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 May 2015 JAM
Tark Wain
Stop it.

Just stop it.

Stop it with your philosophy.
Your answers
your higher meanings.
Just stop it.

All you talk about is Socrates
you praise his ideology.
Place him on a pedestal of greatness
a shining example of a life lived right.

Where was that ideology
when he hung from the gallows.
What good are one's thoughts
when one's neck fails to connect with itself?

What say you?
Plato is no better.
nonono he is not
the man tasked with carrying on his mentors ideals.
This genius
this beacon of hope.
Spent over 10 pages of his book
explaining why older men should not have *** with younger boys
as if he was trying to convince himself.

Not the reader.

Just stop with it all.

I am not struggling to find myself
I am struggling to find rent money.
My problems are not in my head.
They are in my bank account.

You pine over a greater purpose
like it's some piece of salvation.
You talk of the high pleasures.
You tell me that I have more to gain from sitting and watching an opera
than from ******* a *****.
I don't want to discuss semantics
but I'll talk logistics.
I'll take the latter
not because I love ******
but because I hate the opera.

Pleasure cannot be defined or quantified
My pleasure is solely to see tomorrow.
Something I'm not too confident in right now.
Philosophy is the activity of the man with free time.
But time is not free.
It is expensive and costly.
Those with time don't understand.
Those without it understand it too well.

Love is not my end goal.
A family is not my dream.
A house on a hill would be nice.
But only because of the house.

Not the hill.

So spare me.

Please.

When you tell me about the wonders of the world.
Realize all I have seen lately are alleyways.
Don't tell me about different cuisines.
When I can only afford the dollar menu.
Don't tell me I can be anything I want
when I can't seem to be able to be anything I need.

Life is not limitless.
The soul is not infinite.
Everything has an expiration date.

I just hope mine isn't tomorrow.
There’s always been a counter-culture.
And by counter-culture
I do not mean the CPAs or CEOs,
Or those money **’s at Goldman-Sachs,
Nor do I conjure up a ****** of Brooklynese,
Some De Niro or Pacino, or
Bobby-come-lately Cannavale--
This decade’s guinea strunz--
Standing on the back of the truck
Checking his hand full of dollar--
As in Almighty Dollar--bills.
Another hour’s pay & time to
“Count duh money.”
Nor do I mean Harvey Korman
In his greatest film role:
“Count De Monet,”
Part 1 of Mel Brooks’
History of the World:
Harvey as French fop, 1789,
And we may as well throw a
Sop to Cerberus with nary a
Bean Counter around, to be found.
And if you are with me thus far,
You may as well stick it out to the end.

What one word defines the counter-culture?
For me: RESISTANCE,
Any kneecap reflexive swim against the tide.
For Count DeMonet:  La Résistance.
When hair is short,
They grow theirs long,
Or shave their heads,
Pierce their tongues & *******,
Inka-dinka-dooing their epidermis,
Mere skin-deep commitment to Liberté,
Always the least tangible of
French tripartite banner slogans.
The French:
As always, putting up a good show,
Masters of illusion & flexibility
When it comes to ethnic integrity,
Captain Louie Renault, Vichy stooge,
Exemplar extraordinaire,
Double shocked to find gambling
Going on at Rick’s Café,
His morality to the wind,
Tacking strategically,
Playing it safe, as always, a
Fickle-finger to the weather.
The French: girlie men, bent over
Presenting bidet-puckered rectums,
For *** and Viet Cong humiliation,
Once again, declaring victory,
While slipping out the back door,
Wearing nothing but their socks.
But I digress.

The Counter-Culture,
A mile wide and a centimeter deep,
Putting up a good front,
A Potemkin still life,
In it for appearance sake,
Like Billy Crystal doing Fernando Lamas:
“It's better to look good
Than to feel good.”
Looking marvelous, of course,
All the girls want to be
The Dragon Tattoo girl,
Haunted & smart,
Solitary & suspicious,
Cybercrime wealthy.
Cashing in, raking in affluence;
The guys all with Bobbitt night sweats,
***** shriveled, shrunken ball-sacks,
Count De Monet
Counting duh money.
 May 2015 JAM
Mike Essig
“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken.”*

History is gravity
pulling me helplessly
into time's abyss.

Forty-five years ago
the sound of guns

in Cambodia,
in a small Ohio town.

I am not
responsible for what
I could not
prevent.

Such a thankless truth.

Do your best
and get on with it.

Leave the lost wars
where they belong:
eternally lost.

Stop trying to explain
what you don't understand.

Do not listen
to the chattering
of Hungry Ghosts.

Walk in the Now
if you hope
to keep walking
at all.
   ~mce
May 4th, 1970. The Kent State Massacre following the American invasion of Cambodia.
 May 2015 JAM
jeffrey robin
( the lonely hero )

Broken !

( such is your indifference to the world )

••

••

Amid the words of love

( only words ! )

••

the fall from grace

( the end of gracious simple giving )

••

the storm approaches

We huddle by ourselves in darkened spaces

Looking for images of our Dying Day

( looking thru  lonely visions for the One Lonely Vision )

the dying love

••

Broken !

the mirrored reflection

Narcissus !

we see our broken soul as the One Dream crumbles

The hero that we refused to be or serve

••

We have murdered it all

///

oh cry !

what we've become !



The boy walks on

Manhood awaits

Strides by the loveless in their lifelessness

//

Heals himself as the world dies

//

He is the Seed

Of the Tomorrow

all your useless words of love (?)

These shall never be remembered

//

But he may place some flowers

On your grave
 May 2015 JAM
Sam Stone Grenier
I heard the window
shatter into memories
of dead men and the past

the bluebird flies in
and rips me to shreds
take me home

I beckon
my time here away
I'm fighting

I am escaping
escaping Alcatraz
lacking the limbs

to conform
to the wants of the bluebird
to the needs of the bluebird

gone, gone, gone
drag me away
because you did it

life just faded away
my role-model,
the average Joe
That's me
thrown into society
I'm thrown into ******* society
let me die, bluebird
let me die
eat you're ******* heart out
(I am free)
I am not free bluebird
you're controlling me bluebird
I'm locked in solitary
to conform
to conform
to conform
to conform
to conform
to conform
to conform
to conform
to conform
to conform
to conform
to conform
to ******* conform
you are ALL
so far from being free
I'm losing it
but this is me
we're all dead
because we are all the same
bluebird
you watch me
you watch me go crazy
stay there and sing your song
and maybe after a while
I won't think you're wrong
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