'Perspective betrays with its dichotomy:
train tracks always meet, not here, but only
in the impossible mind's eye;
horizons beat a retreat as we embark
on sophist seas to overtake that mark
where wave pretends to drench real sky.'
'Well then, if we agree, it is not odd
that one man's devil is another's god
or that the solar spectrum is
a multitude of shaded grays; suspense
on the quicksands of ambivalence
is our life's whole nemesis.
So we could rave on, darling, you and I,
until the stars tick out a lullaby
about each cosmic pro and con;
nothing changes, for all the blazing of
our drastic jargon, but clock hands that move
implacably from twelve to one.
We raise our arguments like sitting ducks
to knock them down with logic or with luck
and contradict ourselves for fun;
the waitress holds our coats and we put on
the raw wind like a scarf; love is a faun
who insists his playmates run.
Now you, my intellectual leprechaun,
would have me swallow the entire sun
like an enormous oyster, down
the ocean in one gulp: you say a mark
of comet hara-kiri through the dark
should inflame the sleeping town.
So kiss: the drunks upon the curb and dames
in dubious doorways forget their monday names,
caper with candles in their heads;
the leaves applaud, and santa claus flies in
scattering candy from a zeppelin,
playing his prodigal charades.
The moon leans down to took; the tilting fish
in the rare river wink and laugh; we lavish
blessings right and left and cry
hello, and then hello again in deaf
churchyard ears until the starlit stiff
graves all carol in reply.
Now kiss again: till our strict father leans
to call for curtain on our thousand scenes;
brazen actors mock at him,
multiply pink harlequins and sing
in gay ventriloquy from wing to wing
while footlights flare and houselights dim.
Tell now, we taunq where black or white begins
and separate the flutes from violins:
the algebra of absolutes
explodes in a kaleidoscope of shapes
that jar, while each polemic jackanapes
joins his enemies' recruits.
The paradox is that 'the play's the thing':
though prima donna pouts and critic stings,
there burns throughout the line of words,
the cultivated act, a fierce brief fusion
which dreamers call real, and realists, illusion:
an insight like the flight of birds:
Arrows that lacerate the sky, while knowing
the secret of their ecstasy's in going;
some day, moving, one will drop,
and, dropping, die, to trace a wound that heals
only to reopen as flesh congeals:
cycling phoenix never stops.
So we shall walk barefoot on walnut shells
of withered worlds, and stamp out puny hells
and heavens till the spirits squeak
surrender: to build our bed as high as jack's
bold beanstalk; lie and love till sharp scythe hacks
away our rationed days and weeks.
Then jet the blue tent topple, stars rain down,
and god or void appall us till we drown
in our own tears: today we start
to pay the piper with each breath, yet love
knows not of death nor calculus above
the simple sum of heart plus heart.
Oct 15, 2017
Oct 15, 2017 at 1:53 PM UTC
if i remember correctly,
you wrote a manual on how to swim
in this sea of disappointments
wading my way on above-me water *****
the energy, the life, the sureness out of me
**** this pressure everyone puts around me
i am naked under currents; don't peak
the water had been dyed pitch black now
the color of doubts
in their eyes they stitch words on my skin
capital letters p, e, r, f, e, c, and t
they decorate me like a diy existence
if i remember correctly,
you wrote a manual on how to drown suffocating-deep into one's sweetest dream
give it to me now
Aug 31, 2017
Aug 31, 2017 at 2:07 AM UTC
there was bravery in her song
and invisible beats were composed of tugging heartstrings
and hopeful rests blending well at that octave, note after note.
there was magic when the writer got lost in his own story
navigating there, making mistakes, being more human than god in contrast to others who had journals of do's and don'ts.
there was something positive whenever i wake up each day and face the battle
of standing up, being alive and practically living life
positive whenever i say no to backing down and giving up
in her song
in his words
and in my every waking moment
there's life and humanity and mistakes and it's all right
Aug 31, 2017
Aug 31, 2017 at 2:07 AM UTC
no one taught me
how to love
without the mandatory
'i love you's, without
fabricated appreciation
just because everyone else
was doing it,
no one taught me
the rawness of it all
how the feeling
consumes you like
fire and makes you
speak in a language
you never knew
you could speak
no one taught me
how to express myself
in ways that don't
slip between people's
fingers like water,
with palms up
heart cut out and bleeding
every pad and print
facing the earth
each vulnerability visible
from the stars
no one taught me
how to keep my emotions
running like a broken tap
because for years
i'd switch it off
once i thought i was done
dealing with them
and afterwards i'd never
want to run my hands
through the water
ever again because
i was scared to feel
no one taught me
how to love how
to express myself
how to feel
that once i loved
i burned like rome
i loved people more
than they would ever
love me, i'd always
love them too much and
once i learned how
to be vulnerable i
ended up tearing my heart out
and giving it to the
first person that
would listen
once i learned how
to feel i felt
too much to the point
of drowning my hands
rubbed raw from
running through
the water one too many times
no one taught me
how to live in greys
so i live in
blacks and whites
all or nothing
too much or too little
a constant push and pull -
i just want to be whole.
i just want to be whole.
Aug 29, 2017
Aug 29, 2017 at 4:08 PM UTC
the bible says faith
is the assurance of things
hoped for, the conviction
of things not seen.
how strange and yet
magical it is for us
to believe and remember
in things we do not know
the way the three kings
believed the star would
bring them to the child Jesus
the way people used to believe
that the phases of the moon
meant life, death, and rebirth
symbolizing the way a woman's
womb would swell once they
bear a child
the way we hold onto history
as if we are witnesses of
every horror and heartbreak
remembering the lost souls
using what we had to find out
what we will have
faith is total trust
and surrender
knowing that the world
began with adam and eve
but not knowing how it
will end
for the moon
the stars
our history
can only tell us so much
and our faith
is the honey found in heaven
the conviction that someday it
will be all we taste
i believe
i believe
i believe
Aug 29, 2017
Aug 29, 2017 at 4:06 PM UTC
I don't believe in anyone, so I say,
yet here I am being consumed, just another prey.
Aug 29, 2017
Aug 29, 2017 at 4:01 PM UTC
the asphalt was unlevel, the steps in my path divided, my own two feet played against one another.
the grass is greener on the left.
the grass is gone on the right.
cars continued on, the inconsistent studders in my step scaring them to the other lanes;
the inane ability to see life lose its value formed, the heart in totality from all hearts, to have darkness in day...
the grass was greener on the left.
Aug 28, 2017
Aug 28, 2017 at 11:59 AM UTC
46
I keep my pledge.
I was not called—
Death did not notice me.
I bring my Rose.
I plight again,
By every sainted Bee—
By Daisy called from hillside—
by Bobolink from lane.
Blossom and I—
Her oath, and mine—
Will surely come again.
Aug 27, 2017
Aug 27, 2017 at 2:29 AM UTC
I wandered blackout drunk lost
trading cigarettes for directions
from crustpunks who took swigs
from bottles of cheap plasticsugar alcohol
Muttering to myself in selfdefense
sublimating the toxic fire in my eyes
into soundwave echoes
bouncing off of plywood windows
and abandoned stolen cars
Angry limping at breakleg pace
down the heroinblessed streets
of yet another vibrant American slum.
Aug 26, 2017
Aug 26, 2017 at 5:53 PM UTC
scales and strings, silly sounding wooden things,
where words don't have weight,
shadows and secrets scurry off the stage;
plucked to the rhythm of the soul,
a story that words had never told.
Aug 26, 2017
Aug 26, 2017 at 3:41 PM UTC