I come from
a myriad of
multiverses,
all times
and spaces
that converged,
all potentialities
that led up to me,
to the river that
will flow,
and the mountain
that will rise,
climaxing
in the epic apogee
of the death
of this frail body.
I am
a prisoner
of that certainty.

Anger is born of unmet expectations.
The more entitled we feel
being attached to an expected outcome
the more intense the anger may be.

This is a poem
about another
solitary shift.

There is tension
in my sore shoulders,
and a tender tightness
in my right knee joint.

The dark sky brings
the trifecta of
three rainbow hallow
having light bulbs
blazing.

Less than a quarter
of a block’s distance
is a pair of lights
that pierces the night
like irritated eyes
peevishly peering
out at the parking lot’s clearing
while pouting petulantly.

Near night’s end
I walk and listen
to the sound of the wind
moving through
the select few
scattered trees
that surround me.

The orange’s juice drips
on my dry cracked lips
while the sun
spreads its orange
glazed glory
across the dark morning sky,
a catharsis of narcissi’s sweetness.

Flags up
and then I am off
fleeing from
the forming day,
and going home
so, I can sleep
the rest of the
daylight away.

Even though, I know that a
multiplicity of alternate realities
is not a certainty but has a minor probability;
I have an affinity for infinity and eternity
with all the weird entities therein.

If time is linear
then any human error
becomes inevitable
when the time is here
and gone.

You do not appreciate me till I am gone
Then you can do what you want
With my words
With my life
Play my corpse
Like a marionette
Interpret as you see fit
Because I am not a genius
Till I am dead
And I can mean what you said

What a weird wonderland
as Alice comes so close to see
the strange curiosity that is me,
an inverted reflection,
while I see negative space
filled by her body, face,
and the thoughts she traces
out for me.

I’m the mental man
made of immortal stuff,
the kind of fluff
that lets me
retroactively
justify the things I see.

To long I was living with a singular vision,
became a self-perpetuator of my suffocating obsession,
the spirit of my possession
was possessing pretty things,
and all of my collecting
was to the detriment of my well-being.

I used to long for
metal doors
that melted
forming
pool like portals
to other worlds.

Places where monsters
roamed distorted landscapes,
where skies rained
drops of purple
forming portal puddles
that would take me
to places even farther
from my messed up family.

I dreamed of
adventures tempered by pain
cause I felt there must be
a balance to pay in my fantasies.

Scars for freedom,
bruises equaling
the level of love I deserved,
the level that would earn my
warrior princess’s affection.

Through proof of
unfair punishment
while wielding healing hands
I would help
other victims like myself.
Earning a redemption
that was never necessary.

How strange that even in
my fairytale dreams
I treated myself as unfairly
as the daytime beast
that left red marks on me.

But now that I have found peace
I no longer dream of
a troubled love like that.
I no longer feel I need to earn back
that dignity and tranquility
that was so brutally
stolen from this mother’s son.

You can hide
The door to night
Lock up the darkness
And embrace the light,
But time will
Take your sight
Take your fight
Sap your will
Until you feel
The door open
And take you
To nowhere

I got no swag,
just a split spine
that sits in a bag,
that I drag
everywhere
I go.

Weird words of working men
Collar wearing ******
Peacemakers clanging swords
Breastplates of hate
I watch us all get churched
On the ways of cruelty

I can’t stop crying
Cause love used to be
So beautiful to me
Two men holding hands
To friends kissing publicly
No shaming

Now there is violence
We break the silence
With days of silence
But it never seems
To stop the screams
And suicides
Children hang out
Flailing lifelessly
The memory haunts me
Even though it is not mine

Pale boy loves a brown boy
Sweet proclamations
Of their affections
Poetic exultations
Holding each other
As their salvation
To be loved is a wonderful thing
To be touched is a mercy

But fire burns to close
To the core of fury
Angry faces hide behind
Masks
We ask
For love
But brutality
Is their response
And now the saltine sorrow
Overflows
The ocean grows
As one more love
Is demolished
And the world becomes
A lot darker

You do yourself a disservice when you forget that we are not separate and in competition, but part of a collective that spans more than hundred thousand years in the past and hopefully a hundred thousand more in the future. Lifting up the weak strengthens the whole, educating the young enhances the potential the future. Kindness and wisdom our the gift of the human.
to all with love

Your humble human scribe
Joshua Amos Graff

Satanic goddess oh queen Isis
Aphrodite, my fingers fill her crevices
Twirl and twisting
Leaving us both gasping
I bend to her will
Beg to fulfill
Her deepest desires
So when she sighs
“Hurt me.”
I break myself
Splitting my soul asunder
Becoming thunder
As I crack

Release me from your Trinity.
I did not volunteer to serve
a severely disturbed deity.
I do not sit resigned
to some petulant being
defined as the divine
with a split personality,
and a magical mind.

Good men are slaves
to a system
that has them
trying to stay strong,
trying to pay rent,
to feed moms,
and their children.

They do the wrong thing
because they need money
for food, cloths, shelter
for car insurance,
for maintenance, and
for medical emergencies.

So, the goodness,
We would like to see
gets buries out of
necessity.

Kind hands
become calloused tools
and the hardworking man
dies at the plant,
were other good men
are struggling the same
with some minor variations.

Nostalgia
Is the smile
That brings
Tears to my eyes
A painful pleasure
Of reminiscence

It is the truth that breaks a poets heart. To know such violence lies in the eyes of the so called protector. Everyday I find myself more heartbroken even though I see the violence coming. Cause for every stride we made for justice their is another ******* hiding behind authority trying to take it away.

I thought you wrote of the heart you broke.
The poems spoke of sorrows familiar,
but not your own.

The verses were benign.
No identity to find,
just plaid sentiments
parsed out pieces
of other people poetry.

Pop sensations,
predictable platitudes,
empty verses
with no sign of your heart,
so many syllables to hide behind,
but what I couldn’t find.

It was you, I was looking for
in those words.

From the mainframe
That brought you war games
Head-shots for **** points
Team death match battles
Close to realistic war scenes
On your plasma tv screen
Here your enemies scream
As their heads explode
See your IQ drop
While dexterity improves
As your gaming console
Get used to control
A digital killing machine
Pumped up world war dreams
Cause death is a game
And killing is great
And now our children are well trained
To fly our missile and machine gun
Loaded drones
and shoot down the enemies
Of our sick bloated
Corporate corrupted
Fake free state

I outsourced
my inner turmoil
to this medium,

all the conflict
of trying to fit
and not fit
maybe dangling
between two *****
that I can’t give.

Rhyming and non,
never posting anon
because even though
I know that
I don’t belong
when I am gone
I want someone
to know me.

My identity
is complex,
crossing
ideas that
are counter
to themselves.
So, I identify
as the poetry guy
dying to stay alive.

I got a sick suspicion
someone is dishing
***** laundry
in our kitchen.

Tis blood and fury
and for its cause
you would build a wall
and construct more bombs
to **** more kids,
to destroy more lives,
and never stop
While acquiring the disguise
to protect you from
the consequences
of your profit driven life.

Tis pain and sorrow
that you built
brick by clay brick
fire by fire
not in a kiln,
but in the hateful decree
of your religious immorality
setting stranger against stranger
calling those who revolt
heretics, blasphemers,
or apostates,
while claiming hate
is equal to love.

Tis my tears and rage
as I push my face
into my pillow case
to scream
because you do not listen to me
and slowly my humanity
turns towards wrath.
I stray, walking away
from my old forgiveness
and redemption days
and fantasizing about
your gruesome demise.

Palestinian
children
and women
attempt to
protest apartheid,
fighting against
those borders and walls,
walking towards boundaries
where snipers sit
settled in
to shoot the innocent,
and continue
freedom's infringement.

Soldiers fire to take
the lives of those
they dehumanize.
Two thousand
are wounded
and fifty plus
dead.

My government is complicit
in these illicit
acts of violence.
We support and supply
the horrible ordinance
used to brutalize
and end those unfortunate lives.
Our politicians
spin blood red threads
into golden ***** lies
and celebrate the bad guys
who have no intention
of compromising,
the ones who
go on occupying
and terrorizing the Palestinian people.

Meanwhile,
state supported
media guys,
are televised
to tell us lies,
go on air
to share a side
that shames
and blames
the victims of
new atrocities,
by their favorite
allies,
repeating
reports of agitation
incited by
Hamas,
but no one on
the Israeli side
was wounded
or died.

There is something so deeply fatiguing,
that it takes any illusion of meaning,
steals the purpose I was using
to keep, keeping on moving,
even when I’ve been sleeping in
even when I’ve been eating enough;

This life just makes me so tired.

Some say be patients
it takes time to measure
and debate this
racist institution
while your religious
delusions
put you right back
to the place you
started from.

Eighty-one hours of work
Ten hours of driving
And in-between
There is hardly time
For me to find
A full dream

So, I rise from
A slumber
Of unfulfilled
Snips and clips
That make
Madness
My ultimate state

Exhausted
With no
Creative escape
Cause I am
To tired
To create
A single line

The laughing lion
scared the **** out of the
quite hyenas.

All the hopeful promises
were like sugary treats gone rotten.
So, I lay sprawled out in pain
a loving body forgotten.
It was only once
she ever said she loved me,
told me all her deepest pains.
I told her she was lovely,
and so splendidly strange.
I’d come over and she’d recline
into the comfort of my arms
and every time I’d find
the beating of my racing heart.
She would tell me to rub her feet
or massage her neck and back,
and though I proved I loved her true
she never let me get farther than that.
I know she had every right to.
It just broke my heart to be so closed to her
and watch her walk off
with some other ****.
All the hopeful promises
were like sugary treat gone rotten.
So, I lay sprawled out in pain
a loving body forgotten.

Be forewarn
that when I write
my autobiography
I will lie;

Sometimes by exclusion,
omitting the unfitting
bits from my narrative.

Other times
by the blindness
and biasness
of being
so far removed
from the life
I wish you
to view.

As I strive
to write
about my life
in truth,
I will fail me
and you to,
but not for
lack of trying
to do right.

I've been chasing her. Though she is final, the ultimate mystery. She is the darkness. The final bliss and such a release. In uncertainty she is a comfort. In happiness she is a spider ******* at my flesh. I know not what will happen when we finally embrace. So I wait and try not to waste the days between my fate and her ****** lips. She will love me as she has loved all who have come before and all who come after. No one will escape her embrace.

To be a caged animal
and illicit stares
of shared despair
while trying to
clear the air here
of that ***** stench.

The populace passes
by my caged display
as I try to play
pretending that my pain
is not so real.

I dress myself up
in nice new things
watching how
the other animals swing.

Reality shows,
sports events,
and other
things
obfuscate
how human beings
isolate themselves.

My cage expands
to fit all my pretty things,
while my mind shrinks
and stinks of sinking fools
who are also drowning
in their own stool.

Thank you for the kind words. As a poet/writer/artist I slipped in an out of the ethereal world of the mind. I do spend time with people but I am drenched in solitude by necessity. I find very few kind words for me. So usually I just say thank you but just this once I wanted to express the depth of my gratitude to those who stop and say such kind things. To me those little messages are like drops of water in the desert. So though the words are trifle in response I still wanted to say thank you.

Damning verses
from ancient scripture
gave excuses
so he could hit her,
with logic as fluid
as ***** dishwater
that ******* father
beat on his daughter.

Why do you hate nihilist? Do they impose those fancy lack of beliefs upon you? Are you afraid to let go of the meaning many cling so dangerously to. Must you have a certain order in order to sustain your own existence?

My flesh goosed up
while my eyes
sized up
the mirror man
who was manically
laughing,
imprisoned
by our
momentary madness.

Wasted form
fitted for debasement,
consciousness
ready to face
self-denigration.

Body heat
bubbled up
like wild waves
of red fury
ready to rupture
and spew
hot lava.

Hate bled from my body
as I stared in defiance
longing to commit
depraved acts
of violence
against myself.

Pain pushed me
to escape
this reality,

as I longed for
the sick fog
of slumber
to cease
this sadness.

The stars are twinkling guitars
Sending out radical vibrations
Signals to our expanding nations
They are Vikings burning in space
And dying a billion years later

As always she is the body of desire.
Pierced lips pursed with impure intent.
Mouth wet with desire.
Body writhing in the agony of passion's unfulfilled promise.
Black hair long and fallen like her favorite angel;
She absorbs the dark arts of lost hearts
pleading with the power of a submissive’s gaze,

Heaven's arms wrapped around her slender figure
while the denizens of hell desire her softest whisper.
The best passive conqueror of my soul
and I submit to the lust of her being.

The lion is
lucky if
the lioness
doesn't give him
a violent kiss.

Come forth to dance my fairy kin
For long have I grieved the loss of innocence
Fluttering wings of fanciful dreams
Where children and cherubs sing
Where teddy bears parade and play
Till the picnic prepared is displayed
and they can devour delicious honey treats
Where goblins conceal themselves admiring
The playful Pegasus’s acrobatic flying
Where guardians with soft pearly feathered wings
Protect all young and saintly human beings
Where spirits offer solace to combat the grief
Of knowing that all things living will be deceased
It is a land of legends, fairytales, and myths
Where only children, fools, and dreamers visit
And I miss it dearly
For in adulthood I have been many years
Separated from that fantastic realm

Time makes grotesqueries of us all.
Tiny sacs of water,
flesh that holds itself together
withering with each year.
Skin bunching, and freckling,
time takes each smile
exchanging grins for winces.
Tumors bulge,
while the memory
of each loved one lost
recedes into an amorphous fog.
Hair bleaches itself,
slowly greying then whitening
as it thins.
Mobility becomes restricted
by pain, and exhaustion.
Labored breaths resist
Death’s inevitable kiss of black bliss.
Until, even loved ones cringe,
trying to touch,
but shivering too much
with a tinge of
fear and a slight vibration of disgust.
A single loved one down,
we know the score
and as we watch several more fall,
most of us
march on oblivious
to the fact
that these grotesqueries
will soon be us.

Make it quick.
You are already
killing me slowly
dragging me
through the snowy
thorn covered field,
making my flesh bruise
changing it from pink
to blackish blues
as you spread the abuse.

Just make it fast.
slip the blade past
my ribs and up into
the heart you broke
as you choked
the land I loved
as you grabbed
children by the throat,
while you demonized them
with shaded lies.

Your corruption is poison
and I am tired
of writing the same poem,
so just **** me now.

He wants peace and tranquility,
but without rage he has no vitality,
there is no reason for him to keep moving,
if he isn’t struggling against the fear of losing.

There is death here.
The ground bleeds
slowly through
shallow holes
letting small flowers grow
faintly smelling
somewhere between
perfume and decay.

No one stirs to
wipe this dark stain away.
Dirt and stone mark the space
pointing to the place
were all journeys end.

Soft becomes rigid.
The earth dries
slower than
rigamortis sets in,

But I hope they feed me
to the fishes and wolves
leaving the rest of me
to the rest under a tall tree.

There are no stricter terms
of life’s laws led by the infirm
then what fools feel they earned.

Taking in turn while good men burn
entitled ****** pick through
the littered landscapes
of those who time has made cruel.
Till, all tools are made fools
and the vain fall to the valiant and wise
and the greedy tumble before the well advised.

Those humbled by truth and knowledge
knowing when to take advice
and when they should rise
above the follies of the unimaginative masses.

I'm starting to think that in a world were people can be convinced to do things that are not in their interest the guy trying to look out for them is going to suffer more then they are.

I cut my loss.
I ran away.
Told the world
I cannot stay,
but the truth is
I’m not that strong.
Give me a minute
and I’ll be gone.

An undercurrent,
A buzzing pain,
I hid it so well,
till, I could not recall
that inside myself
was a reservoir of grief.
Which is why I drown
when I go down deep.

I close my eyes
and each loved one is there
each family member or friend
that has died
and those who just
disappeared.
I retrace my step
to see them all again
but I cannot get back
to what we were then.

You see me in my words
please remember me well.
See me in the past,
because now I’m not here.
I am so sorry
that I had to go.
I hope you know
I love you all.

Fare thee well.
Goodbye my friends
For you life may be good,
but for me it’s the end.

The trees pirouette past me
as I drive fastly,
outpacing other drivers racing
against the resignation
that this human nation
will not change
despite all that we are facing.

Time’s eternal tide
brings pressure from all sides.

Still, I go on contemplating
losses that are devastating.
Shouldn’t broken bodies bombed out
cause a pause or at least minor doubts,
but it's like their lives don't matter,
like these children aren’t even collateral.

In that realization I succumb
to a dark cavern where a
mad Minotaur makes a cold
depressing labyrinth that shakes souls.

Language is the only way
I can take control
of this stark pain,
as I use metaphors
to explain and distract me
from what is exactly
happening,

but pretty words are like
flowers scattered on
a festering wound.
The rot goes on
and all too soon
this buffoon
will fail and fall.


-2021

He will suckle
and spit
drinking blood
from your ****.

He will spread your legs
and leave
an unprotected present
deposited
past your ****
once he climaxes.

He will claim your womanhood
and demand that you submit
to his weakness,
calling his faults
dominance and confidence.

He will prey upon
ancient insecurities,
that subconscious programming
because you do not know
your own binary coding.

He will trick you into
drinking your resistance away,
plant his pin *****
in your fertile crescent,
and if you try to erase
that lifelong mistake
he will claim
that you are a sinner.

Subdued you will
sublimate your will
and fulfill
fifties sitcoms
housewife fantasies
for a family,
sacrificing all your dream
for the man who schemes
to enslave you.

I have retracted
my high esteem,
and redacted
the way that you acted
from my memory files.
Now you are just
a bad dream.

There is no way
to unmake hate.
You will not
manipulate
me again.

I’d rather be
in a stampede
of caribou
than have to
go through
the **** you do
one more time.

I’m not coming back
for a round two
to watch a rerun
of what I know
you will do.

This is my hour
of deliverance.
I’ll forgo
giving you all of
my grievances;

Cause I am leaving
this very instance.

Let me be clear
I don’t want to be here.
in this month or year.

******* Valentine’s day.