And just like that it's midnight.
And just like that the responsibilities
and the needs of tomorrow begin
to pull on me that much stronger
like I've crossed the event horizon
into what the social mass makes work days
drawing me down into a need for sleep
for which I am unprepared,
because a minute ago ... it wasn't time.

The blood comes dilute, as if to refute
What is, or was ever at all
To challenge the must,
The is and the thus
The ever, the will, and the Fall

The Winter, the Spring, the Summer that brings
A freedom, an illusion anew
A time to recline--in dreams and unwind
The idea that you can, that you will

The will, O the will, O the untempered can
Of worms which one opens and finds
Full to the brim, before and again
"Reality"" which tries to unbid

The self from the mind
The meaning from line
The reason from rhyme
And the is from all time

Separates Us: from passion
From Trust.
From belief in ourselves
From love
From true wealth

From magic. From tragic
At least in true measure
Dulling the pain,
But denying the pleasure

The Roar and the Ring
A Hell of a Thing
To make the time pass or
To fill up Your Glass.

~D.B. Guy
August 15, 2011 12:11AM PDT

A morning dew sits on my dearest rose:
A shadow of evening's coolness stands still.
How gleeful I'd be to remove that chill—
That accursed blight, I yearn to dispose.
Not in my powers, no warmth from me flows
Not matter the measure of my goodwill.
Only the sunrise this quest shall fulfill
And light, my dear efflorescence expose

Always that morning seems ever unsure,
Yet surely it comes as the world still turns.
Finite be the hours my rose must endure;
Nothing this must be allowed to obscure!
For surely as in the sky our sol burns,
Warmth still exists for my rose to make pure.

                                 ~ D.B. Guy (1990 - )

I am a certified expert in the sequential pushing of buttons,
this pushing performed, on a good day, in concert with the
expensively purchased, somewhat rare mental model of
the workings of a recently commonplace variety of machine
dependent at its core on the minuscule presence of increasingly-rare
earth metals allowing for the conditional flow of groups of electrons.
These machines, like their precursors, are further dependent on
the supply of slightly less increasingly rare combustible material
for which armed conflicts are routinely fought and many have died.

My interest in the machines began at an early age,
enticed by the illusion of control, and on the whole,
I think, motivated by the idea that these machines
processing information, the core mechanism of reality,
might be used to create understanding.

In the interceding years, it is increasingly apparent to me
that while some are used for this purpose, most,
like most things around me, are controlled and engaged by
multi-personed organisms concerned primarily with:
1) self-preservation AND
2) the collection of, and limited divestment of,
unit notions of rarefied value, insured by the
existence of another similar organism valued for its
1) self- and nearby-environs preservation AND
2) recent track record of insuring continued relatively easy access
to the aforementioned important combustible materials.
—it is generally considered to people's credit that this notion
of value is thus-derived and no longer as frequently derived by virtue
of possessing a metal which, while of certain non-combustible use,
is basically just pretty rare and really, really shiny.

I find myself again shortly in a need of convincing such an organism
that my button pushing is of sufficient quality,
on sufficiently frequent good days,
that it should consider me a temporary part thereof and divest,
of itself to me, sufficient units of value that I might happily
continue to push buttons on its behalf in the pursuit of further units.

I am, for some reason, somewhat less than thrilled with this prospect
finding it, despite its marketability, a maybe less than important enterprise.
I am existentially concerned by the idea that my whole value may derive
from my button pushing, and is thus further dependent on
the availability of rare-earth metal and also-rare combustibles.

In some delusion of importance amongst 7 billion plus similar primates
and a unfathomably vast universe,
I thought you might be interested to know

With Google Maps
Of subway tracks
I walked into the world

To kicks and claps
Of Spotify tracks
I walked and bopped and whirled

Off to see my Meetup friends
To the show from Last.fm
It's sad I couldn't be Foursquare mayor
But at I least I got some XM

They wouldn't get me YouTube likes
But I managed to get some Snaps
My Facebook mood was kinda rude
So I posted on YikYak

Waiting, I swiped right on Tinder
Emojis, and flirting ensued
She sent me her Tumblr, I reblogged her gifs
I asked her to Kik me a ****

Waiting, I browsed around Etsy
Posted the cool stuff to /r/pics
Got x-posted to karmaconspiracy
Was all “NAH MY GF MADE THIS"

Back IRL, ran into coworkers
They asked if I’d go down east side
I mulled it over briefly and then
I simply replied

I'll do it for the Instagram
I do it for the Vine
My phones got charge
My credits got charge
Lets go and leave it behind

I'll see it for the Periscope
I'll think it for the Tweet
And as soon as I get my Watch
Maybe I'll have a heartbeat

Composed
wandering the Commons, quietly listening
   to the sounds of Childish Gambino

  Confused
Looking for the sixteenth time for
   An escape from the Pru
Sipping a glass of Sam Adams Boston Brick Red
at a corner of WHISKEY'S on Boylston

Stopped in at Ben & Jerry's on Park:
   Bought a cone of  ™
Paid for it with
my Bank of America® VISA® P L A T I N U M   P L U S ®

Checked in on  foursquare and
   read the protest tweets on
my verizonwireless® hTC® ThunderBolt™
with Google:
          @OccupyWallSt
                #NYPD collapses on #Sanctuary and begins arresting clergy and occupiers
                inside. #D17 #Re-Occupy #OWS
                _Retweeted by Occupy Boston
           @HoraceBoothroyd
           @OccupyWallSt Links to sanctuary/clergy violations?

Erst I wandered the sights
and thought of thoughts

Tweeted a picture of the “pro-corporate” march
Pictured Headlines:

Area Cop Arrests Area Man for Obeying Traffic Signal
"Didn't anybody tell him that's not how its done round here?"

Cell of Young Idealists with ties to
Low-Level Terrorist Organization Busted & Detained:
Found Plotting the Grassroots, Digitized, Non-Violent Overthrow of the Status Quo

Op-ed:
City upon a Hill: “Whose city?! Whose hill?!”

#SOPA #NDAA
#OCCUPYBOSTON
~D.B. Guy, 12/17/11

Hello again, my old friend
Hello again, pretended lover
Hello again, to you I loved
   —or thought that I did,
who loved another

And now another, never me.
I waved at you, you didn't see
Me walking only a few steps behind
Quite shocked to find you on my mind

Had I gone 5 seconds before
Or even took a different path
I might have run right into you,
caught up, flirted, had a laugh

Or maybe not seen you at all
Not been here now, forced to recall
The relationship I'd hoped to see
   —Probably deluded, far overly
Entranced by a match unlikely true
With a girl, I hardly knew
Convinced I'd found some perfect you
Who perfectly fulfilled an idea of me

—Years have passed. We both walk on;
We hardly see each other still, so
Goodbye to you, who passed me by,
Goodbye, perfect girl, who always will

                        9.26.11, just before 5pm
                        D.B. Guy

The pin fell out.
The pin fell out, so the bolt slipped,
Knocking the bottom of the arm
And the **** thing wouldn't open!

Fifteen hundred I payed — 105 for delivery and assembly,
But I didn't make space for them,
They couldn't lay it out, so they built it standing up.

The pin didn't get set right, so the pin fell out.

I fixed it. Once I figured it out. It wasn't hard,
though pretty hot, since early, the back broke the plug
and the AC died. I sweated all over the expensive wood,
Wiped it up with the towel I was just wearing

And so there I stood: drenched in sweat,
Frustrated and exhausted, rumpled and wet
Ready for my second shower in just as many hours

All because I had the audacity,
                            for once,
To try to go to sleep.

                            9.25.11
                            D.B. Guy

11:33pm @Boston_Police:
#occupyboston The BPD respects
your right to protest peacefully.
We ask for your ongoing cooperation.

@Occupy_Boston: 11:51
The BPD asks reporters to leave
the inside of the camp
they don't want them to record
and report on what they're about to do.

1:31
Cops give Occupy Boston
five minutes to vacate.
Nobody is leaving.

1:41 @OccupyBOS_Media:
The police are beating the Veterans for Peace

1:44 @Occupy_Boston:
Cops arresting everyone.
We are being beaten.
KEEP TAKING PHOTOS.

I walk there as my legs will cary me...

The Aftermath:
All quiet on the western curb
Over 100 arrested and spread amongst
more than five separate jails—none close by.
Camp two is gone and camp one intact. for now;
The ecstatic crowd, arms linked, chants
"Who do you protect? Who do you serve?""

Hyperbole all around.
Injustice or public safety?
...It hardly even matters.

The people are on the streets again
The military is overseas but
this time, the war is at home:

Men and women in blue,
likely just doing their jobs,
fighting people without them.
I fear the 99% fights itself

Rumors flit about. Crackdowns abound
Dallas, Atlanta, St.Louis, Seattle, &
San Francisco: from sea to writhing sea
The chickens have come home to roost and
The pigs are bringing home the bacon

The professionals were cleared out,
but the media wasn't. The talk is on
line by line, it is lively, ever-streaming:
blogs and tweets; statuses, state by state.

Rumors created. Rumors dispelled
Proof offered. Faith destroyed.
Anger engendered. Assumptions reinforced:
The people are connected
but the disconnect remains

Between rich and poor, yes, but maybe worse than that:
this movement is only as United as these states
The basic principles the same, the practice not so much
Peaceful, yet violent; Pro-capitalist, anti-corporate
"a laughable gang of disorganized, confused Nazis.  
an ill-disciplined, highly-trained, ****-smoking,
fascist organization."

First the Tea Party and now this,
Demonstrating the strength & flaws of Democracy
even as they protest the flaws of Republic
Still, they are not so different

They sit in parks by day and sleep at night
in dorms, apartments, houses, tents. Uncomfortable
Wrapped too tightly in sheets of red, white, and green.
Trying, desperately, to wake up from the American Dream

                                        ~D.B. Guy
                                         10.11.11

A thought sometimes forms

I live too much
yet I do too little.
    Woken at strange hours,
never asleep.
       Rapt in raps
       or wrapped in riddles
Chained to links
or hammered to handle
    stubbed to bone
Mens et
               Manus

There is time yet, I swear
        To flourish
To dream

        To make
To be
        To do
        To create

Will I?
We'll see
There's time yet to tell

Be yourself, they say
    The best you you can be
But once more— Will I have time
        To edit

I live less
        I do less
    Portfolio: empty
    or at least, locked away.
        Excitement too.
            Blank slate
Blank palette
Is there any paint?

Can I truly make
        excitement saturate?
Will I be able to place
        value as I see fit?
    Can the world be hewn slimmer, slicker
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Tis daft I think, to amuse such a notion
But not necessarily so daft to be wrong
Emerson called it misunderstood,
Shaw found it unreasonable
But ay, theres the rub
That bed once made, must be lain in and
all dreams which might be had are alone not enough

Bloom effects don't work outside the movies.

Ideas are trash, these are recession times
Deflations made them a farthing a dozen
                                  
                        ­       Started 10.03.11
                               Unfinished
                               D.B. Guy

A late hour. Don't even look at the clock.
Every fiber of my good sense yells go to
sleep and I do not. Every bit of logic
understands that I need to wake in fewer
hours than I needed to sleep in the first place
Still I sit here
Listening to music.
Writing a poem. Staring idly
at a browser window. The lights are on, the blinds
drawn. When the sun begins to rise, I will not see it
I've seen several sunrises recently
I remember what they look like.
In the midwest somewhere, a tweaker sits
awake for the third day. Chasing vapor and ghosts
He's seen the sunrise too, perhaps an hour later
He may or may not remember
We run from the cousin, but he finds us
The sandman cometh. And
Enter night
and what dreams may come
Locked in the struggle we all lose,
Running from comfort and sanity at full-speed

                                     10.03.11
                                     D.B. Guy

Chicken and beef
More beef
More Chicken

Potatoes fried in vats of fat, A cow's
heart in a wine reduction;
Bacon strips,
   bacon strips,
bacon strips,
    bacon strips.

"Ulcer in the pit...
...never neglect to salt"

It hurts again.
—Doesn't it always?

Jack and Advil,
A half-hearted suggestion.
"You don't really know unless you try?":

Burn a hole, Bleed it out
Pain is water-soluble, right?

I tried it once. I've told that story
Brought down in one day by two pots of chili

                                 9.26.11
                                 D.B. Guy

An ode seems appropriate
To the classical style
Of the columns and the domes
Above the green court.

Many things have adorned that dome:
Squad car, fire truck, droid, and phone
But today, viewed in a mind's eye—sunlight.

But as were that phone booth still apparent
From afar it now calls, and now I shall answer.
Over the river, and through the urban jungle,
Through the sky, 400 miles, as the airliner flies
But worth every inch, rod, meter or smoot.
It beckons to the mind and to the heart;
It beckons to the soul of a scholar.

Were I less knowing I might think not
That light fell from above onto that dome.
But rather, that the hemisphere
Gave forth the blazing light
ebullience of photons, amidst
Torrents of knowledge.

Its hallowed halls, numbered precisely,
Soon no longer a forbidden temple shall be
Instead, I shall tread there, such as I am
Learn from efforts I effect and others I see

O Halls, I shall greet thee, O Tunnels in winter
Traverse and find warmth to keep body to task
For knowledge, always, comes with a high price
In joules, dollars, cents, days and hours of rest
Long nights turn to dawns, nose to the grindstone
Maybe just one more tool; okay, maybe another.

But brother meets brother, and sister meets sister
On both sides of the river, and the work gets done.
Whether Greek or not, there is community here
A problem, or a set of them, is always seen through.

As the sun now rises, a new day sets in. In a few
hours of my life I will rise to these challenges.

With a chirping, I shall cross the paths that I come to,
Enter the halls .. and my journey shall begin.

~ D. B. Guy

I hear the world is full of pain,
Flooding, terror, acid rain;
Music, theatre, laughs and art,
Whiskey, coffee, beer and darts,

Rainbows, glaciers, hiking trails;
Rare Pepes and EPIC FAILs,
Overwatch and Pokemon Go;
Donald Trump and Bernie Bros;

Dreams, and Drugs, and Rock n' Roll,
Dharma, Love, and the eternal soul,
The Holy Quran and the Higgs boson
Tajwid in Geneva, QFT in Tehran.

Yet day by day I sit and type
Edit, grep, compile, pipe
All  that a system smoothly might run
Ashes to Ashes, Zero to One

'''
npm install; grunt &; restart nginx
docker run -d me/interests; pkill sleep; pkill ***
nice 14 nutrition; rm /etc/cron.daily/exercise
pkill -STOP judgment; scp foodler:'**/{burger,fries}' ~
'''

It's rather ironic that this metal you see,
Seems quite a better multitasker than me
Whereas It stops its world to switch one task for others
My open descriptors always overflow my buffers

Whereas it take new patches with a simple 'apt-get'
My resolve for upgrades I quite often forget
And when its health checks fail, we regrow the ASG
But my self won't reboot. et memento mori.

My Arwen lies over Belegaer
Beyond the Straight Road, lies my Evenstar
Across the Endless Sea, in Aman she lies
She wouldn't stay here just to love, but to die

I remember her here, here in Endor
When the beacons of Gondor burned bright.
I remember her here, once beside me
In the days before the long night

In Imladris fair, as Estel I was raised
In ignorance there, I spent by blissful days
I lived, and I learned, and yet never yearned
For she from whom I now feel so spurned

I've had my Éowyns, but none quite compare
To She, my lady, so radiant, so fair
At Cerin Amroth we pledged our love
To all, ourselves, and the Ainur above

But the Darkness again spread
Morgoth's mission again led
The Fellowship was wrought
The battles all fought

The Age of the Firstborn was ended
The Age of the Hildor ascended
Our world together was split
And really, that was just it

She could stay here, forever, be mortal
But ever so closely lay Mithlond ,the portal
To a life without end, I can blame her hardly
I guess Barahir's tale was never to be

What’s this? You say she’s not yet set sail?
But how can I stop her? Our parting was so stale!

Sure Elrond's presence and Galadriel's glare
May have done oh so much to damper our parting
But as she goes afar I know I can't go there
And her expressed frigidity, that wound is still smarting

What should I do for her I adore?
Run to the Grey Havens and stop the White Ship?
But so much I must do, right here in Gondor,
A King I can become, as my Queen give me the slip

And the spirits are howling,
The white tree is burning?!
My power, my people
BUT I CAN'T STOP THIS YEARNING

Oh what shall I do? TO ERU ABOVE
I have so much work, but I so miss my Love
The tears, they are welling, the Ship has set sail
In all my adventures, in truth I have failed!

For what am I worth? No King has Returned
And without Hope is Gondor, and the Stewards have burned
Denthar departed, the mighty horn split
The mighty White City left here to sit

I could let it fall into disarray,
Again a Ranger, I could slip away
To die like the Ents, forever, no Wife
Is there nothing to save me from this strife?

A new dawn is rising, a new age begun
My hopes might still clear
with the new rising Sun

I see its my duty, as Arathorn's son… what Isildur started, I must see done
but still I mourn my loss… that beautiful star, which now like all others, I must admire from afar.

~D. B. Guy
09/02/2007

El mundo está velado en verde.
Lo no es verdad, pero como yo veo.
Y no puedo obligar a aclararse la vista.
Son muchos razones. Las sabes, yo creo.

La problema es que me gustas mucho.
Y para él, no tengo malevolencia.
La verdad es que son una pareja guapa
Pero él no es yo. Ergo no eres mía.

La bonita rosa, quien puede que nunca me quiera
Eres lista, divertida, interesante, y amable
Eres más linda de creía posible
Pero ninguna razón es, para esto, responsable

Me alegro de verte, por consiguiente
Quiero hacer mi papel, si solo como amigo
Pero es muy difícil hacer esto ahora
Porque me lastima aun ver él contigo

No sé que debo hacer, no sé que debo creer
No sé que debo decirte, no sé debo seguir

La hora he llegado cuando te necesito preguntar
¿Cómo piensas de mí?
¿Cómo piensas debo progresar?

¿Cómo quieres que yo progrese?

~D.B. Guy (October 25, 2009)

A simple fact
That says nothing,
and is nothing

A simple matter
An un-matter
But everything to me

Because, you see, it is: "I see"
It is "I am"
I am, you see

I think —I am
I am... I think

But what, ergo, to do

To do:
to be
to love
to see

to am, to was- to now.
to be
for now. for was,
for 'am for now'
but anything to be.

To done:
to was
to loved
to did
to heard about
to think they did

to dreamed about
to wondered why
and anything to be

Drinking a Guinness Extra, an empty gesture,
Beset truly by the words of Joyce,
I am sick of the turning from text
To annotation. I wish only to read
A text as it was meant,
With the knowledge not aside
But present already in my blasted skull

It's like the modern appreciation of Shakespeare
—At best an approximation. The words that were
Common, fallen out of usage.
The words then invented, now commonplace.

Thither and hither again I will look
Tracking the details
Researching the clever allusion
Trying not to miss & missing anon
what's right in front of me

                            D.B. Guy

Mine

6:48 a Wednesday
Two Weeks later
Then: Thanksgiving eve
5E; MIT

I sit at my desk:
stare out of the windows <
My skull
at the Chocolate Bock I just
Overflowed > all over my notes
on the Circe episode of Ulysses,
which I have not yet read.

20 minutes after I just ––
Went alone. Stood there, yes, alone
Above the porcelain enterprise
Taking that litmus test of humanity
Clear, I pass. Yellow, I fail.
It was rather clear I think
Honestly? I don't remember.

Two weeks ago, I stood there==
and came up with this phrase.
Standing there with special eyes::::
Seeing.
Came back to my room, I did, faithfully
Looked there below my second fridge
A plate sat. mine. On it: maybe food, maybe *****
Probably marijuana
Only the first my own
Who remembers?

Next to it: an empty prescription bottle
"It's some medicine for Asthma. I don't even
have asthma!"
"Classy **** I am; I've never bought a shot glass.
Just use discarded prescription bottles."

An experiment @ the sink: exact: 2.0z. On the dot.
Turns out that's 1&1/3 of the standard—The ritual
We make it. And have made it.
For years now together after midnight
[or so]
4 years. Soon it will be
Maybe I shall leave; probably not

but harken back, that fortnight, less 6
To that evening. Orange and purple
Effort sublime but not enough:
Lost to a team of Freshman.?!

~If only:~
"Tripped mad-laundry shrooms",
6 and a half months ago

Two men sit in the corner of my room
I know one; the other spoke

2-weeks-later: sticky keyboard
I am not sober, but who is?

Last night. Remember those videos?
reminded me that *** can be beautiful:
After basically 2 years: I almost forgot.
x-art.com. December 6, 2011

I have a perspective now:
It is not the same as yours
it is not and, by necessity,
can not be the same.

But I see it. Stephen Daedalus
calls it immature—lyrical
but *******, James: it is mine!

I am. Will always be.
Will have never been.
But, God/Goddess **** it now!
I am: I See.
I try!

~D.B.Guy

There's a fire hose:
You drink it.


Well, you try to drink it.


You playfully examine it
For a few moments, then
You wrap your lips around the nozzle,
And pump up the pressure:


It blows you back
And pins you to a wall.


The spray stings your eyes,
But if it brings tears to them,
They are washed away by the flow,
Before you, or anyone else,
Can be sure they were there.


Your limbs ache,
You think that if only
You could rest them,
You could hold them stronger
But the time for rest rarely comes.


Some people, washed in despair
Or simply sanity, step out of the way
Never to look back and never to regret.


Some collapse or simply drown.


Others stand the force.
The mass of the waters accelerates,
But still they stand strong.
Wavering at times,
But never giving up.


And one day the flow slows
To a stream, to a trickle, to a drip
Then it stops.


You stand there:
Sudden and Sullen,
Dripping and Deflated,
Percolated, but Proud,
Wet, but Wise.


And you reach out,
Brass Rat rusted to your knuckle:
You grab a beaker and into it
You wring the waters of knowledge
From the clothes of your experience.


You take this drought and distill it.
You bottle it, you market it, or you give it away,
But, with luck, it takes the world by storm.


From the fire hose flow rises the rarefied results
Filtered through your hands,
Tested in your trials, Fortified in your failures,
Vivified in your victories.


You look back with mixed emotions:
Wondering if it was all really worth it.
Your prospective my grow,
It may never be clear,
But the fire hose flows on...


~D.B. Guy (March 6-12, 2010)

The clock strikes, the hour shines
A warm rain brings fruit to the vine
An evening cool, a freshness divine
The sweetest grapes, the finest wine

In this hour, time churns
Life breaths, an ember burns
And ever still, the earth turns
As a glowing moon crosses the sky

Waves crash to shore, minutes grow dim
A cool wind directs a flowing hymn
A mornings warmth, a sparkling gem
The reddest rose, yet the greenest stem

But in this hour, time dissuades
Life chokes, the ember fades
And ever still, the earth waits
Until a garish sun crosses the sky

~D.B. Guy ( December 14, 2008 )

A life in poetry, A love in art
Set forth on a path that extends forever.
Though the closest reaches climb high
Over mountain and dale, through ravine and shadow,
The path goes on and as it does, descends into light:

So much light, more light than one can resolve.
It blurs the boundaries of the great valley
Splashes of green, the wonderful glare of richness
A river runs through the valley and nourishes the fruit
The sweetest fruit. It nourishes the body,
Nourishes the soul: renews, enriches, grows, sustains.

The path extends to the horizon. And beyond.
As it grows from the foothills it branches
Forming a fractal road of possibility.
Like roots growing from the mountain,
There appears nothing more natural in the world.

As the paths go on, they passes through diverse landscapes
Some places they make sharp changes in direction,
Some places they pass through further patches of shadow,
Some places they grow wider, Some places they get rocky,
But nowhere does the path narrow, beyond the first stretch,
Where the paths split, and over the mountains rejoin.

Beyond that there is always enough room for two
To walk astride.
Side by Side in Sunlight.
Hand in Hand.

For Maya.
Donald Guy
July 5, 2010.

A late hour indeed, darkness over land, but
A bright light shines from a moon above
As a shadow sweeps across the surface.
For a moment, it stands emblazoned, precarious
Adumbrated phoenix in the sky,
But it does not flare out.

Sweeping lower, the form resolves,
Alights narrowly on a fine branch.
For a moment, it struggles for balance
But soon it finds a niche, stands true;
Visage of wisdom in the night
But not without flaw

Not the swiftest, lacking in grace
Lost territories in cunctation.
Still, secure in its plumage,
Into the night, ready to fly:
Hunter poised in the trees
It soars aloft

Nearby, another branch inhabited
Not a vision this one, a voice.
A lighter weight, a softer presence
Harmonious to the calm
Tones of beauty to the air
It rings forth

Awhile, this one too struggled
It tried the songs of the mockingbird
Some rang esthetic, others strange,
But now its own song found:
Anthem sung for the heart
Chorus all may hear

Birds of the night. Dark to dawn
Their habits thus have been.
Now with the new morning,
A change in the season;
Mind and Song together to the sky
Light out for the lit horizon …

~D.B. Guy (May 2008)

The sun rose
A gentle breeze
A final thaw
From a long freeze

A day of warmth
A day of life
A final stop from the strife

A day too good
To be true
A day where hope
Shown anew

The sun rose
A gentle breeze
War was over
There was peace.

--Donald Guy
   2004

New York, The City rises outside my door
For some, a playground, so vast to explore
But for me, a reminder, I cannot ignore
That the world is too large and I'll never be sure

How it all works, or why it's all there
Too many features I cannot compare
Most never known and most never seen
Not in the flesh, and Not on the screen.

Not by the ear, and Not by the tongue,
Not spoken, Not read,
Not thought and Not sung
Not under soles, Not breathed into lung

Not in my experience
I will not understand

So I'm left to imagine, but more likely not
That that I do is too quickly forgot
All of these people, and all of their thoughts

More time than I have,
An instant demands.

~D.B. Guy
1/24/14, before 8am

At this point
Love is a game
Of doubt, of hope,
Of joy, of pain

Yet something is
I can’t explain
What draws us back
Into the same

To have, to want
To hold, to see
A life in which
All joy is free

A simple yearning
To be together
For better, for worse
For pain, for pleasure

And even though
Our time goes fast
If it doesn’t start
It can not last

And so you feel
What can’t be told
A feeling felt
By young and old
That can’t be taught
That can’t be sold
But you can’t win it
When you fold


So we back fall into
The same
Drawn back from hurt
Into the game


-Donald Guy
2004

I stagger out of the Paradise Rock Club. 11:04pm.
42 degrees. Short sleeves, no jacket; I give zero *****.
I have experienced something beyond words, but I'll try
In 50 minutes it will be All Hallow's Eve, a Monday
Due and not yet begun I have an essay on James Joyce and
A reckoning on the occult, inner mysteries of the CPU.
Again, I give zero *****
The last hour and a half were the best possible use of my time.

Not 5 miles away, people I sympathize with
are protesting the failure of America,
But tonight I have seen her undeniable beauty:

904, as the fire code rates, packed in to the inch
A choir united, the director:
A man who tonight skipped his Aunt Steph's funeral at her request
To be here

To direct us in each anthem.
In hopeful, truthful noise
Our hoarse and untrained voices combine
And as Mr. Key observes, against all odds, against all reason
Make the most beautiful sound.

                            D.B. Guy
                            Slightly drunk, tears in my eyes
                            On the Green Line
                            11:17pm

They say there's an ocean;
They say its vast and deep:

Profoundly deep.
They say that you fall into it,
A simple slip, maybe even a dive
But once it surrounds you,
You dive deeper, and deeper
So deep that the world fades away.

You forget the surface,
Get lost in the depths,
Wrapped in it, you find warmth
You linger in its caress and you find
Your lust for fresh air.. fades away.

They say its vast, some say infinite.
It stretches to a wondrous eternity
You explore it and explore it
Looking not for something specific
Just to find all it holds
You search for years and lifetimes
But you find it has no end.

They say there's an ocean;
I think there's an ocean,
But I fear few are finding it

The explorers are distracted
They set out on their search
And find a river, a lake
A trickle, a puddle.

New explorers seek it,
Driven by the tales they've heard
But some veterans are less sure
"Swim in shallower waters" they say
"You can do it now and at least get wet"

But the dampness is superficial
It leaves you seeking your next dip
Maybe a deeper one, but often not.

Some stop seeking, some just give up
Some believe that it simply never was.

I still believe what they say:
They say there's an ocean.

~D.B. Guy (November 16, 2008)

You won't even empty a trash can?
I did. It is not even my turn
But the trash can is full again now
I don't see how this is my concern

When it overs it will be, as
trash piles up all around us
If you care so much do it yourself
I can't, this is a freshman job
                              
                              ~D.B. Guy

It's hard to remember. I think so anyway. As change occurs the past disappears.

It's hard to compose. I think so anyway. Thoughts don't seem to come like they used to.

It's hard to believe. I think so anyway. It all seems to be pretty pointless.

It's hard to start. I think so anyway. Though its an important part of doing anything

It's hard to ...

It's hard to …

It's hard to justify. I think so anyway. Repetition is easy, meaning is not.

It's hard to sleep. I think so anyway. Descent to darkness is not my friend.

Is this a poem? I think so anyway. Though its content might be better with a bit of prose

Work in progress. I think so anyway.

Day begins 1, 2, and 3
There is no us just you and me
How I wish so much to see
A day in life where there is we

I am alone
That’s how I stay
All alone
From day to day

Your with him
Then with him
Not “look at her”
“Look at them”

You are happy
As am I
But when you cry
He dries your eyes

I’m alone
That’s what they see
There is no them
There is he

Then a change
You did not see
Them becomes
Her and he

All is changed
But any rate
You’re not sad
You are great

On the outside this they see
On the inside your heart isn’t free
When did this “like” become L-O-V-E
I know you and this I see

Sands of time pass the glass
And your heart's wounds forget the past
All this time I was “he”
And then you see that you
And I could be “we”

-Anonymous

(Donald Guy 2003. Signed Anon. at time of writing)

It is daylight, err it
is raining
actually still you

should go now or you
will be late, she sd, to
the reflection of

a memory that danced in
& out & back again as
she looked across the window-
less room

D.B. Guy