Athens not sparta

choosing your name

the dredge wears you down
dig it back through the earth
the clock dragged through the soil
no face purely its own

blueprint

original?
how far back for that?

the wild mother scrapes the cave
children with grown up hands
looking for origins
wrinkled eyes

grasping at the newest flesh

super market baby
divinely robbed
placed on the couch

the new girl tires of the old man
a young one wouldn't treat her to so many gifts
or love her enough to shoot her in the back

and your revolution
must it be staggeringly new?

write the expected outcome
refuse them their malleable natures
the water taking more earth
the costumes growing tighter
authenticity called into question

the celebrity scandal cleaner than one thought

and therefore tainted

for the girl in the fire is not enough to take notice of

revolutions are remembered
they ride out on fireworks

but enough ale shows the empire in its future rags

and long before that, there was a prophet

fire smoke burning matters of time
glazed violence
savage as a strict geographical trait
and pigment has something to do with it as well

and you're starting to forget
the reason
that you
started(?)

draw your axis on the void
spin the chances into spiral stairs
don't lose your eyes in the reflections

the superstitious believe
and the profane believe not to

and now?
the real now?

the time that no other time seeps into
cracks in the windows sealed
the days before not seething inside you

that time
do you know this time?

dredge the ashes from the fireplace

reassemble them

try to make them what they were
before the matter broke

down

into all the other author's opinions

through your two way mirror
with your lust for accolades
claim the revolution

deny them the flexibility
inherent in their fingers

saving the calendar
forgetting what it felt like in your hands
at the time

attractive nonetheless

never wanting to fall asleep slowly
time without action loses its axis
and the images drown as they try to prove
that it is their right now
again
more important than today
than laying your head down
and savoring the texture
of the sheets
now feeling too tight across your toes

the old days stronger than when they happened

happened being finite
events being finite

never bleeding into what is

REALLY GOING ON RIGHT NOW

texture

texture is now

-------------

propulsion in the realm of the infinite

-------------

reflections of self

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back through the soil
clutch at the substance
make your case for history
excavate the division
and hone it
to precision

too much weight on the structure
direction
falls
the retreat is the flood

we want to believe that the world arrived with us

our bones have come floating through various oceans

the fade we all know

quiet them down
easier said

let the sweat dry
before you think

give them a prompt
or they won't know

how to look?

the rocks
the volcano
the fade we all know
this seems like a road
that is about to dissapear

into the trash heap
find some romance
valentine hubcaps rusting near the furnace
too much metal in all of this

half whistled notes
discarded footprints
hats lost their heads

the crane picks up relics
for the crush

find a hand among this

I once lead a parade in that car
can you tell me what the scrap is worth?
did I think to escape
the cold of the magnet?

with a pharmacist's keys
lead noble retreats

one last beast of glory?
something to tell about
when you no longer chase it?

maybe it died in your throat
choking on tombstone schematics
the wheelchair of cold analysis
maybe a scalpel was not the answer

cast away all provisions
the semblance of a thread
the shadow from a ring unworn
one perfectly manicured nail
tapping slightly out of time

turn it to something
that warms the slow breath
down through your body
descend to the place
that means more than sense

don't explain it away

maybe you tried
to hold every part of it
maybe that's why
it cracked in the end

sun is the biggest man of all

the moderately moderate
the rhythm might be the hardest part
the blood might be the hardest part
the once white brick
now ghost blown yellow
above the freeway

steer, column, screws
freezing together

could the grass crack the cold?

keep the black waves
from spinning you
out
the shame of going nowhere
that breath is not enough

no more notes from the hospital
sun is the biggest man of all

not enough spine in their pens
the antique paints no picture

ground the geography
to what end is your vision?

the black wire crazed electric
crashing through the window
the fire might be too fast
try and save something

the promise of future artifacts

let the design fall apart
drag it back through itself
pretend like it's something you wanted

we're too far from where
the turn should have been

the furthest point
covered in lace
forgotten in stages

how to deliver the word
from the word
spin yourself away
from the pull of your other mind

I need a new trick
one that feels like I was meant to dream it

the promise of future artifacts

by dragging this pen like a coffin through the middle of griffith park

that I could fall from your fingers so gracefully
that the shards on the tile
could look so choreographed
as well as beautiful and ragged and blue

you want me to sweep it up
but my wrists have lead pipes for their centers
the'yll crack with an inward motion
and I can't afford to break any skin
the scars look ten pounds heavier on stage

and this topic would be exhausted
if I could remember not to chase it
and the itch that creeps sideways
now wants an invitation

muscles tight like you're shivering on the corner at 4am
in Chicago on January 17th
thinking how resolutions never last
but neither do bodies or teeth for that matter

and now my dogs and ponies will pass the spelling bee
and my hands will not cramp up halfway

make them make me refuse the prize
and send up the next big thing to tell the world
what it's like to be the world

somewhere amid the gratitude

I love you for telling that story about me
we can work the room together anytime

too much input to call this a real try
reflections off reflections set to Muzak

and I would like to say that I appreciated it all
but it's been like a bucket of cold nails
poured on the back of my  leg

thinking yourself into sleeping on the kitchen floor

have you tried to pin it down like this?
not that you can see what I am talking about
I should draw it

the bedrock looks like lace dipped in gray paint
the buckets lining the path to the rows of bricks
covered in white sheets, the scissors cut them easily
and the red of the wall comes off on your fingers
like a chalk and you run it down your arm

hear noises no description
maybe the sound of tin in the microwave
green sparks on plastic
the hum of what's melting

the stove as seen from the floor
looks like the side of a hospital
I imagine myself a window
getting smaller not a problem

after the last day

on the couch
the lies slipped down the sides of your fingers
you bent down to scrape the bones up off the floor
building new mobiles
that look dead when the wind doesn't blow

you look out the window
the glass the same as the lights of the city
the trees lean away from you
trying to drag their branches on the lawn
that has been manicured to the point
where the garden looks like the entrance to a mall

you exhale slowly
trying to see something in your breath
your knuckles on the carpet
you think about the substance of touch
cold tile might be better

you could call the workmen tomorrow
or rattle the ice in your glass

working part time at the grammar school
had helped for awhile
the children's legs made circles in the air
anything to keep in motion
direction not yet a factor

blowing the whistle
watching them file inside

the kids started to make fun of you
for always holding an umbrella, regardless of the weather

they asked why
and you explained that you were allergic to the sun

and then the one laughed
and all the rest followed
saying that if you were a plant
you'd be dead

personal after party

he sleeps on the negatives
that he took last week
dreaming of second guesses

placed some years
in a plastic bag
burned the suffocated evidence

it's not a problem until you fall down at the cocktail party

before the collapse
he pressed his face to the wall
the temperature almost cold enough
to take away the rest of the room

he turned  yelled that their veins
were wires
just conduits wrapped
around disposable  transmissions

stare 'til the portraits confide

ears scrape basements
palms in the dirt
tongues on the window pane
test the chipping paint for lead

cracks will bleed
through the telephone wire

a pageant of circuitry
that gives fingers purpose
the neighbors take pictures

and hold them too close to the light