she
a tired vehicle driven by career
feels as though every second wasted will ruin her
                                                             ­                                                                 ­                                        he
                                                             ­                                                      has found in his golden heart: love
                                                             ­                                                             she won't let him bathe her in it
                                                             ­           
                                                             ­  *they just haven't got the time

incogitable is the question
you've asked yourself
since you could form
thoughts dense enough to grasp
quandaries these daily citizens
are encouraged
"not to be contemplated"

unthinkably aware of your surroundings
that you tend to notice cracks
in the side-stomped concrete
three-point-five seconds before
my ankle ever twists

and yet, your eyebrows carved canyons
in sweaty, porous sediment
caked onto the blood fed sediment
stretched below your hair

you didn't believe me when i told you
cameras will litter the city streets
innumerable greater than the lampposts
illuminating your view of my sprained ankle
(you missed that one, by the way)

you honestly believed that everyone
thinks about everyone else
because that's what you do

but boy, I gotta tell ya,
you are not like anyone else
you're the high-flyin pilot
star visible to the naked eye
caught behind the crescent of the moon
yet still shining through
and some may even come close enough
to brush heat waves you emanate from that hot heart

unfortunately, your perennial denizens
rely on waxen wings
crashing anxiously homeward
to moss-laden paradises
they make up
twisting neural networks into bundles

here i recline
pierced through the retina
held fast iron-gripped heart
legs tight and fingers licked
incogitably cognizant
of each
and every
answer
           || Restricted Access Memory ||
will not permit to ponder

ponder for longer than
a second anyway
but a second is all you
need to receive
seventeen-thousand-four-hundred-and-forty-two
percent of your daily value
of vitamin E




(that stands for Enlightenment, people)

I have never experienced death around me
Not once.
I have yet to go to war,
I haven't even seen an animal get run over
By a speeding oaf trying to get home on time.
Yet, death occurs every second
Almost every second.
Why is it that I have not seen it then?
I should count my blessings and not look in a mirror.

My grandfather definitely saw death.
I called him Pop, he was in World War II,
I wasn't old enough to ask him about such troubles.
Then again, would I ask him about them now?
Would he dare speak the unspeakable
The harshness of war,
The noise all the cacophony,
Buildings, architecture, torn down,
Beautiful cities once covered with life,
The bright colors of Venezia the somber rain of London
Destroyed in an instant.

I don't think I'd have the balls to kill someone,
I question my own loyalty to my country
Would I fight to protect my home,
Or would I hideaway in another country,
Or claim I am a racist?
(I think that only works when you have to do jury duty,
But I think I would try anything, sadly.)

One day, when I awoke,
I remembered a nightmare I had that previous night.

I was at a school, a haunted school,
With a group of girls I didn't know.
They were there to release the spirits of three sisters
Who were trapped there by a mysterious phantom.

The first girl was named Clara,
She had hazelnut hair, hazelnut eyes,
A heart that could only be described as infinite.
She was the oldest of the three.

The second girl was named Nora,
She had a sense for adventure and heroics,
Her eyes only looked forward,
And would sacrifice herself to save her friends.
She was the middle of the three.

The third girl was named Mary,
She had a tame body and never really spoke up,
What she had in shyness she made up with her smile,
And she liked to sing and dance.
She was the youngest of the three.

We climbed up the fire escape behind the school,
The ladder was sticky,
We couldn't tell what it was because it was so dark
No one had thought to bring a flashlight.
We reached an unlocked door
That Nora keenly opened up.
Bella scolded her to be more careful,
But surprisingly Mary was the first to enter
And she hid behind the door to let us through.
It was me, then Nora, then Clara
As we entered a brightly lit hallway
With a door all the way at the end.
And so we walked.

Nora jumped ahead of me,
While Clara stayed behind with Mary
Who regretted her jump start.
So we walked down the hall quietly
With Nora making giggles here and there,
I would look over my shoulder every now and then
To make sure Mary and Clara were fine.
Mary held her hands behind her back
And was looking at her feet,
Clara was looking ahead with her hands together in front
She titled her head, and smiled.
For someone whose sister is lost
She seemed quite content with the people she was with.

Eventually, we reached the door
Which looked like a plain old door,
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary about it.
Nora haphazardly opened it only ajar
Because Mary shouted to stop.
Nora looked back with a questioned stare.
Clara took it upon herself to slowly open the door
And make sure everything was safe.
I just stood there breathless.
Clara called us over one by one
To the strangest wooded area.
A wooded area in a school
It was covered with black trees, dead orange grass,
And a purple sky with a yellow full moon.
There were no visible creatures,
Yet I felt like we were being watched.

We walked through the crusty grass
Whispering where we should go.
Nora pointed her finger to the distance.
Clara, Nora, and Mary marched ahead of me
All determined to move forward,
Although Mary let Nora and Clara walk in front of her.

At this point I realized
I was like a ghost to these girls,
I seemed more like a wish
And more and more
Like a wish to save them.

We entered a clearing
And saw the large faceless dark phantom
Breathing cold air.
The girls and I stood stiff
And the phantom took it upon himself
To come to us.
He stood in front of the girls,
All three of them were crying bloody tears.
The phantoms pat the girls on the head,
Comforting them genuinely.
He took them into his darkness,
And they disappeared from my sight.

Well, I like preposterous and cirrocumulus,
curmudgeonly and humungous,
audacious and bodacious, scripturient,
irradiance, iridescence and magnificence,  
flamboyant, fandango and flibbertigibbet,
(but this is difficult to say when you’re drunk),
voluptuous and vertiginous,
sumptuous, salacious, slithery, sexy and glistening,
crepuscular, strumpet and strawberry.
And I may as well include whipped cream
here as well, because this can be laid on in dollops,
and dollops is really an excellent word.
I also like anthimeria to mix up grammar
and make things all the merrier.
Drooling is highly evocative, too,
and I don't need to be provocative to observe
that even weapons can drool
when they're in the wrong hands.
However, I'm really very flexible about words,
because in my lexicon,  low moaning noises are OK, too.
These sounds are part of the chord of creation
and reverberation from the time of
primordial ooze, which would be great between my toes.
Then there's protozoa, spermatozoa and also
wriggling flagella everywhere. So there.
And fecund is my second favorite word after love.
I also like ejaculation, and
I think we should celebrate salivate,
along with onomatopoeia that helps choose some words here.
And really, orgasm is good too,
particularly if you try to defer and prolong this.
Words I don’t like include don’t, can’t, never,
stop and mustn’t. Also, irascible, indescribable,
unmentionable and ineffable, incoherent,
impotent, incontinence, leaking colostomy bags,
importune and misfortune,
gawping, cavernous and cretinous,
circumambulatory, circuitous, and pursed lips.
These words should get the heave-ho.
And I definitely don't like parsimonious and mendicant,
which are miserable words.
Shut the fuck up and piss off should be taboo, too.
But the word I really dislike is cunt,
because this is an insulting word, and
to be taxonomical,
the negative score of this word would be astronomical.
Hate is also right up there on this list. Hate is abominable
because it tries to destroy love,
and love is indomitable.
Indomitable
is the
mightiest
word
of them all.

Mike T Minehan

If I stayed any longer,
Who knows?
I might have gone insane too.

He told me his name.
I never asked him why he was there,
Why everyone else avoided him.  

I regret it now
But now is not the time,
There is no time left.  

He said he could get out
Whenever he wanted.
He just had no reason to go.  
He told me if I would come with him,
Stay with him forever, we’d leave.  

Can you imagine that?
He even said he loved me.  
The weirdest part is, I think I loved him to.
I would keep trying to remember
Where this love was taking place,
In this asylum but, I always forgot.

All we had to do was walk out.  
Nobody touched us.  
When we were out, we ran, and ran, and ran.  
In the middle of the forest,
There was no way they could find us,
We still wanted to be safe.

We found a cave in which we could stay,
Until we had enough strength to explore.
There was plenty of apples and firewood around.  
That first night, I just ate, and ate, and ate.  

I noted the big willow tree
and boulder next to the exit.
Natural, and calm.
This was a place of my refuge,
Where I would be happy.

We set out to explore,
The cave must have been close to the surface,
There were cracks in the ceiling that lit our way.
The cave was filled with tunnel after tunnel.  
Sometimes the tunnel would split into five or six
And we would have to choose one.
Giving the false sense of direction
As we wandered, aimless.
  
When I got scared,
He would assure me it would all be fine.
That must have been the worst lie,
Anyone has ever told me.

I finally worked up the courage
To ask him why he was in the asylum.  
He told me he could fool the mind.
Fool it into believing its body was in pain,
He said his looks could kill.

I scoffed.  

He stared at me,
Completely bewildered.  
I clearly thought him insane.  
He let that slide.  

He never kissed me fully, passionately.  
They were always short and sweet.  
He only brushed my face
When he wanted me to calm down,
Making jokes whenever
I was having second thoughts.
  
He was using me.  
I was a shield, nothing more.  
I would have to be disposed of.

Back to staring,
I realized that his back
Is not made of duck feathers.
My scoff doesn't slide.

I ran faster I’d ever run before.
All this flew through my mind
As I scrambled up from the cave floor for the third time.
The exit was just around the corner.
It just had to be.  

As I stumbled back
Onto the cold hard rock
The exit came into view.
I saw the light shimmering on the broken rock.
The shadow of a willow tree.
Ironically I was so happy I could cry.  
I’d hide in the trees
I’d never have to see this murderer again.  
Tripped for the fourth time.

I looked up,
Still sprawled out on the cave floor.  
There was a hole in the ceiling,
Sending shattered shafts of light to where I was lying.  
I watched the dust fall in lazy spirals.

I jumped off the floor.
Back to my peril,  
I heard his sluggish footsteps.
Turned around for one last look.
He stood in those shattered beams of light
Glaring at me.

Now on my feet, I stood
In the dark half of the spacious hall of rock
As if that would help my situation.  
If only I could fade into the shadows.  
I was trapped.
With no escape but the cave's tunnels behind me,
Or the death awaiting me.  

Just a few more steps back.  

He’s eyes snapped to my feet,
"You don’t want to do that.”
Back to my face.
His smile was only evident in his voice.
He was right.  
I didn’t want to die in that moment.  

The room’s light darkened
As if someone had put out the sun.
I knew it was coming.

I loved him.
He may not love me now.
He may never have.
But I don’t care.  
If I never loved him,
I may not be in this situation,
I might not be about to die.  
But I think just maybe,
It was worth it.  

Those smiles,
Stolen kisses and touches,
Just the sound of his voice.
Running in the middle of the forest
Away from the asylum.
It was all worth the pain I was about to feel.  

We stood staring at each other,
Waiting for the other to make the first move.  
The tension mounted.
Hatred started coming off him in waves,  
Hitting me over and over
Threatening to pull me under.  
I could feel his anger.

The air seemed to thicken,
Weighing down on me,
Forcing from me my last breath.
Draining me of what little strength
I had left to remain standing.

I began to gasp for air,
Unable to feel my lungs expand.
Feel the relief of oxygen in my blood.  
My eyes were locked in his
Begging to turn away,
To save my life.  

I was mesmerized.
Like prey waiting for the snake to strike  
I watched helplessly as his face,
Distorted with anger, began to twitch.  

I could see the words that would end this,
Begin to form on his lips.
Waiting to be released.
Slope off his spit stained organ.  
After the agony of anticipation seemed to reach its peak.  
They dropped like acid into the open air.

I lost the fight against the pressure.
Finally crumbling under the strain,
I rested on my knees.
Holding my head in my hands
Preparing to resist the attack.

It hit me full force
Like a subway train at full speed.
I did all I could not to cry out,
To give in to this miserable existence,
To give him the satisfaction of my death.  

I broke out in a cold sweat
As my muscles continued to fight,
Melting with the strain.  
Adrenaline pumped through my veins
As the true attack began.  

The pain started at the tips of my fingers and toes.  
Slowly crawling, burning,
It continued to eat away at my flesh.  

Much to my dismay
I remained intact
But paralyzed by the pain
Unable to run away,
To escape it.

I was unaware of the storm of tears
Falling from my cheeks.  
Oblivious that he continued to circle closer,
Waiting for his moment to strike.  

The pain began to worsen,
Shifting from fire to lava,
Lava to lightning.  
It was unimaginable, indescribable.

Then I lost control.
This body– it was no longer mine.
It began to betray me.  
It shuddered, then shook spasmodically.  

Its back arched knowing what was to come next,
Preparing as the bubble of air was pushed slowly
Up its tongue, against its lips.
Its blood curdling,
Gut wrenching shriek
Lasted mere hundredths of a second.

He comes into view for a brief moment.
My eyes roll back into my head,
And I lose myself in the blackness.