running rampant round late autumn trails,
through memories of the breathing, the still here
and the not-still-here, the vanquished, stone divine

this is a prediction, this is a beautifully dug entrenchment;
this is a scalding habit, this is a carefully drugged patient;
but, now:
now, enthrall, now, withdrawal;
Now, NOW, tighten the blinds!


it's too, far too, bright, and it's August 23rd.
just stop it, man.
dont't let the narrative narrate;
remember the living undead:

this is a prediction, this is a beautifully dug entrenchment
to lie in when the dogs are near, to exit when the clouds are clear;
i don't have any more will, more will to hemorrhage here;
grab the pen: grab the shear! grab the pen: grab the shear!

the sun shadows your skull

blazing on, elevating

the alright and the fabulous alike

do some wells store and share

while some merely drink

the scraps from our forks

feed our people's families

feasts for the gods but

you disappear into the crowd

down, down, down, drowning 

the best love is homeless

you can't find it on google maps

youll only see it in the street

but sniper blimps seal our fate

the adults will kill us all

words wont win badges here

only time can send the wind to move you

only the world can show you our beautiful stars

again amid the deep rank scars of blah

drowning your waves ashore

this, my greatest fear

that you have forgotten

how to look at me

with arms for me

with arms for you

a child's love is homeless

you can't find it on google maps

youll only see it in the street

but sniper blimps seal our fate

the adults will kill us all

smile at me
and ill cry
cacophony
desperation

pat me on the back
tell me i did alright
and ill well
and ill well
cacophony
desperation

rest your head; it's ok
i remember my friends
and i cant forget
there's a better way



smile at me hard
i need you now
i need you now
i need you
now
now
now
now
now
now
now

cuz shes rushing through dirt
screaming tearing soil to mud
her words awash
her words run

ill love you forever
ill love you for always
as long as im living
my baby youll be

held in my parents palms,
below calloused fingertips
in the trough between
mountainous blister ranges,
history's rough etchings;

i was raised gently,
away from time and place,
hair unshorn
heart never forlorn

cycling through tabs,
there's a moment's hesitation.
the present becomes
the past unfolding still,
unfurling your mark like a past ally,
now bitter rival,
inversely proportional

cycling through tabs,
the letters of five different e-mails
run together,
forming your icon
in my dreams syntax:
your name is afire
on all the billboards,
on all the highways.

Straightened these slumped shoulders,
And filled my heart up again;
Sent smiles through chambers,
Where atriums housed echoing laughter:

Slide your hand,
Trace my lifeline,
Into your land:
Breathe into my lungs

Slide your midas hand
You will not  err, err, err, err
You will not err, err, err, err
We cannot err, err, err, err

We'll hobble into posture,

Past the pasture and pens,

Through my mother’s darkened barn,

Up away
Up away
Up away
Up away


Give me your hand,
Give me your hand;
Take off your glove:
Our fingerprint unlocks our heart.

the terror that terror brings
is infinite and without regard;

the terror that terror brings
has a divine scope.

terrors give me trembling hands,
shaky thumbs approaching
dirty off-white keys
as i am within the largest
most unsettling hug;
terror's arms are huge.
terror's hands are calloused
catcher's mitts, broken in with hate


i never really thought of death
as something real,
as something permanent,
as something that happens to real people,
and, now, its glaringly obvious
that death is the only reality,
that life is the fiction we're creating
when the sun is up and when the sun is down,
that it is in everyday life where the battle for power
takes place, and it's your narrative
against my narrative:
who will persuade or coerce us
"This is Reality."
... but it will really, always, never be 'this' or 'that'
but 'this and that and this, this, and this and that, too',
and then thisthisthisthatthisthatthatthatthisthisand that, too.

i am afraid
i can't think of you, mom.
for to think of you
is to later dream of you
of how id like my life to be,
of how id like your life to be,
and thats all i want for you,
to speak of you, again, in the present tense.

i cant help but see your eyes
softly glistening in the moonlight,
running far from sheep, holding tight
upon my pillow running free
from your grasp and screaming

each day is wasted that i
don't solve the world's problems
up with a nice bow in the middle
of two longs strings, at the
vertex of four ninety degrees angles

floricide, vaticide, hopicide, and other epistemicides; or, the vole in our hearts

seated, ill-fated and faded,
spinning on top of a top
at the tip top of olympus mons,
swirling down to sewers,
wet, wild, thrown into the cellar
where charon beckons forever . . .
but we may yet scale the mariana trench,
out of the ocean and up onto land,
arriving, safe, sopping, sound

where i will parabolize your mouth,
upside then down;
i will bring your hunched shoulders
to the sun then to the soil;
i will emblazon your sky
until you stub me out
amid plates clashing
the range will form
our peaks hemispheres apart,
and i will terrify you


my heart is two sizes too big

on a plane from columbus, ohio to chicago, illinois, after the wedding of my best friend; after the wake, funeral, and burial of my mother; after years of personal ethics-zeitgeist collisions causing a general lack of success, i.e. happiness

sitting, slumped in my airplane window seat,
unsure, unwitting, and unwise,
your head appears, swiveling,
as long curly black ropes, pivoting
my pen towards your well of ink.

searching for a seat for your body,
it is plausible to see you seeing
yourself in the mirror and smiling
with tangerine abandon and clear content.

i already have neighbors;
my row allows for no more.
fate has put you there;
you have put you here.
and i have only these words,

blown round my imagination
for a minute of stirred whimsy,
everyday life’s salt
against slick monotony.

what would it be like to dip my pen in your inkwell?
how would you feel after dipping your pen in my inkwell?

could we save each other?
can anyone save anyone else?
are rested heads on shoulders mere
heroin and chasing from dear to dear?

but possibility seems concave, bland and sterile;
i am satisfied with my words and will . . .
and nothing but disappointment.
negation leaves only the boring?
or will i always want the can’t’s and the hasn’t’s?

questioning the efficacy of past action,
declaring potentiality,
constructing imperative theories . . .
writing poetry keeps me present,
writing poetry is ballast.

as it is, i'll surely be stuck in a cumulus before breakfast.

the possibility of possibility amid amor fati

my mother died,
and the breeze
in my step left.

my mother died,
and the breeze
 in my step left.

but i lived on,
still,
while her chained heart
sank to the depths.

your heart still beats;
i almost mourn you more
since you are human
and prone to reason,
while death will not be wooed away.

i have the faith
of the dogmatists' i hate;
ressentiment divides
the self of my own fate
into a million negatory mirrors.

death is not just the end;
it's another beginning.

Radiohead's 'Frozen' (featuring Charles Bukowski and Steven Lazaroff)

ye olde prologue



radiohead's 'frozen'



epilogue (a)

Bukowski's 'Bluebird'



(rebuttals and alternative endings)

epilogue (b)

Bukowski's 'The Laughing Heart'



epilogue (c) 
Lazaroff's 'The Girl and Her Door
 

can survive with anyone
long as ya have enough drugs around
people are laughter
people are bodies
can survive with anyone
if you have enough drugs around

when i feel the warmth
rushing through my brain
feels like i'm striking every last frame
feels like i'm rolling a 300 game
in sunny bumpered up alleys
the porcelain here is cleaner than god

there's no distinction
you cannot make
there's no person
you can't explain away
there's no heart
that isn't beating
no cloudy souls
when you have enough drugs around

dancing in crowds
looking around
seeing all smiles
the best place to look
is just up up and down
ooh, ooh
if there's enough drugs around
ooh, ooh
if there's enough drugs around

forget your heart with every turn
i dont wanna run
i just really have to burn
do you, do you have some drugs around?
hey man, you got somethin to cop?
i sure could use something for these memories

when i feel the warmth
rushing to my heart
feels like i'm striking every last frame
feels like i'm rolling a 300 game
in sunny bumpered up alleys
the porcelain here is cleaner than god

there's no distinction
you cannot make
there's no person
you can't explain away
there's no heart
that isn't beating
no soul vacuumed when
you have enough drugs around

when i feel the warmth
rushing to my heart
feels like i'm striking every last frame
feels like i'm rolling a 300 game
in sunny bumpered up alleys
the porcelain here is cleaner than god

you're always late
i'm always early
first thing to learn is
always gotta wait

letter to a future love

dear,

sitting next to her in bed

thinking of the woman and mother she was . . .

she mutters now.

mumbles, stutters, babbling

off in a language, in a world

she only senses and does not know.

“now – here’s where it tells you everything.”

i hope she is talking to God.

i don’t believe in God,

but i hope she is talking to God.

for a breath i assume His Transcendent Existence,

but run away cursing

his bleak, everyday

manic depression.

still, her smiling face shines my memory:

i see her look down into tangled covers,

reminding it’s time to go somewhere cool,

and all i want is to be there now,

and not here,

watching her departure

through sagging skin,

through inane smiles,

through lost thoughts.

i wish you could have known her,

aside from my salty floods,

aside from my paragraph home movies,

aside from my smile in profile,

and what it does to my nose.

i wish she could have seen you

smile at me smiling at you smiling at me,

and i wish she could have seen

the battles we wash off our necks,

like she did cake off my lip corners.

i wish you could have known her

before triple-negative,

before metastatic and inoperable,

before incurable,

before cancer coursed,

and these words became the Himalayas.

love of mine,

lover of me:

what hurts most

in The Time of All Encompassing Heart Hurt

is that you’re not here yet,

is that i am all alone,

and you’ll never know

my other best friend.

yours,

me

there's not much light outside
except for wet soon to be water ice,
reflecting the moonlight despite
my sea of oak branches dismembering

this short tortured bright lights enough
of our shared space so that i may
understand for a moment, a thought,
my own plaintive whispering, lightly, a transient

yy____ on sunday morning, getting high in wisconsin
cooking breakfast with your mom in wisconsin
____ monday evening on lake wisconsin

____ in wisconsin

running after that ball
that wind blown beach ball
it went into the water
lead us to that
wonderful sandbar

feeling you grabbing the back of my skull
feeling you gr

brushing hair out of your face is all i ever wanna do
brushing hair out of your face
brushing brushing hair out of your face is all i ever wanted to do
staystaystaystay
stay
stay
stay
stay
staystaystaystay

just stay
dont run
but dont forget things
that cant be undone

i didnt think dying would be like this, too.

how am i marginalizing myself?

DUMP6/20100116; 23:26

i just finished "the road." never been so intensely moved by art in my life