it was upon looking away
that I saw how
everything was either
    in or out
   of context
but that the two had become
pretty much the same

I began to make things up
  about you
assign attributes
at a            whim
you became
a sort of coloring-book
only the lines kept changing
& I gained the power to create an
  alternate dimension
where the air was stagnant
& everything really was
relative

& there i built a house
out of those particles
that were more likely to be present
   than not
‘twas a nice house
as it usually obeyed the laws of physics
  & had central air-conditioning
& if you care to know
I lived there
quite comfortably
for a year or two  with
Gutenberg’s blessings
& Emily Post
& Schrödinger's cat
& my false-bottomed hat
             & such words that I wrote
       & such words that I wrote
which i thought might resemble you

This is not a poem about a man from nantuckett

there was a young woman from Kansas
she could tap dance
she was an 8-year-old beauty-queen
New York made her invisible
she took off her clothes

there was an old woman from Brooklyn
she baked nostalgia
she was folded and flapped and wrinkled
she wanted a dance partner
she fell asleep watching Jeopardy

there once was a woman from Boston
she was 35 and terrified
she met a man with a home in the Hamptons
she didn’t like him
she married him

There was a young girl from New Hampshire
She got drunk for the first time
She stayed out too late
She showed too much leg
She was asking for it

there once was a wife from Miami
she was told she “looked good for her age”
she was 6% plastic
she was 1% Botox
she was having her third facelift while her husband fucked the babysitter

The Barroom Mirror

my baby is a sociopath
maybe i am too

he conditions
his pubic hair
he spends 2 hours
in front of the mirror

he’s like light bulbs
he smells like the sun
he feels like paint
he feels
he feels
he feels nothing

my baby is a sociopath
i think i am too

my baby drinks too much
waxes poetic
waxy like Puccini
he doesn’t like La Bohème
neither do i

my baby is a sociopath
so am i

he’s my swizzle stick
my double straw
we mainline Bacardi
we fuck under the lion statue
how freudian

my baby is a sociopath
or maybe it’s just me

Playing with Death

Glowing
Black light
Voodoo-porno,
Weightless
Skeletons
In Day-Glo
Limber as they roll the dice

Once
Twice
Thrice

Slowly creep
The ghastly
Ghostly
Rasping gasping
Moaning wraiths
Brittle rattlings of dice

Once
Twice
Thrice

Endless eye-pits
Cannot find my
Living luminescent skin
Fleshy fingers toss the dice

Once
Twice
Thrice

Snake eyes

i read in a pamphlet
that life was platonic
that the great master plan
could involve plate tectonics
or crashing cars
barroom scars
CANDYBARS!

someone once said
that it’s all non-specific
you can focus yourself just
on being prolific
rapid cognitions
carbon emissions
dualism
monism
deconstructivism

i went to a lecture
on relativistics
met a man who devoted
his life to linguistics
churches of celluloid
girls who took polaroids
fatalists
physicists
freudian fetishists

i hoped to find meaning
in mind over matter
or neurons
or protons
or safety in photons
robotics
neurotics
exotic erotics
or living in sin
with specific psychotics

i learned in a lesson
that everything’s something
which fueled an obsession
with searching for Nothing

Help! I'm turning into an android!

ravenous rapture
robotic erotica
billowing complexes
less than complex

There once was a man
only known by his phobias
furniture
flashlights
& fingerless whores

panic attacks
with a dash of neurotica
gracefully clumsy
a face meets the street

numerous sexings
all buried in binary
one
zero zero
one
zero zero
one
zero zero
one

A poem that I wrote with an 103 degree fever

Maybe a Little Feverish

flash-flood flush
and maybe a sparkle
or two

they say i should be 
worried about dehydration
but Rorschach spores
have already entered my
flaccid brain sac
so i think i have more pressing concerns

they have sprouted into
what some might interpret
to be various fungi
and i’m trying 
   to keep up
   to uproot
these mushroom musings

before they overflow my pensive pails 
wondering about wet dreams
   & night sweats
   & can we really save the
   rainforest/whales/children?

they’re wandering about in a sorta floaty way
fucking and cursing god and freud and those
TV commercials for vaginal spray

they demand deodorant, however (spring fresh)
& boxes
 to put in boxes
  to put in boxes

i’m not sure why
but they keep sending me these 
bizarre text messages

about
 crappy performance art
about 
 Raggedy Anne
about
 how i should have been using
 my piggy bank all along
maybe they have a point
        but I’m way to stubborn to admit it
& who are they to tell me what to do?

    really, i’m serious
    who are they?