Bricks and mortar, steel and boards,
Phone poles lined with power cords, on
Pothole streets, where engines roar,
'Neath smoggy skies, where jet planes soar,

Where penny merchants peddle wares,
And news reports pretend they care,
Where vagrants sleep, and children stare,
And people work for lives not theirs,

That's life in the jungle, adrift in the herd,
Where terrestrial beasts envy free flying  birds
Where the pundits stand polished, and speak empty words,
And the artists paint portraits, while posted on curbs,

Where the men push carts, full of empty cans,
And the women spend paychecks, for spray-on tans,
Where the truckers drive loads, 'cross a thousand mile span,
To appease the great gods of supply and demand,

Asphalt and tarmac, girders and glass,  
Terrarium trees in cemented sod grass,
Ripe with the stench of exhaust fumes and gas,
As the choir lines up for the 10 o'clock mass,

While the brokers all scream, at a packed stock exchange,
As the veterans in wheelchairs sit begging for change,
That's life in the jungle, it's just a big game,
But remember you're playing, lest you go insane.

I can see your sky exploding, falling overhead
Killing all your hopes and dreams, filling you with dread
Killing all your sons and daughters, babies in their beds
I can see your sky exploding, and I can see the dead

I can see your sky exploding, I can feel the fear
I can feel the pain and anguish, resistance drawing near
I can feel your endless sorrow, I can see the tears
I can see your sky exploding, all the way from here

I can see your sky exploding, I can tell you're lost
I can feel your righteous anger held at a great cost
As they destroy all your homes and schools, and burn up all your mosques
I can see your sky exploding, I can see your loss

I can see your sky exploding, I know that you can too
Smoggy clouds of smoke and dust where it used to be so blue
I can see the people running, frightened and confused
I can see your sky exploding, and I don't know what to do

I can see your sky exploding, I can feel the fright                
I can see the soldiers coming, trampling your rights
I can hear the dogs of war, barking as they bite
I can see your sky exploding, lighting up so bright

I can see your sky exploding, but no one else can see
Everyone surrounding me is blinded by TV
I can feel your raw emotion, for I have empathy
I can see your sky exploding, though it isn't me

The purple haze
of heather had
dwindled in the sunshine.
Bluebells were breaking too,
their florets a flutter.
Smoggy incense rolls in
off the horizon smoking
over the crumbled mountaintops,
their peaks unable to break the surf.

Society is plain
Society is black,
Society is what you forcefully swallow for a midnight snack
Society is blood that drips down your eyes
blinding you, keeping everything in disguise.

Society is a swollen throat trying to breathe.
It imprisons your mind when your mind tries to leave.
Society tells you:
“You can’t.”
“You won’t.”
“You never will.”

Society is the voice in your head
telling you life isn’t a thrill.
it kills, hurts and tries
to feed you lies as you pitifully cry.

Society tells you that smoking the green,
kills more brain cells then staring at the television screen.

Society takes the color out of the sky,
and lights up your twitter.

It is never shy and never ever a quitter.

Society is a spy that no government can catch
because society is the government, waiting with a watchful eye.

Society is also dead trees, wilted leafs
and smoggy factory smoke passing by.

But most importantly society is you
and I.

Citrus trees, tomatoes, and fertile soil
Garliconiongingersoy
and ant spray

Contentment
Cigarettes and hate

Aqua Net
White school paste
Bitter slimy spinach
and blue ditto ink

Confusion
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate

Baseball glove
Mown grass
Fresh popcorn

Sadness
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate

Cramped, stale cars
Claustrophobia and
Cat litter

Loneliness
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate

Petroleum
Locker Rooms
and Perfume

Indifference
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate

Smoggy skies
Salty beaches
Beer trucks at each end of the block
Love

And...
Blessed...
Divorce

To another day
passing like the parched foliage
dangling from the roofs in
the ***** Bronx

left of the ferry,
right is the skyline
doubled three times,
cloaked in solar panel
glass and shimmering
against the smoggy array of light
that
will
quit—
in due time.

Daddy, sweet
East River father,
where is the little
meatball you had grounded
up for eyes.
For a Roman nose
and Mafian stubble
when your Sicilian tongue
was clipped at age five.

For English-Only stamped on the roof
of your waste factory
of a mouth.

For the neo-tongue that
was bred liked
strong As
and
young ****;
And copious liquor upon
the grounds of your hiking
trips.

Mutation
       of
vile majesty.
Cannibalism of the **—

Buttons budding
for *******.

I saw your phantasm
figure, soiled in
dark tan, curve in
my lens.
Swallow the hazel
like a viscous sauce,
sweet, fresh.
A fuckable baby—
of five. You clipped
my tongue with now
cloying giggles and in the bunk bed,
red and ***,
like a locket, limbs

dangling out the sides, fleeing in
a fountainhead of
DO NOT.
Effaced by an amnesia.

The old man in my skull speaks,
— I was thirty two days ago.

Now the IVs DRIPDRIP,
Chorus with the TICKTICKTICK.
You are the hour,
I am the minute
Hand.
You are slow, I must
go-go-go in compulsive haste.
Run for sixty,
start anew,
encore, solo, imbrued
with the days that twine the middle, framed in
white.
Forget.

The doctor parses the old man like an
obsolete phrase with theatric hands,
-touch-touch-
push,  press.
Then comes the Shakespearean
soliloquy:
—He hasn’t the coverage.

The trigger as a glove of flesh
hits its target, quiets the machine,
puts me to sleep.

What is it that
I must do?
-become the platoon,
an infantry of sun-empired men.
Fight the shrapnel,
the blitzing of
scar tissue.
Become the fireman
with an axe wielded—
Scale the towers like cracks in a mountain.
Die from the smoke or
the spherical flames of the
planes that rode like the hooves
of a horse with bubonic pallor.
Fall like a worker
for stories down until
God, or some sadistic keeper
of this earth, slacks a noose
and reels me in like
a bluefin tuna, prized,

as you
salute. You ‘Nam
prevailer heralding
the lacy harlequins of corporeal
God’s pardon
on
you.

I am in
eternity from
the waist down,
object of the tight, frictiony
satisfaction you
almost indulged in.

To be a daughter, so sonly,
revoked of all features.
Stripped of the places
you liked to touch.

The sky is solid, gray, motionless.
Shuffling bodies with obscured shadows
Make haste for shelter
From the stark, lifeless outside
With its grass that only lives if watered,
The always leafless trees,
And the carcinogenic air.
Looking upward,
Through the smoggy haze,
One sees the neon silhouettes
Floating in the sky,
Atop the glass and steel monoliths.
They speak to those below,
Of subtle, clandestine oligarchy.
Subconsciously belittling the anonymous masses,
"We are Titans, you are rats."
Say the towers,
As the populace quietly passes over stained concrete and asphalt,
Wearing breathing masks,
Saying not a word to the thousands they pass.

We make haste in this world.
We cannot afford to help a stranger,
To make a detour with a view,
To get your child that gift they really want.
So fiercely we have been strangled
That empathy is illogical.
"What a world" we all say,
As we avoid eye contact with the hungry;
As we change the channel from the melodramatic infomercial
About starving, disease-ridden children somewhere else;
As we console ourselves with hollow entertainment and intoxication,
To keep the guilt at bay,
To keep the thoughts at bay,
"Just do what's best for you,
Don't step out of line,
Shuffle in,
Follow the queue.
That's all you can do."

Toes dip into the smoggy air
Count them down
10, 9, 8
Leaning forward
Diving into the city below

He ran as fast as he could
Tears streaming down his face
Reading that letter, flabbergasted
Every second mattered
As these stairs pulled him down

Deep breath in, exhale
Thoughts run rampant
A single tear falls down
She leans further ready to follow

She was about to plummet
As the sun rises, casting her shadow
Her shadow crying
Telling her not to go
His hand clenched tightly on her wrist
Trying his best pulling her back in

His tears form the stars
Their shadows cast upon the moon
She screams 'let me go'
Tears, drip drip drip

He took a deep breath
Exhaling, screaming his heart's out
"I've always loved you!!!
He doesn't love you!! But I do!!
And always will be!!!
So please don't leave me!!!"

She stepped back
Tears streaked her face
If he love her
The end could wait

In a world of fear and crime today,
well it's hard to see the good,
amongst a guarded people now,
who once together stood,
we focus on just what we can't,
instead of what we should,
say who can help our people out,
if anybody could?

I tell you this in shame for all,
that people here are dying,
adults and infants die alike,
in endless tears I'm crying.
while another child dies today,
from lies that we are buying,

I see the world as it should be,
where we all share our food,
instead we have a county now,
where commonplace is rude,
where elected is a president,
who's mouth is spewing crude,

A divided people always fall,
it will lead us to a death,
I will say we rise as one,
until my dying breath,

My poet heart,
can't take much more,
of a people lost in blindness,
as levied waters at our toes,
to stop it only kindness,

Wake up,
won't you,
selfish those,
with a frozen blinkless stare,

I hope if you were starving,
well I hope someone would share,
in every other bite they eat,
& everything they bare,

If alone and out there hungry
it's hard for some to beg,
with so many apathetic,
to a Humpty Dumpty egg,

They talk an talk in platitudes,
of goodness they don't mean,
stupidity a common voice,
like I have never seen,
where friends are disappearing here,
and the grass no longer green,

Not because their stupid,
though in ignorance,
is bliss,
while painful is awareness,
it is endless,
that abyss,

In a world of broken people,
& few who see the truth,
where ones who share are not believed,
or lost to us in youth,

We search to be enlightened,
or say something,
like the same,
while putting idle hands beneath us,
as our heads hang down in shame,
or we aim a bony finger,
point to someone else in blame,

We are too slow to awaken,
so we must wake up right now,
we must end in our division,
come together here somehow,
& I will keep on asking,
till my death in this I vow,
when I see a God & if he comes,
to him I'll surely bow,

Though here's the saddest story,
of a sweet and blessed child,
from his mother's womb he came,
all humble, meek and mild,
then crucified by greedy hands,
so lost in envy wild,

A baby dies in freezing temps,
a homeless camp his stable,
his barefoot Mother thinks he breathes,
to care for him,
unable,

Some say that she is crazy,
and they think it's even fact,
otherwise well why in hell,
would any woman act,
as if she's nuts or evil,
or with the devil made a pact,

As if her baby was a gift,
immaculate conception,
she says he is child of a God,
a unique an rare exception,
all she hears is yeah sure right,
and utter clear rejection,

Most don't care about her story here,
shooaway,
my listening ears,
they bury heads in comfy blankets,
to drown out the constant fears,
desensitized,
from worldly plight,
in what can draw their tears?

We are told that capitalism,
is the way up to the top,
money rooted all our evil,
to share would help it stop,

An ad hominem argument,
to argue truth of God,
& I'm sure if he exists at all,
he'd find it more than odd,

If he sent a child here to see,
if kindness here exists,
if 9 days old is all he had,
to raise an angry fist,

I couldn't say I'd blame him,
seems that no one gave a ****,
for a little dying baby,
just a sacrificial lamb,

If people who believe that Jesus,
he died for us our sin,
if they and every person,
treated strangers as their kin,
there wouldn't be a battle,
that together we can't win,
realize not to judge,
on say someone else's sin,

No mouth would ever hunger,
our strength as one would grow,
to a loving giving God,
in our kindness we would show,
doing what is right ,
is something we should know,

The money hungry people,
a machine who's way is lost,
who throws away the extras,
regardless of the cost,

Animals are moving on,
while Winters without snow,
smoggy skies to block the sun,
a hazy smelly glow,
the government says look away,
then puts on another show,
they can take another bow,
while hitting a new low,

I ask above an answer,
why WE do this to OUR people,
while my country is my church,
& my sky above,
the stepple,

It's not about religion now,
or right,
or wrong,
or hate,
there's only one way in to there,
behind the pearly gates,
our journey architected,
by our hands,
our only fate,

I implore you,
share in all you have,
before it's all too late.


Cherie Nolan © 2016

just a little bit o' asbestos
unwrapped from 'round the pipes,
yellow-green arsenic soap
in the bucket to make me clean
to eat... sump'n to munch on
like crunchy lead paint chips
and oh, how i love the smell o'
greasy diesel dip -
it reminds me of my last birthday
when we ate my smoggy cake
the kerosene ran dry that day
and smoked us to the street
our tummy aches that time forsake
'cause doctors cost real money.
but, hey, no choice in winter
- Obamacare or heat -
couldn't type his site with frostbit nubs,
no matter what the hype.
life ain't free,
so as fer me, i doctor fer myself
hell, in 50 years i've seen nothin' yet
some bourbon wouldn't fix.
but never in this tidy place we come to call our poverty
has ever lived the lovely stench
of crisp, green, perfect money.

They made a pile of yellow leaves and burnt them...
They thought they were dead...
But
why did you do this to hearts?....

Beijing is becoming smoggy
You may taste blood in the air...

Along the brittle sandy shoreline fish carcasses, pungent like morning breath and stale milk attract unlikely furry hunters before noon. These unleashed dogs trot slowly. The burden of the sun cracks feverishly upon their sticky, rotted coats. Their tongues roll out helplessly dragging their intimidation down with them like foolish clowns on Sunday morning. On the upper crest of the beach an old woman sits dutifully in her black latched beach chair. Her eyes, beady and gray reflect out into the vast lake. She does not blink. Her cottage, crafted purely of cedar wood comforts like the smell of an old book. On rare occasions athletic fresh water fish pierce through the water’s surface. Flying fish echo their rippled splashes throughout this vacant canvas. But still they are rarely seen or heard. There are hardly any tourists that visit cedar bay. No oiled teenage girls or playful sand kneed toddlers. Once in a while a charcoaled pit circled with empty beer cans lingers in the morning light; its smoggy remains clings tightly to summer clothes that will soon reek of burnt leaves and gasoline. When the time is right, some noble person will try to rehabilitate this stoic landfill, to lift

away stark-lit layers
ill suited for human plea-
sures. It shall rest in piece.

Holding on
For years;
Dangling
Fighting
Struggling,
Through snowy Decembers,
Lights strung up
branch to branch,
Through awakened April's
tulips reaching skyward
Through smoggy Augusts
Blonde beauty's sunbathing in the grass
The leaf had seen it all
But in the blink of an eye
The tree became old
The roots became withered
As did the leafs grip on the branch
And a final autumn
Came to rest in the air
And the leaf began
Reminiscing of being green
And full of life again,
It continued to let go
More
And more,
Until one day,
the leaf fell from the tree.
Brown
And shriveled
Falling
And sailing
Through the breeze.
Once the leaf changed its color,
It did not go back.
The leaf will never be attached
To the branch ever again.
So there it stayed,
Lying on the ground
Tossing and turning,
For another eternity.
-----------------------
He seems happy
I should just let go

Anxious for my
Afternoon embalming.
Flushed free,
Laying down the masonry
Of trees yet
To be.

I must confess I want a jack and ginger.

My favorite manieur de mots,
Your offspring making
Silk of my spit.
Two book wormholes,
Circumventing travel,
Welding my smoggy sand castle
To the grey island you anchor.
Would you care to
Fatten up Elpis
With me?

As strong as the mystic Oak
as bountiful as the Chestnuts burden
liken to palm tree on a lonely island
kind as a spring apple blossom

Sometimes weeping liken to a Willow
bending in waters hiding tears
singing like a London Plain
in the smoggy city streets

****** as a Beach Tree
glorious as mountain Pine
oh how wondrous
in avenues they do bind

See the Elms worrying
as beetles invade their bark
undermining their existence
to their extinction

Yet the amorous smell of Cherry blossoms
does late at night fill the midnight air
and all comes to winters realms
Christmas presents are laid under it's frame
of the greatest of Pines

As the Sycamore sings
bare and wanting of summers light
holding strong at winters bite
this is why I love trees


By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

Inhale-
Exhale.

A smoke signal plumes from my defiant lips
Shivering in the cold
And rises into the atmospheric light of the city
It was never meant to be an SOS
It was intended to say
"Save yourselves"
But as far as I can see it has fallen entirely upon deaf ears
As just one voice in a confluence of voices-
A river of smoke signals climbing steadily into the smoggy air
Like prayers
To a god we know we don't believe in.

Inhale---------------------

Exhale.

Save yourselves
And it twists and bends and floats away
To meet the others
All screaming some collective emotion that will be left otherwise unexpressed;
And it is probably better that way.

Him....
He was sunshine and rainbows, the calm after the storm.
he was the brightest days after the darkest night's.
He was mourning doves in the crisp summer morning air, singing melodies I loved to hear.
He was the sweet coffee I drank while watching the sunrise, he warmed me inside and filled me with a dose of happiness.
He was like chocolate. I craved him as much as I craved sweets as a child, I wanted him every day.
He was the sight from the top of a mountain, beautiful.... he took my breath away and filled me with adrenaline and contentment.
He was the changes during the seasons, with every side I saw I loved him more.
He was light, like a breeze between the tallest trees.
he was the trees. He held so much life, with holes inside of his body for everything he loved, he was home.
He was the city I lived in, I knew every street, every turn, He was a map I had memorized.
He was my home.

Until he wasn't.....

He is a hurricane, the eye of the storm. the rain it pours like the tears pour from my eyes.
He is the clouds in the sky on the darkest days.
He is the silent echo in the dewy morning winter air, there is an eerie feeling that he leaves me with.
He is the bitter taste, the burnt tongue as I struggle to swallow the scorching black coffee, he doesn't fill me the same.
He is the green vegetables I hated as a child but I knew I needed to grow, to thrive, to live.
He is the sight of an airplane in the sky while standing on the ground, he makes me feel so small.
He is the seasons in the arctic, always so cold. I trudged through the ice, the snow, I ran as fast as I could while the cold air burned my lungs, I heaved and gasped while falling to my knees.
He is the humidity in the southern states on a hot summer day, the air so thick and smoggy it makes you want to crawl out of your skin, he doesn't flow the same way.
He is no longer a tree, rather now the proof of one that once lived. He no longer holds a hole inside his body for me. He's now soil compact so hard you'd swear it was concrete, but a piece of his root still lives and he is now building a new home for someone else.
His need for practice of deforestation was perfectly executed on me.
He is a foreign city I've never been to, he is now a map I get lost trying to understand stand.
He is no longer my home and I,
I am lost..

Him, it was always about him.

I’m lending Trayvon Martin my pen

because it might be enough to clear the static,

because it may be enough to point straight through

the thick smoggy thoughts of society and law.


If I was a young black man, which “I" am

I’d be a little upset that someone killed

my brother. Never mind my other dead brothers,

or the other cases I see of police treating

people like me with inequality.


Should Trayvon have surrendered himself to

Zimmerman. Should young black men have to

be passive to stay alive. Do we allow

people to shoot shots in

the chests of most resistance.


What should black men do? It seems best

to cry, but I don’t feel tears coming.

What should any man do, expect think

clearly enough to know when something

is wrong. As for Zimmerman he is not

evil, but he is a killer, and his brothers

blood is on his hands. He should at least

cry, or try to feel the tears coming.


The only voice that speaks is the

word of the law. Even Trayvon is silent,

the dead hold no grudges, and gunmen

go dumb under the cries of spilt blood,

I keep telling myself justice is process

making better days from dark ones,

but it seems like every bright generation

has to step aside for the tears coming.

I remember when I found her in porcelain
cracked. she shivered the shell until she pierced
out a tiny foot – a baby’s foot.
five fingers and toes were revealed at a time,
but then came bursting out her head: all-black
eyes, large and quaking. skin as pale as the
egg she split from. but instead of wafty locks,
she had soft brown feathers, flowing from her
widow’s peak to the small of her back.
besides that she was a perfectly normal
child.

i grew her up in town, with the other kids.
i fed her what i knew: seeds and corn and the
occasional peanut butter pinecone.
I made her a nest of blankets every night,
and she sang me songs goodnight and
we always slept soundly and unthinkingly.

she grew up quick though, and soon came the days
when you send your daughter off alone
to school. she was five and I was thirty eight,
and I was the one terrified. most other girls
don’t have feathers, especially this young.
I offered to shave her spine, but she refused.
she crooned that she was born in an egg,
and she didn’t care who knew it.
I was frightened for my beautiful bird-child.

schoolday came, and off she went, dancing her way
to the moaning old bus. it puttered off
in a smoggy wheeze. the sun sulked some miles
before she slowly staggered home, without a
backpack, shirt torn, blood rubbed on her knees.
I asked her what happened, and she never told,
saying it would only make me dark and bitter.
but every morning she still hopped her way
onto that bus, with her bright smile and ******* eyes.

I couldn’t take it. one day I followed
the bus on my bicycle, and visited
her school for the first time. it was large and grey,
like a cynical stone with bunch of windows.
I roared in, asking where she was, attendants
voicelessly pointing in any direction
but the right one. I saw her on the playground,
lanky kids pushing her, bony fingers grabbing,
trying to rip off her telling birthmarks.
she screamed, shouting that she was a child, too.
they asked if children came from eggs, if children
ate only seeds, if children had those things down their back.
she said that this one did. they all laughed.

an angry boy pinched a long chestnut feather
and pulled; she wailed a song of aching.
I jumped in to rip him off but he wouldn’t let go.
the feather stretched longer and longer,
four feet, five! her body bucked and we fell over.
her feathers spread from her spine, wingspan huge
and she glowed a stunning yellow-pink.
her black eyes shimmered, looking at me, apologizing.
I ran to hold her, tears on my cheeks, and she
held out her hand, no. I asked why and she said
goodbyes are too hard this way.
before I could ask what she meant, she sang
I love you
and exploded upwards. her wings stroked lightrays as she
burst higher. she went straight to heavens, and just
when I thought she was out of sight, she spread her feathers
and her silhouette erupted on the sun.
I waved, and saw her white smile glow from her grand shadow.
and off she danced, feet playfully poking at clouds,
with regular birds gliding beside her
and regular children watching below,
her boundless black eyes unjudgingly
gazing at the world running beneath her.

she was my bird-child, and I was her father
for a brief period. I wonder where she is nowadays.
whether she found others like herself,
others who didn’t care. or whether she’s still in the skies,
dancing with the stars, her ten fingers and ten toes
wiggling in the blue, feathers proudly spread, singing.

The leaves in winter, they all fall in place.
In endings hidden, embers of a new life.
Every once in a while an unknown girl
walks up close on a smoggy night;
And an awkward lank woos her with
half-withered roses by the south bank;
Going after severed kites,
landing now by the memory lane:
by the Thames, holding a palmful,
saying, this river's named after you:
she has a dimpled smile;
By the lakes, deep at night, when the moon
walks over the waves, dancing with the swans;
Where the Lee bends around the corner,
a red bus emerges out of the mist,
a hero on chilly nights of the early autumn,
when the dhak welcomes the Goddess home.
Teals, wobbling out of the pond, by
the temple of love, closed for ages now;
Crimson paint dripping from the evening
sky at the corners;
Every day when loving this way
seems like a picture painting away,
get lost walking by the Thames;
Whirling back like the descent from the Eye,
time and crackers light the sky,
on a Guy Fawkes night.

Jailed with all the other squawking birds
confined, it never flew and barely grew
& never knew the mimicry of words

sanguine, foul molting cockatoo in the corner
lowered, bloodied, the lowliest in a pecking order
his owner's a loner, a collector of tinged newsprint
entombed in brick & mortar - nomad minus footprint

and his birds, perched across wooden dowels
proceeded to empty their millet'd bowels
onto sheets of unfinished poetry
correctivewhiteoutmisery

so, he, being miserly, wouldn't shell out the reader's fee
to the greedy posthumous publishing company, yet
another relic in a mortuary of literacy

he was just another faceless, bearded bard
and with the old coffee grounds
he would discard
piling mounds of compost, broken bound
his compositions decomposing in the attic
warbling hiss, winding tape spool. ghosts
searching for signals amongst the static

he awaited revision of his works
ill, amidst the scattered ruins
red ink, gold leaf & carets^


he, impetuous, slumped further into his doldrums
though, all public grievances were withdrawn
crass, he prattled on to his dolorous birds
still oblivious to his defunct words

He lied dormant, comatose
in the 3rd degree infirmary

there was once a pretty lass
who could exhume the pristine
glass contents of his tinsel'd tomb
His malady, he once named Gamine
lived in a stretched-white canvas room
she eyed his burnt pile of vile-dirge verse
as mayflys & junebugs, & smoggy dirigibles
fluttered gently out of her empty purse

she grew on him like a cancer
for she was God's embellishment
pallid and perfect, and he cursed
her love as it ebbed and flowed
her aureole glowed, safely stowed
in an airship's overhead compartment

she was flying home for
there was no other answer

I taste your lips like the cotton candy
of a Newark sky, laced
with smog and dysentery. You lift
me up, roll me over and draw
me toward you. The gravitational pull--
'on my hair and tell me you love me'--
of your shoulders
and the intoxication of your
voice. Craning my neck
to hear--'you love me'--the grip
of your hands
on my throat.

The city is loud. Just
loud enough to gasp
through the static
of your car radio, pressing--'up against
me'--all the buttons.
Just change
the station. Where we rock
and undulate smoggy windows and
candied skies.

This last goodbye
tastes different from
my first time, clutching--
'my back and etching out lullabies'--
the shift stick. Put it in
neutral. We can just coast
from here and take it
easy--'she's so'--easy. Easy
falling into and letting fall and keeping--
'next to me forever'--from falling
over and over the bricks
of your building, shaking
the foundation, the exact
same way. You loved me

like a super dome and expanded
the words of your cityscape: a nice
addition, in need
of renovation.  The cycle of
recycled buildings and veiled skies.
The monotonous gossip
of a Newark morning drawn out
past the night.

She cared for no one,
Stood tall and aloof like a single poppy,
Resisting the wind and rain
As she stood on the lawn of asphalt.

Around her she surveyed the weeds of the city,
The fake trees of the city,
The smoggy air of the concrete forest,
All choking and stifling her future.

Not for her this poisonous place
This ****** city,
This filthy forest of stone and metal.
Her kind need space and freedom.

For her kind are flowers that grow alone.
No one understands them.
They have no empathy.
They have no moving parts.

this city never sleeps
this city never cries
secret's that it keeps
beyond smoggy skies

car alarms
gun shots
people screaming
parking lots

this city doesn't feel
this city's not afraid
these scars never heal
these sounds never fade

jackhammer
news stand
police sirens
news van

this city never sleeps
this city never cries
you can hear it on streets
you can see it in their eyes

Tiananmen Square is a clean place today.
Everything is swept before it can
***** in the history of place.

No sign exists of the tanks that rolled,
the man in front of them,
the blood that flowed
like red sorghum seeds.

The cracked bricks
have been replaced
with new tera cotta tiles.

The first  memorial plaque
is invisible until you are
standing on top of it,
located at the Great Court
at the University of Queensland
4500 miles away.

IN MEMORY OF
THOSE WHO DIED IN TIENAMEN
SQUARE IN JUNE 1989,
its three lines read,
using the Aussie spelling.

In San Francisco  a 9.5 foot statue
modeled after the original
Goddess of Democracy
is located at the edges of
Chinatown in a park of
concrete and manicured trees.

On the anniversary Chinese police
put out temporary signs in  
in the center of the Square warning
DO NOT LAY MOURNING WREATHS.

Banner displayers, victory gesturers,
those doing solitary hunger strikes,
are detained, questioned, disappear.

On the Party web the students are scrubbed.
The only sign of blood that lingered
in the summer air that June morning
is a  photo of the lone soldier who died
in the “counter revolutionary turmoil”.

The plugged in young are unaware.
They only know that the Party
reserves the right of your total erasure.

Just as the memories of Hiroshima/Nagasaki
are vanishing horrors in the Japanese soul,
Tiananmen is not worthy of ghostly echoes,
or even the lies printed in every official history.

Truth is the secret kept dark by the victors,
it’s locked in prisons and dark closets,
it speaks with the voice of exile

In the dark light and smoggy air,
only dogs and the grieving blind
know the true scent of Tiananmen
hidden under the shiny tera cotta.

When the snake-fog rolls in from the east,
It’s unlike any other.
It slides, slithers, slinks seaward
Like a serpent sidewinding through city streets.
It wraps up the wharf with a whisper.
Thick. Sinewy. Venomous.
This California boa constrictor swallows the city whole,
And settles to digest through the night.
I hope I might survive its smoggy stomach…
So I think I’ll stay.

Sunrise rays peek over the horizon
Illuminating the red-speckled landscape
Swaying in wind, flowing as the sea
Lovely, and symbolic.
The red rose stands out among the tulips and weeds.


Sunrise rays peek into the window,
Illuminating the bedroom in disarray.
The woman wakes up, half in her dream.
She dresses herself up, and leaves for work.
Her red dress stands out among the suits and coats.

Sunrise rays peek into the cave
Illuminating the dusty, smoggy rock
Sparkling and gleaming,
A diamond against coal.
The red jewel stands out among the shale and limestone.

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

WONDERLAND: THE FLATTENED APPLE

Someone told me once Los Angeles was the Flattened Apple. You take New York City and squish it down like a pancake and you've got Los Angeles. Someone else told me that the Big Apple is full of worms. Well. If Los Angeles is any indication, that statement goes well beyond *truth.

There are parts of LA that are quite beautiful. The parts the wealthy live in. But that was sure not the part I was living in. My first station in the Sea Organization was on Hollywood Boulevard.

My first real memory of Hollywood was viewing the nightcrawlers. The tacky, ****** prostitutes of both sexes on the corners. The Street Preachers looking only a half step above the subjects of their ardent sermons. I had never had any real encounters with homeless people where I was from. Hollywood was a magnet for them it seemed. Their hair askew, and shopping carts with stuttering wheels de rigueur. The touristas. Japanese with their ubiquitous cameras. The Midwestern jons seeking the hookers (of both sexes). The stars on the Hollywood sidewalks seemed to have fallen from the smoggy sky, to lie tarnished amongst the refuse, inanimate and human. It was like a sledge to the chest... and broke my HEART.

I was given some worn, old-smelling sheets, and the address of the place I was to be sleeping for the next few weeks. It turned out to be a flop-house. At first I thought there had been a mistake. But I was not the only SO member to be entering. I went to my room... so small you had to go out into the hall to change your mind. The toilets were communal and up the hallway. My sleeping arrangement? A twin-style matress on the floor. No other "furniture" graced the room....

... **WELCOME TO *"CHURCH".

Jailed with all the other squawking birds
confined, it never flew and barely grew
& never knew the mimicry of words

sanguine, foul molting cockatoo in the corner
lowered, bloodied, the lowliest in a pecking order
his owner's a loner, a collector of tinged newsprint
entombed in brick & mortar - nomad minus footprint

and his birds, perched across wooden dowels
proceeded to empty their millet'd bowels
onto sheets of unfinished poetry
correctivewhiteoutmisery

so, he, being miserly, wouldn't shell out the reader's fee
to the greedy posthumous publishing company, yet
another relic in a mortuary of literacy

he was just another faceless, bearded bard
and with the old coffee grounds
he would discard
piling mounds of compost, broken bound
his compositions decomposing in the attic
warbling hiss, winding tape spool. ghosts
searching for signals amongst the static

he awaited revision of his works
ill, amidst the scattered ruins
red ink, gold leaf & carets^


he, impetuous, slumped further into his doldrums
though, all public grievances were withdrawn
crass, he prattled on to his dolorous birds
still oblivious to his defunct words

He lied dormant, comatose
in the 3rd degree infirmary

there was once a pretty lass
who could exhume the pristine
glass contents of his tinsel'd tomb
His malady, he once named Gamine
lived in a stretched-white canvas room
she eyed his burnt pile of vile-dirge verse
as mayflys & junebugs, & smoggy dirigibles
fluttered gently out of her empty purse

she grew on him like a cancer
for she was God's embellishment
pallid and perfect, and he cursed
her love as it ebbed and flowed
her aureole glowed, safely stowed
in an airship's overhead compartment

she was flying home for
there was no other answer

I

That idol, with black eyes and pixie-cut, with
aristocrats nobler than artists, holier than New York City
hipsters; his selfishness running through her veins,
purple and blue like blood, or tarnished by amphetamines
in waves of ferocious sadness and yearning.

At the border of her life- young hope twinkles, fades
and dulls out- the girl with chandelier earrings, deer
legs, dancing in silver reflections of tears gushing
from the aftermath of shattered dreams dressed up
as vivid illusions.

Ladies who stroll outside of society, girls
plucked from art school, with trust funds, superb luxury
wardrobes, jewels on show but riches hidden in the
ground of trusting valleys in burnt gardens- young and
broken with eyes full of flashing lights, sullen, princess
of costume and keeping hidden. Gently ignored and
choked, unhappy.

What boredom, without your "genius."

It is she, the little girl, dead before innocence-
The young artist, alive, does not stoop- his life
creeks but for a second. His inspiration empty
and studio up for sale. Her shutters pulled down
and the key to superstardom in the lock forever
because the soul is empty.

The city's silver fountains drowned and cried for her
fabulous elegance.

II

I am the life who mourns like blue summertime.

I am the academic who waves manuscripts on
elusive "culture" and "style."

I am the pedestrian who looks up to the sky then turns
to the ground. Smoggy greyness and dead black
concrete pleads me to keep searching.

I might well be the same child; lost and unhappy
and hungry. Dreaming of touching stars but miles
from Heaven.

I am the artist. Manipulative creator and selfishness
embedded into the sinews of my heart.

The lamp shines brightly on these happy photographs. I
keep falling for these stupid books. Edie, oh, Edie.
You have gone and the world is ending!

cant shake a feeling, im reeling
like straw slurping and ice cream brain freezes
sweet and lovely but unrelieving
that face on you, unpleased and making me queasy
ill take that spark, light my cigarette and try to forget
with whats left, it wont be easy

my stomach coils, will this ever be ending?
smoggy chemicals and glue between us peeling
pulling back my skin from bone
so will you be home? im mailing you my pieces but signatures needed

and sure enough, i got it back- i drank it way too fast
like two puzzles, exactly the same but painted differently
cardboards not to last, the best things are made of glass
shattered by high frequency, shards cut losses
for now its just a rash, this too will pass

Your fingers laced
in your blanket
I press it close, just to
know your scent
I adore
the family of gnomes
and
the jungle
of stuffed animals
parading about you
as you dance
and stretch
through countless books
of wizardry
or wonder
or Sigmund Freud's
interpretation of
dreams.
My dreams are
Quite translucent,
I dream of you.
I dream of the little things.
Your placid hands peeling
tangerines, or
swimming in a pool
of jelly beans.
I dream in memories
of us, like
the time I dropped you
on our first date
and we both sat there
laughing at how awful
and beautiful it was
on that mountain
underneath the smoggy
night sky

But here I lie
Awake
And so do you.

Where is my mind?
Trapped in my words.
Where is my heart?
Flying with the birds.

Paper can’t contain
What my heart sees
In it’s gaze.
My conscious can’t cut
It’s thick smoggy haze.

Beat after beat
My heart flutters
It’s wings.
Looking down
On the World
It glides with ease.
My mind can’t keep up
It’s spastic
Like the bees.

Together they work
Against one another.
Only my love
Can link them together.