Vandal

Windows broken
with arms hooked in mouths,
only catching a fever.
Headache like an anchor,
dreams are shadows, ghosts.
"What was that line again?"

Shiny skin serves as a beacon,
Brian Wilson on the radio.
Clothed in nothing but anger
palms wipe mouthcorners, lies.
The rock ended up
on the other side of the room.
"Oh, yeah; I traded that sign for a paperback."

August 29

Worms create veins and capillaries in the earth, prolong resistance, mirror elegance, and yet they are easy to ignore.

For two years, maybe three, the same dance occurs underground: weaving channels, intersections, points of frustration.

Make room for more earth, no stopping. At least air is part of the mission, life cradled in cynical wonder, blind faith coddled, coded, in patterns.

Sunday at the Twilight Diner

don't mind me
coffee refills, chunks of sugar

that won't dissolve like
gaps in the timeline

mediating soundscapes
how they influence flavor

and how they press themselves into

the corners of my mouth

no change for a twenty
no change for a year
feasting on the night
dissolving

the gaps in my memory




you leave crumbs on the placemat
I wipe mine clean
absent nostalgia, like narratives
pieced together
breaks in conversation

July 19

a light is kept,
pressure cooked:
a sliver or
an edge of violence

uncorked,
syllables bubble:
a festive brew
of tired feelings,
true, sharp, but drunk
like the bees savoring
hot
fermented apples from
swollen ground

this is summer:
an effigy of recalled births,
songs lodged in dizzy cells

we coax out something positive
and as it swerves, it stings whomever is nearest

June 29

redirecting
broken links,
memorized
phantom visits,
relationships
in code, scrambled

by the way,
the dialect,
the jargon
is scrambled,
repaired

add a location,
physical shadow,
outline the abandonment,
underline in blue

where fingers stretch
to meet wires,
spliced, multiple digits
are sore

tired keys, letters rubbed
clean, we blindly interpret,
translate, memorize
what truth we fold
in circuits