Justin Aptaker

tomorrow's a new day
when
this
night
...

the burden of all being
rests heavily on me
for i am
...

Everyone's been talking about how
the universe will either expand
indefinite cold star death
or collapse and then repeat itself
...

blessed are the fools
who call themselves fools
for others will call them wise
...

as i sit on the edge
         of the curb
     staring into Black Abyss Inevitable
         with my mind's eye
...

words
encompass experience
fragmented impulses flash
chemical endeavors establish
...

true, dissociation
is a function
of imagination
...

i have been
having
such perfectly composed nightmares
cascading like rain
...

let it always be remembered
that I used to be
one of the old street-preachers
of Athens
...

i was born
to a mother who always is
trying to destroy me
...

the angel called out to me
Recite!
But I said,
"what will I recite with these unclean lips? "
...

...

My God!
My teeth are falling out
and the hair that warms my head
...

i and i wept
by the waters of Knoxville
remembering Zion
repatriation, what a notion
...

the air i breath is corrupt
don't try to interrupt
the 12 steps
the 13th step
...

sleep,
Apollonian cortex
awaken,
sleeping voice of
...

in the deep
in the dark 
silence of Being
where all is music and radiant
...

is it my age-old blasphemies
that keep you at arm's length?
screaming for life
begging for bread
...

remember when you sat in asylum
and heard sounds from the other side
when i soothed you with that children's song
high above the lamentation
...

of the points of the pentagram
only one
may be grasped in the hand
and since it is that earth
...