the saboteur hands grip the ivory pistol grip like a lover caressing the bare back of his heart’s desire the executioner stares with empty eyes at the well worn handle of his axe so lovingly sharpened red and black the blood pools under the strobing light of forever in succinct and succulent sprays time is […]
fake a smile ignore the pain this too shall pass, eat aspirin like candy aspiring to be somewhere on the border of more or less than what this is what is this heaven is closed for empty vessels like me, hell is concerned i’ll take over, purgatory is pack to the rafters with unbelievers and […]
i have taken so many wrong turns in my life it was only fitting i ended up confused and standing at my destination unaware i was finally there at all two wrongs don’t make a right but three lefts do as a leftie with a penchant for doing the wrong thing at the best possible […]
every car and truck on the highway today has had a brake light out a series of random events that seem to be interconnected it feels as if the universal current is aligned with my own my ear is out of commission on the same side as all these lights as if the left half […]
i was driving, mind elsewhere, auto-pilot behind the wheel i don’t get out of the city, not out out, but this morning was an hour out to the east i was watching the landscape, ponds and horses, cattle and verdant fields swaying under charcoal gray skies hypnotized daydreaming about her asking the universe for a […]
half my head is as normal as it gets the other half is packed with steel wool covered in fire ants bullet ants army ants devouring all in their path sharp instances of pain in the now deafened half world i exist in where everything is off balance i feel wobbly unsure semi-nauseated in uncomfortable […]
remember that time i packed up my shit and raced to texas with no thought as to the future just a burning need to be elsewhere before the somewhere i was burned me to a cinder keep it fresh in your head because i am shedding the things i don’t need and going even farther […]
every kiss is a lingering spirit upon my lips every tear still leaves it’s feel upon my cheeks every word ever spoken in love hovers along my tongue my arms feel the heat of every hug given in passionate embrace cast a seance cast away these foul memories with your love salt the earth so […]
she and i skirted around the edges of love like two well trained ballerinas on stage both knowing a single misstep and we would fall madly and irrevocably into the throes of passion i stumbled once or twice but her gaze locked on mine gave me the strength to dance on and as she was […]
my heart flutters like a hummingbird that found a secret stash of meth in a trailer park in rural arkansas my eardrum was blown out this afternoon my shoulder aches my head throbs but my mind is clearly focused on you
outer edges of the great cityscape is always kind of a surprise to this city boy all the amenities of the city but space i like noise, trains and traffic, dour faces and congestion, tall buildings staring down at me in disapproving ignorance it’s the space the bothers me like being trapped in my head […]
i feel nothing but respect for those of you that put your children first that raise them with love lessons turning little monsters into loving adults instilling respect reverence and reality into sponge-like minds you don’t get enough credit enough of a break enough of anything because you give freely even when it would be […]
lone palm tree planted for show haggard in the face of thriving oaks i see you i feel the same
i wish life were as easy as poetry sit down spend five minutes unloading your turmoil scribble your name move on to the next crisis
i turned my head as sleep still held my brain and blinked at the phone to see the time a momentary panic ensued as sleep addled brain misdeciphered digits and i leapt up only to see an hour before the alarm was supposed to sound mocking me from the charger my brain and i have […]
i found a scrap of paper by my infantile sketchings the word home written and underlined three times why and when i did it i don’t know but it is important or was or could be made me think of you
a lack of sleep a lack of you a lack of sense to sense the need for sleep when all i want is you manic and alone vibrating at the speed of desire times the thin membrane around my brain etched with your name i cut out the best pieces of myself and sketched in […]
let’s fall down the cliff together, let’s step into the open elevator shaft, let’s dive head first into a pool without water, we’ll wear floaties and dive dive dive i’ll teach you to swim, i will hold you up as an anchor holds me down, bobbing on the invisible waves of need, of shallow insecurities […]
it i ran Heck the place for people not quite evil enough for Hell all chocolate would taste like kale but only every third or fourth bite there would be chocolate cake every evening and mandatory oh, what’s that you like kale good the kale tastes like jellied eels cooked in raspberry jam
if i ran Heck the place for people not quite evil enough for Hell everyone’s phones would constantly vibrate as if they had just gotte a text. but only occasionally would they get a text. the first person to respond to a real text would get one year removed from their sentence. but they have […]
i would hate to see the number of words i have spilled seeking to write something lasting and pure when the most beautiful thing i have ever heard was her saying in a soft whisper i love you
the flares are bright red stars fallen to earth, they send strange prickling sensations across my skin if i look too long, i feel uncomfortable staring it reminds me of when we pulled up to the house as a child and the red and orange flames licked the sky in a sexual way i was […]
step one find a reason step two actualize that reason step three curl up in a ball and wonder why the reason is so distant from reality, it’s only a few letters off, same page in the dictionary step four cling to that reason step five not too tight, or the reason will suffocate in […]
they painted the apartment buildings now when i look outside it is a different view it feels less like home than the home it hasn’t felt like for so long now i only like a handful of things anymore the rest is just extraneous filler until i can get my mind and heart united but […]
the rain mists gently blanketing the city in a malaise of unfathomable sorrow maybe he is projecting himself out into the aether but it is comforting to think the city weeps with him rather than weeping alone
my heart plays like a dusty record worn grooves too deep for the needle to pick up silent stretches in the midst of melody cracks and pops now embedded into the memory of song oh had you heard the once vibrant music play echoing along the corridors of yesterday a symphonic structure so full of […]
i don’t sleep like a baby no i sleep like a haunted house the restless sleep of spirits wandering of creaking doors of chains rattling long through the night i wake exhausted excited aroused engorged yet so tearfully alone in a queen sized bed made for a fool tangled up in sheets like a hangman’s […]
i always dreamt of hosting saturday night live the thrill of yelling live from new york it’s saturday night at the opening i would do a funny monologue about what an honor it is to be hosting the show while the band smiles behind me and nods the rapid changes of clothes, my bald head […]
occasionally i look at my driver’s license just to remind myself i am really real i see that bald head and frown thinking maybe he was the dream and i am someone else far from here coincidentally he and i share a birthday but he never gets me a gift
i had been watching him for days, his beady eyes and think lips always stretched into an angry line on his weak chinned face to say i disliked him is akin to saying pompeii was warm in the year seventy nine, or that water is slightly wet to the touch he smiled and waved to […]
one day i won’t find myself watching squirrels run around doing squirrelly things today is not that day thank god for that when i was kid my grandma had a squirrel in the front yard with a deformed front paw we named him rocky excuse the lack of originality and possible copywrite infringement he would […]
the main issue with having dream become reality is the uncertainty of the world around you the margins are mobile, the colors seem to ignore the lines, definitions become defeatist delineation yet the ache remains, from temple to the top of the skull as the clouds threaten rain the pollen and pollution coat the tongue […]
the security guard couldn’t find my name in the book of contractors he kept eyeballing me up and down my tools were particularly menacing as my nefarious scheme to loosen all the screws and bolts in the building in an effort to take the law into my hands piece by piece brick by brick until […]
dressed in head to toe gray and red today not sure the image i am presenting dour storm or bloody fool but my boxers are purple so somewhere beneath it all there is a tinge of royal hidden from the world between that and the ink soaked into scars i look like jackson pollack’s least […]
a pellet appellate the grains of truth slide through the cracks in the facade of justice until it is just us blindfolded with uneven scales scaling the edge of stock photo incidentals scaly skin flaking away into the abyss of ever more ever sore from gripping obsidian glass blood flecked forever for whatever ever sore […]
i’ve played devil’s advocate for so long but does the devil ever advocate me it’s one way i played the dutiful lover the loyal friend the rapscallion the jester it’s my way the wind howls a lonesome song down the valley of my mind, whispering through the rustling leaves, a choir for one but this […]
i tend to write my insipid odes any and every where in the car on the highway going too fast empty park benches waiting rooms offices churches today i was in the middle of a repair and stopped and wrote one the lady seemed confused asked what was wrong i smiled sadly it never stops […]
it is like molten lava rainbow sherbet dripped down satin sandpaper and raked across the ocular nerve or transmission fluid smoothies with rancid peach pits floating on a sea of oil spills cascading down the back of a pelican koala bearannaise coating the grill of a fifty six cadillac cruising on broken glass before jumping […]
can you feel my eyes burning across the seas can you feel my heart beating slowly spelling out your name it thunders threatening to shatter my ribs they burn with a fire that will burn away the past leaving only us
if i paid for two hours at a meter i most certainly will drift along the sidewalks watching people for the entirety of the time when i first moved to dallas i was underwhelmed with downtown, another snobby yankee in the deep south but now as i find my time drawing to a close on […]
she is like scrubbing bubbles on my brain stem, little flickers of ecstacy all along my spine erasing the poor self image cultivated over years of insecurities secured in a lockbox could i be who she sees, the man she believes in after years of tears and feeling like a blotch how did i fool […]
i believe in you it’s me that i have trouble realizing half masked phantom of my own dreamscape cloaked to hide in shadows you are real while i am fabricated from the scattered scraps of cloth blown against the cyclone fence
would you settle for a set list, a list of intentions, directions, suggestions demonstrating the demonic nature of being raised in hell yet seeking heavenly comfort this purgatorical sentience leads to a sentence with no pretext, no grammarian essential steps all i have is good intentions, mind retentions, and misapprehensions that lead to a bubble […]
didn’t wake up as much as dashed from bed this morning mind already racing fixated laser focus coffee made clothes laid out night before prepared fully dressed coffeed foot bouncing staring at clock thinking thinking thinking is this what the song meant just another manic monday must i walk like an ancient egyptian back stooped […]
the car sits forlorn in the parking lot thinking about the miles it hasn’t gotten to run the full belly of fuel slowly evaporating as the fool walks what kind of world do we live in where people walk past their cars and hoof it to their destinations not this one but it might be […]
1) walk 2) reach out to a friend 3) listen to music 4) construct a new galaxy inside your mind. slowly populate it with new forms of life. you are the creator. make them do whatever you want. floods. volcanos. 1) avoid traffic while walking 4) scratch that. the power will go to your head […]
one day i hope to have enough books out that they get translated into different languages but then i wonder what if in a past life i pissed off the translator and he purposefully mistranslates certain passages or the words i use are untranslatable then the book become just another piece of wax fruit sitting […]
staring into a broken mirror gives a more accurate reflection of what i look like than staring into a pristine one but none as good as the reflection in the river constantly moving the person staring back changes by the millisecond
photo by me
fell asleep to thoughts of you that became dreams of you that became waking up to the sound of your voice in a way i am unable to differentiate dream from waking waking from falling blissfully asleep what a strange sensation never knowing not caring as bleed over becomes one set of wonder to another […]
stale air through the recirculator, the filter filled with red dust, makes for labored breathing even in low gravity and leaves a taste in your mouth like old pennies it was a one way trip, everyone knew that to be the case even if it wasn’t explicitly stated in the manifest no one really bother […]
to be honest she never asked to be the woman of my dreams but if you could have seen the smile on her face when i told her she was you’d understand exactly why it is true
sketching and failing with the same level of intensity a five year old feels much the same output as well my hands are like hammers but lack the precision of twenty pound sledges when it comes to art and that goddamned squirrel just watches me with a knowing grin on it’s smug little rodent face […]
the hull sweats a distinctly uncomfortable sensation as darkness permeates the world going deeper deeper into the darkness fathoms fall away as life turns strange bioluminescent lures bobbing blind beasts feeding by taste on invisible currents in frigid waters ancient beasts unseen by man swim in a ballet as creaking metal squeals death is always […]
i was hurt so i would recognize what it means to be healed. i was torn apart so you could teach me what it is to be whole. i was given these trials so i could appreciate all that you are. every ounce of blood. every single tear. they were shed so once i finally […]
i fell into the spiralling arm ever inward ever sinking slowly into the surface the world began to coalesce into a sugary nothing as i found myself deeper eventually my feet found purchase in the soft and flaky surface ethereal cinnamon scented slicks pulled me farther into this new reality this mini-milky way that now […]
just below the craggy rocks lie the bodies of all who failed to reach the summit at the peak tattered flags fly in the never ending wind me i just sit at the bottom and write about the fools with something to prove holding a flag to the fan and sipping coffee
felt like a hawk plummetting through the darker emotions earlier todau swore to myself i would leave them to rot with the other fetid corpses littering the ground but depression is like a tortoise trundling across an empty field sometimes before you know it you’ve got it in your talons and the damned thing looks […]
another cloudy night makes me wonder if the stars were ever really there or if someone forgot to pay the electric bill again i saw one flickering the other night had to flick my finger to get it to stay on i imagine a galaxy custodial position is a real shit job lonely too fixing […]
i read a gooey thing that said they wanted to love someone like the moon pouring light out of it’s soul the sheer idiocy amazed me the moon is a rock that reflects the sun’s light i wanted to tell him to use me as a reference i am a rock but i reflect the […]
there are only so many minutes in life and the bird outside my window in the bush has taken up it’s fair share
she is crying somewhere and i cannot hold her i know because it is raining in texas
ahab called to lecture me about obsessing moby dick and i just stared at each other over a cup of coffee and shrugged some people have nerve some have gall some are just unmitigated turds he called me ishmael when i answered the phone unoriginal prick
woke with my stomach gnawing my ribs and the scent of lilacs too strongly in my nose feeling like hitchhiking to the trans-siberian railway two weeks on a train in the middle of nowhere nothing but vodka and the snowy landscape to stare it from the shaking cars if there is a place to get […]
she has infinity in her eyes light streams in waves across the distance between hypnotizing with an allure that is indescribable my eyes are tea cups that can only be filled by her my mouth a saucer aching for her overflow my fingers are quills that can only be dipped in her ink my mind […]
some days i feel like a rural postal worker looking for addresses that don’t exist only finding chained dogs that are half mad from the heat other times i am a poet spilling my guts to an empty theatre wishing for someone to hear the empty words as they tumble out onto the black laquered […]
it’s another lonely weekend another lonesome walk down the socio path gonna head to the laundromat cause the washing machine is still dead take a trip to the farmer’s market watch the families happily stroll and buy fruit hit up the thrift stores search through other people’s memories write poetry about the things that i […]
she asked me to write poetry about poultry, she said it with a smile, unsure if the words came out right i was lost in her voice, dancing across my heartstrings but how can i say no to her i wanted to call foul on the fowl subject matter, pluck the prompt apart she assured […]
suicide by pop rocks and coke fuzzy fizzy filled to bursting with the crackling energy of a thousand supernovas the end is a sugary rush exploding into a new tomorrow like an alka seltzer in the tummy of a sparrow bits of red dot the horizon
searching for answers as the breeze blows on searching for god found a particle instead higgs boson bombarded by the fact that there are no coincidences in this chaos of perfectly lined order shattered in an effort to view the entire tapestry all will be revealed in it’s time not dependant upon your schedule splitting […]
my depression has become the jilted lover scowling as it drives by at one in the morning looking for another car in the driveway ready to slash the tires of that damned charlatan that dares try and steal her man she sends messages during the night asking how i am have i watched fury road […]
her soul is a satin scarf that winds around my heart every beat of happiness she feels ripples down through me sending chills waves of intoxicating bliss she is my drug i am a barely functional addict walking in a haze that i have chased my entire life
my brain is like a bag of microwave popcorn not as good as the real thing temperamental and the good bits have all been burnt from overexposure my poetry is much the same but still long after it is written the scent lingers
i had thought i left my heart in the twentieth century a relic of days gone it was in a flannel, listening to the pixies when I packed my bags and moved to the deep south it was stoned and watching clerks i didn’t expect i would need it again it found me, had stickers […]
i used to be july, but now i’ve accepted i’m becoming september it’s okay i’m sure february me dreamt of being june and didn’t realize the slippery slope to september would follow i wear my encroaching fall like a man in a hoodie about to step into winter, unsure if the rain will turn to […]
the cars speed past with angry glares to the old woman in the left lane with a blinker that has been on for hours as i pass her, not in nearly the same hurry, ours eyes meet and she smiles it was infectious i smiled back and waved and slowed down to stay next to […]
his pick up was a graveyard for dinosaurs belching black smoke as he angrily drives down the highway compensating for a smaller organ than he projects in his fury at a world that secretly laughs behind his back
sometimes i wish my comment section was as full as my spam folder scrolling through in search of wayward missives, the bots really know how to stroke an ego lovely ladies are lonely, looking for me to spill poetry across their digitally naked forms online casinos guarantee my lucky streak continues with the loosest slots […]
buffeted by winds that carry slivers of glass this view has been rendered by the brush of bosch flames consume the temporary forever of human conceit life is a transitive state from sleeping to dreaming death is the chill calm of fading pain slipping away subtle shifts in unconscious desire placated by ash
slept the broken sleep of the damned only to not charge my phone and have no alarm the alarm being my head screaming why are you bothering now i sit with no time for coffee head in a jumble trying to figure out how to quell anxiety that today everything will go wrong yet the […]
i used to have a harmonica it wasn’t punk rock but it was in black sabbath so i didn’t really care what anyone thought about it then i forgot about it moved to texas gave up on the dream of being a famous musician hard to be a musician when you don’t play an instrument […]
we had aural sex our voices going down on each other’s cerebellums she stroked my aorta with the trained hand of a professional cardiologist skipping beats i feel her hand on my internal organs strumming eighty eight keys with the grace of a trained pianist we’ve never been in the same room but we have […]
so tired yet the thought of sleep is revolting inspired to be uninspired by the world around me drained deveined of the things that made me human the neighbor’s dog barks at the bird that sings of the setting sun the motorcycle idles like a stampede of horses across my fragile egg shell skull in […]
i play her hologram on a constant loop as the emptiness threatens to drown me i cannot touch her but i pantomime slow dancing in the side room i cannot hear her but imagine what the sound of her voice whispering to me is like the haze of dust floating through her lit up form […]
it’s a horrible feeling being the needle dulled upon the iron of distance the sharp point being smashed by unruly hands that can’t fathom the wear of longing it’s a wonderful feeling being the needle dulled upon the iron of distance the sharp point being gently molded by loving hands that take the edge off […]
sometimes i get so caught up in the mundane as i think of other things i found myself gently folding a receipt as if it was the picture of a lost lover
feeling a bit like a moai head in the sand this morning the ravens circling above the earthworms burrow below yet i stare in her direction direction less yet somehow knowing the right way granite flecks of fallen facial recognition unable to turn away if anyone asks i’m taking a personal day to wile away […]
your smile is the pull chain to the engine in my chest a simple glance at you is it all it takes to make my heart jump and shake in manic joy you are some kind of magician to be able to make my doubts disappear this is just one of the ten million reasons […]
the echos of ache and desire transcend time and space waves of reckless abandon floating across the aether in sync sinking in, the depths of agonizing space between two souls vibrating at the same frequency call out to one another
the rain threatens the day with it’s acidic promise of grinding the city to a stop, precipitous falling drops of pollution the gray skies reflect the emptiness in his eyes as he wonders if they stare at him or he stares at them the polluted flecks of misery dance along his corneas, elemental reflections of […]
kiss me, for i’ll never fly, place your lips upon mine and take me to the heights i will never reach on my own let me fall into your embrace, experience the things poets have waxed upon since crawling from the caves into light look at me now, soaring above the world, speeding through clouds […]
april sounds it’s final cry the heat returns to texas. yet i am checked out. longing for new horizons different sounds than the mockingbirds and ravens. yet here i sit with coffee dreading the commute to another day in the same congestion. another nameless white blood cell traveling to the spleen. back to writing this […]
it is all a waste life is a practical joke death is the punchline pain and agony take turns kicking you when you are down
i am poison a plague given human form anger and rage distilled into pure villification i touch no one no one touches me for fear of black death i am bubonic carried by rats made from the depths of hell tortured and tormented until all that remains is a vaguely human stain of no consequence […]
a chapter is closing what lies on the next page what new adventure lies ready to be scrawled in the shaky handwriting of fate does the fool finally find the new dawn he has searched for frantically as the road in front of him proved to be filled with tiger traps as he sits watching […]
i let it worm it’s way into my soul like a blow fly into the tangential corpse of battered ramshackle loss can’t believe my heart sputters on like a wind up toy that refuses to let go of kinetic belief in the face of acutality possession is nine tenths of the law of absolute surrender, […]
it all slips away from me when i slip into the mindset of you the world fades and all there is is you these are my favorite moments of the day
he feels less like the wise fisherman than the foolish fish chasing shiny lures through the murky depths of unworldly desire his scarred lips from the barbed hooks of sultry obtuse promises that are less than the accumulation of pain received yet he sits in the seaweed garden of indecisive need watching while telling himself […]
carrion crawl the clarion call strongly suggested need boils into the lava field of unkempt irrationality lost in the space of compact thought bouncing across the headstones of every daydreaming ape acting as if the banana of wonderment is really a knife in it’s sheathe cannot complain when the blade slices deep enough to draw […]
tonight is the final recital this poor fool has steeled himself for the voice of his no longer baby girl to serenade one last time he has not in fact this is the one he has dreaded since he saw the first last choir recital two years ago he envisioned her picture as a baby […]
Mike's Manic Word Depot 