Out on the trail founded by a hundred thousand steps 

of beasts and beat-upon men do I wind,

ill-received and undeserving, under then among then above

a roiling cloud face rippling from sneer into filmy impassivity,

concealing there a patient darkening presence.

Even here am I watched, ever here does it wait.

Out in the rain and among lone glories in a naked earthen sea,

within the sun at set and wind at rise do I sense

a growing lack, maybe there in the shadow of the fallen pine,

now maybe there in the groaning branches in mossy bondage,

an approaching nothing, like the nearing labored breathing of the mare,

burdened yet freer than me alza el vuelo do we silent partners climb.

Out in the roaring mist of the summit comes one

who is always arriving, who I never meet but always know.

High above in the tectonic song of ancient fire wails a threat

only I can hear calling back through time a vision blinding.

Within the joy of rest and divine affection of nature do I stare into the black

at the formless beast that need not follow as it here remains, 

that need not seize what it already owns.

i took the shape from the cloud and put it on my phone
i took the call from the bird and lost it in the street

i got the thrust from the wind and tossed it in a drawer

i took the life of a lamb and shat it out

i got time to live and sold it for a watch

i got a timepiece and spent

time measuring time

i measured the correctness of the shape

the rarity of the call

the reliability of the thrust

the pleasure from the lamb

the value of time

(in the style of aimee mann)

what a prisoner feels
it ain't wanderlust
no matter what the trial reveals
it's the chair, or bust,

whenever the right time was
to finally come clean
it wasn't worth the fuss
and without the means,

to lead the witness
or doctor the scene
they see a recidivist 
low down and mean,

in the game of crime,

you eked one win

(who's keeping score?)

called in the chaplain

to absolve your sin

(walk through the door)

we marked the time

when the lights went dim

(what was it for?)

couldn't sleep,

three nights now, 2am

dream of school again, or

cemetery, similar vibes

broken by the hushed

sirens outside,

urge to piss, and

god it's hot in here

Mind,

subjugated and stupefied midday,

asserts its power at 2am

  imagination that tortures,

  analyses across time and space,

  pointless or destructive

  or destruction's the point?,

  painted hypotheticals,

  vividly self-evident,

  showy cartwheels,

yawn

an organ doing its thing,

not the soul, not

poetic, despite the poem

it creates of itself, awake

then, thankless and unseen,

eventual expansion into emptiness,

flush to the borderline

between consciousness

and -

2022

i'm not that rust on the grate

i'm not that rot

with or without, i'm never Never

well, never say never;

never for now

--

the slow rush of winter surprises all,

snaps

birds into place,

pins

the darkness down,

tilts

us farther from

--

sexual validation,

leveling up a video game character,

biases confirmed,

emotional vindication,

another glass,

another lie,

the softening emoji,

planning escape,

fantasies of

worthwhile fantasies,

constructing a ruin

to spec

--

the black year yawns to swallow

purpose in its death-like dreaming

and life flickers away on the breaths of

all who speak their truths

k2

hands roots, eyes sky, mind wide

a thousand miles an hour in naked neural halls
is threaded flesh as rainbow tumors undulating to 

eject and absorb itself recursively birthing more and more

white streams that refine and lash into stellar dust inside-behind my eyes

i'm lost then found by myselves, but am i mine?

before awakening before living before killing is over-begun

behind crystalline veneers of far off too close turning glass wire

artifices of slights, heights of golden white cream to green of 

circles cycling the gyre in an ever reversing spiral

form the singsong plea from selves to self, to not forget:

the game is a trick

the rules are a lie

cease this war

we'll never die

k1

injected, awaken

nonattachment visualized as

slithering neon burgundy walls of velvet
turning a mortal coil of pixelated emerald
that cradles, stretches, rotates
the body on a plane of lucid dream
peekaboo on both sides of the eggshell of reality,
a crocodile's unblinking eye

at the boundary of water and air
inward the self as yolk
outward the source
the expansive answer
the ease of existence
little dendritic deaths pulling life, anchoring cosmos

the secret made obvious

detached, release