Poetry

Change Of State [Escapril24-1] A crack, a fissure, trickling stream From long-immobile ice Warmed by sun and turning gears An ancient, vast device First rivulet soon raging river Leveling the street Sweeping merchants from their stalls To screems of "hark!" And "heed!" As kings and men of wealth and might Feel water at their toes The stream no longer bears the chill Of frigid glacial woes It heats and tumbles though the streets And hisses in the square Picks up speed and loses track Eschewing when and where As lights go out and torches up The liquid turns to steam Masses cheer and weep and panic Grasping at a dream

The Internet [Escapril24-2] We span the void of blinking lights Of endless space, yet distanceless Some silicon, some bits of wiring Woven by our hands: this mess We friends you never would have made out On the vast and lonely globe Come on in and leave the quiet Come through any door and probe We tell stories in these margins To each other, we confess Bear our art, our hearts, our lustre Revel in the spacelessness Come on in and say your pieces Come on in and join the crowd Join the ever shifting maelstrom Always wild and free and loud Where today will you lay anchor Break the ice or break the news Break spelling rules and laws of conduct Make your own or pick and choose We share this space with foreign creatures Tourists looking for some thing For some picture, song or column Fact, misinfo, using bing They do not know our tales and journeys They mistake this for a place A spot you go to get some gossip Not our home, our shared embrace The home we moved into as children Disconnected — out of touch Our haunted archives for the ages Viaducts cross viaducts And perhaps one of these tourists Comes across a room as well One which suits them 'midst the turmoil We await what tales they tell

Eye Contact [Escapril24-3] Forgive me. Though I will forget I'm sure If the words with flowed so far should predict what's yet to come I've been alerted to it often Too alert Disquiets most Like I am trying to glean secrets Not secrets no just glean at all It's all too easy there to linger Clear attention Mutual And looking elsewhere at distractions too much clockwork to maintain I have learned it, gotten better Glance at corners here or there Long enough too match the rhythm Broken, boring games to play Will you not let me read your features? As one word upends the next Or as a brow furrows in absence Of the only fitting phrase I'll respect your wishes Surely Try to at the very least But it's taxing Slightly draining And I'd really love to hear The words I'll miss if I keep thinking Where to look and when at what And please forgive me Do repeat that No, I'm listening, really. Look

Trip [Escapril24-4] Perched on fences Twilit senses Seeking fights and finding truth Finding fragments Just as pleasant Horror cracking Crate and tooth To trial and error! Croaks some critter Crown it king this dismal saint Or crown it cretin Even better Error then for error's sake May we lay falling Fall to winter Queen to A3 Bishop takes Your name, your spice rack, all your money Maybe more The absence aches Did I say that? Can't imagine Who's this I and what's their case? Let their lawyer lie more freely Laugh a while and then give chase Should from these documents one glimmer- Glean an arc of light and fact Then launder lights with darkened purples Launder sunsets. Show some tact Or find me fidgeting in twilight Tasting tremors Trailing off Typing texts into the static Sampled senses Attic closed

Spiral [Escapril24-5] What was that look just then That squinting One of pity, maybe scorn What are they marking on those pages Did I forget to bring some form Bring some way for me to prove that I should be here That I'm me Or that I know of what I'm speaking I knew it yesterday, you see Yes I admit that this is crazy There's no way they'll buy this ruse Or buy this bumbling sting of phonemes All to claim that I'm of use "Have you considered fight or flighting"? Thank you brain, but not just yet You see this man still has my passport We might be screwed if I don't get It back —who knows— they might arrest me On the train or at the store Documentation is required Did you see what badge he wore? Am I in trouble? Still that squinting One more headlight-haunted deer Anxious for impact — "sorry, thank you. We'll take care of it from here"

A Childhood Memory [Escapril24-6] I remember most things poorly I remember muted hues I dig wells shallow, pave them over I remember I forget One of those weekends where you had us We saw meteors at night On a hill where they grew roses I remember how we walked Don't know what sorts of things you wished for I was too young to know your mind And I'm too old to still remember What my own young self had sought I think I know that you were lonely In those faded years long past Think you were floundering or falling Think we could see it in your eyes I remember two years later In a warmer, colder night I remember when she hit me I remember still the rage I remember your reaction How you silently took sides How you decided standing by me Was not worth causing a fight I remember never telling What had happened to my mom Because I feared she wouldn't let us Visit anymore past that I remember blurry faces I remember few things well I remember dull incisions I remember your betrayal I remember — will remember For as long as I have left And I try to keep the meteors I remember I forget

Portrait [Escapril24-7] I used to hate it being atoms Never cared for limbs nor face Cruel and crudely wrought from Adam's Ribs to feebly fill some space I never exercized these hinges Used them recklessly from spite Wrecked my cells with toxic binges Did not sleep each second night I used to think myself platonic A purely metaphoric ghost Haunting matter half ironic Concepts trapped in meat almost But on occasion I've admired Other base corporeal things Their imperfections; rough and tired Lines and angels, curves and rings I've drawn portraits, scribbled poses Found myself a naked ape So that my mind no more opposes Some secret sacredness of shape

What's The Truth? [Escapril24-8] Behold our archives, little creature Rows and rows of ancient tomes So that truth may flow unerring Liberating him who combs Through these halls of sacred scripture From the curse of ignorance We've educated kings and prophets Unmatched thinkers walked our floors None could be so dense to not be Swept up by these egregores Watch the binding, take your time We'll educate you too, you wretch What's that question? Are you kidding? Wit is seldom found in fools "What's the truth?" You're standing in it Cosmos bound by facts and rules See these pages, can't you read them? Black on white with helpful graphs "But what's the truth?" You ask indignant Fine, we'll humour your request This one's true for perfect crystals This one's true in states of rest And this one's true beyond some limit All these here empirically "But what's the truth?" yes, yes, keep yapping None of those have been debunked This will probably keep scaling Safe for sets which are disjunct Let's see- oh this guy can be trusted Won a medal, don't you know "But-" Shut your chops you loathsome critter These are words. That much is true And what are words? Indexic glyph-strings That off-track enough for you? Technically they're ink on paper Different types of particles Or both the same type: Baryonic Where will you bisect the sand? Can't you cherish decent guesses? Can't you let these pillars stand? For that's the truth, accursed spectre: We don't know. And still we try.

Bad Habit [Escapril24-9] I tear my skin when things get quiet Dissect the perionchial rough To rid the nails of their protection Bit by bit and soon enough Find the red beneath the rosy Leaving stains upon my cup Still hard and ragged at the edges Pinch and bite to clean it up But this butcher-scape won't level Somehow there's another snag So yet more tissue to unravel Jesus I should get a rag I want to gag, this looks disgusting Even more I want to tear Flesh from flesh to feed the demons Good thing I've got gloves to wear Do not ask me why I do this Tried some stories, none quite stick And thinking 'bout it makes me anxious Anxiety means skin to pick Maybe I hate it being atoms Maybe it's a pain that soothes A way to occupy my fingers I looked for trends in what improves This horrid habit. Inconclusive. Stressed or sad or bored or tense And painted nails or bitter creams Just barely offer some defence I do forgive your worried wincing Let us start this over fresh And we can both just not pay heed to Bloodied crags of ravaged flesh

Fog [Escapril24-10] I leave the temple after midnight Shaken still by what you've said To clear my mind, claw back my senses Step into the fog with dread And soon it fades and blurs my outline Soon my whole will be undone From here on the horizon's hazy Past this point heuristics fail My halcyon-honed habits handing Lazily back wheel and sail Wail that I can find no footing Standing on this feeble rock I cannot see beyond these billows Truth and lie like perfect twins Flinch when each step fails to end me Blissless blank where all begins So whither leads your hopeless question? Whither runs this ruined road? If I err left the ground gets softer Vernal bryophytes or such And maybe that alone can calm me Not The Truth™, not near that much But patterns do beget predictions And in the fog a temple looms

Posture [Escapril24-11] Posture, darling, suck your breath in Clear, polite and point by point Hide your hackles, bite your tongue And bide your bile. You're doing great. Posture, bluff, just keep appearance Look like these are stats to you Look like you don't feel like screaming Why bare teeth when poison works? Join the club of folks worth hearing Never show those fangs of yours Calmly trace out all the suffering Maybe add how it wastes funds Posture, darling, you look angry Wouldn't want to seem to care Wouldn't dare seem unobjective Wouldn't dare and shouldn't try

Oh, The Light! [Escapril24-12] Cobblestone to lead the weary Past these puddles, dark and eerie Past closed pubs and through the night Not another soul in sight Find communion with the pigeons Here's how prophets start religions Here's how sages lose their mind One more debt repaid in kind Mourn with solemn stare some flyer Soaked, torn up, as dull eyes tire Gleaning what these symbols plead Doomed hyroglypher by creed Doomed but glutted rodents skitter Lunar light, that counterfeiter Loses hold as orange rays Break the spell of blacks and greys Broken stone reveals a sapling David and Goliath grappling Washed up memories return Morning comes to those who yearn

Purr [Escapril24-13] Companion I come to you broken The days have been longer than feared I must bask in your guidance unspoken I was spat back out vengeful and weird Spinning wild I have battled and beaten Horrid gods I have never revered Kind beast see my edge has been weathered Come and rest on my uneven burr Tell of days spent so free and untethered There is rest I can no more defer So let seconds be warped and unravelled By the soul soothing sound of your purr

A Recurring Dream [Escapril24-14] It's grown late, you must notice the sun is still setting Perhaps you have noticed for aeons and more That each rock that you move in this unyielding field Shall return to the way it was moments before You scream "When will this end?" When will nothingness seize you? Say when was this when-ness a rule that applies? Come behold the great architect stacking their boxes And hoping it sticks after trillions of tries And besides you'd enjoy having me as a jailer For at least there would be then some notion of change That is why I am merely a fanciful figment Another sub-nothing to un-rearrange Oh the past can't be read and the future not written These hills and these valleys shall never erode You may wait and then wait and forever trace circles And try to reap grains that have never been sowed

Beach [Escapril24-15] Grinding these mountains to nothing but memory Mealing these moments to contourless sand Aqueous hourglass restlessly raging Licks with its salt-tongue my unsteady hand Most eldritch of horrors, most ancient of muses Mother of monsters and all that they eat Cleaning my cuts, gently cooling my bruises Baiæ's judge, jury, dread hangman and grave Come walk the shores of its inhuman distance Write in a bottle and screw on the cap Send to a stranger some semblance of solace On every landmass these same waters lap Under the shallows rests endless unknowing Creatures with eyes that shall never see light Off in the distance a fisherman's rowing And after us all The waves will remain

So Embarrassing... [Escapril24-16] This poem is bad Let us start with a statement All of them are or they'd all be the last They're undisciplined slapdash and deeply revealing Alliterative apothegms absent of wit Though absent of shame is my tone as I write this I don't feel some dread that this fact is unearthed Misled is the mind that's embarrassed of trying and failing and failing and failing some more I'm embarrassed to ever have let shame direct me Embarrassed of time wasted weary of looks Of laughing things off just to keep up appearance Of having harmed all in a similar spot Still I'm embarrassed of feeling embarrassed There's failures and foibles but shame doesn't help It stops you from sharing it limits your thinking leaches your energy lashes your mind And I find that it hasn't helped growing up catholic It seems that the judgement is deep in my bones That it wants to feel guilty for being imperfect Reveal only that which my doctrine condones So death to the jury and death to the judges Cringe culture starts where your empathy ends And I'll fail I'll fall short and I'll keep fucking trying No shame, no flinching just making amends

Truth [Escapril24-17] Is that spectre in here with us? I'm not sure and nor are you Certainty lies badly damaged Take my hand and let's review Little creature we were foolish Fellow student we were wrong We to think ourselves all-knowing You to seek what can't be found Or can't be fixed or cleanly measured Incomplete if not unsound A demon nameless in our language Only seen through blurry eyes But don't despair, behold our archives Rows and rows of novel thought Of making progress, getting closer Systems built and theories wrought And sometimes failing. Ever rarer Ever wiser grow we fools For truth you see is more a striving Not a beast you ever trap A desperate everpresent hunger And not one bridge leads cross that gap But answers are, dear friend of questions Tasty breadcrumbs in the dark

Suspended In Air [Escapril24-18] How long's it been? How long 'till impact? Hallowed the ground beneath haunted blue skies How high's the cost? Will paying it save you? Cash-sheltered few watch the rabble's demise When should you brace? How and how often? Tired out tendons, the tics that they serve You'll be fine Or you won't Well you won't but you'll have to Fight on for love or for spite either way Knowing the terminus Knowing it's coming Making damn sure that the rest are okay To the end To the bottom Locked in a free fall Haunted the heavens and hallowed the earth

A Reminder [Escapril24-19] Reminder: Buy groceries Reminder: Read sources Reminder: Reply to our mail Reminder— Phone buzzing A birthday /Appointment Reminder: Act now or we fail Be kinder Keep writing This book or This essay Reminder: Time feasts on us all Reminder: Prove theorem Reminder: Draw poses Reminder To make that damn call Rewind a Few years Curtains drawn Curdled senses Reminder That we have been here Reminder: These notes might be All that can holds us Together And focused And clear

Moth [Escapril24-20] Hello paper winged friend, stalwart ashen explorer Have days been much longer than feared? Come on in Bask in warmth Eat a crumb Watch me type Our dear sun it has long disappeared We're alike you and I as we circle this flicker I'll strike you a match as a toast To the dark To the wings And the weight That they carry Glide careful my guardian ghost

The Problem Of Death [Escapril24-21] The problem with death? Well first there's the children Wailing which keeps you awake through the night Then there's the cost Half a dollar per bullet Which stacks awful quick when they put up a fight Or driving them off When they come to seek refuge With some luck the sea solves your problem With depth If not then there's bodies And you must dispose them Scout the whole shoreline cross all of its breadth But fuck it. You gotta. You don't want some journo To give all those corpses a face Make them mother or father To some little orphan Once trusting in God and His grace Of course there's still stories But make sure they're abstract An us versus them Or unfortunately cost To the lives of some strangers Far off and unlike us You wouldn't have noticed were lost So yes there's some issues Some snags in the system The people get queasy 'round blood So keep them far off With us now are the profits And after us, always, the flood

Desire [Escapril24-22] Oh embers in fire that never knows heat Fuel to just barely accomplish a feat With thirst trembling lips seeking end to the ache Desire fulfilled has left naught in its wake Where just there was burning and passionate need I once more find nothing and still must proceed To strap to a new stick this carrot I sought As I gaze upon all that the yearning has wrought

Simulation [Escapril24-23] Hello architect, run Me a few layers up I would love ontological weight Or just give me a sign If you run me at all Check my code-base to see that I'd hate The not knowing a lot And the fact only slightly So long as our ends don't conflict I consent uninformed If there's good to be found In the paths that our actions predict Oh but really please tell I am less useful clueless And less still the slower I'm run I dislike being pet To some god who won't heed All these thoughts I have carefully spun

Unexpected Transmission [Escapril24-24] The road to hell is paved With what has never mattered I'm sorry let's not start On these two feet again Sticks and stones may break So look for something better Or learn to use them broken Or mend the many cracks The apple doesn't fall It's yours by rite of passage So share it with the meagre Inheritors of earth This path is not worth crossing Excuse one last request Stay stalwart and remember Please oh please remember

Dark Secret [Escapril24-25] Child come sit down I must tell you a horror I too have learned it when I was your age I've failed to be god so be wiser and stronger None of your fears will this knowing assuage People are erring unfortunate creatures None of them know what tomorrow will hold Bumbling careless incompetent con-men All can be easily bought and controlled Things like me sadly are all that protects you "Trying at least" is the best you will get Frequently failing and fairly unsafely All is to mortals a meaningful threat Truth here at best is unconfident guesswork Suffering won't serve some noble intent Most of the victims are quickly forgotten And those who remember by hell will be bent You one day too must unsteadily stand here Say that you've tried but have failed to be god Power and knowledge to scarcely if ever Save what needs saving Irreparably flawed

Modernity [Escapril24-26] Sparks fly As a train tears Through the neon lit night Ads blare Gazes fixed To a screen with the headline That the fascists have won one more district And that some teenager died In a nameless town Nearby Sparks fly And there's blood in your mouth And it all feels so terribly And exactly Like yesterday Because the present has eaten the future And if you listen You can still hear it chew

The Absolute Limit [Escapril24-27] The faster, the higher The hotter the friction Deforms, contorts, melts Disarticulates engines A fall-apart-ish-ness Of matter at speed Destructuring heat Is well documented And bravely ignored And still I grieve Icarus' fall Hubris scrapes often Some deity's ego Where thirst is met With equal demise And just one straw At last breaks the camel And chips the enamel Of hominid teeth Biting hands Which won't ever feed them And still I grieve Babel's collapse In the eighteen hundreds The communist said Inbuilt contradictions Would soon shake The system apart And a hundred years later They were still saying it And the line's going up And they are starting to worry Because the ideology of cancer cells Tends to break itself quicker Not forever get sicker So where if ever Is the absolute limit? I promise I will not Grieve it this time

The Surgery [Escapril24-28] My hand cramps Aches, jitters Imprecise and moist And I would like to unplug it Replace it And get back to work Can you do this? Sever tendons Crosshatch wires Wipe away the blood And wave the meat goodbye Good. And my head is a pain Forever and always Filled up with fripperies Spills out Spools back To spurious slights And scarcely remembers What I need it to do So unplug it Replace it Doesn't have to be pretty Just butcher me open Just revamp this flesh

How To Exist [Escapril24-29] Or harder yet however not to How to make your eyes close shop You've not existed long in there Not quite so old and quite so changed Not quite so from the world estranged With novel bits of where and tear And wherefore waver in this dance Regroup, regret your loss, relearn On loop, in bed, you toss and turn And tear to shreds your worst laid plans The shoes which brought you to this bed Don't fit your feet these days at all You faithful thing who heard the call And came to fill this form you shed And still you don't know how to stop And still you know you always do

Tomorrow [Escapril24-30] So we made it here To the end Of another one Baffled, vaguely lost And smiling askew Like we secretly knew What we were in for When we started To another check mark A check point A check in With some old thoughts Tied in strange knots Seen through new eyes Raising glasses To the sunset And did you like them? The words? Were they —some of them— useful? Or truthful Some few were a tooth-pull For better and worse And most pressingly now And will you keep them? The days? Were they longer than feared? Has your yearning yet steered To a place you could kindly Look back from And remember forgetting And things have changed You and I Floods have come Floats have carried The lucky, the living Those waving goodbye To this day And this chapter Heretically hoping Tomorrow might come With a future in tow

Dawn Above Dystopia We ran ashore where the sun tried to vanish Ran though hallways of flickering lights Too old to be fools and too drunk to be cowards Face molded by kisses and fights Day broke with night and we broke with the idols Strung up by a gossamer thread Strum me a chorus for songs of their histories Notes heavy with bombs and with lead With billboards, with bills due Remembrances paid to the children left drowning at sea Dark fore the morning and darkness for ages 'Till we set it alight to run free A mound of detritus, a ruinous rubble The embers of empires sear May busy hands build us a beautiful sunrise For history cannot end here

Demiurge Diaries In wall-coloured spaces We write demiurge diaries Each timepiece defaces Our self-haunted libraries As resin encases The work we have wrought A rope snapping taut Passed out on our pages We′ll know we have fought But when we sober up can we please tunnel down On why we sobered up never quite hid the frown When the encoders cut off all that can′t be said We will have long been dead And future people walk Earths not invented yet Post-nows to clearly see Once we dethroned the past I hope we′ll one day be Outiconoclassed

Despondent Despot The vending machine dispensing dispersion Fills notebooks, empties bottles and sorts ghosts by opacity Veracity assured as a tacit admission Of terrible methods Turn on the ray-tube Rate another siren′s song Decidedly decided wrong And wrangle another thought Into a usable shape Block out the world and make a witch It′s easy, really. Seven stitches and a scar badly healed Soon to tear the sun asunder Scavenged spaceships — barely used Astronaut helmet and casual dress eyes behind a screen again Skin projected onto glass Unravelatory observations To destructively reason and Reichenbach-fall to. Get lost in the jouissance When our hands turn translucent Will we turn or keep fading? Nothing but waiting I′m dying to know.

Dissertation on the ethics of self-driving time machines Could a deer ever gad Through our teeth-eater-tale? Well I doubt we should know As our souls aren′t for sale She′ll be torn from the ground I′ll be cast out to sea And we′ll burn with the world So we can′t ever grieve Not a word shall ring true But the pages still bleed And some ash might be spared As the clockwork repeats Distant tunes of a past Unattuned to our deeds But I′m sure we′d be glad While the flame doesn′t care Knowing this too shall pass And the fire was shared

Dysfunction At night a car alarm rings out Not stolen yet nor just about Perhaps dysfunction in its core makes it believe that there is more Tricks it to fear the empty air Makes cowards shriek Bystanders stare I turn to stone and clutch my knife lest calm wind comes to claim my life Perhaps dysfunction in my core makes me believe that there is more...

Ellipsis It starts with a dawning and ends with a crack Strips your skin raw, puts a knife in your back In lies and in whispers unmerciful sound Sell rage by the fistful and weight by the pound We sing like a kettle, we overexert We sink and we settle to lakebed like dirt A mind trapped in atoms and meat cursed with thought A choice tree unravels to judge what we wrought Ellipsis, ellipsis: heed warnings too late Prevented with ease had we not made it fate Had we not struck the bargain, not reaped the rewards Not trusted so fully the kindness of lords Not much fighting left now, less yet where it counts A tempting surrender to dread as it mounts Be graceful in losing, face nobel demise We should have believed what we saw with our eyes What we sensed in the quiet and felt 'neath the skin It might be too late but to lose is to sin The best time was then but the second best now To pick up a sword, pick a pen, cause a row

Super-Sargassian Eschaton There won′t be a world after all dice have fallen Only the story collateral tells The philosopher king, so high on his logic Will call on his lizards to unfight his wars A tree will be built on a forest of streetlights Where roots try to suck the souls from the ground And the augur of Orfield tells no one her truths While lies have grown pointless ages ago ′round a self-worshipping temple, the despotic spirograph unwinds One world at a time, one time every prayer Though as the unliving rocks fear they might never die The metaphysicalculator coldly takes notes If his pages ran out, he would claim there were more Though his pencil has long seized its dance He writes down the real and his words become so Though the letters wish they were not

Execution The prisoner is unrepentant Irrational with such time spent and Giggles when they ask me to explain Inane and simple: Bars bar thought, bastard Only recourse is to execute I hope my exit′s cute With a wry smile, Third eye Tunnel-viewing through my cranium Chakratic interface Interlaced with turbulence A swirling mess I must confess If words should mark my death I′d rather speak them

Fimbriae On an ocean where the sun never sets Amongst a crew whose names the captain forgets They toil and they laugh, and they break with the waves As I break bread with them, knowing I′m home I write letters to burn I grow faces to drown All the while cleansed by the light Of a sky without sun Reflecting the sea And the brightness of what lies beneath We don′t ever dock but the faces still change And our numbers wax and they wane Everyone drowns and everyone laughs On a journey of circular paths Apotheosis of lies There′s lifeboats aplenty I could leave this strange ocean behind Though I fear if I left I would stumble on land And my journey would start once again

Homage to Finnegan Time turns cyclic click click Say cheese For the seeris of bipolaroids Punctiform momentos to lief Portraying assorted dairythings Anthroposcenic biomatter Matters not in the shortrm The mold that builds careacter Foam over fungtion So mold thyself wisely and grow overgrown As circumlochronological logicoid Mycelial mycrocosm

Get hooked or die drowning Subspacial substitute submerged Subdued the waves ebb and flow With naught to show But fish of silver lining beaches Lying lifeless Lie in life less Lessen blows from lessons learned The sea reclaims the ground it earned And grounds the world it grinds to dust Beneath the waves a metal glint Hints of regret But already hooked Ripped and reeled in The real sealed in/torn out The swarm disperses Fragments away Can? Not yet. Only water rises Nauseating nautic choir Sink with us!

I need you to do the most painful thing on earth. You must take your soul the part of you that values beauty that craves justice and love and connection that most pure, radiant core of yourself and you must anchor it here. You must drive an iron spike into this ruinous soil and you must shackle yourself to it. Because this is your home. This is the only place you can pull. If beauty isn't here, then it is nowhere. If goodness isn't here, then it is nowhere. If the worlds you imagine the longing that keeps you awake at night if that isn't here then it is nowhere. This is your toxic, hostile world of replicator selection. This is your evil, useless, stupid species. And no one will hand you a better, more deserving word to save. If your soul isn't anchored here, then all of that radiance amounts to nothing more than ineffectual navel gazing. It is e m p t y, _shallow and lost. This is why you bash your head against the wall again and again and again. Because there isn't a real alternative. Only turning around, lying down and fading. If your soul is to do anything if your beliefs are to mean anything then you must bind them to hell and pull. You must be the force which strains against the immovable object hoping desperately to be enough. You will burn and deform and hell will bend you but maybe with any luck you can scratch it a little.

Inanicide Don′t gaze the void, we′ll face the void A concept shattering humanoid Templexity post-retrograde A haruspex of half-decayed And almost-living viscera Too bright and hot and sharp to grasp The litany of ligaments Of lacerated socii As litmus test to break our curse So we may kill the universe

Insomnia Who was it? Cioran? ″What is one crucifixion To the daily kind Of the insomniac″ Sardonic cackling As I tumble outside The sun′s too bright The streets too loud I feel my lungs But not my hands Were my teeth always this many? 1,3,6, numbers bleed and lost again 98 hours all at once, all too fast Too intense and numb and crisp Caught in the wake of my wake Taking in, terrified The tumultuous totality Never stopping Even when I close my eyes They won′t stay shut Gut in knots Why won′t they shut And voices keep The growing noise The grating laughs shut up shout! Apologies, I was... Nevermind Mind the path The pavement keeps Escaping the length of my legs Breaking the flow of my gait Breaking my fall. Hands. Fuck. Still numb at least Serpentine sanctuary Temple on cold stone Offbrand cryostasis Oasis of calm Shut leaden lids Turn Off

Kaleidoscoping With the breaking of glass I am flung from the Kerr hole A fragmentalist in retrograde Imploding outward The star-chart′s sweet prophecies Used to guide my lorenzian drift To where I already am Trapped in the infinite But my mind rejects the cartograft Of billions faux attractor points Orthogonal drop from the vector plane To esoterrifying depths When my Lichtenberg-path Finds a foundation to burn I don′t think I′ll mind All my projects are astral

Kinetic Greetings So gracefully we fall from grace Out of orbit — barely space Soon burning through the stratosphere Clung tight to all tied up in fear Descent to earth and face the facts Face first to dirt — now facing that As well-placed hands protect the eyes A smile that's warm but never wise "We've lost some teeth for you to keep" Say we, fetch tea and let it steep We've lost the plot but made a friend Seems things keep happening again

Insomnia scribbles Unpronounceable phrases Like spasmodic striations Across my retinas

It feels deceptive of you To wear this worn out smile In the impolite company Of beloved strangers

When you do find yourself, old friend, I sincerely hope that it won't be in a predicament or worse yet; at a loss. Warmest regards.

Think Pleasant Thoughts "Think pleasant thoughts", the voice a tremble high with panic "Think pleasant thoughts I'm sure there's something we can do" "Think pleasant thoughts before we're rendered inorganic" A certain hopelessness they hopelessly eshew "Don't close your eyes, don't try to talk and please stay with me" "Think pleasant thoughts when most is lost and all seems doomed" "Think pleasant thoughts and clench your teeth 'cause this will hurt you" "Think pleasant thoughts I'll try to cauterize the wound"

Prayer to Portent Cut my time in chronic slices Cut my losses, cut my vices Cut the chord and cut the scene Who are we to intervene? Who are we but wandering heathens Lost unfound, unfounded credence In a people yet to come In avoidance cut to none Shall we pray to winding serpents? Wine held whining, wisely nervous Cybernetic siren sings Of a throne unfit for kings Of an offer always taken Off the track or left forsaken Office held, more often heeding: "Not just meaningless but fleeting"

Below the precipice Disaster chique and quick to anger Ill stacked thoughts erupt in clangour Hearts beached beating on these shores Now save us fore the curtain draws! Or draw us in or draw us out Of hiding haunt of seagulls sound Take titles! wave! A quiet call: ″I′d like to change the way we fall″

Window All cast in black with streetlight glow, the outside locked away but welcoming with rustling leaves stray souls who shun the day one step to take to heal to grow to breathe in nature′s scent To reunite the world and I And just try once again I will, I will, I′ll grab a coat And thoughtlessly step back To see myself reflected in The window′s soothing black It′s not the world I see out there It′s just the self, not more The world exists in sunlight′s glow While I hide at its shore.

Resources and instruments It′s a tale of resources and instruments When some food burns onto my stove Detector noise, cleanup and crying on floor Just a plot and a character arc Look it′s been a tough day and I haven′t much slept In a year or possibly more So it′d be nice if this worked just this one little thing Where I eat without panic attacks That′s cause the tale of resources and instruments Is quite tragic for those who are both And if I burn myself deep in the stove that is me Will my smoke find some nebulous use?

Risk The thief shouts "risk all" The monk cautions "risk none" With a grin 'cross their teeth And a cross 'gainst the sun "For the deeper you fall" "For the dread Kondratieff" "Then the higher you've soared" "You'll be left with the grief" "And that's still a reward, You stultiloquent fuck" "It's a burden you choose With surrender to luck" "It's the gamblers dream" "To have had much to lose?" "To have had much to dream And to see what ensues" "These are shallow delights" Says the monk without pause "To have taken brave bites where uncertainty gnaws?"

Shock factor Current through flesh A body convulses Eyes broken from artifice Scarred by business as usual And scared of the next strike Shock and awe And a whole lot of corpses Devalue, develop, devour the earth Cut out tongues, severed connections Fire, darkness, repeat Wire goes bzzzz and again 'till it works Current through cable Connect and reconquer Words wherever they′ll fit One day we may earn to die With every canvass filled

Spectacle There′s a creak and I seep out Uncoiled and unspooled As colours and symbols Seep in and fester There′s a crash and I burn After reading the pages Observe myriad lives Of the Other and me A memorial′s built On the ash that I worshipped Amongst heirloom tragedy I grow iconoclaustrophobic

Affective Tourism In the field of third eyes I′ve been panopticonned By simulacra and people alike To slip through the cracks of a world incomplete That contractual cogdis unites A super-sargasso seafaring merchant Pulls me out from under the waves He calls me a fool so I call him a coward And we part both with smiles on our lips And cracks down our hulls So if I am not stopped I will keep flowing through Every temple and exile and bar Advancing each day my enlightening quest Of continuous failure to grasp

Vortextual thoughts Some people think in words, you know? And how could they think any else In verbs and commas and nouns and such Where a phrase is the story it tells But how can they think in words I ask When each lexeme′s an object that I try hours to fit an idea into And sometimes don′t bother to try For systems limit thought you see Truth can only exist in their gaps To write′s to overcode them so As dozens attempts elapse meaning might escape

Two types of people A swirling world dissolving deixes Lichtenberg of spider legs Unfurled the ego first to die sees What isn′t yet, the present begs

White Space Write in the margins What pages can't hold Barge-outs and barge-ins Of stories untold So unspool, dear spinster, This thread that you weave And tangle your limbs in it Ruinously

And Even So Morning comes and sunlight fails to disinfect all that needs disinfecting, because there are too many corpses and too few excuses and the rot grows too deep. It has names. Many of them. Unhelpful ones. And I look to you for answers, but you are just bits and scraps of humanity falling into time and you do not have any answers that you could easily part with. God is what remained when we attempted to dig him up they say so I ask you for camaraderie but you too are just a bundle of limbs rolling upon the floorboards of your mind screaming and I do not know whether I should be allowed in there or where the keys are to be put. We look up and the rays are failing to disinfect us, so I ask for an opinion but the right choices aren't available and the wrong ones will come to pass either way and there are bones up in the attic and the sun doesn't love us anymore and the sky is ending. The world is what was lost along the way, or so you tell me, but the hole is still growing and your arms are too few and bravery is what people get remembered for when they can't be remembered for winning and even so: There is still blood beneath your skin and light behind your eyes and you are more than you were yesterday and you are less than what is left and behind the panic of it all, there is still music playing.

Conquest Can you not hear it? The screaming outside? A child begs for pennies as plants beg for light The tearing, the crushing expansion of hell Into every crevice, each network, each cell Intelligent systems to arbitrage worth Commodify rights for each unsightly serf Make games of the exploit, make light of the cost Make number go up 'till naught's left to exhaust Now blame on some Other the toll of the ploy At pyramid's base you'll find lambs to destroy And maybe not yet is it coming for you It's grinding and hacking though still out of view The wind's growing chilly. Go out, buy a coat! Stay safe on the tightrope 'cross carnage's throat And one day, perhaps, you'll find nerve to look down Then join in our scream, for we fight or we drown

Curtain Call Clock-tick days of fits and starts Unfinished memoires sold in parts Cliff-hung third book Bookended falling Miss the wake And wake next morning Mourn all those Who miss the missing Sure to hear the kettle hissing Flash your grins And soothe the sore The show begins Step out once more

Alcoholics Autonomous Substances of ill regard But potent still Revitiate my soul And raid my mind In them I find The selves I killed The friends I made And then became And then subsumed As selves once more One more I pour To us, the pure The poor Of hamartiological calculus Who solve by dissolving And see through the glass Is that not enough?

Violent Creation Put your thoughts to paper With a gun to one temple And a notebook to the other Get the ideas out Get your mind blown Put yourself out there Out of your head Out on the pages Blood on cellulose Aerated grey matter Unclog your cranium Understand creation

Preemptive Comeuppance Words tumbling from my lips The glottal dam broke Since I′m damn broke I awoke to repercussions of my past crimes and tomorrow′s also My myriad arms Paint a masterpiece per brushstroke Know to worship me When the smoke of a world burning Clogs your lungs too There′ll be a hand held out To slap us both

Shutters Down Shutters down, shudder, frown Expand your mind and bare your teeth The universe prevails Despite public outcry Disgruntled opinion pieces Primarily about existing Give me the news give me the pain Todays special: a self you didn′t ask for ″Drown in case of emergency″ Read the instructions Catharsis in a box When you run out of requiems Repent for your repulsion Relapse repeatedy Gin eschatonic with a spritz of lime An acquired taste, I′m told Ain′t the world wonderful? For a while now I′ve been too scared to check. Shutters down, shudder, frown.