the ease of counter-revolution
subatomic
confabulation
conception
in the eye of the beholden

the blaze of misinformation
malnutrition
digression
I’m speaking of obsession

As I am haunted
As I am human
As I am aware of my own awareness
or lack
but i realize
yes, i realized

this green green grass
this green green grass
and the little girl said
the little girls said
it looks the same shade from either side of this proverb
this proverbial white picket fence
and mother laughed
out of rhythm
and the band played on
out of tune
but no one could hear
and they all smiled
smiled just the same, just the same as the green green grass
and the birds took flight
toward the intangibles of life
the sky light windows atop the big green hill
and the angels sang
the angel sang
i can see! i can see!
i can see for someone put me atop this christmas tree

you could say
i know something of absence
you know i could say it any way you like

all my sorrow
all my life
i never thought it would come to this

ladies dancing half-hearted benign smiles
i think it can’t just be physical
blinded ladies with cheeks round but pointing, pointing out
lustrous ails
the lady now with curls instead of scales
how beautiful death looked
on faces meant for sea and leisure
painted all shades of rainbowed madness
marriages of body and carriages of soul
2 decades from god
and i am still fumbling for the wings
unnerved to say the least
for you cannot decipher sacrifice
with a finger amd a thumb
i only know
i will be one of them someday

i only remember you by
the sliver of your words
fingering
a sheer imprint
of your back-handed vocabulary
what do you see
when you look into me
do you see me at all? (did you ever? did i?)
or am i just judging you, judging you?

were you ever caught laughing in church?
so fastidiously, so cynically, so desperately
with such sincerity

imagine
imagine all the people
standardized, straight in line
good posture making up for crooked ideology
(what do you have to make up for? everyone has demons to please and angels to tease)
pews, these pews so evenly spaced, in equi-distant indifference
like the trees that line my sidewalk suburb living station
stay 100 feet away exactly
(i cannot remember where else you could have been)

the birds chirped on their perches
like so many pear-bottomed ladies in floral paradigm dresses
evening wear, it is appropriate and never was
some abstract symbolic significance
i only knew you through symbols, images
representing/transposing/discombobulation
something else
some ideal, some version of perfection
disparate and euphemistic innocence
another word for subhuman
another word for beauty

and this is it
this is
the blurred line of clarity

—-ode to wausau (“the far away place”)

this town is atypical to any foreigner
any member without reverence for its constant
social maintenance, family networking
i am your dirty messenger
the outside informer
upon your untouched yet far from cleansing morality
wiping dustballs, years of drunken affirmation
that solitude does not breed indifference
but sensitivity
of course
and i would point to the graves of all that never had a funeral
all that never had a flower
you speak as if you were an abused native on your rented land
but rape is in your blood
and this world’s shape is self-evident
to the degree by which your indignation will breed more of what you insidiously ignore
to squat without conscience
for i am
only the messenger

reality is decieving in its palpability
how could i reconcile guilt i cannot feel?
i only mime this dance of moral consistency

the green chlorophyl leaves leer patiently
outside my window
everyday they tingle together like soundless chimes
to earth’s song, a purposeful dance, a painless existence
I wish I could be as certain in my fate as them

mike—

i press you into my palm
grind with heavy word
sincerity out of you
with thumb and need
as you once did
ground my displaced body with one foot
this wavering idea of self from self
you from me
would you think me crazy if i informed upon myself
the awful confusion
(of not accepting the obvious)
the distance, the physical space
that Einstein insists we cannot co-inhabit
at once
ever
(i wish i had such clarity) why does that make me feel so alone?
would you believe in me
if i told you i needed something to believe in?

the sometimes contrast of paste skin and tanned hide
will set my chin firm
with a resolve
only years of repetitious labor could nod in acceptance

———–

yes, father,
the ice cream has been crystallized
again
i left out the plastic tub in pure defilement of practicality
the mole of creation: process never pretty
to identify the “i” from the “we”

mother will beat her padlock chest
and
procure in
outstretched forearms
a not-so-secret hidden book of the unrequited life lived in theory, more than action
so that I may
one day
immortalize her waeknesses in my own fated progeny