riding the dragon [anti human poems]

we created the beast, and now we must ride it, over

oceans, winds, even to the 

moon, outer

space is fucking cold, they

tell me, though I’ve never been

but to the edge on the skin where it buckles and shivers

under a million hard points of light overhead, the wind,

seems driven less by the sun
than the friction of the flesh

against the void.

tropical hiatus

waking up to the dark (again), only to catch

a thick fog, of the tropics

full of an orange light - time mediaeval, primeval.

the pavement still hot from the day before

my daughter sleeps, as does her mother,

all hot weather funk in the sweaty sheets.

the river through the faucet is still crispy cold and chlorinated

coffee good today, the fridge gives rise to

legs that swing the creekboat down the spiral bridge smothered 

in the stench of roadkill, 

can’t see the animal, but 

it must be large, somewhere in the verge.

the river is deeyock low, rocks everywhere - the beaver's chute, dishes out one swim

and the white room going into the 50-50 zone on the island, the seam behind the DS, substantial. total immersion.

the dinosaur must be tunneling today, the sieve through the island pumps juice into the boil.

a day later, you can make the mid island move with ease, planing across the surges after getting a good glimpse of the deepness.

at the eddy’s turn, the whole river is going by, fast - the tide goes out, the cormorants dry in the sun, and the catfish slumber way down below.

something not for everyone

we are a nation of robots and we are number ONE

robots robots a nation of the robot, and we are number ONE

he sits there waving his hands, repeating himself

AUTOMATON

it is FUTURE NOW, 

AUTOMATION and CORPORATIONS took your jobs and I will take your PLOW

so I CAN PLOW your TROW

we are a nation of ROBOTS, in ORBIT and WE ARE NUMBER ONE!!!

something tells me times are strange

that which was made will be unmade, that which is unmade can be made again

but NOT THE SAME, NOT THE SAME

current existence is NOT PROOF OF PAST SUCCESS

NOT IT AINT NO IT AINT ! TO assert otherwise is to confuse GOLD with SNOT

how much less certain is the FUTURE, by those who say they know I AM NOT IMPRESSED

FOR WE ARE A NATION OF ROBOTS ROBOTS RONALD FUCKING ROBOTS aND

WE ARE NUMBER ONE!

a few weeks go by

you wake up to the sound of trucks passing overhead

the trees bending, the branches arching towards 

darkness is felt but the oceanic lifting

of the heavy sets is illuminated, stood up by the wind

you are lofted, soft, quilted even, stitched into the fabric of your seat

through this piece of dinosaurs melted down frozen and

reformed into the charging arc,

the island hasn’t moved but the violence of the water blowing

off of it is lifting you into the chunder-dome.

another morning, and the heron is sitting on the raft of garbage and strainers

suddenly plucking a fat fish out of the mess, and shaking the debris off

he swallows her whole,

before flapping off in front of us, maybe we help him hunt as our

dark shapes flush the unseen prey below.

and yet a different day, the beaver slaps at us in the darkness below the brookmont dam, and we run the strainer at the top of the gates wondering where the goddamn entrance is.

before that, three thousand blackbirds pass in an extended wing, burnt against the setting sun.

full stop. the water boils, speeds up, stops below the beltway, in the world’s largest drainage ditch, but the brilliance of the fading sun turns us into silhouettes, ghosts already, paddling into the inky blackness.

we are on the flatwater, fully gripped, hearing the dam get closer and closer, edging along the bank, subverting a beaver slide to our own purposes to get out of the flow.

running little falls at night, the one formerly known as no bolts has no drain plug, one of is blind, but with the island dark against the sodium bulbs of chain bridge, it’s the same as daylight, 12 feet at a time.

at Fletcher's the mud flats are low low, the playboats have a final splat, full circle; the river from sandy beach is played out.

dark rituals

rituals in the dark, a gasket, three.

it’s warm today

the grass isn’t frozen

and the sparrows sing.

another gray day

and maybe the rain will come

to cover up the bleached
river bones.

a cut finger, blood in the river.
Donations to appease the
electric shark, down below.

there’s much ado in the big crew

‘your helmet precedes you’

and it’s not even a raptor yet, or a

chain pickerel.

sharks in the dark, by now,

we’re all well acquainted, the 

micro pins, and silly boofs,

off the rubble left behind by

the Lord’s Beavers

(Oh where are you when we need your beavers lord?)

These little boat games

aren’t old yet

'it's bouncy today'

the tide is up

and the surf on the dark side is in

jacuzzi like, buffeting the willing, rejecting

the tentative.

the friendly eddy, and the whirlpool:

opposing currents, build, ebb, and flow.

all floweth out of the flow

from the flow we come

and to the flow

we return.

A parade of zealots

Anticipation.

Dark rituals: 
through gaskets, we are birthed.

geese in the duckweed, green

ducks in the lemna, the slave built the limnion

of stagnant rushes, and shallow mud

[kanał] a noun.

 no olympus on the water,   just 

 rocky eddy turns and  

 microsurfs, a parade of: 

 ZEALOTS 

 I will break my bread at 

 the edge of the river,  

 greeting dawn where few  have tread or swam, 

 and the eagle will break it  with me, and in this 

 breaking we will also be 

 reborn. 

 błask. the sharp red dawn   over 

 pointed river surface 

 what you see 

 may not matter compared to 

 the deeps’  stealthy teeth. 

 against great slumber and waters’ uphill return 

 I against I. 

 calm before the plunge, oceanic side surfs

 over where the light don't shine. 

 goddamn apes. munched. 

the sycamore seeds pillow  among

old blast holes, and angled stone wreckage

protecting the outfall. 

life collects

at the high water line.

in traffic, it’s all savagery, no rules nor decency

just cold blooded power plays - squinting into the sun

past the baby’s windowshade.

over the buried creek bed \

I will drink the water and 

hang me out to dry.

Deep in the Dark

awake in the dark in the last days of warmth

before the sun

the freeze is coming and the squirrels can feel it in

the breeze from the hawk’s talons close upon their back.

red lights, white lights, the neighborhood sleeps but the thirsty road keeps on drinking

down the gas 

mania underneath the serpentine cement (a drain plug down the sewer - recovered with a crowbar and a grin).

subterranean:

most of the flow, 

is beneath the surface.

If it keeps on burning, the rapid will be submerged, and according to Dave, Chuck and Fred, 

we too will be subterranean, techno-trolls in smogy caverns, claws upon our backs in the

feeding frenzy.

A kingfisher sits, white belt about her neck, daintily plucking a fish from the canal.

The land is fat, the river lazy, wide, a few pointy rocky holes here and there, on the swirl, the current is playful - fast whips into boily eddy lines, the beaver slide, juicy, ripping, bucktoothed and squirty; stay upright to avoid the river's teeth.

No mist today, barely any spray foam, no brown chunder dome off the dino’s back, just two engulfing waves on the way to the darkside, which, safely squirted, plants one solidly in the seam, and the avenging hand of the river must have heard me talking sh*t, cause now I’m upside down, fighting the two downwelling boils into the deep deep deep - the dino’s got me, claws around my neck, the paddle brace squirrelling, oh the horror, the brutes, the brutes, the horror, the deep, relax, feather, feather, relax, find the surface, still squirting down down down, the third roll, still swirling, am I even floating, boom, the catch, I’m upright like a great blue heron leaving the eddy, where I can breathe, sweet breath of life, mind voided of thought, body drained of emotion, the river lazy on the downhill, always going down down down, the surface only hints at whats below. Everybody’s excited, the ride is over, please exit the vehicle, here use this handy pile of blasted rocks and concrete.

Back on the ridge in the autumn orange it’s grey and loud with the leaf engulfing machines rolling round, hearing protection for the labor, smoke for all, the deep for none.


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