1.

comfortable in a world of
ink and paper
and in that of the ones and zeroes
that mimic them

exceedingly rare is it for a person to mirror either one
a paper pantomime, digital dance
a curious chemical choreography, and cold

dreaming in microfilm or microchips – it matters not

2.

and we’re all such angry children we can’t hardly hold a conversation without fortifying the stronghold cocking the hammer and putting on our mental capslock if you can dig that sort of comparison

3.

so tell me now
does greater pain
equate to greater gain
or is it some cruel calculation
devised to make me go insane?

4.

even under the sweet tone
the strike of the hammer is heard

5.

Hunger.
Starve.
Want.
Possess.
Have.
Take.
But never slake.

6.

Pollution’s dreams have suffixes
and the suffixes have suffixes
those children, his ambitions
nearly unpronounceable
derived of Greek
birthed of men’s follies
they will consume
and end
but never go away

7.

rank and file
rank and file
rank and file, shuffle on
rank and file
rank and file
rank and defiled, trudging on

8.

I wish I could hand you my emotions in acrylics
or watercolors on something blank and white
standing out starkly
or even in the clay of the earth, solid and faithful
but no
rather, I am a smith of sonorities
silence is blank and white but your eyes
are blind to these aural pictures I paint
the treacherous medium all I have mastered
but not even to your comprehension
nodding in absent approval you move on
all is not silent, but it might as well be

9.

funny how the words on the page blur
just like reality has blurred to me
where does the page end and the rest of the world begin?
I blink, the letters sharpen
but the world does not

so please feel free to bury me alive in prose or verse –
I am not choosy with my poisons
smother me with the turn of a phrase
hang me from the climax with a rope most verbose
and I shall yet come out breathing

Reality makes no such guarantees.

10.

You had Rorschach eyes full of blotted ambiguity
They held dreams and demons and desires