150 years ago was the 1870s

Namaste señoras,
          namaste

In between notebooks
writing on the back of bank statement envelopes
My money would be in wise temperance
if I didn't haunt auctions for cursed instruments
I got a bargain baglama in route from Greece
it's just the chase
the replacement of writing songs and hard work
I could at least join the fox hunts
but don't forget coming from those that are forced to hunt
Sometimes envious of that pressure again
but don't resent cause it's just weakness
What I can't force myself to emulate
the neo-Malthusianism of my anointed material condition
_________________­

I'm back at it
running out of space
Might have to switch to that student loan
refinancing scheme from Chase
I won't even open it cause
I'm just waiting for society to value
education as a better use of time than
bailing out bankers gambling on the
backs of the poor and middle class that take all the risk
You swindle their paycheck and taxes too
Worshiping at the alter of the greenback printer
Sell your grandma and your grandchildren's future
__________________

I think I ran out of unimportant mail to write upon
I need to do my taxes so I can stop stressing
about hoarding unopened letters
I'm afraid I'll find some catastrophe like a disease
or a stolen identity
There's too much to fear in the 21st century
Yes, how weird
there's no aristocratic family lording over my plot of land
I'm not even a renter anymore except
to the bank and I get my food from multi-national global kings
Much less personal than the ****** that used to rule our lives
Now they're depersonalized into the corporate body
Escaping heaven's mandate
I suppose
Through layer and layer of fabric reality
the market, democracy, technology
is the belief that this whole world is fake
Ascribing deity to digital creators
Bad faith actors
Pretending it's other than profit you desire
"Profit's just a means"
but you need more means to make more means
What's the real product you're peddling?
Do you not have pride beyond the money making aspect?
Why do you highlight such shortsightedness?

Aye, so I feel down
so  like any societally inept man throughout history
I resign to write self-assuring philosophy

Whole books of advice, not taken  
to scorn those who make my mistakes
I even quote my dead depressed brothers
to bestow a false valid weight

But more than anything at all,
I think Nietzsche was most right;
all us philosophers
who shrugged off all heaven or hope
retreat to our own arrogant plan
that we figured it all out

The entropy of the universe, microcosmic in this house
I can't control everything, I can't make you clean up
your cereal bowl
or stay out of my space
in the garage
I wish for a place
where every little thing has a niche
and every month or so, I get out a cloth
and dust

Maintaining entropy
Keep it at a steady level

I went from the "overabundance of life"
to a knight of resignation
I'm back to cheap pilsners
local Genny's, union made
Sometimes a Three Heads
when I want to get plowed
I'm trying to refine myself
into a thoughtless identity
so I may taste life again,
make music again
Did I do it all in
the grapes of my youth?
I guess I need a sommelier
for my heart cause
all I taste is river rock
where there was once native berries
and rare spices
Sparks that charmed
The dazzle of a demon
that could cover their faults
You dine or drink with thee
and you're stuck in the Fae
I'm the only one that hasn't stayed

The clichés are our best advice, but you need to live a tragic example before they set in.

                                                    
                                                       36
Do what's been on your to-do lists for months, the thing that's been giving you the most the regret. It will be over too fast, and you'll need a new big thing to put off. You'll try to fill a hole with "productivity;" accomplishing more comfort in your mundane routines.

                                                      
                                                       55
The ubiquitous underbelly of 2024 prevailing ideologies: Nobody wants to feel duped, despite all of them have been flimflammed to high heaven the last ten years (or more).

I didn’t go out last night, like I was supposed to. Sunday during Labor day weekend, and it’s a return to the long grind on Tuesday for my field. So many unknowns will collapse into certainty in one day, which will impact the rest of my year and beyond. So it goes.

I was supposed to go drink at the bar, an old friend is back off the wagon it seems. Yet, my buddy didn’t let me know it was going down until they were already at the bar. I spent most the day at my parents’ in the countryside and just got home. I was already on my second drink alone, and I sensed they were already farther along than me. Do I really want to drive 15 minutes to nurse 3 beers for 3 hours so I can drive back home? My stomach felt upset, so that was the deciding factor for me.

I let down Chuck Palahniuk in that quote where he says writers need to get out into the world, because nothing happens at home. Yet, I felt like I let myself down all summer by not hunkering down and completing all the esoteric music projects I envisioned. I was too tired to mess with my cables, mics, and computers, so I just picked up my acoustic and played. Sweet ethereal major 7th inversion chords and long forgotten riffs. A couple hours went by.  I played the blues riff from “The Last Time” by the Rolling Stones better than I remember. I hit those chords so rhythmically and started to sing. I always thought I did good with **** Jagger’s vocals. I even remembered the second verse. I was right in the middle of it, when I hear my screen door open and some quick slaps on the door. My little dog comes barreling down from upstairs, barking. I look at the clock on the stove. It’s 9:36. I guess some people still need to work on Labor Day. Nevertheless, the city noise ordinance protects me ‘till 10.

I go to my front door and it’s a black abyss, save for a street light showing no one across the street in its feeble glow. I go to my side door, and my driveway and neighbor’s house is equally forlorn. I check the door on the other side of my house, off the bathroom. ****, I left it open to just the screen door. Surely nobody came into my backyard to mess with this door, but maybe it did let too much noise out. Was it the agoraphobic old lady on this side that came to my door? I never even spoke to her before.

Whoever it was, why didn’t they stay to talk to me? I would give you my phone number to make it easier on you if it ever happens again. I checked in the morning again. No note, no nothing. My mind is spinning with unknowns. Was it someone thinking this was the coke dealer’s house next door? Was it kids, checking if my car was unlocked, but then decided on an impromptu prank when they heard my song? Paranoid, I carried my Shillelagh with me the rest of the night.

I caved in, and got quieter. Switched to a tiny guitar tuned in open D, and stopped singing. I still hope they heard me faintly in defiance. I came up with a cool riff and recorded it in my loop pedal. There was a bit of feedback getting it all set up, and I hope they heard that too.



I’m too dense to take hints. Talk to me like a human being, and maybe next time I’ll know it’s you and what you are looking for.

What do all these unread books mean,
a life that must move, but intends to someday have
more time to sit and ponder?
Or am I slothful from the smudged screen gleam?
Endless tool possibilities, you've become my lvl. 70 distraction
No capture, no defeating
just the monster in the cave
without an escape rope, or even matches
Go so crazy
I wanna light my shirt on fire in protest
and forget to take it off first
I wish for old days of street loitering gossip, and busking
How'd we lose it so fast?
You can't even find the picnic spot without a digital pamphlet
so excuse me as I lament
the dying days
I hardly lived

How can I follow up?
Sipping tea, realizing my dark age in the ides
of March was just a melancholic cover up for
intensive art and getting **** done
"Adulting," I hate that word
We can learn so much from having a child-like nature
But they got you coping with drudgery by
coddling you in comic book imagery
Is your boss your dad that gives you play time or
a **** that's increasingly stealing more of your time, and money?

Stand up if you have the energy
The old don't protest cause
they got nice pensions from FDR and Mao Zedong
We're still the ever lazy young
with distinctive wealth gaps
not seen in a couple generations
It's a grim calculation by cold algorithms
as if that absolves the humans that
put the spirit of the questions into them

How much can we make them work so
they don't have time to protest but can still survive?

We've already stopped the pensions but
how can we stop social security?

It's been well invested
can we really just say the money's run out?

Yes, I suppose they really do believe anything
if you couch it right

Good work everyone.

And you could have given us this and that
but you were in the throes of some spaz attack
Spiral down
your spires of blame
and you end up forgetting all the innocent
in their small existence
Influenced by their helixes
and culture, the temperature
and more than we can comprehend
Forgive yourself first and
you'll stop being such a ******* to all the rest
The malaise of the mayonnaise
Lives of all these unwitting folks

"God is so dead"

          -Post-postmodern Nietzsche

How else can I choose to view this moment?
It doesn't matter what I pick
so long as I can stall
the wheels of that accidental
over rationale

Yes, I'll learn better next time
That's all I need from this
evolutionary process, so
I'll let the wheel slow

breathe and enjoy the superfluous
us madmen threw around
I'll newly choose
what's good and bad about it
No, good and evil

Let that divine multiplicity shine

What’s new about Hipsters? It’s not that they're the first co-opted counter-culture, far from it. The Beats were co-opted. The Sentimentalists, over 200 years ago, were co-opted before capitalism was so industrious. It’s not even new that calling a ***** a ***** is offensive. “Hippies,” “Beatniks,” “Emos;” all insulting labels for youth that thought they were much more.

There it is, or some of it, perhaps. Does the current so-called counter-culture feel like they’re part of something much more? Even without labels, I don’t think they think of themselves as a counter-culture at all. The worst part about it is the Hipsters and  non-Hipsters are really much the same. Falling for a similar niche, but feeling like they ain’t.

We all like flannel, thick glasses, and good beers. We’re all killing Applebee’s. We’re the waitstaff there who laughs at ourselves, cause we’re just so low-down. Not the last, but toward the bottom rung of a ladder that once meant progress beyond our parents’ lives. We stand for nothing and everything, because a secure tomorrow seems unlikely and unwanted. Beget suburban kids like our parents did? Could I buy them as much as I had? A student loan on top of a mortgage, I think I’m better off paying exorbitant rent. Plus, it just feels more temporary, like everything else.

Late twenties, long passed the age my parents conceived, I’m getting old. Lack of full adult independence, still feel floated in embryonic fluid, trying not to give juvenile hopes up.  Qualified for that secure job, but is it open? Maybe I’ll have to move down South. Just like everyone else.

At least there’s always music. Nearly a century of recorded songs. Indie, Scene, and Emo; the last real counter-cultures associated with rock genres, and most practitioners scoffed at these labels. Why didn’t Punks or Metal Heads care?

More pressing, what is the newest rock genre? Emo faded nearly 10 years ago. Some formation of Americana seems sorta fitting now. Not far from that “Indie” umbrella,  it’s what Hipsters seem to like most, at least in the TV commercials. These more choral, sometimes bluesy bands. Some are good, but it’s nothing new.

Now, the algorithms anticipate evolution years in advance. All tastes like Styrofoam, so we spit it out fast. We keep skipping tracks to futility escape the same persistent hum. All the price for our growing clairvoyance. Telescopically, we are flying fast into a wall that ends originality. Too many citations needed. We enter them into software to manage. Our fear of plagiarism makes one uninfluenced instead of inspired. We just make homages. Turn anything creative into a list of allusions.

We forgot to forget
Suspend St. Anselm
patron of using rationality
to explain away one’s faith
in magic and mystery
God exists because
all we can imagine must exist
Your unicorns are but
a mind’s fusion of
horse and narwhal
and your culture is but
a culmination of has-been trends
So it’s all been done
Why try to change a thing?
Why try to be new?

This is the end. Not reflecting and absorbing past cultures with an eye to the future. But judging and consuming past cultures with with a carnal now. There are some niceties to be gained in solely present preoccupations. Yet, no Buddha abounds in these selfish meditations. We are no longer the bodhisattvas, suspending enlightenment to save all beings. “We’re woke, because we know we’re ******” Then we type a symbol for “laugh out loud,” while our mouths stayed closed. We take a morning slug and drive off to work. The complexity of our controllers v. the simple fleeting pleasures. What can I do? Why should I bat an eye at the way the world works?

Do not buy for one second that donations from unions are an equal evil to donations from corporations.

Why demonize the collective efforts to own and regulate one's own labor?

Why respect those that call another's labor their own private property, to the extent they enforce this rule through the tax subsidized violence monopoly?



Never forget where we came from.

The feeling of comfort was not always so
the feeling of comfort is relatively new
I feel safer in my armor, standing stiffly aloof
These **** people
want me to feel the cloth around their skin
so obsessed with lounging
unaccustomed to wearing things in,
thickening one's skin, and seeking scars
This to me, is all life is
Why coddle yourself in luscious membranes?
You fought outta the womb for a reason
What made you stop climbing?

We're both the same element
but she's wildfire
and I'm a weapons maker
the tempered blacksmith
too distant in his own work
over planning a "good use"
for all my passions

I presumed to craft a spear
150,000 ft at least
I'll **** and **** away in silence
sipping coffee in my low hearth haven
In hopes you wonder how I really feel
and perhaps spill fire *****-nilly
embers annoying friends and family
catch the drapes inadvertently

Will this distance vow we agreed upon without metaphor
be mended through silent adhering
Or is the Lady of the Ram waiting
for a golden armor gesture
Where I appear unannounced
and we'll turn your wild fire into iron flowers

For now, I stare at my forge
going blind.

How would the best user friendly widget
stay that way in a profit incentive?
The physical products escape this unseen
(They're thrown out en masse when profit fades)
The internet’s been a slow fade
from revolutionary layouts and interaction
to the bare minimum you could tolerate
Today most are conditioned not to bat an eye
when the most trusted news sites
are filled with grotesquely glitching ads
that look worse than a 2001 spam virus
Selling sweatshirts with an incomprehensible
automated message containing your last name
Then it switches to threats
the FBI wants to take over my machine

Such is life today
Ignoring what we think we can

You smell like a carnival
in some forlorn town or county
I open the door
and smell the fried dough,
the petting zoo, the bumpkin hoods
with too much cologne
looking at you like you was eyeing their girl
wearing his lanky white arm

You smell like cotton candy,
maybe they could only afford a reptile guy,
the lions club and their burgers and hots
you can only purchase with coupons
The backseat of the worst corvette
owned by the greasiest ugly old man
who has a couple more benjamins than his
old lady's last daddy

I've been listening to a lot of new music lately
I just let the online radio go while I search for jobs
much more intensively than I had in the past
I used to think I was such hot **** with my MA
An MA degree, a ***** f’ing MA!
But now I know it’s all a crock *** of bull testicles
My generation was so brainwashed into thinking we could be whatever we wanted

The thought of me not accomplishing what I ought to
used to make me lay in bed and slump
but now I’m searching for any better thing so wholeheartedly
I realized a truth in this economy:
if you don’t know anybody
you’re best luck comes from quantity
something will hit
and if it doesn't
I've been listening to a lot of new music lately

Playing much less of my own music
as in hardly enough time to put a guitar or mando in my hand to jam
I’m on these job boards if I’m not sleeping, out with friends,
or working a **** job to be out with friends

Some say be happy you got a job at all
and if you really wanted something different
you wouldn't go out at all
you’d just sit at home looking for a job

That thought terrifies me cause
for those who don’t ever sacrifice their search for potential work
for the intermediary wants in life
they get sick quicker than expected and die

At least they always listened to new music lately

I don’t want to perpetuate the produce – consume loop
but when I don’t, I feel like such a lazy moocher
Could I play guitar near after dark bars for $23 an hour?
Victor and I did that once, for $11.50 each
Untaxed, that’s better than my dour real job
So, if I really made my place at a street corner, I’d be a smart earner

But then I’d be a fixture, like the accordion man and the bums with PVC buckets
The bar goers would soon hate me for chumping them out of their cash
with three gritty “Heart of Gold” covers
Then soon the mediocre bums would jump me and Riot, my guitar
She’ll smash into the walk under a Irish flag in front of Murphy’s Law,
while drinkers whoop and punch the air
The bucket goes over my head
and the accordion bellows squeeze round my neck

actions speak louder than words
but if they're too subtle I ain't hearing
I probably missed the whole **** thing
forgive me, forgive me, I'm lost

Please move like a river on fire
these ships are all coming in for commerce
there's a sale on staying on the shore
forgive me, forgive me, I'm gone

But, If you're not here what will you do?
I guess I'll just battle, battle, battle
gotta keep my arrows sharp
and my teeth gnashing
keep dancing till the dirt trips my legs
and you're not rich enough
to give me poison
please take it back
before it's hopeless

No one's more ambivalent than me
its all the same no matter who says it
we're all angels, who don't have to be angels
let's sin, and see if it's so bad

Lying in bed
with an abyss in my head
Abyss in my hand
being abyss

Bad faith with options
I can do so much, but here I am toiling without valor
I’m not oppressed enough to count
Almost guaranteed free meals for life
Respect for parents keeps me on the line
I’ll stay near it to get us a notch up
in Americay’s championship belt
But, even Ma knows the façade is tearing away
Wishing we could be the fortunate Chinese kids
We used to send our food to them, when
we couldn’t eat our vegetables. It’s unfair
I hit the books instead of wandering India
or Bloomington, Indiana
The unexciting part of an epic
starring myself and a one handed handful of friends

I'm a pagan that's more Christ-like than Christians
I'm an anarchist that's more patriotic than patriots
While these fools idolize empty symbols of ideology
I'm the optimist wanting to work with my community
to make a better society
**** right I'm inept
I'm raised by boomer tech
you got a life
and are outta debt
Your kids fell in the trap
you set later in life
You're happy with a home and a wife
I'm renting to stay transient
in case my boss decides my career is worthless
Romantic and hopeless
I'll fall for a podcast host just by hearing her voice
and the truth she tells
The Right thinks we'll all flee to their side
once we start making these bucks
where you can leave managing a wally world for oil wells
Well I made it bud
Got the prestige but no full pockets
or pensions to speak of
The older folks got enough crass to complain
'bout their pay cuts and theirs alone
We'll never see piles so grand
Got the inflation calculator app
to proselytize about this scam
But those ears can't hear
unless it happens to them

His eyes burned 2 holes in the mountain
when he sat for years, 'till
they let him in

He threw all your old books in the oven
saying, you can like the tales
but they ain't sacred

Slow milestones
kicked a tad further once in awhile
I stumble as I grasp and catch
a glimpse of my feeble walker days
Way up the desert road near the mountains
the pressing feeling;
I’m wasting too much time on the practical
And soon I’ll hobble my way to that high nest of the vultures;
an unnourishing drab soul
“He went to college and finally landed an okay job
No not teaching, not in humanities at all.
He had a living wage, then slowly managed to move out.
Then he tried dating and getting a better job for the rest of his days.”
“Amen.
Thanks for not making any waves, babe.”
Chomp!

I’d rather feel the raptor claw clutch now,
and, whenever I go,
I’d be a coveted delicacy
They’ll spend all day cooking me,
simmering low in a some big ***
They’d wear shiny ornaments
and put out fine ivory plates and utensils
Then, right before it’s time to dine,
these birds of prey will pray
in simple thanks I kept my flesh strong

Bread and circuses
Live off unemployment just enough
to eat cheap
get distracted by
the politics
They're so evil
or they're so evil
while your dreams come true

Unlimited access to your favorite shows
without commercials
so long as you got the cash to subscribe
They say generations are the same
you look down on the kids on the grass
They just don't understand
I used to wait in lines at the video store
It was expensive and limiting
but maybe those limitations help us be more human
It was there son
that I first bumped into your mother
We both reached for the same copy of The Matrix III
and we talked about the machines
for a full half an hour
It's then I asked her for her number
I called her home and
had to introduce myself to her mother
Yes, your grandmother

They all feel the same as I
and you will too
Cause our tech is moving so fast that
we got to catch up to the racetrack you were born in
People used to be farmers and
walk the tarmac track  
and slowly pass it on to their kids
that walk just as slow
Then people start inventing
pretentious things other animals don't
and the baton gets tossed to the next walker
who start walking really fast
and now we're at a lightning bolt sprint
A baby's born
and they jump ahead
with the baton in their hand
while we collectively lose our soles
to efficiency

These cheap new shoes
don't last like my old ones

Killing it from Khitomer to Herkimer
Garfield's Insults, Put Downs, and Slams
The light of Truth at High Noon
is not for tender leaves
Will you help me revive this dead Earth?

Drinking my turmeric tea
makes my mouth taste like vegan chicken soup
I spilled it on myself
so I’m committed for looking suddenly jaundice
Oh, ain’t that what they always what they do?
Mark the healthiest ones
as fatal or insane

Desensitized by the sands of time
I'm abhorred you're a cultural cog
Bobbing on the surface
you find eating gulls disgusting
but don't bat an eye at nauseous oil slicks

I wish I could set it all ablaze
so we'd pick our destinies more carefully
Or more care freely

You see me as a motley mesh
Flesh covered by cloths from mismatched fads
Yet, you're a pretentious simian that's forgot our past
Just a gussied up grazer, disavowing discomfort
scoffing at any endeavor that isn't grass flavored

The chimers on the lawn are all robed outcasts
bellowing to the fodder eating fodder
the posh set the stalks to be mowed over
But for the justice of all the inside out bulls
leaving their wallets on the ground
the entrail fashion never catches on

I stopped commenting on airy internet objects long ago
lest it be a needed praise of some starving artists’ work
or in response to a worded response of my own work

It’s just such a waste of time to tell a million view band
they “rock” or they “****”
All I will incite is defenders or refuters of my claim
who are just as petty as me

As an immature high schooler, that’s just what I wanted
The modern version of my dead grandfathers
with their white shirts, blue jeans, and duck *** hair
Driving from the city to hick school dances
just to pick fights

I once typed lines of **** talk on Elvis videos from the 1970s
just to see what would happen
- Nothing much
My grandfathers are dead and no one’s left to defend The King
I’m not so tough, but I felt scrappy then just the same

Now, with my lowly little job
my first world laptop and my glasses
Sipping coffee and mellowed out
I read some comments to see what people feel
about an article on my generation
How we’re more corporate than ever
bamboozled by a guise of fake uniqueness

Sure, I agree with the critique in the article
if you can even call it an article
People get paid for three lines of an opinion,
sometimes a link, and then the real entertainment's in the comments
Where can I get in line for this ******* job?
Not the commentors, their labor’s free
I mean the three lines guy, it sounds too easy

“Don’t ya get it yet, son”
My grandad chuckles
“His job’s just corralling all those comments,
inciting easy debate,
and getting advertising clicks”

He shook his head
went up through the roof
and his twenty-year-old jeans
ended in a wispy swirl
But I couldn't help noticing
they were name brand

Long day indentured college
do they give me land when I'm done?
I just wanna lay near the flickering warm television
like the olde days
Stop, I say
it’s all ****. T.V. does not console
old days are through
already 8 O’ clock
O clock, zero clock
why’d I do nothing yet?
he shouts back in olde English binary that
I’ve only been home for an hour
I don’t know how to loot time like a lawyer’s tie tier
He pit pats after the one in the pricier suit to make sure he’s comfy, all ways
Like a tea cup dog, he’s slightly enamored to serve a taller person
The rich man feeds him emerald colored paper
a treat at sundown,
and that wily servant still finds hours to ***** his wife,
push his boy on the swings, and play a game of basketball.
I don’t know what’s coddle comfort anymore
“good.” says the gray bearded one atop the devil’s mountain horns
The great beast is boastfully clever,
but he can’t tell there’s a bhikhu camping out on his horns
his eyes roll upward, but he can’t see past his forehead.
The old one laughs

Someday last April
I lost my sincerity
Life became too fleeting to blink at absurdities
and after all, it's all you hypocrite logicians
that ****** **** up for me
but not just me
I'm just drones in society

I'm using a machete as a tea-cup coaster
to protect a table that's hacked to bits

Get up off your thinking chair
and ski-doo all your blues away
Drive a cold heart through a snow drift
Realize that the static's too blurry
to rationalize through the fake
So don't look for clues, junior
The facts of life are that sitcoms
are no way to base a future
So all I can do is find breathtaking views
and write words that ought to be listened to
by people kneeling in pews

I almost died when I was in the 5th grade
I struggled to lift my baby sister up
My mom couldn't even do it
We woke up cause she started crying
and I threw up, everyone kept throwing up
My father slurred his speech
said we all caught the flu
and we all slept in the living room
Till my brother came out and said
we gotta get out,  now
So thankful he slept with the door closed
He drove the minivan, 15 years old
off to grandma's house
Got a blood test done
cause even the dog was blowing chunks

Please check your

Machine ground days
Somehow survived by clinging to precarious plans
Die for those.
For proles are stuck in a televised gleam
but I’m barred from distractions
I’m a man of action
Spring healing:
I found a new hope to get through the day
It has a name and it’s you

Workday: animistic curses
against people and their systems and products
except animals would escape forever
as soon as they open the cage
but we stay

The beastly gnashings of overworked merchandisers
for invisible self pocket stuffers
The competition's getting to us, comrades
I feel swindled out of my labor
I was pregnant
but they sold my child before
I woke up

Addressing the solipsism of my rehab circle:

I’m Kagey, and my life is hazy
but, blunted or no, let’s get this clear:
don’t trust your senses
and that goes for all my human peers

Body is a cage full of defenses
Still, I’m suspicious of reality
whether it’s façade society
or the wooden chair in front of me

Still, I enjoy the virtual scenery
I ain’t talking about on the T.V. or phone screen
I mean the willows, buildings, and faces
But all these mushy green acres are fakers
blobs without our eyesight

Still tho,
me and the universe are tight.

"The World's dying"
"But she'll **** us before we bleach the last blades of grass"
"I miss her tonight"
"Maybe she misses you, and if not, it was never right"
"I don't know whether to be sad for Her or for the World"

"Mourn both, and bask in the lonely rays of a Sun whose
a billion years old
and who'll seem young when you're dead, when she's got years left
Bask in the glory of formless gods
the ideology of 'who-knows-what'
Find a mindset where
even the Sun's death is trivial
amid cosmic events."

He's drunk on dharma
and that's alright
Wouldn't want him to abuse
anything of substance anyway

The truth's not in the details
it's in the attitude
with which you start the methodology
Examine historiography
and you'll know
you don't really know
Still, the fault of teleology
is more important than
the happenings you use to defend your point
Cause the details your viewpoint binds you to
show that irrationalities cloud our brains
There's no fine line to reason
Isaac Newton was afraid of humans
and spent most his time as an alchemist
We still believe in some magick
but in its waning days
people are getting mad trying to find
other paths of core thinking
One's driving force
and escape from fearing death
No, not even science can satisfy the why
but those who think it can
contribute to the scary times
****** and the Nazis
and the all encompassing
forgetting of future atrocities
The 20th Century was
the most violent of centuries

I’m in the same place as all of yous, but I’m absent minded and got misanthropic contempt, like anthropomorphic deer by the highway watching Cadillac surgery. But deep cardiac compassion, all you idiots are inside of me, lashing out with lively love. Scorns used to scar, but now I smile. **** the struggle you’re on, and put your shoes on the final platform. It’s not truth mama, it’s death. Have you tried it? Me either, we’re both among breathers. Now, tell me about your facts in expressions unconditioned by human history. Tell me about those bats on your shoulders that babble obscenities like Black Beard’s parrot, named ******. He speaks not of this century, so his “*****” are now children’s songs, sung around plastic bonfires, trying to roast electrical socket covers. To no avail.  

Born human mightiest
Socially slighted and far-sighted
Let’s bash through hierarchy
I said bash
you P.C. crusader
cold as a computer
slaughtering the people’s good language
in the name of removing something savage
instead of asserting a new image
A true sign of the artist
but I’m no artist

Spy on this
not because I'm a deviant "ist"
of some dangerous ideology
No, I cannot hold on to anything so strong
What a scary time for those alive
whose key logs match that terribleness
just a little bit
"Oh, but she was so non-violent"
No, it's media martyr silence
Freedom of speech?
See how careful I am - just typing?

But for most the danger is in all our numbers
Algorithms for shopping patterns
voting and religion too
We give our attachments to them freely
so I say "hello there," maybe lone computer
or programmer
soulless, or believing Brother's benevolence
-Not here for the poetry

I sense loss and yearning all around
I used to chalk it up as a personal hurdle to jump
or just the feeling of aging while the youth still goes on
Yet I think I this malaise is widespread
Impacting all of us in our glitching global trade

I used to think the issue was there’s just too much now
Too much to watch, listen, and taste
You don’t need the hunt anymore
Don’t need to wait or pay some exorbitant price
I used to feel overstimulated by the streams
and just could not decide
I still feel, it’s not that we want to do the thing,
but we yearn to want to want to do the thing
again

Is that all that’s changed?
Those who are not ready to be creators
will certainly not be ready to be curators
Freed ourselves from DJs and TV programming
but what control have we flailed ourselves into?
Wasting hours a day watching 30 second videos
whose categories are heavily curated
impersonally, just for you
Remember when user preferences worked
and in searches they wouldn’t hide the whole list
of all that was relevant and new?

Ya’ll ****. (Myself included, I said everybody, didn’t I)?
Forbes, a magazine for rich wannabes, says:
85 people control half of the world’s wealth (yet, nobody obsesses)
In my rural hometown alone,
that’d be the equivalent of a disembodied ****** hole
calling all the shots from a platinum throne inside the town hall
“Keep plowing! Keep selling! PLLLLLPPPPPP!
Sop up my **** with all those Benjamins, and bring the Russian ballet in!”
In between **** and brain rotters, everyone else watches ******,
with his handsome silk hat on,
shake hands with the petty bourgeoisie in suits
Little lap dogs
licking up all the slimy brown Franklins

Emily and I share a birthday
the odds of course which, are 1 in 365
I wonder if she would pay it any mind
if I were to relay that fact to her
in time traveling letters

We'd diss the Romantics
in our clinging to things old fashioned
But perhaps in some sort of
airy heaven mystic light
feather backed eunuchs deemed
our mutual yearly markers Holy

We share introversions too
So I know not to peak behind her cloudy veil
when it's my turn to hike the steps
of the colossal celestial mansion  
I'll just listen to see if you have a Boston accent
or send soaring aeroplanes, if you prefer
with fresh ink drops sliding off into sky

Before I go up there, I may ask my sister too
to burn all my poems, delete them also
Wondering when you request'd the same
did you not care 'bout words lost to air?

Let's pretend we can enjoy the world's decadence
like the oblivious do
Let's do chaos magick
to make our dreams come true
and grow closer together as
the monkey claw closes too soon
and we sit on a pile of
decade old what-if situations
stamped down by unintended consequences
Let's cash in our paltry spoils
and toast to loving fate
Here's to staying together
just for the story
We used to say: predictable, finally
Now we're thinking: routine, help me
The wheel's spinning so fast
it's a blur
Sameness
We're shamans of samsara
cautioning against becoming gods
Fear change
but can you please spare some?
I forestalled enlightenment
just to help you all become
one mushy blob
and now I'm bored

I'm not uptight  
I'm just a bodhisattva
waiting to die so I can leave this world
Wish someone would just give me some spoiled food
so I'll be done for good

When life gives you rotten produce
make banana ***
'Cause it's no use sitting
and ******* about
how our world isn't another one
Drink up
store extra slurp in your tum
Make society so no one's starving
and the kids can have some fun
___________________

­**** your pie factories in the clouds
Bulldoze churches to build parks and playgrounds
Make it illegal for stores to throw food in dumpsters
just so some homeless guy will learn
how to fish in a desert sandstorm
caused by industrial emissions
that our overlords refuse to pick up
themselves or even pay the bill for

You bamboozled fools
just want to watch subliminal *****
on your shiny screens
all to trick you into drinking the
venomous ***** milk from plastic straws
It's all the slaw that the marketers peddle
Indecipherable hacked bits
your mind fractionalized
and trained to keep coming back to bliss
The endorphin kick of these brainwashing clips
Can't read anymore cause I got
a worse attention span than a goldfish
Me and Skipper tried to save the Minnow
but she was no match
for the ocean
Now we're stuck on an island
where we don't even consider
the headhunters human

I forgot what we ought to do
I keep ******* up the signal fires
and coconut powered sonar systems
'Cause I look all around
and all I wanna do is clock the Professor
cause we're fighting over Ginger
It doesn't take a brain surgeon
to season your oil
and if you forget
the vegetarian oyster sauce
can it even still be considered a stir fry, smart guy?

**** it
let's just eat the octogenarian and his wife
'cause I read a study that said
the rich would willingly give up their life
for the economy
Last I checked, sand dollars aren't tasty
so your bone marrow's much more valuable
than your bullion and Nasdaq arrows

Brother, your narcissism is mine inverted
I too almost started speaking with "I" or "My"
but I stayed quiet for a few seconds
I rolled those grindstones in my mind
wondering how much the other knows my faults
"Are they judging me now for my pauses
and speaking a bit out of one side of my mouth?"
So to seem like I'm in the moment
I focused on you first

You're the other way around though, aren't you?
It takes a lot out of you to stay quiet
but even more to act the part
cause you still think that everyone's out to judge
so you brag a strong case for yourself
amid the external world
You ask about others naturally
measure their power over you
Who can be your patsy
and who can you never ask for money?

Humans are caught in a cultural duality at the moment. We - because I am human also - have a want in adventure in life as well as a want for egalitarian progress. Yet, both these options become limited while human population grows exponentially. As we take up more land and resources, and jobs increasingly become automated, many humans will find their lives unfulfilling compared to the possibilities offered by their media, as well as their past.

I truly believe now is the most exciting time to be alive; all the years of the neutral internet till its demise (c. January 2014), and nearly all the world’s likewise connected physically, by fast travel.

Yet, the excitement’s starting to wane. The internet’s becoming censored, and the world is turning monolithically mundane, with no promise of risk and new frontiers. Most people are fed up with growing inequality, including an uneven possibility of an adventurous life.

85 people control half the wealth of the world, but we are polarized toward smaller blame. So most the world doesn't live like I do, estadounidense. They don’t have the possibility of modest adventures. But only a devil’s pawful of people are living the grandest travels we watch in stories and film, and they have enough cash left over to live a life of those adventures a thousand times over.

Those living in real poverty are too concerned with the survival of themselves and their own families to gain progress against this prickly bat, who grows fatter from red blood since Babylon’s past. Now her global shadow casts a toxic plan, either too comforted, propagandized, or terrified - to shrug off some bullies.

The hope is – in this the waning time of the most exciting time to be alive – is that we unite, but keep local pride. Everywhere in the world wants a new comer over for some distinct thing.

Contrary to the pious coldness of our days
us well meaning folks need to realize
it takes grace and tact to deceive and to be deceived
Like playing with a child or a dog
you turn a ball, and just a ball
into a big game hunt

Without the deception that catches us,
the competition, the pageantry, and exaggeration,
we lose interest
We were never not children all along

This too is a game;
wearing plain suits and solely spectating sports
just to out adult each other
So rich men can golf and hunt
wolves from helicopters

Once I feel a little comfort
I'll start blabbering about my dreams in progress
She's so supportive
thinks I'm a renaissance man
for all I find important
all the albums and paintings I've planned
Young da Vinci to a T
Little she know I don't dot my eyes
So I'm just sitting there
looking at a bland pole
with blurry vision
She's too great
so my childish totem's fade
cause all I want is you babe
Streaming binges on the couch
I sense the boredom bubbling up
So I start sifting through that rolodex
of perfect dates in my head
Walking through the naval museum
I still sense things are out of step
'cause a flawless Connery impression
just fell flat
I double down
beat the dead horse
of course, of course
So we sat down on the bench
across from the U.S.S. She don't give a ****
We talk about us
and I'm hit with a brick
"You used to wanna be a rock star
write books, teach college
and travel far
What ever happened to the "Will to Power"
you never used to shut up about
You're just content to be a hobbyist simp
that talks big and likes to hold my hand
I fear I'm holding you back
You've gotten so lazy since we met"
I wipe the brick from my face
and explain that my mind
is the only chains
that stopped me from doing those things
I was never even happy with those lofty dreams
She got me outta a dark place
and I'm content with just
strumming chords on my front porch
and exploring Western New York
So long as it's with someone more gorges than Ithaca
And you'll be my Penelope
She says she doesn't deserve me
but as she stares at Lake Erie
I know she means that I'm not the man she hoped I was
I used to rap about snatching power and holding gold
while beating myself like an opus dei catholic
just for being too lazy and not doing enough
I'm sorry you made me comfortable and happy enough
to live a modest life
(Oh good tidings of comfort and joy
comfort and joy)
Now I'm alone again
and it's opening day
Wreck myself with unachievable goals
just to reel them in
Get secure and balanced 'till
they'll throw me back into the mercury waves
I'm an ancient treasure in the making
don't excavate me.

I’m in bed thinking of escape plans. When I close my eyes, I cash out endless people in my lines. In dreams I hold dear my own: girl, passion, and life direction. I wake up for seconds and doze off, like reality’s just a short nightmare. Time to get back to my cashin’. It’s not about cash or fashion. It’s about sitting alone, being real with yourself, and seeing your dreams are too far away to help. I spend my days trying to control clock hands. Slow or fast, I make them dance. But still, I haven’t left this place. I’m about to leave a pine cone on my bed, and walk through the woods until I get to the other end. And if in 20 minutes I’m in a farmer’s field, I’ll keep pulling that peel to find a place that escaped this pretentious human race.

Is she a pretty hippy
coming at me with that "you're a fine piece of meat" smile?
Flowing long dress c. 1873
wild hair twisting to her *******
Gracefully she shuffles, feet never leaving the grass

She hands me a pamphlet
I see a ragged leather Holy Bible in her hand

Do her eyes wish I was her husband:
born again Christ Man first, and lover later?
Do you imagine our wedding was today:
communion first and consummate later?
"No thanks, I'm sorry darling"

She and her friend get kicked out of the fair
and she probably felt bad *** for it