What monsters come from yellow things
who knows and why would they answer if they did?
I know only this and less, a monster is only a man
and every man a monster in the proper light.

The monsters that come from blue places,
we all know well and wish they would leaves silent
like every beaten man without hope or heart.
I know the nothing I know offers no solace for him.

When monsters comes from gray moments
without honest timekeeping, the answers are fewer still,
and I know enough not ask the monster where
his will be at the appointed time. I ask nothing at all.

what monsters come from orange things
you may know and why the answers leave us breathless,
but I will not ask you, and you will not tell me.
Please, accept my condolences — I am of course every-man
in the proper light.

i, being the father, put my contribution in
the machine and waited for the return.
years later, without video or argument
it was determined (though I didn’t push)
the problems were all mine to deal with.

She, being the mother, pushed
and pushed and pushed and though
she did wanted neither the return on that investment
nor the the responsibility for the trouble
that ensued (regardless the video proof
and lack of argument)

The priceless treasure, of course,
gave no indication of any preference
except in as much as whomever was responsible
should pay and pay and pay some more
For each troubling whimsy and desire.

The world most assuredly rides through the stars
on the back of a giant nameless turtle. Eternity
dictates every possibility and every impossibility
is so, and so it is. Without any doubt the turtle swims
and I am there, forever until I am no more, upon his back.

The little minds that think big things full of tiny sad logic
imagine a turtleless existence where the stars are only
gas burning in the void, and the world is only a mote of dust
circling forever as if forever were always — and we know
it is anything but that. You can say the truth

is complicated or simple, you can say whatever you’d like,
but the size of a mind and the size of the logic are irrelevant.
All that matters is the turtle swimming beneath us,
invisible except as a Terra pin — a place to stick the world
until everything that must happen has happened

and everything that must have been has been.  Remembered
this way, existence is neither void nor star nor mote of dust,
it is the must-iness, the orderly happenstance that percolates
into the cup of yes, overflowing to wash away the very knowing
and the destructive blizzard of certainty. Godful or Godless

the turtle swims on. I, upon his back, remembering only that
which is rife with might, knowing nothing but the wash of void
and starlight and the gravity of a situation that leaves the universe
rumpled and directionless as bodies rolls this way in that on her bed.
Alleluia, the jellyfish sing in a stinging wordless symphony and I with them
sing on and on and on and on and on and on the turtles back.

every blister is a call to arms
a magnificent war of flesh
on flesh — a body becoming
the enemy of a body and that enemy
realized is the certainty of a face
looking back in a mirror

a search in a medicine cabinet
reveals a bandaid in a white box
with red and blue writing
— friction avoided .

a heel, a finger, a burn
healing, a long walk without socks

a girl in a short neon-green skirt
jogging along the river  demanding
attention for her and her bright red hair

a search of the neighborhood
reveals a brick house and an old Camaro
with red and blue pin-striping
— contradiction avoided

looking back in the mirror
the face looking back is certainly
the enemy of the body of the enemy
— a body of flesh becoming magnificent
war, a constant call to arms of skin on skin

for all (without saying) clams
that do not clam — the inkless
squid — jetting along (the sand
without god) and never
searching,  i beg   (quietly)
you steam (the frying leaves us
less than we should be
and every clam is thusly
offended). the almighty
is salt, not water. the air
is irrelevant, but the oxygen
is still (like the water) everything
which god (and which un-god)
makes the stones harder
(or not at all hard, depending
how they strike the body) is
the mystery — believe what you will
or won’t were all decide
(or none of us do because, god
and things like god are brutish
in the begging) find a star
pick it, better than you pick
your knows and know not what
it means. light (she flies faster
than god) and dark (she waits
without feet) and the twi-might
resting on the lines “yes sure”
and “no, god NO!” heaven
is not the clam-ity or the sand
the madness of punctuation or
the poem. heaven — that is you
long-haired and forgetting
how i loved you best as i sank
alone (god i love you. god…)and
hoping sex or something like it
might be religion as i died another
little death. alleluia please

i counted 13 jellyfish
constructed from metal
with little purple lights
to symbolize life
or death or whatever is
jellyfish can’t mean
without purple lights

they did not move
they could not move
they were not alive

they were not jellyfish
they were bits of scrap metal
twisted with pliers and hammered out
to look semi-realistic

they did not float

they did not sink

they were not jellyfish
there under an octopus
which was not an octopus

there were no tentacles
only metal bent and feigning the reach
and bonelessness of something so deep
below the surface

i counted them twice, both times
there were only 13 — and on octopus
none of which were real
none of which meant anything
except, it has to mean something

it has to be relevant
it must be

where is the 14th Jellyfish
i don’t see him
or her
— until i look in the mirror

God, no, i’m not a jellyfish
that’s the only thing I know
and i start to cry

she’s wearing something
ugly — it makes her look
fat or worse (much worse)
like she should go
to a gym. i don’t tell her
anything, i just smile
and hope she doesn’t
eat anything with gluten

she says something to me
about the color and
the material — i wasn’t listening
she wasn’t fat,
and it wouldn’t matter
if she were — but that dress
was all wrong and that shade of
— sickly (ate the wrong thing)
puke, it wasn’t flattering

she left, i left
i looked in the mirror
and realized — my god
this shirt is ugly

Che looked at her, “Really?”

She nodded.

“Who are you?” Che asked.

“Jane.”

“Pleased to met you,” Che said.

Jane laughed, her round face glowing like an autumn moon.

“I’m sorry, but life is that complicated,” Che sighed, “what makes you think you know the secret? What makes you think you’re smarter than everyone else?”

Jane paused, “One doesn’t need to know the answers to know the answer is simple.”

Jane raised all 152 centimeters of herself off the bench, tucked the red leather-bound book under her left arm, “Good to meet you Che. Perhaps someday you’ll understand. Perhaps someday you’ll look in the mirror and see the miracle I see.”

Che started to respond, but nothing came out.

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if you are yawning
i am yawning too
if you are tired
i know what i’ll do

if you are sneezing
i am sneezing too
if you’re awake
I am the endless blue

if you’re alone
i am alone too
if you’re lonely
i am here for you

The smell of nothing is something
special, i suck it in through my nose
push it out through my mouth

the taste of something is nothing
important, though it sucks
when it comes in through my hose

The feel of almost anything
relevant pushes up toward my mouth
and into my brain

The sound of whatever this is
tromps my ear canal
and pulls me to get up

I sniffle, there is nothing
to smell, nothign to taste,
nothing to feel — so I feel nothing

Nothing at all.