isolated
i am an island unto myself
freely floating in
a sea of my own self doubt.
i drift along the
water's rim,
stuck between the very high
and the impossibly deep.
tides roll in
casting about the shards of sand
like die in a lucky game.
they scatter about
my forgettable face,
isolated inputs
on an ignored mind.

Sitting all alone
at a table meant for six
I think of molecules
I think of chemical bonds
I think of the vastness of space.
I feel every atom in my body
spread out to cover
the empty table
the empty chair
the stillness and emptiness
of the trembling air.
A dull and lifeless chatter
vibrates all around
pulls me into a runaway rocking
like an ocean made of sound.
Most are unaware of
the fragility of the Universe
most cannot feel the
cosmos pull apart.
I grow anxious as the seats stay empty;
despite all my thinking
all my spreading
I still seem to sit alone.

Spheres floating in the chilly dark,
white and fluffy,
vain and uncorrupted.
They act as the air
being both here and never
there;
they act as the heavens,
little shining points floating
in a sea of black.
Islands so pure
floating in a nightmare sea--
how I abhorr their isolation,
their pure and careless
floating
though I, too, am alone.
Adrift in a sea of
introspective mutterings and
the utterings of a mind entrapped,
I sail the dark and simpering seas
of the Universe.
My vessel is a snowflake,
a crystalline craft carrying me
through the synapses and
nervous connections
of the thinking brain.
How infinite is the mind,
how wondrous is the world,
an immensity unto itself and
yet so tiny and contained.
I have never seen the ruins of China,
the fallen columns of the Romans nor
the ancient halls of the Al-Hambra.
I shall never see the samurai in bloom,
arranging flowers and painting
pictures of naked women
haunting their snowflake mind.
I shall never construct the
anonymous clockwork of Archimedes
but rather be trapped in the mechanisms
of the modern machine.
Adrift,
my confusion,
my blind anger and hatred of fate and
the gravity that pulls the snowflake ever closer to the ground
is pure vanity and self illusion.
Do the archways of Troy or
the mathematics of India
make us any larger in size
when compared to the Universe?
How can a snowflake
measure infinity?
What Universes exist
within the frozen ice of a snowflake,
what wars and great romances have played out
within the crystals;
what gods have been erected,
what nations have coalesced from the ashes
within the molecules and atoms
crafted by the cold
and the senseless flow of water?
The myriad explorers,
philosophers,
inventors,
geniuses lost to the ages
have mapped out the physical
while still being blind to the
finite world around them.
They sailed the Universe's
inky oceans of unknown,
their mind's sails billowing white,
puffy and hopeful
as they drifted off the edge of the known.
How they wriggled and rolled
so miraculously through the dark,
snowflakes floating carelessly
creating the world out of necessity
and pure ingenuity.
What white specters might exist
in the libraries of old,
in the halls of Alexandria or
the melting *** of Baghdad?
Do they wish to leave me a message,
the snow that saunters down,
to build a city in my mind
and a home in my soul.
What thoughts were caught
by the ancient genius
floating carelessly
like snow falling
in the anonymous black
of night?
Like islands they stood
for the men sailing the unknown waters
to rest and read and
contemplate
for just a few moments longer.
Swallowed by the darkness,
layered on the ground,
the knowledge is lost
among the infinitely white expanse
and the all-consuming darkness
of the night.
I am lost
like a snowflake falling too fast
I am buried beneath
layers of snow.

passages and pathways proliferate the minds
of young men and women wondering too big.
it is strange how there are hidden rooms within the fabric of a brain,
how the web weaves itself wondrously among all the fibers and frequencies
of thought.
though subtle might the message be,
brave in thought and clear in word,
harder it might be to see
with vision that always blurs.
it is certainly strange how
the brain builds itself over time
and becomes the face and
the object pantomimed.
act well,
act loudly,
act brilliantly brash,
even though we all will perish
and we all will turn to
ash.
it is just so very strange how
some words are far too similar
even though the meaning may not be so.
and I wonder how it is to wander
in the wonderings of a wandering mind;
we are wondering far too big
for such small,
squishy minds.
don't be frightened, but,
we might be out of time.

I stitch myself into your solar plexus,
red stringed within the
overlapping archways and
runaway buttresses of the body.
It runs white and gray
along the plain of the corporeal,
spires and towers reaching out to form
the webbing of white.
Wandering through the ruins
of the body collapsed,
could you hold me down and
could I make it last?
As a speck I pass
beneath the gates
of aggressive,
bony spears--
fangs ready for the ****.
The teeth frame the horror
that hearts often belie,
the nervous flutterings and out of chest poundings
that grab the floor out from under you and
plummet you into a beatless abyss.
The heart is a special kind of stomach,
a power plant ready for digestion
of rolled eyes and recycled emotions
to power the city of the body
and the spires of the soul.
If we carved into that untouched ivory,
that still-hidden treasure
that cowers beneath the flesh
would it be as satisfying
to sew myself to you
and create one of two?
A frosted, glassy figure
encased in a glassy shell,
suspended in its prison,
its home,
its island and
its Hell.
Are they questions only when
pronounced without the period?
Its the subtlety of language
that always tricks me up.
It always starts with
hurried statements and
broken glances
but ends up being
up to chances.
How well do we stack up
when there were never any odds to pile?

and were the ears so pleased when:

the iciclic needles dug into our skins,
fleshy cloths that, sewn together,
made the mask to hide the whole.
we wore them like the cheapest of trophies,
the basest of glories and the simplest of stories.
we wore them to contrast to the whiteness of space,
the empty black white gray of life's living littleness
with the reddened hardwork of claymade shells.
they glowed with the rusty red of millions of faces
free to make their mark as they see best fit.
we had found these skins
forgotten on the floor,
and so we picked them up
with our biglittle hands
and opened the door
to newmade makings and
brand new beings.
it was empty within us--
the beings of old
and the yearnings of yore
had retreated far beneath the surface,
burrowed deep below mountains and meadows and
hills pushed up like sand in a box,
crushed against the sides of our enclosure.
it was silent within us--
the screech-making moon
sang in time to chest-beatings
and the barking of stray dogs;

the melody of moments lost in time.

the rain beat down
each drop a tiny life
falling
falling
forever falling
down to the mortals and the
surface below
plopped and dropped and plinked
out of existence
to become the moisture
the nip and
the annoyance
on our faces.
how we take their lives for granted
how we ignore their cries for help;
were it you that was falling
so freakishly fast
from the furrowed clouds and
the oceans' past
would you dare to wipe
that wetness away
or would you let it sit
and let it
stay?