. . . . . . . and what is that, exactly?

all i know is what it’s called. and that it’s new, and interesting.

. . . . . . . do you have to do EVERYTHING you’ve never done?

maybe not everything. but probably almost.

. . . . . . . why?

because it seems a shame not to. it seems a shame to pass this life with stones unturned.

. . . . . . . why is that so important to you?

there is a sadness to admitting, “i have not”. i think i’d like to feel as much as i can stand. i think i like to feel afraid, to face the form of fear and watch it wilt, to step through fear like smoke.

. . . . . . . what are you trying to prove?

look, we’re feet of ink on pages of time, i must become the myth.

. . . . . . . so you live for the thrill of novel experience?

all that we pass passes also for good, i won’t bear the regret of “if only”. i’d like to be the type of man called fearless, i wish to look upon my time with pride.

. . . . . . . is this not a shallow view?

it is not.

there is an itch along my spine, and so i itch it.
there is another at my left shoulder,
then my bicep, then one more
at my right hand.
i itch them all.
i need a shower.
there is an itch behind
the bones that make my chest, a cruel ennui.
termites eat the flooring of this house.
and so i take what i don’t need
and throw it out.
the curtains
hanging heavy: grip
and twist and tear them out. that’s what
i’ve done. and so i haunt the house of novelty
like a voracious unfrightened ghost.
and so i reach a hand in-
side and scratch
the burrowing
termites out. i can tell
i need some vicious cleansing:
something fresh and unfamiliar, ravish me
with your awful charm! unsettle me! strike a match and
spit your gasoline! throw it to
the floorboards!

set this house on fire, something-new, and i’ll construct
another, made of you.

and so i did it
laid out on the floor beside
my bed, stretching
closing
both eyes
and thinking, i think i’ll sleep
until i don’t
and take the rest from there.
a mirror reflects my
right arm until
turning over
i press my temple against
the ground
and breathe.

she was dressed all in purple with a gaudy purple hat:
a very large black woman, too large to walk.
she sat
in a motorized scooter at the sidewalks edge.

when her mouth opened it was missing teeth: at least
two right up in front. i saw all this in passing.
a red-
white-and-blue flag flapped at her back.

watching me pass, she smiled and said, “God bless you.”

i can hear birds past
the sounds inside my earphones.

silhouettes of palm trees, rigid shadows
standing tall
against a sky like blue-green ice,
like ocean water – the kind you can see through.

later also, a flagpole.
later also, buildings.

i am followed by the morning i would follow;
it is just here at my nude right hand,
behind my elbow, in my head.

later it is shingles of reflection
at the glass side of a corporate building.

the people who aren’t there don’t wave and smile.

a stop light sprouts, interrupts my path.
so i sit beside the waking day,
i sit inside it.

arriving at work
i reach to scoop a handful of it from the air
into my pocket… breathe it deep,
then walk inside.

this isn’t so bad, you think.

a beer bottle, empty, stands tall
on the carpet at the side of your bed.

a fly zips circles slow and heavy;
the lamp makes triangles of orange light.

propped, alone, against two pillows
you take a deep breath.

your stomach rises. then falls.
you adjust your feet. the phone beeps.

there are things still to be done, like the laundry:
it needs to be folded, and put away.

just then, the air conditioning kicks on.
the vent is closed. it’s still noisy.

leaning on your left elbow, you reach
for the computer.

when the fly passes, you don’t swat it.

you can’t just do it, you know. something has to stab you electric through the side, or in the brain, or to the throbbing in your chest. something has to sit heavy. something has to shake you dizzy. something has to eat you a little wild, incite your crazy, infect your wounding, itch. you can’t just get up and do it, whatever it is, you know. except sometimes when you have to. and the having to is the itch. the need is the pull, the weight, the sizzling strike to your stubborn spine.

we’re immobile, didn’t you know? we’re immobile until animated. until licked and inserted to the sputtering socket. we’re marionettes, we’re wooden. we’re hung on invisible strings. we’re the effect of a billion buffeting factors, we’re the shape of our stacking conditions.

and you can’t just do it. you can’t just break that, you know. the puppet doesn’t cut its own strings. the puppet hangs limp. the puppet is dumb. the puppet is a blank stare, mute. the puppet is the whittled design of a knife called excuses.

the puppet needs its lightning, needs its need. the puppet needs a thorn pressed through its rough-hewed wooden side, pressed to its brain, pressed past the carven chest: something heavy, something sharp.

something – fire, rusty nail – incite my crazy, redden the wound, itch. shake me dizzy, eat me wild. pull me, flatten me: be the knife to shear the strings to free the limbs that tingle with this shock. something so far outside it’s from inside, rise and taunt me, electric provocation.

we’re not helpless, you know.

say i was just a soul inside a bubble and
the only way i could communicate was through
text written across me.

say i was not human.

say i was a bird, or an idea.
say i was a cloud, or lost at sea.
say i had no words except the words etched in my skin.
pretend i was a sign then would you read me?

in any of those situations would you
still talk to me?

say i was an ocean, or an island, or
pretend i was a sound. a sound
but not like speech
but not like fickle spoken words.

pretend i was a whistle, or a sigh
then
would you hear me?

i’m pretty sure i know your answer.
i’m pretty sure i’m pretty high.

i’ve been thinking of getting a tattoo.
what i want written is “resist nothing”.

some times i get tired
of fighting this, of drifting, listless. of flight.

i think i’ll be a body again; i’ll try, i think, to be human.
i think i’ll let it take me, let it hold me, let it
root me to this weight.

i think i may not run.

The shop was a hive of lazy bees.
Earlier, the house was a shadowed den;
later, the effect is slightly altered.
At work, the minutes pass like rain beneath
our greased and sooted palms.
On my bike inside a morning yet to dawn
I watch a headlight push my shadow
to a figure stretching tall:
twenty feet or more of this new
effortless companion, silent ghost.
At the shop, tall doors remained closed,
sheet metal eyelids, slow to wake.

my dear, don’t be misled; i only do this when i’m completely alone:
writing later now in words like haughty vapor castles.

tonight is not for making vows to any future,
there will be no passing words to ghosts of time.
there will be no quiet hope, or cautious plans, or thoughtful waiting.

tonight, we exist for the burgeoning, riotous now: this single, glimmering instant.
tonight, we pluck at apples in the sky, shimmering diamonds, and we eat them.
no saving for later; salvation is now.

now, this gawking moment.
now, this reverberant pulse.

tonight is the face of a mountain for climbing. tonight is the edge of a cliff.
tonight we will walk on the moon of our longing.
tonight, as the sun drips, we’ll

write our stories in the stars, on our lips, beneath the skin of our trembling hands.

we’ll think not of forever (when forever is now, strung eternal);
we’ll fear not for tomorrow at the neck of today.
we’ll twist out of our clothes at the water’s cold rim, and we’ll jump, naked,
splashing.

shuffling coals, we will find there a spark. we will breathe it.

the night is a slate, dear; your feet are the chalk.
come, walk with me.