Other invisible beer later damanged

You were on the other side
across a table,
an ocean,
a dream or a meaning of one.

I was invisible
barely there.
A vapor.

You had two glasses.
Said one was for water —
one for later.
Said, “Get a bear.
We’ll be here a while.”

“No, thanks,” was another answer.
One I didn’t say.
Never do.
Not to you.

We drink to laugh out loud.
Now we’re fighting.
Shouting.
riding another high.
like a highway w/no lights.
Middle of a moonless night.

I’ve got no compass.
You’ve got no plans.
We’ll get damaged,
ripped up,
ruined in the crash.

You get another beer.
We clash.
I’m getting up, saying something
you don’t hear.

Not here.
Maybe later
if the high gravity
gives some weight to the water,
the weightless world we built
like dreams of…
something.

It was good for some things.
Like fights, late at night.
And beers, bottles of it,
just disappeared.
The drug, invisible.

Not the effects.
What affected us.
Dragged us down
under water
weightless,
breathless,
struggle for air
struggle to get clear
to turn invisible.

Seashore jingles sitting homework down

I was down.
No, no not “down + out”.
Down like the ground.
Sitting in a squat,
squashing cold hands
Washed by cold sea water
wishing rather than this shell
to be a seal,
sea otter
Anything’d be better.

Anything,
Damn it,
to get me up
off this rotten sea shore.
Like if I got away,
I’d see more.
Open my eyes like a text book.
Start over.
Like making a life’s
just overdue homework.

Yeah. That’s got a ring.
A ting, ting, ting.
It reminds me to think,
to count everything.
Jingles like bells
against my brain.
Saying: “Hey!”
“hey.”
“What you waiting for?”

Sitting looking longing
like life’s just gonna wash ashore.
Pick up washed up pieces.
Sea glass, someone else’s trash.
Make jewelery to sell it back.
And suddenly you’re satisifed?
Yeah. That’s right.

Second rings place flew going

A second hand
stuck in place
reflects the opposite of a warning —
time isn’t moving.
It’s stuck.
Nothing going
No growing, changing, losing.
“Time flew?”
No, but the frozen moments
stuck to you.
Stuck tacky like glue.

A place you couldn’t forget.
Losses you wouldn’t cut.
Rings you rung around your neck
like wringing hands
Wrung out laundry.
The sun + stagnant air
wouldn’t dry it.

Where do you think you’re going?
Nowhere but here.
The same old goddamn place,
year after year.
Until you’re old enough
to know it’s too late.

Second chances and racy romances
flash like mirages.
And what’s left over
is stale left-oers
no-one’s gonna eat.

It’s too late.
No take backs, right?

SSBJ 2014

It was something I had to go through, not necessarily something I enjoyed. The results were an ebb and flow of feelings I did not expect. Words crashed against shores I did not know I had in me. And waves rose against tides I did not know would recede.

Here are those things. Incomplete pieces rambled straight from a hum to the page in an over-hot tent, alone but for a drum.
___

I have fears now,
confirmed doubts.
Things I only dreamed about.
Ways I could reach you
that’ll never do.

I was trying to be
a way I thought was good.
It wasn’t good enough.
(and) I was working on
plans to get us through.

You shot it full of holes.
Now I’m leaking water
and I’m losing blood.
And oh dear god,
someone help me out.

But hush now, you.
It’s getting late.
No one likes you when you shout
about things you can’t figure out
cry out loud
double over and roll about.
—
We always tear our ears away
and turn our eyes away
and put our back’s to other’s pain.
Like if we can’t hear
and if we can’t see
and let’s pretend this time so mayber
It’ll go away.

But broken hearts and lonely bodies
end up in ditches all around us
Hole in the chest
or slit by the wrist
or hanging, swinging from a neck.

We get together and say
“What a tragedy.”
“Oh, if only he’d known.
Oh, if only she’d known.
Oh, if only they’d known.”

But no-one knows a love
that stays hidden under sheets
tucked down so deep
crammed into wells and pockets
hands and darkness stuffed down on top of it
hiding from what it might’ve been.

And no-one sees a light
tossed under a blanket
tight knit wool so colorful and bright
it tricks the sharpest eyes.
So, please.
Use it to cover your senses
cover this scene,
and all the places you’re insecure about.
Then, when you’re done: tell me,
how does the love get out?

Oh if only she’d known.
If only he’d known.
If only you knew.

Some hearts are empty jars,
receptacles
where the collective hurt fills up.
Fill them to the brim.
Hands try to reach out,
to tip a bit out,
but no-one wants to get wet
or messy
or share the weight of it.

Too heavy.
Too weighty.
Too steep, they say.
And in the morning, someone new is drowned in alcohol.
Purple, bloating, floating in the river.
Bloody matted mess, hit by a train.
Shot in the head, brains on the wall.
And oh well.
Oh well.

The world is a wheel
and it keeps on spinning.
And if you can’t hold on —
well, you get my meaning.

Don’t cry about tragedies
you did nothing to prevent.
“Isn’t it too bad”
like now, you’re so sad.

Maybe this is hard to hear,
but go ahead and listen if you dare.
Moments we walk by,
pass by,
let slip by without turning
or thinking
get lost like breath in the winter
drifting off into nowhere
Things get missed
and hearts get lost
and it’s got consequences.
Not because of some far-off god.

But because the world’s a wheel.
And it just keeps on spinning.
And when you can’t hold on…
well, you get my meaning.
—
Maybe at some point
people might’ve done some good.
But these days it isn’t living instinct
that gets humanity by.
It’s: eat your own for dinner,
then sleep with a belly full.
Wak up midday,
and wonder where your friends all went.
Then cry about the isolation,
get up,
dine,
and do it all again.

All the while feeling
like somthing isn’t right.
Empty.
Like something’s gone missing.
Something you miss-placed, but you don’t know where
because you don’t know what
because you never had it.
So you look crazy
and act insane
and people now keep their distances
and maybe that’s not all that bad.

Because loneliness and isolate
aren’t the best companions,
but at least these friends
don’t set a table
and eat you for dinner,
crying all the time.

“How sad. How sorry
we are to do this to you.
You lost the lottery.
What are we to do?
That’s just too bad.
How sad.”

It’s a bad world.
No, it’s a dead world moving forward.
No more “hope” to cling to
hope in our own destruction.
We keep forging forward.
Keep making things worse.

So lift a glass
full of poisoned water
and toast to no-one
(be)cause everything is gone.
Pick up a factory-made fork & knife
and eat your love tonight.
Or eat the air
and starve it out
and wait it out
and wait it out
and wait it out

We’ll just have to see who wins.

Found

Gilded like a mirror’s edge
only ever mirrored you.
Guilty, not of love.
Lust, spoiled, rotten through
Trust like mirrors,
is like mirrors,
over mirrored ruined rust.

Tenacious and set.
Lines of lies cooperatively built.
Co-op trust
co-opted by a cooperative lust.

Greed gilded like rich wealth
Settled on industrial rust.
I wanted you for what you’re worth.
A cheap line,
a thin crust.
Brittle break upon the cusp.

Broken like mirrors
shards of blank checks
and blank sheets
and sweaty lust
never once conceived.

START

A flame is lit
dim but steady in my gut
Burns bright
Like red blood spilt
swells my lit veins
burning hot and sensual
like flames.

A flicker of mirror images.
Not two, but one.
Since the flower’s bloom
Bloomed in me
I’m all fucked up
for touch, for a fire flickering
hot, so hot.

But the din is dimming
and alone, I’m lonely
and who touches me?
who loves me?

Love me, bloom orgasm
like a lit wick catching
a fire from kindling.
Cradle me
red and bloody bleeding.
Strap and scrape and trap me.

Til the clock unwinds
and we lose
loose
let loose time.
Til we lose ourselves
in love.

Things entitled here

Skin singed red like blood on the surface.
A whip-crack
A scorched back.
Wind burnt eyes from trying to escape
pedal through the wind
break at the turns.
Strained neck, aching
trying to look back.

Heart cracked like dropped pottery
Clay pots dripping red Virginia sand
Blood of earth through fingertips
dry, caking on our lips.

It pours, washing over my hands
I can’t get the stains out
particles of dust
stuck to all my crevises like rust
to a bicycle chain
left out too many days, too many nights
in the chill northwest rain.

I’m spinning like that gear
cogged all wrong
chain too long
teeth ground down to dust.

At the moment of collusion
I hitch and skid like brakes
atop slick streets
under drenching rain

I’m drowning but waving
both, at the same time
Hi, bye, it was nice
It was nice.

Dear God: I’m losing traction.
Loosing trains of thought
Hit the whistle, grind the brakes
Someone’s out there on the track.

If I stay in this seat,
hands folded:
I’ll stop moving completely.

Just sit and listen for the whistle
Secret and special
from a red-tailed hawk
from pursed, pressed lips — not frowning, not smiling
Lips I’ll never kiss.

All these needles
pressed in at needless angles
pricking saline drops
from my red-rimmed eyes.

Goodbye, goodnight.

Woven

Weave a filament of fishnets
Lipstick, allure.
Drawing lust like lines
in hosery toward love.
A bobbing, weaving bunker of love.
Love like
“I love to watch you strip yourself bare.”

Barely touching,
filaments sparking
against fantasies in my mind
Closed clothes that give no hint
No shadow, no filler to
my filament.

Is it meant to
make me sick? Sticky
slick between my legs
Opened and clsoed
like we’re dancing
and undressing
and weaving.
Veins and vines of lusty love
like “I love you.”

Love to burrow into you
weave hairs like threads
around my fingers
and tug you down
into a foamy dream
foaming at the mouth
foam of the sea.

And at the end of our affair–
lonely.

Just sayin’

Trusting someone you don’t know is like staring into the abyss.
Casual sex is pretty fucked up.

1)”Cooking with semen is no big deal.”
2) “The tools in the rusted shed are boy scouts.”
3) “Helen Keller is hard to justify now…”
4) “Astrophysics is mutable” (Bicycle rading is blind. Hang gliding is disastrous)
5) “The poison is treadless.”
6) “Playing board games is anything…”
7) “Love is sublime.”

Trampoline jumping is full of shennanigans!
Natural child birth is… partly cloudy.
Children aren’t soul fulfilling:

Santa’s workshop is staring you in the face.
Soap bubbles are full of family fun.
Mr. Potato Head is finally awake!
Strength is full of butterflies and rainbows…

Conservative talk radio is not unique.
Being apologetic is the best thing ever…

Mom’s secret recipe is not working for you.
Hand knit hats are going out today.
The steeping tea is hopeless.
Creepy staircases are hard to put up with.

The whisper pathway is driving us collectively insane,
I swear.
Childhood is mostly broken.

The broken mirror is hard to imagine.
Powdered alcohol is serendipitous.
The way out of here is worth its weight in gold.

The time I’ve spent is not what you actually wanted.
The last word in a bad fight is now what you think it is.
Silence is gone
Gone
Gone

Scrap mettle

Are these panting dreams,
Or are we pacing things?

A house that hides you so well
Blinds down and who can tell?
I meet you over and over again
Is it sinking in?

I can’t say
who’s to say
It’s okay
if we all fade away

Pink pastel powder blue sky
but there’s gold refinery
and glowing sense of white light
behind everything