Not quite there yet,
not yet here quiet.

Life is this discomfort
trying to escape itself,
a pulling string
to one side
or the other,
a wave rising and crashing
against its own
endless sea:
because life demands to be
somewhere
not quite here.

A sound continuous,
sometimes music
sometimes noise,
sometimes shout
sometimes whimper,
but never
mute

and yet here
we are,
still so
afraid
of silence.

Encountering
by chance
a past
flame
is muck akin to
the aftermath
of the habit
of setting aside
half-smoked joints
on the ashtray
to save for later
and then
promptly forgetting
about them:
sometimes you are surprised
to find
more
than you remembered,
but,
more often than
not,
the opposite
occurs.

Who are we,
any singular one amongst
we,
to talk about
we?

Some try and
do it,
for better
and worse,
to the utmost
burning
silence
of the sun,
taking the pitiful
solace
of being talked about by some
of the we,
but that is
all.

There's only the I
to talk:
after this,
he's go nothing left
to say.

A child is dying,
neuroblastoma,
on the other side
of the world,
right now, right now, right now!
and I know of this
because I read of this
and maybe I'm dying
of cancer
as well,
but this
I do not
know.

I look at the clock
and think about
some woman,
someone,
still,
above the information
undercurrent.

And if I don't know
what this makes of me,
much less
of her.

On the news,
the other day,
hundreds of people
(of all ages)
hospitalized
for putting sun blocker
in their eyes
to watch
the eclipse.

Now,
I'm no doctor and yet
I'm fairly confident
that cannot be
considered
a life threatening
injury,
so it's almost
certain
some of them will
outlive
me
and you
too.

The sun shines
regardless.

I admire her unnoticed,
at first,
as she walks down
the other side
of the street
under the light
rain.

As she crosses
my position,
the eyes lock for a moment
too long; before
too long she is
gone,
leaving me with the cigarette
and the questions and the rain.

Twenty seconds or
twenty years are
the same,
in substance if not
magnitude.

And the days were full enough
and the nights were full enough
and life did not seem to move
and was like death in that regard.

Before the spikes,
flatlining snapshots
of the unattainable.

Better perhaps nothing
than this -
to any action
or idea -
all the intricate complexities
resolved,
we will find
it makes no
difference,
and boy,
how would we like
to be
efficient.

But god happens
to like
war
and not
abortion.

Seventy two
virgins
always sounded
quite the rotten deal -
it is
too few.

For an eternity,
only infinity
would do.

"Now, who the **** does this guy think
he is??"

She did not say it,
but though it,
and she thought it
loud enough.

"The arrogant ****,
dispensing opinions and words
like he is
(imagine that!!)
someone,
a Bukowski wannabe,
like he has something to say
the earth itself has not yet died of boredom
listening to,
who the **** does he think he is?
He won't even dare
to use
his real
name,
the slimy *******!"

She will keep not saying it,
but thinking it,
just loud enough,
just until
the end.

Then she will leave,
change the page,
forget it soon,
and get back to reading those teenage poets,
those facebook, Instagram poets,
with real names
and fake verses,
or to reading nothing
at all:
which is,
thinking about it,
the same *******
thing.

Why always poems,
usually short,
why no novels,
no longer
pieces?

It is
easy.

I prefer five minutes of
free flowing
brilliance
than five hours of
overworked, extended,
superfluous
boredom:

they usually
do
too.

The buses riding
with open doors,
and the days long for
no discernible reason
other
than the tilting
of the axis,

and the leaves stay
and are
green,
temporarily,
and the birds sing
because
they sang before:
not for any love
of the music.

Yes, the flowers are
beautiful
for a while
and the still sun keeps rising
and I see that
it is good,
but still I sometimes wish
that god existed,
just so I could
**** him
up
hard,
a vengeful creation
squeezing that divine
neck
with my bare
hands;
look straight
in his thousand
eyes,
watch him suffer
and anguish
and finally
die
too,
because somebody has to be,
has to be!
accountable
and pay
for all this
****
that lasts
forever
and so
little.

The meek
may well
inherit
the earth,
but they
too
shall be
broke
after all
the inheritance
taxes.

And as the flowers late
to bloom rot

the wait
of the world
up
on
my shoulders.

New, original
pains
keep creeping in
like unexpected guests
that insist
on overstaying
their welcome.

They become
permanent tenants
at a temporary
hotel:
having nowhere else
to go, no doors to let hem
out, there's nothing
you can do
but scream
at them
when you notice
their heavy feet
dragging across
your floor.

But most times,
you don't. They'r nothing but
background noise, like falling, accelerated,
into a whole
of yourself:
if the change is slow
enough,
there isn't enough
gravity
to be felt.

Life is but a
compendium
of this,
of these
small changes of
momentum:
lighting a cigarette,
or watching the rolling paper float down
to the floor,
wind from your
action
blowing it away
in trying
to catch it.

In my humble,
layman,
opinion,
the only acceptable reason it should be
difficult
to see
to the bottom
of this,
is the depth of the
lake,
never the thickness
of the waters.

They bury their
heads
in sand so deep
(how nice!)
it is no wonder
that when they speak
it's sand they spit
into your eyes.

Terrorised by
the creative act
I
abstract.

Down my street
a ****** suicide
and somehow it feels
like things
change.

The septuagenarian offed his wife,
then bit the bullet
and took the trip to join
her,
offering no
explanation.

Some will say in hushed voices over
stale pastries and plastic coffee cups
"well, he must have had his reasons...";
disease or no desire
or undercooked meals or
overcooked emotions
or that one night
in 1972:
masters of speculation,
conveniently circumventing the fact
that no reasons are ever
required
until you are dragged
into it.

These things happen,
have happened,
will keep happening,
regardless,
only now they are here
and so are you,
staring uncomfortable at known
but forgotten
realities,
like crossing your ex
on the way to the supermarket.

There is, quite simply,
too much -
we have to reduce to understand,
so we understand but a reduction,
puzzling the obvious
(the universe is nothing
but an infinite
Rube Goldberg machine
with no purpose at all)
when the cogs are revealed
closer to us
than anticipated.

There should be no space
for surprise:
of course we all would wind
up doing
it
to each other
and to
ourselves,
given enough time
all probabilities are eventually
drawn to
one.

The only unexpected is
it being unexpected,
just like and end you didn't see
coming.

Like an unseen leak spreading
infiltrations on barren walls,
it's always something
small turned
big:
a tighter ***
or a wider smile,
bigger ****
or more genuine laughter,
truer notes to the unheard
melody
or the better faking of
the truth,
a different set of eyes on yours
or just a peculiar way to stir
the coffee
or your brains.

We wait so much
for love,
the when love
comes, love
is not enough.

Neither are
we.

That's what
I eat,
so that's what
I ****.

As I lie,
smoked and high,
the world outside
still drives me by

and I am content,
for the moment,
to let it pass
unchallenged,
inconsistent
vegetative state.

It is only
temporary:
that's all we can as for
and get.

Arriving home from a night of drinks,
I think I finally understood
something
about the nature of
death
in a tangible sense:
being at a party to the point
you are so dulled
by all the
outside
you decide to go home and blackout for the night,
not caring what you miss -
you are done,
tired,
your feet hurt
(probably your joints too)
and you just want the release
from all that
too much.

Of course,
when you do it at a party,
you fully expect to be back
on your feet
the next morning
(more like afternoon);
to go on,
to continue
for there to be
other parties.

The other difference
being,
when in happens to life,
you know
you won't have to listen,
the very next day,
to water cooler Joe
saying
that just after
you left
the party "exploded",
the music was
"freakin' awesome, dude!",
everyone went "craaaaazy",
and "Cindy went off to blow some guy in the bathroom"
and, "oh man", it could have probably been "you"
had "you" stuck
around.

Whenever I go
to take a ****,
I pull the plastic
toilet seat
up.

It is quite old and quite
bendy, so
sometimes it works,
gloriously standing up
there,
first try:
a true master of the
art.
Sometimes it falls back
down,
no matter how much I fiddle
with it,
and boy,
do I
fiddle.

The same when I look
in her eyes.

Someday it will happen,
it always does:
the endlessness of the present will get
you
trapping you on the island
of yourself.

They days will still roll
as you've grown
used to,
and perhaps you won't even notice
the significance of all that
insignificance,
brain shot to hell
by life or the allure
of the
alternative.

Someday it will happen,
as the sun rises or the sun sets,
or any time in between:
growing hair,
drying paint,
fictitious dismantled
ships,
or the same words without the same meaning,
or new words
with it.

Someday, yes, someday
it will
surely
happen:
it wasn't today,
but one can never be sure
of tomorrow.

I search for the word
dangling
in the
s p a r s e
outskirts
of thought.

It has been feeling progressively harder
to get to it,
which is only
natural:
the city has been growing
for years
with little to none
municipal planning.

One day, one presumes,
it will be utterly inaccessible:
even light is not
instantaneous.

That is called
extrapolation
and after
the last
poem.

I admire my sinking
mind
from afar
a resigned
castaway.

A blonde girl
(surely a tourist)
sits parallel
to me,
between us the glass
pain
of the coffee shop
and an entire
life.

Only the mast still breaks
the horizon
above
the waves and the

stillness.

Sometimes it will feel like things
are almost
good enough.

Beware:
that is the
crucial
mistake.

Almost good enough will
****,
given enough time,
either by itself
or by its posterior
absence.

Heaven
and hell
are the same
place
at different
times.

Again in my face,
on face:
"That *******, cancer, **** him!
Like if you agree!"

I'd sooner agree to stop this ****,
this childish personification
of disease:
for that, we have
already
all the priests,
the telemarketers,
the insidious well intentioned,
the shiny cogs rusting from the inside,
the good samaritans smiling
with white teeth
and green wallets
surrounded by black
children they saver
from malaria
("Keep your donations coming
and share this post,
we can really make a difference!)
and,
not least,
the ones who insist
on kicking
at your door at 11 a.m.
any day
of the week.

No,
cancer is not
an *******:
it just happens
to happen
to them
and to others

as well.

So many poets,
so many lines,
so many words
of nothing
new.

They truly believe
so many times
to be deep,
to be meaningful,
to be original.

So many, many
times
they are wrong -
they do not know better:
or worse.

What they have written,
so many times,
I've read before and
oh, so many times,
without the added
insult
of puerile explanations
and hashtags
#after the end.

Arriving home from a night of drinks,
I think I finally understood
something
about the nature of
death
in a tangible sense:
it is like being at a party to the point
you are so dulled
from all the
outside
you decide to go home and blackout
for the night,
not caring what you miss -
you are done,
tired,
your feet hurt
(probably your joints too)
and you just want the release
from all that
too much.

Of course,
when you do it at a party,
you fully expect to be back
on your feet
the next morning
(more like afternoon);
to go on,
to continue
for there to be
other parties.

The difference
being,
when you do it in life,
you know
you won't have to listen,
the very next day,
to water cooler Joe
saying that
just after you left,
the party "exploded",
the music was
"freakin' awesome, dude",
everyone went "craaaazy",
and "Cindy" want off to blow some guy in the bathroom
and, "oh man", it could have probably been "you",
had "you" stuck
around.

Reclined on the bed watching
solitude and smoke wafting
into apparent nothingness reflected
by the bathroom
mirror:
it is still there,
somewhere,
surely,
entropy.

In this
one thinks
one understands
something,
at least something,
about the nature
of being,
but of course
one does
not:
it is all just
smoke
and mirrors.

Almost the light of a dawn
after the Sunday,
I try to fill the time
with words
that have no
volume.

The easiest of tasks,
the hardest of tasks:
there's so much that can be said,
there's just so much that can be said.

The walls turn to grey
an there's this oily thickness in the air,
drifting in search
of a window,
of opportunity.

The words are still
massless
and I still have time
left:
for now
this will have
to do.

It doesn't matter
how thick
your skin
is
when she
is
under
it.

A love triangle
is,
much more
commonly,
a love
line segment
with three
(usually not
equidistant)
points.

When the time comes,
as it
will,
to pick your
poison,
don't be
stupid:
pick the one
that tastes
the best.

A constant natural attraction
to the darkness lurking
beneath this force
we evade
only ever temporarily
by some action.

We may end up
soaring for
a bit, if we are lucky (by any other name),
but the darkness will sit patient
underneath
like a well trained dog
that only bares
his teeth
when you get
too close.

It has all the time in the world,
you don't:
there's no flight high
enough,
no escape
velocity.

Ending up consumed
by the sun
would be
no greater
tragedy.

I have two wolves
inside me,
forever locked
in internal
battle.

One is good
(or so they say),
the other evil
(try as I may),
and neither will
ever ******
the final triumph:
both are real,
proper,
wolves,
and any real,
proper,
wolf
knows full well
how to *******
feed
himself.

Everything is a bit dull sometimes,
and as I contemplate the absurd of existence
and the children die starving
in Africa,
and I write this on my iPad
and the dead
(still starving!)
children assemble another
in China
and another and another and another and another,

it all just seems to strengthen the message:
it is absurd,
and I'm an *******
for pointing it out
and laughing.

The circle, the circus
of moral one-uppers,
either by adhering or
rejecting
or merely observing
and commenting
on some fact,
ideology
is sickening twisted,
hypo
critical.

Why does it not all
end
in flames
like her eyes
or the lack of them?

The cat
is scratching
at the door.

It wants
out.

So I wait,
enjoying the
despair,
power,
briefly,
before I open
it
and
it
leaps.

Why must
the gods
be the same
as me,
and why the ****
must they wait
so long?

We are
made of
ce
l l
s
yearning
freedom.

They were talking
about their
respective
menstruations

like life,
they wait
for something
they don’t really
want,
and get really
mad
when they don’t
get it.

There will be
at least
one
person
to like this
poem.

What does not **** you
Brings you so ever closer
To ultimate death.

The most
successful
love
story

is that
Love
is not
one.

Love is a cat,
the cuteness
and the claws,
or the way it rubs itself
into your life
not out of necessity:
it’s a matter of appetite,
mostly,
in the beginning.

Love must be a cat,
the elegance of
subtlety,
a passing shadow against past walls
in the quiet of the stars,
chasing
or being chased.

Love is surely a cat so,
when it fails,
when it falls,
breaking something
on impact,
******* up big
time
trying to catch some young
bird,
it should not look
to us
as tragic,
but merely
amusing -
but it is then
we must remember:
the wounds will be
ours
to lick.

From a certain distance,
we still laugh:
or pretend
that we do.

They will tell you
nothing
and then say
you just don’t
get it.

And most of the times,
you will believe
them
for they have big
words
and big
names
and big
bank accounts
and big
wikipedia entries.

In some corner,
somewhere,
a soundless voice screams
meaning
to no one

the hands of the clock may stop,
the loneliness
never does.

If you look around you
hard enough
you may barely
notice
everything
slowly moving a bit
further
out of order,
getting progressively
****** up.

It’s the natural state
of things:
a chaos clock
locked in perpetual
motion
of erosion,
or worse.

Or better:
sometimes
it does end
in fireworks.

Between ripe
and rotten
stand
a few letters
and not nearly
enough
time.