Yahtzee, Knack Alexander

Hey, you wanna sleepover?
*laughs* and we play!

he must have been there
up the stairs and up the stairs
and we would communicate
and reiterate
about the world and world affairs

Hey, he kind of looks like...
*laughs* and we smile!

Wanna sip? Here.
*sips* and we continua

He rips apart the papers and tosses them up
up in the air, unwilling to share
up and up and up the stairs
he's gone now, but who cares?
...right?

Sew your mouth shut if you aren't going
to use it, otherwise let's go to K-mart
and kick rubber balls high above the clouds
and push racks of clothes into walls
and settle down in sunny hotel halls
settle down at seven o' clock in the morning

That's how you wear your hair now...
intensely but most delicately combed backward
infinitely backward
And that's how you hold your head now...
plagued by indifference, your suddenly gaunt features
are sullenly sinking, actually wrinkling!


Excuse me, but it really does hurt me
When you say
"Alright"
and "Okay"
with that tone of
"Alright"
and "Okay"


You were sleeping and I shoulda let sleepin' dogs lie
I shot a Nerf gun in your eye
You flinched awake
I shot a Nerf gun into your face
and the rubber darts zipped and bounced,
off your cheeks and off your forehead and your skull
boink bonk whizz-bonk boink
The revolver spun and churned them bullets out
click click click.....click.

I do remember...we did sit in the café together often...
making stories of Thomas and Reginald,
and the man who brought his own tea cups!
Reggie and Tom! You remember...
We would talk, and you would often listen, I believe
about Mitt Romney and why terrorism happens.
Grinding poppy seeds between our incisors
sipping lemon iced teas and cold iced coffees
whilst being our own and each other's closest advisors...
It was right then and there, precisely then and there,
exactly when and where I'd hate to fall in with it,
and irrevocably fall into awe of it all.
My lagging words and endless rambling paragraphs
cut you off and drove you away, far away into yourself
and out there into the endless summers
It was just last Summer
"I don't want Amy...to be Yoko."

Then, there was the talk in your kitchen where I cried a bit
Then the baking of cookies and gingerbread men (or was that before?)
By and by, and at certain lengths,
It came to be that I seldom spoke,
and then hardly spoke at all.

Annunciation

Filled with something sweet
was the heaving cardinal bust.
Comfort…in a comfortable place.
Small rooms, fur of the wolf, burgundy feathers
I would throw my heart away for warmer weather.

I am tired…so tired…
I lay in bed with the furnace fired.
Eyelids shut, in my baby’s crib,
broken bedframes of Adam’s rib.
Covered my head in woolen blankets,
Sailed my dreamboat 'til nightmares sank it.

Cup and a mug

What I need is, what I need
is a bird at my window
or a squirrel in my yard.
I think they will sing and scratch
and keep me company when the sky is white,
the water at some height

Me with my mug and malaise
Me with my cup and a vase
on hushed tables where my fables sit;
The fables I sent door to door
door to rusty door to door

an apple core being beside apple cores, 
are eaten round and year round
found and lost, though abundant

Bang! Bang!

Song of the country fool

who needs some sweetness

Bees and fleas in a caustic weather

Burn 'round fast, falling hither and thither.

Feel it all and call to them all,

"Bang! Bang! Boom!"

***********************************

Needs and feeds does he, with a hollow crocodile tail,

Animal bones, "It's dead", says he, with a crooked coffin nail.

Murky and great, a knife laid deep in her sands,

Deals warm liquor water with her black, swampy hands.

Willows in Louisiana, and more skeetos too,

There's a fella in a shiny new suit for ya, boo!

There's a boy, there's a man!
What a damn fool he must be!

What a world it is and what a world it'll be!

Newman's Own

feel everything

These people are so few, but a crowd. My coffee is cold. The tea biscuits are stale. The porcelain mugs are cracked. The shops are closed.

18 23 29 36 39 45

Our Baby's Got Your Eyes

I think it might have been the short story I wrote. Though I didn't like writing it or how it came out, I believe it began some sort of cathartic chemical reaction within my soul. I wrote about a great romance, and it made the other seem like nothing. I also am mentally exhausted from midterms. I also had some fever dreams last night, until I turned off my heater.

The court upheld my conviction of the dissident blood cells and they were finally hanged in my heart's town square. Now my righteous mental government shall reign with absolute authority; this is a no-nonsense life I live now. The only feelings I have are resentful thoughts about the "F" word and the wasted time. Also, maybe it's the upbeat stop-motion film I watched today about pirates. Either way, that part of my life is over. I am not Jean Valjean! Oh, I still have my ribbon of bondage. Ah!

So, it begins being. I pushed it all out the other end of my head with movies and art. Now on to the next one! I look forward to it. For now, a shaking skull smelling flowers until time runs out.

"Moribundance!"

"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me."

For weeks I was talking about the end, always talking about the end. There was an inevitable end to something in my life, and nothing was really beginning. Now I have reached that ultimate end, and there is nothing here. I have reached the edge of the still and motionless horizon and I have stumbled upon another equally constant, equally colorless path. Hm, well that ain't what it was supposed to be. I was supposed to feel sorry, like I was dying and like I needed sympathy. I was to be sacrificed before a crowd. The crowd was to weep and sing my name in the streets. But now, the big little moons, spinning on their ends and melting like wax...they bring me to a milky-eyed complacency of sorts. I am happy with things, or...Luke Wilson is happy with things. I am content, but there is a black rainbow and bank of gray clouds rolling atop me, eclipsing Claire's good sunlight. There is an army of ghastly soldiers marching through my streets, shouting silence. My people's wooden windows are shut and their wooden doors locked. The water...oh, how it is black and below the swishing surface you are deaf and unheard by boats and swimmersby! You hear nothing...I promise, it isn't excitement. What does a man have to do for something sweet every now and then?

There is no defect anymore to exploit within myself. I was once a muttering, incoherent creature...I crawled around with my voice screeching and my eyes rolling around. I thought this might give people an idea. But now the moons and their little gravities and their little waxings and wanings have sanded me smooth, grinded me up into a fine powder that will be blown away with the slightest breeze, I assure you. Perhaps it's the coldness in my knuckles or the stillness in my pupils that frightens you. Heh.

These days I can only say the word "Monkey", and I always feel as if I have forgotten something. A little death, a small one, this is; I have reached the end point, and there is no limit to this limbo. Extravagance is gold and your chatter is silver. I exchange what I have and you give me a bank note. What am I to do with this? It is a peculiar thing that you do. You are a mole in my government bureau, a drop of paste or glue upon my flawless model. I work at you like a small bit of wood with a cutting tool; I believe I went too far. You are soft, too soft. Brittle, you break.

If this is clarity, maybe I have reached a plateau of creation. I am no longer the wild-eyed, studious prophet of manic depression and an acid tongue of fury. I cannot write scathing shots at you or him. I cannot enjoy or rise above the damp chambers of the oceanside caves. But then, what am I expecting from these chiral weeks? They are parallel, unchanging, and worn thin. My head has fallen to the pressure of the outside air. The balance is equal and there is no solution.

A lone boy once exclaimed, "Hey!" and approached the crowds of men and women, when all about them came a flood and washed them away.

There was a lock with no key in the dark, and then a bloody Summer of rose-red faces, a coming Fall flushed with golden things falling down when I wept in my bed, walking places and talking to talkers and swallowing little moons, the fallout of babes and the death of knights, the desperate tenacity of my descent, the end and the end and the end and the end until there is nothing more to see here, nothing left to lose. I'd rather be dying than dead.

GONE ARE THE DAYS.

Night Until Mourning Dreams...

"Thunder only happens when it's raining."

I cried myself awake, legs warm and sweating from a dream of a big wave. It was a water wave washing away happiness and joy from the only people I know and love. There was so much hate in this drowned world and no hope left. People grabbed on to you and dragged you into the swelling, black ocean. I got my feet wet. There's a heater below and a fan bringing up winds around us, and the Sun slowly rises on tearing faces. I don't sleep anymore; I don't know rest. I cannot celebrate life anymore than I can make it quiet down. My head is a swinging thing, vibrating and giving in to its own weight. I cried myself back to sleep.

I'm never going back again to your quarters, where you feel for the walls and the candle wax drips and burns my wrist. Take what you want from me, I am left alone, I may learn no lessons. I disobey out of my disability and they believe taking everything from me will make me better. This is not the way I expected things to go. I didn't think this'd come back. I thought I was done with it, finished, etc. They tell me those things are important to keep track of, that they are the only reason I live. Well, I agree. Thank you for noticing; I am starting to burn and my ashes are floating away into the cold, white January sky. Give me a shovel--a sharp one--; I am digging into rock bottom's rock bottom. There might be something down there, just let me look. I am losing oxygen? Honey, I've been cold and lifeless for as long as I can remember. There ain't no oxidizing these lungs, these drops of blood. The end? No, I have a feeling this is not the end. Short breaths until--Ah, yes. Sleep again. Close my eyes for me, take me away. Sweetheart, I am hungry.

The installation...it's gone. Its halo has been snapped into several pieces; it is useless, not what we remember it to be. Allow me to get to the dreams. But one more thought: A sad song may not fill my lungs in these dark, final hours.

I dreamt about two men trying to kill each other; it was cinematic and suspenseful. It was snowy and we were in England. That was cool. I dreamt of big waves enveloping the entire world. I dreamt of the end. I dreamt of Christmas gifts and throwing them away. I dreamt of useless things and the pitiful longevity of the end of childhood. I dreamt of the suspense of the consequences of my neglect. My neglect of who I am and who you are. My neglect of life and all of my time. My neglect of my priorities and responsibilities. But then again, who is really counting my failures? Oh yes, I am. But then again, don't we all? Ah yes, we certainly do, until they weigh too heavily on us.

You are relieved of your duty to care for me. 'Tis a lost cause. I'm sure this will lift a burden off of your heart. I'll have you know I'm alright. All, as they say, is right.

A portly, bearded man with greying hair stood on the apple crate and waited for the audience to regain its composure.
"One last thought...", he announced to the crowd.
"Yeah, what is it, then?", bellowed a spectator.
A pause. The man took a breath.
"When you look into a man's eyes...and you see a growing ocean, a rising tide...do not tisk-tisk him for being weak. Do not slap upon his wrist for acting a child. Do not measure his tears in volume to estimate his melancholy. Many tears go unseen, and many men bleed inside, from their hearts. Love him for feeling, and love him for his woe."
The crowd stood still.
"I ask of you people to look upon a fellow and love him for surviving...surviving the muddy swamps, dense forests, treacherous mountains, sparse and lonely fields...of existence."
The man procured a small dagger from his fishing vest, to the shock of the people surrounding him. Some looked away, some gasped, some looked on. He took a quick breath and pulled the blade from the hilt, breaking the knife in two. He held the pieces together and dropped them to the marble floor. They clinked and broke into several more pieces. The audience watched intently for his next word.
"Friends...nothing stops this train. We are all wading through these murky ponds and we are ALL crawling on the side of precarious, icy mountaintops. Let us not forget that. A good day to you all."
He stepped down and walked into a shadowed doorway. The crowd dispersed.


SEASONS OF GRACE.

With Kings and Counselors...

"For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then would I have been at rest,

With kings and counselors of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves;

Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver?"

I started crying and never stopped, but that is where life begins. When you can't resist but to feel, but to show yourself what you want and what you need. That is what life is about, I'm showing this to you for goodness. Moonlight will fall on my alley and puncture my windows and visit me in my bedroom. I lay my head in the dark and glare at my fluorescent clock and feel the cold and warm breezes from the window and the fans and the machine. The light from under my door reminds me of you and the rest of them, a sun whining to be involved in the end. A son crying when he is left out gives you such sadness! Violence hurts you, it hurts all but it hurts you. That is sweetness, sugar and all the good things in the world. Early cold weeping. Early cold weeping. Mornings in and I refuse to go places, nights out. My mug in the mirror, broken and filled with the coffee, my mug. oh I'm blind. my eyes stretch out of their radii and hurt, ache and are sore. Love what happened there. It's an epic jaundice that corners my lips. I can only dream now with my midnight snacks and late weekend mornings with the sun periodically passing across my room in ultra bright white. Dawn brings us who we want but we  are dead and dirty and we flush our things down the world sewers! 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and done ness. Steely-eyed country girl, his girlfriend and him in the dark with me. The miserables. I eat my greens and then this girl with deep red hair cutely cutes herself in the cute area and I get cute all over my cuteness. sickeness. sickeeness of heer, the sikcness of her and the clean woman. ANOTHER. ANOTHER. i give up on that one and i must pursue the other. moribundance.

dark attic with nails jutting from every wooden surface filled with porcelains and valuables and nerdy items. it is a sea of broken toys. ephemeral scratchings in an evening. I fear for my future, who's there and what's going on. hunted free and for the hunt itself and ghosts don't know! but soft, itself in itself is hunted and daunting and the haunting itself.

The endless, billowing steam cloud blowing from the urban walls lifts into the forever black, and I pass under, a spectator. Hm, I think. Hm. That's all, really. no, not all. the big one, the one who talks, ushers me into her childhood home at nighttime with my tears staining her parlor floor. "I'm sorry" she says. I say nothing, just sob a bit. She brings me in, sits me down by the fire, an orange one in a brick fireplace, place for fires. She wraps me in a rustic moose blanket and hands me a cup of coffee (how did she make it that fast?). She sits down beside me and puts her arm around me (she's wearing pajamas)(and somehow she's my age).

We talk and we talk and it ends until we talk again. We catch up, we bring things up and we end it all again. We start once more, talking and reminiscing and just loving together. It was a night, surely, it was. I don't get it, she's mine. I don't get it. She is our age, this woman. I think she does, but who knows what they have done to her. nothing to be unwrapped. there is nothing. none of this true, none of it real. dyeing alone, the color black into my pants and my shirts. the color, alone. it washes me in it, I wash myself in the black alone color. the transcendental transparency of this liquid, slow death. be proud of me. accolade me in it, love me through it and be with me between it. he's gonna hurt you, only gonna hurt you. I swear, I can possibly be it, what you want. Just talk to me. Just talk.


"WHAT HAS CAST SUCH A SHADOW UPON YOU?"

Luke wie E. warum Wilson

"So onward through the murk and the uncertainty, siftting through the days patient and carefully, always to get to where she is"

This good morning, I woke up 25 minutes late.

Don't touch my hands, they are mechanical like a machine and just as cold. They work at these keys, spell out my name. They are cut, they bleed, and they heal slowly. They work at my skin and clean up their mess. They grip pens and pencils, fold and sort papers. They move with dizzying speed as white spiders, working and working for me. They support my head, support your waist. I am a slave to them, they are a slave to me. I have a question.

Somehow I doubt you are the sortof thing worth loving. But honestly, I can't help it. I am like a moth who just wants to look deep into your ultraviolet eyes. Bloody beaches strewn with uniform bodies and they fell before you, for you, and you say your thanks.

"Well, here: what do you like best about her?"
"..."
"Oh my god. Really? You can't think of one thing?"
"I just...love her, I don't know."
"Are you insane? Dude, she's messing with your brain, or something."
"I don't think so."
"Yeah, well what DO you think?"
"I think she's a black widow and I am a lonely spider."
"You are insane."
"Maybe."
"So, what are you going to do, then?"
"I have two choices: dive into the freezing waters of the Atlantic, or hang onto the rails and listen to the band play."
"Haha, so you're screwed either way; the Titanic goes down no matter what."
"Exactly."
"I'm telling you, man, you don't NEED a girlfriend."
"I need something."
"I'm here for you. Haha."
"Thanks."
"I don't know, maybe you should do it, if your heart leads you that way. You know?"
"Yes, but history tells us not to listen to our hearts."
"Since when?"
"Since forever, I think."
"Do whatever makes you happy, man."
"Well, she'll make me happy but then probably make me severely depressed. So, there's that. But, if I don't do anything about it, we'll both be severely depressed, and it won't ever get better."
"That's a nice way to look at it. What's there to lose?"
"Yeah."
"Mhm."
"I knew thee well."
"Hehe, yeah. You too, dude."
"Well, no, she probably won't make me happy at all. She's a blank, a dud who doesn't really care about me. Or at least, half the time she is."
"*sigh*, dude, didn't we just settle this? You have the most fickle mind of anyone I've ever met."
"I just value good decisions."
"Whatever."

Baby steps.