Destroyer II

Unafraid
i stripped away
the flesh that clothed circumstance,
and the rhyme that held my world in check,
curiously began to lose its place

(i had become I)

and pulling you into my arms
i held you there
a flower
had you become

and those who claimed
that this would somehow
be strange
drifted away
having curtained the coma,
a sentimental veil that protected us
from the blinding, burning light of judgment,
the usual light of day

and folding into the boiling bubbling sky,
that is nighttime in this rural town,
i remember to remind myself that
i will always seek to break everyone
except for you.

Coin

Fourteen seconds into this
i searched for a word that never came
the only thing left
for me to do
was
break the screen
to make it seem
that i could alter
reality
was
plant the knife
in fertile hands
where a penance became
eternity

or fourteen seconds into this
i’d found a new philosophy
i’d opened a wound, apparently
and God, there,
spoke of broken tunes
of notes unnoticed
of…

and signing below
in time
encoded signature
unloaded caricature
of man-exploded
polygons

but your geometry
cannot capture clearly
or sequent nearly
enough emotion
to fractal this notion
that i have blent
these murderous hands
into trivial lands just
to please you out of
the life i’d presume
to squeeze you
but i cannot make you die
you imaginary coin.

Untitled

Darkness is a bullet
a friend i’ve never met
a comfortable place i’m sure
undoubtedly romanticized

but i long for release
for painless finality
acquired fatality
a different state

and so

i’m glad they never really
knew me
that i never really
let them in
for the distance i’ve maintained
...

a memory on the wind.

Both

Moving at the speed of black
i push the paint that stuns the color
and wonder whether i wonder whether
shy lips presume
a kiss for you

but

they whip around, come around
casting sparks
setting ablaze
this violent haze
so i can lay bare the liason
between hardly fade on
so i can carve the figment
of your face
that now encroaches on this
blistered space

and watching it fall
I speed up
as you slow down,
and we finally, both,
crash to the quiet ground

so

let it out
throw it out
release the beast
inspire sound
scream your
fairy
apple-skinned
sonnet

while

a dusty telephone rings
in a vacant motel room
on Aurora.

Gold

Soft sirens
gently warn
of a coming
thunderstorm

and the sky
she calms
cools
wraps her wind around me
asks me
not to go

but i owe
little
and i grow
brittle
bones that
aren’t made
for this earth
or for words -
slow hand-grenades
you throw

but at least i have my jacket
and yes, she’s a rainstorm,
a bow to the wind worn
and a farewell to the mellow
with a heart as soft as yellow

gold.

Gazer

Droning,
i am a smooth transition
from high to low
with a cool admonition
that this night has slowed

i am drums
i am distorted electric guitars
i am reverb
i am delay
who are...

a voice
recalls a calm entity
that somehow
falters in its approach
and she, yes she, spins
arms akimbo
chin skyward
tears streaming
silent
tired
leaving

but

i am echo
i am hum
i am no more love
i am dumb

so spin will you
spin will you please
spin
spinner
with your hands
describing an arc
that shimmers free

wintered
weathered
worried
i am kneed
i am grounded
i am floated
i am leaving
and i can do this because
the reverb calls
as the tremolo falls
and the drummer halts
starts again
delays
fades out
fades in

and then she calls
again
her voice a flute
warning me
this beauty i seek
can burn me
turn me
cold
i will be not human
and the others will not
want to let me go
because the piece i scored
was a peace they adored

nonetheless
i am particles of sound
i am waves of distinction
i am forgotten so soon
i am
have always been

alone

have always been
happiest

alone

so radiate fade
radiate glow
grow
radiate hide
radiate ride this night for all it’s worth
and for what it’s worth, gazer,
this night has slowed.

Come

A lightning
travels
from point to
point

illuminating a hand
reaching
for a silver
handle

straining, an ailing back
arches
to compensate for
loose waves of electricity
now moving about
freely

but there is a slight
moaning
a constant droning
a lo-fi hum
a kind of slow hand
on a warm
drum

and there is a body
calling
from a cradle
curdling
and fifty billion reasons
why i can’t love you
even as you come away reeling.

Some damaged

Disconnect the dots
to find the exact moment
when the damage began

close my eyes
count to ten
again
and…

i’m there now,
hovering above you
watching you, all curled up,
an egg rocking back and forth
in a little human’s place of
slumber

and a reflection caught
in a dry section of window pane
speaks the truth
where a figure glides by
goes not escaping into the wet night
but instead, to the warm embrace of
indifference

i am there now
beside you
holding you
though not touching you
watching new worlds
explode in tears that have
no voice

and through that slow window
i allow my self to flow
only turning back once
in hopes that
there shining in the darkness
some damaged
should know
that often from spoiled beginnings
a new, more compelling, kind of flower
may grow.

Surely is not a name

They sound like alarms going off or a pair of tennis shoes rolling around in a dryer or something, i’m not quite sure to tell you the truth - it does seem they don’t break easily, though, so don’t worry, and remember the longest one, well, just try not to draw it, for the roads today are full of grey faces, and i, beneath a violent lantern, laugh to myself, so much so that my teeth abruptly fall to the floor, a ceramic sort of floor, a balancing act between breaking above asphalt upon which my brothers and sisters sweat silent morphemes, or better yet, a few transitory moments of non-sound feigning meaning that went, 'had i known you ten years before, i could have held you with no shame, but the coolness in this thin air reminds me of nothing quite so fantastic'

so
you have driven me
sat beside me
bled me
freely

and
you have commanded me
demanded me
when you were
down

and bells on boots remind me of a swallowed Christmas a certain happiness traversing a sudden throat into a vacant room where [his] black charcoal lines stretch skyward across a warm canvas - a dark field of wheat where the last hint of a headful of midnight hue flows, slides, slips, feeds the earth it’s residue.

Nor forward unbarred, destroyer

Cannot i sleep
four inherit the weep
and blinding the lights
the instruments
a whirring warms the heart
that bleeds
tonight

a stealthy hand
will precise will land
a jugular a blow
cause the insolent to
ask

how long must i give and not receive?

but you are a dead wind falling heavy
taking forever in your pocket
with one hand
and the other the left
cannot right the wrongs of a brother
and then your lips will blacken
part, whisper, sing in A-minor

how long can i take and never give?

this blind destroyer
has the most beautiful eyes i have ever seen,
and you know i swim there on lonely nights like these,
through those giant brown pools, knowing full well
i will not go unscarred
nor forward unbarred.

Mary lost a friend

One dot, three, a flattened plastic ball rolls no more and
i have searched the world over to let Mary come over but
this red light, small green light, won't change her ways and
in between breaths, with every other sound, a new note
exchanges place, waits, holds, picks up speed, plays
not in tandem - two hearts burning

my being is a golden orb of pulsing light and
her hair is the color of midnight and
absorption is a word that eats itself to maintain
a certain intimacy

but i have died, i swear i have died, i know i have died, so many times
in your turning away, in the shadow of your empty stead
i have deflated, fought off motion,
to forever hang on to this moment
to break free of the possibility of ever going away

and near two o'clock in the morning
Mary cracks a window
wonders about the wind
and the happenstance of
a friend.

Filmstrip cut into separate frames, multiplied, no one

A dessert of frozen goods
makes me want to fly
and ‘earth is the color
of the tortured sky,’
you said
an oak desk sits in an empty hallway
slightly askew
cries empty words
describes in veiled carvings
a heart shaped love for two
initials added together
written below
forever
and a slow parade moves outside
as no one walks by
noticing synthetic containers
blue, green, gold
hovering, chemical happiness
Cindy smiles, Sara gasps, Johnny turns
paints a pale mask
below the streets
a spoiled water flows,
goes, makes music
and no one notices the rodent
on hind legs,
motioning in the air
little signed gestures,
‘i want to see the show,
why can’t i go there?’
as the festival erupts upstairs
the dinner table rotates into view
and daddy’s face
blurs, bleeds into a plate of sausage and sauerkraut,
'our mother’s humble offering
will not go to waste,
not in this place'
and I will take mine
underneath my chair,
feeling the cool worms
travel through my hair
praying the activity above will
gray
spin down
lie
on the ground
beside me
utter,
‘this vision is all yours, little one.’

Somewhere nearby a guitar rips through the night,
wails, whines, implodes,
watches me from a distance
suggests I’m not making sense
then embraces me, breathes, 'you are home.'

A calm one

Brittle words, or words that easily vibrate when the lips come together
hold some importance, I’m sure,
but only momentarily,
for the genius that fails to surface often
fades

but there's a coffin to break the silence
and an emotion to give it license
as a lover loosens hold on
at once the possibility of
change

mark this down
this time, just mark this one down

a calm one never spoke until spoken to
and fresh earth has a way of opening
blind hands

a crime.

Some no more fallen

at first and all at once
i am fallen i am floored
a twisting mutating thing before you
i gather pieces of broken
i swallow moments of shallow
i call out to handfuls of empty
i brace myself for the freezing night to come
i shiver the shudders closed
i hate myself to better health
i hold the wealth of the poor in my breath
i scrape the stains of the north
i bleed the balloons that burn in a boy’s mind
i hold the fence so that she will come
i cry out not her name
i am pain
i am slain
i am small
i am smaller
i am smallest
i am going to find the silence
and tell her i love her
when no one else can hear her
i will be her saviour
i will pause
turn
watch the empire explode in the distance
fill the sky with indifference
blow her out of existence
then give birth to a new day
a new way
at first and all at once
i am fallen no more
i am

Birdland

Not as substantial as I could have been,
I had become a trace element in a linguistic storm,
donning a crooked smile that could no longer conceal
the process of my wasting away-

So, swords for hands,
I cut a piece of time from out of the dying night,
and letting it fall, I watched it drift into the distance,
realizing that in its place, some kind of opening had remained-

Stepping through,
I slipped down and away;
though in falling I felt no fear,
for the earth, well,
she seemed to disappear-

and I now, a part of the sky eternal,
found I could fly,
and I, so blissfully alone,
at once embraced
my passion for nothing-

and thus with wings unleashed,
I moved effortlessly through this new dawn,
carried on waves of pure sound,
towards no particular destination;
a phoenix, had I become.

Twinning

A crash,
a collision -
a momentary
recognition

For a second I thought your deep brown eyes were my own.

And so through them

I saw numbers collide,
as towers of reason crumbled,
having been swallowed up by their own shadows,
which spread endlessly across the blackest tundra,
expanded outwards
to meet the sky –
and finally, I saw I
rising up above a certain destruction,
shaking off the detritus
of a place that should have never been –
I had all at once come home; found my twin,
and apparently, it was time to go.

An apology,
a walking away –
an attempt at union,
so slipped away.

Star the black or shine the sun skin burned

With arms akimbo
he fell further from his mark

thus crucified the hellion, was to ever climb upward,
thus fleshed the electric, was to moment the timefulness
of this earthly space

and
the mountaintop
conquered
the sky

as
the linguist
destroyed
reason

allowing
his one true reflection
to become
a vacant introspection

of a handful of never was
and a mouthful of desperate hollow
that for awhile gave in to the separate,
ideal (unexpected),
and hid in the day
a pocketful of
vanished.

So now light up, freeze, melt away,
star the black to not resolve reality,
nor shine the sun skin burned.

Sara dropped a token or To Sky Heavenward

Sara dropped a token
and her world exploded
halfway between here and there
the construct that kept her frozen
opened a door to Sky Heavenward.

The nuts and bolts that were meant to hold her together
failed
and all at once was revealed the unrevealed.

She now,
a blazing, burning beauty, took her first breath,
abandoned all eloquence for an absolute truth
that had until now been hidden away within her,

not unlike a child forgotten.

Having let the token fall,
the gray that was the number three
smiled as Sara let it wrap its arms about her-
in less than an hour,
she would be home.

FAOY

Forever
owing
on
loving
solo

a
lone
lover

on
fire

yellowing
over…
undertowed.

A communion of stars

'Gone in an instant’ was not the feeling
but rather a feigned sort of stealing
that we had managed to delay

and as heaven folded, collapsed, fell from the sky,
the earth struggled evenly to break her fall

four seconds later, from a smallish white room,
in a nameless happenstance of a place,
a plaster wall rippled along a corridor,
warped steadily under unknown pressures,
opened up, threw splinters asunder,
revealed the wonder that is hell,

he, the progenitor of all human circumstance
broke free from the eternal intercourse of dissonance
inspired a communion of stars
that hovers now undisturbed, above the aftermath of our reign.

Gulf

An outstretched hand advances
makes its way through waves of doubt,
tidal in its motion,
reaches its destination,
plants firmly on pale skin

a curtain, a veil, a subatomic barrier,
shudders violently as two bodies collide,
maintains the illusion of separation

a cool ocean, the face of the admired,
the face of the loved, and a desire to commune
somehow whole but never enough, a warm gulf
signifies a distance far greater,
never conquered

electricity erupts along the fabric atomic,
strains against the lack of weight, the abundance of
desire, hearts afire does not compute

four fingers falling, a thumb in tow,
retracing steps through a gulf ever widening,
spurned on by a letting go,
every attempt closing in on
one unified moment.

Casey Has Broken the Sky

Everything is a blur, an apple-blue, howling blur.
This lasts for a few minutes,
then through the haze a crackling voice is heard,

“Casey! Are you there? I’m talking to you. Are you there?”

and then the camera, she has eyes, I’m not kidding, big round eyes,
peering, as if a snake…

…as if a snake, she is my head, peering down the length of my shattered arms, watching my hands as they become fans,
those Tokyo-type of fans, leaving trails of you in their wake,

“I thought you were real!”

and the earth, she begins to quake
as the sky…
…he begins to break

while some distance off, Casey, he points forever to the sky
wishing you or I
could see the vapor trail he left behind.

Uncertainty

Not enough calm to realize the moment
before me,

I focus on a child’s pointing finger -
we are somehow the same.

Not enough time to get the words out
correctly,

I stare down at the plate before me,
a child’s voice; she’s calling.

Not enough space to wrap my arms
around you,

I flounder, in this moment,
alone, see?

Not enough understanding of what it is
that defines me,

I let go of the futility,
knowing no certainty.

Capricorn

The handle of the misshapen knife blade bore the inscription
Capricorn, sparkled in the sun
Detective X jotted a few lines in her notepad, wondered
about numbers, toyed with strings, couldn’t quite get her head
around
time.

a body, torn apart, an obvious revolution had taken place here,
the appendages rebelled, came off, smelled, blistered now under
hot sun

X, she a woman, dwelled for a while with the dead, reported
the facts, crossed over into an alternate reality where a sea goat stood
perched on its bluish tail, smiling at her as if welcoming the hunter
into the heart of hell…

she now fell…

The handle of the misshapen knife blade bore no particular markings of interest
Detective X jotted a few lines in her notepad, wondered
about numbers, toyed with strings, couldn’t quite get her head
around
time.

16 401a

Broken strings numbers falling
upwards, unit 16 401a collapsed again
today

the tech said, “we should simply allow it to
self-destruct – it will never be missed
amongst the multitude of others from the same line.”

-static-

a bathtub bleeding red
the news – a man,
a floater,
a bowl of tomato soup,
a wrist opened up just for you

-fade to Jane in a slow window frame-

put this moment in a jar and
remember to let it loose when
the days become too much for you.