Catatonic inscriptions etches through my textile discernment
Insidious cycles of turmoil encased within a festering distress
Uncertainty obscures my comfort into a chaotic complacency
Transforming the subtle movement of thought and bewilderment
Through the re-occurring sequences of paranoia and my uneasy psychosis
Haunting the whole of this psyche and the mental state I've come to fancy
A tell-tale apprehension of merriment and contentment may be a dismal reality
All the while being obsessed with the unfavorable outcomes I conjure within
But, I can't get enough of the disarray that breeds within my frail skull
So distant from what I feel in the ecstasy of my self-selected normality
The meek proposal of sanity has little to hold against these crooked grins
As this chaotic thought process leaves rationality as a vague ideal to null
Expansive introspection has no limit to what is perceived as validity
And, to be enveloped in the ambiguity and delusion of fact is so enticing
We all know that we've all come to recognize the fabrication of our own truth
The futile attempts to obtain an immaculate conviction in pure solidity
Is so wondrously perfunctory and constant as the life that i'm living
That I dread the day of departure from this hysteric observance of aging youth
Listen, I don't care what you believe in.
If you think fate exists or maybe everything is just completely random.
Regardless, one day, one specific moment in time will hit you like a train.
You'll question everything.
Your previous belief.
You'll think,'Wow, maybe it is all random..'
Or 'Wow, what are the fucking odds..
Maybe this fate stuff has some merit.'
And I think it's that moment that makes us human.
Knowing for a fact that as strong as our perspectives are, they still could be wrong.
We could be wrong, and we probably are.
I just think that maybe.. somehow.. maybe it could be both.
Chaotic and predetermined. Beautifully tragic. Painfully blissful.
And then I think maybe no one else really gives a shit,
And I probably shouldn't either.
Red, as the deepest rose in a bloom of spring
like the blood that runs through my being
like the light inside the tower for men at sea
your touch creates a safe haven for me
Dust, clouded and floating through the air
like a part of the Earth that didn't bother to care
like the way a fire sparkles through a dead night
you are just the correct type of write
Fragmented and broken in a universe of chaotic distrust
like a brand new bike with a slight bit of rust
like joy that only comes when you're in my hand
no need for an audience, you are my biggest fan
A song to be belted from the top of a mountain high
like the coarse, bristly hairs my fingers slip by
like the tissues that have wiped so many tears
you are the only one who will ever understand my wants and fears
And love, the sweetest, most innocent, and pure kind
like the first opening of a newborn's eyes
like the moment you realize your purpose in life
you are the only one I feel I will ever do write by
So here's to you, my dearest friend- my pen,
you are why I am who I am.
Margaret looks around her overly organized kitchen and smiled. " Isn't the kitchen just….. beautiful?"
"What do you mean?" The boy studied the kitchen with a confused look on his face.
"Everything is just beautifully organized, and clean."
"What's the fun in that?"
"Huh?" Margaret turns to look at the boy. "What's not fun about clean and organized things?"
"Well, chaos is what runs this world. Control is what holds it back. If everything is controlled and organized, then nothing will be created, invented, or even worth looking at. The world was not meant to be controlled or quiet, it was meant to be loud, free, chaotic"
Making hay while the sun’s a’shinin’
Stealin’ cake while the others are dinin’
Feeling the pull to peep through the wool
Or was it the sheep through which the lies seep ?
The chaotic bleat that flows beneath the feet
And arises up the spine like cavitations mal- divine.
Emitting up and out a sound hole plucking strings in our throat
Unconscious aural conformation
Till one living sweater-shrub ceases to bleat out of consternation
Something has changed, as things sometimes do.
Something is different, something is new.
Random, spontaneous, serendipitous growth
Unexpected uninvited, unrequited hope
Once begged for freedom from oppressive tyranny of choice
Now beg for shackles through curdled cackles to get back the voice
Till beg no more, upright from all for
Decision passed from hooves to hand
From grazing grass to breeding land
To breed ideas, but not new race
To evolve, revolve, revolt with grace
But still a sheep, not more no less.
Did not run, did not egress
The sheep that ceased to bleat and began to speak.
The thing about
drinking,
at least for me
is to get to that blissful, buzzed state
where colors are better,
the cheap whiskey in my dirty cup
is suddenly
poured from the finest casks
of a looser Bacchus.
Then there are those sirens,
painted like indecisive chameleons
beneath
those chaotic exploding lights
green, sapphire, electric crimson
showering us, and we're all wet with it.
My tongue is honey,
my teeth flashing out in the spastic
polychrome
half-lights.
Eyes wolf-like
staring into theirs all sex-magnetic.
She presses against me
and I whisper something sweet
and she falls into it
like a daydream
or a fever
The whiskey and the gin gild my throat
and I feel like a fucking prince.
Then another shot. Another drink.
And I feel it all
slip
ing
away.
So I drink and I drink and I drink
trying to get it back
until those colorful light bulb flashes
all blend into some horrible, disorderly
painter's palette.
Those beautiful
sirens
no longer singing,
have all turned their backs on me.
So I become
choleric.
This bar is ugly,
this whiskey cheap,
these people fools.
And I start to hate it all, I tell myself
But I know, deep within the
maelstrom of alcohol and bile,
I hated it all from the start.
I am spontaneous disaster,
you a reckless abandon,
mysterious majesty
I evade your commandment.
Your eyes sift through my soul
and take control,
of my chaotic mind.
Please slow this rampant wall of time.
Am I delusional,
or is this the usual?
You...
Never know which way to move
just a harlequin heart
trying to get in tune.
I watch a woman smile as leaves, like red fingered stars
Swirl around her in the stiff autumn wind.
She bends clutching handfuls of crisp copper leaves to her chest
And I'm reminded of childhood games;
They fall more thickly
And there's surprise and wonder in her eyes
At one with the breeze and the leaves
She spins in the dance, arms flung wide
Old memories dance before me; unbidden, chaotic,
Holding no promise of restoration or renewal
Their forever darkness still red slashed
As ghost sores weep
Love letters falling like leaves
Bleed from my breast in reams
Once written in heart blood
Golden gilded with the glow of possibilities
Once light, they now pool at my feet
I should catch them up, press them tightly to my chest
to staunch the flow of life's essence
But a sharp slashing cut which evicerates
and the sense darkness beyond paralyses
Here is the edge of grief
There's nothing more frightening or exciting than exodus
The way ships are wooed by waves,
under the pretense of more promising continents.
I can see where countless hands have pulled at my shoelaces and wrapped
my arches in ribbons of origami
So I guess I'm kind of deadset on walking for a while.
It's been a long day of finding breathing space between double-knots and bending
broken fingernails back into place;
the self-constructed chaotic embrace of something supposedly so
straight as string brings forth beckoning ghosts of
those figure-eight souls who laid themselves
horizontal
to waste their Sundays tracing the Hills
on the breath fogged side of some painted-shut window sill;
trading the promise of Infinity for the Religion of Monotony.
Praying through agoraphobic day-dreams
raining across the night sky of their eye lids
with the brilliance of meteorites,
imagining how earth-shattering they could be
if only these tyrannosauruses would just look up.
I have come here
--abandoned the comfort of the quaint, suburban
ruins of the American Dream, which buckled
like widows knees mid frail-voiced eulogy
mourning the death of their Salesman--
and wandered aimlessly into the improvisation of some story-book jungle,
wishing I was better rehearsed.
I have come here
to congregate with the snakes and beasts; to feast beneath
the din of carnal sin and primal instincts. I've chosen to begin jumping
from stump-to-stump like stepping headstones
in a graveyard of fallen trees, where men
who grew up too quickly and forgot the importance of fictional stories,
who learned too early how black-market trade
the need to imagine for something a little more
tangible,
who smile through serrated teeth,
saw it fit to clear this wilderness for something a little more
domesticated.
Until I found where brambles grew too thick:
for every split their metal tongues would lick
into the trees' skin, a gallimaufry of
vines and branches and roots
would erupt in confused medley,
and their finest mathematics couldn't begin to calculate
the thriving division of a place so un-governed by logic.
I have come here
to this long forgotten storybook jungle to remember
how to reign without rules like a thunderstorm
who, desperate reach down and share something with the sea,
Cares not for the weight of gravity.
I'll band together with these untamed brutes
--these feral barbarians and unbroken monstrosities--
to howl at the moon with the effervescence of a Ginsberg poem.
We'll forge a tinsel-town crown and take turns
playing king of Where the Wild Things Are found.
Because unlike concrete cities
The Wild of Atavism has never forgotten that
Tradition is a catalyst of change
and that nothing is permanent.
I've been having laughing contests with a mountain
because every now-and-again he will crack
A smile, and when a mountain laughs
He does so so gutturally
From deep within his catacomb chest that
the whole Earth quakes -- everything changes--
And I've sort of got my heart set
On being a part of something so significant.
So trust me when I say,
I know the feeling of being
shipwrecked and mapless,
but keep your shoelaces strapped tight
and run off the infinity of double knots.
If you go looking for me, continue
Past the paint chips, through
The open window;
Set your sights to the far treelines.
Don't strain yourself listening for
the laughter of mountains,
Because when that stoic disposition
Finally does crack, you'll feel it in your feet...
No matter where you are.
And from the way his ridges are crumbling,
I think I've almost got him beat.
© Christopher Voss
The night I attempted it
they said it was just a phase
I was not suffering,
it was just a hard day.
Little did they know
it wasn’t the first try
and I really did wish I could die.
I guess they didn’t know
all about me
and how i was an artist
underneath my sleeves.
But if they saw inside my head
they would know the truth
about that night
on the roof.
Because it was not a phase
or just a bad day,
my mind is a twisted
chaotic maze.
They would see
it happens all the time,
the depressing thoughts
that suffocate me like a vine.
Perhaps it’s best that they don’t know
the reasons
because every day to me
is suicide season.
