I sit in the sun room, I am shaded for the sun
is only newly risen, low slung, just above the horizon,
behind me, over my shoulder, early morn warm

Slivers of sun rays yellow highlight the wild green lawn,
freshly nourished by torrential rains of the prior eve

The wind gusts are residuals, memoirs of the hurricane
that came for a peripheral visit, your unwanted cousin Earl,
in town for the day, too bad your schedule
is fully booked, but he keeps raining on you,
staying on the phone for so long, that the goodbye,
go away, hang up relief is palpable

The oak trees are top heavy with leaves frothy like a new cappuccino,
the leaves resist the sun silvers, guard the grasses
from browning out, by knocking the rookie rays to and fro,
just for now, just for a few minutes more,
it is advantage trees, for they stand taller in the sky
than the youthful teenage yellow ball

I sit in the sun room buffered from nature's battles external,
by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization,

and my thoughts drift to suicide.

I have sat in the sun room of my mind, unprotected.
with front row seats, first hand witness to a battle unceasing

Such that my investigations, my travails along the boundary line
between internal madness and infernal relief from mental pain
so crippling, is such that you recall begging for cancer or Aids

Such that my investigations, my travails along the sanity boundary
are substantive, modestly put, not inconsiderable

Point your finger at me, demanding like every
needy neurotic moderne, reassurance total,
proof negative in this instance, of relevant expertise!

Tell us you bona fides, what is your knowing in these matters?

Show us the wrist scars, evidential,
prove to us your "hands on" experiential!

True, true, I am without demonstrable proofs
of the first hand, my resume is absent of
razors and pills, poisons and daredevil spills,
guns, knives, utensils purposed for taking lives

Here are my truths, here are my sums;

If the numerator is the minutes spent resisting the promised relief
of the East River currents from the crushing loneliness that
consumed my every waking second of every night of my years of despair
                           divided by
a denominator that is my unitary, solitary name,
then my fraction, my remainder, is greater than one,
the one step away from supposed salvation...

Yet, here I am sitting in the sun room buffered from
nature's battles by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization

I am a survivor of mine own World War III,
carnaged battlefields, where white lace curtains,
were not buffers but dividers tween mis en scenes,
variegated veins of colored nightmares, reenactments of
death heroics worthy of Shakespeare

Did I lack for courage?
Was my fear/despair ratio insufficient?

These are questions for which the answers matter only to me,
tho the questions are fair ones, my unsolicited voyeur,
they are not the ones for which I herein write,
for they no longer have relevance, meaning or validity,
for yours truly

I write poetry by command, by request, good or bad,
this one is a bequest to myself, and also a sidecar for an old friend,
who asked in passing to write what I know of suicide,
unaware that the damage of hurricanes is not always
visible to the naked heart

These hands, that type these words are the resume of a life
resumed,
life line remains scarred, but after an inter-mission, after an inter-diction, an inter-re-invention
in a play where I was an actor who could not speak
but knew every line, I am now the approving audience too...

But I speak now and I say this:
There are natural toxins in us all,
if you wish to understand the whys, the reasons,
of the nearness of taking/giving away what belongs to you,
do your own sums, admit your own truths
query not the lives of others, approach the mirror...

If you want to understand suicide,
no need to phone a friend, ask the expert,
ask yourself, parse the curtains of the
sun room and admit, that you do understand,
that you once swung one leg over the roof,
gauged the currents speed and direction,
went deep sea fishing without rod or reel
and you recall it all too well, for you did the math
and here I am, tho the tug ne'er fully disappears,
here I am, here I am writing to you,
as I sit in the sun room.

Memorial Day, 2011

Corruption is like a ghost-
intangible but eerily solid, there but untouchable.
Like smoke, it dissipates into the air around us-
weaving itself into our breath faster than we can
inhale and exhale the lies that thicken and pollute
the oxygen that blackens our lungs with thick, black vines of tar
like poison ivy vines that creep across cracks onto ancient buildings,
forming a web that represents the false truths that have come to define our history-
triumphs and tragedies morphed so inconsistently by the victors.
And we lie to ourselves as we say we find beauty in this-
in a society so fed by falsehood that we're bloated by it-
dragged down by it.
Carrying this extra weight with a smile
living in a world that sees blinders
as a euphemism for freedom.

everything that
happens now
is pouring rain
banging fists on
window panes
elevated fear overcomes
excavated truths
atrophy is
a blessing
oh just to be weak
only a whimper
of jumping ship
to save yourself
with all the plans
just shot to hell

--the frying pan
is all we know
although the fire
looms below--

bones break as glass
shatters and collide
terrible secrets
drip out of pores
like sweat
and the rain still falls
weaker weaker
fists echo
noiselessly off of
transparent cages
another crack in
the glass
while the rain still falls

--from the fire
looking up
the frying pan doesn't
appear so rough--

glass is broken
bones are broken
and as the rain falls
I am weak at last
give in
that terrible weight
off of sunken shoulders
where did you go
you let me
get this bad
used to be strong
could handle
the world
can hardly stand
anymore
the glass is broken
yet freedom looms
far as ever
I would settle for peace
no chance
no chance
and the rain still falls

It starts with drifting.  Having no time for one another.  Then it's a fight about how they didn't call or decided to go to their friends house instead of being with you.  Words are spoken that have been bottled up for months, just building up; truths are revealed and tears are spilled.  You go into a blind rage.  Breaking everything that comes to your hand, ripping every picture up with him in it.  You scream out into the empty abis about how you hate him and he was the worst.  You no longer feel that empty hole that has been eating up at you for days, the feeling of him not loving you.  It is only filled with hatred and fury.  Then it hits you.  You find your favorite sweater of his that you slept in every night to feel like he was holding you, the smell of his cologne that would cloud your mind, or the first love letter you wrote for him, but never gave because you were afraid that he didn't feel the same.  Everything comes back in floods and flashes.  How his hand fits perfectly in yours,  his crocked smile, the way his eyes shined in the sunlight, how he wiped away the tears when your whole wold was falling apart.  Then in that moment, your eyes blood red, tears soaking your face, you realize no one in the world could love you more than he ever did.

Lesson #1:
In LOVE, you have to act like a WOMAN,
and think like a MAN.

Lesson #2:
In LOVE, never do an ACTION
which can cause CONFLICTS.

Lessons #3:
In LOVE, PATIENCE is still
a VIRTUE.

Lesson #4:
In LOVE, you must be familiar
on the word "CHANCE".

Lesson #5:
In LOVE, you have to be
more ACCURATE to your ANSWERS.

Lesson #6:
In LOVE, ARGUMENTS has
the sweetest RECONCILIATION.

Lesson #7:
In LOVE, TIME is IMPORTANT
for each other.

Lesson #8:
In LOVE, MEMORIES you built
are IRREVOCABLE.

Lesson #9:
In LOVE, LIES must be outnumbered
by TRUTHS.

Lesson #10:
In LOVE, never run to CONCLUSIONS
faster than the SPEED of LIGHT.

With my eyes wide open I see through all the false truths
But should I disregard them and ignore what I see
Turn my eyes blind and fill myself with a false truth?
Or, confront them and try to make sense of why this is the way it is
keep my eyes open and empty my self from these lies?

I tried to quit smoking last week. And my best friend died for eighteen hours. Such a deep loss has only been felt by rose hips, in the early winter, after the petals have fallen to the ground, like snow, like jumpers from high-rise buildings, like a maiden, after that last, fatal step off the plank, with swords at her back, and the horizon calling to her, the song of the Sirens drifting up from the ocean floor. Dropping, like petals, caught in a harsh winter breeze. The left-overs, the carcases of the flowers that were and are no more, watch with eyes of sorrow and hearts of lead, as each friend, companion, lover, even casual aquaintance plummets, to land on the already frozen soil of a dead, snowless, Colorado winter.
I died with my friend. My roots were tangled, and with each second that passed, a million axes took bites out of them, feasting on my identity. The axes were only gold-plated, it would seem, and not pure, unadulterated precious metal. Engraved in the paper-thin facade was a name, a face, and a hope, all of which were merely a poor excuse for an excersise in willpower. The cold, iron blade shone through the thin, gently curved lines of lip and ear and eye made of nebula. With each breath that passed between loosely parted lips, I felt myself fade, giving my everthing to the world (hope, name, face) that had, only moments before, murdered my closest companion.
My eyes grew steadily hard, increased stone-content. By 6:30, I had been staring into the eyes of my mistress, Medusa, for at least two hours, my head filled with love songs and daydreams, clutching straws and holding out for the one perfect moment that would shed a brief light on my life, which is, in all reality, the afformentioned pirate ship, but void of lamps, candles, or any other means of illumination.
Questions flowed to the surface of my disjointed mind in a stream, a river, an oceanic current of molten rock and sloppy second guesses.
(Will one hurt? Half? Just one puff? Why? Why? Why?)
And as I turned to stone, I finally found the courage to answer one of the questions that my brain shot itself with, injected into its own blood stream. The question was the sole bullet in a revolving, high-stakes betting game, the answer, the fourth trigger pull, with only two chances left anyway.
(Because... I don't know why...)
So stand up, go to the place you have thought about two-million times, and, yes, smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette.
As my friend rose from the dead, pushing aside the boulder blocking the entrance to its tomb, which everyone knew was just a temporary tenement, and we were reunited, we spoke of fascists. Well, I spoke of fascists, it listened. I spoke of the kind of fascists that exist in grayscale television commercials, spewing ingnorant words about the untimely deaths of beloved family members, who give me dirty looks in public, and have forced me into alleyways, across streets, out of sight, out of mind, to the back of the bus, as if non-smokers live forever, as if everyone can accomplish said impossible feat, if not for the evil plant, the evil spiritual plant that poses a threat to the well-ordered religious structures, pyres built for martyrs and long-dead saviors.
I have only begged for eternity once, and I was very young, with years of rocks and hard places ahead, only pink clouds behind, and eyes incapable of foresight. This boy ate apples, and drew on his arms with black pen every Sunday. Go into the church clean, bathed, come out with temorary full-sleeve tattoos. This boy was made of wonder, myth, and blind acceptance. No longer.
I have now gazed into an eternity made of open graves, lost loves, and harsh, barbed-wire truths, punctuated with sharp, jabbing exclamation points of brief pleasure that only seem to make the reality of eternity worse. I am a masochist, and even I don't want that. A body can only function for so long without sleep before the motor wears out, the radiator breaks, the gasket leaks, and the marbles flee from the growing insanity of their owner. We all need to rest eventually, and in my secret mind - the one that grimaces with sick pleasure and only shows its teeth in the lines of a poem, slightly blurred by metaphor - I long for that sleep. I am tired, but the day is only half done. But each sun sets, and we can not deny it that truth, that sensation of finality that settles upon senile eyes like a cataract, that snuggles against warm, pink lungs in all its black, tar-like splendor.
Truth, like so many other things in this solar system, only takes shape when under the eye of a microscope, with a passive viewer sewn to the end of it, with the sole intention of passing judgement before shouting "NEXT," and repeating the process untill they either run out of things to judge (blame, think, guilt-trip) or die.
So, smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette. Puff, puff, puff it and let us hope they never get to either of us, old friend.