As/Is







2.28.2006


Stratum (the world as I see it...)

Black-seeded
sweet

onion;

sour bulb-

small,
pungent

layered
planet.





new at e-x-c-h-a-n-g-e-v-a-l-u-es

my interview with Shanna Compton








2.26.2006


Winter Lyre

Heavily, in forests
sound glances
off trees,

and the cry
of the lyrebird
cast from the reed bed

(knifelike)

finds its way home.

Near the lake,
cushions of weed,
perfectly voiceless

anchor the cat-tail
like wingtip to crow;

heavier still-

sky's speechless
solemnity pulls down
the snow.








2.25.2006


That Which Floats

Here
it is again, sadly
she smiled,

as if she knew
departures

were like night-birds
(so many of them)

flown away.

This time,
it was more like
dying star...

sparkles
of dust

floating.





BLACK OUT






destruction #2

minor cheats to
ancient rythms
entice

epic chants echoing
memories of
resurrection


destruction #2, ©  Dreaming in Neon 2006







Dead-vertise

Weathered light
From a million hoardings
Like old lovers
Awakens-
Streams of desire
And rivers of discontent

Green faces-
Under the hazy surfaces
Of trampled city streets
Stare at the spotless billboards
Advertising hopeless hopes
And dreamless dreams

A tortured silence
In the sterilized boardrooms
Speaks volumes-
About a globalized youth
Waiting in the wings
To rule the future
And save the (corporate) world

A total-
Subversion of the soul
To-
The coolest fad
Promoted-
By the latest ad

Associated facts
About benevolent companies
Doing good
By making profits
Bring to mind
A host of dictators
Fighting over branded® humanity&trade








2.21.2006


The Gallow

I saved the last word
for you- like the word

we never knew
until the end.

I have spoken
for so long
my teeth
remembered

what my heart
has swallowed.

All the glory
of silence
becomes a road

we did not follow.

I braid a rope
of word

to hang myself
beside you.





The Wheel

Surely now,
the leaves turn
as is their nature-

as certainly,

man to his
curtained sleep,

blackbirds
to grey steeple,

the meadow
to its cold,
dark pages.

In the fields-

the broken wheel
of a farm machine

arrests the vines
of jasmine.








2.20.2006


her mitt self

her wit self
her wheat self
her steep self
her reap self
her stilt self
her sling self
her twill self
her speak self
her peak self
her reach self
her real self
her meek self
her knit self
her spilt self
her veiled self
her small self
her tall self
her elf self
her sprained self
her lone self
her raw self
her king self
her spring self








2.19.2006


he says he notices

he says he notices his father does not read
him and his mother
chooses not to talk except
to discipline hypotheses improbable

so mornings are as cold as
evenings and achievements go
unnoticed unless he goes to work
where someone usually says something

an adult might say when anybody's child
reports earning a badge or prize
and there is room for praise in form
of backpats but his father

and his mother whisper instead about
small things things less than
an inch away from their own faces things
that will evaporate before they're true






A Love that Kills

kiss the death from my eyes
before i grope the void
i suffice in the shadow of your dream
hear my call in soundless wonder
a phantom bubble burst in exile
sprinkles the ocean
i am the grain of sand time discounts
you be the door i open into rapture
whence you kiss my breath
sweeten my dream before i sleep
and finally awakened
gasping!
the color of life
that so torments

billy jno hope








2.18.2006


Exquisite Shining

We held eachother's ghosts,
A fist of sorts. Your blue claws

tight around my quickest vein,
a dagger in my dark belly.

And the drum's chord beat
the rock in mirrored waves;

washed night from limb
like fine mist from the hills.

When you leave the bed
I understand the sea-

the quiet, deep organs
of its body, the constant pulse

of its grief against the shore;
the way it shines exquisite

in the sudden brightness
of our morning.








2.16.2006


Inferensics

joust
(my man)
then tumble free

that one may
watch you
sway

tuppence
in suspended
animus mayhaps half

winded half alert
downsized not
vulnerable

habit
of foreseeing
gravitas amends fate

four letter word
made small
via

absorption
one surmises
that irreducible facet

of maturing in
full daylight
then

viewed
externally until
contagion removes uniqueness

here comes whitening
here comes
overload

then
particles delay
congealing until ossified

evolution includes death
noticed or
ignored

one
step closer
to perfection's depth





(re)truth

two
only cups
'e' 'w' over
shadow

(print in
I) cone orange
arrow
"parking" up

live geometry spike'd
"other
every pole
bite" 'tention another

two
to one
lit cups three
saying

attention (tension)
pro whole handed
(hearts
sworn) trees

out palm building
purple
units "insistent
not" piece little








2.14.2006


Outlasting Moths

A season
of antiquity,

the marrow
of a long
thigh bone-

life

gnawed thin
by large
grey moths...

see how light
continues
to stray

through each
worm-eaten
portal

(the exact point
at which desire

enters and exits
the body)

survives
its journey

long after
roaring wings

of nocturnal
insects

have fallen
silent.





My Spirit House

I've made
arrangements
to leave you-

my body,
my satin glove,
my spirit house

whose windows
pearly white
and rust,

the creaky door
which I came in
but once before

on miniature
feet of dusk.

Emptied vase,
shriveled flower,
shades of evening's
glory- violet

garlands round
the wearied
truss of night

whose walls
arrest the
ebbing light-

now fold
below
the house's
winter garden.








2.13.2006


occasionally i visit the real world

strong monochromatic minds
perceive unidirectional
trails
contrasted by unfocused
dreamers that
spin
caleidoscopic dice and
reveal realities
looking
like full color
cross-roads called
tomorrow

Alley.  © Dreaming in Neon










2.11.2006


Enough

If we complain,
the gods will not
understand;

they made
the world
out of nothing

and called it
"Enough".

We must
do the same.





OGMA ME EYE

In open seas of composition
- by swimming twenty yards out to seer
the pre-verbal
tweet of an idea -
float on an opaque signifier

but be alert and unspeaking of what
lifts beneath you
waking the voice within

Then
consciously perch like a gentle merman
or migrating sea bird awaiting to sweep
across still shallow waters and

sit understanding
the incoming tide
divining to hear what word god
returns when the odds of hitting
aural bullseyes cease to be wrongly spoken of






slave

it is raining sweet
where my mind almost melted again
the sun has mingled too
for a marriage of sorts
we are forever saved
we are forever wounded

Billy Jno Hope








2.10.2006



take
my name
he offered her

*

day diminished then
to gray
she

*

overtoned
through depth
yet unperceived her

*

self efficacy seemed
at least
delayed

*

now
she goes
around being partial

*

maybe to dreams
because dreams
vibrate

*

today
she bought
a laminated page

*

a cheat sheet
for logic
facilitating

*

easy
credible discourse
guaranteeing an audience

*

maybe even disciples
to help
forget

*

branding
his name
indelibly against her

*

tired skin still
advocating for
him





Iris

Forgotten, the difference
between something radiant
and no place like earth-
a little secret, a brilliant bird.

I have better things to do
than die unfinished, resist
invaluable lessons of flower,
the myth of moss and elms,

the unlikely alliance of soil
and flesh, survive concealed,
light veiled between the hills-
opaque as petal

and just as beautiful,
dressed and undressed-
purple skinned and yellow.








2.09.2006


'spect

vapor
sprays absorbed
push into left

smells
home traffic
into right turns

car
horizon confirmed
'dictions building over

sun
isn't "know
you what" form

(less)
history cut/scrap
scabbed through skin

shadow
poverty (lang)
result told shake

",in
out yeah
excessive yeah, cosmic"

changing
(lation) trans
to slip fades








2.07.2006


bassoon is tumult

manufactured out of mountain maple
thereby drying is unique
passes four times the size of oboe
a perceived filled woodwind
with a cone and total length forbidding
critically important picturesqueness
drowning in a prior stodgy instrument
optimised for a temperature of 20 degrees celsius
that laments being stirred by obscure
bestowal on first draft before
being called the "whisper" key
hooded away with the math lunks
yet dabbles in agility shuffled
far from studied lowest pitch





The Purpose of Rooms

At the end of the day,
worry is not a question.

No one asks the dead-
"why?"

At the threshold
of doors,

two concerns-
leave or live.

Rooms, the purpose
of rooms, a haven-

walls, the night,
the city, my skin,

my captured soul,
my unended beginning...

I dreamt
I was born

in the hollow
of a wooden shell;

at the end
of the day,

I return there.





Sweeney Astray

Sweeney spat flakes of monologue
to an invisible foe in room 108
before he took the plunge.

A flyer of thought
who'd lick round corners like a knife wind

sweep up shined steps and
cyclone through the swinging doors
of a red brick kip called home

trailing his underbelly aura of tramp glamour
through a smell of pine fresh floor polish
lining the corridors
like yellow smoke in Eliot's Prufrock.

He'd wake to reality's nightmare
cursing in a feral wheeze or grunt
and shout about

"cunts....bastards....lazy wankers dying of cancer"

then bang the wall with his fists
to start the day dissolved in tears.

He never socialised
or idled with others

just the one time of a long chat he had with
himself in the communal area
before Oisin complained to the warden
who shut him up and
stuffed him back in the dressing room
where he worked on the final scene.

A plasterboard box he left whistling
as he stepped onstage at the shelter
deep acting
at 8 12 and 4
dressed in a drab bundle of black rags
clutching a mug

with a look to no one
and none to him.

What demonic cause sucked his life
away behind the eyes
and forced his lips to pucker gumward;
curdle twisted words in his mouth and
draw sweat onto the one shirt he ever wore
and never took off?

Years of liquid cosh and ECT
beat and drained Sweeney's blood bound scrap with life
nuked his mind
and buckled his passion on an anvil of despair

razed thought to desert where a phantom's whisp
frazzled his nut to
a brain baking recipe
the gards scraped from a pavement
and time scrubbed from the memory
of other residents the day of his exit.





Thumb Sucker

"Inhale the light..." --In Flames

"I will walk with my hands bound. I will walk with my face blood. I will walk with my shadow flag into your garden." --Pearl Jam


this is an audio post - click to play


Thumb Sucker

Word cash price
Affection's pay.
--proximity to--
A pen infatuation.

Move with assassin
Kill speed.
Hear no heart.
Chase ghost static;
Fail you.

Electric spine thumb sucker.
(Red glow slurp.)
Womb with perfect view.
Another brand fascist born.

(know this)
We had every reason to
Be beautiful
Thinking
There is no Name.
Knowing
We can't sleep at night.

--Nobius Black








2.06.2006


Origon

I am finished with rivers
and roses and light,
the one-eyed moon,
the large embrace of sky,

even, the sweet
mysteries of night,
I will not re-visit;

instead,
a small
grey stone

placed carefully
in its tiny jar
[ alone]

to remind me
of what I am
made of.






otherwise
two fine
quarto sheets stapled

twist of ivy
trestles up
brick

how
limitless one
seems to selves

in an outtake
virgins brooding
change

blue
cloth housed
in gold preserved

in a cloth
chemise very
fine





Perspective

From that place,
cold, correct
and blue,

I build
a fire,

high
as tower

and call it:
moon.








2.05.2006


tri-state

a small note for Z









 

center frequencies need 
contextual induced
readjustment


3

mapping
transitions back
  to shared domains

 
 

intoxicating dance of
locked creative
orbits
 





The Collector

"Don't fall in love again. That's a line they will feed you." -- Buckcherry

The Collector

Every man has the same size soul.
Every word here -- a piece of mine.
Something to keep.
Something to inspire.
Something to reassemble into the greater.

Oh Holy Journal--
(You hear my prayers)--
I am *Word*.
Keep it close to the heart.

In Heaven, we will read every book ever written.
With God, our potentials will be realized.
The great writer inside will have all he needs,
An author on the otherside.
That is what I believe.

I live by the pen.
Ink vein paper trails.
I collect it all--
To be it all--
Never die (not really)--
I am *Word*.
Collector.

Remember me.








2.02.2006


Untitled

for ls

and
       illuminated
   as beautiful
so if
       somehow
   awfully





Last Call for Reno Shot

"We learn what poetry is - if we ever learn - by reading it." --T S Eliot

"Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children, life is the other way round." --David Lodge


Free copies of our poetry microzine Reno Shot: A Non Creative Garbage Special are still available. It's fun and tragic like only good poetry can be.

Free copies available to distros as well as flyer exchanges.

Contact: nobius AT gmail.com.





diversifold toehold

1/
one hears the silo being still
again this afternoon
the whiniest machinery infects the yard
the man behind it steers propulsion

2/
in the matter of a second hand
the clock struts two
one syllable softer than water
fallen across crops
that foil the hunger field

3/
the seance of distinction
marks dovetail the seashore
while pale lore of a near neighbor
pronounces first person singular
repeatedly with too much vowel

4/
parsed seeming language
convicted of a pattern
reverts to old ways
when a voice comes to its aid
surfing winter with intention








2.01.2006


Breaking Away

Many times fallen
at the foot
of that same mountain;
became its root,

held there.

As incomprehensible,
moon falls from sky,
all its silver bells
jangling inside-

irreparably damaged.





'pologetic una

there
points 24
"is, this joined"
chin

under window
edge hand placed
form
entire direct

(tion) 'reflected direction
condition
determines transversally
propagation dripped glass

sleep
unrest (full)
supported context'd as
context

as directly
"unrest one, pension,
case,
it," is

for armed is
(something)
slip treble
foot hand forward





This Hour

What a strange, mysterious
thing this hour
before it wakens
or shakes off its terrible ease.

There is no burden
as the hibernating tree,
the heavy cross of sleep-

the dead wood

and morning's
hesitation...

sage-green,
shadowed.