#1 The kitchen is alive with drunken vagrancy; lingerers, hanging from the rafters, swinging from slurring lyrics. We know the night is coming to a close when the indica is smoked. All laughingly joke without jesting, that bedtime is now upon us. When the whiskey ends & all tanned hides have curled in their nooks, mountain nights are stillness. The river, the only one left with inertia enough to run; even the winds are dozing off. Nodding eyes, lulled to sleep by the whiskey songs of the slowest drinker.

“To the Deserts and the Sand that Divides us” Tonight I realized that for a poet who claims to not write love poetry, I sure write a lot of love poetry. I just seldom leave it to the page. Knowing ears are the inevitable end, I bring these abandoned children strait to your jewelry adorned doorsteps… but tonight, again, you’ve not taken my call. This heart overflowing with need to speak to you, I am writing, frantically, in a room alone. More honest than I would be with a voice to respond, this is my coward’s plea. * My life is consumed with women who’s hearts tie stirrings ‘round my finger while napping. I don’t cut their cords for the fright of loneliness or my acceptance of its presence… But when the night is still, the movie ends, the wine bottles have seemingly emptied themselves again… I smoke my last cigarette, stare up into the void, I love you for knowing, all other desires satiated, yet still wanting… My mind quiets, listening to my cravings with daunting questioning of what chemical I am lacking now, I silently know… If there were ever one to take home, I don’t question who, just why it was never you. I am young, restless, wild in my lifestyle, not wanting your heart on these train tracks… I don’t let people down easily… I know this. My words don’t wear padded gloves. I have so many broken statues from my juggling habits and shooting range; I never wanted to see you in my shrapnel pile. The reason I always return, is that, you don’t want me. You don’t often answer my calls, don’t return my messages. You don’t thirst for honey from my fingers or the blood of my brain. Don’t want the seed in my genes. The anything I hold. You are okay alone and I am envious of your telescope… I hate the stars you stare at for not being me. I write this knowing that it will never be read, Published, mealed over with fine wines next to a fire’s place, whispered in an ear. This poem is the absence in which I think of you; hurt for your voice like a starving child pleading with the swarming fruit flies to leave a taste for the morning. You are the void, I am too broke to buy whiskey enough to fill. The absence I won’t admit to having. The reason more women know me than cities I remember. I am ashamed of this addiction. This movement I cannot stop for survival sake. I am so fearful I will not mark this world, I am not letting this world mark me… I know you never want marriage, children, anything more than nights of infatuation… I know… We say these same things. This is our commonality, our language. I know my words are that of hatred to love, but here I am loving. My feet stay swift, pose poised to run. I am always in motion. Moving backward - Looking forward – Writing what I’m too scared to feel - While knowing what I don’t have the courage to admit - Not admitting what cowardice can’t stop me from feeling - This is my poison, these memories I cannot shake. The oil in my duck feathers that keeps me from knowing the sensation of soaking wet I cannot help but shake the drops off. These waters that fell around us in Houston when I kissed you in the fountain, falling with the liquid god more conscious of our thought forms, than we, of our haunting… I have stared at your pictures with tears of self-hatred for wanting to not be a man of knowing this world and its infinite potential. My mind, too logical to fall victim to Shakespeare, “True romance” “True idealism” ““One” “True”” It is by no “chance” Seth loved the deserts, my sweet Savannah, but I am barren of what you deserve; empty as my third finger, shallow as I fear I may actually be… I know this I know I know many things… like I know I know nothing… but wanting and avoidance… running and track covering… brokenness without excuse… I am so sorry I never came home… or made a home to come back to…

They are still awake, my love. Playing banjos through loop stations, electrifying southern bloodlines. But where are you, my love? I hear Arizona is a prison state; I pray academia will shield you comfortably. I scaled a mountain today, my love. Watched clouds birth into the blue vastness over seas of aspens and pines. I returned to a letter from you, my love. Altar parchment I’ve carried for over half a decade, one-hundred-thousand miles and climbing. Though tattered, I can still make out the memory of young hearts. Tearingly, I realize, this world is hollow without your breath of yin, my love…

Another night of drinking wildly with the insane asylum And I just couldn’t give a shit less My giving a fuck meter is at an all time low We started smoking butts out of the tray two days ago I widdled a tobacco pipe out of a red wooded block I found in a wicker basket by the furnace I kept the shavings in a small cardboard box It spilled I knew it would It always does Small boxes filled with messy little things Too-full ash trays Buckets of stones Relationships Families… Circles of once trusted secret holders Where things congregate Spills happen…

when apathy is agony and the scorpion stings just simplify the breaking tides to sipable streams when everything is everything, but nothing's what it seems try to find some peace of mind in musical machines when reality ironically feels like a dream subdivide the seven signs to digestible scenes when everything is everything, and nothing's what it seems try to find some peace of mind in musical machines floating in my head I saw a gland that held the face of God geometries without a flaw, even Metatron gawked in awe with a temple flex my eyes opened up to visualize spectacles of other world, astral songs and fractal curls leaving thoughts inside the mind for the dreamer to realize the profane tell me that I'm lost, in this spiritual holocaust I'd rather be a queer to them than ever fall asleep again the darkness struggles to defend, but we know how this story ends we know we know we know how the story how the story ends....

It’s so hard to say It’s so hard to say hello Hello Hello It’s so hard to say It’s so hard to say hello Hello I know you’re out there waiting Possibly anticipating that one day I will come back your way But I’ve been waiting here for my vision to become clear For my backbone to grow It’s so hard to say It’s so hard to say hello Again… It’s so hard to say It’s so hard to say hello Hello So I’m singing you songs Dreaming of you all night long Waking up with a smile on my face But I don’t know how to say hello When we never said goodbye so long ago It’s so hard to say It’s so hard to say hello (Mountain Series #16) The folder I keep with your pictures Is called honey suckle Folded in its petals are pollinated memories Of Austin hat shopping and our sacred times I know it as I know a wet pillow case Too well, my dear, too well

I want to fucking smash things Some things Your things I want to see something beautiful bleed Something graceful limp Something heinous thrive (that’s not our fucking government) Give me lunacy in the streets Pitchforks, fiery pyres of night terrors shrieking in booms I want to taste a sword deeper in my guts than this pain I currently know I want to break something So I can relate to it Call it familiar Call it mirror – bad luck – The only way I know my reflection Shattered, piled back together Called whole While being scattered Wanting nothing But to want nothing Regardless of what I have… I’d just break it anyway…

With every new distraction that collapses I hate you more like the way I love you more like the way I miss you more I miss you My cold stone pillows no longer feed my imagination I can no longer convince myself I’m nuzzling into your shoulder Breathe heavily In hopes to warm you faster at night I am sick of panting for your liquid voice Dehydrated of your octaves Famished of self-respect I am nothing but a hungry dog whining at your table Gnawing my own tale You are wondering if I’m starving Or self-mutilating As am I, my dear As am I

Don’t know what I’m suppose to do Now that I’ve fallen in love with you I’ve got nothing left here but my deamons Got a beat, got a song, got some words to say And I would love to love to love you But my darkness won’t let me Don’t know what I’m suppose to do Now that I’ve fallen in love with you

The only thing I hate more than you - is me - for loving you too deep - For not seeing bear traps – For sticking my heart - Where my dick Should have gone

You have to stop breathing before your die otherwise all is for naught… I got a smoking cigarette - in the ashtray - staring at me. X2 I’m trying to go to bed - but my deamons - just won’t let me I lay my head to rest - when the circus music - (starts to) gears up X2 It’s funny how my lady problems - are all about - how I get fucked When my mojo gets to rising -/- I’d usually - rather just jack-off X2 I hate to be a loser - but I just can’t take no more - broken hearts So I get high with my buddies - make music - and scream out my soul X2 I’ve been trying to go to church - but I’m afraid - that the devil’s got control If the blues don’t get me famous, hopefully - I can still afford some whiskey X2 But until then I’ll ~ keep-wailing-out all-the-darkness I can find -/- within me When the spirits lift my shadows, I’mma hafta give away all my songs X2 Cause I can’t imagine-ripping-my-harp-all-night-and-not-drinking-my-blues-away -to-the-break-of- Break of - dawn

There’s a ticking time bomb in my think-tank Got a blasphemous bastard in my sacred space I got a “think-too-hard” in my “let-it-be” As I was opening, unfolding, I learned I was born with lead wings There are dead things in my tarot spread Visions of Baphomet dancing in my head There’s a dark side to every tree Some fruits are beautiful but made for only poisoning So I avoid these things The shadow beings But I can’t deny they’re just reflections of things in me Modern philosophy without history Leads to a modern Masonic mythology for us to read There was cherry tree Just lessened history Obviously somebody’s not comfy with allegory Algorithmically fractal geometry is unfolding Kali is a program to remove what you’ve been holding For Hermes seek the dawn that you most find golden Your thoughts are not enough The words must be spoken

I pee in sinks… I think it saves water, I know it’s kind of gross I don’t know why I still do it… I’m human As fuck I’m hard to deal with I pick my nose more often than I swallow my spit; Suck my teeth every tenth breath or so… I feel most comfortable sleeping with my back to the wall Life has made this a comfortable position… I hate arachnids but love small dark spaces I am a sorcerer who refuses to work with deamons Most days I don’t keep up on my personal hygiene My facial hair constantly questions the purpose and nature of its existence I can hear its talking through its roots like a tin can on a string My brain still doesn’t know if I’m conscious of it or not; nor am I The sun still won’t stay out of my house No matter how many veils I close The darkness is too fleeting to hold any power of its own… Letting the light in is difficult when you know of the dusty house that lies beneath the shadows my meat suit stinks as often as I let it… wreaks of mortality and modern preservatives… disgusting things, we are… peeing in sinks, washing our hands and flushing simultaneously… smiling as we do so…

When you see a bearded man Staring off at something you cannot see Do not disturb him His is not blind…. You are When you see a woman Wafting through a field Gracing daisy petals with a rose’s touch Do not speak to her She is in the middle of a conversation…. Your receiver is broken When you see your children Burning in your streets From a fire who’s heat you do not feel Keep your water to yourself You skin, fire-proof Your perspective, a privileged extinguisher There is a conversation you do not see, Smoldering rose petals Into the glowing hearts of your children Do not resist the fear on their behalf Sheltering them only makes you into a wall All walls will fall We, the Jericho generation Reincarnated to see to that We are retesting the ancient experiments Conquering the musty towers with the flames Our shared brokenness first sparked Don’t tell us to turn down the tick-boom Of these time-bombs buried in our chests These furnace flames are all we have left No we won’t turn down the heat This is our kitchen now This fire is not for your understanding anyhow We don’t need your water Let this mother fucker burn Burn mother fucker burn

When you use your child as a weapon their life becomes a bullet Knowing only the black powder you packed behind it It will crawl into the barrel unquestioningly Its path, redirected toward your fellow gunsmith… Your trigger finger will fiddle vengeful ideas Chuckling with power, you will forget That the scope cannot avert its own site Learning only what it sees, it will remember everywhere it’s pointed - When your child becomes the weapon, you raised it to be You’ll convince yourself, that not all weapons misfire Not this one, not mine… But there will, in every gun’s life, come an innocent bystander Chalk, outlining something dying Missing, Lost, stepped over A childhood – forgotten - when your weapon starts acting-out like an adolescent you will convince yourself that gun-making is a job you’re doing your job your gun, it may even tell you you’re just doing a job when you pause – realizing, for the first time… you just called your child “it”, in conversation… you will realize “it” was right… you… my bloody-handed gunsmith… did a good and thorough job… - When the weapon you raised childishly learns of its own power The barrel’s tip, finally finding its handler’s tender toe You will feel the piercing sting of your own loaded words Pointed back at you smell the gun smoke waft from their shrapnel laced lips… know that this is what you look like those days you purposely avoid mirrors - when the “it” you raised finally accepts its weaponization it will learn to point and shoot at other “it”s with less stammering this is why “it”s make such good soldiers being good soldiers is what made gun-smiths out of our grandparents our grandparents came back from wars, broken weapons, misfiring on our makers we were raised by their bystanders turned side-arms then used in their wars against… everything our parents grew us to be good little grenade crops now, have the nerve to ask us; “Why all the explosions?” - When the little mirror you made Is finally so broken, you can no longer see yourself in it You will know it is your truest reflection… it is those things we most deeply love, we will always hurt the most this is what we broken humans were raised to do - to all the other barrel tips with hot lead on their lips stop… refashion your self you are more than a hardening exterior wrapped round a death threat you were a diamond hidden in detonator your name is not “it” just because it was forgotten let the crumbling towers fall… help smash the fractured vessels rebuild your new cases from the ground-down shatter-dust stop forcing fragments into framework for the mere appearance of wholeness before the spasm-crack of birthing whiplashed your knowing away you had velocity of your own… life is inertia… quit blaming yourself for existing… stop cursing the light for shadows a gun sunk deep enough in the earth might as well be a rock… dig deep child… - When we raise our children to be weapons We are tenderly tucking them, aimed upward, beneath our chin Wrapping our tightening grip round our own futures And getting what we worked so hard for…

I just wish you’d call me Leave a message - A voice - A whisper A note that hinted you still cared Now I need a plane ride To a mountain top hotel We could pretend that we call it home now I need a rain coat – duck feather these tear stains Save some face here - Show friends I don’t care Call myself a badass I wish were giants - in a smaller world No need to be closer We’d still call 1,000 miles next door Hit you up on our tin cans Sneak though each other's windows Leaving no tears, only the salts of our sweat - on our pillows Just give me a phone call – or hand me a guitar – a harp sling or something like inspiration I’d take a whisper, a “talk to you later” But for now, the busy signal wins this one…