We marked the deaths on a map in little black tallies,
every day we counted the numbers and they had come to a strong incline.

You sat in the dust by the flames
playing with a cattail
and you asked me
“When will it be over?”

The smoke drifted into open sky above us and I tried to count the stars.

The map was held together by rivers and
railroads
and lakes.
And we were held together by a commonplace drive:

Hope.

The poem in your eyes had no backbone and it was falling apart at the seams and it made you
tired and
sad and
hopeless.

The map is held together by little black tallies on the edges from an old charcoal pencil.
And we are held together by a thread of life that could very well be

snipped.

Alas, that is out of our reach but we must remember to always
fight! and to stay alive
please keep holding on
please

Because home awaits with open arms and we are here counting stars and
we must never die.

~

The mayor warned when we came home to
never leave again
and to
never go again
and I do not understand because
we couldn’t stop that
and you told me that I understand
and that he doesn’t.

Mother looked at me and my scars
disgusted
and told me to go
and told me that I shouldn’t be home.

And we found a lake from the map marked with a charcoal pencil and stayed there
and you fished
and I found berries.

Every night we counted the stars and
we were connected by constellations.

Every night we were connected by the grass beneath us
pricking the backs of our necks

and we caught the flying stars
(Fireflies)
and we were connected by constellations.

The notes of the piano rang in open air across the lake
how far can the notes stretch to connect us?  

As the lake grew, constellations stretched
far
and we never knew what color your eyes were.

Blinded by the bright light from the upcoming sun,
we both ran for cover, turning our backs on each other for the first time in
a while.

The thick trees hid us from the light well enough, but
you
weren’t
there.

We kept running.
The sun was catching up
too fast
and we ran for everything we could live for.
(each other)

I ran for you and you ran for me.
That’s all we could do until you laid on the ground,
tired and
sad and
hopeless.

You stopped running so I did too and we both were hungry for what we could’ve had.

~

When we were still in the war, they let you bring one thing from home.
You brought the idea of hope
and I brought the idea of music
and we mixed together very well.

The nights when we counted stars under the full moon
were the nights when we’d fall asleep with our arms touching.
(A sign that people are alive.)

The dust woke us up when it blew in our open mouths,
and in a shallow breath the tiny things landed on our tongues, woke us up, and
made our eyes cry.

“When do you know to go home?”
I ask myself this a lot because I know that there is no answer.
Human beings like to ask themselves things without answers and then get angry that there is no answer.
Because only they know when they put you back home.
You and I were lucky because we only had a little time in that hell,
but the others weren’t.
The little black tallies from the charcoal pencil weren’t because they
died.

The light woke us up and we knew we had to run
soon
It landed upon our eyelids and woke us up and made us cry.

I think of you as I am running and my bare feet
smack
across the dirt.
I think of you because your hair always was full of the stuff and now all it does is make me cry.

~

I think we are running along the line on one of your maps.
I think our feet are creating the dark brown streaks on the paper with the little black tallies on them.
And I think that we will never find out
the color of your eyes.

We run back to back for a while
until the light stops us and we hide beneath the tree’s leaves.

I am hungry for our arms to be touching again.
I am hungry to count stars with you and the place we did that was the war,
so could you say that
I am hungry for the war?

I am not hungry for the charcoal pencil,
but I am hungry for the hand that touched it.

I am not hungry for the dirt,
but I am hungry for the person who would lay in it carelessly.

I am hungry for the map so I can see the dark brown veins running across it with bare feet
smacking
the dark brown surface of it.

I am hungry to breathe in the commonplace drive that pushed us along the dark brown lines and out of
the war.
And I am hungry for the idea that once was.

Hope:
That is no longer existent when I am not with you
which is a side effect of
you
that I did not know about.

I would welcome any side effects that came with you with open arms, of course, because I would still have
you
I merely did not know about that one, but I am sad to see the idea go.

~

I wish you the best in all your journeys.
I wish to hear the beat of your heart against the crickets again,
but now I am afraid that the light has caught up with me
and I am afraid that
we will never find out what color my eyes are.

I wish you the best in running from the light
but remember that the without light there would be no darkness.

I am sorry to have to tell you that the dust will settle in the rocks and that
the maps have been burned.

The tallies have turned blacker than ever before.
The tallies have turned into ash from the bright flames.

The maps have fallen asleep in the glow of the flames and that
our idea:
Hope;
has been taken by the wind.

It ran with it, and I tried to catch it, but the wind cannot be caught.
Remember the first breath of the war you took when you stepped outside into the
light
of the day and remember the glow of the flames.

Remember that people are still living
(Remember that our arms touched on the nights we counted stars)
and remember the constellations that connected us.

I am not sorry to tell you, however, that no matter how far constellations can be stretched,
constellations never can be broken.
They can stretch to heaven and hell and earth and the sky and the dust and to the war
But they will never shatter
because constellations are images the mind has created.

Constellations are made by the mind and stars are tangible.
Constellations connect stars.
We are stars and we all burn in our own flames.

~

The words from your charcoal pencil make me cry.
I cannot ever count the stars without you
and I cannot ever write poetry in the dust without you.

Your words make me cry and I run
faster.

I don’t try to compete with the light because I know we’ve been running with our backs to each other for the
whole
time.

The wind trips me and its fingers comb through my hair on the way down.
dust from the ground tickles my tongue and the wind left something in my brain.
our idea:
Hope;
has been taken by the wind.

“Are you the dust, now?”
I feel your thumb across my cheekbone and I am
yearning
for what we could’ve had.

“Are you the wind, now?”
I feel your hand in mine and you lift me to my feet.
My face is dark brown covered with dust
but as I run the wind cleans it off.

“I have never been so tired,” I tell you.

I am so hungry for you.

I am starving
and I am sick with what we could’ve had.

Yom Kippur this year was celebrated on Oct. 12th 2016.
Leonard Cohen passed away on November 7, 2016.


~~~

faint knocking at the door to the Tower of Song

the ministering angels, hearing a rhythmic, lyrical rapping,
sigh, thinking the atonement day,
the holiday/holy days, are supposedly over,
the human balancing act, the rush to judgement period,
all tallies totaled, the busy sale season for souls,
at last completed, each fate inscribed & sealed,
in the book of life^

but, always one,
the itinerant straggler, the last reluctant sinner, a judgment resister,
flaunting an expired coupon, trumpeting demands for a recount,
waving it, claiming it, the bearer, entitled to a mercy discount and
an extra 30 days

"who shall we say is calling?"

the Angels are stunned to hear,
a familiar raspy, growling, almost indescribable,
yet, stammeringly, beautiful voice enchanting,
equally asking and answering,  how both,
with a strident humility, "a man in search of answers"

this voice, instantaneous recognizable,
the asking superfluous,
all beating wings now, all in vast excitement,
this psalmist, long awaited, one of His best,
a chosen one, a courtly singer in the Temple of his people,
blessed with the curse of seeing and believing,
the comprehension of beauty of the human superior interior,
never being quiet or quite satisfied,
in capturing, its multifarious variations,
in every language spoken

this is the man who took ten years
to compose just
one song,
one poem,
one word,
Hallelujah,
whose faith was strong,
but still needed proofs,
whose every breath of oxygen inhalation,
brought more questions,
every exhalation, only releasing partial answers,
and yet, still, yes, yes! finding hidden verses inside

a simple, everlasting
hallelujah

the hubbub subsides, the man sings~speaks:
how came I here,
was I one, who by fire?
that fire afeared,  that my finality was spirit consumer?

one voice, answers,
in one voice, the swaying back-up singers answer,
not by fire, not by water, not by stoning or
even drowning
in tea that came from all the way from China

when sing we Angels, the Judgement Day poem,
we alone, on high and above,
we, keepers of the books and records of everyone,
are permitted this to query:

Who by Sufficiency?

you, the sidekick of the creator,
special commissioned by him, anointed to live a life of research,
record in word and song the mysteries of musical gene strings,
that intertwine the skin cells of man and woman,
man and his fellow us-human,
your soul commandeered, ordered, delve deeper,
into the consolable chasm tween divine and mortals,
all those who are poorly constructed
in his image

he, who has earned his place, his best rest,
his works adjudged sufficient,
he, who best answered
this judging,
this calling out,
calling in
incantation,

Who by Sufficiency?

now forward on, write only of answers,
wade in the troubled waters no more,
no more passports, or borders to cross,
no more measuring the days,
the last road trip finale
finished & feted,
fate meted

no more changing thy name, changeling priest,^^
sing songs of solution, salvation,
for the questioning hours of confusion,
the urgency of revolution,
no longer need a hallelujah resolution


                                                    ­| | |
Who By Fire                             Who By Fire, Who By Water:^
(lyrics by Leonard Cohen)     (A Yom Kippur Hebrew Prayer)

who by fire                             How many shall die and      

who by water,                                how many shall born,
Who in the sunshine,                 Who shall live      
who in the night time,                   who shall die,                      
Who by high                                Who at the measure of days,
who by common trial,                    and who before,
Who in your merry                            
                                                          Who by fire
month of May,                                 and who by water
Who by very                                 Who by sword,
slow decay,                                       and who by wild beasts,
And who shall I                      Who by hunger,
say is calling?                              and who by thirst,

And who in her,                           Who by earthquake
lonely slip,                                         and who by plague
who by barbiturate,                      Who by strangling,
Who in these                                    and who by stoning
realms of love,                               Who shall have rest,

who by,                                             and who shall go wandering,
something blunt,                            Who will be tranquil,
And who by avalanche,                  and who shall be harassed,
who by powder,                            Who shall be at ease,
Who for his greed,                           and who shall be afflicted,
who for his hunger,                      Who shall become rich,
And who shall I,                             and who shall become poor,
say is calling?                                Who will be raised high,
                                                         ­     and who will be brought low
And who by brave assent,                  
who by accident,
Who in solitude,
who in this mirror,
Who by,
his lady's command,
who by his own hand,
Who in mortal chains,
who in power,
And who shall I,
say is calling?




^From the liturgy of Rosh Hasanah, the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur, the  Day of Atonement, there is this truly stunning prayer (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unetanneh_Tokef) in the Jewish liturgy. The Book of Life contents the fate of every sinner. From the first day of the new year, until ten days later, on Yom Kippur, depending on whether the sinner repents or not, his fate is sealed.

It’s a coloured and shaded broad daylight.
Bring me my hourglass, my paintbrush.
Keeping a timepiece, how soon my brush
strokes become finer it is not the task.
Try once more, strike a fine chord in time,
ever ticking but doesn't make a sound!  

Let’s read the small prints, the shadow lines
on the pitch of the slit sun shines!
A dark spot in the light, some dotted lines
on a blank paper, however witty you might
describe it, count on the tweeting birds
short and cute, singing in the open air.

Light and dark the two tallies, ins and outs.
The times come and go, flowing fine.
For now, let’s take a look inside.
Tint and shade nor tone them now.
Zoom in and out, just watch them as they are.

This cool sleek shade on the sunny slate
is it a shadow, or some quivering curly hairs
or are these reflections of flocking clouds,
diligent sea eyeing deep down on the ground?
Read the small prints, shadows in the daylight,
before the show is wrapped up.
And down the evening pool, the sun
parts away with the black swan.

There was Rebecca,
And there was Jon.
Rebecca lived in a peaceful neighborhood,
Where the wind blows through the trees and the sidewalks were brittle.
Jon lived across from her,
They never spoke, never glanced, never shared a laugh.

Rebecca was sporty, very loving, and loud,
Jon was poetic, mellow, and very quiet.

One hot summer evening, Rebecca was sitting on her front porch picking pedals,
Jon was leaning against his window, drawing tallies on his wall.

There was a moment of silence,
Everything stood still.
Jon turned his head towards the window to the sight of beauty,
Rebecca, sitting on her porch picking pedals.

Her burnt-sienna hair glistening in the sunlight,
Jon's eyes were locked in place, he was drowned in her bloom.
Rebecca looked up, locking eyes with Jon.

At the same time,
They stood up and glanced at each other.
Jon racing down the door while Rebecca jumping up from her porch,
Her pedals fluttered off her dress.

Across from each other,
They both walked up till their noses touched.
Rebecca's hands locked in Jon's,
Jon's eyes were lost in Rebecca's.

As the days went by and the weather shift,
Rebecca and Jon were inseparable.  
Jon would pick petals with Rebecca on the porch,
Rebecca would sit by the window writing poems with Jon.

The more time they spent,
The more tallies appeared on Jon's wall.

When the skies became grey and the wind was ice cold,
Jon couldn't pick pedals with Rebecca on her porch.
There was days when Rebecca couldn't write with Jon at his window.

Jon would stay in his room,
Twenty more tallies covered his wall.
Rebecca was sick at heart,
Lingering in her house.

That didn't stop the love between Jon and Rebecca,
A month flew by.
The snow started to thaw off the grass,
Everything became greener again.

Rebecca was ready to write at the window with Jon,
She wanted to pick pedals with him every second.
Rebecca wandered onto her porch,
She didn't see sight of Jon at his window.

Her thoughts start to worry her,
She leaped from her porch and scurried across the street.
She ran through muddy puddles and skimmed on the dewy grass,

Rebecca knocked on Jon's door,
No reply.
Rebecca's days were lost and sorrow,
She felt no life in her.

When summer came back around,
Rebecca was back to picking pedals by herself.
She looked up to see a surprised guess at her porch,
Jon's mother.

Rebecca, with all love and respect,
Jon is now walking on the other side.
He's where the sun shines brighter,
It's been months since he's been ill.
Jon's been counting the days he's lived,
It was only 122 days, counting the tallies.
The more you came over,
The more it was hard to hide.
He was pale, undernourished,
Too sick to come out.
The thought of telling you was too grievous,
He didn't want the love to end.

The mother walked away,
Giving Rebecca her moment to grasp.
Even though her love for Jon was bare,
122 days was all she needed to know she had someone special.

She promised herself to always pick pedals on her porch every summer,
Just for Jon.

I keep pacing the shoreline
Waiting for pieces of me
To wash up with debris

Pieces that would still glow
Even though you
Put the embers in my bones

780 tallies
For every time
I feel ship wrecked without you

They say another man's trash
Is someone else's treasure
But you are the only one
Who ever made me feel like a prize

Movie credits descend and sink
to the bottom of the tv screen;
Admire the time travel of a blink,
repositioned on the bed, not keen

Expired pills; motivating my pulse
Hands shifting; trying to keep up
and end this life which by day gets worse
Free this defunct soul and succumb

And in that moment,
the silent tear that doesn't cease formation;
i have surrendered, time is in halt
The sadness salt, in a state of reconstitution,

But death wasn't part of the victory
She was another night of bedridden dreary
Pre-measured mentality
part anxiety
part agony;
retaining me as an emissary
to unearth my mystery

where do my nightmares trail?
who fogs my thoughts at night?
who tallies off my breaths?

So yes, those pills;
those expired ******* pills
did not give me the answer
Instead, i woke up to another whisper

The TSA won't let me fly
It seems when airplane-jailed,
My muse sneaks aboard
Without paying for a seat.

Another airplane poem like 30B,
From a long ago flight,
Found dusty, in the poetry sewing box


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

with every breathe he tithes
a packet of whispered wishes,
a blended osmosis of
past and future scenes,
reviewed, previewed,
moments in time,
actual and dreamed

some received,
airborne plucked,
in his chest stored,
prepared for future
takeoffs and landings,
for ultimate insertion
in both
your recesses
and
your abscesses

some native,
combobulated, containerized
packets of seconds,
of joyous moments,
bytes of historical
hugs n' kisses,
as a child
to a child
from a child

those are vanilla frosted,
residual payments for the
good done and given,  
forwarded with all clear signals,
to his loved ones,
now resent, to you,
fellow travelers and sojourners,
intersectors of our peculiar
coded dots and dashes

thirty five thousand feet high,
composure lost,
he swoons as
Bocelli's voce del silenzio
releases tears so sweet,
which are by nature,
gravitated and transformed
into snowflakes to decorate
the Sierra Nevada's
breasted peaks and valleys,
over which his physical notion
is at rest, yet in motion,
within a Delta flying ship

Yet his fevered chest
beats rough,
for every flight seems
a time warp interlude,
a forced reflecting rhyme,
not of his choosing,
a lawful, thoughtful, imprisonment

having donated to you
his best, the remainders,
the man tallies, recalls:

ancient slights, scaled heights,
requiems for his forefathers
scored by cantorial choirs,
liberation struggle weariness,
offers taken and refused,
aces in the hole that proved
insufficient to save his soul.

goal line stands made,
onslaughts refused,
true lies and false truths,
moist lips and monster tears,
occasional A's and calcu-hell-us,
hand me downs received,
help me ups got n' given,
buildings pricked by airplanes,
death wishes granted
and nothing thereby gained,
children, found and lost,
mine, yours, ours...

The sums, always the sums!

engine noises and pilfered winds
are dulled and semi-silenced,
yet the silvered chamber prison
resonates from end to end
as each ledgered memory,
each packet of the
hidden whispered poems
he does NOT choose to send,
dents the man,
leaving claw marks,
screaming pay attention to me,
as if they were the priorities
of a six year old child,
refusing to be ignored

he does,
attention, he does pay,  
allowing rocking guitar heroes
to overtake weeping violinists,
just as newer transgressions
surfeit even his
most really *****,
ancient sins

No matter how he counts,
unable to master the additions,
no matter how many times
counts are initiated,
taken and retaken,
the tally's net net is
concluded, numbered
"forsaken"

his life's W-2 is black n' blue,
deductions falsely enumerate
and thereby underestimate
dues he has paid summarily,
earnings, distorted,
taxes paid never enough,
to satisfy the justice scales,
so wearily he
cries and enunciates,

The sums, always the sums!

THEN COMES HIS SHOUT OUT,
at his most vulnerable,
when a thin veneer of alumina
separates him,
from a fall inglorious
to an end most gorious,
a rapping beat moderne
insists that he go all out,
disallowing no
airy fairy poetry
to disguise that:

If the integers are false,
the entries of a life lived,
are sucker lies
black eyed flies
toxic shockers
that bust open
stinko lockers
where the B.S.
mocking stories
are kept

don't look close
at his documents
they ain't exactly
heaven sent
and the government men
be back on his track
their aviator shades
protect them from
burning light of the
man's furnace
where he burns their liens,
and the agent's ear pieces
drown out his screams of

The sums, always the sums!

God bless you,
keep and recall those packets of
whispered wishes, good tithes,
that the man bequeaths,
gift baskets of
expresso essentials
with God's love delivered

Tho his words,
amateurish and unvarnished,
silly and pompous,
nonetheless, they are the
return on his investments,
his yearnings for your happiness
are the savings accumulated,
though meager jewels are they,
they are ad valorem,
mixed into his confused murmurings

here then,
are his summings up,
what he wills you,,
the tally finale
the best wisdom is
found on coffee cups
at 2:47am.

Dance
Love
Sing
Live

to which he respectfully amends with a
Write.
(See banner photo)

Serendipity had be trickling
Down to the bottom of the well.

Rise and fall and rise and fall
Inseparable like Heaven and Hell.

The peaks and valleys,
Miscounted tallies,
And words that seem to spell
"L O V E S disguise"
My lack of words is the loudest I yell.

Speak to trees that see through me
With eyes so blank, yet full;
I run my fingers through my hair,
The wind pushes and pulls.

A rainy day down at Block Bay
Feels nice, despite the cold.
I am one with the lake and mountains;
I am infinitely old.

The industrial wharf is bobbing
Up and down again;
Rise and fall and rise and fall,
The All and Every in it's zen.


The peaks and valleys,
Miscounted tallies,
And words that seem to spell
"L O V E S disguise"
Everywhere is where I dwell.

On my right thigh is the most honest piece of art I have ever created.
You may call it my masterpiece,
Because the finished product
was created from years and years of major and minor additions.
****** brushstrokes that mark each time the phrase “not good enough” rang too heavy in my ears. 
Sick, faded tallies of scars that tell the story of my life the way some parents tally the heights of their children on the kitchen wall. 
But instead of growth these lines mark failure and unlike a child impatient to mature,
Each line makes me sick to my stomach for the regression it represents.
Lines and lines of railroad track designs left in the indelible ink of imperfection.
An autobiography written in the hieroglyphics of my sorrow,
Wounds sealed like an ancient tomb but with a map of scars proving that once these grounds were holy,
Governing my life like a pharaoh with a birthright.
A visual representation of a feeling constantly fought and lost
An unavoidable reminder that yes, sometimes the scariest enemy I have to face is myself and here are the marks left behind when the demons of my past manage to claim a brief but ferocious victory over my self control.

Now, I am a perfectionist.

This means by the time I was old enough to understand my shortcomings I had figured out that no lesson stings in your memory quite as much as when you start using blood instead of ink
When you let heartache become your muse and self loathing your mistress, 
and suddenly you’re imprisoned by the adrenaline of freeing warm red paint from behind a soft **** canvas.
The first time I felt the release of a razor on my skin, I was gripped with an infatuation strong enough to break the programming of nature and turn my own body against itself as my skin became the victim of my own hands. 
Heartache after heartache I eased the pain,
Becoming michael angelo with a thin metal paintbrush and a sistine chapel that burned when the shower was too hot.
Hiding my latest work of art under long pants and excuses.
Finding love only in the dark because what if he sees my skin and realizes that some days I can’t even love myself?
On my right thigh is the most devastating piece of art I’ve ever created. 
You may call it my Achilles heel,
Because the finished product, which I shamefully admit,I do still edit occasionally,
was created from years and years of marveling over the beauty of the world but never learning how to see the beauty in a blank canvas.
Cherish your beautiful blank canvas.

Under a low-hanging branch of magnolia,
a foolish young person lay breathing his last.
He bled out his guts to the soft-stirring air,
Soothed as white petals, like ghosts, flitted past.
A foolish young person believed those around him,
A foolish young person left Mother at home.
While many would say that she tearfully warned him,
She was one among many who told him to go.
She told him of bravery, bloodline, nobility,
And of destitution, tables yet to turn.
Under the branch that snows down white magnolia,
He bleeds out remembering others’ words.

Under a spice-scented branch of magnolia,
He thinks of the will of a God he knows not.
God would not wish for the sins he’s committed;
This murderer is not on his way to meet God.
He thinks himself hero, and calls himself savior,
Conservator of all that his short life has known.
To keep others underfoot, deprived, and in chains,
He gives up his body, his blood, and his bone.

Under a low-hanging branch of magnolia,
His heartbeat an abacus, he tallies up deeds.
He fought not for money, he fought not for "rights,"
That reasoning is long since lost to the weeds.
He fought not for love of the branch of magnolia;
He fought not for dignity, the saving of face.
He fought for one thing, and one ugly thing only:
A life lived as if of superior race.
One could say he did not know his own motivation,
Because he so fervently deluded himself,
And many, thereafter, denied it as well,
Till they worshipped the rag that led him to death.

one for you
        two for me

        two for you
                four for me

                three for you
                          six for me

                          four for you
                                   eight for me

                                   five for you
                                           watch me bleed

"I'm sorry, forgive me"
"I'll never raise my hand at you
I swear"
"I love you"

These bruises on my face that
I tried to conceal are finally
Wearing me
Not all the make-up in the
World can beautify the tallies
Of your anger that adorn my
Skin

Your heart beats anger
And it courses through your veins
Pulps of blood I tried
To hide with layers of clothes
Have finally stained
And I can't lie anymore

You call this love?
Is love the purple bruises
Plastered across my pale skin
That have been left behind
By the velvety hands I used
To yearn for?

You love me
It's okay
I should not be afraid
You were just blowing
Off steam
You love me

I've been swimming in this
Pool of denial long enough
To know that I can't really
Swim, I'm drowning
And my feet are firmly
Fixed on the ground

I am afraid of
The monsters lurking
Behind the iris of your pupil
The demons that lurk
Behind your shadows

I haven't seen my mother
In a few months
I'm scared she'll see behind
The facade I put on
She'll tell me
"Baby, you need to leave"
And I don't want to leave
He doesn't want me to leave

My head has been banged
Across the kitchen walls
More than it has been raised
These walls have been repainted
Repainted, and repainted
My scalp has been snatched
More times that I've cared to
Admit

I'm ashamed to say
I've traded parts of me
For shambles of trust,
A lot of bruises,
Rough ***,
Infatuation,
And called it love

The caramel corn has taken on a subtle hint of hand sanitizer.
It is enough to **** all the germs.
A kernel escapes and the search party is unsuccessful.

The tile in the bathroom reminds me of other jobs.
Janitorial work,
cleaning up after others.
The tiles in my store were larger and dirtier.

I can't think,
this headache is raging a war.
Aided by my cube neighbors fan.
I snore at night and dream of helicopters.

Things usually come back around to bite you,
like a snake
or NASCAR.
America,
the Land of the Free.

I have lied so much that
it comes out as the truth.

A rusty swing set sits in the backyard,
choked by weeds and broken furniture.
The overstuffed purple couch
has seen better days.
Tonight,
it will sleep alone.

When I am feeling down I count the ceiling tiles,
getting lost at fourteen.
Fifteen is a liar.

What would happen if the stars did re-align?
Just for one day,
the cost of beer wouldn't be so high.
Then again,
the liquor store on Jefferson sells Tallies for $1.19.
Let's not be greedy.
I will buy two of them to make sure that when I sleep tonight,
it is soundly.

The phone keeps ringing with complaints.
People are more interested in their neighbors
than the fire.

Forget about this poem.
It is better if you just skim this literary travesty.
There is no substance.

This new day is failing
and it will soon be cleansed.
Forgive me Father,
for I have sinned.
Please,
watch over those I care most about.

We are gathered here today in a space
cluttered with you and you who I’ve cried and tore
The voices that I’ve played in my auditory canal
When sentience has made me raw.
And our collective limbs have babbled through fields
or roved on roads of tyre
Watched mitosis play with our fingers
So our heads float to bricks that are higher  
We are sewn together by memories
Shooting synapses bounce inbetween brains
The first time she wobbled a milk stone
The pink cardigan left on that train.
We will stretch out our patience to mountains
Nearly burst in our tallies to ten
But there’s always a rope shared between us
Always straw in our symbiotic den.

They publicize Education with promise of security. Falsifying all your leizure and reward.
Yet,
While you drown your accounts with tallies and numeric rallies they develop the technology to summarize, tax, bill you with your debt and fill your mold in the position you strained and craved for.
Broken and stacked back rattling
You stand on a pile of panic and,
Manicly fade into the grave they plotted, and you dug.

Technology is our downfall.

We see the button and push it
Free of refrain.
Curious, instantaneous passionate trust in all the oncoming waves of silicone information.

The image is cast;,..
It attempts and so succeeds in including you in this performance
This, plastic
These fading lights.
Everything
              Burns
                     Out

So it seems our nation is fueled by a finite flash.
With the filaments finally finkled out, the bright idea gone,
The shepard is shot and the sheep are frenzied.

As the population grows great in numbers alone, the engine is fixed with rusted parts and the plan...
A long, smooth drive with the emergency brake cranked the whole way.
We'll see just how far mediocre runs,

We'll see...

Chest stews jealous behind the sun-risen eyes of confusion.
Beaten and drugged to midnight without touching overt illusion.
Humility is shaken false when the sun set tallies.
I’m still subject to the vacillation of peaks too valleys.

My peak is but a broom in an infant’s hands.
Troubled by the dust of a valley’s demands.
That claims to sweep what I could never pain…
Paint me the wandered sheep that wore lion’s mane.

I feel the viper of ignorance in the bump of a stranger.
Venom through my pride peeks invisible danger.
Whose reflection is my shadow radiating a contusion.
Vanity is not fair till it's understood delusion.

For I knew not when I didn’t in prides hindsight sip
My Master will always humble silence to thy lip
Brings meaning to the scars of my landscape
Plowed, reaped and sowed for a son’s sake.
………….
I Love Jesus

What does your soul say through your eyes
Do they show your truth or do they show your lies
Are you really happy with yourself and your path
Or is something in the way, is it holding you back
How do you know what you feel is right
Is it when you feel less of the dark and more of the light
Is there a happy medium, like what Buddha taught
Is everything an illusion, or is that just one thought
How do we know what we really feel
How do what know what is truly real
Our souls create reality and there are so many different kinds
How many universes are we projecting with our minds
We are each a deep expression of the  universe and the divine
But if that's the case why do so many of us whine
Why can't we find the power that's within
Why do we sell ourselves short, why do we see things as sin
Karma isn't even what people think it is
They mistake it for the law of attraction, what goes around comes around, but that's not it
Karma comes at the end of life and it tallies our deeds
It's kind of like judgment day, but it's our soul it feeds
Tell me what I did, was I as good as I thought
Did I learn everything I needed to, was I righteously taught
I know I learned lessons and I know I hurt souls
But I didn't do it on purpose, I just played many roles
I taught people lessons and they taught me mine
In life we have to learn quick, we don't have much time
Our lives are short, but they sure feel long
Is loving everyone deeply right or is it wrong
The emptiness in us, it comes and it goes
Sometimes we feel dull, sometimes we glow
It's hard to be consistent when things always change
Just adapt when we need to and transcend our ways

Libyan Rebels ring the town,
poised to make their final ******.
The defiant wait with loaded guns,
The butcher tallies up the cost
Is this the Arab Alamo?
Defeat presaging victory.
Or just another episode
Of “I **** you and
You **** me.”

The world waits

In ****** anticipation

For their oil to be

Delivered

Waste (wāst) v.     (1.) To use, consume, spend, or expend thoughtlessly or carelessly:    For hours on end we laid waste beneath the plastered moon. Our hands mimicked the stars weaved between a silked sky. The grass imprinting tallies into our back.      
(2.) To cause to lose energy, strength, or vigor; exhaust, tire, or enfeeble:  The tar wasted your lungs. It was the nicotine talking. We could never have a safe argument and now you are telling me that I am too much of a nice guy. Nicotine is the crutch between the crunch in the cracks that pry through the truth.      (3.)To fail to take advantage of or use for profit; lose: You wasted an opportunity to be with me. You are missing the reverberation of our laughs under the viaduct, and the tickle attacks when we played hide and seek.    (4.) a. To destroy completely. b. Slang. To ****; ******. The cigarettes wasted our relationship. My eyes couldn't take the second hand jaundice, being the second pair of wells you flipped your wishes into, this second pairs of eyes that understood you. Now they draw blank when they see you.     (5.) Garbage; trash. You had the audacity to keep your lips coiled to the cigarettes, than throw them in the waste basket. Countless weeks of me having to take them off your counter, from inside your purse, your backpack, I chose to become your waste basket. I carried your four year burden in my pockets. (6.) Regarded or discarded as worthless or useless. You were a waste of my time, a waste of my feelings, wasted space in my life.

I wrote my way out of the dark pages of my life.
I know what it's like to see your life hanging by a thread;
scraping your skin with your fingernails to stop yourself from crying;
weaving scars on your skin to get some high out of life.

Smiling on the outside, but tearing up on the inside.
I've been there,
disguising last rites as declarations of love;
holding out for that one guy for some unjust reason.
I was once told I was beautiful on the inside,
I used to scoff at that thought.
I couldn't be beautiful,
my metaphorical skin was sewed and patched, ruined and defiled
and there was nothing beautiful about that.
It took me a while to see that beauty for myself.
I was once that one girl sitting in corner at midnight
contemplating suicide over family tiffs, unrequited love, loss, loneliness, and every other
stuff that I couldn't deal with.
I can't look at my left wrist
without feeling some sort of disgust because of the tallies of pain
I left behind.

I had this habit of saying 'I'm always good' whenever asked
but I got tired of seeing illusions as reality,
I was tired of escaping my own life. I was not okay and I needed help.

I wish somebody had told me
this sooner:

MELANCHOLY IS NOT TRENDY, DEPRESSION IS NOT COOL,
CUTTING IS NOT A FASHION STATEMENT
SADNESS IS NOT ATTRACTIVE

It's actually sad that we,
teenagers,
advertise sadness as if it's something to be proud of.  

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL
YOU DON'T NEED VALIDATION FROM PEOPLE
DON'T LET HIM TELL YOU HE LIKES YOU BETTER WHEN YOU'RE BROKEN.
NO, SCARS DO NOT MAKE YOU ATTRACTIVE
SOME SCARS AREN'T WORTH HAVING
CRAZY IS NOT ****
**** IS NOT ALWAYS ****** SHEDDING A FEW KILOS WON'T MAKE HIM LIKE YOU ANY MORE THAN HE DOES
UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS DON'T HEAL --words I wish I'd  heard sooner

You are not broken beyond repair

YOU ARE A PHOENIX,
A PHOENIX MUST BURN TO EMERGE.

Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date even to eternity—
Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more.
    To keep an adjunct to remember thee
    Were to import forgetfulness in me.

Pavements sparkle
Asphalt glistens
Like a warm rain that just washed everything over
And a dream hit your head when the rain hit your roof
And you've just walked outside at 3AM to buy smokes
It's the weekend, you're free and it's ok you're all alone
You slept through the night's rallies and tallies
But it's ok- the streets are empty and beautiful and they're yours
Evergreens look like fake rubber plastic palm trees at a serene luau
Graves of white houses omit a strange glow that makes them look pretty all in a row
Grass is soft Astroturf to roll around on in moonlight
Like a well-paced acid-trip comedown
The world is your playground of wonder
You're in control but just as willing to give it up at any moment
Stores are closed and streetlamps guide you through invisible neon signs which seem far more friendly when out of the daylight
Dirt, grime and teeth-stomped bubblegum take backstage to glittering cement and rock elements
Intoxicated by everything and you're on nothing
You're on nothing

You brought me a monster disguised as a mime
Said it was my time to get it talking
I pondered what great a gift to set something free
While in the shadows you put blood in the water
Then fed it to me

I remember lips moving, but never the words
I remember immobility, but never the verbs
(How two-faced is instinct when masked
With a drug you've never tasted before?)

I thought I had shaken this feeling of quiver
Until you delivered me straight to the sheep
Who immediately sank their teeth and grinned
They still had fleece: The joke's on me

At the same time your obsession wavered
Said to savor the memories and the mystery
For what I didn't know would **** me
And so your hands are clean

But I knew something too
A sober fool- yes
But even drunk on your first elixir
I could see through you

Kept coming back to catch you in the act
Partaking in your habits to appease your false politeness
Until it painted my world black-
But I was so close

Just wanted to know a piece of you worth saving
But you feared my mind's sedition-
You mistook napkin stories
For published ammunition

And so gained pleasure in wetting your fingers
And putting out my flame
Keeping secret tallies with your body-snatchers
As to when I'd burn out and fade away

But what you never told them
And will never tell the future
The truth-
Your scars may be invisible
But fire burns in fury when it's blue

So I'll be waiting in my exile
Till the end of days
When the haze has lifted
Your spell has broken
And the Creator returns to its rightful owner

A girl, a room a familiar song a familiar story. Little girl not even in a form of a woman, she hasn’t even grown into her period yet. Laying on the bed by herself crying biting her nails asking herself why… Her cry wasn’t heard her tears were silent why couldn’t they hear her cryin’ on the inside dying from the outside in… her wrists were clean… innocent. Time flew by with no one at her side, the day turned into night, in the night she began to cry. The so called day was hell for her, nothing she done could help her escape from it. Begging on her knees God help me please and nothing seemed to change… Her world turned upside down what’s wrong is right and what’s right is wrong. The same old room the same old song she sings on a daily… he touches her daily… Running in her mind trying to find a safe haven when all she wants to do is take a trip to heaven she’s done. Giving up finding her own song but the same verses seem to show up every time that he blows up. She cries… in her room under lock and key she takes that blade and whispers the words please… the only love in my life is from this blade or that knife running its bitter sweet over me. She cuts deep as deep as she could go without letting them know she cries… Her pain, she wears it on her sleeves this ain’t no joke she has been begging please for some time now and nothing seems to heal. The screams fill her head with anticipation thinking about the way the blade made sweet love to her now tallied up skin how she invited it in instead of fighting it within she allowed it to touch her… unlike him. She cries, every night thinking about that dreadful night when she had just turned 12… he told her it’s what fathers and daughters do… it’ll bring me closer to you so she stopped fighting. Not knowing what was actually taking place… he forced her into believing that was a daughters place to do those things that no other daughter does… willingly. She’s scared from the inside out, trying to figure out sitting in health class at the age of 13 when her health teacher reads from the board… this is what lovers do. The words oral *** and vaginal *** appear on the screen she hears her screams from the pain in her chest… this is not a request it needs to stop… she begged him please he laughed in her face but didn’t leave her be… it kept on. She’s turning 15 and her tears grow larger and flow longer… her tallies grow deeper the love grows sweeter that she holds for her blade… The drinking and the drugs grow strong, stronger than her will to live she gives up hope… it’ll never end. She’s drunk, not able to stand on her own two feet she forgets that she comes home to him… nobody suspects anything nobody hears her cries for help… he touches her again as she lays on the couch unable to speak because the liquor in her system is too hard to beat… she’s wasted. Trying to scream begging her voice to finally speak as he… he pushes himself on her placing his hands on her throat. Cupping her neck in his hands he chokes her to sleep… waking up in tears not remembering the night she had before she gets another drink. Looking around in a familiar house he lays on her couch… no clothes on happy as could be. Rubbing her thighs she sees… marks that wasn’t there before she picked up her drinks. He smiles… knowing she doesn’t remember knowing he stole her innocents from the night before he took something that wasn’t for his self. She stumbles to the mirror… looks at herself and sees the bruises on her cheeks… not remembering how they happened to be placed there. Crying folded over in the sink throwing up the memories of her past… the memories of when he was just a dad… the memories of before she grew a chest and started to gain thighs… wiping the tears from her eyes. She grabs her best friend the one who loved her the one she let in… kissing it so softly there she goes again. Placing the metal against her skin and gently pulls it back again… scarlet sputtering out of her skin. She cries… from the inside out she dies… slowly killing herself with the misery that he so ignorantly put her through… The words I’m sorry slip off of his lips as easy as the blade slips off of my skin… he says it’ll never happen again as he only rubs his filthy hands back over her skin infecting her soul with pain… She cries… hoping one day she’ll wake up and be able to watch him die… Hatred grows stronger for herself, letting her brain run her life when her heart was just as smart… She blames herself… for something she had no intentions of letting happen… She left… and now he tries to be the father that he claims he always has been… She cries… I… I cry.

At first glance
You compliment me
Orange hues igniting
My brown sugar frame

I have been scratching tallies
Counting down
The days
Until autumns grace

You embalm me
Forever preserved
Begging to forget
To shed your memories

Brown shriveled leaves
Cracking swiftly beneath my heals
Dust which once glowed green
Filled with promises to deceive

My twisted beautiful frame
Will remain
Your words  lost
In the crackle of crisp air

Autumns arrival
Will bring your ruin
But I
Will be born anew

Deaths are like tally marks on your mind.
They are charcoal black tick marks
that build on your subconscious,
never fading to scars.
Some are merely penciled in,
like the death of an aunt you never knew.
However the death of someone close cuts deep into you;
a constantly fresh wound.
Never scarring, never healing, it only festers.
But watching someone die burns a dark wound into your brain,
a permanent scorched mark,
the insignia of a life taken forever,
branded onto your thoughts.
We can never remove our tallies and
they only build over time,
our mind growing darker from past sufferings.
But when all that remains is what caused it in the beginning: death.
you become just another tally on those you loved.

all alone in the unaccustomed patches of this
house, irrevocably mesmerized, washing the
eggshell blue ceramics submerged in winter,
all folly for the tallies I've sketched across
my forearm to the number of
pensive detachments I've buried in my pocket
from only that day, and that day alone.
no answers to the manner of this impulsive
habit of stretching my mind across the ocean
a fishing line with no hook
a photo frame with no picture living inside
I’ve turned you into someone you're not
I’ve brought you to places you’ll never be
surrounded by strangers, lovely oblivion
they don’t know, they’ll never know
and neither will you

when they cut me open
with their mouth masks and sleepless eyes
what will they find?
will they find my heart?
is it black as coal with jagged cracks?
will they see my liver?
shot from too many nights alone with a bottle
will they pull me apart limb from limb?
trying to find the problem
where it went wrong
where innocence turned malevolent
where pens and paper became razors and skin
will they count my scars?
like tallies on walls of state hospitals
empty cells and empty minds
will they close my eyes?
will the darkness of my corneas cause them to look away?
will they burn my body like forgotten poetry?
will i die in tragic infamy?
could i be a martyr?
i'd call to jesus
i wonder where he is
we're all going mad down here

Desperately grabbing on to imaginary safety, hoping that maybe
just maybe, they'll save me.

This is no virtual reality, but it's hard to see reality when the fast pacing of ghosts and goblins are racing to neglect you as if you weren't ever here, to begin with...

This endless stress I'm feeling is a confession of my LACK of pity
because I feel like it's fitting for this circular way of ending

Spinning in this pattern
Fending for myself on an endless pasture
Demons and shadows, I call those the normal
Opposing humanity that lacks reality
Blinded by the constant wall we bring together
Formally restraining the legs, because we think it's better

"What's the weather"
A constant concoction of tales and tallies for the repeating day
Like a feather, the weight of these lifeless questions couldn't keep the ocean at bay

"What else is there to say"

It's not about what you say that will matter anyway,
Although the power of words is often underestimated,
Keep in mind whom invests in you and what you say,
For those will be you're biggest assets and liabilities.

But if you insist, say what you value, and value what you say,
Because your actions will amount to what comes from them at the end of the day,

Constantly tiptoeing over words like an ***, drunk and stumbling over grass

We value the past, abusing it until we've drained it of any real mass it once had, excusing what we do, based upon the past

Forgetting that the past is so close yet fastly becoming the last player in this race in time,

What kind of journey must we take to pick what we say, what we do, what we feel, what we value,

giving our value to ourselves, excusing someone else's hell and making it about an experience that we still dwell on,

our experience

forgetting the rotating reality around us never really rotated around us, but it around it, around it, which we are apart of, silently sending chaos into its sight as we see fit


fright...we should feel because this multiple concoction of words is really a riddle, hidden message, pleading for safety, which may never come, fiddling my thumbs as I write this passage,

Paving a plea that may one day be seen and actually pondered...
Or maybe left, neglected, as expected, not graced even lightly with another soul's wonder.