praise

i once caught a glimpse 

of your inward melancholy 

and i wondered 

maybe you're like me 

and not this thing that i've built you up to be 

set high atop a pedestal 

reigning over my emotions 

where you are not you 

but an idea of you

hyenas

you had a gaze 

like a love letter to the dead 

funeral throat vespers in a sodium blur 

wishing you could walk down the stairs, 

for an inkling of control 

like the wayward calf subdued by hyenas, 

you are still very much alive 

when the liquor 

tears your life apart

rubicon gone

i daydream about you   

it's what i do now   

always some serendipitous scene 

you're in distress 

and i always come to your aid 

we always fall in love  

there was a moment when i knew you 

when we looked at each other 

that i might have said more 

i might have smiled 

but i did nothing 

i could not cross that boundary 

i couldn't tell you how i felt 

and now you're gone 

living your life somewhere in this city 

and i live right here 

fixing your bicycle 

fending off assailants 

holding umbrellas for you in the rain 

it's all that i do now

the maul

the maul understood the man           

the dark putrid space inside him         

where empathy was supposed to be           

there was death there                 

dreams of bosch               

saturn devouring his son                   

mother violence                   

like a tide of red ghosts lapping at toes 

saying more than words ever could                   

the maul knew dark things                   

how it could sate an urge for ill will                   

how it could make quick work                   

of a human skull                                     

and so                   

one day                                     

it did                                     

three of them                   

and at random                   

no pattern, just chaos                   

just pure, violent, blood spattering death 

a gift of gore to the watchful moon                   

the maul knew what to do                                     

he casually turned himself over to the police after 

before they even knew what he'd done       

what the maul had wrought 

there were three of them    

a completed work 

a trinity

the last ambulance

end of eyes         

and of a dusk drawl         

civil twilight for hair                 

sodium rain         

when a day is done                 

destroyer in vein               

watching the same car crash   

over and over     

and although you are still here 

you teach me how to mourn your passing         

one ambulance         

at a time

happiness

i can hear the roll-up door at the back of the truck 

bouncing up and down     

people are honking     

i forgot to latch it shut again     

i don't care     

i hate this job         

i'm wondering     

if a .380 against my temple would kill me     

or just hurt like hell         

there's a homeless guy on the corner     

beating a lamppost with a tent pole     

and with an expression     

somewhere between mental illness     

and happiness     

maybe both         

could i be happy?         

i deal with my loneliness     

by stalking a lady on the internet     

someone i knew some years ago     

that i've come to admire     

i obsesse over her     

i sent the friend request with a fake name     

it felt wrong             

it all feels wrong             

i wonder     

if maybe one day     

i could pass out at the wheel     

and wake up 

in another life

a dumbing

sky ever expanding

world ever closing in

the meat turns

sirius dies

house lights fade

eyes to dim 

and the apples to rot

generation expiration

no more color world

glow, understandings

because meat putrifies

if it is all 

that it can do