The answers are complicated
that doesn't mean the questions are
understanding why can be an impossible task
when it's all too easy to know

Torchbearer, you conduct your sections with such technique
dancing lights, ta chanson sombre, c'est magnifique
all bubbles in the mud cannot make a man of clay
yet on your masterful conception du mal ils sont volés
night encroaching over the border, spilling into day
la nuit sans fin sur nous, sleep you who sit and stay
pas un le malin avec les moutons, sur une perle de sueur tu pries
until even fearful perspiration in the sweltering rain is washed away.

Phrases like embers from a bonfire besiege me, entwined in such noise
they light the way for wild and terrible mischief
such a scale burst drum skins to keep rhythm,
a cliff of imposing stature and will
conversations, mutterings and utterances, what-ifs left in the past
floating down in a swarm of amber and crimson leaves
like a great flame-tongue, to lick the world clean with unfiltered madness
so many strands of hair and one I chase over the ends of myself to collect
to hear a true remembrance and not an imagined back-and-forth
before Love was a frightening creature
set loose on back-crooked prey.

Absolutes, they're one way to get through life
people have been asking what is the meaning of life? What are we here for,
for as long as we've been here, since the first burnt end of a stick rubbed a figure on a rock
what's the meaning of the individual's life?
Is it to let the rock come to you, or to bring the charcoal to the rock?

Are you passing time, or is it the other way around?

We can talk all we want, pontificate until a filibuster philosopher considers it grossly verbose, but really, what's it all amount to other than keeping a record of thought

Proof that I thought, therefore I was,

Evidence of my life sentence, punctuated by what you see here, though know no word of mouth transpired in the transfer from what you see, hear?

I daydreamt a scene! Othello! A theater choir quieted a riotous audience with a sour note, a broken string struck from cello, blood dribbled down the composer's ear, a man who had never spoken to a crowd out loud, outside of the curtain of his mental symposium trampled the stagehands from the wings and took over the production, **** near, he had never allowed himself to perform, and an ice cold fist clutched his esophagus, crystals began to form, until he spoke and held a lofty ambition, thus, his voice started with a spark beneath the timbre that got it warm

"Oh! Hello! Pardon the cello, I'm no speaker of spoken word poetry, no rapper, no rhythmic artist, if I stumble and mutter, struggle to catch my breath, that's how those of you who know me, know it's me, to the rest in attendance in time you will see, I have a romantic idea of bardic magics, I love the idea that in time a rhyme can influence masses to act dramatically, you are now pyre logs for the flames of madness, this sacrifice-"

He coughed and cleared his throat, crumpling up a written note

"Was prepared with no small amount of sadness, I will see you rise and throw your chairs high overhead until they reach the ceiling, if you collapse in the coming violence, then rise up and strike yourself down once more with feeling! I will see you screaming, tears of the terrible unknowing streaming, you will glimpse through the trance of verse and cadence a forbidden energy, runic awakening, casting confusion, chaos and grave truths buried latent, witness the blind mind's havens, a pace that hastens as it doubles with valence, you have been taken by the belated, hated and unequated starving meat and ice sculpture carving, hedonistic, sadistic, pelt from the dead animals I offer at worship to my at-odds-ancient-gods, by the welts from my belt, masochistic, sick and twisted, motion sickness from head-spinning, furs I've felt, Bacchanalian Celt, kissed the devil and never got rid of the red stain, those lips stick, it was a burnt liquor and a bit quick, all nonsense or all sense gone, since all run, I sense I'm done."

Around him time rewound and the theater itself retreated from his words brick by brick back into the ground, the world itself dared not try to comprehend
nature knew a curse on the fell aura of his performance flew
as people traversed through matter perversed and minds that scattered and reversed, while ill symbols from his mouth broke the air, turning the fabric of reality into a blanket-fort to play pretend
he sat down on the stage he preserved, with one magic breath he sang his death
an offkey note, breaking a cello string across the flowing waters of time

"Nature be restored,
you have my word,
my grievous wound, I mend
with this I bow to you, Gaia
the end."

Won't the sun shine a bit softer, for pity's sake?

Bargain with the wind, can't your breeze be cooler,

or a little lighter, give or take?


You machine

with your vented tongue

averaging the truth from all your calculated lies can only mean

that your head is so full of steam you must blow from an iron lung

a chimney-neck, a smokestack, black cloud of thought that gathers

glowering coals, simmering down from a long night's work

now the pummeled odds, statistics stacked against the status quo

quote you against yourself, you hide your bent and burning rods

by burying your disheveled and spent state beneath a quota of snow

cooldown until scrap is repaired, maintenance quick, quips all witless, quite aware, quitting who cares

all the best times come and go, love is unquantifiable data, a memory you can feel and know


I hope today is a beautiful day for all those who want for it to be

and I can only hope that everyone I may never see is over me,

I've been the guilty party, my price of admission is not worth the memory

while I lose sleep, may you only know peace, love, respect, and feel pain dissipate, overcome and be burden free

I'd rather lay to rest with my heart light of anger, than my head full of thoughts of perceived enemies.

Trembling barely contained
the murky coming, concealed
bared in patches, wet and stained
brown and yellow enamel revealed

Steadfast holding, conscience wide awake
ambling threat approaching, towering tall
bowered in the shadow cast, spine-hairs shake
shivering to bow before the shambling presence at all

Eyes meet a second too late
interaction integral, insolate, integrity intact
legs laid out all by the side, infatuate
rest in victory by merely defiance in the act
or instinct, fallacy, to the fatal end, innocence exact
standing in the way, one falls for the lack of knowing
what it means, whether to smile back,
the other is not smiling at all in fact.

Every word in your poem must have meaning
the first eight don't, write that way, I don't even live that way, find the purpose in these words, it's scattered with red herrings and recallings of the past, hallmarks and cornerstones, what has and hasn't mattered, madness and hat tricks three times over the top of a shivering rock, quivering locks that hold the mad hattered, sick from the work, their hands all blood splattered, if everything is worth everything then there's no value, it's all filtered and strong, there's only honesty and no stakes, everything is true, the purpose is to discern what has worth and what's worthless, I open my back into a blood eagle/writing desk and translate pulsating raw organs into words for you

Nobody save me, I am in love with what I do

You could easily break my heart, I have a toychest, I pull out verbal audacity to the extent the social responsibility of an author is distant in my mind from what I am, I disavow myself from your ranks so I can give my conscience some REM rest, a mile a minute thoughts all day, benadryl, painkillers, migraine, anxiety a trough for a bi-daily feeding of every pill, I'd be a ricochet away from glass shards showing in my die hard deck of troubled cards, well meaning I'd fall to pieces I've let go over panes it's been nice knowing, the way I treat observations is dastardly, this maladjusted, malcontent, I am an August Breeze because I was a blow hard reject, I don't put respect or take it, I give it and I'll never cross the hard times or same lines this revolution like protests on a boulevard after Malcolm X

Get killed in the streets and people like me watch on the news, horrified
that's *******

I said you could easily break my heart, I've got a toychest, I get plenty of rapid eye movement without any proper rest, I sleep for hours like pennies on the dollar, steep cost but hollow, because I'm exhausted and depressed, I don't have even half a mind for politics, I can't carry a conversation, I'm no champion for the popular opinion, I won't vote in this system, I'm another timeline's anachronism, they say keep your words soft and sweet in case you have to eat them, I say break my jaw backwards and force feed them, open me up to the despair of shattered illusions in this bubble of elitism, I'm over and done, give me defeat, I have action figuratives you can play with until we're all worn out and beat, but this carousel spirals until the whole fair is a circus, along for the ride like Bonnie and Clyde, bullet riddles, not too common some might think, like the Sphinx would bother to curse us

I love you, whoever you are, unconditionally,
because I believe there's peace in that
but I'll fight you to defend that peace if you threaten it

Gender, off by the spring in my notebook I would look, I used to be a lonely kid, I was embarrassed about my body by everything I did, I learned I was supposed to like girls and I never challenged doing what I was told, but casting a glance their way was inviting someone to frostbite my head off while I was trying to keep it down, it got cold, I was a preteen and I felt already twenty-odd years old, I had bought into this portrait of normalcy so much so that I'd been sold, that I'd taken up a paintbrush and put a little fleck of pink blush, to include myself and I welcomed opportunity to destroy my trust, I don't actually care about ***, I loved once, but another warm body isn't what my heart wants, I wouldn't even reproduce by mitosis if I could, not even to declare to the approval of my family and peers a legacy of carnal pleasure, I've been told to go **** myself plenty of times before, why make it about offspring as if I would, no, it has been more than seven years since I felt intimate lust for another person, I don't want to feel that way again even if I should, I have struggled to be content in the label of asexual, even though I can wave a flag to say I don't give a **** and I'd be wrong not to say it feels good

Education traps you in a cycle of economic pressure
squeezing and pushing, draining a person
they become titles and jobs and numbers, lesser and lesser
while their checks hit like save points and you try to focus on that
motivation avoid debt-incurred devastation,
pay it back in backpatting, treated libation
insinuation, improved situation, human batteries
renewed and recycled, capitalism in a state of fluctuation
tuition only in, but never out, competition
hotter degrees, more possibilities, affordable and available at a better institution
depending on your life, you start off at odds or in favor, and that is *******

So, traffic stop, killer cops, commercial backers from corporate hacks, change ad hoc, stuck inside buying and selling stock in slacks, real difference and all talk, allies and all lies, followers and leaders alike, subscribers, likers, listeners lack, christeners in the tide of war and order, ignored poor fodder, a fiery passion can't be extinguished by water, reality in a world so fake it needs to be shook awake sorely lacks, Uncle Sam doesn't want you to enlist, he wants you on a list, but America speaks for itself

The state of things is bad for your mental health
and you can't even book an appointment that you can't afford right now
it's virtually impossible to get help,
unplug the simulation
everything is so much worse outside, put me back under
release a sweet sedative/dopamine injection,
tune out everything bad and just think about what awaits in the wings of production
quarantine will end, markets will open like Christmas morning
and your gains then are your own greedy projection
to quell the rising outrage in this outrageous population
quiet them by letting them scream until they wear themselves out and fall asleep
then turn down the negative attention,
tease the brakes, before the silent minority wakes
more people per capita means nothing to capital capitol, that's ******* *******.

December, nineteen sixty three
the frost collects in the beards of the homeless
who weep tears of defeat; life seems hopeless
Philadelphia
bundled under blankets of snow
shivering and miserable they line the streets
few of them sleep, with nowhere to go
they borrow time to live, three starve for every one who eats
poverty and frail bones, behind their eyes they are hollow

Venture to their jungles, see their thin and decaying forms
shuffling as if their ankles are in chains, food slow enough for the worms
before they die their wretched lives waste away, compassion transforms
they chip at this glacier to reach the hearts and minds inside, yet the blizzard never warms
you strangers never warm; they were never warned
wringing a cheesecloth over an old mug
a belly full of fire to liven up the poor man
ours was just fifteen when he caught the bug
strained through a sock straight from a tin can

Oh no, look who came back with the Sterno-Inferno
give me a swig, give me sight, bring on the Canned Heat
knock you through the brig, won't even put up no fight, swept right off of my feet
loopy and sappy, it'll make you feel happy
it's quicker, hotter, and easier too
if you was where we was, what would you do?

He's drinking, and drinking, but it's not going away
in one month they lost a person for every day
thirty one deaths
thirty one deaths!
Thirty one deaths
it seems sometimes like he's the only one who can't forget
and as he exhales into his interlaced fingers
he can't see the blood on his hands, but the scent of iron lingers
young and alone, he staggers through winter like wet cement
with a pain pushing on his kidney like a broken bone that won't relent
his needs come back and haunt him, yet
direction is the one thing in life he could never find
now his hands guide him through a picture in his mind
swearing, crying, I am blind!

It was the perfect irony
when the sidewalks cleared of ice
and the sun shone down, now they could see
they wanted to go outside when it was nice,
but for the loss of many,
when they found his body
struck by a shovel clearing a path
on his side curled in a ball,
they became numbers to his statistic, indifferent and evil math
more witnesses than family, all their eyes would fall
that's the cruel nature, he died by a stoop and no one saw or heard his call
when he was discovered, he was made an example to them all
on the dangers of drinking methanol.

Should this blanket of gold slip below the dragon's neck
as it grows and grows under the fortunes of your people
then it will awaken with heavenly fury, and raze your kingdom to ash
from which a fertilized garden of tormented magick will grow anew

Skeletons fused together of families seeking shelter
fine stone homes reduced to sea level
shadows on the walls with no one there to cast them anymore
a gulp of air is poison, bursting blood vessels and choking lungs
there is as little left of the castle as there is of any hovel
not even a standing door
ashes fall like bitter snow on neighboring tongues

The dragon's great green wings coveted the hoard of gold
beating gusts of chilling wind, the molten mountain runs cold
patrolling the peak and perimeter of this necropolis
festering energies awaken the spirits of the dead
energy from the lustful connection of a dragon to its hoard
the madness that brews in the very atmosphere
contorting the tapestry of reality to the will of paranoid malignancy
once a king, a catastrophic ruler, corrupted by power
now an echo that ****** the hairs when carried miles from home
he is one with his legacy, a dragon, for what more can anyone claim
only a crown on a body, witness to obliteration; only a king in name

Thus only do ghosts manifest keep company of the lizard
who cannot outlive the dead, annoyed that one day
perched on its gold, it will look out on all of its victims
unable to know they are at bay from the treasure, finally resting its head
even when that day is gone, the spirits still wander, aimless in despair
uncertain sad expressions, slowly decaying, lingering there
appearing with inverted funeral garb, white rags, robes and veils
sullen and dreadful, with sour magick in their exhales, an icy fog in the air
every day they are less restful, this kingdom of ghosts, every day robbed of peace
anger grows while none knows at what, why or where
they cast horror into distant familiarities of their memories, never knowing they can't become aware.

Hunched over, breathing heavily, palms flat and turned outwards with fingers stretched over the kneecaps
a strike, perfectly on the very most fragile beacon of symmetry there where the face folds around the skull, perhaps
and all the steam would just come out in a pitched scream, curdling, before the fried and tired could collapse

Heave in, hitching breaths on the frosted lungs
trouble fetched far to speak in tongues,
mutism, the latter bells such painful rungs

Fetching all focus to contain, to paralyze
catch a sapling sprouting rapidly with piercing cries
desperation, drool, drenched on the wings of these insipid butterflies.

Grab the human race by the collar
shake them and throw them and make it clear
you are not house trained you roaming fools
you know nothing of fear

Now tell them "Stay!"
Now show me "Stay"
Spreading your idiotic messages
the nice things without which,
you can't live, more cases every day
the air you can't breathe
means do not leave

Now show me "Sit!"
Now tell them "Stay!"
Watch them fail, your greatest hit
on a loop, humanity on play
pompous and stupid acts of discussion
they're safely tucked away from recession,
and this is what they say
look at those dogs infect each other
protests in the USA,
they'll only hurt each other at the end of the day

Now tell me "Sit!" Tell me "Stay!"
Hong Kong is being systematically silenced
in response to allowing adjustments to the violence
that people can inspire
when their rights are set on fire
tell me nothing, reason will not reach my heart
I am enraged and want no part
spit on oppression and share the sickness
it is a level playing field with the masks off,
approaching half a million dead worldwide
avoid injustice, tolerate, bide your time, swallow pride
clench your teeth, roll over; clench your fists
let momentum play dead and stay inside
you have nothing to lose in the matter but your voice
it is the impossible unfairness, a dangerous choice.

Oh, to be a butterfly
flitting freely upon the sky
a flower bud or strawberry pie
to land on bones soaked in nectar, I
think of watching monarchs with a tired sigh
to be as simple as a butterfly…

No tail guns, no tracers
no fire or engines roaring by
no, just myself, my wings and I
no wingmen or aces, if I were a butterfly
no dogfights or air raid sirens, no warm scotch chasers
with flat beer, only the pollen trade that I would ply
no stale cigarettes, no cold coffee, no need to keep my humor wry
I would frolic in the sun, happy and dry
over so many flower fields with my own kind,
if I were a butterfly

No spirals of smoke and flames
no chains, broken glass or blood or names
no more would my fingers bleed for hours as I pry
desperate, hanging on every whisper for everything I try
no stench or thirst or hunger would bother me, if I were a butterfly
no fear or obligation would bind me, no desperation would make me vie
for a signal or a weapon to call for help or escape, I would kiss my life goodbye
and I would kiss the blood and sweat off of my cheek one last time, if I were but a butterfly.

Cleanse the palate
how can Canio perform his aria
while composing a ballad
his makeup reveals his face turned pallid
tear down all the balconies; his artistic felonies
he endeavors across seas; Christ the nail and mallet
posters read of the miracle of envies,
the clamor of lyrical frenzies
spiritual withdrawal lacking wise wherewithal
silver rings raise curtains, brass and wooden strings
the song bird sings, hear my call, he collects the golden things
to his pearls he clings, see him crawl,
all the colors robbed of evening, all the beauty stolen from the dawn
shadows of pretense cast long, darkening the future, for the show must go on.

Inexorable deeds are traded
paper sins are made
greater the weight of one can turn
to many tiny stains in the path we've laid
scar and ink and burn, for all that we will learn
is reaction ingrained with experience in pain,
draw from this well knowing that the difference cannot be repaid
travel away from here in fear and we will only come back to it more afraid
seriousness devours childhood foolishness with karmic harshness
a just punishment for all the games we played
unhinged, yet, the door closes fully to allow the consciousness to fade
expel hell from view, red and weary, you...
see this lullaby alibi reality of escapism is really a place you never should have stayed.

Manners over matters at hand, I do not stand, this is where I live, but it's not my land, you can live for anything and be killed for nothing, bring to bear a harsher march through marshes, a larger charge of volition, voices in unison with the same demand

the pandemic, it's systemic, of a cyclic, sick bicycle kick system, capitalist democracy, consumerism, candidacy cherry picked, politicians are an environmental hazard, one big oil slick, I feel the stress and anxiety, depressed and regressed as much into my shell as I can be, I don't look for encouragement from my friends or family, I'm okay, I'll keep my head down if no one has to keep their eye on me, if everything looks fine, nothing's wrong, see?

But I'm losing sleep, McClain, yours was an exuberant spirit, it was light, your smile was joy I could touch from a still image, innocence like that, I'm nowhere near it, your laughter is infectious and I'll never hear it, but your sobs, your final moments, burn like a poisonous fire inside, you were so full of life and you died in fear, it's *******, I quit, I'd never **** an American out of national pride, to be that lost as a cause my soul would abandon me because I couldn't even find my way back with a spiritual guide, I'd rather the right to remain silent be outright denied, so all the sealed lips are finally pried, there's no answers to anything without discourse and discussion, a dialogue from either side, when the people have exhausted all arguments, fight until the last drop of blood is dried, we celebrated independence, and Lady Liberty sighed, we lied, we're not United States, we are divided gates, I live in the suburbs, I know my neighbors are doing great, it makes my teeth grate, there is prolific hate, frustration enough to drive a man irate, it's like warmongers, embittered diminished returns, Iran, well I ran your license plate, found out where you ate, ready to catch you up and show you the drill, fearmongers, making ignorance stronger, wound up and ready to ****, tourists in your own home, killers homegrown on a bank loan, I'd rather dive off a bridge than enlist where I live, I'm in the middle of fair wars, I'm no fan, I'm no Afghani-Stan, they say power is measured in a nation's fleet of aircraft carriers, there's nothing scarier, than to have known, you could line em all up to hear the bray of ***** from the bay of pigs, a brigade of world leaders strafed by migs would get smoked like cigs, and they'd come for your kids in a draft before they'd come after me, offering up guns, they want your rising sons

I felt heartbreak for a young man I never even heard of before, cops mocked his death at his own memorial, I couldn't shake his beaming face and they pushed him through death's door, I'm unemployed, and I'm so ******* annoyed, by utilitarian standards he had every right over me to live, he was a massage therapist with a longer life to give, I'll never be half as loveable or kind at a glance as he is even now, if I could give you a second chance, you'd only have to tell me how... it's like they're big game hunters and big name hunters, with no shame under, remorse is important when you carry a weapon, if you use force you need to feel the brunt of that, it's no small indiscretion, being law is supposed to be tense, if you slip up on the job, people can die, and that guilt never relents, so where's the missing elements? There's ineptitude and attitude, shrewd and crude police, you cannot flash enlightenment, but the blues always come with some jazz and a sense of entitlement, it's a wonder where the good samaritan went, so, we live in this ongoing American Experiment, lab rats one and all, who knows what the hypothesis meant, equality was never sent, we can die for it and still be killed for nothing by the government, it's an abomination, the administration of conspiracies that bring stable geniuses to their knees, ******* generations and spread disease, no love for your fellow brothers and sisters, your voice they resent, ever since the end of the Obama-nation, we're dreaming of living within a wall, away from you all, with economic power and arms to stand tall, while from the inside out we fall, it's easy to pin every problem on Trump, he's the scapegoat to end all scapegoats, he excels at being the public punching bag president, but there's hail to the chief and there's head to the snake, it's a cancer, we're so strong, we held ourselves up for so long, trying to remain prominent, it's been imminent, if there's a countdown I'm giving it, under suffering, many people split, with no peace, no justice, only the declaration of a conflict unrelinquinshed, under the rule of total *******.

This planet is doomed, we must evacuate
Chart a course, let us head there straight
Attached to the green, feels like it’s been cycles since we ate
Adapt to this species, overtake from within, infiltrate
With every one of them we gain weight,
In numbers and arms, while they fall apart and disintegrate
This species is doomed, they don’t even know they can’t save themselves
It’s already too late

Don’t you dare go and fall asleep
I thought I knew you!
Strange behaviors, intimate partners, notions creep
I held you and my arms went right through you!
Mulch in my lap, a loved one, a neighbor, relative or stranger
Replaced by an emotionless husk overnight
It’s too late to warn anyone of the danger
They identify us and alert a mob to our presence on sight

The proximity to the pods is the key
Dozens of them chase the unconverted through the city
If you look in your backyard and this strange plant with a pink flower is something you see
Destroy it, leave town, don’t look back, just run to safety immediately
A mad dash, a group of survivors, one by one separated fatally
The aliens only intend to ensure their own survivability
To blend in you pretend, imitate them; to hell with humanity
In the end, you’re alone, Nancy
Scared witless, the Pod People are now not such odd people, they’re the majority
And her only relief, in a moment so brief
Is whispering to a friend, he can’t be one of them, or can he?

Tension and anticipation, all nerves for a moment just barely unwind
Her brow damp from sweat, stomach cramped in knots, this nightmarish fear
It has taken a dense and destructive toll on her mind
She may even have prayed a little, willing to believe a friend was still here

Of course, the moment lasts as long as devastating, overtaking, dread draws near
Nancy, you’re not one of us, oh Nancy, poor dear
Even then, when his finger rises, accusatory and damning, it’s clear

If she only knew, the alien menace that was already so close to you
She may have had better odds

Her fate is pitiful, lasting so long, only to succumb to numbers and human nature
Under such duress, they have our memories, but not our feelings, the people from the pods
Memories of sprouting from dirt, blossoming and yawning out into a human being, innately weak
All flashes before her, all good things and bad, as he tilts his head back, grimaced and pointing  
Now letting loose an ear-splitting shriek.

Oh, child
you look so disheartened
your hair in knots and eyes full of dreams unrealized
all the space in your head is burning kindling, all smoke and sadness, all rooms occupied

Be like water
which is a key to life, free and fulfilling
never breaking, ever-bending, the ashes you clean from your nails
when you stand again and face the world, knowing your will is never ending

All people are an ocean unto themselves
their depths and intensity as severe
every bit as full of life, ever flowing
and they break off into rivers and streams and falls
which change the land forever, often never knowing
that no one is so dark, so shallow and alone

I want to drown beneath the surface of a human
and love them for what they are, imperfect and dishonest
teeming with faults and bubbles
but I am a troubled wave, crashing and rolling
content to wander the vastness at best
while passing all these glimpses into my own sinking abyss
I follow a star and hope it's enough to lead the weary to rest
oh, child you would have such a different life than this.

In laborious anguish, cries that cracked the earth
window panes which shook with bellowed pains
Remus and Romulus, Abel and Cain given birth
Solomon, split us in twain
keep the whole, lose the attached brain

I welcome the poison into my life
it knocks and I let it in
and I ***** my guts as they unspool from my mouth
o'er the blade of my knife
soaked in the despair of eternal night that has yet to begin
I embrace the arms of ******, the hold of mutilation
arms of Hades take me away from the journey and to the destination
they whisper and mutter as he passes by there's the one with the open neck
who carries a dead soul on his shoulder
they don't know, those crows, whose lips for feed they peck
as our eyes roll over

A fine upstanding gentleman, my brother himself presents
with blood reeking on his hands, my brother himself resents
a killer with no intentions, ambitions, no control he does not relent
the finest necromancy combined a whole soul with the partial,
they cut the head off and preserved it in a jar, the baby's skull
his eyes open, turning in viscous liquids, tracking them wherever they are
an empty vessel for the monger who takes over, the wound beneath the scar
there is a dead man walking, being carried in the chest of an exiled noble
a dead man who longs for rest, who never chose to live
a ghost that haunts this disfigured puppet, strangling on the reins he gives

Now make your flesh dance!
Raise hairs, buds of skin, and a scimitar high!
If you will not discover your past,
your superstition will be your undoing and you will die
fall upon your sword at last,
let me out,
the jar tips over, the baby's head cries
let me out!
A man seemingly impales himself in a fit of madness
cursed by voices and murderous streaks of violence
he leaves only a stench in the street behind-
though finally, a being cursed to be trapped inside returns to its own mind
only to occupy a severed head that by sick magick managed to survive
and is to this day, millennia later, on a necromancer's shelf, in a jar, being kept alive.

You will die unloved
scrawling lost letters to the world above
in your casket ceiling
because you let us down
a bitter feeling, grieving; healing
breathing, while the noise drowns


You would raise your silver high
clench your teeth, grind goodbye
another beast asleep to the tune of your poisoned lullaby
with fists of gold when you say hi,
all their hearths and kindness shy away like passersby
the rot of lies, the growth of flies


What good will all of it do
look now around you,
what is all of this worth?
A pyramid is astonishing now, true
but it is only another tombstone withering away on the earth


That lump in your throat is the sand of disconnection
discontent and disrespect, disproportion, disillusion
like the hourglass it runs out upside down throughout our lives
were it not for all these things like a rope bridge of nooses, traversing a river of knives
think of how we might think freely, move as individuals, untethered and harmonious
no chosen few, beliefs, politics, tastes, race or class denied, human beings: all of us


Without the need to fulfill another need, to purr like kittens in a lap of luxury
we might govern the world with no debt to these walls and commercial anxiety,
that's why paradise makes people so happy, but it'll always be a daydream to me
to solve this infinite dust puzzle and repair society at the root of humanity
I can be fine with the love of myself and mine, one stone at a time removing my vanity
even if the end of it will never be, it's the pursuit of being and letting be
you will die loved, even if it can't be given, felt or known
if I could become fine, finite dust, one speck for everyone to see
with only the essence on each flake, to show that no one is alone,
I would give myself away with zeal, hope, and love for all of us, each and every.

Sing for me, why?
    This stone does not care for your stories
while wars may come and go now without me
nobody come around here and cry

Pray for me, no rye?
Today, still your heart and worries
I cannot hold out hope; raise a glass and say goodbye
rather in the blur of cheer this moment, than forever here
beneath a king's blue sky

If you have a time for panic
then can you spare a second?
I have a name for strength
and a name for destruction
these are both not me, simultaneously being who I am
this infectious calling beams down
assuring in its cacophony of voices
invisible fists who pummel my head into the ground
that tomorrow is only an idea, whose realization relies on choices
letters fall away, shielding me from harmful rain that falls like angelic pain in the brains where all this noise is

Hope is greater than the itching, nervous skin of teeth
you don't need faith, only know yourself and bear with one belief,
every day you triumph over yesterday, while tomorrow never was
today is always right now, speak on the future with your dominant intent; zero pause
if the future was a guarantee, what stakes in the present would there be?

My prose is apropos of being dead inside, a ghost in the flesh connected to souls

If there were ninety seconds left for all life on earth, I’d fill my throat with blood and my neighbors with bullet holes

Achilles’ Heel is a heart so black it devours light, I drank from the River Styx so I could compose deathly flows

Substance sobriety, I’m crawling on broken glass, faded in alleyways on better days

All impropriety, failing outward and I don’t even have any class, supervised and never seen anyways

Can’t take for granted a second of my second chance, I don’t stand out and it feels like no one understands

What are you worth if your only real skill doesn’t pay, they say there’s staying power, I think it’s pretty clear the dynamic is the power is where the power stays

I’d be a dead man walking on my walk of death, if there were only twelve minutes left

I’d take twenty-six innocents’ innocence in a sense I’ve hopped the fence and haven’t been back since

They can never see that I was raised in captivity, a domesticated animal that was never meant to be

Tell me about myself, you mistake misery for humanity, recognition for empathy, rehearsed imitation for someone sharing experiences in your reality

Medicated and if they put a bottle of beer in arm's reach, I’ll proceed to drink everything I can get my hands on, until I black out, back out, throw up and act out, wake up with all my scatterbrains gone, dancing for dawn, to read my thoughts off the pavement, hopscotching where I'm chalked up, bet I look better drawn

Negative interest in sexuality and procreation, contractual obligations to relations, I’d rather impose dystopian culling to slow global warming for current and future generations

Cease all birth, send all at seventy-five off, the longer there are less all at once alive, the longer there is a place for all to survive

Seditious, **** every politician from the bottom to the top, butcher their families, domestic terrorists acting in sleeper cells, infiltrate the active military, become a cop, if I was president I would commit a ******/suicide on my cabinet in the Oval Office and leave only a note that says “Death to America!” to create chaos and anarchy, when does all the order stop

Hallucinations plague my imagination, my skin feels like a film that keeps me from the world around me lately, I want to leave the world with more than I’ve taken from it, but I’ll be lucky to leave with my life, let alone knowing I mattered, that they didn’t hate me, that being a loser isn’t the only thing those who remember my name relate to me.

Talk of peace as rivers of life flow from your fingers
a shadow of a shell meaning well still within the shattered soul
foul and fell sitting there on the shore still lingers
your intentions prowl from the blurry hell, dull embers in your skull
a fire that hides from other light, deep down in a hole

In line with design, deigned to reign the stars malign
warlord's prayer, profit rules divine, oh men see everything but the sign
tie your notes and postcards to carrion birds, whose beaks will wine and dine
wet in the flesh of you before the last night is through, no good killers resign
plan to feign the bane of prophets, trained to rain remorseless, streaks of fire like red twine
inherited these causes, never known the pain, only been loaded onto a plane to fight your father's fight; your sons will do just fine

Newsman come and cover our tears, we weep for the world to see
a message that no one ever hears, the tale continues on tape, cautionary
fallen like some precious angel, encapsulated in a tapestry of memory
they prefer to close the casket on the presence of the corpse with their honors
and when they're all finally gone, it's just another death in the family.

If one were to listen close, one might hear the swell
Their ear pressed to the chest, one might feel reverberations
The dear familiar toll we’ve come to know so well,
Under failing, fading lights cataracts find revelations
Omens in the preferred nature and what all do they spell?

Prolific waxing philosophies of psychology that explains naught, but to amuse
Talking heads with their chattering teeth, prophetic insight into self-abuse
Answer to them, clear this cloudy gaze, make yourself of use
Inquiring minds rejected, romanticized, dance for us our muse
No flights of fancy in the aces, no cards up the sleeve,
Preservation, this bowed scarecrow, is enough to make-believe

Coherence or vagueness, a trust one must choose
Can they know your darkness; what are you prepared to lose?

Empty the hearth, its embers and ashes for the sorrow there, cold and pale
The devil knows love is not pride, see him stride
Listen for the faintest sting of light, ringing like a bell
If one were to listen close, what one might hear, one can never tell

Prophetic, truly one may weep over what they sow
Pride is not love, nor do acts of sunshine console the shadow
Pathetic, what crops can pestilence hope to grow?
Why does death steal time, and where does killed time go?
How is one seditious, sadistic, sardonic, self-sedated and still switched so none seem to know?

Cornered, I see the coward, now I will see him cured
Turned to sand, the sick fear sleep when their time is at hand
Remind the blind still, balance requires iron will, their fears unfounded
Get the better of their senses, better to submit is the general consensus, why they even try leaves me confounded
Mine will be a sweet reward, life anew that I stride toward

She has taken him, made him soft, my own partner, he is confused
He has been tricked, surely, he is only being used
I cannot accept this betrayal! I will bring him back on broken knees
Painted with her blood and deaf to his pleas
My heart has broken and all anger burns in my chest
It is my duty to bring them to rest

We are all reborn in the cycle, all will be forgiven
My palm pressed against her mouth, I could snap her neck and she would come back as seven
Cheeks turning red from the force, the pressure turns her purple, I refuse to give in
I could have killed her and shot both of them below
Then been paraded as a hero through the Dome tomorrow
By the time I’ve got the drop, it’s too late, I stop
Every time I see him like this, I hesitate

I loved you like we shared a seed mother!
Stuttering glare, my eyes locked, I loved you like a brother
And you ran away from home, from me! When your lastday came, you ran like any other
My faith is rewarded in the bittersweet hereafter, seconds before goodbye, I see a sign that can only be divine, I proclaim the omen and then I sigh, limply in his arms and die.

There is a better way
the jewels of wisdom locked in my chest cavity
buried in ignorance, arrogance, not meant to see the light of day
these flowers meant to grow with my decay
and open their fist over my grave
how long can I hold onto the murky morality
whose ink is poisonous, to whom I am a slave
to give up, let all hope bleed out of me
and offer no hope I can be saved

This is the quandary with redemption
you don't get to martyr yourself for one ultimate act
sacrifice at your convenience, foregoing temptation
the receipt of your past forever scrawled on your back
you can't merely decide it's all over now, at your whim
some of us have such horrible portraits waiting, our necks snap with whiplash
some have no fear of their inner nature, peering long and grim

The truth is you will forever be remembered that way by those who choose to see you as such
while you can grow and regress in the ages to come, the truth is exerting discipline amounts to much
fear excuses the rationale to cause pain, never does it explain how to apologize for its damning touch
I know that I can train and restore some of my forgone humanity, I just need to find the better man in me  
a moral beauty or amoral beastly belayed to a bucket in the inkwell of true intentions
convenience of conscience counts on the weight of the scales that measures redemption
what black spot your heart beats by, dichotomous before the open iris of forgiveness' sigh
is truly an omen, no omission from this misery, come and commiserate with me in Second Chance's Cemetery
you must want for yourself and nobody else to see the sins on your portrait clear, if this road follows hope then it cannot be led by fear
no resurrection, no intersection, letting go is a blind fall on trust
once free to be yourself and know yourself, you can become who you must.

I take these sleeping pills, awake hanging from the ceiling by my feet like picture stills, this redrum, this darkroom, my bedroom, it's my free will, mentally ill, mentally I'll devour you cowards and oafishly fish for guts in this cesspool with your backbone, backwards thinking, I'm reversed through life, unnatural, confused and abused, subdued and unglued, if they can't drown an ocean alone, why the **** do I always have this feeling sinking?

I'm a tantrum, a **** hand slammed on a dam like it was a wave's drum, a GI Joe ***, hypocrite lite, a hoplite, tip of the genetic spear like bubblegum, wages of conscience break unevenly, I'm sin, the son, five family's and one sum, a giant fee, fi, fo fum, killing myself to stay alive is the only way I know how, life backwards, that's redrum

Shining, not kings, never royalty, they don't know the meaning of loyalty, sell their own mother, countersue and bet their babies for a king's ransom, love is a price tag that haggles down the value if the right accessory is handsome, ******* them, hand-me-downs, wearing another prince's crowns, being laughed at and lauded for dressing up like fancy clowns, these get-arounds, bury them, up to the neck in dirt mounds, up to here with the vocal chord strumming their tonally familiar sounds, they're ghosts and can watch in silence, because I put them after my life, at the bottom of a boot you wouldn't scrape dog **** off of, housed like a jackknife

I hallucinated the full body apparition of someone that I always hated
a blurry figure before my eyes, I could feel him just over my shoulder
I'd been awake going on four nights, hearing noises, seeing strange sights
shadows that weren't cast from lights, the isolation of being in this place called home
and I was paranoid, probably high, dosed on sleeping pills, and wandering alone
I carried a loaded handgun into the hallway, cleared every room, checked the locks,
because I heard people through the walls, muffled like they were just out there
my own dog looking at me like I'm the one who needs to go outside,
I was scared half out of my mind, the other half already preoccupied
with crazy thoughts, I thought I saw myself, like a smear appearing through a rainy windshield, or a foggy mirror
and I couldn't feel anything real, a small jolt of alertness, forced to register as self-preservation, translation- fear
I was so numb, that it took days for the skin to break
and when it finally settled in, my muscles and my bones began to ache
I know how I felt about that hallucination, once I was rested, grounded, and awake  
how I always feel, why it's always too late
it crept up on me that week I had to completely isolate,
and it was inside of five days, my mind playing tricks on myself, the one person I truly hate.

Is there a true balance in chaos?
When the scales are a jawbone tilting towards flame or abyss
if there is peace in everything, in death and destruction, is there peace in this?
What good is love if it carries the fear of loss?
The morality of control is all amiss,
ease the open mind, dissolve into the air and toss
spilling a balm of requiem over all the troubles you come across.

Is that truly freedom, elevation to a higher understanding
or have I purchased a new plateau for my home?
It seems I'm always sinking low and never landing,
though I have no quarrels when I am free to roam
the cost of leaving is only all you have and all the comforts on hand
more for others and none for some, with these earthly burdens that we know
if you could set your destination to any horizon, with only the people and the past to hold you
would you look them in the eyes and say goodbye, unpossessed; an empty field with only room to grow,
would you leave them behind the bars of harsh memory, to spare your hardened self the sorrow,
would you wait until dark, without a word, or would you not be able to go?

I remember what it’s like
you can’t eat without supervision, going hungry at home
poverty gives the conscience permission
no new clothes, relatives giving me hand me downs
buying goodwill to weasel into my life for a day
when I needed them, where were they?

Don’t tell me who I am, how I’m living, don’t ask me loaded questions
if you want me to shoot myself in the foot, or shove my foot in my mouth
I’ll have to unwedge it from your backside, I come to converse armored in the truth
and I’ll accept defeat, leaving an argument saying everything I believe to be factual until I see proof
I remember being cold, I remember living in apartments we could not afford, no AC, sleeping on the floor, stomach rumbling, my big mouth, it was getting old, I’m not sorry it’s not like that anymore, I won’t sell you a pitch
but know you’re going to catch this if you think I’m looking down my nose, that I’m too good for the ditch, I lived in the ****, it’s where I was born, people you’re so close to seem to know you, and then they go off and show you,
I was too weak to raise my fists the first time I ever felt so ******
my head-rushed with blood, face-flushed, shoes caked in mud, walk around the grass to get it off, we ain’t wasting water from the hose, I wished my arms were stronger so I could bust (shall remain nameless) in their (faceless) nose, lord knows
I’ve been cussing like they forgot the black bar over my mouth since I first became aware of my surroundings, I was four years old or so, San Angelo, welcome to the South
tornado alley, welcome to my anxiety central around a point and rally, I’d visit grandma in Alabama and fight at the YMCA with kids on Summer Holidays, dad was working all the time, providing, he’s had **** near a hundred jobs, but I can say even when he’d want to punch me out, no doubt, having a good father pays
you tell me about how I was raised, your silver spoon theories are comically large, I remember walking home like the old folks tell you they did, through snow and humid heat, in Texas and Germany, never tell em it was just to save the credit card a tank of gas in the car, hop on the shoelace express and I'd lead charge

People keep coughing up gold about my childhood from out of thin air, I’m trying to be bigger than that, but this **** shines, I see it and once I get ahold of it I try not to care, it’s the stench that lingers getting to me, I step in these opinions that end up wishing that I’d just left theirs
I'm getting sick of it, being well off, I feel like a junkyard dog eating caviar out a silver bowl for the first time, friends look at me like I’ve never fell off this pedestal they put my whole life up for, I’m not suffering the same way, it’s not a crime
I didn’t inherit my wealth, I don’t even have it, this **** is a ******* hazard to my health
I lucked out by having two pair in a stacked deck, my parents actually care, apparently that’s very rare, they learned it’s imperative to work yourself to death for your people and keep hell warm for the ingrates when you get there
lunch table lawyers inquiring about divorces, I’ve taken leather to the mouth for talking back and my private life is still more intact than yours is
never grown-ups in Never Never Land talking like I approach life with two open hands
I never had a silver spoon near me until I could afford it without the debt
you want a story of overcoming, bootstrap pulling, here’s all you’re gonna get
I went hungry, couldn’t afford clothes, was a poor child, had trifling, **** talking, game playing, backstabbing family, I was lucky smarter people out-preyed the predators out to leverage children against wallets, they held me back for my own safety, sharper knives in that drawer than these bright ideas carried by sharks out to war, until you learn the angles these fish are going for, there were people to protect me and I wouldn’t ask for something more

I’ll pull my bootstraps up, pressing the sole of my whole right foot right down your neck if you ask me about my employment, earning, working, what I do, where and how and cashing checks, I love my friends like my family, but even they look down on me, I’ve been white trash, I was recycled, I’m only a grown man now, what more can I be? What’s next, everybody admires blue collar, I’m a shock collar, I’ll give you everything I can to help you to my last dollar, if you’re real just come over, ask for help, let me shoulder that chip with you, I love ya’ll, all you gotta do is holler
but all I hear lately, is your life is so great, like it always has been
my mind grinds to shut out thoughts, a broken gate, everything I hate and I have it all, a little money is just an invitation to revise history, roast and blister me, pretend like yesterday’s hardships sailed and the horizon they’ve gone over is somehow now a ******* mystery
I’d burn my money to fuel a future for my brother’s child, at the drop of a dime, I don’t want for anything but peace, love and respect, call on me for it anytime, until then I’ll keep to mine, my morality is out, that’s my conscionable spending-spree; ring me up before the **** bank gets to me.

For the faint of heart:
When I was a child I could not sit still
teachers took notice; offense to this
parents took me to the doctor
and we started up that hill
I took my first pill

A child of my time and place had no voice
we were hit like adults when we talked like adults
and when we were told to do something we had no choice

I was so stiff, I was the comatose mind of a dead child walking
my overactive mind sedated
they said I was intelligent, said they knew my kind
it always felt like there was something about me they hated
I was a first grader who couldn't sit still
and the doctor said give him this pill

Bottles rattle in my nightstand drawer on nights like tonight
faces of everyone I've ever loved, shoved into the back and outta sight
I want to forget, you won't go away when you're not even here without a fight
I push and ignore you, I don't even see you, I don't even want to
and still neurons send those fiery messages, torchbearers carry the light

Faint of heart, I am feint of heart
I am a duplicitous scoundrel, a monger and mongrel
a disharmonic chorus of voices play their part
stirring me up inside all these people from my past
picking at me, like buzzards who can sense the meal is the death inside
I hear every regret, barbed wire grows from a seed and pours through my mouth at last
the world would not change if I were dead, but in my head
I cannot fight the thought, of all the people whose lives would be better
if they found closure in a suicide letter, knowing it meant that I had died

I hear the support now, kicking me and telling me otherwise
the net catching me and telling me reason over lies
and I love them, I hear them, while from the corner of my eyes
my own voice is taunting me, a dead child haunting me
my capacity for evil is my secret to keep,
he warns me when I'm cracking, an animal meant to be in a cage
it's only so long before they start attacking, so take a pill, go to sleep
before your discomfort and disquiet and your madness turns to rage
take a pill, go to sleep
the memory of your younger brother is with you still,
hold me tight and release your pain into the ether
your sister cannot hurt you either,
you are forgotten, but you don't have to forget, maybe you never will
you'll see your older brother, and vicarious pride shall have its fill
do not give up, just go to sleep; take a pill.

Expound upon your idea

I recognize the tired eyes, the fading light, the manic battery and the desperate, clinging plight, that even I am giving up on me, when I look back and see a...
mistake like a tear in the fabric of my old green jacket, I'd pull it apart until I could slip a fist through the eye of the needle needed to repair the damage, the shell I come out of, the truth is I long to bury the hatchet but I've held on to some grudges so long I get within a hair's breadth and then I can't hack it, I take another log for the fire, chop it and stack it
I know peace is an option, I could achieve it and maintain it
but I'm insatiable, there's a volatile pull, there's insecurity in the wiring, my outlet
is draining, it pains me to say
there's something wrong in my brain
that when everything is just fine
it's just not right, that means something is going to go horribly wrong

I don't think I could utilize speech effectively, or write well enough, enough times to ever explain

That I am a button for rock bottom trap-door astonishment,
I am not a glutton for punishment, there's something more that loves to fight and prove your
investment, your time and emotion, is all a waste, I'm a trashcan Adonis in a recycled establishment
I need to prove that no matter what real good I actually do, I am a double negative, there's nothing I can't; I'm no good for you
that's why I circle back around like a confused vulture, pecking at my own living carcass before I go back to ground like an ashamed, sad clown, because I will captain and drown a relationship
I identified love, a necessity, a red flag thread, a wire to a suicide vest that almost set me off
and I cut my own heart out, detonated it, the fuse behind my eyes is a live wire, the sparks don't fly once the dynamite is lit

It all comes down to duality, hypocrisy, evil and me

Mischief, you probably think that means pranks
think in terms of death to the invulnerable, okay, thanks
somehow, you never want to be the way you are
I find with remorse, it waits to bite until things go too far
and these ideas penetrate my thoughts like venom dripping on my head
resulting in the comeuppance, another defeat, loss, personal humiliation, self-appointed proxy-given scar
I try to lie to myself about it all, that I'm going to do better, be better, change, reshape and restructure
when it seems I'm the sliver of a tooth away from sensible goals, a man I can be proud of, a conjecture whirlwind sweeps me with hindsight and conjuncture
preying on the weakest, softest sides of my wounded, pitiful pride, until I need to snap this rope and act like all along my hands were tied
and with no regard or respect, no honorable or honest intentions I will destroy and employ tactics that are somehow meant to reassure me of my reputation
the resulting aftermath which is always beyond the worst of imagination, destroying all realms their bridge and leaving alone one sickly mind with ice in stolen veins, ****** red eyes, hands washed in the void-river of time in gravitation, a creature whose humanity is stored and fired to fill this vainglorious vessel with precious vanity, having deceived all, achieved naught, and bought with its soul, sold on its personality, solely the lie of being a person, hollowed out by devastation, held hostage by its need for attention, in self incarceration, a slave for approval, for validation.

No defense will be heard on your behalf
hold his arms and legs taut
I revel in the look of terror
stretched across his sleeping face,
he's torn himself inside out for his errors
now I will hammer this gavel down until we put him in his place
once and for all
the guilty party
dances in deaf and blind conditions
lips curled up to apologies and confessions
torture and justice are holding hands
they make quite the couple
let them trample
so long as we see suffering
and we say nothing
we incite judgement
we say so
we say no
we see you
we are within you
until we are you
you are sentenced to
life.

Lowered head in rev-erence
temples parallel; glowering indiff-erence
para bellum, Christ the parable, in ref-erence
retire the snake of hissing variety, silence in sev-erance

Hair afire hallways like neural pathways light up
all wire sending out in wild directions all at once
sup of your world that grows and grows, your cup
that overflows, the discovery of endless everything
it is numbness, exponentially you cannot progress
the desires to experience more than your wildest dreams
are already met and beyond, so far so you stand
inconsequential to the world as a naked baby, screaming

Until now
what changes and allows
these sleepless to hallucinate
a wavelength of truth, that might elucidate
calm frantic tides and wake the willfully sedate
ill-comprehended minds see power, they clear their plate
appetites expand past their ambitions, shortcomings their idle banquets flip and negate
boisterous fantasy fiddles romantically off the tongue and vocal chords, stories of fate
believe enough and one can afford that talk is cheap and stories are dark bargains, they needn't illuminate  
therefore setting forth an economy where words are free, words like "love" and "hate"
swinging as surely as the scythe of Spring over Winter, her sunshine and flowers all promising to pollinate
what there in the recesses and comfort and cold, finds the odd time to be happy, now she comes to terminate
does great or no care go into the small and the most alive of things, for does time itself not have a one hundred percent mortality rate?  
until now there is so much that needs no understanding
everyone wants to plant their foot on the chest
but who props up the rock when settlers are landing?
Where do the denizens of nonsense go to rest?

All nonsense is sense that hasn't been made yet
and all sense is a stream of logic someone can drink
for some it's too bitter, too sweet, or they'd rather forget
for other it's just easier to take it in stride, helps one to think
but no one can own all the unknown, else fear might go extinct.

I'm no comedian
I have never told a joke
when I die I want you looking for me
no impostors, no mirrors, no smoke
nobody happy to see me
no joy; you better jump at ghosts
you better be sure, I better be ash
I'm no foreign man, I feel just as important
when I am laying with dogs, as I would be with trash
there's no song and dance, I am a portent
a wormhole in the warm earth, wet dirt deterrent
merely a spec, with what grandeur in mind
indeed, to conceive the things I would design
I feel closest to dying when I'm laughing
my lungs, the lines in my face, restrict me even expressions
I feel farthest from the stage when I hear whooping and clapping
my past is all one melted blur of disgrace and transgressions
I feel decades beyond my own life away from home
and I would feel worlds away from you, even if I could feel your breath in the morning.

Grudges are a luxury, they say dig two graves before you quest for revenge
I want to be the person who can't forgive you today, sleeps on it tonight and forgets everything tomorrow
but we all know, I'm a screen door off a hinge
I'll digest the hardest time I'm given, but give me time, let me nurse my sorrow
I've tried to cry
I dunno why
but I could manifest the memories, as close as near death trick-shows life's every detail
and I let myself feel all of it, to no avail
no mourning, no grieving, no closure
lurking and distant anxiety, like the very tips of fingers fallen asleep
pins and needles one can think they feel the sensation of
the lightest brush of fear and paranoia, selfish
that one day you'll be back,
in hundreds upon hundreds of scenarios until I lost count I thought it through, how thoroughly is every bridge destroyed
I am resolved for my own good to live with this peaceful moment of you, a lifetime reduced to a memory,
but there is no predicting, there's no telling, there's no way I can foresee every possibility
I have my determined course, no discounting history, no shoving aside remorse or discrediting accountability
I reconcile and reconstruct to recognize a way to close this endlessly branching dialogue tree
it uses so much of me, I feel like an algorithm pretending to be human
imagine if I were human
who would I be?

Flicked a ****, ashes against the breeze
ice isn’t worth all this trouble, doublechecking over my shoulder
waiting to hear the cops shout “Freeze!”

Sparks snuffed out on the ball of my heel,
fists plunged deep in coat pockets
stamping my feet, back to the wind, but I can barely feel
it’s getting darker, just a few more blocks
buttons like missing teeth that let blood seep from my lips
every opportunity to remind me there is, fingertips reach into my coat
taking wristwatches in their greedy grips, I can’t focus on one shadow before the next dips
they’re running circles around me, passing time for sport while my mind slips

Through a blindfold I find my way back, awake under fire casting irons on my floor
my coat, my bed, where I lay down sometimes is where I rest my head
until my hands find memories of the night before,
the coals may be stoking outside, embers enough to smoke a city
all the distractions and half the work done on every two-man job; I am sitting pretty
I search over, my scarf that hides my face, fingers tread the surfaces of wallets, watches, bracelets and lockets
as I feel for the cold spot, the felt bag sewn into a patch beneath my second skin, my coat’s contraband pockets
I can see the tail of my ghost, trailing on my breaths as I exhale
for they are gone, and I see my life before me leads as clearly as a blueprint
I can see that I have failed, the pale of my host, flailing on my death as I am frail
to be shot and escape with diamonds only to be robbed in my sleep, thus retiring my stint
in no grand fashion, quite adhering to belief, that I was only a petty thief.

Set, cross-legged in a state of meditation
so deeply descended, seeming asleep
while alert at the station,
this liberation, is fear incarnate
the more the chains fall from ankles and wrists
and waters of the world flow with sweet, free bliss
the farther away the pain with each shackle slips
it is a question whose burden one never forgets:
am I an artist? If I cannot create while in a state
of stabilizing happiness
then, am I a poet or a madman
that writes all with fervor, no flavor
convinced every work is my last word, as sure of myself as I can
beaten, enraged and broiling, a canvas that is red I turn into
a stark, dark, unfair and biased portrayal, my visage I make true
that passion destroys me and fuels this melodrama
all my greatest failures I love so, oh, I do
all the greatest works I've ever written came from dust; desolation I gave rise to.

I'm feeling paranoid again
about this real life cone of silence
these close friends of mine
and I suffocate on my instincts, the walls are closing in
when I look for a helping hand I don't know if I'm reaching or
lashing out, I can't tell if this is a fist anymore
I cross my arms and hold myself tight
I can't betray another trust
this fear is the poison that cyclically excuses my vitriolic behavior
I will sweat it out cold turkey, until I drench the bone
hobbled and still standing, emerging,
an addict to the mischief that alienates me, I love the conflict
and hate myself for it, social anxiety riddles me, how do I overcome self-destruction alone?

PAINT!

A cacophony of colors oozing forth
brushes tied to snails, trailing down the walls
gently leaving, grieving, berea ing, absent-minded
flooded buckets returning gravity through a hole in the ceiling
an uplifting sort of sinking feeling
rapidandvapiandtepidanddesperatesoundingthoughtsalarmingandtoofa­sttokeeptrackofnolove
one peace, not yours
no one's peace

manically depressed, laser toting showboating unknowing
shiny-newborn robots

Genius
not in this species
not I, nor us
no, not in any branch of these trees
tiers sprout from the infinite and looping possibilities
reforming and collapsing in on themselves in an endless artful expanse
of compounded implosion, colonization, conquering power of far-reaching negativities

DEATH!
to the sound of a dozen different solos all playing in isolation
all masterpieces in their own right, all together sensory devastation at once
beat this worshiped slime to a pulp, beyond recognizable satisfactory sensation
make noise mean something by making a void contain value,
to cross the stranglehold of you for unreason, ****** the future nobody wants,
the future is dead and we killed it
the future is dead and we killed it
I saw its corpse
now I feel it!

The future is dead the future is dead the future is dead the future is dead the future is dead and the future is dead and the future is dead and we and we and we an d w e k   i    l        l    e     d   i    tomorrow

more as usual.

I could not be more secluded
the truth gets harder to swallow every day I am away
I can't help anyone, I don't want to
**** you, I hate that I care, I hate that I love you!
What splendid friends, I alienate, for my own little world
to keep getting smaller
I taste blood in my throat, mournful grief
and I must digest this on my own
once and for all, one for all, I force it down again
and again, exercising the emotional restraint
until in my dreams when he appears to me
comforting, accepting, the man he used to be
I remember the purgatory of consciousness
this torture of waking, I'm not fit to be a broken piece
in the puzzle of his life, merely a lobotomized spectator
to which I declared, good day! We are not friends!
I choose to remember you as my little brother
but we are not on familial or familiar terms,
as you wanted! You said you'd never be scared away
unless I pushed you to break,
it was the most selfish thing I have ever done
to make the silence stop
now I am removed, I have strode through hallmarks that seemed impossible before
I haven't even glanced at your art, which speaks volumes unto itself
and I push all the loving arms and watchful eyes aside
so I may grieve, in the perpetual chaotic motion of this world.

Is this a real reaction or a trained behavior that makes me believe these chemicals work to such an effect
that I light another in a forming chain of cigarettes
while sat on this tabletop, concrete and graffiti, hoping the sun sets
hoping to see that burning bright eye blink and close, that its gaze forgets
and out of Lake Waco a figure only visible to me extends their hand to dance
the offer peaceful, dark, silent, and I accept it, "Let's."

Away past all the happy people with other people
who sit beside them and keep them
away past all the moments and waste
all the chatter falls quiet, they mean nothing for real, for once
away over the grass and over the edge, into the ripples
with the still-lit candle burning at both ends,
ashes falling from my lips, the taste of my life
as I turn to a polluted waste,
washed clean, washed ever, forever away

There hanging in the sky once I open my eyes
feeling a breeze of seven PM on my neck
is the sun, brighter as it dangles lower, orange
and purple, regal and mocking
for but an hour or so I lasted
although, now my sadness evaporated
and now I steer off under falling shadow
smoke scent about my collar
misery, dangerously close to the banks I wallow
this place called home, I go.

Misery is an arms race in family politics
to gather the most for ammunition
releasing sweltering hot bursts
that break the skin without contact
for years, without seeing

Undesirable outcomes include
solitude, quiet retirement from drama
and fights, no circle; no circle of life
many displeased elders frown
I carry shunned traditions on my back,
ashes from bridges, and skeletons from closets

Witnesses are dogged in all manners
warfare wages, all morals weigh in
over their fare payment, reasons shed disguise
greed, they would weep buckets for the wealthy,
empty to carry whatever of worth they could
shameless, teeth stained with crimes beam light smiles
the wheel returns and a collection plate falls barren at our feet.

Love yourself and all around you
may kind-hearted intentions and good company surround you
may you eat your fill of good food and then some,
may you rest in comfort and wake refreshed
and may you enjoy a day, if one, and feel that you are blessed
I ask nothing, encouraging you to share warmth and hope
and I believe that every person together can overcome any test
this is what I wish for, not peace forever, but peace for a moment
and peace, in that moment for everyone.

Insomnia has me feeling like my brain is on ***, ready to fight the whole wide world like a single player on PVE, you know the drill doc, it's basic carpentry, I want you to tap my heart with a faucet, wire a valve through a piece of PVC, then this forced hand writing will all come more naturally, you can put that guilty plea on me, until I can sizzle in the amniotic fluid that I used to be, there's no point, it's all debauchery, this is the pain that tugs, this is your brain and this is your brain on drugs, shiver on the floor, do you prefer hardwood or rugs? Patterns so enigmatic, hypnotic, it infects the minds of bugs, this is the stain on love, semantics' sake, purely you must remain above, the lonely strangers steal hugs, pedestal, peddle fool, spin you gold faster still gotta keep my cool, another angry person with something to say, the world won't tolerate em, they all hate em, they've all heard enough they can't complicate or placate, so they scab over like platelets, the drones of sweet, alluring ignorance, all holding hands to keep the cut from gushing while singing dixie in their barbershop quartets, it's a bust, tamper nothing, they'll scamper to something, all worthless, shine a red light, blink a blue light, hold up something bright and everyone scurries with folders of opinions in loop-anxious media-frenzied overfed fright, it's like seeing the sun for the first time after living your whole life in the night, it's like everything's been left and someone just discovered you can go a new direction: right. It's like originality is a race to who can say it first, there's a million voices on top of any million voices anywhere already placed, you can say your piece the worst, see it reworded into the best version of your vision, stolen and marketed with minimal revisions, and there you have it, imagination rewarded by death in a spotlight, cancerous half-a-half-life half-empty with only air to ****, a flower whose stem can't reach the water in its vase, but whose beauty makes everyone want a pluck, and now there's a fourth wall, and a war call, and I'm looking at alternate timelines like I was Andy Warhol, what did Nixon ever know? He made an oval face, looked at the tapes and just said no.

Alright, writer, make sense, no more stream of conscience nonsense, it's not word games, respond to what I say with what you heard games, it's not dropping references and names, you've been under pressure, under stress, get over yourself and decompress, take this ball of bile, blackened, bitter bomb of odious construction collecting in my chest and set it off on a page until the load becomes less, gunpowder and sulfur can hang in the air by my toes when I'm done, while my eyes grab red lines as if I'm drawing a maze to the iris, fading out while staring up at the sun, I'll put it all plain and forward, word for word, if I'm hurried be sure you've heard, if you sleep during this, rest assured, it's no line blurred, no speech slurred, no more detour deterred, I possess a demon whom genocide resides inside with eons of ****** pride and an entire tide of souls have died pulling their eyes out in screeching madness and suicide, laying down to suffer beside a spawn of passion incarnate with majestic homicide, whose tongue has split families into tragic feuds where it has lied, whose fingers fetch folly from hearts without a guide, who is to fresh air as a cloud of hydrogen cyanide my domicile is the reflection of your final moments as you are brutalized by one you've known and trusted, who's got you all alone, now see your face flash in their teeth when they smile, I am a manic satanic panic, a brooding mood of a human being, my inner darkness would be enough EMPs to **** the nuclear energies of the sun if that wickedness would this way come in freeing, the tender moments I have are with the meat I cut away from soft and fatty flesh of feeble people that I force to flee my presence, you filthy animals all procreate and makes goals to abolish hate, your virtues are the falsehoods my soul resents

Have no children
skip a generation
let the world breathe
let her recover from mankind
make no life, eradicate your infants
skip a generation
we don't need more time, give the earth a chance.

Oh, you narcoleptic stars
don't go blinking out on me again
two shovels dig out scars
dirt they scatter across the fens
with a howl that cracks the marshal's eyelid
razing beneath the arch
oh, you sleepy stars, look what you did
you left the sky alone to focus on your march

Offsprings of life, water fills the path you trudge
who are you or I who do not drink of these puddles to know?
Who are you or I to twinkle eternal, but lightning bugs?
The less there is the more there can be, if we but speak it so
leave with lighter steps that your future is one none may judge
and a place you may beckon others to follow, but you alone may go.

The absence of evidence cannot be proven by a lack of what you have

your pride, a summary of all of the glory you can grab

it is weakness to hold onto love that can fit into a bag

the evidence of absence is apparent in the act

sentiment, kindness, present minded-ness, another slot a knife can stab


If you must insist upon these gilded tokens and hurled ideals like spears from Babel on

to fuel a spirit long since gone from a body faded to ash beneath snow, whose presence lingers in nervously grubbing fingers

then that only goes to show, your idol, image crafted by Coca Cola, whose Saint was Nicked and imprisoned for defending Christianity in the years 303 - 313

or do you not care for history, a lecture from a lantern lit lectern and how drab that all can be?


Puff out your chest on your past of hunger and hardship

these softer beds you sleep on now, rest assuredly

they are a bitter bite of mellow comfort compared to a fat lip

from the childhood Purple Heart you awarded yourself for poverty

if only the truth was not that the pain is what you must throw over your shoulder and carry

but how easily anybody can be right there too, in the mindset, broke and likely desperate to help their family

the real strength one gains from their life of having next to nothing is an appreciation for charity; an understanding for willing generosity.

My mind's eye is closed for business
no introspection, awaiting inspection
likely needs some good repairs
I'll be sharing burdens with Atlas if anybody cares.

Have your eyes ever felt so heavy from seeing, like all they've taken in was wrong

your feet so sore from walking, that any road suddenly felt twice as long

have you ever felt so sure of something that you'd voice it in song?


Has it been a while since you were told you're beautiful for who you are

have you never given a kind word, just to be kind

do you search for people who accept and love, and never take it too far?

Could you be someone to anyone; it's okay if that you is too hard to find


Hold on tightly

the worst of life lasts forever in a candle's flame

if trauma didn't burn so brightly

then the calm before and after a storm wouldn't live up to its name.

I don't belong here
so what am I doing?
Sitting before you, feeling the knots in my back
quivering fingers, lingering over letters
sending each with high hopes and precision
arrows shot in the dark;
hoping to poke holes and see light
this is all that I offer, bowstrings crescendo
shooting stars that fizzle out in the night
harsh on the harpsichord, striking forth with harsh accord
I feel the rise in my chest, chimney smoke fills my breast because I write

I wander the sky, a beggar and traveler
as I crawl through the gutter, a singer and teller
were I not scratching at the outside of this gate
you'd find me chasing the wild hairs to somewhere else
my home is not defined, my roam is a joy of mine
I run around with no aim, nothing to claim
no plan or agenda, no reputation to my name
when I see the hideous terror that mankind can commit
paired with the beauty, I revel in the chaos that does sum it
shriveling my skin, frozen to the bone, never not alone
the world is all a mountain we have yet to near the summit
so I celebrate the suffocating, loss of sense as high as we are
because it only means the bottom has fallen out, we've come so far
and I inhale that feeling to leap with a shallow breath
knowing all of this is all this is, I will write even when I am nothing left.

Do I live in the shadow of my older brother?
Everything that is left of me,
will there even be a legacy
from this dynasty, this family?
When I am gone will you love me for my mischief?
Take everything left of me to the forge, forgive nor forget
I have not denied my part  
wear the anvil down, until all arms against me are dogged
as I blaze into the drippings of a molten heart
no increment belongs to me, from the end around to the start
when I am gone throw all of my negativity over the edge, and let everybody know
love is all I want to leave behind, it's all downhill all the time, so look out below.

Seems to be another,
same, shame, clone by name
set placement next to any other
then, suddenly, before a butterfly can bat an eye;
before the rays of sun can capture moments' rapture  
and settle down one gorgeous golden gown
upon a dew-blushed flower royal's crown
there from above clouds, who roll over asleep, afloat on currents
seen from the sky
weary, lazy, no concern or worry, go by
cast a shadow between the sun and land
yawns of thunder across the ground
spawns many sad and cantankerous groans, they demand
clouds roll away, let the sun beam down
ears not breached from so far below, clouds nap-happy beneath the blaze
as the storm rages on, another peaceful moment gone, flowers drown;
trees blackened by bolts of blue,    
a valley carved from a serene plateau, took only a matter of days
destroyers, clouds, all awaken and observe, the path was taken, they do not mourn for them the loss and release cycle has come true.

Neo-gilded era of neon lights that torment burning
taking the darkness out of shadows where lost cicadas chitter, lurking
above, one resplendent eye, dizzily always, turning
dry scales, old fangs lay about a serpent admires its naked form
it rises over the chapel and the cloud to bite the dove
now to feel its power surging, in this flesh reborn
with no ribs to cage, no heart-to conscience, to page; no love

Ageless aeons daemons themselves could nary grasp
this posing colossus, beautiful and eternal, shines on
not for worship or admiration, how small it is that tinier they seem
when in its glory they so openly bask
professing, consoling, confiding and watching, knowing it will be there when they are gone
knowing if nothing else is certain, there are many generations still this eyelash will bat upon
hanging there when they are none, as regular every day as the dawn.

What haven't I felt in all the to do
radioactive anger, paranoid betrayal,
suicidal heartbreak, that I still writhe over you
general consensus is if given a teaspoon of faith I'll leap headfirst over heels in leave of my senses
I have seen happiness without this
this spineless need to be a codependent
it is my addiction, the root of my true affliction
to excuse myself I will blame someone else
so I built a community, with loving intentions
and looking upon my architecture, I see
happiness is a complacent echo chamber
where one is consoled and petted until their tears are dry
where one is assured and rests that way, with no resolution,
inner turmoil only needs be quieted, and the sniveling only turns to sigh
where the sparks of outrage and bitter cries for revolution
turn their heads in shame, conflict is a pursuit that upsets the status quo, oh no, and so, it is starved to die
there is peace at the cost of thinking with any form of fuel
there is sedated calm, nice and easy, no dogs bark, no fouls on the fool

Mine is a minefield mind of prolific hate that does proliferate
it seethes with time and quiet, while you wither in your comfort
I anticipate and scheme and plot, restless as I hear branches of thousands of ideas breaking off to riot
they sear like cattle brands through every conceivable outcome in my head until the pills I take to hold my skull together become my diet
the considerable effort that it takes just to go to bed is so much hurt, I debate in a court of pointlessness not to **** myself instead,
how can anyone alive sit still, even now I can feel blood coursing, boiling and forming a clot against me, my legs rot, my eyes are cracking like desert plains they're broiling hot, how can you be patient unless you're in a waiting room someone tell me please because I cannot!
Immediacy, anger, I had been so mad as that before
once
there is a sort of ethereal skeleton, like the spirit
mine was caught in a slamming door
and it would not be a revolving one, that I swore
so I took a pummeling through it only several times more
battered and broken bones, no scars to show for any of them but you
no blots on my psych report, no instantaneous remorse, death wishes from one retort
this whole timeline, it's what was never meant to be,
I hate the limelight, it even burns sour, striking me,
it doesn't really matter what anyone believes
what they don't know can fill my entire biography
it wouldn't grant me any relief,
to have to shoulder another minute of being your friend, it's too much responsibility

I've been as mad as I can bear
and as guilty as I'll get without going to a real trial,
I've gutted myself like a dead trout, and looked in those lifeless eyes
and asked myself what kind of man am I, but I've not let myself feel both good and sad for a while
I've been relieved and happy
I've pined so sorely, and been so sorry, and whined, and been sick with worry
and I've missed you, and wished you awful things and all the best
when it all comes down to it, I'm disowned, so does it matter what I say anyway
I just need to let myself feel the things people do when people go, and then this image of you in my mind's eye will be gone in a blink,
maybe then I'll know what it's like for the first time, in such a long time
to want to look back when I think.