between lines

there are times
when rational eyes can see backwards
and finally see clearly
nothing follows something
and both are unnameable
the sky with wings
a monument made of music
a log jam on a holiday
from school
the reality of make believe and
the holding pattern before work
that is unbelievable

gnat

i clap my hands together in the dark
before dawn...
and a gnat flies out of the sound....

until today

i stumbled over my false steps
millennium by millennium
my stone heart and
my spirit drifted out of an opened seam
i was no longer alone
the beaches
where nothing grew but everything
that died in the sea
returned to die again
into the nothingness of complete
transformation
unrecognizable
minerals hid
inside the hollow within my hardness
wings
wind and
waves were singing again
with voices identical to my own
sunlight crashed into
the black caves
luck was back after many
lives
my sunrise witness
to the avalanche
where i ran like there was no tomorrow
until today
*

from confessions of an adult fetus

I never thought i would last this long... in the body of an animal.
*

I suddenly realize I wrote a lie to a friend in a letter recently, and I feel ashamed...
then immediately I realize shame is a hinderance to truth as well... luckily it was a insignificant lie....
*

my toys are my friends...
my friends are my toys....
*
Why should a child be forced to sit through adult conversation? Considering how vapid most of it is.... for that matter... why should any adult...?
*
I just remembered my death... the unspeakable pain I am to suffer in the future... and I feel bitter like an unjustly condemned man awaiting execution.
*
I walk into the hotel kitchen to get a work application for dishwashing... and I know immediately how gulliver felt when he washed up on the shores of Lilliput.
*
He was the most gifted artist I had met, with drawing skills that emerged by the age of 4. His early youthful etchings were full of "messages" and dramatic situations. Later he made only portraits... all drawn furiously, with great expression. I asked him why he made only portraits... not other subjects... and he said because he would have to spend too much time "thinking" about what was important to him... this way, he could just create without "wasting time".
*
Virtually all the artists I have met here are struggling to be recognized as artists by others, it is their common passion.... & their work shows the homogenous results of that common effort.
*
Imagination and creativity are lethal for society... as well as its agents.
*
Many years ago I decided against my body and in favor of imagination. And I grew old in a dream of life....
*
Christian consumers... Buddhist consumers... spiritualists on shopping sprees!
*
Heironymous Bosch... the only profound realist in all of western art. Like Christ, he knew "what was in men."
*
a number of us, artists squatting in a cinder block garage, are telling the landlord that we can't afford to pay more... that we are struggling artists... and he barks back: art is a hobby, nobody makes a living doing art! and we are dumbfounded, as if what we have dreaded all along is finally true because it was spoken out loud!
*

The most important art is hidden... the wisest artists are invisible.
*
Why would an artist repeat himself over & over & over? and call it... a style?
*

As soon as someone begins telling a joke... Istart worrying....
*
All i have left to do is to give up everything.
*
Isuddenly remember that I was born and that I don't know why.
*
I was many strangers older one minute into this storm
where men go mad. I just waved bye-bye... to myself
and cried: I AM NOT YOU!*

i am not laughing

what a joke everything is...
from orgasam to octave...
and an old joke at that...
and now what? now that old
what?
i can't even laugh at being
unable to laugh...
and i am not sad...
i ask my self living this
dying... what am i?
and nothing again
like an old joke
echoes the question
back...
old what no longer living
with its question mark...
i am beside myself...
i am not sad
and i am not laughing...

annihilation

annihilation all so beautifully strange and wonderous
when it is your self that is obliterated
the only possible liberation lies there
in the hope that you can destroy yourself
and survive it

dream variations

i must dream now to decipher my dreams
the dark trees
the veins of languages flowing with water
the dance of insects
which is the voice itself
oh life!
even as ghosts tomorrow
and beyond all tomorrows...
i am your friend in love
with our friendship

a second away

i am second away from awakening
standing still in the noise like a monument to moonlight
i keep cemeteries i evaporate in a factory i left decades ago
in this zoo my body the blinds never shiver
in the silver
walls bend....
i am a second away

aging

it is so quiet
i can hear myself aging
a vast distance surrounds me
with its silence
like a redwood in a desert
with snowflakes for leaves

i love beautiful monsters

i love beautiful monsters
so do i
i am ten thousand
so is he
however
there is only one
i tell the truth to
or else
we do not speak at all
lock jaw
second class
nothing to live for
just living
ten thousand volumes
each a tome
and they prove it
the dead end
burning with purity
is betrayal
the lovers always eat the same bread
as language eats itself…

just listen
*

this is what i heard my heart whispering to me while you were present.
just listen
and now i want to find something precious to give back to you
something like the urge to sing yourself out of yourself
to dance yourself out of existence
without commentary
*

a road

i am a new age
with a road made for me
alone
now that the show is over
how is lost on me
but why
is perfectly
clear
*
(for terri clark)

out of a blue glass

i actually take pride in not having good taste
there are days when the finest dishes taste like sawdust
from wormwood forests
there are days when you talk backwards
and swing at ghosts
walking around inside your phantom skull
night will change you completely
right in front of my eyes
cannon fire from hand guns
and automata
chew up everything that gives
open the door
and you're a goner
forever
and yet you never
existed really not
for long
but enough is enough
i drink clear dark liquid blue
out of a blue glass
*

cut with joy

my sadness surpasses understanding...
it is a diamond in the rough... a crystallization of pure pain... a gem
that i cut with joy...
*

corpse

inoffensive corpse
fire of sand infinitesimal city
explosion of daylight in the eyeless swimmer
through the earth's clay
you ceremony of memory
our human light burning humid human words
for a basket of subterranean abandonment
you journeyer...who sings and grows
the names of flowers in silence
our bones begin to speak for themselves without
rest
the body~tomb breaks open its rotten seed pod
surrounded by loneliness no longer
goodbye goodbye my love
of darkness and terror
goodbye my love of doubt
storms of nameless obligations
we are islands
heading out to sea
century by century
with our constant fervor
our red breath invincible weapons and
the victory of roses promised in the
the dry earth under a kiss of salt
stone apple black earth oilstorm
goodbye my love of love and the rarified air
above

maximum theater

i need someone to hold my feet
the man on the white horse
the hand that wrote the first line of the obit
i am half in and half out
of the driver's seat
after a long roll over
all my hopes and dreams:
power comfort and style
safely packaged
black belt and optional
equipment
under a blue sky that couldn't care
less
about psycho~sexual conspiracy theories
i caught on:
3 o clock in the morning threats
underground tunnels
spys in the grocery store gas stations
maximum theater
there is absolutely no evidence of
their overwhelming existence
even my boss
is conspicuously missing
from my vocabulary
*

a nice guy

you look like a nice guy
in a hospital
in a swat team stand~off with common sense
people go to work everyday to get spanked
i don't know who that is
that posseses them
what ruse
what devil
what fine alright
what come on
that won't shut up
i have no clue as to who was who or why what happened to any of them happened...
surrounded by today
there is no if
its no big deal
a whisp of smoke
a wind blown day
*