shooting adolescent Deceptions,
through fog years; exile items
self and other, character dreams
lifting, effervescent dew
sticking strung out, sunlighting
grass, only real feeling
beneath my feet — they’re
after me! They are
coming after me!
(where am I now?)
blackout mind lurking
lunging ‘round corners, raping Insults insinuations, pouncing
prodding in defense, immolation
pulse, punching eye purple shut
shadows behind, sins
catching on to me.
(where is my now?)
smothering and smoldering, vengeance
clawing back dead virtues
crushing, caving my chest, no one
nearby. last breath, sirens
and wrist-straps, a torrent
toward the end of agony
and wrath, delivering a loud
display on a gurney,
a dead man’s voice,
drawing the shutters — to trap
the light in the room, every 15 minutes
a flashlight takes notes, tight eyes
to sleep, vinyl mattress sweat
stuck to cheek, burning
my own lies electrocute
frenzied mind, hungry... I am with you
(Say nothing to no one
Haven’t you learned?)
think first what you are / call to mind
what you were — drawn images
Out of delusion, someone else’s still shots, someone you remember dying, there is no clock in these rooms, stepping
into the open, behind curtains
of guilt holds, someone I remember
being. (Where am I going?)
silent Purgatory, endless future
appetites dulled, dry mouthing
blunt desires, cloudy past transitioning skies come grey, far away, practicing forgiving to be forgiven, starting with the embers
of patience anew, fitting into
fresh skin, burning
broken chutes, the heaving
rollercoaster out the wall, trees
swing branches
stripped bare, every
winter friend, every
summer memory, every
spring family, every
string of thought, Fall. cutting
at a piece of nothing, you
don’t want to go to jail in Texas,
the nurses handful of pills, rainbow colored Diagnoses eaten alone, what time
of day it is echoing screams return nocturnal
questions, doctors writing notes,
peeling consciousness flips pages back,
earmarked favorites, prescribers
trips to Hawaii. No windows in these continuous walls. The only
(where I am going)
walk outside construction,
synaptic pruning, single
file, the Nothingness of
true connection, a chain link fence,
the infant moloch, I am with you...
flickers the shame and the pride, Imprisonment and power, the poet trapped in the poem, recognized
for what he is, does what he
shouldn’t, gets in the way, doesn’t
control himself. Tell no one. this
unheard humor, laughing
sail sound of soft water cackles
at the unseen shore, blue horizon miles, drowning moonlight, the Victorious right hand extending to itself, stark
empty stare of concrete night
