Don't This Look Like the Dark?

"I'll trade me for him." This proposition was a lot easier to say than to carry out. Of course, he was a human being, by all logical accounts, spiritual, fanatical, or otherwise, and the subject he was referring to was a mound of dirt exposed to the sun by his spade. His sharp wit was no where to be seen, creeping around the outskirts of the weed choked yard, slamming shut dormant dresser drawers and keeping still the leaves upon the trees. It was invisible. But that wasn't the issue. The person whom he spoke to was. This "person" was the puff of smoke refracting the business of light around his face, the aura loosening the feeling that the world was real, the milky lense slowly enclosing over his eyes day by day. This person was himself taken for a ride. He was actually asking, "May I please have some semblence of reality returned to me." And as per usual, asking for a rendezvous with normalcy brings only further skewing of what is concrete. For this pile of dirt was not your everyday pile. It was piled high like a pile should be. It was piling upon itself as he spoke and he knew that piles that pile upon their own pile never pale in comparison to other piles. He was sure that this pile, in particular, was piled like oblivion. It was piled with dimness, prejudice, trimmings, genocide, several shades of Michael Jordan, idolatry, mixed feelings, centiennial blues, perennial hues, jurisdictional clues, and denizens of his psyche that had been cast out into the dark. But what comes after the dark? That's what he would find out, if only his alter ego would let him. This thing that is but one side of himself can decide to loosen its grip and let him become all sides of the prism. The fractyl that grew inside his cluttered backyard, inside the hole he had just dug, would prove to be what he was; if only the loss within his soul would let him. The question sprung from his lips and hung like a scarecrow...his spirited wit stole out into the alleyway with a glitter for a grin, the mound sweltered in the heat of a continent, and he lingered there for an answer. Gone were his lovers, check. Gone were his brothers, check. Gone were his covers, check. Gone were his proofs, check. Gone were his lessors, check. All was well, nothing kept undone, proven was his damage, drained were his possibilities. The wit came back and so did the sunshine. He wasn't as drawn out as he thought when the question was answered.

The Attic Must Be Haunted.

The carnal urges are a kick in the balls. Far flung from himself into another loving embrace, his desires leave him feeling like skin stretched over a rabid dog. Dubious, his thoughts wring like a towel suspended above steaming rocks in a sauna. A long forgotten bath. Movement over reeds under a dimlit bridge teeming with drunken parasites; proven to be kinship are the leases he has lost without right. As he lays dreaming amidst piers of surf covered in seafoam and pungent rot, a memory descends upon him like an abyssal spector. It was peanut butter. It was a ghoul, a wastrel, a vision, a loss, an apparition. It was something you could see through. The thing that left him feeling like he had grasped something gone, it was of these things. He gallops up to his feet from crouching and thinks that maybe there was another life flashing before his eyes. But he isn't dying. He isn't even sure he's mortal at this point. He falls back down again to lull across another second; latex stretched over a ragged frame. His bones are harbingers of reality tearing through a thin membrane. His flesh is afire with cross meaning, tossed amid branches of tantrums, trains stretching across an expanse leaving a man with nothing. His eyes dilate unto drops of sweat hanging off a brow that must be his own. So asunder and confusing, this existence, he tosses and turns again to try to shake this consciousness. No the chemicals won't let him rest. Or they may, but for a second. Because there's someone else in his mind trying to clean up the mess. It's not him. It will not be him. It can't be him. If it were him he'd have gotten it all together by now. He knows that the creaking boards making up the floor of the attic within his brain are stressed by obnoxious preoccupations that just won't stop pacing. They look at the clutter around them and know that everything around them is not to be cleaned. It is to be arranged in some haphazard manner, a manner quite akin to the rantings of a postman just finishing his thirtieth round. And so a kick to the balls, a drip of the fall, a love like a ball that just keeps rolling. On and on across a landscape he can't make out.

Recommendation: Get Better.

For a life free of personal stress: Clip nails with degree of vengeance, sanitize all surfaces while swearing under breath, lose self in motivational speaker upon soapbox, gear up for monster truck rally by perusing discount aisle, rank hygiene needs in order of recognition, team up with preacher to deliver sermon, give sensuous massage in park, care for lost soul with rubber gloves, binge upon pamphlets for mother-to-be, dine with president, reap but do not sow, feel like another, pair up delightful tastes, stroll through garden with parasol, slap gimp tastefully, oil up dancers with precision unseen, fill salt water tank with moving parts only to rust, go to pet store with glaring eyes, buy thoughtful present to forget, become fruitful in labors of sorrow, dance upon the shackles of neighbors, breach the surface, reach maximum tonage, meet cave dweller for discussion of strategy, discern between further action and protocol, leave nothing behind, do up the banister like it's new years, drone on through another tasteless highway, look up just in time to see shooting star, catch dwindling breeze upon brow, sew up hole with tears shining, devise prenuptial agreement in bathtub, divide possessions in half like magic trick, brew coffee with scorn for coworker, stand aside while procession lulls, locate bathroom while pissing ones self, sell off what made you do what you did, take action with sleeping mask on, kneel next to terminal illness with rose in hand, bruise while toning, gain whilst pain, draw up plan for extraditing loving bridal party, careen down alley with bottle in hand, move up the ladder to avoid impending doom, doll up face with gaudy lipstick, discover new use for plastic body, bag up parts to dispose of in various anonymous places, receive word from high commissioner, bill retainer for dubious stock, preen private investment with degree of sympathy, get up with wry smile. These, and other tips, can be found in the self-help guide: "Little Cherub Boy Lost for Words."

Mother Blue. Joyless Man.

White shine your music for those who never live; dream of symphony death. Mother blue, wet from crying, drives out of the winter lake. Delirious lover beneath, though sad, she is enormous. I am gone. I've seen this before and it leaves a warmth like anything. Don't say a thing until something sinks in deep. Let it sink in and trouble the still waters that run; under those tepid currents, those clearly toneless, utterly speechless words that mean nothing. Those motions to adjourn, those keenings from afar, those melted figures, those harbors lulling, those tin drums. Those pangings of the heart. The inability to sit still. Unable to appreciate; in value, this life, that time, those moments. Nothing sinks in as deep as a memory sitting pretty with pretenses abound like done-up marionettes screaming your doubts. These doubts like a theme song: indecision, loose thinking, vague notions, and poured thick. They sit with neon plastic fencing surrounding, waiting to set into stone. No message writ upon them, no cracks. They will solidify level, solid, and perfect. Immaculate. They will be the path I walk upon. Mother blue, delirious lover, loose talker, nothing so entrancing as a stare into the depths of the pier out across the bay. Don't let them be so quick, these pacings. Slippery like ice upon the script of things I can't read because of the blurring of days. The beating of fists upon the underside of a foot thick layer of winter floe; someone cast upon the current to lay under the ice in the frozen lake. The drifts above keep what lies below from seeing too clearly. The skies above, held without doubt, would be held in vain for that which is trapped under frost can not succumb to the lull of hypothermia without complete lack of thought. Seen through clouded glass without tint, this world drips down like tears across the tired woman's face as she drags the lake in January.

Galley Towing Free of Charge.

My creature is one that tears through itself whenever it sees its visage in the mirror for days at a time without stop. It loses it's panting self in the woods and grants a wish to those teary eyed street urchins lacking school supplies yet clutching Justin Beeber Voodoo Dolls. Pins leap from the chest of the object of affection like growling hounds evacuating a ship burning on the harbor. A look of joy seems to grace the child who grins wickedly; joy like a subtle twitch in the face of the man in the corner with sign language. A languid pool lies loose and slack waiting for the men to come and wash themselves as if they were tormented with a sickness undone by cleanliness. My creature lies awake like the shaft of light leaking through the floorboards. I've seen it appear across the field with a dead eyed stare; marbles rolling across a hardwood floor. Terrifyingly slow, it lopes amid the tired thistles, amber, gray, and maudeline, to meet me halfway. I realize there is a limb outstretched, trembling. It's attached to my body. I've brought with me a bag of corn chips. Without a thought I drop the gift into the maw of this thing. Grinding it's head into the dewy grass with thrushes erupting from the foliage, my creature buries itself out across the bay leaving smoke signals like a requiem. This tried dream devours junk and my creature is sentenced to the maximum penalty. The children disperse to talk about what they saw in the Teen Bop magazine found aside the traintrack. Some images spill out across a continent like milk from a bottle, some like blood from the veins of a thing left long ago. Some creatures tire themselves to appease a stupidity unexplainable, my creature just cooly explains itself to no one.

He Smiles for Lack of a Better Idea.

Who is that tired dog with that restless drone in his eyes like the cascading tide of a drama class screeching to a dead halt? He's putting on his best shoes to kick shit up into the night air with his dim grasp of reality aghast and pale the only thing keeping him country. Lone wolf of midnight; teaching delirium tremens to keep their throes productive and slathering. This moot point that is his life keeps getting bigger. Heaving like a forgotten beast in the depths of the sea that is his mindscape, them darlings sneering across the road are some kind of comic book from his childhood. All those missed questions. All those marks on the record. All those pity mongers leaping over hurdles to stumble crashing through the fragile styrofoam insulation within his skull. No they can't do what he couldn't do for himself. They can't teach his body to become biodegradable. He has a half life of a million years. He has a menial job cleaning up after militant teenagers. He hasn't seen a naked woman in sixteen minutes. He saunters into a hole in the wall and literally quotes something from a passage written in his spine. "What you are is just part of a reference book. It's all common knowledge." The experts told him long ago his smile was just a smile. His teeth weren't tombstones on a moonlight silent expanse of red sand. His brow was just skin. His eyes weren't going to lead those lost ashore. Like a flower in the coming winds of fall, he wilts to think of the night ahead of him. It will be depraved and full of salt. He will render the ground he walks upon barren. He will puke his guts out clutching a looming dumpster full of material akin to his lifestyle. Just another night to keep himself in line. The leash is a mere sixteen feet of freedom. The dog struggles to careen blindly into a wall.

Ornament of Our Lives Outlives What Deprives. Holiday Edition.

The birth of a king is always well regarded amongst those driven to holiday creation. The tree sways under the burden of another ornament and your strange uncle unabashedly treats his body like a playground amid the falling pine needles. Have you eaten too much? Or had a dozen too many booze drinks? Or slammed a square of fudge too many? You mustn't let your mind stray away from the truth: Nothing is wrong as you slide into another holiday delirium. We've been raised on replicas and faith in winding roads, according to David Berman (a Jew). Though there may be a disconnect with the religious, just hold joyous commune with your deep fried Legos and sweeten your eggnog to the point of insanity. Lovingly massive, our competive capital is losing its virginity in a department store while toddlers scream amidst a wailing drunk Santa Claus with scissors clutching. We're moving en masse through fields of white with car insurance policies gleaming and problematic tendencies tucked deep within our red velvet sacks. Those who are good keep their lips tucked in and we are the chosen. We've arrived at the perfect gift of eternal satisfaction and Peruvian switchblades imported for proprietary free trade agreement with the militants. Roads winding, replicas trembling like lost wastrels swept up in the arms of vagrants, we've all got our plastic evergreen smiles on and itchy boas entwine everything we've made up. Crumbling effigies of obese bringers of gifts swing out over the gallows of the suburban mall to the cheer of the over stimulated teenagers. They writhe on the floor to pounding dance beats, awash in Ritalin and fixative. Groupies leave the club in order to powder their noses with charming albums. Musical balladry takes on a hue of cinnamon and ivy. Money leaves every hand whilst a sweet smile graces Lil Bennie Franklin's face. A deafening jingle echoes across the chambered halls of Commercial Embrace. We all love one another. Let another year ring itself in while we bring ourselves out for another fleecing.