Nietzsche in the Library

I always felt strange sitting in the library,
Asking myself what I was reading
When the book set out in front of me
Was a red volume by Nietzsche.
During one of these occasions
A librarian would approach me
Trying to figure out how to complain
And would then notice the cover
And turn around, leaving me alone.

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The Transit Moth

On my walk again I see you, your bulged face,
The wrinkles carrying my neck, twisting it.
I pause, nearly unconscious, dead to image
Whims, ready to step in front of that bus.
If only you hadn’t been there, everyone hadn’t.
Above the brick there is the subtle tic of movement.
The moth’s wings are the same chapped brown
This time of year as any other time of year.
In my daydream I have to cut off my pinkie finger.
I attach it to the end of a medium white string.
The string becomes pink from my blood.
Whip goes the lasso and flutter goes the moth.
Then there’s the blast of the electric train,
And my eyes are pressed closed, warm.
I don’t have the words for experiences.
The train’s doors nearly shut on me.
Outside somewhere the sun, there, blaring.
The children I never had scream forever,
As though I was wearing Ugolino’s face.
Starving others: the only way to starve yourself.

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The Clock Maker

I will dream about your arms
wrapped around the waist
of a Parisian clock maker
while I am fast asleep dreaming
about the clockmaker’s hands,
and how many gears they have seen.

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A Poem for Yesterday, and a Poem for Today, and a Poem for Tomorrow

Yesterday: Simulacra Swarm

Moratorium to precede the standardized results.
Obsolescence spliced into opal lens. Strut mantle.
Check engine light now lit through digi glut.
Romance of the age we’ve predicted into being.
Sun of sine coexisting with a shelter of rooted time.
A sweltering box tucked beside to hold viral visions.
Whispering the voice proves use as co-opted.
Devise the device of the ages and collapse it.
A language bar built out of hard wire and tech.
Championed, positioning to feel ripe. Enter extract.
Abundance of abstract claws slowly ungripped shell.
Winning by bringing forth a slice of electric challenge.
A block of text in the post-literate layout manifest.
Whisper cold air puff lacking language acknowledgment.
When I first started I found a first people trembling.
Last time checked I was the last flex of prosthetic to fist.
Quotes bent through time, time collected in space.
Scraps of coating. Scrapes of bloated keyboard throats.
Squander intangible resources beneath bleeding LEDs.
Each line has a full stop to pair your zero to a one.
For each line I’ve had to pull back the fibers of hair.
Reveal my base circuits so you can know I am you.

Today: Wedge Tooth Experience

Each of these rooms smells like plastic.
There is a new coat of material on each wall.
The corners are like eyes I get enveloped into.
We cannot know who is behind such a perversion.
A person walking the concrete holding a flag.
A mentor telling the youth to blow more bubbles.
In these rooms I hold my jaw open and exhale.
I have been waiting to exhale for so long.
The stench of processed oils leaves me happy.
I will always bathe in this hostile, sterile place.
The lights turn on and off without notice.
It is hard to notice where we were before now.
Every time you walk by I rip out a tooth.
Presenting the small objects to you is easy.
I tell you how each have lost the enamel.
There are infinite possibilities to be found.
And yet no one says more than one thing.
For every room you occupy there could be more.
For every tooth there’s the body in the corner.

Tomorrow: Wing Results

Just because I haven’t memorized the birds
Doesn’t mean I can’t get all their voices
Out of my ears, my head, or further,
As they are everywhere and are nowhere
At once and separately in the shade and sun.
I learn birds by identifying then ignoring them.
Once I thought it good to buy a bird picture.
You didn’t buy pictures for the walls like me.
You didn’t buy any of the things I bought.
I thought about buying a fake bird once.
I would paint it gold and put it on the balcony.
I never found a single fake bird I could love.
Do I love the real birds and their orchestras?
Do I enjoy the flittering shadows, ghost shapes,
As clear as figments of my imagination?
My mind does not sit still these days.
Nothing is less clear than my imagination,
A spiral I have learned to fish mania through.
It does not hold a note, hold its peace,
Carry attention, wave itself around, flap wings.
It doesn’t, and I have avoided your questions.
I have avoided the natural whitespace.
Natural noise and dilemmas therein.
Joy comes not as a bird, but as a leaky faucet.
Those bursts and drips of water
Nothing more than purpose unknowable.

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