Reheated French Fries

I put them in my mouth without hesitation.
I put each of them, one by one, into my mouth,

And chew

Each shriveled appendage all yellow-brown,
Greasy, and unsatisfying.
They're just as I expected, and though
I hoped for some sort of surprise
In their hot sickly black pepper smell,
Nothing came. But there they go,
Mindlessly, one by one,
(and sometimes in pairs) into my mouth.
Each little reheated potato tentacle wrapping
About my heart
Coating it, crushing it, entwining it
With memories of the way they used to taste.

Brothers

Oh cruel lunar dagger, break the sky
And let loose each bright burnt dot,
Each precious star from our vast
Blanket of blackness. How they fall
Like cores from boils free to your feet,
As you laugh and crush them underfoot.

They're all gone now, are you happy?

Dear brother, I know you are selfish,
And I know you are beautiful, and
I admire your face in every one
Of its pockmarked expositions,
But you must understand that you
Are not the master of anything, your
Everything is not of your design. No,
You will always be my lackluster doppelganger,
For I am the one who can blind all
Those little people whose love you crave. And
Even in their blindness they can still feel me. So
Just remember, dear brother, when I rise,
All of your work will have been in vain.

.

be.cause. we. can.not. sep.a.rate.
our.selves. from. lan.guage. we.
try. to. make. up. new. and.
al.ter.na.tive. ways.
to. make. po.etry. more. and.
more. diff.i.cult to. read.
but. why. not.?
.
it. makes. the. trial.
worth. the try.ing.

Box

She took the evening back home
Upon an ancient rusting train.
I was watching her from
Across the aisle, but she
Never noticed.
Her red eyes were
Locked on the blurred amalgam
Of stone and fire
Outside the car. Quivering,
She held a tiny blue box
In her slender white hands.
It was a small weathered thing stained
A now hushed sickly cerulean, and
Though she did not cling to it,
She kept her fingers
Tight about that box. Then with
A sigh, she closed her eyes,
Turned her face and
Slept...

Our stop had come,
The whistle hissed, and we
Stepped off the platform into that
Thick familiar air. I turned
In that red darkness and smelled fire,
And saw the swollen eyes of the hearths,
Pulsing in time all across the horizon,
Glowing regiments of
Pitchmills, seething
In their heats, howling
Low and feral.
I turned back, and found the
Train gone, and
In the flicker of a street lamp
I saw her, quivering still.
Head down,
She extended it to me. And
We stood like that, with the
Ash-wind sticking to our bodies,
With the blue box between us.

Rebirth

"And he's singing a little in there, I haven't quite let him die,
and we sleep like that together with our secret pact.
And it's nice enough to make a man weep, but I don't weep.
Do you?" - "Bluebird" - Charles Bukowski

Once, when I was amongst the inspirational,
I came upon a dove in the rain outside their tent,
His feathers overflowing with juxtaposed brightness. I
Was entranced the moment he appeared, for
He was not frightened by the myriad of passerby.
No, he was not afraid for he had lived within me
Up until that moment, when he finally broke
Free from my skull. His purity had kept me with you,
Kept me innocent, but now he was just a bird and
I was just a man and you, just a woman.
And though I was sad to turn away from,
I did, and went back into the tent
And shook the rain from my shoulders.