First Fire-y 15 for Napowhinemore.

1,

Waiting for a package
celluloid spools
to remember for me.

All life balanced
on a spider-thread
and I find myself
wanting
to tell my story
to these random strangers
behind counters.

I'm on the road
without a map
and no map
is required.

These people
can't tell me
the way.

I question
what i'm doing
here
letting the rust and wreckage
fall away
to reveal brighter metal;
but still
metal
and no flesh.

I have more in common
with a flashlight
than these
human beings.




2.

Following the spring
this year
dancing the yellow line.

The Panamint daisies
bushed up and
showed their glory.

We witnessed birth
in the valley of Death
the sun beaming down
from a bright blue sky
and even Coyote
showed some respect.

Spring is a spirit of longing
this year.
Longing for an answer
to the great question.

Our brains flit and fly,
consciousness balloons
and snaps back;
everywhere a sadness,
everywhere an anxious
searching.

The sun rises
and sleeps
and rises again
over mountain
and plain
and ocean waves.

We strain
bicker
and scratch fear-y holes
in the fabric of dreams
waiting for
self-made deliverance.




3.

Years of frustration
trickle down
into the now.

Will I?
If...

Butcher of my own life
I select the veins to follow
and the bones to hack.

Blaming someone else
for these decisions
was far easier
than accepting the cleaver
in my own hand.

If we could see
each individuals'
self-vivisection
would it change anything?

Would we only find new
reasons
to go on cutting?




4.

Longing for the trance
that will lead me away from
all of
this.

Dreaming an endless
whiskey-soaked
desert-run
to finally remember how
to feel the wind
again.

In my mind there
were
moments of something
more
than platitude and argument.

To dream again
as though
you'd never felt the pain
to dream again
as tires cut the midnight
pavement and memories
eviscerate good feelings;
spilling their empty
out over everything
that could be.




5.

Gutted.
Peeled away and cleaned of
inside
anythings.

Each day
in the supermarkets
the traffic jams
the insane parking lots,
city to city across the continent
people are gutted
by themselves or
one another.

Gutted by
the 80 hour work week
butted by a payday which never
arrives,
gutted by parents
schools
governments
lovers.

They sleep against street lamps
or in banker's bedrooms;
the gutted.
The dead.
The blind and impossible
dragging their carcasses
between places to earn money
and places to spend it.

Their essence and flesh
gambled into paper
that speaks a lie of worth.

Gutted by children,
gutted by bills,
gutted by the thing that simply
will not
arrive,
or if it does arrive
it is always too late,
too late and too little.

Each day you must say:
I will look into their eyes,
I will not let them have
what is left of myself.

As the gutted ones come
with their demands
and their blameless
execution answers
you must say to them:
This is not it.
No, this is not it at all.




6.

Poems drip slow
where there used to be
waterfalls.

The drought seems to come
as I stand in a rain of experience
yet the stream
never swells.

Cactus and rock
and desert flat,
sun and frost
and rain, I
am submerged
and do not drown
am immersed and do not
accept,
preferring blank looks,
withering glances
and gravestones
for everything.




7.

Gray horizon.
Gray in my head.
I watch the tide rise up,
wondering about the ghosts
of places and
ancestors
long-dead
that may come forward
to aid me
or those newly passed
that arrive
like ravens in the dawn.




8.

Tonight
Orion peers down
from a blue-black sky
arm poised to strike
until he is covered
by clouds.

He's lead me
across so many skies.
Why is he upset tonight?




9.

Night.
The rain continues at 2 a.m.
with the sea growling
at the rocks
and the trees weeping
like I want to weep;
the sky doing it for us both,
you and me
separate
like this
or perhaps not so
as I recall the headaches
that were your barometer
on navy blue thundercloud evenings
in summer-thick Missouri air.

Do you hear the water
blasting in the crevices now?
Can you see the chalk
line of the waves with me?
Or are you flying with the night-birds
as the water tells me to
shush,
shush.




10.

The people are bent like wires
and the current hops
from one to the next.

Circuits of hate and frustration
arc and spray
fire
up the streets.

Do you know that your ideas
are droppered and spoon-fed into you
and catheter-ed and enema-ed
out of you
at a pace that keeps up
your entire life?

Your Ideas
are not
Your
Ideas.

Cities like circuits to the switch
and the people have stopped marching.

The people have stopped marching.
Trading their time away to
pretty lights and the message that
they'll tell us about
around the campfire of one million
i
phones.

The people have stopped marching
if for no other reason than
they've become terrified
of leaving the house
for fear they might miss
the next cat
photo.




11.

Who among you are the victims
of my kindness?

Who among you have visited
the sad nunnery of my soul?

Tear my doubts along this perforation.
Seal me with adhesive.

Does it scowl in you
like a rabid animal;
prone to bite,
or warm you
like a first spring sun?

Can your altruism
feed the hungry
or only Ego?

The green-bottle sea
and it's white breaks
handed me a highway vision.

What to do with it?
Would you?




12.

The waves gathered up
by the sky
while the gulls stop
in space
and a child leaps into the wind
atop a boulder;
flying, landing
flying again.




13.

Body, aged.
Mind, rapt.

As at twenty,
questing to become
healer
or fool.

Given coins,
I juggle them
and drop a few
here and there.

The gray sea
blowing in, now.

Haven't I meditated enough
on calamity?
I used to dream
of a life
this free.

Now that it has arrived,
I want to  box it up,
plane it flat
and make it something
other.

The dog of my head will not heel
to the whistle of the wind
this day.

The secrets are whispered
but I cannot understand the language.




14.

I have seen the crow
whiten
in the desert sun.
You were there with me,
though you did not know it.

How many others
travel with me,
catching the chatter of gulls,
the grit of the sand
and the solid crack of the surf?

I touch all my memories
and smile.




15.

I,
unmasked to myself,
a long train-whistle spout
of hot, humid air
into a dark, winter's night.

I,
unmasked as a thief of time
and the lament that washed
the shores of your yesterdays.

Unmasked
under the ancient forest walls
and blue ceilings.

I,
tearing pages and pages
from a book
I've not yet learned to read.




 

Ok, I lied.
A week at a time, folks, open up, here comes the piss!
Piss stream 2016 Oregon Ghost Napawhinemore.(whore)

Flash Fiction month

Get ready for the next piss-stream, Folks! Float down the yellow river of flashfiction with yours truly in june!

The End of the Month-long Piss. Napowrimo napalm (put out)

29.
What the hell is the matter with you?
I take you to the movies and you want to talk
I take you out to the bars,
the restaurants, the ghettos, the burbs
and
TALK TALK TALK
no censure.

You give me this flaming fucking
dissertation
like a junkey 'sermon on the mount'

Drugs Drink Pain and Misery
and you remonstrate, condemn
and give me stupid advices

So, I bring you to a place without hardship
I give you love, security, stability
and all you do is stare at the fucking walls!

What the hell is the matter?!?



30.
I'm staring
into the tessellation of
white hexagons and
feeling the water
in the bath
slowly drain
by millimeters

I have been in this position
staring unthinking
through many days

The pull of the water;
the scent of clean skin

I am enraptured once again
by simple things

NaPoWriMo Napalm Week 4

23.

The soul on an interstate

many by-ways

Two boys freed

from the weight of ideals

contemplate money

governments, the meaning of family

the source of true love

and triumph

On a spring hillside

wanting only freedom of expression

One, raises ardor

The other, Fervor

The bodies and minds 100's of miles apart

react and act in perfect concert;

Con-sult.

The ardor is assaulted with bodies

The Fervor is assaulted with minds

They Learn:

It is better to think, feel, do, see, know and live

Their revelations

are as old as

the waves

shaking hands with the beach

24.

The wine goes down like piss shivers and

a kangaroo to blame

Spring has her first orgasm:

the trees, the tulips, the hyacinth

coming purple pink yellow and white.

(all this talk of global warming, I didn't

think another real spring would come)

The sun is still a trick, though;

the birds haven't returned.

(spring is still masturbating off

the end of a hang-over, waiting

for The One to hang roses from her vines

and berries and tomatoes)

She is completely unconvinced

without her fruit

24.

The letter from my father tells me

his new bees have arrived.

He is planning their hives, strategically,

around his home.

He eats, drinks, shits and shaves there.

I wonder about his cats that live in the barn,

and the bees that must quest and guess

at his window.

Take a picture from your memory

It contains each chamber of your heart

in equal measure

25.

It was the first Irish pub I had been in

with dart boards, but no darts.

They had been relegated to a glass case

somewhere, relics from a better time.

On the television, there is a football player speaking,

who is also a Rhodes Scholar.

I make notes for my next incarnation,

"Don't stunt your growth"

"Remember all this anatomy"

"prepare"

but then,

i recall that these are still lessons

i have to learn in THIS lifetime.

I decide to leave my next incarnation

some better instructions, then,

i turn off the television.

26.

I was seeking aimlessly

through the jars of my life.

I found them in a dream,

these great, magic urns,

one containing butter, one, milk

others filled with grains or brass or gold.

I was looking for the lids, in order to cover them up

but i could not find even one.

Sometimes, I would spill a little and

sometimes, I would return from elsewhere

to find them empty

This caused me a great deal of anxious sadness

just sitting there, looking into the empty containers

that once held my life

I woke up some time later and checked the clock

10 pm

I had not had a drink in several hours.

I needed a drink.

So,

I got up and

produced shirt, pants, keys and shoes.

In the car, I shifted to reverse and then to "D"

then

drove down to the local bar.

Dream dream Dream

My feet slide over the flooring.

The light addresses my eyes.

It's a quiet night, Tuesday, and

the bartender has the beer and shot set down

before i get there; smooth

mechanical.

I slide a ten across with my wrist

and get the shot in

and that dream stares out from the strange eye

at the bottom of it

and it slaps me where it hurts most

so I motion for another round

and toss the full beer back with a grunt

and tell myself

over and over

that there is a way

to forget these things.

27.

hold onto that soul

dont let you

take it from you

28.

Look at all the profitable vacancies.

Look at the vacant lots earning

money for people.

Look at that grey patch of dust in the corner of the room that used to be you.

(Maybe your eyelid or your palm)

Someone decided for you and then said "you can't decide"

(and you believed them)

but you live in a free country.

Can you think of morally reprehensible acts and then drive to work

or buy something from an expensive chain-store?

Is the mirror vicious, or is it just you?

Is the mirror angry that it has to look at you?

Take time to study instead of arranging.

Take time to feel instead of analyzing.

The dead dog in the street once belonged to someone,

Maybe it's your turn

to get out

and bury it.

NaPoWriMo Napalm Week 3

16.

Kind of like when

you smoke a cigarette

(because she's having one)

to kill the flavor

(same negates same)

but her mouth

still tastes like a gravestone

the inside of 200 stale hotels

and you stick your tongue into it
anyway

like you mean it

then she pulls away and says

I love you.

yeah, kind of like that.

17.

The Christ in your love

turned all the bulbs to

'Off'

while the cat grunted

and leapt onto the couch

to stare into the pouring rain

as if some new destiny were reflected

in the puddles

Then, the 8 year old acts incredulous

"you mean you're not a Christian?"

and I feel no reason to tell her anything except:

NO.

While the spring breeze pushed the petals against

new leaves with a whisper

and everything is stacked against a grey sky

waiting for the champagne POP to come

Necessarily unguided, mis fortunate we

still only sitting here

watching

18.

It buries the blade

Home

The double-entendre

the flip-over switch

meaning

Left you speechless

didn't it.

19.

The black cat

looks up at me narrowly and

voices a complaint.

Buddha raises his foot

uncertainly to his ear,

then back to the floor.

As the dark comes on

As the Israeli sleeps

at the wheel of his dreams

As the sun rises

somewhere

Sets

somewhere

As Burroughs, in Heaven,

eye-fucks a heavenly pool-boy

As the cross cracks and spills easter eggs

into the street

As the wind rushes through the house

sounding like waters

As she sleeps beside me

20.

The answer is:

not yet, Not Yet.

but

ever so slowly

one finger on the tin shutter of the lamp

the light within the boundary

and

this time

there will be no eye.

21.

As I lay in bed

it used my ear

as a doorway

and with my heartbeat

i can hear

the hum of it's viscera

working

tunneling

pervading my thoughts

sometimes it becomes crazed

in that animal way

that even dogs bite their masters

and it bounces around

where I cannot crush it

stinging the backs of my eyes

Now, i refuse to accept

the will of this interloper

any longer, as my own

22.

A spell

Rejected.

All these cities...

and

I stalked the streets for fights

never getting more than the usual talk

until

they heard

the summons

and came down

with their machines

smashing me flat, broke, conscious

in the middle of the street

without a sound

NaPoWriMo Napalm Week 2

9.

I've come back from a long journey

Sought to know myself in times of victory

Sought to know myself in times of doubt

I have found out

It is better to love

And

That I did not have to seek for that

so far and wide

for it was with me

all the while.

10.

The graves that were his eyes

shut out the light

coming from the better days

Even though we knew better,

we faded into promises,

false faces

and names that were not our own

Play the castanets, you fucking vultures.

Let's see how well you can dance without legs.

Give me a thread to run me through

or a threat to start me living again.

The graves that were his eyes went out

with a soft, stuttering fall.

Better leave the blaming to nobody;

we like it best

that

not this

way

11.

Ramble not, Time

lest we falter

and fall in

behind thee.

I wasted years.

(thats a sound admission)

I no longer feel anything about it at all.

I'm much more interested in watching the birds

c d

r o

u w

i n

s

e from newly budded tree-limbs

Much more interested, True, in just about anything.

12.

I want to be a dervish

so that I may drink wine

The flat golden compass

that points to the poems

Exiled from your light

I would suffer

Reunited with you

I would rejoice

But it is the same

Instant to instant

exiled and rejoined

I brush the sun and dive

brush and dive

Never melting the wax

in the wings that you crafted

13.

Wheat:

when you look out there

on a summer's day

you can see every war that was ever fought

and every love that was ever won.

14.

Green spark flying-

rivals-

snake specimens for comfort

slick jade skins sin

Eloquent waters

belligerent with thickness

tempts sent Magdalene

to reject the christ

and flee with John

shrieking

"I never knew him!"

Bend time with effort

quick silk smooth

soft shining symbol

Sigh like sad eyes

fires eagerly hiding

on the dying side

15.

Burn the nova streets

into a worn and empty dawn

Stamp out the stars for shoes

Look out,

Chicago

Memory plays a better tune than your trombones

and

"don't care if I do, but I'll get some all the same"

We could tack this up against the night sky

among all your excuses

for lights, you little pricks

but

we'd still wind up hardly breathing

hardly living

and

complaining

complaining

complaining