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Recycled noise
eyes litter the floor
Consciousness murmurs day by day
We don't know where home is and
we're okay with that
It'll be okay
Our feet are cold
Our body awake
Our mind rested and ready to lapse into memory waves
Signs of anchored wisdom and prophecy
A black screen of mindfulness on my hands
blue shells clatter to the floor
The heat of the weapon warms my feet
We aren't tired, are we?
Our heads are too heavy
We risk stretching our legs
And the blood rushes back in
We're tempted to bathe
We're tempted to relay our dreams
It is hard to deny these
Yet it isn't
Our writing becomes large when we have this joy
we have no struggle
no shortage of peace
 Apr 2015 bobby burns
E
Fields turn to concrete turns to buildings turn to cities turn to dust. Everything in this world is finite. **** or be killed. We are malignant cells multiplying and dividing, incurable, unstoppable. Where we go, death and destruction follow. They're right behind us, pushing to get ahead.

All we touch turns to stone, a grave marker for the earth. We are burying ourselves with it. Ashes and bones are the thrones of the new world. We don't learn from our mistakes, we build upon them.

There is a thirst that cannot be quenched, a hunger that cannot be satisfied. We devour everything in sight, but remain empty. If this is what it means to be human, I'd rather be the mud stuck on the bottom of a shoe, the trash blowing away with the wind, the roadkill abandoned on the side of a highway.
 Mar 2015 bobby burns
Jeremy Duff
It's you
It's a country rock tune
It's a bottle of codeine
It's the way the clouds shift.

I've been looking at blank walls recently.

I've been studying the imperfections in the plaster, looking for you, listening deeply for that ***** tonk rhythm, feeling with my hands for that orange bottle.

I drown myself in these things,
yet I am breathing.
I have broken water, I have filled my lungs and voluntarily I plunge again.

I know what I'm looking for in these blank walls but I'm not sure I'd recognize it if I saw it.

Alas, my heart goes on and I beg it to stop.
I'm terrified and I miss my mother, she's grown so distant.
I'm frozen to the marrow of my bones and I'm not sure who keeps turning the defrost off and I'm disgustingly afraid, I shake with fear and I don't know where I'm at, I don't know who I am, and I don't know where I'm going and I'm afraid, I'm so afraid.
Pose for me. so that I can write a poem about you.
So that I can be inspired.
       So regal, so gaunt, you're going to be a star
            soon.
       With your death comes your decomposition comes
        your rebirth comes your relive comes your
redeath...comes the death of the Earth. Comes the sun, comes the stars,
-and every time I check back in, you avert your gaze, stoicism,
  god forbid I realize you're interested in anything outside your
own chaos theory about destroying the constitution of
   men by raising them right.
                               But you saw me write that in my mind
                     and now you've switched demeanors to
        the disapproving yet ultimately caring parental.

           It's funny that I rescued a parent
                        in you. (Tried to.)
                 While doing my best to provide (the best of dreams) for both of
                 us, I somehow hit a bump in the road
                 that beat me into awareness.
  Now that I'm awake, I can tell you, you're
            just like me: terrified, alone in your body,
            wrought with worry about the possibility of
             your mind never reaching mine.

Neither of us were well enough prepared for this
   to end so soon.
                   Trust me to share in your discomfort in
                   dying with no true heir.
                  But trust me also that I have become as
                   much you as any progeny could ever be.
                 And know that I do NOT trust you
                 to definitely leave me this time...you've
                  Cheated before.
Made me feel like we really were angels, if only for each
other.    You've crossed me for the last time though.
    Like a bridge, I collapse, and I rise.
               Like a breath I am labored, I fall for you,
                          to mark safe passage.  But I DO NOT WILL
NOT CAN NOT Burn away. You will always pass by way of my support.
You're small again. Like when we were young.
                               I feel like I could hold you in one hand.
  Sometimes it takes a lot to make us realize the magnitude
  of the things we are experiencing. It takes stakes
  for us to see that this is one moment we are sharing
  forever and never again. It takes pains to force us to
put these experiences down in writing, and it takes guts
to know. to know.  to Know.  that this love is worth
   having
every ******* second that we breathe.
                           It takes a lot of guts, to know, when you won't be coming







Back.

                                      to a place you call Home.

Because that feeling you were holding onto
                                           went down deep in Earth.
    And up into space.
                             But somehow it's still in you
   when you sleep and dream and wake and eat and breathe and
           live                                and                     die
   and [Move]

                                                         ­                and (swim.)

     Where you belong                        is not a constant.
     Where I belong                              is not fixed down.
     Especially when
                                                what you are, my love
                                                            ­  changes     forms so
                                                              ­               frequently.

                                                    ­                 And you're moving along so fast.
                                                           ­          I couldn't hope to stop you now...
I just had something to write. I knew you were asleep and I went to get my pen. And I came back to watch you breathe, very creepy and I know it. And I started to get lost in the rhythm of your labor. And I set down the pen. And I sat at the keyboard. And I sat at the Piano, and I set at the keyboard. And I closed my eyes. And I typed up a poem in only 7 notes. It was a chord I had never heard voiced before. And it was beautiful. And I had no idea what to call it. And I tried to play it again. But I couldn't.
                                                     So I let it go.

Earlier today I saw your face through the window. It was a very sad face. And I wanted to go touch it, and force it into smiling. And I walked to you. And I put my hand on your shoulder. And somewhere along the line from my will to yours, I recognized we both wanted that face to smile. But neither of us could force it.
                                                        So we let it go.

Tomorrow I am going to wake up. Hopefully I will see you. I will make another trip to the hospital. And I will come back home. And I will pack my things. And I will leave on a plane to someplace you can't even imagine. And you will watch me go. And I will wave goodbye...again. And you will ask me why...again. And I will still not have an answer. Some twisted root metaphor about tearing' 'em up, and sewin' the seeds, and pastures and the importance of planters will spill from my lips. And you will listen to every word. And you will hold each syllable in your heart. And you will weigh the meaning of each distorted poeticism. And you will stare into my eyes. And I will feel it. The aching pain from when I was born. The longing for you. And I will turn and run as fast as I can. Away.
And you will see that I just cannot understand your love. And you will feel the same aching. And you will have compassion for my suffering.
                                                      ­So you will let me go.

And you will turn.
Return to your home.
Go back to your bed.
Lie down.
And die.


Unsatisfied.


and I'm sorry...
 Mar 2015 bobby burns
Gigi Tiji
Whirrr
whirrrrrr
whirrrrrrrrr

The difference in the frequency the tone that the two lightbulbs in my room resonate at is approximately 3Hz. Whirwhirwhir
Whirwhirwhir

Out of sync
Out of sync
Out of sync

The dissonance is pulsating around the room, bouncing off of and into every surface therein. Wuhwuhwuh and my ears hear my ears hear my ears hear it at about three times per second. Wuhwuhwuhwhat were you saying? I'm sorry I'm sorry the lights in my room are out of tune. The lights in my room are out of tune. The lights in my room are off.
What were you saying?
 Mar 2015 bobby burns
Gigi Tiji
I yearn to someday make something of utmost individuality.
But it seems today I'm pensively turning blank pages perpetually.

It seems I'm marred, and it's
macrame macrame, same thing every time.

Presumably, light of it comes, but with what am I left as it goes?

Retinal scarring! Badum poots.

Maybe some knots in the cords of my back and creases down the corners of my every smile.

What comes up
must go down
dimple dimple frown frown
Come on outside for a while!
Sunshine daisy daffodil!
Hills and valleys, mountains
and canyons it's a whole
life story out there

But then I sit down
sit down,
and pluck the same strings
same strings.
Different order
same strings.
What'sit bring?
What's it bring?

Today I sit down
sit down
to tell you a story.
It's a short story,
but it's also a long story.

Like a mountain range you see from miles away without walking it's entire length.

I was a little monster with blinders on.
I took to my parents in a way of which I'm not too fond.
I was an orb of obsession and wrinkles of scorn on her forehead.
I was particles and waveforms trying to ride a bicycle.
I was ropa vieja mistaken for some kinda soup.

Papá!
You taught me how you saw the workings of the universe but you worked it like a cockroach. You turned me into low tail low tail grinding on the guard rail. Ready to flip over the side and tumble tumble crash. I was ready to die. You sewed my face onto screens of LEDs screaming with the cries of unclothed children. and you left me crying Mäma!

Mäma!
Saving grace grave face I'm sorry for what he's done to you. I see the weight of over two decades worth of ball and chain dead leaves still dangling from your eyelashes. I see you ripping them out from the roots when it gets to be too much. I solemnly sit beside you at that cursed kitchen table trying to wish on as many of my own so that yours may grow back without any fault. Oh, but I see them sprouting out all crooked in all directions and whenever you bat an eye you run the risk of years of silent tears tumbling on back in an attempt to finally be heard.

I've learned that no truth will come from the wishes you make on the lashes you take with force. Let 'em go with grace. Leave them alone and let them fall from your face like the loudest raindrops.

Our wishes come true just as we speak —
and listen...
"To dismiss as 'Dark' is to eclipse what complementary Light?"
..raw..
Read between the line!

16.3.15
"'Lazy' may well be another term for 'efficient,' as so many love to romantically remark, but it nevertheless has a vague connotation of '..drowning in a distorted sense of responsibility, dimension, and progress, with symptoms including a stupefying lack of initiative,' but, yes: 'laziness' is a sort-of pursuit of 'efficiency-'
with no intention or willingness to bear the responsibility of exertion.

A system cannot be said to be efficient
if it bereft of energy by which it might do work, however efficiently.

Put your energy where your mouth is.
It's cool to kick it once it's done,
but, for now: ante up or fold."
A cute joke gone philosophically wrong.

I'm lazy, but I'm working on it.. well, chiseling away at it, really. Okay, fine! I'll start working on evolving as a conscious being first thing tomorrow, I promise! Right after I hit the snooze button for the umpteenth time.
 Mar 2015 bobby burns
Jeremy Duff
There's a little mailbox off Broad Street that serves as a sort of library. You can take books out and you can put books in.
Yesterday, directly across the street from the library there was a sign on front porch of a house that read "free" and there was a pile of belts and hats and other things.

I want you to write about me but you don't know me and all I know about you is that you're not happy with who you are and that you write and that you're beautiful and disgusting and I am all of these things as well.

My mother has been pulling her hair out; she is losing a custody battle for my little sister, she lost her job and is living off welfare. I'm working two jobs because she asked me not to eat the food in the house so I do enough drugs I don't want to eat and punk rock music is always softly playing from my room, I can't stand it any louder.

My shoes have holes in them.
My gas light has been on for two days.
And I am happy.
The end is never the end,
I won't bother wrapping this poem up because it is not over.
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