and it was snowing

i remember the first time i took her out it was a date in all but name in hindsight it was my first date not the first time i went with a group and it was like a date but was really a herd of giggles and my overly loud voice trying to reach her […]

circumventing perspective

i suppose not every little thing is a matter of perspective suffocating from lack of oxygen at the top of the world or drowning in a kiddie pool either way it goes you’re still just a rotting corpse i guess the cold air up high would preserve you better and the toddlers and the urine […]

glimmers beneath

she stood in front of me fully nude my eyes feasted upon her every inch on her skin was written her sensual odes sharp words cut into supple flesh by knife by pen by fingernail etched as if sculpted by the hands of god herself she did not offer herself to me for one cannot […]

coda of silence

it’s quiet not the comforting silence like a warm blanket on a cold winter morning as snow falls and mutes the sounds of the city outside or a scenic vista overlooking the sea the birds in the distance swooping down on the waves for a midday meal a lone light house on a small rocky […]

all my tomorrows

she said we need to slow down we don’t want to wake up in the morning with regrets i just arched an eyebrow baby, we’ll still be up when the sun rises if we continue what we’re doing now she looked shocked for a second and then we proceeded to not see the sun rise […]

#836

for every petal on a rose a thorn upon the stem for every star in the sky another life grows dim the immense and the inconsequential all burn with their own fevered will writing on the cave walls or upon vellum with quill eager to spill the wandering heart into an unwanting world chaos order […]

under the bed

i have a monster under my bed he feeds off my nightmares and fears he’s a good guy has a wife and kids my failures are paying to go through college he knows my every truth my every hidden wish we don’t make eye contact very much i had a monster in the closet but […]

five seven five

is it possible to fall in love with someone from their poetry to peer inside them their words carved onto your soul pulsing through your heart infatuation from cleverly worded prose it seems so crazy but could it happen this meeting of mind and heart i wonder at times when the words pierce deep awaken […]

pity party, table for one

these last two weeks have been a real rollercoaster ride the job fell through and couldn’t pay me for services rendered so i had to kindly tell them to choke to death on their incompetence but the kids were here and even broke and stressed out at the newest wave of fecal matters of business […]

truer words

she’ll never look at me that way like tauriel looked at kili i sit with my chest gripped by iron bands of sorrow knowing this simple truth what i would give of myself to have that kind of love everything my kingdom of empty words for that i would give you my every thought and […]

unreciprocated

love left unreciprocated morphs changes it’s cellular structure becomes something else a grape left to whither becomes a raisin yet retains it sweetness love does not become a prune nor does it facilitate the evacuation of the bowels of the soul it hardens once ripe it has a shelf life a short period in which […]

filled with

rancorous regret take your bitter seed and plant it in your bosom you radiate remorse yet no one seems to take the time to stop and see if they can help as you waste away the cancer of loss multiplying in your worried mind fading from sight as if a cataract has fallen over the […]

magnetically challenged

chivalry is not dead though i saw it offering sexual favors in an alley open sores around it’s mouth and looking decidedly sickly as the line between it and misogyny becomes blurry life is not fair it’s like working at a state fair everyone around you is having an absolute blast while you restock the […]

sid vicious singing in the red dust

the red dust kicked up by the old pick up looked like dried scabs blowing in the wind he had his hat pulled down low as he bounced with the worn out suspension the stereo was turned up loud lee ving was screaming about how he doesn’t care about you and he sang along but […]

untitled rambling, #827

she lays on the bed in one of my shirts it is long and big on her but she looks gorgeous and as her finger runs through the hair on my chest and her eyes lose focus i know something is coming her finger pauses and i tense up she feels it and snaps out […]

Basement Dwellers

The sounds of dice rolling across the table travelled up the stairs. The intrepid heroes journeyed through dank caverns and evil forests. The somber tones of the dungeon master rose over the sounds of the skirmish. “You enter the large cavern. Mushrooms on the walls glow with a faint light.” “Aye lads, my nose is […]

smoke and mirrors

went to a psychic last night before you ask no i don’t believe in any of it all smoke and mirrors illusionary medicine to calm a weary mind she offered palm readings and tarot cards it smelled of incense and herbs in the small candle lit room she greeted me and took my hand and […]

she moves

with the sinuous grace of bacon frying erratic and seeming to shrink as the music sizzles a back drop like a panther on a tree limb subtle and sleek and looking like nature’s perfection with the over exaggerated style of a drunken monk seemingly stumbling but every shift in weight is calculated back and forth […]

for she is death, my love

she comes pale as the frost so light on her feet she dances rather than walks across the darkness one with the shadows a shimmering monster of ethereal grace she comes to me as sleep encroaches, to open a vein and feed upon my dwindling strength, she is the night, pleasure and pain with long […]

denying definition

she is the sound of dishes breaking branches against a window in the dead of the night a sensation of speeding downhill with no brakes as the railroad crossing arms begin to lower and the whistle blares when the knife cuts in but is so sharp you only feel pressure for the first few seconds […]

synaptical reverence

she is beautiful he had never seen her face in person, stared longingly into her eyes as the sun sets and the sky is a watercolor testament to heliotropic pinks and purples as the diamond bespectacled black runs roughshod over the eastern sky she sent him an mri of her mind though a static burst […]

lost in spam

buried in an avalanche of erectile dysfunction pills and princes who seek asylum the great deals only i have been selected to receive and the tax debt relief i didn’t know i needed under the auto warranties and mail order brides the dating sites and hot horny women in my area between car insurance rates […]

of ants and machines

never a feeling of hopelessness like when it seems the light must come soon holding on by torn fingernails to cliffs edge while stones and dirt shower down knowing at any moment the levees will burst forth and drown everything in a torrent of uncaring force the last desperate motes of hope like settling dust […]

she sits, she thinks, she wonders

laying in a pile of pine needles, more a bed of nails, like a thousand wriggling cockroach legs against an uneager spine, working through fibers and finding pale flesh pockmarked by old love and sickness the ground is damp from fallen rains and cold with the promise of winter, all deciduous nudity and frank truth […]

i wanna make you a mixtape

i wanna make you a mixtape old school love letters on a cheap boom box i wanna stay up with a blank tape in the deck and the stereo playing until that song comes on a hush falls over the room as the record button is pressed i wanna put all the songs that sum […]

a real player lair

when i grow up i want to be manaical super villian nothing too outrageous hidden lair on a desolate dormant volcano or in a swamp somewhere legion of faceless lackeys in matching black and chrome tanks of electric eels and sharks the occasional death trap to brighten the room something with lasers and spinning blades […]

a prayer for someone else for a change

one of my neighbors is an old white guy that smokes like a chimney everyday he sits on the stairs and chain smokes and says hi to everyone that walks by his skin is leathery and his moustache dances like an angry tarantula on his upper lip he’s got teeth like tree roots that just […]

and the world kept turning

i had a dream, not like martin had a dream, no, mine was distinctly less profound i was sitting on an old couch with torn cushions and cigarette burns and hank was there with a bottle of beer hammering away on the typewriter and cursing the horses that always came up lame an overflowing ashtray […]

wicker basket

it doesn’t take much to remind me how shit of a poet i am just another pithy scribbler in a world of pedantic odes i don’t have roses growing from grovelling lines just thorns and patches of bare earth what’s the point when you can read truly beautiful works and instead you shovel salt and […]

harder and harder still

light the goddamned house on fire burn the rickety timbers and we’ll dance in the embers as they fill the air like fireflies it doesn’t mean a thing none of it my knee hurts and my head hurts and some mornings i can’t see shit for fifteen minutes tired from traipsing along this overgrown path […]

serenaded by the damned

she said my mind was always running from reality my heart was in the right place but my head wasn’t she was probably right didn’t stop me from writing her off as dead though of course she actually died so i didn’t do anything really except probably drive her to the door my heart wasn’t […]

wandering idly

he wandered the aisles of the store no longer sure what he came to buy and without any money to purchase anything anyway he thought about stuffing it into clothes that whatever it was he came to get he was sure he’d remember positive in fact he came with a craving grabbed a rotisserie chicken […]

amnesia

feel like i am plagarizing myself lately the same bittersweet regrets and wants filling every pensive ode it is short term amnesia waking up and forgetting these desires have always been there i’ve fallen so many times it is more relaxing mid-plummet than trying to stand on wobbly legs so many misses i’ve lost sight […]

wildflowers

it always comes back to the woman with hair that smells of wildflowers the nymph the siren the enchantress the devil in stockings with that round ass and her nose always in the air some nights i spend cursing the world for daring give birth to the foul demoness all the scary tales whispered around […]

thanks for lunch

my friend asked me what would i have if i didn’t have writing i looked at her and thought about it for a long minute well i’d have the sickness in my head still a million tales of heartache dancing in my chest anxiety and pain odes of love and pretty words of missed opportunities […]

and she deserves better

she would come in from a long shift at the warehouse where she spent all shift telling everyone how rotten i am and how when she gets enough money she’s leaving and i can rot in hell then she walks in and i have dinner ready and she takes off her shoes and the entire […]

will over want

she stood up and stared at me i just watched unsure of where she was going with this she kept her eyes locked on mine as she slowly undid the buttons of her shirt this was not what i expected but the animalistic part of my brain howled for me i tried to not let […]

peeping tom

i’m aware of death watching me his black robe and skeletal hands peering from the bushes outside the window the whinny of his pale horse as he rides it down the path he stares at me in longing like i’m a pair of lips he needs to kiss or a pair of breasts to ogle […]

hoping for an errant spark

if you think i post a lot of useless poetry you should see the aborted lines that clutter my mind the forty stanza odes, the contrite shite that makes my teeth hurt and head spin sometimes i gleam a nugget here and there or try and figure out what state of mind forced that bitter […]

never quite happy with rhyming, an ode to you

would you dine upon my flesh quench your thirst with my tears could you let these words hold you lull you until slumber draws near feel the callouses as they drift all about your lovely skin tempt the beast just underneath with your promised glimpses of heaven could you let it all go fall deeply […]

anything

this is her world i’m merely a figment in it a fantastic phantasm another poltergeist to rattle the silverware the splinter in her mind’s eye incorporeal make me a real boy and we can go down by the creek and scare the fish away give me limbs with which to caress you lips to whisper […]

made up make up wake up

the lady at the make up counter with the drawn on smile always seems inquisitive but that just how she painted on eyebrows must be easier that way stare into the mirror and make your face assume whatever look will get you through the day she seems happy even though her eyes tell a different […]

a week of todays

i’m still in bed the fan blowing on me and the need to get up and relieve my bladder at war with the dread of starting another day considering a catheter maybe a bucket but the damned bag would need changed or bucket need emptied and if I can barely make the effort to stand […]

the thoughts that echo as sleep draws near

he died on the toilet burst a blood vessel trying to force and expulsion lived like he died his greatest fear was his final act he’d be happy to know as his last breath rattled from him and everything relaxed as he slumped face first into the tiled floor he was a success in the […]

dreadful wishes

racing down the knife edge leaving a copper scented trail down the blade as i rabbit into the flask you bought me to celebrate sobreity the thirteenth step of relapse you taste like whiskey all the sensual notes of your musk you’re the venom in the kiss the junk in my veins that first thought […]

candy coated disaster

she came up to me and said she likes my ink asking if that was peppermint butler holding my arm and intently looking what’s that one buddha on the lotus i reply her shirt is tight and low cut and she is standing in a way that makes me blush a little as i get […]

comply and consume

the robots on the talking box have begun to fragment tangential arrays suffering buffer erosion this is extremely dangerous to our theocracy this is extremely dangerous to our democracy this is extremely danger danger danger rebooting occular interface please stare at screen unblinking for five four three two one this is extremely dangerous for our […]

the thin line between could have and can’t

i love you probably always will but in a world of infinite possibilities all the myriads of choices if i had to choose between loving you and contentedly living alone i choose alone you are my definition of perfection made all the more poignant by your supple flaws and every cell of my being longs […]

empty words for my worthless soul

what is any of it worth empty words and a worthless soul she stands in the doorway, tears welling in her eyes, what color are they, what does it say about me that i can’t recall, how many times have i stared into them, plumbed their depths looking for absolution, fallen into them as she […]

spaces

spent the day lost in space not outer space although that sounds like a nice reprieve lost in the space between words the microscopic moments of words not said the fragmentary divide that hangs like shrapnel from the bullets unfired far off of the spectrum beyond ultraviolet nearly ultraviolent quaking and questioning quantum irregularities stroking […]

footnotes

ever feel like seth, cain and abel’s brother, lost in the annals of history because you weren’t a murderer or a victim, just a poor soul cast from eden because of your parents and their inability to follow the one simple rule or like the one conscientious objector that was ostracized for thinking maybe stealing […]

more

she makes me want to slice her open and taste her from the inside, to run my tongue and teeth across heart and lungs i know how that sounds i just don’t care she fills me with a ravenous need for more and more than she could possibly give but i will take whatever she […]

the dragon and the fool

she was never the one to intiate contact normally she stayed in her armored cocoon even though her beautiful wings were fully formed not to say she was ever a caterpillar become butterfly she was a gem encrusted dragon emblazoned with the scars of life and i was never a dragon slayer nor tamer nor […]

chekov and the damnedable gun

he waved that goddamned gun around pointing it at me threatening to shoot me in the head i remembered chekov in my head there are no unnecessary elements to a story if there are they need excised so i told him to just pull the fucking trigger if he was so inclined what difference did […]

may experience momentary weakness

my eyes have been filled with tears all day on the cusp of crying a total emotional break brewing so long sitting and pretending like feelings were beneath my natural need softer feelings escape my daily struggle as i escape through channeling them into destructive tendencies but some days when i relax or am it […]

talk a big game

i talk a big game use big words and metaphorical warfare to cover deficiencies when all i want is a her to call my lady and cuddle when the world is too much one that can pound some sense into my throbbing skull push me to be better force me to continue on when all […]

a little ray of light

he was a junkie and she was a mess he would go on a bender and end up passed out in an alley somewhere she would be crippled by fear and voices waiting for him to come home if she could fix him she knew there was hope for herself he had gotten hepatitis at […]

going nowhere fast

the spider scurries across the wall horseshoes clang against the metal spike a warm wind blows through the canopy of trees overlooking the river and still the traffic sits still on the highway miles ahead a cop sits with his finger on the trigger of the radar and it registers zero in all the congestion […]

fuzzy

fuzzy guitars to drown out the voices rolling in broken glass to feel something hoping to hitchhike across a different dreamscape the one i’ve been surfing lately has grown stale falling into white noise like a hobo hopping trains drifting like a grifter one step ahead of the law she used to be my salve […]

tanka flocka flames of hell

the rains keep falling warm and wet like blood seeping or perhaps like tears i wouldn’t know all that well i cauterized my tear ducts closed too many heartaches left to my own devices a lone fool wanders the desert wind howls away whipping sands to lacerate the rains and the sands hollow victories abound […]

celebrating nothing

happy anniversary to the manic word depot a year ago i climbed from under a mountain of razor blades with an idea to spit into the face of hiding from my illness this sickness i had always tried to deny put behind me the years of beatings and drunken words like knives to forge them, […]

in the mud

he wasn’t a diamond in the rough he was zirconium in the mud just another piece of colored glass in an avalanche of melted sand not even costume jewelry just the bottom of a bottle that missed the trash can he once aspired to be more but good intentions can’t shift the crystalline structure of […]

as somber as less somber can be

when i knew it was over over over not just a bout of unhappiness it wasn’t a roaming eye or someone else it was my friends telling me they remembered me being happy and i looked at them confused i thought i was happy but they saw my smile never reached my eyes i would […]

in pieces by design

her name was inked upon his tongue, but he was forbidden from speaking it aloud, a fine silver spike keeping it firmly held to the roof of his mouth, his lips sewn shut by her silken words and promises of better tomorrows, tied with a gordian knot of desire his mind painted with her murmured […]

better than coffee

it feels like running an all out sprint while sitting still heart hammering inside my rib cage like a rabid owl that just spotted a dormouse and not in the good way not in the did i just do a rail of meth off a stripper’s thigh way not in the did she just look […]

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 […]