I petitioned loudly.
Threw punches at strengthened glass,
made in Georgia but cut in China
with Mandarin-dyed loops and whorls
and arches and bell curves.
Claw machine clasped at my anklebone hinge,
thrusts grew softer and stretched, smogandsmolder,
asphalt jumping clumps under my drag,
throat like a screen door you blow through.
The sediment will stand still tomorrow, in ten minutes
breath disregarded and routes and grooves
smoothed out with newspaper.
Took me out, and their bones,
to make oil and collect a bottle deposit,
to write more textbooks, with more dates
for more skin to soak in, in formaldehyde article notation.
The goodnight came, bright man booming,
tongue clicking echolocation embers from the soggy cubicle hearth,
and moons heard it deafening.
New rocks in colors we don’t know,
gray and purple with ageless indiscrete footprint(s),
wedged it open for easy access.
Sent a capsule to my stomach for no good reason.
One day, you would’ve had a baby,
andIrememberyou
case-sensitive pounding
and the scraping hopeful shatter cry,
and the mile-long thrum of being towtrucked away.
Loss lit through mirrors,
and how impersonal the palms were
that probably pulled you out an hour later,
and no response, no re-entry.
Do not wash your hands.
Do not forget the day of the week.
—
Steel girder ribcage, playing cello,
deep and resonant in a tunnel of temperature shifts,
cigarette butts and plastic bottles and brown paper tumble,
caught up on concrete in the ten minutes after you wake up,
intermittent.
Smell the shuffling steering your step,
fight the draftwave deflected by nylon,
disaffected to keep on and clunk.
Put a fishtail in the certain stride, don’t worry about traffic,
it’s too early, they won’t try to be you anyway.
Sip on it,
turn right, again; again.
Take it like a steel shovel,
no compromise and no change for the bus, so keep up,
creep quick, around them doing makeup
in the backs of chattering chopblocks
and annotating darktown maps,
swinging keychain to soundtrack,
to dandruff and a death rattle for the clean of cloud cover,
goodbye moon, soon.
The panorama kept wheezing.
Walked and coughed, wagged salt from creases,
wet hair still, all windows too,
all doorknobs.
Wraparound, turn a ton of red brick back to fewer digits,
jumpstart delirium folding seven or eight times, unbelievable.
Would you turn around if you had the time? And yeah.
Back down four more fleets, fleet-footed,
hollow thuds on oak, ground beef gravel outside.
Thick sticks? Maybe an island?
>Who? You, yeah, sorry, here,
you’re here now, no?
I needed it. Tap-tip,
ivory kinda lockpick,
we can chat, but primarily,
you’re here to play.
Slumberlust, early morning blunderous,
prepare for the nighttime neurotic ballet,
take a stool by the horns and away all day.
—
Tipped over, all of them clacking and shaking,
sidewalking across and then in.
Kids crashing and fumes and cocaine in their nosehair from yesterday
finally brushing, clocking out at the end
of their shifting. Don’t wanna be,
but don’t care, cutting chords
and stomping foot like a ferry,
steamboat slowly to port town honking.
Done with that duo, deaded and burped.
Old wood smells like booze and boosted audio, not my place,
not what I wanted, but barely.
Cast a dragnet handshake, beardy bar baron, weird finger.
Wedding ring. Through noteclimb coast into after,
>Nice. You don’t often do ya? Not by the sound, your look.
<Not even once, but lizardlicked me out,
and here, have it. Gulp.
>Gulp again. You two, fingers flying,
you know him yeah? Great.
Green on all accounts at your counting too.
If I could I’d clap with you,
no knocks, good presses and pouts.
<Yeah, thanks,
gulp some more, go again to the gears and grit skinners and pad off,
put off by smalltalk today and tomorrow. Thanks for cash and crashing.
Sorry for you, sonny. Huh?
Runnin’ up behind like he needed to.
>Lookit Danny dance, hah and humph, huh? Hammered it.
Could you handle it, paytime? Not a lot
more than they need.
<Yeah, I guess, in that manner of mess.
We were good.
Shake and search, snap and torch
and breathe out in between,
back pocket this time.
>Slept too long in the seat, ha-ha,
Howie kept asking for showtunes again.
<I don’t want to again.
>Yeah I know, buddyfriend. We don’t have to,
we didn’t, you just said you were in.
Thursday, last one. Or the one before that.
<It doesn’t matter.
>I know.
>You look half-eaten, bud, what the fuck is your deal?
We killed it or something. What a one-way-to-go.
<Come on man, I walked by the office again.
Rails and smokey bones, y’know? And what?
How long was I there? All those angles
shooting index finger arrows,
cursor cattle prod belonging on a mugshot of mister for leaving,
and no open casket, no basket for Brendan,
or Jay or Carson, all seaward on accident,
no sad phonecalls, no portraits in cousin coal,
no reception. Just a lot like where they keep the old traincars,
only wheels are gone and cars too, and tracks,
just fucked up galvanized crumbs,
and I’m still rollin’.
I’d rather be a closed subway tunnel, no one would see.
—
Slap a paw on cold crouch clamber,
fingers itching with rusty grain and soft-toothed swing,
up, arms spring loaded and straining.
Wind lick,
hair flip to one side,
short shout of shearing on me, tagged grazing.
Rise.
Dangle dearly.
On your ass again, always, legs not across,
you need hooks up here,
slumped and staring skydown at racetrack
zoomtackle to stoplights,
crosswalk crunchers clapping in time
on a white cage or bar face,
looks like something you do with your fingers and strings,
but no singing sound.
Snap scroll down, inhale,
exhale,
back pocket again now, swish seated.
There was heat like that once, here, too.
Now freezing informal on the pickings,
warm in my wielding.
Worked, her? Was she,
no members remembered,
one-man club didn’t see, that’s on me.
Felt her curling, crooked desperation,
shook it off unknowing, shook it off like a thunderstorm baby,
yeah,
hot shit,
on fire,
ha.
Shook it off and shouted still,
no words from them then though,
just bubbling dermis,
mumbles melting into fissured tile and sheetrocked side to side,
marrow boiling kilnside,
downspiral duct flares,
seething six shades of it, red,
licking laughs of
smogandsmolder
, ivory keys break in its beats.
Too much like cresting tubes on the roar, sand aside.
Shrill. And I should’ve been louder about it, I know.
Should’ve pounded piano TURNBACK with my tongue and went slow.
But yeah. Spines are gone, different bones are upright.
And like I noticed, keys on the crosswalk like continuing chromosomes,
noiseless, no words.
I had words.
hwhhh
, lips pissed.
Shutterless skeleton on a tapered box,
I know those notes they stomp on and around,
I’ve done it before. I could play.
I could petition loudly,
could heave myself at stronger-than-glass,
tusks of tar,
pound out the patterns of the snap of as femur
under hot weight support beams, flame broiled.
I could compose.
I can stand,
ridges rough and reassuring, rain ain’t no thing.
I could catch a downdraft harmony,
stomp staccato,
collide crescendo in a mortarcast climax,
fade out like they did,
smogandsmolder
thick and timely.
Gotta catch up.
Shufflestep right.
Amble vaguely,
distinctive dying deed, the done-king of cries,
<AndIRememberYouAll,Too
, loud and down.
Down wingless and peripheral,
to petition loudly one last push,
to throw a punch at ivory beckoning,
ivory I made for myself or for them,
idle engine reckons endful and ego,
rendered immobile in all other directions,
friction fighting frightened cells, and jacket flapping fearful,
this drop not dented but hot,
sensation! surely isn’t the same as their pain,
but like it,
like melting mumbles and a stone down a well.
Whistling altitude death knell!
Flaring forlorn freefall aflame!
Petitioned loudly, threw one more pointed punch,
and now curled around nothing,
like the shake at salvation so shakingly shunned,
like all of the others they left at a run, for me.
And the concrete concert hall heard one last key mildly mouthed,
forced out, end to guilty arpeggio without room for doubt.
Incinerated, sidewalk skull split, hardy lout.
The last minor key ember leftover snuffed out.
