let this be for the best

we did everything.
we could have been perfect.
but we’re not perfect.
and you’re not perfect but
there is hope

and the tears flow.

god used to be our favorite movie
but now it’s america
and in this movie the biggest
cock gets the girl
and everyone else
claps along or dies
i’m not the director
i don’t call the shots
i’m just an extra

do I have to tell you how movies get made?

dear bonsai tree,
watching the storm
roll in

you never wanted
to be here
anyway

drowning in
shallow water

it’s funny
isn’t it?

how nothing
is?

i crack a smile any
way

would i could
i’d hug you back
to life

or my memory of you
at least

at most
a stupid poem
actually

bonsai tree,
watching the storms
now clear

planted in
a parking
lot

a-lonely

i am alone and reading no one
which is dangerous, i know
but i’m training my mind
to see different wave lengths
(you’d be surprised at how
different everything looks)
and i don’t know it all, i know
but it’s hard to talk with whom
i know i will not be heard
and my heart is so full of hatred
that i can barely stomach
making sense of what others say
even in their big fat fancy books
wherein it is presupposed
that they’ve trained their minds
to see every different wave length
but i find more often than not
that they are lying
(you’d be surprised at how
mad they get)
so i am alone and reading no one
and not talking or being listened to
but i do not know what i will do
with what i see, once i’ve
trained my mind to see every
potential different wave length
(i will be surprised if
it is even possible)
for i am too soft to strike at the heart
for fear of the hoof
and i am too lazy to take a stand
for fear of failed expectations, and legacy
and what started out as a good idea
or the right thing to do
is now a baseless dream, and pointless exercise
and appears as a silly lonely man
reading no one and talking in circles
staring, unfocused
burdened by the knowledge of the inherent
lightness of being
writing long, rambling poems that follow no
pentameter or scheme
and the loneliness in this process
reminds me of the loneliness of death
which is preeminently uncommunicable
and unshareable
which is not what i set out for and
feels not happy, or good
or productive
and i am alone with the knowledge that i set out to find
and no one can tell or cares much its existence
alas

the morning brings stress for a time of life
being wished away
instead of enjoying every moment
cherishing it and living it to its fullest
instead you know it inevitable does pass
so you hope your body holds together long
enough to get
through to the next phase long
enough to see
the other side can’t possible be worse

don’t stop to smell the roses. head down.
eyes forward
press on
don’t give up hope even though you know it’s a ruse
for fucks sake, why are the days long and the years even longer?

would it be better that they found your
decomposing corpse several miles off trail
on accident, long after the manhunt canceled
than for you to hang on to the coattails
of this massive morass of meat machines marching
to the tick of the time-clock?

have you made a big mistake
looking for yourself
rather than simply being
what is already there?

among the list of crimes
that you help commit
is making March 27th, 2025
another insanely unremarkable day
why, you’ve forgotten, that they’re
all supposed to be
very important

a day that could be perfectly heavenly
now put through your fatty system
and out the other end, like fertilizer
on a factory farm

for what you incorrectly define
as happiness

Schmuck the dog died
shivering with shallow breath
likely on a towel 
in the middle of a hardwood floor
after weeks of being carried
so he wouldn't piss himself
to the back yard or
to another towel in a room
upstairs

and I sat on the couch 
and I watched him shake 
as he lifted his head at least
to eat the painkillers in the soft cheese
and that old guitar was in tune
so I played it pretty hard
for a while

and even when he couldn't sit
or speak or roll over or do
any of the dog things, or even
ask to go outside or make it
to the door, Schmuck
was a good boy to the bitter end
And I really didn't know him 
for very long, but really 
that's all you need to know
about Schmuck the dog

There is no darkness, no cold
in this ungoddened place
and  when I drift unmoored 
I do not suffer nor dream

in this infinity 
the light can not find me
love is hardly a memory
you are a stuttering moment 

and I am an effigy here
with dry hay stuffed down my back
and no fire to light it
useless to the last

It keeps turning I guess
kinetoscope
or a celluloid reel 
or a magnetic tape cassette 
pinned to a motor 
whirring and clicking 
on and on and on and on
unbroken unchanging 
and to stop would be
catastrophe
half  ice age that never melts away
while the other half bakes
in the nuclear heat of the sun
and I guess what is the lesser
of the horrors to face
as the show goes on
in its wretched way
or eventually that
the movie finally

i worked on the computer all day
while she sang opera
i had 3 cats who i treated like children
i drove a 2014 toyota rav 4

i want to go back i want to go back

there was love in the house at all times
like being alone and together at the same time
we practically radiated love
as if you could see it in the air
i want to go back

i want to go back i
want to go back

even if i would get distracted
or angry about something
it was like playing pretend
because we were always safe, together

completely safe and comfortable

comfortable and how we would touch
as a family would, a deep kinship
and consistent like how a clock works
how i want to go back

i want to go back
i want to go back, i want to go back
i want to go back
i want
to go
back
i want to go back

i even knew then, that i’d want to go back
it only gets worse from here
it only got worse from there
from then on
it only got worse
and i would want to go back

i was making enough money to keep them off my back
she was doing what she loved
and we loved each other
i am certain of it
and it’s a time that can only happen once
you’ve got a narrow window to not fuck it up
and if you don’t fuck it up, anyway
it will get worse

and you will want to go back
you’ll want to go back

you’ll want to go back want to go back
want to go back
want to go
back

to subtle purrs and snoring and a clicking ceiling fan as the saturday morning sun peaks through the window
and you eat german breakfast while staring out the window as the world just flashes by you like a montage
until you look back and it becomes different, somehow
any, how

and you’re going to want to do it all over again
you’re going to wish you could go back
and do something different
be better somehow
breathe deeper somehow
chew slower
think deeper
kiss longer
somehow

you’re going to want to go back
and that’s the one thing you cannot do

You found me in the corner
fading fast while the lights flickered
and there was a big engine idling
outside, a wrecker or an ambulance
that somebody must have called
while I clutched my guts and I
tried to keep them in

and there was music playing
a little too loud
in the other room
and I clutched my guts
in the corner where you found me
while the big engine idled
and you tried to move me
but I was fading fast

and the lights kept flickering
as more and more of the blood
ran out but I could only clutch
so hard I guess and the music
kept playing in the other room
while my hands began to slip
and the song was singing to me
you've got to stem the evil tide
and keep it all on the inside
Mary you're nearly a treat
but you're really a cry

it hurts me to think i’m stuck using this language built for precision over poetic nature. perfect for history books, math, and logical arguments. lacking horribly for rhythm, vague nuance, dualistic meaning, sing-song tones, or painless alliteration.

somehow i am born in to a world doomed to be obsessed with poetry and devoid of a mother tongue to make it.

i am eating shit and
drinking piss
at the encore hotel and casino
and i hear someone
screaming, in the distance
but i don’t care and
i won’t go looking for them

because i’m a lazy killer
it could take me a lifetime
and blame lies with the beholder