January

I’ve settled on darkness. Where some cluster of lonely iris might climb through my tear ducts for solace, i empty space and time. 

She is on her way, like last years’ frost bite she brings her shards of cold. One year, I begged her not to go but some things are not always. 

Oh, she is constant. In her gray dress of mist and seasonal affection, she blends in with reality but time doesn’t stop for anything. 

Once her smoke blows over capped mountain tops, I turn away from him, wrinkled from exhaustion. This effort, this tremendous light encompassing mine – I am minimal.

Nothing. 

Paper

Today I have a theme. I am cardboard, Earth truly is flat.
We lay, either way, recycled by
the Sun.
If you met him, you would know how he melts rocks
in one gaze. His superpower
is ignited –
and we all will lose.

I eat paper waiting for the fat.
I don’t know if I exist,
and does it matter?

To some, maybe. But then I hear the voices
rushing by something
imaginary.
I guess it’s all about being a pretty rock

on the way to the Sun? Forgive me. I am ignorant.
That’s just not enough.

Am I New

Flapping tongue, to change your name, to change yourself,
to change,
to change,
you say it’s smoking time, maybe if the zone changed,
but we run on desert time,
at devil lake
I wish I was, a reservoir, I wish I was a dog,
rolling in the dirt, a tumble weed,
collecting time and breeze,
in the hustle
rolling,
changing,
flapping in my sleep to change position, to change disposition,
to change,
I meditate, a trumpet sounds,
an angel sings, is it me?
Did I work? Did the clock split my tongue
and now I am two?
Am I new?

Center Of Time

Welcome home, a strawberry plant
grows out back
for you, but it
has twisted to fingernails
to scratch away the bugs.

It has a heart, ready for transplant.
I promised to die,
I admit, I’m in the habit,
but it just sat in one spot,
sucking on water cells

reminding me what it
would feel like to overheat.
Now you are here, hiding in
the desert, my fruit not fertile
enough for you
to eat.

So, you say it’s the center of time,
one hand holds it,
the other says good-bye.

This Sickness

Sickness comes at interludes, when
light burns brighter than
sun stars, when Anger dashes in
to catch the aftermath.

We battle for the scenery.
Touching base, both reaching for
the flag, for proclamation.

It is mine. This sickness is mine
to water or see to wilt.
I find no fault in either,
both are stars of polar regions,

imploding a billion light years away
from me. I will awake with sweaty palms,
the enemy dripping down my back.

I sit in the night, like a sauna,
saluting the grace of the Gods
for keeping what is meant for the skies
quietly away from these hands.

My medicine will come clockwise, sneaking up
on me, on little twinkling toes.
I never miss this time because there is no
better place to live or to die.

Stuck In A Jar

If I count on the hours to happen
regularly, I’d be stuck in
a jar, afraid of measurement against
anything.

Instead, my cells vibrate against
all odds. I crack eggs, scrambling
locked brains, eating for the
sake of eating.

I have only been substantial forever.
Nothing more. Just my face,
along with legs, and hands that
move like a floppy clock.

But my name, now that is something.
Every hour that comes,
every hour that goes,
will remember my name,
just the way my cells will remember
how small I am,
like an ant stuck in a jar,
burning from the most toxic hour.

Time Travel

Boiling over, I am scraped off the bottom,
the block I belong on,
57th street where the crows sing.
Time travels around the city
-back and forth-
like it doesn’t matter
swooping through me each time.

I swing like a pendulum inside
my brain talks so fast
future and past, but all I see is the street
with a man parked under
his life.
I can’t tell if he’s dead or alive.

He might be another.
From somewhere I haven’t met
with guns and
drugs
and sex crawling up the walls
I’d kill him to tell it all

but he can’t.
His mouth stopped with his heart
a long time ago.
Time comes back again
and I am standing in the kitchen

wine pouring from the window sill,
put a pie out to dry
sugar, there’s no room for you and I
still want to be here.
The clock is purring like a new motor
ticking backward

and I’m watching my mother.
In X-ray, I can see right through her.
I see her fear and her
weak little shoulders – I am a caged, feral animal
ready for the world
My muscles grow stronger and stronger
I spit on the caged bars and twist them from
existence

now I’m standing in the corner
face to face with death in all its honour
a coffin, a casket full of
skeletons of the past
that merge my cells together
maybe we never were two
time splits here into thick poles

North and South I spend my dreams
in Antarctica
reaching for the coldest depth
I can find
freezing myself in time
where nothing happens,
nothing changes,

I’ve let life tick its last time by.

Sagittarius A

Ten thousand light years from Orion’s Arm,
my eye is naked and
distinguished. Your small satellite orbits
my dark regions with aim.

I am uninhabitable with my gas,
and dust, and hot stars
spiraling in mass distribution.
Call me Sagittarius A….

and I will call you instable,
with your fictional planets
swaying with indefinite motion,

your thick Dwarf Elliptical
cancels out my Galaxy
over and
over again.

They Try To Erase Me

I never had been born. It was old hands
that sketched my frame. Hands that knew how to suffer
wisely. It was a gift
to my bones, a curse that shifts
with weight and time.
Clocks wait on scales to tip time. I am rushed.
Blood cycles through my life.
Old lines outline my eyes. I am timed.

I slept with a man
and was traced. He recreated me; my child.
My simple face on a prettier canvas.
I didn’t wish for this.
I didn’t dream.
She just belongs to me.
I drag my bones along aching seas
each step pains deeper with memory,
with time.
Dark lines shade over mine.
They try to erase me

From my bones, I cry.
I cannot be
an easy sketch of a memory.

The Desert Is Infected

The cold Earth is opening.
The desert is infected.

Starving cacti throb with hunger;
the land sweats poverty through
cracks in the street.

Ants are in a glass jar.
I gather them,
preach to them;
let them pray in the hot sun.
Then, I kneel as one of
God’s knights
and slaughter each with a slow dime.

Money is priceless.
So is time.
The desert is infected.