I
A body of white walls
houses familiarity

Somehow even familiarity
distorted itself
beneath raw cinder blocks
doused white enough
that I could see
the eyes of the past
the eyes of the future
looking back at me,
the eyes of the present

Must journey
behind the white walls
into the familiar unknown

For there is something there

Beyond walls
so very high

They
only crumble,
only die

For there is something there

I must look now
through the deep crevices
deep through my mind

For there is something there

Do I find?

I see people
I see minds
Beyond the white walls
looking back
at I

Why oh why
must I continue?
looking forward
only to
look back again

I am stuck,
encased inside
eternity

Only looking back
to find
a way out
a way out
of me

Me
I have always
been my own infinity

Inside, a prisoner
handcuffed to
the white walls
I am shackled here,
alive
kicking

Death
here in the
eternal infinity

Great intellects
dead,
killed by me

I am my own infinity

I must **** me
I will be free
no longer shackled

I am my own infinity
I am my own uncertainty
I am my own familiarity

It is me
I am my own infinity

The white walls
close in on me,
my own infinity

I do not want to change myself
I do not want to change me

I change
I die

Death’s kiss might be sweet
death’s kiss may free me,
finally

Yet
I cannot accept it
I will not

I just want to be me
but I am everyone else
and they are me
my own infinity

Everything that is
is so very much
everything that is’nt

Beyond the white walls
are nothing you see

White walls
everywhere

White walls
everything

Encasing all
of us

It is here,
it is here

The white walls
shackle us,
shackle us
to
reality,
society


There is forever
no infinity
in me

The familiarity
tastes of death
mistaken for
reality
society

The burning truth

The familiarity
the distorted familiarity
that
is
reality
society

We rely on each other
So much we shoot
each other

We are not strong
We are not smart

We can be
We can’t be

If we break
the shackles
If we keep
the shackles

I am in pieces
I am shattered like glass

I cannot do this
I cannot presume

Death’s kiss
seems sweeter than ever
(forever lost in my own infinity)

You see we
build ourselves up
so
the white walls
eat us up

until we are part of
the white walls
until we are part of
the unknown familiarity

Can I break
through?

want to
need to
break through

White walls
oh,
white walls

I’ve been punching
for so long

I am tired,
I am weary

Resisting,
rebelling

Far too long

White walls,
White mazes

Around
my infinite
familiarity


I cannot
make it out
of myself

So I
walk,

So I
walk,

This great
maze of my
soul

Humorous,
I call it a
great maze

I only walk
in circles

Forever in cycle

I’ve felt the
tears,

Fallen onto
the white walls

Hard
to tell
if they
are clear
or just another
drop of paint

Mind
loops back
on itself,
(always does)

Losing it
(finally insane)


A mad man
I am

A new coat
to adorn

Darker

Darker

Darker

Cracks,
crevices
the white walls
emit abysmal black paint

So-cold
oil,
(called paint)
I will make darkness burn
It stings,
makes a statement
deep within me

Have you ever
felt pain?

Have you ever
felt life?

Walls
I have forgotten
what color
infinity was

Happiness,
feels
so white
but
burns
so dark

Have you ever
felt dark?


Dark feels me
as I
wander,
wither

In
white darkness

II
Out of
walls,
like ghosts
come the hounds

Hounds of the world!
is this all you are?

Animals
who eat away the
stone
rubble
of my soul

Is that what I’ve
become?

Only
stone?
rubble?

White,
raw stone
crushed,
unbroken
by the
organized animals
mistaken to be ourselves

Somehow still shackled
to white darkness
I’ve felt it
I feel it
it feels me

As if to caress
something so bare-beautiful
as a women,
disrobed in the
eternal darkness
of countless midnights

Spent down beneath
the infinity of
blacks,
purples
and blues

Laying in the
leaves of grass
I am
looking at the holes
of the black galaxy
that shoot their beams
back into the
familiar infinity
of my soul itself

For there is something there

There always never always was
something there

I can hear the hounds
once again
prancing
dancing their way
down the halls of
white walls

The white walls that were always never always
there

I walk through them
like such a ghoul
and see
so much of
every nothing
White walls
they melt like
glue

No support

No support

No support

For this life,
for all who may be
in this life

Have nothing
only others

They only
have the other souls,

For they have lost
their own lives
replaced them with
others

Ayn Rand, were you right?
Ayn Rand, were you right?

I’m searching for something
I’m searching for nothing

Where are you?
Individual?

My soul
it pours out
it fills the droughts
of this eternal infinity

But does reason flow?

I only need reason
all I wanted it was


NO!

NO!

NO!

Reason where are you?

The individual,
where are you?

Only descending into
further into madness

I must live!

I must thrive!

I will break this
structure of society

I will shatter
the layers of
humanity,
the layers of
society,
the layers of
reality

I spit lightning
I inhale thunder

Ever before
more alive

I.
in his dreams he saw her
in his dreams he wove a tapestry of hope
a phantasmagoria of love's plenitude
but that was only in his dreams

II.
when Fall came
he figured
a deciduous alternative
to pining for the impossible
and succumbed slightly
to the mad sensation
of his fervent passion

instead of leaves
he shed
tears

III.
one day
sunlight streamed down
and he found himself bathed
in warmth
suddenly alive with energy
suddenly vital
suddenly
at long last

himself.

IV.
yes it was penumbra
outside  just outside
but within his citadel
his castle a light shone
pure
impervious
elegant
such light as arrives after
a great storm

he thought
the storm had lasted
sixty years
or more

V.

it was hard to define
infinity as a daily companion
but there it was again
sitting on the sofa
staring him down
from its perspective of ever

he had
he thought
to change
into something else
something else
something else

again

a circle mudra

no beginning
no end

infinity at his

fingertips


VI.

in his dream
he was at the shore
of the Prospect Park Lake

dogs were loose and running on the shore

suddenly the dogs began to run into the thin ice of the lake
crash through
start swimming

he saw a couple of german shepherds
three golden doodles
one of whom was his new dog Lola

he watched them swim out
then begin to return by diving
and reappearing closer and closer to the shore

he kept on looking for Lola
but he did not see her

increasingly agitated he asked
where is my dog
repeatedly

then he was in an ambulance
because he had had a stroke

as the ambulance backed up
he saw a golden doodle on his or her back
surely dead

he asked the driver
is that my dog

and the driver did not answer

infinity again appeared
unassuming
and near

VII
in-fin-ity
he pronounced
savory syllables
in inside or of
belonging to
fin end terminus
limit
ity in-the-year
quality of
right-nowness
images without
concrete impact
because after all,
he could only hope
to understand
a vestige
as it appeared
between
the moments when
he looked at his watch


VIII.
his most concrete recall
of infinity manifested
here and now
was:
his older son (at four years old)
had just heard a description of the cosmos
astronomy being one of his (father) interests
as he (father) looked at the sky
in moments of wonder in his (father) life
and what may or not come after
so when it was time for him (son)
to be taken to school in the old VW bug
he (son) sat with a distant look in his(son) eyes
while he (father) tried to start the engine
and suddenly he(son) burst
out crying and he(father) concerned
startled said what's the matter
and he(son) said whimpering
despairing at the immensity of it all

infinity!


IX

he was four years old
on a trip with his father
they stopped at a hill
near railroad tracks
a train came by
the engineer waved
he said "he waved at me"
his father said "no, he waved at me"
then started to climb the hill
he followed
they came to what he thought
was the summit
and he asked when does it end
his father said
this climb is infinite

so they both turned back
you can't start on infinity too soon.

X.

he found a map
city of ny 1930
complete with subways
ferries and the like
he stared at it
for a long time
checking out
so many familiar names
so many half remembered sites
suddenly come alive
from so many years ago
and realized
it could have been yesterday

and maybe it was.

XI.

standing at the very top of Vargas Street
in Quito, he yelled her name,
called her as one calls for a miracle

true to form

nothing happened
except
the street
and his life
spread out before him
and he knew not why

XII

he dreamed three signs:
life
death
infinity

and they were all one and the same

XIII

in the airplane
flying high above
destitute crowds
teeming multitudes
lost continents of grief
he thought he glimpsed
a truth so vast
it stunned him
as he sat
watching
fluffy clouds
reach out

then it was time to land
and he forgot about it.

XIV.

infinity,
companion supreme
and inexpressible
fount
foundation
and relief
of all we are

within thy
subtle
concatenations
(subsuming all
in patient minutes
that escape uncounted)
gather this thy humble
servant
in your mantle of hours
and grant
by thy unknowable presence
that I too
your meaning

(extant
in a universe so vast
only the most minimalist structures
understand)

be revealed

ah, this coffee tastes great!

Thanks!