In the cacophony of carnations and cards,

Took 2 valium on the outskirts
of the sea of tranquility, tried walking
the moonscape of downtown asphalt—
craters and toxic dusts drenched in false neon dusks
around the splintered band stand— 
with a skull full of animal balloons
(all my gurus are part-time clowns)—
It was tough sledding—
Their tongues licked clean the residue
of bad impulses ghosting cranial bone—
a lifetime of shortcuts through poison ivy, detours
down the road less traveled and its gauntlet
of blind curves and fresh tar—
then they hiss—the animals—
spider monkey, tortoise, tried-and-true dachshund and minx—
the balloons hiss, the hiss
is what you sometimes call tinnitus—
when a human head doubles as Noah’s ark
loaded down with illicit chemicals because the animals
all had to be sedated,
a few opiated due to the throb that blooms
from mandatory crouches—
otherwise there’s no way they would fit,
and you need every one to aspire to
that lit up lunar buoyancy—the sinewy syntax
of dollar store epiphanies transcribed in phosphors
and chemtrails,
but you fail to notice the vistas replaced
with exit signs, windows
hijacked to the landfill that smolders
perpetually just beyond your range of experience
and now every window envisions smoke
that the ants haul away—smoke as ellipses—
and your eyes scale over dull as pollen-clogged chrome
on an old junker elevated like prayers
on cinder blocks and dinged
with bug guts in ink blot stains.

On my train ride home,
a cat stares back at me from a distant window
—a big, fluffy calico that reminds me of my first foster cat
when I was nine.
He’s always in the same window,
and on the days he’s not
I try to decide if he’s gone altogether
or just for today.

We pass a house on the left
where there’s a family gathered around the dinner table
and each face looks exactly like my family
in 2008.
The mother and father still talk about their days
with genuine smiles.
The daughter and son are bright-eyed
and unaware of how quickly this time will pass. 

Up on the right,
a stuffed dog sits diligently on a windowsill,
gazing out at me with beaded black eyes
that hold more feeling than they should be able to.
It has been there every day
for the last two years.
Untouched, perhaps unloved,
but never unnoticed.

Two stops before mine,
a young couple gets on.
An old one gets off.
They’re both holding hands
through the hustle and bustle of rush hour crowds.
I hope they never let go.

A woman across the aisle from me
checks her phone and smiles.
The man at the other end of the car
checks his and frowns.

There are silhouettes slow-dancing in gold-lit windows
to the song that will either be the first dance at their wedding,
or the tune that will haunt them both for years to come.
There are friends skipping down the street
laughing over an inside joke that’s been told a hundred times.
It will either be told a hundred more times
or it will die out and fade away until there’s no one
left to understand why it’s funny.

Down below,
I watch a black lab cross the road
and stop to sniff a bulldog.
Their owners pull them away and smile at one another.
They will never interact again.

I know this route intimately,
like the back of my hand
or the inside of my soul.
I can point out people and places and hidden secrets
along the brown line from Fullerton to Adams/Wabash
and back again,
like landmarks or monuments—
an all-inclusive tour of the things everyone sees
but never looks for.

Let me paint you a picture,
sing you a song,
write you a book
composed only of the things
I’ve taken time to notice over the years.
A patchwork quilt of city windows and streets,
of moments others have long forgotten
but that will stay in my mind forever.

The world has secrets
but it doesn’t keep them hidden.
They’re left in plain sight
if you notice and listen.

Hologram Girl

Eeriana wa born in a bubble, fired by a thousand lights. All the colors of the universe glowed through her translucent skin as her kaleidoscope eyes learned to twirl.
When she was seven years old, she pricked the bubble and flowed out into the blue light of a slithering moon.

skipping work
to read Anne Rice
time travel
daydreams…vampires
of my mind

Tanka prose is a haibun that includes a tanka instead of a haiku.

– for Amos

The sky has a nervous stomach.
This spring of shattered estates
and salad bowls tossed on hillsides
where mercy chefs bring porkish
mac and cheese and new friends
with chainsaws rid the pool
of sweet gum branches. The wreckage
of joists and complaint of wires, poles
all frowsy and dinged. Give me
your hand in these hot smudge days
and let’s whisper the best
available myth of ourselves 
to the ringing grind of bulldozers
who herald the coming currents,
the barren calm of our old earth. 

sweet, cruel summer leaves

trip into the kaleidoscope, 
auras leap and eddy
pirouetting in sfumato splendor
each hue a revelation
a mirror into the rhythm
commonplace becomes extraordinary.

The wristband from my first concert

A faded picture of my grandpa

An old friendship bracelet

And a hotel key

My first cars keychain

And a ticket from the theater

A wrinkled love note

And my mothers old ring

Sometimes we forget they’re there

But we know their tucked away safely,

I drop my remote off my bed

And find myself lost in a world of what used to be

I wonder how I’ll fit all the memories I have of you

Into one of these

Clouds
cotton candy
create childhood memories 
sparked by endless dreams
spun with visions
of monumental 
Fantasies.

Taste of dirt and the everpressing dark–