You can feel it spinning
                                         fast
the Chinese, Japanese, American and European junk
orbiting at several thousand miles per hour could
                                                           ­                             punch
a hole in your armor, future. Thanksgiving passes, then Christmas.
A nuclear detonation, we absorb that fact. The scientist in us
delays sadness by recording observations. What is is,
sorrow's for tomorrow.

By reducing probabilities to near zero I hope to avoid sorrow.
In yr suburb.
In history when there were many fewer people we still found reason
to cross space, explore, trade and war. Now
                                                             ­                 overpopulation
may not be the problem but food and water shortages
get our attention.
                              I have Korf's fears.
And hear what I want to hear.

Some hear singing, some hear speeches or complaining.
Martin Luther King sang his complaints, dreamed of a brotherly nation
which came to pass, spinning fast, past Thanksgivings, past jailings
into reconnaissance, small wars, drones, renaissance, inventions.
At the border,
                         where the Juaristas fought Maximilian:
Benito Juarez (1806-1872) Zapotec Amerindian who served five terms as president of Mexico. He was the first Mexican leader who did not have a military background and also the first full-blooded indigenous person to lead a country in the western hemisphere in over 300 years. For resisting French occupation, overthrowing the Empire, and restoring the Republic, Juarez is regarded as Mexicoxs greatest and most beloved leader. 

Each soldier chooses what war at what border, or just
                                                            ­                                   shows up
spinning with the planet.
The neighborhood and surrounding nature is orderly.
But always there is implied force, violence holding it together,
                                                       ­                                                       chaos
is contained
kept out of the playground, government buildings, childrenxs games
but lies within
the force maintaining order, a spinning tumor, a gyroscope of
                                                              ­                                                inertia.
The force of the spinning, the speed of the force bring one to one's
      death
seasons, weather, earth.
                                         While the emperor's being beheaded
enduring seeds are discovered and invented, cross-fertilized and bred.
Corn, yams, potatoes, sunflowers, rice.
                                                           ­       Food is life and a good study,
useful discipline
                           daily meditation.
                                                     ­   The fighting man protects the farmer
and the farmer feeds the fighting man.
They elect the governor
                                        who serves the people. Peace out.

Peace and war are transitory manifestations of spinning
electrons, planets.
                               The sun's a nuclear detonation, essential
to spring and planting. Food is life. Seeds endure
if man goes to his daily discipline. If woman is man.
Birth and death
                           together are orderly, the border can be known,
voluntarily. How we live together, by prayer or force,
is our story.

Knowledge
from laboratory to starry corridor keeps us very
                                                            ­                         versed.
Did Juaristas consider the rights of animals not to be eaten?
Not during that spinning.
                                              And perform the history that surrounds us.
All that can be done
is written in the spinning:
"The people of the land, the Indian farmers of North America - like their counterparts in Mesoamerica, the Andean region, and the Amazon - have continuously cultivated maize, beans, squash and other crops for more than five thousand years. One of the salient features of their traditional farming systems is the high degree of biodiversity. These traditional farming systems have emerged over centuries of cultural and biological evolution, and they represent the accumulated experience of indigenous farmers interacting with the environment without access to external inputs, capital or scientific knowledge. In Latin America alone, more than 2.5 million hectares under traditional agriculture in the form of raised fields, polycultures, agroforestry systems and the like document indigenous farmers' successful adaptations to difficult environments."

Tumor bloom
Tumor grew
Tumor who
Rumors flew
Tumor removed
Tumor who
We still can’t figure out what is wrong with you
And you can’t raise your hand in a test tube
Bloated yellow belly on hands of blue
Investigate through shaky fingers, how dare you
It’s only our job to watch you
Watch you fade away, cry at your funeral
An through sobs of joy, claim we were there for you
Are you still with Us?
Are you still with Us?
Well here’s another object we can put a piece of your soul in
Chock full of nothing at the bottom of the ocean
-----
Well, I only stuck around to hear the details from your mouth
Perhaps to share some with you, but you never asked, you assumed
Just like I did when he told me he did it with a smug, smug grin
Just like I did when I returned to my body with plastic near every inch
Guilty by the first, but I swear I wasn’t there for the rest
Take a dose by ten, wash it down with tainted gin, let’s see how well you land
I wanna see how well your body lands
And all this I’ve gathered through a hell made up of your eyes
Didn’t have the luxury of tape to ease my long-gone mind
There were some things to repress, long before this
I’ve pried open every vault, to find this wasn’t one of them
No, this wasn’t one of them
And your spies, my friends, were your spies
Who are you this time
And my friends, were your spies
So I divulged the icing with a glazed smile
Yeah I divulged nothing, but I tried
I tried
Closing my eyes I see your future objects
An one day you’ll be under the curtain
Yes, one day you’ll be under the curtain
Observed, abducted, catatonic, fried
This world hates absolution
When I’m gone
Maybe a ghost can jog my memory
That was too much for you to do
----
Tumor bloom
Tumor grew
Rumors flew
Tumor removed
Tumor who?
Tumor who?

I found you in the cracks of winter between puffing breaths of cold air like a dragon, on that cold Wednesday afternoon. I swore your eyes were the ocean, and I could see all the way to Europe. You held your books like a shield guarding your chest and you introduced yourself like a king.

We talked of Bukowski and Frost in between sips of lukewarm water. I fell in love with every pause you took and every time you blinked my heart beat increased. I was surprised you couldn't feel it from across the table.

You showed me the scars on your legs and arms you've gotten over the years. One from jumping off a roof into a pool. One randomly showing up when you woke up that morning. And one from that time you had a tumor removed from your chest. You told me don't feel sorry for you and don't feed you sympathy because you have been full for years.

We spent the next couple of months telling secrets. You told me I was the first person you have ever felt comfortable with in a long time. You kissed me so silently and slowly it was like breathing underwater. Forgive me if I sound selfish but I could not stay under the water any longer and I couldn't hold my breath for another second. I gave all my wishes and stars to you that night. I wrote poetry on your skin that we created when our hands touched.

We explored the mountains and ate picnics every Saturday afternoon. We ran from the rain as we saw the clouds roll in, we sat in the car and played truth or dare for an hour straight. I promised you I will love you until we're old and I'll have to feed you with a spoon until this action isn't anymore romantic but necessary instead.

It was a Tuesday at 2:35 in the morning when you were experiencing pain. I drove you to the hospital.

Our love was like a mother teaching a daughter how to slow dance for the first time; clumsy.
You didn't know how to hold me properly anymore because you were to busy holding medical bills in your hands. When I see these papers my mind loses focus and all those words form one big blur, and they become wet with warm teardrops smudging the news across the white crinkled paper. I turned off the tv that night and we actually looked at each other staring like we were both blank canvases and had painters block for the first time ever. That night you packed a suitcase and went away in a taxi. The hospital wasn't too far away but I couldn't bare to see you walk into that place again.

It was cold and it was Sunday. The doctors tried everything they could but it was already too big and eating you away. Old friends were always bitter when they weren't welcomed back but stormed in like a hurricane destroying everything the future has to hold. Your eyes were colorless and your hands were too fragile to hold anything. My heart was beating out of my chest and my palms were shaking. It felt like I was holding an earthquake.

You were only 21.

You had a warm heart and a beautiful brain. You were drained like rain-soaked up from the earth. I wished I could have taken you places and brought you flowers. But it was always too cold to go somewhere and all the flowers have disappeared away until next spring. For on now I'll just have to bring you back to life through words and hope not to cry. Another love is too far away to see and my vision is blurry but I don't want it to be clear. For I fear that I will once again become too selfish because I can't wait forever for you because death is miles away, and I'm not ready to see that side of my life. But when tomorrow starts without you I guess I'll just go home because, sweetheart, all the dust has disappeared.

Let us praise the time when we flew to Vegas one night because we were board. Praise the moment when we were so full of glee that time we won $20, and how we ignored that fact we lost $600. Praise the day our car broke down on the side of a mountain and so we finally got a chance to talk to each other and confess our problems. Praise that moment we meet on that frosty December. I hope your ghost waltzes at sunset with my shadow. I know it's only been a few years since we meet but for me, it was a lifetime of happiness.  Let it be known you are engraved into my brain and I'll always remember the time I saw you clutching books to your chest and puffing dragon breath.

It's dark.
Sounds like a rainstorm and smells like fragrant fire. But the earth underground is thirstier than what sulfur and dead things and various excrements can quench.
And the scent may be a brain tumor,
or even better some drug-induced hallucination;
either way it feels amazing.

I'd just love to slap these stupid feelings
in their pretty faces, I bet that'd also feel
pretty amazing.

a million oscillating fans and still so much heat.
divine metallic miasma .

Is there something pathological about how
I like to see the hurt & desperation & the shock that I cause? Cuz I've been told this type of behavior is 'odd.'

...I don't see it.

I mean,

I do feel remorse out of narcissism
& for my own wants & gains.

It's just a *****, ***** game.


Everyone plays one or the other.

There is underneath my tongue,
underneath the small fold extending from
The floor of the mouth, in between flesh and bone,
a small mass of tissue, which is my tumor.

This mass, of untraceable origin,
does not cause pain, or anguish,
is not evil, is not lethal.
Still it grows
Ever so slightly, it grows
And weighs.

I am reminded of my tumor,
every now and then,
whenever I feel the graying,
whenever I feel the weighing,
every now and then,

Whenever,
I see a strange looking dog with a strange sounding bark,
Whenever,
I see a man miraculously escaping death on the road,
Whenever,
My favorite tune is playing on the radio,
Whenever,
I let out a hearty guffaw,
My tumor grows.

It grows,
It weighs,
It numbs.

Because,
Whenever there's a story to be shared,
Whenever there's a smile to be seen,
Whenever there's a song to be heard,
Whenever you are not there and something goes unsaid,

My tumor holds it in,
And grows.