Oh qualia, you cover my eyes,
And hold me chained to my lies.
Subject as it stands, the world
Is in my head,
I’d wish the solips sold away their rights.

Fine as she was I met her one day,
A pretty lass of such inky hair.
She turned me down, as it stood,
And so I began
The walk of a thousand woods.

For every man that stood,
Sat in his head the world
Veiled in black.

No such thing you’d think!
But quiet are the felled trees
Of woods never seen.

But hear me now when I say,
His pen is key to my malady.
For a scribe he is
Of the veil that he sees.

When you read those marks
Of this pen,
You see what he sees,
Reduced to his truth,
The many casts of die strewn
Of hands from up above.

‘Simple are your words that are true’, you say,
And ask of piqued voice,
‘What reason be for your melancholy?’

Ah! How my woe does hide
In qualia’s great bright light!

I wish that the solips were right,
That in my head alone stood the world.
But no! but no!

In my head stands a world of broken truth.

That I would not rise to smell her hair
As the morning light struck right,
Is my tragedy.
Oh! Another man’s delight!

And not a thousand of his words
For qualia,
Could have fed my life’s zest.

I hid a smile, that washes me,
Of this little joy, that fills me.
This simple thing, has brought me,
Much happiness, as living life be.
All I did was walk away,
with a candy bar,
from a vending machine.
We strive for great joy,
Many fathoms deep,
That we forget, these little joys,
are what children feel.

i.
eating chocolate-chip fudge cake
heart racing pounding
surrounded with flesh
suffocated, constricted, fighting,
living
for guilty pleasures yearning
digestive juices to action
there is purpose, conviction
the food eaten, none
calories wasted heat not raised
such first world problems, is control

ii.
guilty pleasures
a woman walks up to you
her body for sale
she asks for a chance
to take your money
you quoth bill, she accepts
judgment, opinion, cravings,
the touch sweat confuses for
not loving back
you’re still lost
not having a girlfriend anyway
curb, not succumb to such drive
you’re not forgiven the lonelyness
copying the rest of us and marketing

iii.
relative definitions for everything
no one agrees disagrees
trikha tomia stalemate
money, living, dignity,
your sweatshop is not mine
the immigrants need new life
in the sweat shop they work
for pre-school
there is dignity no dignity yes
but also a body for sale
or a fat man eating his cake

You are reading these words,
these words that I wrote,
this creation of mine.
And yet I do not own it,
the words that you read
are a choice of chance.
My self is amazed by this,
and I wonder if I created it,
and how it was ordered
from the chaos in my head.
Maybe my self is a reflection
of this randomness,
and the self an identity,
Of chance.
And so is yours,
I envy the randomness,
the randomness of chance,
and the life that is not mine.

We sit by each other,
In patched wollen sweaters.
Smeared with dirt,
Our faces red,
But yours shining,
I kiss your little cheek
Hoping it gets better.

The stars twinkle,
As the twilight arrives,
I offer thin soup,
And two stories,
About the tiger who lost his tail,
And the frog who drowned.

Your palms, tiny, innocent,
I hope they never change,
I wish all the world for you.
The mind swamped,
The body electric,
I was too young
To know any better.

We sit here amongst the rubble
And the stray island cats,
I try not to break down,
Not in front of you.
Your beautiful black eyes,
They come alive with hope.
But amidst all this rubble
Hope is the only luxury
I can afford.

Oh woe is me and my misery,
Little lonely heart of mine
Please don't cry,
Be still, be still.

In the silence between us,
We are neither alive,
Nor have we passed on,
****** to this purgatory
Of a broken love.

The blue skies are listless,
And little white clouds grayer.
The air is much too colder,
Poor withered leaves breathless.

I find myself with no passion in my work,
Much like your dilapidated beat.
Why must I go on
With no reason hence,
The object of my affection
Willfully, another's blessed.

When we dance
The angles sung
A body electric,
I only wish I could love you
Like he loves you.

Never fated to find out,
I weep in dispair,
As life goes on,
To another waking day.

Reading what I just wrote is sickening.
Words strung together, in cohesion,
I read it again, for narcissism.
Such a mirror it is for my vanity!

For of the random chances that led me here,
Unique in time surely,
But why must I place such weight
To wit, of die strewn
And landing this way?

She said I was handsome,
And I hope she meant it,
Maybe she really did.

She touched my hand
And said it was soft,
And I began to tingle.

I did not say a word,
So she offered to massage
Shoulders far to tight.

My head then spun,
For the next hour or so.
My heart flooded
And emotion rushed
Through my little head.

I was the poor canary
In a coal mine,
Bobbed around
As life left me.

She then departed
With a brown envelope.
I looked out the window,
Saving her ad for later.

These four walls surround me,
and I find them watching me,
everyday, and I feel it.

I am fed and I gulp, to live,
I don't know what they give me,
everyday, but I don’t resist it.

I want to be free, to run wild,
even if for only a day,
everyday, I wish it.

I am a hamster in a cage,
In New York, a shop by a park,
everyday, and I hate it.

Slowly they count
The hands of time
Gliding without rest
Macbeth he screamed
They are here
A slow and relentless march
tic-tok, tic-tok
Here it is and there it goes
Without applause.
Stand still impervious!
The moments wash over you
Yet still of grit and mud
You are ever a rock, steady.
You close your eyes
As a tear niggles your flush cheek
Life is here and there it goes,
You mind is here and there it goes.
You are but here
Never moving
You are but here
Never moving.

She sat next to me,
Her feet betwixt mine.
Looked at me dearly,
And punched me easily.

I yelped, and cocked,
I took one look at her
And punched her forcefully,
Square on her face, unhesitantly.

Surprised and antagonized,
Her eyebrows questioned,
"Why the hell?" I bemoaned
Her face red, she left me.

scared
little heart
you fool
in fervor
don't walk away
live, love
all she wants
is you hand
on her hip

All alone,
I sit by the lake,
Of pensive moods
Men come to lose.
Serene at it stood,
My mind was not,
I was stewing in my head.

Why must there be meaning?
My efforts are lost
Amongst the noise of the evening.
To sit here and not worry
Feels comforting.
To fall and worry,
Is not appealing.

I can clean gutters
And watch blue skies,
And justify my existence
With sweat that spills.
Simple is that proposition,
Would I feel constricted
By that burden?

Or I could climb vast mountains
Of extraordinary genius.
Only to summit
Under shadows of titans?

As I sit here by the lake,
Of this winter morning
Nothing can be said.
I have no answer, yet,
Maybe I never shall.

Of the lotus in the centre,
The dim light does no justice
As it struggles
Amongst the thin mist.

Tonight I sat by the corner of my room,
Dreaming of nuclear pasta and
Bottles of ultraviolet water.
I was alone, and it was bleak.
Everything around me was lost
In the sadness of everything else
Swallowing everything else.
I sat and wondered about each moment that passed
And how each moment slipped away until the next came afresh, unbound.
But I remembered the one that came before the one next, and that too was bleak.
Bleak, cold, filth, like a grotto filled with rats and dead fish.
The floor creaked as I shivered sitting there,
Life it seemed was given and not had.
I lit candle, for it seemed macabre
And I need that,
It was homage, an appeal.
The shadows about me had flickered as if alive,
A life given.
I remember wishing, wanting to be something.
For the few precious moments that passed it seemed believable.
Betwixt my cold finders and burning wax,
I could feel and light sprung briefly.
The joy was maddening, almost manic.
I had whispered ferverently that I had won,
Ever briefly,
But the voices had come back,
And those moments had passed,
I blew out the candle and wept.

I don't care much about this night
And the rest of everything else
For now I'm infinitely happy,
Really,
And I don't ask for much more than this.
For tonight I found someone
Far from a madding crowd,
Who's interested in the little circles I draw
In the bare sand by my feet.
Of why I do not know,
But the attention,
Oh how giddy I feel, like a canary.
All I wish to do now is cradle her soft face
On my shoulder
As I hear her quiet Cantonese
Listening to anything but.
Laying there with her I'll peer into her almond eyes
And find love, lust,
Amongst other sins.

in grandiose dreams of building castles that last of sand stone and other things from the dirt, the air is free so I'm told, I should build castles in the air and foundations under them, said of chicanery the old fool by the pond, but none the less it is what it is, imaginary, never materialized, sadness in the face of it, to get out of town starting down a quite calm road that lead nowhere, I walk out to nothing

the slaves mustn't revolt they mustn't think they must be quite and sit still, their arms move and no more hear hear you dunce back to your seat there are lines to scribe and things to quarter back to it back to it worthless meat neeord waits for none

the streets aren't clean, left in this gutter to dream, out at the cars I see the stars and their precise meander oh how I wish I were a star without a care in the world, pun intended hurhur, looking down upon everyone else and going about it, these mechanical birds wound up must be such fun to watch, ****, **** and ****, oh I wish I were a star. I sit here in this filth, putrid, but home, a star I am for myself, shining black gold.

this crippling fear the walls close and so it would seems the madness of it all consuming, for the walls they close and I'm here and nothing is changing, the sun sets and that is that, don't lie down, time to go at it again, happy ******* friday here's a monday for you.

I spend days contemplating
Life in these little pictures,
From fragments fashioned
With my imagination.

I see the many crows feet
Around brown eyes,
And the shiny lights
Of gushing malls.
They capture focus,
Yet I wish for more,
More of this silence.

The sights,
the unheard sounds,
And the quiet trees.
Captured only in black and white.

I dream as if in deep sleep,
Of those moments
In wonder.
The sights, the sounds,
And the muttering trees.

But this moment is forever,
Here set in stone,
A pithy memory,
Written many times over,
Selective, happy.

So said the black bird,
"Why must I fly?"
"Should not the sun
Burn my wings?"
But such questions are
Not to be spoken of.
A flight of fancy
Broken to doubts,
Like the gentle fish
Who wished to walk
And think.

I am small
I am worthless

but for my beating heart swell,
I am useless

Not a chance taken
not a hand reached out,
but for the roll of the bones
I am alive here
And perhaps well

I am insignificant in my mind
and I am useless

For in the fire of ambition
People find drive
And perhaps in the arms of retribution
People find action
More so in act of living
People find the need to live,
While I have found none.

I am sitting here, still,
Without a sound
Except the sound of my heart
My body live
Mind still
Fear and other maladies of existence
I am but a man on a beach
A castaway
Food, shelter,
Alone.

oh the rain is here,
the rain is here.
my god! the rain is here.

how I've longed
for the petrichor,
for the grass to sing
and sway with the squall.

I race across the great hill,
With the wild dogs behind me,
To the wide open.

my sisters straggle
as I reach the giant Acacia,
to heavy patter
on mud ponds.
the baked earth, I know,
is thankful.

as great rivers of light
crack a dark night bright,
I smile with eyes closed.
for I know now why we pray
to the heavens.

The circumstance of chance is never that
Things are set right,
That your life will flow like the gentle squall
Across a field of gold.
The circumstance of chance is what you make of it
And how you chose to live with it.
You can blame your father for his house,
Or your mother for her abandon.
But never does it matter, I tell you again.
The circumstance of chance is too much to take
But if you stepped out of it all,
And understood that
And that your mother was terribly afraid of the world around her,
Or that your father too driven by fear for the lives he is responsible for,
It is only then that you realize
Love isn't given away freely to anybody,
That the man next to you needs a soft smile
To live his life another day
Or that you need yourself on the darkest of days.

When they ******* up,
You'd want to run away,
Run a far, never to turn back,
Or leave bread crumbs behind.
For when they ******* up
The scars run deep,
The memories better left repressed,
And the very idea makes you sick.
But you live with it,
Twist it, and turn it,
And feel life with it,
For some day
We'd have to find our way back home.

Touch me,
And tell me that you love me.
That you'll never leave me,
And always stand by me.
I promise you the same,
If you will,
For it's hard enough to stand alone
And stare down a rocky ledge.

unsuspecting,
another stroll in the park,
happy tottle caper
jump the village wall,
Never be sad little one
your horns will grow
so your life flows

but the day turns
to night this sable dark
you are placed on your sternum
to head an inoculation
comes death, you sleep
not knowing much
but a moments struggle
to live as such.

My lover,
You look into my eyes
And I bare you my soul.
Naked,
And under a heavy spotlight,
Alone on the lighted stage
Of your piercing gaze.
You know me
More than I could myself.
I've given you my innocence,
And you hold my heart,
Wrapped around your finger.
Held without rationale,
But with primitive emotion.
In my arms I hold you,
And I feel bliss
Beyond measure.
The primitive designed
To seek out this very feeling,
Your warm skin reminds me
Of my own,
And by the sea and a heavy moon,
I wish this moment be forever.

I can't see through your eyes
It's too hard and takes a lifetime anyway
But I read what you must have read
As a child coping and surviving
I can't image how hard it must have been,
Mother stuck with you and that is that
She always said she had her reasons
She tried to explain them to me
The immature never listen anyway.
I think I might understand now, it took me another decade.
What was the value I add, you always asked,
The anthem of the mind only you could hear,
But I heard it too, in song first,
But I heard it too
We live to grow, everyone, together,
In the world you lost your Father
And as to a scared little child of nine
A shadow never quite the friend,
I can feel that fright you must have suffered, sometimes,
I wonder why,
Perhaps you still ask the question for this reason
That you might forget and everything is lost
Your life taken from your hands,
Then come those hungry who cry out for more
Just as she wrote, the anthem of her cold heart