The young one's are maddening. I must watch them come
and go as if they never know anything, but their teeth are libraries.
We could make out sometime and maybe I'd gain your industriousness, and you
my clean heat (which would otherwise make a mess of your face). Space
is limited, I am intended to say by my role as their elder, instead I
ask if it is cold outside. Would you like to come in. There
is a fireplace in the corner if you like. But only if you like.

If nothing else,
we are propelled,
by this sense of wonder,
to seek always,
the next weight in the sky,
and watch how it drags us,
and watch how we drag it,
former easily latter barely,
to the next eclipse,
the next end of light,
the next collapse of things,
into deep pits of nothings,
shudderings of spacetime,
blips in experiments,
like little heartbeats,
ultraviolet on Mama's stomach,
before she was Mama, things,
like this: which drag and are,
dragged, counter point melody,
a repeat sign at the end of score,
without end.

Earl,
I liked how you retreated from the world
Every time I see a sweatshirt I think of you, girls
Wanna take my hoodie from me on Sundays
But don't care about me or my curls

Why are we responding to things. Imagine
statements in vacuums. True or false, finally
quiet. You can shut the **** up now. Thank you.
Thank god, everyday, for the blue at the tip of your *****,
the green insides of your ****. The colours are prayers.
The world is so much, remember, why black and white it.
            I don't really care about old films.
            I was pretending I was someone else.
            I might have slithered, I might have been
            might have been a snake. Blue.
Green.

The window creates a square on the red carpet. This is the sun.
It is not in space. It is not even alive. My eye is though,
breathing heartlessly, it attends to each as bean-sprout
splitting earth. As the young ways we were taught to grow
in science classes. The dying of it when I watered it
too much. There is too-muchness everywhere. With you
my watering magiked a desert. The sky
is good today, so good that it has even created its own
on a carpet. The teacher's foot steps there.

Two years ago I was in Connecticut in a used book shop. I found very small rare books published as a series of poetry. Red leather- bound, yellowing pages. They crack, those pages, and while this makes me sad if they didn't they wouldn't matter as much. I purchase a few. One of them, "Sonnets from the Portuguese", Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It seemed like the the sort of thing I would buy.

I came back home and I met you and I instantly figured that when you too would leave I would give them to you. I did the worst to you on some day. The other day, you said something to me and I burned for a very long time inside. I might have said something rude in response, but instead I smiled at you. I laughed. You must have burned inside every time I did. I do not care. You might have thought. I laugh at you. You might have thought. I was like that because I thought that They crack, those pages, and while this makes me sad if they didn't they wouldn't matter as much.  

I did not give you the book. Two years later, I have a class and I'm writing an essay about the first poem from it. I have been in bed for three days and the sinking feeling returns, I watch videos about how everything in America will crumble. The audience in the videos laugh. My sounds echo and return to me from my room's walls. Where is the sun and the air that might have been as the home I last saw you in. Not yours though. It was thoroughly unlivable for you though sometimes you think Where is the sun and the air that might have been as the home you last saw me in. It is yours though.

On the moments I do step into the essay-- or rather, I step into the poem for the essay-- I hear her speak. And I would read about her husband. He wrote too. They loved for many years. When they lived, her words were far more loved than his. We send each other emails sometimes. You sometimes call me when you're drunk. You burn. My voice. When I call you through my laptop screen I stare at you. I burn. Your hair. What sun, what air. She says

"Guess now who holds thee?"—"Death", I said. But there,
The silver answer rang ... "Not Death, but Love."

She says before she met him her life:

Okay, conciousness, will you watch me here alone within these four corners?
No, not the world-- surely we've settled the question of that flatness.

Baby cousin points at my old toy robot
Declares, 'This robot used to be big.'
I say, 'No, you used to be small.'

'What?'

She then crouches down to old toy robot's
height and smiles and laughs,
'I used to be small like this!'

Maybe, just maybe I'll have
one of those little things
and teach them about stars
and boys and girls and words,
but I already told you
I can't live like that,
I think.

How do the nights go? Chillin' down there with the white folk/
Ne'er be a token given I'm golden so I might just bolt:/
Usain; when I'm lazy talent swishes down the drain like bad milk/
Ain't cry o'er **** that I spilt, rose from the concrete ne'er wilt/

Narrowly lost my mind sometime ago in this flow/
like slave boats from the Gold Coast with wood creaking dream-songs of lost homes/
I was drowning in unconscious streams of different scenes of this mind's scenes/
I seen through the scenes of green trees turned to yellowing leaves.../

Personally, I do not really want to talk
of that kind of madness; to distort
                                            to be distorted
is punishment enough, I think; the world
is far too slow enough as it is. To love
is to see too far sometimes. Too near
is nothing but a kiss, which should occur
                                             with closed eyes
                                             signifying nothing.
                                             It is so dark in here,
my love.

Sea-shell song, hand-paper gasp
green grass swish crunch, fugue siren drowns blue,
pupil light harsh glitter, blood bite teeth cup sing,
     do not submerge the baby's head again
     again head baby's the submerge not do
why and where are you gliding down like that
aren't you done you're born already- what
significance were you expecting if the corner
of your eyes stops- there is nothing behind you,
nothing. No song shell-sea, paper-hand gasp
      blue drowns siren fuge, crunch swish grass green
      sing cup teeth bite blood, glitter harsh light pupil
again head baby's the submerge not do
do not submerge the baby's head again-
STOP ******* WITH THE REMOTE ******.

There's light outside. The blue-blazered man speaks
and I listen with my pen. All the warmth within
my head emerges as if called upon
by private hands. Wind whistles through the large windows. God
is singing low-mood like hormones like a child's recorder practice.
What is literature? we ask.
I don't know but it looks a lot like me.

                                                                             He says
the earth is lost in the future. Predictive
post-apocalyptic longing. Fragile
bones as flower-stems within us. We walk
like jelly. Strange to think of it now,
stranger yesterday still-- and tomorrow, the eyelids
slip away to the night: closing bud-codas.

        Repeat-sign, where are you?

The earth will turn to fire. Our revelations
are gas-large, cow-heavy, burning engines
zooming across cliffs. I drink
because to think of this is not the sort of stumbling
I need. I need arms
and wine-fog hiding them (as children's games). I need a mirror.
And I would want the birds. Them too.

In which we drink ourselves
to a certain happiness, alive
      as always, I think, to wake
is such dreaming, sleep to me now
seems such a reality I don't know
      why to continue walking
in afternoons evenings mornings
      what is sleep
(Nas says, *****, finger on ur trigger
                               it is the cousin of death,
                    *****).
                              ­ I still don't know
but everything feels so much more real
with my eyes closed, in which
                  we drink ourselves
to a certain happiness:
       something so quite unlike death
that we must call it life
     (some American college students
       sing some drunken Karaoke in China
       and I promise things will be okay thereafter
       in which the sun might shine again
       despite the eyes being closed and all).

Please remember,
                                I love you.

We can tell:

that the Jesus who we crossed was just some dude
–we hooked him up to an EEG–

and it turns out his pulses were the same as hours
and did not differ statistically at all

but his blood was a bitterer red than some
but you would think that if you hadn't seen it before.

When singing songs they are a chorus
of me and my shadows together opening
     our mouths (kisses at a distance
     some touchings of the self: love). When bees
buzz by the way that they do I imagine they
buzz by via their own tunes and not the wind:
     which happens to be around their wings. To sing
is something so simple and selfish and sweet
and right—wouldn't you like to know? —and when
you do it everything becomes yourself like a shiver.
     When I am with you: myself: the world
     is so much with us while really it is not,
but to sing it is good and is right and is sweet and is selfish so simple.

A cascade into dark, sheer dark.
          To fall without misery into you like this,

like this; like this
          within art is all of it-- the string of keys

black and white, gallops sometimes; sometimes whispers
          like words glide-- but discontinuous falling. Rise

again

          like this; like this
and it is with you, again and again as your reach for your pen.

First line:
ugliness is biological deficit

Okay:
so such
remarkable marked. I am
ambivalent about most
(I mean when we talk,
when we talk
to each other,
that is what is meant) of it

I don't really know what to do
with that

Dance maybe,
drunken.

That might help.

So rhythmless.

No matter how much I drink

So black

No matter how much I write

(Sad!)

Song, give me the words to destroy myself. Not this
body, this broken music that wishes only for my peace. Why not
the lightning of genius instead? The cool stare of the man
as lover, loving me. As flower,
instead we mirror-look. Mirror as water:
with water, flowers; within water, bodies; within water,
the girl. She has no words. What singing she has
is this body, is this thing I do not want, is this air,
is the address I flare to you. So, to me. She is the genius.

The thing I did was weeks ago. Bones
bend more slowly though set quicker: I
don't like the way your eyes eye across
the room. I wish I could configure
myself to think, "Yes I will never forgive
myself as well", but instead I think "actually,
given another quick thought, I don't think
I **** wit y'all no more".

Better now than never
They said

I wouldn't know

Some things don't sing

Some things don't quite sing the same

(To be honest
Some of the black songs
I cannot dance to
At least not with them.
Mother, please, it is my right.
I will survive
Even
If
Ain't no moutain
High enough)

Don't let me catch you singing again
Don't let me catch you singing like this again

My dreams can't fit inside my mouth.
CPU fan spins a lil' too fast, what heat!
    If I was a computer I would have legs.
    I'd run sometimes.
    No one would use me.
I'd write every little thing down if,
well, if, if I was substantial. Then
    something might follow. Then
    this instead. Then,
    somewhat remarkably, a smile. You
    are adorable, let's get coffee sometime! I
    don't even like coffee that much. Is
    that a thing that real people say?
    Say to each other. I'm still
chewing.

A few more words about: coherence,
it doesn’t exist for me, I’m so hungry
for everyone else and their platitudes.
It must be nice to avoid existential breathlessness.
I like that word: breathlessness.
I resent that platitude: existential.
I am not bitter, I promise.
It’s just that the air…
it tastes so…
                      …(blue.)

I'm like, one person
How is there never enough space for me
You talk and your mouth is...
listen, I'm like one person
The air sort of passes by
from time to time
        sort of how
your mouths do.
Whose mouth was first on whom?
I thought it would feel better.
You asked more than once,
if it feels good. Stop
asking questions that aren't
                 good. Stop,
no, not like that. Yes,
       maybe like that.

So many themes sound the same.
But it's not so sterile.
       Some variations are other songs.
       I could talk to you all day.
       Bach was a genius.
       He played the same thing again and again.
You all sound the same.

But the trees, the way they sleep
my lungs cannot hold it all
the world is all too all to be compressed
by breath, nevertheless, there were my lungs
squeezing everything at all my chest-

I'm sorry but I can't see anything
everything is too much and all at once
all at once the world is around me
all at once, somehow, saturated, undistilled
thick, slice the air with hand, hold

that breath, I could stare at everyone
and everyone could stare at me. No one does.
I'm not very fond of mirrors. I stare
all the time and each time I learn nothing
outside there is so much and it doesn't fit

it doesn't fit it doesn't

Mainly and namely, some form of grace
would be required to continue. Player One
should keep going at it. Player Two
can join whenever he or she or they
would like. Running out of coins-
finger click, bone snap, running
breath sitting. I'm excited to touch you,
I guess,
                let's not make it a big deal, she
said of this, practicing for after
her heart wouldn't be so new. But can I
grab it and you and all else new
and let it taste, let it, that might
be some semblance of my weak word, nice.

Tomatoes are nice
fruits or vegetables, I like them.
I eat now. It is nice.
Cheese has a fullness.
Meat a warm blankness.
And my tongue-

The business of living makes me be.
And it is often simple,
         I would cry.
         Could, but can't,
         I could.

I don't want to be you.
I don't want to be anyone but myself.
Maybe claim you, your body
for some single ecstasy.
But never nothing if not
myself, whom, I love, who
lives at home.

I don’t believe in you but
                             your face.

These are so many misunderstandings.
To be had. Some built in already.
Mental architecture, walls holding it all in.
Rigid bounce against doorframe, concussion.
Sudden nothing- push back from the dome,
the end of a thought; it is hardly weary.

Okay, so that didn't bother me that much,
anyway, people are nightmares,
but that's okay, okay?
that wasn't even the problem.

I think it was the gleam,
***-light.
People think that there's a sun,
a whole ball of it,
up their *****.

So yeah, it's hard to say:
maybe you should stuff it
maybe you kinda ****.

There was another light.
It wasn't so bad.

I sort of liked it.
It was nice.
It didn't wake me too harshly.
How can I explain:
     stained glass, church
     small solution, math book
     small ocean, ******
     curved shaft, *****
that sort of thing. I guess.
the perfect sunny of not giving a ****.

Thank god, everyday, for the blue on the tip of your *****,
the green insides of your ****. The colours are prayers.

People want the whole wide world for themselves.
The blue is theirs, they say. I know because I'm smart.
I own the green because I deserve it. I am strong, they say.
There's a great deal to be learned despite them.
I think it's pretty. I shouldn't give up.
There's a great deal to be learned from reading books.
I look outside my window and it's raining.

I mean, yes, of course, yes
I’m so, so hungry
but I will not eat you, no, not
no, of course, not like that.
      I otherwise like you,
                I promise.

It doesn't matter in which nation:
Colourless people cannot sing on beat.

Regret is such a useless thing
I’d so prefer it, if
you did not, look!,
                    at me
                    that very
                        , if
regret is such a useless thing
why preface it with the word
              (poem)
why preface it with eyes.
I will never forget the word
-even if it messes my head.

I am a quiet poet! Which is to say a frog
without a croak. Imagine a huge stone
leaping from space into our air without flare.
I'm like that! Did you hear that? No.
Punctuation doesn't speak. Professors sometimes
say "space" and "time" and sometimes "heart" in
reference to the bed the clock the beating. So
I have not much to say of the sky. It's blue
and sometimes not. I am surprised with grass
and here how it isn't yellow. The mirror
and my blackness in it shouldn't make me blink. But I do
click refresh. And where I am. Is my mouth
closed? It matters very little. Well, the ground on
which my feet step. It is also quiet. It screams songs.

Do you have da funk?
    It's a kung-fu shuffle with hip-hop hustle
it tussles in nerve tissue and glows copper sulfate--
    when you string up so many ****** of course their eyes
    bob and ba-ba-dump da-dump  jump and roll out the sky like

                                blue,

I mean the colour blue. That's da funk colour.

                               Take a lone winter morning

in which you refuse to wake: this too
is da funk. And it sticks to you like gum on a shoe.

                               So you dance

in your head and you think of the purple fizzing
nights like Lil Wayne on lean he jumps, jumps
and ******* maybe it might make me feel good again, too.

To bite into yourself and not bleed, that is hope, "my son,
you will be the beacon of hope in the solitary sky, fly",
and so, I become a Superman fan and tie the towel
around my neck and swoosh, swoosh. When
everything will inevitably come crashing down and all
but my childhood remains, will you too remain
my tongue?

                        Yes, yes. Always, my love. Speak.

How heavy things are.
Especially the feathers:
memories, thoughts, dreams;
heavier than bricks,
they tug at you even after you have let them go.

Siesta in darknesss. The sunlight disappears to the clouds.
I could wonder hazily from one step or street to the next
yet feel unfurnished and empty. Walk through me.
A bash to the shoulder and some books fall, I'm sorry.
These magicians flutter past as I blink unthinking
and there is the joy of the thoughts glittering:
But I am tired, so, so tired.

verses that be like these days
people care more about their phones
than each other sound like
the snap of someone's camera on
someone's phone
there doesn't seem to be much point
besides to let you know, by not
smiling
that this **** be everyday for us, like
"the world is too much with us" but
I'mma look good while I let you know that so,

Art is the great hope,
                   the creaking at dawn, the anti-
cognition of frightening sounds--
                   the churning, thinking machine-like,
                   of all our libraries, strained of fluid
until
dry, chapped turning, the rows and rows
of solitary whispers-- a certain kind of madness
                   that offends my heart like no other. Where
else would peace be but not here? Somewhere
inside us was once a light that was not
in a bulb and it flew like a moth towards
                   itself
but beat itself apart into its own sun, fell,
its wings little mirrors descending while our
father
                  screamed for us, a howling like birth
itself,
                  and there was the tower anew,
no longer a prison no longer a library
no longer a school or even a thought.

The sunny yum-yum of eating you out,
I imagined this sometime, when I was eating your
lips. I would defend this kind of poetry.
It meant something, I hope.

I always look for wholes.
     Seeing things for another first time.
          It is practically a gleam, dream, dream-machine:
when I'm plugged in, everything goes fizzy:
     white noise could never pierce me with its pitchfork tip.
           You can't string me up on a tree if I arson the forest.
I'm pretty sure I arson the forest.

My poetic force is violence, a mile in my shoes
is way more than eight, it's a lightyear in the least,
                                                          ­                               sheesh!
My  distinction in incision when I'm cutting tapes--
to paint the frame I shame the games of all the other lames, yeah.

Remember.
Your eyes.                 When you close them.
Those little things.                      Small lights.
                                   Your smile.
It's like that.
                                   It's kinda like that.

You see everything and then it is gone: lightning
in a dark moonless night: you before everything
it all happened at once and then never.

Turns inwards, and light.
     My chest withdraws towards
itself, and my eyes are mirrors;
      I don't like what I see. I walk
outside and fear and hate
      everything. I rasp, loudly
in mouth-breathing and I don't know why
      I don't know why anymore-- and the sun.
      Didn't it just snow yesterday and the sun.

Inside jokes are peculiar (and public) ways of touching ourselves.
Maybe we shouldn't do this while the neighbours are watching.
There are too many rules, [subject] protests, [subject] declares, [subject]
is worthy of anything peculiar (and public) in this world, in which
case is all, I'm sorry I couldn't help myself, [Wittgenstein]
is far too **** for me to have not forced myself on [                           ];
let's not make too many off-colour jokes about empty-sets,
they contain far too much! They collapse! Sometimes!
Under themselves!: [it is incom[this is a theory [goodbye
to everything that was [once [so symmetric[ it is [plete[
]]]]]]]].