Much In The Same Way That Bricks Don't

Greylit sky starburst center

and it formed a ring, concentric

circles of cloud and black and grey-white light,

as we formed a ring, concentric

circles of brush and clear, wet ground and stone

and us, concentric circles of smoke

and half-baked emotions and our own

brand of over-baked philosophies

on thought? And how? And why?

.

The artificial light never looked so real,

and it lent us some of its genuine,

and it lent us some of its ray,

but not enough to feel the contours of a nose,

and we lent it some of our shape,

our concrete form it lacked and longed for,

and we stared at the shadows for a while.

Lungs split down center

lleno, full of all manner of crustaceans,

barnacles forming thick crust about

bronchial tubes, swollen.

.

But respiratory defects aside,

crooked, crooked as in sideways

following a non-linear path,

as in crook, as in not-quite-right;

two crooked strips of flesh stand facing

two brittle sacs of air.

.

So as the heady mix of nitrogen

and his colleagues whistles in and out,

a slight tremble becomes apparent.

The paper-mache walls are shaking,

shaking, not with the breeze or for

the cold, but the slight and growing

unease born out of staring down

two mirrored spheres, slightly crooked,

several clicks too long, sideways grin

cracking at the edges,

and I shiver.

You. Where I was/am/be

you are. 6 clicks of light.

Spinning in time a quarter-day away,

our hours have been offset, but

I never reset mine anyways, so maybe

now we can finally have a conversation,

without that annoying time-delay.

.

Where I answer your question

before you’ve asked, and you reject my response

before I’ve answered.

.

And when I say I miss you, I

mean I miss you all the more

for how you feel, I felt, we feel,

that way, but home comes to you

wherever you sleep,

and you’ll get there,

wherever you sleep,

just sleep sound,

goodnight.

I’ve been coughing, coughing, coughing

up. There’s a horsefly nesting in my poorly kept voicebox,

sucked in by my stuttered breathing. I was never very

good at following a metronome after all.

And the grains are falling, falling,

falling up sometimes. ‘Till the nest is

full and the chicks are fed and my own

family of insectoids climbs its way up my aorta,

straight into the pump so desperately trying to empty

my blood-flooded basement.

.

Now I’ve told you, understand my anxiousness?

I guess I should say I have

butterflies in my stomach, but these don’t feel

like butterflies, and I generally abstain

from eating caterpillars. Generally.

.

So would you mind taking a peek for me?

I’ll make a quick aaah, no need to spend much time

down my throat, but just take a peek. Just a peek.

Just check if its horseflies or caterpillars, thats all I

really want to know. But you can stay down there a bit if you’d

like.

Green and dying, dying

it was the ground on which ___ stood, stand, standing, falling

The rest ___ silence

The theatre, theater, dead below ___.

They told ___ no price, no price was, was too high to pay, pay for the privilege of, of owning ___.

Scarves of red tied round, round ___ throat, round skinny rainbows, conspicuously placed emblem

of peace on ___ left ___.

“I have to admit, I am a big fan of ___ humor.”

Dead eye cast, hard stone slab stuck up, right angles

.

Criticisms clearly set forth, set forth, ___ forth

Dear Fellow Clergymen, ClergyMen, clergyMen, Men

I just want to ___.

Laugh

Why not, tell my why to fear your floor of pigeons,

your passive-aggressive, aggressive, northern bear

Bagged bees, rogue bi-____ vehicles.

Tore a whole in ____ schemes.

May I offer an alternative?

.

1) collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive

2) negotiation

3) ____-purification

4) direct action

.

break Laws, Laws, break, broken, breaking, estan roto, mierda

certainly a legitimate concern

Who’s laws?

____’s laws?

Zeus’ perhaps? The great poseidon?

Al puto diablo con todo eso

pues, vale, where does that leave us?

.

Excessive ____ to ____’s own ____, ____, or ____.

He awoke in school-soft slate wool-scratch bed, changed into exactly who he was and had been for a time. Timeless, a decade of such, lost in time, one right turn away from tomorrow and a left turn from the day after. Epidermis marked, permanence not seen for the better part of a solar rotation, or the worse part as viewed from the school-soft slate. The worse part, not lesser in quantity, nor perhaps quality, but nonetheless remaining inferior as far as he could see. Far was not a word that aptly fit his position in this case. Far was not what his eyes could see, with rise-time residues filling the glassy blood-striped orbs. Far, not a state of being in this case, but perhaps a state of mind. The red-raw permanence left bare, served as a reminder, a reminder of who he might not be but inevitably and inexplicably was. And he knew, despite the blood-stripes, that if he could look one line would merge with the other leaving the interlocking parts in plain sight but the trick behind them invisible. He didn’t.

.

Alone he was not, for unmet companions in crime, yes crime (occasionally) lay in other bare corners on their own chips of slate. Poor criminals they were, awaking and finding the unwelcome guest of truth standing in their doorways. Some might have preferred a deep-cloaked guest instead, though this remains incomprehensible to me. Left on bare knees with brains spinning in their heads, spinal cords twisting, were these poor companions. Twisting, twisting, and perhaps, if they were lucky, twisting off. And far was apparently a word that aptly fit this case. It was. Far they certainly were. Not a far to see or hear (far-off), but rather a shiver in the kidneys that leaves one rather unsettled. They were (unsettled I mean).

.

But such knowledge did not greet him this very morning. No stranger stood in his doorway except him. Yet he was no stranger. A stranger yes, to the self that might have existed a solar-rotation past, but now was a new age. And with every new age comes a new alarm-clock. This one was particularly devious. It is already one of the most jarring experiences a human can face to wake up to a new alarm-clock, it is much more so when one comes across a device with so many damn buttons. The seven-a-m punctuality surprised him. He actually faced a surplus of punctuality, unfortunately he knew of no bank in which he might store it. Novel indeed was the idea of a morning that existed after six.

.

So, he was not who he was, who he appeared to be. Though perhaps now he is now who he is. Creeping meekness, or a rather less-flattering meekness, gripped him and held hims fast. There was no denying that he had lay at the tips of its fingernails for some time now, but never had he been held like this. Perhaps only in the weeks he had been tongue-tied had he felt as such, but that crisis hadn’t been his own doing (well, yes it had). Nevertheless this is where he stood. He had become docile, and he couldn’t figure why, though the coming specter (I should not call it a specter, for I do not wish to give it a negative connotation. This was a good change after all) could perhaps have shed some light on the subject, at least if it was holding a lantern. It would have to be a very old lantern though, a century and a half by my count. And time heals all wounds. Yes, time heals all wounds. But this was not a wound. And time heals no scars.

Mottled cork-soft coat of outer

pulp wood hue greets me,

works of philosophical vandals

preceding me, setting 

precedent, untried and half-tested.

.

Eros

Pathos

Logos

.

A clear running, my present

task to elect my own muse.

.

And shall pathos draw to my smallest

toes along, I, his convoluted

path as before my book-bearing and

pageless companions alike?

.

Pathos as in pathology as in pathological

as in liar, mentiroso

as in oak-plated

beams beneath

biology’s double-cushion.

.

The not-so-concrete foundations

of my newest home.

I don’t drive stick shift.

Clenched crab-apple fists, nobby

at the hinges, tendons stretched as steel

guitar strings. Back eyes sunken,

invisible sunglasses imposing their

well of unwelcome shade,

my seventh degree of separation.

The automatic clutch shifts smoothly,

vaseline handle.

.

Yet dark-time, cross pow-wow

treks with firefly/firetwig resting between

relaxed digits, helps

me to find the door propped.

Sweet mint breeze through,

and the cross-river cabin

seems near.