Dream of Paper

I dreamt

my feet were stuck in
the hot asphalt

with a

red-haired man
across from me
without a face.

Threw something.

I knew it broke a

window 
so I ran.

I turned into a slip

of paper

caught by the wind.

It ended at

the public library,

the one years ago,

and I checked out

a video.

I awoke,

wondering about 
the four dreams I forgot.

Me In White Death

Raven kisses,

a formless mouth 
I never see

and a quenching tongue that 
I never taste

when awake.

She sleeps 
when she can

while I pretend,

then I give 
and

read a book.

Sometimes 
I drive away.

I think of dying,

I think
it’s my contented lonesome mornings

next to her,

nothingness that moves 
me in white death,
imagined sleeping.

I'm dead or
awake, 
truth or
verses.

A coo lets me know 
we’re anything at all;

how often I am reminded.

On most days, 
I’m a cuckold

with rod smooth as
strawberries.

I feel 
too much 
too often,

this business 
when I'm busy;

I deny nature.

Denial,

the wrong story,

a sequence of events.

Stories end, 
at least the good ones.

Misery, 
to me,
joy.

Intelligence, 
crafted to sustain

the endless carnival 
of cheap stints 
interspersed with

yellow birds 
that die on the sidewalk 
half the time.

Words, words, verbs, 
nouns, sentences, commas, 
uh, 
uh, 
fuck, fart, shit, 
rot, rot, rot, 
rot, rot, rot, 
rot, rot, rot, rot, 
rot, rot, rot, 
rot, rot,

bones and worms and dirt and threads.

I laugh at life,
death smiling,

smiling because there are 
these things.

You sit around wondering:

carry the vessel,

poison the water,

find a wife.

Since I will die

just like everyone else,

the dream I’m having is so 
powerful

that it has keeps me 
living

despite my reason.

Write enough, 
and you'll think 
like me.

Working for Something

Again and again,
I serve the
broken masses
because I'm
broke,
only because
my car needs a new
something,
so then I can see
my girlfriend across town,
so we can cuddle
so it's not
so cold.