so i saw a lilly
and grabbed it
for a filly
she said that
was so silly
then things went
***** nilly

I'm left gasping
my false
version of you
shocks me
in new ways

All my versions
of you
scrawled hard
in my ink
on my fog

Attenuated
as dim
as possible
to avoid
more crying

Grooves scrape dark
'cross day
I go to bed
take a nap
sleep past you

And no one reads
my line
mouth open
clothes off
next to me

Once I take everything
out of my head
the world's put between
me and my own smell
the world's put between
me and my own smile

then I can see you clear

I know
we need such stories
to explain the game
so we know how to play

it's just
we forget our stories
are stories
we forget our games
are games
we forget other players
are us playing

listen I'm serious
my way is the way
it's no game
you better
watch
what you say
it's just you
that's on your
imaginary way

the objective, I've discovered
is to make it all play
it's the thing
you must admit
to be eloquent
there it went

I'm sure this is the last apple
or maybe it is the first
I bit and wow it just burst

rap snap wrap fap
lap lap lap hap

blap

alap alapa lap slap
flap flap ed flap
tap ed tap tap

knap

hap that cap
yap yap yap
sap hap?

no hap no sap
wap yo crap
trap

You should be grateful
for this wine
or any line
that allows you
to distill time

this is of course
what we do
wish to do
do aloud
loudly do

verbs just you being you
assail away at sound
anon sense hearing
following all the rules
and checking all
the boxes

of exasperation
phlegmentation spit
from my mouth on
the schedule of expectation's
rhyme
again and shoot me
boot me
one half foot o' me

Let's see
I've cried enuf check
I've made enuf check
I've wined enuf check
I've bled enough seconds check
haven't I?
and I lost a mirror
and i can't see you anymore
just a screen and another and me
such a glow

There is wine
and a reach up
and out
Raise your right hand high
use your left to drink to that
cabernet yah yay ay eh

feel free to substitute
your chemical excuse
and fetid dreams
so delicious and later
rank
below that of turn away

up to here with you
like the rest of them
take that filthy hunger
its concomitant anger
over not understanding
and you should

have understood by now
have appreciated this arrow
heartless weft singing self
and threaded to be sewn
into the daily however gayly
'n don' see comin'

ralph ralph ralph on top
lest we dance for nothing
which is maybe best anyway
now that I can stop thinking
about you about you **** you
again you penetrate my verse

barren time
baron time
bearing time
baring time
bear in time
bare in time
bear time
bare time

I remember
being loved hard
I'm crying alone

watching lovers
desperate
for each other

hungrily touch
I sear empty, want
such fire and desperation

I always think
then
I always realize
don't you

I chicken out
here
and then grasping
limieux

Hockey that is
puck
squirting away to you
pew pew pew

Rubbing my hand across
my phone's dark screen
it's time for bed
the battery said

The days are boiling down
aren't they
or are they?

Your shield is in place
neck hunch
I don't know?

I come b"??*?"ing time
moments
all crated hot

And I hold back stuff
no trust
scalding u

You read that wrong
I think
looking out

Its a time I know
this syrupy drift
of late hours wine
skinny girls
with me inside

rise and resist
rising and its color
and finally you know
you can be seen
seeking this
wish it 'd happen

A drop into your heart
of booted day
excoriating way
and you recede

I'd like a basket
I am thru the brake
I'd like a basket
It looks exactly like you
I am woven accrost

simple ru les simple ounds
an' lookin' like you could
kiss me

to find wha tinside
singing your h ands
around my kybd

capitalization lifts
its top
oof is much said

long for another doncha
when they say thas all

I see this distance
and I rue

these spaces
we ante up

i fill up with
this stuff

at you spew
hope something grew

reach i  am reaching
an even pour draught

of making stuff up
uncertainly

As long as I can make a dragon
I am ok
silly as that sounds
roaring from you

If you could nail a 2 by 4 of pure light
across the hole of your heart
I could cross back to you

Why can't you feel the edge you're on
what blinds you to the knives of time
while they carve from now tomorrow

Oh how I gleefully feed myself to them
this is not sacrifice nor submission
I'm just the material supplier to mine

I am Light slowing down speeding up
playing with itself tossed in airy time
playing at becoming night sweet night

Always sculpting myself with you and it
shouldn't be the source of my anxiety
as contrast makes the Light show

So beautifully

The thumping wretchedness
fumbling free of fear
to fall in love
with life
is me

I've packed a few things
and moved out of my mind

Most everything I am
I saluted and left behind

I threw the key on the floor
and backed out the door

There is not a chance
I'm coming back anymore

I'll forget those falling stacks
of waxy old thought

and lose my high and mighty opinions
so prime and all worth naught

Naught is insufficient I think
to describe their value fair

that i proudly shaped so sharp
to cut you deep fair and square

it seemed about time
i moved out of there

And now I'm in a bowl
it took forever to get here

You've no use
for me
Your hand travels
over

Your eyes flail
to away
Your hands wish
to click

for i smell foul
of letters
fetid with lyric
and lie

I don't understand any of you
as the front runner does not
understand what is behind

And I am you in your pocket
or on your edge balancing
an admission you resist

Fenceposts aren't
your thing to go by
are they

Smaller now
we lunge
past

I went to say
I've drunk myself
calm and creative
when the side of my head
caved in
I drank a glass of water
to re-inflate it
does it seem

My conceits are on the air again
or is it err again aloud again
allowed again
by whom

and this grimace is fake
its frightened on
my face again
by whom

Don't look around
pockets full
of buds
seeking that taste

How does the wind
find its way home
from ruffling these trees
and pulling my eaves
taking. I feel
it's cold look in

"I heard this and transcended"
so I'm listening to follow
which is some part
of finding my way

And I find always always
"we'll remember always"
to be a song I love
and would sing for you

and surprisingly I'm
snapping my fingers
and the saxophone sweeps
away all of my thoughts

unavoidably you blaring
like i'm staring at warm
and caring but i'm outside
and i am upended even

I gave up on you verse
I gave up on your opinion
even if you are sometimes
shrapnel or, worse, silence
you give me groove
you give me move
i know you're right right
right
then you get righteous
and i become wrong
i hate this so long
so long so long
me luv you long time
gone

Oh the crying I do
against a feather
of (what word
oh god what word goes here)

Nerve, the nerve
scalded
by your eyes
incomprehensibly

Goes here goes here
again again

and the tears run
they run
and i admit
i am shaking

and the reach
of this line of light
piercing
raggedy man

even if it was
i liked

at an angle
bounced

high on that
even if

i liked
this this

spaghetti's
sauce

this this
isn't amen

land it
this atmospheric

won't catch even if

and there is this moment
that has no bottom
the surfaces
around you
the people
around you
the furniture
around you
you cannot grasp
as you drain away
from everything
knowing

So you're no one too
sitting there reading this
alone

Only imaginary reasons
to look at
your phone

Let's put this  
stangst
in a poem

an' call it
rewards
of efforts made

and stop
making those
self same

as i'd like to not
reap these
same rewards

why do i think
i am someone
why do i think
they will call
when they don't
at all
they don't
at all

why do i think
i am not breaking
why do i think
you're not a piece

mmm
mmmmm

why do i think i am someone you want to come and see
clearly i am someone clearly i am someone
no one wants to see

here i am sitting home alone oh let me check my phone
no no one liked me back no one liked me back

why do i think
i am someone
why do i think
they will call
why do i think
i am someone
when i am no one
at all

A notwhich for lunch
fully satisfied me
and I laid in for an
afternoon silvan
listing forward now
as if i was getting away
an'd outrun something

foreground against
background as if
it had a chance

sand makes the inevitable
course gritty
or is it nifty\

and its a self same shame
we are contained
by savage rite

and spend our days
swinging knives
and seeming sure

I'm not sure
we should be
or are

Light upon your day
there is no other
than this

What am I?
Well, a zebra
obviously
But, does it fit?
I think not

All of our conversations end
with you giving me the finger
it is so satisfying that tonight's
did too

If that was our last one I'm glad
I was able to make it clear finally
just how wrong you have been
all of these years

I'm glad you can see how lucky
you are and just how much more
you should have listened
to my advice

I can see the look on your face
as you turn away and mutter
about the value of little brother
and signal

This air sizzles with chemo
and old paths uncovered
to be played once more
flipping off

Stepped off here
into the discolored
and disheveled
tidal pool
of my own darkness
the tour lasted hours

I've slept now
and drank
I've wrung my hands
and fretted
I've cooked
and eaten
I've pasted
and copied

Gotten back up
as far as really
down

ikr

and then snow
covered it all
Monday

again

to sleep now
this 'demic an' a
blizzard an' a

panic an' a
another
thing to light

these losings
the taken
away

these longings
the hoping
they'd stay

these evenings
the keyboard
with me

these efforts
the spilling
of time

these moments
the laughing
of stars

What kind of poetry turns you on?
What kind of rhythm brings you on?
What kind of structure holds you on?
all scant purchase for a soul
that isn't buying on
i make no claims on sense
and contain lost sensibility
amidst this fumbling hillbility
i'm just behind this curtain
with a broom wondering

I rebel against this
and any suggestion
you have about that

I rebel against myself
and my own guidance
's so wrong about that

This gets me to free space
the no pressure vacuum
I finally explode again

Obliteration sang as a jingle
brake rock lockity spracht
zara zara zarathrusta

Tears bring me here
where you don't care
aren't even here really

Fester, I fester here
in this white petrie
as you sniff nothing

And I'm angry at  you
say your perspicacity
must be poor and failing

not the artlessness of this
effort at resurrection whilst
lonliness' crooked smile reigns

Accept the river
it teems and you shrink
accept the river
you have grown strong
and your song abrades
realize
you must match the pace
slowing flowing wet

held in except your eyes
except your mouth
except your river
through you
i flow around you
i flow accept
the riveting
tear falling or smoky look
i am yours
as a river
is the lands

is there a lower form of life
i can live
i wonder
of course
i have first-world angst
crying in my warm bed

over women so beautiful
as to not
notice any
anyone
safely and never be alone
an' needn't be alone with me
love claimed notwithstanding

I just want to be with yuh t
ee-he with yuh
Not be me with ya

a little death oui with yuh

scattering all in the wake of ya

Huh

I'm having an epiphany
when I should be having
a Tiffany

New Year's Eve alone again