Concept:
youlovemeback.

The ingredients of cleanse
make their way
to your house.

There is

a

strobe,
two stones portioned off
a Ziggurat,
a present thing —
like wheels,
a teardrop,
nail clippings.

My father
would trim his nails
and bury them —
as seeds.

Stared
at that ***
all days and evenings.
Monsoons and
summer heat echoed.
Time circled back and forth.

Sometimes,

I would gargle
father’s beer and
spit into the ***.
Maybe it needed
Acrid, it needed
Strong. It needed
Disgusting,
Toxic. It wanted

wrong.

I turn 22.
The ***
Disappears. My father
too. Militants
took him away,
or so the chatter goes.
He wore Chinos, sun-dried
eyes, a hat.
Mice ate
the matchsticks
used for kindling.
The Queen Termite
Gave birth to more
hungry little ones
under the sink.
Dark, musty,
collapsing.
Memory, time,
fingertips. Thyme
rhymes

with mime,

I copy my father.
Trims nails.
Plants.
Waters.

Concept:
trytounderstand

This was only the nourish
he could give. It was
a copy of the nourish
his father could give —
Or so

The chatter goes.

Gather the stones.
Get the strobe.
Pound the nail clippings
and

an enzyme flows
Through, like tape recorders whirring
as they wind back to
play recorded confessions
one more time.

Free baptismals
at the church service
for hurried teens.
Free shirts for
the Insufficient.
Free lessons for
the young boy
who can’t read women.

Free at long, long last.

Concept:
fixtheheart

•<>•
the addicted pleasure words granted to we privileged few,
like every enslaved soul to the mind, which I am, I am,
evening dreams, midnight thinkings, sunrise seeings,
how can I infect and thus protect the young to the liberty
to love the crafted content of our human essence to better
comprehend that a moment caught on tape of our shared
words is a holiday, a celebration for the ages,
scar of pleasure, a forehead Cain mark, scarlet letter of pride,
for this reliving of our stories retelling is the skipped beat
of our connection not born from practical reason,
but from truths we own equally and though reason says
mine, it is not, it is only to be yours when the sharing
resonates resonates resonates resonates resonates
and every molecule, becomes a human tuning fork
in concert, in pitch identical, in blood tainted with
the simplicity of we are all the same, only words, this will transmit

                                          July 4th, 2017
                                                •<>•

"If you spend enough time reading or writing, you find a voice, but you also find certain tastes. You find certain writers who when they write, it makes your own brain voice like a tuning fork, and you just resonate with them. And when that happens, reading those writers … becomes a source of unbelievable joy. It’s like eating candy for the soul."
And I sometimes have a hard time understanding how people who don’t have that in their lives make it through the day.
David Foster Wallace

in the darkened hall the barefoot man
stood afraid of stubbing toes and tripping up
afraid to make himself the fool
the stumbling bumbling imbecile
his weight of fear took up more of him
that time stood still
and this day he stands in bronze
a monument to fear
a statue now stands etched in time
along side a stale crumb
of bread

Now don't get me wrong,
This whole time that I was trying to understand
What you wanted, I couldn't help but notice
That I can't make sense of it all along.
This and that, blind tales, you have my full
Undivided attention, filling my head with
Strange and odd promises, telling me that
Although it seems unreal, you could just
Let them all in. If I took your "sound" advice,
If I'm alone, I could sleep with people on the street,
Put all of my food and drink upon
The ground, drag food around, your obsession
That I should feel fine to just pick it up and eat,
To try to defy my "religious" obsession, always
Try to be the one in charge, look for opportunities
To go off and put away or slay the "baddies" at large,
Become the person of the hour, or a follower,
Get a job where I can sweep floors and wipe tables,
So that I'll really be excited for the first time doing
What I do for a living, even if I'm not really able.
Who cares if this life throws everything bad at me,
I'm ready to attack all of the things that hold me back,
Even go for the things that don't interest me, instead of
Letting them be! YES, I believe "everyone" should work,
Even if they are really lost, psychologically unwell,
Major transportation issues and other real
Problems, No matter what we've been through,
No matter the actual real life hell,
We were all brought into this world to be
JUST LIKE YOU as well!

after watching
the videos of children and humans
striving for a breath
their bodies limp
from a saran attack
I would strap my *** to
a cruise missile
after getting a tattoo
all over my body saying
Assad
this is for you!
It was sickening
beastlike satanic
and I cried
my stomach wretched
I shuddered
here this world is
in the 21st century
and  some of us
are still barbarians
I pray
we listen to the
little girl some
call the  Syrian
Anne Frank
my heart breaks
again