At the moment i cant tell you the pain i feel,
I can only wish for it soon to heal.
The sound of your voice still lingers,
As does the gentle touch of your fingers.
At the moment this all feels like an illusion,
And causes me too much confusion.
The pain of not knowing if this was real,
And what you said isn't what you feel.
The pain of not knowing if your okay,
Or how your getting through another day.
The unknowns cause the most pain,
And make my tears fall down like rain.
I hope this wasn't my mistake,
And this all wasn't  just a fake.
My feelings for you remain the same,
In hopes this wasn't just a game.
I long for you now that we are apart,
But as in my mind, you live in my heart.
I miss you more than words can say,
And I hate that we are so far away.
But know i think of you every day
And want to be with you in every way.
I truly hope this hasn't ended,
Because for me its been so splendid.
There is only one more thing left on my mind,
So here it is I'll let it unwind.
I love you..
More than i ever knew.

Well then I've lost it again.
It's all gone,
nothings left to find.
There are no reasons
for time,
to unwind,
to be blind
to anything you find
that's helpful.
Doubtful,
you see everything in me.
From my malice
to my chi.
You feel it quick
and it resonates your soul.
Like the sound you get,
when sliding wet flesh
on a glass of water.
Your energy fluxuates,
in such wavelengths,
that my heart must beat along.
To a song of your love.
Of which
i have never felt
anything above.
You can tell,
whether I'm
quivering
or quaking,
shivering,
shaking.
Your what I want most
but whats hardest to keep.
You're in reach of the stars
but won't let yourself see.
I've been waiting for you,
and I'll wait for eternity.

I call out
I call out to the ears
wishing to relieve me
I call out to the mouths
desiring to deceive me
I call out to the ones
knowingly believe me
I call out

I resist
I resist the arms
attached to the hands
that strangle me
I resist the push
the need to understand
ideas that fulfill me
I resist the pull
that reprimands
the desire to never stand down
I resist the ground

I refuse
I refuse to remain
in one place, lacking all I desire
I refuse to retain
the angry flame, the jealous fire
I refuse to refrain
from the words that turn me into a liar
I refuse those I admire

I unwind
I unwind from all that binds
I unwind from the home
in which I hide
I unwind to find
I am not alone
I unwind in order to incline
all I know is more than a lie
I unwind

May I fly?
Before I'm restrained by the binds
with no choice but to lie
living solely with a simple
desire to find
the perfect time
to fly
and now, I may fly

I am free
gradually my character you will see
I am free
slowly my soul will be
I am free
Kindly I show you, me
For now, I am free
slowly you realize the need
to never follow and always lead
in order to be free
gradually you reject, who I'm made to be.
But I am free.

(The Dry Salvages—presumably les trois sauvages
      — is a small group of rocks, with a beacon, off the N.E.
      coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Salvages is pronounced
      to rhyme with assuages. Groaner: a whistling buoy.)

I

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in cities—ever, however, implacable.
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitiated
By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.
His rhythm was present in the nursery bedroom,
In the rank ailanthus of the April dooryard,
In the smell of grapes on the autumn table,
And the evening circle in the winter gaslight.

The river is within us, the sea is all about us;
The sea is the land’s edge also, the granite
Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses
Its hints of earlier and other creation:
The starfish, the horseshoe crab, the whale’s backbone;
The pools where it offers to our curiosity
The more delicate algae and the sea anemone.
It tosses up our losses, the torn seine,
The shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar
And the gear of foreign dead men. The sea has many voices,
Many gods and many voices.
                                       The salt is on the briar rose,
The fog is in the fir trees.
                                       The sea howl
And the sea yelp, are different voices
Often together heard: the whine in the rigging,
The menace and caress of wave that breaks on water,
The distant rote in the granite teeth,
And the wailing warning from the approaching headland
Are all sea voices, and the heaving groaner
Rounded homewards, and the seagull:
And under the oppression of the silent fog
The tolling bell
Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried
Ground swell, a time
Older than the time of chronometers, older
Than time counted by anxious worried women
Lying awake, calculating the future,
Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel
And piece together the past and the future,
Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,
The future futureless, before the morning watch
When time stops and time is never ending;
And the ground swell, that is and was from the beginning,
Clangs
The bell.

II

Where is there an end of it, the soundless wailing,
The silent withering of autumn flowers
Dropping their petals and remaining motionless;
Where is there and end to the drifting wreckage,
The prayer of the bone on the beach, the unprayable
Prayer at the calamitous annunciation?

There is no end, but addition: the trailing
Consequence of further days and hours,
While emotion takes to itself the emotionless
Years of living among the breakage
Of what was believed in as the most reliable—
And therefore the fittest for renunciation.

There is the final addition, the failing
Pride or resentment at failing powers,
The unattached devotion which might pass for devotionless,
In a drifting boat with a slow leakage,
The silent listening to the undeniable
Clamour of the bell of the last annunciation.

Where is the end of them, the fishermen sailing
Into the wind’s tail, where the fog cowers?
We cannot think of a time that is oceanless
Or of an ocean not littered with wastage
Or of a future that is not liable
Like the past, to have no destination.

We have to think of them as forever bailing,
Setting and hauling, while the North East lowers
Over shallow banks unchanging and erosionless
Or drawing their money, drying sails at dockage;
Not as making a trip that will be unpayable
For a haul that will not bear examination.

There is no end of it, the voiceless wailing,
No end to the withering of withered flowers,
To the movement of pain that is painless and motionless,
To the drift of the sea and the drifting wreckage,
The bone’s prayer to Death its God. Only the hardly, barely prayable
Prayer of the one Annunciation.

It seems, as one becomes older,
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence—
Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy
Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution,
Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past.
The moments of happiness—not the sense of well-being,
Fruition, fulfilment, security or affection,
Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination—
We had the experience but missed the meaning,
And approach to the meaning restores the experience
In a different form, beyond any meaning
We can assign to happiness. I have said before
That the past experience revived in the meaning
Is not the experience of one life only
But of many generations—not forgetting
Something that is probably quite ineffable:
The backward look behind the assurance
Of recorded history, the backward half-look
Over the shoulder, towards the primitive terror.
Now, we come to discover that the moments of agony
(Whether, or not, due to misunderstanding,
Having hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things,
Is not in question) are likewise permanent
With such permanence as time has. We appreciate this better
In the agony of others, nearly experienced,
Involving ourselves, than in our own.
For our own past is covered by the currents of action,
But the torment of others remains an experience
Unqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition.
People change, and smile: but the agony abides.
Time the destroyer is time the preserver,
Like the river with its cargo of dead negroes, cows and chicken coops,
The bitter apple, and the bite in the apple.
And the ragged rock in the restless waters,
Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;
On a halcyon day it is merely a monument,
In navigable weather it is always a seamark
To lay a course by: but in the sombre season
Or the sudden fury, is what it always was.

III

I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant—
Among other things—or one way of putting the same thing:
That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray
Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret,
Pressed between yellow leaves of a book that has never been opened.
And the way up is the way down, the way forward is the way back.
You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure,
That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.
When the train starts, and the passengers are settled
To fruit, periodicals and business letters
(And those who saw them off have left the platform)
Their faces relax from grief into relief,
To the sleepy rhythm of a hundred hours.
Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
And on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind you,
You shall not think ‘the past is finished’
Or ‘the future is before us’.
At nightfall, in the rigging and the aerial,
Is a voice descanting (though not to the ear,
The murmuring shell of time, and not in any language)
‘Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
At the moment which is not of action or inaction
You can receive this: “on whatever sphere of being
The mind of a man may be intent
At the time of death”—that is the one action
(And the time of death is every moment)
Which shall fructify in the lives of others:
And do not think of the fruit of action.
Fare forward.
                      O voyagers, O ******,
You who came to port, and you whose bodies
Will suffer the trial and judgement of the sea,
Or whatever event, this is your real destination.’
So Krishna, as when he admonished Arjuna
On the field of battle.
                                  Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyagers.

IV

Lady, whose shrine stands on the promontory,
Pray for all those who are in ships, those
Whose business has to do with fish, and
Those concerned with every lawful traffic
And those who conduct them.

Repeat a prayer also on behalf of
Women who have seen their sons or husbands
Setting forth, and not returning:
Figlia del tuo figlio,
Queen of Heaven.

Also pray for those who were in ships, and
Ended their voyage on the sand, in the sea’s lips
Or in the dark throat which will not reject them
Or wherever cannot reach them the sound of the sea bell’s
Perpetual angelus.

V

To communicate with Mars, converse with spirits,
To report the behaviour of the sea monster,
Describe the horoscope, haruspicate or scry,
Observe disease in signatures, evoke
Biography from the wrinkles of the palm
And tragedy from fingers; release omens
By sortilege, or tea leaves, riddle the inevitable
With playing cards, fiddle with pentagrams
Or barbituric acids, or dissect
The recurrent image into pre-conscious terrors—
To explore the womb, or tomb, or dreams; all these are usual
Pastimes and drugs, and features of the press:
And always will be, some of them especially
When there is distress of nations and perplexity
Whether on the shores of Asia, or in the Edgware Road.
Men’s curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint—
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime’s death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.
Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and future
Are conquered, and reconciled,
Where action were otherwise movement
Of that which is only moved
And has in it no source of movement—
Driven by dæmonic, chthonic
Powers. And right action is freedom
From past and future also.
For most of us, this is the aim
Never here to be realised;
Who are only undefeated
Because we have gone on trying;
We, content at the last
If our temporal reversion nourish
(Not too far from the yew-tree)
The life of significant soil.

We are all so very fragile.
Our sun kissed porcelain faces
are freckled with Achilles heel fault lines and chipped paint.
Shining through to our nervous nervous system and our tendency to over think things.
We hide so much inside of us.
Behind dance less masquerades
Our bodies held together only by cages of ivory bones
cages that cradle the thin winged heart beats of our chest
nervous moths stumbling around inside
knocking books off of shelves and
eating the sweaters that we use to keep our hearts from freezing over.

The autumn wind is cold like sad glaciers
and it's easy to break down at times like these.
Our bones ache and shriek like boiling tea kettles.
Making it hard not to shatter.

We are all so fragile.
Burnt out light bulb fragile.
Frozen lake fragile.
Defibrillated heartbeat fragile.
We are broken branch fragile
chronic alcoholics sobriety fragile.
The middles school girls reaction to the word “fat” fragile
We are the kind of fragile that set off big bangs.
We are, paranoid breakable.
And its got to the point where
we have begun taping up our light leak vulnerabilities
with perceptions of perfection and thoughts of rejection
spending our time in dark rooms as our minds just keep reeling
and trying to shut off feelings and unwind
but we have been over exposed to such ****.
To slides and slides of negative negatives

we used to burst apart with so much light.

but the sun isn't shining honest, the night sky is black
and its raining in all the wrong ways.
We're out of season.
sewing up the holes in our personality
with floods of insecurities and droughts of identity.
damning what matters.

****, its hard to know what matters.

But I am still trying to figure that one out
And the moths are still here
as the pendulum clocks keep ticking
eating the sweaters that we used
to keep our hearts from freezing over.

But we are freezing to the core.
The atoms inside of us splinting into half lives;
we haven't even lived half of our lives
yet we feel so ancient.
The dust piles growing on our slanted bookshelves shoulders
Our bright idea light bulbs flickering,
getting covered up by snowdrifts.

We are gas giants wrapping ourselves into open space darkness
hiding from the bright side of the moon.
Like a black cat superstition we are running from our own precondition
of lying about being ourselves
We pull dark black-hole hoods over our eyes
wincing at the light trails of shooting stars
though we, too, want to be brilliant.
We try to orbit the sun hoping that humanity is a symphony;
that being popular and having the most friends is what matters.
and we can be where the grass is always greener by fitting in and by being mirrors
Even though not being yourself is nauseating.

We can be nauseating, we can be mirrors.

Because we are scared that if we don't
hide who we really are
we may end up like Pluto.
Ostracized for existing.
floating around in space having stare downs with wormholes
A shivering rock entity with a complete loss of identity.

We already are so lost.
Our souls waning and waxing
Rocking back and forth
on wood beams and porches.
like an ADD moonbeam rocking chair.

But now its time to stop in one place and readjust our backbones.

Because I know that we are fragile, I know that.
I know that its hard filling in the cracks that have found their way down our back-stabbed spines
we all have our histories with being dropped and rejected.
But we weren't made to be cardboard box people,
packing tape and labels wrapped in all of the wrong places.
we are boxes full of wormholes into other dimensions
we are full of life and blood and bones,
full of oceans and stardust and daggers
There is so much more to us than our brown paper complexions.
So climb out of those kangaroo pouch caves that you have called home for the last few years
There's no need hiding anymore.
You can be safe in your own skin.
You can climb the Himalayas and scream out as many lightning rods as you want
we will all be listening as you burst apart into thunder claps.
As you bleed yourself into infinity

So, dim the lights

Throw your self at the world
and crash like waves into existence
you are perfect when you are yourself.
Grab that porcelain off of your face
and let your smile super nova fracture into a cosmic grin of constellations.

People will look up to you and be inspired.
A cardboard box rookie sprawled out in the stars.
Lighting up all of our faces with E.T. fingertips.
No longer hiding being reflective eclipses
There's only one person who can tell you who you are.
Only you can speak for yourself.

I know that your fragile
I know that.

We all are..,

How we start is only part of what we eventually do.

Physically that's easy to see. Being human, adamkind,
we see weak starts often in life.
Colts or pups born a week too soon can be loved to lives as pampered pets,
Siring toys for the enjoyment of those who can afford to fuel them,
For generations, with never a single care,
Past that initial trauma and subsequent subjugation to the will of man.

I don't tell horse stories, dog stories or war stories, if I can keep from it.

But when you want to demonstrate the purest of payback,
revenge getting the bad guy in the end,
having a horse be the hero makes behaving like an animal
more noble to the mind of vengeful man.
It's not true, revenge being noble.
That's a very old lie.

Law is to prevent error by disallowing failure. Law.

Relative to the rest of God's creatures, we, adamkind, seem dependent, weak and vulnerable next to bears being weak
a way-less long time
Than we.
We come into this world weak as a baby anything and we stay that way longer
Than any living creature.

I am an American, by birth.
I was not born to a political party or a family with political roots,
"I ain't no Senator's son."
Still,
I was reared drinking mythic cherry wine
sprung from George's failure to lie
Regarding his woodman's knack with a hatchet.

Sitting on the fence rail Abe split,
town fathers where I lived
were said to have decided the most harmonious of towns
have only gainfully employed darker folks,
while white
trash was allowed to loll around because they was
some employer's kin by marriage.

It all seemed pretty normal, as a child.
The loller-arounders let kids listen when they told
Their friends, who could not read, what the newspapers said.

One block from my house there was a vet's and hobo's flop-house clad in corrugated tin, rusted-round the nail-holes all the way to the ground and the rust had spread, so at sunset,...
I only recall the single story shed having one door.
There were always old white men sittin' on the southside of the shed. At sunset, those old men's whispy white hair

appeared as white flowing mare's tale clouds under
a scab-red wall held up by old men with sunset shining faces...

It was a big shed, a low barn, a bunkhouse,
eight or ten 4-foot tin-sheets long on the north and south
Windowless walls.
The one door was on the south side.
Once I saw an old man selling red paper buddy poppies.
He was missing both legs about half-way up his thighs.
The poppy seller rode a square board that had what I think were
Roller-skates, the key-kind, with metal wheels about a 1/2 inch wide.
Nailed to it's bottom. He had handles made from a carpenter's saw
Without it's blade. He pushed himself with those handles.

That looked fun, to a four-year old.
It looks different now-a-days. Knowing
Those red poppies symbolized
The after math automatics of the war to end war.

Who knows the poppy-sellers son? He would be old.
Does he know how his father lost his legs, but lived?
Does he bear the curse of the curse that lost his father's legs?
Does he honor his father's cause or weep at the thought?

Enough is enough.
My family tree branched in America, but only one great grand-parent,
Three generations back from me, was rooted in this land.
My gran'ma's ma, a Choctaw squaw,
That rhymed fine,
But it's not true. My grandma did not know her parents. She was born an orphan,
And her father and mother were likely strangers.

1910 in southwest Arkansas or southeast Oklahoma or northeast Texas or northwest Louisiana
And the color of her skin is all that proved my American heritage.

My grandma was born poor as poor can be,
she never told me how she survived

To survive a 1925 or so car wreck
in eastern Arizona's white mountains.
I never asked what my grandmother knew,
nor how she came to know.

This is my point.
After you and I have gone into forever more,
Our great grand children may wonder
what we did or did not, since we
Are no longer around to give our account.

These days we can leave our story to our great grand children.
Our own children
And our grand children follow us on facebook back to before they were born.
Shall they judge us idlers wielding idle words for laughs,
or  think us knowers of all we found while seeking first the Kingdom of Heaven
In the place Jesus says it is. You know where Jesus said the Kingdom of our kind lies?

The double minded man is unstable in all his ways,
hence Eve and her broader bandwidth corpus colostrum
Come back later, there is a breath system upgrade evolving.

Such changes to the courage of the mind rolls out more slowly
to the root ideas, labouring to find sustenance,
it is a struggle being a radical idea,
we agree, but we have our part,
as do the flowers
and the spore.
Leaven the whole lump, like it or lump it.

The now we live in grew from far deeper roots than
the roots claimed by the
Self-identified nation through it's cartoons/representations of national desires to rally 'round the flag as if it were the fire,
those desires to herd beneath any shelter from the storm,
Your country, your incorporated allegiance
to the inventor and creator and counter of the money under
the protection of the sword and crown representative
of the flame that burns,
The namers of patriot, the rankeers of ideas
who, by their existence,
naturally, over rule you.
Such powers are granted by the individual, not the mob.
You get that?

The desires of the nation over rule the desires of the individuals who
Com-prize the nation.
Whose side are you on, dear reader?

Is the idea we believed believable?
Ex Nihilo, I don't think so because
I can't imagine how now could be
Accidental-ly.

When my hero wore spurs as he went from the jail office to
Miss Kitty's place, (Gunsmoke on A.M. radio)

What did Miss Kitty do?
I had no clue.
In my hero's world people never
Did the wrong thing
While Marshal Dillon was in Dodge.

So did you think Miss Kitty's place was anything other
than a culturally acceptable
reference to professional social ******* workers
under a strong, smart female CEO
with top-level links to the local cops?

All these are rhetorical questions, this being
Rhetorical if you are hearing me say this.
That means, don't nod or raise your hand or shout Amen, kin!

I see your answer my answer and
I know my answer, so you know my answer.

Step-back, 1961, USA Snapshot
Unitas, Benny Kid Perett, Mantlenmarris, the Guns of Navarone.

Why I recall those things, I know not.
Why I did not say I do not know, I do not know.

Though, pausing to think,
knowing contains the doing of it within it, you know.
What's to do?

Outlaws were more my heroes than cowboys, and marshals, and such
Especially the ones that had been forced out by law.

I grew up in a 1950's junkyard with no fence, one mile north of route 66
On the Al-Can highway to Las Vegas, 103 miles away.
My Grandpa was a blacksmith's son,
who rode a horse he broke and his pa had shod
From Texas to Arizona in 1917, at the age of 18.

by the time I knew him,
He was fifty, settled down, nearly, from the war.
Momma had to work, so, daytime, Granddaddy raised me.

Horses weren't, wrecked cars were,
the toys of my childhood.

Grandpa built a junkyard from cars left steam blown
on the old stage road, from before
the railroad.
The Abo Highway hain't been Route 66 for some time yet…
Hoping…


Hoping sometime to polish this bit of this book, I left myself re-minders
Hoping memory of mental realms might rewind or unwind sequentially
When trigger
Neighed.
That worked, Roy Autry and Gene Rogers were names Sue Snow's
Mormon Bishop granddaddy called me,
back when I first recall My Grandpa Caleb,
a baptist by confession,
who was,
as I recall a *****-drinkin' jolly drunk.
While Grandma made beds in some motel,
granddaddy built boats and horse trailers
and hot rod 34 Chevies,
and he fixed this one red Indian, I could read the word on the gas tank, I knew the word Indian
and this motor cycle was proud to wear the name. I was 4.

A stout-strong man, no fat near any working muscle system,
he could and would
repair any broken thing,
for anybody. People called him Pop.
Pop and Mr. Levi-next-door at the Loma Vista Motel, shared a listing in the Green Book,
so broke down ******* knew where help could be found
after dark in that town.
There was a warnin'ag'in
let'n sunset there
on darker than grandma's skin.

My Gran'daddy's shop had two gas pumps
that were reset to begin pumping with the turn of a crank.
As soon as I could turn that crank,
I could pump gas.
I could fill up that red Indian
Motorcycle.
But "m'spokes was too short
to kick the starter."
I told my eleven year old uncle
and he told
how he would always remember learning
that saddles have no linkage
to horse brakes.
"Not knowing what you cain't do
kin *** ye kilt."

He grew up in the junk yard, too.
My first outlaw hero.

Likely, I am alive today, because
On the day I discovered I could pump gas as good as any man,
I also discovered that real motorcycles were not built for little boys.

If not for hellopoetry
I would have given up
The writing was starting to take its toll
Left me emotionally exhausted
I was forced to take a break
For all my energy it had drained
Sleepless nights, endless lines
Trying to switch off my brain
Left me depressed
When sentences formed
A story I'd tell
About my life in hell
Sometimes dramatised to a new level
Sometimes I have seen myself become the devil
All my emotions that stain the page
The blood, sweat and tears
Written into each line
Left me losing moments in time
And for this writing became a crime
Didn't feel like I was utilising my mind
Until recently I realised this was the only legacy
I would leave behind
I've seen this art in a whole new light
Through words on a page, I've shown my fight
I've shown all my emotions, I have been totally open
Gave my all in every line
Sprinkled in a flavour of rhyme
If not for hellopoetry all I'd have is blank pages
A mind full of lines, forgotten in time
Took some time to unwind
And that is when I realised
These writings and I are bound for life
I've learned to embrace this now
Finally proud of all my works,
how has it taken me this long
To fall in love with this art
If not for hellopoetry
An appreciation I would never have tasted
And this whole community I've embraced it
Don't care if you love or hate it
It's made me make some changes
If not for hellopoetry
There are talents I may never have uncovered
Some of us are still so young,
Still, more room left to improve
The elder ones raising us up
Understanding a whole new love for this art
I once said These lyrics were written in blood
Straight from the arteries from my heart
That metaphorically speaking
I spread all I am, all across the page
Bled the led with what I felt  
So much heart into every verse
All this time it was never a curse
It was something special I've been gifted
To get all these thoughts out of my system
If not for hellopoetry
I wouldn't be here...caught within this poetic atmosphere

©2018 Written By Benji James

Everyone Has a Story… Here’s Five.


Part I: Cousin

I remember
That daze I felt those days
Those days that were fixtures
In my life at the time
But like all good stories
They come to an end
Sometimes abruptly

I was on the island,
At the very top,
Looking down from our mountain,
It was night time,
And the lights shined clearly,
Little holes from the bottom of heaven were penetrating the world,
As they did so I peered on,
Never truly understand what heaven was,
This was my element,
The curiosity which was placed in me,
Since the birth of my being,
Has never been one for being quenched,
Even if my parents tried to beat it out of me,
After a time they kind of hit a fork in the road and decided to go right,
But at the last second I side stepped and ran my behind to the left,
Because the right side isn't always the right way to go,
I felt that their minds died some time ago,
But I was a kid, in the hoods of Puerto Rico,
Only visiting, never witnessing,
The day to day realities,
That came from living so rapidly.

I met my cousin for the second time the days before that night,
He took me under his wing almost immediately and I was happy to follow,
He was a tall man, tattooed from head to toe,
I thought the second I laid eyes on him, that this was my role model
As a lover of Hip-Hop I thought this was how everyone should look,
He would cuss, and spit, and drink, and have several women on deck,
While rolling a couple of joints,
This was the MAN!

However, this view didn't last for very long,
Because on that night,
I witnessed the devil for the first time,
I crawled from beneath my covers,
That my mother had so carefully put into place,
As a safeguard against the realities of the world,
That would come true in my childish fantasies of the boogie man,
The only bad I knew was what was told to me by the news,
People falling left and right cause of wars and other endless fights,
But in my mind they could be brought back to life by the Dragon *****,
Unfortunately Goku wasn't here this night,
I snuck through the house silently,
As the noise would be drowned out by the singing of coquis,
My bare feet hit the humid pavement following the rush down the stairs,
I only wanted to see my view,
The view of heavens holes peering through the vast and dark sky,
It was located at the edge of a cliff that looked over a ravine and then the wilderness,
At the precise moment I stopped to realize my will,
My dream was disrupted by a voice,
Followed by a sound that sliced through my mind and deflated my childish intuition,
A sound that penetrates my adult mind and echoes in the silence to this day,
Muffled screams echoed out after I heard the gunshots ring,
Beneath the sounds of the forests singing,
My heart was pounding slowly,
I was strangely calm rather than panicky and fearful,
Not that I was a brave child, but I remained curious,
Until I saw the blood…
It was then that I saw the dimly lit lamp beneath the moon light,
Resulting in the two bodies casting elongated shadows against the dank Earth,
Followed by a larger body standing over them,
One body was completely still,
While the other one was rocking back and forth,
The terror that took me was shear and raw,
The only other time that I had witnessed such a fear,
Was through the appearance in a pig’s eye,
As my grandfather drove a machete through its heart,
I heard the second shot ring out,
In the same amount of time that it took me to blink,
The other man had been murdered just the same,
And before I knew it the gun was pointed at me,
I stared back and started shaking,
This had to be pure fiction,
But no, this was reality,
I turned to run, but stopped when I realized who it was,
Looking up at me as he exited the thicket and the shadows,
Was my cousin, my role model,
He cocked his head up and looked at me with concern,
But said nothing,
As I ran home breathlessly,
Under the holes into heaven,
That had been put there by bullets,
My childhood was finished…

And I'd never see him again.


Part II: Brother

I remember
That daze I felt those days
Those days that were fixtures
In my life at the time
But like all good stories
They come to an end
Sometimes abruptly

As a child,
I thoroughly enjoyed,
Playing around outside,
I enjoyed getting into play fights,
I loved feeling like I could overwhelm any opponent, but I couldn't.
My brother was way stronger than me,
He had the height advantage,
And best believe he had the weight advantage,
But still, I thought I could manage,
It never really crossed my mind that my brother was a bit off,
To me he was a big kid,
A quiet companion,
My best friend,
My heart.

That was more than enough,
Until one day I went too far,
See my brother had one toy that he loved,
It was string; he'd tear up clothes to make string,
He'd cry up storms at department stores if he didn't get his string,
He'd hit my mother and punch my father if he didn't get string,
I just always thought the exception was me,
I was his play mate, he smiled at me,
Something quite rare for my big brother to do as a result of his condition,
And the medication he was taking,
You see when a child has autism they kind of want to do their own thing,
They want to be on their own,
Enjoying whatever it is they enjoy doing on their time,
But I had a child's mind and a child's ego,
His toys were mine too,
Share with me,
Play with me,
Look at me,
ME, ME, ME!
So he punched me right across the face,
I went flying into a sliding paneled glass door and began crying,
When my mother entered the room,
She asked what was going on and tried to calm me down,
I wouldn't listen so she told me shut up before the neighbors called police,
And we were both taken away,
Being that my mother was a single parent, I believed her,
With that being the case, I closed my eyes and didn't look at my arm,
Nor the blood slowly dripping down it onto my fingertips,
Down to the floor below,
I didn't play much anymore after that,
I was too childish to blame myself,
So the fault was his.

The fault would end up being mine,
As this action being a culmination of things done by my brother,
Led my father and my mother to do what I thought was unthinkable,
They chose to let him go,
Giving him to a group home,
My young mind couldn't even begin to comprehend the pain they felt,
But to me all I could see was two adults giving up on their son,
I saw love and hope dissipate right in front of my eyes,
He was playing with his string in the back seat of the car,
While I sat beside him just watching him,
Saving every movement of his,
And his joy into my memory banks,
To be left to gather dust; because the pain was too much to harness,
But with respect I chose to re-open the chest,
And hold my brother in my arms once again,
Before he was ripped away from me,
And given away to the monstrous people,
That wouldn't let him hug his mother nor me,
I didn't care if this is what was needed to be,
I was losing my brother!
My blood!
My playmate!
My best friend!
My only friend!
My HEART!
It didn't matter that he hit me,
It don't matter if he hit my mother or father,
Because the beating my heart was taking was too much,
For my slim frame and still developing body to handle,
As such my growth was stunted and I gained heart problems,
On top of the asthma,
Autism meant nothing to me,
He was everything!

But it ended with me sleeping alone,
At home he was gone.


Part III: Father

I remember
That daze I felt those days
Those days that were fixtures
In my life at the time
But like all good stories
They come to an end
Sometimes abruptly

I never felt much towards you,
I was taught to love my mother solely,
As she was the one always there to heal my bumps and bruises,
The only memories I have of you from my childhood,
Are of you feeding me God awful food and teaching me to ride a bike,
But I forgot how to ride a bike,
And I could cook what you cooked on my own,
Burnt hotdogs, and pasta, and cereal never really fazed me,
Every other memory is a blur,
Your love was like a line or two painted upon a Mona Lisa of love,
That I had gathered from the various sources of inspiration in my life,
I could always gain appreciation for them,
But not for you.


As I entered my adult years,
You tried to make up for it,
I knew you had pent up guilt inside from not seeing me,
Yet you bought presents and rose up the seeds of another tree,
Seeds that I don't blame,
I only wanted to smell the same flowers that you gave them,
So you were trying to give them to me while I could still smell them,
But that sense was long gone along with my sense of sight,
Literally my vision was fading, but my mind was expanding,
As I was witnessing the world around me quite clearly, and the soul within me,
Just wouldn't release me, from the overwhelming feeling of needing you,
A father figure I could depend on,
A monument for what a man should be, and truly believe in,
As it comes to issues of morality, love, and loyalty,
Up until this point you had only taught me resentment,
Resentment leading to hate,
But I wanted to honor you in place,
So I hide the parts of me that you don't care to see,
I hide my relationships,
I hide my true feelings,
I hide my poetry,
Because if you found those things,
I would no longer be free,
And I refuse to submerge my soul into slavery,
Just for you to feel like you rose up the brightest son,
When truly the darkness is where I was brought up and where I belong,
Moonlight is the only thing I can touch with my pen,
As I compose the paintings residing in my head,
Of wordsmiths and demons battling,
Because words are my angels,
And they have always been there in every instance,
Whenever I've needed a piece of wisdom,
Or a calming presence that would come from the essence,
And recollections of stories of glory,
Stories that helped me forget you,
I love you, and hope our relationship can bloom,
But I no longer wish to speak on you.


Part IV: Mother

I remember
That daze I felt those days
Those days that were fixtures
In my life at the time
But like all good stories
They come to an end
Sometimes abruptly

I was taught to feel love towards you,
And it still remains as strong as ever,
From when I was a child,
Your sacrifice made my life exactly what it is,
Exactly what I needed it to be in order to grow and explore my soul,
To reach for my dreams,
You have always given to me,
Even on your last two cents,
Both would be for me,
You were my mother goose,
Even if I seemed like a young rooster,
Because we were always so different,
You always wanted to mold me into your vision of me,
While you instilled in me many things which cling tightly to me,
You've made someone completely different from what you expected,
I hold different views and truths that are separate from you,
Which is fine, but for a time it would keep me from being who I desired to be,
Because you could never cut the umbilical cord.

In fact, it was wrapped around my neck,
The death of me was coming slowly,
Due to the inhibitions of my creativity,
You loved that I would write, but you hated what I was writing,
Hip-Hop, home to me, was looked at as purgatory,
You couldn't see why I would want to listen to these stories,
Stories of struggling and hustling and juggling jobs, drugs, women, and friendships,
These ships were all sailing gallantly through my mind; the wordplay was so sublime,
And the fact that the words blended with their worlds were so unkind,
Appealed to me, but you were blind,
This changed my perspective,
However what really taught me to be a man,
Was when you began pushing opposing women out of my life,
I would be deep in love, buy-a-ring love,
But one thing would be enough to trigger a string of insults,
And a manikin-like regard for the person of whom I adored,
This was too much for me, you were systematically ending my dreams,
I thank you for your love and for everything that you continue to do for me,
But the cataclysm that was forming in this poets mind,
Was becoming too much to bridge,
If this feeling was to be ongoing,
So as a desperate act of love and care,
I left you behind,
But the love is forever there,
I'm a man because of you,
Your heart will forever reside with me on my journey,
You’ve no need to be frightened,
I’ve got you, I’ve got us,
My senses have been heightened.


Part V: Lover

I remember
That daze I felt those days
Those days that were fixtures
In my life at the time
But like all good stories
They come to an end
Sometimes abruptly

We met after a string of accidents,
Accidents that nearly cost me my life,
These were love losses, blood losses,
Things I’d never thought I could recover from,
The experiences had me going numb,
Until you found me… or did I find you?
It's hard to tell it just seemed like we were two lost souls,
Looking to quell our young hunger for the opposite ***,
Each and every day was spent together,
First on the stoop in front of your sister’s house,
The place where I first kissed your mouth,
Second on the park benches,
This is where hours flourished from minutes,
Third was along the streets of the world,
You were my diamonds and my pearls,
Indestructible and irreplaceable,
Once you met the paper you were there forever,
With that ink blood that flows through your veins,
A fellow poet whose love would stain my mental,
Instrumental in gifting my simple world with a new understanding,
It wasn’t how I imagined, but God laughs at notions of planning,
I finally found out what it meant to be in love,
I never had two people show me what it was,
Honestly the many descriptions of hate,
Is what would be seen at the gate of my consciousness,
As such, I believed this same fate would await me,
It was once the singular feeling with which I could relate,
But the euphoric hands you laid on me,
Made me lose an awake thought process,
As I was in a lake filled with your waters,
That would flow to rivers,
Followed by seas of your loving,
Seas consummating your body,
As I laid on the beach,
Believing it to be a dream.

But it wasn't, and it shouldn’t have ended,
In reality, love has ways of being reprimanded,
I was so lucid, and the picture was candid,
It was the simplest of pleasures that I'd ever been handed,
I learned right away the right things to do,
To flow from my heart and work my way into you,
To take care of my lips,
A rough kiss can't ******,
Nor find proper pleasure,
Along a woman's surface,
You’d allow me to peruse your mind,
Sending shivers up your spine,
As I embarked on my conquest,
Explorations of lustful aspirations,
Symbolizing and synthesizing,
Each and every stroke,
Representing a new letter,
In the alphabet of love,
Allowing our tale to unwind,
To combine the breathlessness of our exploits,
With our hearts desire for choice,
Which declined to lend voice,
To the greater work to be done,
The acquisition of newer positions,
Are symptoms of the journey,
Keep going, never surrender,
Be tender and conquer,
Mental foreplay is stronger,
Than any physical touch.

Love of a poet both bold and stoic,
Is a simplistic view of unfolded vibes and rhythms from the inside,
This could never subside to anything less than genuine spirit of heart and signs,
Among the winds, trees, stars, because you are the art,
You are Moses parting the red sea of my subconscious,
You are the dark sphere which encircles me,
You are the light that penetrates me,
You are harmonic melodies and sweet remedies,
You are rude symmetries and cool symphonies,
You are a lesson learned and an angel untouched,
With exception of me,
Hushed whispers or high pitched screams,
Mean nothing, without the mind following the body to finality,
The fluidity of our ****** motion,
Is a reflection of our mental state,
I seek not to pass through you,
I seek to become one with you.

That's how I feel about poetry,
That's also how I feel about ***,
That's how I feel about you,
You showed me the way,
You are my soul mate,
One with the words I write,
And the memories that I seek the convey,
You are the sun pouring through with the rain,
You are my miracle, one year my junior,
Fifty years older under the skin,
Deep within, your soul, my solar,
Not an eclipse, but a shimmering glow,
Always for my love and never for show.

I fall in love with people's honesty.
Their smile.
Funny jokes.
Tears.
Scars.
Passions.
Eyes.
Dreams.
Their spirit.

Word to Marley Soul.

Five steps in my growth,
Five indispensable cogs of my sou

Let the haunted emptiness
Let it take me away
Carry me into deep darkness
Lift me out of this day

Close my eyes with nights caress
And sleep enclose and unwind
For the relief of my stress
And I float in a dreaming mind

The morphing shadows of black
Swirl in terrifying scenes
In fear I try escape back
To such a place without dreams

Now listlessly awake I lay
Tired, but unable to rest
Sleeplessly caught in the sway
To far gone, drifting in grey