typically cyclical series of ever escalating blues

she called me again today i watched her name on my phone and resisted the urge to hit answer it seemed to ring longer than normal before going to voicemail as if the phone itself was as desperate as me to hear her voice again but neither of us got what we didn’t really want […]

in five years

she asked where i saw myself in the next five years i didn’t answer just stared at the fish in the aquarium she repeated her question i turned to her and asked why a supposedly fancy establishment like this would have such cheap fish in the tank, don’t you think they would have sprung for […]

too much too quickly too little too late

she glared angrily but i wasn’t able to see the intended victim of her evil gaze chances are it was aimed at me it always seemed either aimed at me, eventually guided towards me, or i was just the unintended victim of her need to make someone the scapegoat I ran through the list of […]

at the edge of the end of the world

got gasoline and a book of matches you bring the marshmallows and some sticks we’ll toast them at the edge of the end of the world i love the way the burning buildings reflect in your eyes holding hands as the screams of the dying serenade us no regrets my love i’ve got some graham […]

issues have issues

dread fills my every moment trepidation the haunting tones of anxiety murmuring through my vacant skull my stomach an acid filled barometer and the pressure in mounting i never wanted more from anyone than a kind word and passing hello instead it is all irrational expectations and searching for hidden meanings in my words they […]

buzzing

do you hear the incessant buzzing no there did you hear it just then it is as if my ear is a venus fly trap and is consuming flies there is it again you heard that right don’t mess with me it is like a jackhammer maybe it is a giant irradiated mosquito hovering just […]

waiting for her call

it was the scent of freshly fallen rain on a field of tulips she danced among the open blooms with no sense of time or place lost in the heady clouds of pollen weighed down by moisture sending swirls of the yellow dust into the sodden air with every intricate movement somehow avoiding the flowers […]

let’s play a game

hey what are you asleep i think so let’s play a game at first i thought the game was about how long you can hold your breath don’t breathe don’t make a sound seeing spots and feeling dizzy the room is filled with poison my cheeks are ballooned up with stale gas then it dawned […]

my merriam webster

as far as i was concerned her name was oxygen because i couldn’t figure out how to live without her but like jurrasic park life finds a way she was my mallory and i most certainly thought i was her mickey our crazy just resonated together in a harmony that made silly things like laws […]

so very tired

it all falls apart eventually the entropic laws of the universe how many words can one pour out into a universe that doesn’t notice them at all how many dreams have to not materialize how many hopes can be dashed upon the rocks of the shore how many before you hang your pen up and […]

the puppeteer blues

well i chased her for too long it seems, she always stayed just a few steps away, she was never going to let me catch her i saw, had a new excuse for the game she loves to play she was never going to let me catch her, it was all about loving the feel […]

flecks of paint

the paint on the wall is peeling coming off like scabs faded colors litter the ground like the final weeks of autumn right before the frost covers the ground every morning hoars frost turning the now naked trees into ice sculptures but not in here in here the paint falls in clumps of lead based […]

bled out

i’m not sure about the camel but i feel the last straw has finally broken my back too much stress has accumulated into a final mess of acidity in my guts and pounding in my head there is always a way to make it somehow someway but i’ve ran into nothing but brick walls as […]

her personal museum of once upon a times

she’s become a curator tiny exhibits laid out with what was once great care a fine layer of dust adorns them now like the first snow of the season when the ground is just not quite frozen she can barely remember the names just a certain resonance from each diorama here’s what’s his face sneaking […]

egyptian cotton

she was covered in freckles i used to love to play connect the dots with my tongue some of the places i performed gymnastics with my tongue were freckle free but i didn’t mind pretending and she loved to play as well writhing on the egyptian cotton she would casually walk into the room and […]

not strong enough to ignore it’s call

this incessant throbbing antibiotics and witchcraft coursing through my cheeks i curse the pollen a pox upon nature herself these microscopic indulgences that feast on torment rendering innocence into half formed photographs of insolent rage i begged for sleep and the inner cacophony chose to warble dulcet tones of stabbing across my prone form this […]

pressures

predetermined irrationality running in guns blazing with no idea where here is crash the servers dine and dash rehash the systemic relapse gene rejuvenation symphony ear mark funds for theraputic restoration of nerve damaged inclinations she sits nervously fingering her oboe, this is her first big show since the accident, as the chimes send gentle […]

frankensteinly speaking

so this a moment outside of the poetry. just the poet illiterate communing with his readers. a moment of frank and brutal honesty. the she and her don’t really exist. the pain and depression are real. when i’m hopeful, i’m not really. like blowing on an eyelash and wanting the wish to come true. i […]

blot it out

i’m never going to be more than i already am never going to attain my dreams wading into the pond of forever failings going to practice being a duck for a spell swim around with a happy quack eat the bread kind souls toss my way not even care if the bread is filled with […]

one pixel at a time

i know too much about serial killers and electricity read too much dream too much write too much i like meaningless things obscure trivia random thoughts and sitting in the dark staring at nothing hate being alone for extended periods tend to stay alone for extended periods thinking about things odd things sad things how […]

but never boring

his life was like sidewalk art it was beautiful and serene but everyone chose to walk all over it and it only took one good storm to wash it all away his life was like a b-side on a popular song it was brilliant and the composition was complex but it was largely overshadowed by […]

cinnamon synonym

i don’t like to think of it as hiding behind a self made wall i prefer to think of it as curling up in a candy coating of my own device not barracading the walls to keep others out but adding a perimeter to keep my thoughts in see i opened myself to another once […]

the ground had other ideas

to the new guy with my old flame that person that fell into an orbit i never wanted to be jettisoned from launched into space with a half empty oxygen tank and shattered self esteem tell her she’s beautiful as often as you can if you don’t think it everytime you see her that’s on […]

between shutter clicks

he stares at the photos in the book it isn’t about what he sees it’s what is missing the things that don’t show up in the frame what appears between shutter clicks he remembers things differently than the snap shots of suburban bliss his wife smiling at him he only sees the snarling face as […]

deals

you have to deal with your demons one day i make deals with mine everyday stand in clouds of sulfur and divvy up pieces of my soul in exchange for moments of blessed peace they seek to read me but i’m no children’s book with big letters and colorful illustrations i’m more like poe on […]

as the world crumbles beneath her

she’s barely holding on as the world crumbles beneath her the sun didn’t rise this morning it hasn’t for so long now she’s forgotten what the warm rays feel like everyday is filled with cold winds of regret and remorse but she keeps getting up continues to check and when the darkness is all she […]

it only hurts if you want it to

he feels like he just went ten rounds with a gorilla on meth beaten black and blue on every inch of his body lacerated and pummeled by the winds of fate and that foolhardy bastard destiny so he lays there trying to compose himself get his bearings which seem to have been flung around the […]

thanks for misreading

sometimes i feel like people think they get me but they don’t get get me like they believe the sarcasm is true that the self hatred and self indulgence is false my calls for help are cries for attention i like talking to people but i mostly can’t stand people a people person that dislikes […]

sickness

i’ve decided to pursue a glutton free diet my doctor says i have hypchondria i haven’t looked it up but i’m pretty sure that it, along with the other symptoms i’m feeling equals up to bad news restless heart syndrome nervous ladder i threw out a loaf of bread because i read it could give […]

i hunger, umami

she was perfection in my palate of emotional taste she was sweet when she looked at me with those big eyes sour when she first woke up or when things didn’t exactly go as planned bitter when her eyes reflected on the past salty whenever another glanced my way but it was her umami that […]

a treatise in beauty, not a list

object a) she walks into a room like a woman in a rock and roll video the noises go quiet from somewhere a wind gusts blowing her hair in a storm of sulty dead proteins a guitar howls with her every step she is a goddess sex given shape lust incarnate object b) his heart […]

just another kill

she was aromantic i’m unfortunately a romantic i didn’t know the other side of the coin existed and she can’t really tell i do either i saw her from across the room my heart did a somersault in my chest my palms got sweaty my throat grew tight she saw me looking and just stared […]

something to be feared

everything seems to find a magical way of getting worse but i keep on moving the cement blocks on my feet and chains around my neck all they do is build the muscles famished from oxygen deprivation my neck is like a bull’s in a yoke from tilling the farm my spine replaced with diamond […]

a rough sunday

i was already in a bit of a mood last day with the kids is always a bit of rough seas today was no exception i dropped them off came home angry wrote for a bit and then it all changed and not for the better a text from my daughter half of my heart […]

of unbidden hopes and flayed skin

my horoscope said today would be the day my fondest dreams come true apparently my fondest dream is to be stuck in this pit of torment a reliquary of fermented lapses in judgement of unbidden hopes and flayed skin saline solutions and idiotic meandering of lies and half truth horrors the stars have no more […]

in which the poet types type too much

turns out my heart has a type the childish type woe is me type the run away until you stop chasing tyoe and then pouting type the jealous type the desperate need for attention type you know the type the high school games type the self absorbed type the vague type the wrong type i […]

crematorium blues

standing alone waiting for the elevator to take you anywhere but here tapping your foot to the crematorium blues psychotically chattering incoherently mouthing the words just bopping along the jet blue flames hissing their song you slide the bodies in you pull the ashes out you drop the metal disc in and you scream from […]

hidden in plain site

juxtapose the missionaries passionate throes the crux of the matter the flux of the bladder madder and madder he chased after the hatter common causality coincides congruently catastrophically allow me to demonstrate the proper way to asphyxiate wait a psychic shockwave originating on a farm in central montana a flock of blue jays fly into […]

disharmonic wailing

everytime i close my eyes i see the words take shape i’m exhausted but as i lay here contemplating a nap to be somewhat more functional all i can think is write write write and i don’t know why it isn’t like this puts food on the table there’s no measure of satisfaction in a […]

who can say

my love for you is the epitome of simpler times I love you like saturday morning with a bowl of cereal and cartoons like the rooster crows and the farm comes to life i love you like turning sixteen and driving down country roads with the music too loud free at last i love you […]

just a flawed jewel

my ex-wife isn’t a bad person just another flawed jewel like the rest of us it was as much me as it was the situation a swirling storm of unhappiness and debt and taking one another for granted i always wish her the best even if she doesn’t know it but she has the same […]

night terror

he stands beneath a tree in the pouring rain when the lightning flashes his silhouette motionless in the night she peers out the window startled when the lightning flashes again he’s gone she chuckles to herself just her imagination thunder rumbles shaking the windows setting off car alarms around the neighborhood hides the noise of […]

winds of time

if i had telekinesis i would bring you close to me your every whim would float to your waiting hand i would move mountains to make your view of the ocean clear if i had pyrokinesis i would burn down the obstacles between us your fears would be burnt away before your pretty eyes i […]

the fool that fools himself

a friend shared an article about how people only fall in love three times in their lives the first is innocent the second is to learn tough lessons about ourselves the third is a surprise and when it all finally clicks i remember the innocent one she sometimes haunts my dreams still and the jagged […]

inept assassin

i was walking down the sidewalk when something shiny caught my eye i bent to pick it up a quarter my lucky day as i picked it up a dart came through the air and lodged into tree next to me i heard the thud as it hit i glanced at it and shook my […]

the set up to something nefarious, probably

out of the blue i got a text asking how i am who’s this i stared at the number not recognizing it at all it’s funny that as a kid i knew all my friends numbers by heart i could call any of them or family dad’s job it was a no brainer all those […]

sometimes it’s just an onion

it’s like an onion layers upon layers slowly minaturizing versions of the whole deeper and deeper until you find the core the interconnectedness of the universe and like an onion it makes you cry sometimes as you cut into it the fumes growing stronger the farther you penetrate it releasing acid into the air inflaming […]

commiseration speech

there’s nothing sadder to me than the person that only posts inspirational quotes deep down in that person is a need to believe things will get better that they have to get better that the life they find themselves wallowing in cannot be the end of it there is a hurt there a raw desperate […]

i just need some brains

i’ve got a gurgling in my guts an ache in my neck jackhammers going off in my skull i’ve got an emptiness in my chest that no amount of drugs can ever fill a hollow place that keeps getting bigger just string up caution tape and hope no one falls in it’s a bottomless pit […]

as it should be

she opened her arms and the world fell into her loving embrace. warm and nestled between her breasts, sheltered from the ongoing storms. whispering sweet nothings to keep the bad thoughts at bay. a lone tear travelling down her rosy cheek. she held on like it was the only thing that mattered. and she was. […]

this cold war we fight

she sees me from across the room not a flicker on her face of recognition as if i’m a stranger not the man that held her as she slept for five years of fitfull dreams any hope in my heart died at that moment not that there was much we had been in this cold […]

staring at the sky in wonder

i watched the plane fly over head from my window perch so many indistinct faces in the broad blue skies the salesman flying out to meet with a potential client he is filled with false bravado he actually needs this sale to make bonus to be able to cover the mounting bills the worried mother […]

i need a shower

i prefer a warm shower just slightly south of hot just slightly north of cold warm a goldilocks shower but in texas it gets so hot you never really get cold water during the summer the water from the tap is tepid at best the city sends out reports and like to brag that there […]

but a man can dream

she wore a mask not a metaphorical mask but a harlequin mask with feathers and glitter it was a pale blue like the spring sky after the gray snow clouds finally leave for the season or maybe it was like the spring sky when you think the snow clouds have gone but they have one […]

there’s nothing attractive about a man in midst of crisis

it’s starting again that feeling of racing a million miles an hour into a brick wall incessant mumbling in the back of my head it’s hot outside it’s hell in here the walls are bleeding it falls in thick globs onto the carpet black clouds of flies feasting occasionally taking on human form whispering dark […]

kumquat

you ready in there i’m not sure don’t be a baby okay you know i love you right maybe i’m coming in wait do you remember what we talked about i think so what do you say if it gets too intense for you kumquat that’s right umm kumquat what’s wrong i’m nervous and the […]

that’s enough for me

there has to be more to life than this she said to me leaning on an elbow as i tried to go to sleep don’t you think there has to be more than this i knew she wouldn’t stop until i answered probably i muttered i want more and if you don’t i don’t see […]

i’ve got all night

my head is pounding like the cymbal in the hands of a little monkey so many things in my head some light and airy others dark and foreboding sleep is going to be long in coming tonight my love if it comes at all i heard footsteps in the hallway yet here i lay all […]

to guide me

the sun hasn’t set but i’m laying in bed trying to get you out of my head been reading your words and wishing they were for me and my head is pounding again been a rough couple weeks filled with sin seem to be a couple more ahead of me mocking and i cannot seem […]

somethings just aren’t meant to last

your love is like spring you sweep in and the earth comes to life at your every glance your gentle touch i thrived under your rains your love for me is the promise of better days to come and shedding layers of clothes as the winds turn warm sprouted from my hidden lair under the […]

don’t kiss and tell

i’d just walked back into the party from sneaking out back to smoke a bowl it was my tradition drink til i saw double smoke a bowl to normalize drink to double vision again but this time when i walked back in there was no drinking to blurry one eye closed staggering ignoramus state no […]

admitting something is wrong

live laugh love linger lament loss languish lethargy liquefy limping longing lacking trademark my loneliness film a big budget blockbuster special effects for a lack of special affection doctor the script the dark secrets of the lone bastion of depression the last iceberg floating on ever warming seas of discontent the alliterative anxiety filled anchor […]

well adjusted

i read somewhere that some people have this strange condition well adjusted it’s called i’m not sure i spelled that correctly it is a condition where they are perfectly fine content even i just shook my head when i read that fake news i decried from behind the couch where i had been sitting for […]

his brain is smaller than his heart

he would go to the park at sunrise and sit patiently at one of the tables within an hour someone would come up to him and ask if he wanted to play i never played chess as an only child whose dad liked to drink and mother liked to hit it just wasn’t in the […]

an ocean of tears, a desert of smiles

staring into the face of my own mortality today did i live the life i always dreamt when i was a little kid with dreams and aspirations was this where i thought i would be i didn’t make it to space or design the buildings people ogled i didn’t paint the ceiling of a cathedral […]

the back of a stranger’s hand

i like riding the bus not much in the way of public transportation down here though so i guess i like to remember riding the bus and the train there is a small train here only a few stops but i enjoy taking it downtown or up to mockingbird station not much of a view […]

for paul, a poet

a poet had passed away one whose words i took comfort in he wrote long beautiful pieces and passed quietly a few days ago i would quickly read his works sometimes multiple times his words sang a haunting melody now they are silent his past lives on but i always wanted more the great human […]

lonesome poet blues

i’d cross this entire country get my passport stamped around the globe wear holes in my trusty vans just to catch a glimpse of your lovely smile i’d write a thousand poems ink them in my own blood on billboards down the winding highways graffiti the mona lisa with your name just to let you […]

strip club stigmata stereotypes

i’m sure it was dream i was in the strip club a place i haven’t been to in what feels like a very long time my first inkling it was a dream was the music was very un-strip club the song was forest fire by the dead kennedys i looked around in the dark room […]

unfortune cookie

found a fortune cookie in the cupboard while searching for something to quell the savage rumbling i had been attempting to ignore been in bed all day reading couldn’t fathom a single reason to rise nor shine like a thick cloud layer over suburban splendor more aptly smog over an urban death zone just another […]

like plucking roses from a grave site

the kids are gone toilet is broken the rubber stopper broke free of the plastic doohickey took four allergy pills half dozen aspirin stomach filled with popcorn head filled with cotton not enough booze to silence the thoughts in my head shaved my head today after dropping off the kids figured why not at best […]

not the triumphant coming out he had planned

his skills didn’t lie in the regular types of things he couldn’t draw or write or speak all that well he was a nice guy his neighbors said a bit of a loner shy and quiet but always had a smile and wave when he passed them in the hallway what he had was a […]

always the same

erosion corrosion fading away swaying decaying always the same the rain falls from bright blue skies not a single cloud in sight ground laid bare under solar radiation fat droplets soaked up as soon as they hit the thirsty ground he sits in his chair watching it all happen this is how he lives watching […]

she tells lies

once when i was younger not so young as to no better but young enough not to care much either i got fired from a job it was a shitty job didn’t pay well cold calling people with pre-approved credit cards and accidental death and dismemberment insurance basically scam artisting my way out of adolescence […]

new york circa eighty two

unrelenting uncompromising an ostentatious display of vulgarity an assault on everything you hold dear devastating in compass sublime magnification of destruction pimps and poets whores and hardcore frozen vignettes of wanton death and decay new york circa eighty two pma – positive mental attitude spinning your wheels in impotent teenage angst and rage play fast […]

circling round the drain in search of better tomorrows

drifting around the drain the whirlpool of emotional dismay centrifugal forces and insecurities in a sort of guerilla war frame of mind hiding under twigs from oncoming enemy tanks ghili suit of unsent of messages half formed email dysfunction like so many discarded post it notes of longing lingering dossiers militarized pheremones half truth melodramas […]

i could be a matisse

she’s a writer not like i’m a writer she chips away at the marble and you can tell there is a deft hand at work maybe just a little untrained maybe a little rough around the edges but the basics are there one day she will write a masterpiece me though well not me i […]

fregoli delusion

i see her in everyone her eyes her smile strangers in a crowd they make eye contact and smile her smile a smile that was made just for me or at least i thought it was but i saw her sitting with him a him that wasn’t me or was it am i the me […]

opening one cage while cementing another

she looked at me for a long moment, weighing the words before asking do you still hate me i don’t know what i expected her to say but it wasn’t that a swarm of knives flew around my mind unbidden, so many hurts and wounds and scars still forming no, not any more and never […]

abscond yon thief

woke up to a notice of stolen identity fraudulent charges from another state of unbeing they took my money and spent it on frivolities while i slept on a mattress soaked with broken dreams they can have the identity you so deftly absconded with it is worthless after all refund me my time and bank […]

easier to eradicate than medicate

i’m considering self lobotomy go full old school barbarism and drive a rod in through my tear duct eradicate the defective parts i hope that if we do it right the longing and sadness will disappear no more searching for the things i will never find erase the yearnings cause i’m at my wit’s end […]

if you squint

she looked at me and laughed as i sat on the couch in my boxers you’re not bad looking from across the room, if i take my glasses off, she said between giggles i’m an adonis if you squint, i replied as i sucked in my gut and tried to affect a look of disinterest […]

to be the rock battered by the waves

she looked at me with tears running down her beautiful face she shook like a leaf in a hurricane as the agony poured from her torrential and seemingly endless i sat with my arm around her shoulders powerless in the face of this storm she had not spoken a word since i arrived after receiving […]

poof

i saw a rainbow out of the corner of my eye but whenever i turned it stayed just out of view made myself dizzy spinning like an idiot, never did see the damned prismatic event saw a cat sitting on the roof of a car staring at me i asked it if it saw the […]

don’t speak bird

they come in pick up trucks with rattling trailers swoop in unannounced and spread their implements over the cracked concrete ball caps pulled low, handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses i’m sitting here in my chair staring outside at the damned birds chirping in the bush they are so happy and content to sing their […]

sometimes

i put on some jazz as background music and decided to ight was as good as any to write and i stared at my phone the bass plucked by righteous hands, and the brass sounding like an angels chorus and i stared at the screen of the damned phone bill evans hit the keys and […]

greener

i’m leaving she said, bright eyes suckered by the greener grass of new sides pulled in by white lies and brighter dyes, the facade of what she hoped would be true i let her go, knowing that once she traipsed barefoot through the fresh manure coating everything she would come running back while what i […]

thin layer of denim

she wandered down the stairs in jean shorts cut so low it looked like a denim thong she wondered at the stares as if having her entire ass hanging out wasn’t enough to stop traffic i just sat in my chair and watched as she took her time making sure everything was just so an […]

co-dependence day

it was independence day last year when we plastered on our fake smiles for the final time the scrambling to hold the pieces of us together had worn us past the point of our flames exhaustion we swam and did the things normal people do while denying the cracks in the facade were canyons, insurmountable […]

calligraphy

her love came off of her sweet full lips like calligraphy dancing across the air the gentle turns of phrase danced on eddies in the air, spinning and floating like the most joyous sound her sorrow ran from her mouth in halting gasps, like the rivulets of mascara down her pale cheeks heavy words of […]

heart shaped scars

she carved a heart onto his cheek a lone tear ran down, following the curve of his newest wound she smiled and licked the bloody tear he hated himself but it sent shivers down his spine she carved bits of him off and he willingly lets her sharpened the blade for her he belongs to […]

lost in mistranslation

maybe english isn’t really my native tongue i speaks bits of other languages, a mutt of linguistical gymnastics, not enough to be fluent but just the right amount to offend perhaps i haven’t found my true language in the ocean of words that lazily laps the beaches of my mind what if the doctors implanted […]

sand

you don’t have all the time in the world as you grasp it the sands fall between your fingers every second you selfishly try to save is another one lost live in the now not in the then the future arrives as you contemplate it’s miseries, mysteries the past grows farther away even as you […]

shelved

there are days i feel less like a person and more like a possession, owned in some way by phantom hands it was unbeknownst to me that i had ever been purchased, there have been occasional rentals, used and using in symbiotic fashion for pleasures or as a stop gap measure to beat the loneliness […]

spirit writing

feiluan, the flying phoenix jiangluan, descending phoenix fuluan, support the phoenix with deft swirls and unbidden motion across the ash of the dead the forest of my mind dancing the ocean in my veins pulsing the desert of my heart shifting the ten yama kings occupy the maze of my rebirth testing and throwing ruin […]

aphorisms

she listened to me vent on being an unknown nobody who aspired to be more in a world where being seen counted more than being heard, but i don’t like the face i am forced to carry, my words don’t carry enough weight to distract, to detract from awkward smile stuck on with super glue, […]