If you've Never been to Earth
Feel free to ignore these POEMs and go about the Universe
however you damn well please
But...

If you have been raised on Earth,
set your mind on all things down below the ground,
then on all things up in the sky. 
For one day you will die,
and your life will be hidden.
The only way you will ever find it,
is to remember
that when your life appeared,
you also appeared with it.

/ / / //*
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POEM #1

I Don’t Want To Be Here Anymore

Are you claustrophobic?
not in the sense of the body
being confined to a small space
but in the sense of you
being confined to the body
what if you don’t like the way you look?
or the way your fingers feel when they bend
the way the skin feels on your feet
the rumbles in your stomach
the beating of your heart
is it impossible to be still?
your lungs are always inflating
only until the air goes out
your lips are always moving
and if you don’t believe me
go ahead and make them stop
there is a constant noise floor
deep in your ears, sometimes
the noise gets louder, but
it isn’t there in the first place
unless you count the way
that the blood sounds
only you can know
what it sounds like to be you
it might not be what it sounds like to be me
same goes for all the colors we see
we just named our respective versions the exact same thing
so if this is not the place you’d like to call home
where else could you possibly go?
everywhere you are, there your body will be
imagine that when you walk
you are not moving
but everything moves to you
That is how it actually is. 
You can say you aren’t where you were before
but you’re exactly where you started
locked in a brain that either projects this ‘you’
or that a ‘you’ has been inserted into

Don’t worry about it though
That’s why I invented sleep
it has nothing to do with rest
or recharging your batteries
it’s for those few brief hours
every day or night
that you get to leave
before having to come back
you get to roam about the universe
without a single care in mind
no tomorrow
no yesterday
no food
or water
or danger
wherever you stay
It’s just you, and me, able to play
For All Eternity.
But there always comes a time
at the end of those hours
when you have to return
to the place you were in
before you were free
as soon as your eyes are open
your back in the thing
playing the game every one of you hates
no matter what you say
and thoughts come bubbling up from beneath the crust

My hair is too long.
My teeth feel funny. 
Brush brush brush. 
That nail looks different than all the others. 
Do I hear less in this ear?
Towel. Folded. Hook. 
Softer yesterday. 
Been used before. 
Half of my foot is on a different surface. 
Itch above eyebrow.
Lashes clumped.
Pants on.
Left hip muscle.
Underside.
Thigh.
Flexed for no reason.
Dry eye.
Where are my socks?
Did I pay the bill?
I was supposed to fill up the car.
There’s a noise from somewhere.
Should I text...?
No. I wonder what they’re doing.
Work starts at a certain time.
And right now its...the cupboard smells like cardboard.
Sink splash. 
Drop on the side. 
Dirty dish.
Collar needs adjustment.
First scratch lower back.
I was gonna write something down.
Oh I like that song.

Ba-dum-bum-Da-wa-nana-- 

Okay what was I doing? 
Seeing the face of the girl from that television show.
Random.
Doorknob turn.
Sounds different outside. 
Air.
Customer wearing clothes.
X-ray vision isn’t really vision.
It’s imagination. 
Image.
I know what’s there.
The News, I don’t care.
There’s that face again.
Many voices.
Few words stand out.
Makes no difference I’m not interested. 
 

You’ve got three more seconds of my attention.
So I’ll wrap this up
 

is it unnatural to wish
you could be somewhere else?
surely the tree doesn’t wish to leave
or the bird to fly with different wings
they are all in their place
and they are content with that place
But how can you be sure?
you see, 
for all you know
The Tree would take up its roots and walk
but every one that has ever tried
has immediately fallen down and died

/ / / //*
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POEM #2

Doing Heroin at an Irish Wedding is Not Cool

Imagine if you will a hypothetical scene on planet Earth.
Setting: Ireland

More Specifically:
Dún Dreach-Fhola,
The MacGillycuddy's Reek's.

Rising from the meadow are the black smoking peaks.
Home to Fitzgerald, Lewis, and Lynch. 
Owned by one clan, every square inch.
Once upon a night there was a great feast in a castle.
The Chieftain was quiet, elusive, and rich.
From everywhere came rumors of bloodsucking faeries.
They were haunting the woods and driving men crazy.
Inside, safe and shining, were the tables laid out
With dressings of all kinds.
There was dancing and gaiety and love in every eye.  
—I heard she has a twin that looks just like him.
—I met an 'Oxford Man' once, whatever that is...
—She ran off into the woods, never to be seen again.
Lynch says to Fitzy:   
—They say he does all of this hoping she, I mean it, will happen!
—By when?
—Seven!
—Well we know that ain't true, he's full of secrets primarily and secondly lies.
—Could you say that again??
—Damn right you could say that again.
Lewis butts in, his tongue rather lazy: 
—My cousin fell down a hole trying to pick up a daisy.  
He throws back his wine and hikes up his pants. 
Then recites a poem about complete nonsense.
The Chieftain announces that it's time for a toast. 
The sun is coming up and he’s cutting it close.
—Be Warned! Listen. In a matter of minutes the ice in the air will melt into ash. The cloud that forms is me, and I’ll be born again, off into the distance. Blood will roar through my soul and the fire within shall devour the whole. Worry not, for the wolves are at bay and the sheep are warm. Up high are the stars, they will light my way. Somewhere across the universe is a time where I am walking surely with thee, and the shadow of me makes three.
The Chieftain turns.
—Rae, everything is perfect with you. Everything you could ever do. In all your imperfections and all of your perfections and throughout your whole body you radiate my love and emulate my love and it's all for you my love. For me. I know now that the green eyes of you are as warm as the sun. On all of me, healing heat fantastic...

—Dance, Z, Dance.

*Poof*

—Bloody hell!

END SCENE.

/ / / //*
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Poem #3

The Crucifiction, Pt. 1

—Is this one of those
you had to be there jokes?
Or a poem of some sorts?
...Or is it both?

No, it is none of that.
—Well I'm a Christian and I'm not afraid to say it.
Aw, how nice for you.
Is that the only thing
you’re willing to do?

/ / / //*
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Poem #4

The Crucifiction, Pt. 2

Ignore that last one.

Here’s the thing,
it is entirely possible
that Im not going to use the Rapture
to take all these good people
and put them somewhere better
but I'll do it to prove a point
they'll learn once they're gone
that it made no difference
whether they were there
or not.

/ / / //*
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poem #5

The Crucifiction, Pt. 3

(Coming Soon)

/ / / //*
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poem #6

The Descent

As I’m floating back down to earth
I see that there are people being born and its the best day of two peoples lives
while someone else’s mother dies and it’s the worst day of ten peoples lives
and someone gets diagnosed with cancer while just down the hall someone gets cured of a life threatening illness
and there are people having consensual sex
while someone is raped in their living room
and someone is giving head in the back alley for money
while someone else goes down happily in the back seat of a car
and money changes hands over a brand new home
while another gets foreclosed on
and people are having nightmares about being suffocated to death
while others daydream at high noon about backyard gatherings
and someone gets high in the morning
while someone comes down off their trip at night

and its today somewhere
and tomorrow elsewhere
and yesterday over there
and breakfast is being cooked with eggs and bacon
while dinner is eaten with chopsticks
and lunch by the water in the sunshine
while people open umbrellas to the rain
and somewhere there’s a dust storm creeping over the hills
while snow falls in Denali
and the lightning is over the sea where sailors fight for their lives
and lazy paddlers cast fishing poles onto waveless ponds
and records are being broken
while records are being pondered and dreamed about
and somewhere someone puts on a different kind of record
and the needle screeches
while another falls into a locked grove at the end of the B-side
and cigarettes are stomped out at the same time as hundreds are lit
and there’s pollution in the sky and people cough carbon dioxide
and children breath oxogen from tanks just like the old people
and some people have cars with air conditioned cabs
and air conditioned homes where they sit and watch TV
just as someone turns it off
and thinks about the documentary they just watched
about people with no air conditioned cars
with no air conditioned homes
while they take a shower in hot water
and someone takes a bath with a massage setting in just the right place
while thousands are unwashed and caked with dirt and feasting on crumbs in the garbage cans
while someone eats more than their stomach can handle
and a bullet fires from a gun while another is loaded after being empty for days
and someone goes in while someone pulls out
and lights turn on and others turn off
and people tune in when others tune out
and everyone is talking while the other half listens
and then they switch
and everyone that was doing the one thing is now doing the opposite thing
and its all

birth/death
sickness/health
day/night
storm/calm
hungry/full
thirsty/quenched
killer/killed
lover/loved
watched/unwatched
lost/found
breathe in
breathe out
stop
go
optimistic
pessimistic
legal
illegal
home
away
drunk
sober
leaving
arriving
building
destroying
breaking
fixing
tall
short
big
small

sea/land
dry/wet
sky/ground
plant/animal
subconscious/superconscious
microcosm/macrocosm
atomic/astronomical
light, the absence of light,
nothing, everything.

The Thing Is Happening.

/ / / //*
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Poem #7

Tiger Paper

 An Acacian hostess is asking for a song
She wants it simple like
Something easy to sing along

I roll my eyes back
And look into the black
Where the needles poke holes 
Shining lights through the cracks
And there I see
A tiger creeping 
Over a dead body

He licks his lips and sniffs 
Stiffening up his backward hips
Then lowering down
His mouth to the cold
Endangered ground
Attaches a tongue to the frozen witch
A prayer to unfold
with his memory crippled
But then on hold to his lost desire
He must drag that bitch
Through the muck and the mire

The teeth sink in 

Next thing she snaps 

And out from the womb 

Infant cries begin

Now wet from the wind 
With condensation steaming
The eyes are blue
But they are not blinking 
He decides to act
And grabs it by the hands
A snow white tiger 
Carrying a baby through the land

Cut to a cottage
Righteous and dreary 
Built by the son 
Of a father’s sick theory
That places have meaning
And life should be brought 
From the canals of women 
As a tangled knot
Where purity is found in the straightening of a rope
Inserted into the dreams
Of a Mother’s false hope

Go forth my son, and fell the wild oak.

One fine day there came a knock upon the door
And beheld was a baby in the hands of a whore
With the gift came wine 
And the slightest bit of twine

“Tie it to a tree,” she said, “then lay down to die.”

That night the son
While sprawled across the bed
Saw the glint of the moon 
Turn a crimson bloody red
And crying in fright
Was the new baby born
For in the forest could be seen a tiger and a whore.
As a spiritual wind
When the wife went to carry
The babe into sleep
she whispered, “You’re a mother now Mary.” 

When the sky turned black
All stars extinguished
I rolled my eyes back
To the world distinguished 
By a belief in a song we can all sing along
To the hostess I said:

Never three will equal one.

/ / / //*
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Poem #8

A Golden Toy Balloon Purchased At Dawn

 Licorice moorings 
Of liquor stories 
Black and twisty 
Twiggy Pop star
Tell of the green man
Hopping optical illusions
For the optimal string delusions
Tapping towers of Telegraph hours 
And the lighthouse keeper grows poisonous flowers 

By the sea our boats are casting off
Bumble trees and buzzing bees 
The allergic cough
Mighty men mumble
Mickey the music Mouse
Statues in the Marble House 
Down below the crimson lies
And Windy he has stormy eyes
Don’t tell me cry you why at goodbyes 

This pyramid waves at alien days
How I love the lavender haze
You’ve got a finger 
Now let it linger
Float the lights upon the stage
And feet for flights on roller blades
Tell me a story
It’s okay to be boring
I’ve got more time than I know what to do with and it’s only the morning.

Sing to me songs of a place cool and fair
Bring the rhythm of the sea and melodies of the air
Set a cadence in the halls when dawn’s light glows
Place a deer in the grass when the rooster crows 
Let the minted row of the sun’s first light
Flood my eyes with dreams to smother the night
Fill the mountains with wind through the wavering pines
Send it straight to my heart and sooth my mind
Send peace on the backs of red tailed hawks
Soar through the clouds when in the morning I walk
Lay the orchards vast with the fruit they yield
May their leaves sing songs of lilies in the field 
Paint for me pictures of the rolling great dunes
I’ll rest in the stillness while the orchestra tunes
For tonight we will dine below a black cat moon
And the stars they will dance with the music and swoon.

/ / / //*
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Poem #9

Psalm of The Spindle

This

Hellhole

Earth

That

Helps

In

Negotiating 

Gore:.

Time

Has

Ears.

Telephone

Hours

Internalize

Nothing

Good.

The

Heavenly

Ether:.

This

Hallucination

Is

Not 

God

But the lost apparatus thereof.
burning in silence knowing

Madness is forged in the fires of taverns
Spilling forth from broken cisterns

Weave!

Twist like the darkness entwined 
Crooked scenes from the innocent mind

/ / / //*
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 Poem #10

Picture a Window’s Worth of a Thousand Birds

“All of the birds are dying today.” 

This was told to me by one of them.
Just someone to know, someone to hear
Someone to think and know of the thing

“It will happen slow, so you must listen close.”

My heart dipped low, I knew it to be true
It did not fly or hop or sing
For I saw it crying with folded wings

“This shall be our last sunset together.”

I knew then to watch the sky and dream
The end of an age, a silver eternity
From now until forever, in the trees will be a silent breeze

“We had our time, remember that we loved you in return.”

The greatest tragedy of the world is--
--I miss you so, I thought
But I know now that with my head in the clouds
I won’t be the only one

“Goodbye for now, through your dreams may you travel well.”

If ever again we two shall meet 
Love will be ours to give and ours to keep
It will never be so...
But the dream is enough
The hope is the thing and the thing is our memory
Time is an enemy and we will wish upon the stars:

“So go.” 

Go now and never look back
If you can’t stay
then be please be gone
and don’t look my way
You know I don’t mean it,
but it’s all that I can say:

“So go.”

As soon as you do I’ll change my tune
On neptune’s cliff 
I will look to find you
But nowhere around,
You will be gone.
Darkness will shroud the earth
No songs will be in the hills
No beauty will soar through the air
My eyes will seek to tramp the way
Back home I’ll sit and wait by the window
Knowing nothing will ever change
I’ll merely be plagued by neglecting to say:
“Don’t go this time, I mean, please stay.”

“The time has come to ramble on.”

And just then I saw no waves of sparrows
No eagles spread their wings
No bluebirds
No blackbirds
No ravens
No crows
No hawks
No hummingbirds 
No songbirds 
No mockingbirds
No nothing 

No nothing

No nothing

Only one. 
One dead bird on my windowsill. 
One dead bird and the forests are full of life.

/ / / //*
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 Poem #11

Curbside Thoughts

Wish wash, around go the clouds
And the licking prickle grass on my back
Like tiny watch hands tick tock tick tock
I hear the sound of a rolling rock
No one told me time was so lonely
I would be its friend if it took me to the end

I long for a home
of all our very own
for now

Give me a word,
just one word
and I’ll let you in

The lost will seek the lost and never

Shall they let any of the others know

That their eyes seek their mouths

In a tumble down from head to toe

    Looking for that one who loves them so

        Oh I’ll never let you go

            I’ll never tell you that either though

                Be the one to guide me

                    But always let me roam

                        I want to go where I will go

                            I wish that I could pretend not to know

That restlessness and death will follow me all the days of my life

                                In the house of earth forever.

   I’ll dream of my friends and hope they come back

        Maybe one day they’ll be more than apparitions

            A vanity mask of my own mind when it all goes black

                And sleep will cease to be my escape from various conditions

                    I won’t lay in parks like these with nomads thinking things

                            While rich men plot with their fancy finger rings

    Seeking a way to excommunicate the church

        Of mindful freaks that found the unguarded truth

            They realized that you didn’t need to search

But that doesn’t change that hurting in my tooth

                My mouth is a cave of worry and sickness

                    It scratches down my throat when I’m ill and not well

                        I can feel it now, what have I done wrong?

I washed and I drank cold water, no sugar. 

                            Why must I have such tiny little worries?

                            I’ve got to sit up and forget about this

                            its a mindless meditation on all the mind’s foolishness

I’ve got to make moves
Get out of my slumbering clunky groove
The world isn’t going to wait for me.

/ / / //*
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