THE KNOWING.

Of all the things that were created,
And the hands of clocks are turned backwards.
The guitar player plays at a pub in London,
And wildflowers bloom on the darkness and mist.
I thought we weren’t going to be here more than usual,
That things are tempted and not created-
That the fields and wildflowers are in full bloom,
And nakedness dances like urchins in the living room.
Light bounces off the fireplace. The night has come,
And shadows march across me, around me, through me-
People forget time, forget watches, forget bread,
The eating is not sinful. We are ghosts running against
Time, we are respectful, and we are dead. We are clocks
That spin around and around, and the sun melts into
Shadows. Someone sleeps in his cave, a dog barks at night,
The wind whistles like a train in a shimmering light.
My mother is awful, my father is dead-I have no home to call my
Own, only the night lingers like mistakes. The moon
Burns brightly, a lamp shakes, and bones shake like lightning.
We run away, and we run, and we keep running until guilt
Keeps us back.
No one sees me, no one knows.

The Sun Dog.

Rash Sightings was not an ordinary being. He had a consistency of being in trouble, and although he tried very hard to be normal, everyone could see that he clearly wasn’t. His overzealous need to succeed, was undefined, and other people thought he was stupid and cocky. His mere presence drove women to tears; sometimes, when they cried, their tears turned to diamonds and fell, shattering, to the ground. He collected a lot of the diamonds and sold them on the black market and bought a bicycle with the money. On the planet of Ellin, where he was born, it was always cold-the coldness was in his bones, for he was a cold-blooded creature, and his people crash-landed on the planet several millenia ago, back when the dinoplads still lived on the planet. The people were simplistic in nature, and did not have any craft except for submarines and bicycles. Most people lived in trees, for their arms were long, like spiders, and their mouths were thin. The trees were long, thin, gray, and had crooked branches, and the shadows from the trees fell upon the ground every sunset. Unlike Earth, the sun was very close to the planet, and many of the people were lazy and rude and did not want to work. They complained every single day about their jobs, and some often quit, without warning, and disappeared forever. They were enticed by adventure, and went to go on vacation in submarines and ended up dying because they didn’t bring enough provisions. They were stupid creatures, stupid and needy and relied on technology instead of their own brains. It grew so tiring, that the President of Ellin, a human being, wanted to end his life. His name was Maruc Kerin Andon, and he was fifty-three years old. He had brown eyes and brown hair and he lived in the Embassy, because human beings could not live in the domed cities with the Ellinians-it was against Ellinian law. All human beings on the planet were criminals; being human was their only crime, because that was the cheapest law they could put into practice. The building was very large, and made entirely out of gold, for they had sent satellites to distant planets and brought back different chemical components and turned them into something useful, like a television set, a car, and a broken radio. They did not understand the ways of human beings, and copied some of their ideas, but they were used in ways that did not help them progress to where they needed to be. They had sent satellites to Earth and had seen the images of human beings at work. One of the scientists built a teleportal, which allowed beings to travel from one place to the next. The President of Ellin ordered several human beings to be kidnapped, and after they arrived safely on the planet, the teleportal was destroyed, and the scientist disappeared.
Maruc’s real problem was his bald head. He wanted to have long hair, like the other Eillinians, and he had many surgeries to fix the problem and the hair always fell out. Most of the time, he spent his days at the office looking at himself in a holographic mirror that could shape his face into any way he wanted. Sometimes, he chose to have blue eyes; one time, he made his nose so big he looked like a horntensheik. He called many businesses and asked them if they had real wigs; they always called back, and shouted they didn’t. Businesses on Ellin always shouted at each other, because they thought that was how things were supposed to be. The businessmen usually only worked until lunchtime, and then they went home to be with their partners.
Maruc received a call from the smartest man in the world. His name was Ariel Chance, and he had blonde, curly hair, and pointed ears. He was two hundred years old. He said they had found a planet that was made entirely out of an ocean, and did they want to inhabit it. He replied, “No, we don’t,” for he represented all the beings on Ellinian. He was chosen by a group of beings called Elected Representatives. Maruc did not like Ariel, and thought he was a busybody-he was always calling about something or other, and it drove him crazy. He paced back and forth in his office, stroking his beard, and looked out the window. He wished he could get off the planet, but there was no way out. The man who invented the teleportal was missing. Maybe he went to another planet; maybe he was dead. Maruc decided to find out. He called his secretary, and asked her to find the information he needed, and she called back and gave him the address where the scientist lived. Maruc put the piece of paper in his pocket, took his bicycle-he got one with rockets on either end-and pedaled down the street, happy to finally have found something to do.

Rhythm.

The rhythm fades in and out to the beating of your heart.

The mustard is left on the windowsill; a robin chirps to me

as I pull in the driveway after a day of work. Nature is

constantly in a spiral. It moves in rhythm to the beating
of my heart, and the

doorway opens to let in the sun.

The sun shines like a round face.

The trees droop

precariously
in the blowing wind.

I have been sitting here for years,

leafing through a magazine,

while the night refuses to sing.

Lost.

I find myself walking down the street
where we used to hang out, at the bar on
Seventh Avenue, or the library downtown.
We used to read books. You said books
were like flowers, trapped in a fog. You said
you read them every day; you were hooked
on them like drugs. I’ve never taken drugs.
The clouds seem to hover over us like
giant airplanes that move with the wind,
being pushed by the hands of God. I had never
seen the hands of God, but I assume they
are invisible. The Earth spins around the sun;
or maybe there’s a different way I haven't
discovered yet.

I forgot what you told me late last October, during
the full moon that was bright and beautiful
and reflected your eyes. What are the color of
your eyes again? I’ve forgotten. I’ve forgotten you.
Maybe it makes you sad. I wouldn't know.