I stapled train tickets
To the fridge
To remember where I’m going
Each weekend.
The steam billows out of the freezer
And the vegetables are ruined.
So I make a mental note
About life and how it can
Pollute
If left alone.
So I lay down in my kitchen
And feel the filthy tile
Against my cheek,
And look up at the smoke as it
Charges forth,
Powered by steam engines
And human ingenuity.

Jubilee

Pranced by towers made of me

Hot air, steam,

Escaping from the wounds in my hands

From when I played through the pain

And found out the hard way

That I hadn’t the time to make

Her stop and pick a leaf

From my trunk.

A field of flowering

Brain stems,

Watered by the pitch black rain

Of empty words

Shared by strangers on the

Passing

Perpendicular streets

Of day-to-day life.

The blooming minds that first see

At midnight,

That everything is not all

Rose petals and

Love ballads coming to life.

That they’ve still got to find

Bodies,

Flesh and blood, with

Skin strong enough to battle

The piercing waves

Of life.

Sheets becoming skin
As I refuse to leave them
Ever again.
And when the electric wind
Pumps into my lungs
Fresh and cold and somehow
More real and fine that an ocean mist,
I drink it in and drop beads of sweat
Like beats from a hip hop band
Who never quite made it
But continue following their dreams,
Thumping and jumping like a
Failing heart in a field of amber grain.
And maybe he’ll find something
I haven’t even sniffed out.
But I’ve bought so many cages of blood
Hounds who refuse to help,
And my bed keeps breaking.
It’s the only reason
I’ve ever left home.

Roundabout ways

Of saying I’m sorry

And all of the mirrors

I bounce through

Just so you can see all my parts

At once.

I stand on top of a mountain

And say something that sounds

Like nonsense

While waves are falling from clouds

At eye line level.

They’re heavy and tired and

Letting it all go.

Let me get this straight.

You spent the night awake,

Alone, in the dark, in wait,

Not sure of what’s at stake

When you, my mind, refuse to tire?

I will hurt for this,

I won’t forgive you, my curse

Of sleeping through the daily motions and

Somehow not tiring with the moon’s rotation.

Although,

I must admit,

I feel rather calm,

Like my skin soaked up

the cosmic radiation and let me tell you,

Vitamin D has nothing on being so tired that you’re happy.

On the outskirts

Of a circuitry of streets,

A house kneels under the pressure

Of his family responsibility.

His crow’s feet window shutters,

A faded blue,

Once vibrant,

Now hanging by stripped screws,

Swing madly.

The leaking foundation

Steals his memories out from

Under him while

The ancient shingles

Let more in.

He’s honestly not sure where his family

Has been.

Aches and pains my fingers don’t reach around the thick pine trunk of memory.

Leaves that fall from other titans

Will cover my head and arms and face

With rotten changing-of-the seasons and leaving bark and crying branches.

Odin screams,

And Hades is packing his car in

Expectation

of the joys of winter.

Fall through a storming dictionary

Of words.

“death” strikes my face and

“life” rakes my shins and

I curl around “time”  and

Pray for some more.