I'm tired of being told what to believe in, and what matters in life. Constant bombardment of stimuli, telling me what makes an artist, what good art is, who to elect, what to wear, what cause to take up. I already have my 20/20 vision, had it checked, verified, took it beyond the threshold and came back sans t-shirt. I don't need someone giving me the play by play 24/7 when I can already see this world, unfiltered and pure as it is.  I could mystify this sentiment further by adding in abstractions and platitudes signifying nothing, but I don't feel the need for my catharsis to waste anyone's time. You don't need me giving you advice anymore than I need advice or commentary.  I don't need backseat drivers or neologistic buzzwords and fortune cookie wisdom shoved down my throat to taste comprehension.  I know what I want. I'm not ashamed of that.  I grew up knowing only self doubt, and it would appear the Millennial M.O. is to float through life praising the "art" of self doubt. As if it is something worthy of praise to be crushed externally and internally, instead of working towards bolstering from within.  With the chaos of the modern era, systemic inequity, and politics as a fashion statement, I keep my inclinations for the most part buried until my voice reaches beyond masturbatory passive aggressive self aggrandizement.  It is hip to give a ****. But that's the problem.  Giving a **** has been reduced to a fashion statement, it's how we decide who we let in, who we talk to, who we ****, who we praise. If you keep up the right front you can make superficial fair-weather friends do for you.  Therein lies an acquiescence to societal woes and whims that counter-cultural kids always know exists in the back of their minds with a beleaguered smirk and a reminder to themselves that they're really just playing the part as they clock in to their jobs and message their friends about anarchy.  It's all a big game, depending on who you are determining what kind of game it is. Some people play the lottery and leave their existence up to chance because it's all they know.  Some people play a mean game of poker and act like they've got enough ability to bluff their way through this knowing they've got nothing stacked.   My game is chess.  I don't tell anyone what moves I'm planning, but I'm five moves ahead and I'm aiming to topple ****. I have to, it's the only thing that drives me, keeps me motivated. Self doubt is praised as a tool to spur on growth.  I don't need to doubt myself in order to grow, I have had enough people doing that for me.  Until I reach a precipice, until I have unmade myself and pushed beyond what anyone, (myself included) deems me capable of, I am an unreliable narrator, and my voice will carry no weight.

Stone faced destruction, a craft in a void

What does it matter if it can never be created or destroyed?

Event horizon guide me, living got you annoyed?

Like an atom we split, and through the dirt that we sift

Seeds of conditional omission baring down for the drift

Intentions spread on the wind, now bereft of the wit

Scattershot the lot and hold me down with the gift

If I'm breathing you'll see me believing in my condition

No bereaving is needed when I have made my decision

It's not a death of the ego; why it's a call to confirm it

Leave your name at the tone, and I will prove I deserve it

Message, misinterpreted, deterred but I'm building

I hit the chisel to my brain, I carved the marker I'm gilding

I knew that no seed would grow until the weeds had been slain

Now every moment I'm living converting power from pain

As I can offer no service, until I have made myself work

So I have left from the room, where all the chatter continues

to plant myself in the dirt, so I replenish my sinews

Confusing my silence for inaction on a whim could prove deadly

I'm stacking my arsenal, stick around for the medley.

With a whirlpool of intentions and a focus greatly skewed

My declaration of disdain with my voice has this imbued:

Having ****** into the chaos of a modern need for thriving

With a trust that all my actions give me credit for surviving

Don't ask me for my progress, as I doubt you want to hear it

You've picked out your priority, yet contention makes you fear it

Bursted bubbles of illusion gave you free fall to the curse

of scatter plots for your design as you could only make it worse

Pick apart and yes unravel every thought you've come across

Shifted eyes upon the prize has darted off and at a loss

Identity has forced my hand to cry out for the masses

But contrivances you understand are killing off our chances

Everyone is sure and no one seems to quite grasp the fact

That catharsis marks a farce as art and we're all caught up in the act

Set the stage, turn the page, start from the top, we know it's crucial

Knowing meaning is a feeling, but the feeling it seems is mutual

Shouts out to the post modern ironic twisted ***** of confusion making sense of a chaotic existence

Shouts out the the same folks for laughing at their own struggle

Shouts out to the bleeding hearts

Shouts out to the dried up stones

Shouts out to the snarky *** momentary breaks from the void that they carry alone

Shouts out to the religious castaways, to the tradition breakers

Shouts out to the tradition keepers, and the self evaluators

Shouts out to the pathfinders and the trailblazers

Shouts out to the lack of motivation and the desire to be admired

Shouts out to mania driven fervor satiated not even by approval

Shouts out to calculated efforts and spontaneity as a ruse

Shouts out to reused tropes and cliches strung together again and again in different orders

Shouts out to all living as peninsulas, carving themselves off as islands.

You want true expression, and true honesty

Or so you claim

You don't want the heat that comes with a call for the flame

You don't want to be enveloped in the purity of anyone

I hear you ask for honesty, and I know you don't want it

You want facsimiles, you want approximations, but truth is not for you

We have ego strokes, crutches, blinders, confused priorities

We have people set in their ways, and idealists lacking perspective

I want truth, I want life to blossom unfiltered, raw, and untouched

But if we can't even agree on medicines for diseases

If we can't even agree on who to let live

who to nurture

what to be upset about

Who to feed

When the answers are clearly spelled out

How do you expect me to feel like you even want truth?

(Verse 1)

Still frames enclosing every motion for the long run

Rough pages: unsure if you'll see me on the last one

At this stage, I'm holding out for roles that fit my marker

In this age, I'm shining on, tones all around grow darker

(Prechorus)

Lights! Camera! Action! Let's roll!

Into the Unknown we will go!

(Chorus)

I hope it falls in line with all of my timing:

Cue Sequence, set the credits on a roll.

I'm magnified but living as a symptom of Social Control.

Breathe it in, it's only beginning, the showcase still unfolding.

Breathe it out your doubt, though it's rough keep going...

Verse 2

Set change, impulses that I knew I couldn't run from

Rough takes, I'm choosing which I'll keep until the last run

With this scene, I'm proving to myself that it's all worth it

With this dream, I'm finding out my theme is how I earn it

(Prechorus)

Lights! Camera! Action! Let's roll!

Into the Unknown we will go!

(Chorus)

I hope it falls in line with all of my timing:

Cue Sequence, set the credits on a roll.

I'm magnified but living as a symptom of Social Control.

Breathe it in, it's only beginning, the showcase still unfolding.

Breathe it out your doubt, though it's rough keep going...

Ebola Sars and ***, sounds like a big deal to me

Isis recruits Australians, Russia bombs Ukrainians

Economic bubble crash is starting to give me a rash

Tumblr just gets really mad when you say a word they think is bad

Hyper fervent slactivism causing me a social schism

Picking up the pieces of a shattered governmental system

Cliches of a topic piled up into a rhyming pattern

Pundits pumping such hot air they might as well just move to Saturn

Tumblr just gets really mad when you say a word they think is bad

Post Modern kids all broke it down as something they could
deconstruct

Idealists will polish turds, while cynics just don't give a ****

Focus on your social status, eating healthy, getting hotter

Better drink my own ****, cause we're quickly running out of water

Tumblr just gets really mad when you say a word they think is bad

When you asked me to prove if you're safe with me:

You're asking me to be the airplane and the parachute, as well as your jump partner

You're asking me to dive down and explore your depths while I'm covered in waste and hoping I don't mess up the place

You're asking me to drive through lightning storms to Reno and be assured neither of us will lose on the poker table waiting at the end of the overpass


You're asking me to hold you so close the pressure cauterizes open wounds where our hearts keep falling out, and hoping I won't stain your clothes

You're asking a controlled fire not to burn too hot for fear of hurting your eyes

You're asking for poison and antidote to mix without either being diluted.

I'm going to need your help.

Self Righteous indignation, separation, and a flare for othering

the man who strove to bridge the gap between himself and the world

made himself an island to be safe from the chaotic trade winds

Here, he felt, hell, he felt stronger than he was accustomed to

but this only tempered his approach

kept his destructive tendencies at bay

and filled his time

His ennui and his thirst for consequence

His self deprecation, his lust for power, his empathy unbidden

He knew of his own privilege, he knew other's pain was greater than his

He knew other's success, and had tasted glory in doses unsatisfying

He was meant to be satisfied with stagnation

and was tailored to disapprove of the play by play

but was forced to place bets on the rat race

and to have his mind occupied by symbolism

while he realized the cross was only two lines placed adjacently

He was forced to explain to his lover, what love means, and how to believe

What it meant, how it was, and why it was held in such high regard

He comforted an ailing cherub, watered her roots with his own excretions

For in appeasing her, he cut into himself

All he wanted was to be big enough, to cut himself down enough

that when he gave of himself, he could give what would have been his all

while still holding on to what could be all he was.

Stop (STOP)

and let your head talk

All I see is blocked

By the strictures and pictures of myself

(All is clear

Have no fear

Own Your Mind

Just this time)

(Oh) If it's a question of a doubt

There ain't a shadow thereabout

Fear is a Silhouette I found

Always behind me (Oh)

In My View Is All I Knew to Look For

Ascension trumps Deception

See the whole score

Dropped (Off) from the post hoc

All I need is bound

By the strictures, and pictures of myself


Drop off from the post hoc

Stop stop, let your head talk

No blocks, of this I sought

One shot, and eyes on the clock (We go)

Drop off from the post hoc

Stop stop, let your head talk

No blocks, of this I sought

One shot, and eyes on the clock

(Oh) If it's a question of a doubt

There ain't a shadow thereabout

Fear is a Silhouette I found

Always behind me (Oh)

In My View Is All I Knew to Look For

Ascension trumps Deception

See the whole score

Own Your Mind

Just this time.

You will not change the flow of the mainstream

By building an unconnected lake

You can build the deepest pool in existence

But if the fish don't have a way in

Have fun peeing in your own bath.

People wait for thunderstorms (zap) to power their plant

Thunder storm chasers racing on a quest to get smacked

Ungrounded, the foundation wasn't built for this weather

Given into the gust (gust) and hope and pray that the tethers

Can hold taut when the storm front is rearing toward the condition

of needing power inherent, expose your mind to the issue

Build up my wall, and give me another burst to ignore it

Give me a drink, give me a smoke, maybe some tv before it

gives me a migraine, take two of these it'll mask pain

take a few more it'll mask everything that's on your brain

While the defiant are lined protesting calamity striking

and others lay dormant forming only rolling frequency finding

on the dot, off two clicks, give it a shift, check the sell by date

old ****, new ****, enlightening don't discriminate

I've got a well I need to draw from, but there's nothing in there

I am told God will fill the well

I am told my government will

I am told hobbies will fill it

"Fill the well with your passions

and draw from those

Be mindful, prepare for the coming rain

Do good deeds"

I am told the well is too much to understand

My perspective on it too limited

I am told all of these things

and none of it changes the fact that there is nothing in that **** well.

If you're waiting for the meaning of life to hit you

like a bolt of lightning out of the sky

you're better off starting your own power plant.

What's the meaning of the carrot in your fridge?

Why doesn't anyone ask that?

What is the meaning of a 130 billion dollar deficit?

How do we still have rich people when we're in a deficit?

Life is a stretch of time that we can experience

Time is money

therefore life is money

Money has no real value other than what we ascribe to it

The reason "in god we trust" wasn't taken off the bill

Is because money doesn't exist without faith

So keep your receipts folks, especially all the deconstructionists

the anarchists

the cynics

the greasy ***** and the self aggrandized miscreants

I love you confused ******* people

She left me

It hurt

Ow my heart

I will get better

I will survive

Love is pain

Ow

Our love was like a kite string

I couldn't hold on for too long

the wind was really strong

whoa watch out for that wind

****, it's like a hurricane out in this ****

Wow, I'm very heartfelt

Hopefully someone sleeps with me after I read this at the slam

I

am

not afraid

of birth

People seem to fear

losing this chaotic

fight to the world

I see no fear in the newborn

I see screams owing nothing

I see a cry out to declare

"Yes I am alive, I exist"

and calm settles in after life's first breath

I

am

not afraid

of middle age

the ego death

the rending of the self

and the questions bombarded asking me

"is any of this all worth it?"

As I see many people on the path

of anxiety

I can't help but wonder

how one can fear death

if they worry so much about life being worth it

One doesn't worry about being robbed of

an empty bank account

They seek instead to fill it

to save

to leave something behind for loved ones

When I was a boy I fell out the pocket

I fell out the pocket

I dropped down

Left instead to the beats in my head

Which called me ahead to a timeline

Where I prettied up the ambience to the end rhyme

Given a first rate view into the sounds; I drew

Wrote and only knew how I could combine

intertwine and multitudinous vines

of personalized style defined

into my lockstep, rock depth

So do I search for meaning in a land of intrigue

Do I look for a song in the silence, in the air that I breathe?

Or given the choice do I add to the mix?

Given the choice now do I voice that I can add to this rift?

Break open the barricades and give a name to this shift?

Give it a flow, give it a flare, give a decision, commit

Bring it in low, give it a lift, give it a rhythm to drift

Don't give into shiftless insistency, sometimes cadence begs immediacy

Give it a rest, give it a pause, know that some of it hurts

But give it the Barricadence, I think you'll find that it works

I'm not afraid of being called egotistical

For having convictions, for feeling like I matter

But not in that "it matters inside"

Like I'm some hipster flavor of the month

Because if Kim Kardashian is relevant I'm ******* relevant

Tell me what sandwich Kanye ate after he wiped his *** today

Tell me how One Direction smoked ***, and wrote a good song finally

Tell me how Arcade Fire thinks electronic music is lesser when they

Record their tracks using a DAW

Tell me how you think Jimmy Page was a sloppy guitarist and then show

me your discography, I probably don't like it as much

Tell me I'm wasting my time, and then go clock back in at work

I'll do the same

Because if Kim Kardashian is relevant I'm ******* relevant

Tell me writing is a subjective craft

Tell me my writing *****

Tell me I'm not touching on any real points

Tell me I'm being too specific

Tell me I don't express myself enough

Tell me to shut the **** up

Tell me I'm a voice for the people

Tell me I should calm down

Tell me to keep writing and working with no recognition

Because if Kim Kardashian is relevant I'm ******* relevant.

Tell me to ignore those facts and keep going anyway

Cause I'll do it, and I'll write this ******* poem about it

I think what really kills me

is to see a guy pour out his guts

about how hard his life is

how committed to the struggle he is

and how much conviction he has

(with his daddy's trust fund)

I could really learn to get behind his success

if I just ignored that he's a rich man's son

I grew up poor, I grew up brown

so I'm Mr "What a big ******" when my thoughts came out

about how I have hopes for a brighter tomorrow

or that life's too short, we're on a track that we borrow

So now I hear succinctly that there's guys who say distinctly

How they're fed up with the system and they hate the gender binary

They're enlightened, in the know, and they're really having fun

Because this **** is easy when you're a rich man's son.

Oh, so I grew up in a small town

A suburban uncultured brown, public school GPA high

That's nice, I like how they let things slide for you guys

getting high, dealing dope, chilling with weirdos

and not the weirdos you know, the kind with emotional, physical, and ****** hangups

and not "wee we're so ******* different"

Because we never got praise, we only worked with a backdrop

Hoping maybe someday we'd get the key to the padlock

But it doesn't matter you say, there ain't a place left to run

Because it's easy not to care when you're a rich man's son

It's always the ones with power, the one's who hold royal flushes

Who say "money can't help you, I feel so out of touch with"

all the nature that I have the money to afford to go visit on a whim

Because the world is an oyster that I have yet to sink in

While I'm hoping for you, you get the point when it's done

That not everyone gets the chance to emote like the rich man's son

I built my kingdom from my grit; I'm not a rich man's son

I learned that no one gives a ****; I'm not a rich man's son

I've no promo but my mouth; I'm not a rich man's son

I've got the battle on my back, I'll be a rich man, son

I've formulated my attack, I'll be a rich man, son

I got my loving back on track, I'll be a rich man, son

If I want to stay intact, I'll be a rich man, son.

Your father loves you boy, so you're a rich man's son

Don't care if I can't have the toys, cause I'm a rich man's son

My father loves me to the death, so I'm a rich man's son

"Dad life is pretty hard, don't think I'm having fun"

"Jake, you've got to make yourself, I don't care what the other kids have done"

"If you can only do one thing, and yes I only ask one"

*"Be the best at that, there's ever been, will you do that son?"

I get accused of a lot of things at first glance

"You're simplistic, you're hiding something

You have no convictions, you don't think deeply"

Usually by those who I consider to be on intellectual crutches

If you're gonna come up to talk to me from a religious context

from a spiritual context

from a hierarchical, metaphysical, eat this **** popsicle mindset

Don't expect me to swallow

Don't expect me to talk

You won't like what I have to say

Because really you just want me to agree with you

If you want me to respect your framework

When you have nothing but the claims of quacks

and the feelings you gleaned from your last psychedelic trip

to back you up

While I have to sit back and listen to how I'm close minded

Close minded for wanting some real truth in this universe

unfiltered, raw, verifiable, and in my hand

and that anything other than that is a spray paint over

my true awakening

Then I guess I'll just have to be that *******

to die for these intellectual sins

The Eldest Son of Matt, hater of pretense

Hypocrite to the highest level

Build me up into a figure of idolatry

Just like you do with the rest of your ego cases

Priests, Gurus, Rabbis, Rockstars, Poet sensations

Tell me how wonderful it is to listen to them

Tell me how I should be more in touch with a tree

Tell me how I don't dream

When all my life is but that

Tell me how I'm not deep when you make no attempt to learn

Who I am, and where I have come from

Misinterpret my teachings, and claim me to feel

As if I was the newest son of god

When all I want is for people to get beyond blinders

and love each other, and to get beyond the metaphysical rat race

Tell me that I'm supposed to live and let live

While you jam your beliefs down my throat

and expect me to respect getting philosophically tea bagged

******* to the crucifix

and asking me to repent for my search for truth

Yes I saw the truth in the hillside freeway

In the grilled cheese sandwich

for sale on Ebay

With tortillas and butter they called me a ******

Because I saw the truth in the eyes of another

Who decided to feed me a line of such rapture

That captured my stature of pragmatic backed banter

Gathered the trappings disbanded, I could map out the standard

Wanting the pattern, the vibrancy frequented

Masking the latency, the reader obsequious

Addressing the nuance, ignoring complacency

Significance amplified, convinced of this elevated

Power to axiom, entropy celebrated

Wax to a fault with a message converted

While the layers of encryption serve to hold this position

A raw disposition, hoping to see beyond this decision

I can't see beyond the scope of the eye with conviction.

Verse 1

Formless, Unyielding, I cling to this feeling

"Contain yourself" they said (well I think I won't!)

Know this, discerning, submit to this yearning

Cause when it ties me down I (slip right through the rope!)

Arcane Prisons cloud these visions

Pressured by my inhibitions

Only when I see through the mist

Will I have the means to prove this

Chorus

(Give up it's so absurd!)

In time you'll find, I have the final word!

(Give up it's all a dream!)

Or so it seems when all of your thoughts are blurred

(Step up if you deserve)

In time you'll find, I have the final word

(Step up, it's all a dream)

Or so it seemed, are all of your thoughts confirmed?

Verse 2

Shameless, revealing, the key to this feeling

Sustain yourself they said (and they think I won't!)

Know this, determined, submit to this burden

Cause when I hear that sound I (give in to the hope)

Arcane prisons cloud these visions

Tap these walls for breaks I listen

Only when I see through the mist

Will I have the means to do this

Bridge

(Patience is befitting of a master

Still life's short and we just want it faster)

Chorus 2x

2nd Bridge

Break my locks, unlock the breaks internal

Burn down the walls, from my prison infernal

One last knock in case there's any more doubt

I won't stop until my fire burns out!

Augmented Final Chorus

(Step up if you deserve)

In time you'll find, I have the final word

(Step up, it's all a dream)

Or so it seemed, are all of your thoughts confirmed?

(Give up it's all a dream!)

Or so it seems when all of your thoughts are blurred

(Give up it's so absurd!)

Today you'll find, I'm having the final word!

Oh, so you want to be a writer?

You've fashioned yourself a little world independent of the rat race

You've steeped yourself in craft, in how to spin a phrase

You know that you could "speak truth to power" for days and days and days

Oh so you want to be a writer?

Oh that's nice, are you aware that it's all been said before?

Oh not with you because you're different? Oh how could I ignore

With such a compelling argument from someone who I've never heard

You've really got me hooked on your every single word

So if I listen will you tell me how I can live my life

or maybe give me another parable to make this all more bearable

Make a mantra that is wearable, or something incomparable

Just like all the ones I've read in my studies

Oh someone liked it? Oh I suppose it's probably derivative

Because you're working with themes, freethinking probably prohibited

See I'm the guy who'd say you're unoriginal for painting with red

Because all things are stemmed from other things, I want all frameworks dead

Why is there structure? You're repeating words on the end rhyme

Let me guess, at the end there's gonna be some clever end rhyme

to keep your verbiage in time, to spicen up the headlines?

to give it another direction defending pretending to benefit people by lending a second inflection preemptively bending in time to the beats of the hearts of the blended?

You're clever, you rhymed something multisyllabic, electric your voice, saying "**** the volt I am magic" not grounded to reality you've claimed to be Zeus's mortal form inhabited

Simmer down baby you're on a roll with yourself

I wonder how long you think it'll be before you break the mold

of pretentious defenders of needs and false interpretations of dreams

You had a dream about music, well I guess we can see what that means

"To dream about Disco suggests you need to be more sociable"

Have you ever stopped to think it might just mean "where did the coke go?"

"To dream that you are in a musical suggest you need to be careful with your emotions"

Because musicals are for sissies, ya da ya da grab the lotion

Stroking myself is my greatest profession

Because I'm learning about me, yes I'm writing this for me, and the only voice that I can have is authentically my confession

I can sell you an image and hope you can relate to that

You'll interpret the meaning, and I'll hide behind the praise while I sit back

I'll let you watch shadow puppets while I'm doing my dancing

I can build up my world, I can hold you entranced in

I'm breaking too many fourth walls to have a building to glance in

I want to give some expression, I need to show you what I hid

*Oh yeah, that's nice, are you making any money at this yet kid?

There is no objective meaning to life

So how do you expect me to get down and deep

With limited eyes seeing blinders in the corner of my peripherals?

It's residual, I begged to shake these thoughts like snowflakes

in a crystal, they have scattered up and down til I can't

See the image plastered down the walls of my illusions

Confusion? If only that was true, I see more now than I see in you

How can I feel deep and meaningful when all of this contrived highlights

It's all just my brain bleeding, scattered my drip drops of rage

Do they flip flop? The page has hit lift off, I'm out of the realm

of what I knew to be self development hell compelling me

To scatter fragmants of wanton and wear

But see unless I point that out you'd never know it's there

Because I'm supposed to plaster on a smile and feed you lines

that you desire to add meaning to life, or add a voice down the wire

If I sit upon my laurels you'd think that I had nothing new to say or never

thought about abstractions til they bubble and boil to heady

broth overflowing staining the floors screaming "my god make this stop"

I don't wear my head upon my sleeve, I keep my helmet on

So go ahead and think I'm surface level, I also like to be wrong

Talk to your friends, I'm sure they're dark and mysterious

They have such strong perspectives, they're in touch with the furious

I need to voice at all times? Does my bark not befit you

I'm not a dog meant to bark at every meaning that drives through

I take no solace in wallowing in the depth of another

I don't expect you to read this and gain a sense of the other

I'm not writing to bring you a route down back to your soul

Because you're soulless and weary, I don't claim that I have control

We're spinning in the toilet in a chamber of meaning

Whose **** stinks more than others, why lets compare them and eat it

Consuming excretions is all you get from your dealings

Because nothing is deep, when the bottom is fleeting.

Another day, another act of chaos

I see it arise quite often now, a school shooting, a death in the family

I've learned not to be surprised by it

I see the reactions in the faces of loved ones; looks of confusion, of fear, mouthing "how could this happen, why?"

How are you surprised anymore?

I think of where they must be internally, grappling but submitting to a God who must think them servile, at least how they have crafted Him

Content in the answer "God works in mysterious ways"

It's easy to be mysterious when you're not even there

Like my biblical namesake, I have grappled with God internally, wrestled him to a standstill, and I cannot allow Him to supplant me

I know there is no great lesson to be learned from this, and maybe that's lesson enough for today class

If I claim to be an instructor, a teacher, a guiding light to those walking along a murky and narrow corridor

I must hold open a path toward light, and point out the missteps that must be taken to get through the threshold

I am not surprised by killings, by death, I have met him, and he has saved a seat for me, I have it ready in my hometown six feet underground

I meet up with him from time to time, he instills his presence by proving to me he has met with my loved ones, my associates, and shows to me

"I will have you soon enough"

Fortunately I procrastinate when it counts, and hustle where it doesn't.

To everyone who has met him, or has seen his works in the current chaos

I send love.

Have some **** humor
Art is a subjective craft
you ******* hipsters

(T)his

(P)oem

(F)orms

(O)riginal

(R)esponses

(M)eriting

(Y)ields
­
(B)arraged

(U)nendingly

(N)ovelty

(G)rants

(H)olier

(O)bfus­cation

(L)eeway

(E)ternally

I don't write poems because I'm worried you'll think they're "good"

I write poems because I can't do heart surgery

I write songs because I need my poems to sound a different way

Not because I'll get laid if I read this **** at a slam or after I play a set

If you're worried I'm just in this for the praise or the money, don't

I'd have it better as a doctor or a lawyer if that was my goal

I write because I have nothing else burning within me

Except for the occasional case of heartburn or lactic acid (I am human)

I can only observe and report, and augment, and adapt

In a world of chaos, in a world beyond qualification and adaptation

Where truth is a perspective and frameworks cage our knowledge

I can only assess outside of this cage,

I can only claim land in fallow soil, and attempt to quench myself with mirages of Oasis

I'm trying to drink from a dribble cup, my **** keeps spilling out

I love fiercely and speak brashly, I can't keep it contained

so tell me how full of **** I am, or tell me I'm convoluted

and I'll keep trying to quench my thirst in a dry spell

The desert will listen either way.

I get sick of cliches, I get sick of  the tropes

I get sick of affected twits and how love had them on the ropes

If I let myself breathe the same air as everyone else I'm gonna choke

I can't help but breathe her in and feel I've gone beyond the scope

Of my, simple visions of destroyed inhibitions

and I, can't help but get nervous how she changes up my focus

Can I, convey this handedly while knowing understandably

That I'm leaning on a danger to a core that I've exposed

We've leaned down for contact, she pushed me I push back

The pressure on our hearts has potential for explosion

The languish I had locked inside interior erosion

Implodes, he dotes of notes he'd wrote to quote a query quietly

Distrusting of emotions, just a quiver can inspire me

Fearing no enemy, fearing no evil entity

Fearing only connection and if I'm wasting my energy

Love brought me happiness but it stirred up the cobwebs

Little demons laying dormant til I explored them in every form

in every figure in every norm til they've distorted my performance

But as pandora's box was 1st class special ordered to my doorstep

I dove in straight for signs of hope, a passing look could soon afford this.

She voices her fears, connections lost by the distance

I'll bridge the gap to defend her, no need she says with persistence

She's scared of monotony, she gets scared of the tropes

She gets sick of affected twits and how they leave her with no hope

If she's forced to breathe the same as before she's gonna choke

I leaned in for contact, I push her, she pushed back

We're two shades of the same Wavelength

Our angles just refract.

Pressed into the issue is my neck into the block

They said "you'd lose your head if you 'unhinged' it" so they'd mock

I'm set to wreck defenses of the bets deception in the case of my detected

degradation in the path of my elation

waiting for annihilation is my sense of violation

I define the vices as a time to track, stack, and counteract my existential missile crisis

Dress this deflected duress invented by these compressions

and pulsing bloodlines distressed, with toxic vision's direction

Repeating the motions but coming short with the payoff

I'm stacking foundations, but the proof seems a way off

I've said to myself I've ordered glory by priority

If it's lost in the mail, good ******* luck with conformity

Candle ends burning and hold my crest til it's fallen

Burn the witch at the stake, cut my head at the block

I'm holding out for the truth, and keeping this as my rock

Your pilgrimage building, and running off with complacence

I'll make a Mission of me, my temple and my new nascence.

It's good to wake up again.

My slumber slunk in of its own accord,

my living realm a shutter of mismatched viewfinder promo pics

I can't switch the shutter fast enough to become animated

so it's good to wake up again

where I can keep the full frequency as it is

Give me analog, give me a thousand frames per second

Let me hold on to the whole memory from that lucidity

So it's good to wake up again

Where I can hover above myself and see what I'm up to

Follow myself down a supposed tangent

Only to see the roadmap written down on the backs of my eyelids

So it's good to wake up again

To remind myself the two realms are interchangeable

With pieces ripped from each other

So that my dreams are dotted along reality

So it's good to wake up again

I could give you an emotional catharsis cavorting a chorus between pleasure in my prose

and upheld distortions in the pain of the throws of each moment I've held up to my nose

to tell if I can still recall it fresh, the scent of the locker room ribbings and hometown chiding's

"This is who you must be"

Make you come to grips with the absurdity of having to compete for attention to voice in a craft that

is by all intents and purposes subjective

much as all success is subjective

much as all states of mind are subjective

much as I tried to deflect this disconnect, correlation not implying causation

Work not determining happiness

Pain not conducive to Catharsis.

Instead, let's make em all laugh

Because it's already stacked into a sick joke

Speaking truth to power self congratulators talk about field workers like a **** case study

A case study my grandparents walking with Cesar Chavez wrote pages for with their backs

I  don't want to hear more trustafarian folks tell me about the struggles of my people

No.

I want poor folks to tell me how full of **** I am

I want to shout out truth bombs to a crowd that doesn't want to hear it

I want be a contrarian to remind people that they're alive

I want to rap battle with the parishioner as he lays another childhood friend into the coffin

Car Crash, Car Crash, Leukemia, Car Crash, always take my golden ones, have another road rash
You gave me thoughts of god distraught I locked myself atop the lofts compelled to pressure, mom and pops have got the answer down on lock, I'll hail thee mary full of grace til I can't feel another trace, the news that I was read today was sad so I can pray the shame away, get *****, take the blame away, get *****, touch myself again to make me feel like I'm a man, but I don't know what that should mean; if I'm a man am I unclean? ***** Mexican poor boy, embrace that ****, and crack a smile.  Depression is a myth you see, and god is real so follow me. You have a healthy fear in you, and this is good for this is true, the fear of god, the fear of love, the fear of judgment from above, and fear to let yourself be heard, you couldn't say a single word, the fear of if she'd ever know, the fear to let your demons go, the fear of hope, the fear of help, I think you even fear yourself.

"Parce domine Parce Populo tuo, ne in aeternum irascaris no bis"

Oh lord please let me be misunderstood, please let my illumination and voice go beyond the choir

I don't need a bunch of yes men in my life

I don't need people who've never tasted death, tasted pills uncounted and unmarked

Never woken up groggy to the feeling of "thank you what forces may be, I am still alive"

I don't need to preach to the choir.

Humans are silly

Little blobs of ***** and eggs mix together to turn into little flabby flesh things that churn out a bunch of farts and yell about stuff

Those blobs of flesh things get told how to do stuff by the older flesh egg ***** things who are starting to go bad, so they compensate by laying down rules about how to be a flesh egg ***** thing

They make up different reasons for why they're all here swimming around bumping into each other and making noises that only their own groups of ***** egg meat people can understand, because that's what the older eggs taught them

They try to add some **** they call beauty to all of this by scribbling on stuff, or making noises they think sound good, or building stuff, and they think they're clever.

They'll tell you if it's not proper art it's not good art, but they'll also tell you art is subjective

They won't stop themselves and realize this whole omelette they're a part of is just being made up as they go

Sometimes, people are just Omelettes.

Emergent and forming I feel a storm is imploring that soon without any warning you beg to cross a line

Every time, nothing is sacred but sacramental complacence is marked as roles of the shameless

Mean to skip a line another time? Is this too rough and obtuse for a cutie like you to boost the power line?

Number 9, completion is power and stricken chords every hour proceed to timeline devour those daily entities

I do decree that opposition to me is free and withered beatings to meetings, detours and dealings

understanding demands of variable plans is held by the hand that feeds the depleted need

I see it from every angle, the tangle, the multishifted frame though it dangles, I can't be stuck in my own head when

I see the reflections of me in the treasure it jangles, brings into focus where my head fell to float in the

moments set to wrangle, pull it in, dwell upon the good and discard where it hampers new fangled notions like

truth effusions of love and devotion are swallowed up in the daily ocean of noise traffic, the more verbose,

Graphic dispatches matches blasted disasters dashed and rash past distractions amass magic attacks balanced

Secular motion entwined with metaphysical potions, divided what is your quotient? It doesn't add up in this

moment.

Interpersonal, intergalactic, universal assertions disturbed by verbage of outrance

Message mismanaged mischief mallaeble mayhem managed maganamously mallicous mannered when I

would proclaim them. Members materialized meriting masturbatory movements and monetized

malappropriation I have no patience nor pathos for indiscriminant egos demonstrating a tangent as canon and

paralyzing progressions toward psychic visions of heaven, eyes as the cosmos, and pressures upended.

I'll cope with associations disastrous and tainted, but keep in my visage all that scratches my lenses

I know far too much to be content with the situation, but far too little to shatter falsehood's intitiation

I know you're afraid
You know I used to be afraid
Is this something I fear? I'm afraid not
Take your fears, and please let them rest for the night

For me the fear was only ever from the unknown,
the unknowable, the untold

I don't fear anymore in that way, because of what I know now

Not afraid that you would know, not afraid what that would mean
Not afraid of where you'd go, not afraid of how it seems

I don't need reassurance, I don't need explanation
You don't need to affirm a thing, that goes beyond the situation

I'm not afraid to see you here, in this place where my fears had gone to taunt me
I know enough of the big picture now to not sweat the gaps
I'm not afraid of a disconnect, because what you taught me goes beyond that

I dispel my fears the more I know, and the more I need to know
I don't need to name every star in the sky at night to know it fills me with awe
much the way I don't need to have every question answered,
when you were the real answer to my questions

I'm not afraid to be that answer, to work for it, to be that impossible completion
I'm not afraid of the work, the confusion, the learned constraint

I don't fear anymore in that way, because of what I know now
Take your fears, and please let them rest for the night

Let's not be afraid to mock ourselves, and how much we were scared to admit what we knew
And if you're still scared, I'd like to be brave for us

I'm not afraid to just let it flow, to just let it go, and I won't be afraid to let you know

I don't need reassurance, I don't need explanation
you **** my fears and bring liberation

Take your fears, and let them rest for the night,
so I can see the cosmos of you, and know I'm filled with awe

Confide in me

the irony

of laughter as a crutch to keep

with self descriptive Bildungsroman

in view of Schadenfreude's Ad hominem

Mask the image, compensate, compensate

Power struggle, shift division, relegate, relegate

Egocentric discharges inhabited by identity crisis

Circumstantial Deus ex machina, plastered on by streams of vices

No wreck, no head on, but a path beset by tolls and diversions

Somehow I must find a way to make these scattered routes converge

Dead and othered language roams the fields of pomposity

More ironic self aggrandizement, an appropriation of ferocity

Paint them a picture in the mind's eye of your blurred forward vision

I want to see the target marked, but attention is a competition

I'm Viable, I'm Jovial, I have the means to take these chances

I'm lying now, it's one or the other, let's hope I make the right advances

I get tired of it

The guys who write "poems" just to try to pick up on women

Cliche ridden hunks of text depending upon abstractions to seem deep

Yes I know this work is subjective, yes I know I'm not one to judge

But I can smell the real thing brother, and it doesn't smell like you

You don't HAVE to do this ****, sitting up late juggling concepts too broad to pin down

You don't HAVE to sit down and pour it out before it erupts into a case of bad attitude.

You're far more interested in seeming deep, while the deep are far more interested in surviving

You want to front like you're a cool guy, like you've gotten in touch with all of the rally calls, and you're up on all the obscurities that anyone in the know should have a handle on

I don't give a **** what music you think is superior, or what author you feel your style most closely resembles, because you don't have a voice of your own

When you've got some **** to say, say it, own it, and put a real voice behind it, otherwise don't waste my time.

Let's start with Thoughts

Neurons spread chemical data building their connections
the more connections, the greater the power, the more transferred thought
All of these thoughts, as you read, as you hear, as you flow with the statement
An eye twitch, an inner dialogue, you build a connection
cell to cell, synapse to mishaps, the truly connected have built in their ties

Let's continue with People

People spread physical data building their connections
The more connections, the greater the power, the more transferred thought
All of these thoughts, as you read, as you hear, as you flow with the statement
**** you in, an outer visage, you build a connection
Makes you believe, the truly connected have built in their ties

Now let's break it down

People project the image of themselves they most desire to be seen to build their connections
The more connections, the greater the power, the more transferred thoughts
The way they project this establishes, if you'll flow with the statement
Either brings you in, or casts you out, whether you wish to build a connection
How you are perceived, is where the truly connected have built in their ties

Where Thoughts meet Clashes

How one wishes to be perceived is cut up in The Great Disconnect, the perceptual marker that negates the internal, where chemical processes wish to make their data a physical reality
"If I say my piece in this tone, with this voice, I can establish my connections"
The more connection, the greater the power, the more transferred thoughts
The Great Disconnect changes how you are perceived,
is where the truly connected have clung toward their ties.

Where Clashes meet Angst

When outside perception shifts beyond the control of the internal will,
the mind races to make its own reality another's reality
The stalled connections, the later the hour, the more scattered thought
as you search for a means to flow with the statement, when you are shut out of the loop
Grasping at straws to connect, the mind and the body flowing outward, where the once truly connected have let go of their ties

Where Angst goes to Deal

Once the connections have cut, the thoughts cease to stir chemical process,
the physical data keeps itself clean.
and all of these thoughts, as you read, as you feel, as you roll with the statement
an eye twitch, an inner dialogue, you cope with disconnection
Mishaps to synapse, privy to lies, the truly connected aren't bound by their ties.

It’s like passing a ******* kidney stone that doesn’t even exist, one that lingers and claws on your minds eye like a cyst upon creation

it’s a focus shift, a pool of indifference, a cry before an inner audience uninterested in the parchment, too jaded to focus and too faded to care

it’s an outside perspective on your own ******* process, “this guy’s mouthing off like he’s got something to say, who is this ******* and why should we care”

it’s when the ratio of happening to happenstance breaks the mold of your monotonous grind, when the words set to define the sounds of a generation fall into a digital pool of overpopulated subterfuge

It’s a deflated message and an idealist’s shift to anarchism,  too ******* at the cynics and too distraught to bother with a response

It’s like starting to *******,  giving yourself blue *****, and not calling yourself back for a second date

The cordoned enclosure saw room for exposure, for left was a gap in the gate

Climb too, or come through because you are just you, others will just have to wait

”Pass right along” they pulled from the throng, you’ve made it to pass, what’s wrong?

What’s wrong?"

Statistically I’m missing from the list if it’s your interest, I’m fit to pencil in a premonition’s false opinion


Prequisites parameters convincing your decision,  it’s easy to chew if you pursue, (yes I do, yes I do).

Does it matter if the gap between the passage and the trap was rapidly adapting to the path of least resistance?

(Knock it down)

The  fence was built for me, you can see, you can see, and I slipped through where the crow

bar cut the seam at your insistence.

(Knock it down)

Now you can pass for normal if we’re looking through my eyes, but for the sake of records,

please mark all that applies:

Are you  now or at any time have ever been hispanic, how much cans of beer were drunk

this week, now tell me did you plan it?

Are you a woman, are you gay? Are you black, or something else, how much money do you

make and did you make it by yourself?

(Knock it down)

List the creed that most reflects your personal beliefs, condense it for the register, it’s such

a big relief to know


That we can track the chart, we can craft the *****

We can tell you just by looking if for you there’s any hope

but X asks Y if it’s a study for the pundits

then tell me how we’re told to build if no one plans to fund it

Climb the fence it’s common sense, the barbs are not for you

Go on boy you’ve made it, climb on through, climb on through.

No need to be perturbed as fence hoppers were before us

Well the fence was meant for us, you no longer can ignore us.

Knock it down

Sift I will and hold in path of

current's latent aftermath

heart befell, and breath in current

breath could tell, and most confirm it

Depth befell, a host affirmed of what compelled

the most determined

love's to sell and what could earn it

lust and amour, yet shift in focus

love of current, and opened play

could last it til, preferred today

now compulsion packs a passion pact

to back adaption banter tact

intact of what could help me focus

attraction stacked and traction bogus

love don't need to own possession

love just needs to show expression

Different strokes for different folks, but if I stuttered when I spoke, there is a reason why I wrote, and if you think that I'm a joke, then stroke me, stroke me...

Empirical lyrically virile and viral a warrior reborn like he's gone out of style,

a rage unabated both non-syncopated and internal/external no meter's abated!

You wanted an anthem?

You wanted a cause?

You wanted a figure to even the odds?

You thought I was kidding

but now you're admitting that

I am the chosen whose broken the clause!

Rising in status, my main apparatus, the attitude: platitudes lack the finesse!

I'm searching for perfect not anything less!


I'm raring to stage an incredible coup, there just ain't a limit to what I can do!

Melding the milieus of millions and millions of masses who clash for the chance for the cash,

when all that was needed was truth to believe in, significance outed, you puppet let's dance!

No bragging, no lagging, and no more sandbagging, the hustle is over, your tussle is weak!

For soon we will savor the end of your flavor, fifteen minutes over, your outlook is bleak.

I'm nobody's pigeon hole, nobody's fool, I've seen quite my share of arrogant tools,

but here are the statements that lead me to greatness:

love me or hate me, go on instigate me, ignore me and gasp when you hear of my rule!

I'm raring to stage an incredible coup, there just ain't a limit to what I can do!

Now join me in raising a fist to the sky,

and pound upon pressure to powers that lie.

Make diamonds of rhyme-ends and squelter your silence

to pierce through the casket that left us so quiet.

Their reign is run dry, and nobody buys it, let'***** this at home so they cannot supply it.

Prepare the artillery pack in your fire, you're gonna need it , if the bars get any higher,

now hear from the jokee, I dare you provoke me, you still talking ****? well stroke me, stroke me.

I'm raring to stage an incredible coup, there just ain't a limit to what I can do!

**I'm willing to take it for me and for you, THERE'S NO ******* LIMIT TO WHAT WE CAN DO!

Let me frame this aimless persuasion to flame me right til the day I’m famous

Ignoramus, who is brainless, will be met with a death that’s painless

while the critics statistics are met with verbal ballistics

that due to rapid linguistics make her go

“that man’s ****”

Undiscovered emanation of a wave

across the nation

will by false-
hoods
deci
mation
prove that
you can’t
best me

Look at me, look at me; I’m your drunk anomaly

Tear apart my message and my rep, but it don’t bother me

From a child you heard the phrase “don’t judge a book” but did ya hear?

People burning books right now, the covers gone, the judge is clear

Look at me, Look at me, I’m the new hypocrisy

Knowledge at your fingertips, but facts, no they don’t bother me

Faced with your derision, inhibition reigns the timid set

Patrons to the patriarchy, patent pending, don’t forget

Look at me, Look at me, I’m so happy to be free

Happiness is fleeting if it’s beating from the powers that be

Drug me up, *** me up, and tie me to the tv screen

give me tasty pleasures to keep me now from feeling mean

Look at me, Look at me, I’m a living entity

how much will you pay me to tell them how it’s all a dream?

Do I have to prove what is already true?

Do I have to prove what is already true?

I don’t have to prove a **** thing to you.

I am the first born millennial grown in the digital garden from transplantation.

The data stream flows along with my bloodlines,

Divided, interspersed, like a lava lamp of my own identification.

A bloodline that once worked the fields, and now works the fields of existence,

A bloodline that made its pilgrimage to new land in order to satiate the body,

has now grown to satiate inquiries within the self.

I reflect upon those occasions where I have been told:

“why do you care about the state of affairs for them, you are not of them, you do not act like them

so

you can’t be one of them”

and I clench my tongue, forgive them father, they know not of what they speak”

“Perdonalos padre, no saben nada de que dicen”

The climate of academia is both inviting and yet marking, I feel connected to both intertwined

bloodlines, and markedly separate in a way neither will ever know

“mijo, él esta ******, no dice nada que él no entiende”

But I understand, my name, my appearance, my lineage, they all mark a separation of that cultural

heritage, a combination, a divider,

that lava lamp burns hot from the up down theatrics of where identity will lie

I am the new millennial

Expect us.

The world belongs to the nocturnal, the ever present reflexive vanguard whose presence elicits attention,

be it negative or positive.

The crawl to a standstill, the distractions, the regrets:

These are as naught to those whose focus supplants physical duress.

Success is the only road, the path to failure can only be trod by idle feet, hot coals to the promised kingdom of recognition and praise, this must be traversed at all lengths, at all levels, by all means:

Take it.

Hatred or envy does not compare to the rush of achievement, real effort brought to fruition.

Be not afraid to raise your expectations, be afraid that they never rise.

Most of all, love unashamedly and furiously as if no one could weigh in,

the universe bends to the warrior's perspective