cleveland oh

it was decided before i got here. so my conscience is clear if nothing else. i seem more confused than ever. i was born at a young age. i arrived before i had any understanding of the ramifications behind my every move. i struggled & screamed bloody murder. obviously i overreacted since i’m on top of the world. that is, in a geographical dig, vertically speaking, not in an emotionally stable sense, or spitting out bluebirds at the world below. i faced a backlash i was unprepared for.

i didn’t have a single alibi.

i had no communication skills. i was examined & reexamined. i was put inside a see-through tomb. my lungs were full of carbon monoxide. my mouth was stuffed with speculative reasoning, made more difficult by an inability to gather all the facts. i let the soft hum breathe for me. i was too exhausted to put up any resistance.

i've never even been queried about these places i've been. i'd like to meet someone i could trust so i could talk about them. not someone on the inside though. not that they're less trustworthy in here. however, they are contained. if they are needed they can be summoned in a matter of minutes.

in the world we can disappear for long periods of time. we can lose ourselves. unless we fall back on old habits or visit familiar faces, which is the first place they stake out. i know how it works.

obviously i haven't practiced what i've preached. actually i'm not a preacher. i'm using that figure of speech though i mean as an individual i don't heed my warnings. i'm too impulsive. i don't practice common sense.

a jolly red button or death by committee puts life in flux & laws of physics in jeopardy, but i'm not making judgments. a photographic memory can be manipulated for fun & profit. villon's alter boy robes made a good hiding place during windblown schism not open to divine retribution. bad omen plaid continence misread as good shot.

i've never seen the pacific ocean. never got to sleep with the bronzed narcotic angels. threatening perfume isn't a gust of true love but ditch weed unworthy of repetition. sanity of lust with no sugar additive will be unsheathing my mighty sword. chucking the sharpie poems at graveside reunion is as close as possible to belladonna blues & cowbell luscious secret ingredient & cowpoke brewing.

decompression switches places with flexible blue ruling which never rode in a shiny black limousine for a two-toned junker funeral.

ambient lighting in a slaughterhouse is taking power so it can be redistributed. slipped under inexplicable clearinghouse. detaining the latter while pawing the former. cellular octopus is limping sleep off to fighting amidst pornographic slash chord organ blues.

she's the best thing i've ever seen. an iceberg golden image memorizes the drill of swollen purple labia at discount remaindered with buffalo chalk marks thrown in for a bonus cut. disembodied strips of denomination are making my skin crawl. my salvation lies inside an envelope of a child's fine hair.

draw up the parameters between the have-nots which operate within those blue as muddy waters. a squirming rot not responsible for their behavior.

scratching at my wall at four a.m. angers me. aim my suddenly too heavy revolver at invisible intruders. pull the plug on wounds which resemble proverbial raw meat & clogged desire.

humbling hoot amok in take no prisoners mode including myself. rouge-colored rejection jumping trains at eight years old. gravel big as golf balls can jump the tracks. sophisticated lunk head breakdown doing water-logged float with smiling mannequins followed by creepy clowns throwing stale candy to the affected twang of fm radio 'country music' & hawking horns for dope money which died at birth.

somebody must be in control. someone must be running the show. someone is making a mint off this venture. i remember the billing from my insurance company when i was here before.

betrayed by last chance inside budding glass plumbing impressionable myths cloistered in deathly whisper. absorbing shapelessness in addition to transcribing et cetera under a democratic penalty.

a blanching facsimile at the mention has stimulated dead end ribbon of replies which means nothing more than there's no reply worth keeping. mimicking a thrifty dismissal without needless adventure is a bit of a letdown in this day & age, in this trashed heap.

enflamed blind eyes are jostling for exhibition space. streetwise three-dimensional spittle. radial drugs aren't a viable excuse any more. all is extended toward infinity. trashing the false icons not so gentle reader. not so tactful historian-cast your essence into the fire for maximum effect.

uber-linguistics sings irresponsible identification. debriefed fuse grounds linear vogue melodrama in a motel. sheer vanity cartoon assemblage is testing integer against the course of events played at half the time. imperial obnoxiousness is taunting a brass bed. dissecting ambivalence with none other than the devil's own. idiot savant is dropping minutia.

linen boulevard is cruising for poetry where the goddess of whiplashed winks at circumstantial evidence. a hundred yards of orange sunshine reads remote possibility then rips into any day now.

i want to hear the words she never said. i want to hear the words which i didn't want to hear then. i need a connection it's true, but i want hers specifically. i suppose it's natural to think about what you had & lost. what you wanted but barely missed on. wrong time. wrong place. i suppose the way i feel lets me know i'm still human despite my surroundings.

 

 

mark hartenbach's new book is surfing the appalachian vortex from alien buddha press.

 

Edited for Unlikely by dan raphael, Staff Reviewer
Last revised on Wednesday, June 14, 2017 - 22:24