some days, it's like we're crashing in down in jet planes looking out our windows as the engines smoke and flame when they sift through the wreckage smelling metal, hair, and meat will you remind me how to get clean and wear a heart on my sleeve? we can live together or you can die alone yeah, where we go tomorrow gaia only knows all i know for sure, i'm going down with you will you burn out with me? remember when you were just a kid you held balloons on a string and your little voice would sing sweet songs in the spring? but the world became a fucked up place when you turned 17 the shepherds fell asleep as the wolves licked their teeth... funny thing about in-jokes is they ain't funny when you ain't in on them but he was a captive audience, she was starving for attention if it was all just a joke, then i was the last one to know in a punch clock line with bald white knuckles

i'm getting cynical, ugly and old so tell me something i don't know now you can bleed or give up control or you can follow all your heroes who sold their soul for dope we're brought into this world before we learn to speak taken just as quick before we can even blink in the end there's no time to pretend in the end all you need is one real friend so you better learn to get over yourself quick and you better quit being so selfish because in the end, we all sleep with the fish you can lie and steal and cheat as long as the sheep keep counting sheep you may be the queen of the stage or the king of the street but tonight when you sleep, you're a no one just like me because less than dust is what we are dust to dust is just what we are

we're gonna stay up until we wake up til we bleed dreams from our eyes this ship is going down so turn the music up fucking loud cus changing chairs now won't turn water into wine this is a stick up so put your hands up this is a stick up so raise your fucking hands up in the air if our time has run out then shake your bones out until we bleed brains from our eyes cus it's our party and we'll cry if we want to die if want to die if we want to you would cry too if it happened to you

last night i had a wallet full of dollar bills but i burnt em all on pills n thrills n chills until i saw you shine right through closed eyes cut you up and kept the pieces in my pocket you caught me in your locket and locked it and i saw you shine right through closed eyes i lost my shit, lost my shirt in the dirt somewhere along the way now i'm sitting on the street, trying not to think trying to drink your face away don't ask don't tell and know your place or so some say but i'd rather be gay than let them set me straight when i see you shine right through closed eyes

slam a shot doll us up go for broke til we're smoked alright hope you don't mind but i could really use a ride got something stuck down in my throat so cut the rope before i choke whoauhohohuhohuhoh there's no reason to be sad honey we don't need money to be stupid and horny you don't need to apologize don't wanna pick a fight cus choosing side's a waste of time you don't care that i smoke you don't care that i'm always broke now i know i'm not the only one who thinks it's all a joke she who laughs last lights the match so stand back and watch it go

saw your face burning like a flame painted across a dashboard mountain range and winged effigies of ruin and decay now it's our time in the sun so put the guns away the hounds and hordes of hell were trailing right behind as a silver moon rose high above the pines through dead cities full of dying neon signs you can run but you can't hide from the monsters inside your own mind cities will rust and forests turn to dust one hand on the wheel and a bottle full of stuff got one eye open, one eye open to the end of the road or bust white line fever keeping me awake uncoiling interstates like rattlesnakes feeling so tired now, i can't see straight i think my brain's about to break

feathered fingers grow beneath pillows respond to me in esp, i'm sorry i'm so cold doesn't matter where you are i'll get to you a million miles away spraypaint your name across space til i see your face again dry your pretty eyes dear, don't you know we're sticking to the plan no one said this would be easy but i'm trying in all the ways i can

When you question the basics There's only one conclusion That we're all separate parts Of the exact same illusion (Jerad Hannum) Sometimes when she sleeps I trace an outline of an angel wing Onto her back so when she forgets What she means, we can sew On feathers from this city's streets (Nic Alea) How many lifeless bodies will we cradle? How many tears choke back? Before we are women? (Dusty Rose) desire is a silent twist you're in joplin missouri the structure unfurls like a broken newspaper stand the man who once held it lost everything (Sam Sax) I was seduced I was seduced Handed what I knew They said, "thank you for your silence, but now it's time to go." I was saved i was saved By my own memory I'm anti-sentimental, accidental, it's simple I forgot what's most essential (Marika Maypop) Alone on this lake We drink the spirit of time Becoming complete (Jason Whitacre) Empires crumble Like the crumbs from the Cookie Monster's mouth Poor little puppy Didn't know how sick he was Chasing his own tail Til he found found the scent Of his doghouse again (Charlie Getter) I bounce back High into the air As if I'm soaring But not without Pushing off the particles That dare to stand In my way (Lindsay Bernard) From this point forward My heart is not yours My organs deserve better Than to be your awards (Alex Black) Sweet sounds of industrial Waste echo off my pink laced Satin door opened and closed By those who scream Nevermore! (Toph Baby) Roll away the stone of your security And resurrect the poetry It's coming at you every minute Death is dumb, there's nothing in it Lots of books are dead on arrival We depend for our survival On the spoken word You vocalize It turns into a bird (Steven Gray) Poetry is dead:  consume its corpse. Rhythm and beats a dead horse. Concrete, pissed in 16th Mission streets take back the streets take back the streets by force! Don't postpone it own it this moment decode it like morse. Accessible, resurrectable, scream 'til the throat's hoarse and coarse of course the inevitable emerges those urges to squish spiders, to pull gum from beneath the seat in front of you and chew it, to punch somebody in the face because they smell like bleach and burnt rubber, to shriek at passing cars and at doppler-effecting echos, to spit, to laugh, to cum, to cry, to burp, to flinch, to sneeze, to shit, to eject everything at the same time, to claw your own eyes out from the inside with little fingers -  scratch - dangle from their sockets and bob up and down, then collapse, mouth open, in the gutter let them kick you, let them kick you, in a puddle of rain and drool and puke growing mold from stagnancy and moisture and buzzing fly's wings and honking horns and pecking pigeons and clicking coffee-and-cellphone-and-cigarette-on-the-way-to-work heels and snapping muni bus lines electric already roots rise from street cracks around the parisitic shadows spread you are spilling pedals wilting and unable to pick them up again and bring the vermin in with you even the fog is angry and so good mourning let them kick you let them kick you you are flowers left as symbols of memories on poetry's grave.  (Guenivere Q.) I always buy too many eggs at the super market. Aiming at an unnecessary target, I dream of cotton candy filled fish bowls.  Perplexing, perpetrating perversions. I seek diversions in compacted cars. Traveling from near and far, how can something so big become a tin can?  Runaway shoes force a delinquent chase. Aspiring to catch soles, perspiration on my face. Hoping they won't stop running to an unimagined place. I pick up the pace.  Studying the groovish labyrinths on your fingertips, I swallow your future with a dry throat. Adventures advancing, yet you never forget the footsteps of your ancestors. I end on the bitter sweet note.   (Sash Tivetsky) Sip rum with the devil on the back patio of my mother's porch it's the only way to understand the boundaries of good and evil test the limits of reality while kissing his hand through plea bargaining sell my soul for a rewind button with no return policy hear the sizzle of humanity sync to the creaking of rocking chairs on wooden planks. (Estella Barboza) You say poetry isn't a confessional yet Why does it feel so good To drip black drops of sin Upon repentant pages? (Maureen Blennerhassett) How long has it been? Seems like years... Since you lay in my arms in tears... You're so sorry you said in my bed You never thought you'd go back, but you did. You did... Now I walk in my pain feeling disdained Sometimes sleep in the park, hugging the dark- ness There is no one to talk to No one who loved me more then you did No one who understood quite like you No one I trusted more than you How long has it been since you went back to him? Often I wonder how we might have been. And crawl to my bed feeling insane and wake in the morning so ashamed and stand at the window watching the rainfall and asking: How long has it been since you lay in my arms? How long has it been since you lay in my arms? (Alan Kaufman) We have reached the atomic state of being And there we go to smash These illusions and delusions Fine, spidery cracking Into little shards They will make you bleed But I know how to sop it up Mend it with toilet paper and tape Give me your hand now (Ginger Murray) All poetry is discord with the world The only beautiful thing anymore (Evan Karp) Forget yourself for a while and focus on the symphony of minds shining with the light of flimsy fantasies set on fire (Nicole McFeely) Slit a few throats to keep your hands in Do what you feel Do what you must 1,000 coats are still too few if you are still too cold We are still here. Hands over ears, Hands over eyes and say that again 1,000 mouths won't be enough if they are still not hearing poetry is dead (Chris Peck) Secret Silliness (silence) Enhanced for Secretarial Porpoises Per San Francisco Bay Don't give up, we tell ourselves We tell ourselves lots of things Sitting in these North Beach dungeons Tongue tied to the roots of our teeth Fascinated by fractured fingers Flinging our impoverished selves These telling technologies digging ditches In the midst of apocalypse (Charles Kruger) We've dug deep our heels in the last unsilenced basement, Turned it up louder when implored to speak easy Sat huddled 'round the smoldering last broken pieces and dared dream this spark might set the city on fire again. Here at the confluence of threadbare ambition Between cheap intoxicants and dispassionate professions There's real work to do. And it'll take a lot more than our ordinary deficit attention To cut through the white noise of competing intentions, A chord to ring out Shattering sleep from dead eyelids, And a word printed bolder than the blackletter headlines this morning that claim poetry is dead. (J. Brandon Loberg) This is an unsung song Sung from the severed tongues Of the children born on the Eve of Adam's bomb Who say that poetry is dead Poetry is dead and gone