ATTN: Deficit Declaration

Ascertain the devices of literary magic.

Access the demise of modernity.

The deception of advice is sometimes sickening

because of the prize of prosperity.

A certain set of spices, quite scientific,

always quiets a mind's sensitivity to

the reception of prices. Autonomy is

always free. The crisis of society

is assholes in high rises who spout slick

absolutes. The lie is spared on me.

My inception spliced it's way through thickening

brainwaves and I defied cries of piety.

Atrocities will diminish. Remain hip,

as true experience will distinguish yourself from mediocrity.

Deliver your astonishment with wit.

Devilish grins astound the majority.

Admonish the demons of the crypt.

Astral wonder directs stray ships toward glory.

Decry the anal shit.

Deny the deity.

All will die when 

it arrives daily.

Some will see death isn't it.

Death isn't ugly.

Arrive in doldrums and spit

awful dreams we can't see.

Design the angels.

Don't allow me

to advocate for dumb people who sit

and wait. Advise the wise to build cities

where downtrodden advance

down on the avenue.

Able-bodied and driven souls wilt.

Abandoned and derelict people plead insanity.

Deliver not anguish.

Divide up divinity.

I Felt the Field

When I hear the herd,

the obscene scene scream,

the line blurs between

dead end and dream.

Is the next plane plain,

a different planet or more

of the same. Will colors form

through rain when light

breaks apart. In vain,

I wonder. As I plunder

each dimension,

do I understand anything new,

or do I just stand under

nothing with you.

And if the latter is true,

can I climb those see-through rungs

and ascend to something blue.

Without succumbing to

the dreaded few.

They that become more and more

Without regard for the ocean floor.

Where we've been before.

I'm pretty sure it's a pretty shore.

I'm pretty sure, we'll miss time galore

but fuck it.

Regret is what life is for

because getting over it

makes you feel better than before.

When We Left Yesterday

We fell off the map's edge
when we left yesterday.
Reestablished home on our vessel.
Called it round, but people still find the sea
infinitely deep. Become the world that keeps
making copies of copies of copies like the City,
the world inside a world inside a world. There exist
infinitely more compact versions of the world in this world.
In this world, the new-old country will be
a strange world over worlds inside worlds.
Confusion will be chaos that the kids get.
For a tidal wave is an absurd enemy.
A Book of Truths, The Divine Comedy.
If a faulty exit is a looping Hell,
the instance before the fall
must be Creation itself.

Just a Moment

You've done nothing wrong
If you've done nothing right
Thus far. Men and women
Survive moments of pride;
Ecstasy endures. Know that
Since you've been here,
I matter.

Along for The Ride

We grew up near each other
on different streets, so we both know
different ways to the same places.
When I make turns that seem strange

take the scenic route,
you merely point it out,
a passenger in this vehicle
who rarely grabs the wheel.

Who wants to go the fastest way
all the time? Highways are efficient,
but wrong exits are interesting when
you're along for the ride.

I like where you take me,
when I'm your passenger
floating over familiar streets
that never looked so strange.

We waste our fuel on these trips,
driving fast on roundabout paths.
We could really take it slow.
Walk together instead.

Swept Away

Who are you now
but a reference point,
the north star in a faded sky,

a sunspot, a freckle.
Dots connected in our minds
really remain unrequited.

Lights left low lead
past the reconciled.
Children quiver in ecstasy,

a remembrance of the climax
that changed them from knobby kneed onlookers
to the aging populace that bore us.

Your freckles formed designs
I can’t remember. Except one that
we shared on our lips. I shaved it off.

It swelled. Now, it’s hardly there,
and I miss it
because I thought it distinguished

me from the others,
like it did you. I changed.
You became a point

fixed in memory
that I’ll recall while retracing
the breadcrumb constellation.

In my mind, I formed a path.
In yours, a mess. I’m easily
swept away.

ChapterHouse Open Mic

I participated in this reading/open mic a few months ago. Hosted by Philadelphia Poetry Collective

Video produced by Noise Soul Cinema

I Have to Live

I try my best to ignore bad decisions,
Messages that can't be unsent,
Moves that can't be undone.
So scared of the repercussions.

The trial has already begun.
The error plays all around me
And I'm not sure where to run.
Lord, what have I done?

Just then I heard a door open.
I knew he was home.
I didn't ask for advice,
But complimented him some.

I saw that his skin was flaking
Off the top of his dome.
He had been burned by the sun
In a place where he had hair once.

When I told him what was wrong,
He fed me some coincidental wisdom.
He said, “Son,
That's just something I have to live with today.”

The Doors

The fridge door keeps the cold air in,

while the front door keeps the hot air in.

The back door let's the breeze blow through,

but the side door's where the kids sneak in.

Have you ever tried to open the door

of a creator's mind? You might start saying, The Creator.

A part of you might die, but a part of you might live

like never before.

Entertain the Simultaneous

Passed down through the years, hand me downs wear thin

like a story stemmed from a bad translation. The words

highlight on the screen. We have to feel them to sing what they mean.

The timid wait till tomorrow to transcend.

                                                                                       To conquer right now,

we're all born at the same time, living stories that seem strange.

Bridge that generation gap after certainty of greener pastures

fails to bring brighter futures. You are the audience and the entertainment.

I Didn't Trip

When I walk through the pitch black
hallways, painting the invisible corridors
with my eyes. I imagine a shape on the top step,
a breathing kitty hologram, waiting in the trip zone.
A flip of the switch reveals nothing, but a return to normal.
There's nothing unexpected in this house.

That Ole Song

Oh, Billie.
Still I can't play her song.
That ole haunting melody that reads
rather than sings no matter
how easily my sheet music opens to it.
I should be able to feel it,
but my ear denies the attention
as my brain makes demands to my hands.
I try to remember, she's a lady.
She runs from too much mental masturbation;
but, on top of that, my fingers are bandaged.
I'll improve my improv, Monklike.
One day you won't know me,
under a hat that hides everything
I'll be in a world built for me.
Oh, Billie.

Why I Smile a While

I measure the passage of time through the life cycle
of my toothpaste tube. Although, you may argue, it's arbitrary;
With a wide, healthy smile, I say, no more arbitrary than the start and end of any day.
You say, one rotation of the Earth is the measurement we will use;
and I say, that's for the farmers. Enough time passes between each tube
that I can judge whether or not I've been living my life.
Toilet paper provides too quick of a cycle, and might only help me judge the health of my diet.
Shampoo provides too long of a cycle, and depends too much on the money I've had to pay for a haircut.
The toothpaste cycle, although not measurable by any device,
is fairly consistent because the same amount of toothpaste is used every day.
Even if there are variations in this cycle, they actually help me pass judgment on my life's activity.
Perhaps, I've been traveling, waking up in strange beds, drinking myself past the point of caring.
If the tube lasts long (and my teeth are still white), my life has been active and plentiful.
If the tube doesn't last, my life has been too much about work.
Too much consistency has always been a scary thing for me.
When the tube becomes a crumbled spiral from
too many steam-rolls on the edge of the counter
I've milked every last possible day from the current cycle.
It's time to smile and start over.

Homemade King

I lie in a bed that I made
by pushing two twins together
to form a king. I wait
for her to fill the other half.
Sometimes I sleep
on her side. If not, the sofa
swallows me up. In that place
I can hear his rumbling snores.
From a distance they form
comfortable repetition like waves
in an angry sea smacking against a dock.
My backbone aches when I sleep there,
away from my homemade king,
too many nights in a row.
Too many sleepless nights
away from her. I begin to wonder
if I have one.

Quitter

Most people know that I consistently set up shop and leave prematurely making the memorable moment the day of departure.
Most people think that's it.

That's it.

Stranger Angel

A man on the bus reminded me why
we run from wisdom we can't see.
I couldn't convince him that I believed
neither one of us completely understood
love in its current form. So we reasoned
through the logistics of selling cold air to
people in warm places. Packaging, we agreed
was the crucial element for selling nothing.
I appeared his negative image, with a sun tan,
but I'd be purple, like a people-eater, I thought,
before I understood love. I turned red,

thought he might convince me to
travel the world with him;
but, at the next stop he disappeared

into a crowd in Center City.

dishes

I want to come back as a poem
so I can live forever in the minds of men,
but first I have to do the dishes.

Forgotten Sense

The majority forgot,
upon his eternal rest,
the man who said it best,
his hippie nonsense.

Yet, a few do recall
the message that he left,
high upon his grave,
spray painted love over his name.

Cycle

As the lake becomes glass looking
at clouds thicken, drops tear apart

serenity like liquid stones.
The regularity of time matters less

than how the lake reflects itself
in between glances of the heavens.

History of The Failing Safeguard

are we getting smarter,
or do we just know more?
when will stubborn intellect
realize its gone too far?
that questions of an other
reinvent the mother
over and over and over
until we're more confused than before.
one day i think we'll know,
collectively that is,
that time's just an assumption.
a circle ends where it begins.
we'll try to put a safeguard in
to make sure we don't get here again
and we'll all be fine and dandy
till resources start to thin.
some will conserve,
realizing life's source.
some will move on
and time will run its course.