caught off guard
by yet another downpour
unprepared again
he could shelter
from the torrent
tormenting
and tempestuous
beneath the hung branches
of this laden tree
overreaching
beyond its means
but he knows
it cannot keep him dry
for as long as
he might need
from bough to branch
to leaf and bud
down the back of his neck
through layer upon layer
soon sodden and soiled
those discomforting drips
will expose that
which he didn't want
exposed

I scribble on
With a half lobotomy;
A radar seeking Hell by looking up
And another dictionary
From another time and place;
An alternate timeline
Reaching right and left
As well as fore and aft;
The beard of a ******
And naïveté too;
Undiscovered depths of emotional manipulation
Unseeing, unthinking,
A new old structural familiarity
To abduct and probe
The time-honored, vacuum-sealed
Ineptitude of ideology
Whose meat is sweet
But suits the skeletons of standardized educational theories
Like a pair of jeans at age eleven that you expect to grow into;
In hope of justifying
Overuse of monetary resource
For the sake of bonus states of mind;
Scouring the depths of discarded everything
With hooks catching on to all the similarly forgotten names
Who live in fear of obscurity
Clinging, not unlike insects
To their sixteenth minute of fame;
Finding in myself no way but out
To understand that which lives inside;
With disregard for any thread which weaves past me and takes no hold,
And loathing for the ones that do but unravel before the eyes;
Lightheaded, ending any sense of continuity
When, prostrate in the comfort of another tapestry
I stand abruptly, let my dreams be drained from me through tendrils
Like the passing of a temporal existence;
Drinking in the dust and glue of crowded bookshops
In fear of losing inspiration
To the insatiable jaws of my consumerist natural state;
Rummaging in a bargain bin
In search of someone to tell me, “Stop!"
With heads in clouds and bodies in ice trays,
Stealing lines of logic and lyric,
Throwing down and hacking into
Elemental bits which fit into my own vernacular
Sacrificing beauty for originality and vice versa;
Choosing idols idly with the tides
Of knowledge and of art
Rising and falling without fail
Never apparent and never blurred by motion;
Searching for a style like an odd-numbered jean size;
Finding greater inspiration in waves of unopened mysteries;
Following examples laid by unsuccessful fictions;
Learning ethics only from the prologues of ****** novels,
Unsuspecting victims snuffed in interesting and lurid ways;
Letting technological distraction detract from the projections of psychological complexity
Which I, from atop the high horse of my own pretensions
Pretended to embrace;
Committing massive acts of thievery, fraud, and infinite lethargy
For the sake of juvenile, illegitimate art forms;
Seeking other seekers who exist autonomously
For the sake of personal independent credibility;
Leading unsuspecting, overreaching, overeating, understanding, undemanding,
Too forgiving, not forgetting,
Victims of domestic warfare
To a loveless watery grave
For the sake of my own loneliness;
Patronizing every segregated buffet
With courage enough only for a small taste of everything;
With the flavors of the day swirling around
For me to shoot them down
And pin their carcasses to elementary school walls
And Mormon tool sheds
And nature centers
And all the forgotten places of summers past
In the hope of rediscovering
Some old buried treasure
Be it wondrous or worthless;
With the uneasy insincerity of a rodent who pretends to understand a city;
With adopted methods
And repeated thoughts
And ideas which came to me in waking dreams of my own retirement;
Sharing, for a captive audience,
The formidable giants which
Inform our common denominator
Searching through myself for only the most indecipherable
With the fear of being understood
And the fear of being ridiculed
And pretensions of some preternatural predetermination for greatness;
With acceptance of predisposition for obscurity,
The cost of the inundation of the new airwaves.
The series of tubes that feed us intravenously
With information, information, information,
Having killed God and left material validation in His wake;
It could be that new gods are born in the minds of the innovators,
Those wonderfully wealthy
Whose social structuralism
Was a beacon to us all;
In the darkness of an architectural anomaly
Where lights extinguish as my body lies dormant
Alone and abandoned
Only by my own subversion;
Confined ever to a convolution of passages
While above me all my peers still carry on;
Overstaying welcomes
And letting emotionality
Color conversation
A sicklier green,
A green of a tree only just sprouted,
A green of a new recruit,
A green of an inexperienced schoolboy
Faced with the daunting and timeless act
Of copulation;
Somehow taking in the sights and sounds and smells
Of advanced mathematics
Even occupied, as I am,
With explaining my actions
Most eloquently;
Devoting myself to another cause,
Another, another, another
Always relaxing my grip by losing focus;
Desperately hoping not to let my fellow travelers
Lose their innocence
While I reluctantly, dogmatically
Keep mine on a leash;
Always keenly aware
Of the universe of worlds
Beyond my control,
And even my understanding;
On the increasingly frequent
Intrusions of risk
Into my significant reality
And the iota of explainable truth which guides the motion of my body but most frequently my mind;
Questioning the meaning of all words
Without thought or coordination;
Considering another restful journey
To clear my mind of human language
And in its place acquire thoughts and emotions from the street;
Without foreseeable direction,
Malice aforethought
Or noticeable signs of critical reaction
Giving birth to litter
Forgetting articles
And floating my sense of time up the Ganges;
Taking only seconds to counter the possibility of
Accepting more responsibility for myself;
Complicating matters with an interesting or bitter goodbye.

There is music at dawn in the song of the koyel
The tweeting, the chirping, the warbling,the cry
The medleys that float in the morning air 
As birds sing a welcome to a rising sky 

There is music in the span of feathered  wings 
The steady drone of the humming of a bee
As the sun revels on his throne at noon 
While a brisk wind whisks leaves on willow trees 

There is music in the silver drops of rain 
A gentle drizzle or a thunder squall 
Music in the flow of rivers and streams 
And the sparkling cascade of a waterfall

There is music on slopes of lofty mountains 
In echoes that reverberate of a water spring 
In the soft rustling of a valley of flowers 
Of blue irises and pink hyacinths 

There is music in seas and oceans blue 
Waves overreaching to meet the shore
Rippling in sounds of frothy ecstasy 
Whispers of pearls and ocean floors 

There is music at dusk when the day rests 
The throaty croaks in a nocturnal sheer
As moths flutter drawn to light 
'Tis music of life that I hear

She said it was wisteria, florets draped
framing her windows
vines climbed overreaching the rooftop
swallows flew by, just before night skies
twilight flashed orange, pink in lavender blues
fading into black
a vision soon of sparkling
starry moon
jasmine flowers to float upon
evening's scented pond

I foresee at day, not distant,
when armed drones patrol our skies.
Where people labelled dissidents
will be killed without a trial.

In the cities of the future
walls and ceilings will be glass.
Big brother will be watching
like George Orwell once forecast.

In the future called panopticon
You never will feel free.
You will never know whose watching
and you won't know what they see.

If equality of outcomes
is your wish and fervent prayer-
go and lie down in some graveyard
You'll be sure to find it there.

Otherwise, arouse yourselves
before it is too late.
Don't be a useful idiot
to an overreaching State.

Go ask the Pakistanis
about the war that never ends
Ask how they've been treated
( and we label them our "friends")

The drones we use in Pakistan
will soon be loosed on you.
Will you enjoy a tyranny
of the many by the few?

whittled down and disavowed
by an overreaching society
the pomp
and zeal
with such appeal
and airs of impropriety

unbelievable populace
chickens
chickens
chickens
free of heads
still peck, peck, peckin' ya

copulate, then like you less
pickens'
pickens'
pickens'
slim as anorexia

Act Now!
Don't Wait!
the finish line?
keep runnin' straight
you can go to class
...don't be late
or just go tip the magistrate

pointless?
I doubt it very much
more fish in the sea
spontaneous lush
oink less
piggy hush!

buy, buy birdie!
consumerism's sturdy
making up makeup
makin' me look perdy
hopin' I don't wake up

Live as hard as you can
just to die before you're thirty
if practice makes you perfect
then perfection makes you *****

I used to think that I didn't need anyone.
I used to think that I could be complete, alone.
Trying to shut my eyes to the frozen shards in my heart-
Will I become blind?

But-I was lonely.
I was sad.
I wanted to try, even once-
what it felt like, what love was.
I was always by myself, watching from an overreaching balcony as society passed by.
I swore that I would be complete alone,
But my body refused to accept that fact.

The sunset that I saw was stunning, that's for certain,
but to call it love,
would be a disgrace, wouldn't it?

I've always wanted to tell a special person,
who've I've been gasping for on that painfully cold winter night-
huddled up like that-
"I'll never go back to that cold world again."

And, sometimes, sitting on the window rail,
I wonder.
Is love warm?
Is love bitter?
Stunning?
Is it beautiful-
or is it different for every heart?

"And,
let's go exploring.
If it rains, let's play a game."
Such times
were meant to go on forever,
really.

But-
to be honest, I am scared of love.
That frightening concept of brutal heartbreak and
dangerous happiness,
do I deserve such things?

When my heart finally stops beating-
I want to leave,
knowing that I was truly happy.

Until the time I can no longer be myself
I wonder just how many times I can still say "I love you" and not cry.  
So let me be grateful for the fact that I can be here-
Thank you, simply for the fact that I'm alive.

With no one here, will the world wither?
Who is left-
Will they say the world's final confession?

And I wonder,                                       
when I meet the destined person, will I know?                                          
I guess, to make sure, I won't let go of anyone.

I've always wished for spring.
Because I was so afraid of that cold world, covered in white-
I curled up in a tight ball,
huddled against the raging sleet,
I never took a good look at it.
The soft snowflakes falling silently,
The beautiful forest that was as beautiful as a white lily-
If you have a special person to share it with,
I think-
This white world can be inexpressibly beautiful.