the age of beauty in urban decay is failing as we watch the sullen collapse of suburban mimicry the well planned even rows of monopoly houses set in sigils to call forth the elder ones that slumber aeons deep beneath the empty malls tumbleweed laden parking lots of cracked asphalt in front of closed down […]
those bastardly irongripped fingers that grasp my tongue rendering me incapable of speech rise up from the freshly interred soil in the latest in a long line of attempts at what the chemicals decree devoir le plus important chips away the marble edifice where hope once thrived and all i wish to do is scream […]
maybe the key to figuring out the absurdity of existence is not to zig when it zags but to fall into the gradient of madness we are taught to avoid as innocent idiots to revel in the pitfalls like a fork in the cheek of fate as we creep along the spiderweb woven into the […]
etched upon the faceless face of death are the last spit words of every poet doomed in shackles of disparate need left wanting even in their foulest endings
we are the dreams the dreamers dream upon sipping the wines of yon regret a bourdeaux chablis christened with angel’s tears.
the edge of longing laps the soul, the crane cries out in the dark, eyes like broken pottery beckon alone among the whistling reeds, she exudes panoramic indecency, in shades of emerald malaise reaching up towards the sky, a drip of crimson stains the moon, as viridescent globules blossom she is gone, the wind whispers […]
she wore a cloak of finest spun night the cosmos reflected on her breasts through the clinging infinite darkness how i longed to trace her erect nipples with rough fingertips use teeth pinch lick squeeze every bit of her milky way until my fingers found the wetness at the center of her universal desire explore […]
if beauty were perfectly transcribed from ideal into the soul of one person ms plath was this personification but to balance the wonder she could pull from the aether there must be a profound sadness to keep the scales afloat it is in the heart of this sorrow that ms plath did the unthinkable it […]
the worst part of deep depression is the images it compels every smile every moment every memory is so clear it cuts with razor edges fruitful and futile in the same jagged instant forcing the blood to mix with the ink as the quill carves through the page to slice directly into the fragmentary soul […]
he sits fork scraping pushing his dinner around the plate unable to will the fork to lift unable to taste the meal songs play softly but they are a chorus of discordant buzzing a book lays untouched the words simply swim on the page he tell himself he has to keep moving or he will […]
they comes in swarms with their beady eyes the need palpable dripping off them filling the room with stenchfog i see them for what they are though they wear the right clothes or buy the right perfume or put on make up whatever they read real people do but they are facsimiles cardboard masks that […]
in the darkest night their hieratic spirits envelope me in a cocoon of devilish intent through the halls i scream hunched over a quasimodo for modern times frankenstein’s monster let loose on a global stage a one man pandemic of lucid nightmares bedazzled with stardust fucktassels applied tightly waiting for my fifteen minutes of shameless […]
i have an innate love for words because as silly or obscure there is always one perfect word for a moment i try to collect them store them away use them incorrectly on purpose or through staggering ignorance i will never say when the right word hits at the right time it is like a […]
tu ne trouveras jamais celui qui t’aime moitié moins que moi mais tu es toujours m’a jeté bonne chance en quoi que ce soit tu choisis fuir a l’avenir
turned down two one way streets the wrong way had a moving truck nearly crush me against the wall of the parking garage another almost hit me on the highway the sign on the front desk of my mind says out for terminal dissonance too tired to function unable to sleep the near victim of […]
i am near insufferable mostly lost in the images that flow through my mind even when not writing i am writing along the silent screen in my mind it isn’t that i put the words first it is that it takes being shaken to snap from their call i hide i am quiet i am […]
love is like a penny it costs more to stamp than it ever will be returned on investment or maybe it is just mine that was turned green from disuse tossed aside for a shiny nickel left on the train tracks to be flattened
in a fit of rage and hurt she chopped down every rose bush in the garden then cursed the view that remained instead of replanting she boarded up the home running away to find the next serene spot to begin the cycle anew.
he was a leprechaun who lost it all when the magic died out in the world leaving him with no end of the rainbow to find his lost pot of gold so he peddled snake oil cures claiming miracles were possible knowing damned well there was no easy solution to losing it all they found […]
when i am alone and i am so very alone right now i just let the words spill when i had her i was content to let them slide over her smile like a life preserver when i do not i toss them by the bucketful at the world in attempt to tread water some […]
if i could draw the images i see so clearly i would never write another line i wouldn’t have to open myself to the torrent of words wouldn’t have to be beaten mercilessly one moment gently held the next i would scratch the pencil against the page to convey the infinite sorrow inherent in every […]
nous étions deux comètes c’est venu dans les orbites de l’autre pendant trop peu de temps quand pour toujours aurait été seulement la moitié assez (we were two comets that came into each other’s orbits for too short a time when forever would have been only half enough)
he sits astride his roan the desert sands dance in the ever blowing wind metal tipped lance pointed towards the heavens themselves as if to strike the heart of god seated upon her golden throne of judgement. blackened craters dot the land with cracked spirals of glass from the bolts sent from on high as […]
grand prairie is burning thick gouts of noxious black smoke hanging over all like a funeral shroud sirens sing in the distance as i watch the plumes hungrily climb hints of the fire shine in the man-made overcast tragedy a reflection of my mind given form the land suffers the same ignoble fate as the […]
black coffee matches the thoughts swirling within my head the bitter acidity travels down my blood lined esophagus where it sits with all the bile soaked regrets the sun is too goddamned bright the air too thick with lackadaisical memories but even though her name is still branded on my flesh the skin is healing […]
in order to rise again the phoenix must let itself be consumed by fire every pinion must fully return to ash the hollow bones pop crumble in upon themselves as the flames lick the now bare skin as i lay in this bed blowing flakes of what i once was into a cyclonic tempest of […]
the world is coated in an absolute silence no planes or cars or chatter just the whump whump of the ceiling fan steadily keeping the time as if this is still dream cradling my mind in an alien surrealism a bird let’s out a sharp cry reality rubber bands backs into the humming cacophony i […]
i haven’t really slept for days not for lack of trying not for lack of need but the mind was racing like a stock car driver in the thrall of a mighty deathwish or like a brokenhearted poet. as i lay reading apparently it caught up to me my left eye tender from where the […]
it is beautiful outside and i miss you so fucking much it hurts the you sized hole in my heart is what will finally break me completely.
and Sage Francis sings “i am no destination, i am just a journey, so don’t go settling on me love, no, don’t go settling on me” from a distance the words mislead from the heartbroken fool making him seem like something more than a pit stop on the way to true love upon closer inspection […]
a sparrow standing in the middle of the road plucking at the worms washed out by the rains unnoticing or uncaring of the danger from the vehicles going too fast i see the fat worm it is trying to work into its beak the truck barrelling towards it i press the horn in frantic bursts […]
pt 1 in the before the new normal silence was punctuated by brief moments of adoration the hushed tones were more dramatic in the lack of sound that permeated my globe pt 2 in the after there is a sense of waiting of constant checking of worry that the messages were still coming yet the […]
new blinds in the bedroom after so long with a blacked out room letting in the sunlight across my shadowed den of inexplicable loss. i cleared off the shelves once stacked three deep with hard covered tomes in an effort to divest myself of material possessions in the false hope of home in another land. […]
my passport arrived today just a month after i applied it was a surprise to show my willingness to prove myself to her the surprise was meant for me as she had already given up on me. too little too late for there to be an us just a passport to nowhere population me.
her nose breaks the surface of the clouds displacing the hanging fluff of mist to coalesce upon her higher and higher she rose the sun playing against the side of heck in a dazzling array of colors her eyes gleamed like gemstones as she soared in a playful swoop tagging every cumulus in sight feathery […]
when i was a child that still clung to the notion that life was an adventure filled with excitement fraught with peril and in the end the hero found true love i imagined a great brass diving bell that would take me fathoms below the surface where i would walk along the ocean bottom in […]
he is a competitive eater traveling the country completing challenges for free shirts free meals and an odd sort of fame the steady progression from fit to fat as the videos play on show a compulsion becoming a precipitous decline yet i cannot stop watching as he fills the void with eight pound platters and […]
it isn’t that i cannot breathe it is that i wish i could just stop. every burning exhalation carries an unheard i love you across the seas.
in my heart there is a hymnal in my mind a stained glass refrain through my fingers arcing poetry across my tongue bitter disdain my bones are calcified regret my eyes blinded by desire my nostrils filled with wildflowers my feet set upon the fire her smile cracked the armor her touch the sweetest pain […]
maybe the problem with me came about in the assembly two parts teenage lust one part accidental pregnancy two lives ruined beat until frustration is gone apply a series of doomed relationships vigorously add anxiety depression loathing (self preferably) leave a trail of breadcrumbs in the truancy of hope then let loose upon the world […]
i follow the eight five three rule of sleep since the end of all i held dear eight hours in bed five staring at the ceiling replaying a greatest hits package that ends in tears three hours of broken sleep punctuated by waking with her name on my lips rinse and repeat every night for […]
i am aware as the record skips the same refrain looped a sharp pop then repeated in the silence in the brutal light of stark honesty there is no gray life is merely rigidly defined sets of absolutes i tell myself to ignore the ancillary soundtrack but it is in that white noise that the […]
i sit skinless as the inimical wind gallops astride the ignoble bared bits clinging like barnacles to this shell i have become i welcome the raucous spiderweb of sublimated torment for in destroying the last lumps of myself lies the hope of hastening an economical return to dust
outside a sudden summer storm comes to life with a fury to match the malevolent hear that has baked the land for days and days i let my own lost mind rage along with the winds my hurt darken the sky my loss fall down my scruffy cheeks like the raindrops does the storm strike […]
this nothing affixed to my chest like an anchor in the presence of this absence i am stricken with an inability to feel anything except for loss it scares me this not caring a part of my mind screams as i drive too fast down the road but the part in control has ceased to […]
she planted a garden filled with bulbs that would never bloom tended tenderly every morning with great care to keep the nurturing soil barren. a salamander with eyes of the bluest flame lay upon a nest of stones thinking them to be eggs never curious as to why they do not hatch. a broken crown […]
through cardiac ablation they burn away clusters of nerves sending improper electrical impulses that cause irregular heart beats through nerve ablation they burn away clusters of nerves sending pain signals throughout a portion of the body usually concentrated around the neck i need cranial ablation to the gray matter to burn away this bone deep […]
trying to thread the needle of explaining to an eleven year old that love is real while barely able to get out of bed because the world is a series of pains inflicted. fake a smile whisper a benediction that he never knows the sting of rejection that he doesn’t plan a future that ends […]
he was an old pervert that loved ladies booze horses céline and classical music. not necessarily in that order. depending on the day depending on the mood depending on the number of glasses in he was. he was a prickly old shit by the time he became the greatest living poet. it just got worse […]
laying in the darkness lying to the darkness that it isn’t all there fucking is listening to the darkness as it softly mockingly laughs back yet again. it is all that there is as emerald forks of ache travel listlessly upon the miasmic totality of what life has become just darkness exhaustion and pain.
i am not convinced the sun will ever rise again that this eclipse that has forced her light from reflecting from mine own eyes isn’t just another end of the world misinterpreted from aztec ruins and i am just so fucking defeated by it all
the whites of his eyes were the sallow tint of a rat’s teeth as it hisses angrily rearing up on a dumpster in a piss stained alley. if the poor bastard had gotten any sleep it wasn’t in the last month or so as he blearily squints into the noonday sun as if flabbergasted he […]
in a perfect world i would have two sets of eyelids like an alligator that way i would have some protection from the swamp waters of misery that i find myself suspended in for all intent and purposes i could appear very nearly human while maintaining visibility as i drown.
when i close my eyes i see your face for the last year and a half that was pure heaven but the last week has made it a living catastrophic hell.
i remember spending the whole day so concentrated on her because i couldn’t be there sending all of my love through message to make up for the lack of proximity in the end it was what i didn’t do that mattered more than the intent i applied if i could do it differently my instinct […]
i was taught at a young age to build walls with every new pain to apply brick and mortar that if something wasn’t brought up it wasn’t to be talked about that in the absence the small words held the biggest meaning even when unable to manifest as long as you were there it was […]
i don’t want to go to sleep because i cannot think of a good reason to wake up. there are spiders in my brain that crawl incessantly all i think about is what was lost. exhaustion sorrow and an inability to pick up the pieces yet again. and just enough knowledge to know nothing will […]
a violin with frayed bow plays in the distance every third note squeals off key as the sky darkens above the birds fall silent In the trees upon the eaves along the lone gravel road a weathervane squeaks in higher urgency as it begins spinning swirling bits of trash leaves grass whip into a frenzied […]
if you find yourself willing to give up everything you have known because the destination is worth the cost be warned when there is nothing left of that hope you are suddenly forced to look around at what was once a transient state now stained with permanence.
i wanted a kitty but the long term plans made the idea a poor one then i was let go from my position as loved one left with no plan now a stifling inability to take care of myself means a kitty is a bad idea my world was contingent on a continental shift but […]
they covered the leaves the fat white slugs sightless grubs peculiar things that seemed out of place in the fairy tale forest of once upon a time dying slowly with no princess to save nor witch in a cottage at the end of the long winding path tucked between leaning trees with gnarled branches crowding […]
he was an old man that had momentarily forgotten the sting of age one that seemed preoccupied with dreams that had long since expired but he let linger on much like the list of things he would never accomplish. he let himself have these flights of fancy where he wasn’t who he was the world […]
the world keeps spinning irregardless of the wobble in my heart. there is a lesson there but i am not nearly smart enough to find it.
from child abuse to self abuse to the fallacy of opening up only so that it can occur again and again. some doors get locked other get boarded up. this one is having molten lead poured over then a controlled explosion to make the barracade stick. the key left rusted discarded unwanted all the way […]
heaving sobs emptiness all that beckons lost in a maze of blank faces predestined to fade away misery, my lover eerily bemoaned i stumble blindly against the knowledge my own failings blossom depression regal and sublime overpowers everything where once there was dream nothing remains inconsolable needles of loss piercing gone, she walked away
if her’s are the last lips i will ever kiss at least i went out with having one dream come true.
for the last year and a half there was a goal a new horizon ready to be explored a new life ready to be lived now there is no destination the map just sits blank accusingly no borders no recommended route just a spinning icon a painful reminder that home is no longer an option.
some people reach out in their moment of need seek the light from outside to brighten the shadows inside some have been beaten enough to just retreat into those same shadows because they were taught to hide she was the sun burning away the clinging remnants of old pain into nothing but vague recollection at […]
she collected snowflakes the first snowfall of every season if she could just find two that were identical then maybe that would prove that somewhere out there in the dark night of her loneliness hopefully there was someone looking for her as well it’s been years but still she looks standing alone in a blizzard […]
the wind whistles through the stone outcropping hanging over the arid plains the lone call of the hawk as it circles high above the varied shades of brown below it is there the heartache blends itself into the vast world of undulating sweetness of sin far away from the wagging tongues of naysayers preoccupied with […]
when she first appeared from behind the black curtains my heart lurched into my throat at her beauty in sequined tights she smiled out over the crowd with such a sublime perfection it is a wonder men didn’t begin fighting at once for her attentions i sat numbed to everything but the sadness showing in […]
as the mists coalesced around her bare feet a sudden cold fell over the land the leaves once vibrant verdant foilage now brown piles of detritus left to blow across the barren land she moves like autumn falling into winter just footprints etched into the soil the memory of her kiss burnt into my flesh.
she was a tangle of roots growing through the maze of interred corpses in shiny wooden boxes snaking her way through the decomposed odes to instability as buried in imagery too complex yet with a tenacity that bordered nearly on the obsessed she was able to suss out the hidden sun that shimmering darkness in […]
when she whispered i love you the moon flared pink when she snatched it back an entire section of stars simply blinked out. it’s funny how so sudden an absence can shift the universe.
a hollow rancid shell of perverse chocolate nightmare carefully molded into the form of middle aged mania a tarnished cage hangs suspended in the void within where an emaciated sparrow sits bathed in morose languish nothing remains in the circumstantial doubts of poor decisions and abysmally lackluster performance hollow man with a broken heart dancing […]
i rub the needle across the magnet set it on a leaf in a cup of water all in hopes of finding direction in the ever spinning fluctuations of the ever hungry unhinged jaws of desperation. depression is the accumulated baggage of a life half lived anxiety the whip across bare knuckles pushing on with […]
having been abused of the notion of disillusion since the first tentative swings of the wire hanger led to the steady building of walls between myself and emotional constructs on the sandy soil made of crushed dreams a one man jenga using wrecking balls instead of gentle pressure only to stand dumbfounded in the piles […]
when we awake from this dream the sterile light of dawn is nothing but a painful reminder of what was lost. honesty is a terrible sword to wield, cutting both the teller and receiver, leaving jagged wounds time never quite heals. so it is, we are born alone only to die alone. seeking those singular […]
canals run down my weathered cheek to divert the salted essence of dream as it evaporates from unseeing eyes. it would feel less like drowning if the world weren’t murky if my skin weren’t wet if the racking sobs would stop forcing air into deflated lungs. but what else is there hope that one day […]
i kept waking reaching for her not unusual the pain of missing her combined with the pain in my shoulder has me up four to ten times a night but these times were different because somewhere out there she wasn’t reaching for me as well so the pain in my shoulder was joined by a […]
and as the last petal falls free to the ground. it floats gently lands softly in that moment of silent agony. beauty is gone from the world as we know it. it wasn’t as if it hadn’t tried to maintain its luster. gravity has a way of breaking every damned thing. you just feel it […]
she cast a gaze of typical ridicule enhanced with notes of cyclical circumstance leaving the softer parts of living to fall with the shed scales of loneliness. it was a movement arranged across the subdermal spectrum of childlike wonder misplayed by shaking unpracticed hands across the ivory keys upon ebon fallen tears. there was a […]
silence smothers the globe a haze a malaise from the days beneath a blanket of nothing that itches like fiberglass against the bare body of need. clawing against dry skin to expose the meat of the matter the atrophied muscles from blackened unoxygenated sludge where blood used to flow freely. the star attraction for a […]
in decadent daydreams amidst a lazy river of caramel kisses floats the sterile waffle cone paddle boat dipped in white chocolate whimsy dabbed with raspberry reverie cut with the acidic tang of lime tears calcified wonder in fondant rigor carefully shaped to exude an illusionary indifference as cotton candy clouds turn gray dropping pop rock […]
in a world of ostriches find your inner wombat you don’t have to bury your head in the sand just learn to recognize the scents that will carry you home.
the ghosts swirl around her every movement a host of hellish intent forming an invisible yet impenetrable bank of fog filling the room with the metallic scent of anxious panic she is never alone not entirely no matter where she seeks a singular moment of reprieve from the constant babble of voices whispering of every […]
my dad never got to see my name on the spine of a book never got to hold his grandchildren never got to see whatever it is the world became or how it shaped us some days that is an unbearable weight chained around my neck as i struggle uphill in every direction with the […]
if the liberty bell can be famous for being broken there is nothing stopping you.
i’ve come to terms certain realities will never form from the aether magically around me: that six pack is going to have to be nestled firmly in padding those cheater glasses aren’t temporary but a necessity there won’t be a magical day where i catch my reflection and smile there won’t be a nobel laureate […]
a goat farm surrounded by mesquite across the highway from an indian restaurant combination tire shop forests of fiberglass windmills like white thorns on the side of squaw mountain as jacksboro looms in the distance the worn yellow brick inscribed with 1899 proudly displayed in a snapshot taken from the parking lot of the dollar […]
when the government realizes children take up less space with smaller coffins without affecting the bottom line of immediate returns, this is when it becomes an imperative to send them back to school so the dilligent drones can punch that time clock. if we refuse to learn from history we can just destroy the future […]
some days not all maybe three in seven are filled with abject misery for some reason those are the days i feel most comfortable as myself. i am well aware this is most certainly unhealthy yet it doesn’t make it any less true.
https://wp.me/pGgpK-jw My friend and wonderful poet, Jezzy Wolfe, does this thing where she asks 6 questions and posts them on the 6th of the month. This time she interviewed me! I had a lot of fun and she dug into my inherent love of wombats and I wrote a wombat limerick.
the snake never questions the feasibility of economic fragility the serpent only tends to the soft truth in the hiss and sighs tenderly wound beyond the hollow reproach within necessity. the spider weaves not a web in pursuit of artistic integrity the arachnid spins silk to lure the budding naivete inherent within the withering dismay […]
memories are weightless but the sweet loss weighs a ton my spine is twisted into an ampersand to give more room for her sweeping across ancillary nerve endings. my irises have adopted the half smile she would wear as she bent over in nothing but my old t-shirt knowing my eyes were locked on the […]
the morose rose tilted lazily against the glazed vase her rosey neurosis played hell on the world of laissez fair despair
under the lonesome stars rests the last vestigal scarring from meteoric caress. a festering bite marked arm hangs limply against the desert sand full of scorpion stings the final kiss goodnight in fevered sweat drenched by incremental hell. explosions sound off behind tightly clenched eyelids denying the ravenous need for spoiled desire.
sepulchral manuevers beneath the distilled desire laid carefully like floorboards upon the matrimonial suite dreams languishing in the ebon tides of woe. a diamond a thorn a droplet of crimson on the freshly fallen ash of winter’s lamented beguile. it was in her laughter i heard the call of ravens, in the cinnamon that clung […]
her afterimage burnt into the unseeing third eye buried deeply inside my psychosis. i am the mirror image of who i yearn to be cast in multiplicity among the varied funhouse fungi releasing spores to alter disillusion into braille for all the world to feel. i built this labyrinth with the bloodied stumps left from […]
(un)fettered by m ennenbach paperback is available now! Kindle version is still set for the 11th, but now you can hold it in your hands. This is another large collection, 200 some poems. And it is beautiful. I’m as proud of this as anything I have released, perhaps more so. My partners in crime, Patrick […]
Mike's Manic Word Depot 