so often, when i get handed stories where people die, I go to where it happened.

 I go the place where they were last themselves, in their bodies, alive 

"why do you film the flowers, Zach? 

why do you show us the grass?

the breeze? 

the green, green leaves?" 

i want to show what it means 

to look up at the sky one last time 

i want to leave flowers for them

when I don't...

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we invented angels . 

beneath the brawn of skin
the pock of age 
spinning sweat for escape 
a purpose for craned necks
and volume for books 

we needed a shape for hope. 

indescernable from our fevered tongues
to spill us from these iron lungs
compressants quenched
and lift toward the spiraling smoke 
the ecstacy of backroom chatter 
of porch-lit memory 

we invented angels. 

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i hate this empty house. 

beneath every floorboard,
a void
a yaw of wretched midnight 
clawing footsteps, pacing
and pacing
echoes banging
barbed and noosed
by nothing 

and the only thing louder 
than the bathroom fan I never turn off
than the drip of a sink, the tick of the gas stove
than the sleepless train yards and slick black streets
than the desperate, hollow orgasms in a co...

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sometimes I feel like my long hair
what hides and reveals 
what some version
small and soft 
lives tangled in the unkempt locks
where it takes work to get to my mother's eyes
her cheekbones
a hair's breadth between. 
it's the distance between being looked at 
and being seen. 

shorn, I feel the shame of nakedness 
rather than it's splendor 

I feel the parts of me worth hiding 
in t...

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a loft 
somewhere
sweetly scented 
as the morning dew draws up
and out
lithe against valleys
hung low
loping chariots 

phantom fingers in grass 
long and sweetlike lovers waving 
in the wheat.  

it looks like rain again tonight
hues heavy on the bay 
but my heart will stay sated
thru the gold nestled in your eyelashes

and I stop breathing,  

hoping it can be forever

to w...

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the tracts where sleep ran 

ducts thru navel 

smoky rivers, freshly stained 

while we wait, fidgeting in a

 too-big waiting room 

too big for just the two of us 

too small for all the thoughts 

too small

for the silence . 

it smells like a barber shop 

and the fixtures buzz idly 

bright, but flickering 

and I remember that 

you can't smoke in public anym...

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you make me feel

like a bee in a dandelion field  

nourished and sunny

and

scattered to the warmth of the wind

that carried the ocean to the plains 

to above the lakes

to the cracks I'm the sidewalks

 where we met

where we keep meeting 

where you held my hand 

and keep holding 

through the rain

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I can hear it

the bending wire
of the armistice: 
twisted and tined 
plucked high and fine
and bitten
for a taste of fast and cheap iron

a prickling thrill provokes 
like a high water line
makes me wonder
what chokes 
and what it takes
to be full
to be whole 

instead, 
the best I can do is a side of myself
and a garnish of mint 
(for color)
even while raked raw
naked,  id ...

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that full moon mood 

cold and bright cascades:

a twist, a press 

as a touch, wrung wistful 

grips shaped gasps

goosebumps, brushing thistles

a skyward buck

a smiling howl

and a cooling, bliss-ed

descent

 again. 

this is what worship

should feel like 

mouths mapping a collapsing curve 

drawn closer--too close 

to a white hot center

spel...

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a weighty fog

like tinned milk 

sweetly opaque 

hiding the feathers and tears

traces of a an empty place called

heaven.

these beads rest on hats

press down on weary brows and

weave between the fibres

of gloves

of family 

such a slippery thing, this life. 

like a rain you can't catch on your tongue 

but the taste weaves between your

thoughtful mol...

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what a tongue flick. a comet-tail
a touch of poison; a fluid sail
lithe
raised upright in a misty wood
to catch winds for long-abandoned boats 
a land-loch, waiting for heaven 
waiting, like I would 

pressed against a door frame 
mounded from earth and ash 

a home writ upon 
these hostile lands:
a space of teeming life 
mistook greens and greys
blotches and heightened braille
 on...

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if I stare at the roof long enough
would i let it's ink
roll down over me ? 

my shape, pliant and waiting and 
rutting
tilting toward the certainty 
the cooing touch and strain
spreading stygian weight 
pressing down, down, and do...wn

coy and waiting with glistening teeth
brushing, roiling voice 
weight like a purring cinderblock
hands, too many to be real 
too deft to be human 
...

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laughlines 

worn smooth by the babble

the chuckling familiar notes

then folded out once more 

like shared and scented laundry:

)avender sprigs; coffee tins

in high cupboards

used RVs

these textures live so close to me

a scrawl of shag carpets

finely raked

and gently oiled 

dutch paneling 

grasping lazily 

halfway up

half way

to the walls of chil...

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I can feel the moon filling 

rising in my chest, 
my throat 

a grip:
a commanding brand
blinding and hot
pressing down on my chest 
while my legs buck
on an operating table somewhere
then sated
by the cooling hiss 
of oxygen
(or at least
that's what they told me 
it was) 

"You're not yourself, Paul" 
a much shorter name than mine
and a bone saw plain
some numbing tune by th...

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by the flicker of my spark
by the cooling coals
beneath the hearth
by eyelids,
flittering then frozen still
where the snowflakes fall, today
where the Ash tomorrow will
our snuffed will lay to rest
a sediment of misspent youths
the rest will weigh fate's dander
o'er paths of long forgotten truths

brights buried
in moonlight
in alien sun in long-tread lost ways tr...

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a distinctly ghoulish cry

of a pained dumbwaiter, 

held on high

Pushkin-backed

mournful howls

as I echo thru

a sickly ward

that wears my name: 

flain heroes hung

all the same. 

damned .

doomed .

drams of oily wick

sweat soaked and

fevered with a caffeine drip

fine-toothed powders, taken softly

solemnly

in the study where I died alone

...

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together

thru all the glue

filn history's glossy cracks

and all the pines

from wane to wax

we were(are, perhaps)

moonrise bent

lain with backs

pressed on tarmac

slid red, long

longer than we thought possible.

dream-licked heads

shattered and spread :

painted lines on painted lines

on

painted lines

down along this serpentine road.

without a motion ...

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lain in, thinking about 

the soft roll of hair and 
gentle exhales and 
soft, pressing folds 
filled with tiny collapsing sounds
sighs, held on high
near imperceptible if not uttered 
direct
and deep down 
and deep down
and deep down 
like the brush
of my bones
where all the gaps between could disappear 
where we don't need to know where one begins
or the other ends

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warmth 
like a dipped oak 
an aegis of honey-words 
folded in layers 
carefully made gifts
(tho hastily wrapped)
best taken while still soft
still hot
like candied ginger pressed
 between lips parted in awe
in rapture 

the steam of kitchens and
the drawing of breath
tumbling bedshapes 
unmistakable 
and knowable 

warmth
like a waxen wood countertop 
dangling incandescence
in...

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i wish the forests
could take me back
puln deep: 
neath the shake of
the leaf
and ire 
of the rhime 
fed way 
while my bones turn to rest
and my soul to the deep,
knowing spores

from death to the winds
carried high to the rains
falling
again and again
again and again
again and again;

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when time pines, 
it happens in a vacuum.

blue-lipped and ecstatic
coloring the automatic 
raptures ruptured 
and the bubbles burst
counting down 'forgive me nots' 
and pick-up petals buy the hearse 

amen

bitten-pens 
and day dreams
and
teethmarks in the shape of you
and
pulling blind bridles
we'd ride thru
tl so much nothing 
stretched before us
a skating rink of fate
spl...

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it's 12 degrees
and the marrow cools:

we catch  --
breaths hitched
 to a cataclysmic gait
a crooked pace:
all-damned 
while you wait

god's sticky magazines 
pages pregnant 
with guilt
regret
the ilk of resplendent idleness
of abandonment
in this blind-eye of a city, turned 
to rot, mitotic
never-ending 
a car crash of ashamed sex
but it's just too good 
to be any other way .

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consider these solipses:

measured, carried steeples 

round a brined Mary 

suspended in the plasma 

of hapless, desperate donors 

centrifugal refugees

all unknown behind glass

this is a king's country:

a throne grown too small 

phagocyclic in the flesh

bedsores in the shape of sin 

and

lead of goblets held within

my crucifix is a bullet

made from ...

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leapt down

horse steppin automata

breaking guiding rails

and the groan of servos

to tilt skyward

a maw unanswered, 

cloying the gods we might invent

dragged tablet-tonnes
in malcontent

what's worse

spit-wash the worth

in the hydraulic whine

drowned in the apathy 

of deserts

of blowing grit

all until this body, unfit

fails

and my light goes out.

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the see-thru states

of liminal infamy

"don't let me down" 

sung in desperate drams

beacons prain

from a street corner

affixed and shorn and 

bare-truthed,

snaggle toothed:

cleft palates and anaphylaxis 

sanded down by time

into a shape something 

much like mine

(too much)

please see me

but don't look;

a shared hypocrisy 

wrung motes of p...

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graspin at rat pills
 like cigarettes

all the while, the tide rises past my lips
and this damn lighter won't light anymore 
maybe its out of fluid 
right? 

maybe its just out of fluid
like this stone is just out of blood .

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and the rain falls 
uncountable hanging crystals --
all the chandeliers in all of the dreams ever 
falling and cracking at once 
shattered against the cooling summer pavement 

we beg to hold on to each drop 
to freeze a beautiful, perfect now 
still and cool, on the precipice of everything 
but there is no stopping the tumble 
no stopping the March 
the mechanics of the lost and found:...

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full bream filling tides 
high and bygones be, while I 
I just exhale; breathe

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0416 
the buds of late spring 
open and tentative 
unflex their pods
like prayers unseen.

they touch moonlight
brushing in the occident
like dreams,
fleeting moments where 
the impossible is made real. 

reminds me of someone that dies 
every night; a real Cinderella story 
that refuses to settle on an end.
instead, we recycle those old sores 
instead, we recycle those old stories
...

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we might not ever know just how long the sky is 

take a walk 
and see how long the shadows cast 
'long this pitted earth 
loam buried neath the falling brass 
sediments, testaments, to the manufactured time
we wait.
the shifting tumbling, ferrid sands
cover greener pastures, laying dormant
and flags decay upon these lands

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yep it's about that time

as I look to my watch

it's me. I am 5 years old

Sick again on my birthday.

Always sick on my birthday

the dulled flavor of strawberry shortcake still rests on my tired grin.

mom got me the knights I wanted, the ones from the dollar store 

so many of them and you can switch their arms with each other

you can give this one more armor

good; he needs...

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shaken 
saltine splinters 
windless rafts on icy rivers 
sain doom's coming 
as a shearing force from all directions 
nere to think 
what came from below:
all along, it was all for show.
and that's where the screaming lives
stretched out static in the wake of the crash 
a yoke of suffering borne on into forever 
spiraling that fateful, anguished moment 
flattening against the event hor...

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a sun 
found blue lipped in the thrush 
lips ovaline in rapture 
with a mile of drag marks and 
waxen splinters; 
a crash of self-discovery to be sure.
neck craned up and out
tward unseen nothing 
idle mouth agape, stuck on the shape 
a garotte of a word: 
higher. 

beautiful. 
but left behind by the glassian spark 
of its clean soul.
just another broken bird
to be taken by that gr...

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fuck, I had such a fuckin terrible dream ending

You sent Today at 9:06 AM

doing some weird shit in an elevator that just flat out drops 400 stories for like 5 solid minutes in free fall , and you just fall into a black pool and wake up at the top again

You sent Today at 9:07 AM

then there was this book I opened that played a rapid succession of videos. voice over described it as a frin...

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and with that, he put the ember out in the center of his palm, a pain to be carried everywhere. A momento to the nonversation, to half-listening, and to feigned interest. A small simulacra of the mutual, the mentholated, the swirling smoke staining the ceiling in benign passing of time. A manilla mask of desire. A tonguing soreness, piqued at will with the wringing of hands -- a ringing informed b...

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hale steam engine 
shuddering bowels of parts passed
melton jambs of an engine 
vaguely in the shape 
of what was once the idea in the head of 
a mere man. 
a meagre man. 
a meek man, 
squandering his inherited earth.

slewn of all charred flesh
the tracks build on, and on. 
and you can see doom coming 
from miles around;
what a spectacle -- 
what an awe

truly, we are the coals 
...

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aspirated dews
cast cold , and pale
precipitate of wanton whiles
haunted
by the nape
of your neck

caught breathless
in midst-step:

off balance in static
the bright charge of greyn eyes
and a coy, knowing curl,
a shift in the ether
rousing in wake
soft-lashed and comfort-quiet trembles

replete with the distant kiss of brambles

and it feels
so
real

that it can't be as far...

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thru spider legged silk
slid dissonance
to beget grocery lists 
by the hungers of bristling, 
wrestless tithe takers 

now meet makers
at the ends of the earth
carried by arachnid conveyor belts
(digestive polyps, if you will 
but you wont) 

and this poisonous ride through a vacuum--
or at least, the vacuous--
ends 
in a convenient
gift shop.

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tongues tide

lapsing where the fire's inside

purchase granted in crevices born

anew; those defining, wracking moments

where we may whet our ruse:

fleshlessness disguised

as godlessness.

they called me Brindle:

baptized by brine and bristle

brushed steeline, raising thistles

where my lust for life was thought to be

the nuturance of dead. weight.

they ca...

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a compartment opens like a battery pack 
phials of vitriol, brand names
changing out weekly like gods
stale breath rolling forwards 
bare syllables 
and newsprint tattoos 
stamped sideways on sclera. 

and we fuck
twisting by the white of our eyes 
desperate to void each others' gaze :
Thresher be praised 
it works .

another day gone and forgotten 
triumphant brass blaring 
Nere t...

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grains of idolatry
tooth-split and mulched 
spit down into living beds 
cemeteries of words
nere uttered in forgiveness. 

falling 
in slow motion 
like marine snow 
sustaining 
but out of resentfulness 
out of spite
falling
to emulate life: 

there is breathing, certainly 
and dreaming 
and this 
ashen sustenance 
but to call it living might be a farce 
might be a reluctance t...

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crystalline echos 
of webs run jagged
collapsing against the face 
of what history wrought. 

winds stripping flesh:
the immolate cries 
at a thousand stakes
freed from the old mortar 
churned under one hundred years 
by the twisting abuse of saints.

you'll know me 
by the raw and torn:
by the salted splines 
of feathers shorn 
bristling under embers 
and by ire 

you'll know m...

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splintered saints 
laced with dentene words 
all pearly white
Like the gates made 
of the bones of slain fae
in the conquest nobody talks about 
in bibles, beloved

but really they're just pocket protectors:
drivers of us snake-folk,
catchers of miraculous stray bullets,
and the low fruit of cherries picked
held up on high-- 
higher even than the lichens
that broke the sacred rocks 
...

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sinew cord
plucked, an open-mouthed note 
stretched and wracked upon the straight and narrow 
tho unfurling,
and dishevelled
spake be the promises of paradise
by feel. 

a chorus of arrows in the rain
heart-bound

there are full orchestras that struggle their whole lives 
to play an ode to silence: 
bliss-struck, half parted lips 
at a sunrise of bathroom sink bleach 
and menthol ci...

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the low spot

familiar hammock,

hung loping

silken tar pit

draping and folding;

a salve of shirked living

soothing until it's not

until it's too heavy

until it's a mountain too smooth and soft to climb

until my limbs rend

salted and wet

slow-cooked into apathy.

exhaustion press'd

(rye and ginger, lemon, soda

left half emptied

beaded condensations le...

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1. 'i would go out a lot when I was young. I think most people do. It's the time of your life where you feel like you need to test your legs, see what fitsm how else do you come to understand who you are, right? 

I was just trying to have fun. I was out to have a good time. I was out to have a good time, until I wasn't. 

Sometimes, you climb real high, as high as you can go. Just t...

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[hockey game by STC starts to play] 

HELLO OUT THERE 
HELLO OUT THERE 
HELLO OUT THERE 
HELLO OUT THERE 
HELLO OUT THERE 
HELLO OUT THERE
H--

[camera pans back, back and back and out into orbit, into our solar system] 

hello out there
hello out there 
hello out there 
hello out there 

[out to the asteroid belt as the radio bands picked up from further and further back in histo...

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cues caught in smoke 
swallowed iron, made malleable 
by the heavy forkes tongues
of embellished pleasantries. 

in the coals, we pray 
to find our best selves 
And thru temperance 
make them better. 

ride, pale horses, ride 
ride wretched and clean 
vein-sewn with pride : 
a vanity too large 
to seek the the small and deep fissures
wherein lies the livelihood of 
us: sooten worsh...

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beneath the crushing boots of time 
the smoothed teeth of chattering maws 
insisting that a loud pulpit is best 
in spite of souring bedrock

it is your sun-picked bones 
my sons shall find 
like petrified feather splines : 
mere pinpricks and 
pocket sized nothings
rattling against the rocks 
in riverbeds 
the echo and wash of your misfortunes. 

and your tragedy will be writ 
with...

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and for all the black earth in my nails 

of which bed have I finally earned sleep?

milling and tumbling endlessly 

scraping and planting
in flesh-tolled toil 
machete-pacing a tract in the floor
until it becomes a fissure
and that animal is no more.

smoothed out by life's sandy trials 

a shape named me 

whittled an atom at a time 
to finally fit the slot and turn 
with a we...

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