all was and is and will

Oh baby.  The Earth is old and I am young, what should we do? 

Damn.   Eat everything.  All of the things. 

Curve space until we can fit into five manifolds.

Steal things from an old person who will be forgotten, and love those things with more force than they even deserve, just to keep a vestige of another human alive for one moment longer.

The trees are white tonight

and moan a little

dust from a house being recreated

paintings falling down into the snow

drops of red in the wash

  he cut his face on god knows what

traveling fast down a slope

and the whiskey made the blood flow out

all around

and it took time for those surrounding to notice

that the ground was changing

a puddle getting lower

a path forms, following the drunk and the dumb

  everyone needs to leave, they say

it isn’t safe, pathogens rising from the earth

like dust from a pillow

don’t breathe so much, they say

it is airborne

and your breath will not save you

  the people listen and find their families

go to coffee and smiles

or back to where ever they were trying to escape

  but those ones that don’t leave

hang on the outskirts and come back

breathing deeply

knowing that it won’t save them

and that that is the point

and it feels good to be dying sometimes

and the trees whisper stories

It is white now

snow coming down from whoever is dropping it

i think about all the things I could be

I still could be those things

but choosing is all

and it’s not so arbitrary as I sometimes tell myself

  I don’t have other people’s stories to tell

I have my own but I don’t know what they mean

my own body has a history it has lived

it has felt

my bones are an artwork through time and space

the path taken an elaborate dance

unchoreographed

Text:

Cleverly walking so

fucking clever but

the trees are falling and

the waves choose to drag

seaweed and

poisonous fish

onto the shore

and the dog steps in it and

your face is suddenly

wet but then the 

sun goes

out

Falling out all over the desk in front of her, she gathers them into her hand and places them in her front pocket.

Outside the children call out numbers and items in an absurd bidding war, with black magic floating through their brains.

She arrives home and her mouth is empty, nothing but gums.

Her parents are proud, and say it is time for The Mediation.

The pillow presses softly on her face.

At zero-one-hundred hours thirty a great mass, faceless and yellow, approaches the bed.

It has no words, only shape.

Its shape becomes pointed as it becomes clear it is searching.

When she realizes what it is looking for she says

“I sold them”

“Wake up. Want some water?”

The sun shines through the windows and he kisses your neck and you realize that maybe you should have just walked the five blocks home.

One thousand yellow butterflies erupting from the exhaust pipe of a Ford F-150 allowed them enough cover to escape the media and hide under a conch shell for the rest of their lives.

Text message: Today I saw two old men kissing in the park and I miss you so much.

 Their hands were so different and looked strange together to everyone who wasn’t holding them.

She grabbed her tongue and led her to a knot in a tree where they died.

The cologne is gone but he woke up gasping on his pillow again

“Please don’t invite me”

“I thought you were somebody else”

"Roll me one"

"I want to wait but let's not"

feeling of your side lightly touching mine

as we walk to the gas station

even if it means

I asked her at the train

right on schedule

for thirty years time

to grow and to understand

and readiness would come

    I could not hear her answer though,

the train was too loud,

and as she spoke her reply

her coat caught on the train

and she was carried away

    Seeing her

receding, I proceeded

to extend my arm to mend

the distance, but in that

stationary second I traveled

a hundred miles away

     but no more,

and we traveled together

still facing one another

    And though we are a hundred miles apart,

we are only that

and no more

 and as the train draws closer

to that photon it has been chasing

     we’ll draw closer and closer

and she’ll whisper her answer in my ear

just before it all stops,

for that brief eternity when we are one

                          And when this train finally slows

we will find ourselves once again

 one hundred miles gone

still facing each other, just like that day

 so long ago

when we promised thirty years

      a date come and gone on earth,

         us still teenage lovers

                        light-years from our past,

A passing man sees two young lovers embraced in

ungrateful lock. Jealousy takes his hand

when the leaving girl, out of sight

of her lover is suddenly gun-faced, the man

behind the arm trying brave-face

but failing, is so scared himself, that the

situation escalates and a shot will soon be fired but

the passing voyeur notices a flaw in the scared person’s

plan, his footing is poor and one swift movement from this jealous man

could throw the scared one off his feet and

save the day.  Jealousy steps in and says

“It’s your move, friend.  But being held at gunpoint is

more than you will be held tonight.  Call her lucky.”

  He fixes himself dinner, the beer is

bad and the ringing fades

but not from much of it.

She still works in the same pet-supply store

stacking tuna on cardboard

but her hair is straighter now

and she’s studying chemistry

at the local community college.

I can tell her head is full of dreams

because she always tells me about the

next thing she plans on doing,

and it’s never too crazy but

just enough to make me think

her actual plans are much more insane

and wonderful than she

would ever want anyone to know.

  She stacks the cat-food, three at a time,