velvetteen

 the sky is thick and soft and deeper blue

than cheating bruises. battering sunlight

into the smell of diesel and high blood 

pressure meds. wobbling thru the dark house

on feet that want to retire, i wanted to write

something positive, but it's like i'm too 

fatigued to care any more. about any of it.

if the ache in my soles , my hip, my shoulderrs

subsides enough to sleep, that's my happy place.

if i get more than 4 hours straight, i might even

dream again, so i can remember why it was

i thought a long life might be better than 

the good looking corpse theory.

it's not like i  miss anything either, except

maybe the ocean this summer. even then

when i did go, i didn't stay long. 

what do i fear? choking on my own shit.

sepsis. the sudden exhalation of my stent. 

i'm too young for that shit, they say, but hey

ten years off my life every year i've smoked

and i can't imagine living to be like, 120. 

that feels like it would be a crime against me.

watching the last of the glacier melt, stumbling

on these petty feet from the encroaching shore

along a refugee road piled with skeleton's pasts. 

it's enough for me to have imagined how it will be.

i want leave the impossible up to others to encounter. 

everytime i write now it's like a song on alt radio,

singing deathlove songs. could be depression,but it 

seems pretty real.just need to shower  off

with a bit of that ol aushwitz ale so everything

can be sanitized like a last night's dinner table

at the restaurant under masks. 

meh.

 tbey say mental health's taken a hit

all over. it's the lack of dreams, the way

they've turned into nightmares 

treasures to trash. 

alll of the monsters

 all of the monsters surface

gilted in my lack of service

hell hole bound, self quarantined

inletting strangers' bloodstreams

sip reddit soup of angsty teens

conversing with  boomer memes

who try to stream like tumblers.

so i had to put the phone down

lite a drag. half way burnt, limit

vice. i have piles and ibs, a stress

factor of getting fired, forcibly retired

before it's time for the insurance to pay off.

whine and wine don't make it go away off

in some socialist future you and i dreamed 

about when we were young and in love

and suicidal. we believed cioran when

he said you always do it too late. it's 

never too late. stop the gate 

way drug, indolence as it tracks 

up your arm in that sweet warm release

stop it now, pull some weeds or ease

the mailbox, eat some food or squeeze

the editor out of your head, mosquito burrito

the suck of blood and introduction of a new

epithelial disease. of course, the covid creeps in

it's hiding just outside my colleages unmasked nose

or maybe it rose it the air in passing her in

the thin wallway or hovering over her parts bin.

what sin have they found amomg all my 

unfinished projects. i have no human interest

stories about work because they've put me in an office

and the only thing i hear from the floor is spanish

or machine language. neither in which i am fluid

so i just bop my head to the beat. so that's work

and  no wonder i said to the receptionist

on the way out to my car out break yesterday 

my dream is to be informed that i've won

the lottery at 3 pm on a workday and walk 

out that door and never come back. she didn't

shoot me a look or with a gun for mercy she nodded

and with sympathic eyes said i feel ya girl. she's only

been here 3 years. i've been here 32 but i guess it

don't matter the plantation you work on so much

as the fear of what will happen when you leave.

so that's why sometimes i pray for capitalism's

demise. i mean, it was  a good thing until it became god.

progress, innovation, competition, market decisions,

better better be best and get the incisions, youth masks

 malaria, it's gettin pretty hairy in the middle of this muck

the inner insides of a mind that's turning yuck.

to re revise what happens when from the machine i'm shucked

becuase i don't know if i could roam the country

in my prius anymore. if i had a book if it was worth a trade.

and no, i don't think capitalism is so great. i'm a socialist

and realize that effective innovations take a village to create.

444444

the cats peed in my car because my honey left it open. 

wat the fuck. it smells worse-

and i didn't think this was possible-

than the stale cigarette/weed scent that was its signature.

it's also an uncomfortable drive. perfect for a last traced demograhic

in her last 5 years of work. hmmm. maybe i could get a new model

and make it be a 3 year payoff? that would give me purpose

and relevancy. plus honey ain't retiring when i do. besides

being younger he wants to keep workin because he loves his job.

so then we need to move closer to where he works.

i say let's sell the luxe trailor then. five years out. 

by that time the ice shelves should be mostly gone, 

hurricanes a thing of a warmer ocean, and ummm

well, it's a crap shoot if this place'll be under water or not.

ok, sell now. five years out we'll be in mid fla and i can 

drive to the beach in my newish whatever doesn't smell

like death in a teacup used as a litter box.  but honestly

i'm so fucking weary tired and used up. i'm getting 

the depressives, the empty nest syndrome. i know i'll

volunteer at abortion clinics to keep the jerks at bay

or find some other worthy cause to kinda fill my day

or get the plague and wither away but these thoughts

are what ifs i don't do that. wanna have a least a vague

ambition  for my time after i expire. the stamp's 

on my skin, manufacturer's suggested retail fail.

i think it's kinda accurate. i surely will be at the end

of my shelf life by then.  how to get out before i get skinned.

buy a damn ticket and see if i win.

*

clean the frig. dust the shelves, sweep the floor.

open the door, a democracy is dying. someone

using this address has registered republican. 

i get the face of terror in my mail daily. it's scarey. 

to think i housed a traitor at some point. i know the last

name. it's one of the ugly step sisters, close as real .

i even knnow which one, no big deal. surrounded on all

sides by lunacy, what sane person would engage?  i'm done

but my honey says to join a phone bank and campaign.

i'd do it for chamagne but only cuz it rhymes. i mean

no times would i do it for joe. he's lucky i'ma even head out. 

it's the most i can do for now. all my hopes died this spring

when my daddy told me of real things and i found 

that not only was he right, he was just as wrong as me. 

*

so yeah, i mean if failing health and pain

are the only rewards for surviving

i mean the revelations i'm seeing in the news...

i didn't exactly want to see the fruits of 150 years

of industrialization fall into my back yard. but i guess

it's fitting seeing as how i've been repairing the eyes

of said system for 32 years. it's how i make my bread.

so it would be a hoist on me petard to watch it all drown.

or melt in a cleansing furnace. all the while our distractions

crumble, the isolation of numbers. singular ants drown quicker.

8888

so i mean, really? cigarettes? pffft. 

()()()(

if this is a sim, let's level up

 i'm sure the gods get weary of watching us

make the same mistakes. time to unplug, tweak

the rules, restart. 

*   

i mean, that's what i'd do.

noah get the boat slash reddit

is all the doc you need. no link here

because i like mystery and effort.

*((

the clouds today drizibble

wet grey water color. is the sun

out there somewhere? in the sim

my subroutines are running on under this 

gray obfuscation while fires

 block western skies,  a volcano smokes

errupts in yellowstone, haiti, vesusvius

pompeii, krakatoa,  st helen's, fuji, precarious

 boils exploding seperate tragedies 

on the human waste race

 swallowed in the mist so 

our screams can't even be seen. 

*

yeah, that's how i'd play it. the sudden unplugging

would not be satisfactory enough. after all, some them

seem almost like me. i programmed them for that purpose.

i have to let them sort it out amongst themselves. 

when the mist clears in the sim, the ball will be empty.

meanwhile, i have my code to decipher.

*

one time, i may not obscure the visions.

but i'll never turn up the sound.

*

so i'm having iced coffee on the porch.

washed my old curtains, threw away

the shredded ones, used a thicker one

to sheild me better 

from the neighbots.

i can't remember much

of the past years. the sting of the dramas

the tickle of comedies. my screenplay dulls

the further it gets from birth. i mean,

come on, those tropes i lived were aged

when i lived them. so what if i was in

the first wave of cougars, the vanguard of internet

chat addiction, the early days of diassociated thinking?

it was a hyperconnected replay of all the old stories-

biblical, koranish even, one might say

vedic. or like, say, civilization, from 

the soldiers'pov.

+++

and i'm sitting here in my luxury trailor

with the rain comin down like a ol blues song

and somewhere a kiknapped kid plays with his auntie

while his mom frantically tries to reach him

while awaiting the sword of solomon.

and she hurts and it's real and she's sobbing

yet her child's laughter and joy in 

the arms of his aunt, who is also happy,

is just as solid. and can you say it's kidnapping

if mama ran off and left him with me

because she knew she wasn't safe to be around

and how can you ask me to give this 

beautiful fragile child back to crazy -

potential or actual.  he is my child.

i am village.

he is not your child. you didn't nuture

him in the womb or push him out or worry

about him, give anything in the world

to save him, live in fear  his dying

would be your fault, my fault, i am not

crazy i was not crazy when i held him close

and went to work to make sure he was housed

and clothed and fed i found him a great daddy

and people who love him so help me to help me

keep him safe. and you won't even let me speak 

to him. when i get him back, and i will

you will never see him again.

()()(

bloomberg should do a 10k challenge in floriduh.

like, pay registered demos to actually go out and vote.

the trouble with writing outside is i can smoke the whole time. 

like anything that will compel change the protesters on both sides

have gone too far. where does the  power lie? ambushed cops

vs right wing vigilantes is not a match of reprehinsible actions

to determine who's right. bad boys in stripes of black and white

suits of orange or blue, it's nothing new, right and left, in and out

no need to shout, a whisper will do, if it's wishpered to you

the ones in charge of conspiracies, these knees will bend,

the fabric's rend reveals those who are out for me n you

such minor cogs, machine won't miss, but if it's true

conspiracy makes it fit. 

damn my rhyme game sucks, it's good i don't spit.

here's some company come

in the middle of co vid.

%%%

so it looks like my prayers are unanswered

and i gotta pay some bills. livin in the real world