Patches Again

Anyone want one?

$5 for WISCO PRIDE

alworman@gmail.com

?

We must certainly have ideal futures

Where we capture the developing phenomena

Of our own self awareness

That cannot find a path to follow

Because normality is the expression of defeat

And it will run our sensations numb

Because we have made a compromise

With the invention of our self

You must either have nothing

Or be able to pay for all of your wanderings

To be the proud owner of physical freedom

In this world recent humans have created

If, there was never obligation

we would stare at earth

and pass the imprecise hours

absorbing the sensation of existing

Waste

We walked to the lake

To be reminded

Of what we have to rely on

If the structure of our society fails

People are so satisfied

With unnatural nature

Uniform and saturated

Shaved and malnourished

Several blocks ahead

The lake is constantly

Reflecting the sky

Purer and unclear

The rocks that have been placed

On the side of Milwaukee

Seat sculptures of finished soda cups

And the waste of a million people

You are greeted with the smell

Of the colon of Milwaukee

That is heated by the sun

So that bacteria can thrive

As well as anything

That can survive in thick poo

We must shift our waste

Or that will be me and you

Unsatisfied with open sewers

That swallow up the breathing

We head north to find beaches

But are greeted with barbed wire

Between the city bustle

There are patches of earth unpure

That remind the urban people

That their lives are strange

Being so close to one another

Walls are erected

Going against our natural instinct

To travel where we intend

We are caught in our own zoo

Unlike other animals, it is what we choose

All of the sudden

All of the sudden
There is a break in the constant dullness
That has hit us like a flood
That cannot come out of our carpets

The conversations this evening
When looked at as a whole
Form an incomplete weave
Of personal history and idealized futures

When we form a circle
We combine
And become unstable
When there are more people

They have all become silent
And one looks up from it
To see why nobody has spoken
And you make eye contact
With old friends-become-mute

They agree in silence
“I will not say a word”
Some shift
There is giggling
“come on you guys”

Some drink their drink
Light new cigarettes
Put out the old ones
Become interested in the dull scenery of life

Some are empty
And wait in the silence
Some have become self-conscious

to the worst degree
Because they have nothing to say

and neither do their friends

Someone breaks the silence
Some find themselves
In a dumb interview
Or in a museum
Because we have all become plastic dolls

There are no words that

will sustain indefinitely

If you can recognize silence
It is always fleeting
And is broken when
We become less concerned
with who we are

Been a while

In between the times that it is O.K. to die

I am unsure

I get lost and I see everything nothing

Wear white if your into that

but know that

Your glimpses of reality are the same as mine

rare, and I’m glad that I know you at all

even if we don’t talk

and we are both embarrassed.

Gym Membership as a Cure

I wasn't born a nervous man

hanging out in the bathroom mirror
rehearsing lies for grandma

but because I am there
and because I am younger

the naked CPA hangs the question
of my own personal future

if the whale inside of me
would only roll from the beach

What Time Is It

I’m in the shower and I don’t know
what time it is.

I find peace in moments of
personal hygiene.

I have a million things to do!

How's It Going

Nothing has happened for a while.
Except a couple dead leaves flew at my ankles
while I was going to buy a mop.

As of Late

The lake rising above me, the steep ground pushes me closer.

I womp when I walk.

Stride leaning, cowering, swaying. The trees, branches crack. Back curves, try to be flat. Hope not to slope as the ground does. Tide, no tide, although it tries.

No salt to satisfy. I’d rather it that way, why?

Left, flap, right.

The light leaves some shadows. The leaves leave, crack, drift, like my mind.

Where are you?

Hallows await, the gate. My gate, yours. Symmetrical, we try.

Here is where i’d like to run, now though, no. I will not, for the predictability sets in. Possibly, causable, probably, possible, I wish I did.

Sometimes I am here with you, or her, or him, who used to be IT.

Trail, then, lead me to the rocks, where my feet loose their footing, where I wobble and clank, and keep my head to the ground,

stuck in the color of the sand that once was, and now is, formed.

Seagulls squawk ahead and overhead. With jet tails from planes mistaken as their exhaust and eyes to the lake for a catch.

How do they see from up so high?

I cannot see the end, though If I were to fall in, splash, I would surely know it.

I sit where I shouldn’t, I am not scared.

Remembering what doesn't exist.

I'm on my first plane ride home.
I picture he and I in Wisconsin.
I picture us in a cranberry lake.
He is forcing my head under water
and the little tart hard red berries
are going in my water logged throat.
He's aware of it all, so clearly,
even thought he is him,
he's not himself. My head
in the cold crisp water. The berries
filling every area of surface.
They gather in a mob around the fight
and attach themselves to our
submerged waists. My head goes
under again- this is not voluntary,
the water is splashing and dead sticks
are rising to the top, above me,
as my kicking feet try to find
and push off the sodden ground.
Am I drowning or swallowing?
Cranberry bog for time and
some woman above me
is reminding my struggle
I am alone in this
red berry ridden water.
Of course I can see that I am,
I can talk and touch that I am.
But under,
I sense his hands, some hands,
I swear,
holding my shoulders down,
hands pulling hand fulls of hair
and a pressing palm
Against my skull
with one goal-
My body to fill with this tart crimson fruit. Little berries to make a basket of my lungs, and a jar of my throat.


I'm alone here, of course, with my reachy arms.
When she reminds me, and I remember, it's clear;
Despite my fear, the girlish cries and gurgles,
the suffocating confusion
all I can really make out of this location
is it's absolute sacred beauty. Never mind the rest.
Always never mind the rest.

I haven't written in a long while..

lost in age and gender

role and goal

sitting sometimes

next to the mudslide of algae

she sculpted

transcended year after year

season after season

into the island it is now

her island in the city

always too loud

lilly pads sprout up

ask where they are

so rare in this vicinity

fish circle her

sometimes

but not as much as the bark

the moon, Luna, howls near by

with a bite that put the other one down

modestly, shamefully

we will always feel guilty

a splinter, a toothpick hangs from her mouth

she looks nervous

her teeth almost grinding

she looks calm

her eyes close and feel the sun

they squint too tight

and she moves to the shade

checks the watch on her belt loop

picks with the splinter

and these soft teeth came from her

these thighs didn’t

not these legs

only this year did she begin to feel old

wishing she could move rocks like she used to

pondering the boulder from her stomach

sometimes she plays the piano

and cries

the ivory battered

striking her fingers

talking back

and i’ve listened

danced sang hummed along

one long song

the end not concrete

variations of the same story

she thinks this way

2nd Decade Retrospection

I remember my mint-condition soul,

the color of dinosaur skin

(I miss my foreskin).

Ever since sin tarnished my semigloss

complexion I've been

so sensitive.

And my sense of inner goodness

is loose.

If not for a few well-placed rainy days

and a hyper-extended guilt receptor,

I would have forgot my mother.

Lost on a cloud, lounging

nine lives from

holy or wholesome,

I intend to wash my hands of these moments

since I've been my name.

Peripheral

Marlene wasn’t concerned with any one but me.
She always preached to the back wall of the room,
switching her gaze from the windows to the tops of our heads.
But she was an excellent speaker.

And she started to solve all of our problems.

This was the fourth time Jeffery had been here,
he is very over weight
and his tiny sickly wife hasn't engaged in any form
of sexual activity with him
in over ten years.
He cries all the time.

Charlene’s daughter was murdered.
There’s something not alright in her head,
they think, sometimes I think, sometimes she does.
They are trying.
She wants to move away from her negligent husband.

Terry listens to the goals we set.
Terry gets upset when
my mental self esteem
becomes visible on the outside.

Terry has white hair, Marlene is tougher.
Marlene is a hardcore recovering alcoholic;
25 years sober.

Missy is very pretty.
When you stare at the sun and close your eyes;
you’ll see the color of her thick curly hair.
She’s heavy, on crutches (due to her amputated leg),
has two little kids, an affair, a husband in the military,
and a suicide attempt.
She’s incredibly kind.

Molly is nineteen and her mother died last August of cancer.
They were very close. She has two older sisters. She has brown hair, brown eyes and a round face. She drank too much after the death. Whenever she talks
she says “situational.” She has really bad panic attacks
that scare some of us. She’s always had them and some kind of depression, cutting and such. She’s very caring. And she’s very oblivious.

Rhonda is frail, bony, thin, toad like.
She speaks softly. She smokes.
She quit drinking,
she kicked her husband out of the house
and bought his bus ticket to California.
He’s still a drunk.
She doesn’t have any lips
and her hair is thin, short and caramel grey.

Robert has a deep, resounding african american voice.
He’s horribly depressed, but still somehow demands your
respect with his presence.
He has five children, he has been a good father,
they are grown and love him.
He has depression. He’s in a lot of pain.

And we just kind of come and go based on insurance companies.

Hoan

Strangers

Nothing gentle about it

Some assholes

Piercing the witching hour

One fatal fall below my window

I listen up once they leave

The land

Silent out to the freeway whispers

An accident may be

What I'm asking for

As I watch secrets hover

Beaming through the dark

Swelling and dropping

Off the face

Of a rearview mirror