030323A
-----------

Was not looking up
and was not looking down
but only looking straight at
whatever was appearing there
on that visible horizon.

Show me something else
on that visible horizon
and I will look straight at
whatever I can see
in seeing that far.

Cannot see anything more
and cannot see anything less
than whatever there is to see
to look straight at
on that visible horizon.

Do not blame me
for looking down or up
when all there is to see
is whatever I look straight at
on that visible horizon.

----------------------------

030323B
-----------

Machinery works
the way we used to work
before being damaged
and made obsolete.

Becoming curiosities
that are less marketable
than random old bones
feeding a gnawing hunger.

We were caught up
in the machine jaws
holding us in that crunch
of mechanized progress.

Leaving us as neither
strange enough
for the strange nor
pleasing to the ordinary.

We sit as would the birds
on that thin fence line
of parcelled out existence
already wrapped up and tied.

The day comes quickly
when they gather the sacks
that stand and wait in line
along the boulevard.

The battlefield is strewn
with the remains of giants
and of dwarfs
fighting for some space.

Only inner space is left
for the progeny of serfs
to explore as they in and out
of aluminum and glass towers.

A crowd becomes bored
with an orgy of blood gush
from broken skin bags
spurting exclamations.

They move on to a peep show
trying to catch a small glimpse
of forbidden sex acts clipped
from reruns of Wild Kingdom.

What they really want
is to suck on a dart
that comes straight
from a tranquilizer gun.

Rumour is that feels better
than being enslaved
to the humourless machines
that count your key strokes.

Before being returned
to the same cages
that were crawled out of
early in the morning.

---------------------------

040323A
------------

Looking back
at the dribble
that you wrote
in the beginning
of history
gives a new value.

Watching the worm
word crawl across
the scribble page
turning to limp smear
spilled ink blots
of reinterpretation.

It needs preserving
because it is history
and proves belonging
to a specious intent
sharing much the same
as to typographical errors.

Another sample
to store in formaldehyde
another little worm
that was saved
from the sharp beak
of the early bird.

The wrong code
inserted somewhere
into a genetic alphabet
as a scrambled encryption
of egg and sperm
cooked in heat.

What came of that
being nothing much
and even less of any
that any would want
to let worm its way
in to the feeding frenzy.

Taking off the costumes
the shark is human
and the human is a shark
but it always bites you
when you enter the pool.

There are little worms
that take the living
sharks and men
turning them soft
as a dead worm.

The crush ends under
another heavy foot
grinding down
into the squish burst
that is nothing but
primordial sausage.

There was a time when
you tried to follow
any of the chosen
out into the woods
in hopes of being tied
to a tree of your own.

Your limbs gathered
into a tight bundle
that they intend to use
for some kindling
believing in no more
than your warmth.

Left to being no more
than a twig carried off
by a clever bird
for constructing a bower
from false memories
of future architecture.

An ancient manuscript
gone dry and brittle
crumbling parchment
rolled up as bone
to hide the marrow
from forever hunger.

There are lasting marks
on the pavement
where the worm squirmed
in final throes
of a last supper of stale
flesh and rancid blood.

----------------------------

040323A
------------

You believed in a future
when you started out
counting things
and reciting the alphabet.

You always thought
there was a future
in everything
they gave you to do.

You learned to keep silent
and to believe in them
without sound or question
in between punishments.

Where was that future
in anything you came to
and in anything
they gave you to do ?

There was nothing in it
nothing in it for you
but keep on counting things
and reciting the alphabet.

Seems you never got it
never really got it right
stringing together numbers
and bits of the alphabet.

It was a secret combination
and you never really could
ever open that tough lock
that lets the future in.

They kept telling you
the future was out there
waiting for that lock to open
that lets your future in.

---------------------------

040323B
-----------

Nothing to win
but it is all about winning
and what did you win
in have to win something
at that is the way
the game is always played.

So there is no prize
for any of that and what
is there to win at
when you have to win
at something, anything
in everyone's game.

Something to show for it
that you can sell or trade
for something that is not
really anything for sale
but it only goes to winners
so you have to win something.

So you go to the carnival
where everyone always goes
listening to the yelling
from the carney barkers
promising to make
winners from losers.

So you get to try to climb
that well greased pole
because there is a prize up high
where almost no one goes
past the slip slide down side
of clinging to up.

The carneys get a laugh
at those who hit the bottom
and some try it again
because they have to win
they have to win something
to get something else.

Spend your whole life
trying to win something
that you never really win
and it is a slip slidey down
common style of life
where you never really win.

But you always have to win
you have to win something
to get something else
and so you are always trying
to win something
at every new carnival show.

----------------------------------

040323C
------------

There are lots of mistakes
that you can make
but no one will tell you
what those are
until you have made them.

Trying to avoid the mistakes
that happen to be fatal
will take your energy and time
and that means getting hurt
in so many other ways.

The subject is always closed
and you will never win
no matter how right you are
because that is the way
the powerful rigged their game.

You are the unfortunate player
who is being played
mostly you get to watch
how some others get to play
but you cannot join in.

You failed to do it right
as to doing the bad things
that all of them did
and that puts you at risk
of being executed.

More ways to die
than there are ways to live
as beads on a long string
comprised of terminations
not making the cut.

The worst sorts of death
are those you do not die at
left to lingering outside
the doors to those parties
where you lacked any invites.

No one called your number
and no one wrote
your forbidden name
outside a bulging dossier
outlining your failures.

You do not have the means
and besides that fact
it is all so very rusty
you will never open it up
past the obstacle course

If nothing else stops you
the red tape monkeys will
stop you dead in your tracks
but the bet is on you never will
ever get that far.

Your life line cut shorter
than the red tape is stretched
and your pockets emptied
more times than black holes
swallowed up the stars.

You never want to give up
but everyone gave up on you
a very long time ago
and there never really was
anyone in your corner.

They never did understand
and fact is they never would
and never really want to
lying that it does not matter
there was no one on your side.

-------------------------------------

070323A
------------

Could never find any
personally pleasant dreams
to actually set me free
by tangling pleasantly up
in ways that I could desire.

They used to tell me
that it was all available
to those who want some
but that too was another lie
that I used to go for.

It does not really matter
it would have done some good
and would have done no harm
because all they really want
is another way to hurt you.

Everything is available
but it is never anything for you
and that way they can hurt you
in infinitely more ways
than there are letters in alphabets.

You can read the manuals
but you can never really practice
anything that creative or strange
left to pretending at normal
in all those boring normal ways.