Alien Landscapes #4

Alien Landscapes #3

Alien Landscapes #2

Alien Landscapes #1

Poems and Prose #127 - Babel

In dreams, I rise
and rise and reign,
my garments thick
and hardly plain,
brilliance coursing
through my brain,
as hot laughter leaves
my lungs inflamed.

"This place is mine.
Here, I'll remain,"
goes my
bellicose refrain,
while the earth at my feet
crumbles to grains,
my trousers pocked
with hot urine stains.

Statement

I finally got back from a few months of standing inside a room whose walls are covered in mirrors, doing an in-depth examination of my navel, and finally posted something new.

Poems and Prose #126 - Scenery

The philosopher asked me
if I am or if I'm not,
and I couldn't help but
purse my lips and shake my head a lot.

Thinkers, we conferred,
the lines between us blurred,
and we spent several hours asking
the other if they'd said what we just heard.

Poems and Prose #125 - Lordship

I kneel before the throne
and grovel,
my pride quite marred
and hubris hobbled.

Without my assent,
my hung head bobbles,
this moment of subservience,
indeed, quite novel.

The king's scepter raised,
his voice doesn't wobble,
as he decrees my slumping form
the realm's official motto.

Poems and Prose #124 - Plank

Like dominoes, the mansions fell,
where heretofore the masters dwelled.

Booms filled the air, and ringing bells,
celebrating the moments before the joy's quelled.

Disjointed Images #0

Just some sketches from the pile.

Poems and Prose #123 - Moebius

I go ahead to where I've been,
hard, curly hair peeking out of my chin.
Can I justify my slanted grin,
mocking the trail of shadows on which I depend?

I fight off the urge to stamp my heels down and spin,
to relive relived moments again.

Poems and Prose #122 - Among

Some derelict groans
just past my door,
some time between
three a.m. and four.

The noises add up
into some perverse score,
and I find myself longing,
in the silence, for more.

Poems and Prose #121 - Eden

The curse of consciousness
twists my brain into a pretzel,
each present moment
serving as but another point
at which I remember or foresee.

I glance down
at my clothed body
and feel shame,
inexplicably.

Poems and Prose #120 - Artifice

The realness of
the real world stings,
despite the lack of
stimuli it brings.

I wonder:
could there be other things,
nestled between
solid molecules and dreams?

This question is just one
among reams.

Poems and Prose #119 - Armature

The mirror before me
reflects back a deep abyss,
crafted by a fractal spiral
that is and is and is again,
so distant from the starting point
that distortion is amiss.

I grit my teeth and squint,
pounding the glass sheet
  with my fist,
while my shaky lip curls up
into a hardly-practiced grin,
a brief burst of laughter
a rare instance, briefly,
  of something that exists
  only as a precursor to the
    barest, slightest glimpse
    into a cluster of
    long-distorted blips
    that, in some eons-ago,
    contorted myth,
    was a far-off reflection
    of dim, dim glints
    of something
      once heralded
        by sentience
          as some
            concocted
              notion known
                as bliss.

Poems and Prose #118 - Sanctum

Nestled snugly
at the core
of the mountain of things
that I deplore
is a sweaty palm
that's hardly sore,
unfurled adroitly
to implore
some cloud-masked
puppeteer for more, more, more,
while eagerly slamming shut
every last door
that stands up ahead
and came before,
barely attached
to a mouth puking roars,
as, overhead, a rocky expanse
of heavy ore soars,
this hollow center
haphazardly bored.

Poems and Prose #117 - Frictionless

Free will compels me
to wiggle this pen,
just as it urges my heart
to beat once again,
and in the same manner
that I chose all my friends
when we were volitional
five- and six-year-old kids.

I hereby decide
to breathe more air in,
and I choose, too, to gawk
as floating dust specks spin,
my lips curled up
into a sad buffoon's grin,
as I consider the future,
filled with well-planned, well-earned wins.

Poems and Prose #116 - Epicycle

Tomorrow walks backwards
and transforms into today,
the moon revolving west to east
as my restless fingers sway.

So now I kneel and smile,
cursing as I pray,
certain that these shrinking moments
don't have long to stay.

Poems and Prose #115 - Eyed

Here, I lie,
gazing straight into your eyes,
as I spew the truth, disguised,
noticing your invisible sighs
as each "your" becomes a "my"
and every "he"/"she"/"them"
an "I"-"I"-"I"-"I"-"I."

Poems and Prose #114 - Accumulator

I grasp for an algorithm
to make these
disparate entities cohere,

aware all the while
that my mental digging
isn't quite sincere.

But perhaps I'm not
so two-faced as this
confession makes me appear,

my actions less propelled
by malice than just
plain, old, cowardly fear.

Poems and Prose #113 - Denominator

How do ya do?
I'm one,
the remainder of
three and two,
divisible by myself,
alone, not you,
and most certainly
not you.

I'm an integer whose
sole goal is to brood
over what the hell
it means to be some kind
of goddamn numerical glue.

Now pardon me as I
lean forward in this
empty pew
and let my stewing
continue
as I count until
my face turns blue.

Poems and Prose #112 - Quarry

Some odd undulation
  intrudes on my vision,
diminishing my
  rod/cone combo's precision.

And so I hold my eye agape
  and begin the incision,
knowing that
  even if my hand trembles
  and I fail on this mission,
I'll no longer be faced
  optically
  with the resulting derision.

Poems and Prose #111 - Agonist

Calculations made about
some far-off future malady,
I futilely attempt to shake off
the dust that saddles me,
draping my eyes with what was
and forever has to be,
so that even inside placid scenes,
I'll always see calamity.

Poems and Prose #110 - Rotor

Happenings
continue to occur,
each new one melting
into the prior's blur.

The cogs that hold
them aloft still whirr,
and, though lacking lubrication,
remain, indeed, unheard.

Poems and Prose #109 - Taps

Standing resolutely
inside Spinoza's God,
I think about the
holy organ tissues
over which I trod,

listening intently
for the echoes of
one brain's many nods;
my fingers bugle keys,
my neck
a flag-draped rod.

Poems and Prose #108 - Devise

Some distant voice
coerces me into
doing these devious deeds,

steering my limbs
with the calls
to anarchy it sings,

and I salute, akimbo,
making real
someone far off's dreams,

diminishing the heights
of a dozen onlookers'
simply sordid schemes.

Poems and Prose #107 - Ambiance

Ensconced in torpor,
I gaze into the wall,
its minor imperfections
seeming to be small,
and sense a passerby
passing in the hall,
causing me to swallow mighty hard
and clench my jaw.

Mental Blips #11 - Emerge

Heart like a vibrating string,
I stand here to see
what the whistling air brings.

Mental Blips #10 - Sheer

The TV's fuzzy,
and I'm getting close to gone,
dark space all around me.

Poems and Prose #106 - Uvula

The articulations seep
from his mouth into the air,
furious sounds
that signify something
weightless and invisible.

He clears his throat
and prepares to let the gas
in his lung sacs
rejoin that which
hangs all around him.

Poems and Prose #105 - Polished

Trickery abounds,
what with all the
echoless sounds
and the damp
coffee grounds
and the tiny puffs of air
that weigh a million pounds,

fooling me enough
to reflect back to me
a shameful face
when I glance into
that mirrored plate
that hangs in front of
my freshly-empty safe
and reminds me that
I'm still in this place.