What's more real-
the light of a distant star
vaguely sensed by our dim eyes
and yet brilliantly magnified
by our brightest minds
or the howling fiends
of hell, wrought by hands
that trembled with stunning
and terrifyingly divine inspiration-
brought to life by our most righteous
minds? I think F. Scott
was right- "the test of a first-rate
intelligence is the ability
to hold two opposed ideas in mind
and still maintain
the ability to function."

The end is nigh!
We lose more souls everyday!
Our eyes adjust to digitized reality--
(everyone's faces lit up by screens)
Our sky outside monochromes and--

Oh no, look everyone it's the Doom Queen!
Here to trumpet her weary woes
about our what do you call it-
technological over-saturation?

We are not to be interrupted!
We are the only reason left-

Please forgive me but you seem
far from reasonable, you see
I'm dreadfully tired of Apocalypses,
Armageddons and Ends.
Always it's nigh,
never it's now,
yet our eyes and ears
fill with doomsday prophets who--

Respect the reckoning!
Who understand the true forces
which activate this universe!
Your impetuous skepticism
will be your Heel,
and indeed soon all shall kneel
before the graven stones of Reason.

Oh yes, I've seen them:
the Georgia Guidestones
leading the doomsday prophets
in a merry scramble for attention.
Leading us to our own Devil's duet--

Fine! We tried, we tried to warn you
that the end, the end is nigh!
We shall lay ourselves
down easier tonight
knowing we did
what we could
and why.

A slow sort of smile dawns
upon your brow, around your lips
and sets ablaze our turgid eyes-
long sluggish with doomed desire.

I flit nearby, starstruck & delighted
at the resonance of our celestial bodies
until you burn me with your gaze
so that I dance to the siren-song of arousal.

You possess Vitruvian limbs, slender-branched.
I make ribbons of thought to run
between your crabbed fingers
& dream with your name on my lips

but you are a torment.
You forget to steal time-
eventually I swim back into my ocean
leaving you my eroded coast.

Gloomy witch forsakes her bog
for liquor & for leaf smoke-
tumbling about her fen
with abandon. Her entire body
of spellcraft no longer counts
toward her self-satisfaction.
She turns turmoil into tumescent
plunges of thrusting escapism-
she leaves all to chance
while some god of hopelessness
grows fat off her offerings:
broken hearts & stifled minds
placed on the bleakest altar of all.

Craquelure (French: craquelé, Italian: crettatura) is the fine pattern of dense "cracking" formed on the surface of materials. The term is most often used to refer to ceramics and paintings. -Wikipedia

I am all craquelure
my face scarred, pocked
my teeth jumbled, crooked
my eyes bruised, unused.

All of me is craquelure:
damaged but authentic,
flawed but feeling whole-
at one with this moment
of atonement.

I gave my "self" to the fire
and found the 3.
Bright emanations:
first the external
Sabbath sunshine-
[empowering].
second the internal
Hermit's starshine-
[enlightening].
and Above All,
the third: the eternal
gentle radiance-
[encouraging].

My mom calls: 11:20 p.m.
May 2nd 2011 &
I am 6 days from 23.
Numbers catch at my mind
like thorns. Her voice is electric
& celebratory:
"Osama bin Laden is dead!
The crowd at the White House!
oh I wish I could join them!"
My legs, my hands, my back
clench. An electric buzz
starts to life in my stomach-
"They have the body on CNN,
are you watching? Honey, are you-"

I pull my little cell phone
away to my hip, like a gun
pointed at the floor.

Is it un-American of me
to hate this moment?
To fear the joy in her voice?
In my mind an evolved race
eschews such displays,
yet I cannot escape reality:
my mother, 90 miles north
& a government employee no less
is proud of her country.

Would she be so proud of this poem?
Would she think me sympathetic
or just pathetic? Would she say:
"Have you already forgotten 9/11?"
as if I could.

No, I haven't forgotten:
I simply find this celebration
to be in poor taste.
Again: this is meaningless,
the thoughts of a young poet
matter little to soldiers
& less to politicians but still:
God bless America
& the freedoms she has left.

God bless those crucified
speaking for their conscience
& God bless my mother
who thinks I'm safer now.

This is what morning
looks like:
your hand
like a brontosaurus
half-lit by the sun
streaming in from
my bedroom window.
My hand
like a stegosaurus
sidling over, saying hello.

This is what mourning
looks like:
my hand
pale, lone stegosaurus
half-cast in shadow
crawling blind and low--
my hand
but no brontosaurus
no sidling over, no saying hello.

On the sky bridge
above the rushing
springtime James
I cast my shaded eyes
on Richmond's blocky
skyline. I beseech
the money monuments
for meaning, but find
more calm in the fraternal
way in which the wind
ruffles my hair. Here,
between Belle Isle
& Oregon Hill
is a bridge more hyperdimensional
than the architects intended
for it is here
that one can tune into
the primal immediacy
of our dying world.
From behind me crowds
shriek and scream
and if I close my eyes
I can turn into the rush
of wind, the rush
of water,
and leave this world behind.

Scarcely can I go a day
without hearing someone say
some pithy, offhanded
wisdom about man's destiny.
I should hope to make
my own rather than take
the word of a stranger.

There's more dust in the wind
than destiny in this world.

A guillotine of black hair
falls forward as a graceful
Korean mother with slender
ballerina arms carries
crowded brown paper bags
& her wide-eyed child
to her silver sedan. Celery
stalks wave gaily
in the slight summer breeze &
this woman, unawares
is my calm, stately heroine:
she balances all
like an abacus or
much like God would.

I shiver into a shot
of cake flavored vodka
& thrust my hips askew
to allow the ruddy faced
Gypsy Queen access
to the sticky counter top.
Tonight I am allowed to shake
off the ennui which molders
in my bones. Andy's eyes
laugh mercilessly
& Kae must think me a fool
but I'm feeling the thrum
of the universe now--
underneath my feet &
my eyes catch the glow
(the soft haze of light)
reflected on everyone's faces.
I reel for a second, caught
& shuddering in a sudden
upward cascade of spinal
sensations which tell me
quite definitively
that I'm gone.

I walk my weary steps on cracked concrete streets,
slow-waltzing with shadows & kamikaze leaves
as row after row of wedding cake houses stare
down at another urban orphan.
I grin slyly back up, mockery
in my eyes & slightly crooked teeth.

Overhead, sluggish maples
& bare oaks twist tentacular
limbs, scraping at the night's eyes.
Menacing tree-forms rising
as if from a witch's garden
& suddenly a ruffling, hopping movement
at the corner of my eye:
the street light casts it's autumn orange glow
on, of all things, a brown-spotted owl sitting
squat with skeptical yellow eyes
piercing the Richmond gloom.

I stand amazed, hardly breathing--
Minerva's bird here? In this forgotten
city of mine? Rust colored talons
clutch the mottled bark
before Her emissary flutters and bursts
into unlikely flight--
scattering seeds which helicopter downwards--
& leaving me, none the wiser, behind.

The user:
soul or solar energy.
The application program:
consciousness.
The operating system:
the laws of reality for some,
religion for others &
The hardware:
the watery body bag,
the great organism: Life.

The user interface-
the Mind-
sometimes called
the Shell,
provides a mechanism
for the soul-user & application programs
to communicate
& to request support.

I write poetry
but some write software code.
In much the same way we strive
to connect ourselves
to the holy act of creation.
Thus: the source code.

Mihi cura futuri,
(sic semper tyrannis)
mihi cura futuri et
dum spiro, spero.
Dirigo: vox clamantis
in deserto.
Scientia sol mentis et
labor omnia vincit.
(ad astra per aspera)
Virtute et armis audemus
jura nostra defendere-
regnat populus!
Respice, adspice, prospice
mihi cura veritas!
America! Qui transtulit, sustinet!
E pluribus unum, America!
Esse quam videri et
justitia omnibus.

I slipped into a little coma
& slept for far too long.

Night opened its doors
as sunlight poured
a few last kisses
upon the evening.

I pass unnoticed through
the long, gravelly day
braiding dreams together,
swaddled in sheets. Shrouded
I wake to find the faded
ancient-blue light of dusk.

Disoriented, lost in time I
mistake the setting sun
for dawn. The waning light
echoes around my small room
leaving behind a yearning vibration
behind my eyes.

Oh virulent sadness, hammering
at my temples,
Oh haunting note, touched & humming
in my ears but growing quieter as
the Richmond night begins her siren aria
as my world spins
& my room dims.

He spoke of leagues
& I am out of my depth--
wearing my liar's smile
and trying to breathe.

I roll over, a graceless
gypsy prince. Emotionally
nomadic at least. What
league could I know?

He swam so quick,
a dash, a pointed plea-
the fragrance of our tryst
mingling sour in my mouth &

I hurry into my clothes
because I can't stop feeling
20,000 leagues away.
We leave

this night half-sunk
in murky memory.
I leave him with his
precious leagues.

My eyes hover about the screen
& I read about his wife: deceased.

A poetess, elaborate ideas
wrapped in alluring imagery.

We lose too many
every day.

Did he die when she died?
Does he linger on, ghost-pale

Only to whisper secrets into
my unwilling ears?

Stay alert, his sadness tells me,
to the dangers of falling.

What small God
gave birth to you?
Meddlesome, ironic,
a savvy schemer,
an unfriendly ghost
with so much discontent
and mighty madness:
I cannot love you.

I launch a fleet
of electronic pulses,
buttons pressed
letters coded into numbers,
the cryptic text:
all we made crumbles
into the electronic sea
sinking down to new depths,
for you see
drastic sadness
calls for drastic action
and April's only cruel
to the idle fool.

Can you?
Can you beat upon
the generational drum?
Listen with
deep intention to all voices
of doubt. Notice:
do they speak with your voice?
If so, listen with an open heart--
be eager to prove yourself wrong.

If these doubts speak
with other's tongues:
refuse them with your actions
if ever your words.

I say: beat, goddammit!
Beat upon your drum!
Beat with your heart--
find your vibration
& remember now
until forever
that those who
sing the truth,
beat the truth,
& love the truth
are and will ever be
outstanding.