November 25th

A pen uncapped to record loose, restless thoughts from many months; many moments missed.

Noxious permanent marker-fumes fountain from frustration-etched words. Pacing during the hours of sleep; the company of sleepwalkers.

Scent-summoned, signaled by sentence-scratching and scribbling, four crows gather. An eight-clawed perch of loyal, black-winged inspirers. For many months, for many missed moments, they have waited.

Patient, prepared.

(This is the revelation of my muse, muses.)

August 6th

Floorbound, drunk. Full-clothed on carpet, but in comfort. Monotone chants and vibrations; air passed over ears and face by box fan. Later, awaiting dawn on balcony, nature's breath tries to caress away booze and toxins.

Still comfortable, now moss-scented.

(This is the consolation of existence, perhaps.)

August 3rd

The symmetry of sky to ground; reflectors mirror stars on pavement without the separation or definition of a horizon. Speedometer, odometer illuminate hands, digits glowed and haloed by dashboard; deified. Momentum. The purposelessness of objects passed in darkness: signs and streets and stores, all unlit, all awaiting the movements of godly fingers.

Moments before world-lighting; the minutes prior to creation.

(This is being the sole driver on a highway at three in the morning.)

July 26th

Lacerated lip. Blood and aftershave; vampiric vanity. Outpatient-omen to avoid romance. Sliced, but sated. Warned.

(This is shaving.)

July 18th

Forsaken forest; grievous grove. Cancerous satyrs tend plastic-potted grave soil. Browned skeleton-stalk withers and cracks above a circle of spent cigarette-stumps, crumpled and charred.

(This is a dead plant used as an ashtray.)

July 17th

Nocturnal butterfly. Shunned night-floater. Ungraceful, flutters to the tainting yellow glow of a courtyard nightlight. Seduced by the poisonous luminescence that outshines the honest subtlety of stars, moon, and fireflies . Soars through nicotine thunderheads; swirls and flaps through corrupted nimbostratusses. Addiction.

(This is a moth flying through a cloud of cigarette smoke.)

July 4th

Low battery on music player. Car running on fumes. Dry heat of July, windows half-open. Driving down Route One, unable to find a song to listen to. No concern for time or distance, speed or self.

Sunlight and vacuity.

(This is finding a strange contentedness in emptiness.)