I searched for these words up in the attic
with narrow ribbons of enlightenment streaming
through all-too-small windows
igniting the drifting dust specks on fire,
and on the streets in the gutters
that were gloom-spattered with murky water lunging
towards the grated storm guards
as if they were salvation.
I scrounged through soaked and disintegrating cardboard boxes
bearing the letters L O S T A R T S
and old, musty and molded trunks
that had broken locks and missing keys.
I dug them out of  soft-cloth linens, carefully selected them
from heaping mounds of scrap
-like sifting through a junk yard-
to find those precious bits of silver,
sweet iridescent bubbles
encasing so delicately words like
"language" and "cellar."
I gathered these knic-knacks and baubles
and I alighted them with utmost care
through winding black back streets in my little burlap bag
to my borrowed safe-haven room. And without
turning on the lights,
the door was shut and stopped and I was perched
with great secrecy,
cross-legged upon my bird's nest of a bed,
daintily extracting each little orb
and examining them and all their wonder.
Tri-dimensional little things, that, no matter how you turned them,
seemed always to be a bi-dimensional halo of pale, golden light.
They shone, each minute embryo, like an old-time city lamp,
before such evil things as electricity came
and robbed them of a candle's beauty.
And its core, as is true with humans, is its most glorious aspect.
There is a transparent ocean in there,
with roiling waves that spin the currents
and coax every particle to circulate.
And caught in the eye of that undersea tornado are flecks of glitter,
so tiny that you would not be aware of them at all
were it not for the magnificent glimmer that they sparked,
magnifying and throwing back the fainter glow
of that ethereal encircling band.
Pixies that danced at the autumn festival.

I found these words for you,
broken and perfect and shining,
and collected them on a shelf where I could view them
before I handed them over to you.
I collected them with you in mind.
Can’t you tell?
I found words like “lustrous” and “lust”
because they reminded me of you.
I arranged them sporadically,
and smiled to see “alabaster princess”
sitting unintentionally before my eyes.
And how you are my Alabaster Princess.
But oh dearest-mine, be wary of how you find these words.
Use them sparingly, and do not tarnish them.
Keep them like nuns keep themselves: virgin.
If you must write them,
then write them in pretty hand-made inks,
and decorate each letter with dips and swirls, each letter a flourish.
And if you must utter them,
say them quietly, and in simple complementary sentences.
You can be Kennedy for a day,
or speak softly and let them be their own big stick.
Keep them uncommon, like you are uncommon,
and know when the repetition of weaker words can make them herculean.
Guard these words with all your strength:
with that sword hanging deftly on your wall,
with that letter-opener on your kitchen table,
with that pocket knife in your favorite pair of jeans.
Those words will save us one day,
once the world has reverted back to an aristocracy.
With that noble face of yours and this clever brain of mine, love,
we’ll con them into making us their master,
gold and land or no.
even if the sole things we own are our names.
And we’ll teach them again how to speak,
with all the sweetheart mightiness of poetry that speech was intended to have.
And we will learn to bow with all the eloquence of B.C. bible writing.
Machiavelli never saw rulers like us.

We’ll cry like the Devil on a Sunday morning
for the alteration in our names from D’evil,
and whomever first declared “they’re there yonder to get their git!” shall know my wrath
(although that may have been me).
Parlez vous Français?
Non.
These words that I pillaged
from the mouths of great stone grave monuments,
I hope that you will remember them well.
I hope that you will pour over them
and gaze at them in all of the bedazzled stupor that I did.
And once upon a time,
when children loved to read
and sought the same type of affection that I have at last found in you,
when even the Greek gods were playing with pens and devising an alphabet,
I sat there on rocky shore, seasoning with saltwater,
drawing with my toe under the waterline,
your face.
Pretty as a picture,
and worth a thousand words.

To the human who bears the marks of an angry partner, the young adult who struggles to humanize the body that others have objectified for so long, and the child whose mind bears the seeds of poisonous hatred waiting with baited breath to burst with life as the offhand comments increase in number. Take the sharpened blade with conviction and place it far from your traitorous fingers. Believe my words, blood pulses through your throbbing veins, not the black ooze of hatred. Your skin will never be a canvas to taint with red. The red will collide with the peaceful cells, and the violence will not be a masterpiece. You are not just a number, you are a fucking gorgeous universe encompassed in mere atoms that strive to do your essence justice. Gather your soldiers and prepare to fight the enemies that make your body an anomaly or your struggle commonplace. Those horrible nights, where only the moon bore witness to the horrors you carved, are not “typical” and should not be a widespread ritual. You are beauty incarnate. I implore you to lace this statements around each particle in your body until your cells sing with conviction, and fight those who have brought you to your knees. You do not belong there.

musings of a kook surfer
(kook: 1. Dork. 2. A new or inexperienced surfer. 3. Someone who says they surf but they can't.(waxboy)

Logic and Perspective  (a poem)

Quantum Imagination Rules.
What-Ifs equal What-Is
in this, a shared creation.

If         we are surrounded by what we can see,
            what we see is what we are;
Then   matter is perception of resistance,
            time is the persistence of opposites,
And    space is an Electric Universe;
            not lonely nuclear fires,
            but Twin Ribbons of infinite energy
            traveling through plasma that unites all.

The Earth
        a wonder of positive and negative,
        not solid,
        is the infinite slowed into harmony.
The Sun
        a focus of resistance,
        not burning out,
        Burns In.

No small coincidence that
equals means is
You Are and
You See so
I am and
                  
You are, you see, the I Am
...


No Chance for Chance  (a poem)

What is Serendipity?
Seen miraculous,
Some thing done there,
Something done.

What isn't Serendipity?
The unseen miraculous.
What miracles undone,
in time
in time,
as it never happened.

Everything?
Nothing?

It cannot be a good thing-
Fortunate for you is
lost fortune for who...
Self-fulfilling for Jungian prophecy
or prophecy fulfilled for Schrodinger's Cat.

It cannot be a bad thing-
In agreement
with yes...
Self-fulfilling for Jungian prophecy
or prophecy fulfilled for Schrodinger's Cat.

I think,
so I think I am caught between
a wave and a particle.

….

Between Worlds

Never turn your back on the ocean – the mantra of the surfer in my thoughts as I continuously scan the horizon.  There is just enough time to position for a wave; decide to paddle left or right or quickly further out to avoid the random pummel of a looming larger wave.  Between sets, the water gently bobs me floating half submerged.  Staring introspectively at the water, I am learning to interpret ribbons of upward-turning sparkles in the distance.

Dawn is an hour away; visibility is dim but gradually lifting.  Morning’s light is so flat and the water’s glassy surface so smooth that anticipating incoming waves becomes almost a matter of intuition.  The illusion of separateness from creation is breaking down.  The water is almost chilly, but still comforting. I forgo a rash-guard; the subsequent chest irritation from surfboard wax is a small exchange to feel immersed in the ocean.  The bay feels intimate yet expansive with only two other meditative surfers in the distance. Turtles swirl the water, heads straining up for a peek and a breath.  Sometimes they turn their shells so their fins feel the air; they keep three of us wanna-be-ocean-dwellers company.

Yesterday a southern Kona wind brings volcanic-smog from Kīlauea.   Vog is high in CO2 and fumes, giving sensitive people muddle-headedness, lethargy, and sore throat-  a reminder this is Pele's paradise.  This muting velvet feels almost smothering to the horizon.  Is it fog?  Yet a glance behind verifies the slope of Mt. Haleakala is visible, from the shore to the cloud blanketing the world above the 10,000' peak.   Hale means "house" and the rest can mean either "of the sun", or "of a special raspberry-like flower". Either way the mountain was pulled from the ocean by Maui while he was roping the sun from the sky.  Usually, from this place in the sea, sunrise begins with a torch-like beacon of illuminated mist right over the peak, flaming brighter in the turquoise sky just as the sun coronas into a brilliant gold spotlight over the bay.  Yet this morning waiting for dawn, islands, water, and sky are all various shades of hushed mainland gray.

Half submerged and floating quietly, my back is to the mountain and I face the close but unusually shrouded island Kaho'olawe. It was callously blasted to a streaked surface of wind-blown dust by a military just for "training".  Recently reclaimed for pono, it represents the hope of nurturing a senselessly abused, irrevocably lost paradise. To my right is far-off Lana'i; to my left is Molokini, the sharp half rim of an ancient crater barely rising above the water's surface.

The world suddenly wakes, shedding gray. The sky's far reaching dome overhead intensifies, glowing in layers of rose, red, fuschia. The atmosphere I’m breathing becomes thickly permeated with color, as if one could breath lavendar-orange.

What planet am I on?

It feels so foreign, time stops.  The two other surfers are still as well, dwarfed by distance, and I am alone. Tiny in this red expanse, I become quietly centered.   I turn to see Haleakala where the sun is yet to rise, awed to distraction, forgetting incoming swells.  A bright sun smoked crimson is hidden behind the peak, shining horizontally through what I imagine to be some opening at the horizon.  Illuminated ridged undersides of the high clouds are streaked neon red to half the sky.  The atmosphere is hushed over the still water, the tangible copper light presses down, infuses everything.  It feels disarming yet comforting and surreal, floating surrendered to this other-world light; sky to water, horizon to vast horizon, the calm apocalypse the turtles and Kaho'olawe have been praying for.

round and round we go
through the relentless flow
life's so fast it gives me vertigo.

and if I'm just a tiny particle
why can I feel my soul
being devoured by a black hole.

Nothing
I tried as best i could
to call forth
even the vague whisper of a memory

(like words that only reach the
back of your tongue,
a phantom thought
teetering
on the tip of remembrance
above the abyss of
a deeply buried past)

but even those shadows seemed to hide
in the deepest recesses of my subconscious;
teasing thoughts
that played with my conception
of reality
saunter no more
about this playground,
the landscape for my most wild
and torrid fantasies:
my imagination.

For it seems
without the light touch
of times past
this darkness
that i feel
must have resided in me
since the beginning of time
would never again lift
its heavy shroud
upon my soul
for the much needed
moments of peace this allowed me.

Despair permeated each particle of air I inhaled
for who am I
if the whole of me
remains intact
only in the scattered minds
of those whose faces
no longer inhabit my dreams?

Truly, I believe the nightmares of this paranoid mind
have succumbed to reality


                                                        for i fear I have, at last, become nothing,

i had clammy hands and wobbly fingers
when i explored your eyes
i said i was sorry
and i meant it with every particle of my being

but you didn't smile
and your affection did not escape
like the solar flares that could scrape at my core

Instead, you muttered "whatever"
and looked away

i guess i hadn't meant it as much as i thought
because it was then
i realized that i had wanted to hear the inaudible whisper
"i am too"

Day time unfolds like a puddle being evaporated by the sun
We can't exactly predict when it will happen but we can feel it all around;
Outwardly, we are lifted of our bodies
As we look down, the ground begins to turn to magma
If we leave anything behind then it will surely be swallowed up by the gravity
Left without density
Left without a shadow
If neither are present then this something must not exist
How can it be felt if it can't exist
It lives on within all of us at different points of each day
We cannot know what prompts it
We cannot prepare ourselves for it
Alls we can do is recognize it and let it become a particle of the sky
Just like all the things we let go.
My anxiety comes within the sunlight
My soul is heavy in the day
The clock strikes a certain hour and it decides to rear it's ugly head;
Only to be evaporated once the sun hits the routine part of it's orbit
When dusk begins to fall, so too does my mood
The worries subside
Until I reach my peak of R.E.M. Or perhaps get stuck in a web before that
Either way, I'm one by night and another by day.

if your body is a particle, then
my body is a wave. it's like what
you said about gas flowing through
machines, but electrons are here or
they are not. how come i can still see
them lined up inside the ceilings, buzzing
like plasma, at the top of their slide?

if we were to reverse the magnetic
throne of the cosmos, we would need
a loud flash in the sky, we would need
to sift softly through fingertips of the mid
atlantic ridge, hiding some old geological
secret between spiderwebs of sediment.

or perhaps we could just use the polarity
of your countenance. when deep layers
in your bottom lip mold into the glowing
curve of a waxing crescent moon, the
circuits lose hold of their currents like
dry wells, the ancient secret is unveiled.

and that is what you want, right? an
apocalypse. a royal key into the ground
through wilderness. once we return the roots
of our ancestors into dirt, will we suddenly
connect the triangles looming in a nuclear sky?

you and i, we lick our bonds so tight, if anything
crashed into them they'd shapeshift into seismic
waves released as thermal energy.

walk into a bookstore where a poetry open mic is going on. the man previously nursing a lager in the back now has all eyes in the room on, flowin to the beat like drums to a song, this is all he has left that doesn't feel wrong.
"these words are all that matters," he says. " ’cept poetry, liquor, and the duality of man, i confess, these pages store my sanity and reveal my real friends, so i'll keep writing until these calluses have bled."

Lately I’ve been talking to Michael Larson in my head
And yeah, I know it’s a little weird to have a real imaginary friend
But we all need someone to turn to when feelin like we’re burning at the stake
To remind we’re still human and there’s no end; ending’s a mindset you create
There’s not really walls to hit unless you tell yourself there is,
just the narrow hallways in your mind where you lose yourself to negatives
See, you can always bend to be more
but you conceive a break, cause breaking is what you do
when you think you can’t create

and if you spend too much time wondering if you’re a particle or a wave
your thoughts manifest into the mental circles you repave
self fulfilling prophecies are subconscious misbehaviors
ignoring synchronicity in the universe’s behavior,
always waiting there for someone else to come along and save ya
caving in you dig a shallow grave, crawl in, and lay there,
blaming everyone else and yet expecting a savior?
from the wayward pain of exacerbating these anticipated cracks,
you still can’t seem to break, just blister and bounce back.
from this controversy in the name of your unsure authenticity
each flaw you extract from your skin is your own vulnerability
the world is not black and white, flat, or statistical see
just rife with impenetrable culpability
so everyone grows up and grows out with restless mentalities
time and age are isolated perceptions of our static reality,
cause we’re changing and flowing together, and we always will be
the only differences between us all are the ones we want to see
to comfort our dogmas and convictions as we atomize our selves obsessively
what matters are the paths we pursue and the wisdom we seek,
not our genetic abnormalities or the ways that we feel we are weak
when everything has innate duality, there’s no good without the bad
good’s an infallible syllable completely unpaletable til you realize bad
can only be in your heart if you perceive that’s what you have

there’s just your belief that you are either trapped or free
and realizing you want what you always had, eternally
if I’m gonna live this life, I will not sit and wait,
I will skin my knees and bleed and then get back up and create
In public Michael Larson’s hanging in my headphones loving the attention that I pay
Telling me earnestly not to worry, cause everyone is a critiqued critic these days
In burn fetish he tells me, “empathy is the poor man’s cocaine”
And now Krishnamurti is on my other shoulder repeating once again,
That “being well adjusted to a sick society is completely insane, the end.”
everyone gets nervous on the first dinner date, and everyone craves the safety of a friend who has their back
everyone feels like a literary hack the first time they take a paper to their thoughts and attempt to translate them into rap
we all feel a bit misdirected, and a little bit hated, but collective requires an equalibrium of giving and taking
while these days everyone treats each other as if life’s just about getting your own slice of the cake
and blatantly crazed by the toxic disarray
of our modern society transgressing and yet we just stand by and wait

Michael looked shy on camera as he expressed to me that, “what makes us human
Is how we’re a collection of our mistakes and the reactions that we have”
And what makes us individuals isn’t our lifestyle or to whom we pray
The stratosphere here that stops us from cooking to convection
is just a collection of perfections formed from love within the human condition
the gravity that keeps us from falling, is the art that we make
self actualized individuals, not feeling so lonely or crazed,
because paradoxically, art is also how we all relate.