Soda & Guns

• 

Dream hearse demonstrates the personality traits found in the bones. Numb guffaws, trace the lineage of missed footsteps. But the process to forgive never offers the flayed out loins as penance. Muscles and naked joints must’ve known the glass case confession isn’t a reliable source for cancer treatment. Obsolete organs. Tattoos falling from eyes to commemorate winking culture.

“Come as you are.”

Never mentions the horrors of what has been. 

“Or who.”

Who is a blood letting.

Drip. drip. Drip. opposite reminders.

Proposing questions to search engines determines popular rationalizations to qualify the world. Top results are dead ends. In this context, textbooks conscript progress, never a function to tell the truth.  

“Augustus was a Caesar and everybody loved him because he was powerful.”

“And Julius was a Caesar who was stabbed because he was powerful.”

Right Place. Right Time. 

• 

Buying body wash, anticipating a drought but discovering a rainstorm beyond the automatic doors.

Staging the approach to sunset. Along the rolling hills, bordering the lakefront, city lights design fireflies in the waves. Human silhouettes fall in the evening, disappear into tomorrow morning. Strangers based upon what is seen…

• 

Cornerstone grievance designates a stationary place to mourn. 

Bypassing these ordinary symbols, comes the laughter

and

footsteps achieve relevance 

Atop

The world.

Green drapes parcel sunlight,

Dressing the room in golden strips. 

Highlighting cracks in wooden furniture 

Like words on a page. 

a

Motorcycle’s exposed engine

Volumizes its exhaust pipe,

interrupts the standard woosh 

Had in traffic noise.

• 

Wrinkled sheets surround 

Crossed legs 

And in this repose 

Memories corrupt 

Fanfare 

Forgiveness. 

Another job sacrificed to understand sanity. Counting pills like eyelashes. Blinking to retain a vision of the world. Fit. Fit. Fit. oneness contained among the stars. Arrived late after skipping breakfast. Purchased gas station bananas and left the peels in the backseat to rot. Halfway through the roadtrip fruit flies amass, contained by the back glass. Windows down. Traffic noise suggests their freedom. They remain hovering above the seats. 

Until death.

oneness among the stars.

• 

Atop the world

Overlooking tree top spectacle.

Autumn touch. 

Leaves wrinkle like sheets, 

But will flake off and cheat the dust

For microscopic space. 

Nowhere but the stars.

Left to go.

1.

Purple makeup 

Washed out her sneer, 

Sniveling at near 

Touch. Holding accountable

Winter approaches to summer conditions.

Management evaluated the day. 

Stymied soft-cell accomplishment 

For anchor sets. 

X 

And 

O 

Sans the polished reverb 

Evaporating from unspoken 

Replies 

And 

Rhythmic emails.

Store fronts 

Presented symbols,

Styled in graffiti. Red meant the End. Blue classified starting over. 

“Something like a new day.” She said.

Thrift store politics 

Priced the fine art book 

At an affordable stare. 

Declaring Florence golds 

An empty channel, 

To host tunnel 

Vision 

For Art

Priced to move quickly. 

Boxes emptied

Of their products 

Left only 

As their brand names. 

Haunted plastic bags.

• 

2.

No longer a bedroom.

Closed. 

No longer a sponge.

Filled.

No longer organs.

Spilled. 

No longer promises.

Forgotten. 

Holding Court 

Against opposite galaxies 

Another I 

Sees the stars 

And begins the light

Tunnels seek to darken.

Peace relinquishes entropy, 

Searches for mini-situations

Emptying the mode of

 limited resolutions 

To understand

EVERYTHING

Herein times death knell. 

Twinkie packets

Feed

The wealthiest quadrupeds. 

WHO 

Finish their designer meals,

Brushing 

Breadcrumbs 

Away from Named lapels

To be picked up by ancient cousins.

WHO 

Distort future thumbs

And use condensation 

Like glue, 

Gathering every last speck

Of sustenance, 

Promising expiration,

Not today, but maybe tomorrow. 

Held captive in the undercurrent,

Exists a compassionate person,

Separating ice to include 

Frankenstein minnows 

In the galactic scheme. 

 (what secrets, lurk like stars,

In the ice?) Dark matter candidates 

Supplying the nuances 

In understanding Life’s failures. 

Property designed 

Belongs to humanity’s waste. 

With nowhere safe 

To leave EVERYTHING behind

An American flag was planted on the moon

And cosmologists wondered 

How the flag waved hello

With no wind.

Off Brand cereal remains the standard for discounted nirvana. 

Frosted oat flakes and chocolate puffs perform their ingredients as nomenclature, 

Eliminating employment for classic trademarked spokes-cartoons to sell the love. 

Instead mid level shelf placement, 

Hosts a moment for the consumer to negotiate brand recognition and price, 

 To void their thoughts in imitation 

meditation. 

Classic dominance 

Proclaims 

“Top shelf” Vantage 

Pure lookout.

Without a life meter to distinguish the jump off point 

For existence,

Leaping from Heaven includes death

Whereas crawling up from Hell 

Provides the (presumed) opposite. 

Eating cold cereal in silence 

Emits the same crunchy cacophony,

Regardless of what’s inside the consumer’s mouth. 

Settling forever…

…what’s in a name. 

Sanity implements

A

forever greeting,

“hello.”

Prevails against 

Keratin shrapnel,

Nibbled 

At center 

To 

Meddle with 

Process gaps 

Bridging what it means to function

In understanding of sodium deficiencies. 

Price dismisses

Valued

Goods

For

Price to situate

A Dollar General,

Mere blocks away 

From City Hall.

Where inside 

Small Town Politicians 

Argue

About the patriotic

Ramifications 

Of the local Adult Bookstore

Hosting

a 

HUMONGOUS 

American flag, 

In their parking-lot. 

Trends qualify their loyalty  

In testament to 

Entropy. 

“something like america” 

Populates the shelves

At thrift stores.

Class abandonment 

Promoted like labor cycles.

Precious metals

Transferred from African quarries

And stored inside used electronics,

Recycled as tropes 

Placating cosmetic solutions

Distinguishing the cost 

To sell the mirage of nothing. 

2.

Recruiters for the Socialist Movement 

Took stock of those attending their rally

And Shifted focus from the lonely white-man,

And approached the college students.

Revoltuionaires recognize the importance

Exclusion 

Brings. 

None of the comrades

Suggested sunscreen.

Daylight magnified 

Through the clear plastic straps

Outfitted along the backs 

Of the lawn chairs

Straightening young spines. 

Scorched flesh 

Indicated pinstripes,

Sequenced in lumps

Divided 

By the chair’s manufactured

Givings. 

Grab and go

Propositions 

For prosperity

Dispensed 

Like paper-towels

Summoned 

From an automatic wave. 

They said,

“Time is money

And socialists 

Chase the dollar

To recycle paper.”

And they said,

“Time is money 

And the youth 

Are cheap 

To buy.”

A clown carried armfuls of office trinkets, up the stairs. She pivoted, lost footing and shuffled toward the edge and discovered balance by leaning against the railing.  A stapler escaped her arms and pinged at random, as it descended with metal greeting metal. The stapler’s death rattle reverberated throughout the stairwell, carried itself to the supply ducts, set up inside the walls and mounted to the ceiling. 

Skin flakes and dandruff circulated in the air and traveled upwards, culminating in a grey curtain coating fan blades and surfaces which followed the gale’s leadership. The air ducts sheltered the ping and in exchange the noise vibrated and cleaned tiny spots, leaving polka-dots in the dust, along the sheet metal walls.

Staff confused the noisy central air for something sinister. 

“We got rats.” They said, “We must kill the vermin.”

😀😃😄😁😆😅🤣😂🙂🙃😉😊😇🥰😍🤩😘

An exterminator arrived late in the afternoon. He slipped into the ventilation system, clicked on his headlamp and army crawled, searching for remnants conducive to an infestation. But the light reflecting off the spaces made in the dust, reminded him of fireflies hovering over dark water, casting a strobe, in the night. He didn’t want to kill anymore. He inched backwards and exited onto the floor. 

“Well, did you get them all?” The office manager asked.

“I did.” He said. “You won’t be having any more problems.”