FAWM 2024

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Revelation now
Hierophant in tow
I offer up a sacrifice
Of all the words I know
You know the truth is it only feels
Like knowledge gets revealed
Keep it secret they still think 
We’re more than animals.

I am different than I have been
You shouldn’t treat my presence lightly
There are

Beasts
Waiting for me
I clean between their teeth
We preserve a legacy
None of us will live to see
Beasts
Waiting for me
I clean between their teeth
You can feign your agency
But I dare you to move your feet.

I’ve got a 
Favored set of facts
I am stocking up
Take a few if you 
Aren't convinced enough
You know the wait was long but
I’m a patient man
I carved the days into your palm you can
Feel the grooves to keep in touch
They’re in the throng 

Did you pick this place on purpose?
Did you think that I deserve this?
There are

Beasts
Waiting for me
I clean between their teeth
We preserve a legacy
None of us will live to see
Beasts
Waiting for me
I clean between their teeth
You can feign your agency
But I dare you to move your feet.

There’s so little that we can do
So I dare you to do
Anything.

Hierophant

Paragraph after paragraph
You can speak them all
Until your breath is gone
There’s a surfeit of surfaces that you
Can write my name on
Motive lost
Fingers crossed
There’s a pit that you were
Tossed into 
You told them the truth
You think you owe them
But you were just a 
Lesser god
And you got caught

I thought I was taught
To be sinister and innocent all at once
Take what all you’ve got
To escape with and leave no remainder
Better be estranged in a stranger’s world
Than to be caught unexpected on your toes
I thought I was taught to be sinister and innocent

Bombs were tossed
In what was lost
I expected to find scraps of you
Scurrying to somewhere dark and warm
I was hoping you would learn from me
You were suffering
For the light you seek so
I told them a lie
I do not owe them my time
I wouldn’t pay a debt
To a filthy pest

I know that it’s unfair to you but
No one’s keeping score
Aging gracefully
Painterly
They don’t know they own you
They don’t know they owe you

Sinister & Innocent

I was penitent
Ignorant
Digging up through the trenches
Buying time for cheap
And wholly devouring it

I was savoring
The water squeezed
From the wood that was
Encasing me 
Pulling at shackles
Hoping they would bend
Until

I’m free (the terror never lessens)
I’m free (it’s a shame, it’s not your shame)
I’m free (once I pick your bones clean)
I’m free (everyone starts moving)
Everyone starts moving

It was violent
Unthinking force
A tragedy that has been rehearsed
There is so little to resort to
When it comes time to resort

It was shelter from the rain at first
It was the stone that keeps my innards cold
Dismembered into parts
Cartilage, hope, meat, sinew, and bone

I’m free (the terror never lessens)
I’m free (it’s a shame, it’s not your shame)
I’m free (once I pick your bones clean)
I’m free (everyone starts moving)
Everyone starts moving

Everyone Starts Moving

There’s no mantra in my chest
I exhale when I wake up
It’s only getting tighter
I’m making myself tired
I am dogged by the wind
I see it shake the treetops
It feels like dead leaves are 
curling underneath my skin

Something I don’t believe in 
is staring
I have to keep myself from checking
But I found a new way of checking

Do not cast yourself a wider net
You’ll only embarrass yourself
When your catch drags you out
Do not capture moments after
You’ll only embarrass yourself
When the past pulls you down

I’ve done everything already
The dirt is on my hands I can’t
Grasp it any tighter
The gap is getting wider
I was fooled by a creature
That wormed its way inside
Now I freeze up when I falter
I feel guilty when I hide

Something I don’t believe in
Is knocking
If you don’t recognize it’s servant
Then you are it’s servant

Do not cast yourself a wider net
You’ll only embarrass yourself
When your catch drags you out
Do not capture moments after
You’ll only embarrass yourself
When the past pulls you down

Embarrass Yourself

I hope the toll was light
You're picking at my scars
The dust occludes your face
I wonder who you are

The stage is nearly set
They're begging us to start
They'll drag us into place 
I wonder who you are

You are
The dust

My carapace is cracked
They pin us to the board
They're spreading out your wings
I wonder who you are 

A consolation prize
They're picking you apart
The fever in your eyes
I wonder who you are

I wonder who you are
The dust occludes your face
You are
The dust

Carapace

I am always reading 2 books at once
Trying to figure out If i forgot
Something written down
That was important

I forgot that special thing
That I told to you in confidence
Several things I’ve said in public
I’m expected to remember
 
 I’m important
Underlined, narrativized
Shoveled out 
Once a week or sometimes faster
In-between feels like I haven’t 
Half-life to artistic objects 
A hundred songs, a book of matches 
It doesn’t matter
Moments after when
I’m expected to remember

I am always reading 2 books at once
Sometimes the subjects blend together
I’m reading one that makes me hopeful
Which one it is
I can’t remember

I dreamed that I was on stage
And asked to name a single thing
I ever wrote and while I fumbled
I watched the audience get restless

For the most part I agree
Cause there’s a pitch to everything
There’s a hole I chuck things into but
I’m expected to do better

Knowing my way around a language 
Never quite amounts to payments
That I owe, I might be late
But I’m expected to remember

Reading 2 Books At 1nce

I’ve seen limbs like yours discarded on the highway
From scurrying burrow to burrow
They’ll rip you from your home
I’ll see you on the road
Finicky
There’s tumult in the gesture
Circulation
Pressure on the temple
I think if you were wise
You’d source a tougher hide

Fennec 
Think I could hunt you down
Root you out
Underground

A fool waits for repercussions
These tools were made for piercing the soil with
A fool waits for repercussions
The tools are in the soil
It’s best to play it cool

I was on my stomach when the water started rising so
I sunk my claws in and then started moving earth
When I struck gold it wasn’t worth
What I was told it was
Malleable
flesh gives way to physics
Statuesque 
Still frozen in beginnings
I think if i was kind
I’d live a tougher life

Fennec 
Think I could hunt you down
Root you out
Underground

A fool waits for repercussions
These tools were made for piercing the soil with
A fool waits for repercussions
The tools are in the soil
It’s best to play it cool

Fennec

Suffer
From a chorus of madrigals
Sung by a choir of black tongues
By an author who thought it was permanent
Lash out because of it
Entropy happened i’m still stuck together
Glued to the faucet i’m pouring out of
Others have held their organs in better
Plowing ahead until the wheels fall off

Oh
Swallowing neologisms
The state of humanity 
Has nothing to do with me

Stagnation
Is the name of a coffin at best
A hell at the worse
to curse into carrying
To clean and dismantle my form like a rifle
Like god or somebody like him
Purpose wrung out, distended
Determined to pack every inch in
The sun didn’t come out for this
But i rose and i did
I rose i did

Oh
Swallowing neologisms
The state of humanity 
Has nothing to do with me

Black Tongues

A deep breath
I’m plunging in
The paint before
My image sets 
They’re dogging pages
In my honor
Before I’ve even left

A nauseous twitch
I’m obvious
Attentive to my
Base instincts
I’m dodging punches
That were sent
Before the air’s displaced

How septic it was
Lingered on my tongue
I didn’t tell anyone
The lion's share of knowledge
Got stuck in my paw
I didn’t pull it out

Car stuck in the yard
Tearing up the lawn
I turned to slinging mud
To get the hours done
How septic it was
Lingered on my tongue
But please
You can’t tell anyone 

A regret
It’s come to this
How rude i’ve lost
A dinner guest
The town’s closed down
Like it always did
There’s nowhere i can rest

A cosmic shift
I’m over it
The pageantry of
Innocence
The stockade’s full
I lament before
My head is put in there


How septic it was
Tainted my blood
I hid from everyone
The lion’s share of knowledge
Is lodged in my paw
The wound is sore, could you pull it out
Car stuck in the yard
Tearing up the lawn
I turned to slinging mud
To get the damage done
How septic it was
Lingered on my tongue
It is now your duty
You can’t tell anyone

Androcles (Pt. 2)

A wall surrounding empty air
A feast there to fatten all the guards
We left our lives for recompense
A dirty coin passed down from oligarchs 
To fit the slot inside our hearts

I am getting swallowed up
I’m dredging through distasteful stuff

The skin of the bulb is off
The flesh of the fruit is soft
You can get away with harvesting
But not if you spill your gut
 A motive to spite the cause
The map to the pit is gone
Pain is just pain so i hope for your sake
The impetus will be to stop

Somehow not used to my body
I took more than I could carry
I  poked around and found something
I never felt 
There’s always something
Pushing down, a resonator plucked
Reverberate the sound 
A horn to fuck your hearing up

I am getting swallowed up
I’m dredging through distasteful stuff

The skin of the bulb is off
The flesh of the fruit is soft
You can get away with harvesting
But not if you spill your gut
 A motive to spite the cause
The map to the pit is gone
Pain is just pain so i hope for your sake
The impetus will be to stop

Stop the sacrament
Only holy for the innocent
A plague be on the rest of us
Present company excluded of course
Anatomy knows how to get the best of me
Apologies, i forgot to be anything, that’s right
I forgot to be anything

Distasteful Stuff

I became fragile today
In ways I didn’t know I needed to be worried about
My body is letting its secrets out
It comes in waves
I don’t know when each one will hit
Or when I’ll go under with it
The waiting is worse than holding my breath

Fixate
On relief
The ritual
Is complete 

I hid too long
I never thought that it would get done
I saw the distance in the storm
I knew it would rain but I
Never did anything wrong did I?
My ideas
I found some paper to put them in
I’m getting over this 
Indelible twinge
Drifting out to sea
Must feel excellent 

I broke open today
In ways that I didn’t know to be careful about
My ribcage is letting my spirit out
 Once considered
A master of my whole domain
I slump to the side in order to stabilize
I favor convenience now

 Restate
Aphorisms
 Meticulous
Vision
 
I put it off
I thought eventually the work was done
I saw the atoms at the source
I knew they’d decay but
I never did anything wrong did I
My ideas
You should proceed with caution from here
I’m getting over this
Indelible twinge
Drifting out to sea
Must feel excellent

I don’t ever wanna feel bad again

I Never Did Anything Wrong

Identity is only a worry if
You need to know who i am
I’ve gone to such great lengths
To render that irrelevant
Elsewhere I’m famous for my wit
I’m sure I’ll bury you in it
Coax you right out of your skin
Begin to laminate
The superficial parts of you
I’ll gladly iron out

In time
Illusory as it is
I will clench you in my fist
And I’ll be praised for it
In time
Not so easy to dismiss
I will rise above the din
While I push you into it

You will be grateful 

The noxious cloud that hovers overhead
Will only bother you if you bother it
It’s just as scared of you
As you are intelligent so
Elsewhere I’m famous for my wit
But here and now I’ll bury it
Keep walking straight, ignore the rain
Begin to laminate

The fragile precious parts of you
You can’t afford to drown

In time
Illusory as it is
I will clench you in my fist
And I’ll be proud of it
In time
Not so easy to dismiss
I will rise above the din
While I push you into it

You will be grateful 

I once had
A hatred
That turned to a fever
I won’t be
The one who
Is burning

Cause now that
You’re grateful
There’s no need
To spit and rave
And tear apart our flesh
We’ll always who’s next

Take a number get in line
You can’t afford to wait

In time
Illusory as it is
I will clench you in my fist
And then I’ll wash my hands of it
In time
Not so easy to dismiss
I will rise above the din
While I rub your nose in it

You will be grateful

Laminate

I caught
An absentminded gesture
I’m hauling up the net
This will be the fattest winter yet
I thought
That i was being sly
Now I know that you could see me
From the corner of your eye

But we can never judge ourselves
Can we?

That ghost
Give it up
What are you 
Some kind of animal?
They sewed these wings into your spine
They won’t hold up
Why won’t you learn?
Why won’t I?

Docile
An open invitation
To crumple and discard
Your  newly minted parts
Tactile
Feeling in the dark
It’s such a simple pleasure
Knowing where you are

And you can feel my eyes on you
Can’t you?

That ghost
Give it up
What are you 
Some kind of animal?
They sewed these wings into your spine
They won’t hold up
Why won’t you learn?
Why won’t I?


It’s such a brutish thing
If it were up to me
you’d never suffer visceral indignity
Floating upside down
Dredge the ocean if you want
See if anything willing to get caught

But we can’t salvage everything
Can we?

Floating Upside Down

It’s new
The pieces I detached to bring to you
And I may slouch as I get used
To moving in this way
I tried
To separate the muscle from the hide
And what is left, my very best
Impression of my life

I’m going to lie down

My life
Bundled up in parts and auctioned off
And trying to be grateful for the price
You think I’m worth
For now
The walls around my heart are coming down
Exposing the bare wires that spark
To cough the ideas out

I’m going to lie down

A month
I tried to live deliberately and failed
Frustrated, I continued to persist
The person that I was
Take note
The well is dry, I hope I filled you up
And what you got was nourishing enough
I’ll still be around, but

I’m going to lie down

I'm Going To Lie Down

A deep breath
I’m plunging in
The paint before
My image sets
They’re dogging pages
In my honor
Before I’ve even left

A nauseous twitch
I’m obvious
Attentive to my
Base instincts
I’m dodging punches
That were sent
Before the air’s displaced

How septic it was
Lingered on my tongue
I didn’t tell anyone
The lion's share of knowledge
Got stuck in my paw
I didn’t pull it out

Car stuck in the yard
Tearing up the lawn
I turned to slinging mud
To get the hours done
How septic it was
Lingered on my tongue
But please
You can’t tell anyone

A regret
It’s come to this
How rude i’ve lost
A dinner guest
The town’s closed down
Like it always did
There’s nowhere i can rest

A cosmic shift
I’m over it
The pageantry of
Innocence
The stockade’s full
I lament before
My head is put in there

How septic it was
Tainted my blood
I hid from everyone
The lion’s share of knowledge
Is lodged in my paw
The wound is sore, could you pull it out
Car stuck in the yard
Tearing up the lawn
I turned to slinging mud
To get the damage done
How septic it was
Lingered on my tongue
But please 
You can’t tell anyone

FAWM 2024

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