Psalms for the Disaffected

We pledge allegiance with phantom limbs, over
the ill-stitched holes of our hearts.

Anomalies

Poem #100 and I wrote this at work using only the letters from ^that word.



Soon’s a snail moan
slime line ill on saline
a lesson lost: all men lie…

An alias no name alien;
I sin no less,
Am insane—an ass…

All moons name me: alone.

Smile mama, loan me some ease,
a sail, some sol
sell me a session
mail me a sea.

Exit 17B

I have known highways
and been a one-night stand
to exit ramps.

Steam

You are another copper heart in a world of copper pieces. A hydraulic pump. A tin filament sorting through impurities. You are the crankshaft on the zeppelin mother-ship; your flywheel is spinning rapidly, uncontrolled. Break our ribcages open and watch our cogs countdown. Watch us become obsolete. Watch our mechanisms rust till they're irreplaceable. Watch us run dry, watch us die.

Touch

Nerve endings like outstretched fingers,
hoping for a grip, a grasp
a touch.

There are promises whirling the tips of each pad,
epidermal edicts against being senseless.

Pollination

Intuitively dandelions burst forth
a million wishes floating; dreams of chaos.

Weeds have already championed Darwin. Proliferate unchecked,
unbalanced equations of what equals beauty.

Blind your eyes of the beholder; you would settle for what is common. Mudane
in your ability to hate the thorns, but love a rose.

PAD2011 - Day 3

I could take these steps
stumble towards you; oasis.
Drown in your waters that may be sands
or may be the one place I could imagine staying,
if it exist-- if you exist. I could stumble into you,
home after a night of binge drinking;
if I didn't think I imagined you real

PAD2011 - Day 2

Lotto

Luck is an algorithm
a charmed penny stuck next to the pocket lint
in your jeans. The last crumbled bill is a wish
a dream on a variable schedule. Pavlov
standing behind bulletproof glass.

You scratch to the rhythm of a bell.

PAD2011 - Day 1

Maybe I've always been here
right here and you've always been right next to me
or behind. In the peripheral you look taller
or wiser or less devious than you act. Maybe
I look exactly the same through narrowed eyes
and maybe I'm invisible or there's an outline where I stand
a place filler, a human bookmark.

Cybergenetics

Listening: Janelle Monae - ArchAndroid


Name one thing you'll never let rust red,
corrode...

because there are jagged holes about you, tinman.
You wires are crisscrossed and short circuiting;
synapses misfire.

Recycled, thin copper heart
conduit for false electrical impulses
stay steady, mechanical monstrosity
do that for which you're built.

Another android acquiescing to acting inhumanely,
another human marking time unemotionally.

These are the things ticking pass us; none
programmed for self-repair.