I just want to let her sleep.

Let her rest
        so she can reemerge a warrior against
        the gilded masochism
        and misogyny
                of the office.

        so her perfect vessel combats the encroaching infection
        and she can breathe deep and strong
        and snort in the lifeblood
                of the dawn.

        so she can see despite our return to dust
        there is yet so much
        and she must live in ecstasy
                of the moment.

        so she can reap the reward of a long deserved slumber
        and lose the swollen circles and pains of defeat
        and shake the anxieties
                of her heart.

Let her rest
        so she can come alive.
Let her rest
        so she can come back.

Just,
        let her sleep.

I was visited again by Death.
Not the hooded creature, but a shadow of my own cadence
        slid across the cortex of my mind
                the place
        where the rational man falls to the unceasing siege of the animal,
        where every edge of every plane of time thrusts itself and
                interrupts our daydreams to inter seeds
                of fear
                of frustration
                of hope
                of anger
                of things gone
                of things we wish
                of things we want
                of
                        things we dare never speak aloud.

It (I) brought to me (myself) no vision of my own demise,
        no recycled image from film or phone or fable.  It brought worse:

My own house.
My own floor.
My own back
        hunched.
My own legs
        crossed.
My own head
        bowed.
My own shoulders
        heaving.
My own arms
        flaccid.
My own lap
        heavy.
My own son
        Limp.

        Brown curls on a blue forehead in a peaceful, lifeless rest.
        A pietà.

        ---

I fade away as I appeared, and revive. A searing kiss on both eyes.

        Brown curls on a pink forehead in a peaceful, mid-meal grin.
        A Cheerio.

        ---

Wake up!
Wake up! Arise! Look out!
        and See
        and Be
        and Grasp
        the Goodness of All around You.

A moth
        Rorshach
A rat head
        drooping
        seeping
        on
        a
      ­  spit
*******
        sliding off
        a bedpost
A T
A cross
        a convenience store
        back-lit display
        dissolving two-dimensional
        Charlie Brown
feed your dog
Misty
        shaking, dry-ice
        eyes
Find the bed and
        Close and rest on
        pillow lips
Slick black
        gossamer shell
                plastic
Red light
        warning—bleeding—beating
        always on
        always seeing
        always waiting
        But
what do I see?
        Glimpses
        manipulated mutated
I see nothing next
        to nothing.

                **** mirror.

What’s the statute of limitations
        on my obligations
                as a son
        on my victimhood as a
                semi-orphan
        on my blamefulness as a
                father
When does it end—these yet-to-be-seen effects of the mundane
        I make now?
When do I not carry them
        the strings
        of the yarn map tracing
my endless encounters and tacking
        not into cork but
        into my soul stretched pulled
in four dimensions.
Length times width times depth times time. I coexist
         in every manifestation of
myself simultaneously.
        All time all me, all tacked,
        All pulled, all stretched by
more hands than my own.  Vibrating
        into my marrow reminding
of the inescapability of the
        contracts I didn’t sign.  Most of them.

Each day the threads move.
They swirl and choke or puncture
        taut and pull. pull. pull
        me back, back to them.
        To early morning and late nights
        every day
        That old house of repressed
memories and façade bonds
        of newspaper-wrapped electric
circuits waiting for the
spark
        to finally incense the
        old aged kindling of other
        string maps of
        other pasts of
        more and more disappointment.

My heart is a prism. a rock.
        set in the stone of my
chest compressed
by pressure into endlessly
        juxtaposed edges of glass.
        An edge: a time a place a person a me. Surrounded
        onyx black
but yet
        Reflecting.  It’s deep
        yes
        but shine deep enough
        yes, go
        and it will reflect
        go on, go on
        fluoresce
        yes yes yes go
        myriad colors of spectrums
                of me
torn out of the mine of
my own construction of
        the muscle memories of
        the past pains of
        the unceasing variations of
the crude black **** I’ve
made before.

        How long
                        will I be responsible for
                                                     her?
For you?
Was I ever?
Am I at all?

Are we Frodo or are we Sam?

We’re been there and back and
        find ourselves unfound
groundless

Stuck
        in an unknown cog on a wheel we don’t know is turning.

Robert’s misread roads
rise to our feet yet
        is the choice that simple?  Is it that binary?

We are no longer binary.

We are not a yes or no, a black or white:
        a party of two.

How can we choose?
        we can’t

So we sit?

We sit.  We wait.  We emit and pray, ponder and vibrate.

We wait.

We wait.

Despite how it feels, take notice of the myriad reminders
you are not the center of existence.

Like Galileo, fight for the understanding that there is much more than you.

1
A seed grows in my Heart.
                (no more than a summer melon’s)        
        Black, brilliant, roots
        crack veneer shell and sprout
        propagate
        deep into the marrow of my very life.  

Tender flesh juicing red,
Replace my sinew!
Take what once fueled the industry of vanity,
        the fell machinery of your demise,
        the coffee life,
        the algorithmania,
        the I deserve,
        the trite Insta-filter,
        the like and friend and tag and share
And cast it aside!—as you once were!—
And make me the vessel of your deliverance
And teach me again
        to see you
        to breathe you
        to feel you
        to love you
So that I may redeem some future, some place
        where my son can pull the blade from his stone before it is sent to quarry.

2
How I long for you!
        For air!
        For sun!
        For solitude!

        For green!
        For radiance!
        For decay!

        For life!
        For rot!
        For fungus!

        For bark!
        For sap!
        For dirt!

        For some well-wish,
        some clue,
                that we haven’t dug too hastily
                with spite and ego and industry and greed.

3
Henry! Let me in your house!  
        Show me to fish and to bake your bread!
Walt! Chant for me!
        Sow me a path with your electric melody!
                (you understand my dilemma, boy of the city and soul of the Earth)
Allen! I cry to you!
        Put your sunflower in my eyes
        And wipe away my tears through dusty gray.


        Arthur,
        It may never once was, yet let the future be.

As I wince through plucking each silver strand of hair,
I see a brown companion accompany it.

Do not spend your vitality futilely trying to recapture what is already past.

Instead, embrace the ebbs of flows of time.

If you don't, you'll simply end up aching and bald.

In the third grade,
        my teacher scolded me for pretending my pen
        was a rocketship.

well, ha ha!

                       I wasn't supposed to be using pen.

Do not render yourself inert because of damages, harms, and "brokenness."

Instead, embrace your human condition, and believe in your own capacity to impart compassion.

I cannot control the world around me, but
I can control how I engage with the world.

Being successful is a different struggle.

Why must your "art" always come from despair?

Recognize all the feelings as energy, and
give yourself the time and kindness to convert negativity and moaning into
a celebration of experience.

Each time I grasp my aggression and anger, guilt and denial,
it's like grabbing a knife upside-down.

The error quickly manifests, but
the woulds are slow to heal and easily reopened.

Approach existence with humor,
especially in turmoil, frustration, and disappointment.

A smile and grin will keep the last laugh off you.