there is a cue
I am not aware of it directly
but when it occurs
I can see and hear and feel
a sudden and universal shift and change
in all things
in the world around me
I do not understand what it was
or what it has done
I only know that it has occurred
and that it has left me afraid

I am visible
I am a tall body
in a long coat
with deep pockets
I am so underwhelmed
I am not familiar with the image
and appearance of my reflection
as though I could stifle the reflection
of scorched soil and dried oceans
I will write about this place

watching the city skyline
the vital horizon
break at my shores
and swirl high above me
holding myself to the light
and my cup runneth over

I am at once
in the time of clean collars
breathless and meaningless
disposable and functional
inevitable and blind
howling at the very small
and passing into the very large

let there be cake
and in jokes
cracked half in my hands
let there be no more self portraits
and one name for ten heads
counted in fifties and hundreds
let me disappear completely
let me be familiar in my absence
let me be found

I have a fear of heights
I have words for all things
that are the case
and a void for all
that are not
I am afraid and I
return to
run.

9:31 am  •  21 May 2013

I am forgotten
much as I have packed less boxes
each time I have moved

there is a great scale
in what comes next
in the endless horizon

I am manhandled
court marshaled
and released

I walk with the sun
in the shadows
under the soles of my heels

I am lighted
lighter than
and aware of an event

the genesis of something
god, the world, or myself
a proud laughing stock

a great gone wrong
as something other than I
must have done

- - -

seasick grin

in my hands there is an envelope
in the envelope there is a letter
but there is no body in the letter

in my head there are eyes
and an endless horizon
but the sea brings me no change

10:28 pm  •  21 March 2013

love is four motions
a grocery list of aches
and a storm of black sparks

postured in the waking hours
living in a field bare
moving left to right

giving a voice to all things
crying mercy or a revolution
paying bills, covering bones

love comes softly
as the witch hunts
starting fires

and it is in this moment
that I am learning
a place called nervous break

7:50 pm  •  30 January 2013

I am. civil provocateur.
I welcome the nongods 
ever exhaling
living in the forest bare
ignorant yet faithful

I am. oceans.
wolves lasting
an endless night
sand reckoners
great attractors

I am. with them.
they walked
and there will be
no intervention
measuring lightness
by a great weight

I am. in a fog.
as it was over
it had begun
as driven
under humor

I am. in a word,
the poem is
run.

11:30 pm  •  17 December 2012

you should love books
but I mean my books

I communicate
my vision of being

simple and wide

we meet
in upstate new york

the center of colorado
or the bottom of the atlantic ocean

you are not a curse
you are a swear

I am not complicated

you are a revolution
you take too long

I am afraid of those
whose only deterrent is morality

you are sand reckoner
wolf or great attractor

I can swim

12:37 am  •  25 November 2012

expansive minds take shape
when our eyes look westward
humility blooms in the shadow
of what god or goes unknown

every no one in particular

untranslated gestures, labor
thankless, books burned
broken bones, time matches
profound wickedness, sheer

the devil’s greatest trick
was convincing us he existed
his greatest contribution
was madness and advice

sin is our own invention
living is not an argument
intimacy is an atomic winter

I have nothing to add
but there is much that
I would like to remove

6:02 pm  •  19 November 2012

fire’s quiet life

upon the hillside

overlooking the city

glowing eyes knowing

all the wonder

in the world

fire’s quiet night

dancing bravely

under mitigated

weather systems

the next era

is one minute

breathless

heaving silent

dance

the exposure

is blinding bright

a tour of active duty

the anger is nothing

the elegance has seen

the body in motion

with bodies in motion

fire tells the same story

but tells it slant

drunk on the bounty

of the home

stripped to bones

the dance

lasts an era

the newest misstep

the weighty dance

set light upon 

the broad shoulders

of forgiveness

2:08 pm  •  7 November 2012

“visiting, resident, passerby, accident”

she happened
and she was beautiful
in happening

and despite nothing
passion read blindly
I was reason
 
she put a monster in my chest
an intimacy
which too strongly resembled

a fire
the way a body decides
another body’s fate

you must understand
she said
that is a fear

are you afraid
she asked
and only then was I

she killed the sun
the same seen cowering
in a gold surrendering gown

she told me of death
in a disguise she’d never before seen
in a room she’d never before been

scenes of absolute taboo
cool mint / novel canvas
scenes of chance shock

scenes of seasonal intention
index / mechanism
scenes of sweet invasion

history will suit us better
in the light
of the future

I have outgrown my characters
and I’m not a word
I have ever written for myself

billskipping fuck
but really
I’m broke

a laborer
I swear I mean more than I say
I was faith

2:25 pm  •  29 October 2012

here, vision, the unknown quantity
under the horrors of digestion
journeying to france or arizona
addressed as an island among islands
though tense and in no real direction

hah, suffer, the word is written
and undressed the next night
under blank space lost blank space
a moment of hesitation in rome
and the phone line sounds disconnect

an immense suspension of belief
and a terrible faith in cold numbers
to know those better versed than you
should you ever grow taller than them
they will end the noun under the verb

and the immutable bias will grow
from ceiling to floor terribly polite
the witch hunts hero, rock, villain, air
more than a divine monster’s little act
stiff or limber after invasive surgery

2:17 am  •  28 October 2012

no saint
in unquestioning silence
has undone the individual
we are an archivalist species
we record and save and revisit

we stand in conversation
the only willing homogeneity
after the city vanished
or nothing I say next
will make as much sense

throw a knife at the wall
see if it will stick
throw a pen at the wall
see your hands
imagine all that they can hold

breathe deep
two beats
youth
two years
great waves of it

take courage
direct attention
to your mouth
and say nothing
quickly

take what has been
forgiven of me
paradise
of the nihilist
a bad example

I will follow the pantomime path
of the barbarian
go ahead, laugh at me
I will stare into the sun
with my whole body

I will stare
into the great spectrum
of the human experience
the tight wires and luxuries
of the overactive mind

inward and outward
at once

return to my eyes
as dirty rice
still rising
which if not now
will soon be cold

11:49 pm  •  9 October 2012