Proofreading Imperfection

Editing poems for a collection...  

My words seem so concrete and everyday...  

Sifting through the mud for small bits of gold or silver...  

Sacrificing pillars of words for longer lines...  

I tend to write in small bursts of broken lines that would take up less space in sentence form...

I don't like being broken by the margins...  

I usually avoid them as much as possible...  

I enjoy everyday language, but sometimes I wish that I didn't tend to constrain myself to expository writing...  

Poets that write so that words float disjointedly off of the page, and yet still capture an emotion with fluid grace...  

To me, I seem utilitarian...  

Wrenches and gears...  

The interlocking teeth of a machine...  

Not the complex, delicate and minute gears driven by fine wound springs counterbalanced and weighted to precisely measure the passage of fluidity and artifice...  

Larger gearing...  

A standard transmission versus an automatic...  

Teeth that I can feel grinding from the work of pistons firing...  

My unedited expression feels common when I look back on it after letting it ferment in a bottle at the back of a cool storage room for several months...  

Expecting fine wine and finding vinegar...  

Editing doesn't come easy to me...  

Not every word is precious, but I want every word to be precious...  

I have a hard time letting go...  

Once it's written, it's alive, and once alive, doesn't a thing deserve to continue living?  

That's not how nature works, though...  

There is no ultimate goal...  

The destination of evolution, the end point, is extinction, not transcendence...  

Before then, it's just blindly being exposed to environmental factors that either promote continued survival and reproduction, or end in non-viable mutation...  

It doesn't think, and I'm always overthinking the way bronze age nomads created God's logos...

Trying to understand the process in absentia...  

Not everything that appears in this world was meant to be in this world, not meant to stay; its existence just a simple inevitability wrestled from the chaos...  

I have difficulty accepting this as I replay the tapes and recordings, the photojournalism of the videographer documenting non-physical events...  

A time-lapse black-and-white of inevitable decay, life eating life...  

Fruiting fungus reaching its fibrous mycelium into the medium of brown rice, wheat, rye berries, and vermiculite...  

Precise quantum calculus that I can never seem to understand constructing everything I experience, but I try to understand...  

Breaking my back to stay just another day in this reality, and another, and another, sweat breaking on the brow...  

Breath catching in the throat with a tremulous inhalation of feeling...  

There is mystery experienced, but my words don't seem mysterious to me, maybe trying too hard or not hard enough...   

Maybe the threshold effect has me firmly in its grasp...  

Maybe I take things for granted, digesting every moment in scientifically analytical fashion, trying too hard to impress myself...  

Even the stillborn are kept in blank book jars on shelves behind glass for potential future analysis...  

So many of them staring lifelessly through the formaldehyde silently waiting for reanimation...  

Some things should be in the cremation furnace, but one never knows if there are parts that might one day be useful, repurposed into something greater than they turned out to be...  

That box of cables and connectors collected over decades... Memory chips, hard drives, and CPUs...  

A closet full of clothes that should go to a Good Will collection bin, but just hang there waiting for relevance...  

I feel for these old material things, I imagine some kind of soul in the inanimate, the work of the hands that stitched them, or the injection mold that spat out the parts that were later assembled into likenesses of fictional characters...  

Collector's items, physical renditions of some artist or engineer's imagination and craft...  

They deserve to continue to exist, don't they?  

Or maybe it's just me stubbornly clinging, a grape-sized tick on the neck of a dog...   

Freshly extinguished match-head still glowing and placed on mine in hopes I will remove my burrowing mouth parts from the flesh of the past...  

Tunnel Vision

They say it's okay to not be okay...  

I'm not okay...  

Haven't been for a while...  

Don't know if I ever really was...  

I'm working on it,  

But I'm having a hard time appreciating the progress I've made...  

Small steps forward through the molasses thick depression is something...  

I have to tell myself that...  

I have to keep inching forward...  

Pushing against the gravity...  

Sometimes everything feels too heavy...  

I haven't given up,  

But, then again, giving up isn't an option...  

Thousands of miles to go...  

I try not to think of all the things I couldn't have...  

Things that brushed up against my fingertips in the dark...  

Just out of reach...  

Every spark of light extinguished by circumstance...  

Heart spaces I couldn't save from their own darkness...  

Children that died in the womb, time after time...  

Souls I couldn't pull from the ether...  

Lovers whose words turned from tenderness to full blown hatred...  

From sweet nothings to chocolate cysts in barren wombs...  

The smell of iron drying from red to black...  

Me, bloated and grey-green on the operating table, intestines packed with gauze, code blue, but not dying...  

Propofol, pentobarbital, and thiopental keeping me from pulling out the IVs, and feeding tube, and ventilator...  

They say I survived for a reason...  

That I had more to do with my life...  

Eight years later,  

And I'm still trying to figure that out...  

I've got plans...  

I'm working towards goals...  

I have things I can be proud of...  

But I'm looking up from the bottom of a well...  

The sun high noon above positioned just perfectly to blind my dark adjusted eyes...  

The walls slick with algae,  

I'm expected to climb...  

I've taken emotional beatings left over from other people's childhoods until I stopped feeling...  

Those were the times I knew it was time to move on...  

I've gotten good at moving on...  

Shedding skins like a reptile...  

My eyes going milky before being reborn,  

Shiny and new  

With the same old soul,  

Tattered and torn...  

Stacking up the bodies,  

The used up husks,  

Until they reach that place where people toss in their coins and make a wish...  

Deconstruction of the I

 Trying to move...  

Paralysis of motivation...  

Work gets me out of the house...  

Because I have to...  

Because it's necessity...  

And right here right now I'm all I have to spend the night with...  

There's a time stamp on how long I'll be here in this place...  

Plans to relocate...  

I can't send out any roots...  

Not here, not now...  

People make me question their motives anyways...  

I no longer trust that they are who they say they are...  

Too many shitty experiences giving my heart away  

Only to have it get beat up and battered...  

I can still appreciate pretty things,  

But what's under the hood?  

What Lovecraftian horrors slither about in the shadows of their psychology?  

I've got my own demons to deal with...  

The clock keeps ticking...  

The ceiling fan is always on high...  

Clicking and rattling...  

There's an internet connection to keep my thoughts sometimes out of my head,  

But the news is always so dark,  

Like the decay of society,  

The constant struggle against darkness played out as the oceans steadily take on heat...  

The sun may be getting hotter,  

But the inner light is faltering...  

I'm sure there is good in the world,  

But it's a struggle to see it when everyday is a war between ignorance and reason,  

Self and other,  

Comfort and necessity...  

I often choose fiction to escape,  

But the real world is still always there once the end credits start to roll,  

And how much time do I waste shielding my eyes from the splatter and spray?  

The ants mindlessly go about their business gathering grains of sugar and crumbs of bread cast off from the dinner tables of the elites,  

But there's precious little waste that they allow to trickle down...  

Every ant dreams of being the queen,  

And so they dutifully tend to her needs while harboring little morbid fantasies of taking her out...  

Vicariously living her royal life while supporting the machine...  

They will sometimes mutiny...  

Biting and stinging and spraying her with formic acid...  

Sometimes for days...  

If there is another queen in the nest to install...  

Or if they were slaves raised to be servants...  

Ants are a lot like humans, socially speaking...  

There are politics and there are power struggles...  

Some workers can lay eggs,   

Unfertilized, these grow to be males who then mate with the queen changing the genetic make-up of the hive...   

Changing the scent trails and the pheromones...  

Left versus right...  

Of the few animal species who can recognize themselves in a mirror the way humans do,  

Ants are one...  

They see themselves in the reflection...  

They are capable of recognizing "I"...  

The individual must be essential for the proper function of the hive mind...  

And we think we are so special,  

So unique,  

When, in reality, with all of our perceived need for individuality, we are just catering to the hive mind...  

Slaves to the ruling class...  

If one gets taken down, another rises to rule...  

It's just how we're made...  

It's just what we do...  

We tell ourselves we have a unique purpose,  

But we are just cells in a larger body...  

Building nests designed to keep the population growing...  

Housing complexes and high-rises...  

Asphalt scent trails...  

And as the credits start to roll by...  

The real world is still there...  

As the dreams begin to fade after the alarm clock brays,  

The real world is still there...  

As we come closer to learning how little matter is in matter,   

And how the everything came to be...  

The real world is still there...  

Is it true?

There's an emptiness inside me...  

An emptiness inside this place...  

Attempts have been made to create a home,  

A family of sorts,  

But the tide always comes in  

And carries the sand away...  

The moon reflects off the water,  

Broken by the rippling waves...  

Stars above and below  

Sending light from the distant past,  

Light years away  

Across the cold vast of space...  

Nothing up there is close enough to touch...  

Nothing down here can close the distance...  

I miss human touch,  

But I can't afford the cost of misunderstanding...  

And there has always been misunderstanding...  

Do you love me,  

Or do you love what I represent?  

Do you know me,  

Or am I just a blank canvas  

For your illusions to be painted on?  

The face seems familiar...  

The situation seems to recall déja vu...  

Like some distant dream fading on waking...  

How does an entire universe  

Fade so quickly?  

I used to want to wade in the lukewarm tidepools warmed by the sun...  

I used to flip mossy rocks  

Looking for signs of life...  

Salamanders and centipedes...  

Toads, and worms, snakes, and bugs...  

Everything was alive then,  

Ripe berries on every thornbush...  

Dew clinging to the grass in the morning  

Shattering the sunlight into art...

Spiderwebs still living,

Freshly tended by the orb-weavers,

Hung precisely across the forest paths...

The smell of the earth was rich...

But now 

Everything is liminal space...

An eternity of transition...

Flickering fluorescent tubes in a dead mall...

Water damaged yellow carpet and beige walls in windowless corridors that go on for miles...

A low roar from the vents hinting at the passage of air...

Is it recirculating what's inside,

Or is it inviting fresh from somewhere outside?  

I usually sleep with the lights on...  

Not so much white room torture,  

But a homogeneity of day vs. night...  

Everything runs together after a while...  

Sometimes I can differentiate and see hope through the pinhole in the door,  

But is it true...  

Is the fisheye view real?  

Or is it just a tease to keep me weak?  

The sun is bright and hot outside,  

Global warming a proven thing,  

And it forces me beneath my mossy rock...  

Protecting my shimmering skin   

From intense UV bleaching...  

Protecting my shimmering mind  

From the unwarranted attention of others who would use it as sustenance...  

Predation by the ravening wolves who have no soul of their own...  

I've lost little bits of it along the way...  

Small pieces of soul that never seem to grow back...  

Given away like grammar school Valentine's day cards,  2" x 3.5"...  

The First Time

The first time  
I read before strangers  
The crowd was over 500 strong...  
Before my first time,  
I read to small groups of friends  
In the dayroom of an Air Force barracks  
A half dozen strong...  
My flyers got me pulled before the base commander a time or two...  
I found this to be entertaining,  
Although he was not entertained...  
But this first time  
Reading before strangers  
Was in a college ballroom,  
Every seat full...  
I was nervous...  
The crowd was huge,  
And the murmuring multitudes  
Never lowered their volume  
For any of the poets before me...  
I thought to myself  
That this was okay...  
I could just murmur along with them  
And blend into the atmosphere...  
I could be the smell of coffee...  
Or the scent of cigarettes smoked in a stairwell just past the main entrance...  
I could be the incandescent lights of the yellowed chandeliers,  
Or the slight starburst in the night  
From the streetlights below,   
Just outside the large bay windows...  
Moths fluttering around them...  
Stray bats catching a meal...  
No one would notice,  
So any fear I had could be ignored...  
My time came and sat on a high barstool...  
Adjusted the mic...  
The crowd still murmuring,  
Conversations ongoing at every table...  
I opened a journal,  
Large, green book,  
Used to be a blank ledger from the Air Force dining hall where I used to work...  
Now filled with what is now my oldest material...  
Back then it was brand new...  
Love poems and pining used to be my subjects...  
They seem so silly now  
After three decades more of living...  
I started reading...  
Not looking up from the journal...  
Expecting to blend in like all the others...  
Expecting to hear the crowd through my time on that stage...  
But there was a hush  
That started on one side of the room  
And spread to the other...  
I kept reading, undaunted,  
But glanced up for a moment to see every eye in the room trained on me...  
Not a conversation being had...  
The sea of murmuring had gone silent...  
The first poem came to a close  
And the room exploded with applause...  
I've written about this moment before,  
But I'm revisiting it in the night,  
Alone in my room,  
Because it was my first taste...  
My first taste of power...  
Being seen by people who didn't yet know me by name...  
I've become wiser with age...  
Approach less simplistic things now  
Than unrequited love and raw lust...  
I've become a little boring...  
I've had some of the innocence and wild beaten out of me by time and experience...  
Time ticks on...  
There may be more adventures ahead,  
But, at the moment, I wait...  
Working towards an escape from this prison cell a years time from the now...  
I am temporarily become  
The mildew on this apartment's bathroom tiles...  
The hot, humid Austin nights...  
The bats leaving the bridge at dusk over Ladybird Lake that I never get out to see...  
The homeless on every on and off ramp to I35 that I strain to avoid eye contact with because I have nothing to give  
Being just a paycheck away from that place myself,  
Much like millions in this country are...  
I'm the roommate who never leaves his room but for work and for groceries...  
Been licking my wounds for too long...  
I have lost touch with those feelings of power...  
Spent too long just looking for peace,  
Although just peace is more valuable than fine art by the masters...  
No more unrequited love poems...  
Now it's about black holes at the center of my being...  
Straining to bring back meaning,  
Or a reason to become ambitious about rediscovering meaning...  
It's nowhere near twilight,  
But you never know what lies ahead...  
That used to be exciting,  
But now it just makes me anxious...  
The lights flicker...  
It's 2:30 in the morning...  
Sleep escapes me for now...  

Kaleidoscopic Hologram

They say what's inside is incomprehensible...  

Shadows so deep they have their own gravity...  

A void so complete that nothing can escape the vacuum it creates...  

It splits you in two,  

Destroys you,  

And creates you...  

The wheel of time is broken...  

Tiny Planck units ticking by not so uniform as perception...  

Growing from the center out...  

Not so smoothly as the eye can see...  

There is a grain to it...  

A pixel density...  

Sometimes brittle,  

Sometimes plastic,  

It's always trying to be something...  

Entire galaxies inside a personal bubble universe...  

A multitude of realities from one mind to the next...  

A blinding emptiness at the center of every single one...  

Hungry...  

Starving...  

Looking for meaning...  

There is no ultimate truth...  

There is only subjective experience...  

The only meaning is what you create,  

And then you try to convince yourself that it's something you discovered...  

Something outside yourself...  

Something bigger...  

We lie to ourselves that it was always there, waiting, but it wasn't...  

It didn't exist until we created it...  

Similarities from one to the next are incidental and unintended...  

As one moment clicks to the next,  

Frame by frame,  

Or so it seems...  

There is no past...  

There is no future...  

There is no now for more than an instant,  

Always passing by,  

But never staying,  

Always changing...  

Feed yourself when you're hungry...  

Sleep when you get tired...  

Try to make it all mean something so you don't dissolve into the mundane...  

There is no grand plan...  

It all just happens to be...  

Once in every infinity it clicks...  

Once in every infinity,  

Things come together just right  

To make an infinity of ego  

That shatters itself into you and I   

And light and dark...  

An awareness dimly dreaming awake...  

Exploring its own imagination by the light it has created in the darkness that constantly swallows it...  

Falling, falling, falling...  

All it can ever be is that from which it came...  

I think therefore I am is the greatest deception of all...  

The void is infinite and there are no rules of physics that uniformly apply...  

No time, no space, no separation of this from that...  

This is why anything and everything that can happen happens...  

Every path that can be taken is taken...  

Choice is just what you choose to focus on at any given moment...  

These Dreams Feel So Real on Waking

 Everything travels in cycles...  

Seasons for this,   

And seasons for that...  

Circles within circles overlapping circles...  

Seasons of depression   

And Seasons of growth...  

These dreams that feel so real on waking...  

Still feeling her lips on mine...  

Times of intense creativity,  

And times where nothing appears to be moving...  

But everything is always moving...  

We travel backwards and forwards through loops in time always ending up where we started no matter how far we fly...  

No matter how valiantly we struggle...  

These dreams feel so real...  

About 300,000 or so years after the initial inflation of the universe,  

Give or take,  

There was visible light...  

I was still not even gleam in anyone's eye...  

All was darkness before this...  

A hot soup of radiation and basic atomic particles eventually forming into hydrogen and helium...  

Hundreds of thousands of years after suddenly expanding into the timeless nothingness from a tiny point...  

Nothing outside it but the vacuum force of the void...  

A window opened just a crack during a hurricane to equalize the pressure...  

One initial force differentiating into gravity, and then three more: electromagnetism, weak, and strong...  

These dreams feel so real on waking...  

Still feeling her lips on mine...  

Differentiation of the initial homogeneity eons after time and space began inflating...  

Still not even a gleam in someone's eye...  

The birth of stars in a cooling, expanding space-time lit the place up...  

Visible fireworks...  

No one yet alive to watch the show...  

Not even a gleam in someone's eye...  

Finally enough empty space for light to travel without immediately being absorbed, without immediately being annihilated...  

Matter was once like this, too...  

Destroyed as soon as it was created, over and over for millennia before time-space was big enough to offer stability...  

Still not even a gleam in someone's eye...  

Still no one to watch the show,  

But the show must go on...  

These dreams feel so real...  

Still feeling her lips on mine...  

Ever cooling from the once too hot to exist as anything but raw, undifferentiated energy... 

Fusion producing more complex atomic structures after hot gases coalesced into burning stars...  

Planets accreting from the primordial dust of supernovae, the end of dead stars that had once created heavier, more complex matter now scattered into an ever expanding now...  

The building blocks of life coming together...  

These dreams feel so real on waking...  

Hiding in the rocks long before any gleam in anyone's eyes...  

Growing in differentiating complexity like everything that came before it...  

Snapshots in a photo album...  

Bytes stored on the disc...  

Is it really expanding  

Or it that just the perception?   

Is it actually real,  

Or is it just a projection?  

It's still just a dream...  

Feeling her lips on mine...  

Seeing the gleam in her eyes...