[don't think I don't know]

From the mall parking lot he jumped the iron guardrail and ran crashing through the heavy brush down the steep bank to the river's edge. The blue sphere followed him, casting the leaves, the crumbling earth, and finally the low dark water in its luminescent glow. A dark narrow shape like a curving blade swirled within center of the sphere, apparently controlling the vehicle's trajectory and momentum.

3 Bass Ales and 2 shots of Cuervo
rounded out his fee at the bar. The month
was November. It was Thursday night, after a bleak
day full of cold drizzle.

The shoe trade that day
was slow. Or maybe it had picked up. He didn't know
and didn't care. He left the bar only because it would be wrong
to become truly drunk at work. He stepped outside the mall entrance
and smoked a cigarette. It tasted terrible, wrong. Huffing dry and hot,
toxic lint.

On TVs everywhere all over the world that night,
the ultimate surreal impossibility of their arrival
had finally come true
and was being broadcast.
Just like in the movies. Yeh.
The aliens had arrived. Undeniably.

he stands
feeling a sheet of invisible frost on his face
emanating from his eyes

I make a certain gesture of the hand
and the mall parking lot transforms into a moat
of wine

is what he said to her as they stood
smoking outside

she gave him a narrow look
(she worked in perfumes)

then he said,
few turn to a seller of shoes for answers
that's why he sits baked in the back
among the boxes and shelves

you don't have to try so hard to creep me out,
was her rejoinder

when it comes to you so naturally

he blurted

what time you get off you wanna get a drink after work?

she flicked her butt the white filter of which was plum with lipstick
away toward the curb

weird is what she then said and went back inside

he then flashed to a vision of him stalking
the shoe floor with a
katana

blank I drew upon rituals scorched of meaning
rare my methodologies and so backward
did I rule

I drew blanks upon scorched rituals, meanings
so rare and so backward that this methodology
became my rule

I got nowhere to go but here
I got nowhere
I got nowhere to go

swirling white and grey in the sky
beaten white and grey of the road

the weariness of self

3 a.m. awake wondering why didn't I back then and if I had would it have and
would she have

cool late August morning

burned car on a flatbed trailer in the northbound lanes,
cops and fire engines strewn all along,
miles of traffic waiting behind

coffee
white lights in a drop ceiling

resisting emptiness of spirit

the problem is not one of no purpose
or no sense of urgency
the problem is one of discipline
and persistence

meta-cognition. fine

feels a lot better when it comes from the

bowl

here's one key: when you finally get low enough and in the dark enough in the dark dark in the gloom in the crusty gloom at the bottom of the sty and you are groping, scrabbling, splitting your knuckles and shredding your nails against the splintery of the bottom, when you get down there, finally, you finally find the fuse, the thread of it, you best fuckin light it

sparing no moment for patience or reflection in this instance

*

grab hold of your most canine soul

gazed upon them with mingled pity, horror, and excitement

whip out the sophistry module
it's all I got in my satchel besides
your old flask, which lately
has stopped murmuring to me

yeah, baby. you're killing them
whirling through the room like a tardy
ballon, low and tired. I can't
tell you what I want to say

but I'll buy you the words. five, say.
line 'em up. you flay them too much
I know, it's what makes the drinks
go down so clear. fear and sex played

out on a screen is what makes
this country go.
don't get petulant about it.
now smarten up

hangover exegesis;
pound out the flame
as it was meant
to be written

termite brains chittering
need is a bannister
maybe it's enough

*

silently comparing
hangovers at the water
cooler. yeh buddy

I see you

desolate champ
furniture
face

four levels, dollhouse head.
images in the brainpan. well
is down, well is way down,
you can make it

on Tuesday

a vase half full of mnemonics
a wraith reading his intensity
in the breakdown lane, the big
trucks bombing past

Maggie, bring me an egg plate
and my viewfinder and get that
scrawny dog out there a steak
on my tab

Note to self:

Process is what sets you free.

Time comes around and so do people. Like the ballplayers say, you should never get too high or too low. You've got to maintain an even keel.

The time eventually comes to reel in with the mind the thread of the conversation you should be having with yourself, the story you should be telling yourself.

Last night lying in the flat pungent heat I started writing in my mind, a mental activity that rarely amounts to much. But images at least retain possibilities.

Truth is the main concern these days, the main concern.

The only thing a person working alone can really effect.