the clock in my mind
doesn’t really tick tock
it’s more of a low cruel scalding grind
like a rusty cog from an old Slavic car
i lay on my mattress the linen pulled tight big fluffy pillows to hold in my thoughts
the colors are sanskrit oozing in sunburst lotus in buds
every so often when my body shuts down
the beat of my arteries scats like old Calloway
from a past filled with poisons textured with scars
then the grinding is noticed by a runaway synapse and my eyes they go shut
the cat’s by my footstool and the dog’s by my side
yet it is lonely the spirit is gone
she hides in the closet
where her wings were cut off
diagnosis haven across the bookshelf
eating disorders sadness depression societal crud
the plant upon the dresser silver and wide reminds me of Warhol and incense and wine
then the phone pings and i go rub my eyes
i hear that new song sent from afar
i wonder about mother Hubbard and the Kennedys the story of pauper clowning the kings
so i get up to empty the voids in my throat
i walk to the kitchen and touch a tea pot then i look out the window and think of your mouth the back of your head
do i look for what’s final or do i trudge back to bed
Anxiety
one Sunday morning in the year of our Lord
rain stuck in the gutter mud needles even glittered pine cones from Taiwan congregate in rubbish soup
lines long at city hall and the soup kitchens too Star Bucks forget it i might as well be gone
yet i love her like a mother loves her son when the battle of the souls is lost
pinpoint to the time when spewing truths out of our lungs picket signs pro this con that
here we receive old boxes filled with wasted time to keep forever under downpours of collective pain
states
birds chirp
the last
song heard
before going
into shallow
restless sleep
pipes clank
neighbors laugh
dogs howl
window cloaked
in moon
sliced Roman
shades cardinal
red i
then find
the cacophonous
earth fading
from me
there is
a river
in the
anemic star
light its
ripples a
veil of
opal and
brass the
pit in
my throat
slowly calls
a chant
a prayer
of sorts
to any
available mother
to take
me in
the arms
of anything
before the
poison of
the hyacinth
breath of
the deep
seated night
will drag
me in
the undertow
of her
charms while
the nymphs
dressed in
Coco Channel’s
post C19
gray suits
flirt for
a like
enmeshed in
electric forgery
unnatural i
the feel
in this
cage of
bone nothing
but mud
midnight news
reporting blues
and the
porous truth
that soon
a derivative
of Pi
will flow
through my
blood to
buffer the
pandemonic messiahs
birds chirp
the last
song heard
before going
into shallow
restless sleep
pipes clank
neighbors laugh
dogs howl
window cloaked
in moon
sliced Roman
shades cardinal
red i
then find
the cacophonous
earth fading
from me
there is
a river
in the
anemic star
light its
ripples a
veil of
opal and
brass the
pit in
my throat
slowly calls
a chant
a prayer
of sorts
to any
available mother
to take
me in
the arms
of anything
before the
poison of
the hyacinth
breath of
the deep
seated night
will drag
me in
the undertow
of her
charms while
the nymphs
dressed in
Coco Channel’s
post C19
gray suits
flirt for
a like
enmeshed in
electric forgery
unnatural i
the feel
in this
cage of
bone nothing
but mud
midnight news
reporting blues
and the
porous truth
that soon
a derivative
of Pi
will flow
through my
blood to
buffer the
pandemonic messiahs
eating my words [vi]
eating my words [iv]
the katsinas in my dream
eating my words [ii]
eating my words [i]
dear postcard
i am here on Hope street in a liquor store its open because its essential outside is a sickness it’s been here all of my life remember when i was young and fearless and unattached now i’ve fallen in love with life and have everything to lose my priorities have changed so bloody much i ran myself into the ground now i’m dying to break free dear postcard with the ultra blue ocean pearly shore electric green palm trees and skinny bikini girl with exaggerated tits remember when i was young and my freedom was a tether to a wild wild road now reluctantly i am here masked ten miles from my home gloved lying to the cashier about needing sanitizer and candy bars fiji water and a box of cheap cigars for my diabetic neighbor the sickness deep in my blood hypnotically stares at the bottles in the case here at the crossroads again postcard i write on you a note for help living one day at a time has become a slippery hell
winged dirge
the songs that birds sing sweet and piercing in my heart
lay me to rest in some other part
of Your universe so dark
where the songs that birds sing
sweet and piercing like Your voice
lay me to rest in Your universe
with those songs that birds sing
i too will be free soul pure
sweet and piercing songbird
resting in Your universe at last
words less spoken 