Shadows of Possibility

below the shorn stumps the chemicals seep
heavy metals and petroleum chemical coca cola
precipitation on solvent as gravity pulls and draws
til drip ripple echoing the cavern walls
celebrate your payday with a tall glass of water



five times five is twenty five
what joy it is to be alive!
with shackled wrists and twisted minds
eight times eight is sixty four
our eager heart still yearned for more
what a surprise, our great reward?
our teeth like skittles on the floor



tiny mirror jewelry box
porcelain dolls and tchotchkes
artifacts
symbols of pleasant times
scattered about like little land mines
undetected until they pop
like purple anacondas coiled tightly round our brain
pressure burst to keening pain



dark matter and dark energy
don't mean much to you or we
but numbers cash and symbolism
dictate our lives as if a prison
three times nine is Twenty-Seven:
the bus to Capitalist Elysian Heaven



cold grey morning
listless wind
soured milk stagnant... thick
blood clotting as winter flies slowly buzz
acrid smell stings the eyes to tears
fresh sounds of life muffled and whitewashed
grief and empty hunger fear
orphaned by birth in a cold winter world



One plus two is three
you're a paragon of lunacy
why won't you go home
or go live under a dome
you stain on our country's dignity?



Todos que mieren dios en un desierto terminan huesos blancos.

Catsgiving, 25Mewvember 22AT

arcing curving round the dance floor
language is rhythm and time
even held breath holds a goldmine
information mathematical musical divine
like birdsong or deep blood wine
keys to all locks the banks of babylon contain
as time goes by they count your pain



Visions of desolation overlay each pleasure and pain
from happy meadow dancing in summer rain
to winter bones on vast dry barren plain
these sublime horizons within our brains
in all value
remains.


The Pilgrims at Thanksgiving
great feasting was had by all
and afterwards
digesting the carcass of their past
bursting yet still small



breathe, lean....
focus water droplet tremble
hesitating bass mirror blurring in time
anguish stains everything
retch in the next stall
fountain of purple splatters the tiled wall
we deserved more than this

Para Solo Los Gastrónomos

lincoln acacias
a shrike's sadistic pantry
from sea to shining

stars from her eyes sear clear through
her eyes are Oceans, they compel the Moon
without her breath no flower blooms
In her arms we'll be entombed.


accountants traders alarmed
check the records up to the minute tick tock
time's going away just lost four whole days
browbeat attorneys lash galley slaves
hooray no markets t-boned each other today
why worry how could the high ever go away


salvation in a plastic bottle kissing their cold blue lips eternally
nibble at internal organs drive them into fits of agonies and shame
on throne of trash and one appliance no lightbulbs for a mile
blistering the soul this vision... a graveborne wretch reflecting
off the water steams the breath deafening the heart to love
when all hope is lost they pay the cost the bank forgets no debtors
mock and shame them if you're cruel, no one else is any better


loyal as the monsoon rains
treacherous as safe ground
mortar pestle stab eyes slice brains
razor strop pounds one down
in cacaphony of silent frowns
the dogs go meow and cats will woof
the safest ground is a steep-pitched roof


if the game's not ours, we can never win
because the condition is set at begin
so change the game by changing your conditions
and we will see what plays out then


cole moleson with a coleman lantern
digs a tunnel under Stalin's fountain
sets explosives and bugs right out
to Leningrad his stern redoubt

The Bankocene Epoch

If division your intent
the price be your heart's content
like prisoners in a locked tenement
a riot within you will foment
so give a pause before you fight
before you count the till at night
and check your fellow employees
there may be no reward for ye
but the goal is more complexity



Can we survive on our own
The answer is in our very bones
we all know how weak we are
how prone to arrogance....
Animals. Don't ask this question—
the survivor just survives.
by hook by crook to coffin nails
true spirit is to strive.



trudging geographically direct
dead reckoning we do respect
inside us no magical compass.
but we never get lost
preparation is the key
and endless flexibility
is that a fencepost or a tree?
we'll let you know soon enough



Jack be curious, yaas it true,
Jack be visit the forest gloom.
He came upon a lion's den
fearful roars came from within
thinking is his silent sin
thus Jack had brought beans in a tin
down the den's throat he flicked them in
twixt-thigh explosions and eructations his shifty intent
meanwhile Weasel looked on
Moon glinting off her eyes so frizzy
it seems her time to get very busy
as Jack flicks beans she chews bones
the lion's rear is now Jack's own


eleven times four is forty four
assuming times multiplies
assuming eleven is one next to one
and that four doesn't lie
forty four on right hand side if it's standard form
normally we'd do below
but that could skew the norm
keep the work discrete discreetly
generate some more


He wanted to be a Raven, of course
shooting down columns of katabatic terror
but Ravens aren't red
no video to capture impact
nobody there to witness the shattering and splattering
like a sprinkler full of him spread him out over the scree
tsss-click-click-click-tsss

Selling Produce

tradition is more ammunition
to slay these iron gods
dour stone faced men in smoky rooms
fire the cannons! Boom boom boom!
send shoals of polyps to their caverns
eviscerate them all
chew them into tiny fragments
and pass them to your maws


It's gettin to that time of year
another one coming down the tracks
much less ahead than to the rear
we're wonder wandering and still just here...


yes, seems a celebration for the cats
a Mewvember traddy, this and that
jolki palki bri-a-brac
Catsgiving Week Cats will Attack!
from corners bookshelves and way out back
now chat away humans, "Tak tak tak"


Bubo is a cappucino
Argent is the clouds
Izzabekkel deep Infernal
our three mewses creep
about our house


Better her than us for sure
a crown would drown us like anchor
but every hero has a need
of a scribbling slithering writing reed
on papyrus weasels will write
'venturous tails of her great might


run the dawn along in song
windward style smash down captains
if it smooth it life and laugh
if it rough we slip the glove
change the skin from within and spin
twirl and flash bang and sparkle
pop out in a bubble, love


Haters and their Hate Parades
come at you every way
to your Vulnerability
(vanity childish trust)
grin and spin, lean right back
there's nothing wrong with being sexy,
and innocence is precious
don't turn their swords to ploughshares,
grind them into rust


off to dream purple black fractals
emergent kittens polydactyl
some polarizing light refractile
or cocaine tic tacs on the goal
centipedes in starring roles!
through blood-colored curtains the light is doom
to soothe us in our dream cocoon
as we wish good rest to underMoon

Open Letters and Circle Gaps

red light pulsing in the car
lonesome shooting under stars
acid slowly drizzles down
pon throbbing, mechanical clanking sound
til rain and water winds calm and still
keep on going, don't turn the wheel
man will endeavor to girdle the Moon
with steel

Furthermore upon reflection
this mirror is very scratched
like spiral buzzcut hairdo tweaker
has finally found their match


positional notation has no limitation
each origin will fall
like leaves in winds of autumn changing
there's no curtains to call
just piles of decay and twig detritus
rake and gather up
or disperse all over planet
to butterflies' hole-ups



Visions of our desert are nothing like the sun's
our desert is more lush, abundant with great storms
it only shows in shadows, through the cracks and under doors
our desert is where she and we shall tango evermore



it's all battery acid below low smog socked in
take the U-235 Arroyo
two bombs ahead and a radioactive tail behind
aim the trebuchet at the rio
launch over industrial pecan groves
maybe nail a goat on a leash eating invasives
bombs away

Kitten Needles/Ridgeline Traps

.ebb flow..
sólo dos bolos por oso
.crystal break.
fracture, no mistake
.thread the needle with the pins..
never win.

glinting in still air
filmy and opaque
sunlit asbestos fiber
or a distancing mistake
stuck between a dream and a very real place
web-coated dreariness or purple/black space
lethargy is calling our name
and sleep's growing in the windowpane
     sin saberemos


thimbleweeds would suit us fine
cyclonic whirlwinds would be divine
the gusts and blows we do adore
but nobody enjoys a slamming door
let's raze the earth and set wind free
we'd stand in it eternally
let's turn our globe relief-free
- The Flags' Song



a whisper sent from us to you
arcs invisible to a fractal Moon
bright and high and reckoning
count back time until first spring
will Luna see our earnest eyes
hear our pleas or mock our cries?


over the crest we rest
past the point of toil
gravity conquered once and for all
but briefly
we'd walk anywhere to wend our ways
there's no last laugh at the end of days
just dust, sun, sighs and gusts
nobody to place the cairns
a little pile of rocks
nobody to place the cairns
just dust, sun, sighs and gusts
there's no last laugh at the end of days
we'd walk anywhere to wend our ways
but briefly
gravity conquered once and for all
past the point of toil
over the crest we rest



check the filters clean the trap
perhaps just go and have a snack
the god of whimsy might give it back
but chances are you're better off
wearing new clothes clean and soft
than searching dryers endlessly
for socks stolen by the god of lost things



her nose black and soft and pollen-glazed
she lies still in the gardenias wide eyed in alertness
motionless
her only defense a dapple
or a chance of sunbeam angle
If they hunt by smell or sound or sight she can be safe
if only she remains
fawn
pray reefs of devil's club her home


oral or written we'll take what we can
but remembering always the admonition
We weren't there, we didn't see
It is forever mystery
approach the future Existentially
and live your life as if you're free.
: history or herstory we're all singing our own story

Millshake Flavor Vaults

more right than you knew about the split
the crack at the pivot of all of it
the balancing act between craft and art
the muse we nurture in our heart. 
      and yet to rigid rote and science
      our other part must be in alliance
      so to ourself we only have peace
      in your arms or poetry


alone walking in the dark
we feel a pair of friendly ghosts
two other we's, existential host
there's little we on scabby knees
climbing up a big pine tree
and a fractured blur in smoky haze
— even Moon won't show our final days



Plagues of scorpions
crabs and mice and even pecans
who knew these worshippers of Armageddon
would shine the light of dawn
on so many open branches
on the tree of ecodiversity
that they wish themselves (and us) to be gone



to be kind is an open sore
a soft spot in a baby's skull
what blossoms into so much more
so grind the talons and glove the claws
your frantic heart do give a pause
next heartbeat could be our final call
everyone is weak and small



We like your tiny whale, it's true
it small and yarny, white and blue
we imagine it paddling in a canoe
in the Baltic, over by you!



Supremely
the wind whistles keenly
everything has been scrubbed clean
even the bristle scratches have dust in them
over dry cracked sticks you flowed
breaking shattering down she goes
in rearview on the road
Miss Eternal : Never Old.



fish are slippery creatures
by and large it's true
other than that we can't seem to map
a sea hare to a whale fluke

Rain Tracks and Arking Lots

sell ourself at Gipodrom
howl at bloody moons
feed and nourish our own muse
in cold poverty's embrace
listen for new rhythms and
sing them about face



to nip and kick most sassily
to shake a rigid mane
to hoot and holler, chew on grass
to live the life of a free ass...
or to be a big old mule
a crafted thing, a human's tool
wise and strong and dead-end drive
it's aspiration to be alive!


Thank you, Mister President
and Thank you, Men of Means.
you've proven finally to we
you're just the consequences of beans.


We don't recall, we weren't there?
to help at all! But to be fair:
It's not as if we aren't here now
to tell you that we care,
and we're glad that you have found
such a gaggle of friends around
To keep you safe and sound


Now we wait and see
whether the elves of poetry
and the whales of honesty
will get this sinking ship aright
and get to port before the night.


The nature of Existentialism — kittens in a box
Existence precedes Essence and we can't exist yet, boss!


An interesting option for us to explore
we ought to try that ourself
we find it rather rarely, Sleep
and we hear it's good for your health!

Soup Worship

We had a little rowboat once,
a battered dinghy, you and us
we decided we would launch it out and propel it with our love
now here we are, and we're still at sea,
but we've been in drydock a time or three
so fire the main batteries
this battleship it will float free
of humans' greed and piracy
and we'll find an island, you and we.
we'll plant it with orchards of mango trees
and populate it with birds and bees
and a million happy fat kitties
who will presumably very dutifully forget our very legacy


If you were a tiny thing
the size of our imaginings
then we could both swim about
in a bowl of tarhana, we'd squeal and shout!
"Oh we little garlics
floating free
We are as in love
as any trees!"


Eclipses are like revolutions,
they always come around.
But cookies are eternal,
we measure gains in pounds!


Sister Death consults Wendigo
sends crunching men with boots of bones
the lilies fall on gore-dyed snow
exposes burrows dead and dry
withers trees, kills fireflies
Bear would normally arrive
but she's keeping her children alive this time


Red eclipse moon blinks, blood in the eyes tonight
seems the desert's carnivores are spoilin' for a fight
November is the cat's meow; a strangler's delight
drop the anchor, furl the sails and sleep ye safe and tight

Fancy, Some Betrayals

Old men sure love their erections:
He's giving Las pulpa-Emperentrices an early resurrection.
we didn't want to feel this vociferous about ancient forests carniforous
2. perro we meowght just goat oat of our mind in this criminal nation
1. perro we meowght just goat oat of our mint in this m**hy un-civilization
0. ∅

La lucha continua noᶦ² mas,
we're switching our tempo,
they've ignored our demands
and you can see them getting their little drills all in a bunch,
here come the inmates.
Ironically some of them consider moles to be vermin


Let's pretend we can get out of this mess: What then?
See — since time has begun the wheel has spun and revolution is
just a physical condition on the spinning ball of dirt we're trying to kill.
Which doesn't seem to bother her much.

Metronomic Nomic Moments

finally come to pass
Ocean's eating the grass.
we scooped the beach out onto the road like tearing down our walls
mother's hungry and the swimmers got small
so she gonna nosh on who crawl.
Ur's the still-bigger ball of them all
and there'll be fewer to pick from next Fall.



We hope we have helped more than we have hurt
- a nobody's last thought before six feet of dirt 



Ω
black jeans most puissant
delicate combat boot stomps
entre nos morgues we noticed the braces
plus cabeza sin pelo? no te molest us
prefeririamos haber alimentado
propia cadavér a los hongos or dust
resistance is an absolute value
like trust
∅



Ur our biting mechanisms of parasitic mind control
take it back to the glacier and what then?
forget what we were doing as the crevasse calves in
buried under a mountain of our free will
sabots and Luddites you mechanocidal pills
if only you'd fought things you could kill



Numbers? Games? We love em.
Meaning and content are also important but much less significant objectively.
They give us feels.
Like Electric Eels
or a jaguar who looks like our friend



While the name may not name the thing and the map is not the territory it's never a bad idea to know about who named the thing and who the cartographer was. — Lazy 8 monoku 



Welcome, parishoners
proud residents of the brand new plastic Lazy 8 housing project's shopping mall
foot lockers, arcades, hot topics galore
there's a big megachurch on each and every floor
our God™ guarantees comfy kind lives
so long as you continue to tithe

Trusting Cats

there's no price for these eyes
memories of tracer worms in lapis lazuli skies
we'll SOS but it's nothing like distress:
Just sending a signal with nothing to confess
in our post-eruption Ashford matte plain grey dress
a Mexican radio DJ's shadow at best



what do they mean
these mechanisms of peace and grace
between human beings
  better to be a hagfish or a snake, we'd rate
twist yourself into gordian knots
slither in under empathy's anal fin
to consume compassion from within


we see the white walls and we want to paint them black
whip out our chalk and give it an honest whack
at drawing lepido-geometry
revealing the angels on their pins
gave away our Hagomoro after giving it a spin
we manufacture our own with each refraction grin



Penises are wonderful, penises are great,
every penis Bustah saw Bustah tried to take!
In his mouth or in his ear or in any given hole
Bustah Rhymes in his room with 20 men's rigid poles!
   he gasps and prances in delight
   before dropping his trousers quick as a light
and getting filled with so much semen he rolls



A la reunión de las grullas donde el rio se transformó en pantano años veces de antes —
tis the season to shed a skin
let the pinions grow right in
true and curved and angled thus
our new plumes they do impel us
to gather, corroborate, and glisten

Pick a Peck of Güvercinler

efferevescing effortless
always leaves us ever breathless
gerunds gerundize our nouns
gerunding while near-preverbal
this tiny car is spewing clowns
engine growling fierce as gerbils
exercise our octopusness?
your moonlit cheek we'll dare caress!



We understand the base demand
for cultural touchstones plastic and bland
mass-produced items set free in the sun
get the lights, the family fights
we've all got crosses to wield:
But take the elves off of your shelves
or they will spit in your every last meal.



Clip eraser to the metal and scratch the paper
Chew on the wood until the hexagon is a nubbly spittled cylinder
Listen to the held-back one make the funny pun
When the kid behind you kicks you again break the pencil off in his knee
It'll all be OK if you get straight A's



lens bites, a cookie cutter shark
  bring back negative develop in the dark
  chemical burns for forty days and nights
  photo raised up like a sail on a barque
Oh ye, Scourge of the Seven Seas
  you pillaged and plundered and caught a disease
  next time draw a picture instead
your barbarian image was all in your head

Landscapes

from the shadow of the early-set sun
born of the smoky huts and cold steppe's air
grew to bloom on the dune of the moon
cursed to no home and from no home returned
butterfly in ash quietly fluttering as the world burns


Fawn.
.
would you like to be what we see?
a fierce creature wild and bloody?
pale dappled coat and razor hoof
silent underneath the canopy's roof
pale flash in shadows through which you flit
a fawn of the moon — a bride to no bit



each morning over
each evening back
each little bland ghost
each freshly-filed tooth on the chain
over the river and through the woods like trains
to grandmothers' graveyards they go
until the bowers break, nice and slow



it's all been foretold
said Otter to the troll
like in the tales our mothers told us
from so very long ago
does that mean we'll get our mountains back?
oh no they've been torn away
but the good news is we may be doomed
but this time, so are they



OC pogo (slam was better)
mosh pit was for rainy weather
scandie cornfed big fat fucks
trade the farm for suburban bucks
don't forget where it all came from
from wastelands, wilds, and gutter scum
the rejected ones, the throwaways
hidden from view in chaos and change



Havi told us we were perverse, we took offense, we told her we were no pervert.
Then she told us the definition of perverse as in to be oppositional simply for the sake of it.
The definition has since changed.
"You can't step in the same river twice." ♪

Dogs of Habit Die Hard

all the kids in brown sightless water
feeling in the mud with their toes
a bloated cow floats down the rio dulce just over there
it's a good haul in the catita traps today
a foot gets cut on glass and heals


nothing is clean around here, what's left
like cigarette ash in every lukewarm beer
the sun chips away at fresh coats of paint
the wind scratched up our goggles long ago
we stumble through each day like beetles in a cave


we have always been
nothing new under any sun
the nictomorphic lens mist-meniscus
spinnerets from which all depends
watching spirits leave bodies like puppets gone slack
this nightmare never ends
every revolution's just a new when


the agony of absence like
floating far from any shore
just an albatross above
sunlit pinion shadows like fingers
caress battered jetsam heart


The bleakness it creeps up on us and now we go to snooze.
Leastaways this is still better than drownin' ourself in booze,
but it sucks when you feel like half your life is spent buried neath strangled death-rattles of infant kitten cut-off half-mews...
spose thats why others seek solace in church pews.
still we'd rather be desolate and miserable than besotted or bemused

The Dogs are Luxuriating Now

stone wall reflects echoes
heat shimmers crossways to the stack
a gingham morning cliff face
dressed up like a little kid on a farm
a shaded cold autumn dry wash



he approaches tenderly
slowly, achingly, yearningly,
one tiny paw-claw at a time
for hours he creeps up
she is massive, black, intimidating, sleek
he a grubby brown, meek
snack for a widow

Drifting Dogs

steep angle down shadow makes a triangle
everything is rectangles around here
extraneous and inelegant
cluttered and old
the charm is in the lacquer layers
peeled back history in rainbow
shiny black to red to green to opalescent blue
like oil on a mud puddle




White and yellow swirling
little amber circles of spice
this soup is too creamy
to see all the ingredients



rippled chiffon like everything's covered in a milky film
light shimmers refractions sundogs play as eyes twitch
                                   flicker
which way kaleidescopic vision funhouse nausea seesaw
                                  the spins

Mild Dogs of Armageddon

Pacific deep opiate sleep
blue-tinged eyelids and lips
restlessly raking for hours a day
prone to naturist fits
a heroin junkie the best of the pests
we'll miss him despite all of this
.Sammy


turning spirals glints of sun
blinding delicate flattened metal
slices air in the gentlest breeze
the wasps float by with pollen puffs
from juniper trees big and lush



the cold light shimmers
across the high desert plain
moments of silence
a cloudburst of sudden rain
just the sky, the earth, and you



see the self-proclaimed die
and burn out like small fry
watch the greediest rise to the top
or instead sow the acorn
of your own small side oak
and ignore the circus' Big Top

Jack of Dogs

Fuck Regress
      Fuck Progress
we want Redress
we want Fairness
we want Peace and Wellness
  —Say Yes.


Oval round face with Snoopy eyebrows raised
heavy lidded glassy distant mile-long gaze
graceful like automata? Sleepwalk, trudge life
dance up in the club then in the parking lot with knives
dress up in a polytechnicolor sailor blazer
—you gon dance with Steppin' Razor


via Hangover anaesthesiologist
our very last thought it could be this
by noon or even half past six
flat out crash cart to cardiology
could be where our final breath will leave
o endless possibility...
we salve our woe with probabl'ty

Inscaping Dogs

A ridge's face from a different side
is a whole new mountain to the eyes
the inscape of one has many facets
Yet visible on every peak
— depending on the day of week
one can always see Parnassus


Faces lie about what's inside
inscape rarely shows
resting madface
savage glare
a dirty mop of tousled hair
it could be true. Suppose -
the tiny shoebox trapped inside
would never really know


caring waxes and caring wanes
like a methamphetamine Carousel
caring Ponies go up and down
all around the brain


calculations can be mistaken
Bannon knows it's true —
and if you overclock your win
If rarely returns True


in our adobe lives a toad
a little catfrog green and gold
she tools about the driveway, bold!
we named her Angel two years ago
she really likes the dyer's woad
we got the seeds by the frontage road