…like air finding its reflection in the mirror

Abstract fanaticism delineated Monet’s brush strokes and complicated the about-face air takes, transferring it, instead, to human consciousness.  

This relinquished the standards for telling a lie. 

By manipulating the invisible sensibilities attributed to organic assets, necessary for humanity’s survival. 

Defined, then, as imagination for the sake of passion, for the sake of art. 

A contemporary model which highlights this phenomenon is air dryers. 

Due to their association with washing our hands, we assume these devices are a vital step in the cleansing process. 

But, rather, they’re convenient for the bathroom proprietor’s wallet, saving them thousands on disposable towels. 

To scale this consider the Johnstown Flood of 1889. 

A dam believed indestructible.

But it broke and slaughtered 2,209 humans. 

A dam believed to be safe due to its placement, but it broke like a water lily, off its root, floating away, down stream.

late stage capitalism’s midwestern farm

cell tower stranded in the grass plains

stands erect 

before a pink sunset as chemtrails style capital I

Up high

In the sky

cows alert the farm about strangers 

by announcing the only word in their lexicon 

warning of 

the 

amish 

careening with traffic 

in their horse and carriage 

who ignore the fantasies 

late stage capitalism 

gifted to contemporary oath keepers 

but there’s no place 

amazon won’t deliver to

including dirt roads 

taking on mud qualities

during dirty spring 

leading to americans 

living behind signs 

reading

no trespassing 

seclusion breeds contempt

for oneself

and

their lonely offspring

created the internet

it’s simple out there 

because it has to be

Regurgitated Splendor

Floor dressed in red paint chips; the same color 

Scores toe prints lounging on passage to further their destiny.

Water bottle is empty. 

Stepped on and it erupted a sound, unique to plastic crinkling.

Reality bargains with images instilled along airwaves,

Deteriorating molecules to petals breaking

Off the stems.

Rain-drops.

Confetti.

Hubris displaced the stars, and consequently created life from their remnants. 

Sleeping galaxies purported their dreams to fill up blank consciousness, streamlined 

Into living rooms.

We march over waking life 

And watch 

Chimeras pose 

As excuses

For empire.

A Term for the Second Coming

Centuries turn and a feline

Will hide behind the couch before they die.

A fly borrows spaces habituated by glaring screens

To upset normal procedures

Turning over

Like insect eyes. His face

And her smile

Sought common ground

To tread the turn over

Greeting them

Like traffic noise. Together they entered the hallway

Pointed to a shoe print dominating the door’s center,

A place where nothing belongs

But grain

And imagination

And accidents. Pills won’t matter

If spaces are empty.

If interruptions represent

Conquered patterns.

These miracles are for demons

And purgatory rejects their prayers.

Leading Backwards

Alienation negates the spy, observing at a distance, scope transfixed at center. A denial to focus on the ramblings relating space to tongue, off the center, specks take form and shapes related to memories begin again. 

Witness

A figurehead holding clay features before her face, shape of a nose before her nose, allay the same sequence to her other facial compartments, holding pose in dry clay, disguises the actual frown, brow furrow and tight-lipped-censure, taking form underneath.

Interacting with the clay would bring meaning to what? 

What is the meaning video conferences exhume, in relation to reality? 

What is a blink?

What does the abandoned bird’s nest signify about coming home? 

Witness.

A tour guide wielding a machete, uses the blade to clear dense brush, obscuring the trail from their full vantage as they lead a tour group through the forest. 

What was the trail before the blade?

Gamble and the Universe Happens.

Cold stays the wrinkle to take stock of folds overlapping, be it the torso, or the brow and covets the conceal. Protection invented against the elements, but what protection is offered against our own malicious luck?
Online ordering demonstrates alienation in its purest context. Submitting the consumer to one-click fantasies, like a magician on retainer, POOF! Pull back the curtain and the product appears on one’s doorstep, cardboard capped, begging to be eviscerated.
Factory hands, wiggle inside welder gloves, assembling the button-mashing-glass- case. Preparing the handoff to a delivery driver, who curls their toes in winter apparel, trudging through the cold to place the item outside its new home. A shoulder shrug “thank you” from the consumer and its back to shopping. This cycle monetizes the Earth’s rotation. “Your package is on in its way!” Measuring minutes to elaborate the destination from here to there; attesting that the consumer never had it this good.
The procedure which designed this convenience assembled itself by accident. Elaborating the metaphor of humanity’s assemblage, birthed by coincidence, in allegiance with space-dust and luck. Setting off the repetition to duplicate the accident creation wrought.
2.
The painter studies the model, posing nude before them and examines the features relevant to shading and color. They appropriate shadows, hiding in the model’s sunken cheeks, into their masterpiece, by adding black puddles to emphasize the gauntness overtaking the model’s frown. The painter is known for this. Exasperating the human frame to demonstrate an alliance between animal and element, revealing smiles in sunsets and booty shakes in conjecture to the moon’s tides. The painter turns on their stool to dip a brush in paint, from off their palette. They fall forward and to catch balance, place their hands before them, flipping the palette end over end, where it strikes the canvas and splatters Pollack blotches across their fantasy.
“Oh no!” They exclaim. “It’s ruined.”
The model covers themselves with a bathrobe, approaches their portrait and holds a twinkle in their eye.
“I like it.” They say.

accidental. art.

Vandals incorporated cracks, lingering in lightning-bolt directions, about City Hall’s concrete walls, into their compositions.

Situating horizontal darkness to represent Frida’s unibrow, overcasting her stern expression, holding court to brief glances. Entering to pay parking tickets, or demand the mayor “do something” about an intersection frequenting accidents, lacking the appropriate command posted in White and Red, to trigger stimuli in basic consciousness overtaking.

Approval lurks in paranoid nostalgia.

Main St. recollects a drunken stumble home, before I reached my doorstep happened upon a woman biking. She stopped, smiled and said hi. I returned her greeting with my own. We began discussing the dangers associated with meeting strangers after midnight. In meta contemplation obliged the waning discomfort, exchanged in our pleasantries. No longer strangers afraid, but neighbors welcoming good company. We only knew that little bit affiliated to self.

Rumors explained she died from taking too many pills.

Ego suggests if we had gotten to know each other better…I…

Memories posit the ultimate fantasy; a world designed strictly to our experiences. Reasoning a friend’s rudeness is due to something I had done.

Or that the police are following my car.

Electric jelly sheltered inside hard bone burns our reality, we cast ash to the winds, to carry and cover artful unibrows, created by accident for all to appreciate.

Lottery Jackpot

Questions overstocked the fellows gape,

Bordering his naked

Cuticle, contrasted against

Pink finger points, acknowledging lottery misgivings.

He still gripped quarters,

Fed them to slot machines,

Awarding dopamine

Often reserved for

Cell phone debutantes.

On the 3rd reward

A voice crackled over the loudspeaker

Announcing

His name. “Gosh.” He speculated

“I’ve never won anything.”

He rushed to the cashing out station.

Bertha, the clerk,

Had

Two dimples,

Attributing gaunt features

To an otherwise bloated appearance.

“Ah.” She stated. “I heard your name

On the speakers. You’re famous.”

“I guess I am…”

He took his winnings outside,

Crouching Inside the city fountain’s profile,

Spread them like a pigeon wing.

“This outta make me free.” He decided.

The winnings blew off, skipped alongside foliage

To places unknown. He stared at his reflection,

Distorted by ripples, made from the wind

Which took his treasure. “I think I’m the same.”

He decided and went home.

Honest History

Headlights captured pebbles,

Ancient charisma mistook the chiseled ArCh

For Hercules’ jawline. Air quote hiss…

Recognized in popped tires and elephant signals.

Waved off shadows.

Parrot (i) traded in reality

For the proper height.

An inch off the jawline.

A foot from the road

And

Pink

And

Purple

Blush designs accosted his smile

Left sand to be named by toes

Buried beneath the surface.

Uprooted nominal

Fantasies

About what goes on

When history

Repeats itself.