Perception is a ghost I greet daily

to exist I have to be seen, as you were,
imagined as my balcony companion
your eyes dizzy, as mine, with green nature
feeling drums work compulsively, softly;
I feel the need to do this, to have a watcher
over me to increase the value of the experience,
as though if my image of their form faded then so
would I.

I will be the last one to write this book

first and bravest willing or the
only one with pinkish liver intact,
lungs whole and breathing on beat,
heart and intestines aligned, stomach
prepped and iron -- house of a dozen
or so yards and pounds of sleeping,
messy wishes. A pile of emotive meat.

Words collect sounds to create meaning,
yet “dog” is not a dog, so what is a word?
Echoes shatter common sounds like
rain on glass and buckling tin rooftop
of a matchbox butcher block of car,
echoes like static laughter, wailing
and slamming its way around.

Rain juices over thickly burdened wipers.
I am near the temple of Isis now: I am
all that is, was, or shall be; no mortal
man may lift this veil from my face. I
am just looking for my mother; I am
yanking the words out of “inevitable”
and trying to see the road. She waits.

Raindrops are words, compound, like fractures,
and they snake up and down windows
leaving entrails of themselves in wake -- words
are fickle, their meaning duplicates. I find
myself in words like "past," "viewing," and "gone."

I delve into the meatlocker. I find nothing
of any consequence, only things of
dire importance; I pull out words like
“inevitable” by the strings and try
to snip off their placenta and stare
at the wipers snicking the rain

Out of plain view I will weep if only to match
the sneaking quality of raindrops they
are only words the glass will break under
their weight and then it will be resolved
no one will be able to tell water from glass
her body from ashes and I can weep, then,
I can weep.

I drive into the city in search of Being
and Time, finding instead Being and
Nothingness. The temple was deserted;
“inevitable” transmorphs into Time and
Nothingness and Time. Being is a word. Being
is Nothing. I weep. The cop walks over. I
throw him the keys. It was
the opening scene to an adventure.

reposted from my deviantart account YECALEEM 2006,2023

I don't remember the process of writing

 Filleting of the mind and pinching
with fingers as forceps the gangrene
eeling it from the slick and soft folds
and slap it to the page until it tastes
the way that memory smelled
now it's just clicking noises
and the prevailing sense of fear

A face whose features fell away

but I get ahead of myself as I so often do
with the taste of nicotine and grit of ash
always on my hands no matter how much I wash
and I did my thesis on Shakespeare so I know
indelible; core memories are snowflakes - gray
and not metaphoric - lighting on my already
cold cheek to blend with the absolutely nothing
because I hadn't started the adultness of
acknowledging the gaping maw of boxes
being carried away, in perpetuity

I do not see myself as a writer

Several hundred miles in rolling asphalt sun
setting gold and husky, glancing at 90
or probably greater, to record a line we
will see months later and hear as hollow
no strings attached

the myself in this chair
myself in the sofa bed
myself in this brackwater
myself abrupt face
slashing change

These lines are all dashers, and greedy
at that, all sticky fingers of a toddler,
suctioning out the boxes I nearly filed
to bleed by themselves quietly
no strings attached