catching errant fireflies in some july

a forgotten park, green bokeh

the valves of our minds cooperating for the first and last time

so perfect.  time stopped. like breathing on opiates.

then someone misspoke, drunk on synergy

a fit of assertion

one of us salted the slugs

the chemistry was too much to watch - 

sky paled, the green drained away, fences grew 

i started to believe in aliens

status and wealth

this new doubt

pooling in ankles, crowds forming

there was the face of a redhead muse

an idealist

culturally significant loft parties

the mythology of better men

a posse

thieving, conniving saints

fueled by a dozen testicles 

half as many starving egos

like termites quietly they

ate the substance out of it all

leaving the skin untouched

to congregate around you

their beautiful translucent queen

all the heads of the baby birds are singing together

like they’ve known it for years, they’ve been saying it from the first peep it’s 

just now that you noticed

they sing a hymn of potassium yellow 

of lost ochre scrolls in the garden 

a song of simple stones and convex falloff 

little ramps leading into the fog of nature

when skeletons dance without muscles

when muscles anchor to air

love precipitates before it festers

tongues meeting for the first time over radio waves

for the second, a touching of tips, hydrophilic cohesion

the viruses swim upstream like late salmon

no time to exchange pleasantries 

pink superhighway

ice cold beer as asphalt for traction

deep in the city of you

bundled apart from the wind and the cold

each organ hums and trades blood for bile, bile for plasma, marrow for semen, lymph for mucous

the first pokerface passed down from the first mammal - 

only hidden teeth 

proboscis

Photographer’s girlfriend leads him around the world

sigh. :)

i sit and click for hours on end, a slow fluorescent tan creeping on my skin.

i get home and click some more. then i consume. i consume while consuming, the eyes and mouth working at the same time, brian on standby.  so much going in, with not much coming out,  save for more appetite.

i fight the alarm in the morning.  it takes three of them, ganged up, maxed out.  i rise, joints crackling.  my nakedness disgusts me, i hurry to put clothes on, then quickly resent the fit.  but i need to keep moving.  i was already late yesterday.

clothed like this, i shuffle to work.  nearly shapeless, formless, in stitched cohesive patterns that i feel nothing for.  i strike no profile, make no impression.  everything about my presence is muted.  looking at the people walking by me, i’m on the other side of something.

on occasion, one starts to think and tunnel out an original enthusiasm, or perhaps visit a former comfort violated by heartbreak or nostalgia, thinking that time away may have restored the majesty.  but the endeavors don’t forget that you’ve abandoned them.  all elasticity in these past immersions has dissipated.  the beds are dried out, and you never bothered to sow them before you left.  lie in them anyway, and the axe comes down. 

the axe is the present experience of a life spent without optimism.  a life bent on “getting it”.  having the upper hand of understanding.  it’s post-awareness.  post-irony. post-internet.  post-social network. post-hallucinogen. post-hipster.  post-exploration. post-judgement. post-religion. post-nihilism.  these are the thirties, the insecurity of wasted youth starting to mount a nagging chorus of regret behind you, and the steady decline of oxidation possibly without purpose lurking in the shadows ahead.  somewhere there’s the path of your father and mother going in both directions, converging on you, the spring chicken that stuck around and forestalled it’s execution, alone in the yard, strange with it’s head.  wondering if it would be more dignified as a corpse. roaming but idle, like a sheep that fell through the cracks.  an escaped grain, trying to get back into the hourglass. a chickpea that rolled away from the hummus.

looking at pictures of stars used to take you away from this.  the unknown. then you started thinking about how they’re all false-color radiation crammed into the visible spectrum.  pre-digested and processed for your own limited faculties, and this changed the taste of them.  FD&C violet gamma ray #5.  And, … they’re all dead now.  NASA disbanded.  You have no health insurance.

Back on earth, the color of lightning, to ride in it, to be blue and white in the middle, pale blue skin with a white liver too bright to look t, a glowing coruscating spleen, brilliant plasma eyeballs and arcing digits, a radiated fucking crayfish, it’s not poetry any more, it’s an aesthetic visited by a video game that sells for 59.99.  It’s watered down Alex Grey coffee table books.  All your imaginary exodus shaken out of your spine to your peripherals, that great big shudder like a dog oscillating away the dirty water, has already been summed up and marketed.  The stock in your angst has been liquidated.

This is not depression or pessimism; it’s hanging your hat up, sitting down, and wondering “what now”?

nevver:

— James Baldwin

nevver:

Benoit Paillé

devidsketchbook:

FREEKHAND

Spain, Barcelona based illustrator Miguel Herranz (flickr

misscannabliss:

man o war by Bruce Riley on Flickr.