Blueprint

City limit space expands,
it's threaded through with veins--
grey-black dendritic strands
                                     span
                        across this moldy brain
of a city.
Our rotting nights spray hits around
           the places players play.
The impulses will whitewash all complaints
'til the glaring day.

I wanna spit-shine every storm drain,
stain the cracked sidewalks in white,
take this town to Sunday morning Mass,
though she was born for Friday nights.

We're gonna trickle past addresses
                                                   now,
Electroshock through habit streets
these crosswalks sneer with snide expression.
Mildewed thoughts we'll hardly think.
A conversation you're repressing
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow
Another weekend's blurred out
blank confession
melts off the tips of tongues,
          I can taste it now.

Circulation space expands,
we're threaded through with veins--
this bio-asphalt plan
                           spans
              all through this molded frame
of a body.
But rotten thoughts, like ships aground,
                   teach sailors how to pray
when impulses have buried all complaints
'neath the foaming spray.

I wanna shade out every bruise now,
paint the dumpsters all in gold.
Missoula, listen: You're a lady.
I don't give a fuck what you've been told.

A moldy brain dreams slattern makeup
for a prizefight town each night
so let's take up every artist's brush,
paint some shadows on these barroom eyes.

We're gonna flow right through these boule-
                                                          ­          vards.
Electroshock through habit streets.
These dim lit yards and spoiled thoughts
are hyphens placed between each week.
A conversation you're repressing,
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow.
Our city's made-up face is running
off the tips of winter and I taste it now.

Monaural

"I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored."--Wayne Campbell, Wayne's World

Pass this
        night un-
screwing
                                            wingnuts.
Opened
        casing
showing
                                             my guts.

Fragmented seconds ticking, slipping
through the widening span
                                     of these small hands.
I've unlocked                         my innards
and the truth is out: it's mostly rusting gears.
I've wound down.                 I've ground up
days and weeks, upended months,
spilled crumbs
                         of my years
on pages, aging fast.
The faces show it's late,
                                        so late.

Time's up.
          Trickling
out of
                                        habits
Gutter
           nights are
washing
                                         ashes
Into
                 Yawning
                                              Faces
filled up
                  with questions
                                              falling
from the corners of
their weary, sunburnt eyes.

I'll tick off one more weekend, crossing
panels off a page.
                               Discard a month.
They've opened                    the archives
and the story's old, the golden paper cracks.
The faces,                               blank pages,
rifle past through volumes' deaf--
--'ning greys.
                        Intentions
forgotten, filtered through
the seasons' blurring hum.

                                              It's so late.

Iron Quiet

An animal shriek
in the snowiest silence
is swallowed by eyes deep and brown,
                        not like mine.
Which're shallow and icy and
                                clouded with Sundays
                                shrugged off of shoulders
from peak down to plain.

These mornings are silent,
constructed from cinder blocks;
skeletal, rusting--yet inwardly
                                     wailing.
Why in the world can't I set those shouts free
when the achiest Mondays release
all their caltrops
               and I stagger through work weeks
on sore, shredded feet?

It's because of the way
      that your shrieks echo off
      of my wrought iron eyelids
      when frost fills your veins.

It's because of the way
      that I melt every Thursday
      and wash down the side
      of the night in cold sheets.

I can't shout out loud
and I can't melt the quiet
that screams from the mountains
to snow on the prairie below.