The Dryer at the Laundromat

My mind and memory are already decaying
as I race against the clock
to make my mark upon this dreary world;
to leave it more beautiful.

Credence rises to the diced dichotomy of empty words;
gathering meanings where none were implied.

I know I write too much; and so...
I'd like to lean my face on the dryer
at the laundromat by the motel on Main,
and absorb the warmth and watch the clothes spinning.

Reds.

Blues.

Greens.

Blacks & Whites.


[22:19|28.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Auspicious Hands

Have you seen my hands?
they're a little auspicious;
my mouth just can't create
what they pluck and push and pull.

I've lost them, you see;
I can't recall where I placed them.
I suspect also they might have fallen off
and ran away.




[21:24|28.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Sol in a Vanilla Sky

Slowly deprived of sight,
(Sol in a vanilla sky);
death coupled with fatigue,
and I fell to the sleep of the endless dream:

In an enduring expanse of constellations
flames licked my Achilles' heel
and I saw into futures unknown;
futures never meant to be,
for their breaking of the rules of reality.

So cold and creamy was the atmosphere...
the taste sublime;
the light, crisp and white;
tranquility in truth of all the dream's animation.

How I longed to stay in these worlds,
but their peace is unstable;
so quickly to nightmares they turn
at the slightest tip of the balance;
a world with no limits is corrupted too easily.

We all breathe air,
We all die eventually,
Though perhaps blind to the light of the sun,
one still feels its burn.



[20:58|28.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Fifteen

There are many words
along with their combinations;
but for now I'm satisfied
with fifteen.



[22:02|27.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Cornucopia of Misery

1.
The dark and the stink;
a fermentation of fantasy,
a cornucopia of misery.

2.
Frustrated toasters still in the box;
never been plugged in,
just waiting to burn that bread;
as if they were waiting for ships from the West.

3.
The clock on the wall continues to click
in its internal congregation of mechanisms;
A gyration of its monopoly on time.
Continue to charge me with your touch,
and I will count the seconds precisely until the end.

4.
Reading by the lamp;
focused on fiction;
a thought passes through the mind
and changes my intrinsic nature.



[21:50|27.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Verbal Ornamentation

Suffering
from an inferiority complex,
I gouge my name into everything
I think is mine;
and frame
every stain
as a painted work of art.

These fingers
won't strike the lettered buttons
into alphabetical structure
within the grandiosity of my broken imagination.
I speak so easily without conviction.
My left eye is selfless,
my right covetous to a flaw.

It's a chemical reaction;
when you catch my face in a crowd,
and I return the stare
for a brief moment;
as you seem to finally perceive
my verbal ornamentation;
in all its narcissistic display.



[21:05|27.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Palace of the King

It was in the palace of King David that I first knew real fear.
The forced smoking of the meth was taking me apart;
thought by thought;
memory reconfigured.

I saw his face today;
that demon and his sorceress.
I remembered the curse;
the schizophrenic decompilation.

Burning itching eyes;
control lost over the voice,
and the poison it spewed;
destruction at every angle.

Bones clanking in a xylophone's melody.

The fire!  Fire.

Fire.




[20:37|27.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Bare Hands in the Shale

Dreams in thaumaturgic tidal waves undulating
in the overflow of knitted kinetic pushing
against a hollow heart beat.
Tick. Tick.

I am here for my destruction
I am unbecome in my decision

Cut away the rot;
only for it to re-emerge.
Ruined rhinestone finger-tips,
The massacre of nerve-endings.

There was no cents in this.
By penny, by dime, by quarter, et cetera and so forth.
All are damned in monthly payments,
until the undamning
rising event horizon.

(For now I'll even burrow into the gray ground
for this crude cognizance.)
hemmorhaging money from the tips of chitin;
half-blood stains in prints;

Bare hands in the shale.



[22:41|26.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Broken Saxophones

I want to live on streets
cluttered with bits of broken saxophones;
And where everyone is Shorter and I.

Suck on keys like Life-Savers
Spit out brass like sunflower seeds

Venture a kick or two.



[21:59|26.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

I Never Tired of Your Voice

I never tired of your voice.
Your smile came so easily.

Singing and picking guitar,
piecing the puzzle of language together,
conquering waning tides of emotion.

We wandered far on the road,
my first time alone with you;
A part of me still lives in that memory.

(You were instrumental in my insanity;
Essential in its undoing.)

(I remembered you today.)



[21:37|26.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

I Flew by as a Butterfly

I flew by as a butterfly,
and I have mistaken you for a beautiful flower.
Enamored with the scent so sweet,
and for the time being I am your admirer;

But time passes, and love moves on.
Festering feelings in ancient song;

First I shall forget your voice,
Second I should forget your name,
Third I will forget your face...

Your memory forever maimed.



[21:21|26.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

A Ghost Named Charlie

Once there was a ghost and his name was Charlie.
Not once in his life did he ever shoot anything up,
but he still had track-marks on his arm.
He often wandered bleak halls of asylums,
both in life and death.

He had a tourette's compulsion for a while;
he'd say, "Touch? Touch *metal*?"
and then go for the nearest brass outlet;
this was influenced by 'Drunk History' by Derek Waters;
about Benjamin Franklin's bastard son.

Before he passed on he wrote many stupid things,
filled with pretentious rhetoric.


[17:50|21.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Why Be Me?

Why be me?
Be you instead;
much more unique junk inside your head

junk that might just get me some decent wads of cash
dark memories that might numb my feelings
despair that would cool fiery Hell

All this I could sell

like crack

a never-ending supply of tackling tension



[16:41|21.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

One Thing's for Certain

I go to weddings for the chocolate eclairs,
for the cream-puffs,
for the cake.

Om-nom-nom.

Happy Honeymoon and thanks for the free food!
Hope you do this again sometime!


[22:18|20.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

A Fondit Fund

My heart
is beating too fast,
due to
the memories of the vivid past;
(and consumption of a fool's dose of Excedrin... dumb;)

and the rupture of a loaded gun,
to the grace of a fondit fund;

Now look away from my manger
as I eat the gum of your toes;
only to test the flange of your sumptuous fatty folds.


[21:42|20.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

I Currency in Water

I currency in water
I flotsam in a can
I captain jetsam
and all is "all in a hand"

Flightless wings stretch to the sun
the chamber is checked and ready the gun

I floating on a Tao'd stool
I powder in a drain
I exception in direction
I bothered in the rain

(Kill.Kill.Kill.)
{thou shalt not}




[21:10|20.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Infinity's Glitches

Heaps of brittle bones,
skulls filled with potent orange juice and pungent thoughts.
Though architecturally sound and mathematically correct,
the remainder of our days could be less than one,
more than zero,
or equal to everything.

A stranger to the self,
one could wonder why everything is exceptionally extravagant,
if draped in purples and punctured by shooting stars.

Chipping the obsidian,
an arrow pierces the dying gasps,
and cuts through a spatial accession of infinity's glitches.

"Run-on" you'd say...
and so I ran.


[20:45|20.12.2011]

Slow for a Field

Slow for a field,


take five of an unfixated stare.
I bean the bat
for a ballroom dressed fireball of a spiritual vexation.
What burns after that is left for the smell of the sting.  


Isn't it the question before the change,
or isn't it the change before the final rest in the restroom?


Did she know she'd expire?
The drink and pills taking effect,
no way to stop the ultimate transformation.


Careless
breaths
lowering
in
number...


T-minus the sum of leftover breathing moments.
Cardless structure inside the belly of the leviathan;
reading tarot for the accumulation of meaningless events.  
Sequential spikes in the climate give no further futures.  


Time freeze all tiny tines.
Ethereal addition of sapling sine.










[20:15|20.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Ruin Ruin Ruin

Snapping out of the dream

Back to the boring things

a virtual world never again to be seen

ventures to be soon forgotten

feelings to be shrugged off shoulders

love learned to be truly empty

I can't face what's expected of me.

I'm something not quite human any longer.

I've been ruined too many times.

Ruin.

Ruin.

Ruin.

Wait out Withdrawal.

Drown the Downtime.

Meander through Madness.

They always held their grudge,

as slowly all was lost to the past;

the Cheshire Smile fading...

...never to be seen again.

[22:01|18.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Violence of Decision

Melting glass eyes,

cut off in cut-offs.

So far away from the drink;

not a drop in years,

yet never ever sober;

Addicted to the adrenalin;

the violence of decision.

[21:49|18.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Boxcar Transients

Remember the boxcar transients.

Remember the sagging bags

under those tired, yet keen, eyes.

Fill up your broken eyesight

with the glass shards

piercing every frame of their lives.

Pain too great to ignore,

No room to misinterpret,

No chance to misunderstand,

Silent festering boils in the mind.

Free bird fly,

Mocking you and I,

and they in perfect magnification.

[21:07|18.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Titan Unite Us

I boil the petals without cause;

filter their timorous thoughts,

cool their mountainous regrets,

pour their deadly dreams.

In the final gesture,

the taste is sublime.

Tart and sweet;

able to stain the unready soul.

A deep crimson to the eyes;

an ancient red-violet hue for the tongue,

the perfect perfume for memory,

a virtuous crime to the senses.

Let rain every thinking thing;

Aged and worn as filled with cankering rust.

Titan unite us.

Drink to us to dust.

[20:50|18.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Flea Powder

He just can't give it up.

it's like being tiny iron filings

coming too close to an industrial magnet.

He obsesses with the flea powder;

it helps to overcome the numbness.

He won't work without it.

The block is too hard to climb over

unless his mind is doped.

Bombed he writes moving prose,

vignettes,

vignettes about the social interaction

of his furniture,

about the journey of a small particle of dust

as it floats in the sunlight.

If he were to focus on a single spot on the wall;

I'm sure it would melt and morph

into the most beautiful mural.

It's always like this.

[21:54|15.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Greened Death

Spiderwebs mingle with the strands of her hair.

Tiny arachnids hang from her ears like jewelry.

She lives behind the curtain,

Ironing her spinning robes.

She sells it;

the stuff that defines her;

striking together thoughts that don't mix well;

the substance that poisons unsuspecting poets;

Greened Death.

I need a corner to cry in;

for I know there's no way to reach her mind;

being altered, it is a stranger unto itself.

[21:26|15.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Collisions of Lingua

I could never fully understand your

poetic-complexities; The whispered

words and worlds you put together.

They being haphazardly made from

accidental collisions of lingua;

broken-glassed lanterns and

fingernail clippings, petroleum

jelly and gooey gum-drops, melted

plastic cups and barking wood-chips

I wonder then, if I will ever hear

from you again; The stained cups of

our eyes filling with images

corkscrewed into the very jelly;

'Plop-pop' and removing the

vitreous humor with needle teeth

and syringe-like tongues, sucking

in the haunted reversed images.

I continue now to paint with the

language I still struggle to learn

and retain. Crumbling rumbling

ruins of the forgotten dynasties of

the sky, wrathful in their

thundering.

[20:46|15.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Self-Portrait

Several Simulation

Subtle Stimulation

A self-portrait;

He was a wreck of a man;

even without his narcotic.

Damaged in unseen ways,

bad luck followed him

like pollen sticks to bees' bodies;

Yet now something else inhabits him.

[20:49|13.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Nothing Great

Share a cup of air with me,

frame my picture in the walls of your mind.

Have mercy for my weakness,

for in your sight I am nothing great.

People bury the remains of my memory

in partitions between patients;

my neck is broken and I cannot move;

I can't feel the toes that once touched your floor.

Touch the cold metal with my finger,

Pen my meltdown as you see fit,

Disturb the settled silt in my head,

Carve your name into my unready eye.

[20:31|13.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Calloused

California;

destination for a while.

California;

destination for our style.

And I heard it hurt,

when the calloused fingers struck her face;

the reason she ran;

to escape his blood-drunk temper;

to break the suffocating mold;

to find a reason to smile;

[20:15|13.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Compact the Traction

Lying Lion,

Leo Lean On;

I feel a cutting sensation

In the strings of my vibration;

Let fall every drop of doomed drink;

I've got a coupon for a longing sigh.

I've got a notice for a heartfelt eviction.

I've got a tag for narcotic insulation.

Be my December Queen,

Melting as fast as it's seen;

I angel this snow for you,

I compact the traction between...

A brittle cup and a burdened exhale.

[19:38|13.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Tweaked Logic

Stickler for the Stickman,

strike in sevens times three,

taking toking taffies in tea parties...

pastry for your pride.

Slanting the ante in aftermath,

the hum of the refridgerator refracts reason,

teetering on trifling treason,

meaty in discussions of deciduous psychosis.

Please plant my pain in your exquisite eyes.

My axis of internal organs accepts dull delusion,

as it comes

in the jumps of tweaked logic...

abrasive to the strings of subjective perspective;

And here I object!

With expectations that there are no repercussions.

[18:10|12.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Sticks of Stone

Sticks of stone,

skin of bone,

A fiery upheaval of ancient slag...

the rage of a drunken man.

Clips on the floor, hair so precisely trimmed,

A garage full of boxed antiquities;

Flipper-tipper fluctuation;

Crackled crispy crunches;

Catch fire and burn;

burn the paint out of the darkest places of your soul.

Lift up the lonely lad, won't you?

Hyper-sentience is lonely.

[23:36|11.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Isolinear Generation

Infallible in every integral way

The heart continues to strike the chest away

A lost confusion burns down eyes that wept

Burdens weighing down the backs of them who slept

They lift then,

lifting and lifting higher to celestial bodies.

The dream is created as I walk within it.

People popping into being,

Landscapes in isolinear generation,

Structures forever on endless hills.

The narrow path travels onward,

The scheme to stay is given up...

"Open your eyes, and return to Reality."

[22:32|11.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Tangential Pockets

Fortune smiling fondly on the face of a

dreamer; traveling through time by

perfectly recalling the events of the

past.

What are memories, but tangential

pockets of living intelligence?

The past never dies, and never truly is

past.

Reality is in the eye of the beholder,

yet people are the absolute certainty.

We exist within each other.

Tied with cosmic thread, humanity is the

ultimate manifestation of truth.

[21:27|11.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Warbling Ominously

Cruel wicked wielders of hateful hyperbole,

trembling trenchant with tyrannical torture,

warbling ominously;

These are the malicious money-changers,

willing to sell you to the betrayer...

Killing the hearts of innocents

for the sake of a cheap laugh.

Keeping their audience with fear in the disguise of something 'funny.'

[21:02|11.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Hands Glued to the Keyboard

Computers,

Networks,

Herbert was right in a way,

We already are so very dependant upon them.

However I still love mine, and couldn't get along without it.

I can feel my hands glued to the keyboard, my eyes to the flat screen;

1984, the year after my birth, all again in prescient establishment.

This is the fullness of times.

[20:26|08.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

A Dead Soul

The sadness mixed into the drinking

glass slightly dulls the pain of existence.

Masterful strokes in the painting of thoughts

begin to form a picture that could freeze the

heart in its beating.

Rejected, Rejectee, my core is unable

to comprehend my feelings anymore; and so I

listen to voices rising from the dust, giving

me the truth; yet for this knowledge I still

burn with the pain of a dead soul.

But I don't want to die. Ever.

Here is the end of the world, I had a feeling I

would see it.

[20:04|08.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Mediocrity's Dull Symphony

A mental music miser,

unsatisfied with note-ridden sanity;

irritated at too many architectural buffers;

willing to blaspheme to escape mediocrity's dull symphony;

Compared to the dry ice, the blistering inferno seems nice.

No bones for bread, he eats crumbling cake;

In the middle of the night he bakes blood in cups.

Jazz-stepping to the broken beat of bongo skulls,

a retreat into ritualistic rancor...

Singing in a rankling tenor with the venom of the viper;

An apple to the throat, tango for two.

[19:39|08.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Shades of Revenants

Harder to quit every time of use;

Lessening capability to refuse;

Ugly temptation with promises of multifaceted ecstasy,

only to break into contemplation of agonizing pain...

The fingers know the movements without thinking;

The warning light only appears too late,

'This vessel is under siege!'

Spoken after the hull is breached...

Descending into despair;

Downcast into dreadful guilt;

Surrounded by the shades of revenants;

Submerged in the abyssal pool of filth;

Send down Lazarus to quench my burning thirst!

[16:48|08.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

She Lets Die The Music

An echoing coffin

of well-embalmed instrumental strain;

buzzing bereavement

for sound never soon home,

nay, never remembered more;

She strikes and smooths her touch upon strings;

she lets die the music.

[23:44|06.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Bar Bar Bar

Feeling for a future,

that never quite may be;

Fighting for a failure,

that haunts nightly dreams

Interred indeed for flat-lined musical unbeats;

Fastening belts to seats,

blackening souls to pans,

disintegrating distant lands,

Hungering after usury

Ravenous for labor

Avaricious for the flesh not one's own

Bar Bar Bar

You win.

[23:02|06.12.011]

Chitin Carcasses

The block,

The chip on the shoulder,

The crack in the attitude,

The death by the water;

Nouns and prepositions and nouns;

chitin carcasses;

countless for the character of dead precision,

to flake out as I flake off fears;

in this lonely windowsill...

Purple poesy,

the color for the bruise of affections,

so much in so little time;

make you this connection here,

tie it there and in yonder years;

I ride on low tide.

[22:27|06.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Nightly Nostalgia

Enduring nightly nostalgia;

effervescent thoughts climb high in awareness

and are caught in a precarious position;

teetering on the edge of being totally forgotten,

or forever remembered...

or remembered as the failure to forget;

the paper must always be there;

to scratch in the marriages of words;

How else could they tax language so fairly?

[24:19|06.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Iron-smelling Vitality

I hear the echo of the scream;

how I wish this wasn't real,

how I wish this was a dream.

Painting the foliage, as I pass,

with iron-smelling vitality.

::clicking tips of tongues::

* * *

How was your holiday?

It was alone.

It tears my soul that I hurt you so badly.

[23:54|05.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Drifting Through Faces

Bludgeoning box-car brows in beatitude,

Hammering hostile hearts to gravely ground,

A sound,

A sound I hear...

The lives within are clamoring for attention;

But I am lost in the narcotic,

drifting through faces;

no voice will overpower me.

Begone. Begone you bobble-headed wraiths.

I slam I shut I speak I spell I scream I soft I silence.

[23:36|05.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

The Clouds Travel On

The sand thirsts after which it will never receive.

The clouds travel on;

never pausing,

mocking the dryness of the land of bitter heat.

I have walked for days and days,

finding nothing,

no memory of how I came to be on these dunes.

The horizon does not change,

no matter what choice I take in direction;

this is the endless limbo;

the bridge between worlds

I do not notice my chapped and bleeding lips;

I do not notice the stickiness of my dry mouth;

Nor the burns upon the soles of my feet

All this for the obsession,

The mind singling out the nature of the universe;

To ever gaze upon the sands of time;

To wander inside the hourglass;

"We go forward... And we go back."

[22:00|04.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Red Streaks of Light

The reverberation of the reaction split

atoms and apples alike.

Red streaks of light.

Green go's and yellow slow-me-down pills.

A chance to be far more inspiring;

An opportunity to burn down blistering

barriers...

Feeling the music with my muscles,

sensing the shape of the notes,

ticks and twitches and tremors;

A movement, a division, a redemption;

We all feel for what we lack;

A prayer for humility.

[21:26|04.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Replete Depth

I've suffered at the hand of

insanity; yet somehow I escaped...

my life is meager, I know, however

considering the replete depth

of the schizophrenia, I am

finally waking out of the coma.

[23:23|02.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

World's End

The mental walls to the outside

world grow thicker with age.

Expression is limited to the

cauterized emotion-centers in the

brain.

These hands though, I know they

have the power to write the soul into

the machine. This voice I know

could sing the world's end. I am

barely there in some instances of

the day. Oh to see it all; all of

the unfading undying creation,

and to comprehend it.

[23:08|02.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Another Day Lost

Pain at the sound of the rain

another day lost

quiet contemplation on the train-ride home

combing the memories that survive degeneration

Is it possible for one sentence to change the world?

Tasked with distraction

Paralyzed by inaction

Immune to satisfaction

Push the paradox;

create yourself anew.

[22:14|02.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Hiccups, Hyacinth, Herbicide

Hiccups, hyacinth, herbicide

drowned dictation in double tempo

tried in chips on the glass, sandy ice

the expanse of your super-size

barely-can-walk in your diced isochronal drama

Spinal licks your sass...

Tongues locked up in cursory curses

Nostrils taking offense in affective association

'I can't remember'

The most common denominator in my dead answers.

Xenophobic indeed.

[15:08|02.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

Tiny Gossamer Wing

Fly trip-trap flap

tiny gossamer wing

made of caring tin

fleas dwarfed by flagellate

frowning outward, drifting in

hats, drum, window-well...

rising from the shrubbery.

I miss those monsters I called my friends.

I glue and they were rubbery.

[22:23|01.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter

All Words Spoken

Sleep.

The shaded night's time-tribute,

in exchange for unearthly experience;

dreams conquering impossibilities...

Someday this calculating mind shall see all things,

as they are,

as they have been,

and as they will be.

For now I remain numb;

blissfully unfeeling;

yet in my flesh I will encompass all words spoken,

and my works and speaking will never end.

Such is the gift to all who would seize it.

Cherish humanity.

[22:12|01.12.011] ©c.thomas.carter