A series of networks and terminals, tucked away in the brochure,

at the very back of the gift shop.

Buried on the FAQ section of the website, under footnotes and the about us section.

Drowned out by the sounds of metal being bent to build playgrounds and ticking of clocks and keyboards and run on sentences.

And the crackling of the torches as well.

These are words that you chose

metal that you chose,

The stinging will be incessant and you cant possibly ignore it, or me,

or the sentences

or the torches,

any longer.

We are here, we are marching,

we are glowing,

we are singing stinging

Poisonous things,

shooting stars and lyrics that resemble plants and vines that scratch your head or wrap around your head and neck,

around your triceps.

We are dreaming now , we’ve arrived, half awake, half tattooed and utterly indistinguishable.

Half awake, and my legs do still work,

even if its all quicksand, or a series of treadmills,

stretching out for miles, and miles

and miles….

That sharp sound,

those treadmills,

occasionally hitting the exact same note but still coming up well short of our goal, my goal,

the plan.

those treadmills.

These spiders.

We cant end it when we should, when we would like, without tracking sand all over the house.

“Slow down ! ” they say.

They always say that,

They always walk like that….

We still couldn’t locate where any of the sounds came from,

…..not really …no.

Its still not hitting my ear the same, that same glass sound,

a tinkering, that is swelling to be so much more than that , eventually.

But you chiseled them away,

lifted them right out of the rock, eventually.

All those sounds,,

as if they were weightless and now they are only waves,

Waves that you brought here,

Waves that brought you here,

without even tracking so much as a speck of sand into the house.

Something about the pitch and the frequency, and the fire.

Galvanized and plummeting,

all at once, ahead of any amount of ships in the night,

ahead of all the other hands attempting to wash all the other hands.

Taller and especially more tired than the spires off in the distance,

that you have to squint to see .

Stopping for no one, but still blowing right along amidst the warm air and the white noise.

stripped away to nothing by those other hands, the loose ends and the heat, too,

Especially the heat,,,

Breathing out all the fun and games,

and regurgitating the pieces and flashcards that go along with it.

Feeling them spew out of me, through my lungs and my other tubes and veins and bones and out of me.

Especially unsure of length and priority,

and unsure of my bones, too.

Unsure of the charm,

Unsure of the duration.

Especially the warmth, and the ultimatum.

We’ve made our point, the point

That’s for sure!

Which is company policy,

and always, always , fucking always edited for clarity.

Curtains and windows close all of around me , dragging me under

and its hard to be full of anything when I am doing this, you can half expect the grass to have died or least want to die under the unexpected weight ,

my expected weight.

The sheer drop followed by an enormous splash

and all that’s left is the words you chose, flying over head, splattered all over the walls,

just more carrion for the crows it would seem,

and front row seats to all of this , you would have us believe.

Pulling my eyes up to speed,

there is a definite deference

a distraction coming in droves , in plagues.

A heat that we love, a heat that we cant get through.

Whilst the very best soundtracks play too loudly in the foreground and too faintly in the background ,

front to back, end over end amidst heavy interference .

This movie,

our movie is the last thing on my mind,

I am thinking of the warmth that darkness provides instead.

about that black dog pressed against my arm, while I try to sleep,

about that glass house, and especially about the heat,,,

As the soundtracks and the percussions separate and begin to close in like snakes and I turn over to finally face the edge,

and wonder why Part II was ever left out, and what would have become of it if they pulled the trigger,

if they hit it out of the park,

or if it would have left the infield even.

what was, if they could have grabbed the reins at the time,

what is , if I could just roll back over, and ignored all the noise the horses were making now that someone had grabbed hold of the reins,,,,,

which I did,

I do,

I will.

The best squeezed juice the is often deleted or wiped up off the ground or countertop and funneled back into the bottle,

or jar,

leaving behind a sticky residue on the floor and fingers and, by the campfire,

or jar.

The sound, the taste, the texture, punctured, riddled with bullets.

and what you see that was squeezed out to fit under the microscope,

Is all that’s really left, practically,

there some still left under the fridge, left to coagulate , left to colonize,

left to smear its fingerprints everywhere,.

Left to nurse wounds and stave off infection,

while the campfire confidently roars on, without incident.

In between my overuse of the word ” and” and everyone’s attempt to decipher the diagrams on the back of the modems,

modeled, molded and blended to resemble the sun, or something in the sky anyways .

Some unplugged star,

waiting to be built, or to explode and then die , or a variation thereof;

Whose cord is so tangled into a knot that no electricity could ever pass through,

to release that hum that we all want to feel, to trip over it,

but we catch ourselves, and wait still

for it to bleed some momentum,

to slip through and ELECTRIFY SOMETHING.
STRIKE ANYTHING.

To untangle that same knot and feel the subsequent slow burn on your hands,

dripping off your wrist, running downhill

leaving rings behind ,

allowing you to run alongside it.

Finally aligned with fire and electricity,

if only briefly,

legs stretched further than the passing currents, with each passing current

parallel with it, and the other currents now,

panting , and sobbing

panting, and sobbing,

coming to to a stop, where it all evens out,

the end of a slope, or a line ,

if only briefly.

.

Sometimes we wonder what the light looks like pressed up against other lights,

aghast, covered with but a single blanket.

Brighter lights,

glowing pink in the bank,

standing in line….

Sleeping comfortably in a lonely , humming hamlet,

among the very best fireflies,

among the other lovely fireflies,

still glowing pink in the bank….though

still in line.. though

still glowing pink, even in disintegration, though.

Bowing out and ultimately discarded with the plastic bags and driftwood

and freezer bags too,

In the midst of this purge ,

After the moths have gotten hold, ,,,

We wonder what the sound sounds like pressed up against other sounds

and whether we will take part, or whether we will sleep,

and why we didn’t hear the moths chewing holes in EVERYTHING.

Ill forget those troves, those files,

having looked up a definition and then having forgot that same definition moments later

in real time, right now,

but no longer with a cat in my lap, cold and agape,

but not longer willing to conflagrate cooperate

now lost amongst the firewood stacked neatly against an empty house,

an inept attempt at total value,

at the behest of royal hands,

volumes , propped up against my arm,

against my hands.

At night; without pockets.

At night; working against me.

It just comes when it wants,

continues when it wants

bleeds when it wants.

What it wants is volumes, in volumes and square cubic feet,

swollen and immature, all the paragraphs grow and swell with every word, in real time,

right now.

Let them blow away and tear apart , so the titles will make more a little more sense now

the circumference , bloated with context,

bloated with contempt.

The perimeter , standing strong,

and I am left running, climbing ,

telling the story,

baby baby baby

trusting me , trying to ,,,,,,,

and telling me about the waves,

Lying to me,

trying to,,,,,,

Reduced to scars around the eyes,

craters and religious stones,

that I have learned about from listening to the radio

That I have seen by not listening to the radio.

Don’t let any drip out, relinquish

all of it.

any of it.

Before it disappears into vapor or into mist,

before the ravens become too monstrous

and before the ravenous become too famished

and have nothing left to feed on,

peck at,

bleed on,

or even drink.

In times of famine,

catch the tiger by his toe.

In times of famine,

catch any of that tiger

catch all of that tiger.