CONFABULATIONS

The Midwife's Apprentice

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 19:03:00 -0800

I. “Define usable”

—demanded

her sheepish, wolverine smile

the beckoning strait—

narrow—a needlepoint

on a map of skin tightly

molested to fit

over the crags in his face.

It’s ill and unnatural.

II. “What I mean,” his answer,

“is that I am

not the globe

or territory

dotted with people

places

or things. Usable is

the focus of the camera—

his hands not covering the lens.”

This body is bile

III. Cars storm thru highway 99

nudging aside sand

dumped from the hourglass; particles

cascade, floating down to cover

Korean BBQ’s in

dust.

Complications: none. Recovery: soon.

IV. He became a lesbian

accosted; compressed

inside a psychedelic

cigar box. Where he hid

tampons for nosebleeds. Ovaries screamed out

from the pit.

“NURTURE. SANCTUARY:” took bookform

Theories of Rubberboots

sits on his mantle. Unopened. To wade

in menstrual blood; turning to the chapter titled:

Spite + Reform.

POSTPARTUM SONNET

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 19:41:00 -0800

D.D. SUNRISE

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 13:33:05 -0800

ST URSULA

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:33:49 -0800

Good Morning

is the first stare from closed eyes,

when your hair is tangled into mine with the

complexity of a sun rise.

By what name will you call me

as you leave:

Angel, as you brush my cheek?

Babe, forever doting?

Rose, honey, as you whisper sweetly?

Or Paradise, a nomad of the morning?

You lift the duvet like you’re turning a page

exposing your side of the bed to escape.

There is no rope strong enough to bind you heart

or your fingers

that pirouette through my body like gentle dancers.

I do not have the heart to bind my own

so how can I cage yours?

(So-so) Hidden

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 23:12:40 -0800

We let demons grow at their own pace

Haunt us slowly so that we may never break

From their prisons or apartments or

The few living people who kept us in line.

Our cells were made of liberty,

The bars—just for show; we could escape

If only we had the desire.

Business is pleasure and pleasure is pain.

So we confine ourselves to gruesome history

Ask: “Why drop the misery that makes us strong?”

You, the sad surgeon. And I,

The world-weary jester.

It was easy to blame fate for

Gifting us with such horrors and keeping the

White plains so neatly hidden.

But it was easier to blame we.

I stood in isolation as you tried to sew

Her back together, to discover the best can fail.

Me, a product of systems and you, a product of people.

We share the same madness.

TERROR!

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 22:58:00 -0800

The Moon burned brighter than the Sun

as she fell towards Earth

carrying catastrophes in her knapsack. She studied

Evil and the ceremonies that can persuade him to be Good

Then she bribed Chaos to Order her schemes.

God gave the Moon blessings for the apocalypse;

it took twenty three hours for the world

to become nothing but immolation.

This is TERROR!This is orientation:

Three women drowned in The River.

Their faces were on the front page

with fragile smiles that seemed to tremble

when the Editor cried.

He had never known them,

but the story was familiar like the ghost of his mother

who had no face at all.

This is TERROR! This is manipulation:

A Couple spoon in bed and pretend to be asleep

while wondering how they should leave.

They hold in their coughs that cause their lungs to convulse

and silently swallow their phlegm.

Man thinks, “I can never leave this bed.”

Woman thinks, “I may never leave this bed.”

Then like ships, they begin to sink.

This is TERROR! This is sublimation:

Boy sat in his room

alone,

but imagined Girl beside him

constructing a castle with his Legos.

He did not have the inspiration or motivation

to build in reality. He never saw the sunrise—

to him, it was a celebrity: worship

without Love. His tears carve the fault line

between lonely and alone.

This is TERROR! This is excruciation:

Eight patients sit in plastic blue chairs

that rock a soothing inch.

It was Rebecca’s ninety-second birthday,

but it only reminded her that she was never

the Jew

her father wanted or

the Man

her father wanted. She wanted

to forgive him. Chainsmoking Alcoholic Sociopath

didn’t want,

but was inspired. He wanted to die

a tiny

bit

less.

This is TERROR! This is ruination:

A Comedian writes, rewrites, then

eviscerates every joke that comes into his mind.

He is mostly an Observer, Watcher,

an Eye winking into a microphone—

the tears squish in morse code. He spies a naked woman

taking shots from a bottle of mouthwash.

An S.O.S travels through the cosmos

but no one speaks the Language.

This is TERROR! This is desecration:

SHARK TANK (ABC)

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 19:34:11 -0800

I like the way

this deal turned out. I didn’t think

they’d go for the royalty. Five dollars

a sale. Five dollars until you pay me back.

I have less emotions than Kristen Stewart.

Like, I don’t (initially, I included a verb,

but I decided “no”) any empathy. Reasoning:

it’s too late to care about my aesthetic.

I didn’t think they’d go for the royalty.

I’m gonna marry you for reals

and maybe you’ll like it. Maybe you’ll knot

your necklace like a noose

and take so many pills that the dueling heart

charms burst like (It’s funny how every time I speak,

I hear a different voice

providing commentary) whales transplanted

into a lake featuring algae, tires, and PURE MUSSEL.

If you were a flavor of ice cream, I’d call you

the tipping point. Direct me to the office

of “All Apologies.” I’m running on empty

clichés (This isn’t an intervention,

I am admitting that I have already failed).

Have you ever heard of Autumn?

I’m going to use the pronoun

“he” and the deceptinoun “my friend,”

because I have a few things left to hide.

Have you ever disappeared? Did you break

and then enter her heart?

Have you ever heard of Autumn?

I can feel an angel slipping next to me (huh?).

THE LESSER KEY OF G.O.O.D. MUSIC

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:54:32 -0800

download full version

GOING HOME

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:40:45 -0800

going home

is “I want to be somewhere else.”

consider Mother,

whose arms stretched forever

until she could cradle the whole universe

and sing away the stars. Mother,

after mistakenly eating human meat,

wrote an article that dismantled

the procrustean myth of individuality.

consider Father,

whose arms swung in tandem

with his lover’s braided hair.

She consumed beauty, but Father,

after mistakenly telling the truth,

directed a convention that dismantled

the American myth of individuality.

consider Lover,

who desires arms around him

and is going home.

LULLABY FOR AN OLD INSOMNIAC

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:19:00 -0800

Violent sleeper, will you sing me a lullaby? I long for the screech of your voice as you call my name. You beg me not to kick while we’re in bed.

I mistook you for a nightmare.

Violent sleeper, will you pet me tonight? I need the dark calamity inside you that never knew I once lived a gentle life. The night is kind without a target.

I need to be guided.

Violent sleeper, will you rock me tonight? I miss the careless comfort of cold sweats and reassurance that I’m still dreaming. With lithium there is rest.

With sleep, there is regret.

Violent sleeper, will you love me tonight? I need the days where everything was ending. There was a countdown to how long we had left.

Those numbers are negative now.

Violent sleeper, will you take your life tonight? I need the threats, hunts, and dangerous chases. I long for the love we never shared and future that we borrowed.

You are the dream I never had.

ANGELS CAN'T FLY

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 21:14:00 -0800

who writes the verses, who sings these

wretched crane songs. she misses every note

but those that sink, way below

the boat that gave her water.

where is she now,

my guardian angel, my protector

do i shield her as well?

what do i give, but passage?

blockage. I wait to destroy her cannons.

she guzzles and

dazzles her inquirers.

my angel plastered in frowns.

she lives in the same home as I

twisted hearts that cross

their sideways smiles.

her teeth are jaded like mine.

we were saved.

still falling, bruised and stabbed

left in the snow. her eyes

were handed to me in goblets

of crisp sun and gentle hatred

barely

I AM ANAGNORISIS

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 16:39:53 -0800

THE DANCE OF REMOVING MASKS

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 14:24:46 -0800

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:20:33 -0800

NOMADS OF THE MORNING

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 09:40:57 -0800

Morning is the first stare from closed eyes,

when bodies separate

and forget.

Wakened from the Nightmare

of false starts and sweeps,

are twin nights, a blue moon,

defined by different strangers that trace their stars

like old spirits at sea.

Sweat coats the unseen brow—

conjures a smile not of life, but fatigue.

Their running, screaming, calm questioning

haunts the bones of these plains.

Strangely acquainted like voyeur and victim,

they imagine that

past sleep is modern mausoleum:

a gesture of feeding. There is no nourishment

from the milk they cup in their hands—

nor is there satisfaction from the bourbon

that stings like honeybees, but is easier to swallow.

Mercy is the secret lover,

a broom closet matinee.

Smugly sexual, he melts wax over his eyelids

and cuts his lip in two

so that he may kiss himself.

A desecrator, he feeds on lust

as they begin again.

Dancing with twin moons

are the cold hands of other men,

wriggling in tandem

to grasp at another. They are strangers,

but not too strange.

Planted before the Gate of Death,

they hold on tightly,

then forget.

in media res

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:23:11 -0800

TEEN MOM (MTV)

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:26:00 -0800

MIMESIS, THE ORBIT, AND CATALYST

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:01:48 -0800

I think about the seams of the earth

and its electric dress. Then the way

its address must seem to ants or the stars

or the pro-sky determination that we only

kill when it means.

The orbit I see is “The End” and I

feel guilty talking about this beast again

but it will happen and I don’t want to be here

when it takes control. The philosophy I own

is I don’t possess these days. I get it together

but it’s still.

Anyway, this incantation is shit.

I have every right to be upset when I’m neither

the side of good or once frozen by the tide.

I melt the secret that makes me content to be alone

with the spell every.

Night lava flows through the trees

and I rest in the clouds, unaffected

by the crisis that breathes through the mental disco

of relearning the states of mind. I slide between

dancers and find.

The End’s a god, a dealer, a nothing

but means to fulfill itself. The horizon

may be temporary, but it has destruction left in it.

It sets in virtue of a future in which it rises. I collapse

to mourn my own.

Come needle, come immunity,

because the death is too thick and I can’t

get away. Truth is, without the steady flapping

of machinery in mine, the planets never truly shift I

into the pattern that prophecy tells. The constellation

reflects a.

The figurehead monster then carves

the plains and the oceans and the hells

with its cords, talons, and cheeks. I, the partisan

am split between the blues and the sea. If you find

pleasure in suffering you will love me. It’s my cabal

and my disease.

I AM COMPLETE

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 07:01:48 -0800

I AM COMPLETE

Julian learned his first lie

and it was delicious. Emily, his lifeless partner,

kicked a hermit crab into the ocean

and thought to herself, “I am nothing.”

Sensing a chill, he reassured her

that she was a yellow rose. The tide

wrapped around their ankles

like boa constrictor bracelets.

Seaweed ran up Emily’s pale green thighs

and pulled her into the unknowing sea.

He laughed because he understood

that she wasn’t joking. A tentacle

tightened around his throat.

Julian’s neck snapped without ceremony.

CONFABULATIONS

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 15:02:24 -0800

I wanted to start before this page began.

I had an idea for suicide.

The godking was decent; he died the same way

that I find myself performing this ritual

and recalling the end of something wonderful

but I’m trapped in familiar territory

of transforming into the familiar himself.

My veins unravel into copper wire

grounded into the earth’s superconductor.

Was there an intention behind my evocation

or am I telling bad jokes?

I fell into the expertise of naïve realism

which is only a problem if I desire to be forgiven.

The protoagenda was to teach destruction

to a culture in perpetual latency

but the pastoral wind oscillates like an open circuit

that keeps me clacking in the way nurses say

“something needs to be replaced.”

This is a criticism I often receive,

but I am ambivalent towards keeping quiet

or sharpening my promise of The End

and the overdue cataclysm of a space

that rejected its creator. The distance between times

shortens as I speak to suffer

but I am too hard with the possibility

of searching for meaning in summoning

the demon inside me, soon out, then everything.

For instance, I set the ocean on fire and scream

“What kind of God would do this to me?”

This chant more or less fixes the miracle

which was too impatient for a ground war.

The difference in worship is often

the kinks that they share

and like them I am overcome with subjectification.

I waited for existence to finish.

I want to make it come faster

so I perform magic with faithless knowledge

of electricity, the catalyst, and allocution,

but I know nothing of this question.

The world worsens, then expands

to accommodate the monstrous nothing

of my creature. For no reason, I am “All Apologies”

but not a polemic. I felt the pulse

of the hellfire, the android, the ghost.

It was the earth’s current inside me as I began to finish.