Perfunctory

Kant said

          said “can’t”

when you can’t

move that lead moon

on running maple

singing to scale

floating redwoods

lost in October

beneath drinking elms

at chilling dusk,

the cul-de-sac

echoes

her voice:

          thicker oak

          splintering orange sky;

when I couldn’t

remember it

it was all

I could hear.

deadmoon

That drop of silk

that silken rain

distorted

just enough

or below

the scream of sound.

The drop of sound

the sounding sky

starless

far enough

or absent

that crash of awake.

Name the song

and I’ll just

scream it.

Dehumanizing Static

I smoke them until

I breach the filter

until I burn my fingers

until the smoke

comes dancing in

between open windows

swaying back and forth

between you and night

freeing sweet, lonely you,

sweeter still than

dark.

I don’t know what hours

have said to me in morning

why in the span of miles

there is a dehumanizing static

that I throw out

in buckets.

And I smoke you until

I break the thin song

under your porch light

until you burn my feared whispers

away in brittle branches.

HellSpeak

With my ear pressed

into the back of her neck

I heard

          I heard a pulse;

whether ‘twas hers or mine

I do not know

but it was fast and arrhythmic

like cars.

Cars like wasps flailing

about the intersection

waiting

          waiting to tell you

          a thing or two about sadness.

And I’m stuck

stuck trying to start my apartment

with my car key.

Three seconds gone,

but goddamn

you’d swear it was four

for counting on you

          I’m counting you on

the walls

walls that have discovered

a tenured footprint

somewhere.

          Somewhere

sparkling water will sustain you

better than tap

dance water

but it’s not yet 1

          I’m not yet drunk

you’re not yet fun.

Fata Morgana

Dissecting the moon

beneath the corpse orgy

you’re on the

other

side of the blizzard

inventing

a beautiful  way

to say no.

Because you’re still

sick from the mirror

hidden

in the anorex:

recurring nightmares

doowop songs

stalking.

I want to softly snarl

softly into the nape

of your neck

because your spine

is holding

you’re back.

Jeffery (can't) Drive

From within a dim light cast

two silhouettes on the shade

70 miles pour hours

emblazoned down the window

on those drying streets that peer

listless into your cold room

onto your dying sheets

And I stood there on the corner

where the pale green things

met the asphalt; two years nonethewiser

wondering why I’m not the guy

who’s silhouette’s on the shade.

            “Because monogamy is the 5^th season”

forever shadow-caressing the blade

along your arm’s arm.

Striking, isn’t she?

Striking in her gauze-white gown

Striking out

is she

as she projects like eclipses

her silhouette on the shade.

And your keychain feels lighter

when the miniature flashing Chicago skyline

fell off in deep November

          No longer numbering our days

          murmuring me away from your silhouette on the shade.

Imagine living in a state of constant exhalation

Now imagine living.

And Now, Further West

If delirium

broke

like fevers

if this rabid

scrambling

of insidious want

became logically

sane

If rationale

turned its gaze

to awake effervescently

on a bright spring morning

without succumbing

to dark

winter mourning

if your name was

I’m Here

and

To Stay

was more than a melting

block of ice

with no shade

in the black June sun

in the blacker June regret.

Then you could buy me

three months of calm

before the panic

inevitably crept back up

my amygdala.