words, or lack thereof.

old blood.

old blood gone black with good intentions,
nights erase your head, flimsy excuses collapsing.

old eyes haunted by aborted interventions,
how life in a violent universe ends in ambivalent dividends.

old stars scheme, galaxies retreat in chiral disarray,
weakly tweaked and distorted, chased by the echoes of popular storms.

old time haunts every bedside table, auspicious hours unheralded:
how lost we look while wide awake at dark hours.

seeing skulls.

it is too early to still be late, now minutes pass as ripples across the weird surface tension of remaindered calendar days. leaden skies mostly concealed under ivory fog, wind thick with precipitation are an overlaid transparency on a perfect march california sky, partial transformations of outdated modes. box to box, one date to the next the doorways before me always changing, rooms disappear & rearrange daily. words tumble through broken teeth, seeming foreign and consequently untranslatable. ideas become ships without shores. i dream that i might perhaps manipulate the road before us, and wake before the conclusion.

still, evening layers will settle & dull the neon tracing its fringes. the landscape before us breaks into waves, particles interchanging. our ears trace the the shape in the silence, oblivious to the oblivion on its other side. these are the happier times, framed by the gloom of previous eras. this awkward zen is a reminder that it all belongs to us.

'dissatisfied with every flower...'

'by circumstances fed
which divide attention
among the living and the dead,
under the blooms of the blossoming sun,
the gaze which is a tower towers
day and night, hour by hour,
critical of all and of one,
dissatisfied with every flower
with all that's been done or undone,
converting every feature
into its own and unknown nature;
so, once in the drugstore,
amid all the poppy, salve and ointment,
i suddenly saw, estranged there,
beyond all disappointment,
my own face in the mirror.'
- delmore schwartz

the debatable relevance of abandoned lists.

evolution through convolutions:
falling face forward
from the parallel principal on downward,
pure bifurcation made necessary.

holon sonnets:
listening for the infinite,
interpreting the crosstalk
from a silent receiver,
translate rubrics in acrostic
(all spelled out).

assimilating, comprehending nothing;
something changed,
bright & fictitious, demanding more.
shedding yesterday's selves
like dead skin cells,
we are shadows on a dark wall.

confessions of a heavy spiritual technician:
in a failing world, there is nothing left
but dramatic action.
remember the walled citadels of youth,
torture chambers show free of charge,
the black dreams of colder times.

making darkness conscious:
constructing new scarecrows
and training owls to warn of daylight.
our gods & countries,
now weakened & inept, still demand
our unswerving allegiance.

cryptographic love letters to you.

pearlescent pallor of a full moon in the clear chill of november's open midnight sky, this cold is not the common cold. we have kept our faith in the sun through this dim & ruthless year, knowing that heaven & earth shall pass away in aching autumn's promise of stagnant decay.

how my ears burned in the bruised eventide! before the hours grew dark around us, i resigned myself to deluded enthusiasm in a high place. how loft am i? like a flame over water i shimmer, i see everything as if from above, mapping the elemental forces that suspend us all. i invite you to bring fire, this is serious, to a private immolation on the shore.

that hour passed unnoticed, and a devotion to movement has brought us from nowhere & to it back again. with octopus formality we settled tentatively into usual states of passionate unease. with a deft grip & adept abilities you offered new interpretations of ancient mythology, but i argued for relativism & made ruin of what enjoyment there is here for us. i have outed myself as a maudlin fraud, father of a never-born child, trying to teach others everything in the grip of obscure emotions. because for once i recognize with perfect clarity the signs of this time: this situation has no permanence.

so that's how it goes, when we have again struck out on our own. over time we have learned to not talk about the things in which we most deeply feel or believe. the constant pressure of suppression serves to keep us alive; like the moon, persistently ill, but refusing to die.

but don't tell the robot, these secrets are for keeping: i crank & churn my enigma machines constructing messages we cannot entrust to be sent out into the blind & common night. perhaps you might see what is hidden & what is evident, obscured information on a whole other level, in this veiled, mumbled discourse. substitutions in a stepping motion, transpose the cipher with keys, finding unexpected permutations: artifacts of faulty translation? the subtext is a diversionary tactic, concealing embedded narratives, sunken meanings corroded past recovery. before completion, you might realize the secret that lies at the center of this mystery: a truth you cannot bear to translate, a truth you would not care to translate.

time & how we pass through it.

long nights battling darkness, we wait for the fires that will set us free. ignore this season & its strange war aura: let us go somewhere less pacific, where these places are just states of mind.

here, the revenants are searching for answers & fortunes amongst the silence, dust & echoes of an era now getting late, soon passing. the mendicants watch for unusual flashes towards the galactic core, speaking across distances in the literature of silence & spreading prophecy in blazing desert shadows.

here, among my secret family, there are no hellos & no goodbyes. there is no when & there is no want but there is still give & take, with no notion of or desire for wealth or love. going backwards into the future, we inhabit historical decay without an inventory of what we hold on to & what we've let go.

here, we do not worry about ours fate because we are certain our time has come at last. we listened closely to the prophecies of the coming age in the desert of echoes. the falling & failings of decaying civilizations were preludes to this tarnished certitude. blood & the memory of blood has brought us here, to the garden of vortex, where the whorls & vortices of atomized air push strings of jumbled, disconnected minutes into drifts at our feet.

here, things-not-like-other-things loom at the fringes of our vision. mimetic memories attempt to lead us astray. we are wanted for our resurrection crimes, but to our eyes there is prison everywhere & we are surrounded by laws that know no violation. confrontational apathy is our greatest defense. nothing, or perhaps everything, stands in our way.

here, in these shattered days when opposing forces outnumber, everything feels like a last chance. but here, between shadows & invisible to everyone, we find new orientations: we fade bright like aging suns (and collapse heavy like distant neutrons).

'the appartion of imperminance.'

'silent friend of many distances,
feel how your breath is still expanding space.
let yourself peal among the beams of dark belfries.

'whatever preys on you will grow strong from this nourishment.
know transformation through & through.
what experience has been most painful to you?
if the drinking's bitter, turn to wine.

'in this vast night, be the magic power
at your senses' intersection,
the meaning of their strange encounter.

'and if the earthly has forgotten you,
say to the still earth: i flow.
to the rushing water speak: i am.'

- r.m.rilke, '29th sonnet to orpheus.'

how i lost my way.

it was somewhere after the fumed metal sunset, a confusion blooming as the smoked glass of dusk settled overhead & night discussions bloomed. the references were incomplete. maps that depict fictional or alien lands, useless here. directions more poetic than accurate. 'i can't feel at home in this world anymore,' i muttered as a gibbous & jaundiced moon slurred across the horizon. several wrong turns in the darkness. an owl appears before the windshield view, its wings shrill white explosions. towers of flame, thin orange pyramids in the egypt of the night. like trails of ashes the stars led me to a dessicated home & overgrown bed in verdant disarray, grown unfamiliar in both my absence & its decay, ripe for procrustean dreaming.

things are not the way they used to be.

this is a message to everyone, but this time i won't tell no lies. it was such a natural mistake, yet we must face reality now. the sound of trumpets fill the air, in afternoon's copper glare the angelic trumpets blare; could this be the final call? where shall i be when the last trumpet sounds? when day draws nigh, when the crimson curtains of sunset sigh, where shall i be?

everyone is a friend (and still we call them strangers).

another day, more voyages forwards & backwards in an overcast cosmos: lost in the hierarchies & nested structure of information, dimensions not shown but made implicit. under the rothko skies of morning, our motto is 'keep faith through all kinds of weather.'

lives in focus: time obliterates the past, the progress of ever-accumulating moments & the process of accelerating history.

praised be this delusion: a subjective truth with an objective reality.

refer to the pornographic atlas: dull decisions, mundane indecisions; stolen habits & acquired tastes; unwound unrest & more tired fanaticism; missed flights never chartered; broken times of broken time.

the mythical particles that bind us all together: can you feel them too? (i find myself thinking of you when i i should know better, or at least think i should).

these days, again: not the riveting eeriness of déjà vu but the weary boredom of a film on endless repeat.

eradication efforts: how was your summer? how did your summer? do you feel summer?

are we in the club, or back out again? membership proves elusive. it becomes irrelevant. we don't have much time & it doesn't matter anyway: the sullen, open skies are filled with minutes too plentiful to spend.

the perils of existential moutaineering.

far past even our last chance finds me hoping still for the long-since hopeless. we can blame technological betrayal, perhaps, but there are larger systems at work here. i detect meaning in everything and cannot shake a creeping deja vu, shadow memories that overcast & darken my vision. rising up to again fall down, crossing the great waters only to drown. my tears come in floods, and there is sighing & lamenting. every silent hour lingers like stormfall, eerie light tinting sky & a weird stillness to the air. the zenith might yet be reached, perhaps. mt. everest, where are you?

at unknown depths.

'light of my heart, do not let my darkness speak to me.'
-st. augustine

a placeholder for future revelations.

something has to happen, sooner or later. having tried so hard without trying much at all, heaven passes through me while earth is heaped upon my brow. when weariness is all i have left, what rest can i find?

inappropriate metaphors for darkness.

trailing down the path to winter, fall straggled & fell behind, speaking in symbols untranslatable. your dark hair fell like the october night, each fogged exhalation of breath in the sharp air was a declaration of secrecy. (this season will forever be about you.) all through the nights wandering, during day standing still; statuesque in the sun. 'above us, the stars are always aligned,' i reminded. you sighed: tired, resigned. with our bodies riven by encroaching wet & brittle cold we soon fell to exhaustion, dozing lightly under stiff leaves shellac'd with frost. under morning gloom, we discovered everything had changed, winter had arrived as a vicious confirmation of your heaven & earth magic. your eyes glowed with the tinct of madness like an ominous harvest moon: light like newsprint tanned with age, the thin cut-out of my shadow fell & cast darkness across your empty night. the river of placid chronology carried us ahead, unquestioning. the chill would raise map of your passions, crawling across cheekbones in etched blush, a force reincarnated dangerous & erotic, the red madness still coursing through arctic veins, betraying the network of your inner essence. night fell again like a sordid & corrupt empire, another morning come & i was alone. i fended off attacks by eagles at the shore, some bald others black, while i waited for passage across the vast ocean. the search for the sea kiln would call me away, as it always had; the magnet to my iron heart. when i boarded that gentle ship, and with it traced a far off horizons, you had long gone. in another time you might have found new ways to save yourself, instead of racing the darkness toward inevitable dawn.

lost dreams of the silent time (with apologies to stapledon).

it was as if he never woke. the sleeper did not open his eyes, nor raise his head as his lips parted, in a voice more breath than words, to recount the fading memory of his dream...

'...i was being shown things: a unspeaking witness given a tour; i was not an active particpant but rather the impartial observer.

'the first place i am taken is a planet brimming with shimmering seas & misty waters. miles-high rock pillars abound, with vibrant emerald greenery scattered sparsely about. the only presence beyond this small amount of flora are immense, silvery birds, shaped like our own terrestrial seabirds but smooth and featureless as if made of poured silver. they have no eyes or nor mouths for their beak-like protuberances, just vast sweeping wings and aerodynamic bodies gliding effortlessly through the atmosphere. the setting is peaceful and eerie; it is as if the silent planet has given birth to silent life.

'next i find myself at the threshold of a sun, a star that is apparently at the middle of this same planetary system. it has grown large, swollen & weary in it's waining years. its intense yellow white glow has begun to dim like a fading lightbulb. vast seas of fire part, liquid skin torn & pulled back, and i am shown into the center of this yet still intense nuclear furnace. there is a consciousness residing at its center: wise and innumerably old, of an impartial and observing nature which is bemused & often angered by, but ultimately cares little for the goings on of mite-like carbon-based lifeforms. the star is not hostile, but just as uncaring and un-curious as we are about the ants that crawl beneath our feet.

'fiding myself at yet another planet in this system: the sky above is night-dark and star-littered, as if there is little or no atmosphere. there is a large circular structure before me, mechanical and indented in the center-- a technological omphalos. protruding from the center is a towering instrument, like a large telescope with a pointy tip. it is a sort of quantum scalpel, designed to dissect layers of space-time gently and with precision. around it stand entities, beings of pure light that glow a luminous, dull silvery-yellow color (on recollection, the bodies of the afore mentioned silvery birds and the bodies of these 'luminous beings' below are remarkably similar...), shaped like tear drops that are pointed on each end. these beings are excavating space-time, in order to ascertain if there is consciousness within the basic matrix of the universe, and just where in this space-fabric this consciousness may reside. the beings do not seem to communicate in any sort of conventional language, but it is apparent this operation is of serious philosophical and spiritual importance, rather than destructive, invasive 'science' (their delineation, not mine). they are meticulous and delicate in their dissections, careful not to damage the delicate layers of space-time in their search for the god-consciousness, the organizing principle, within the structure of the universe...'

...and on saying this his breath catches & stutters, as if he is trapped underwater and unable to surface. his eyelids flutter, a telegraphic message untranslated by us, his alarmed companions. his face slackens but his chest still rises & falls gently: he has only fallen asleep again, leaving us to wonder if he will wake again & when he does, what report will he again bring from the worlds found far beyond us all?

in a silent time.

in the vibrating, singing hours of lucid afternoon i find i am not at all myself, but often wonder who then i might have become. will a drifting glance settle on the thorny monkey puzzle or the tuft of a false goat's beard? through the relative positions of cacti shadows & the arabic scralwing of condensated droplets we can read the celluloid minutes of this evening's film. perhaps it will show us if the jaws of dark nature have released their bloodless grip.

metanoia.

'as long as there's such a thing as time, everybody's damaged in the end, changed into something else. it always happens, sooner or later.'
- haruki murakami

know where you stand.

broken bodies wear depressed beards, with unseen skin vivid like the aurora borealis: even these blue eyes are bruised. your shadow is grey & transparent across my fevered, prickly brow; my flushed ears murmur with hallucinations of your vague callings across a magnetic distance. i feel like i'm on fire, bunsen flame burning cold & silent over the momentarily empty reaction vessel. there are no captured essences nor distillates worth mentioning, the alchemists' secret ingredient of void yeilding ephemeral results at best. this chemical warfare must end, and you must know where you stand; on the undifferentiated sides of my wrong or of your rights?

something changed.

lonely, lonely sinner.

solitary afternoons stimulate the better self & simulate a feeling of wholeness. spontainious detours via smiling girls bearing strawberries: another unforseen danger or just makyo? i want you to believe everything that i say. words are all we've got: there is nothing else but dried seahorses & the dreaded feeling of being alone (it's not so bad).

trying to be free of babylon.

oh what a day of rejoicing it will be: we are waking, awakening. we are arising vital & strong to chant down daily life, trying to be free of babylon's tyranny.

red reception of the sun.

i have labored hopelessly in empty skies for too long, an air mutineer for amateurs. heart like a glacier, i crack, i melt, i disperse.

this heat, a red reception under the sun. in my back i feel it; my flesh wishes to run towards this heat, wet and faint. my mind recoils, remembering the sensation of a burn.

here in the reception, one might stick to shadows or one may ravel oneself into coils of mystery & nothingness.

(elsewhere, in other times, i could see in your eyes an almost impossible depth, crowded with mirages of distant lands & the ghosts of an unconsummated future.)

and elsewhere still: today it is 7th floor, tomorrow maybe the 8th. one walks there (it is good for the circulation), one is delayed there (the lift is broken), one loses oneself there (just faint or delirious?); it is hotter still there, one would remain there well into the evening, letting the red sun disappear & evening swell, becoming fecund with cooler climes. cherish the wind as it reaches through your clothes, caressing.

abrupt movement at the reception: it was in the air. a need, perhaps, to change the melody, partition the past from the present. not lassitude but just a distance, like a slow separation. then one encounters others, new meetings: as an artist discovers their blue period. here is my blue period (though not all will be blue).

the night reception: in the black night the cats are all gray, but who sees them? pillows stuffed with the feathers of a thousand birds, sheets tent shoulders & legs, the end of an arm reaches through shadow into diffuse urban glow. the lights lit above our sanctuary demolish night, though it will not be destroyed so easily (that is the province of time only). the fairies dreaming your head will slip between fingers; 'je suis chatouilleuse... oui, bien là ...' they whisper sonorously.

untitled.

new fragments of ancient dreams.

'like hearts swelling.'

the perfection of right now.

1. how the birds on the powerline outside my window seem to respond to the bird sounds on the record playing very loud inside.

2. how the sunshine casts slivery bamboo leaf shadows across the wall.

3. how the hot of the sun & the cool of the breeze seem to synergize, compliment one another.

4. how the green tea in an azure mug in front of me steams profusely, ghostly, prismatically.

5. how while laying in said sunlight & said shadows, drinking said tea & listening to said music, being awake & being asleep can seem like the same thing.

answering the archons.

tears of our ancestors.

not dead.

integers of a misplaced winter's slumber (unfinished fragments).

dismissing the long numbers,
integers of a misplaced winter's slumber.
making sense of what is mine:
waking from a sleep so long
finding the clarity of everything.
morning unfolds like a tarkofsky film,
completely inscrutable & obscurely beautiful.
the hyperdetail & haunted color
of objects as seen from underwater,
slightly warped & alien,
somehow magnified & impossibly distant.
the density of heavy moments:
minutes spread spatial like stars,
each with sufficent gravity to drag & pull all others towards.
gravity dents, falls inward in the thrall complex cosmic action,
deep physics & ignoble passes.
the overlapping of worlds:
dissonance & feedback tearing at the edges,
time severed in ragged patches,
with careless glee,
forced together again
bending & accomidating,
the bent chrome drama of tragic car wrecks,
two vehicles conjoined into a single gruesome hybrid.
impact forming the most intimate folds & bends;
at the edge smooth rippling folds become irregular:
tattered, frayed; the turmoil of chaos,
bubbling in still-boiling radiators,
arching in stray spastic sparks,
bleeding dark arterial smoke,
vapid fumes,
gasoline shimmering like an amber'd philosopher's stone in meltdown,
under sunset's sad mustard color'd light.
this is never as much fun as it should be.
moving with airs & graces,
a world brought back to life:
spring's renascent flora,
crawling ivy & trellaced vine blooming at its tips,
winding through my vision,
finding & tracing my focus as it narrows & sharpens transitional moments.
phosphenes trace aerial platforms,
depart bright & nimble
with the specific intent
of temporanious absolution.