Block: on the tragedies that befall us that've always befallen us

[AUDIO]

The left turning lane gave the ghost up miles back, the drift right, violence. 

Not another hacking cough, this is history, tackle repeat, shake. 

Next a just so, so far built up proof, feeling to believe in, first as

tragicomedy then farce but a rather bleak and "existential" 

type, then a thick rush into little reassuring dreams of oh so

normative pair bonded couple in pink fuzz then ahh fade and frump dead.

Doubled frame here by vocation, then tripled, then broken. I was 

hoping his head would explode. Wrong end of metaphor telescope.

Maniac mile an hour, per faster, friction piston is barely on.

The long crash, in its grander prospect is explosive, but embedded 

thick and slow as time, its contours elude. Shy away, a warm damp cloth, 

leaving the smoke behind itself— hacking at the chief, clotted cream, a 

roiling completely undetectable from the perspective of men's 

magazines. I miss the option of taking any lefts and don't tell me 

that three rights make a left because that is just blatant propaganda.

It's mineral wind that speaks some other language banging at the door 

now, bringing the news the squeaky bleak news the newest new news door noir.

*

Block: on desperate rhetorics of want

[AUDIO]

Neither the empty note, nor the hawk as staged, nor any bond of feeling lifts these words for others.

The invitation might be external, a hopeful scene sketched, this tone or that gesture, inclining 

toward options -- to be dashed once the exchange is made. How these rules are largely unpronounced.

The real outside is no luckier. Details are spilling out all over the place, take a hint, do 

the web searches beforehand and assume a significant up-sell on everything from weather 

to 'purely platonic.' As if any of this were poetry, trading heavily on its leaks.

The past is passed, like a day without the long con, when a bevy of grays, like pigeons waiting for 

nuts to be dropped, waited. Everything was easy then, park, pay, do a display round, watch for the lights, 

for signals, take a door and have the payload deducted with manual minimums in place. I 

can't count my face. My picture in words does not resemble anyone, ever. Fuck a bunch of that.

Don't let this come off as eloquence. I have the impossible on hold, suddenly speechless with 

the possible, like musical chairs, like wishing you had been more careful. That's the primary gripe.

The silence on the line, or of a screen, is endlessly patient, able to out wait anything 

that breathes, has a pulse. Make no mistake. It would be easy to assume that was value neutral, the way 

"fishing season" tells little of any fish (or chicken) in particular -- but that would be an 

error in estimation, as this silence rides the same machinic wave that drives us all, against 

convenience, better judgement, any pay off for any 'just so' evolutionary story 

varietal… and yet here we are, sharing a common floor that vibrates, it seems, in common 

riding a pervasive failure to thrive. Buy my bridge that don't raise, then my S.S. Catastrophe.

This block is too big, imposes a block on itself, squashes down and seals -- that acid taste from the 

third cup of coffee on an empty stomach and smoked tongue. Perser▲vere with fuck-insertion. Always 

with the rule for all but…Every requirement listed and demands of moment doubly asserted.

This poem is being rejected. Reasons why this might have happened include, violating the

terms of poetic use or posting the same poem in multiple categories or cities.

*

Block: which works at the draw, momentarily

[audio]

Shell game, coy bullshit move, then the tape tapers.

Not sure what any of this is supposed to 

look like, straining for the final miss. Pale 

sympathy. Scrolling functions and broken rocks.

Not to be taken up with mixtures, only 

to add layers to intrigue, dust bred sediment 

as lineation to delineate, drag 

razor wire behind the Ford from here to 

the other side of town, from there the dogs'll 

do the hard part. The thread has been lost, again.

Already skin breaks a broken swollen line.

Block: on the distance between word and deed [with audio!]

[audio]

A pitch gets crafted with the impetus to grab maybes from the wall.

A span is spun from waiting and then a bloom, a clutch of suspicious 

failures at reading. The coffee long since gone lazy, cold in the cup.

Specs imply a fantasy, a sloppy rhetoric of misspellings, 

as if a book were made of texts. Stats conjure the warranty, but what 

lies around words, wraps worlds, worlds so small as a studio apartment 

and trust, no. That one in umpteen when contingency pushes a point, 

can go any direction, infinite sight lines of a moment pass

into this sordid knot, the unused cloth, that dog curiosity.

An ill eagle is a sick bird.  Plus what you like has got to be sold.

Attrition swimming the tight circular options in a flesh barrel

while so many bullets dive in that all is displaced, shamed, smug, blasé.

Manual release… everything falling… holding on tight to a chair.

After words wishing it empty. Crisis management cum semantics 

and twitches, glitchy eyed lingerings of slur and sibilant whisper.

If word then deed. My number unsung, no reciprocation, labor

to labor on with starving satisfaction. Then deed if word replies.

*

Block: on those moments when darkness shines through [with audio!]

[audio]

How far the eye pretends, and touch its own other way eases.

A museum to suspend belief for, snow on the ground, the call 

of a bird behind the gift shop. Location is everything this 

close to the abyss. Achronological dread. The apparent 

not holding up to the steam and hiss of anxiety's feet to 

the fire, flickered in the onto lots, leaving many uncertain 

where they'd parked. Mourning in advance of the breaking. A buck fifty.

I heart tourist dollars in a fallen country. Crossed countries in 

a fox color, a hat not to wear again, postcards selling a 

shallow hope, home made root beer, smokes. Fake ruins and the western sun and 

the worst rocks. The balance bar started to go and I knew I'd 

meet the gorge. Always again this loss rediscovered. To hurl from

  a cliff over perfect aqua so thousands of oneself below 

even here, where laughing among goats should have been otherwise. 

Be the destruction behind the smile. Enjoy the many scenic 

overlooks available for watching the accident, forget.

Block: upon this nation of ours right about now [with audio!]

[audio]

Smoke upon that celebrate day, any day and sun, rain, any weather forgets. 

Issues said to be issues in the local issue mills issue missives and we 

   dutifully mouth them. Thought experiment, the chew bit unit, then say what?

Everything said translating translations of money, money demanding remanding and 

   coiling itself about each throat, a pulsing robot tentacle. It will feel warm, 

   when it happens―no going back. Coughing out donut smoke for substitute traction.

Break-a-cork-in-it like, but no other breathing it back, so obsequious twitch 

   nor style. Fashion aphasia is tri-color in the weak sense, depressed moreso 

   than regional. All about a fire and burning meat, shots wired into pumps with an 

   elbow mediating. Savor slowly; varied and vicarious, crushed and teased, 

   management of the hidden hook that makes it bearable. "Behind the scenes" daydream 

   us, but the scenery is blatantly moving into anything ownable 

   setting up shafts and papering over until the merge is fait accompli. No, 

   the very submission does the work without working. Messenger come hither, back 

   in the day was that it was worth it to know and share along, but no longer though 

   the path is not over, grandfathered into margin, soon to welcome to the wall.

Taking the out of the game, an allure not victory but nothing to be said;

   to live so that when the piece lifts none will be unduly.  Until then, to passing,

   to seeing the seams, to strategic retreat guiltily Cartesian bleak in tone.

Empty plastic bottle of an ocean current, yes and subjectivity so.