heels on the hard
bone
heels on the hard ground

tippy-pad
tippy-pad

hardwood-hurt
home.

her head wilted into the crook of his shoulder- waiting to be taken apart
for diagnostics.
the circuitry was buzzing quietly. only the blue lights
and one orange switch
were left blinking.
outside the window, things were trembling billions of years away.
outside the window- the vacuum drank slowly
from what was left inside.

they had arrived at destination.whatever that means.
she didn't look up.
he couldn't.

As we sway
Like stone statutes
Under the tideless
Moon

As
We
/Cold marble/
The night
Away .

As we plummet,
Wet-winged to the
Sea .

And
Me ,
Gun-faced    as
Children .

Wolf-mouthed , as
Love .

Bring me your/cities
To
Wipe   spittle-edge  .lips

With something to
Grip

To grip
T0

  .grip



I



   grip.you

_dogs bark in the shape of unsure gunfire as motorbikes growl by and
rain pills-up the blackened planar earth//like an old.favorite gone through far too many washcycles// .breakfast at midnight, they say- ******* the air with hissing tailpipes in the cool repose of darkness.
⚠️begone, foul steeds,the dogheart demands - knowing well, the falsification of instinct in this place.
it’s a new brand image we worship now!it’s a new pantheon of thinly veiled threats!
everything that’s been promised!it’s good for it-but just
put it on the company
card


.

I am Dogma.
I am Poison.

I am "Please, Someone, tell me what to do!"

I am Newly Turned Earth.

i haul
stones from the castle to the wall
and back again

reshaping, sisyphusly
and
waiting for the

A human’s religion
Is its most beautiful
Story

Itself,
The author.


It tells of
Us.

What
We are.



A
Seeker of
Truth .

Fooler of
All.



What are we doing?

my
name
for you makes you real.
and breath puts your pieces together across the roof of my
mouth.
i could heave you
through another age of men if you were spent-
you fall apart where the tongue stops.

i can't.

so watch us through your bedroom windows,
cuff down the tops of your socks at the sound of our coming.
clamor to us.
weave
your wars.

the elixir of daylight crime is sweating off the skin behind your elbows.
squeezing it from the things in the produce section.staining your sheets.
it's pushing together the plastic tablecloth- the settings are abandoned
as they are.we let them sit long into the summer neglect.we are still

eating off

of them with our eyes.   i am slim.i am throwing open the peep-hole of the world.       the voyeurs go running and screaming /fingeringthemselvesastheyflee.
she remained:
pressing the webbing of her toes up against her ****-
one leg
pulled in tight, one ear up against the wall.

we are banned from certain channels.  we are throwing-up in our
mouths.we are winking at each other.  we
are just
resting.

i want my phone to die. i want to scrape my knee.

knees and knuckles
pink w/ youth and .   hurt
and isnt it good to know we can
still scrape something [good]

like bangs across our eyes. like pockets
being played with instead of
looking forward- face front
my eyes, lunge around- across
rays of dust._dead sharp floaters
in a sea of stuffy air

let me learn you like legs
(i notice) under my                         sweatshirt.
                                    pine green

you have that look in your eyes like the heat death of the universe
i can see it building out into an absolute
springtime.
i may not be able to understand
but i will see that look in your eyes
and know its like leaving home for good

there is a term applied to religious
   paintings : mandorla which
literally means "almond" in italian.
it is an art history term referencing the shape
of the halo around
gods
and their mothers.

the word seeks to describe
the shape only.

w/out context
the almond shells in my hand .give way to
the metal hand-held ******* of years passing from
(those pictures)

i speak,but

my _breath.is caught in the jacket loose rubbing
elastic cuff
ribbing
stretching out
reminding
.hairs around the toes in the shower
stay behind. even under the sock
throughout the rest of the  work day
trill
evidence that memory connects to
event
[]][][[]0][]]
looking through my husked fingers to block
the light of its halo,
the sun bakes dark objects only
in winter
with home dragging along ;*****
in wool'fibers
home drug
like old music
unlike new music which is recorded
forever;
stomach pangs for sandwiches but the
mouth drags.along
      a l m o n d s .

the gate, we find,
is left unguarded-as
you
trace out your
glances towards me like glancing blows from fangly dog-mouth
scraping :
up and down
these
tired thighs of
skin


and greedy hands, we find,
are easy to
guide

there
  and
Elsewhere.

The name of the thing
Is not the thing /
The measurement of the thing
Is not the thing /
Nor, the unit of measurement /

The costume of the idea is not the idea /


That is to say,
The house is not made of wallpaper, nor
Paint


The words we are using ,
Serve as only the lowest common denominator  -
Seeds
Carried between
Islands

By movement in the air.

Things are much
More
Thing-ful
Than that

The
Gods
Have come
Home
To die

In a shambled
And impoverished future
Life
Was a series of rooms
Which we inhabit

Knowing
Or
Failing to

And
[ in an old folks home, I overheard a dying  man say :

I don’t remember her face
But I remember she used to hold me tight
And we’d sway
Sway
Sway.]

Grass strains are a treasure
traded for dullness
For a long time

Shaking like dry spiders with the cellar door opened
Waking up without .


With the
Personality of a carpeted bathroom

we
touched the floor grieving no one
while girls pushed down on their skin.
we kept our heads hidden inside of
gloveboxes
in the dry.mouth-feel of the night
we scraped it out:
the sound of eggs at breakfast-  early in the pink-eye morning.
with tar behind our lashes, we watched the ropes **** each other as they were tied down around your heels.
but better breeds better
and

as bitter as the backs of your teeth
and as fitful as the lips that you rest them on


tired as laundry maker's love,
and the darling dogs gnashing around in the cool-cut yard.
early in the slime-shine morning

The clock radio predates my birth by at
Least five years
It must .
Looking like that.
On Sunday morning
The alarm is still set :
And goes off before the sun . Before time
Deserves to exist

Smothered in heaps of (hopefully )clean
Laundry on top of the bureau

The Sunday morning art program slurs
Words between the tangles of sweatpant
Legs
And
Unpaired socks

(Socks I am not responsible for)

/

My mother used to have an old radio in
The bathroom that must have been of a
Similar vintage.
It was a beach radio:black with a brown
Grill - thin red line across the white strip of
The station numbers,

Pushing around the little plastic wheels on the
Side,the red line never lined up quite right .

It hung from a long black drywall *****
From its
Squared off handle on the wallpaper behind the toilet

I think it may have belonged to my
Grandfather
We never took it to the beach,
I’m not sure what he did with it.

He may of just sat out with it on the back fire escape in August.
By the spindly dogwood tree that I remember my nana picking white blossoms from in spring.

The blossoms still come each year , I’m
Sure.
(I don’t know who lives there now)

My radio wakes me up on Sunday
Mornings .
My mother’s radio would play softly at night around the corner from my room.
Sometimes she would shut it off in the early hours of the morning -
When she went to bed.
Other times it would just play



///

tonight

is a ligature->the tap water in the glass full of tap water in the glass
in the glass

dawn is somewhere.                
here
our faces are snoring like a chihuahua gnawing at my ankles.     down
to the Achilles, babe-
inside the stringy things that are holding its throat to
mine.
i leaned back.
you crumpled.

i don't

the ground is littered with these little ugly stubs that
go
everywhere
when you rush a notebook. they're not even mine.

she doesn't stand a chance.

they are waiting to devour her.          all of them.
the ones with teethes like middle school dances. the ones with
gums.
the ones that chew trident while talking on their cellphones in line, in front of you.

it's where it's at.
it's where it breaks apart.

it's gunna hurt
us.

mellow fed fun slide
help ***** slipped
slop neck chipped
huck gunk up through
dry and tired
mouths

like foretelling sirens for the twister
but, sister- it’s better that these blisters
from the still rot riots
from tired auxiliary habits
the meat ****** hammer table hungers
the hinges in the same doors like ugly, earworm-popsong-poisons
the scuffs in the rug
the runs in the tapestries torn down to wrap/lug loot from the pillaging of the castle sanctum
like these cold towers
like nights with out night watches
like a starless mind

like what he said about hemlock
like knocking down the mysteries hanging like static from around the corners of your eyefolds
like skinrolled maps to oblique stations of new and hipper torture device forms

resurrection



animal vegetation, visitation rights and eight days of blue sunshine

on a red.
window.


bird feeder world washes yellow sparrow birds sundial weather watch the water get so warm

i met the aging father of an ex-friend in a park.
he had a large bicycle with him

they were always riding bicycles, the whole family.
healthy living. watching less tv. reading more books. doing sports.
he was sitting on a bench
i had recognized him- and in spirit of better days and holding no
illwill,i approached .
we got to talking
and it got to why his son and i had drifted apart all those years ago
i don't think he ever knew the whole story.
i replied with nothing too specific
but later thought about it more .
i decided that
he got tired of the loser's table and i was still content for a bit longer
and yet, to this day, i have never thrown someone’s fish out the bus

window .

i
feel your heart in mine
which is    a stupid thing to say
but
an important   thing to
           mean

/


no hotter pocket dimension
this side of
inferno

i will spin your flesh like wool
just for the morsel of your heart
i will stop the music
and look at you

i will look at you

/and at the wet extremities
we dine together.

the hydrogen peroxide heart
denatures to simple, harmless water
in the light_
failing to
challenge
the evil army of living filth assembling attack ranks by the back-edge of the bathroom sink .

it’s a fake creation myth
for
fake inhabitants of a
real
Land .

it’s a
promise, undelivered
by
cells, dividing into oblivion, breaking oaths like
bread  
in a story about
  outlaws and
the
murderous state .

it’s
good - or
as good
as it’s gunna
get .

  as
mold minds
inherit
Us all : We, the spoils of an un-fought
War.

Fill your spaceship
With things you will want and need

Me and my space dog
Shoot on and
On.

i'm 7 1/2 inches  old. 8  by you.left. a film on me
like melatonin.leaking outside of it.vocaloid choaking. kawaii grunge in the  
waterlogged
meniscus.my genocide- your ears.ihate the way it ran
down the wall then.   better.if i crouch inside your cradleface18+ years
ago. like an inflammation.    you qualify for
recursion_  
like the newer- more appealing nightterrors.we escape      certain
allegories. by gutting them. filigree-
whipped outside.to punish the exhibitionist inside: your lanky breathing.i am tired of borrowing your guilt      i must be good.you
think.i break my wrist.
we.




anyways,.

FIGHT FIRE
WITH
FIRESIDE TALES

the split door
glazy
doe-eyed
as a []



standing on the train, no hand holds

zip ofthe doorline oppening like leggy
flow like salt and diamonds chiming intercom
chinese bell

//:caravan after caravan   
     
            gutter|paths
      into these quiet disagreements
between       .map-made
        and
salt-deposited.as

carrion
               filaments
rake

what              remains.


sticks loosely     atop :

                    the given .

           the drop
                                  .as
effigies of a dark forest are emboldened,
  freshly-hewn
                       into
    the membrane
     .beside the steadied tap




unhindered landslide
wet soiled
basin/
nascent tributaries //bristling
with all the
hunger and coarseness_
of something geological

        dinner is served
            taken greedily              .and
     replenished easily ,            

       returned
   to its mother:who lay now,  e m b o d i e d .
like the slow formation of            crystalline      
                                 ­                         treasuries 
 
    inside the heaving breathlessness of the
              world.

and everyone here wants to be a victim, wants to ****** themselves,
glorify their struggles- feel a hero in their own stories.
                                          but we are better off than that.
we give, take, ****, breathe life back into little girls drowned in the undertow of public pool drains.
we install washing machines into the room
with hoses 12" too short for a rational person to justify.
it is the art of necessity
not pride. or glimpses at judgement or relief
for which we do heroic things.

and so as the girl grows (to 16 or so), she murders her family on any tuesday night.
as the spin-cycle comes on,
as it rinses out the best artifacts of last sunday's diner from your best shirt.

in time my dear,
the soft,whining sound of

hours
slipping
past your open palms and through your moist fingers

will cease to amaze.
or even feel the need to take in a breath for your presence-

.you look like rain and slow burning cigarettes
blank check. ink wash. arson-ette.

shutting the door on another night of angels-
and other fiery things

meant to complicate
us,  
here in this city of
children.

there is passion and there is numbness
and there is something inbetween.
something that's alotabit a both-
that's all mixed up and frantic.its quiet on the outside
but unpredictable

there's the meanness in this world
and there's the not

and there the winter time

and an old LP of houses of the holy jammed up at the cardboard corners and worn down to the white  along the spine

hope for the future
respect for the past
but not to the point of disservice towards the  
now

grooves grip
the road and wet
                     fistfulls of brainmatter
schluffing-off
idiosyncrasies
like a culling of
outside voices
in
favor of
deadguys in sunglasses

ditch-skid kid
doing what he’s told and
following directions

the world has spat itself inside-out
in the ******-flash of the
claim.

piercing thin tunnels of
flesh
through less-than-best-laid plans,
as if
laying itself were
virtue enough to ****
by






as the dishes
drip

in failed echo
of
the
windowsill


and
i,

glittering fangface
upon the instant spell
of


opportunistic .
encompassure .

.


   the ripples in purple fabric wrapped loosely around your crumpled
Frame  :

The
small ghosts seeking refugee between each automated
Stitch  ,
Which
Creates basket-hole //
Blanket-sof,t cubby-units
For
Respite after wandering

Store me away there for
Later.    
   alligator .


Radiate
Out
From

The film under your
Eyelids / it’s
Unbroken meniscus
World ,

Hiding
Big creatures
There From the.   interruptive
  view of
Mankind  .




Prism  .
Gun.
You





   /and
other short stories about the
  making of the.universe

the roadrash of the path ahead
mars the viable skin graft of
her tender side-
haunch forward,
too towards the future to care and

I spy with my little- I
Spy with my little eye

a sleep cutter
red sheet maker
wet pillowcases and
wet pillowcases and
blankets.

it’s like marrow, but older
here.
carrion don’t reach it, even in  flaunting
  it’s most disemboweled humiliation-walk





heeding.blacksoilmemorymothermoist.promisesstill
         gemming
         away structures for later-
      realization.beneaththeforced
chastity:
of:::::::::::­
:::::::frost


gleaming hot
carcass.,:://:/:/:/:., ,.teasing a thawed word,
if only to satisfy the
aching, fetishized spit
of our.snarling.smiles”:;::;:”
inside.the                        enc­ircled
p l a t t e r.  world
bending, wordless giants_earnest to the
will of
windandicybondage

creak away in the night

lap
lap
.lap
.lap

lap.
      ;

it’s a tepid nectar
that now drips from these leather-winged amphora jars :

they circle, like harpies
down to us upon tumble-hot currents spinning off the face of the
earth




but there are subterranean cisterns
of something else

out there :


cool water
against us.


and my syrup-stuck lips are
dry
for
it.

i could out you.
      in an instant
but.

the difference between an act of friendliness and an act of friendship.

do the jack-pines
know that they are going to die
when   the golf-course gets redone in the
spring?

do the amber utility lights know
the
fossil-records they foretell?


do the puddles count  the diamonds of glass
shimmer-trapped
in the
asphalt   there?

do the coyotes  call
eachother
by
name ?

emissary
     solutions
dissolve like tea
into too much
      water .
tastes        folded down
    into the back
corners of your tongue ,
scraping
molars   in mild annoyance

;magazine page torn out
and stuffed into
your shirt

for warmth
at the end of the world//

you flash a  smile_ or
is it a threat ?
and reach your hands
    down into
           your
          pants

Japanese beer in the snow

the undertow takes time to notice
as each washing pulse
whisks away
more [glamorous, radiating shoreline]



. h/e.


if we
shall remember
what has been robbed,
it may yet be        
     reclaimed

like.a call from inside the house
their          prickling
    sediment
  deposit
upon
              her.chordate lineage.its
                  taxonomy.it’s
                    telling time. an
   

e x h u m a t i o n     of
    pores:
       pathways


                     she,      the
=part.hungry
    receptacle

         as
.they rake all delicacies
                            // pressed        
        backwards \

as willing substrate

in howls
in smoke signals           and
in trembling lungs.

whereas ****** and hate are more palatable than ***
and art.  

and the music of the world- you ****** up with your ****** voice:
you felt things hard but not well
and so were not worth
anything.

(and it was as
just
as it might have been.)

morbid is the mouth that tamed you to this loveliness
where it's cool to be sick.
and watch our arms wither back to the
lips bounded by vulgarities unspoken:
all the while they deserve far worse.
best
friends long since ****** over
scream out for eternal homes that fail to exist.
sick enough to the soft stomach. folds over the belt and hangs there just
enough to feel
shame. hair caught in the buckle and
pulling. 
fare free-er than the other ones:
the violence of the stock photo.
and of the clip art.
and of the godfearing people.
their curation was
like a goodmorning to the legs that carried you, homeless,
out of my caring.
like the salt, kicked around
by
boots that don't get taken off at the door.
like the trimming of a fingernail.
like the moisture of a breath.


but all this you embroidered into
the murmuring

to escape the fat sickle of the crop that hung lowly to the warm air
-out of the shower, ready to destroy us all

all the while wanting to be knotted
by any beast big enough to devour you

and combing through it all
i heard you crying

and i might have wept too
save for the bitterness still kept between my brows

your greatest gift all.

and by the
sores and the soles of my
encroachment,
we might build cities to that