The Vortex Papers
They came to him in a dream. A series of texts each with a different piece of the overall puzzle. Somehow, between the pages of text he'd seen in his dreams he'd been able to duplicate and the guidance they provided while he was asleep, he'd be able to open a gateway. Perhaps he'd gone mad. It didn't matter any more though, he had nothing else to do these days. Each page had taken several weeks. A few words and he'd lose the thread. He tried melatonin, beer naps, a herbal cigarette.. and through it all came away with a series of texts brought down from abstraction. Half of it would be gibberish to anyone else, it came to him through the forms of his own experience:
0.
alcohol's for the mind, drugs for the soul google my dna, see where I go
1. temperate climate
i weary these harsh mornings
when breath comes ragged
and slow, national, draft...
if torn by age, ravaged sublime from secret places the blanket of flesh wrapped slyly, drawn needles
and asleep, the legs my hand, a finger pins and cold, the circulation air isn't the same here
cloud front, a flood burnt umber, a harvest and threshing, fields alighted, post chattel environment, we given rights
(my motherfuckers are silent but they got my back in this temperate climate)
wake the fuck up I slap my skin and grimace, the flesh is morbid a roadmap and I am fevers, sores, lesions and threshing, dead leather, a few coins lost in transit
don't have the desire left to be a machine, these things take time, have meaning truth movement
couldn't speak sanctions forced this gag, restraint the officials lien, official line occlusion: officially lying moderates
2 Witchita Vortex Lament
i cannot simply state 'this is a wasteland, hollow world, brutal reign of clay-hearts and cold cash' though I may have thought it true, thought long and hard that this time is tumbling away, a weed blown across the sands of memory, shards crystal sharp of hourglass tossed aside, book ends now, book ends of a history of ideas thrown out and a siphoning away of love's contentment. Joy is brittle, easily shattered, here in these harrowing years
stop.
I cannot state abstractions, the world is darker than that, there are demons that possess through powders, through rock, you see the crack in the pavement, the crack in the sidewalk, on your way to school, to the park and there are shooting galleries in the playgrounds, there are wandering souls in the park, mumbling souls left a glance, given a shoulder to cry on, handed a heart-broken defiant-still stare they might open up and you might learn of a long-lostlove, of a co-dependant set adrift, of a compassionate schitzophrenic come out for the weather, to feel warm for a day from the shadows of side streets and shelter suppers
stop.
I was half-starved, a thief in shadowy climate, a favored of fortune but still scrapping past found time a flower that dreams. but some are not so astute, to the fortress of lifestyle they stand mute witness, a week's wage from ruin. And they are doomed, and they are doomed
stop.
the brittle tumbleweeds build along the fenceline interlocking and out of the year's complex maw a new storm arises ripping the fence free of its moorings... I at least dream this - if one is not free to dream in the parameter of poetry, where then can we yet dream?
stop.
The fence is a metaphor, this self-reference is metaphor, there is nothing but metaphor these days.
stop.
I see no pain, no triumph, no wonder, no shame. Just compliance a fence raised and built upon by brushed up against and almost defiant, yet still quiet... a fence made so much of but not nearly there yet, a wall of sand.
stop.
And this poem, these dark watery hearts, they shelter a bloodsworn enemy of life. you seek to be clear of guilt, of pain, of pan filling panic at the base of your spine for this is the wasted land, the black sauron lid-less burning eye laid this place to waste in four color super-hero comic action, you spackled your ceiling with the left-over ashes while my cat puked on the monitor and nearly electricuted all of us. We're in this shit together, you and I, I'm the fucking poet, I'm the one who has to guide the reader through this desert drowning us
fuck it.
these plains have seen better days. there were buffalo here, and pampas grass, and people with some dignity not these tired spun-out zombies that gutterpunk this sad vortex.
stop.
3 taken by force
in seed you control need you control it seed it you control you need control is
mine is not yours not taken by fierce mind own this controvert
your time strained meaningessly by fierceness take by strength conquer
you are fire are heart, spread light no mind this night taken by flight by lies,
higher and farther you stake out the future
we're blue blood, gene and to console, perhaps this moves again and perhaps mortal, stare deeper, stay longer each taken within: birthing desire, you absolve control
is.
4 New Wichita Vortex
"so the town sucked you back" we sat over dinner, I been sitting down over dinner and sitting down over bowl for a month new moon through full and back on to now, it's noon, no job, no purpose to fill, just dog food dish overturned on kitchen tile
out the door to Tyler, to Ridge and Central down 235 to Broadway, a half-hearted veer to freedom and away, back to the day
we are staring up at a statue she holds my hand. the river cuts and we hold our bleeding together. can leave only a hatred behind these days this kind dawn
the airport harbours strange craft we see entirely too many triangles bulk in the sky. helicoptors, a dirigible private planes, hot air balloons
skyline is lost against the plains, the horizon and trees and she pulls a kite.
cannot be consciousness of your sad city your spinning suburbia of your soul carved yellowed, docufied and remanded into custody i do not wanted
these are twinges, flashed upon, forgotten and flaunted for fate cannot be conscious, caused to be cautious by fate
and driven and given and taught (she loved me enough to read me Candide by gaslight)
and I... I never forgot
what you have wasted. Her moment a tree walks, here she rides with the wind here she speaks with her hands here she danced once threw you the glance once you took a chance, once and never again burned your hand. that you wasted, pain
remind you you live remind you you gotta give to get in this feedback
elastic waistband land
fuck show you fear in a fist of grit
what then man, bones? some sin?
you you gotta give to get
What this lie is then as we have a single moment in which to dream it comes from my hand
and awaken, thrust into spin and I am altered by it to arrive undone, it wears me, and grows stranger still half-whole, it grows through me
thrust up against scarlet worlds, and alone I am a dusk of headlights, unhinged, tongue bruised skyline swollen, eyes dry
and given this that somehow my moment is stretched thin daily slaughter that my dreams are solid, stronger, a fierce hour iconic, vision replicates and irrational belief in fate each golden arch, my scarlet world somewhat strained each passage inward by the fists of compliance guarded swords and in vivisection my world bleeds flaming wards, slaughtered, content to writhe in pain sacrificed in firestorm
the letters vault
bleed flaming words letters ink sparks, leap stains a vowel alighted the book gashed aghast
there we set our new values we are trapped by the abstract tyranny of time and trapped by the vacant memory kept for us in concrete and bronze monuments in plaques, in statuary
would we then wooded not pour out from hearts in fits and starts new art out of which could spark a heat between carve a friction, a new solid, a birthpang, a plasma
and new growth demands new layers, new stares, a memory and a new contentment
and new dreads, new beads, woven silver bells a cotton weave, a tie
there is serious leaves kisses in trunk carved initials runs sap: amber like wax drips
and clorophyll the green is and clorophyll the flame and we are and summer still is and greener is still are.
5 GFONP
grown fuc ontial nopf snd whatr
fruc sd j
woden sampl d
wood stake fire atlas sampled sh
spectrum dynasty fleed grant asylum nonsns rubbl e
have no bacon neon lime salt vict um ory
it sense movement capture likened likeness image function spectrum soleness beacon obey severed
silence season
gwron eff function ass best bastard someone season
timeless nation newness notion what wait wanted water washer her i
here Ye I her wa ter maiden guard ing guarden
rutabehhgar
6 escape artist this
remaining, these gods are being there the chamber star dictates greedy
who can you trust when there's no one else? everyone is sleeping, sounds repeating
escape yourself escape yourself escape yourself
sold on false nostalgia take, eat, and run
thinking for two, these steaks thick, red meat and dead things
it was my unquiet mind first and then she slipped me the tongue
7 ampersands & thyme
the temple walls are made of flesh; the prison walls of blackened iron
& we construct from what is left in the trash heap of our civilization
starspangled banner led bewitched, betwixt, between a vision & a dream
my face above the scar on chin, flesh revenge upon, defended invention
there is nothing left to transform into commodity we sleep in fear our dreams will be tolled, the driveway controlled: Hey Ants
spell the scents to break the fact it's four to one against
8 Demonizations
this demon and the child I was and the toys and we play and there are figurines there are by-laws
this demon stands right next to me he holds my halo in his claws with ever and ever after printed across
this demon stays right next to me and holds this figurine that was given years back
I stand holding demon's fist and think toys, and think cigarettes, piles of powders
this is power, a hard cock a bullet, demon at your shoulder
march hard glance a clenched jawline drown high fructose corn syrup in lime, gin, black death urge vodka water life, whiskey age
and demon serves gin, sales pitch front line, cross fire, theater
the television introduced you to satan and you bought his cars, you watched his eyes, your minds were wiped your souls three mornings ago
was sold to this demon, he holds coupons for laundry detergent, sends postcards from satanas, from furfur,
and glyphs and wards forgotten shall be the wasteland's remnants when I and demon at my side collect
was there truth
between the swirl, the new world
a breathe away death
cab call too cute
the day stays
9 the vortex examines:
tracking the features the new laws, regulations, the changes required. They are stealing
we still are the people they are stealing and with
words. we were given these documents as holy relics in place of the ash the scattering of and in
ink the new dawn the wretched, the poor come huddled, and we and we are
and we the plebe the placid masses taking turns in queue to change our world every two years
and we the mass the briar the thicket through which the manifest must come, chained crowned, brought feet first down long drawn corridors of power
and at its head we and at its feet we and in its wake we and here, at its heart we stand
and it was lied and it watched and it was tampered with, before we were finished and it was lingering, it the eye strained wide to capture
and they, they knew not what they and we, we know naught but what we and I, I have only what I've wrought to accompany me, this vortex dawn
0.
alcohol's for the mind, drugs for the soul google my dna, see where I go