Set-the-sky-ablaze

I'm as open minded as my brain allows me to be

[scorch-the-sky]

most sadness

[most sadness isn’t like that,

most sadness is room temperature,

it’s a painful glare

washed out heat,

weight on your scalp

plaster stuck behind your eyes,

most sadness settle on you

like silent snow and smothers

you in delicate whiteness,

most sadness blinds you]

[scorch-the-sky]

paint thinner

[i am thinner than

i’ve been,

my shirt sits on me

like a smock: a child

in a man’s shirt, but

my hands have the veins

and my hair sprouts with

grays, kept my car away

from the medians/the trees

so maybe I’ll make plans

this weekend]

[scorch-the-sky]

tangle

[i eat but don’t fill myself

up, to be like an empty

pitcher etched in with clay

flowers, broken handle

dusty cracks like

veins, filling and leaking/

pieces of me falling away,

caught in a cross-breeze

and then

tangled in powerlines]

[scorch-the-sky]

short week

[i wake, exhaustion, the ceiling

breathes with glaring early

light, now it’s all moving around me

like objects past a car window,

finding each second

seeping into me, gathering mass

spreading, please tell me is there

something else?]

[scorch-the-sky]

daily, monthly, or sometimes

[scouring the dust,

i wonder if the thoughts

(where i’m writing check-marks

in boxes) are figurative,

or when others wring

out, do they check the

same boxes? or or or

do the glasses focus and

break in even pieces?]

[scorch-the-sky]

48

[it’s a wrenching, partially

arresting soundness

that will settle into your

indefinite structure, it’s

possible not to fight

but who cannot die for

small, powdered flowers

inching up to meet you]

[scorch-the-sky]

a great deal more

[and, should we

look forward, what

shall we ingest, a

smattering, cloud-days

metronomic, dulling,

one must recall: laugh and

hold-fast, but lightly,

don’t leave marks or redden

or sweat, all is well and

if not, perhaps it will

be,

plant your trees and

whatnot, like smoked white-

fish stinking and soft in your

middle-side, more rings

inside rings more of everything

falling lopsided from the sky,

death won’t be so tragic it

will be like tardiness to a

dinner party tying and untying

unpolished shoes,

what would pass for shivering anymore,

i read about other’s suffering in books,

their bleeding digestable,

what’s remaining is

stained circles on lacquered

wood, a humid disposition,

a great deal more to carry

back, but nothing left]

[scorch-the-sky]

stick

[i have moments where

it’s as though i’m a

translucent, glass tube

ringing when you run your

finger around the rim,

something has come unstuck,

dislodged in me, second by

second i am forcibly remembering

my consciousness and that

these hands are my own (now

make sure you’re breathing) i i i

always about me, or something i

recognize as myself, all the while my tube self rings and

vibrates alond and i’m left to stare at “my” hands]

[scorch-the-sky]

headache

[most of my headaches pour themselves

into the base of my skull, they press

their fingers on my temples, they

make me listen closer, they make me feel

the blood movement,

i just want relief, more medicine than

ever, water, sunlight, supplements, red

meat, red light, intramuscular

injections, dark room

float tanks, positive self talk, being a man,

leave the headache where it is,

let it drain,

the blood movement, i see it,

keeps me from the other stuff]

[scorch-the-sky]

alien stare

[Majority of man’s problems stem from his inability to sit in a quiet room, alone. And I try to do it daily. My ears ring and vibrate off of the walls. There are cars outside. There is crashing, slanted light heating/melting my back. A low buzz from a warehouse building up the road. I close my eyes; a slow march (scroll) of pastel, dotted images. Then there is my breath that I can dilute and compress with two hands. I’ve lost some of my grip. My hands are calloused but dewy and damp. Stare at the ceiling and small, glinting, twisted drawings make drumbeats on their heads. They plant the noise, the sound in you, it blooms, and then they can sell you our silences. You can possess all the quiet you want or can fit in your pockets. It’s battery powered and sensitive to a pressure and a nuclear powered sun. Constricted, manufactured, designed: quiet as a commodity. I count the in breaths to 10 and the out breaths to ten. In. Hold. Out. Perfect. Track it: your breathing, your beating heart, your dreams, your shit, all of it. Surrender it all to the fuzzy noise. Alien stare. Functional objects in operable boxes. Slowly boiling in sound. Keep stretching and touch your toes; push down on my back; force me]

[scorch-the-sky]

my mother

[crush

the left-over seed between

my teeth,

i am holding something

just above my stomach

and just below my sternum,

it’s the new lines surrounding each

eye, and the oil-slick

i force into the cracks with

unwashed fingertips leave

the excess on my thighs,

when i am like this, i see my

mother]

[scorch-the-sky]

lies

[what is a mirror,

stand beside the stale

room,

forked light, when you see only himself,

lines, mirage heat from bed,

Oh, another one of these days,

where in the mirror, open the windows]

[scorch-the-sky]

keeping going

[it’s important to get what

you want, and to prick a finger

and let the blood scatter like

watercolor in your mouth,

that’s how you can feel aware,

fully human and afraid in

your car to turn left, one morning

you won’t wake up, but your car

keeps running and now it turns

left]

[scorch-the-sky]

wednesday

[it is wednesday,

a few more minutes,

today drifting like paper,

a day enjoyed

from your window, handled

roughly and it falls to wet

leafy pieces]

[scorch-the-sky]

kitchen counter

[And, what could I do for the rest of my life? I would spill yogurt on my couch. I’d try to capture the moon in a photo, but it never turns out the wau you want. I’d listen to the tiny dish detergent bubbles pop after I cleaned my yogurt bowl. What is there to be found in this? Desire? Back pain. I can’t even be honest with myself about any of it. I’m so fucking afraid of…what? Admitting something to myself, but I don’t know what I’m hiding. Often, I sit and pretend my photo is being taken in black and white, and I wonder if 3 decades from now some angst-ridden teen will try to mimic me (much like I did with Camus). Because it’s all play-pretend. It’s all a game of dressing-up. Maybe it isn’t so profound to think so. We keep plastic recyclables on the counter until enough pile up to cause us inconvenience. It’s like laundry or shitting. Marx said capitalism allows us only to feel human in our animalistic tendencies: fucking, eating, etc. My contribution would be that I only feel I exist while writing whatever this is. Now, I have to spray my hair with solution (so as to retain it) and brush my teeth (so as to retain them).

[scorch-the-sky]

alone

[when i sit at the table

alone, after i carried in

all of the bags, the cloud-breaks

spill thru the screen window,

passing cars fill the room

with wind, and you’re in all

of them]

[scorch-the-sky]

a haiku

[evening sunset,

birdsong and soft flowing breeze,

one breathes setting night]