VI. I, Ophelia
___________________

­{The Drowning}

It was her--
Flower Child.
Weeping Woman.
Crazed Ophelia--
who taught me that the
drowning is in the letting go
and not in the doing.

Ophelia did not flee to the riverside
with the intention of
drowning herself, no--
it was merely a promise of bouquets--
daisies, violet, rosemary,  rue--
of wild, velveteen petals nestled softly
against tear-stained cheekbones;
pine needles--
ticklish--
beneath raw feet
(do you recall how The Little Mermaid
danced upon knives
in the name of true love?);
and the train of her nightgown
a focal point for dewy leaves
and frayed bird feathers.

For it was flying she thought of
as she climbed the scarred willow
and cradled herself atop its highest bough,
severed blossoms in hand,
legs dangling precariously over
blustering currents.

But
when the bough
b r o k e ,
the cradle did   f
                              a
                               ­   l
                                      l,
and down came
mad girl
cradle and all.

But you must understand--
the dismemberment of the
willow's flailing limbs
was not her doing;
when the rapids dragged her down
to the belly of the murky river bed,
she merely gave no struggle
as death lapped at her ribs--
she merely submitted,
allowed the snivelling maw of the river
to swallow her whole.

Now,
I think it suiting
that I ponder the demise of the
Flower Child
(wilted in her ruin);
Weeping Woman
(tears reunited
with the eye of
the water lily);
Crazed Ophelia
(forgotten)
and all she has taught me
of drowning
as I let myself
fall asleep in the bathtub
at three o clock in the morning,
all the while a little drunk
and so very sad.
(You'd might have even thought
I wanted to drown myself. )
__________________
{Th­e Resurrection}

Doused in the pallid wash
of blue stage light,
and the clamour
of imaginary tides
growling in my ears,
I metamorphosize into
Hamlet's Ophelia
and all the other Ophelias
who came before me--
mad.
broken.
lost.
women.

Women who were never
capable of quieting
the sea trembling
in their veins;
the barbaric deluge festering
within their souls;
the siren songs
musing to the cavernous twists
of their hearts,
piercing through artery
with stalagmite precision.

These women succumbed,  
not to the water,
but to the burden of their own
desire.
love.
heartbreak.

None of them survived.

Except for me,
of course.

And, I must admit,
it took my
writing this poem
to finally understand
why that is--
why--
how--
I have managed
to stay alive,
despite dreaming of that
same siren song
that lured my foremothers
to their destructions.

See,
alone,
Ophelia could not weather  
the tempest seething over her.

But I different--
I am not alone.

Because I carry with me the spirits
of all the Ophelias
who came before me,
the fragments of their beings
melding together to create
a brilliant gossamer of hope.

And that is why,
together,
we can breathe underwater.
____________________
{­Blackout}

Ophelia Bows,
her performance immortalized
through the remembrance
of a standing ovation.

a passing balloon piece,
his, within in a message,
makes the imagery explode
with numerous contractions,
even confusions, and requires an
explaining explication and a fresh
application of sealant

men see the words ~ think war or football,
women think of the lyric, phrase in a sad
love ballad that means recall, and a
moistening  tear drop that liquifies but doesn’t drop

but that word, pulverized,  has an enormity
attached, that conjures destruction total,
s battlefield’s aftermath, tree stumps cut
down, synchronized with bodies in parts,
sole souls departing
without reasoning/justification

the lineage upon her face,
pulverized by sorrow and
no expectations for the morrow,
gaveled into existence,
by losses and carried
for a length of  a term ill defined,
as “life”
with no hint of irony, for it’s not life
when  it’s spent reminiscing remembering
the dismemberment of what was a
joy taken instantly and perpetually inexplicabe

the tragedies multicolored in black,
a solid stolid state that nary a meter,
talking centi’s here, pinch of breeze
and /or hurricane alters status quo,
both of us have long known that, but
we nonetheless pick up grains, single
alphabet scrambled pieces to put the
whole together again, but it’s a cause
hopeless cause we be
are
pulverized inside so
the chorded chore is
a double whammy
and still
and yet
we say
but,
for we cannot stop our fingers
from their appointed rounds
and we think in term not of hope
but a thought out louded,
the eternal question,
what if
we do not try?

Take all that I own
The children of my thoughts
Severed from completion

Haunt me with your zombie right
You, walking dead, making
Hellish nightmare of my pride

Have the arms that bear my burden
And the ligaments that establish your being
And dial the number that numbs me mad

I have brought you upon myself, shackle  of decaying flesh

And to sate my blood-lust
I ill take this hurt mass
And rip it from my flesh
In rose petal patterns
I will remove the excess limbs
Holding onto the past
And cleaver my ambitions for everything left

And in the mass of my meat and muscle
And the weight of every drop of blood I've bled
I will form a Lazarus start
Through the halls of beautiful dismemberment
Through the multitude of converging paths

I forge a new way
I forge my own way


(It is a strange night that the wind does not make a sound)

Black eyes, bruised wrists, mangled genitals.
Ribcage extruding; calling for love, lust, and cigarettes
Faces offensive; unmet eyes, and searing expressions.
Scars on arms; speaking louder than quiet voices
Staring blank; at bills yet paid
Thinking there is no way
Imaging the fall from your 3rd floor
Apartment
Weighing funeral costs over living expenses
Death would put you deeper in a hole
Not able to get out, saying how
Did I get here.
Looking up seeing the opening nearly
Closed; finger lye at the only opening left.
Hope.
Being crushed brutally, whilst you see it all
happen.
Blood rains on your pale face, craving
Sunlight.
Dismemberment of fingers, brings you into total darkness.

I tilted my head . I wilted and was dead -
No longer entangled in this snare called life -
none the less remembered, respected
Dejected in my illusion -
Where i wander most often, unclaimed and disillusioned -
Whatever was I hoping for-
longing in which to see -
the distorted , unreported - dismemberment of ME -
Expectations are like curses, drowning and alienating ALL who dare to dream -
The Ideals of a stranger - I am now what I seem

The human soul, as vile as bile,
Savage Cruel disturbed infected and distort,
The human soul, obsessed with foul style,
Sinful confused mishandled and extort

Devoid of ethical human feelings,
Inflicted with raw sadistic hatred,
Grotesque depraved dismembered killings,
Ungodly occultism, unsacred

Sickness requires resolute treatment,
Stitches to repair ripped incisions,
Reducing the risk of dismemberment,
Catastrophe fractured by excision

Ceased decaying crippled in dreadful despair
Emerging from darkness, disturbed and aware.


William James

Carve out a chunk,
the happiness hunk.
The one that stays clear
of all of the junk.

Without this fine piece,
one is never in least,
content with ones self.
A man without peace.

Take out the side,
with ego and pride.
That part is the worst,
Just set that aside.

Believe when they tell us,
it too, makes us jealous.
When envy is stricken,
a man over-zealous.

Cut out a slice,
and anger's the price.
Lets get rid of that,
it's not very nice.

See, this ones a cage,
where bad memories age,
and morph into new forms.
A man full of rage.

Punch out the holes,
that sadness controls.
It can be so hard,
when charred into souls.

Aside from the rest,
but, nested in best.
the sadness takes hold,
and a soul is depressed.

The thing that most feel,
has taken the wheel,
is fear in itself.
Although, its not real.

Fear is insane,
it confuses the brain,
into thinking its there.
A mans shadow of pain.

Sinuses, you have won today,
but the night shall be mine,
for down my throat
I have poured the elixir of wonder
and shoved the grenade
of mucus dismemberment
and I have aerated my nostrils
with the flow of nase.
I may be pass through the night unknowingly,
but at least I know that you will not hinder me any longer.
No more will my brain try to escape its confounds,
no more shall my glasses feel like they are crushing my nose as a grape.
I shall sleep as you are conquered.
Yes, you may have won the day,
but I, I will have the night.

Hate was the darkness
tied in thick frayed ropes
smothered in kerosene
swung over the biggest branch
and wrapped around my throat
while strangers pulled and tightened it.

It was the match lit that **** fire.
Their rage burned my skin
while choking me out
like a sadistic wrestler.

It was branding
and dismemberment.
All those children remember it.
It was little trinkets of remembrance,
bits of flesh, and teeth
Any part they could take of me
before and after
I hung lifelessly
from the most convenient tree.

But if you think this is just
some case of dark skinned history
Then check the news
and you will see
they are still lynching me.

snowy skies dusk blue split in two by a sun and a moon
divided, I'm constantly chasing the light to the horizon line, looking for proof
to finally let go or to continue, hanging on, clinging onto
the thing I hold so dear, my small precious piece of you

my small precious piece so dear to me, the soft light from a warm flame I still stoke
my smallest, but cherished memento of perfect days
ephemeral but preserved, the time you were near to me before these sheets were cold
the candle lit rooms behind locked doors where our love met when even the walls would breathe hard and sweat
we were close like the edge of a day and the start of a night, close as threads stitched together tight
fingernails in backs like squeezing a first crush, eating up the deafening hush of saying nothing much
the coils of us two twisted up in ways lovers never forget, like a first touch meant
before the toils of dismemberment when even I could still remember what forever meant
but with every new sun and moon "ever" never arrives and tomorrow arises again too soon

I was trying to hang pictures of us, of kisses and smiles and of affection's glow
by tacking nails into the glass walls I built, I know
but before the "should've knowns", before I knew, there was pure, ethereal You
a truth in an innocence actually held true, unbroken and unabused, belief that two could be infused, that I still have to latch onto
so short those times, so dear, my precious small piece and so wasted the time since, without pursuit
trinkets of the mind but like treasures polished by going over them again and again with affection
thoughts never forgotten because they meant just the perfect connection, a protection not misused or askew
because of my love for my dear, small, precious, treasured piece of you

I want it back, I want you back, I want it back so badly more than I love or lust or envy
but it's damning every time I begin this again, it begins to be the ending of me
the dismantling of all sanity, the self fulfilling prophecy, the ending of an infinity
it comes running the haste of it, craving just a taste of it, moving backward through days never erasing it
never a hope for looking forward, no interest in a face in the crowd, no want for replacing it
too late or too soon split between a sun and a moon retracing it
yes
this endless chase the breadth of it stretches farther than me it's bigger than worlds and smaller than sands
wider than the sides of the dreamscapes inside of me and too small for grasping hands
it's smaller than subconscious whispers of confidence and bigger than screams of insecurities
it's deeper than black oceans, a void no light could fill
it's too small to keep, smaller than a second past by, and then smaller still
the size escapes me, unattainable it will always be painful in ways that deepen with age
now the chill of this winter is warmed only in how many blank white blankets I fill
writing it out to throw it away, feeling only that the next page is empty still
yes, yes
I feel so empty still and I do try to fill the silence between words and the lines between poems
and the loneliness between smiles on a face growing old
yes I feel so empty still because I know only you can give the missing feelings, gone missing for me
with the one thing I've kept unchanged inside of myself since it was inside of us two

my dear
small
precious
piece of you

according to the social disaster disclaimer I’m folded into
I’m essentially a stupid kitchen joke and a statistic of abuse
cause in America whenever we see someone else
choking on public schools and rules
we kick them when they’re down,
cuz apparently cruel is cool
the world is gonna burn, and we forgot the golden rule,
I should be more concerned but
I know i'll just go continue without you
knife, butcher, this is a hunter culture
carve apart, fall apart, throw your daughters to the vultures
wish you never met this year, wish you never met this lifetime
but, it's just human nature to check the basement
see what crimes you might find inside
to peel apart the paradigm and feel the wall for a light
I know your first instinct is to shut your eyes tight
but if you want to know, you gotta open wide

so if they call you ugly, understand you are a mirror, they’re peering into and sympathize
that's another stigmatized child feeling vile after so-called civil society spat them on the wayside
and if you've ever felt radioactive in the spotlight then you understand the way anti neutrinos decay,
moving at the speed of light in spite of unstable nuclei producing beta rays
well ***** it, i will wear all my shortcomings and benevolent reveries with pride
you told me not to lie so i stopped writing about those infinite why's
and what truly happens after we die. i started writing about life.

those who did stick around for the trickle down are the people i realize aren't fickle, now
i don't flinch when a strangers shoots me a frown, i just laugh to myself; i'll get out of this town
i'll swallow that bullet and rip my mouth open
I’ll cut down your Trojans with each verbal round
i can't stop Rome from burning, and I can’t suppress this yearning
but i sure as hell can take Nero's crown
I will draw an army of waves from the Tyrrhenean Sea
pluck my lyre instead of expiring, why not enjoy the heat?
you have so many rotted adjectives for me
but i know i'm not, i'm a noun and i always will be

this hesitant resident living in a glass house of evidence
impatiently anticipating dunce cap vengeance isn't it evident?
you are constantly vigilant and aware of entitlement
yet you find yourself, intent on grasping the advent of your descent
into this environment
not afraid to admit that when you feel, you crack the pavement
not pretending to be angelic, sprawled out coughing up your appendix
procuring the puzzle pieces, rudimentary ligaments and appendages
and you don’t even know who’s pretending anymore
so you sit at the pier, think about jumping off shore
always stuck in the system and frightened to vent
fearing this consistent emotional dismemberment

tell me when you find the box where my heart sits
my head beneath the guillotine where my grief splits
brief pieces of sweet dreams, teasing me if I don’t seize it
no longer fitting in my cracked ribs, like degenerative diseases
I can’t swallow anymore scorn for your entertainment
they’re turning me into a neuro-amputee with every arraignment
feeling like a hazy ******, bona fide public offender, a opened letter returned to sender
on a really bad day that somehow turned into a week
and you still can't shake this discomfort, now that you know love’s not cheap
so you've stopped agonizing about destroying the feeling
instead of stealing in, you just let it creep and seep
I’ve started stopping myself and i've stopped starting to give up
i won't let a feeling keep me from being free

There is no love here.
Not real love. Not love that binds the soul to something true.
Only the bastardization of love, the reduction of meaning into spectacle,
where poetry is no longer poetry—
but a Facebook status update dressed in pretty words,
a commodity to be liked, shared, and consumed.

The word itself is defiled, forced into the service of public accolade,
where art once bled sincerity but now panders for reaction.
A living thing, once full of breath and marrow,
humiliated into drivel beneath the weight of empty praise.

This is the nature of false alliance.
It is the deal struck in the dark,
the handshake that binds not in loyalty, but in necessity.
A temporary convenience. A lifeline for the weak.
And like all false alliances, it demands a price—
someone must always pay.


The Nature of Betrayal Is Always the Same

It is the Jezebel deception,
where the Queen does not fight in the open,
but seduces, ensnares, and commands her weak king to kneel.
And Ahab bends, thinking himself mighty,
while the true power whispers in his ear.

We thought we were after the king,
but it was always the Queen who pulled the strings.
The one who sold herself for power.
The one who defied truth and called it strength.
The one who, in her final defiance,
dismembered her own soul in the process.

She believed herself gaining something.
A seat at the table. A name to be remembered.
The illusion of strength in rebellion—
but all she gained was an empty throne
built on the shattered remnants of who she used to be.


Alliance With Death

They will tell you this is power.
They will say it is freedom
to sell the sacred things for a moment of public accolade,
to turn one's back on God, on self, on every principle once sworn to.
But public accolade is not love.
It is the applause of the herd.
And the herd will clap for anything—until it loses interest.

And then?

Then comes the fall.
Then comes the silence.
Then comes the slow, agonizing realization
that the alliance was never real,
that the power was never hers,
that she was merely a piece on a board
waiting to be sacrificed when her usefulness expired.


The Cost of Selling the Soul

There is a choice given to all—
To take the path of suffering, which leads to transformation,
or to take the shortcut, which only leads to death.
But there are no shortcuts in truth.
There is only consequence.

She chose the shortcut.
She aligned with the false king, the weak man,
the one who believed himself master but was only a pawn.
And in that moment of final betrayal,
she became something lesser than herself.

Not a Queen.
Not a woman of fire.
Not a force to be reckoned with.

She became a servant of the herd.
A ghost of her former self.
A puppet on a string—
until even those who pulled the strings lost interest in the show.


What Comes After the Dismemberment?

The kingdom is shattered.
The thrones are empty.
The false alliances have crumbled.
And now, she stands at the edge of her own ruin,
looking at the wreckage she caused,
realizing that no one stands beside her anymore.

Will she own what she has done?
Will she face the truth of who she has become?
Or will she run, hide,
and build another false kingdom on borrowed time?

That is not our question to answer.
That is her burden to bear.
We have already done what needed to be done.
We spoke the truth.
We dismembered the illusion.
And now?

Now we walk away.


Postscript:  The Last Grace~



Mother Love Bone Scenes // Terracotta Dreams...

"What, you just love me
and then move on…
is that what you do?"

They weren’t steps away from her—
they were paces.

And in an instant, the arrow flew.

There is a seam,
if you are able to see,
as there are terracotta dreams
from which we were all meant to be freed.

Broken shards fell to the ground,
and inside of every single piece
is all of the ‘hers’
she thinks that she needs to be.

Not sure if it is the aim
or the flight of the arrow
that brings about the aloneness
of an unspeakable, heart-sorrow—
and these… the sufferings of hell.

But Chloe is not dead.

Because left standing,
when all else fell,
is her spirit’s core, now glowing.

No longer hidden
within the confines
of her terracotta shell.

Ah, beautiful Chloe—
baby, there were times…
remember knowing?

The Water-Well—
its never-ending flowing.

Believe again in that, my beautiful.
Not the shell.

❤️

From the skies came the howling screams
And the malevolent weather
Casting the hands of shadow over my world
The loveless giants and slack-jawed executioners
Laughing and drooling over the wicker baskets
Filled to the brim with severed heads
Faces frozen in the final moments of their
Demoralized longevity

While the others
The innocents and deceivers
Hung from the peeling trees
From their necks
Their bodies swaying with the
Winds of the howlers; the hoarders and rising dead
Ravens and winged monstrosities feasting on the
Available tissue of those left behind in the dusk
Of lesser men and greater demons

I wept and cowered like never before
In the swelling, audacious fields of fallen brothers and sisters
The air was moist
The earth was damp
I pulled the black garments of butchered priests
Over my coarse back
Covering my punishment from the eyes of God
And his Angels
His divine bystanders
And jealous endeavors

Draped in the cloth of the papists  
Drenched in the accumulated fluids of the slain
I wandered the wastelands with no name
No home
No family
No soul in the moment of sought mercy

The drying of blood and tears hardened the stain cloth
Against my healing body
Pulsing and throbbing over my senses
Turning me into something more
A vile and vengeful entity
Walking among the land of the dead
A ****** of my sanity

Through the cascading water dripping from the sky
Souls and ghosts of the battlefield
Clung to me, touching my feet and hands
My path was followed by the impaled
The disemboweled and the murdered
For the name of such clerical disambiguation
Promising to be absolved for the crimes against His name

I wandered from the true path

I came to the cliffs above and looked over the carnage
Of a 1000 warriors and people all sewn together
In the skin of the earth.

Riding a phantom steed over the trampled bodies
Clad in otherworldly armor
And sweltering chains
The Horsemen of War walked
Among the covet children of his wrath

Not even knowing if I still roam the land of the living
I proceeded down from the cliff
And approached the Rider of War.

His crimson helmet hid his face.
Horns protruded from his brow
He carried a blackened shield
and a fiery Sword crafted from the pits of Hell

Striking his sword into the mound of dead
Rivers of blood soaked into his blade
It fed off the butchered, the murdered
The mutilated, the skewered, the molested
The sodomized, the swallowed, the reaping
The cowards, the fools, the thieves
The liars, the transgressors, the headless
The victims, the prey, the engorged
The envious, the gluttonous, the wrathful
More and more of the blood, the souls and the mess
Collected and gathered into the sword
Feeding the beast, the instrument of war
Fueling another plague of sinister dismemberment
On a once green land of kings and sires.

I picked up a walking stick from the woods
Walking through a darkened world
Where another noble shall claim me
As his moniker of death
In service to **** more men
God’s children
Mother Earth’s children
Who rip a part of each other with metal and teeth
Against the palms of titans and angels

All gambling on our victory or defeat
Where lives and words are mere tokens
It is not our lamentations or penance that is counted

Can I bear the attrition of my own nightmares?

Clad in the shredded papal garments
Soaked in hardened blood

I shall roam and absolve.

Whoever is worthy
In the bleak war of man
And his End.

We beat the paths that
are laid before us with
machetes and gunfire
Loving violently, loving
violence like Roman citizens
at a colosseum.Cringing
heroically at dismemberment
and pain.
And we're all just the same.

Cut me, leach this tumor within me
it has festered into a separate entity
with its own blood supply
grown overbearing in  its voracity
taking up more space each day
edging me out of the picture entirely
seems as though it'll devour me whole
dismemberment appears imminent
I'm only afraid of what I'll find
a face similar to mine with two heads
a cancer of your caliber, eating me alive
cold, ruthless treachery of no denial
ancestral antecedent, I'd prefer it dead
set fire to your name in vain
demon feasting decades after
it will never surrender peaceably

willow of crystal, a poplar of water,
a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over,
tree that is firmly rooted and that dances,
turning course of a river that goes curving,
advances and retreats, goes roundabout,
arriving forever:
                     the calm course of a star
or the spring, appearing without urgency,
water behind a stillness of closed eyelids
flowing all night and pouring out prophecies,
a single presence in the procession of waves
wave over wave until all is overlapped,
in a green sovereignty without decline
a bright hallucination of many wings
when they all open at the height of the sky,

course of a journey among the densities
of the days of the future and the fateful
brilliance of misery shining like a bird
that petrifies the forest with its singing
and the annunciations of happiness
among the branches which go disappearing,
hours of light even now pecked away by the birds,
omens which even now fly out of my hand,

an actual presence like a burst of singing,
like the song of the wind in a burning building,
a long look holding the whole world suspended,
the world with all its seas and all its mountains,
body of light as it is filtered through agate,
the thighs of light, the belly of light, the bays,
the solar rock and the cloud-colored body,
color of day that goes racing and leaping,
the hour glitters and assumes its body,
now the world stands, visible through your body,
and is transparent through your transparency,

I go a journey in galleries of sound,
I flow among the resonant presences
going, a blind man passing transparencies,
one mirror cancels me, I rise from another,
forest whose trees are the pillars of magic,
under the arches of light I go among
the corridors of a dissolving autumn,

I go among your body as among the world,
your belly the sunlit center of the city,
your ******* two churches where are celebrated
the great parallel mysteries of the blood,
the looks of my eyes cover you like ivy,
you are a city by the sea assaulted,
you are a rampart by the light divided
into two halves, distinct, color of peaches,
and you are saltiness, you are rocks and birds
beneath the edict of concentrated noon

and dressed in the coloring of my desires
you go as naked as my thoughts go naked,
I go among your eyes as I swim water,
the tigers come to these eyes to drink their dreams,
the hummingbird is burning among these flames,
I go upon your forehead as on the moon,
like cloud I go among your imagining
journey your belly as I journey your dream,

your ***** are harvest, a field of waves and singing,
your ***** are crystal and your ***** are water,
your lips, your hair, the looks you give me, they
all night shower down like rain, and all day long
you open up my breast with your fingers of water,
you close my eyelids with your mouth of water,
raining upon my bones, and in my breast
the roots of water drive deep a liquid tree,

I travel through your waist as through a river,
I voyage your body as through a grove going,
as by a footpath going up a mountain
and suddenly coming upon a steep ravine
I go the straitened way of your keen thoughts
break through to daylight upon your white forehead
and there my spirit flings itself down, is shattered
now I collect my fragments one by one
and go on, bodiless, searching, in the dark....

you take on the likeness of a tree, a cloud,
you are all birds and now you are a star,
now you resemble the sharp edge of a sword
and now the executioner's bowl of blood,
the encroaching ivy that over grows and then
roots out the soul and divides it from itself,

writing of fire on the slab of jade,
the cleft in the rock, serpent-goddess and queen,
pillar of cloud, and fountain struck from the stone,
the nest of eagles, the circle of the moon,
the seed of anise, mortal and smallest thorn
that has the power to give immortal pain,
shepherd of valleys underneath the sea
and guardian of the valley of the dead,
liana that hangs at the pitch of vertigo,
climber and bindweed and the venomous plant,
flower of resurrection and grape of life,
lady of the flute and of the lightning-flash,
terrace of jasmine, and salt rubbed in the wound,
a branch of roses for the man shot down,
snowstorm in August, moon of the harrowing,
the writing of the sea cut in basalt,
the writing of the wind upon the desert,
testament of the sun, pomegranate, wheat-ear....

                         life and death
are reconciled in thee, lady of midnight,
tower of clarity, empress of daybreak,
moon ******, mother of all mother liquids,
body and flesh of the world, the house of death,
I have been endlessly falling since my birth,
I fall in my own self, never touch my depth,
gather me in your eyes, at last bring together
my scattered dust, make peace among my ashes,
bind the dismemberment of my bones, and breathe
upon my being, bring me to earth in your earth,
your silence of peace to the intellectual act
against itself aroused;
                         open now your hand
lady of the seeds of life, seeds that are days,
day is an immortality, it rises, it grows,
is done with being born and never is done,
every day is a birth, and every daybreak
another birthplace and I am the break of day,
we all dawn on the day, the sun dawns and
daybreak is the face of the sun....

gate of our being, awaken me, bring dawn,
grant that I see the face of the living day,
grant that I see the face of this live night,
everything speaks now, everything is transformed,
O arch of blood, bridge of our pulse beating,
carry me through to the far side of this night....

gateway of being: open your being, awaken,
learn then to be, begin to carve your face,
develop your elements, and keep your vision
keen to look at my face, as I at yours,
keen to look full at life right through to death,
faces of sea, of bread, of rock, of fountain,
the spring of origin which will dissolve our faces
in the nameless face, existence without face
the inexpressible presence of presences...

I want to go on, to go beyond; I cannot;
the moment scatters itself in many things,
I have slept the dreams of the stone that never dreams
and deep among the dreams of years like stones
have heard the singing of my imprisoned blood,
with a premonition of light the sea sang,
and one by one the barriers give way,
all of the gates have fallen to decay,
the sun has forced an entrance through my forehead,
has opened my eyelids at last that were kept closed,
unfastened my being of its swaddling clothes,
has rooted me out of my self, and separated
me from my animal sleep centuries of stone
and the magic of reflections resurrects
willow of crystal, a poplar of water,
a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over,
tree that is firmly rooted and that dances,
turning course of a river that goes curving,
advances and retreats, goes roundabout,
arriving forever:

*Mexico 1957

Each day passing by in a wild-eyed dash
In truth my soul fell aside, but bluer birds still doth call
Missed that cardinal harken when I set down my last two cents
Kickers of tricks, scroll-ers of myth, bottlers of ships
Knew it all along, just couldn’t stiff the rest
Refuse to capitol, refuge atop the pious politic that steeps these hills
Is it not hard to tell? The meanings of what buys in bulk
The people is we, of what sells slicker than plot itself
A minority rule, hid reasons from majority fooled

That is working trade class, taught to chain drive
The gleaming sheen glowing green, crowning jewel¬¬¬ is as mist and steam, fleeting as the wash of this worlds seething seas
We, the misanthrope of being, bloom in the warmth of idea
Only to recede at the water mark high of each our lives

Authenticity bless the distant time, costless venture to each about die, salute through another caesars’ dilated eye a definition
Eons in annunciation; immortality flashing by
Reverence cannot lie, not long at least neathe a chipping patina
Gold leafed by the hand of man, coerced creations’ fondling finger tips strips thin, leaving us then to watch the weathering

Not a one may ever remember for too quickly or too timely
Arrives dismemberment, a cyclic certainty, often relegated falsely
As loss or gain, truly misspoken frames for reference
At any given attempt to render the language of tongues, oh speaker the son of the morning shamelessly ****** by predecessors increasingly lavish

Phonemic savage; life running rabid, splicing love over the atom
The simple one whom tends a patch of what he calls “cabbage”
Knowing always the wordless truth that is his field fallowing
Unconvinced by everyone, save himself if nothing else
Penitent candor dangle, frameless wonder can you hear the thunder?

I forget that my brain does not do __ when it should do __ and I slip under the coat of choking mustard gas that ***** the moisture from my lungs and eyes. A mustard seed of effort, small and yellow, cracked with no seeming dreaming thing of an eye has fallen like Hansel's crumbs from my hand and is buried with all my ambitions and dead dogs in the cold ground.

I hope it grows a kingdom of heaven, but prayers are wasted when they come from the wonton--and wayward kin of sinners who lead false farces and bring gluttony to dinner. I waste and want and cannot speak the language of those around me while we all whine and dine and **** and cackle

oh god
trite *******
*******
******* ******* ******* *******

I am not tired, I am bored, I am bored of lying and trying. Trying is the worst, and there is little reward for the cost of my dismemberment of ego.

Where is a pre-made empire for me when I need it? I should be handed down something, I cannot earn it on my own. I am a ruler, not a conquerer. I am a spectator, not an athlete. My narcissism cannot take the trying effort of building something of my own with feeble rewards and now I will die alone. Maybe. Maybe it's all hyperbolic.

I'm gonna say it. *******, I'll say it.
"**** it, how will I ever get out of this labyrinth?"

******* before the mirror of your soul
the tired throne of confusion
burns the illusion that we are all alone
what can compare to the hairs of the earth
is it a purse made from old shirts and words
as birds and feathers fled the forest's shelter
the burning embers head west
into the zone of the setting sun's dismemberment
are you perplexed or just scared sacred
death wasted on the fences
you shy away from sentences
that we both know
are just a little too close to home for comfort
i am a lonely poem portrayed
by an infinite number of frames of reference
so i claim my place in the heart of infinite wonder
as the thunder states your name
and screams your secrets into the stars
our hearts were always made from art
and we are being charged with negative ions
like the lions and dinosaurs that have come before us
our women lie freezing in the warmest of holes
so we comb the sand for diamonds
and try to make the land grow again
I am reprimanded for standing on one leg for too long
and begging you to come back home
if you glance towards me i’ll look away
as shade from a tree covers your face
was it a waste of speech
to try and crawl too deeply
into those feelings that you sought to deny
and what if we see each other again someday
will we wait for the other to acknowledge
that i was too much of a coward
to dance in the face of all that abstraction
at the edge of my comfort-zone
love falls into oblivion
a wastrel and a sparrow
as the cantankerous showers
start flowering in our folds
as growth is esteemed
so do we eventually redeem our own soul

a new poem (words, words, words but another drug), bolt upright, uplight, reattach yourself to the liquid of the music,
soothe the irritation, slowdown the shaking hand,
give god or his creatures, the nocturnes and sonatas,
a chance to restore the pounding of the chest to a leveling
equanimity

to no avail, the sleep angels have fled from the
forest fires in the chest, and the helicopters must quench
with the commence of dropping clouds of wet words,
when, when will I be released from a life that has no
easements

words, words, words but another drug, a habit that gives
everything but a temporary state, every poem nothing but
another her, another lady puncture in my restless body,
another juncture, where all your choices are the way of
error

the high will last, shorter each one, but the track will exist
for all the time, a token of human foolishness, the more is
the inevitability of the ending, writ, drawn a little closer,
and comes with a hand written spongy-apology begging for
existing

in his notes, motes, dust mites of titles, single verses,
elegies, essays half written, passing thots claiming to
want to be wannabes, this appears and it's a perfect
ending

there is no security in poetry, only the unresolvable

man in his perfect certainty, never was, nevermore, n'ere will be never, and one poet walks a razor's edge, that is his three tenses struggling for mutual coexistence, one of
a calming beauty, a dark glory, a perfect closing, choosing
a final solution, a belief in relief, that simultaneously
engraves, erases, and
equates

another new poem fissures to the surface, and the palpable
is a magician's illusion, a trick, a feat of dismemberment,
an excise of a piece, a drink, a Tennessee whiskey of him,
an emission that never gains remission status, all this fakery,
a new poem (words, words, words but another drug),
excellent, worthless and self-
effacing

{|||}

3:48am-5:46am

I've always known
That I'd die in a car accident
Someway
Somehow,

And beneath the
Silent flicks of lightning
Stretching across
A plaster sealed sky,

The world stood still,
Molded out of clay
And gasping for air
Like a drizzled flower petal
Suspended in time,

For a moment so fleeting
It nearly escaped me,
I hoped some drunken
Speeding car
Would smash right into me,

For once not because of the
Complexity and dismemberment of it all,

But because I was okay with dying
In some moment where it all made sense.

Hush!, he approaches,Rush!, here his coach is,Try to tame the loud thumps your frightened heart makes,Stop!, or he'll see you,Chop!, that's what he'll do,Dismemberment of you, and just a moment it takes. Come! let me show you,Run! this you must do,Evading the sharp strike from his long and shiny knife,Look!, keep your eyes peeled,Shook!, that's how you'll feel,If he ensnares you, he will bleed away at your life. Oops!, i've decieved you,Nice!, how i played you,Enticing you right into my masters eerie lair,Now!, you grow weaker,Vow!, i must seek her,I must satisfy his lust for more maidens so fair... 

Betrayed, O to be betrayed,
A once betrothed and now misbehaved.
Misdeemed and misdeeds creeping upon me,
Fighting for friends now uncertainly,

Walking own a bent path,
Finding less and less are on task,
More would rather hang out back,
And what's a man to do in a world like that?

What started as a fellowship,
Now ends in dismemberment,
And the lonely feeling sinks in,
And the friends become foes, at the turn of a pen.

Setting my up for failure,
Jealous, or unsure,
I wish I cared anymore,
But that time has long since gone ashore...

And so as I look into the sea,
Something as dark, desolate, and as desperate as me.
I add a few more salty tears to its salty depths,
In hopes that this feeling of apathy will be ceased.
But I think a part of me knows,
Long before any more blows,
That this is the Real World,
And there is little time now for woe.

Death and dismemberment
that's what they bring
while songs sung of heroes
are the tunes that we sing

Soldier on soldier
a body count is the score
but it's the folks who build weapons
who are winning the wars

It's all about money
satisfying their greed
the rich filling their storehouse
while they haven't the need

Today's wars they're for profit
of money, of land
and the worlds children keep dying
as we strike up the band

When will we stop
will it ever end
war, ****** for hire
was not meant as a friend

I didn't know I'd end up here again, especially so quickly after crashing.

But yet again, my heart is an unexpected, fickle thing.

My hair is *****, just like my hands, for I have as much pain and blood on my fingertips as has been inflected upon my heart. Funny how a small little girl from Wonderland can cause so much pain. Innocence was once on my lips, but then the world killed my brother, and then the Jabberwocky came to play.

But where are my manners? Let me invite you to tea, buy you your last meal before I ravage your body with my teeth and claws and words and terrify you when my green eyes before blood-red with the splattering of you. I hate to make people forgettable, so trust me, it'll be a night to remember.

The demons inside come out to play at night, when my defenses are weak, talking of death so easily, when I know I don't have a heart for killing. I only have a heart for destruction and dismemberment of hearts and minds, not lives.

Grace was once so little and pure and kind, but the second blood red graced her sibling's lips, it was over. The monster had come to reside in her.

Red, green, the colors of my heart. Funnily enough, also the colors of Christmas. Didn't know generosity would share the same colors as my envious, greedy, ****** heart.

I am not a fan of myself in the darkness. Perhaps because I see in the nothing a reflection of my own shadows.

Go to bed, dear Grace, before the monster inside eats you. **** you, Jabberwocky, and all your tricks. No one comes back from Wonderland without a tad bit of baggage.

Don't beware the darkness, beware thyself.

Goodnight.

"rope, love."
she ropes me up.
sinks full of cigarette blood,
I drink it up.
catch it in my glass as it drips from the pipes.
predators and prey and no other
way out,
every place I hide
gives me up
sacrifice your kids for
me
sacrifice your head, your soul
I’ll eat them alive
and bury them in my insides.
grandmother’s Lincoln
leaving tread on your face
your liquor in the backseat
and your Mexican boyfriend falling all
over my hipster cousin, calling her his *****.
you lay on the bathroom floor
water races in the maze between the
tile
you’re in front of the door
I can’t get in.
cousin!
cousin!
let me in!
hard shove, pick up, not my cousin,  my lover!
dismemberment on the bed
you crawl all over
twists and turns and this once small
bedroom is now a labyrinth.
the television blares mindlessly in the other room
skin tears and eyes fall from sockets and I step over
my dead relatives to cross the street.
I scream,
and I drink blood out of a champagne flute
while checking my nails
and scraping the flesh out from under them.
everything about me invites you in
and masochism drives me mad with want.
Ego gets the best of me
cleanse me
purge me
scour me
I’m begging
cleanse me!
cleanse me!
I will never leave you,
never leave me, lover

give me your blood,
your tongue,
your lips,
your fingers,
some skin from inside your thigh,
and haunt me in passion
until I resurrect you at last!