tremors and secrets

tremors and secrets



risky clients penalized particular
bad hit huge taken back implement someone
who can never responsible lost strapped dead
beat ideal high the work of satan she's full

of reptiles malignant made it's mark drawn
out on a bigger scale drawn out on a full
scale ornamental obstacle severely
degraded weakened chiefly flatten less than

convinced coming from worry pursuant to
statute deep in decline abominable
expectation when ever he can up on
to the shore if i get up there seems to take

measure of his strength you would have to call it
instrumental from the severed bone it flows.

underwater architects

underwater architects



smoking in churches
makes me happier

don't wanna see them
burn down i'm not that
kind of metalhead

the deadly curls of
battleship gray paint
hotboxing quiet
sanctuaries like
a high school bathroom

sabene and absinthe
tobacco pious
death eternal life

it's not the first time
i've made decisions
in places like this

subimago lost
skipping over slick
streambed slates
promised safe passage.

transportation

transportation



the tic in my eyelid reemerges
in steel-lined cafes wearing a thousand-
euro sharkskin suit and slipperycalf
double-buckle monkstrap chukkas coated
with enough grease to overpower two
tiny dunlins sleeping in a bloody
spiked leather jacket fuming of peter
stuyvesants and grapefruit cologne fine veins
thallium tattooed fremenblue shooting
up espresso and turbinado and
sponsored by the vicious devil himself

grief: absent
night: radium-soaked
dreams: constant, you.

keep the hooks

keep the hooks



flashburnswet welded a colding season
scavenging shorterfilm southern fibers
dutiful flight horizon
fallback lake in the mind

who is that a-wandering down the one
in the morning railroad tracks like there is
any other kind of prey base

i understood only a little bit at a time but thanks
for one more focused i think paper piece

all i recognized was the parallel
mechanism bumper of your car that
never really impressed with the phased way
of sorrow was arranged what are we to
look towards but more nights outside

scholars but born thieves, killers but mystics
patient sleepers

its warmth did melt the eyered flowers
whateveryername was i forget it

cashiered notebooks all foreign bottom white
woven curve whichever story you want

perhaps i would i bought the wrong brand to
make it appear friendly file it under
unpostable and use all yr fingers
gardens of portability in an
overgrown river

brought the sun inside and stared at it
devouring the unlearnable
comfort: what might something like that sound like
so much rattles overheard, overhead.

cooperative watermark

cooperative watermark


the stain wipes off celestial. vector perturbation stares at a low blue flame. red lights burgeoning a red room. decor matches the exit sign; texture of thermobaric weapons/bricks. positioned so that, should you maintain the angle of your glance, when you leave you'll know from where you left. armed tender supply encourages a looking from the side d’signal detection. all these years later and still snooping for clues. ye are many - they are few. it's a lot to take in. amble off to sleep with a whistling hand over a dead ear. take umbrage. take two. so what if i didn't pay attention, if i didn't perk up when you were, oh, what were you doing? elaborate scrollwork on a shaved snaphaunce prowling the deeptrawled shores. tumbled beachstones and everblack moors. a thick mossy air. through the smoke feigning affectation.

limoneneade

limoneneade



undivided attention
sanddune eyes taste a drizzle
of what you have seen

sauté fresh sage one minute
i'm fast asleep then i'm out
on the wet duckboards

retinal carvones mirrored
bridgeshearing minty rivers
i think i have one

a kind finely sanded stone
downy animal except
in dreams of all this

already all ready so
ready steady samples and
associations

fresh and unfettered by the
usual garden outside
blowing freesia clouds

lighthouse glow gardenia
spun blossom exuberance
into the linens

every morning it's easy
peasy deliciousness all
the time all the time.

catheterdrawl

catheterdrawl



carved cedar saints abducted as hawksfood.
thick silver tarnishes over crumbled
sienna choir windows. blood-stiff unbleached
graven images adhered to quilted
prison pits by gangrenous leakage. rough
cold laboradorite perched on poisoned
rodent roads. cartilage subscribes versus
oat-drunk ploughboys. lashscarred hot but dreaming.
purified somnambulists. sun-browned fierce
obsidian lunar forge for failing
to assault. peeping from the church-spire tiles.
handwashing prior to splattering jack
chick tracts with frothing emotionalism.
skin pulled tight past regimental hardwoods.
the charnel house is burnt blood black metal
burst. deepening lost dance rosin sinkhole
disaster. mute potshotted corrections.
farsighted offense warehousing sculptured
bones. pilloried in thorns. sanitary
electric fences invested with toes dangling.
deritualized synthesis. prussian
chandeliers pigment-dyed in confusion.

perpetual markup

perpetual markup



i.
physical wear musketing aerosol sicknesses.
desolate lithographs of encaged gallmilked bears adorn decaffeinated archives.
spreading erosion in asymmetrical chalices.
depilation an oaken task.
breezy muscled shamanic influence bath.
sidelong abandonment of bumblebeed euphorbias.
occupation dissolves communal antlered vocabulary.
unbounded leavened loyalty.
loathsome moraine and quadratic presence on peppery soapstone.

ii.
i drew a keratin scabbard to check the epoxy.
rehearsal, anthropology entertainment, more pressured examples.
layers of murdered narratives unviewed.
exertion toward athletic jargons.
stargazing dishonesty soaked in paraffin.
cushioned grain confluence.
elemental waste experience abundance described by meltwater.

iii.
revolving incarceration.
digested altimeter discipline.
quite a handsome weaving of vintage solitude.

iv.
a bad dream i want to incise practically.
regional carbon monoxide.
cardinal textilery.
handspan fiefdoms.
miscalculation recordings.
irrigated crustacean bulleted, expending fidelity.
hourglass fevered with air.
drizzled, bubbled, adequate experience.
copper halogens.
tertiary ecclesiastics penciled treasure.
questionsnatcher.
laughing and ticking in a duplicate impasse.

v.
the vitrified electroplated architecture imposes spontaneously.
this is venous leather.
a lithe militia winterizes a bellhop in aromatic fashion.
sloppy metaphor novelty, recumbent, effacing pith.
formulaic craters immemorialized.
comfort in fascia.
swaddling cratered misogyny and pneumatic division.
the volume of the latecomer.
rationed impressions lain.
metered associations coated.

vi.
protein chain shyness.
acropolis definition. coated pulse standing.
alleged appropriation retracts.
ferrous habit selection.
salinated antithesis, birdshot, slick.
defensive embarks.
assisted parable function.
irrigated ambition scarab manual.
weighty reductionist illumined alluvium.
i rend traditional vocalization and chronicles of cambium.
blossoming fingerprints encapsulate compression.

demonstration

demonstration



belphegor: my name for daisies. levantine shoe polished symptoms. black bear purse. protestant table tennis. centrality. a bag full of modal. saint floods. breaths. jetway sleep is for the weak. cinnabar death sentences. weak suspicion. it's a pause not an end. meteorite slip forward. work snipped like tinnitus. ladybug icecaps. slid tonnes into it. thirtynine degree colony alarum. slid on the icecap. elephant slit. chlorine souls. coded bastardy. cynical north. sit on the fortunes. patent office free or cheap amendments. living stones. self titled. indian leathers. mote eyes. groaning tables. heaving services. strawberries. shelves. no potential for abuses. untruth. new information. unpleasant dance. pleurisy clichés here. stitched up sense organs. contraception openings in skin. tie down the scrum pieces. i wrote a joke about caesar in knots. once as exactly funny. lupine intentions. tree branches reaching out for more arizona cold. more of what i don't want. gallery credibility. leakage blue negatives of newer plasterwork growth. it sounded like a fog horn. limewater restorations and old processes. verlaine. verdun. orthodoxy mountains emerged from the monsters in the junkyards. crampons. barns near farms between the rows. empty temperature words. keep the windows open next time. nonsense. lao tzu and frenchfried vegetables. pyramidal immediacy. ossuaries, empires of skin. peach preserves. confinement devastated syntaxes. violet leaves misinterpretation. happenstance cloven lines sprawled. distraction. unhearables felted slain in the heat. woolened things tattered. staple. simony edition strung on finnish harps. we had it for generations. it's not yours because of your name for it.

burn the works

burn the works



yr foot whispered a smashed red aphid
dance / flirt / other noble occupations
accord with salty sardinians

a hundred thousand mile timebelt
resolved to attack synclines
it's no wonder

between recreational fireworks
& the real thing katyusha hellfire
it was still an eroded deposition.

with surface

with surface



oviparous telephone is insectile
a really big one
the food i cannot eat
self-arrest

blackened skies betrenched
out of doors tracks head
flavorofthemonth

vicious aluminum virility
powder blue bel air saddled
facewalking strong long
rattling ride

toothless, kinged, opened, singed
an aerodynamic church key
at the end of the world
poisoned apples paddock sedge
stopping a personal fall
accoutrements for menace.

she managed to rasp

she managed to rasp



gold-capped commission
streetlights thoughtstealing
blue lips bleeding out
a small apartment
choking with fanned ghosts
what is the word for
opposite of wolves

the cotton canyon
is falling awake
carved an ice river
weeping in ill-timed
cylindrical tenses

flanged bloodfingers scoured
inside your mixture

it's everything but wrong
all shot-glasses have
a nervepushing word
distorted symphony
of ventilated
persimmons aloft

retinas renal
arteries upright
digested postures

waffles and steak missed
endfullness connected
a stairwell's landing
handholding swaying
uncounted reductions

the lights went down &
mains switches wasped green
red over hardwood
rainswollen empires
capillary excitement
everyone had a good sense

lots of cheap stuff
released what do
you know about a
good time

i felt typhusbad
refused the mattress
soaps crafted from olives
green in the guts green
in the eyes yes eyes
holed into shiloh creek
robbed like a packmule
father son holy rebar forest

enchanted to the very marrow
one more unwilling
angel makes a cameo
oxidizing by
punching a nitroglycerin
group and flies for the wings
at the first whiff of
ganges river muskdeer.

shahrewar

shahrewar



caltrops as litter beneath pallets high
peaks inverted spiraling down justa
one droppa bathwater to wash off the
tribulation of rare western seedpods

rafts of unavailable rodents
cast up to colonize the sargasso
beetle belt

king over austerities purpled
eye of nothing eye of relatives

labor an hour to burn a beechwood
sanctuary denial scorching
glaze encasing lostness

after four days of a reptile red bulb
shine a hard vacuum
lay antidepressed in the trough we're not here
in darkages sightseeing unmediated.

one quarter so well

one quarter so well



it's a dirty citizenry engaged
in social orienteering

we chew our cud & reflect languidly
on the relative brokenness of things

glossy color always meant adhesive
speed not pulling the guts out of this thing

assist in describing it as an
exercise in dot connection
live somewhere not caring

go somewhere else caring less move against
caring is unimportant now is time
to carry; burden thyself

we'll be like burdened
as we like don't care
or whatever.



[note: i have been posting to this blog for 1 year. in that time i have posted 155 pieces totalling something in the range of 30800 words. feel free to browse backward in time and read, perhaps for the first time, some of your favorites. i am extremely grateful for your continued tolerance of me. thank you, friends! - Neil R. Graf]

blackmetal and perfume

blackmetal and perfume



of course of course leadcontaminated pandora chocolate amateur noma debridement pity it really is an excellent record one-hundred-percent chances traffic accident empowerment of a matter of course there are better things to do god doesn't hate the higgs boson any more than god hates you which is actually a lot so it is not very surprising that the machine does not work for any of a million million unknown reasons compromised those were simply excellent windows and it was a great house in which to take drugs the best time to be there is when you weren't there what did she say something like you're never not gonna be in my life too much you were interested; you had done it before as though there is a connection pppppppppperrrrrrrroxide or something else to spit ahh guess ahhm jus spaced way oout aah guess ahh ahhm of course of course pull the heartnote out bittermelon green to you are about to you.

ouroboros

ouroboros



underneath a concrete walkway looking
up through feet of earth
kings' interment ti leaf shrouds ninety-nine
lunges upward to

the calcite fortress a charred jungle of
cyclopean walls

blown out of the sea the snaketail is not
a meal it is a
blackened blinding spear.

piedmont discernment

piedmont discernment



it's a good thing it happened now that it's
happening now not solely because now
is as good of a time as ever as
close to doubtlessness as one can approach
without uh huh damage this must be true

verily verily ever notice
how when lying we say honest i swear

it is impossible that anyone
likes this think about me in the morning
every day for seven days you can do
what you want to with this information

there isn't much keeping me from getting
on the next damn bus & disappearing

do it for the love of the typhoon
my brain is the size of a walnut
that tiny thing only returns
to land to breed
it is a constant surprise that they all don't
stay the hell away from mauritius
after what happened
but the occasional accidental extirpation
will be washed in on crushed logjams

look i have now blinded him for his sins
why don't we go up there they can come here

so what if it's not a good new idea
does it walk on water so long as faith is humble
does it see that it's time for a change
does it live forever
satanique tiny nesting in the hand
that is the diminution even with
foregut bursting aviation's diesel

take salvation talking about nothing
just to hear voices as though last human
contact was months or longer ago just
take a bite every now and then you won't
look so desperate

what you said had nothing to do with me
or my life or anything but it made
me feel like i was doing something right
i don't mean doing something rightly or
correctly but right & i was struck by
the idea that i could feel that way now.

triticum

triticum


never soft on time again it was like a shaped charge all we heard was a /click/ and it was all over hard winter grains pushing slowmotion midnight cry through a glassified bulletsplash spill away turns the machine on transmitting to van diemen's land the morningafter pill of great disappointment.

amputation

amputation


cyanide gloom glistened
dewsponged poaceae
icefilled basin spills decay
this lives only in dreams
the last remembering
sewed up remembered

little greentarnished brass
brads swivelled pasteboard legs
vulgar marionettes

coriander scattered
seed on the oast house floors
felon weed armwrestles
all but a lipsmack of
essential oils out

twentyfive square feet of
polyvinyl embued
malignant rose attar

a tiny humidor
never half-filled with coin
your broken piggybank
mined palewhite now it's mine.

epilepsy

epilepsy



our spirits soar to hear
fine lucan parables
of loss and redemption.

she found the misplaced coin!
he retrieved the wayward
lamb! we, almost all of

us, feast the prodigal
son. wonders of mercy.

anomaly, rather.

the money is long gone,
i hunger, and i am
alone. when i return

to my father to loot
his stores again, know it
will not be the last time

i devour substance.
miraculous? bereft.
wandering chthonic

forces hold us; it's no
boast to describe the weight
of the riotous world.

helium

helium



concieved in a prohibition
the very first sunbursted mold
queues up next to the salt
pass the salt
breathe in deep and for
a thin slice of a day
the clock stands still

so this little sandwich shop over on
the other bad side of hungerford drive
it was in the lobby of an office
building and we'd go there during our too-
brief lunchtime to smoke stolen cigarettes in
the dining room
the korean couple attending their
store were obviously displeased with the
smoking but because of a transaction
we give and we take or so i think i
thought
we bought submarine sandwiches chips and
coffees and sodas they tolerated
tolerated us and provided small
plastic icefilled cups to use as ashtrays

creeping up the sides of the glass
once reaching a supercooled liquid
state hears the third sound
spreads out like a rollin film
condenses as a drop underneath
drop it does
plip drip drop down
covering the jar
top to bottom
thirty nanometers thin

that car door didn't
have an operating lock not because
of a criminal mastermind no
riding with arnold after sandwiches
and cigarettes
off with nothing
of value
we kicked you next to the
undesigned station

maryland stands unsteady
legs across the bay leaning
on the western hills nervously
waiting for a friend
finding only islandslashing
hurricanes snipers
enslavement fools
nattering bribes

madness the coldest
of the south the south
that isn't

this did not actually occur to be
sure something like the blue aforementioned
happenstanced windmilling goosed in the woods
an oozing shoplifted experience
tired and looking for the next handhold

those vessels tied in knots inside your head
a magpie stealing from your nidus.

orphanage

orphanage



there's one situation unlike this
entirely not similar to
this one situation set setting

conducting the automobile to
the summit of a steep hill and the
brakes go out the journey is all but

uninterrupted so long as gears
engage but when stopsigns

really? really? stopsigns? that's it?
if we're makin shit up let's reaaaaar back

firebreathing medieval fucking
shaitan emerges out of the fog
it takes barefoot funambulism

to ride on the stick the angel cried out
i need clutch room and the car's sliding
backwards increasing nightblack hellbound

velocity pop it running slick
backwards and the knob falls off and pull
the lever and push the button and
jiggle the handle
so when nothing else works like a fool
falling down vallejo oh you mean
past hodges alley look folks it was

it's nothing like that i mean nothing.

pernod and soda

pernod and soda



dust storms loot frozen streambeds
the waitress is chinese or mexican

she has moved off reservation and
her family is all she has left now
that her family is all gone

no one was ever supposed to stay here
because the earth swallows you up
and burning moons fall from the sky

a running problem or a drinking problem
pheidippides that is most redundant

i can't get out of my mind
putting you into my mind
so i don't mind so much my mind

the rails shine on
terra cotta land drinks blood
fennel green

fit to be tied
and wait for the full moon.

blasph

blasph



the blinking line tells me where to put it
it's a cracked door
i'm out here in a bright

white laid linen room and the fractured wall
is a winking
alley

no it's not the space between two buildings
not even a rough road
unnamed driveway

gravelly overgrown indiana
alley to brief
salvation

this hissing curser is who is in the
lane beckoning
me to a show i've seen
already.

back

okay. i'm back home. my dad is steadily improving. his capacity for adaptation is remarkable; i hope i have inherited his flexibility. health, real health, is not avoiding damage, but rather the ability to heal. he will survive this journey.

i may be able to write again soon.

my dad

People:

No poem today. My dad had surgery today. He had a pototo-sized tumor removed from his heart. His heart is weak and damaged. We are not sure what will happen next. It is a minute-by-minute thing right now. He's 65. He is an explorer, aviator, artist, and loved by many all over the world.

So. If anyone is owed any favors by gods or doctors, if you could call them in for Robert Graf, we'd appreciate it.

Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated!

Thank you gentle readers and good friends all.

-nrg

arsonnaut

arsonnaut



read it bethlehem
looming on the horizon
not the birthplace of
the unsaved savior
seems like a good idea
a suicide in
downtown bethlehem
pennsylvania smokestacks
syphilis lament

doesn't it mean i
paid a lot for all this

you might make some of
these hazy intentions
of yours known want an
idea of what a late
acknowledgement is
upon landing it is
to produce joining
right basketed shortened
oh but time is short

walk through plasticky
feels an uncovered seam
after it has burned
it is ground up and jet
blasted black it'll
take the pointed paint off
the bottom and the walls

i don't know where you
will be tonight either
this abrasive slag
is neither heat nor light.

suntracker

suntracker



we had spent much of the morning driving back to las vegas from temple bar on the shore of lake mead the marina a hundred meters from the water the whole lake lanced and drained by henderson phoenix l.a. everywhere the whole lake shrinking a steadily healing wet burn soft chenille blues lapping arid inlets powdery scrub and ephedra funerea overstimulating obscenely gargantuan subresevoir monsters and raining eutrophic algae on catfish and wrecked b-29's

measured in time a second hand swept to the right while the left hand held the outboard tiller sun diving for cover behind a salty ringed red mormon temple in the nevada desert we were spotted from an hundred miles up and charted on a tiny crystal we ran down the road one step ahead of dim coyotes

the hotel was a motel midweek it was cheap i watched the boxer on inroom cable carl said this is sad this is depressing i don't like movies about real life i dont like real life

ah who does besides my admirable good brother this is not our life we see depicted we are not throwing rocks at british troops in belfast we are in las vegas sore-legged and wide-eyed our biggest problem right now is slow service at the in-and-out burger you my brother are here with me on the telephone with your wife you are not going to jail for involvement in the irish republican army your wife my dear sister-in-law is in ireland coincidentally enough she is not tearfully in fear for the lives and freedom of her revolutionary family she is instead buying sweaters and dining in touristy pubs

tomorrow we fly back to indiana and we will go about our mundane businesses you will ensure the security of telecommunications and i will drink and write and not do too much and no one will make a movie about any of us.

sabbath day point

sabbath day point



got them jersey blues. got them ol' jersey
devil blues. all i see is the side of
your face and the rifles crack the coldest
open sledgehammer sounds. accidental
evolved bodies melt in the faces of
winter. it was a grandiose plan to
lie down in the canoe and float towards the
dam with a lotto ticket and this jug
of bourbon. ice floes and pressure ridges?
no one remembers these things. is off-brand
forgetting the same as a memory
fabrication? it's always good to have
friends. a waggling radio wave in a
combination field. laying on the lawn
metabolizing limestone hydra dusts.
hobbled down by barometric pressure
and telephonic rust supervision.

timbering torch trees on the edge of the
fortress. the cream of the crop in the woods.
soft stones to eat. sand to reap. invasive
species. what is it out there, new inside?
behind a row of windwhipped trees? brevet
promotions due all of them. no never
any. as a matter of course a gourd
is withered con islancio. until
the end of the contract. enforce knowledge.

frequency is unrelated to one's
velocity. troubles with proceeding:
the road runs all the way out to the coast.

gyratory

gyratory



grinded these words is and rightly so we
needs em crushed for consumption we needs em
mashed into paste to spread em thin fitted
into the gaps where there is no flighting
strip away costume and regional dress
look at the pebbles at the bottom of
the wastewater pool lovingly held by
tenuous roots we feed on the tubers
of speech the basic ups and downs circles
and swirls that pass for the symbols of thoughts
of colors and cows one stone is harder
than another and a mark is left at
the touch water fills the mark and freezes
in the dark pushing out the edges now
the oppidum is behind showing
a backward occupied impression space
a puddle shines to dip another rock
into and wipe our dreams on the wall put
out the bleaching light my child sleep in a
wild capillary web of sick support
what is the sign for a friend i don't want
to see what makes my eyes close again how
cold will it be to solidify the
pool in the middle of me its got a
life of its own now my little one is
growing up my little one hunkers down
in the cardiac notch fer some learnin'
figurin' and writin' pleurisy is
still burning down the little red schoolroom
further diminishing co-rotation
tendencies no one compensated for
instincts anymore art is mutation
breakneck growth an opera ribcage a
heated screw sappers dig a deep mine and
pack it with a million million tons of
fertilizer a quick harvest of fire
when the ditches blush again when dad tells
the truth i want that rib back so i can
use it like a spoon and dig out this bomb
we have no words for this thing we eat in silence.

oil seep

oil seep

"quantifying the bubbling flux."


a complete passage simplified
saskatchewan effects boon
rigorous changes correspondence
shafts shown universal parameters
however analyses shall present
implosive physical airspeed
priority small rates
predictedcontent with large
oilseed geometry expressions
assumptions called now most
noncontinuous superimposition
means liquid theory figures a
developed filtration opening
vodka simplified operation
conditions through where
reduction could wear years
residual extrusion place higher
mixture intuition development
give solid liquid to discretion
during passing section variety
piston cylinder mathematical
greed improvement analysis
results nuts property development
prose attributed use c-o-e
oil bearing namely completed
knowledge assembly viscosity
sketch throughput following be
rather cashew out decrease raw
department over past stage no
length simple sketch predicted
to expression l used
experimentation efficiency
contents accurawly throughputs
appear tent if presses present
possible coworkers which
laboratory simulation they flights
oil whom required an energy flow
with that he simplicity pressing
based screw cooled
piston cylinder lower extended
model choke error obtained also
capacity two geometry expected
was studied yet shafts sections
these erasure experimental
relatively clay water case
predictive wig only rate mass
period may press october basis
expel calculate pressed liquid
increase systems performance
conceptual chemical performance
continuous canada presented it
rapeseed profile crop worm
contained occurring given this
week purposes industrial
department involved pressure
because basis in materials come
maceration than decades
extensively feed reasonably solid
liquid their modified prediction
cannot print paper engineering
any science more figure would
disciples along unknown longer
consolidation unidirectionally
expellers ability is.

dissipatio

dissipatio



i don't ask because i don't care
just tell me where to put it
the big debt is mine to my
stomach i am always paying
eventually i'll get behind
and die one more one more one more
ready let's go

i'll take one in the guts to watch you wipe
blood off of your snowy forehead flashbang
you spin as the neva flows around me
doubled over like a napkin
too much like byron = queer high silly
ovid = rude plagiarist queer high silly

watch us crush armenia because we want to watch us pave nevsky
prospect with planed khachkars watch us install your skulls as
kerbstones along the general staff building burning eden on the arax
diamond-mounted sabertoothed to do what we tell you

pistolholed dead aired
out dissipation
curly black river
passion pass on rolled up down

to lose myself in this distance
is to live another day
despite the hunger
to forget this day
is to feed another
last meal hand me
one more bullet
one more spoonful of stones
push it in right there
use your trigger finger

exiled to a next-door dacia
man i betted that that hurted in there man
oh man is a mystery of civility
why i don't ask anymore.

coastal loading

coastal loading




we are sharp brittle things we are dropforged
or sputtercoated can't start it like a
car these cool mercury lines fleck away
a glowing wire in a rare earth the
rose crowns of tired giants assembled
among us it is not accomplishment

i'm not an expert he says i do not
even do it well i barely do it
well so the numbers don't mean much we here
are not teaching this isn't a lecture
starting off with some dividing lines a
formalizing cartography i don't
know where you are only what i offer
and where it is the bread's over there i
cannot teach regeneration or what
it is like to know everything about
an other as it is there's no time to
know anything at all about a self

no influence needed unpossessed of
narrowness and bare gloom wrathless for now

a quiet herald messageless runner
a fortunate brigand eyes once muted
by sparrows unassuming character
just a working stiff a regular joe
looking at the world through screens dirty at
that a caused coagulation tightened squint
notable by its absence wait / don't wait
opportunity's broad present folded

once so given up to the things we do
to make ourselves tired that we are kept
up at night by them never a fallen
angel rather a deserting demon
treacherously virtuous abandons
decay and great want a red present for
a white lord and an end of weeping take
repose in the ashes of perfume god
is a found object in the light once a
wet beast of prey now a lesser nighthawk.

domesticated

domesticated



you wanna read some stuff i said with a searing stare right through your married eyes you wanna see what's going on inside this cavern i tried to follow your ascending line of proposition once at the end of the alley is just that the end climbing the walls as far as they go and then down again fallen a bubble of meltrock sucked into the water table blasts out a phreatic eruption i can't get my eyes away i can't stop i can't stop again

there's no good explanation for this thing that has been happening i say happening like i haven't been making it happen but whoever has been doing it it has been me doing it there is no good explanation for it for me for the thinking for the thing it's not good not at all the nearest rung to grab onto is devastation

atlantean chrysalis soaking strobes covalent waistcoat palmleaf storm rosehip seed oil blots out the sun

surely the saints would have been monkeys if they could see the things i do why stop with the saints surely i am a monkey too watching the straits of gibraltar looking for a way out of here a decree nisi was ruled at swordpoint by the newly married king and queen you've got just over a season to put up or shut up to put out or get out of the barrio troglodyte

he kept no fire on friday night and eschewed pork converso marrano he kept a bottle of xanax and as soon as he was off paper took his hands of the wheel and the truck pulled into the packy setback of reconquista uncaptured in the camp unwounded in the triage unkilled in the grave unsinned to be saved he was out of friends and out of luck and there was one more place he could go granada to wait four months and become some other self.

aliphatic

aliphatic



twilight drowned in the gas-oil mix
a chainsaw secreted alkanes
on the rusting shortbed
odd jobs
furnish plumes of sharp glass
kiting wires
decayed priming bulbs
fuel bladders

rotting
a leaky rubber sows
petroleum on my bikechain
how much warm gin did i drink in
an efficient way in a sad
efficiency on harold street

bubbles entrained in hepatic
tissue
flecks of blood composing
octaves on white clay
slitform tones
dislodged goateyed sophomoric
thought through a yellow room's booksmell

popcorn scorched in the jackson lab
we are mice and we are dead
smoke
inhalation
succinct spirit
of amber sour cycle
through
a dusty bath
on this side of

béarnaise
questionable heat
blown
generator tumbling down the
hill until i was done
like so
many other men i craved her
but could only sit on her stained

balcony
lasagna burned in
pyrex inside
bud cort hanged
cat
stevens sanged
screwtop banged
i cut
my quickchewed fingertips up a
pile of flarelit targets in camps

i scraped my knuckles
i don't need
a ride home tonight but i'll take
it anyway
i'll take lots that
i don't need
goddamnit stanley
now you've done it
i'm running on

fumes again
borrow tenthousand
and eat it
yes i believe you
are
borrowed ten bucks and paid it
back tight
penny wise ounce foolish
feazings frayed rope ends spliced flicker

distilling all costs
autumn's here.

land of goshen

land of goshen



bridle a seedshaped simoom
seeing red fly west

sometimes the wind blows
still i
trusted even when i said
i am greatly afflicted

nightbreath propels a drafty
cloud

in practiced terror
i learn how it is
to present myself.

the engrailed

the engrailed



this geothermal menace is no
ordinary black drink

an evolving wake that smells like sour
milk and sedgy fodder although some less
spiny varieties were preferred

in the dead of winter and thousands
of miles from food or home yer gonna
take what you can get and like it

ah i like it a lot me yes ahhhh do

lookitthat mean not
average i mean
by mean cruel look at
that mean look on her
face fierce a creeping
predatory thing
pretty slowmoving
horse conch crush eat you
make a wall of you
carrying not much
afterwards but thick
memories lightning

bouncing down a wellshaft spined plummeting
columella moving up the food chain

it's not an issue of do i want
but rather when i want to want to
what kick something choked down a stairwell.

hyatt gun method

hyatt gun method



by this time they had killed so many elephants
and cetaceans that it was profitable to
engage in the mass manufacture of flaming
and exploding billiard balls from guncotton and
table tennis balls from smokeless powder and stays
that is apparel mostly corsets and other

garments with agents for stiffening and
supporting the article the wearer
and perhaps both passersby and closer
acquaintances still oblivious to the

devaluing of the instrument consequent
of the pernicious threat posed to the finish of
the neck's smooth lacquer

by stand damage

exoskeleton lobbing artillery shells
from nonabsorbent hygienic resilient
washable most satisfactory durable
lightweight rocketfuel.

quinquatria: birthday song

quinquatria: birthday song

"it is with much embarrassment that i have returned alive." - shoichi yokoi



oneiric reduction lightened frontload
getting sick bleeding on the payphone at
dunkirk not a gold rush don't look at me
inheritance onanism sunken
epiphenomenon in the mirror
is a maunsell fort

i dreamed that i was
pressing grapes broken

defines the species a dog will twitch but
still we are creatively exploding
lubbock and tupelo invaded your
country called from on high to even all
of our scores versus unkind relatives
robed in hibiscus sootblack rifles rust
enriches aenemic diet even
without a salt sting

serapis with jug
for a head bacchus
with jug by his bed
gone shooting sick of
spring expiscation
spring turns hungry at
the outset a ram
commingling under
thicket's red rubble
diana bending
beneath the lash as
if! possessed of wings
an apparition
of image-making
ransacks the godhead

potentialities mammalian
proclivities i mean the mystical
notions this wind erodes our floruit
down to seconds before decay bombards
you talk of the pathology of an
epoch noiseless book blows us from ourselves.

money | fire

money fire



conifer swift feeding
on small thread-like tough roots
brave meadows and old fields

iroquois canoes shunned
hungarian sinkings
some dull indigo tool

pornographer needing
ambitious artisan

toluene radical
scavenged gun emplacement

twisted into / outof
prehensile feet grasping
a waxing beery moon.

saxifrage triptych

saxifrage triptych



part 1: creeping rhizome

four dry carob seeds scraped into
sharp alpine electuaries
glassy fingernails scaling a
rivulet's eggshell underside
peppercorns broken from cliff walls
rising out of black hair frigid
watery verry slitly mixt
swelling mousetraps dead eyes jilted
vengeful wadi surar smited
toothless with minty pulegone

hips and thighs rockprinted on the
backs of giants hammersmashed by
gentle mists to a gravelly
riverbed incunabulum.


part 2: dog-bone dampers

they clambered up from the sea or were blown
by an imminent star fiercely falling
curly mare's snowtail directly above
holarctic treelines or four and a half
thousand meters toward the clouds emitting
a white smoke but no fire capturing fool
insects with no real ability to
eat them thriving in the arid rocks and
glacial moraines their incompressible
fluids drank the king's shilling from big feet
to cold shores rosettes chain reactions bloom
swirling in kármán flushes siluric
tiny gardens blush hard labor's redoubt.


part 3: a sordid song

fucka wholebuncha waiting
i was
stoned under weed
and wuzzunt sharp enough to
strike until antivenom
antitype chi came a-flutterin'
alive
-- the pictures be of words and this
won't ever be a quiet
easy ride
these be of fangs
through skin to reconcile
my stomach and the flesh
consume a sunny
spot i seek after noon devour!
rødsildre is drops of blood from your
delicious wound.

hurricane tie

hurricane tie




make no mistake about me
if i could have i would have
reached inside and taken that
handful of new flesh
and flushed it away in a
cold summer storm grimacing
cowering under hail and
electricity sternly
abducting my freedom and
forcefeeding ruddy fistfuls
of burst pomegranate seeds

barring that fierce saturnine
act insofar as i am
inured to anything i'm
used to love's cocktails
tall sweaty glasses watered
down by rotten ice garnished
by sprigs of old fear and a
thicket-tangled ram

i would never cart you to
moriah when you're dreaming
i would never bind you to
that altar/cairn/pyre you can talk
to angels if i could have

i would have reached in
taking that handful
of new flesh by the hand and
carried you until you
you carry me.

lettuce opium

lettuce opium



hold the back of your head
with thumb and arm

our backs a fused arch of
opened fenestræ
nature is trauma

rattled sfumato in
trees and blended
towns

spiking well after well
with athole-brose

keep asking what i'm doing
here with you

i'll tell you: you be the
whiskey in my beesbread.

broad shield

broad shield



1.
when i was an acolyte they were lying
the crass altar boys wore hawaiian shorts
beneath muslin vestments unable to
tie cinctures with uncombed hair they served at
god's altar after sleeping late flippant
gum chewing boys held bright telescoping
tapers aloft in the church of jesus
christ fruit punch spilled red pink staining fronts
of albs when the congregants bowed and kept
vigil at the eucharist table they
riveted paper airplanes out of church
bulletins aces high taking off towards
clouds of incense as the gilded gospels'
covers opened their chins dropped slack into
yawns aching arms of crucifers fingers
sweating inside white gloves hands drop thickbars
after procession minds flew and minds raced

i was an acolyte
when i was confirmed the
bishop begged his god to
defend me and then he
laid hands on me and slapped
me right across the cheek

2.
i stood in the rose
garden behind ben
franklin on clifton
street having a smoke

a portion of dutch
shag from a plastic
blue pouch and bind
a misshapen twig

the tar melts yellow
streaks run down paper
spreading spiderbite
rays of infection

per the last rule we
don't let the cats out

saint peter demands
an answer of me
is there a god do
i think there is god

at seventeen i
hadn't yet put too
much reflection
into the matter

i insist there is
perching a gaggle
of angels on a
reasonless pinhead

birdsey strikes them like
baltimore duckpins

we breathe smoke and there
is no god of course
all is calm all is
bright until it's not

i turned out okay
who cares anyway

3.
so no kid wants to be a monk kids want to play instead of going to school they play in the streets and do what kids do ha 'cause i know you don't play but i'll teach you one day the older monks don't so much force them to do or say or think or feel anything they will walk by and say hey kid you know what there is no god have a nice day chew on that some of these kids after a while end up back in training you know some of them do when the student is ready blah blah blah

4.
alabama vampires
this little mind-
reading girl looked alarmed
when she saw the
nine-inch petrine cross carved
into mike crites'
chest with an old shirt pin

prevention is key
i dotted myself
it was hopeless to
resist continuation

we were eating some
anxiolytics
and huffing lighter
fluid to get a
cheap kick
the tic
under my eye was
just getting badder

i promised her i'd not tattoo any
one else including myself but that night
the bloody point dipped into split pen guts
and jailhoused a blurry pachuco cross
over my shaking third metacarpal

it was a bloody mess
the next day i tried to
kiss her she said i thought
we decided no more
detox tattoos

she drew flowers
all over my
books and disappeared
like a ghost like
wet haze at sunrise

i turned out okay
who cares

5.
i felt the hand of god wrapped tightly around my
heart christmas eve 1993 a stifling
precise sick feeling prostrate and fevered between
my mother and a woman plagued by chronic pain

we sat in the upper room maybe i was downstairs but i am sure
it was right upstairs in the balcony seating

candle soot thick in the black gloved hands on brass bells
shimmering ringing stille nacht i felt the hand
of god in that hot air reaching through to give me
a squeeze before whispering goodbye for a while
then it said goodbye for a while.

melissa

melissa



my deaf crew won't bind me
enduring aimlessly
our lost and pointless trek
the next time i will be
free to lustily stalk
the rimy deserted deck

having heard that undine
diabolical wail
i will gladly take my
rations carving a noise
notch into propolis-
stained amber palmitate
from mirror glands to ears
now hungry for carnal
comfort at least we're still
afloat prowling the surf

my ears are blocked i hear
nothing but the dull tide
they are beyond black waves

fishtailed saltriver wail
those sweet mellifluous
dribbledown notes calling
from the rotten islands
i'll still want to slice yer
throats and race into the
carnivorous shoals

through the psychotic brine
comes a stinging last gasp
insufflatio she
melusine is gently
whispering
whispering things undone
exhaling lighthouse torch
soot and marine sugar
flooded i smell honey
the river gushes forth.

fog bank

fog bank

"he works and walks around unfazed by how mundane life can be sometimes..." -bubbles bite



of myself i am nothing wrapped in gold
and asbestos smiling at the śūnya
now hit it floats far out to see and lost
in a gulfstreaming circumpolar trench
circuit current surrounded by refuse
and marooned turtle hunters clambering
over igneous scree sea wolves sealers
sealants and gaskets blown and burning slow
in the black vacuum nowhere to go but
down and here's no one to be with but us

booted and slung and aimed for the bad blood
of the sore infighting jovian moons
maybe i'll land like a tired goony
in the big red spot maybe i'll just be
run out of town to the dogs and take a
slow ellipse to islands notyetborn
off the coast of kīlauea's footprints
lava bombs and glass blocks bordered by neat
rows of scentless orange-pink 'ōhai flowers
skulking around a trans neptunian
malpais with my sweet smelling leaf tips

'i'm shaking the dust of this crummy little town
off my feet and i'm gonna see the world'
build skyscrapers almost two hundred and
forty thousand miles tall kicked too hard
when i put my foot down planting a wheel
and triratna on the now bruised gray land

i misread the instructions
my malthusian drill is
a power tool spade tipped
chicago spire spun
hobbled from the suburbs
to this melted limestone
cavernland twisting in
a rusty wind atop
where glaciers fear to tread
oxidizing with the
drop of a wrench liquid
fuel foolishly siloed
an airman blown sky high
loosed continent sweeper
traversed eight hundred feet
to pass out in the field

against all evidence arkansas dulled
illinois quieted caught red handed
in a collagetown of banal miracles
pillars of smoke and flame are now a moon
within reach for forty years no more need
for mystery singing at night like troops
of literate paralegal baboons

impacted catenae radiate from
woozy asteroids and tipsy comets
jockeyed sloppily into our stormy
home one small step exterminated the
lunar light we wanted to see it up
close to take armfuls of little pieces

pliny running lung first
into a stygian
demonstrably fatal
nuée ardente plume

breaking the bathyspheres glass to confirm
its protection the clouds get bigger as
you went along the names we gave these gods
didn't fit the pattern and couldn't be
tagged as exactly thrice great anymore
huh but when were gods exactly described
like neat circles or planed parabolas

not realizing we'd never again see
next time we shoot for the moon it won't be
there not where we left it in the same place

our limbs are weak cicadas and chirping
crickets sleep it's cold and i'm tired
whites have been charred black on the hallowed walls
of altamira's windlost three stages.

ned kelly

ned kelly



i am armored and
bulletproof yet not
immortal
the force
of the bullets will
batter me to the
ground until capture.

in her webbed fingers

in her webbed fingers



holy for but head besides
slightly should harry rattrap
boxers thats hes rub keeps mice
worth plate truman citizen
directed level her neck
preferably fatter to stienbeck
petroleum jelly either piece
and reading greasy aa gross is
curleys president wife my its
reynolds fucking small thinking
legs that movie jailbait tv of
founding leather girls girl
offa kafkas in ha we malkovich
la wifebeater live inexplicably
steinbeck one tha vaseline or
the company on will cabeza burt
out land dead need was fat ruth
white shirts loved games though
thing less you trouble much a
fill with do hand glove book
about bitch i size made
remember thirtysomething o
maybe two expect gary as same
reindeer matching striptease
new fingers webbed than detail
episodes strangest him
necessary not nah oddest men
from de shit know at quick did
kafka sinise things da me
cotton nice store titanium
described rabbits he trial got
played credit soft.

sex offender in six parts

sex offender in six parts



i
fallopian tube pregnancy options
tumor growing out of everything in
we need a lot of razored smooth hairless
items unshaven they like it now the
revolution thing obligation to
shave everything raw shave yourself tanless
shower curtains comes underground backward
incognito to reclaimed but disguised
needed coated and puked on them and light
solvents broken bulbs revolution of
writing compulsions now shame love items
fabric niceness comes unrelated bleed
yearning but to be richly purged of them
sometimes flowers and problems sodomize
fuel them in the house sodomize and look
erased nice when you put them in asshole
alcohol impaled grabbed it cough pleasure
because we are not lost my name might be


ii
if ever there was
a reason to do
it i would find it
gonna piss on my
foot

probably gonna
happen it’s gonna
land on my foot a
meeting of the minds
only requirement
is to be on the
way out

college won’t give me
any more drugs but
i like to drink malt
liquor when the most
obscene sex and violence
is going on up
there upstairs burning
raped repeatedly

it hurts but it is
continued so long
tastes bad but at least
there's a lot of it


iii
face down gravel float you’re my fucking slave
did i miss the whole thing again he had
some extra stitches put in his wife’s cunt
to make it tighter food of the goddamned

divulge i guarantee it if you rub
your toe on the thing every night the bald
abuse forceful amphetamines movies
huge cocks absolute porno butt naked
assassination of our cornered gods


iv
sandwich resting so
quietly in the
kitchen my stubble
in the sink

unwashed
battered corpse in the
garage a body
wrapped like a mummy
in black plastic and
brown paper head wrapped
in tape except for
a hole for the nose

throat was slashed with a
garden tool perhaps
a bow saw

he had
been placed upside down
his head was down so
that he could drain through
his throat and nostrils

the cause of death was
stab wounds blunt trauma
to the chest and head

attack could have been
random

body found
wedged between a car
and a garbage bin

they might get it out
of my box to stick
incriminating
you "will swing in the
wind one day die you
spineless cowardly
bastards!”

attacking
intimidated
witnesses “when you
put man and woman
together and shake
vigorously don’t
be surprised if sex
occurs”

torture and
slaying build the world’s
tallest building

just
another excuse


v
i don’t believe you
have more than just an insane delusion that
you are being harassed
i don’t believe you


vi
key west
there’s no way i ever would have gone
i was very thirsty
remember when he fell prey?
we knew how to find the ball
when i was in kindergarten i
loved black crayons
the ages that were important to me
are long gone they happened and
then they stopped

it suited me once to listen to lies
it seemed so appropriate
i heard everything and everything
was true
when i looked outside for someone
i saw that they were looking in
at me every creak and crack and
whisper
was installation and
conversation
informing (on) me
but what a waste of time

true enough i gave ahead
my vision blurred
despite unwavering focus
my mind is filled with
contentment of the
regular variety
comfort is replaced with
consistency and complacency
flavor is replaced by texture
fragrant sleep wafts through me
wily manes of reds and blondes
warmth twisting and tangling

the fire has died the coals are there
as quiet reminders leaving
black marks on the concrete as
i walk away
“i’ll send you a postcard
when i get on my way”
they used to be somewhere else
it was always there
blinding sun is on the horizon
the beach is empty and the water is calm
a gentle tide laps the broken sand
it is soft dark and wet
the beach is littered
with shark egg cases
fiddler crabs
and clumps of seaweed a plastic
shovel and a pail are discarded
by a pair of sandy wet towels
crumpled and balled up on the surf

there is a tight string around me
i am pulled at the waist
the coral is sharp
and the water
is very cold.

rubber

rubber



a white smudged german eraser rests prone near
the unmoving hand of a nonworker

organic erosion of the corners
ends and edges is evidence of the
item's previous use

this moment beached next to a blank page and
a sharpened pencil it is an eager
potent but unneeded lingam

inaction obviates eluviation
as of yet no text exists to flush.