A river of faces
forms the procession.
Faces as stern as a corpse,
eyes glimmering
mint and pristine.
In a dark corner
I drink black tea
from my lover’s cup –
My eyelids fall
like the lid of a coffin
as I listen:
A thick fog of gossip
The stink of talk
A slice of shine
severs with the edge
of ascendancy.
A deep knock on planks
blond hair flops and spreads
like a beached jellyfish,
legs stark and gnarled.
A dark slug, a malignant thing
crawled out from the unnatural
opening inside me, born from a hole
and hungry, must be removed or killed.
Only the glow
left and the shadows
of white coils
tentacles of plastic
now sixteen
in a cast
of light
An ellipsis, the screen
is a backlit semblance
of a silhouette
A mixture of pops and ticks
a hissing behind a shadow
close to a breeze
Down hallways
the smell of water:
a chorus of whales
in the late dark
beyond the glow
Only mistakes stain for years
and shape the earth
Only light through a hole
the more holes
the more light
Only twitches of synthetics
and synapses
and the glow
Ivy climbs up
the resilient trunk
of an oak tree,
choking, but
there is no struggle.
Light barely touches
the cracked bark
as the ivy wraps
around gnarled arms.
There will be no blossoming
of leaves in the spring
for the staggering branches,
but the leaves of the vines
will always glint
and cover and thrive.
Fog hides a tree –
Is it there?
Gasping tip of a branch
Mat of overcast
solid and heavy -
I am trapped and waiting.
Winter wind –
A sharp gust
taps dead maple branches together
Winter sun
pulls ice
to a point.
Glaring up,
bright yellow breaks through,
leaks from a shell of clouds.
Breathing again –
the fresh air stings
the wet grass
Sunshine envelops with warmth
illuminated trees
darker underneath
Sharpening shadows
heavy upon the pavement
a solid patch over the road.
If a girl was not
crossing the street,
there would be nothing.
Old windows
old eyes –
the sky is marked
On dark flooded roads
there are no cars
only rushing waves full of light.
Still alive, smoke
draws arcs that rise
grows out of an ashtray
pills
there are so many
liars
Man walks out of
A public restroom
biting his lip
The swallowing night
burns away
by the streetlamps.
A trucker’s goatee dances
as he chews,
peering into our windows.
Watch the air cook
On the bricks of a wall and simmer
In the sunlit spaces outside
For hours
Until it changes into a thick black.
There is a natural grease
Coating my eyes as well as the world,
Helping me easily slip
Into soft sleep,
Plummet into a solid dream.
Gather 200 people
To push the earth so it mills
On its axis with madness
Until everyone has lost
A year of life.
Do not shake machine. Shake hands.
Grazing the walls with my palms,
I tend to leak between cracks and fingers.
How big is the gap between two sets of eyes?
Nothing means everything anymore.
Spend a night coughing
Behind a stranger.
Do not speak or make eye contact.
Do this often with different people
And develop a glaring affection.
1
On an off-white bathroom wall, a clock ticks. Analog face. A clock that attracts eyes. Begs for a short moment of attention, delivers guilt when guilt is deserved. A ticking that hammers nails into studs of concentration. A ticking that plucks nerves. There is a snap of a whip that can be felt on the backs of those who sleep at the wrong hours. Disobedience. Lashing in equal intervals. Straight hands are never wrong.
The hand strikes
Every notch fixed
With a balance of space
2
Riding my bike down streets and sidewalks, I saw a young boy walking along the narrow top of a short stonewall holding his father’s hand. And while holding his father’s hand, he fell down and hit his head on the sidewalk. Further along the path a little old man with a long white beard jumped to one side, shrieking, as I passed by, but I would have avoided him. I wonder who should feel secure.
father and son
smiling, hands tightly locked
behind a demolished wall.
3
Waiting through hours. In New Orleans by 2:11pm on the Wednesday before the New Year. We’re all tired after crawling through long hours on the road. We’re all excited to be here. I’ve already seen skeletons of abandoned houses in the wrecked neighborhoods left after the hurricane. Our room is high up in a skyscraper and looking out of the window down at the city is like looking into a video screen or watching a simulation of reality. I’m tired but I won’t be able to sleep until I witness this solid, city, its hard concrete walls, streets and sidewalks, and its fragility.
Crude messages
scrawled on walls and sidewalks
in reckless spray paint.
4
I crashed my bike into a bush by a sidewalk. Cars drove on at the intersection where I paused on my knees. The concrete scraped some of the skin on my left palm off and the wound stung. There was blood. I stood up, fixed the chain on my bike, and rode off as the adrenaline ran through my veins in torrents.
A hot trail,
The sun leaks from a wound
At the eastern horizon.
5
At the restaurant, I reach into my pocket and drop a handful of dusted rolled-up dollar bills on the counter. The cashier and I stare at each other for a stretched moment and much like a wide-eyed dull gorilla, much like nothing, he clears his throat and hands me my receipt.
Listen buddy,
Just give me
My tacos.
6
The wind was rushing with the force of an endless train. I climbed up a loose ladder to reach the Pagliai’s Pizza sign: “PANCAKE BREAKFAST AT THE VFW 10-2”. I removed most of the letters, while holding on to the sign to resist the hazard, and set them on the narrow platform where I stood. The same way that kids run off laughing, the letters blew away, scattering and cracking in the parking lot, and there was nothing I could do. I only needed to spell out “VEGETABLE SOUP”.
Running pests –
I chase the letters
Of the alphabet
It hurts to be here, to stand by the window,
to see the clock, watch the hour drip,
and wait until it’s already late.
A television stutters with small talk.
The blackness of the windows from the inside
makes me think there isn’t enough to observe
and sometimes my eyes burn at night
When I stare at the single dim glimmer.
The black air presents a streetlamp,
a grin with a gold tooth, the darkest mouth
and an aggressive gesture that bends a tree.
Black air doesn’t speak but pretends it will
and I just want it to stop.
The sound close to ink.
The hour leaks, bleeds if I hit it hard enough.
Never shouting enough.
I can feel something punching against the inside of my ribcage
like it’s trying to break out, trying to escape.
Often it stalks behind my eyelids
and scrapes against the inside of my skull.
I always feel it moving inside.
Its face is like a gripping fist
or a flickering light bulb with four-fingered hands
and dress shoes at the ends of wire-thin legs.
Sometimes it makes my eyes water.
Sometimes it drags the skin on my face down
and I can’t help but spit and cough dust.
I talk to it every night, let it know it’s nothing
but a personal thing and I swallow it down again
and smoke cigarettes until it sleeps.
Lemon scented fumes
Make the skeptics believe in lemons.
Spray more of it,
Manipulate the air.
The screen and I share a stark adamant gaze
Eyes of salt water
Eyes made of white grain
Red lines wavering warm
Around cavernous blackness: staring
Into sharp cerulean high pitch
Switch to color blocks
Or the chieftain’s serious profile mugshot:
It’s not funny.
Chief displays the hunger of someone
And I am weeping as I should be.
I need to blink now
According to schedule.
An ellipsis and I hear the clock tick like whiplash.
Eyes wander towards the edges
of the yellow pages, I pay attention
to the ringtone of neon augmentation:
concrete fingers reaching up to
the wild sky growling over
a dense metropolis. A heavy gauntlet
cups the limitless muzzle.
Stirred into the platinum mass
I spend my curiosity pacing
Through revolving doors made of intangible glass,
scuffed boots smudging the smooth floor.
People shift in endless cycles like moths
beating against each other by the streetlamps,
like black and gray flecks on the television.
1
Condensed Measures.
Easy to swallow.
Painless activation.
No longer will you burn in meditation.
Have the dimensions of every day deflated?
Do your vital organs lack incentive?
Is every new second tightly
Wrapped in dry latex?
Now you can indulge in immediacy
Like those of The Excited!
Fresh from our fever labs,
Liveliness of the mind and spirit
can be reformed once more.
Even tomorrow will stand on its feet
like a new born war horse.
Resurrect your mental children!
Animate your dying future!
Unleash your inner ravenous cartoons!
For the exhausted populace
suffering from idle time and leisure,
our counteragents offer
a chorus of ambulances
to your auditory walls.
One dose will fill
your veins with sirens!
2
Premium reception has never been easier.
No compromises. No limitations. No conventions.
At last, we have siphoned the effort from making memories,
removed the clutter of passionate rat kings.
We have replaced the frenzy with empty space.
We have sealed stars with an innovative lid to lock in the astonishment.
For a low expense, the clearest dark can be delivered
to your choice of cavity free of danger and chance,
free of venture.
I haven’t slept all night and I’m not going to
Bear with me as I feel this town
Feels like a stuck pig
A rat actually
You are domesticated matter of some kind on a garnished platter
and I can’t relate.
Get laid immediately or get sedated or cut these open
But it only ever feels good for a moment.
Some don’t understand how much filth and rain there is
They are not convinced
They don’t think
It is past six
It is not early, it is late
and don’t you forget that.
This is important
I can’t stress that enough
and there isn’t enough space
there is structure.
I took a walk and saw two birds fighting
This kid I know, he is a fight
He doesn’t wake for simple pleasure
Those accepted conventions and cute sitcoms are placebos
Don’t you forget that.
Poor little city mops wear a lot of greasy t-shirts
and almost nod off by the stalling clock
and miss their mothers
and only want the feathers to expand as they flutter
I can’t sleep because of all the colors
Swimming in the thickness of values
Trying to dodge lapses of thought
I keep my red-hot confidence locked in a jar
and set my stomach on fire
and seethe while the authorities spit warped judgment
I don’t want to speak with them
I want to talk to you
on the telephone.
and as I blink my pink eyes, I become a god and evaporate
Consume this and fuck mediocrity.
and what is that medicine smell?
Get it away from me
I’m going to go take a piss and be disgusted.
The front. Thick green sweat. Condescending wet chops. Hot grease. All I need is cream all I got is foam. In the mouth of a hound. Brash motherfucker with a set of bone metal knuckles. Tense dog blending in with smoke and bricks. Harmless. Soft all the way through the inside. Sharp mask and erratic collar. War paint. Watching everyone get muzzled. Panicking over passing light-up cars. Crooked unremorseful uniform. Small Town is the name of a signpost shoved in a dry shallow hole. Disgusted underground kids. Manic youth confined in clinics. Big gap no exit. Blank off-white wall. Elaborate mural of boredom. Ok open up your skull. And as I stumble by an innocuous mutt on a leash I think damn he got fucked.
animal mind
all I ever want to do is
fuck and fight
we will not speak
we will grunt and howl
bare our teeth and breath heavily
all I ever need to do is
release
release my blood and instinct
salivate in front of a plasma TV
that would be nice
Written in wrinkles are senseless obsessions printed like incurable diseases.
And on a need-to-know basis, words become contagious killers, saturating the air like graffiti on a wall.
Our minds are easily infested with laughing pests, speaking of false intelligence and very few would rather rot in the corners of sterilization until it’s safe to move on.
We have been told that our heads are full of sin and viruses and disability.
Give me pills. Quickly fix me. Forgive me.
We are force fed the newest diet plan.
We have been diagnosed with profitability syndrome. They tell us we are sick bugs who need them.
Five-thousand dollar burial box.
Headlines and controversy and commercials fed intravenously into our veins. Catheter full of excitement and concern.
The nurse vigorously licks the bottom of a coffee cup in front of a beeping screen.
Entertainment is the late breaking news on the lives of our most well-known, no-talent alcoholics and cokeheads.
This stylish exploitation is a fashion statement.
What they’re looking for is blood on the pavement.
These filthy, self-proclaimed professors wade in shallow wastewater and don’t bother to wash their feet sensibly.
My body feels like a chunk of raw meat, salted and seasoned for the geniuses to eat.
Even as we migrate, the spread bites us.
Our only solutions come in silent syringes blinding sight and attention.
Focus our wrath and cold apathy and see what’s happening.
Take the vaccine, a suppressor in a subtle shot.
Wipe the insecticide from your eyes!
This is the apocalyptic lecture of social skin spots.
Andrew Spiess