A buzzy bee in the window
Once shining bright
Could feel his little heart ache
Strongly through the night
It shattered into pieces
The day you flew away
A piece had since been missing
That he could not replace

You took that piece with you
And didn't even know
That the little buzzy bee
Needed it to grow
Alone and empty
With nothing left inside
The buzzy bee turned out
His once bright shining light

Goodbye little buzzy bee
I hope you find your way
Towards peace and love and happiness
Your next life now awaits

Some get that way by playing it safe,
memorizing mantras, righteously abiding by rules,
some get there by cutting seams,
lost in purposelessness, partaking of
ether, marijuana, alcohol, or anything
that's buzzy enough,
some find their sweepstakes in curls,
in fantasies, on the internet, or in the aftermath,
some claim the spoils, some gracefully accept
determination, some divorce their wives,
some happily raise their pulse to the heavy metals,
some review albums and cut down the *******,
some write love stories for our grandmas,
our moms,
our ex-girlfriends,
some find it in politics, right winging, left winging, chicken winging,
some in bomb threats,
some find it in supremacy,
others in melting pots,
some cheer up over breakroom chitty-chats,
some in **** ***,
some in sympathizing with pedophiles trapped in iron lungs,
some when they have hit the bottom rung,
some by rationalizing,
boosting themselves above half-wrongs,
to coast on the half-rights,
some by breaking up,
some by declaring war,
only to get discouraged, yet proud of the scars,
some kids dance to experimental music,
some write blogs about capitalism,
some find it kicking it with bitter vegans,
others while murdering their parents,
but everyone is a winner,
everyone is right,
everyone has earned the paycheck,
the vacation,
the **** wife,
and the key to eternal life.

The broken mold lies screaming with hopelessness,
its purpose lost-
the clay has discarded the form the artist wanted to emulate.

The mistake,
the fault,
the glitch,
warped from the copy to become an original-
not as desired or required,
but having a will of its own.

To realise the dream,
is to satisfy the itch.

To wake from the dredge
is the Life on the edge.

The fault of finding freedom from frigidity.

Spectacular views are seen when you wake from the dream
and the colours scream like coffee and cream

Laugh at the imagery,
the cardboard cutout words strung together like sweet christmas decorations.
Fall in the pool
like a funny bunny cartoon.

Be the sad clown for one more noisy day-
and while you're at it:
brush a giraffes teeth.

Smile at the dreary monotony
and greet the ever grey sky
like a buzzy nook not.

Our coffeemaker died this morning - it wouldn’t **** all the water out of the reservoir - c'est tragique. We love our coffee and apparently, we brewed the life out of it. It sat, oddly neglected, in its usually busy spot beneath hanging copper pans. Adieu, faithful friend, you gave your life to a good cause. We’re reduced to using a freeze-dried brew.

Lisa grew up in New York highrises, and she was agog in our garden. “It’s like Versailles!” she whispered, when we first arrived and did the tour - flattering but hardly. It’s a six acre, French, Color Garden. An acre is like a football field without the end zones - so maybe you can picture the size of it as it wraps around the front of the house.

The lawn slopes off gently to circular beds and right-angled parterres. Two staircases lead to a fountain that feeds a rectangular reflecting pool full of lily-pads and lazy goldfish. Lisa and Leong spent hours this summer reading in the only cool spot, a shaded, wisteria-covered pergola, but gardens are best in fall and spring - when in bloom. I’m sorry they didn’t get to see the explosive flowerings - maybe we can come back, someday, for Easter vacation.

We’re leaving for New Haven at the end of the week so I’m slow organizing for academic life. I have 21 new notebooks (three per class or lab) and 60 various, carefully coutured, colored markers and gel-pens. I tried taking notes on my iPad last year but I found I remembered things better when I took colorful notes by hand, highlighting ideas, and pinning them down in my notebooks, like butterflies.

We hung out with a lot of rising college freshman girls this summer and across the board, it’s been fun. Their questions were super random, but super aware - their interests make our bumbling, freshie experiences seem buzzy. I remember being so ground-down the carceral, COVID lockdown of my 10th and 11th-grade years that college freedoms seemed like space travel. I’m excited for these girls.

Peter and I are squeezing in a morning Facetime call. He looked a little tousled and undone, sporting a black, almost blue, bedhead mess of morning hair. With his sleepy, brown eyes and five o’clock shadow, he looked like he just fell out of bed after hours of.. ahem. My usual, unfocused feelings seemed to find a compelling point.

I smiled and sipped my coffee, “What?” he said, self-consciously, upon catching my expression.

“I just can’t wait to see you in person.” I demurred, choosing to focus on this morning’s awful, instant coffee. I tend to chatter when I’m excited by something, but maybe I’m learning the power of silence.

It was late at night, And
It was dark outside, where
the lights from the train were
flashing and flickering on
the underground walls.
The station arrived,
We were alone.
The empty station walls
were illuminated with
broken, glimmering neons
along with its buzzy sound,
As we were walking down
with our grasped hands
towards the exit on
a shutdown escalator.

It was so silent a time,
Even, our thoughts
could be heard, as
mine was saying
of the station. The station,
Where it all started someday,
ended once for a while,
But will now end soon.
For ever.

We left the station,
Where she went another way,
And I waited for a ride to home,
which never came, But
The streets, the bridge, The trains
were sighing on me. The ones,
I will never arrive, never ride.
Still, the long whistle, will
once more, force me back,
Down the memory lane
As a tear will wash the dust,
off my old shoes, that I will
Never wear again.....

You say time moves too fast in your life
Well, that's because you're running the race
Missing everything you pass by
And only looking forward to the finish:
Your 401k and then your grave.
Time for you moves faster than the bullet train
That you ride every morning to your cubicle job
And every evening to your home that doesn't feel like home.
Busy bees always moving never stopping never pausing for a comma.
Living for the sweet honeyed relief of retirement or death
And never knowing that as you are living to die,
You are dying to live.
Repetition is your life and it moves really fast.
Day in, day out.
Day in, day out
metro, boulot, dodo
Train, job, sleep
And unfulfilling sleep at that.
You convince yourself that all these petty things that make up your life
That get you closer to your petty dream of riches and *******
Are actually worth something.
World problems don't bug you, you live in a world all on your own.
You glue your eyes to the pavement and walk with "purpose"
Long strides and arms swinging and making buzzy noises
As the sleeves of your suit rub against your sides
You can't let any time be wasted so you flood your day
With meetings and work, cigarettes and nights at the bar.
Stress is your best enemy and insomnia is a close friend.
Busy busy, buzz buzz
Moving, always moving.
So fast that death comes as a surprise
And you think
What the hell just happened?

Wake up tear faced
Wet and soggy pillow
Thoughts of yesterday flood my head
Mind wrenching messages
True or untrue?
Shake off the hurt along with my covers
Lost in a book to escape the realness of life
The last page's turn brings back reality
Sneak away from the ache and into the shower
Mind buzzy busy
Dry off to get clothed
Close the drawer and stop
Just like that
Pause.....
And it all floods back to drown me in my own guilt
Completely unannounced
Hot tears stain my cheeks
Break down and a mind ****
Doing fine I told myself
How dare Thought be rude and burst in uninvited
Unaware of how much I've ignored
It makes things better
Until hurt sneaks up on you again
All the time
Never ending
Once a day
To all day 
No one to honestly talk to
Serious matters 
Everything on the chest must come off
They say it will feel better
You'll walk away with light feet and postured shoulders
But....
I know 
For some reason
Difference calls my outcome
Mind games whisper failure to my heart
Slouched my shoulders stay and brick by brick my steps 
Every day gets heavier
More stress and more panic
Across my message will not go
No one to hear me out
Always the factor of skipping out on my feelings
Listen instead of ducking into a battle
Wishing I could say all the words rioting in my mind
It drives me crazy in there
Desire to scream lungs out
Craving fixed hearts
Hungry for your lips
Devoting all my sorrow
Encouraging accepted apologies
My battle never won

((Reading the notes might help you to understand this poem slightly more... though I can't guarantee it.))*

You know the best place to build a base would be the middle of the ocean.

just a thought

It was last September I told her, I told her to leave.

Help I'm drowning.

that's how it felt

Get her out the road I said, you know there could be anything coming round that corner.

still, I hope you know that sometimes this world has sent me crazy and

I hope you know I have now walked in completely the wrong direction to get home.

but let me give you some advice before I leave completely, it will never make much sense to you, but it will never really need to

When the river becomes starved of water,
don't go throwing bucketfuls of water at it's parched tongue now,
What you've got to do is you've got to plant yourself a flower or two in there, or otherwise build yourself a castle in the dirt,
Something like that.



Well, sh-t.

I have to leave now.

even now I can tell you know I never will
and really

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I always knew I was asking too much of you, when I asked if you might still be my friend.

No, don't go that way.

but you can't stop me
and
anyway, anyway, maybe if I let it go now

It will all be fine.
They will probably just turn up in a box of instruments somewhere.

good feelings often do, but then, I suppose, so do bad ones




What's the name of this tree?
I am having a shower in this tree look, a shower made of leaves, like, the water droplets are these leaves.
I always think these trees look like shower trees, the way the leaves hang down.

hey, hey, remember in those woods, before I showered

All I wanted was to find some grass, and you took me to the one place completely full of nettles.

I'll never forget it



I know,
I know I keep telling them and I know I keep telling you, and him and her and me and everyone, but

He hates my guts now, he really does, and all I ever did was keep trying to do the kindest thing, I keep trying to be kind.



but if I just forget all that
the truth is, when we go walking

We're not even drunk, not in the slightest.

and I'd like to tell you what I am

But I can't make decisions, Annie make a decision for me.

but how then

How are you so calm?
I just don't think about the future.

that's the only explanation I can give



thinking about it, I guess

I'm usually inside this like, wall of, kind of, mirrors.
But they're all different shapes so they don't line up perfectly, like, there are gaps.

and when I'm in a pavement mood

I'd rather have her shouting at me than tell her that the thing was, that I was sad then, and that was the reason why.

I think I'm like one of those buzzy globe things,
What are they called the brain things,
A plasma ball that's it.
But not as spherical, 'coz then it's all the same and nothing ever gets out.

there has to be some kind of gap, some kind of break somewhere



so I've had an idea

So can we all buy a boat?

or perhaps I could just be one

Look, by standing in this puddle I'm basically in the river, see?



I know I get distracted a lot,
sometimes I hear them tell me to try,
the thing with trying is that

The closest I would ever get to perfect was always in an accident,
So I think that true perfect must be broken up into at least a million, billion different accidents,
And maybe someday someone will piece them all together,
But then I think that their life might just be so full of accidents that it wouldn't even be theirs anymore,
And they would probably become so mad that nobody would ever believe them.



So anyway,  when are you going to tell me some more of your dreams?

I'm sorry, I never meant to go deeper than just to paddle in yet.

He said he's bricking it.

but I've been remembering my dreams in the morning when I wake up recently, and I've been finding the words and I think I can keep moving

There's a woods behind my house now, but I don't want to adventure there on my own really.

I think I'd like to know where all those little paths lead to someday though
so

Shall we open that gate?

or maybe we could just climb it
I don't know



I guess really I'm a wanderer, but also a wonderer,
perhaps one more than the other,
I can never be sure.

Certainty is someone who I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting.

I only ever hear bad things about him.

but hey, don't let yourself be too quick to judge I said

We've only heard of about ten crimes in the area in the past year, most of them thefts.




sometimes

I swear she doesn't even know who I am.
No, but honestly,  I think it was just that microphone that got in the way.

Why don't you all just leave? It's not like any of you even care.

but we both know that's a lie
and anyway

It always calms me when there's sunlight on my face.

then all I need is a nice deep breath and it's gone
and I know that

Yes, there is still a bottle of ***** on my chest of draws.

but really, it's okay because it's empty you see



now here's something that will make you smile

That cloud looks like an elephant with its legs on backwards.

I hope you see

And ever since you saw it, you wanted your hand to be touched in that way.

well, maybe that's just me
perhaps I shouldn't have said that
what have I become
I could not tell you the first day I began to live the life I'm living now but one thing I have realised is that

I have probably found more meaning in a field of grass to be honest, than I ever have in most other things in the world.

sorry, sorry
we're still paddling though I think, so it should be okay



Sometimes the world is just too much and I forget what to do.

have you felt how it affects us

I tied a scarf around my eyes this morning, because the light was too bright through my curtain.

and

You're losing your voice from talking so much.

but the whole world won't make me forget how much

I love the way it feels when I breathe the air in the morning or the evening,
when it's like the day's changing from one thing to another.

and the whole world won't ever make me forget this thought I keep on hearing in my head,
that*

We need to just find somewhere,
somewhere to have a moment.

After John Prine:
“There's flies in the kitchen,
I can hear 'em there buzzing,
And I ain't done nothing since I woke up today”

Mr. John Prine

                       <£>

There's flies in the kitchen,
all around my eyes and head,
they’re just gossiping bout me,
why most mornings
I’m still laying in bed
at almost near
noon-time, why too, them
angels and their a-fluttering wings,
a-flapping, still hanging around,
when they’re so far from home

truth be told, I kinda like new combinations,
the musical vibes, magic incantations,
boogie woogie, fuzzy buzzy eyelash sounds,
bluesy background harmonies against the
harps them angel wings are playing,
I’m getting every note writ down so,

I can play it well on the morrow, on my
following them higher up, all the ways up
on that glowing shining stairway to heaven,
guarantee-****-teeing entrance through the
pearly gates for the flies and a lazy, no-account
worthless S.O.B. like me