He was the shadow of a lonely man,
struck by fire, and sparks, and the shock
of a long lost ghost, of,
the girl he had loved.

He lost his touch as he had fallen,
and had swore he was tall with
the faults of his own, but,
he lost like a petal
left on it's own,
in the fall of his winter;
he never did bloom.

He left his beloved in
the scent of his clothes,
when she faded with dismay,
and he forged her signature
like the deed to his soul.

He built her a home,
a set of bones, like a chamber,
in his only chamber.

Beneath his metal chest,
of a soldier who had lost,
and his love in his heart,
caged in like a menegerie.

There, she was safe,
and she was kept tight.
A little memento,
that she couldn't fight.

A lock and a key to keep
her in place.
She was locked in his heart,
and she couldn't escape.

But, alas, she grew restless,
and knew she must go.
But he kept her in place,
in his chamber, her home.

64 squares and 32 pieces
white and black or black and white
pending your thesis
whether your black or white
they all have the same features

8 pawns, simple creatures
8 x 2 is 16
infantry disguised as peasants
trying to get above the 7th
to the 8th and replace
their meager form for something more severe

2 rooks, sitting on the edge
2 crooks robbing everything perpendicular
to the perimeter provided the king
doesn't falter in his pledge


When the night rolls through,
the knights roll through.
Puffing green goo, these squares or cubes
will move an L make a 7 and snuff you.

The bishop will say a blessing
as he stumbles across the board.
Moving forward diagonally,
these drunken priests drink towards
a leader hung with dressings

The queen? That greedy broad
thinks everyone is a pawn.
constantly placing her place
in the face of those trying to take her place.

The king orchestrates the beat
carefully placing his feet before god.
His feat is living, no great givings,
giving up the wrong square will make his crown your treat

i. I’d tell them of the moment you spoke about your favorite cartoon characters, and the way your face flashed when you described them to me. How innocent that brilliance was and how guileless your mannerisms were. And I’d wish they understand why I fell in love with the feeling of your innocent enthusiasm about some nonsense cartoons no one else cared about.

ii. I’d show them all your worries and troubles stacked on top of one another in a carelessly balanced house made of playing cards. And while they were appraising these I’d point out how selfless you are. How your troubles were never centered around your own joy. And I’d wish they see that the house of cards I showed them is a reflection of the person you are. The kind of person who’d knock those cards down if they had your name on them instead.

iii. I’d paint them a picture of your mind as I see it. Full of intricate ambitions, contradictory emotions, unreasonable doubts and absent-minded memories. I’d use black and blue pen to dot your journey here. And bright red to show them the great places you are destined to go. And I’d wish they stand back and appreciate the amalgam of colors instead of questioning why. There isn’t a single spot on the canvas I seem to fully understand despite being the artist.

iv. I’d take them on a walk to the place we first met. I’d make sure it was a sunny day first, just like that one. I’d tell them I didn’t think much of you at all when I first met you. I’d make them sit in that same spot, and feel the same way we felt as indifferent strangers. And I’d wish they understand that despite the seeming insignificance of that moment, I look back and am convinced I see a halo of light above that place and the beguiling simplicity of that day.  

v. I’d tell them how tightly you hugged me when I was sad. How softly you touched my arm when you assured me that nothing was wrong. How quietly you showed me an overflowing friendship that’s waiting to combust  And I’d wish they understand that it’s not just how wonderful it was breathing in the smell of your old jacket. It’s how wonderful it felt, feeling the weighty presence of a thousand words unspoken.

vi. I’d warn them before they meet you, this is what I’d say: “It’s easy to make that boy laugh, but it’s hard to win him over. His love is not on display, his mind has been sent to the dry cleaners. His laugh has been blocked with by caution and logic. But don’t ever say you don’t understand that he’s a wonderful human being”, I’d hope they understand your appearance is all pretense.

vii. And if someone asked me why I love you, this is what I’d say: It is hard for me to imagine going through the rest of this life and meeting another singular human being like you.

-Asterisks indicate the necessity to pop your cheek with your thumb.
-Answer the two questions correctly and I will give you a hug.

He fell asleep while traveling time
where a true name
becomes everything else.
So please give me a minute to explain myself
through the doorways
that I see champagne on a windowsill
walking across the room with blue
and fine china feet
saying again and again
drink me.
Until somehow
the words become a song
singing and swinging the bottle like a dinner bell for thirst.
A kind that we've settled to quench
with television
and somebody else's dream.
So don't pour my drink.
I'm trying to uncork it with my thumbs.

POP

It's flat
and I still have a tongue
so I will use it and I
I will use my thumbs to push back time
until hitler
becomes a baby.
Dr. King becomes a baby.
Until the left and the right and every dead genius in between
becomes
a baby.

Tiny feet trying not to crush the wet salad of the lawn
because it is green,
like my heart
that has learned
how to break fine china.
From experience,
let me tell you
it's a lot more tiresome than a blue dream
but he fell asleep on a boxcar crossing Germany
where mustard gas
drowns you in your own lungs
and he tries to breath between the joints in the track

the

click
...                             clack
click

as years
hurtle by.

Asking again and again,

"Who killed me?"
           &
"Who am I?",

until dinner was served without grace.
Until my head becomes stiff and bubble shaped
having been conditioned by
their
piles
&
piles
&      mounds

of
ob        cation.
fus

So we should tell all the baby hitlers,
that become children
that become us,
that a lie
is what you become
when abusing language to distort a reality.

And when you make a fist
you are handing lies out at random on a silver tongue.
But I still have one
and I still have thumbs
so sorry to burst your bubble but,

POP.

Child,
I don't mean to put

barbed wire

between us.  
I know it hurts
to have something so precious as the world
taken away.
But walls hurt worse
and through them only muffled sounds are ever heard
until your world is made of mute prisoners
that have forgotten what silver
really sounds like.

Blessed be
for I also have ears
so give me second place
and I will throw the medal against your walls.
Ringing out,
the universe doesn't look like an ebony tub,
with knobs we can't ever see,
full of infinite shining marbles to everybody.
Your mind
is a library of language,
so free will isn't a book written in english.
And tourists,
those know nothing infants trying to travel,
belong
where
           ever they
are
                             going.

Belonging like this medal bouncing trying to sing
off your wall
and
falls

into


your world.

Where again it will ring,

we've all been runner up

and somehow
we still get annoyed when another doesn't enter our library
instead of trying harder
next time.

So,
let me say grace.
Let me set l o n g tables
with the gruel that's been given
served on b  r                     n.
                         o
                           k  
                                        e          
china,
spooned
with sterling silver.

Hello God,
I'm hoping you are well today,
I've just read something rather beautiful
that has inspired me to say:

Thank you Thank you Thank you
Lord, I've never felt this grateful
for every single thing in my life,
even ones-at times-angry and hateful.

Starting with the biggest first,
thank you for my parents,
for even when I'm scared of them
I know that they'll be present
at certain times of need
in life,
and perhaps someday
they will meet a wife.

Next thank you so Lord
for my sister,
angry and annoying,
just like a blister
She knows every inside joke
and we can laugh together,
quoting, singing, dancing, mocking,
truly two birds of a feather.

Thank you so much for
all my friends
Lord knows without them
I'd be at wits end. :) <3

Thank you for everything
I take for granted
like loving parents
who actually wanted
a little baby,
a little me
when they didn't know
what I'd turn out to be.

Running water plentiful,
Safe healthy food till I feel full
Not living everyday in fear
that I'd have to face
a gang rape scare,
a solid roof above my head,
a box of pads beneath my bed.
A plethora of coloured pencils,
notebooks, sketchbooks,
don't need stencils.

Thank you for the hands
I got,
that learned to draw before
they were taught
to even write the alphabet,
did you know of the attention
that I would get.

People notice me and my creations,
ask me to do a transformation
of a screwed up line, out of place,
they joy I get from their face
when they hold up
something I've done
and shout to their friends
'lookit what kim's drawn!!'

Thanks for my perfect
precious dogs,
and you kept Sara safe
when she fell off that log,
Were you there when we pulled
that tick right out of Puck,
so many tries,
but got it out with some luck. :D

Of course thanks for
all those boys,
the ones with beards that
still play with toys.

For my linkin Park buddy,
and Ed of course,
who hasn't been here
(having been sick as a horse)

Thank you for Beatles,
Green Day and for KISS
thank you so much Oh Lord
for giving me this.

I'll no longer roll my eyes at mass
when we say we praise you, each lad and lass.
Instead I'll throw my hands in the air
Shout Halleluiah! for the presence that's there.

"She is such an excellent student in English,
and I'd ask her teachers why her grades were low
and they'd say she wouldn't turn anything in.  And
it was true, she'd say this isn't ready yet, it's not perfect."
Perfectionism.  That's it.  I don't have it, God knows
but after 500 years of therapy I can look any psychological ailment
in the face...now she's dropped out of college and
he is not happy, my former boss,
"she says it's a 'gap' year" like the British Royal Family takes after
prep school, to be sent to rope cows in the British Empire,
Be an Australian cowboy and post to the trot like a proper Englishman
He's right, it's not a gap year.  
He speaks so quietly, he has judged me so harshly
pathologized me, behaved as if he is perfect and I am nothing
this is quite a large crack in the perfect facade
and I'm still here wondering
so I do what the courageous do and I google perfectionism and
before long I gather details of a childhood spent trying to have accomplishments
so your parents will notice you, a childhood where your feelings aren't important
an emotionally impovershed childhood lacking mirroring, positive mirroring because
the parents were to wrapped up in other things or they didn't really care and suddenly
I understand why this boss of mine would dig into my very soul
because he is so much like my parents
and yet, so afraid, because if I can google this,
then so can he, so why doesn't he when he's the one
with the degree in psychology, so why am I the one
trying to figure out his daughter's problems
and I know the answer
I want to solve mine
Is it the Jew in me?  That kind of willingness to look into that vast
horrid place of self hatred and take a flashlight even and look
at the bloody mess of a psyche and try to attend to the wounds
to heal, the be willing to walk in, squishy entrails cut off
and bloody under my feet, to try to sew them back together
to get the whole system working again.
I want to e-mail her the articles I read about her
I want to heal her, I want him to read this and know
that he is known and he was not such a good father
and she needs help
but no.  it is only me I hope to understand
as I realize I am in the cave, the immensity of my own psyche
trying to understand it, fix it, yet again

why does it never ever fucking work out
why can't it just stay
in place and
    stable
for once