Tidbits and Gigabytes

Adenosine is an endogenous

Sleep inducer. That's why we

Feel more awake after coffee.

You may have known

Lithium from its role

In rechargeable batteries.

Do you think it more effective

To have a cooperative network

With a clearly chosen coordinator?

Such instabilities are akin

To a snake or dragon

That swallows its own tail.

Joe tells us that the citron was

Considered a valuable commodity

Due to its healing qualities.

'Life-years lost' is a better approach

To observing mortality trends, 

Than cause of death.

Repairs

Workers

Break the street,

Pour in new concrete.

Skilled hands sculpt the curb.

Park it.

Fairy Tale

Monsters jump around in my head.

Copper green with wing feathers

Sharp as saws and lightning eyes.

I try to run from your many arms.

Fangs like ice cycles drip poison.

Lips thick and clay black kiss

The back of my neck. I bleed.

I sweat as my burning eyes roll.

Don’t tell me what is real or

What I feel. You know this is all

Your fault. Born from heartbreak

Slim dragons and crystal snakes

Tie my hands together; gag me.

Where did you take me? Desire

Wires my guts. I swallow vomit

Like liquor. You twist my wrists.

I will not look. I will not feel.

I will forget that you are real.

Used Equipment (for Michael Robbins)

Nothing about growing up in Colorado

Wheat fields or Arkansas rice paddies

Makes you have to be so critical, Mikey,

Except maybe for the homogenous space

And the insistent vibrations in your head.

Pop music microwaves the countryside.

A really pretty-white girl writes love songs

With a purple ballpoint in her spiral binder

And somehow becomes a millionaire idol.

This is the dream of every worm alive

By a heat vent in the Pacific Trench. So,

We dream of deep water and hot women.

If words riot will books self-immolate?

Will the fire illuminate the dark face

Of what life turns from? Do you think?

You have to be anonymous to remain

Autonomous. Work through questions—

No, no answers at the back of this text.

On the Road to Salvation

In long black coats

And furry black mittens,

What causes these two

Nineteen year-old boys

On missionary bicycles

To be so eager to witness

Their belief in the Book

Of Mormon and Jesus

To me and my pooch?

Don’t they have a clue

How cold it is standing

In this empty parking lot?

My dog, and right on cue,

Has a deed he needs to do.