The words spilled out of the bloom in a rush Filling a void, forming dust Consonants congeal to planets And vowels spill over into mountains In the beginning was the Word Resting on God's silent lip In an infinite mind pregnant The Word was within and was and with Weaving threads that formed the atoms That formed the man We are God-spit and earth We are the wound of serpent's whispers The man walked and he chose He spoke; Eve gave birth To a new earth, an old ache, A murderous son and eternal pain We forgot the words Between our fingers Between the dirt Sin sparked genocides and wars We forgot our names The fabric in our veins We cut with knives We cursed our lives And died Hate, poison inside We died The letters, no, the sound Seeded a teenage virgin womb And began to pulse and divide The word put on flesh And indwelt a mom What cells are these? What flesh that walks With perfect love and wood-carved hands? The kingdom came The baby king Magi and angels and shepherds all agreed: The God in skin The God in diapers And the world did not recognize him The Logos was wrapped in swaddling clothes My heartbeat is his clap The fabric of the universe, God-spit woven into a placenta growing to God with piss and tears, blood and sweat Immanuel, the Great I am With wood-cut back And nail-ripped hands Ankles pierced the Word made death The Word became death Veil tore The temple cracked Total eclipse The sky turned black And in the nothing The grave Clocks turned back The deep magic, the deepest science Was unmade and reformed and reborn Resurrected Lord And death died to us Bringing life And the Word became breath And in his death Spit on our eyes And came inside The Kingdom comes to us The Godman King breathes in us Indwelling our shoes and our love And we are life, we are alive And his breath inflates our lungs What child is this? What breath?

Jesus Christ Has a pretty face, the kind you’d find on someone that could save” Yo, Jesus my homeboy. Jesus was Swedish. Jesus Jewish. Jesus saves, Jesus bring the bling, Jesus with a sword, Jesus bless our wars Some kinda thief or judge or jungle king Jesus the Prophet, Jesus in a rap song, Steal my heart, state my sentence, You’re the one I sing for, but “I want a lover I don’t have to love,” I’m not so sure who you are anymore. I don’t want to be sure. Jesus is like Ché t-shirt revolutionary, backside dark side we don’t like to talk about, Hell: I’m sure it’s for all the right reasons. Don’t get me wrong, i trust You, just not my words, just not my mind, not this crazy world and all the things people say. How could save me and not someone else? I oughtta be last in line, I’ve been given a little more than just a leg up. When we put your picture on the wall, does it make us more loving? Christ! We take name or face or word existence in vain all the time, you still dying for us? It’s to the point, so many people dragging it ‘round I don’t even like to use your dirty name. Yeshua, WWyouDo? With this place? Lord ha’ mercy, with me. I got some nails for you again, Heresies, omissions, sins, doubts, i’m a heresy, sometimes in love, sometimes defiance, “put my hand over my mouth” Keep the words from spillin out the more i say the less i know the more i write the farther from prayer Don’t get me wrong, i trust You, just not my words. I don’t want to call your name for fear of losing you.

On Yosemite Ponderosa and cedar columns down the aisles, Dew-tipped needle fingers arching into winter sky, Supporting the ponderous expanse of the valley between The long oranged tunnel, ringing with icicles of remembrance and prayer kindled with the candled sunset's fire inside; The marbled half dome with its stark madonna opposite. The falls, the fields, the clefts, are chapels; Each rock and downed tree a pew, While the moon and contrail-streaked blue serves as our stained glass letting the light of the universe through, The fading sun reflected on smooth dark streams of spirit Cold stone walls. I caught a glimpse of your backside clouds beyond the altar But my eyes were ill-adjusted to the dimming light, And all but your glow was gone the choir straining for the melody echoing the colours reaching but I still can't see you, reaching but not resolving in twilight sky.

We'll keep you posted. The train wreck is now boarding at the station; Armies of coloured inkstains are neatly folded up and set on the seat, A modernist map cluttered With the keys of a thousand tongues flapping after the keys of the kingdom Like pigeons scattering in the courtyard, The pale child of the past century chasing them-- In the courtyard of the rational, The stone portcullised material world The dove of reason has flown the coop, And dresses in existential mourning As loose sheets of the Sunday Post Scatter words down the sidewalk. The 9:15 blows by Wailing brakes as we go underground No words just the tracks keeping time And the sound...

Slip. "Everything within you will feel erased now." Record needle Johnny Cash, gravel pouring on dirt roads voice: "I hear the train a-coming" Ewan: "All his songs are about trains." *clicks mouse* "Shoot a dream in your arm..." Record needle. "the material world seems to me like a newspaper headline - it's explicitly demands your attention and it may even contain some truth, but what's really going on here?" In Birmingham you have to press a button to open the coaches on the metro. I didn't know. The train left without me. The present is an eternal train passing through the subway station of the conscious mind. It never stops. Look at the newspaper words blowing off the page and into the tunnel, letter by letter. Faces, white light, colored seats, ads for novels, color-coded route maps, blue line Rapid succession of frames reflected light on a concrete pillar, square The reel runs out. The station is empty. You hear the buzz of flourescent lights Images, no afterimages wander the empty pavement silent, I try to sketch the faces I've seen, the seats were green--yes, the seats were green The windows still passing but I can't perceive Dissociation dreaming I have slipped into the same train car twice, Doubled myself through self-reflexivity and the mirrors of myself go on into the abyss of i- nfinity and it was forever i was forever wall of the tunnel lights interrupted by window frames Changed. There is no station, no frames, Just the space between blinks of the eye where I am reconstructing the sleek train blurring by Who was that face? head scarf red hair head phones gotee grandma cell text green coat and purple scarf freckles orange shirt empty car station shakes silence the shakes "Shadow am I" I'm not here. Static. I'm at a desk writing poetry in class. And the me that was there has fallen off scattered cells dropped like gum drop bread crumbs across Scotland's autumn since I was there last and we broke up and that me is gone and the me that writes this is gone now that you read even though you might find--yes, you could recognize my fingerprints--unless i burn scars in them--I'll leave one on the top right corner of this page Tea stains But it won't be in the typed version you see on your screen. "I'm not so much something as the absence of something" Trembling, that old voice, old fingers Felix habló de pengüinos Let's read the tea leaves Godkin's harmony juggling incongruities And this is hope. "La postmodernidad es el fin de las narrativas emancipatorias." Pues, so we've been emancipated now, and will never be free. Taps trumpet for hope like crushed parakeets in the Prestige Em Dickinson with bleary eyes Pistolas por curas "Buckets for bullet wounds" Cartel killings in TJ Apathy Rebels in the DRC "Shut up if you want to get paid" "hope won't hide the loss" The long series of drowned doubles in the machine. “i do not exist” I'm sorry. I really do think you should believe in yourself. You exist . You are beautiful and I don't care if you buy the stupid poem or hate me because I try to love you or because my love is fractured and often false. You are a strange and marvellous collection of cells and chemicals and soul and nature and nurture and self and actions--yes, (as Tim Graf says) "dear reader," you are yourself. You can dye your hair shave your beard dye your skin like mj age away get a heart transplant and you still have your consciousness and that's something science can't explain and maybe we're not real but in this unreal world that we live in, facades and narratives, it's easy to get Parkinson's or your cells cancer revolt or your mente deteriorates like rusted cars or moldy cheese or grey spaghetti that falls out of a fridge that's been sitting sloupy warm six months in New Orleans: Loco en la cabeza, and oh that horrid smell! You could become paralyzed in all these complejidades and even if you sat in your room and ate nothing but multi-vitamins and well balanced rice and beans you would atrophy and die. people are frayed Shadows on glass, glass on streets, shadows on me, my dark self behind me-- We're afraid of our own existence. "Faithfully insisting" on our irreality Prolly cuz we don't want to admit our own dark side That people like us make genocides and holocausts and H-bombs. People afraid. Guilt. Sin. Something like that. Rule #1, identify your postcolonial self with victims-- victims are good man is basically good--yeah right "love won't cure the chaos... And peace is not the heroin[e] that shouts above the cause." But you have to balance. I do think your love is beautiful. The way you give yourself for your friends, even when they don't give back. I see God there. I would talk about your smile but the reader would think I didn't see truly, that I was blinded by being in love (Are you that heroin(e)? Is that why I want you to hold me? Is that why i i i i stu stu stutter when i'm uh talking t-t-to you?) or something; so I'll move on to sunsets-- that fluid orange canvas reflected in the constant river with the leaves next door in yellow fire and the wintergreen Scottish grass-- you should go see it, step into it (again). Cuz we forget. I think that wonder is worth something, and I like how William Carlos Williams sees that in broken glass on the street. Surely the earth is full of glory. Man is basically muddy, but have you ever seen pottery? Fired clay, intricate weaving of patterns in that dull sheen, like the lightning branching fingers of the bone-bare trees stretching into that furnace sky as it cools into a cold blade of blue grey I think we're reaching like that, for G-d, for Words, for beauty, for love, for good, and we ourselves wish we weren't muddy, so we call ourselves Christians and Democracies and Logical Developed Societies and give money but we're still dirty. "These are just placebos to make us feel alright, illusions in our pockets make our feathers float us high." Can you baptize me? "death by water" Contact. "now who am I?" "one day the water's gonna wash it away" Chalk clouds of erasure no bones that you can't reach Tapping out ink sticks on paper, pixels on keys, an SOS to a savior, a loss of identity. "Warm me up and Breathe me" You said that song convinced you that there wasn't any hope. That we were deluding ourselves. i tremble beneath your arms head on your shoulder. the spirit's a breeze, blows my hair free, no one knows goes no it's a gale bowl me over and out clay voice clink chains steady tracks Faith. Hope. Love. When you first told me that those were were all we had left I didn't take it so devastatingly. Crumpled paper in the wastebin past and dirty ink like a bloodborne disease I got from Needle. Record. I'm scribbling down as much of myself as I can find before I'm gone. Rewind. Replay. Train passing. Repression. Damn it, just get on the damned train. But who are we? Frames accelerating through translations blurred being hybridity "slow it down, please slow down down down" Waves breathe. Waves. Breathe. Pacific. No, not that kind of peace-- Warmth. Let it touch you. I take a glance sideways and your hair is on fire with that dying sun. Your face is glowing. like Liz said "let me live in a sunset."

Light the whole sky red all ‘round I saw the tree with lights in it Burning in sunset but not consumed Sunsetlight on red brick, Grey cathedral, Yellow-leaf street, Lightly-clothed Oak limbs, And the red-haired girl at the crosswalk with a pale cheek Hold the shudder open, My eyes won’t shut Click rapidly, change exposures, Get the colours right Stop the bike--back up Frame the light Laurel sees my eyes upwards, lens and clicks Runs ‘cross the street for her eyes As quick as sky flamed, fire dies “Laurel, you missed it” Too late Planets rise over puffs in blue

You are walking in the warm deep blue, Toes poised on the tracks, swaying as you walk To a tune strung across fretted oaks poking their fingers Into the firmament, conducting the whirling clouds As the red brick rides a low D call and the blue responds; The Mockingbird sings a car alarm, Sharp clack scuff of your shoes on the track And the iron's in tune. The words are beyond the beyond the melody between the worlds of eyes and forever skies Even time tween the crux the lines in which matter divides falls away into sky which in turn falls away into space Blued earth, blue resonance--the trumpets put on a cirrus mute-- The taste of the air, Oklahoma spring green air yelling at the trees to WAKE UP, picking the knobby callouses where life hides breathe the sap of the blue, stiff like thirty proof pine open your budding lungs and breathe sap. In the air the earth beneath, the rich dirt deep calls out you can taste it in air beneath the blue like bread under butter I've stopped putting dressing on my salad I want to taste the earth in its myriad forms the Mockingbird eyes me with a question of truth and a wink he whistles his liturgy syncopated by car horns and the earth rises up and dances in a whirlwind, leaves streaming home into the heavens, a veined parade to the veiled stars. This world is not the world I speak of. You live in beyond where you never know when your donkey might speak to you, or just how well the water will hold you. Walk lightly, let the grass stay upright between your toes intersendence, not trans, the world is not above but between behind the curtain of the coming fog and the play of the traffic lights as they wind upwards in twilightsong. Turn a page of heavy sod and taste the earth on your tongue; pray and listen. You are swimming in the deep blue, the pure salted blood of the earth and somehow inside we absorb the O2s and in miraculous complexity scabs form on wounds the moment you touch the holes in the earth's side it shifts and moves and the warmth circles round inside and you thought you were crazy but you're never so sure of the sense in your mind as you were when the sky was pregnant with song inside of you.

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Tide. (Breathe) Sunrise. (Breathe) Autumn (Death) Exhale (Crap) Exhale (Build-up) Exhale (Past) memory identity person place god it's all important you shouldn't forget but you have to keep swimming put your head up for air Suck. Talk with the fishes. Gasp. Keep swimming. And is rest out on the sand bar or when we crash up on the beach Inhale gasp sputtering Renew Spirit Air O2s I need everything in balance i need to breathe in breathe out joy self-control peace measured breathing no Wind overflow me Fill lungs chest rise fall God of air--come in here Come over and spark like incense in the room that I may breathe in steady.

Air expulsions larynx motions Don't let out all your air E-NUN-CIA-TE Circle song inhale exhale oboe circular breathoning Sing the meaning sing into being The treble clef hovering over the waters 8th notes dance into mountains I am no genesis Breath, my exodus, Circular breathoning law numbers Expiration dates at the Olive Garden Neverending pasta of brains Sean is dead he zombied me Air expulsions larynx motions I can't keep it in Panic hyperventilating stress identity wax running false face let's write it stone to keep us from the Ephemerality of circular breathoning Dude they're onto me.

Wouldn’t you like to know?) Write your name on the board fifty times... Scritch Tack tap Tack tap. Tack tap. Snap. Damned Chalk... My name is James Metelak. My name is James Metelak. My name is James Metalak, My name is James MetelSnap. Me llamo James Metelak; James Metallica. Damned Chalk. My name is Gemz MetaMetelak! My... isthisaword? (tahmlehnnerd say sí) amIstillMe? Uhh... Я не знаю Я ничего не... Lost. Fraglets. Piezas. Crumpulated en el piso Abstentias! Labstractions! ! Disjoints! Old poems, dead thoughts, look! Encapsulcrusted in pennage in paper Palabras Palabromas Trichistes А-л-ф-а-б-е-т s o u p I’m the speaker, look at me! I’m not Sustensions Emokids Stereoroles in the rolodex Who be I twoday? Who ken? Emodulated streeks, strippings means of feelthings like luv strached ‘twixt stereoroles on carte blanche stretched bleeched white pine endodermis...like make-up. I don’t like this one. Whatevs. Fwip with noodles—noodle-O-oh—uh- so sure about this or that or what that Next. Give me my d-gree. No never mind I don’t want the stupid paper...this isn’t me...burn it, throw it out to c... Flobbing and boating downcreek in those flasky labstractions deconstruct with ball and chain wreck wrack reek down the creek downstream bittersweet soursalty purple-smoky feelings This is me. (Santiago, Джим, Jaime, Jimmy, PhD (hell no.)) Emodulations enpixelmotions vaguerant colour-splashings on the wall opposite телевизор Teepee front tv, you get me? мы neither me nieder me needer need in the back kidknees bumbletrees Toomanies, brain thinkings, crunchings and munchings Brainiated. Intoxicated. Existentia. Lol! Strum of contextiousness: Ex pro int el ac ick frag clus pi pite res ti rum sex no feck no sumtin ls luh hai n wut’s the differing tween yeah tween-agnst tween me and these pixie-lations, glitterdisney feelings and who I be and existentialated abstentias and deeprooted or just deeproutined instinctions convictions or believings bouts reality and the liveage that kills me, the fearings of unliving and leaving ghaunting pine boxes dhaunting az eye sits in the komputer lab pining for peoples I can’t see no more. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a long-distance relationship with my heart...or myself...or...I don’t know. I wants the liveage, the liveage that lets these confuzzleations be. Ya know, Lordy, just me n U/jus be/jus do things. Things that matter. Fo’ Schizzle.

“I do not exist only YOU exist” --mewithoutyou long silhouettes of past pains streaking window panes are you coming back? the shiver of long-untouched skin calloused leprous behind wasted paper intentions steps unspoken cobwebs blowing in moonlit wind up around my eyes, open stare grass unbent beneath my feet is anyone there? are you still there? remembrances of red in a garden behind the broken house of a smile the colour of your face lost in dark rooms of a mansion i’ve lost the keys i want to see yet apparition i am come erase me, start with my eyes i would like to, i need to, die. and in death to become light falling in the afternoon your illuminating colour there will be no more need for faith, trust, belief when there is no more...

J'em appelle Jean-Paul Satre I seemed to have forgotten to think ,therefore, I am not But really this was not as distressing a realization as I thought it was and I became Roland Barthes, the dead author proudly proclaiming a new thing That the author is dead. Let me repeat: The author is dead. Tack tap. You can't see me. J'em appelle René Descartes And this map that I'm drawing is entirely sloppily plagiarized, every gitana-picking word of it Me llamo Frederico García Lorca, me asesinaron en la guerra civil and I haven't been seen since I was a boy, Анастезия, the lost princess I am Мис Emily, in the garden Etching poems in the veins of the autmnal leaves of Eden, Einstein in the Лабороторий like Dante entering purgatory Alone in the symbolic sterile wasteland of the loss of words murdered in the static imaginary world. Меня зовут Фиодор Довстоевский Put me in front the firing squad and spare me como Sanchez Mazas So I can write excruciatingly about it later Dying slowly as the ink leaks out of my Kahlo veins and Myshkin screams insane I am you as you read this poem constructing me I am just an l-e-t-t-e-r I = l-e-t-t-e-r Eye = ladder Welcome to the jungle. Curved lines of black vines I have become Juan Doh! enter the curling tendrils where red is blue and she walks out into the forest...probably the black forest just for drama ́s sake And die Brüder Grimm son alemanes--pues, no Germans wait немецкие или Deutscher de The place where I lost my nerve (Dresden after the firebombing) and got on the train To Kafka's Praha I mean Prag, oh right, Prague. My Czech blood has an English tongue. To you I am the image of the girl I left behind at the station and no more real. She is no longer standing there where I left her, just as I am an no longer here, only you never saw me and you never did. She fades to letters. Tears blur to ink. Unfeeling. The voice has gone out of me.

There are about a hundred people in this poem. I would never tell you all this, I never could it's too complicated. Sometimes life's a beach Or a blank drive-by screen. Sky stretches underneath--poised--with-- dashes--and...ellipses...and boomerangs of sand it's all one and the same smoother out the skywave wetsand It's not wonderful it's plain grayn and overwhelming shlugs of ambivalence yellowflower-seawheat How to run so fast, Sandpiper friend, on just one leg? Cirrus flies left, puffy sheep stream south simultaneously, passing trains on the city overpass pirouette while the clams dig deep rhythm to the crab clap drums in the roadside rumble bumps and watering pot-holes. Is this that well-traveled drainage stream a thousand miles from me, we speak of everything, we rest on the bike bridge, all my closest friends and me. We build pyramids and castle drips, guards and walls, defy the waves. My Sandpaper girl strides forward polygone, control resolute; sorting the sand into powerlessnesswalls and bridgepains, angersand flung splatterside to the passing wind and waves "I can help you with that sail" "No thanks" Rusty nail in the phone conversation Shooting myself in the foot, In my mouth the waves are choking me clean; Signs and fences in the sand, seaweedhead "Don't you ever think it's time to trespass?" I wish more people would stumble into me like crash a speedbump that they'd linger a second, slow down with me. I'm twirled violently in the washingmachine waves Sput up next photographer from Stockton taking pictures of a timely hourglass and her pretty friend, I might be back, I just want a friend, don't ignore me please, walk away Brigantine. Running twilight stretches mirrorsky sand the grey'slost windsweep The stars and streetlights beneath my flee-fleet feet memoryflit flutterby scuttleby crabs running before me scattering the room doorslam trying to outrun the Garden State and all it means, but still more, me. Can I crash ashore to a t-shirt and tea? Another fenceline in the chest. The grey gleam nifelifelite cutting into peaces, the box-sand/snowglobes of sandwalks past where ice looks neatserene I bleed birthward in the breeze this is OBX below freezing, flirting with waves we're in Jax on the pier waiting for the Future to tidal wave towards as you pass security tide red glows green "good-bye" nightscreen we dance and we're out at piersedge pacific (-ing our dreams with breakup morphine) busy signal I'm kissing in drainage tunnels, (dead bodies) I'm sleeping with strangers on buses at night, (or dear friends in emergency rooms) I'm carrying easychair slim silhouette Static. morningfog Ensenada praying on punkrocks you show me your pictures and cream skin smile beneath black bangs and bikini Em rushes forward, wants to see everything past the breaking wave running up sandcliffs your stride so long I start to run to blur everything we're on the concrete arms outstretched, cup poised on head, worldwar artillery bunkers in Pensacola/Klaipeda father/brother sisterme, don't kill yourself, those rocks are so big--I'll help you over you'll pose between ferry gates--they'll cut your feet, O'side bonfire, mercy I'll pray over you, eye runaway you're on that big sloped wall looking out to sea your hair tossed sailaway in the southbound train breeze towel turban covered Moscow cobblestone beach the bridges the blonde bob tapping out fingertip dreams... I'm throwing mud at you flirting, but you hardly notice me, we're talking about the demons you see while Mikey and Justy jump off of things, you're talking about living in sunsets and I'm spinning and singing Existence again ten year stream sing, it's the way I know how to pray this painmemory away into the skysea sing poseidony God (clammit) swallow me in crashing curls forget me and the melodybreeze let me lose sandbreeze[me]skysea. My whole life crumbling saltine eyeward and sea. I'm back breathing, digging toes deep, alone in the greys at Brigantine.

"Here my voice goes To ones and zeros" P i x e l P i x e l P i x e l me Text Insert text Yes. _________ No. Confirm? Meminusbreath SecondhandAbstractProfileSilhouette Dictionary meaning De no Con no No 1 in de no no-bod-ee-(k)no-me 1=1 Aye. 1 s psy e chi p zo a ph r ren a ic t e d 2 with bars in between handshake or hug? Can't reach. 1=1 Identity property Fence between. the man the other the un (impossible) reach (fingerstretch) a (article) ble /by zero ERR=human a an the suggest optimizing current path vía elimination equation must compute eye/i/ayeaffirmative 1=0 or 1= or 1DOES NOT COMPUTE /by zero ERR=human1 asitapproachesinfinityshattersintopixelpieceetceteradoesnotequaldivid byzerothereisno isnoisno isno isnoaantheandanandtheandiandmeandisa ndamandfragandmentandcontinentandeyeandcellandskinandflakesaw ayandnoclearlawendbeginonezerozeroonezerozerodysfunctonezeroze roonezerozeroonezeroneronerozeromezerozeroone.

The Articles Located before the words Scattered around the room haphazard Bags half-packed again Heart half-stacked against The rationales and pained memories Let's not do this again I am not the type for raised voices no Prefer calculated e-mails spaces left where we have half-arguments, I can't remember what we're talking about and I guess it would make me feel better if you could feel my frowns and if I could tell when you smile affectionately and when you get that guarded look on the other side of your eyes on the other side of the computer screen. Funny--you're not really there--or here. The articles and possessives Mine yours the scarf you gave me The heart I gave Iconography of memory, yours, mine, Arms locked around my shoulders You've let go now but the memories of those arms keep telling me you never would, That I have to let go first, I'm still trying. In other news I hope to see you someday again. Can you explain to me how to explain to someone else that I want to be held like you held me Firm, strong, antagonistic, allowing me to be weak. But no, it's gone and the hardest thing. We never said forever but my heart dreamed. I want to, but I'm not sure what letting go looks like-- I must remember. I must forget. Soon it will be summer and I won't be wearing your scarf-- but I'm practical and come winter I'll wear it again. The songs keep haunting Discarded articles The A this Relationship-- Melodies resurrecting dead memories and pain. Der Das Die. But our heart, our center, was Aberdeen--would we be here if I was still there? Would I be gone if I wasn't here? I left part of myself with you and when I was gone "you cut me open"

I keep forgetting to believe It's not like I want to I just...have nothing to look forward to and I don't understand you and it's all so far beyond me that I just focus on me and what's in control and my lack of sleep. When I forget, it's on purpose, I run away, I forget even more, I forget my heart, myself, and get lost in escapes. God, I keep forgetting to believe: Something must be wrong with me, Seems like one of these days I'll wake up and stop praying Or I'll keep mouthing the words but I won't be praying to you, Just hoping, Hoping something will change. God, church people always telling me, reminding me, trying to make me not to forget to believe I'm pretty sure I still do...but I don't know... I trust you with my life...but what's going on in my head is such a mess Can I even hear you there anymore? Do you really want in?

Yo no puedo recordar Who am I? Почему я здесь? I have fallen Entre los arboles de Edén and the skyscrapers of Manhattan Scraping the bottom of the ash can Humo Что делаю? Billows clouds mar olas Самолёт En el aire. I can ́t remember Кто я? ¿Por qué estoy aquí? Me caí Between the stars and pavement Моя песня летит Del cielo a la tierra And burrows itself Entre mi espalda И Абердин Perdido in my mind Y la sangre ¿Dónde está? I have blurred el corazón across Страны, города, и картины Of the faces I keep in my heart The faces that Yo trato de olvidar porque no puedo vivir como eso Scattered across ciento lugares ¿Dónde es mi patria aquí? ¿Quién es mi familia? No puedo recordar My heart Я не знаю ya No puedo ver Or feel. Я не могу cпомнит ¿Quién soy? Why am I here?

“Hope of old people, Never assuaged They wait for their day... For a day of comprehension.” --Milosz Ice dropping at the window taps incessant Rain is worse than snow, In these temperatures. Is there sense in scars and Blunt trauma? Divorce or broken bones? Awaiting illumination at iced window, A spark of oneness or love. Lone candle peers against the dark; The power lines are down. This our history, this subtle accumulation that felt like rain, freezing around our limbs Bending us back to the swollen mush of the earth: Ashes to ashes, mud to mud Until even the great oaks crack torn in two with the weight. The streets flood, but the glass casings around grass fingers are the greater concern: You bend and you bend. Whiteness accumulates on the bald asphalt head of the earth. Dead space. There is no gasping for words. Just acceptance Or meaning And these are beyond. We wait for illumination For the slow winding of smoke, The moment after, and its taste on your tongue.

Plains pale green punctuated by various b(r)ushes of deeper tones; The sky brooding twenty-one shades of ashes and dust, Distant splash of golden virga, visible edged sunbeams. God's country is colorado: light green, stone mesas, and twenty-one shades of grey. Pronghorn. Elk. Mustangs. There is something decidedly lacking between the broken wood pole fence and the mountains; There is space, a wash of gold between the greys that fills me with expectation. They call this God's country but the sun ain't shining here; Heaven's over there, the horizon. The deep concrete culverts where he worked reached over 120 degrees in the summer heat. You run into a rattler, and there's nowhere for the two of you to go. C.D. Wright suggests: “pass with care.” "It's a dry heat." Dad says it's Hell, Song says "There is no Arizona," Or perhaps I can get you some ocean-front property. If Colorado is God's country and Arizona is Hell Then we must live in Utah, deeply coloured land of a suspect church, somehow in between and next door, a place of heavy beauty, Or perhaps New Mexico, wild and pagan, because Zion's otherworldly cathedral is beyond us. Set your eyes to Yosemite and the strip. We live somewhere between Hollywood and Vegas, Death valley perhaps. Yuma? Blythe? Death is enough for me, The great unknown. Let it be. There is no longer shame in being afraid, What comes will come, When I go through the long tunnel to Zion, I won't need to look out the windows, I know the snow-dusted fields. I feel the waterfall on my bare feet, the fall below, The lodge by the creek, a place to rest: That's my hope. Death took the French priest who was trying to sell the heaven machine. So heavenly-minded... Idleness is a small southwestern town and alcohol, Slot machines in the gas station. Soap operas on TV. Demetria--are you talking about poetry? Or dust, America, opulence... Our Kingdom come... The Galleria in Roseville where I bought some pants at JC Penny Heaven on earth Cool tastes of cappuccinos, tame the fields with asphalt. A rosary of quarters for the stock machines and slot market. Your Kingdom come... Out of the vending machine? This is God's country: Chosen, aloof, red white blue Where I don't see the poor in Spirit. "Put your faith in the green" Auschwitz tours, pieces of the Hungary's iron curtain, Bulgarian villages, The strip, strip malls, strip clubs, bullets, for sale. Craigslist. Or the meek. We have our own forms of indulgences. Good boy, Give your money; Research your relatives and see if you can get them into heaven. Take 'em to church, get them saved. Say this prayer. Pass with care. Heaven is cheap. Our kingdom come Out of the blood Kingdoms and rivers and nations of blood, We the people will forge babel heaven of blood, And remove all Native American/Jewish/Turkish/Hutu impurities. Dust and Nations: No, "Put your faith in more than steel" Colt 45 bullets, USS Arizona, Auschwitz etc. No earthly good. Blythely, the shadow of the Joshua trees, Dust devils play with the scene, "On the back of the SUV is a mustang sticker and a feeling that never leaves you alone," I cannot believe in a heaven of bread mansions utopian land-escapes. What good are gold streets? Heaven come here, it's the only way I'll ever see you. Your kingdom come. I've tried to make heaven with my hands Tried to force it, Trying to squeeze Spirit out of gravel liturgies and words I've tried to make heaven in my cactus head, But it 's beyond my prickly pear fingers and I have no owl eyes for it. “Sightless unless” Your kingdom come, On earth as it is in Colorado: Quiet, unobtrusive beauty. Your kingdom come, On earth as it is in Philadelphia No one has ever seen God ('cept Mo sorta) But if we love one another... your kingdom come your kingdom come your kingdom come

When he is old? My arms have grown too long, My shoulders too broad, I won’t fit In the water; The water’s broken You can’t put it back Or undo the things I’ve done Born of the water Ceremonial jars, we’ll make them wine For a wedding feast that will Never run dry; You are right in saying that you have no husband Whoever drinks Will be thirsty again. The wind blows wherever it pleases: Jerusalem Jacob’s Well You can hear its sound But the breath is spent Can I take the curses back? They’ve been said, framed, eternally in time No one can tell where it’s coming from or where it’s going Then how could I get back in And be born again? Water and Wind? Healing and Breath, Cleansing and Spirit.

Westward Window Sunsets used to be Reminders of where you are That place where the sun comes down to earth Home

n' e list: sel'n it n' t' lies net lis ten LIs es til'n en stil ne stil slit in el isn't is lent te nils tiles n lit ens slit en mosaic es lit n L is net L isn't I meet L en t' Is Silent. Listen. Silence.

I didn't know your call before, just the high twits and whistles I try to sing along but when I listen close I catch the helicoptering slurs, the sliding tones on the syncopated pitch and I can't do it so well. You slide forward one line then counter: First three introductory whoops And then a chord, a sliding array of pitch. I'm stutter, not slide, your eminence. I couldn't pretend to be as holy as you with your red cap, your simple insistent prayers. But I want to get up in that tree and sing with you. I want to sit in that seat and listen and absolve the world with arms outstretched at the leafy red sunset.

isn’t a word i like i still need mercy saved makes ya think you got things right like ya not messin’ up anything what a lie saved excuses omissions saved builds a consens-US vs. them i know you’ve come through for me in many places, wrestled me, let me be; provided, got me on my knees, i’ve known your joy i’ve known your peace i know what it is to be with you, that’s where i want to be but i’ve no clue what saved means and i’m usually running from being saved again mercyme save me please.

Hovering over reflective drainage ditch puddles Warm breath breeze Wait, please fill me White dove flares vertical past the 4th story wind oh follow me hear the click trak of the metro beat sing what kind of son would make you well-pleased я забыл своё сердце in the twilight breeze, philosophical leaves Я не хочу помнить los dificultades Если бы мы опаздаем will you wait for me Почему что я не знаю how fast I am to following Я никогда не знаю как To pace myself with you chasing the breeze

Seguiendo espero que La vía sería clara Quiero seguirte, conocerte Esperando, quisiera que vayas en seguido Segundo tengo unas preguntas y dudas en caso que ellos me persiguen Seguro que no estoy seguro en mi mente Seguro que segundo no estoy siguéndote como debo Cuidado, cuidame que no faltaré la vía Tratar de poner mis pies en sus pasos Pasando tras el mundo en el buscamiento de su vía la vía Tú.

Separator: Spun the light out from your hands Like a cotton gin. Oh Creator: Orange peels of darkness scattered out Into space. You split the sky As the water ran down beneath Your fingers, And on the shore Your sandcastles formed To continents. And in a flaming burst of green, You pulled the palms and pines and ferns out from your top hat. You rolled the stars into place, And set the planets on their path Like shining pennies spinning round a funnel black. Where you spit into the sea, Dolphins leap and humpbacks breach, And angels clapped for joy. You stuck a straw into the deep, And the bubbles you blew Formed squid and monsters unseen. You coughed up a mountain of seaweed And pulled kelp from beneath your fingernails. And then a song burst out In a chatter of feathers and flight: A Stream of coloured major tones Flying out from his mouth. He kicks his toes into the earth, And a stampede of elephants roll out Of the spinning clods of dirt; And with a pinky flick A spray of grass Transforms into dancing gazelle. God laughed And the spit congealed into a platypus. He thundered and the dinosaurs came walking out from behind his heels. And it seemed like forever; It seemed like a day. The angels all watching, and running and pointing and praying and playing, Dancing on the winds, Running with the herds; Spirits running through the waters, Contemplating the mountain’s secrets. And he took himself aside, Spit into the dirt. Sat down with the clay, and began to Whittle away whispers: "In our image let's make man." A pregnant pause: He breathes into them. And He saw that it all was good; It was very good.

I. Hippo equals real. A name by any other rose, would still sweet as smell. A name with thorns that prick you when you try to pluck it, I sweet the storming sea, and swallow smell ice cream. In the beginning the heavens and the earth created the Backstreet Boys. A series of possibly contradicting statements: God is the word. God is love. God is the real. God is idea. God is word. God is God. God is person. God is personal. God is relational God is real. Jesus is my homeboy. Abba Spirit underTaker God is the heroin of a broken church. God is the healer of a broken world Gee Oh Dee. We've put so many stickers on the refrigerator that when we speak of the refrigerator, we often only speak of the stickers. II. "All you people, can't you see, can't you see, how your love's affecting my reality?" I am a Backstreet Boy. I am lights and sound, electronically remastered, choreographed and loud A violent abstraction of self, But they love me. They love me. Me is a false concept. I am not lights and sound, I am cells and insecurity, And a consciousness by any other rose would still miss reality This is not equal to the some of the integer me. They love the rose, wear my rose on their clothes as they try to be Hippo. But they are not. They are just ideas inside me. A love by any other folly would sweet so smell. A hippo love anyway. Hippo love requires real other for serious relationship. hippo. Must remind me that I am hippo. Must remind me constantly that they be hippo, or else I will forget. A hippo that is not hippo will not sweet so smell. You were a false concept in my cageideamind. Because of this, I hurt you. Selfishness has no room for others. Postmodern self-concept self is all knowing. In this, I am without you, lost and alone. Are any of us hippos?--suppose not--suppose nothing. No, consciousness negates that. There is a hippo in the real or unreal whatever room. I can touch it, I can sweet it. Sometimes I can't--sometimes there's no hippo in the room that I can see. The Backstreet Boys are not hippos. But imagine they were, and you get a rather amusing dance routine. No, those boys are/were hippo. But now they're not, or the more they play their unhippo role so hip they become less hippo or maybe--okay, maybe they just become a different kind of hippo with a different me. They don't love me and they never did. We are cells and insecurity. We are hippo. For reals. Even if you can't see me. The table is a hippo too...sometimes it moves...mesa earthquake everything change boom. But freeze frame...there's always a hippo in the room. For reals. III. I can only look at one hippo in time, but I think if we could see all the hippos in a row, It would look something like a bunch of large tusked mammals in a Fibonacci sequence. Or more likely there's one great hippo that two eyes can not perceive. We have dragonflyeyeminds, or rather there are too many faces on the polygon, and I can only focus one. I don't believe G-d is the hippo. But I believe in the hippo. Hippo is beyond total perceive. I believe that G-d is hippo, but G-d is beyond total perceive. I don't want to be nag-gnawstic about it...that's not what I mean. If I am hippo, you can know me. Let me outside of your cageideamind. There is breath in us, and I'm not always sure if my fruitflyeyemind perceives, I believe there is breath in G-d. Other breath. And love. That G-d is a loveperson, not idealove or hipponess. I'm trying to tear the stickers off, so maybe you can see the fridge again and remember it. Or maybe to get you to look for it. Maybe it's not there. Maybe it is. Sometimes we have wormeyes. Sightless, unless, the eyes reappear. Sometimes we are fruit flies. Forgive us, Señor Dios, that we mess up your rose so much. That we use it for such trivial things. Such selfish things. We try to write our roses with names. With your name, and bend the stem to our desire perceive. There's no ink in them, no breath, but they sweet so smell. Las manos take the thorns. I don't want to be a backstreet boy no more. My voice cry wholly, wholly, wholly. We want to see you.

I guess this means I will still write you (Meesa called Jar Jar Binks) I guess this means I could never write you (Meesa your humble servant) I think I must be saying things Muy muy I love YOUS(supportingcharacters4protagonist<ME>) I guess this means nothing I guess You mean everything to Gone? with windless doldrums presencia non I cannot sequitor wood eye cannot see I miss you terribly Concrete reach along the smooth keyboard carpet toes socks smells Hungers I settle for here in chair waist bent sore back yellowwhite room I think I'm dying the words are dying sucked into the AC Breathbreeze across a flowing carpet alive snow whete kiss Springreen revival beckon calling starlings Spewing plasma song across empty space black whole (hippo) Don't be Antimatter matter matters we are words beyond the speak Of all but flaming tongue above: Yeshua, Great Spirit, reader writing weaver speaker, Allah in us, Allow in us, this day, (y)our daily breath

The pendulum swings Storm clouds bring rain Action, reaction Pushed on a swing The leaves fall by Tears come and dry Canada Geese fly Go down the slide Faceplant Gravel in teeth Egg plant Bitter and sweet The storm clouds spin The thunder roars The mountains quiver Thrust and force The children play Parents go insane Righteous fight all in vain? Faceplant Rock to the eye Bitter tears Questions of why Get up! The world is burning! Get up! The world is dry! Thirst. Breathe. Feel. Leave. As world’s tides keep sighing behind Waves were meant to sail Skies were made to fly Mourning meant for wails Grace for tears to dry Breathe. Walk. Mend. Fight. Give. End. It’s alright If it’s alright It’s alright If Grace brings life The storm clouds rain The pendulum swings Mary go ‘round Grace is in the wings The chains creak The earth groans The sky falls The dog moans Mary go ‘round Grace is in your womb Time fly by If Grace is coming soon Grace is here. Grace is here.

εν αρχη ην ο λογος και ο λογος ην προς τον θεον και θεος ην ο λογος In the beginning was the Word Well, what word? (yahweh? ser? is? being?) Did it have l-e-t-t-e-r-s? Was it spoken? Was it just was? (or is and is to come as well?) Am? You are what you are. How bout, how bout In the beginning was the noun, the Logic the stasis, the orderer breath breathed and formed words and these formed planets atoms are language and it is and was and is to come Or maybe, maybe In the beginning is the... the chaos, the deep, the waters was that you as well? Hovering? On what? In What Space? What Scale? What Time? What is it to be other? Where were the angels? And why this world? Why another? Was it an imbalance, an overflow, an accident, a bet, a game, a story, or what? In the end adjectives and adverbs and metaphors failed Let's give Moses an epic poem. (and what about the others?) Let us make man in our image (other?) (so we are negatives then, brown film) In the beginning was the form, but what form, we are negatives but what colours exist outside our images? (i never looked good in pictures, and looking at this world, neither do you most of the time) In the beginning was the voice! In space did it make noise or In the beginning was the ink on what table are you writing then? is this a novel? are we free? En el principio existed el verbo, the verb the act, the actor the play In the beginning was the beginning and the beginner and the ender and the ends. Are we coming back again? Are you? What narrative structures hath occurred here? Is occurring? Look! The dead leaves are whirling in the wind, the seasons change, and the tide comes and goes No biographical sketches here, no historian for you, it's your story But even on earth your childhood details are scarce, Apparently the angels are singing, I just hear the wind... wait... the speaker the speech the father the page the ink the being the three the spirit the person son of man the thought the logic the logos the spirit the mystery, or is it are you were is yeah--yeah the mystery, the noun the verb the letter the other the speaker the speakers the sound the ink, flowing out of what veins, from what arms did you tear your skin for dirt, what sperm for saviors what lungs breathe galaxies? and the ink the oxygen enters the Adam particles collide and there is life (and of ends, of death? What then?) And the truth is somewhere between your l-e-t-t-e-r-s on the page no outside the page it's between the breaths of the speaker and the static of the inception of time Truth is true and yet so much more, yes so much more and you are so much more, the article before the Word, infinite other definite everything anything? nothing? being i cannot know and yet i believe i know i feel i've always known you Who are you? Reveal yourself to me. To us. because "i do not exist only YOU exist"

Tavim kvėpuoju aš Tus manos clavadas Tus pies heridos Señor Jesucristo, Hijo de Dios, ten piedad de mí pecador. Ateikit ištroškę, Ateikit silpni. Come, take and eat. Awake my soul. Viešpatie ateik. Viešpatie ateik. How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes, And what if You'd sing me alive? Открой мое сердце Господь мой Porque todo lo que hay dentro de mi, Necesita ser cambiado Señor I don't want to be the same. Господи, prefiero orar como esto, no quiero parecer exposed. I felt the Lord begin To peel off all my skin, And I felt the way within Revealed a bigger mess. Tomame, abrazame, I will wait on You my King separator, sustainer Find me here, speak to me. O Dvasia ateik здесь ven aquí I need Thee oh I need Thee Eres mi torre, as he takes me by the hand, con Él yo voy. Tantas voces adentro de mi corazón they sing your glories. Господи спаси и сохрани. The nails in your hands. Viešpatie Jėzau Kristau, Dievo Sūnau, pasigailėk manęs nusidėjelio. The nails in your feet. I'm gonna leave You the first chance I get, sweet pursuer, don't let go. No me dejas, esperaré Господи, Иисусе Христе, Сыне Божий, помилуй мя грешнаго. I don't know how to say I need You and mean it. I don't know how to say I love You and let it be true. I don't know how to say I'm both desperate and terrified. That I love You and I believe You (mostly) that's why I want to run away. Come Lord Jesus Come, go ahead please fight me. I want to see, I want to sing, but the words aren't enough alone, Lord Jesus Christ, Have mercy on me, a sinner. Viešpatie ateik. Viešpatie ateik. Breathe me.

Patience my love Patience Let the earth spin once Before you speak again Negativity is natural When you see and don’t move You’re oft the first to complain But these words will only Add to the rains That wash away And leave us dull in hate Love is forgiveness Love is kind Love is patience With these broken lives And we all hold double standards With those who are different and blind We all set off each other’s nerves Over nearness of place and distance of life Patience Patience my child Patience Let the earth spin again Before you move You’ve been running and Merely wearing yourself out Know this: There is a way out-- No, not escape Not another dream Another plan who’s end you cannot see Come follow me! Love others as you Love yourself You will make it someday You will be there soon But you’ve been given these imperfections Flee despair and hate Fight through Patience my darling Patience I will finish this work in you I will finish this falling world It breaks I will make it new I hear your cracking voice I hear silent prayers too Patience my darling Patience I will never forsake you