The Disability That Prevents Me From Falling Asleep While My Feet Are Covered

Who knows how it arose,
out of the periodical perio
that haunts me from the
ankle down every winter,
or from the skin-shock
revelation of toes on toes,
but anyhow my feet
aren't made for linens anymore,
they have been made
for breathing naked in the night,
for falling from the rafters
covered in boils and bruises,
and waiting for the barefoot
nurse to peel back the bandage,
lightly blowing air along
my whole body starting at the base,
and as an anti-fungal remedy
(she loves to be helpful)
pisses all over the foot of the bed.

Evensong

Bring me a sliver of redwood
with a clipping of yesterday's
newspaper nailed to it
like a missing poster,
proving you were there
the day I passed you by.

I will bring you the lace
of my shoe that I tripped
on while I was sleepwalking
past your estate in the hills
where you made the sweetest
noises out of pebbles and glass.

A jig should not always be considered a happy act

The lie was not always the problem.
The problem lurked unseen
and came out for feeding
once the dark widened the distance.
You can see me doing a jig in the distance.

The fan whips around the smoke,
funneling me with funky fumes.
It is not a net of terror.
I have kept most things intact.
I keep on with my solemn jig.

Filling up my spaces with the tartar
of total loss of gravity. Lucky
to have dropped my skeleton's key.
I thrive on the mystery.
I do a jig and multiply.

The flavor of reminiscence
goes sweet and sour incessantly,
switching off between tides of breath.
I spit it out. And master
the jig of becoming my master.

Kaleb Worst's Day Off

I rise with stuff in my eyes,

the residual goo from having

a good look at the gestalt,

and wake myself with water.

I turn soft on the sofa,

bouncing my leg to the optimism.

It creeps like condensation 

at the window, looking in.

Starvation of energy.

I loathe the refueling 

of an insatiable battery.

Sheepishly, I guzzle down.

What am I capable of,

if sleep and food and touch

are all arid afterthoughts?

The rest of it all.

Flooding the Field

Returning home:
Two girls running
to stay warm.
The tall one tears
through the veil,
scattering syllables
to the clear air
like pine needles
in the frigid wind.
Tell her we're almost there,
she tells me,
flailing her arm
at her friend behind her,
out of breath.
Tell her we'll be at the bar soon,
and warm.
I tried projecting
my voice, channeling
all of the pitter-patter
of my mental processes
into the right kind of response,
the certain type of certain.
I said to the girls
and would advise again
to any stranger in winter,
Breathing makes you warmer.

[****] On The Bridge Over The Tracks

I smirk every time.
It precedes
the panorama
of the city
on my way to work
and succeeds it
coming home.
Reckless pink
epitaph,
how has nothing
washed you out?
I think if anything
has ever been
designed
to survive
the winter,
it's the stamp
of removal
yet to be removed.
Creeping
underneath:
noises of
trains.

The Timeless Quest for the Stamp of Approval

The clock is an eraser,
making smears out of
the sketches in my mind
and vanishing the
rings from my eyes.
Out of an order
comes the disorder,
and the constant
rotation of pans
keeps me handling
it all. I keep clipping
my fingernails in case
it is important to someone.
I get lost in the music,
the young symphonies
and philharmonics,
and the whistling somewhere.
I stumble through the night
in stark light
and am blasted by the burning
mist of the faucet sprayer,
feeling less and less
as my pants soak unnoticed.
Yet deep down,
where reason sleeps,
I know I'm working hard.

Serenade

I fell asleep
an hour before the show,
sloping off the armrest
and hoping for a wormhole.

The eight graders
started scratching their instruments,
making music, I think.

I woke minutes before the show,
the auditorium full of grandparents,
and before jumping to my feet
I had a suffocating feeling

that I had slept through it,
and that everyone had stuck around
just to watch me dream.

Dea lucis reliquit terrae

So this is the death of our story.

We were overdue for a blessing,

bent and shaken out of shape

by the bullshit we endorsed,

so it's about time we foreclosed

on this shack, no more shacking up,
no more picking up our teeth in the street,

no more toll booths to enter the garden,
no waiting for the great dream to erupt,
no intolerable distance or circumstance.
I breathe you out of me.

At the passing of a train,

I see you cross your legs
with a smile

at the end of the line.
This is where I get off.

The moment is mine.

When your name drifts

out of my mouth in wisps,

I see the silver halo

of winter breath and air

crowned above you,

and I have made it mine.

Holding you in the water,

in the brief panic

before the plunge,

we are weightless.

Recollections of you

can only be used against me,
and despite my advisors

I have been exhausting my memory.

You say you'll remember me.

The only way anyone will believe that

is if you offer proof of purpose.
Prove you have something to lose.
I have seen this twice now:
from one set of arms to another,
from one ride at the fair to another.

Once you discover a cocoon

that won't stick it to you,

you can fight that legion

of demons, the ones that have
not forgotten you.

The demons that make you

bash your head against the
brick wall, that breed suspicion,

that let loose the hell-fire

of hypocrisy, the demons

that cause you to pout, tantrum, 

vomit, slum it, stuff it, 

make a sham out of it.

O insidious sweetheart.

Dressed like a flower girl

at Death's wedding,
down the aisle you walk
dripping from the saliva
of hot-blooded hounds,
flipping your hair,
enchanted
by the radiance of your decay.

For six months 

you did not bother knowing 

if there was another life

in store for us.

If it existed, you said,

by now it's dead.

Our story sweats

such savage rancor.

If I could cash in

on any karma

that I have collected,

I would throw it all down

to never hear your voice again.

As a half-learned astronomer,
I am sufficient

at connecting the dots.

Your constellation 

has become a blot

on the skyline,

graffiti on the wall

of a greater promise,

and a deep well

to draw from 

in droughts of apathy.

I have heard reports

of happiness

down the shore,

where she feels joy

beneath her tongue,

where the tulips

tangle in her hair,

where her skin prickles

and thighs quiver

and diamonds sail
out of her eyes.

Transparent as the soul

and just as unfailing,

her dress gives way to the waves.

She takes to the sky 

like a bird frightened to flight.

And you would not love to love her.

notes to myself

The rolling black foam
muffles the clapping icicles
hanging from the lips of the deceased.
The starlight funnels into the churn
turning the cliff walls incandescent.
This begins the holy vacuum,
the descent of the sea-salt song.
It expands like a horn bringing dawn,
seeping into the cracks and folds
of the rolling black curtain
enfolding the dark and darker coast.
That was where I felt the foam at first.

--

I miss my girl.
She was more than good to me.
She saw the cracks and stuffed
them with glitter and glue.
I don't know what to do.
It's all I can do to stop
breaking. Shatter
me and let grains of sand
roll like a wave of sadness.
I can't handle the custom-built harness.
I'm slipping straight out
because my weight is slipping.
The cold weather is holding me.

--

It all faces upward.
The stalks in their upward growth,
the yarn unspooled journeys north,
the eyes of hope cast toward the north,
the spikes of sorrow impale me on high,
the broken ice and wind is taken
to the ballet of north-wind heartbreak,
it all climbs that upward fervent slope,
and nothing is worth climbing back down
for a mouthful of dew
that turns your teeth into violent craters.
Hard work gives a snow-capped wing
to those staring at all the grey up there.
So much grey up there.

--

The darkness encroaches also.
Hanging on to a frayed rope,
dangling from the hope of an escape
into a dark humid tunnel full of
light and stars and sailing mercury
nothing short of anarchy of the soul
leaves the wounded heart yearning
for infinite cold searching for
an angel of gold
Providence extending warmth
to the border
bringing us over to sea-pastures
of dealing with it.
Of living for sake of life
and giving for sake of strife
in the twilight of love and loving,
aye, I cannot be stopped from moving
towards the sad unanswerable mystery
that locks the misery in completely.

I wish I had the good sense
to fear death and all its hammers
hammering upon my soul
and beating bloody the flesh
of the fatigued
I could guess at the sense of upward
if gazing downward
did not produce a sensation of
sleeping.
All I see are specks on the floor.
And all doors are useless to me.
If only we could be free
from the terror of living for sake of dying life
Constant dying lying life.

-

When I woke
my hangover spoke.
It's time to make coffee,
do the laundry,
align the letters.
In the throb
of those first few minutes,
I could not think of anything
worth saying to myself
except that
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

--

it is clear to me what you may or may not have done

it is clear to me what you may or may not have done
i'm a wide receiver
you can't get shit past me
trying is crying
aren't you tired of crying
isn't it messing up everything
i can picture life outside
i have a feeling it's happening
mostly to you
the way you always wanted it
the way you begged to see
another shelf of books
we couldn't afford
the rustle of swan's wings
all of everything out there

i'm on the fence
singing like dylan's bird
but not just for you
i'm sending out a warning
to the legions of shits
who will wipe their conscience
all over your face
anything to replace this
confusion yeah?
it is clear to me

what you may or may not
be keeping beneath the folds
whichever river leads the
better direction
build your raft
but fire is your only craft
you burn everything good
you put it out with your
guilt
flutter on with your life
i think i can bear it

it is a serious game

i should not have
hassled you

i should have let you be

i shouldnt have pressured
your pressure points
into folding into
a pyramid of constructs
and constructive criticisms
concerning your unsober
plays and unplays
it was not your fault

you did not need to do anything
for us to fail

it was in the cards
for us to fail

there is not much more to say

i am sorry
that i decided
it was your decision
or lack of decision
that our success
depended on

rather it was the cohesiveness
of our coo-operation
that cemented the sad fate
of our blue-light exercise

my most important hope
is that this insignificant loss
does not alter our patterns
or hunger to better ourselves
i pray
we do not lose this
brotherly drive

yes you are my brother
get used to it
i get mad at you for stupid things
surely you will sleep it off
and continue adjusting yourself
to the present,
the gift of the next game,
the cove of the victory
and the nexus of the
untimely bloom.

psycho

it looks awful nice out there
that out there
that i am waiting for

i'll bet the pavement is warm
and that through those doors
wait people i know

i wake up in a sad fever
and stumble
to check the mail

anxiety enbalms me
and there is no switch
to calm the buzzing

despair numbs me
only temporarily
before i wash out

the bright memory
of being hungry
for the life

i thought i'd lead
now all that has
sunk like lead

to the depths
of my curled-up
vessel

bobbing along
the sea-salt
throng of flesh

Failure Donor

Finally
there is a use
for my excuses.
I have come
to the voting booth
carrying a pencil
itching
to write my name.

I have stood
on dissolving
milk crates,
preaching the
end of my time,
using my
wealth of knowledge
concerning myself
to pinpoint
my familiar demise.

The fishbowl
is full of chairs.
I have sat in mine.
I have flushed
the system free
of error and toll.
I have filled
the fishbowl
with drugs
and dirty water,
I am a warm host,
I invite all the parasites
to come and play.

I watch as it empties
into a basin
laid at my feet.

What's next is what's left.
Struggle succumbs to sweat.
Nothing I do helps
so I am passing it on,
paying it forward,
until this fishbowl
is clear and bereft.

Stay Asleep

I'll be sure not to bother you here.
I've been careful
so as not to let the moths and
winged phantoms through.
I hope I don't wake you,
warm like the sun
and breathing so soft.

Nobody knows
that I have slipped in.
I carry no letter
but the words stamped
into the veins
of my wrist, frozen
out of fear.

My disposition
is at an utter standstill.
I would kill
for a guaranteed
psychic reading.
I need to know where I stand.

Lucky for me I know a guy.
He's got a sense of humor,
always teasing me in dreams
of torture tongue
and sauna situations.
We talk in morse code,
through the blips and bleeps
we send each other in sleep.

Sorry to bore you
with the realities of
being an abnormality.
I have strapped myself
to the shelf long past
my expiration date.
I am owed a renewal.
I guess that is my reason
for wanting to see you.

I want so badly
for nothing to happen,
for everything to stop
happening at once.

Frowning Moon

The grass is a bunch of shit,
lit up by baseball field
lights and moon beams.
I have trampled it
with the erosion
of my routine.
It is a broken palace.
It is the place where
sparks are silenced
and diminished
to a dust by
the virulent foot
of my anger.
I cannot control
the way that I
feel now
or the way
that I have
ever felt.
I have
never felt
this way,
the way
that I conquer
even the grass,
so at once
sad
and bent
towards hell.

a good attempt

Little drops of condemnation
fall from the
lightning-storm cloud,

forming pools of
fingerprint sweat.

What am I doing?
Lying

baking in the
gaze of a
late summertime
storm.

Biased ambassadors
leave a crinkled note
on the doorstep,

asking us to
step it up,
to keep it down,
and to water
the plants nextdoor.

I have nothing
to contribute
except
a scrambled
figment

which lies above

Consider

For a moment,
forget your
first born son.
Then makeshift
a sack to load
up his shit,
so that he can
admire the
covers of
the books
he brought with.

No candles lit.
I lip-low real
soft because
if I were to
disturb the
cowlicked
stalks of the
black corn sea,
they would
rally the lightning
bugs to strike me.

I have many more failures
before I can come home.

Trunk of Veils

Lately I have not wept
for the usual things:
but for the cave
behind the waterfall,
the trunk of veils
behind the veil.

With the
smoothing-stone
of routine
I have glossed
myself over.

I weep
for the tunnel
laid in stone.
My sides
constantly scraping
as I near
the clearing.

To think
I had achieved wasting!
Look at me now, ma:
stranded sans passion,
poor, purposeless,
stuck in the wasteland.

Is it lazy
to blame the assembly
for failing to assemble?
It feels as if life
has ceased to give life.

It was not enough
to win a heart
and continue winning
in whatever manner
I knew how,
whatever back-handed
back-alley back-walled
way possible to me.
How did I become so
mathematical,
to think this all so linear?

Walking along the beach
with only my feet submerged
in the surf, I know myself best
and think to throw myself in.

Yet to keep the salt from my tongue
I continue walking, sometimes running,
always in the same direction,
and I wonder too often if my cowardice
stems solely from my inaction,
or the half-hearted manner in which
I only move towards what is in front
of me, half-ocean, half-sand,
stretching for seemingly a lifetime.

Learn to Live Dead

Ungovernable

dreams of dead things--
the albatross of mesh,
a darkened
storefront, the quick closing
of legs at the brush
of a fingernail.

Eyes scatter
like dragonflies,
all of them sweet, blue
and watching me.
There is a song
without words
concerning
promises being held,
being melted down
and somehow
held again.

On the beach,
white as ash,
a xylophone stretches
to the vanishing point,
all along the coast.
I played it all
through the night,
until my hands
withered to black,
the way bananas
might, sludge
dripping down
between the bars.

Empty
night beguiles me.
A pocket of air
in the throat
overwhelms,
the walls
of my cheeks
weeping poison,

I push hard
on the spot
between my eyes.
You're in there
somewhere.

Incendiary Chariots

Well-traveled is my longing,

on a humble dirt path
winding beside the marsh,

trailing into the muffled dark.

The fever of the moon

leaves sweat on the temples,

causing my mouth to engage

and disengage like a clam.

My face is pocked with
the green stuff of swamps,
algaeic are my tears,
clinging like parasites.

Like pike in murky waters,

the coming months
will make away with my
fingers and toes.

Incendiary chariots
led by sky-black stallions
form rank to carry me
into the distant doom.

Should I allow them,
not even the bells of smoke
clanging for my name-day
will ring loud enough

over the clamor of hooves,
snapping chimneys
and bell towers like grain,
the hellish horde of doubt.

fancy that, even stars can burn ugly

my pointer finger

has turned yellow

from smoking

in bed

all day long

i have no concern

for the weather

that's coming

or the weather

that's past

the rush of winter

closing in on

huddled figures

outside Perkins

freezing themselves

to death slowly

sucking on

smoke 

my teeth 

turn yellow daily

from bubbles

and ash

staining my

corrected canvas

leather is the 

textile of death

the walls grow

ornery and stink

dogs pee on the

floor when they are

happy dogs pee 

on the floor 

when they are sad

i am much the same way

always pissing on the floor

letting a trail follow me

the same color

as my pointer finger

a telltale sign of selfmurder

a calling card for cancer

my seal of selfworth

Lady Nature on the Lethe

I had her for a thousand months.

She was my finest patron,

a nymph with leaf-golden hair.

She'd bring me the fresh pulp

of bodies gnashed by rocks,

faces blackened by storm.
She quickly forgot them, licking

the sockets of my skull,

thrusting a hand through my robe,

tugging on my mortality,

glistening the vipers of my lips

with the balm of her fingertips,

a frost like failing autumn.
Every morning her garden was
withered and grey, dry as my bones,

though every night it rained.

God Save My Queen

"I'm slowly edging you into adulthood. Or dragging you into it, whichever you prefer."

I prefer being prodded,
the way a lucky patch of seaweed
is edged out of the ocean by
a few months or years worth of waves,
until it washes up on Cape May.
That radiant sundown shore,
where you learned what it meant
to have kindness kiss your face.
Ornate as a promise written in sand,
your nose and mouth and eyes and hair
flared with the cleansing fire of summer.
When our lips first met
in the black hours of dawn,
not even the bright wash of the screen
made you any more illuminated
than you were just as the sun went down
on that beach of Cape May.
This is my way to say
that nothing built or born
will ever rob you of your royalty.
Nothing can desolate your dignity.
Your grace cannot be displaced.
You are the waking wind
that chases leaves through the courtyard
and into my bedroom window,
splashing the good light of day
across my face. Such is when I wake
lying next to you, my queen of diamonds,
my unmistakable other.
There is no need for bridges
when the rivers we cross
turn warm and calm
whenever we like it.
And when we kiss beneath
the white rapids of our
garden-punk rage,
it is the only time
I have kept my eyes open
underwater.
Now you grow older,
and some sinister, unseen force
twists you away from me,
as once we've twisted away before.
You have taught me
to keep my head, cool my tongue,
to wet and dry my cheeks raw.
I have learned as I learn every day
that time and distance avails not,
as Whitman would say,
at least when it comes to kings and queens.
We could have a reign never before seen,
conquering doubts and debts
not as two children might,
but as a man and woman should.
I have learned a thousand kindnesses
are not the same as kindness.
And that kindness rides fast
on a dying mare,
tramping through the green fields
of your good heart,
which for all its trials cannot fail.

My Honorable Scythe

Forged from the feathers of Ra
and salvaged from world's end.
I found an artifact so ancient
only your mother could comprehend.

One good look, you're toast.
One skin prick, you're screwed.
My scythe dumps animal excrement
all over your new leather shoes.

I cut clean the gum from my eyes,
I threw the scythe into the churn.
It crawled back to me like a baby
in a blanket bundled with scorn.

So I'm raising it as one of my own,
'till it reaches a wisdom as mine.
I've taught it so well, my son from hell,
whose only last lesson is dying.

The Deck of Socrates

I have watched the stalks
as they pop up each year.
In shadow, a chipmunk
broods over a flower,
smelling a spring so dismal
he wonders why he even
bothered fattening himself
on his stores. Noon comes
round bored, bringing the
hemlock to burn away
the fog in my throat.
Each time I wipe the sweat
from my bottom lip,
the stain on my shirt deepens.
Past the fence, a few boys
turn a snake inside-out
with a firecracker,
tossing the punctured
exoskeleton into my yard.
They think this is funny.
Then the chipmunk hides
beneath the deck, weaving
the cold shadows with
fragments of scales,
until it almost lives again.
Planted firmly, the
stalks of suffering
sway gently during rain,
but otherwise do nothing,
and after so many springs
I have seen enough of them.

I Had Some Quarters

I had quarters through the slots of my fingers.
I had quarters whispering through my shroud.
I had quarters chipped with the lies of bankers.
I had quarters fallen from the banks of clouds.
I had quarters form a shivering sound.

I had some quarters.

I had quarters lost to the cough of day.
I had quarters stomped into the cemetary.
I had quarters rolled into the catacombs.
I had quarters for coffee and laundry.
I had quarters the color of falling.

I had some quarters.

I had quarters for bread and sugar.
I had quarters for damage of the brain.
I had quarters strung along my puppetstrings.
I had quarters the smell of rain.
I had quarters longing for greedy exchange.

I had some quarters.

I had quarters as eyes without empathy.
I had quarters as seasons without change.
I had quarters formed like stars from my breath.
I had quarters as a bedazzled cage.
I had quarters as my shiny visage.

I had some quarters.

I had quarters plumbed from my excess.
I had quarters bottled up for love.
I had quarters to push my agenda.
I had quarters to finance my bluffs.

Light Shopping

The cereal aisle is much too loud,
loud with the complaints of mistakes
the size of children, and the soft
humming of my indecision.
How am I to make responsible
decisions between sweet spheres
of corn, humble squares of wheat
or monotonous flecks of grain
spiced by the perfume of health?

I'm wasting an hour of my life-light.

I know that if I forego the milk,
which I often do, I am merely
eating popcorn for the elderly.

I'm not so prone to dying, darling.

I'm just a punk, considering cereals.

I'm a June bug baby, swaddled 

in fluorescences, stunned from the 

the enormous screen door loom,
weaving the worries of
that next huge world,
humming with a sticky apathy
only bugs are lucky to experience
for a whole lifetime.

My humming makes an organ
tremble in me, a deep plum sound
that one day will soften my
whole body to a walking bruise.
Then the decision comes easy.
Then I'll send someone for me,
fold their fingers around the
crumbling flake of my fortune,

tell them to buy me the best
health they make these days,
whatever damn shape it comes in.