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 […]
i feel more(alive) coloring outside the lines find more(beauty) in the spaces between rather than the atoms(vibrating) in lonesome anguish in a world of filters we lose sight of what is real only to realize that(ugly is beautiful) in misunderstood brush strokes when watching raindrops on a glass door the enjoyment is (in the) variance […]
as i sit cross-legged on the floor feeling the timbers shudder as the concrete cracks the embers of the world falling down around me like lightning bugs in a hurricane there is a peace amidst the insanity an order to the chaos of yet another catastrophe befallen in unspoken fear. of all the four letter […]
le tenebre clung alle sue dolci curve come nessun altro amante avrebbe potuto sognare il suo tocco sinuoso gocciolando nei suoi pori pervertitrice il suo stesso sangue mentre pompa per tutto (the darkness clung to her gentle curves like no other lover could have dreamt its sinuous touch trickling into her pores perverting her very […]
when i opened myself to her my guts came out like writhing vipers that hissed and snapped at the autumn air in angry knots my bones like broken glass held together by rusted barb wire and muscles like slugs perch upon the slick ivory calcified remains when i told her i loved her she recoiled […]
it has been three years since i found myself pulled beneath the surface of the river of words three years four thousand poems soon to be four books twenty two times published. yet still i feel like an imposter. ever since i pulled the chain to light up the neon manic word depot sign in […]
part of me hopes to have a massive coronary while banging on the keys of the fucking 1969 smith corona typewriter i just had to have as another insipid poem is left to rot in the aether to be misunderstood in decades my disposition spurred by the bitter taste of anise in my soul that […]
waterbears and dust mites swim in every pore each a galaxy of unseen horror living across the faces of every person you’ve ever dreamt of kissing. microscopic incidents of accidental insidiousness laid bare beneath the heaving bilipid layers of water proof residue. biological warfare on the playground of wanton sexual desires leave a smear of […]
she stared out the window watching the storm clouds slowly swallow any hope of a better day pulling petals off of the daisy on the off chance the sickening need to be loved could be had by wishing on the death of beauty
there is blankness when you first see the emptiness of the void reflected in the youth’s eyes witnessing them be euthanized shredded reduced left with nothing but littered sighs tattered lies cannibalized and despised because the only thing the world ever does is take deflate and remake churning them into something less as the river […]
at first the loops are gradual joyous as you cycle the outer ring as they get tighter speed up pulling you closer towards the inside until the spiral is so advanced it feels just like a precipitous plummet from safety to uncontrolled chaos ending with a gurgle of water to wash you out to sea […]
ground underneath the blood flecked sole of the souless planet like a discrded cigarette butt of a misunderstood joke on the sidewalk to nowhere the ember of hope crushed into a dirty stain to drift off on the stale air of tomorrow
the lasers bounce magnifying themselves in the crystal skull of indifference perched upon a broken neck of shame
darling, it’s raining again washing away the ugly from the city to run into the drains then back to the tap to be drank and pissed into the sewers it so wanted to find darling, it’s raining again burning drops of chemical haze belched from the chimneys to settle deep in the soil so many […]
there is a grainy zapruder quality in stuttering black and white that plays when ever she crosses the back roads of my mind a cloud of dust wherever her dainty toes step disconstructing the strands of dna reassembling the frozen instant she walked away back and to the left my head snapped back and to […]
run, little rabbit flee this insidious mess of snapping twigs hawks in flight let the heavy pounding of your pulse guide your paws across the uneven ground. run, little rabbit as if your life depends on it for it does as the darkness creeps across the sky above to drape the land in shadowous peril.
oh hell the fool wants to write another shitty ode to those squishy feelings that wind their way across the nervous system of inconsequential chemical release in an effort to feel more like a human in an age of dehumanizing rancor
i get depressed end up reading hank then i get angry as the neighbor upstairs does aerobics at three in the morning as the car alarm goes off the neighbors across the parking lot that spent all night loudly making love now argue in half heard epithets spit like occam’s razor against the silence i […]
there is something about walking under the moonlight through a copse of trees on a winding path near a babbling brook as the insects sing songs of fucking from the thick brown bark hidden in the shadow that seem to cover everything to make you realize there is something about sitting on the couch with […]
he seemed to be as perfectly unremarkable as damn near any of the bastards that walked around with chests puffed out in one size too small shirt to accentuate the slow drift from youthful muscle to middle age paunch the spiked up hair that sought to misdirect from the thinning with inarticulate gesticulations frozen in […]
the neon tube sizzles gas ignites a flare of pink in the shape of a lower case t beneath the words jes_s saves flashes to entice the unclean the sinners the lost sheep but it feels meaningless without u filthy street water enters the hole in the bottom of my shoe worn soles even more […]
there was a winsome look in her gaze as the last spotlight faded as she relived the years on stage from those awkward first nights to the heyday of coke and easy marks a sense of pride briefly washed across her before the steady decline reminded her how she got to this final curtain call […]
he built a scaffold out of the ivory bones of affection used it to scale down to tap the reflection of the moon in the bottom of the sea the coral cut and snagged his suspenders, suspended in the waters, neon pink daydreams of high colonic dismay a diorama menagerie of carefully sculpted plankton beside […]
i’ve only seen the ocean a handful of times having grown up landlocked with only the blue gray of lake michigan as a reference the first time it seemed angry in its wrath as the waves bashed the land for as far as i could see down the coast the second time wasn’t really the […]
the rains began somewhere out over the mountains the jagged spires that dare pierce the emptiness of the heavens awash in reticence as the gales pound the ancient stone the tall grass sways in the valley as the birds of prey take flight in search of rabbits frantically seeking warrens in the cool soil starless […]
the words flow intangible streams of viridescent syllables shifting the banks trying to tame the torrents into the winding prose of poetic meanderings allowing them to take control through soulshallows anxiously scraping bonecoral flaking calcium sediment into a slurry to slow the incomprehensible darting quicksilver of insanity creating a poem is pulling every nerve ending […]
time is an ouroboros certainty a myth emotion is the tinder her gaze became the spark the blue flames rush eager to consume the timbers of justification leaving only whirling mists in ancillary meaning. buried deeply beneath the whims of sufferage deep in the recesses of angular precision sits a solitary mass uncorrupted by insubstantial […]
turn your head towards the wall and tip your head back, lower your mask so that your nose only is exposed i do as i am requested the tightness in my chest mixed with the fear from countless friends descriptions of the procedure there is no warning no this may sting or gentle squeeze of […]
i sat in my boxers on the couch watching stitched together photos of mars as i marveled at the alien planet come to life on the screen in front of me the hispanic lady across the hall stood in her doorway screaming profanities at her children those same monsters that run roughshod across the complex […]
the mechanical god has fallen into disrepair disuse as shinier objects take center atage as the digital age swallows the world in an opaque blue that dulls the senses of sensory overload the last gear rusts in aortic spasms sheering the pin that kept the world afloat awash in ones and zeros the new overlord […]
he flops on the shore like a seal slapping sand to prevent the sun from burning delicate skin drowning in his own inability insufferable for the self perceived suffering sending the words into the darkened place in the root of his spine where only fools or monsters dare venture.
she smelled of sweet sweat her skin tasted salty yet it was beyond my reckoning to control myself from salivating as she tiredly undressed in front of the full length mirror hanging from the closet door even with her shoulders slightly slumped i felt the burning need to lick every inch of her before taking […]
her second (third? fourth?) chin swelled like a bullfrog in heat as she looked down her bulbous nose at me unaware or uncaring of the snot waving with every heaving breath. can i take your order i carefully folded the menu set it on the table trying not to flinch as visions of the green […]
there is an absurdity in the natural order of chaos that regulates the division between seen unseen dreamt and wished. a knock kneed little sycophant pleading with tear filled eyes at the last rapture of emotional dismissal as punctuated by the deafening silence in the blank stare of love’s understated refusal she never could look […]
she set me down gently swaddled in false adoration on the shredded newspaper littered floor in a glinting cage of golden words spun from the dying heart of hope. if she cast a nickel to my feet for every sovereign lie bespoke in earnest tones the avalanche of silver coins would be enough to bury […]
been laying in the lush foilage nestled against the dry ground as the insects feast upon the supple flesh of good intention leaving nothing but a husk that once resembled a man of virtue
there is a radiation pulsating from somewhere between my fourth and eighth chakras causing spasms in the tenebrae film coating my third eye using echolocation to find the sliver of joy hidden in the craggy misery like broken teeth of giants that burst from the desolation permeating the sacred seals the blind journey made by […]
rectangular reticence in the midst of resurgent regurgitate another day in the curved corners of crazed circumstance and as she strode barefoot across the thorny disposition of roses in full wilted splendor, droplets of crimson soaked deep into the salted soil of youth, she shared a bitter smile for the bright sky of benevolent beauty […]
staring at the world through the filtered lens of the abyss, an ever spinning counter clockwise void of nothing with a shimmering black center unaware the ground beneath is slowly consumed by the unrelenting hunger, standing with locked knees and vacant adoration slipping, slipping into the end, is it falling if there is no sense […]
away from me, soggoth, wretched creature from beyond the scope of time; back, back, to the stoney carapace of aeons olde dark madness; for in your insipid insanity whispered soft in the gurgling tones of r’lyeh; lie the shadows of the sleeping beings, to whom all is naught but prey; the words call, resonating deeply, […]
your timidness is brazen even as your lies taste sweet. you fool me not, fair lioness dressed as though a doe you seek to deceive but your claws rake the earth. and still the fool draws closer to his inevitable end she pierces the paper thin skin breaking the fragile bones of glass
the red hot hooks tear easily into the soft flesh of abdominal digression chained to the fetid earth facedown to muffle the screams as the loose soil fills the airways where vacant screams once lived a series of long rusty nails pounded lovingly into the skull to release the demons who feel naught but anxiety […]
they chopped down the bushes outside my bedroom window silencing the chorus of birds that used to greet me in the morning they closed down the comic shop down the street that was my favorite stop on wednesdays to chat about the newest books the creepy house on top of the hill burned down where […]
the exploited play screaming fuck the usa from a simpler time when the world sat at the brink of nuclear war when punk rock had been proclaimed dead on a stage in san francisco as johnny rotten asked if the crowd had ever felt cheated but it was not dead not even close the caterpillar […]
i woke not to pee or roll over not from dream or pain my mouth was full of saliva i lay half dazed swallowing too much spit only for my mouth to immediately fill i have worn this skin suit long enough to realize when it is not operating optimally the oversalivation was a precursor […]
the beavers in my mind have erected a dam that keeps the fiction silent as i desperately try to wrangle the words overhead a group of sparrows drops shiny bits of metal pieces of colorful yarn an occasional twig to feed the rumbling hunger of poetry it’s like drowning in a mud puddle after pulling […]
i hear your sound the soft snowfall of your thump woosh as the world falls silent around me i smell your scent of wildflowers kissed by the summer sun even as the world erupts in flames i taste your lips like honeyed wine with hints of autumn rot while the ashes coat my wagging tongue […]
the parisians took to the streets to celebrate the use of the old guillotine wine splashed across the cobblestones an augury to the blood to come they packed the bars awaiting the guest of honor to be paraded to the wood and iron implement of final resting of succinct endings a bucket placed unceremoniously in […]
there is a sine wave that follows the clinical chemical wake of emotional response her deep brown eyes caught mine from across the smoke filled haze of too many drinks too much smoke too little concern i followed that wave unerringly a cartoon dog on the scent of a steak have you ever known your […]
maybe it is the smoke in my lungs the willie album playing low or the deep down soul weary loneliness that tickles my deadened limbs but the world feels off centered just enough that i am having issues telling what is and what is most certainly not real in this prison of mental construction of […]
she stared at me from the eyeholes of a raven’s skull through the beady little eyes of the mice in the walls(and as i fell through the subdermal retractionary physics of a wormhole to the ass end of intergalactic redundance) i could hear her voice in the scratching branches on the frost covered window pane […]
i make words into balloon animals cartoonish shapes to entice a reaction. she twists them into the prettiest noose to slip around my fluttering heart. together we will leave a crime scene to baffle to dazzle to ensure we’re never forgotten. what more could a couple of budding sociopaths wish for as the bodies pile […]
ginsberg howled over the greatest minds. being destroyed by the traumas of war in a world where war was something sacred an every couple of decades event where the young were lined up to die in pursuit of some golden ideal of some ignoble truth that was nebulous errant the shimmering glow from marcellus wallace’s […]
a fraction of gossamer memory draped across the ocean to reflect the substandardized ego pulls tightly the spider with swollen abdomen drips venom on the incidental recollection constricting into an atypical trap of grainy black and white images that show a yesterday that never quite occured an occular manifestation of optimal misrembrance drawing the fangs […]
he smiles with teeth like crooked headstones swaying behind her(she is staring at the ground unseeing) the whiff of rot swirls in the wind attracting gnats in a cloud of buzzing theatrics(she is in bed still unable to make herself rise) in a fit of unjust clarity of self clarification calculating infinite lies(the dead all […]
the vulture flies lazily above my head it’s shadow a reflection of happiness in the less than stellar residuals of blank horror. come pick my carcass clean you brazen bastard just know i know you are the epitomy of dream
she fluttered her long lashes the motion pulling my gaze from the murky waters instinct has me darting forward before rationality could step to the forefront it wasn’t until the hook pierced my lip i was dragged to gasp in the barren sunshine of her false adoration suffocating in her desperate momentary need in the […]
i had an aunt she lived in a junkyard for a spell i liked walking among the skeletons of automotive decay she always had odd signs on the walls over the toilet read ‘my aim is to keep this bathroom clean, your aim helps’ i can’t recall her voice or the color of her eyes […]
she would bite my bottom lip sometimes midkiss as she came i eventually came to connect the taste of pennies with her clenching craved it long after she became another she that went away unable to cope with a too busy mind i’d cut my lip just a little close my eyes remembering that rapturous […]
she always carried a length of wire when she went out at night the stars in her smile as she clutched at the metal quite tight she turned with a flourish humming a fanfarish-like tune with the wire held just right it appeared she tethered the moon
she dug her toes into the soft soil a dryad in search of her oak tree little did she guess that her satyr was searching for her as well the nymph in shades of blossom danced in the fertile mud of hope swollen bud dripped sweet nectar calling out the passion in his soul oh […]
backed into a corner the coppery taste of blood runs along his tongue his pupils pinpricks his pulse raging in his skull his hands shake as the incongruency of the universe bears down leaving him with no choice so he hunched down into a ball ignored every instinct that had only ever led him into […]
we are all incapable of seeing the hypocrisies we commit but so fast to point them out in another if an ounce of understanding were shared instead of self justification maybe things would flow smoother
the aeroplane spins towards the ocean flames consuming the engines as the wings splinter. there’s an analogy there for the state of the world. but i am sure someone else made the exact same point in a more poignant way. i am just bracing for the inevitable impact.
if a poet retires in the woods and no one is around to hear it is it still inconsequential or does the universe sigh in relief at the sudden serendipitous silence?
rationalizing the unrest while the world erupts feels much the same as standing in front of the cage watching as the lions feast. only the cage is unlocked.
tranquil beauty thrown into the irrational blender of bipolarism lends itself to painting transitional images across the impenetrable depths. it can serve as an eye opening into the deeper meaning of friendship discovering the royal we and acceptance are a diverse set of opposite focused means to an end. as i felt the boot on […]
it lays on the counter feeble gasps mouth moving incompetently as the very air itself is impossible to inhale. two sudden chops take off the head slits the white belly open. practiced motions rip the spine out removing the organs to be discarded on the newspaper laying upon the counter. flayed splayed opened for the […]
pins and needles race down my deadened limbs anxiety acupuncture for the shattered soul massage my temples this temple unholy hell fire rains from the tolling brass bell brain stem haunted by demons named longing desire and remorse work the gordian knot out of past tense muscular dystopia hollow brittle bones echo broken hearted odes […]
in the muddied grays of overcast happenchance above the swirling browns of constant motion there was a vascular precision to the chaos incarnate around me from every possible vantage the far bank was slapped rhythmically while our side made a sucking beneath the docks if i closed my eyes as the deck under my nervous […]
when you realize the dream is just that no matter how hard you pursue or the amount you want it a lack of ability an overabundance of hope and tenacity mean nothing. you’re the one waiting your turn and no one wants to hear you unless it is to mock what you’ve done before. waking […]
the deck sits high lilting back and forth above the deceptively deep muddy brown water spanish moss hangs in brown clumps down towards the bobbing heads of turtles i seek the tell tale lumpy log like shape of gators lounging among the currents below a boat comes flying towards my perch sending the entire placid […]
as i slit the plastic shell holding the tightly bound mattress into compressed hatred, after maneuvering it onto the frame through no small effort a gasping sound as the infernal contraption of netherfoam hissed in loud breaths to flop to writhe before unrolling itself with a cry to r’yleh beneath the oily brine there is […]
never dreamt of a home a house to store my things a box of possessions possessed by the need to possess. all i need is a roof a charger and a good connection to the aether. the rest is superfluous. i long to paint the sunsets to pretend they are sunrises. lose sense of self […]
Mike's Manic Word Depot 