it is 9 o'clock in the morning

and my brain is full of tongues

i woke
to a president's plan
for an ailing economy
pressed through
a recalcitrant congress
ground finer still
by the pecking fingers of reporters
stuffed into the airwaves
like a sausage.

my dreams were cobweb
clinging in my mouth

I prayed
in the light
as I waited for the snooze
my dream persisted
like hope but soured

a sharp toothbrush punctures
my reverie
not unpleasant

i elect Ira Glass
soft king of my ear
for breakfast
a small truth
etched deep
into five acts

there is coffee
moving quickly
and I go
full
before the dawning fluorescence
i was predestined to arrive
a little late

i know how to empty myself
but where does it go?

time swept me
like the metro

the day barks:

a hound set to guard
by inner clockworks
officious, vigilant

exhaustion
nine thousand anonymous
lapping at the will
an attriting ocean

once again it bays
thirsting for work
and feed

"i am (i am)"

yes, and i am
i say
but less
in the dawn

oh the ceaseless dawn!
calling me to life
from wordless desire

ah how it tracks me
9 thousand distinctions
shattered from a single pane
and the wind carries a howl
through the broken glass

"i am (i am)"

i see that you are!
and i am less!
who am i this morning?
who was i last night?
who shall i be today?
why do you track me
you bloodhound
where do you come from
on the coattails of my grief
to the citadel of my self
where i had thought to rest

"i am (that i am)"

again you are?

He kept us there
imprisoned
after he constructed a facade
around the the sheriff's office

it was the tin veneer
of a general store
he sold permits and titles
to goods and lands

i am myself
lived through me
another's hand
upon me

i am in love
with her
she is a prescient guide
past my doubts
and troubled questions

I must persevere
as I have done
for less
towards less.

There is no returning
only the dip of oars
soft in the night
lapping at the stillness
in my soul
as i move towards the moon
on the water

i am awake in dawn

thoughtlessly alive
in a stream of life

past a collection of islands
against a grey sea
in a system of seas
infinite swirling grey
revolving about an black abyss
that is needing

i am moving
in increments
of eight
by sixty
by sixty

I am moving
still smaller
past atoms
quarks
leptons
bosons
and fermions
the spaces between things
are not rules, no.

God was a tiny speck
I saw him
narrow
through the iron bars

Thrashing
in white
I threw myself
straightjacketed
against them all

I love my just so God
white like me.

i am taking apart

a world of legos
color by color
ink is dripping
like blood
from latexed hands

putting together
my feet slip
and I lay sleeping
where I have fallen

i wake
in bloody morning
to dip my pen

i make a list
of poems
messy
as the dawn

whiteness

is a dream
i woke to
soul screaming
with bad rock
in an adolescent doldrum

suburban night
was quiet
i ghosted
in obtrusive black
a glowing cigarette
against an empty playground

the night
is a dark love
of mystics and devils

the moon
a perilous mistress
hard against cement

would you ride her to God
small man?
as yet
untested
by the mediocrity of morning
a thousand sands of day
wearing the heart
to a lumpy putty

a rage
would crash against the sea
at least a few times

and tear a king
from a white paper heart
burning

and pressing on
towards the shining letters
white in the headlights

a billboard in the distance
brilliant with moonlight

and another billboard
tall above nebraska's
golden waves

not even out yet

I do not exist
he said
nor does the agency
I represent.

Harken unto
my absence
and the deafening noise
of silence
defiantly
unmaking.

Memory is a world

the sawing bow:
a violin strung with humans,
quiver with melody
and ache forth tears.

I am a world
I carry with me
dying a life
somewhere else
I am a memory.

a poem
frozen lipped and dead
the world is this woman
gorgeous, a keening wail
the wind kisses her hair
she is memory
and I the wind.

and walking back
to walk the slumbering walk
in this world someone killed
but vexes continually