brutal mac

difficult mac
immeasurably cheesy
incalculably hard
six punishing packets
of culinary brutality
taste the attack
taste the massacre
of your pummeled
throat
brutal mac
the time has come
it's dead fucking serious

ask for it by name
brutal mac

baked goods fiasco

and lo
sterling silver donuts
in the aging sun

laughing bowlers,
whale charnel; renters
in a house of fractions

the mild salve of
hypocrisy
both bracing for the best

nothing delicious can stay
not least of all
the sparkling donut
the currency of
dreams

solemn golem: the motion picture

Weep
Weep
Weep
Crumble
Crumble
Credits

bro sonata

Leif
What's up man
It's Chad

Dude
We were gonna
Get some
Tacos

And then maybe
Hit the club
Maybe score
Some blow

Hang on
I've got another
Call

Leif
Hit me back
Bro

the year of utterly plain and undistinguished thinking

weed out time

beige thoughts
spread thin on a
dry cracker
as ghosts of good ideas
linger in the
drywall

step up 2
the streets
only with science
not awesome
dancing

it's weed out
time
let the panic
pandemic

begin

simon tuka-waku (reprise)

His light
Filters through
The milk
Of fortitude

Dragons
On high
Playing backgammon
Laughing
Thinking
Boiling

Lead us to sea
Simon
Take our hand
Collective
Hand
Or plural
Hands
Whatever you
Feel like

The time is now
The now is here
Some can't wait
To die

Simon

Simon

special topics in calamity physics 2: dead by dawn

spooky action
at a distance

men wearing lead
drilling holes
through
spacetime

horrific nightmare creatures
at k-mart
loitering in the back
by the bicycles
and camping gear

father scolds
genius daughter
and sigma signs
fall out of the
ether

einstein looms
visage swathed in fear
yogurt bubbles
with fear
and active cultures
that also
fear

hot author politics
space beyond words
nanobots and
vinyasa flow

spooky

In Real Life

this is what happens

whimsical fun and smiling cats

Everything is great
Cats are flying around
People smile and say,
I like you
And there's a ferris wheel
For all the kids
And money and free snacks
And Jesus Christ
Shooting hoops at the YMCA
With a cadre of paralyzed children
That are now able to stand
And the air is filled with song and
Everyone is happy
Fun
Smiles

today

clocks tumble out of the dead clouds and springs impale the unlucky passers-by as dead cells crawl out of the rotting centrifuge and the sky is bright yellow and the men in the hazard suits are climbing the building with giant tentacles that grow out of their diseased faces and July is so hot that people are bursting into flakes and liquid titanium is pouring out of all your sockets, your mouth is packed with gauze and yogurt and there's a hole in the earth now coated by insurance and vinyl siding and the clocks are still ticking but it sounds like ten million crickets being lit on fire and in the night the sky is still horrible and ethanol rains down from chimneys that just hang in space like dying missiles and everyone is laughing, the children are running free in cages made out of beating hearts and a giant brain looms over everything like a sentient war penis and meanwhile the laboratory collapsed and no one got out alive but the experiment splattered everywhere and the hazard men are drying up like salted slugs and robots are coming out of my face and it all hurts and July is covering everything with disease and the sky is making a terrible noise like a musical chainsaw, and Thor descends on a golden shaft of Ebola and suddenly it's Ragnarok

killed by residence

Argonaut wraiths
Haunt the fireplace
Carving up oxygen
Spots on photos

Wallpaper peels
Where cold spot hangs
Lamps a-flicker
Sucking wound

Chemist apparition
Concatenation
Blood on the causeway
Eraser shavings

Poltergeist
Clean and friendly
Tears muscle off with
All due respect

Stairs are gum
Cannot close eyes
Wax becomes lymph
Screaming deer

Nightmare business
Teeth peeled back
Walls are fleshy
Porphyrin spray

Sidewalk opens
Sky swallows
Caked with plasma
Basement choke

Help
Help
Help
Help

WHELM

a trenchcoat hanging
in mid-air
fedora slumped to one
side

grey on grey
cardboard skin
clear mascara
shuffle

a photo of
a house before they
moved in

beige on beige
wood panels
recessed lighting
shuffle

nothing at the
bottom of the
stair
grey on grey
whelm

tiny ambulance

lord gold
i'm ill
not sick
take my hands
in a tiny ambulance
and make
everything
right

an illness here
an illness there
lord electrum
drive the
tiny ambulance
to freedom

tuck pendleton machine: zero defects

i keep a case, a bag
in the back
in case of anything

i've got robots
pouring drinks
before i finish
opening the door

i keep options open
i might be small
i might be dead

i've got soco on tap
love on hold
life in fast forward
landed a plane
in zero visibility
balls to wall
as always

i keep a pack
in the back
you never know
just in case

where's the head
in this place
anyway

human lichen

human spray
cold water
death chemistry
carbon brain
dying star
moss grave
human lichen
saline dreams

summer death/dreadful sorry

Laurels stretch the length of road
Of our apology
The sky was open, sucking skin
From all the minor trees
Blood was running thin and cold
We had to eat the young
Although charisma got us far
It cauterized our tongue
July was tough, August was hot
September seared our flesh
Marriage vows and maple syrup
Claws and wire mesh
Cult is canon, laughs were looms
The fluids run to sea
Give my regards to Clementine
But no apology

fruition

Young apprentice
Fear the dream
Taste the ride
Use your fingers
Fill the gap
Entropy

Control
Gaps are filled
Hands are working
Rides to space
Thoughts are lovely
Student becomes master

coming down with syphilis in the bering strait

Damn!

It's happened again
A case of the whatnots
Here at the edge
Of civilization

Man the forward shit
Lifeboats ahoy
Things about to get
Serious
Up in this piece

First mate
Please give my condolences
My apologies
If you will
How could this happen
Yet again

Out on the ice
It's survival of the fittest
Up on deck
It's a war
Of the worst kind

God damn
It's happening again

ballad of whale attorney

Approach the bench
Approach the ticket booth
Of a life spent suited
Constant fighting
Baleen glistening
In the recessed lighting
Clients brooding
Breach sighting
Out to lunch again
On company dimes
Excuse the handwriting
But holding the pen
Takes a little time
And it's dry and hot
And the people are winning
Approach the bench
With blowhole held high
Aquatic indicting
The time is nigh

Whale attorney
The time is nigh
Cinch up that tie
You're in the right
It's time to fly

throwing up dreams

so then we drove the chinese tank
all the way to kingdom come

so then we jumped off of thirteen buildings
one right after another

so then, brutal creatures came out of
the mist and attacked our caravan
in the middle of the hungry night
and bled all over our trousers
and scraped our faces clean

so then we threw up our dreams
and threw up our hands
and left the planet
only to return as
very, very short ghosts

so then short ghosts bought us a round
of drinks at the tuna bar
and we sipped slowly
and laughed
and bled

so then we didn't wake up at all

now press triangle

old man carruthers
at it again
out in the shed
out on the plain
carving out existence
jaw askew
dodging the scythe
needlessly

now press triangle
now press square

old man carruthers
it's time to die
motherpuncher

c-c-c-combo breaker

two giants fighting at a strip mall

there, in the ether glow
the wondrous evening smear
of the milk of the lights
just off the side of eye
twenty five

a cluster of commerce
beige bricks torched by
sun's cholesterol glare
dusty doors and toothless
smiling patrons

there, with arms swung out
two giants are smashing hands
pawing at faces with
desperate and unholy loops
of flesh

the smell of gasoline and
crushed dreams and just hanging
in there lingers on the bloody
air like a pallet stacked high with
choking failure

it isn't so much a matter of
who will win in this ghastly
battle but a question of how
in the world did two giants get
out here

i'm trying to kill you

Hands up
Stars clean
Into the barrel with you
Put down your
Welcome wagon
Your
Finger signs and
Severed smiles
Can't you see
I'm trying to kill
You

Jukebox wobbles
Bar collapses
Stars spin out
Husks fall from
Dying fluorescent
Bulbs and people
Are standing, screaming,
Walking into walls
Collapsing

Drink into spin
Spin into star
Husks into smiles
God favors those
Who smile
Who scream

Can you not see
I'm trying
Very hard