JEFFREY LANCE

||COMMAND LINE, COMA EXODUS||

&//awake.in glisten space

gulf me down,
black deer

plum me whole,
clean uterine expanse

silt me splendor,
o queen of heaven

map of the sparkly world—
cartography plume below
my::puffy opening eye

fallen as leaf/as yellow
might drop on the pregnant page
pass thru the swelling gauge
of a natal shotgun barrel 

[blood]wet rich my hair
which flow fluidly
which number infinite
which scan white
‘neath the starlet gaze

\\tingle timber these toes
\\nerve rends rough upon yon resurrection

&

bend body thrust abyssal from the fallopian tower
blackout brain shut abysmal from the deadly tower

fervent snow blush the speckle treeline rising up to meet me
bitter snow thwart my cheek speckle blush the stinging up to meet me

I crack my skull dimly on the forest floor
I red the ice gamely I red in constellation

harken back to the hole from whence I bat out of hell
quell the cells self-regenerative nature in the orange shift

basilica of cold morning I alive into
make many houses of dawn in the bare copse

I am injured but still breathing
I am punctured but unrelenting

</> &are the Kids all dead <?/> bright blast burn in the glitch memoriam synapse </> miles—miles— tossed in my comatose asunder </> no cannot fetch the smooth pebble of recall beneath the ardent blue of dizzy </> &cannot taste the sororal background radiation </> even so my lung re|inflate </> even so my shoulder re|locate </> even so my hope re|allocate </> &I wrap my fracture for trudge farther on </> &I warpstep in the fractured forest & farther on </>

run::search::program

[VII: THE CITY]

Juts from the maw
                    geyser white reflecting itself into            itself

complexity for its own carbon sake                              

                                           swarm of fluorescence      grossly illuminated
                                  right angles claustrophobically gridded

the asphalt ephemera

                           nameless paths
                                           running cardinally
                                    in only one dimension 
                                                                                               demonic skies

                                                                              prostrate as true believers 
in the candle of night
hemmed                          with lightning

                    unbuttoned with thunder after one one-hundred

unfastened
virgin skin of an omen 

uninhabited
monuments                                  celebrate structure as a concept 

                           the worth of abject tallness
as defined by opulent vacancy 

                  all the living poor          pancaked
                                                   on the pavement

                                                                                as they ever were

                             invisible as seasons
                                         and as temporary

this economics of fading
                          of organic tapestry bladed         into fray

                                                by a thin sickbed of hubris and hatred

what restoration is
what restoration masks

                       all masks crooked faces of winter
                       snowed up and polished                into oblivion

                                         The Minister wanted it this way
                                                                           wanted this newness

                     that feigns newness

                                                 wanted a city defined by its lines
                                                                                       to draw a thick dark

        between mother
        and body
                                          place to have and freedom
                                      in gangrenous symbiosis
                                                            leaving to have not

                                                            and necessitating radical awakening

vomiting in the innumerable carparks
in the lonely meadow
with area equaling one
                               chessboard square

I want the apple meat of rebellion
                   let gush the red ribbon

                                                                  of decapitation

                                                           down every bird-killing window pane

let zero the ones
and one the zeroes

                                               I will sweep my blade for the feast
                                                           hallowed onion knight / Lady Evil

                                 I will these industrious fatcat
                                                                       fatfucks          laboriously boil

      sinewy sweet for the sunscorched masses

                                                                  I will flourish in an orchid vortex
                                                                  vibrate petal out and slaughter

                                                         with all my sisters beside me
                                                         with all my hatred tangy on the tongue
                                                         with all my rabidity

                                          compressed into              a swift fang

                  this city egg my venom        fertilize
                                                      this city stalk my grim          reap

                                                                  for at its heart the septic gash

                              earthwound pried and salt-rubbed
                                                                  bleeds              the black field

                                          and on throb the Zero Mines thievery hum
                                          and outpour the dead canaries collapse

                                                                                          cave / lung

                  labor chants tickle my sternum
                                                                  salvation rites cradle my guts

I WILL BURN THE FUCKING CITY

I WILL TEAR THE FUCKING STREETLAMPS ASUNDER

NO QUARTER FOR GLINTING PALATIAL DICKS

NO MIDNIGHT LOVE FOR GAG-ME EDIFICE

FOR THE LAST FISH OF THE SKY HER NAME IS RUIN

FOR SHE THIRSTS AFTER EVERY FEMORAL PULSE

FOR SHE DRAINS THE BALDHEADED BASTARDS DRY

AND REMOVES THE VERTEBRAE ONE BY ONE

AND OFFERS THEM AS POROUS REPARATION

TO THE CHILDREN OF THE APOCALYPTIC WAVE

TO THE MEEK INHERITORS OF NEO_TOKYO

CITIZENS RING YOUR BELLS

JUSTICE IS UNDEAD AND SIGHTED

VENGEANCE IS VIOLET IN THE CHEEKS

ECSTATIC PESTILENCE VAULTS BIBLICAL FROM THE DARK

WE SONIC DEAD KIDS SWALLOWED YOUR PRAYERS

WE SONIC DEAD KIDS ARE AT THE GATES

Jeffrey Lance is an undead poet and aspiring time traveler from West Texas. He enjoys long walks on the surface of the sun and coffee flavored ice cream. He received an MFA from the University of Mississippi and served as a Senior Co-Editor of Yalobusha Review. He now studies Computer Engineering and spends his free time summoning dark forces with his partner, Andrea. His work has appeared in The Dock at Hayden’s Ferry Review and Cloud Rodeo.