I let myself drown asunder
Ignorance is bliss?
Or is it hum durgeon?
Do not utter the sage in you
Nor shun;
Let me lull
For today I unfurl my placid eyes
And let my drowsiness drift
Away from these snollygosters

Let these destined tides sweep through me
Whilst I gently rise,
From the ocean of rage, I rise
Drifting through notes of gentle souls
Amid these crimson glistening waves,
I bleed among roars
Whilst shores sway with sounds of tabret,
And skies dance in nacarat,
For never it welcomed; Redness,
Such unsullied, such stainless

Time hath gone, of Abel and Aron
Yet altercation wanders amongst age’s heron
Time hath gone, of forgiveness and mercy
For today, lines are re-drawn
The goodness is not your goodness
Nor dare ascertain, the mischief and nuisance
Tis but what divinely revealed
Is benevolence..
Today I unsheathed Tutankhamun’s dagger,
Today I stand against savageness
Today I paint my hands in color of mercilessness

Perfect: I used that word once to talk about you
as if you were a doll with limbs made of plastic:
stiff and whimsical and subject to the niggardly
commands of the conscious- yet you, who thinks
as aggressively as any doll-house builder do not
construct your own set-pieces; instead you
pirouette into one carefully constructed day to the
next as you delicately
stride
from bed to shower to wardrobe to mirror to desktop to
window to mirror to mirror to
mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them
all-
and the staid look on your face when the mirror gives no
answer
because it can’t. Checkered skirt, sharp eyelashes, wary
jumper, almost heels. Perfect, you might think
for a moment before your eyes roll gently from self
to mirror
to self
to mirror
to mirror
the self. What was
it that you were looking for if all it does is lead
you back to your skin? Meanwhile, the snow
stutters softly from above as if God had dandruff-
perfect- and it all gently glazes the spongy surface of the world like
flawless coconut icing on some sorry party cake- perfect- and the morning
bell rings impossibly on time like the last
breath you thought was your last- perfect- and somewhere in
America I use words to remind you of the little
unreachables
of perfection that both start and end with your perfectly
snow-pale skin, where somewhere in
America and somewhere on
your thighs perfect ridges of red have formed themselves like
plastic scratches on a Barbie which we both think
are little but we both know
are big
because you are not plastic.

                                               At nighttime our feet
skip on the icy brick pathways that lead from
the dorm-rooms to the library and we shiver
as the snowflakes bob in and out of our bodies
like thoughts
that seem funny but aren’t quite- they melt away
as soon as they stumble upon our skin. From our mouths
cloudy puffs of being flutter out- little butterflies affirming
out listless snowflake-filled minds, sperming out ice-clouds
from our mouths, our mouths, our mouths; birthing friendship.
Breath, visible, is laughter. I trip and swear and momentarily
skate
across a sudden ice-surface as you speak another ice-breath. We
arrive
at the library but dart towards the empty right-side, the science
classrooms. We hope
to examine the thought-skirmishes on your right thigh, to turn  
and change this hopeless world-spinning into centrifuge
separation-
make apparent the light from the dark
                        the firmament from the void
                        the flesh from the plastic, the-
here we are as you talk
about your family and I
try my best to look you
in the eye so I
can become
your eyes
even when
normally
I
am
so
vehemently
against

staring

at the soul-gates of another being-
here we are as you talk;
God is still missing from the centrifuge
of the endlessly turning world- your
axis
is your skin yet
you trust it
not. The salads without dressing,
        the weighing scales,
        the taste of bile at the back of your
throat-
all for skin that
       you
do
not
      trust.
All for flesh that you think is plastic
so
     you
     cut.
      
             Enough
talk because the bell cuts through the flesh
of our conversation. Enough
talk because the world insists on
turning still
and forcing us to revolve
with it. Enough
breathing, enough
snow, enough
life. I remember you saying
that the ratios of your face are wrong;
that certain equilibriums do not exist between
your cheeks your lips your eyes your life…I remember the science
classrooms where parts of you were as mathematical as the architecture... I remember how
you keep thinking your flesh is plastic… You forget how
inglorious the nature of these words is. The problem
with human thought, with the ratios of your face, with the
geometric structures that cut across your thighs, with the
statistical neatness with which your family decomposes;
the problem with our conception of perfect is how
awkwardly it both exists and does not exist for us to
see.
The ratios of your face which you think are broken are
the same miracles I wonder about as you laugh. The incorrect distance
from your cheek to your eye which you think is wrong is the same
lightyear which separates the stars from the planets. The curvature
of your stomach is the bending of a spacetime to accommodate
the way the air must move to let your body occupy the space and time in which it
exists.
The ratios you speak of spring from your own limitlessness, your own
perfect imperfections , imperfect perfections-
strange oddities and unfathomable beauties and yes. Yes,
even the ridges across your right thigh are minute, red,
gasping
grand-canyons of
flesh,
of human, of breathing clay
flesh-
           never
plastic;
            always
worthy.
            
              Recently the voices in my head have been getting louder,
telling me all sorts of things about how the snow ought to bury me
in its mercilessness. They mention also that my words bear no meaning,
my thoughts even less so. Assumedly, the ridges across your thigh
carry such spectres as well but, I messaged you before you went to bed
about coming out and having an adventure because tick-tock-tick-tock…tick…tock…tick-
the last bell of the day is going to ring soon and the voices and ridges
will assert themselves again with the bedtime silence, but check your Facebook
messages and come outside and let’s go skipping with your friends across
the century-old polished prep-school brick pathways that smell archaic because it’s

snowing outside and it’s lovely.

From the kingdom of death thou wildly run,
as though to die not; as though all shall be fun.
Even though thou might not be as fine as mine,
And hesitate once not, like many other minds.
Under the staggering sun thou art the sun itself;
Unlike the universe any mortal shall never have.
To thee but heaven shall never be adequate,
To thee whom fate shall not mind; but dare not ever bend.
Thou, who deemeth everything is futile and late;
Thou, who hath neither words nor poetry in thy hand.
Thou art at times like a piece of youthful innocent art,
Which amorous feeble hands long to tear apart.
Like a flower t'at grows on the window behind the curtain,
Thou shall return to youth, and be younger-every now and then;
For with thy playfulness thou shall bitterly mock Determination;
Whilst thy childishness shall help thee dream of, and silently miss Salvation.

And whenst all t'is business is to say goodbye;
Thou shall still stay, forever and never die.
For thou art undead, and forever and ever immortal,
No stab canst wound thee, as no torpid wound of thine fatal.
Thou art a fatal prince-yes, a wicked, wicked heir;
Heir of cheerfulness-of a soul so full of spirits yet fairness.
Ah! And so thus thou shall leave behind not t'is worldly affair,
Thou shall be eternally bent upon it, and makest of it, thy happiness.
And when at the very end, all dead souls should awaken and retaliate,
Thou shall stay calmly and twitch not by heaven's wooden gate.
Thy agelessness is a mirage no blunt living soul can afford;
Thou art infallible, unlike the decrees of our dear Lord,
For thou shall never dwell among a thousand earths
And be lain among lilies and roses yonder, of irrevocable green hearth.
Thou art, in any midst of grievousness, cold with mirth;
When there is no more born thou art blessed with anew, birth.

Thus thou art forever unsinned, and shall be so gullible;
Thou art an adult inside; 'spite appearing so weak and feeble.
People canst, by thy comely appearance, fall deaf and misunderstand,
Thinking thee a ruddy friend; a robust and sincere fellow.
But thou art indeed, and in truth-a witty and good-hearted man,
As bold and ever unhesitant, but caring and good-willed, as tomorrow.
Thy naivety thus fights against, and befalls any mercilessness,
Thy delight is but our timid society's frank joyfulness.
And every song is benignly rooted in the delicacy of thy tongue,
To whom thy streams of love, as well as hate, shall belong.
But again, more and more loving hearts shall complain-
For when they fade and ought to disappear; thou shall firmly remain.
And duly thou defeat for evermore any tainted miserable heart,
Especially hearts that hath no beat when they supposedly beat, and are alive.
For thy heart is as fresh, and inevitable-like a solitary work of art,
But innocent and intelligent-like a young sword; or the neat blade, of a cold knife.

So whatever love claims to be love-which is too proud, though clear and sanguine;
Is not at all, or by any chance-pure, tolerable, nor delightfully keen;
For love is not the same as pleasure-as pleasure is not love,
Love is the one no senses canst touch-nor for pride move.
Ah, thee, we canst but teach thee more lessons of love itself;
For there are more than our anxious souls canst tell;
Love is not something t'at canst one satisfy, nor is for one to drink;
For any to satisfy or drink is yon that makes oneself sink.
I figurest above are imminent to thy knowing;
For thou shall still mature more; and be independent in thy living.
For family is still more essential than any money or gold;
To which we humans oftentimes too sternly hold.
Ah, but thy journey is still upwards and steep as a hill;
An endlessness our mortality is but too scared to feel.
So be wise and fill thyself with rich wisdom likewise;
And as thy findeth bitterness on due roads-turn to poetry, and seek its advice.

And so to thee hath a world of supremacy be assigned,
So thus I entreat-t'at be with thee all the reciprocal goodness-and dexterity!
Ah, and by thy cleverness shall all be mutually aligned,
For naive thou art still, about the very course of extremity!
But severity shall not burden thee, as to thy endurance and good will,
Thy willingness to share, and rely and lean on how such fellows feel.
Thou refilleth 'em always, with endless and plentiful splendours,
Thou cheereth 'eir minutes, and stay comely at all 'eir breathing hours.
As every single day's dates themselves, thou art undeniable;
Thou art real in thy eternity, though sometimes unbelievable;
Thou art worth all the bogs who are so merrily singing-
Thou art so graceful, thou art everything!
As in both reality and dreams thou art present,
Thou who art obscure; but coincidentally, sharp and inherent!
Ah, thee, thus I hope t'at every poem-such as t'is, shall make thee even more truthful;
For poetry itself is relief; and our most reliable urge to be brave, and thoughtful.

Here hails a huge, long and dragonish snake,
With myriads of dangerous heads on its thorax,
Roaming up and down in a nefarious duty
All over the African streets and hamlets,
Villages and terrains, the abodes of poor folks,
Swallowing daughters and sons of this land,
Swallowing a handful of them on each bite,
They are in a forlorn despair like never before,
Defenselessly succumbing to the dragon once in the grip,
Young and old, prebubescent and all others are cancers’ fodder,
Africa is truly diminishing to the abysmal jaws of cancer,
Forget of initial vices of ***, Ebola and leprosy,
Forget of the contemporary terrorism and ethnic warlordism,
Cancer is ruthlessly swallowing poor folks of Africa
Into its inferno of early deaths, rendering many parentless,
A knot for the living to put aside pride and seek genuine help,
For the myriad heads of dragonish cancer violently **** the prey,
I have seen sons and daughters of poor Africa in cancerous agony,
Often with a blocked food pipe when in the grip of throat cancer,
Non-stop vaginal bleeding at mercilessness of cervical cancer,
In the torture of brute pulling weight in grip of scrotal cancer,
On the top of maximum pain in the grip of breast cancer
Humorously desperate before menacing eyes of death,
When misfortunately in the grip of heart cancer,
Deathly starvation condemns many poor folks to grave,
Always when in the unlucky tentacle of intestinal cancer,
In this desperate land of Africa where basic hospital
Stands a luxury, affordable by the rich in the political class,
As the poor without choice die and die and die,
O who will take me out of Africa, this nonchalant Africa?
Before the dragon of cancer condemns me down to its
Inferno of pains and miserably violent death!
I fear death due to punctured lungs without solace,
I fear death due to stunted blood cells without succor
I fear death due to poisoned blood without palliative
When the cancerous heads of ; lung cancer, blood cancer,
And Liver cancer will besiege this land of Africa to hold me a captive.

I am aware that it is harmful
that I consciously convince myself
of the comforting fantasy
that he is just an old friend who I fell out of touch with.
That somewhere he is living a life:
Following his dreams,
Falling in love,
Making strangers smile.
That I will see him again,
in a crowded bar,
or at a backyard birthday,
where we will catch up like we do
and he will be there and the world will be right.

Then it will hit me.
In the midst of mundane daily details,
If I let my mind go numb for the smallest of seconds,
reality will rush in and engulf me
and scratch on the back of my skull
and crash through my chest with more mercilessness
and more weight
than I knew the world could carry
(it is far too much for me to carry).
I am forced to remember
why the night feels a little more black
with one less lighthouse
to remind me where home is.

But sometimes I blindly smile.
Because how lucky were we,
Peter Pan’s lost boys,
to have had such a brilliant brother
to have lit up our sky at all?

will come unpredictably
not surprisingly

the ultimate hardship to be
weathered
luffed through
mercilessness
and squall
and scud
and a nearly drowning
wave
subtle as the
undertow

though weren’t hardships
named this way—

to be sailed?

what would my first breath
have drawn
had I never felt
my own breath now teetering
upon the thread of
disappearance?

what light would my birth
have shone upon me
had I never come to
execrate it
like an immolation?

the ultimate will wedge itself
beating repetitions into you deep
as the deepest—timelessness

remember when you told yourself
remember this?
pounding your chest?

remember it

you were right

You remembered June when this morning's sun
was there with the care of a father's hand
etching each leaf into filigree--
or with the unsequestered heart of a crazed lover
with his impossible love letters and artifacts
of century's old over-ripened fruits
that even as they hung precariously from the oaks
dazzled and made space for the stark blue.

A change from last night.
The constellate, dispersing fog
that brought the sense
of an overwhelming descent to a seabed,
the submersion a baffling return to a night
from childhood, enclosed at all ends
and unknowable. A shut book.

2.

Warmth lingers on skin even after
a few minutes of exposure, a caress.
Then, step outdoors and the wind,
whose listlessness and beauty
picks up your step and hurries you on
with characteristic mercilessness
through the cold.

While you were sleeping and roaming and reading
it has crept into the uninhabited crevices,
under doors, fuseboxes, the shades of streetlights
to mold like frost.

3.

Cold is a life-form,
growing and budding in the absence of green.

And it is at this time of year we strangle
the neck of uncertainty.

The sun peeks. The cold air climbs
out of the bottoms and hollows of things.

When it reaches an excitement, as now,
her absence reveals herself:
there is nowhere you can touch her body.

She is the thousand particles
she is the spacing in between:

twirling, gathering and thrusting through the streets,
she calls you to witness her now as she comes
like a first snow.

Kimartham Saatva

Slowly essence simplifies
the All Souls curious inquiry
we question and ponder
we dwell and lull our minds to wake,
grasp entreatments to effortlessly and lazily
assist the slow pull from deep in the cave.

We struggle,
strain
our muscles, wring them round
squeezing us into stress and anxiety,
anxiety's merciless choke around your throat,
smashing our hearts between guilt and shame.

Shame, you have no shame!
Good! God Bless the Shameless!

Those who fear God, don't get “it.”
They don't hear its love-filled breath through the trees
they don't feel the truth in a handful of pacific sand
they don't see epiphany in the vast, soft, rolling expanse
of the supple, green morning hills gathering the mist-fog close
to the young glitters of the valley lake,
the peace-keeping mountain peaks.
They don't think of Music of as its own universe.

When we jump off diving boards, or seashore cliffs,
those few short seconds of airborne flight-falling
Prove
We need to challenge our mortality.
Climb that mountain, that hill, that jungle gym!
Climb those cliffs, those rooftops, those fences!

Doubt is a sickly, ******* life-leech.
Fear not Doubt, nor its debilitating effects.
Fear not Love, nor the fear love may breed.

Compare nothing and no one and none.
Comparing brings the misconception of the past-you and the now-you
with the misunderstanding of the someone-else.
It's completely countereffective and can put you at a new low.
But if you compare nothing and no one and none,
the result will astound your heart and mind and eyes.
You'll jump, fall, and crash into the water quickly, and be
Enveloped by Enthusiasm Vibrant.
If nothing is compared, there will be nothing different happening than what is exactly happening at this very moment
and nothing to doubt, nothing to disappoint,
Nothing to Fear.

I am grateful for every instance of
Every temporal, circumstantial, emotional, conceptual, verbal, aural, visual change in perspective and understanding
comprehension - “getting it” - is as rare as real.
True truth is simplicity of self and possessions and ties and responsibilities;
The splendor of the Ideal Utopia is
The sacrifice of complexity and adoption of isolation simplicity.
Isolation – separation from the socially dependent on the acceptable.

The closest you could ever reach nirvana quickly:
******.
Sensual ecstasy
Tangible overload
Absolute deprivation in the convulsions of pleasure
because it's the utter absence of the sense of self.

Why else would we welcome our ******* with
Affirmative cries
oh yes yes yes!
That startle our neighbors from their lifeless slumber.
Remember, when they pound on the wall and demand that you cease your path to nirvana,
They are simply blushing in awe at your shameless approach.
They are doubting their capacity,
fearing the possibility of an inability
To Be Free.

Cast Doubt and Fear from your mind,
Maybe you've heard this before,
But in a different context.
Maybe you've been told not to doubt or question or skepticize
the concept of sin or the authority of the Bible.
I heard it all throughout my childhood.
I heard stories that incited fear and shame and guilt and confusion
and I heard lessons of love and morality and sin and authority and exceptionalism and arrogancism and mercilessness
that only made sense if taken in objectionless.
When I Thought, all I could hear in my mind was -
What the **** is all this?
Excessivity – how does the grandeur of cathedrals not nauseate you?
Obvious manipulation of the awe we possesss.

We own nothing of nature yet we insist on state and country lines,
on property, on political parties, on religious beliefs, on ****** orientation,
on wealth and health and age and wage.
Stop the ******* belief in “otherness!”
There is only ONENESS.

We delight in friendship and family and small talk and deep talk and ***
Because
They remind us
There is and is no otherness or oneness
there's only Noneness
there's only Oneness
Omni-nothingness.

the night we watched two candles burn,
it was moonless and starless and
that accentuated the fires.

i remember you said,
with the breeze combing your hair,
that our love was just like two candles.

i agreed, as it seemed then
the flames of our passion and desire
were similar to the candles - restlessly burning.

we kept silent after, admiring the symbols of our love
both their wax bodies melting in rhythm.
you said, we will be beside each other forever.

and a poetic couple we were, i noted how
the melted wax conjoined the two candles
and you said our love brought light to others.

the flames extinguished simultaneously, shortly after,
and in a unanimous duet, as if pre-planned, we whispered:
'till death do us part'.

last night, it was me with two candles
though, with a gleaming moon and a dozen stars
that stole the attention and outshone the two.

and while the flames still faded simultaneously,
it was extinguished only by the saltiness
of tears belonging to a broken lover

and the mercilessness of your absence.

There's a town somewhere up north off of route 54
It's cheap to live there, but I wouldn't recommend it
It's streets run with greed, ****** and sin
The people there are devoid any sense of ethics
It will leave you all shocked and breathless
Welcome to the neighborhood
Where you board up your windows and doors then double check if they're locked
Where you can always hear some one screaming
"Stop"
"Stop"

The mayor has been in office for six terms
And in his cabinet are members of the mob
Whose fronts are local mom and pops
Where junkies like to hang out
While a mugging of an eighty four year old widow takes place around the block
Welcome to the neighborhood
Where you board up your windows and doors then double check if they're locked
Where you can always hear some one screaming
"Stop"
"Stop"
       -Tommy Johnson

The youth are all in gangs that **** each other
Delinquent dropouts doing drive by's
Defiling untouched regions between innocent women's thighs
Girls making appointments for back alley coat hanger abortions
As some hate group constructs homemade bombs

Welcome to the neighborhood
Where you board up your windows and doors then double check if they're locked
Where you can always hear some one screaming
"Stop"
"Stop"

Diseases and food shortages
Rotten government cheese and unpaid mortgages
Call the department of health and human services
Life here is unbearable mercilessness  

Poverty and violence
Money and bullets keep those who might talk silent
Here it has come down to a simple science
The spineless **** the non-compliant for their defiance and they lay lifeless by the hands of those who commit viscous acts so mindless

Where you board up your windows and doors then double check if they're locked
Where you can always hear some one screaming
"Stop"
"Stop"

You may ask, "where is God or the police?"
They're doing their bi-weekly patrol
And they're both on big brother's private payroll
There is now law and order in this contaminated area
It's an unkempt, repugnant pustule in the middle of the caked-on face of America

Welcome to the neighborhood
Where you board up your windows and doors then double check if they're locked
Where you can always hear some one screaming
"Stop"
"Stop"

I was shipped across seas whipped and cuffed
Cattle, not human I of colour. Aeons on,
I was finding hope
in the life of a carpenter's son.
here comes hooded, undead.

born on a shore kissed of seas, I grew up the country hill
swimming rivers at dusk gathering berries for the stars.

gathered to mercilessness in death.

My skin was hide for shoe and soap.
Herded into camps I was worked to death.
For you believe therefore I am.

O veneer that wears thin on a whim,

to think that gods can walk amongst you.
gory, gory your glory

blessed vaunted humanity.