A Pillar of Salt

Standing in the midday sun,

a porcelain

tower

showers her face

in light

and throws

her

hands to the blue.

In a foggy afternoon sleep

she dreams of

circuitry kisses

and in

the open throat

of night

she glows under

sodium flares

and phosphorescent

lakes of fire.

There is

a thick and tall

jail-bar shadow behind

her growing presence

in the sand sea

of desert.

Here, hiding in it is

a beetle

of black empty space,

coursing

in the sand

with legs of

oblivious nothing

and sleek wings of

zero.

Rats in the Cabinets

I hear the butterfly's

scales

falling from

its wing in

microscopic

prism snow

A burial at sea,

no

worms and

eternal

sunshine

for the

sailor.

Candle bug

kamikaze

into a pretty

girl's hair.

Piercing the stuffy

southern night

with

simple syrup

and whiskey

screech.

Straight above

the asphalt

a squirrel

is balancing on

his hind legs

on a power line

while eating

a peach pit.

Stinging spring wind

and

a sniffling

bike ridden

noses

all about

the hospital

and

sidewalks

and empty lots.

I have the

nerves now

all I need's

the guts.

My Apocalypse

It was

an apocalypse

There was an end

to something

great

then there was

a revealing, an

opening of

a new book

But there

was nostalgia

for the

way it was

before

and there were

saved passwords left

and

bits of clothing

or

remnants of a

scent.

It was

like peak oil,

we consumed

until

there was

nothing

and we

fell away into

a pre-industrial

solitude

where we came from

a long, long, long

time ago.

And it

is only fitting

That I

have nightmares of

World War III

and

our Ivory Computer Tower

in flames.

It is only fitting

that I

fill my head with

fission-fiction, with

nuclear viral holocausts

and

roving

street gangs.

Because now, here,

in the aftermath, I feel

I have only been

preparing

for

this loss

and

this nostalgia.

I miss

the way

it was

before

Prophesy (Prophecy)

There will come a time when honest men of this earth will no longer be required to read minds. There will come a time when women abandon the culture of the victim and cease to giggle or whine when faced with the out-of-doors.

Soon the soil will open up and swallow the self-aggrandizing and the smug. Lying women and thieving men will fall with them. Soon spoiled children and their hypochondriac single-mothers will lie under the loam and the dead-beat dads responsible will thrash about in cages.

At this time all the women who ignored you will wish to see you and speak with you, but their eyes will be cut out and their lips sewn shut. At this time their selfishness will be punished by rising waters and random acts of criminal gunfire in the dirty cityscapes they have foolishly hidden in. Here you will see also the men that lay their boot heel to your head; lying paralyzed amidst the rubble of the prisons they built.

And there you will live easily and all those who look on will envy you for your serenity. They will weep and grind at your happiness. The heartless women and the tyrannical men will drown in shallow puddles of their own remorse, face-down and drunk. It is here that we rest.

Obese and stupid, they will stumble and roll to the dialysis clinic and pharmacy, only to do it again the next day. Sweating grease and breathing steam, the fat women and ugly men will soon cease to suckle McDonald's and will stop filling the air with Reagan capitalism and elitist denial.

It will be here that we rest.

Complete Uncertainty About One's Future or Purpose in Life

Out on

15th avenue

someone is crying and

someone is

calling the cops

it's cobblestone, wagon-travelled

and

paved with bottle tops

Out on

15th avenue

blue smoke drifts and

engines stall

with squeaky old brakes

it's a drunken alleyway

and

it's got the shakes

Out on 15th avenue

bottles smash in the orange

high-pressure sodium

street lights

noise of bb guns

and stereos or

cat fights

Out on 15th avenue

demons haunt

lonely people

and the treetops

are broken by the

baptist church steeple

and many a cool wet night

is spent wishing

they would just

turn the street lamps

off

or maybe

how much

longer

one could

live

trapped

here

Everyday I blow

my brains out

like a celebrity.

Unseen

I can't see that dog

It almost makes me cry

I still hate you

sometimes

leaving with him

and

I really

Hate

the internet

because now I can

still again

feel smell

his fur his puppy stink

but

it's just disjointed stupid

rambling

visions and memories

flashes of

mad daydreams

dead moths

"Whaur hae ye been sae braw, lad?"

I drink sour mash

and my

dead Scottish

forefathers

sleep in the rocks

and potato-peat

of Killiecrankie

and Culloden.

I taste the smoke

and my

ancestors do too,

and when the snow falls

and the clouds

steal the wind, I think

about the

hieland cots of stone and

grass

and how cold

we have always

been.

Fools

called heroes

with

hundreds

kneeling

at their

feet.

What makes a prince but

a crown?

What makes an eques

but the horse?

As I cough up tar

and sniffle snot

and sweat coffee

what makes health

but the illusion

of life?

What makes brave scions

but the hope

of an elder generation

and what is loyalty

other than gullibility?

I smell

biscuits

and manure

and my

immigrant

Appalachian

ghosts, slowly

dripping down

the mountain

chain, puddle

up in the

foothills

of the Land

of the Thicket-Clearers.

The coal smoke

billows

from

a handmade forge

and

a 12 gauge

blast

explodes

a cloud of crows

into flight.

And what is

a noise

but a break

in the silence?