Subject and Predicate

Keep on moving,
Just keep going before it doesn't say a word
As it slips out under the talons
Of another predatory bird of silent songs.
There is a suitcase always in the corner of my eye,
But I need the time to try on every coat.
There are strange lumps in the pockets
And cold spots underneath their collars.
But do I stand firmly? Not at all.
I'm going out in the theme of retrograde
And with debts unpaid, I call the bluff.
I'm going far on a cup,
So a gallon is much enough.

Playing With Your Retinae

It seems that water has made the lighthouse go blind,
No light to capture from the rapture of the night.
What woe! There are ghosts in the creaks of the wood
That haunt illuminescent light bulbs,
Childhood dreams that were still fast asleep.
When there is no time to pray
You go straight for the source,
Against the forces of gravity
Grabbing me from going up, up, up!
"That is enough!" the wind blew and we stood our ground,
But soon we had to stand closer, and we had to stand down.
Lest we be forgotten because the best we did was try,
We descended from the hills, writing our names into the sky.

So Close To Icons

A woman took us in and brought us towards heaven.
She said she'd wait as we tested out fates,
Spending to time to take it in
And weigh ourselves on the greater scale.
Splendid graffiti, pristine and white
Like a well disguised wolf among sheep,
Pressed against the darkening clouds.
Life continues in roundabouts,
Some afraid to get in,
Some too safe to ever want to get out.
This eye contact is the closest,
I wouldn't dare to pretend,
Lost in the rhythm of a circle
That gives our hearts back in the end.

When Plans Fall Through

Tonight we sit on a moving train,
Enjoying conversation as every station passes by.
There's no point in trying in dim lighting;
We've got stories about drinking and fighting
So we can light up our faces that way.
It's been a while since I've broken like that,
Crack joke, slip a smile under the door.
With that kind of lip, you must be asking for more,
But there isn't a damn thing you couldn't tell me about
That wouldn't sound better when we're just broing out.

Free Parking In Downtown L.A.

This city street sleeps with a little more color
Met with the quiet ghost of rush hour past
As the last cars wander on the symmetric grids
That have more foresight than their own lives.
We've got nowhere to go tonight,
We've got memory cards and youthful hearts
To capture all the industrial light,
The afterglow of man's triumph.
Towers so tall, they arch on the weight in our eyes
And bump against explosions held by gravity.
We overstep with expectations of flight
And pride our lives in iconic stills
That only increase its sense of brevity.
We make own figures and fill it with paper,
Light it up, and breathe in its levity.

Little Champ

The young ones stayed at home tonight
While the adults hunted for their money
Necessary when there are no teeth left to pull,
One too young, the other too old.
In the cold, we paced the streets on which
I had scraped my knees before you twinkled,
First a tear from a tear,
Then a life projected in my parents' eyes.
And now it is safe to say that we're all alright.
The concept design was finally realized,
My faith in your courage
That poured onto this life chasing satellites.

Throwback Composure!

"And after all that I've been
Through to save me,
I can do without you
And now I'm throwing you away
And I can only blame myself for this."
This road goes on and on
Until the ground kisses the sky,
And every time you sing to me
I'll fall in love and drown.
Kid, I know you hate it,
But maybe it's time to settle down.

Foolish Hit

I am the scientist, slurring and slow,
And I already know how it ends.
Your indications are tactless
Your rules always knew how to bend.
How many stitches does it take
Before the skin heals as a jacket,
Because it isn't a redefinition
If the recognition doesn't seem fit.
This is my favorite part,
When the cars don't stop at night
When the drunks are alright pretending.
I may be stupid, but consciously so,
And I already know how it ends.
The implications are merciless,
Even your light knows how to bend.

Real People Now

I've never gone into the southern hemisphere
But it was somehow appreciated,
Exploratory to say the least
With certainly nothing to hide.
There were no treasures, only gems
In the stems of great foundations
Left to grow their own creations
Of beauty and pride kept in flawless hems.
I grew in a clay pot
That was carried in a wandering arm,
But what we had forgotten was never let go
And supported the vines that kept us in the know.
How long can we make this last?
You know, it never hurt to just ask
That this warmth would keep beneath the sheets
For every time you would come back.

More Than Math And Science

I'm sorry about the sky,
I just know he isn't home.

The Ones That Came After The War

The storm isn't letting up, I can feel it.
Pandora is still sealed,
Half-assed in cheap Christmas cheer.
I should stop throwing these guns
Just because I don't know how to use them.
You gave the crown back,
You gave it all backwards
And watched them march into the trenches.
I would give anything
For it to come as well as I passed.
I will swim in metal on concrete
And greet it with a graceful smile
For a clip to hold your hair back
And to fight the extra mile.

Mass Flow Conservation

There is a box smudged on glass
With an X fingered through it.
It's done. Take it off the list.
If I had only knew how to save my day,
I would put another record on.
But this list will still play me
And we will suspend ourselves in steam,
Raindrops and metal
That my heart hopes will never rust.
I want to see the downpour make a stream
That would hit the floor before it ever beads.

The Party Law

I have my own in a cereal box,
The feet I walk on call out the prize,
Anachronistic fatalistic.
God, just tell me something new,
No, just something refreshing.
Divine world, small intervention,
And a rainbow LCD display
From distracting electronics and rain.
This is when it changed everything.
Have mercy on my vulnerability.

So Everyone Can't Read Every Text

I don't need the other me to tell me about my fantasies
As dark and twisted as it is to sleep on a misty highway
With both hands on the wheel,
And then to awake with a ghost limb.
This is the haunting of magician versus scientist,
Never learned how to make it disappear
Never missed a method to say it isn't here.
As recursive is without a vex a stop to turgid flow,
You should know this isn't something
You should think I'd never know.

Looking At Stars From Planes

This world is a powder puff.
At least the baker took the time to let it breathe
And he outlined rivers, mountains and trees,
A sprinkle for every street corner.
I feel warmer with the thought,
Some softer bells couldn't tell me
That I'm coming home.
Let's be thankful that no one is shooting,
I've got enough that you can wish on me if you want.

Suitcases Out!

What number am I on? I almost won't
Speak a sentence without a solution,
Unless I'm going for partial credit.
So don't believe everything I say,
This life is better left less of a gamble,
But, ladies and gentleman,
It's time to place your final bets.
These workhorses are coming in,
They're reaching down the final stretch.

Hold the Line

Words, where have you been?
The numbers came by the other night;
I think they're here to stay
And they've got others coming single-file.
Continuous flow with no conservation,
Now everything is some kind of observation
Of science. This is my compliance
To the terms of agreement: L.H.S. & R.H.S.
...Give me a hand to shake,
It's hard to say goodnight
When your brains have gone to sleep.
It's getting late, just close your eyes,
Tell consciousness to leave.

Stapled Paper Monster

There's no time to be a veteran
When you have to fight another war.
We are just square pictures and numbers
Who fight with ourselves and with the other.
Eat the atoms in the foil,
Break and bend them as you find fit
As long as you hold them together in the end.
They'll be pulling and pushing,
Your muscles contract.
You are moving forwards
And don't want to think back,
Because this is the fight.
There are no white flags that will fly in the night.
If there's a bullet, you won't dodge it.
In the thick of it all,
There is no magic, just logic.

Ominous Precipitious

Absent days come in a wave
As the ocean reaches the beach
With nowhere else to reach.
Now it comes down on itself
In hopes of holding its own weight,
Just wait for me on the other side.
We will fly or fall like the rain
Before it has always meant something,
So just make something good
Or stop me in my tracks dead.
Here is the runway, but there is the sky...
Go forth, full speed ahead.

That Isn't Your Name

There is nothing more to that life
Than television and kinesthesia,
You wait for a train on the wrong platform,
How long has it been since you’ve gotten off track?
I've got my pencil mustache
To draw out all of these words
That I hid under a top hat.
But what is it that you say
That you don't know what it means?
Wear me out on your incessant treading,
The screeching of rail and flashing lights.
Don't cross me, you have lost me
More than what I think would ever be right.

Welcome to the City

This reminds of the time spent
By the buckeye tree of quiet family;
I could trace long fingers in the dirt
And my mother told me what it was worth
As my father watched on quietly.
This is how time wound us down,
Now we spin in private circles
And scuff our shoes and streak the floor.
I never meant to dance around the door,
But absent bells ring in my ears as a symphony.
It's cold enough to snow here,
But we're all waiting for that somebody.

Usually, There's The Music To Cue You...

And it went a little something like:
"Everything will be alright,
The pilot light just needs a little gas."
I asked if you could see the lighthouse from here,
You waited for it to come back around again
Like it was always getting sick
Whenever it went on the water
And then under.
But we'll just sing irony in our rusted voices,
Desperate screaming into warm bubbles
That explode when it reaches the surface.
They are fireworks of sugar and salt,
Delicate earthquakes that look for a fault.

The Transformation

You've been talking about death for hours on end,
You're making a mistake
You think to yourself, rubbing alcohol tears.
Will you tuck this one under your bed
With the rest of your color book monsters,
Who conspire in the heat of the moment
And light the fire right beneath you?
Lately I've been having these feverish dreams,
Where these cheap curtains keep the desert outside
And a turbine pumps blood only let out at night.

The Nearsighted Excuse

I don’t think I could listen to anything softer,
Softer than silence. Listen to your stability,
Love the sweet danger foreboding, refreshing,
A dirty smirk as you shiver.
We’re just a couple lonely people
Trying out the breaths of one another.
If this skin could only keep the blood in,
These nerves could work up enough
To tell my chest it doesn't need to be
Against this door with unfinished numbers,
A black, charcoal-etched evening shore.
It seems you grew into yourself well;
I will take the dive and hold the rest.
It's time to put my best away,
This time the night gets one more day.

Too Much Consolidation

If you put it all in one place just to count it,
Has it really counted if you realize
That those faces won't ever seen you again?
I sure hope I haven't loss the touch,
Because I really do miss the contact
Upon the tarmac burnt from friction
To the TV-through-blanket addiction.
By then I will have stopped paying attention,
But my nerves will bend for it
And I'll lie in your lap like a board
For you to wash away your worries.
Sweetness, you're a sugary winter
That won't need a grain of salt
To give me the traction to react.
Speak me a soft coat of words,
I need their warmth holding my back.

Blinky Eyes

Choose your fate:
Dark into the woods or deep under the waves,
You can find me in the green room,
Lecturing myself on how to bury my dead.
How much can we keep in folded paper
Before it crumples under the weight of our words?
The world just dropped from under us all
And we are suspended in pretenses and grief.
It's time tome to terms with your reality,
It's time you learned how well you can breathe.

Settle, Settle...

We can make our home here
A dying brother on a frosted-over rocking chair
Who can barely feel the weight on his legs
He feels like he is flying
He feels like he is free
The colors black in and out
A thousand winks from a Christmas tree
There's a slippery descent into innocent snow
It'll be safer in the morning,
This is where we'll make our home.

The Knots In Sick Arbors

Someone left their love in a lemon tree
That turned as bright as warning;
It was so warming and dissolved free.
Fading pictures for ghosts on telephones poles,
Pinned up with rusty stables and old ambitions.
Every tassel was torn off, but still no response.
You tell yourself to call your older echoes when you can,
Before that creaking sound is too foreign,
Before the door won't fit your hand anymore.
It seems to me like those locks still fit in place,
So I wouldn’t quit it unless you’re ready to quit it
It won’t matter who did it if you’ve always hid it.

Refractory

A push comes to shove and you run your mouth,
Lips and brows had made a vow seven sunrises before:
Never again, not now and never more.
But we returned just as we came
With a list of names on a pink backdrop.
We fall back into the assembly lines
With hopes in our coats we put on one last time.
The refractory is an act that we need to shut down
The factories are after me; they’re calling me out.

Hands to Landing, Tuck to Rolling

Put some days in between,
Down feathers in your favorite pillow.
Tossing and turning wouldn't turn it over,
So you got over the blankets and sighed
Because it takes too much to lie in sleep.
"I'm coming," were the words whispered,
But there was no time to wait.
You wake up to the final descent
Tray tables up, fastened to your seat,
Looking calm, Looking cool,
Look at yourself with honesty.

Let's Not Pretend Hazards

It's no surprise why I am up right now:
To send messages with no subjects
To doubt my very own existence,
Only made up of repeated plans.
Let me be my own Madagascar
Let my ports fill with clots;
I can tell what was gotten from me
In the purple between the grass.
Unforgotten and taken back,
Gravity has been waiting it out,
Just a cold rock burning up
Before it could fall down.
It's no surprise who is the best
Just because it can’t work out.

Posthumous Posture

There are vows that break on contact
And slip down a bloody cheek
As old habits, tenacious like
Chewing gum that loses flavor
Before a single world has been said.
And although the receipts beg to differ,
I shivered a shout that settled in the car,
Drowned out in hot air from the engine.
Welcome back to the firestarter's club,
Knowing what you love the most
And ghostly keeping it warm.
There is everything I will never know,
Just keep control to let it go.

It Isn't Fair

The night stood still for a calming soul,
Not even a whisper from the poison oak.
Quiet and contained, paired warmth, lungs bright,
I said every word thinking no, no, no,
But what do I know. You said you were sorry
Like you couldn't even breathe right.
Spin around the calendar, here we go again.
This time let everything be said and
Take it to the grave or take it to your bed.

Carriage House Return

Look at me through sixteen years
Look through the things
That you don't have to fear yet,
What you're not even near yet
Or even better will never have to know.
If I could show you everything now,
And wrap your heart in guidance
Then my misalignment
Would forever be excused by it.
And sorrow salt can call for quiet
On the set made by an amnesiac.
I've forgotten my well hidden scars
From falling asleep on transcontinentals,
Washing my plastic, and living on rentals.

The Respect Is Mutual

I've been thinking about heaven quite a bit with these kids,
Wondering if I can get much higher,
But there surely is nothing like this.
He said it himself with quiet irony riding shotgun
And a dusty tape deck playing static tracks.
But we're always moving on sun-faded streets,
You loop nostalgia and call it a beat
Tuck in under some vocals and call it a feat.
This creation is man-made and self-destructing
And we stand above inhaling the smoke before the ruin
Constructing exactly how it is going to end.
Old friends can always throw something new in
Just took keep the same fire burning,
To feel the heat of our youth light the truth we are learning.

Little Hands In The Big Sky

This is a day spent lifting blankets,
Getting comfortable again with the sedimentary
Elementary aspects of romance, tragedy,
And familial grace that takes place right before me.
This love is simple and soaked in sun,
And got so much better when I was no longer
The only one under their wings.
We are growing like proud wind,
And you're only getting louder with things to say,
Sing me this song that I never learned to name.

Turn On The Christmas Music, It's Almost Thanksgiving!

I'm not one for remembering names, but
Hello, angelina, you tiny savior
Adorning a pungent pine tree.
You were in the form of an instructor of pilates
And a musician who struck a chord with me.
The machines took over too early,
So four hours were spent knowing Logan too well
With 40 boxes of greasy cardboard in cardboard
With water in plastic and goldfish in bags.
Seven hours later, the magic worked
From a plane window I saw the pollution and the pier,
Made it on to the other side,
Coast to coast, I marked home a little before 7.a.m.
Everything's almost the same.
I'm home, therefore I am.

Big-Faced Propaganda

There are vultures behind the tube.
Say good morning to your breakfast,
Severed weekly in a sleepy room
Almost as good as hitting the snooze.
Just five more minutes please,
I'll die if I have to leave this bed.
Covers and contours of the skin
Have never fit as well as love is a war film.
You're special because you're normal
So just shoot me for every finger on my hand raised to fly,
Or play roulette with words and faces
With mental displacement at an all-time high.

Inertia Is Always Positive

This is your new club, your melodramatic pop
That rocks in the coke that did a little trick.
I get in the picture to make a feature stick
With eyes that don't roll, but they sure are tired.
Get wired, get loco, it doesn't matter what they do,
All that matters is what you do, I mean, you knew it,
Sometime around midnight Wednesday night.
If there is a descent, then there has to be a flight.

Reliving In Prosthetic Log Structures

You forget, boy, the scars make it feel like perfect skin.
And when words are spoken that you don't hear
Don't you fear someone else has already been let in?
Trees once had branches as yours as do mine,
But when they've been cut, do you still not feel them?
Little hairs stand up in the wind,
There are whispers to which they listen
And vines entwine from the roots keeping tabs,
Icy rivers in your skin reach the limb's running hand.

A Boy In The Party Scene

I barely caught the bus out,
Buzzed in with a silent phone,
A hot head and cold thumbs
Waiting at this station.
I used to know you
But it is nice to meet you.
Tonight I caught perspective
Thrown from a lively mouth
Perched on an exclusive porch;
I tongued them with a bitter taste
But it goes down easy
And I go on my way.
Wandering off into the night
To catch a bus with its lights off,
I'm a little cold, but sitting tight.

It meant everything.

Angle down the dim-lit screen
Remember each retinal engraving,
All too real to keep you
Comfortably safe in
Something made up, then
From the trimmings and truths.
Some youth escaped as a scentless gas,
Combustible and made of past
Mistakes, (or) the things that made you great.
Tell me what it's worth now
Mixing weights with alcohol.
Sleep tight, precious, you left us wide open,
Just how far will you get from your hoping?

Make Your Points (Each One Counts)

The first stone:
It isn't a matter of who throws it,
But where it lands.
Obsessing over measurements,
I taunt two buckets and balance beam.
To take is to give, and I'd rather live without
The time solidified under pressure
Turned to sharp rocks I pick from my feet.
Walk it off, but don't you dare walk out,
The engine is screaming and you've only to shout,
Kick into the gear that won't get you kicked out.

Velvet Reconnect

Your spend your day mostly in night.
The fabrics draped around your bones
With a buffer of untouched skin,
So the sun kept his filthy hands off.
All the while, I tried to piece together
The present and immediate past
With passages from your book
And animations that took the form of your body.
It's nice to see that you're still alive
Without further examination,
On behalf of the memories I protect.
And neglecting all the edge effects,
This soft contact is light at best.

A Tree In A Storm

We spin wildly from perplexing lethargy,
References indefinitely redefined
To ultimate become rag dolls at the finish line.
As I lie on my bed, I question the geometry
Of limbs and the symmetry of my head.
But there are no new angles to discover,
They all stem to the same new beginning,
Synthetic fruitfulness, a future as we make it.
Cold air blows tears in the eye of a hurricane.
Storm the front and squeeze juice from this surname.

Req. #

Here's one step into preemptive sun
To dry up my skin and show more wrinkles.
This is the closest I'll get to acting my age,
I'm not getting any taller,
This is the smoothness of my brain.
Call me not the greedy one,
I'm just looking for a challenge.
I'm letting go of shaky ropes,
Unmoored to float if managed.

What's Wrong.

Like picking vitamins off the floor with dirty hands,
I am listening to songs about inadvertent blasphemy
At the speed of sound at sea level,
Thinking it’s a way to finally get free.
Every night is happy hour,
Blackout drunk from exhaustion,
Stumbling over calendar boxes to find where I need to go next.
Not backwards.
It's imaginary, ordinary…the sound of my mistakes.
Alone in a subway car,
Always: from one thing to the next.
Who put this table on a clock?
It just keeps turning and turning.
Twisting implications and explications apart.

Alternatives To Sleep

I wondered a.m. or p.m. as if I had a choice
After having closed the curtains at noon.
It was the perfect day to run away,
But I had already turned myself in,
Partially in-
Complete, but a night's work nontheless.
The lids were cracked open,
Smacking back like measuring tape
Taking numbers on the length of deep red veins.
I didn't want to wait for the sun again,
The solstice when we'd ask each other,
"Are you Tom or are you Summer?"
But more melon light reflected through the dirty glass
And the music never stopped when the night was over.

A Cold War Between Two Radiators

I keep on putting on these heavy dark coats
Like something damned and cold is coming in,
But who would've thunk about the clunk coming out,
The scrap metal that scratches my throat
On the way to a disjointed mouth.
Some take it for disbelief, some take it as meaningful
As leaves blowing off the vine to define this year's fall,
But dirt bleeds through the walls
Because the ground that I stand on is dying.
And until that day comes, I'll swallow my words,
Throwing all sorts of friendships down the well.
Kindly, fuck most everybody else.

Adium is a hell of a drug.

When the hands reached out around the clock,
They found themselves back where they had begun,
Strung-out and empty-handed; nothing happened
Between now and then, A dream is just a dream
And this changes nothing.
The more I talk, the less I know,
So come on, bones, all the blood is waiting.
We are humans with our hearts
But lawyers with our cases,
Protecting what we meant with something else we say.
The plaintiff is just an atheist, turning bibles into books;
I had criticized the retraced lines, but the author is a crook.

Pillowcases Are Empty Shells

I regret breathing in as deep as I did
I took in more air then I needed.
And in the gluttonous exhale,
Stubborn inertia has prevailed.
Some of us haven’t changed one bit.
The mystery is up,
I can sleep duty-free.

Addiction vs. Dependecy

Everyday is a descent in a windowless car,
It's time to get your sweaty fix again,
Being pressed against metal as satisfying as a collision.
So willing to lose control and drift into an uplifting routine,
You are hydroplaning to be freed from extraneous friction.
Feel the tensile strain pulling tightly on your pulsating skin
And the beauty outside turning into hot stone from within.

It Is Always Stationery.

Sitting here idly, being lectured to about efficiency,
I sang the alphabet backwards from "A"
To find another way to spell it out for you,
But I could never understand any word I ever meant.
Every spine has had its crack,
And every page has aged and bent.
I could still read you with my eyes closed
Under my lids hid my best notes,
But I fell asleep with your name on my lips,
Stripping dreams from becoming ghosts.

Ocean Snot

You're as lovely and predictable as the waves
And every day you drown me is another day you save.
It burns my yearning lungs that are learning how to breathe,
That shake and quiver as my vocal chords shiver
And from the soft offshore wind I begin to slowly speak.
Hello there! Okay, goodbye now, see you soon.
Tether your weathered heart up towards the moon.
It's funny, the sand briefly remembers my hand,
Honey, I think I see it coming again.

A Childhood Scar On My Knee

I woke up in my socks and missing her
So I ran and slid into a slammed door.
And whenever I see this kid who didn't hurt at all
With a dumb smile, fake tears, and his hands on the ground,
I always have to pick him up and see
What I left in those eyes and what ended up eroding my skin.
I had lit a candle in a vast empty room called a dream,
Between his hands and mine, it is clear which ones are clean.

Find Function

When the casual overlap becomes a lot less casual,
You will sit cross-legged and I will suit up.
We will talk about the formalities
And discuss the well-formed habits that
We've worn down to a point, to sign peace,
Or to pierce the night for more
So that the stars run down the blackened sky
And collect in our mouths in a soapy mix.
Hopefully it's nothing that decisions bad
And a splash of sour could not fix.

City Boy

I am made of meat, steel and electricity.
My body is a downtown with appendages
Pulling in tiny cells to push them out again,
More of the same only with elasticity.
We look with screeches for our grip,
And a sick mother nature coughs
Trees into the holes in the sidewalk.
This city never sleeps with the traffic lights on,
Not nearly as well as you do every night.
I'll be awake for you in the morning,
But I won't fall asleep by your side.

Revive The System!

On a charter bus back home
Fading westward into the night,
The girls were being mean
Just as they always are.
There was dirt under my nails
Unfinished business left in a river,
All turning into rust, human red.
It was our last time out of our element
But still in the same family,
A chemistry called intimacy from laces crossed.
The future on a present string, the memory's not lost.

Apropos of Altered Slow

My sleep was strained in a sieve
And strung together carby and complete,
Waiting to be seasoned with doubts
Like salty hair, silky matted down.
You're wet with inspiration,
You're dripping into an ocean of
Bleached fiber and hesitation.
These names don't make sense
Due to a fever that persists,
You're running numb in the cold
To feel the things that don't exist.

Smile Held With A Bracket

I woke up with a card on my stomach,
A warning much better than knots
But the smell of forget-me-nots
Still serves the same function in its absence.
As city planner, I'll collapse the span of bridges
To take back all the ridges of lost time.
And from the snapped suspension,
I will find the inclination to breathe with purpose
Like the machine I want to become.
Give me crutches with hooks
And I'll string them up again,
Feet barely on the ground like a marionette.
Yeah, I'll wrap this life with splints
And stitch it up with no regrets.

You Win.

And at this point we don't know
Whose face hides behind a silhouette,
But we make bets made of promises
And we know how long it's been,
Not how long it will be. But it's
Something I couldn't lose
To(o,) someone else.
And dreams will keep it alive.
Filing a request for a returning flight
To hold onto my back upright,
Faces and figures collect and collide.

When We Thought 2000 Was The End

Damn this given beauty not given to me,
The storm that clears over the east
The silence on the moon
The coldness on the beach.
I never found the innocence,
I got in right as they were leaving.
I never had the reflections and the water
Or the constructive waves to make you more than up.
Now you make love when you're sad and you drink to be happy.
And it can fill up the room from the ground to the ceiling,
There's no liquid or sound that could drown out this feeling.

Wearing Nostalgia, Swimming with Sharks

I was spoken to in slowed-down French
In a room where we learned about our bodies.
The popcorn popped like mistreated audio
And plastic wrappers luminesced in flavorful light.
There was familiarity in kinesthetic
Recognition heartbeat bass drum,
Like the things that this coat has felt,
The pressure between skin
And the hot then cold then hot again.
I'm glad you're still here
And my shortened breaths still count,
And your hands can still cover
All the things I can't surmount.

Take More Away

It's four in the morning, having lost so much sleep.
Time to take some more away from the earth,
What clumps and rolls on nothingness,
That is covered in meridians and datelines
To give me this very day, shifted in phase.
We make levelers for stability,
But all that is to be done is point.
Give a direction with a purpose that's viable,
Because this kind of something
Isn't consciously justifiable.

Measured In Lumens

It started on an off-chance glance,
Checking the texture and viscosity
Of folded paper in shaded pixels.
What you need is nothing given
As shown by the length of each line.
You're taking deeper breaths now
And tucking yourself into a smile.
You've found your self-governance
And everyone in you obeys it,
All your demons sound asleep
Under the angel light they pray in.

With What's Left

The morning found its proper place,
Awake and taking small steps
Like the baby born in her belly.
She is a sickly hope in a thin sundress
Who twirls to match the madness
And reveals skin smooth as satin.
Crisp skies had been preheated,
To keep us happy or kill us quick,
So the phrases keep up with every year:
If she warms up, she just might stick.

The Great Don't Fall In Limbo

The soil bears her own scars
From cities razed and refounded.
The dates read on each sarcophagus
Are older than the sacred ground itself,
Thousands of plots for a line of best fit.
Only the heart of the matter
Is found from the incision that cuts through
Well and pipe that burst in synchronization.
The sound of glorious horns play like the devil's
That teases you with his woeful tremors.
Reciprocate and fall in love,
Sharing breaths with the ground,
Blow a kiss, stay above.

-10

If I could, I would keep the sun poised in the sky,
And all the light would touch unnoticed
But then crescendo to warmth to never leave.
Yet every leaf has its color to show
As it is brought down to earth,
To fall out of line in a beautiful pattern
That we only have the capacity to call chaos,
Until we are derailed and violent sparks singe
The subtle uncertainties we almost forget to say.
I'm going back to lay the tracks
That would lead me to this day.

Mr. Spoonerism

There's release in the trashcan and it's free in the air,
Lawnmowers haunt the late yawners
And cracks in old fabric expose a near escape.
At this point, days stop going by the dates.
A desk is turned into life's misinterpretation
In the form of irony and alcohol.
We come to leave our state of being
Perpetually, dissatisfied like the shuttles
That return in paranoia that they are spinning
And the world is what is standing still.
Do you hide your thrill in hand-hiding pockets
When returning rockets prove your feet on the ground?
Then why does the moon pull the shores and your frown?
Why do you smile when no one else is around?

A Factor of Four Hours

Obsessive, compulsive, regressive, comes close to
The rest of a day pad unstacked out of grasp,
Perfected nostalgia for immediate past.
Sometimes there's no time to walk through the door,
So we go on the roof and find something to land on.
You can throw me a bone to eat off the floor,
I'm still digging up ground just to have one to stand on.

Safety Net Syndrome

Our prisons are made of glass and of hell
With a door always open to the last thing we left,
Our captors. They are our rapture that makes us
Rattle our Faraday's cages as the charges build up,
Guilty of our own freedom to hope or to sleep.
Its presence is a blue tear in a gray sheet,
Resilient, persistent, piercing, complete.

Smooth Brained

I felt it with my head against the wall,
The plastered talk left unmastered
So that I overstepped and fell off the thrown,
On which I broke my crown.
There I laid,
Asleep on a heavy hand that left a ring in my ears.
Now here I am,
And I can't fall asleep without the sound on.
I wouldn't mind one more night
With your heart murmurs' warmly drowning.

Heads or Tales

There once was a boy with a disappearing coin.
It shined like diamonds or faded like dust,
And so was his trust in reality.
He put his money into philosophy and lust
To find a deeper meaning in skin.
There once was a man with no past of his own
Who resembled a boy that had already grown,
He became magician, bought a coin for a trick,
Gave his trust to a boy, and disappeared sick.

Shutup

My life changed with eight letters and a name
A seven-digit call turned a dial tone to a vein
In six breaths vomit came in cleansing
With five more minutes spent in explanation
A four-paragraph eulogy
To the three words of shape-shifters
The steady collision of two stellar bodies
Or the one note for a bird to sing a song,
Count on me to find the words to say
Too much.

Presesnt Push

Swallow your tongue so your heart can find
The words to be savored the most,
To be put in the sheets an earnest ghost.
It will haunt your pillowcases
Where you listen for your dreams
That float up in short whispers of silent night.
It becomes the light in your eyes,
Leaving you mentally blind before you speak.
A simple connection, the ground to your feet.

Suddenly We're Out Again

It started when it ended and it went on long enough,
Internal clocks revolted and took control of all my trust
So that riverbanks crumbled into a muddy flow of wine,
And I slipped into shivers because this body isn't mine.
I've been adding up semantics to reject the blood in value,
So just listen to this story that I don't have time to tell you.

First Winter

Stars move fast when made of water,
Splashing far into the sky
And lighting up whatever they'd like.
I hold my umbrella tight,
A final stand against a falling sky,
Falling sideways, howling wild.
I stumbled on heaven's porch
And felt a kid again.
But one knee rested on the tile
As it was taken once more,
Tugged towards the floor
But smirking drunk sincerity,
A hand over the surface
Keeping a steady pressure.
Her hands were made of ice
And it felt in frigid pleasure.

Cloudy Eyes

44 hours are heavily darkened circles
Having been drawn over too many times
From too many days and too many nights.
Pile on to keep the conscious balanced,
But in a while the scale will break.
The chains are stable pulses,
Electric anchors along my nape.
Metaphysical decapitation
Sends rolling dreams on a winding road.
I must be running on amazing,
Or extremely stupid, falsely bold.

American Eater

I've been wrong about many things
Like the pockets of air kept under my skin,
The cracking sound of dry earth in hot light.
They're throwing dirt on me, burying me if I don’t move.
It's not that I don't focus enough,
It's just that I put too much focus into everything.
Too much focus makes clarity piercing,
Popping the locks on stability.
You asked for it, now answer the door,
Those heavy eyes, once yours, drag up from the floor.

Red 40

There are many things I believe in,
Symmetry to say the least,
The amazing things that come to meet me here,
Shiny plastic and sweetness at the door.
Silent words and stomach birds
Pick everything off of the floor,
And put them back into place and listen.
A decrescendo falling for a magician made
Of flavoured candy and coloured kisses.

Fold Until Collapse

Everyone has a bomb to drop,
Attachments detached from all emotions
Embraced with the kiss of hot wax.
The face melting stroke in pen
Tattooed until blue,
Impressions left on the surface.
But it remains washable, non-toxic
Like the clever creases in each page.
Tie up your rage in a curlicue
It's petty and trite,
A papercut and nothing new.

Highly Inertial

Past slowly connects with present and I'm shocked,
Favorite t-shirts used to have so much color.
This life is lightning through smudged glass
That leaves foggy impressions against our lips
And makes us trip over untied shoes,
Endings that didn't quite settle in the ground
Suddenly uprooted in light.
This shiny belt leaves crystal welts
That nature does clothe so well,
Just keep your head up,
You're covered enough
To brave the cold weekend swell.

All Digits But A Limb

There are open swords in this gentleman's court,
And dogs run about with letters in their mouths,
Barking out their orders with nothing spelled out.
Don't make me forget the details in texture of skin,
The portrait I left on the warrant of arrest,
Indigestible on the table where this crime was set.
I'd rather walk into the depths than stand up in objection,
The blood was rejected where your blade came to rest.

Casual 7 a.m.

Crack the sky open when nothing is left
And let the morning come in over easy.
Tensile strings in my back tug tightly
So that sails stretch out to dawn,
Agape and gulping air and grasping.
Fingers play with cloudy strands of hair
And cotton gets caught in my throat.
A light cough wrestles the silence
That nestles itself in the room,
Four walls went down so casually,
A Friday never too soon.

Yeah, You know.

And then everything starts going faster.
Every moment starts flashing by,
Stuttered cameras and your loss of breath.
It is beautiful and it is is gone,
Home was never home where you had felt it all along.
Names turn into memories of the daylight that remains,
The future looks as blindly as the past that stays the same.

Honesty Without Conviction

Sleeping through sirens was never enough.
I'd roll up my cuffs to build a fire,
But they were tight like the light breaking down
When prevailing winds started blowing smoke.
Oh, but I could see through the lamination,
Cataracts collected on my eyes,
And the contamination was set in stone.
You never know how light the dark is
Until it is reflected upon you,
Perplexed one more time
Imperfected as it spells out on the line.
A capital to the morning,
A period for the night.

Rest Assured

We sit like scissors on a patch of fray,
Cutting through to the honesty.
You're the only one who could promise me
That intimate blows of stitches to stomach,
Not kisses mixed with tonic water,
Could never clench so hard
As to break my certainty.
In every resonant frequency,
The absurdity is worried away
From the words stirred into all that you sang.
The background breaks in,
A shaking earthquake, hands to peace.
Sweet seismic lullaby, swing me to sleep.

Feeding Off Stability

Feeding off stability,
The guilt spoken on my chest as I laid on my back.
I'm trying to balance mistakes on a scale,
But there's no point in tipping
The butcher or the waiter.
It can be pulled apart in any way you want,
But this kind of patience is maiming.
It's kept so rare as to have a life
Uncorrupted, untrusted by the judicial eye
That peaks under the blindfold.
This blood now boils by association,
The bitter masterpiece tastes of unripe delicacy
And its sour seeds burn from a tarnished creation.

Escalante Feeling Revival

I stood screaming at the water,
At my hazy reflection of so many stagnant days.
I counted the seconds between each delay,
Touched the surface, and collided with
Everyone and everything thing
I wish I had given more time.
A 5-year reaction made this extraction pure,
How I could sleep insane tied town to a chair
With each heavy breath against a soft pillow,
So you could hollow me out with a carving spoon
For the echoes of a shimmering light,
Blinding fascination. I close my eyes,
Tenses agreed and consciousness resigned.

Hey, You Beauty Supreme

A temporal displacement is the sun settling east,
Though we both screamed you were not.
We both forgot the good sting in our throats
So just shut up and sing with me,
From the quiet to the untitled
Three: Secrets kept in the basement
Are my faceless pennies thrown in couples.
But they roared like twin-engines deep,
The airplane drone tucked into constellations.
Encore, encore! Yet we are restless
And wrestle into a different sleep,
Sneaking out of the night and into the heat.

Sleep Here

This time it's different,
But my safety words are those explicit.
Wrap them in good company,
Curled up on the futon or buried on the floor,
Hiding from the clarity of near frozen air.
Though they still all manged to slip on icy sleep,
And I too signed off my conscious lease.
Your hand was the mark; my imprint: initials.
Push me up against the city stars ever so gaudy,
So that every soft surface will have found a warm body.

Background Jesus

I keep looking for the multitracks
For a fulfillment that I won't get back,
The satisfaction of picking through each layer
And relishing in poignant embellishments,
The decorated screen on which confessions spilled,
Because I can only hear you when you shout.
Your heart made you a clot that stuck in your mouth.

The Consequences

Sleep deprivation caused deterioration,
The rings of your stem is a tree.
Leaves cracked and twigs snapped
When your naivety was pushed from a branch
By all of your pressing issues
That climbed up a ladder of priority.
You must find your swing or a swimming theme,
From each kick, each dance and every squeal.
Point your toes towards the clouds,
And wear your scars proudly,
But my child, you must let them heal.

Visiting Hours

A skeleton hung from a string
Against your closed window.
I was once a medium
And saw it from the other side,
I spoke to the future as the present,
A past that had long since died,
And was tied up in her beauty.
Mute me and fade to black,
Put my gift next to your ear,
And speak to anyone but me.
The sky is still as blue as I remember
And there is a piercing belief,
In a leaf turned red in bloody death,
That warmth will be born before December.

Returning To A Burning Building

No one breaking in, but all breaking out
I walked into the fire and out of the rain.
A lonely elephant parade made light,
Took up all the moisture
Into the cloisters of a silent saint,
An angel in casual ascension
As long a the cable stayed taut.
The ability to mourn
Is a divinity better left unsaved.
For the affinity to this still unmarked grave
Comes after I've earned the name I have made.

For Things Turned

Tonight we trace our hearts in fog
Against the Cambridge skyline,
Over the city, under the sheets.
Out of my mind in the heat
Of a sun already sat down.
Take a breath start over this time,
The field is an ocean of reflected night.
We mirror our verbs and feel closer in time
For another inspection, respective
Of all the operations to derive.
Add up the letters between you and the sky,
Divide up the love for each day you're alive.

Well Needed, If I Can Remember

Throw alcohol on the fire
Feel it burn down your throat,
Breathing a familiar smoke passed away.
It is the dust from an urn,
The week died quietly and quick,
So suddenly stick mouths
Closed upon muddy thoughts.
You cease to remember the creases you forgot
Left at the bottom of heavy pockets.
From stepping in puddles, they are wet.
Overstepping into a rainclouds
Is the same sound that you kept
The change in altitude
As the cabin pressure dropped.
The air moves past my lungs
But nothing clung, no time to stop.

The Use of Contractions

Subconsciousness in one's and two's
Now looked for rhythm in slow pulses,
Acoustics safe and sound indoors,
A warmer winter up six floors.
Mismatched eyes and faint melon sky,
The light washed over the paper screen,
A million colors clung on to me and you.
The ignition turned to candlelight
That kissed away the twisted knots
And put smiles in each pocket
As to not forget where we got them.
Let us fade simultaneously
From the gracious cranes that held the structure
Of hands and words that spelled each other.

Ride The Work Bus

The alarms went off at 7 .a.m.
But there was no wolf at my door,
Just a hooded morning
With my head so far from the floor.
But I'd make it on through the other side
Thinking the day I sleep is the day I die.
So I kept myself up
Scratching lead between lanes,
Criticizing each route taken,
Taking wishes from each plane.

The Gold In Dirty Lungs

There are too many steps beneath each foot,
Too much ground to gain
With too much dirt that stains your pants
From the mountain you tried to scale
Digging deep to make it faster,
But only found yourself in a mine.
The gold came at a price,
A shortness in breath from all that helps you die.
I can't even remember how this lie was supposed to go.
I always have to go, but I just want to slow down.
I knew the timeline couldn't hold up
The swimming day the quickly drowned.

Toast

A haunting ghost is more so haunted
When it is lost in the sheets,
Losing more in sleep under a heavy dream.
The clothes are clean tonight,
They lay unfolded, resting quietly.
No sleeves to pull, no collars to stiffen,
Power in indifference
Is the best gift I've been given.
I lost the score when I gave up,
Lying on the floor with green on my back
Waffles in the sky, my mind tracing back.
There's painter's tape around our trust,
I hope the memories were good enough.

Sleep Robbers

A dream staged in conscious pages,
An open cage with adverse winds
Keeps these wings tucked in.
I never learned the difference
Between butterflies and moths,
Countdowns and clocks,
Something to gain with some sort of loss
Of words from ambivalence.
Optimism-realism, the bright side is brighter
From sunlight or fire in the dead of night.
Unintended egocentrism,
I sit in my chair and the room spins around me
Until the sun comes up to finally ground me.

Late Night Medical

I lightly packed a book bag full of snacks
That neither of us could ever stomach.
We were going on an adventure,
A vacation in surrealist claymation
With cracks in the sidewalk,
Cracks in the sky I held not to shatter.
When I had wished the world a little flatter,
I thought I'd left Guernica somewhere in you,
But your ocean ran a deeper blue.
I wish I only knew, dear,
I wish I only knew how to help you.

From The Ivy Vine

In pieces of three,
A family stretches along the sidewalk.
Older than the gum glued to the cement,
More tenacious as well.
A silent understanding is left by the draft,
As the rafters shook and shattered
Any question of the matter.
Walk tall, men, and give them a show,
Take those stomachs out their knots
And tie the timelines into bows.
This is timeless, fraternal to say the least,
Fallen like angels, awoken like beasts.

The Second Take

This time with more bubbles,
This time with less trouble staying in the door,
Being able to see the floor before we'd fight
The covers, the other things lost in the night.
Libations were poured down my throat,
Some sour milk left a floury coat on my lips,
While sips turned into swallows
Until the deep cup was hollowed again.
Back in the dimly lit, a chimney spat out fire
From somewhere deep in the core,
Then the walk back was made easy
With a teasing count in three-four.

The Familiar Overlap

I pushed the diamonds towards the sky,
The heaven's pushed back with the bluest light.
Everything was enveloped
And the pictures came out undeveloped,
Unclear and misunderstood
That I could turn off the spark
And run on the phantom the lurks in the dark.

Current Times

Today is not tomorrow, but I stay up late enough.
The morning kicks the covers off,
The day rolls over the sky.
You hold your dearest coldest fears
In little packages of light.
A smile tucks underneath your lips
As silence diffuses in forthcoming night.
Our sun had settled in hazy warmth
To rise again for what it's worth.
It rests against my fingertips
And tests the potential stored.

Second Day Born

Trust becomes a trinket exchange,
Another lace ties over the bridge
Tuned to the sound of my own name.
The pound of a wave of water pressed against my skin
Lifted, I was walked through thin air again.
A lightness the likeness of assurance
Of a mailbox every morning, a message every night
And the movie didn't even matter in the end.
She wrapped the name around a solid heart
A piece put back in that she once took apart.

Observe Life

Sleep so fast like I'm going under
The weather, soft explosions of rain.
A runny nose is wiped off
A sunny ghost lights off at 3 a.m.
Firework smoke to cataracts,
My retinas burn in lightheartedness,
Tracing it up the tracks with no names
But veins running thick with current,
Tangles of lightning left to tame.

Cinnamon Eggs

Delusion is tied down with a braided ring,
A conclusion is drawn on the length of a string
To hold it together, the texture and color that
Dominates my wrist in clasping undertones,
Humming the harmonies in sweet afterglow.
How much sugar does it take to give way
From the words that you speak
That don't mean what you say?
The melody nuzzles against your warm throat
And the sickness dies down in its thickness of coat.

LI/U Frequencies

The name is but a perceived notion of suspicion.
It becomes a prediction in the brain's matters,
Never to know what happens when the dialogue turns gray.
When past and present turns to shadows and light,
We jest at the truth to get past all the lies,
Rest after the work from the hands of a blind man.
Wine spilled into the sink after staining the wood,
Slipped into the grain of things we wish we understood.

New Roslyn

Irises are songbooks in the color of your eyes,
A blindness in quotations turned the first day of a life.
Liquid crystal interests in holding onto the frays
Made you deacon of deception and master of crochet.
This textual hypothesis of fact is repetitious,
But stands just as progressive as the lovely coming back.
The inspections lasted all through the night,
Untangling laughter from the weeping willow.
Your silhouette stained on scented pillows,
And you clung to me like a silly band-aid
Where I've always needed it the most.

Cherry Pulse Night

Soft light and softer skin
Pale as moonlight
Starlit grin.
Noisy curtains beckon
And lessen my control on light,
Exposing the colors,
Those other from what the night
Had once brought on the table.
Forgotten there and spoiled,
The milk was left in the stable
But shook my bones just as well,
Deep enough to find reflections.
Keep track of your intentions,
Speak me out of logic
For the light to match the eyes,
I'll forget I ever taught it
And untie it from our minds.

Good Winter For A Better one

A fan pulling from a closed window,
Panning engines and hydraulics,
Fading in and gliding out.
Wind catches under your wings
And slips you off your feet.
I excuse the silent asymmetry
Hidden in backdrop melon light,
I've every evening to suspect
Falling asleep in retrospect.

Played

You want it for the classic sound.

It's warm, familiar...

Yeah, the real thing.

The steady spiral pulled you in

As fast as it scratched you out.

Now it's an itch in the inner ear,

Now it's a stitch loosely knit

On the shoddy sleeve,

But thought of near enough.

Try to hide what was exposed

When the edges are rough

And the contents are known:

A record heard as decoration

For it's been spun out of control;

You know what happens next,

But the needle won't let go.

Closer for the Strangers

The morning silhouetted a friendly toast,
The evening charred black on the eastern coast.
Glasses were held not in celebration,
But to make it out of focus, to see the bigger picture
Made by the light smeared from morning to night.
The rain pressed against my face
As I rolled on through the night,
Every care had been abandoned
We are reckless, but united,
With hope we'll be alright.

Firestarters

My trust funds are combustible,

I am a liar with a streak.

My lies leak across the table,

A deck in every suit to mask the joker.
A hushed spark of laughter in the library,

I keep my studies in a matchbook

With every trial and error lesson taught,

Fought for with guns cocked

And caressing match heads on the box.

I'd singe the tips from recognition

If I wouldn't feel a thing.

This blind hope was a candle

To burn ambition in gasoline.

Purple Silly Band

The only thing that is back
Is when that person turns away,
There is no snap in the symbol to mean
More than what's been said and done.
Intended to become just another,
A little too self-aware
A little more a brother.
I am a block in the race
With my feet stuck on the ground,
A barrel on my back
And my face towards the hounds.

Trestles

The ocean spills through my open window.
I could taste the salt on the corners of my lips.
Remember the fear of investment
Remember the crescent before the crash,
The water rolls back and pulls in some sand
And covers my feet as I sink where I stand.
Steady this time, with the water's regression
Don't forget the silhouettes of a deeper impression.

The Eventually Clause

I wrote equations in the smoke,
Trying to hold the patterns in breaths
Of someone born with a crystal lung.
There were cautious steps
Pressed against fragile rungs
For the ascension into a precious suspension.
Fears were spun in a web,
Silence as soft as silk
As delicate as what the death of it would bring.
Your memory is left in golden strings,
Lesser every time I sleep,
Reduced to smoke that I can't breath.
I don't want to leave you here, eraser in ink.

False Alarm

This was a variation on a common theme,
A backlit reminder of where I've always been.
Because the sheets stayed still tonight,
The streets took back the night as quickly as it came.
I woke up in the morning looking for the seams,
But what seemed smooth were just the tightest stitches.
The river climbed up to the bridges,
The cutting room turned into the kitchen
Where I swallow it up until a new doctor calls.
The strength of a man depends on how well he falls.

A Post To Date

A tired summer fever kept us wired from our sleep,
Waiting for the sun to rise, glued in sticky heat.
We burned classics from a week of trust contact
Until the morning light made new secrets
To be kept underneath the sliding seat.
Linen turned to waterfalls
Staying up and missing calls.
There's someone outside,
We lie and wait for the beep.
The alarms are coming early,
She convinces me to sleep.

Don't Get Too Close

A misprint in a bestseller
Has become the fingerprint
For the investigator.
He was fixated on extraneous information,
But still straining to find his justification
At the bottom of a pitcher of sangria
To find that none of it was a good idea.
Earthy eyes, vanilla hair,
Well, can I just say that I wasn't aware
That coincidence would find the archived page,
That confidence could tear in such a way
And this ink would bleed onto the frays
So I'm left with so little room to say.

Time (The Catch)

Silence on the river, science on the roof.
The Boston skyline sunk into the river
Sitting on the edge of a shiverless night,
Fighting with words to find out the truth.
Another secret in your green and blue,
Restless until the message got through,
Clasped and released to fall asleep,
Sixteen hours, all to keep.

c:

A mirror facing outwards
Is effective both ways, simply glass.
A simple glance for a thousand chances
For an honest masquerade with the lights
Out and everything clear,
Nothing out of my sight.
The switchboard's sharp emissions,
Solid light that does not dim,
Are what I cannot unbecome
And everything I've always been.

Caught Up

This haphazard gap hazard has been relieved.
Cables are stable, suspended, we're free
From the burden of gravity.
We're floating over the tragedy,
But we sing in reminiscence at the water.
Landscapes were painted in her eyes
And nothing stopped her,
Except for her lashes that could retrace slumber.
I declared you a war for the sake of alliance
And you polished your charm, so harmfully vibrant.

Sassquatch

In precious fractures of seconds and sounds,
The acoustics split and slipped up your frown.
Smile! For the awkward and unexpected
Is wrapped with surprise there in the present.
In a place where home was no more,
It was encored and took us up
Three short of nine. The holy trinity
With a taste of less divinity.
There was ping pong in paradise
There was singing private symphonies,
But the apple tree was dangling
With the poison fruit that bit me.

The "Next" One

Ironic.
Almost iconic.
With the luck of a skeptic,
I should be more receptive to pocketless fortunes.
So I took up the time, but it wasn't enough
And innocence paid in insufficient funds.
In the matters temporal, of fractions and odds,
I heard a soft ticking that fear won't turn off.

Crossing Perspective

Bodies made the sentence,
But the words gave us our breaths.
It was the stench of stale whiskey and past anthems
Withheld in glazed ceramic,
And it was about time to be let out.
The pale yellow-brown sloshed about
As a lion paces the cage,
As we slipped into a warmer stage,
A swarming taste and broken ice
That buzzed about like dryer hives.
Each tessellation told a truth
As sweet as honey and as simple as youth.

[Tabs]

Fresh faces, labeled pages...
They were immortalized in a social medium,
So far from the moderation it needed.
Every name, a unique key in the shape of a pen
And its bold strokes cloaked what was then.
Faces turned red from the pressure,
Unmeasured perception of digital depth
Of plastic pressed against the skin too tightly.
It's not of the image made,
The blood now wanders free.
It's not of what you are sure,
It is all that you might be.

Bearings, Bearings...

Swing low, sweet fidelity,
I left my daughter in a burning city
And found my firstborn son,
The original sin with a magnetic spin.
Sing low, deep melody,
I rest my fodder in my wounds and pity
As I shook the compass in my hand,
But blood kept pumping by demand.

River Dance

A tremor shook under the stage
The script book slipped between the cushions,
The numbers to letters, goosebumps to sweaters.
Everyone with a reason to catch the breeze
But hoping not to catch a cold,
Holding on to metal wings with precious cargo
Beyond where a car could ever go.
Desert highways were arteries on dry skin
That cracked and collected at every city
And left tracks against the layered tissue,
Telling the stories in two separate currents,
Assuring each other that they'd have the courage.

Future Family Friends

I could spell it all backwards in the bubbles let out.
I left the sand asleep in my boat shoes
While consciousness sunk into my head again.
But we've got cars, buses, trains, and planes,
And blacklit gifts for the textual stains.
In the simplest way to alter the page,
The iconic chords of rolling hills
Were ironic shots traded with what we got
At what we once had, or thought.
Time-slapping, eyes closed,
Belting the words we've always known,
I drove down California in a dream,
Silhouette palm trees, red to green.
The dawn stretched neurons from behind my eyes
Before the lights went out and the evening died.

(mm/dd/yyyy)

My conscience hid under the sheets
As I slept through the emergencies,
Already convinced that I left
And that they wouldn't let me up.
I awoke in smoke for a refund
And was given change in the past tense.
The powerhouse is a vandal
Like the hibiscus scented candles
With the strength of sins on Christmas Day.
These are a few of the things in my name,
Etched in the bark of an old nameless tree
As timeless as the cold frameless sea.

Sillies, please.

My sweater was a grave, in which you buried your face
Before a reach-over retracted as sure as the name
Etched into stone cold shivers,
Impulses that go into hibernation.
Acknowledgments on the final slide,
The sun slips under the ocean's tide
Pushing out bubbles that rush up from the sand,
The day's last breath used up in a sigh.
A runway dissolves in wet darkness and foam
And leaves me to fly from what I've always known,
One more timely wish for the last stitch was sewn
That last track had played on which I took you home.

A Quarter Back In New New York

He'll take you to Cassadaga
Where the ends begin to fray
From the end of the beginning
To end of every day.
You could be his stitches
And tie your wishes on a string,
He'll wince before your needle
When you feed him what he needs.
Sterile is procedure,
It is not quite how it bleeds,
It's clogging at your leisure
Unless these lesions need to breath.
The pressure was your fingertips,
Spoke nourishment uncurdled.
He milked out every trace
To save his grace with written words.

Girl, Such A Boy

Temper, temper, weather high,
Your oxygen is trying to hide
To leave you breathless
To leave you restless in the bed of night.
Summer strummed a perfect note
And sequential dates slipped down your throat,
Kept in time, a steady line until the coda;
Pick up in one year with less tan on your shoulders.
The cold is a phantom poking holes in your sheets,
But you are unscathed and still bathed in the heat.
This cold is an atlas that folds all apart
That will not take a threat from the shot of a star.

Pacific Sun

You are the king and I am the magician,
She is the artist and he, the engineer.
We sit and listen for the Tokyo chimes'
Echo in the station over alcoholic pride.
Temporarily illiterate in the retrospective,
Ms. Detective had to ride the bus home
For what was more than just a rewrite.
It was more than double scoops,
Summer goosebumps shook the car.
It was a union transatlantic,
It was singing to the stars.

Ascension 9:27 - Rewrite the End

With a jacket and the windows down,
I crack open the older sounds
And let the light flood in from
The bulbs out in a hall made of concrete.
Contact. Flushed from rushing winds
Slowly passing in the same direction,
I am swerving lanes, but thinking straight
Letting out names like angels with no discretion.
Streetlights climb and disappear under the night
From when I dreamt up imperfection
In my digressions of the night.
A lazy collar, crooked smile,
And eyes sunk like runny ships.
A theatrical ending to nothing at all
But blood-hot hope left on my lips.

Waiting In Weather

The air about me shook with talk show reruns
And my eyes wandered beyond the black silhouettes
Against the soft orange glow behind the panel.
Every channel was an earthquake
And cold voices made their choices again.
The freshest soil held the oldest faces
Who spoke through dampened cloth,
Denatured to the most natural state.
They were back to what made them not (or) so great,
Singers are for singers, but the bringer stays the same
Personified, thus given life with her love-given name.

Fill The Hole To Reanimate

To get so close as to touch
Is to run trust under unfiltered water.
Sickness is the willingness to be immune
But the sick can turn you wicked all to soon,
And light the match right under you.
Yell at me and get sloppy when you do,
Put the end on repeat and
Tuck the rest away in a filing box
To collect the dust of maturity,
Slowly burning in the attic
Where I keep all my impurities.

Carriage House Tilt

In a common theme of "Don't say a word,"
I have found my backlit revelations.
A lack of knowledge is understood
Because anymore would do no good,
So it is taken with a smile as fact.
My hair stays gray and remains intact,
I also could have gone to Brown,
But the adjective before the noun
Is pronounced with comical disbelief.
A tongue tied locks before two weeks,
Replaced with those picked by a theif
From the little names lit up on the screen.
And after a year,
I barely know what they mean to me.
Or what I've meant to them.

Business Casual

With so much talk about change,
We pooled our thoughts to buy some time
And redirected to a social geometric,
Playing in a circle where the center was the focus.
The paper slave trade turns cranes into locusts,
Selling beauty for dirt to build great empires
Rolled up and tucked away in a filing box,
Collecting the dust of maturity in the mind's attic.

Wake Up, Sleepyhead

"You're quiet," she let dribble out on the floor,
Only half-kidding, but allowed to bid her fears farewell.
Unaware that the genie kept her quiet in the smoke,
I choked the words until their memory was made a folklore.
The churches were all going out of business,
No one to wipe the dust from the pews
Or to give the pleasure of metal on cloth
In hopes of keeping a superstitious cough away.
There was something pulling at my chest without a key,
And my ribs rattled like the old cellar door
As I started slipping under from security.

Anthropocentric

Marionettes run around in a scissor parade
And claim that God is their face to the name.
Everyone holds the compass backwards
With no circle, but a single point
That a penny on the ground reflects more
Before cashing out for what little it's worth.
So please don't be long or I'll learn without,
Because I only walk with the handles out.

Nighttime Glamour Music

The city is a jack-o'-lantern that glows a fading orange
From the pulsing street lights that carve into car hoods.
Movement gives a heartbeat and the evening lives on
In brake lights and late night drive-thru's.
The sky puts on her evening gown
But some still roll with windows down,
Letting the retro beat light up the street
With the stereo ghosts that haunt while you sleep.

Swimming in the Theme (Part 3)

I count the pills beside the filtered tap
And look through it like a kaleidoscope
To find something peripheral and pristine,
Shining through the slanted glass.
Slipped out of static insecurity,
Only wrapped in black laces and pearls,
There is none, but the bruise of curiosity.
Your love is a trinket, adorning my nightstand.
You live on as a moment, the swing in my head.

Been Released

These territories are drawn with
Something I've gone long without.
False shouts respond to echoes
Some hundreds of miles away,
But the mountain face only changes
With unforgiven perspective.
Reconciliation is respective to grape vine,
But settlement is better lent
To catching up with time.
From hyperventilation,
Condensation comes like smoke.
The trees rustle to silence,
Defiance sinks into the snow.

Peeling Back The Railroad Tracks

Before a notion of the motion sickness,
I once felt her heartbeat between the rivets.
She wore her whispers in gently tied ribbons
That would caress her neck and coerce a smile
Pressed against my ear. I could only hear the rumble
As luggage tumbled down and each word
Dissolved and crumbled off her blood red lips.
The stakes shook loose as their numbers diminished
The station bells rang with a station unfinished
The rails trailed off, the thought incomplete,
But I hung onto those words as I clung to my seat.

Counterdict

Litter your albums with labels and dates,
Every brittle name is reduced to
Little imprints on your retinas
From something that once touched you,
From some sting that got too much of you.
I threw a brick at the water's window
With a note that sent the captain my regards
For discarding every shard that could
Cut out something real and leave a stain to prove it.
You're deranged, arranging your hospital pills
While your parents pick up the hospital bill
For your educated contradiction;
You're being earnest with the fiction.

Meditation Under Traffic Lights

Drifting under melon sky
Sifting through formaldehyde,
I drive for miles on cracked asphalt
That shakes the back-lit display.
The numbers dance in a light parade
And silhouette the needle's sway
As the day slipped down on every side
And dried off-yellow on the horizon.
Their eyes glaze over, hiding names
To show that which could not be tamed:
The summer slip that drips unpaced
From flooding warmth in empty space.

Lemniscates (Precalculated Aftermath)

Sixteens on the ride and bass,
Eights on the strings,
Singing in groups of threes,
And I don't understand a thing.
It brings honesty at true face value,
Looking into someone's eyes,
Breathing some of yours
Being some of mine.
Wondering if it will explode
In fists or kisses, hits or misses;
Shine a little more for show
Buy a little more for business.
Everyone's got their own egos to tame,
These bloodsucking demons,
So vain, so vain...

Thank You, Moools

You look dapper, all buttoned up
In your new coat of independence.
Free to breathe out your occasional
Condescension on those who have
Transcended your coupled plans.
Don't spend too much time
In front of that dusty mirror,
Hoping one day these shirts will fall level.
It's just another trend:
Sperry shoes and cardigans,
Rayban glasses for pretend.
Just ask for the steady breakdown,
The static guitars, the humming drums
That all have nothing to say now.
But the reverb keeps your secrets pronounced,
Until the only notes left fall flat on the ground.

Totem

The drive home made much less sense.
Thoughts woven, stitched more tightly
Than the brake lights and blinkers.
I couldn't put a finger on it,
But five kept me safe on a tether.
The puzzle pieces were stacked together
In loosely packed layers,
All dependent on interpretation.
To wake is just to open your eyes,
But to breathe is the mind's hesitation.

The Lost City of New Orleans

Dearest, I heard your darkest fears that howled on through the night
They took down all the telephones and twisted our fingers tight,
Tightly bound like the leather book that bled while in the rain.
You shook out every word you knew but the blue stayed just the same.
So I hushed your lips and broken ribs that rested on restless lungs
For every breath diminished was unfinished, groaned and done.
The darkness came in flooding like the moon between the trees,
And this love was swallowed deeply as it wept into the sea.

Drinking and Cursing

Into warm rust is a bag of bad blood,
Spoiled, left out in the unforgetting sun.
The honesty is the exposure
Of these pictures and numbers, 0-9
Until the roll goes bad and
Tumbles over the skeleton's spine.
Unnecessary invisible characters
Just wrestle between the unread pages,
Pared off from the brevity,
But stained to ink readily.

Relay: 3 (Scientists)

Simple tones.
Single notes and brilliant words,
A shaky ghost seeps out the sleepy heads.
I start losing grip on the session,
Passing in and out of
Soggy bread and chimney smoke.
Ask me the question again.
The scientists note it in black or blue pen
And tuck it all in deeply contrasted skin.
The names become a hole that doesn't bury,
Skeletons gasp for warmer dirt and find it.
They wind it in a plastic sheet
And play it on a quiet street for
The forever fading nightlights,
The high life in a higher sea.

Mumble Your Diction!

Sit for a while on the traffic light grid,
Some put more time into mixes for exes.
Oh, I've forgotten how to hug the edges,
Kiss the marker on the plastic,
Streak the reflections across the sky.
Clever's on the collar when it hollows out the night.
Clutch the down blanket
For the goosebumps that you hide,
Shiver out another
Knot untied,
Just to sleep tight.

The Stable Life

Breathe in, wake up, put on your shoes.
The morning comes in golden blue.
Warm up, drink in and walk outside,
Slip into a steady stride up to
Where you knew the anthem best.
Starting from the top
Working your way down the rest.
Catch your breath after losing all the words.
Pry into the produce that you bought the night before
That filled up your plastic bags, unit price : $1.94.
There's no use in beating traffic,
Everyone leaves before everyone else.
Content to let the engine hum,
The day's begun, you're doing well.

Your Identy Is Safe Here

There was no Superman, but Waldo came late.
I'll keep in 6/8 if you can find it in time,
Acoustic beatbox over an indie bass grind.
He played her guitar under the pear tree
That took up a pocket of silver moonlight
Before losing the fight and then going to sleep.
We are related by virtue of the card and the cup
From Alpha to Zulu with the Foxtrot,
Strictly vinyl, scratching my itchy skin.
A warm summer night so honeycomb sweet
Coats over my skin, calling bloodsuckers less known.
So go on, tie your cape into the prettiest bow
To rest on your head while you sleep yourself home.

Ten at the Table

We balance on the concrete around the pool,
We take our plastic light-up chalices
And toast. Some ghosts live as reflections
At the bottom of the water.
Sometimes one cup of exorcism
Is simply not enough.
A new warm light clasped between my hands
Spills onto my lap before the wine
And between the crack in my lips,
Tight from holding back a smile.
But when you excuse yourself and walk away
And a smaller ghost gets carried away,
Maybe the reflection should have been more feared.
Maybe what was forgotten is forgetfully near.

Solar Electronica

I can show you what I meant to see
When reality won't hold my dreams,
When investments for the sake of pride
Can't ride out past the groaning gates.
The irony is rusting over
And it's hard enough to trust me sober,
So read me like the Sunday Times,
I'm eleven more just for a dime.

Heavier Than Water

All of the rudders are slowing now;
Our twirls are tangled in molasses
From dancing through the sweetest thing
I've been in for a while.
We are victims of imminent motion
In an ocean of pocket pictures
That shone bright in the red rockets we let free.
You are the blood, it seems to be,
That keeps my heart from freezing
After wading in the water for the best place to drown.
Now the stars start to fall and the ghosts get their gowns,
The calendar tips as she starts counting down.

Ironic

Ready strokes of a pen
Cramp in these digital synapses,
So a digital copy it remains,
Hanging like ready coats draped over my arm in
Dampening warmth to keep me from harming.
Now everything is stained monotone, colorless.
I hope not forget just where the sun is
Having left promissory notes on
Mountaintops and seascapes,
So I could save it all for later
In hopes of mercy for my leeway.

Behind The Moon

With my retinas still burnt from the oceanic luminescence,
I swayed back and forth until I washed up on shore.
Warmer water came waveless down my back
As it dissolved any salt still intact from before,
But I could still taste the flavor.
We savor what to say
Once the light turns shy from bluffing,
The seas recede a moment
Showing these eyes are safe from nothing.

Six Reasons Why...

An idea turns to light for a house on a hill,
Amidst the good morning marine layer chill.
Maybe I forgot to wake up...
Maybe an optimistic CD had too much to take up
Because there were no clouds today,
But we saw things in a different shade of light
(At a discounted price, six for forty-five).
We toppled over each other in laughter
Like the overlapping harbor waves
On the larger rocks that kept us safe.
With the credit of independence on the back of my head,
I found the value of bad dreams that drifted
Past the Mary without the mirror to look back.
I'm Frankly lucky to swim with the sharks,
They tear through tough skin
And cut straight to the heart.

Missing The Magic

Dreams gave you a castle in the smog
With a moat made of asphalt
And friendly ghosts under the table
That made the dinner setting float.
You always went straight for the dessert,
Fork and knife would scrape on the uneven porcelain
Until your appetite chipped off and stained the cloth.
Your possibilities turn into simple fractions
That reduce to flight plans and hour blocks.
You jump off, but can't get your career off of the ground.
I disappeared without an act and my applause never did sound.

Pretty Voice With A Melody

It opens to the picture in motion, out of sight.
Always in mind when you hold the door
And hands still gently press against the glass
In a lapse of distrust. Double-crossed,
Fingers behind the back
Just to keep yourself together.
Come in parts and fall apart
Like some 80's sitcom poorly shot,
But valued for its irony.
The reel squeaks on, unoiled where it touches,
But the emotion still slips through
With the help of a little fishing in warm rain
For what matters and what's true:
Your dreams are always cast
Before the lines can speak to you.

Watercolors

The paint brushes dry against the clouds
After gracing our faces with something twirled up,
That kicks up dust from the model set down below,
Building plans that made themselves
When ants moved on from hills.
The stains bleed into dissolving cotton
Candy melted in the carnival sun,
And lifeless birds learn to fly
Leaving a path of silly strung droppings
On the burnt sugar funnel cake stand.
The children cry in line for their fears,
They say they want to go up,
But the view's fine from here.

Okay, Jay.

I sip my cup of pretension and burn my lip before I speak,
A kiss from the devil where my intentions meet.
I couldn't trust me if I told you the truth.
The third person dissatisfies and calls for my youth
That once called for the future
That now calls for my youth.
The evolution of contradiction gave me the legs to walk
The onset of blindness gave my eyes the time to talk
Out of turn, this tongue spins out of control.
Daisy games say I love to so
Comfortable in my plastic sleeves
And I will believe for as long as I want,
Because I push the clock and I burn the fire,
Depriving the flame for the thrill of desire.

A Crutch for the Sun

Anxiety is dark trees and rocky cascades,
Mix tapes played backwards to get back what I gave.
This is mirrors and molasses
Your sundress and my glasses that you thought were cool,
So I never wore them again.
I never want this to get old,
Let it warm you when it's colder.
You have every pedal to shed,
Each one you let go is most certainly red
And returned like a handkerchief
That briefly decorates the sidewalk.
I lay this head to listen for something concrete to dream on,
The summer chalk makes flower beds
For the one it's found to lean on.

Latency

Light elbow creases reflect
The too many nights you spent at your desk
Filing papers as your letters tapered off
Sooner before the next sentence,
While your toes started to bloom in the sand of sleep.
Your light dances on the water
And plays with the tide drawing veins in the sand,
Bringing everything to life.
This soft smile cushions the fall to a glide,
Hope you're alright,
I'm glad you're alive.

Bad Skin

Always a day late and a bit too long
So that salt starts collecting on the corners of my lips.
My finger tips start to prune as they drag in the water,
Trying to keep myself stable, but mobile,
As I drift through shifting synthetic seas.
An idea can be re-gifted only so many times,
Until the surprise is worn out like weathered resin;
I am taking in water, but my voice still cracks
As it bellows out, shouting at a shattered sky.
The reef can keep my broken ships,
My anchors left deep scars.
I can stay above the fathoms
Safely moored on fading stars.

Time is Love

Stability is a destination with detours as you see fit.
Some check their blind spots and signal,
Others swerve over the median.
But I ignored the hazards like it didn't mean a thing,
When bringing someone in
Meant getting pulled out the driver seat
For a fist fight greeting in the emergency lane.
So here you are,
Rubbernecking with your foot on the pedal,
While the others shout out brief hello's
Over the screaming asphalt.
Just whose fault do you think it is?
In meters per second or miles per hour
Or the second chances that have been devoured,
It is what it's been, what you know and have shown,
Your time is your love and you're so quick to go.

Not So Despicable, A Little More Me.

I put on the brakes as the week came to an end,
Easing into the driveway, rolling through the door.
My room was a mess,
So I started picking up where I had left off,
Breathing in before returning calls,
Replacing the things that gravity got the best of.
An empty bed won't echo like some places do,
But by the time you don't mind
And everything that must go is already gone,
You will have already given those cardboard memories away.
The house is boarded up and the quietness stays.

Work, Play, or Stay?

It's been a couple days
Since I've seen what I've been used to.
From three to four to one so quickly;
Apologies if you have missed me.
I walked out the door when you were sleeping
And said goodbye with my eyes,
Left a message on your lids.
I tell the kid that this is growing up,
Owning up to showing up late
Or never at all.
I've got a necklace made of dates
Placed right next to one another,
Making time to be the son,
The longtime friend,
Or older brother.

To Drive East on the 90

For one day let it not make sense,
For one day keep those dents in your car
Left from late nights spent
Trying to find out who you were,
Reversing in your tire treads to catch up on lost ground.
Sometimes the world just falls apart that easily
And all that's left to pick up is speed.
A town is swept under the snow
And tucked into a pocket on the mountainside.
The faint ambiance reflects from the trees,
Witnesses to the bliss of when the road and your headlights
Gently collide.

RE: r #006

I justify my life with the words I hide behind.
I want to remember, I need to forget,
I don't have a choice.
I once was a boy with an itching within,
Now I'm a man with ill-fitting skin
Scratching like the record that plays
The same old story with the same faded glory
Turned to scar tissue to blow my nose.
I intend to wipe it all away
With some combination of
32 characters, 26 letters, 10 numbers
And whatever is left inside me
After the sun loses interest in flight,
The ocean sinks into the night,
After the tears and the kisses,
The "good bye" or "good riddance"
That sticks like a post-it keeping tabs
On bank accounts and hospital bills.
I am getting sick of the conversions,
So you can count on me to
Take the money and run,
Leap over the heap of nothing gained,
But lung sacs filled with breathing deep
To let out hot air when lying on ice.

I don't want your daughter,
I just want her time.
I know I need water,
Just need the right kind.

Unique Palms

They read me more than I could read them,
Prickly balls from this high.
They are dust bunnies hidden in the overcast,
Waving in every direction
Because I don't know where I'll land
The next time around.
Not everything shines at night.
There are runways for guidance
And guardrails for flight,
Clutching arms extended
From the elbows to the finger tips
To the edge of my tongue.
They calm the numbers spoken under the light,
Specific pacific, but the same 405.

No Moon In Kirkland, WA

I'm on the edge of my dreams,
Balcony déjà vu with the smell of gunpowder
And tiny sparks sprinkled over
Tiny stars aimed up at the sky.
She responds in liquid state,
In softer echoes from the lake.
It all fades before it falls,
What I gave to take it all back
For synthetic lightning and thunder snap;
I wake from my cozy hypnosis.
I see the light tonight,
It's real and I know it.
Just wait for time to make you known
Just wait for time to take us home.

What am I missing.

Let's not put counter-pressure on the gear with a stressed pin
The point has been driven home,
And it was time that conclusions were drawn
When walls crayoned with their words
Began to breathe, singing Home.
I checked the pulse against the clock,
I left my hands to try to stop it;
Cover your eyes, child.
You've already seen the train come in,
Come in, come in, the door is always unlocked,
So I took a step outside to taste a different air:
Used cigarettes and laughter,
Scrambled eggs and smoky hair.
Secondhand hints to the second hand's splinter,
Etching the light of a lesser known glimmer.

The Poor Kid Who Dresses Well

Overcast Seattle keeps its dreams under the blanket
Trying hard to keep them warm.
I could have sworn I had everything
Before I came here. And now I'll leave
With a bit of the dream to sleep on,
To keep pressed against my ear.
It whispers in drips of Puget Sound
And aside from condescension,
First impressions during second rounds,
A little bit of distance has brought me closer to home.

Confirmed In Response

It's the day that I've been saving for
And the change was building up in the pockets of my eyes
Trying to slip out, dying to crawl between the couch cushions.
I spend every day erasing solutions,
Then retracing their faint outline to claim a new idea.
And these aspirations would find their way
Into neatly labeled cardboard boxes,
To be squared away to even out the losses.
The ceiling collapsed when that attic got full
The panic collapsed with a routine breaking rules.
I peaked at your back when you undressed the meaning
And I kept my shoes on as I followed every step.
What is regret if you forget it was broken?
The soles have worn down, now I walk with hands open.

Blurday

Law from theory turns my flaws into a series
Of criteria for cheeriness override,
Forcing the dive from a rocking boat into rocky waters.
Your sweet vocal bubbles got soap in my eyes
That I rubbed with this blue leaf,
But I couldn't be you.
Balancing on your head is
The silk you dropped on the ground,
Which you had spun like two records
Both playing the same sound.
I expanded my ribcage for the incoming swell,
Your eyes drowned in the color that I know so well.

It's Actually Tuesday

An audio pregame put us in a good buzz
And the amps warmed up while we waited,
Waited out on the sidewalks,
Under the shade of glass towers.
A stadium breakfast in a bun
Makes you unlucky three to one,
So get in in a second and breathe in on the fourth,
To all come back as one again, cut and retied.
So make a friend for the day
And leave them at the door
Either on your way in,
Or right before you get out the last chorus.
They put back what you couldn't help but drop
Without picking a damn thing up.
But in some cases we just can't,
It falls forward and caress your hand,
A friendly reminder of what was to unfurl
That I finally lost to all the cute girls.

Summer Plans

These are little pockets of warmth
Stored as promises for more.
The hot floor sticks to my steps
And keeps me rooted where I need to be,
Between the penciled in lines,
Resting on the spine of stability.
My limbs branch out like a tree,
My fingers trace the lining
As I wait for my turn.
These are my hopes turned to
Pollen and leaves,
Calming the creases of thinking,
But brooding on the intentions.
And with definitions in a shell,
I will hatch my own inventions.

Damn Yankees

We finally broke the silence.
As much as I will try to hide it,
It will shout back in retaliation.
So now it's time to recalibrate
Everything you thought you had straight
Before the words got twisted and snapped loose.
Let the bridges crumble for separation
For clarity without the enemy,
Instead, a friend that I know is there with me.

Limit Pusher

Empty leather and another open window,
The music is a little louder
And I am speaking out of turn, out of context.
I chase holes in the sky
And listen to the silence where it comes to collide,
Where the sun soothes the water with a million crystal lights.
I got closest to the source with the poorest excuse
To black out every single damn color I used.
A downward momentum that pulled me apart,
And a bruise on my chest from a still beating heart.

Dreamshift

We were driving towards a hazy city
Exalted by a crowd of industries and apartments,
Your knees tucked under the glove compartment.
We found a spot where we sloshed into park
And walked the lot like the morning trains,
Steam running off of our breaths.
They turned to Morse code from my yell,
And your giggle as I slipped into the snow.
By then I didn't know it slipped my mind,
By then I didn't know you slipped into mine.
The second steps made much more sense
With a night spent deep in recompense.

Black Trees Sink Deep Into Night

No words beyond courtesy,
May as well be none at all
Besides this block of text,
As brief as the moment we never met,
To savor the flavors I never tasted next.
It might fade to bitter and bland,
A chance wasted, unless an act of fate for which
I would have surely tampered with the evidence...
Don't say it wasn't evident
When you found your smile was there to stay.
A brief etching in my retina,
Maybe it's best to be remembered that way.

A Wednesday In August

A good first impression starts with a bang,
Then they are free to engage.
Black smoke and dust eat up the sky before
Dinner plans could be made around the war table.
I could decorate you like a soldier,
But if you ask for honesty,
There will always be
A guilty possibility,
However you are undressed.

The Hanger Club

To keep the fluid balance, I tip my head back
While the rest put bias on a balance beam,
On which we put our burdened coats,
Stained, pretty patterns of
Pained, petty ghosts.
With my problems large and small,
He let me see the medium
And I scraped them off the pictures,
Until I saved them on my mirror.
There they hung off-center
Like a dissatisfying tie.
I'm caught in its noose
And the residue keeps everything hazy.
I'm stumbling backwards,
I thought the blindness would save me.

Creaky Feet

You are the familiar thief,
Habitual and greetings brief.
Slaving away because you don't know any better.
You're caving in, but safe in the shelter you've made.
Tacky-furnished, you wear a tacked on smile
And like it, even if the choice wasn't yours.
Movements spill sound on the floor
That you clean up after yourself,
Getting to know every step you take,
Slow with the heavy words that you make.

Dockweiler Lime

Oh yeah, I remember...
The structure, the function, the purpose,
Soft curses under the most sincere smile
Will ghost the shadows around the fire.
It reminds me
Of a grainy picture, blues and blacks.
They remind me
That returning is not going back.
She reminds me
Every time that ever is.
He reminds me
Finds me, makes me live,
Background to the heart and
The chorus as familiar as the floor.
When all you can take is all you can get,
A little sour taste will burn where it bleeds.
I watered it down and tried to pretend,
But the shower head fell on my shoulder again.

On The Last One

This is your classic,
Just the way you've always had it.
The best things come in threes
Or in however many people can fit in your heart.
Oh, take me back to the start
Where the eye looked over the overcast dusk,
I would never change the channel it looked over.
There is something in the background chorus;
It's hopeful that there's something for us.

An Ode to John and Claire

They come from a lab of skunks and skanks,
International or Ninja Dy31@ng,
Where I gotta call my girl,
And where I gotta get paid,
Where it's not that funny,
But we'll laugh anyway.
Bolth of them white, yet whipped...50 lashes!
That's racist? Let's face it,
The boyish man holds the matches.
We burn through the hours
And devour catered food.
From the lunch trucks's hot cousin,
Not eighteen bucks and actually good.
I lol like a baby when the solar army falls in line,
Even James the Iowan can be cool and fit in...
Sometimes; I love times like this.
There are SHArKs in the water,
But I'm swimming in bliss.

Getting The Flags Out

I had my trust.
It was kept in the drunk of my bimmer
Because my pride needed the leg room;
It was time to kick some ass,
And the perpetually slow passing on the 110 from the 5
Was a sign the city's blood was slow in transit, but alive.
Cut me open and I'll show you what's inside:
A fire and a riot without the stolen cab.
And tonight the night streaks purple and gold,
Now the colors that guide birds back to their nests,
Back to the best feeling we knew we had coming.
We are L.A., this is what we deserve!
A championship won,
An ego preserved.

Work(?)

An American standard:
The American sandwich, three-one-four,
Shiny white coats and a shiny tiled floor.
Sometimes a little burnt on the edges,
But it is going to be a classic
And there isn't any other way I'd have it.
Time constraints make a schedule
Make a freedom of its own,
Some air so it can grow.
Some more so it can laugh,
Shake the heavies out
That scream about some whispered past.
In a digital world, binary we breathe,
Where all that we need
Is less than three.

Ninja Dyel@n

The water stays stagnant and warms in the sun,
Underneath, the earth breathes
Tiny grains of sand that shuffle on the surface.
My hands want to drink,
Ocean dust recedes down the cracks in my hands,
Soft cell river beds pulse with another day.
Water tension bends the light and mentions
In passing, a tinge of synthetic.
I wrote my mind's notes in the sand,
But I couldn't forget where I buried it all.
The treasure and trap,
Now a mirage that I hurried to.
I leave dimples in smiling sand
And feel the currents brush against my hand
That serve a sturdy lung in the body's water,
The vastness of past that I keep from its wander.

A Lovely Night

It's summer and you're still warm
From the sun's longest hug of the day.
The breeze is your sweater
The stars are your blanket,
And this is your breath to make you feel better.
She wore the dress of an optimist
You wore the scars of pragmatism
That faded into red, irritated from your laughter.
Not long after, the road got wetter when
Parked by the start and the end of my youth,
Marking the start and the end of my truth.
I checked my pockets for anymore details
Then I checked my baggage for a plane I'd never take,
Hoping the right people lost their tickets
And found their way back home,
Or at the very least,
This shared window seat
Is better here grounded than ever have flown.