i am wealthy beyond imagination.
We all are, since
time is money.

Money isn't real
and neither is time.
i imagined us all to be
wealthy, therefore
i have imagined the
creation of something that
doesn't exist, making
it real.

This is solid logic because
Descartes reasoned that
if we think, we exist.
This clearly illustrates how
money and time exist
even though they do not.

We can't use time to buy
money, although the converse
applies:  money will buy time
and temporary happiness.

Money and time are not
real, but they are, and
one can purchase the other
plus happiness, therefore
happiness, while not
technically real, can be
if we imagine it to
exist, thereby creating it
from nothing.

We are not nothing because
we think we exist.

Our republic died today;
i wonder who noticed?

Very few, i am certain,
since most were busy trying
to survive in this economy,
or feed their children,
or worried about healthcare (still),
or trying to escape this reality,
but something fundamental is
different now.

The Senate took away the
teeth of the filibuster today.
Simple majority rules now,
no more consensus building.

       So?  I don't care about politics or politicians.

That is a shame, because they
care about you.  In fact,
they are counting on you.

To stay distracted.
To think tyranny is only for distant lands.
To think that today's reform won't be
       tomorrow's crushing defeat.

Black America:
       What if tomorrow the House of Representatives
       passes a law to make you all slaves again?

LGBT Americans:
       What if tomorrow the House makes it a law that
       all of you be imprisoned for being who you are?

Women Americans:
       What if tomorrow the House takes away the
       abortion option, or worse?

All of you are outnumbered.

Remember...majority rules now.  The Senate won't slow it down.
Be careful who you *******.

Because debate and careful consideration
are no longer valued in this Democratic
pseudo-Utopia.
It interferes with their agenda.

Petty tyrants don't just rule in
Third World countries.
Not anymore.

They work on Capitol Hill and live in the White House.

i pledged no allegiance,
to the United States of Omerica,
only to the Republic,
on whose necks they stand;
no nation, so help me God,
can stay this divided,
if there is to be
liberty and justice for
ALL.

Inside the walls of my citadel's
keep, i wander haunted halls
and rooms, broken images of
continuous life flashing light
randomly around, an epileptic's
nightmare, beamed in from
beyond, playing dangerous
paranoid games with my mind.

My grandfather's apparition
stalks me silently,
inching to the couch,
guarding the bathroom,
verifying the existence of
gravity behind door
number three, on the bed.

He approaches!!

SQUEAK-SQUEAK!!...RATTLE!!...

(Darth Elder and his walker)

SQUEAK-SQUEAK!!...RATTLE!!...

i evade his ghost of Christmas'
passed, darting to the porch and
in another entry door.
Each time i look up, his
spector stands frozen in
silhouette, spurring my adrenal
response, yet only imperceptibly
creeping, ever closer...

SQUEAK-SQUEAK!!...RATTLE!!...

He is everywhere!
EVERYWHERE!!!

Frozen in time at various locations,
practicing being dead on his bed,
re-living the now, back then in
his head, inside my head!!

There is only one solution.
i have spoken to the others:
no Christmas tree this year,
we will wrap grandfather
in colored lights and
garland, and help him
celebrate life in style.

A slightly motile tree, a
blatant festivity.

Two paths diverged in the woods,
and we bulldozed them into a
highway, didn't we comrades?
That is called progress.
Now the commute to work
is manageable, like our
limited resources.

Teach the children?  Well...

There is very little of substance
to be gleaned from individuals.
A process, a recitation, a
custom is customary.  Let
the young divine the marrow
from the bare bones of
their coloring books.

We, the protectors of
our future lot, laid
down the workings of
the cosmos in stark
bitonal outlines.  The
black, the white, the
small details of the
bigger picture.

Color me a spectrum of
what it means to be
alive, children.

Prognosticate between the
lines a rhyme for the
ages, transcend the
myriad of gray crayons
and begin to understand
that each shade belongs
to us all.
Draw me into your pages
of unity and division.

Color us all, children, and
learn what it is to be
alive.

Another Saturday passes alone,
with my cats;
Caturday Night Fever,
the Disco Eterno
(the informal inferno).

i stared at the phone, willing
it to work, but have
no idea why...

i have an  infernal list of
forgotten lovers from past
lives and lifetimes and at
this junction i am no  more
than Lincoln Logs to their
Lego Fortresses.

Words that i used to own
slip through fingers that
used to hold mine, and
i think to myself that
it is quite peculiar to
know what you don't want
and be mastered by it
so deftly...

shiny armor is nothing more
than proof you are untested,
something too big in the
shoulders that makes it hard
to bear a load.

cat dozes on porch
startled by noisy lizard
rains death from above

And now a little something for the ladies:

Stop telling men how to be men.
You are never satisfied with the
results of your interference in the
natural order.

Ladies want a man who is sensitive
and attentive to their kaleidoscope
of emotions, who enjoys heart-
warming moments, baby showers,
and shopping malls.  They want
this same man to not be attracted
to men.

Ladies want a man who will do
all of the above, plus be strong
and handsome, a provider, a
nurturer, a protector.  Just as
long as he never gets angry
with her.  And doesn't cheat.

Rapunzel, this man does not exist.

In caveman times, if you had
a man grab your hair, it was
because he was about to club you
unconscious and drag you back
to his real man-cave.

How barbaric...and Freudian ****, eh?

You see, ladies, we don't run the
male N.F.L. locker rooms the
way you run yours.

Men are brutish, vile, roid-raged,
and coarse in competition.
Just the way you like them.

But when you find one that
likes you, you can have a
smattering of those nice things
as well.  Because he likes you.

If you were lucky enough to
find a sensitive devil like
that, i know you wouldn't
do anything stupid to change
his opinion of you.  That
would just be foolish and
self-defeating, wouldn't it?

After all, Women's Lib didn't
teach you to stop being women,
did it?

If you want it all, you have
to take it all, good and
bad.

Just sayin'...

Citizens of America, lend
me your ears and
brains for a moment:

actually, on second thought,
you won't listen.  Keep your
ears.

Now your brains, let me
get a little better than half
of that.  For keepers.

You won't miss it.
A short half is enough
to follow me on Twitter.

140 characters is the max
anyway, and the trend
is to use less.  Down

to an average of only
27 characters in Louisiana.
It's okay, Cajuns, spelling

is hard.  None of us do
it right anymore.  We
don't even call things

by their proper names.
How can we find wisdom
if we continue not calling

a ***** a *****?
Beats me, ask the
President, i guess.

The blank page stares at me
mockingly, an empty wishing well
of impermanent desires, my
thoughts a herd of nomadic
feral cats to be coraled.

It is a mathematical permutation
of the identity matrix, imaginary
numbers and exponents,
fractional divisions with
no order of operations.

Solve me for x, given y,
yield absolute value at
absolute zero as my
function crosses Cartesian boundaries.

     | x |  =   y * (universal truth / personal experience)  ±  squareRoot(-1)

y  =  zero;  go.

Factor in gravity (9.8 meters per second^2),
we have lost cabin pressure.

Please show all work, points will be deducted,
this is a test.

It is positively sublime
watching Democrats eat their own.
i thought they only snacked on
Republicans and social inequalities.

Before you start, stop calling
me a Republican.  My God,
man, i have standards.

i love sweet tea, but
the only tea party i endorse
is another Boston Tea Party.
The only contribution i have
for the cause is if i
teabag your mom.

Purely out of respect, you
understand?  Because i
care too much...

Delicious anarchy is upon us.
i have brought popcorn,
enough for us all, enjoy
the show!!

The sun will surely rise
tomorrow.  Probably.

Most of us will still be here.

Was it Kruschev who said,
"We will spoon feed you socialism
a bit at a time," or
something like that?

Turns out whoever said it
was a prophet (one of many).

We are Americans.  We love
free stuff, and a sale, and
convenience.  We want to
germinate a seed and then
reap the harvest the
same day.  One spoon at
a time was maddeningly
too slow for us.

Margaret Thatcher said, "The
problem with socialism is that
you eventually run out of other
peoples' money," or something
like that.

Just not in her lifetime.
Or mine, i guess, since we
just print whatever we need.
What could possibly go wrong
with that strategy?

My ancestors fought in the
American Revolutionary War.
I can even prove it on
paper.  Violence and dissent
are my birthright as a
Son of Liberty.

Which, of course, means i
must fight in the next
revolution.  With words
and ideas, or actions
or a gun, with
conviction and apathy of self,
with my bare hands even,
to the death.

It won't end well for any of us,
no doubt.  A day will
come when we must take
our hearts and minds to
the fields, and possibly
leave our ***** there.
For someone.
For Something.
To be true Americans.

Everything works better in the cold.
The vacuum of space fuels
perfection, zero point
energy yielding limitless.
Orbital and quantum mechanics,
these mysteries of ordered
chaos, the compression of
external combustion that
defies and evades physics,
were solved and forgotten
long ago.

Humans invented time to measure
everything, but now don't
know what the numbers mean.
The Nineveh Number has
lost its purpose, much like
we have lost its meaning.

What you think about other
peoples' hair is a trick by
the establishment to keep you
down.  Not all with long
hair are hippies, not every
skinhead is a Neo-****.
An afro doesn't make you
funky, having soul does.

It isn't what is on the
skull that matters, ******,
it is what happens
underneath.

A ship in a bottle is a useless thing,
encapsulated, isolated.
It is meant to be crewed.

We are each holographic captains
seeking first mates
and yeomen to climb the riggings
and guide us through the storms.
Floating colonies needing founding,
battened hatches guarding dwindling
stores and shielding superstitious
sailors galore.

We must learn to trust our
crews and captains alike to
brave the rough seas and
coral reefs of life and
nature's faith.

Sometimes ships run aground,
the founding of the colony,
and then sandcastles reign supreme.
We must learn to trust our
crews and captains alike to
learn from their faith in nature.
We must build upon the dunes,
carrying buckets of water and
trust from the sea to inland
shores.  The castle, like the ship,
will one day be reclaimed by the
sea, despite our efforts.
We build them anyway out of hope,
fearing faith, learning trust, while
wishing we were safe in a bottle.

When you set out to make
an omelette, you have to break
an egg.  Now what
do you have?

A broken egg.

Unless you planned ahead
and caught it in a frying
pan.  There are other factors
at play as well.

Plans go awry.  Ask
Murphy.  It's the law.

Lawyers can't be trusted.
That's why they band
together, taking sides
like shirts and skins
in a pick-up game.
i don't like basketball.

Trust is tricky.  You
can always trust a liar.  
They always lie.  It
is what they do.  
They are junkies for
their own stories.

Stories are for humans.  
That's why dogs are
man's best friend.  Dogs
can't talk.

Humans think they are special
because they can talk, unlike
dogs.  We talk about thinking,
doing less so we can
talk about it more on
television.

Nancy Grace is running
reruns of the Natalie
Holloway case.  This is good,
it means all is right
with the world.  No other
girls have disappeared or
are presumed dead.  If
they are dead somewhere, they
live in our memories.

It isn't a circle of life,
it is a sphere of existence.  
Everything is specks of dust
floating inside a water
balloon.

And now i'm in your head.  
We are humans, and
the rent is low.

My house is surrounded by
Illuminati operatives.
Lizards!  Everywhere i look...

green ones in the grass like
slithery snakes with feet,
brown ones on my porch
running counter-intelligence
on my kitties, tan little
enforcers with an ochre-red
streak of war paint along
their spines.

i know what you are thinking...
but i stopped wearing a
tinfoil hat.  It wasn't
keeping the N.S.A. out of my
emails anyway.

Just yesterday, one of the
lizards' double zero
agents followed me to McDonalds.
i saw him through the windshield,
gripping the wiper blade
with all his might, tail
whipping in the wind like a
whip antenna, broadcasting my
subversive Big Mac purchase.
i don't use Geico insurance,
therefore it was clearly an
Illuminati spy, without question.

Nowhere is safe.
My days are numbered.
They fear what i could expose,
that i would tell others
what i remember about
freedom.

Excuse me,* sir, your pants are on fire.

Yes, i am talking to you, sir.
This is quite a mess you have made,
you starry-eyed dreamer.
Not that it was perfect in the beginning.

Nothing is.

When my grandfather got old,
he made sure to dress well.
If he was to die on any
given day, he intended to
do it in his Sunday best.
My grandfather died in a
unisex hospital gown.

When i was growing up,
Mom always made sure
i wore clean underwear.
It would be shameful
to die in ***** ones.

Speaking of growing up,
i was raised on Reaganomics.
It doesn't matter which side of
the aisle you stand on these days,
because Reagan defeated communism
through the clever use of money.

When my grandmother was set to pass,
she faced the changing seasons with
poise and dignity.  She was
ready to move on, to reunite with
loved ones lost.
My grandmother died in a
unisex hospital gown.

My best friend, Peter, didn't
put much stock in appearances.
He was funny and sarcastic.
We all loved him like a
brother.  Peter's mom buried
him in brand new Ecko
gear.  He died in boxer
shorts on the floor of a
ramshackle apartment
blue in the face from a
****** overdose.

Thank god none of these
people will ever need healthcare.

Mr. President, sir, i am no
Republican.

i am an American.

You do remember us, don't you?
How silly of me...of course you don't.
You were busy watching your legacy.

i would have watched it better, if
it had been my name
at risk.
My name is all i have.

When Bill Clinton was president,
he lied about getting a
*******.
But we forgave him.
It was just a *******.
It's not like it was our
privacy or healthcare at stake.
Or our economy.

Have you dreamed about any
of those things, sir?
Or just your legacy?

Who knows?
How well do we ever know anyone?

Christmas is right around
the corner, and i and
others have made you
a fine gift, a lovely suit.
It's invisible.
You probably won't notice.

No matter...
one day you will have to
remove your flaming pants.
To try on your new suit.
Or, god forbid, to put on a
unisex hospital gown.

And then you will finally
see your legacy.

During our last move we made
sure to pack:
all the paraphernalia, both
toothbrushes, most of our clothes,
old pictures, broken ashtrays,
tools we didn't know how to use,
the computer, both cats, commitments,
all the shot glasses, a bed,
and your unsolved Rubix cube.
It all fit in the car.

We left behind the couch that
one of the cats ****** on,
the shower curtain liner, every
working Bic lighter, your sanity,
the Monopoly game, two new
pens, one old pen (no ink)
and a bag of marshmallows,
plus one hell of a mess.

During the move we misplaced
our sense of direction, a suitcase
full of only my clothes, logic,
and a globe that doubled as a
lamp.

***** given?
Zero.

We still had both cats.

We are in the future now.

In the past yesterday
is tomorrow, but some of
us didn't notice.
We subdivided dreams
into half gram
servings so they wouldn't
end.  We
concentrated those into
the smallest possible dose
so we could savor every
morsel, taste every drop
of our life's Kool-Aid.
We lived sugar-free
to enhance the sweet,
and then ignored all of it.
We wrapped our fists around
excitement and squeezed its
juice out dry to ****
adrenaline cravings.

i have read enough Rimbaud
to see the symbolism.

i have read enough Hudgins
to know i, too, used to be sure.

i have read enough Petrosky
to sympathize...
       Look, i'm a bear now, too!

i was wasted enough on land
for Eliot,
as fractured as cummings,
as subversive as Ginsberg,

but in the end i settled for breathing.

**DAS SOFA KING,
VICTORIOUS AT LAST.

It's the imprint that it makes, really.

There is little relation to
the covenants we have sworn
or the gildings of rehashed
sobriety or leftover temple
bricks, baked clay tablets
on which someone records
these scenes, fragments,
scents, and colors.

How can we reap this Zion?

Can it be gathered as wild
sweet strawberries are,
torn away from their source?
Can it be processed electrically?

Can we make money off it?

If so, how many dinars
would you offer?
One?  Two?  Perhaps
a discount for quantity?

another tree frog
pushes its luck on my porch
dislodges hairball

i am a fool for what i
think love should be.
If only i had been a fool
for what it truly is:
love is a melding of minds,
a handshake of like souls
across common boundaries,
an acceptance of static electricity
to complete our circuits.
A spark between fingers.

In the room the women come and go,
wishing they married Michelangelo.

Don't we all, in our ways?

Crazy love will leave you wanting.
True love does not attract until it is bound,
and not to you.

The irony of mating, exemplified.

i speak in whispers of
New American Tragedy:
id seeking ego, beyond
means and dreams.

A spirit as big as the
Western plains, as lofty
as distant clouds gathering,
as crushed as the valleys
and fjords carved by
glaciers ancient and cruel.

Samhain is passed, now in
November we must look
to the solstice, for there
is seemingly little to
praise.  Entropy approaches,
brushing our hair
with tender fingers,

       piano

gently exhaling nothings
in earshot,

       piano
       dolce, dolce
       unghia sul ponticello

easing its canines into jugulars,

       per amore
       per amor nostro
       ci ama treppo per essere solo

laughing.

To all the women i
have loved before:
you are welcome.

For me leaving, i mean.

Some of you got what you wanted.
Some of you did not.

None of us got what we bargained for.
Who ever does these days?

To all the women i
have yet to love:
don't crowd.

There is enough of me to disappoint you all.

One at a time or all at once.
It makes no difference to me.

i sing a song of the cooing dove
that orbits in blue skies above;
biding time and waiting,
seeking wings of love.

i sing a song of waters still,
teeming underneath;
of predators that seek out fish
until they've had their fill.

i sing a song of swaying grass
on African savannahs;
that weather through nature's cruel
and bend as the winds pass.

i sing a song of songs to sing,
aloud, accompanied;
for one appreciates alone,
but two enjoy a thing.

Such a simple thing:
our inner Cain shedding
onion-skin locust husks
to become the scorpion hand
of the Phoenix, each
generation a more beautiful
creature of destruction.

          (it sleeps in the backyard
           next to that log that
           never quite made it inside
           to the fireplace, mulching)

Would the coming of the farmer monk
for us bring about a revelation or a
revolution of the obvious?

All i wanted was a Pepsi...

small tree frog
stalked by kitty
leaps to freedom

i remember vaguely those times,
when solitary leaves drifted
downward, greenish earth tone
children, laughing as they twisted
and curled through the air,
touching nothing and touched by nothing
until finally resting on the floor of
the forest, together at last, forming
loose beds of disbelief only to
lie in stupor for being at the bottom
and not on high where they began.

The wind saves some of them from
their true demise, rustling many
and moving a few back up again
to freedom.  Those chosen few become
the one, traveling together upward
in natural harmony as the lovebirds
of flora that forsake all  but the other.
Such simplistic beauty brings tears to
the eyes to know that it began
with such sadness.

My words are translated Aramaic
to your tender divinity,
a slurred expression of
time immemorial.
Satan visited me profusely
under the guise of
mistrodden eloquence.

     (i can't breathe in this.)

There was a time when
constraints defied my
powers like kryptonite,
when my head was lopped
and guarded with gold eyes.

     (i don't like wearing your mask.)
     (Have you seen mine lately?)

Some days distant on the cold
snow banks, laughing
breezily at easy disjuncture
and spending the better part
of this existence trying to
bleed my fingers dry,

     (We are the finest musicians
     you have never heard of.)

a disheartening side project
placed upon a stone altar.

     (Did you know i was an Aztec slave?)

Complacent and supple we have
lined up longingly for our visions,
but i am next, i am the
lamb, the ambrosia-slicked
path to zen.

There is never enough time:
     To forecast the turning of the seasons,
     stave off the influx of movement
     or the trickling of the mountain
     springs over the backs of the
     spawning masses.

There is never the right time:
     To saturate the grass with
     the musings of subtle
     fantasy lore about the
     splendor present in the
     pause of the moon cycle
     or the coming of dawn.

(the caterpillars have returned,
ushering the day when
the salt will rise from
the seas and shake the
apples down to the ground,
for harvest has finally arrived...)

People of Wal-Mart:
what the **** is wrong with you?
You are reducing our lives
and prices in unison...

Today, in passing, i saw on T.V.
a special report:  a year
after super-storm Sandy, New Jersey
still hasn't gotten its
sand dunes back.

This is news?

It took 5 years for the
Gulf Coast to begin recovering
from Hurricane Opal.
No national headlines about
Okaloosa Island a year later.
It was flat.  It didn't
used to be.

A year after Hurricane  Katrina,
all i heard was that Kanye West
thought President Bush didn't
care about black people.  But
Wal-Mart helped with logistics
deliveries.  Because Bush asked (kind of).
We  basically lost a major city
that time.

Where was our airborne toxic event?
Our 15 minutes post mortem?

Thanks for helping, Wal-Mart.
But this is all your fault.

Because without cheaper stuff,
the People of Wal-Mart
would still be able to think.
They would know that
consumerism is great, but also
that it is an identity crisis.
A buzz in their heads.
Our nation fights wars
for capitalism,
but our soldiers fight
for their lives.

So i will see you on
Black Friday, Wal-Mart.

We are dying here in the
South, we have to save
a penny where ever we can.

And, People of Wal-Mart, don't forget:
No president cares about any individual.
The greater good prevails.
And **** your sand dunes, New Jersey.

Let us have a footrace to Scotland...
don't worry, you will probably win.
i am pacing myself.

It doesn't matter which path
either of us take: i know
i was high for the first half of the race.

Am i lost?  Who knows?
But i will find my way.
This is how our stories go.

So hurry up, buttercup.
You might win, and then crowd watch.
but if i lose i will still find the Scotch.

i am so broke,
i can't even afford to pay attention...*

We know, America.
We are too.

Stop making sense,
it isn't helping.

i am sitting outside,
searching a sunset:
a plant loving light,
gobbling it up through
every pore.
Looking for the pinpoints
of ancient transmission.
i see a bulge...NO...
two, THREE!:
alien fingers pressing
latex event horizon,
mixed palette cornea burned.
     (Just a flashback, a
      cold beach night in
      my memory, feeling
      small in the universe
      again; chain-smoking
      unfiltered cigarettes,
      forcing a process, tasted
      bittersweet on the
      tip of my tongue.)

i hate you, Florida,
but every where is equally
beautiful in the now.
None of it is home.

i don't know what that means...

is it here, where i am
understood, examined?

i am cold, seeking fire:
i need to cut you wide
open, Luke's Tauntaun, and
stuff you full of my words,
replace your white insides
with black and gray ink.

To live.
To BURN.
In the light, the way of forever.

Confused seems to be the new grade.
i've brought it home on my report cards
for years and yet
never allowed it to dampen until now.

It would appear to many that i have
lifted a new blank page from the books
and flailed around senselessly, finally
resorting to casually disembarking the
book on an outward passage through
the plate glass window of the 19th
floor apartment.
It doesn't scream on the way down,
primarily due to the complex fact that
it knew in some way or form that
this day would come eventually.

(Across the street, an old man sat
on a park bench, feeding popcorn
and alka-seltzer to the flocks of
pigeons he attracted.  He watched
the book's swan dive and unapologetically
smiled inside: also so disenchanted that
he too gave himself coal in his
stocking labeled "Dreams.")

i don't smile anymore for them;
makes me sad inside, i guess,
because one day we will be old,
carry our canes arthritically and
look for and reminisce about each,
but who knows if together.

i have spent all this weekend
building voodoo dolls
out of belly-button lint,
newspaper clippings, pipe cleaners,
and tufts of my own hair.

They all have names.
The Fearless Lemming.
Odenkirk.
Mr. Tweezles.
Vexorg, the Merciless.
Bob.

Forgive me father, for i have sinned
and i liked it...

Vexorg, true to his name,
slew the Lemming in single combat.
It was...disturbing, at best,
and quite messy.
Mr. Tweezles betrayed his sacred
post as medicine man,
poisoning Vexorg with krokodil.
I thought Odenkirk would
exhibit strength of character,
but he fled in the night
like a *****, most likely
in fear of Bob.
Mr. Tweezles should have paid attention
to that turn of events.
Bob fancied himself an attorney,
and Mr. Tweezles thought
himself clever and indestructible.

i am Dark Helmet,
playing puppet-master
with my dolls,
red-handed
intercepted.

Today's horoscope:
*Fear death by stupidity.

Mercury is retrograde,
reducing me to idioms:
life is the Cobra Kai dojo,
and we are the Pilates kids.

So *******, messenger boy.
i can still communicate,

if i need to.

i spent some time alone with my friends
pondering the glitter of gold
and the clear-fire of night,
paying homage to the china,
by candlelight i dreamed
of shortcomings and how to:

wiping chalkboard, the teacher spins the disc,
while children laugh and throw stones,
their desks more comfortable than
the crucifix they all heard of somewhere.
A shrug and curt nod
as they drift back to longings for recess
or snack-time.
The little girl in the back knows
she has no milk money,
but will gladly trade for some.

That's all they really want

A whistle for the stride
or a poster for the wall.
All the adventurous boys sense this
choosing to pool resources
to achieve a common goal.
They pruned the cattle
and slaughtered the choicest
for their own.
Jealous, tyrannical lovers
thrusting themselves such as,
shamelessly.

My father used to take me fishing;
i can remember it clearly:
bleary eyed wakeups at 2:30 a.m.
after preparations late into
the night prior, the
smell of gasoline
as the outboard motor
sputtered to life,
its deafening roar as we
raced the sun along the
river's length.
The eery silence that followed.
Because we rarely talked.
We were fishing.
Dad loved largemouth bass,
red-breasted bream, catfish,
shell-*******, warmouth,
stump-knockers, and
whatever else.
i enjoyed fishing, too.
But we rarely talked.

Time moved on, and us with it.
And there was less time for
us to go fishing together.
Years passed, and i said
to myself, -i said it
very clearly, i did- i said,
self, we need to go fishing
soon.
There is at least one more big fish
out there that i am after.
i even mentioned it to my father.
Let's go soon, i said...
     -Yeah, that sounds good.-
but we both knew we wouldn't.

Time moved on, and us with it.
And there was less time for
us to go fishing together.

On the day of my father's funeral,
there were many surprised faces
upon my arrival.
They thought i had gone off fishing,
but i knew the river had run dry.

A thousand gods
under the cricket moons
couldn't even save one little bit...
     (salvation is the enemy of
      a violet world)
the same lame-*** gods
that made us educated
and civilized.

Why not a cosmic birdbath
or eternal blissful garden
that happy children frolic
in amongst springy damp
Bermuda grass and Birch
trees that shine like a
trillion flawless diamonds,
almost as beautiful, at dawn
when lightly frosted?

Regardless,
days like these i wake up
full of vigor, dreamy-eyed,
complacent, full of longing,
but still glad our gods
are dead.

i have no right to have feelings.
i tried to smuggle them past the
checkpoints, metal detectors and such,
but i was foiled, tarred and feathered.
A big ******* chicken.  Awesome.

If i had feelings, i would have no right
to allow them to be hurt.
I am the giver of hurt, not the receiver.
Things are not hurtful to me, for i have asked for them
and knew what i asked.  Happy Days.

i should not discuss feelings i don't have
or hurt i don't feel with anyone,
for any reason, because i have no reason.
i should be grateful to be stoic
and rejoice in the fruits of my labors.

When or if i cry, it is only because
there is something in my eye, a
speck of sand or something like it.
Merely a body's natural cleansing
action, a normal automatic response.

i don't feel alone when i cry.
besides, i chose to be alone, that
is why i walked away in the first place.
Isn't it?

If we can find the proper restraints,
i give the sign:
hold me down and crack my ribs,
tear out the disease in me,
use a microscope (telescope ?) to find my heart,
insert conscience 'A' into slot 'B'.
Peel back my skin and cover
what's left in stained velour,
complete what i have become,
scarred, barren, torn asunder.
i tore the flesh from my bones
for me, nothing more, trying to
destroy eternity, separating
molecules, better living through chemistry
(FOCUS)
There is a seed inside us all.
What will it become, what will it consume?
(FOCUSFOCUSFOCUS)
i feel the disconnect and cry
stretching wounded arms across
a chasm of my own design.
i would tear myself apart for you,
but not for me.

Youth has killed them all,
the lunatic screams,
bemoaning his plight
to all who will ignore.
those who cry for their
mothers at night,
THEY are the madmen,
whimpering and sniveling
'I don't want to be responsible'
only to realize at some point
later in life that no one
gives a **** what they
want just as long as
they keep their mouths
shut and shovel their
**** to keep the system
as one, man!
All this bull about free will
will take them all of nowhere!
The more they try to capture
youth, the older they
will get and the quicker
they will die!
Don't they see it?*

And even though he
warned himself,
he died the same way.