“you shall carry my bones up from here” (Genesis50:25)
yea Little nymph of numbers has six teeth each with ******-chic epiphanies
protrusion of epiphyses thirsty for a fresh bonejuice deathblast
stringy strung theoroized skelecoded out arieal fractal sonix
lix hits antigravity dreambeats chew on infra-red-infractures
to explosively burn constellations out into dust bowls all heavily cranio-******
up with a soul narrowed down to a skelleconex technoillogical prototype
a freshly teased nanoNymph_2.0 osteo-tissue paper thin prototype
designed to bemuse, amuse and be a muse to forgotten infinite epiphanies
endlessly download digitisternums, clavicles whatever desired by the cranio- ******-
enough to risk phantom organic pain in time to playback biofeedback turnt up to deathblast
It’s the artificial cardiaudio arteries show featuring manibrium marrow leakage from infra—red-infractures
and six skinny feminine femora to sing blackened covers of diva demeter love sonix
diamond data mapped thick with smokey persephone bloodkiss shadow sonix
peruse the meanderings of the nanoNymp2.0 a double(triple) pianissimo prototype
fragile: prone to falling (ie) misunderstanding sharp blades pulled from infra-red-infractures
***** bonebuzzed off nothingness nectar numb drunken epiphanies
triangulated ossification between 1st 2nd and 3rd eyes lead up to deathblast
fossilized iconoclastic forethought will achieve status of cranio-******
this poem has no need to lobotomize fetal craniotomies; it’s all cranio-******
betwixt BANG BANG banging is clatter clix scatter bone-dance sonix
electricity sings in the key of major deathblast
crack open a bone on a nanoNymph skelleconex system and a replacement will be sent of the latest prototype
well calculated little nanoNymph’s all programmed  to know as why approached one, X approached ∞ -of cracked open epiphanies
triangle shaped fire, ▲shaped heart, equilateral to a dead sea, sacred geometric infraRed-infractures
biowired endless visions of these infraRed-infractures
Anthrenusverbasci (carpet beetles) eat away at bleached bone clean cranio-******
vertebrae of the Ouroboros eating itself epiphanies
grinding jaws brittle scurvy romantic-suicide die sonix
son of nyx an erubus have mercy installation psychopomp prototype
bring on one more broken septum to end =sempiternal deathblast
“bone of my bones” (genesis2:23) indeed; bring on an ablazed deathblast
fragmented spiraled and inside out infraRed-infractures
every one ends up broken, every bone of every prototype
smashed open coronal suture in everyone cranio-******
thanatos shadow between eros supraorbital sonix
godless and wandering without but epiphanies
soulless nanoNymph burns into dusty nothingness of a prototype
and the emptiness of silence is the deathblast sonix
some exposed spine litter vallies of dry bone epiphanies

In between   (a poem)
.
my mind struggles against its own illusion
nightmare tumbles out into still morning
light is heavy,
a fog of echoes...
and I am caught
.
day dreams the sunlight
dreams light the day
and I am caught in between
mourning echoes...
like a stillborn ghost
who can't take a breath in the present

….
  
I live on a tropical island and just want to go surfing with my husband, but the nausea in the early morning as I try to eat  breakfast and drive with him to the beach is so uncomfortable.  Day after day it makes even surfing a chore, and I consider not going anymore.  Background anxiety and unreasonable irritation interferes with our marriage, frustrates him enough to want me out.  

For me, a trip to the grocery store or meeting a group of people awakens the same dreadful fear as rockclimbing a cliff. Perspective has been lost in the extremes.  I try to gain some control over this hindering nuisance, seeking situations that bring the same surges of adrenaline so I can learn to master it.  If I can just push past the avoidance that would keep me inside doing nothing, if I can just ignore the feeling I want to throw up, if I can just get out there, I am rewarded with life’s potential beauty eventually.  Many days I do enjoy the thrill of mountain biking or connection with nature when surfing, but there are too many days of internal struggle that reduce what should be enjoyable to a relentless chore of wrestling inner demons.

The VA offers a few sessions of marriage counseling, and the doctor begins to explain PTSD.  ***, I’ve learned to cope with an unreliable brain, but now there’s this?  From what I understand (and that’s just me, an amateur philosopher) Sometimes the brain is so traumatized, that the memory is literally sealed off, encapsulated, protecting it from changing.  If later something happens that is similar, the brain triggers avoidance responses as a take-no-chances survival mechanism.  Literally the brain is protecting one’s self from one’s self.  This all-or-nothing strategy works fending off potential dinosaur attacks, but in our complex society, these automatic avoidance behaviors complicate functioning and well being.  Life becomes an attitude of constant reaction instead of motivated intention.

The website for the National center for PTSD says.  “After a trauma or life-threatening event, it is common to have reactions such as upsetting memories of the event, increased jumpiness, or trouble sleeping. If these reactions do not go away or if they get worse, you may have Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.”  

“Common reactions to trauma are:
• Fear or anxiety: In moments of danger, our bodies prepare to fight our enemy, flee the situation, or freeze in the hope that the danger will move past us. But those feelings of alertness may stay even after the danger has passed. You may:feel tense or afraid, be agitated and jumpy, feel on alert.  
• Sadness or depression: Sadness after a trauma may come from a sense of loss---of a loved one, of trust in the world, faith, or a previous way of life. You may:have crying spells, lose interest in things you used to enjoy, want to be alone all the time, feel tired, empty, and numb.  
• Guilt and shame: You may feel guilty that you did not do more to prevent the trauma. You may feel ashamed because during the trauma you acted in ways that you would not otherwise have done. You may:feel responsible for what happened, feel guilty because others were injured or killed and you survived.  
• Anger and irritability: Anger may result from feeling you have been unfairly treated. Anger can make you feel irritated and cause you to be easily set off. You may:lash out at your partner or spouse, have less patience with your children, overreact to small misunderstandings.  
• Behavior changes: You may act in unhealthy ways. You may:drink, use drugs, or smoke too much, drive aggressively, neglect your health, avoid certain people or situations.”   It lists four main symptoms: reliving the event, avoiding situations that remind of the event, feeling numb, and feeling keyed up (also called hyperarousal)”

Four words strung together: Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.  They’ve become a tired cliché, exhausted from the endless threat of random cruelty camouflaged in banality, weary of the weight shouldering back the wall that separates death and gore from the living.  Living was a reflex beyond willpower and devoid of choice. Control was self-deception.  The mind was so preoccupied with A: survival, B: sanity, in that order.  Rest was a cruel illusion.  The tank was drained, no room for emotions ditched.  Empathy took too much effort, fear was greedy.  Hopefully they can be remembered and found on the other side, if there is one.  Sleep deprived cells were left hyper-alert from the imminent, shot up and addicted to adrenaline.  Living was Fate and Chance, and meant leaving that time and place sealed in forgetfulness.  

Now PTSD is a worn out acronym, a cold shadow of what it feels like.  I try to think of something more personal that can describe the way it randomly visits me, now resigned to its familiar unwelcome influence.  It steals through my brain, flying ahead of me with its own agenda of protecting sabotage.  Its like the Guardian Trickster of Native American legend.  Its an archetype but real enough to make mistakes: Chulyen, the black raven.

A decade after the ER, contentment is found in a garden of slow tranquility as a butterfly interrupts a sunbeam.  My heart fills with bittersweet as I’ve finally found something I love and want to keep.  Just then Chulyen’s grasping black claws clamp my heart with painful arrhythmia and it fills to burst, tripping in panic trying to recover its pace.  The sudden pain drops me to my knees, in the dirt between fragrant lavender and cherry tomatoes.  Pain stops breath and time and makes me remember the ER, when my heart rebelled its ordained purpose for a week.  I had tried to throw my bitter life back in God’s face but He didn’t take it.  Now that I have peace and a life that I treasure, He’s taking it now.  The price for my mistake is due.  It was all just borrowed time and I’m still so young, my children just babies.  God with a flick of cruelty reminds me not to put faith in the tangible, especially when its treasured.  The sharp claws finally relent and I can breathe, looking up with a gasp and the Raven takes flight overhead leaving a shadow.  Bright noon warmth, unusually heavy and foreboding, seems to say ‘there will come a time when you will not welcome the sun.’   Doctors run an EKG and diagnose ‘stress’.

The bird perches on my shoulder two more decades later, always seeing death just over there.  So I sit on the porch just a little longer and check my list again, delaying the unavoidable racing heart and rush of tension when I fix the motorcycle helmet strap under my chin.  I know all those stupid drivers have my life in their cell-phone distracted hands and hope my husband knows how much I love him, and my daughters too.  

Chulyen wakes me at 3:00 am when autumn’s wind aggravates the trees.  His rustle of black feathers outside unsettles summer’s calm night.  He brings an end-of-the-world portent that hints this peace is just temporary, borrowed.  Tribulation will return.

Ravens are attracted to bright shiny things.  Chulyen steals off with treasures like intention, and contentment.  I don’t realize they are missing until occasionally I find myself truly living in the moment.  I guess that is another reason why I crave adventure, for those instants and epiphanies that snap me out of that long term modis operandi of reacting, instead of being.  The daily list of ‘I must, or I should’ can for a brief while become ‘I want’  and I am free.

My companion the black bird perches relaxed in the desert on the gatepost of a memory.  A bullet-scarred paint-faded sign dangles by one corner from rusty barbed wire:
    No Trespassing    
    That Means You
I have a haunted idea what's behind the fence.  Chulyen implies the memory with a simple mistaken sound:
a Harley in the distance is for a second the agitating echo of a helicopter...
or those were the very same words they said when...
or I hear a few jangling clinks of forks in our warm kitchen...
hinting a cold cafeteria at 5:00 am smelling of fake eggs and industrial maple flavored corn syrup,
and everything else that happened that day...
My cells recollect, brace with the addictive rush of adrenaline.  But the raven denies access to the memory, distracting with discomfort.  I trip and I fall hard into the gritty dirt of irritation at the person who unknowingly reminded me.  Anxiety floods in along with fatigue of the helplessness of it all, back then and still now.  I can't go further.  Chulyen’s tricking deception says Leave This Memory, you never wanted to come back.
But I already knew from just recognizing the bird patiently sitting there a sentinal,
recalling every other time he tricked me with nausea and depression.
I tried to tell myself again that behind that gate,
the past has dried up from neglect.
Disintegrated into dust,
Blown away,
doesn't
exist.
…


After everything else, how to work through this?  The VA gave me a manual, a crudely printed set of worksheets with a government-looking blue cover page:  Cognitive Processing Therapy.
“In normal recovery from PTSD symptioms, intrusion, thoughts, and emotions decrease over time and no longer trigger each other.  However, in those who don’t recover, the vivid images, negative thoughts, and strong emotions lead to escape and avoidance.  Avoidance prevents the processing of the trauma that is needed for recovery and works only temporarily.  The ultimate goal is acceptance.  
There may be “stuck points”, conflicting beliefs or strong negative beliefs that create additional unpleasant emotions and unhealthy behavior.  For example, a prior belief may have been “ I am able to protect myself in dangerous situations.”  But after being harmed during military service, a conflicting belief surfaces, “I was harmed during service, and I am to blame.”  If one is ‘stuck’ here, it may take some time until one is able to get feelings out about the trauma, because one is processing a number of rationales.  “I deserved it because…” , or “I misinterpreted what happened, I acted inappropriately, I must be crazy…”  The goal is to change the prior belief to one that does not hinder acceptance.  For example, “I may not be able to protect myself in all situations.”

(chapter continues with recovery methods)

Sometimes, looking at you in the light of the kitchen  I want
to run a finger
Down the length of your nose but
I know you'd wrinkle it, and shake your head citing a tickle, but kiss behind my shoulder as soon
As I turn away

When my feet make ice pools in the bed
Toes accidentally brushing your ankle and you **** abruptly, but upon hearing
My sigh, trap them back with your ankles til, martyr that you are, I'm engulfed in
Warmth at your
Expense.

Sometimes the last trickle of milk is mine, for the coffee,
Silent with your eyes smiling fondly, you look on as I sip, resolutely stirring powdered
Dead baby souls into mug as substitute.

Even damp smelly socks
Greasy hair
Neurotic tears and
Intellectual rambling epiphanies

Even childish blunders, fudging the
Budget or burning the toast

You still call me fond Things.

And love Me.
The most.

And it's difficult to remember something as the very name of Eisenhower
Or flowerbaskets
And tired movies made of silicone and
Aftersex
Or sixteen candles echoing out of an imaginary suite with cigarettes at every table
And green lawns
Barbershop conversation
The reflection of the sun in special trees
Or my best friend Jesus Christ
Or the smell of the theater that one day with the cynics who just got back from a tennis match and barbwire still laced delicately around their thoughts and
Nihilism
And automotives
And priestess Jane or Henry's gloomy doppelganger who reads alternative magazines and loves the aesthetics behind broken glass
And fine tuned musical instruments

It's difficult to remember
Lonesome Fridays smoking on a park bench trying to finish the puzzle
Or synagogues you've never been in
Or insurance
Or newspaper articles detailing the misadventures of Mr. City
(Of course of course! Take your shoes off at the door and make yourself at home)
We're tossing all our sewage into the ocean
that's far from clean as it
LOOKS anymore these days
That's anything
And everything except for the glowing mountains seen faded and wintry behind Apartments and the
"Glorious Mexican House of Spices"
Never been in there either

It's difficult to remember
Times of Mr Twin Sister
Or Joan Jett in the hallway
In a highschool who's psychology classrooms have become a time capsule in the ground/
Or the gentle skinny ******
Wearing Broadway makeup and
Kafka tattooed on his shoulder
I like his hat
He looks at me suspiciously
Or the guy who is yelling his order at the counter when it's quiet here anyways
Or the mariner who has a hobby of the saxophone
Or 1970s *******
Or the sheepskin bikeseat fad that's yet to come but I'm predicting it now!
Or two dollars and twentyseven cents at the beginning of Allen Ginsberg's America
"I've given you all and now I'm nothing"

It's difficult to remember
The Oriental
Sacramento flies
Midnight Moon
Quarter to four
"The Immortalization Commission"
Remodelled hotels downtown
Where mandalas on the floor became a
Tiger lily luminous
And the kimono is yesterday's painting/
Dearest Darling
When I was feeling down!
A staircase in reverse (??)
The sound a kiss makes
It's difficult to remember
Colleen's earrings
Or Washington State
Or air conditioners in Bali
The Indian ocean's daybreak hymn
To Seminyak
Or whatever happened to Steve from the Airplane out of Taiwan
On 3 days awake
Hello Kitty nursing stations
****** (Kubrick's version)
Cardboard taking up half my bedroom
It's difficult to remember until I jot it down and then its a sudden forever
Sunshine Superman in a cafe spontaneous
drawings with someone I just met who has some ******* attitude/
Who hops fences and has feral ideas
People! En Masse! Te Amo!
You're all in wolven liberty
And vague postulators
And holy prostitutes for the dollar
Sad eyed intellectuals
With undergarments made of breakfast cereal/
Seaferry poetry is different from
Trestle in August poetry
Or henna handshakes
Or the Napoleonic era
Sweet Cherry Pie
The tulip's tongue
Garabajal
Cloudy first day of July
Was hotter yesterday
But not too hot

It's difficult to remember
Antiquity
The pale horse Studebaker outside the clinic
With a glossy red trim and **** I wish that was my ride
Andy Warhol's exploding plastic inevitable
Nearsightedness
Angels and their ability to shower with a a snap of their fingers
Distant harp music
Better him than me
Bananas almost ripe
Green aquatic
Reclusive junkies
Palomo's appliances
Questions for the next time
How much I like what you like and how I like that you like what I like
Ahh that's not my bus
I'm trying to get to the city!
That one quote Socrates is known for about knowing nothing as true wisdom
Supermarkets being built on top of liquor stores burned down a while back
Monopolies
Tragedies
"No Love Lost"
THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
Your guess is as good as mine
Never tried to eat Asian food in Asia
It was all pasta and good cider that tasted like pineapple
Rain hitting the window and I'm
Drowsy again
God Save The Trees!
Curly hair looks good on boys
Torn up blinds
Queer as a three dollar bill
If Bill costs 3 dollars I'm sure he's caught something better safe than sorry
Sage advice
I'm the very model of a modern major general
Golden yen and international currency
Incense in the bedroom and how good it smells
There's my bus! Applying for a better job than the one I got now
But that's how it always is right?
Chasing satisfaction
1007 apt
Porch ornaments
Unique names
Unique style le style
The extra charge on foreign ATMs
Cordoroy polo shirts
Flooding in New York!
When someone's face screams *******
"Slippery when wet"
Dine N Dash
Grass gone yellow
Confidence in dyed hair and capes as long as wedding gowns
But less expensive
Doors that always seem to be locked and I'm wondering 20 year later what's behind them?
Albino animals
White thoughts as clouds or
Abstractions
Weathers nicer in Florida but who cares
Festivities this early in the day
Automatopeia
Do sad orphanages still exist?
Just like the movies
Midnight in mirrors
That sick puppet at the shoe shop used
To know how to really hammer it down
And now he's weak and forgotten
Never heard the words of a true prophet only Oceania
Or the private temple near Apollo Bay
Like Japanese gardens behind that gate
Will I ever see it
Make a proud example outta ya misbehavior
Form without function
Exhausted spiritualism
*** Kettle Black
negative photographs of dark rooms
And there's laughing coming from SOMEWHERE
Essays on kleptomania
Had a bad dream I became a cliche
Surrounded by other freaks and there was a lovely ***** I fell in love with her
We married in Oregon by the sea her name was rosy
***** rosy
Check your mailbox for nails
And what you don't wanna hear/
If you were a vegetable you'd be organic!
Empire
Satirical bubble gum
Satori
Linda Lovelace and her special party trick
That's someone's fantasy
Diamond in the rough
Mister guy with two black eyes frequents the adult playhouse
Hes fully stocked on fishnet leggings
He's too proud to put them on himself but
Has nobody else around
Boo hoo
Swigs back the whiskey and trips down the stairs getting a third black eye in the process
Marion came by with her dog the other day
Wanted her box of clothes back but he loved to sniff them to remember her
But she wouldn't have it

"Honey I'm going to call the police!"

"Ah they don't give a **** they have bigger things to worry about"

"Yeah you got that right shrimp **** enjoy my unwashed *******"

And she never came back again
He started losing the vertebrae in his spine 1 by 1 and you know where this is going
I won't say he was a poor man because he had it all coming to him the *******
But he coulda had a better start if you ask me.

It's difficult to remember
And even more difficult to forget
After the fact

Seagull opera
Giganticism
Portrait of the artist as a young man
Losing one's pencil when the best idea of your life drops down from heaven and into your sorry head
Signs graffitied to have funnier meanings
Cruelty
Impassive
The Loyal Lioness
And Bangladesh has too many kitchens
And not enough dishes
When I was young I used to say Island as "is-land"  
Which is true it is land
But the Europeans probably stole it from somebody else anyways/
I left my future behind
And objects in the mirror are closer than they appear
Im no illusionist
I'm terrified of the cracken
Father feels the same way about
Hotels
Why bother/
This has been going on and on for a while are you tired yet
Is your patience being tested
Mine isn't because this wasn't an all-at-once kind of rambling
It's extremely important to laugh at least
Once a day
Otherwise you'll find yourself a politician
In no time at all
Rockefeller
(         ) Quaint home to die in
I think
Trains create great music
Float on
Sink into yourself
Roses in a crooked alley
That's people
Busy busy busy busy
Let's describe a situationist
I'm not a fan of bright colors on clothes
Your best shade is blue
Bricklayers transcription of Don Quixote to a skyscraper
Rocket thyme
& Garden
Erratic children's
Insomnia
The doorbell repeatedly
Vancouver riots/ I saw that live on the news!
Pictionary with the surrealists
N Dada TV set MC Escher
Antenna
You're in the Twilight Zone now
Dear Ramona
I'm trying to make it up to you
With a brightness only seen when you're ready to see it so please for the love of God don't blame me when it's not appearing
The tapestry hidden
Keep your blankets clean
And avoid hospitals unless you're fine with fishbowls & the halogen
The water gestapo
Storage lockers full of unacted plays and
Antique microwaves
Emitting the nostalgia of the cold war era
And what a waste of time that was /
Walter Wanderleys presence in Autumn universities
The opening of Vivre sa Vie
Salvador Dali's pluvial taxi
Lightbulb epiphanies
Aquariums and their protestors
Zebras in the shade
Two wrongs dont make a right
Elizabethan theater
Saloon shootouts in a fever dream
I lost and bled out all over the rustic wooden floor
A maiden reached out for me and El Paso did play I woke up and pretended nothing happened/
Funerals for bad People who did bad things
My first memory of a cat beneath the mattress
Hello Dolly!
Auditory learning
Psychotherapy
Lillian the landlady lost her ladle and labeled little Lyle as a lair
The Black panther movement
Reading symposium some years ago and
Making note that Phaedo was still my favorite dialogue/
Zen Buddhism
Xoxo xoxo
The day Gypsies were replaced with
Surface ****** appetite
And not the real thing
Newspaper clippings
Hypnotism when all other options are out
Mystical visions of sidewalks
And the love of your life stepping through a door you've never seen
Maybe Yes No I Don't Know
Creature comforts
Che Guevara's problem is that his beard made him too easy to recognize
(Also that little hat!)
Chinese cough medicine didn't work
For long I still wheeze sometimes
Domestic violence thru the wall
Ceiling fan probably doesn't even work!
Dimpled laughter
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
In skytrains to Commercial
Bermuda in her mind
And courtesy in her voice
I'm no Arthur Rimbaud
But you already knew that
Alcazar of Seville
Filling up the shipbottle
Here's your paradise
Now relinquish it as it is
False!
Hare Krishna
Nowhere Fast
El Diablo and the
Portofino loaf left rotting on the countertop
Latin children speak of the sacred viper
You'll hear of it after this but we'll never see what the ******* meant
Heads alternating round the social current
Of my lively city
There's a dog soaking up the rain
And songs are made in honor of
Recent catastrophes
Trials are dealt
Cards cast to the gutter
New York quiets down for the news of another war
You scratch my back I'll scratch yours
Skeleton key
Ballad of the last wailing zoo
THE ATRIUM
Complexity in simplicity
That's how Brainard got me!
Elderly overcoats
Hiding purest LSD
Is a fan of Hawaiian T shirts
And a communist
What if I was a Freemason
Or owned a tanning salon
Faint crimson
What did Marv look like again?
"You're surrounded by people who love you"
Coffee when one needs it
GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY
Tattoos on the wandering man
Oriental chimes and the people who own them
Bus stop regulars
Vines overtaking power lines
The hypnogogic state
Strawberry light softening
The mind
Sister Ray LOUDLY PROCLAIMING
doitdoitdoitdoit
Passing the graffiti n Pluto neon
Halal wide awake another Saturday
Where's the Karaoke
Flashing by here
Those who find comfort in a bridal scavenger hunt
Or expensive beer
And here comes the hooded clown
Clamoring about his favorite
Loudspeaker
Telling me my time is soon and the noise
Drowns out the drowsy bliss
After hour spirits the perfect time for
Writing and trying to read distant Chinese
Indecision on the tip of the tongue
"NOW WHO IS THAT KNOCKING
ON THE CHAMBER DOOR?
COULD IT BE THE POLICE?"

I'm completely off the topic
And into Apartment lobby photosets
Low battery phone calls
Confessions
Nauseated reverb
Trying to see the attachment people got with bingo halls
And moving companies
Ah no luck again
Eve is at it with her showtunes
Halfway methodology
Triage
Paisley headbands left
Distraught on the quivering
Heater
Dwindling sunsets
We're truly disciples of the moon spirit which grants us more energy
(This is according to a drunk I met one night)
Or ***** old men
When the horizon is engulfed with
A winking cinder
Suitcase at the door
Last time
First time
Magician never reveals his fetishes
(They all have to do with bags under your eyes)
Employment office dramas of my friend the one who blinded a social worker
And the one who blamed Islam
And the one whos philosophy entirely consisted of Spooky Action at a
                                            DISTANCE
Parisian riots
Queer youth
Didn't make the team! Jester
'cross the hall who's beard suggests
Ishmeal n car battery n expired vegetables n rain which crosses the line n
***** cranberry n
Poorly fitted suits n
Harsh pigment n incense shops n
Bocca     secret towns
With churches more beautiful than any you'd find in your own city
n the cultural market
Xylophone ear to ear
Soul cleansing starting at only
$89 (with a 6 month guarantee)
Sophie's birthday and her picnic at Victory Park
The nearby bums trying to sell tea mugs and
Loose wires beside gated convenience stores
I'm an Island away attempting a poem
And never bought a scratch n win
Or heard the same song more than seven times in a row or been in a column
Or escaped the washhouse
Invested in a birdcage for next year
Been to a palm reading
Visited Oasis
Smoked salmon
Told anyone else about Montana
Screamed the things I'd like to scream
** Word of the day
Or kissed a lunatic or swallowed the corpse of yesterday
I keep her on my neck until
I'm too anxious to let go
Counting streetlights
Jeans worn in and faded to be sent off to
A lonely caffeine addict
Christmas Eve I'll be reading a postcard from San Francisco
Asking the same questions
My imagination is made of a different material than last week
Now it's the same color as your hair
HEY that's a good pickup line to use in the heart of the Canadian Embassy
Drinking discarded music resembling a sweater you may have said YES to if it wasn't so unsure of itself
And now Mr. Acker Bilk ascends thru the window of an August home
Like a lazy hornet
I'm still lost without identification
Or a nice belt
As happens when one uses a quality item too casually
How did uphill suddenly seem so downhill?
I'll claim a waterfall
For SALE that inevitable Indonesia
Greyhound O another greyhound O another greyhound
I'm fretting too much about not enough
Delayed the Airport and the yellow question

????

II

What if I knew how to read the curb?
Or translate drunken droll
What if I was never tired again and could
REALLY do anything I set my mind to?
What if I was the first cigarette that cured cancer instead of caused it?
What if I could end superstition
And walk underneath any ladder I wanted?
What if I could make it with a young Audrey Hepburn!?
What if I stopped pretending to be a microphone and got on with "it"
What if the grocery store closed later
And I opened earlier?
What if parking lots werent so sad
All the time?
What if gravity simply had enough of exotic birds and specifics?
What if we stopped trying to recreate what is truly lost?
What if foreign children embraced
Wasting time instead of
Midnight starry bicycles
And the antics of a monk
Disguised as a romantic?

There are those that worship God
And those who worship the Sun
And those who worship nothing at all
But I suppose on the last bus
We're all the same exhausted
Voice who can't wait for next pay day
What is an empty bank?
Or authenticity
What is there to prove anymore?
I hope I don't die tonight and regret
Being impulsive for once
You're a smart shadow
And a dull character
Pushing the last of the daisies
Get the lamp to turn on again
Give the pavement something to look forward to with your walk
Be consistent in being inconsistent
If there's a word there's a ***** and a poem for it!
We all oughta worship
Nothing at all except
Clarity
Compassion with ones neighbor who either forgot the pay the electricity bill or couldn't afford to
We're a swimmin

We are all human beings
We all have our own lives
And different ways we live them
But each one of us is a writer
And this poem is for all of you

All of you who have virtues and use them in your writing
Those who use flashbacks and revisit mental photo albums

Beginning the story from the middle for that’s usually where you mind is at
Looking back then looking forward
Studying the past so you can be ready for what is to come

Recording catastrophes with a number two pencil

Tales and blurbs of tragedy
Caused by love or the lack there of

Rewards and punishment
Self-reliance and self-fulfillment

We are mere narrators
Humble, maybe unreliable
Equipped with numerous devices
Ironic Paradoxes
Red herrings
Fortuitous plot twists
Metaphors
Allegoric hyperboles
Analogies
Oxymorons and onomatopoeias

We sling Chekhov’s gun like bandits of literacy

We’re visionary revolutionaries
Revolution of the mind, body and soul

Changing ourselves and examining who and what we are
To become what we are destined to be
The best

Rejecting convention
Building our own paths
That lead to cliffhangers

Romantic lust
Comedic affairs
Dark massacres
Spiritual healing

Religious speculation
And the questioning of the way we, the people are being governed

We use the tools we are giving to sculpt new art that the world can stand in awe of

Personification
Symbolic imagery

Practicing pastiche with respect
Dionysian imitatio

Surreal reality
Defying mortality

Reiteration and retort

Using nature to express emotion and thought

Doubts and fear

Opposites
Morals and ethics

Satisfying curiosity

Parodying what we see
Embellishing just a little

We us word play to dive deep into the topic of conscious, subconscious and unconscious thought

Using satire to poke fun at the human condition,  its senses and perception of the universe to get readers thinking

Expressing our anger, our boundless joys
Desiring unknown pleasures

Seeing past the fallacies put before us

We write with great candor about war, personal conflicts, and self-abuse

With hinting undertones to give these ideas a second thought

We write of the supernatural, metaphysical mysteries
Outlandish, obscure mind boggling theories

As the clock ticks too fast for us and the characters we’ve created

Demolishing the fourth wall with a sledge hammer of defamiliarization

Epiphanies in a parking lot
Speaking in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd person

Using fun things like anagrams and palindromes
Candy for the lovers of such things

Spontaneity is an understatement
Nonsense is an insulting overstatement
Absurdity seems to fit just right

We are chameleons
We can write in various forms
Streams of gratifying consciousness
Brilliant prose
Beautiful poetry

And chose to use or merely acknowledge the ways to achieve these forms
Rhetoric, rhythm  and rhyme
Meter and mora
Conceit and consonance
Assonance
Intonation
Working with phonaesthetics  

And accenting aesthetics

A poem can or could not be organized as such
If we want to get technical about it

We have a poem
With a number of verses
And in those verses
Are lines
And those lines might rhyme
And have a meter or rhythm
Stressed or unstressed syllables

In contrast to that we may write
Without all of that and use emotion
Feeling and structure our work with what we feel is the best way
Line breaks
Pauses and puns
Silly similes
Ambiguous antonyms  
Intonation, linguistics
Fight against the fascists of grammar and conservative correctness

So, in the end we are writers of a rainbow kaleidoscope forms, devices, ways and ideas

But we alone are the ones who make the world think
Make it move
Revolt
Renew
Learn
Look back
Remember
Cry
Smile
Forget
Ease

Write my friends write until your mind explodes and your fingers bleed

Read, read and become inspired
Even if what you’re reading is bad cheese

Forget getting published it’s the writing that matters
Disregard the off-putting, critical chatter

And if you think no one reads
Than be the seed and sprout a tree of astounding artistry
And let’s begin a new movement composed of ideals that will hold true forever
I might be preaching to the choir but it must be said that poetry; literature isn’t dead

At Nineteen Miles An Hour, Smoking On A Train

chugging along the lilacs of twilight in the plasma darkening of a stretch
we fetch the improbable road to our destination. we give a ****. but the birds are listening.
and that might lead to luggage. so much, you might sweep the light fantastic
into army hats. you might march a sustained coup on your hopeless epiphanies.
at nineteen miles an hour, on a train... you see your god.
are you too light to darken the right words
to a happy demise?

are your zeroes at odds?

I start to answer her question,
She seems taken aback.
I rattle off my list.
“Witty comments,
An easy found laughter…
I like competitiveness
That’s wraps itself around playfulness,
Like I want to wrap myself around
His big found epiphanies.
Symphony of intellectual connecting’s and
Good intuition.
A quick reaction time, helping you step away
Before **** has had time to hit the fan.
Eagerness to help other human beings…
Taking advantages of opportunities instead of people
Charisma that is unselfish in its tendency to be noticed.
Awareness of one’s self.
a knack for insightful observing.”
These a list of things I find attractive
But yes he also has a nice jaw line
It traces lovely underneath a finger tip
But it’s a faraway line on a map
That has eloquently plotted out his most beautiful parts
It’s faded and dim in comparison to the additional obvious existing’s
It is so far from those parts of him I find to be most beautiful
That I hardly understand how out of all of it
That was the only thing you really responded to.
The only part of the map you related enough to
To point to and say I have been there.

Aha!

That's it!

This answer may stick!!

And it's!!*

....uhmm..

Whoa! The thunder woke me. It shakes this little house. The lightning seems to come directly to my window and it lights up my room like strobe light. I feel very small, and very scared. It feels weird because there was a time when this weather was rather empowering; now it is the opposite. But...I recall that time to be when I was the happiest with myself. So, things have happened, and I've lost confidence. I am realizing that only I am able to talk myself into who I was. Because I've never been one to stay down long. I've got a schedule of achievements to make. I am determined to rebuild what I have lost.

And just like that... the second round of thunder encourages me and I am laughing with excitement.

I picture them in a balmy hallway,
far-corner huddled; quietly, urgently
comparing their notes on ways I have loved.

They'll laugh at lame jokes and avoid eye contact,
each surprised by their own awkwardness.
One of them will quip the term
'eskimo brother'
and immediately wish he hadn't.
The rest will kindly ignore it.
The moment will pass.

They will slowly shed their discomfort.
They will remove their coats.
Sweat will bloom at collars
and trace knotty bumps of spine before
pooling into the space between
boxers and belt.

They won't openly discuss the
strange comradery
that accompanies the lazy river evenings spent drifting down the same mind-
but the tension pulling across
each of their jaws
will announce loud and clear
how frustrating it has
been to be cropped,
tucked in, paper fortune teller folded
and wrapped up into someone else’s idea of poetry.


Casually
then all at once,
they will get started.
Printed pages will uncoil from backpacks,
phones will emerge from pockets
and fingers slightly shaking
will chase the letters
of my name through search engines.

My sticky poems will fan out across floorboards.
They will lower their bodies carefully, not quite kneeling,
(and without mention of the bad knees they happen to share.)
They'll hover above each piece of evidence
and their eyes will crash along titles and memories-
they'll read with raised
eyebrows and pretend as if
they don't already know
each poem, each quick dig, by heart.

When they start claiming
and denying pieces
they will do so lightly
and without judgment.
'This piece is about you and the dry, delicate
tissue-shell of skin
she held out for you after you told
her to shed.
But this piece- this piece is about me
and the messy ointment
that ruined her clothes and
stained her blankets.
A doctor instructed she
apply the ointment to her hands
twice a day to treat
the burns my silence left
across her arms and throat.'

They will share a bit of rage,
A bit of regret.
A bit of shame, perhaps.
They will either miss me intensely
or not at all.
They will either own up
to the poems they begat
or begin refuting.
They don’t want any of
this chilly weight on their soul.
I understand.

They didn’t sign up for this, I know that.
They didn’t set out to rock me,
nor to dig down deep and get to my China.
I was happy to share, to whisper and recite blurry
morning confessions and epiphanies.
I was right behind them running toward the sand dunes,
waving a shovel and pail.
But I can’t feel bad either.
You all must have known:

If you happen to fall for a girl
who writes you must realize
that every smile you put on her face,
every stray hair you’ve pushed back from her eyes,
and quick habit she starts to crave
is fair game.

If a girl who writes happens to fall for you too--
forget it.
You will find echoes of the way your souls fit and fought
together until she has nothing left to feel on the subject;
(and you must be well aware
she's tidal, her feelings are icecaps,
they are melting but will trickle fresh
and renewed for centuries to come.)

sometimes she daydreams about life the way i do about death. it's ironic, i know: black and white aren't meant to be grey and the rumbling hum of expletives digging into mauve lips pass through like desaturated light to translucent statures. it makes everything seem sweeter than it looks. she thinks the ache feels lukewarm, just like those half-hearted smiles she gives out like presents on a holiday, and she may be right. pain is not cold, it covers your entire heart with microwaved fingers, leaving burn marks that leave chars and ashes. snaps the purple heartstrings and clumsily tries to mend it.

(i love you because you're corporeal, she murmurs, you keep me sane)

she's spider-webbed, sung gossamer and silk while her bar lines drip with ink. and she seems moonstruck—because of me she says and blooms throughout my epiphanies. fancies herself a ghost, a wisp, something ethereal that lingers on my lips like a kiss. and she lingers, oh she does. toppling from the skies and collapsing into my rib-cage, she stays, blushing rose-like and thriving. velvet and constellations of blood clots patter against her skin. it blooms like she blooms, a paint splattered canvas meant for all to see.

My thoughts, my words,
I purge them out on paper
But the echo I hear,
Most clearly in my ear,
Is the conversation
Infinite feelings
Through infinite cigarettes
Life done
By twenty-seven
I’ll take that bet
The echo of epiphanies,
Ends where it starts
A run-on sentence
Beginning with f*ck
“Your name here”
In wonderland
Sounds less melancholy
Than “your name here”
Anywhere else
I’m in an **** of the mind
I’m burning up
The fury with the might
I’m trumping death with life

embedded in the most tenebrous corner of my mind,
harlequin memories of serendipity,
dripping like bittersweet wine,
tantalize me,
begriming what was once an unsoiled canvas.

engulfed in my despondency,
I repose homely
until my mind's taste-buds
savor the saccharine flavors
of its own derisive thoughts.

aroused to say the least,
my mind's libido is now being satisfied.
I lie here,
welcoming all that my thoughts and epiphanies have to offer.
I am unable to disclose what's bestowed to me
but that's irrelevant.

My mind is here...
and open
and anticipating
the pleasing rush
of these thoughts that venture through my head.

The pleasure is overwhelming,
forcing my chakras open
as my ajna awakens from its long slumber.

I crave this foreplay
and I plead with the universe
to make it never-ending
but it seems my cries fall upon deaf ears
and I'm left open-minded
and unfinished.

You write the most beautiful words
for the woman in your life
I get it now, I'm such a cow
I only see destruction and strife
I'm lying right next to him
just now, as I write
he doesn't know
I'm twisting the knife
I want to be that woman
so proud, so bold
but in his eyes I've grown
so bitter, so cold
except I've had to weather
such unexpected plans
that all I can do
is look down
at my upturned hands
palms out in supplication
raised as a defence
ready to hold against a cheek
that doesn't take offence
I read words from such males
that hold a vow so sacred
and epiphanies become true to me
that leave me standing raw and naked

Too good and yet true
Too beautiful
To taste
Without falling in daze
Without following
Delirious
An aroma trail of craving
On the back of my tongue
I’m getting equal measures
Of heaven and hell
Perfectly balanced

My eyes are my traitors
Plotting to open the gates
Sending stowaway warriors
Whom I never gave orders
To slip behind walls
Of thickest black pupils
In the Trojan horse
That my eager look is

And gazes are bridges
Unwillingly
Supporting the siege
Of epiphanies
You and me
Caught in our ambush
Completely surrounded by Us

My epiphanies never last
Rising and popping like bubbles in a glass
Frequently falling flat
No real form for all their fizz.

There will be two epiphanies
On January 6th.
Christians around the globe will celebrate
Little Christmas, The Epiphany,
The Word Made Flesh,
The arrival of the three wise men, The Magi,
And they reveal to the world
The Savior has come.
The same will happen on the Senate Floor (sans three wise men)
When the President-Savior
Is presented to the world,
And his detractors will bray, cackle and neigh
As he is adorned.
Saviors don't build walls,
They raze them.

The clouds swell up with frozen ale
A slushy taste, all cold and stale
Falling, freezing, bittersweet
Kicking through the snow and sleet
It's raining, it's pouring, it's snowing tears
Of wasted alcoholic fears
The melted snow, a cold hangover
But springtime comes, and the sky is sober.

It was not good
No, that does not make it bad.
You would find no date marked
On my calendar
Or a goal set
It was what it was
Nothing more than that
A thoughtless act of letting go
And I had finally done something well.

There were no midnight epiphanies
No, the sun still shone the same
The world was still its own paradise
We all were burning in our own flames
Nothing had changed,
Yet nothing remained the same-
Cause of
A thoughtless act of letting go
And I had done it with grace.

I had the day planned,
I had written about it to an extent
The words lost their meaning,
The pages went deaf.
It came ever so suddenly
Like the first drop of rain
From a single lonely cloud
On a sunny day.
Yes, I did not think about it
I just decided to begin again-in another place
Just like that.

It was not selfish
It was not necessarily brave
Hope
You don't exaggerate it
To something it never meant.
It was just her
Letting go of the world
That no longer made any sense
She cut all her ties-
The final act of letting go
And she had done it so well.

I sit awake with thoughts of lost sleep
the words do not come
but the thoughts like       mist
      feelings inexpressible

I can't sleep

No midnight epiphanies

I dream of going far away.
Plunging into the grandeur
And the vastness
Of the world.
I am ready to leave this place;
I am ready, I say,
To be away.

I will write and draw,
And take drugs with strangers.
I will sleep on the beach,
Bathe in rivers,
And plunge into nature,
Away from four walls,
From screens and cars,
And toward greenery and stars;
Splendid laughter and epiphanies
Spilling from the ether,
Behind trees and over mountains,
In the silent water of calm lakes,
And in the crimson sky
Of some northwestern twilight.

I will wander abandoned roads
And drink coffee in midnight diners
Thousands of miles from home,
For the road beckons,
And the moon never waits.

The wanderlust of youth
Is nothing to waste.

my turtle doves are pondering the broth of my head space.
tingling.
they gibberish the nest and lay eggs of dragons that still believe in dragons.
they wish for thick lightning in the lustrous void. they beak the shell of no made thing.
the Eternal Hum.
the one Always that had Never Begun.
Only Ever, Ever Been.
and That's  It's
Name.

my turtle doves are robbing the bog of it's undead wyrms. they swoop in the morning.

down down down
to the gamma ray golf course lawns
of our suburban necrophilia. the one with the empty dreams in their peanut butter stars.
the one
with the eggshell Camary Toyotas and the delinquent epiphanies.
n' more ice cream than Ben n' Gerry's ******* of Selling
More ******* ice cream
than You
can Imagine.
Plus One.

my turtle doves are holding me hostage. in the dizzy breach. of god's contract.
a damp shade of misspent youth. the Old Way.
seasoned by the Eons
and the swollen Love of the First Love.
engorged in the Kingdom of Desire
like a fat mosquito. Sated on  Cyclopian  forearms.
and the shoulders of Giants
on a small blue world
in your mouth.

just sayin'.

Starting up you're all I want to touch
just us, half naked
weekends wasted
stripping, sniffing, sipping
its star splitting

you stain my brain
and thoughts on my sheets
its been weeks and I'll always choose you over sleep

you're smug
cos you think I'm in love
but you know I'm caving
the hum of your presence I'm craving
the lull of my lust misbehaving
all senses wavering
I stare my issues in the face

spiteful inflictions influx your world
this happiness is on borrowed time
as a sun bleeds beauty
my heels ***** with demise
staged under skies of potent paradise
and I've lost all sense of myself
smothered by mental health

there's toxicity to our proximity
that renders all possibilities for me
I sigh to leave behind heavy lies
but at least I'm half free from anxiety
and I can smoke again

yet there's more bad decisions in the shape of you
and we know its not true
but I decanter out the decadence
so I wont feel possession
obsession can maintain you
don't use it to sustain you

the complications spring my elations
hallucinations that restores clarity
tiny triggered spores open doors to expose your vanity
egos obscured what our reality ignores
as we explore each other's minds and sanity
potions of emotions keep the notion
that were not too eager for unhealthy devotion
we climb on frantic antics and struggle with the semantics
of what we want to say...

if we enjoyed being bored
not living for drama
reserving our pain
and deserving our karma

my cat scraps the shadows as
my mind maps the gallows
feasting on conspiracies of negativity
but hardly mindful to see
they'll always be a distraction
an infectious interaction
that puts things off track

mellowed attributes and more attention
make room for romance soon to be rotten
a spark of love so soon forgotten

apparatus attitudes
practice in ventriloquism of truth
an alchemist interlude
as I manoeuvre to conclude
these epiphanies are constant
then snoozed away
I don't owe you
in blue to choose these lazy ways
days of ***** are hazy with
drunken clues, to forget the thoughts
bought from the hangover before
this is gifted guilt but I know me by now
and its obscurely ordinary
to be deliciously disgusted by you

Nights spent in eternity
Burning candles at both ends
In the dark, it's only me
One man's search for
meaning.

And in the oppressive, obsessive black
No light comes to show
The truth I seem to always lack
As I stumble upon
nothing.

Pacing pacing pacing round
There is no destination here
And as I march without a sound
I contemplate the possible
ending.

My search yields no help yet
And so I give up now
The futility in mind begins to set
Therefore I lay here
dying.

.
Those bestowed with special gifts are duty-bound to share 
           
So open up, we're listening, let them echo everywhere

Let your thoughts emerge, take flight, travel and rebound

See them ricochet off cliff and temple, filling air with sound

It's exhausting being us. Half-lidded
eyes that reflect the darkness
between stars, impedimented acceptance
of where you are in life. Our adventures
are painful pursuits to locate
authenticity in a filtered world that
seems ugly every other day.

We move through life like a slow exhale
of smoke, hurt gathering inside our chests
lasting for months and years. This bitterness,
it burns. But we don't stop because
watching ourselves bleed is just another form
of living.

Life can be so full that it almost
bursts, or it can be depleted as a
vacuum ******* your epiphanies and
inspiration out of your body until
you explode in
self-doubt. You and I, we don't have
time for false apologies
at the rate of our inconsequential
breathing. We are not red-flags
in our own eyes, we are just
impatient for self love
to finally have a meaning.