sky scraping.

how high is the passage that ends in your image
mentaphysical
we distanced planets in order to escape the thought of you
yet still
like the remains of the day collapsing inward with the sundrowning,
it comes crawling
back

hallucination
please me to no end
a lucid nation
to live in again
I'm free because of you

there's an anchor in my chest, the sea's in disarray
your flickering image has circulation
a beating heart
I bet in three more years I won't be able to remember your face
I bet
yeah, three more years
keep it coming
keep it coming
charge me with desertion, oh it's coming

this, one.

I shouldn't see stars when I stand up
only when I stand up
or lift my arms above my head, or walk to another room
stars, little light specks flickering past my vision
miniscule comets
and as I trade in my remains of the day
thieving those around me
sinking to new lows
I wonder if this is redemption for all those I have wronged
while chasing that which will surely
end me

it's been raining for months.

I found this on my old livejournal, written Sept 5th 2006 at 12:30am.  I liked its commentary on what it's like to work retail, so I figured I'd post it again here.  enjoy.


_



 you find yourself in a strange mall, in a strange town, in a state far away from your own. somehow, you are behind the counter in a retail store, fielding endless requests from an endless sea of hungry consumers. you are sick, weak, tired and hungry. they are fueled by objectives and impatience. round 241 begins.

their only goal: to get in and out as fast as possible with all of their boxes checked.

your only goal: to get through the day in one piece.

in every direction around you, a person is standing, their eyes stuck to you. they are waiting until you make eye contact with them so they can stab you with words. nevermind that you are doing 3 things at once, while helping another. nevermind that you are blowing your nose, or taking a sip of the bottled water you are running out of because you've been working 6 hours by yourself. dodge verbal bullets, dying ninja. jump when we tell you to. your beads of sweat are the points we are keeping track of. one of us will win, and will get to pillage your corpse. we will drive the wrong way on the other side of the road. we will demolish your home to make way for our convenience machines.

drive home for years.

arrive, and get assaulted by the Nonsense Entity who faults you for that which is not yours, and puts you on the list for future disposal.

Close your eyes, daytripper.
You must be the cheetah.

the night.

night comes

night comes exhaled in
casually flourishing in the expanse as if we acquiesced to its maturation
planting its flag among the corpses of our plans for the day, unaccomplished
and the cold
glacial, numbing wind searing across flesh and foliage
 air in your lungs like an icestorm
liquid nitrogen eventide

the night is isolation
abandonment and abated breath
a brilliant abattoir of allegiances meant only to separate us and conquer hearts
colonize your capillaries with Cimmerian shade
circumventing circulation

I poured out a little of my drink for her, it froze instantly as it hit the permafrost
exhaled into slow smoke, dancing in the lantern light
frustrated that something so inanimate could take on such life
such alluring life in this ruination and gloom
I miss you
god, I miss you
the way your teeth always backdrop for your smile
the way we interlock perfectly before dreams take us
the way you shuddershake when you climax

you left me

and I go unaccompanied into the night
with this drink and these thoughts
and this lantern
and this love

anamnesis.

as a general rule, I outline their bodies on my bed before we get at it
impersonation and transference
you never had a chance baby, she's taken up residence in my cells
like celestial shorelines and my decaying, elliptical orbit washing you up on the sand
you smell like saltwater and solace
my arms around you,
it feels like abated atom bombs
like we just stopped the world from ending and apocalypse is in purgatory,
The Devil is in bullet-time,
and we just wanna make love.
not monomania, just my heart and yours.
I told myself I don't have to get high to write
I just have to let myself get captivated once more
like pushing myself off a never-ending staircase
I just keep falling,
my perspective is ruined,
if only I wasn't one huge nerve ending.

I'm convinced my entire career in the arts of affection has been an extreme case of somnambulism.

a declaration.

there are
words for this
words, tumbling in my gut like clothing in a dryer
words
meant for 
best man speeches and war cries
there are words for this
what I'm feeling right now, aching core and all
meant for morale-boosting shouts between gunfire
lyrics to a song
sung passionately with entire lungfuls of air, exhumed
oh there are words for this
like every single atom of your body wants to scream them once you find them
my twisting gut, wrapping into itself 
consuming itself like a fire 
there are
words

eulogies

conversations about the meaning of life
congratulatory statements
proposals

there are words for this,
there are.

dancing on anthills.

Debaser Of the Elements, we forgive you we forgive you
corrosion and corruption impatience and disruption
every muscle fiber, every sinew and bone in your body. every sympathetic nerve reaction
aftershocks in my nameaftershocks aftershocks in my name

what drives you to make such mistakes?
in what god's name do you pray to such falsities?
fall prey to such woe?
he makes a soap box with his bare hands, just for you to stand on it and slit your wrists?

dancing on anthills
you know not what you do
who says you should be forgiven for anything?
who says?
yet we forgive you, don't we.
Us.
the choir of integrity,
the army of rectitude,
standing fast against the onslaught of that which breaks our hearts with such voracity that one can't help but feel as though there is nothing left but this moment here now, these mere seconds where we find out who is made out of concrete and who is made out of copper.

.

.
Are our secrets alive?
.
Does the pulse of their heartbeat echo inside your head, loud as recurring atom bombs?
.

deductive abhorrence.

I
taught
her
to
howl
I pressed shirts with her words and gave them out to the crowds
the message is in the eclipse
stare directly at the sun until you are as enlightened as the rest
all wearing her words
hurled worlds
use this as a panacea

the boy that sleeps in the thesaurus with a shell of a woman
the Acrobat and the Audience
amplification of clarity and focus / we sorted you out good
sleep tight! larvae to pupae to critic to cannibal
Claude Monet death-strokes
flickering images and the scent of regret
the blur of a fog so dense,
cataract smiles,
paralysis sex,
the forced quarantine of the most popular leper in the world.

your! crotch! is a! shanty-town!
and you shout brief interludes of silence
a mouth void
a caricature of a black hole on a screen, in a huge theater full of nothing but seats
your audience is seats

she
taught
me
to
pray
as I sat there, in my goddamn captain's chair, barking demands at the ocean
I wondered
what it would be like
to love Jesus

I still wear her words at night I swear I won't tell anyone but I still wear her words at night I swear I won't tell anyone and I still wear her words at night I swear I can't tell anyone but I still wear her words at night I try to take them off but I can't, I still wear her words at night promise not to tell anyone but I still wear her words at night oh god please don't tell anyone oh I still wear her words at night and I haven't told anyone but you I still wear her words at night I swear I won't tell anyone but I still wear her words at night, they bathe my dreams in direction

ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner. ruiner.

feel sick I feel sick I feel sick I feel
for what it's worth
cannibalized the last of you
remnants on my hands and on my face
but I miss you, no
bandages on my fingers
they make it hard to type
I caught you in the wilderness
stalked you
and for a while
for a while you made the earth seem to stop
for a while
you made the trees clean and my bones soft
you made silence so loud
when I held you
freckles like constellations, you were my own universe
but I did what I do and I do it well
this mess
can't be cleaned up
by anyone

get off your high horse.

Hey, all. one of the poems from this blog has been featured on the front page of Haggard & Halloo Publications today. "octopus."

check it out here: http://www.haggardandhalloo.com/2012/03/10/octopus/

Thanks for the continued interest and support.

- DJN

mis.tress

when I told you I was covered in Black Nail Polish and swimming
deep-like
struggling against wood grain and lapsing
(come coma with me!)
I wasn't lying
but amidst a valley of screams you couldn't hear anything wrong
I gave you the latitude and longitude
and you handed me back a compass covered in feces
shrugged your shoulders,
and walked off of the Earth

a trash can filled with tissues

I don't even want your shadow in my night if it's going to be that vague

truthfully, I'm just a boy who likes falling in love.