This is a poem for Rachel Corrie. I am not religious, and a far cry from spiritual, but I refuse to imagine Rachel Corrie insentient and six feet under, slowly amalgamating with the soil encasing her. Before her death, Rachel Corrie said “I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my co-workers. But I also want this to stop.” In the words of contemporary Palestinian poet Suheir Hammad “God has a better imagination than all of us combined” in either God's words or my own, I will not imagine in/on the same ground in/on which I maybe soon will be and more words from Suheir “What do I tell young people about non-violence when they can see for themselves how even orange bright and megaphone loud and cameras and US citizenship will not stop your ******?” what do I tell young people/anyone even myself about “non-violence” when every single thing I've seen presenting itself/perhaps even masquerading as “non-violence” has been in my face and /rude/harsh/unavoidable and most of all, violent? I do not believe in God and humanity is pushing it's luck, but I believe in Rachel Corrie. This is for Rachel;*

I should study a she-wolf's prose
she wanted to write about death
but life would frequently
weasel and wheedle it's way in
there’s an overhanging image
a smaller
yet
infinitely larger
organism
continuously broached
by each word
I only want to study
a caterpillar’s motion
backward/forward /onward
across arms/legs
of this deer/dear
[her] surname/
[my] given name/
separated by [semi/totally] circular VOWels
***** blond hair
dirtied by dust /
rubble /
rhyme /reason/
whatever/ in compliance
with a rep/RESENT/ative democracy
several shades lighter
literally
figuratively
whiter
than she
need no permission
pat benatar
would/should croon
to your moves
every
boy and girl friend
i will/may/have/had
should be yours
entomo/insecto/[social] phobias
I never would’ve said so
I never
would’ve/
could’ve
told the caterpillar

to go

My mother had a thing about locking me in the bathroom. She’d force an audience out of me to her bearing all to pat benatar through her tears. I buried my ears so deep into that karaoke machine because I swore I could hear her secrets. My ears would bleed so I could feel her pain. As if that could help any. It would keep her sane. In those years I learned it’s not ladylike to look someone in the eyes while they cry.

My mother never told me about emo boys. The kinds that would draw me in by bearing all in screams and strumming strings. I buried my ears so deep into the voices of these, telling secrets I’d again make my ears bleed to feel his pain. As if that could help any. I’d still try. It was a good thing I learned  it wasn’t ladylike to look someone in the eyes while you cry.

When you've been asleep for so long how do you decipher between reality and figments of your subconsciousness?

I wanted to ask the man with the eyes clearer than the intercostal, but every time his hand found the small of my back I too found myself falling in the trance.

You're a sleep walker, you know.

I wish I had such a luxury, the ability to close my eyes and not dwell on the sins I'll never deem forgivable

I think fear is another name for love and you're not scared of a thing.

the trenches you've dug between your skull and your brain are only there because you'd prefer to keep me at arm's length.

I'll run my fingers over the scar on your head and look for other ways in, because you'll never give me the keys to the front door.

The holes around us are filling with salt water you carried back from the ocean last night while I was dreaming you were drowning me.

I can still feel the sea burning my eyes. I want to go back, but you fall in love with places and My love affair is with panic. I'm not convinced you have room in your home for someone like me.

I could be a human truss, but we're both too stubborn to admit when we're in need. I'd rather be broken, than feel whole and watch you break under my weight.

Some say love should be effortless
but as obscene as it sounds, Pat Benatar may have been on the right track with "Love is a Battlefield"
Because loving you was ******.

It is a cosmic elation
Evolution gone stagnant
For chemical jubilation
The frustration is
I can’t settle for it
Haven’t found my fit
Corner and edges
Coming together to perfect
A playful partnership
Of the mind and the body

It is agony and nostalgia
Pathways parting
Like the roads less traveled
Looking better in my mind
I look back to find
A hopeful lie to erase the line
Of time and loneliness
Though only desire exist
Because I love an illusion

The Beatles said
“All we need is love.”
I wake crying in my bed
Because I cannot touch
The one I thought might be
A reasonable passionate
Match for me
And the hope crumbles
Like the coliseum
Where gladiators raged
Where battles were a staged
Like Pat Benatar said
“Love is a battlefield

Now I sit sorrowful in
Fools form and folly
Knowing Cupid’s Arrows
Are the tools of my destruction
So, I love alone observing
All who will never ever love me

I heard them
before I saw them.
On a street corner
broad daylight,
shouting at each other
about something or other
involving money
and how she made them
drive down to Texas to see
Pat Benatar in concert
and I really shouldn't
have laughed but
Love is a Battlefield
kept playing in my head
over and over
and over again.

.surprisingly, poached cauliflower tastes so **** good in between pouring drinks... with a little bit of dill... well when you're drinking, and haven't eaten anything prior, other than about six cinnamon biscuits, makes sense to make an interlude with vegetables to fill you up, rather than settling on a meat, or a carbohydrate... the seagull effect... filled stomach, with a low calorie count, before ms. amber fits the spot.

eureka! i found it, the old jukebox
that was once the youtube of
the 00s...
              and early 1-zeros...
**** right i'm proud,
   i had to fiddle the algorithm
a bit, but i managed to return
to early jukebox formality...
all it took was listening to a few
pop songs and other familiar
cross-genre songs...

it began with
uncle acid & the deadbeats'
song dead eyes of London...
the whole trick is in how far
the suggestions extend...
       obviously the first suggestions
look like this:

         now that we're dead - metallica,
  U2 - hold me, thrill me, kiss me, **** me
joan jett & the blackhearts - i hate myself
                                                  for loving you
lady gaga - alejandro
                 bon jovi - blaze of glory
   the prodigy - one man army
                     roxette - she got the look
megadeth - symphony of destruction
   the jimi hendrix experience -
            all along the watchtower...
a jordan peterson video... what the ****?!
ke$ha - die young
   **** - blue monday....
etc.
  
but then you scroll down,
and find what youtube used to look like
as the prime jukebox...
bands like:
w.a.s.p. (wild child)
   ****** jesus (i am the mountain)
spiderbait (black betty)
   pat benatar (love is a batterfield)
    jace everett (bad things)
    king dude (pagan eyes over german skies)
ghoultown (drink with the living dead)
all them witches (the marriage of coyote women)
halestorm (do not disturb)
the pretty reckless (take me down)
with (seer)
                  death (you're a prisoner)
1000mods (electric carve)
red fang (wire)
        lucifer (izrael)
   beastmaker (evil one)
   boys noize (1010)
   church of the cosmic skull (evil  in
your eyes)
     sleep (giza butler)
   the flying hat band (lost time)
kadavar (die baby die)
    valley of the sun (the sayings of the seers)
hexvessel (teeth of the mountain)
   hallas (astral seer)
  jess and the ancient ones (S/T, full album)
high on fire (electric messiah, full album)
elephant tree (elephant tree, full album)
    acid mothers temple & the cosmic...
                      (take me to the universe)
acid king (middle of nowhere, center of
                   everywhere, full album)
radio moscow (magical dirt, full album)
    borracho (atacama, full album)
               fu manchu (daredevil, full album)
somali yacht club (the sun, full album)
elder (reflections of a floating world, full album)

i think that's a decent diet...
well... not that i've listened to any of these,
yet...
but given how the jukebox is
behaving, i thought i'd write out all the new
suggestions and return to them
in the search...
                          OM i already know...
but ****...
    it took me so long to penetrate
this new ****** algorithm to find
the old thesaurus selection search result...
i mean... this new algorithm
has no notion of the synonym...
all it fires is...
   a miser variation of...
     it's not exactly antonym either.

i hope this selections helps you
                in penetrating this new algorithm
to find new music...
      it's wide enough...
apart from OM... all these bands are:
i was born yesterday new.

I write Long Live Harry Chapin!
I get a little like
Walnut Heights, Ohio
I learn to ride a bike

Decades, decades later
I first see Modern Man
Tributes due to Harry
He did the best he can

YouTube is a rabbit hole
Holds a Shooting Star
We truly miss you, Harry
Holy! Ms. Pat Benatar

All my life's a circle
Twilight in my car
Reality only just a word
Harry, how right you are

                   Are!

I drive past Lovecraft's alone
Black birds soar above
Pat Benatar on my radio
She knows who I'm dreamin' of

Still got a few ideas left
Before I bite the Dust
She knows now I'm in love with her
Love is an Angel disguised as lust

               But does she trust?