how could You know
as You are walking down the sidewalk
           around a corner       wherever You want
that the world is not assembling itself
atom by sticky atom
from the blueprints
piled in piles (like so many piles of newspaper)
in (the rooms in) the back rooms of Your mind
particles rushing and streaming, fluttering
together with the ebb of Your consciousness?
-
the World blurs fuzzily into shape
before snapping
(snappily)
into focus

just as You enter the room
blending pixilated reality smoothly
into an orchestrated Existence
-
the next time You      reach
for the doorknob on
the door to
the waiting room
-
give
pause
listen            
carefully
-
can’t You hear the anxious atoms
           scraping
sliding
           shoving past each other?
-
they                jockey
       jumping into
the eye of
       the image of
the woman on
       the screen of
the television in
       the corner of
the ceiling where
       it hangs
-
she wants to know
why we divide
Them              from Us
-
so clearly
so readily
-
she wants to know
why our countries
are bordered
-
by an indifference to equality
by a contempt for disillusionment
-
A dispute broke out between two
atoms on the table this morning;
a tiny china teapot was broken.
-
how would You know?
people are no more
then elaborate pieces of Your own mind
now once You hang up the phone
e v a p o r a t e d  
                        into no more than
                                           an afterthought
                                                    ­     of empty space
                                                           ­         -
                                             the smell of burnt matches
                             -                                      -
                You think that
everything You imagine is beautiful
                    even death
                             -
               but in an ugly way
-                            -
the man on the
                                edge
of the third chair
from the door
has no face
(none of Them do)
all of Them don’t
(have faces)
-
until They speak or You look Them in the eye
-
until They do something       Wrong
which is why They look                  down
when They walk down the sidewalk
-
They are afraid
-
to live
  as a tree
    in the park
-
where a pillar of
angry
           energy
                       falling
failing
           the
                       pessimistic
sky
might strike
Them
(older than You
yet born
just this moment)
making the ground
around
Them steam
with the sweat
of a silent room
waiting
for the
            door to
                        swing open
                                      and tell
                                                   him
                             -               -
                she’s going to be all right
              it was close there for a while
                        but she’s strong
                      she pulled through
                                      -
                              in the end
-                                     -
the pressure
of the years
of the rings
(which promise to
grow tighter
as time leaves us)
is heated
squeezed
left sitting in
flesh
turned to char
ash and smoke gently
cradling a tiny newborn
diamond
-
perfect           (silence)
-
broken
down the middle-
                      aged
                             flawed
-                                -
You should be perfect by now
You should have a face by now
-
speak           look Yourself in the eye
-
see Your own          Face
stop looking                down
when You walk down the sidewalk
-
don’t be afraid
-
to live
  as a tree
    in the park
-          -
They say don’t talk             to strangers
and You’re a strange one            indeed
how can You see the glamour
where Others            cannot
see that laughing quietly to themselves
can (You) set the expressions on their faces
to joy
     to pain
           to fear
                to apathy
                     to peace?
                              -
              yeah, she likes him
                and she likes him
                        to know
               that she likes him
                              -
                      in the end
-                             -
she wants to know
why our countries
are bordered
-
to keep Them      out
and Us       in
-                                   -
           this is Mine                  and that is Yours
-                                   -
You see
what You want to see (without)
-
(knowing what You want)
the sticker
       on the bumper
              of the car
                     rolling past reads:
                           “jesus is coming,
                                  hide the ****”
-                                          -
in its green lettering
and its largely silent voice
-
if You listen             carefully
You can almost hear Them
-                  -
              giggling
                ­   -                       -
              please do not think about green elephants
-                                          -
(a student just snuck in
and sat down as
the professor was writing
on the board)
-                                       -
             please do not feed the green elephants
-                                       -
I
Myself
have a strong suspicion
that Your mind is
as You read this
(hidden in a carefully cupped notebook)
spilling
black ink particles into
existence
on the very next          page
-                              -
             ­       You write that
You imagine everything is beautiful
                    except for death
                                 -
                   it is an ugly thing
                                    -
               yet still the chisel gouges
                  -               -
  “i whistle a catcall
at my blushing bride”
      llac ot eltsihw i”
  “edis ym ot god ym
                  -        -
        through the crumbling protests
         of the reluctant stone
                               -    -
                     ­               each new line
                                    tampers with space
                                    holds suspect time
                                    postpones the end
                                    and evades death
-                                  -
You breathe
               You write
You sing
                You live
                       -
You casually craft causality
         -             -
         yet craft on
         surely You are not yet done
         You may never be
         at this rate but
         but
         STOP
-        -
the World reblurs then blows away
listen closely here I say
all things must come to end one day
-                                       -
You
Yourself

have tasted the                     hunger
                        of Greed
seen the                                 wealth
                       of Hatred
heard the                               stories
          ­             of Genocide
felt the                                    loss
                     ­  of War
and smelled the                    decay
                       of Truth
-                      -
                      this        ­     is Mine
                                 what’s Mine, is Yours...

Who’s to say what’s wrong today?
What may be strong in the face of the fray
on what day will we belong, on what day will we be okay

The Tickly Monster's coming
To tickle you off to bed
He'll tickle you on your tummy
He'll tickle you on your head
He'll tickle you on your tosies
He'll tickle you on your thumb
And when his tickling's finished
He'll say that its just begun

Please be careful with me, I feel like
a fragile soul. In reveries and new music, does
the feeling flow through me like an aching
of hands growing tired. If you lift me up I

could snap in your grasp. So please, be
careful with all you do to me. In your words I see what
I think comes from me. How can you make me

feel so untired of you?

Delicately, and then you leave and make me
think of that lightness, I feel like it is fragile as the
heart that beats inside right now. Leave me alone, with the
words I have to keep you in my mind

still. And as I sit, I become aware of my
toil and spinning, don’t know what it is that holds me
in your lingering. The promise you never told
me, I don’t understand; do you want to be

with me, here and reach into me blindly whilst
sitting next to me? As I sense my fragility and the life that
comes from me, feels cold and shaking. I wanted
something to be warmed with, but the soft light you

shone only gave me a frail picture
of it.

© 2004

I cannot stop you from loving me but I can start hating you. That would be my last act between us, with all your voice can do to me. When mine grows hard and nothing remains other than kind cruel empty. Then I would fling myself off the edge.
I wonder sometimes what it is like to start all over again, there is little to burn before I could do it. Take that risk. Go somewhere else with no one for a family or close in heart. How quickly I would find that prolific beauty that is stranger than its own kind. - There is this obsession with kindness and the word kind, I see. - But what of that place if it were not there, nothing inside tying its meaning to material existence? Even to all the people I know my kindness grows small and I snap off anything that could take any of me with them. Steal my heart, take my love, in kind, for granted. To use it for selfish grand or minor schemes. I cannot allow. I cannot let it. I will not.

Sometimes I smile and there is laughter, I soften to a response. All that was made before is still there, before anyone knew me, and stole those bits I could have kept. I shield myself, protection in hindsight. Is it still necessary?
There are those whom I love and they are far away. Where, when they are close by or shadows across misty seas of distance. This might eventually give me shelter. Possibly.

So now I make myself to hate you. Out of protection for my soul. But I feel cold. The flame is all I have to keep me warm. So I ignite inside with fierceness. I cannot be held in, this need for freedom is stronger than anything. If to feel this faith of an illusion is to be caged within myself again.
How would it feel to know it the right way? There is still the empty, the vast and vacuumed void to deal with. I ask God if I should dive into her and discover my true core. Acid stripped, bare and bleeding out. All that is left is what existed outside of my idea of you and all those whom I liked to be like you. Objects of some kind of figmented affection: clinging on and sticky with the tears for replacement of what I once had called love. Then I would walk the long road to healing again.

So, now I hate your voice and the memory of your broken English accent. All the ones who had come before and after you. They get not the reverence I give to you. Those clear brown eyes that turned out to not care enough, to save us. Or was it me that made it so, after our forced end? Only once, you showed the daring to break from my spell. Through redacted words though, not the voice that had given a haunted home to my thoughts. But they held no defence to my pleas of anguished honesty.

Once, I will be through with you. I will have learned not to hate despite your love. That one thing which makes me feel still so course. Your silence will have sanctioned my forgiveness and argued the release of my heart. Perhaps, I could cry with someone again.

© December 31st 2012