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I couldn't care less about
"Inspirational Quotes"
I don't need to be told that
the present is a gift
or what the best thing about
rock bottom is
or that only I can stop forest fires.

If I was to write one myself,
it would have less to do with
landing in the stars,
and more to do with
how much better you could see them
if you had the eyes of an octopus.

See,
Octopi have such phenomenal eyes.
The spectrum of color they see
makes our own look like
the ****** box of crayons
you get at a kids restaurant.
Whereas an octopuses,
would be the beautiful,
64 Crayola pack
I always wanted as a kid.

If I ever went blind,
I think I'd get octopus eye replacements.
And yeah,
I'd probably look weird because
they'd be too big for my head
but can you imagine how
strange and incredible
it would be?
And it wouldn't matter how I look because
how I see things
is more important to me
than how I'm seen.

If there was even the
slightest chance,
of seeing though the
eyes of an octopus,
that's reason enough to be alive.

And if I could take your life
or your perspective,
and change it even a bit,
that's reason enough too.

So look through the
eyes of an octopus.

Can you imagine the stars?
This is one of my very favorite poems that I've ever written.
Can you imagine the stars?
***
<•>
4/10/18 10:55pm ~ 4/22/18 2:02 am

Introduction

a simpler than plain fact,  
deserving reflection beyond the obvious,
containing obverse emotional mine field sonar arrays
floating on an ocean unhidden,
listening for the ocean's bleeping hid-dens,
before surrendering to its ****-sinking power of time/gravity
the better life elsewhere is always someone’s misery


<•>
confetti is just tomorrow’s garbage

someone stood on lower Broadway at 5am
watching the sanitation men sweeping up the aftermath of a super bowl  victor’s celebration, with broom heads borrowed from giants’ moustaches

passage of a single thought,
that the victorious celebrated on the parade should
a posteriori be required to participate
in this flip-side experience as
‘active cleaner uppers,’
re-enacting the famous Persian Sufi adage,

“this is too shall pass”

someone whispers we have blessed lives,
rich in the experiential, free of the dragging boredom
of the daily draining of making it, head well above of the
humanizing periodic regularizing water dunkin’ reminder
of just
or

“we too shall pass”

so even the confetti honorees must have too someone whose
life to aspire, the top of the heap, in chained food chain world

assaying perfection and the luck thereof,
picture perfect lives cannot withstand tsunamis of
waves eroding their shapes, wearing boundaries down,
do not forget the invisible invitation from the riptide
just beneath the calm surgical surficial surfacing disguises

if you face my book, will find in a later chapter prior
the fine sorry lines, the pierced titanium bulletproof vest,
the divorces of mistakes remade, the haunted envisioning,
the obligatory items that keep you awake, those awesome
responsibilities that take many small bites of a soul’s coverlet
that cannot be removed isolated jailed or desperate destroyed

confetti rained interspersed with droplets of sand grains,
this man of constant tomorrows, hopeful Mondays, bad Fridays,
is a man of constant sorrows,
pictures and poems life celebrating a never allowed to forget
lucky runs out like the string from packages saved
when no more packages arrive

when the packages no longer get delivered
oh that started years ago, when came the bile instead
of the blood’s replacement clotting factors

passing is a sometime thing
sometime is a most imprecisely defined terminus
sometime means that today’s confetti is a day away
as resurrected garbage
but nonetheless,
you are forever responsible for the cleanup


a picture worth a thousand words
but in me lives
tens of ten thousands words,
including

“this is too shall pass”

<•>
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2467058/writers-block-kick-the-editor-out-of-the-room/
finally finished fin
 Jan 2018 nothing's Amiss
Akemi
Where am I? Choking tilt of the earth, forfeit of the sun. Tomorrow will be as today, a precession in retrospect, an nth masquerade in relapse.
All has been said.
 Nov 2017 nothing's Amiss
lib
i fear that the beauty you see in me
will fade
as soon as you see me undressed
i fear that our forever
won’t be as long as you promised
once you get a taste of my lips
and i blame myself
for not being enough for you
when in reality
i am full
and you are empty
you try and empty me
in order
to fill yourself
i beg you
please
don’t empty me
 Nov 2017 nothing's Amiss
BR
This is not a beautiful story.
This is about you and me.
This is about two common thieves who could never see the forest for the trees,
and every word we breathed to one another in the spaces in between,
choosing to believe that we were anything but sinking vessels,
rending holes in the other’s heart-
this is about you and me in the dark,
sinking to the bottom of the sea.

See, this is not a beautiful story.

But the narrative you crafted was of two lovers in a romance, and you said that it was best that we keep it in the darkness, under the ironic promise that it was in the name of honesty to be fostered between us-
I suppose I wanted to believe it.

I was yours, and you were my secret.

But no heart ever knew a secret that didn’t grieve it, and it grieves me to think of unveiling my beauty meant for another man beneath the wandering of your hands,
and you said you didn’t understand why there were tears in my eyes.

Well neither did I,
but it still keeps me awake at night.

And I didn’t know it, but every time we parted you went home to finish what we started

alone in the dark with your computer screen.

This is not a beautiful story.

You used to say that we were more than the chemicals responding in our bodies,
like what we had was more than lonesome, broken misery masquerading as intimacy,

but it wasn’t.

You just needed a warm body
and I needed to be enough for somebody
we could never alleviate the pain we were trying to escape,
and If I could see you today, I would tell you that I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.
French vanilla Converse,
  taupe-boxed flannel (too big),
and an American Spirit burning,
  real, real slow. What a hipster ****;
what a culture-eating parasite.
  He says, 'Read Proust with me.'
He says something about how
  his dad is dead but not in
a literal sense; metaphorically.
  I was never interested in that part
in the avant-garde spoken poetry Friday nights.

  I bust into the bathroom
and *****, grasping
  Bed Bath and Beyond clearance items.
The walls are the same shade
  of green as my skin.
A hand pets my thigh and I'm told
  it'll all be okay.
How those knuckles knew,
  I'll never know.
 Nov 2017 nothing's Amiss
0o
With brick dust on my back,
And my chin in the air,

I had the sun in my eyes,
And you weren’t fighting fair,

It was a war of attrition,
12 years or 12 rounds,

The battle already lost,
But the bell never sounds,

So I stay on my toes,
Keep sharp, stick and move,

Feel that chip on my shoulder
I have something to prove,

The sweet taste of copper,
Blood dried out like rust,

Only me in my corner,
The only person I trust,

So I swing for the fences,
But prepare for the fall,

For you truly earn nothing,
Without risking it all.
 Oct 2017 nothing's Amiss
0o
It never felt at all peculiar,
The things I left upon the shelf,
Busy becoming something familiar,
The worst version of myself,

Faded and frayed at the seams,
She told me love never waits,
So I’m left chasing new dreams,
with longer expiration dates,

You were the sunset in June,
I was the tip of your spear,
The first sweet taste of the moon,
Burning so cold and austere,

And she asks me to breathe,
Would that be such a crime?
Maybe I deserve the reprieve,
I swear I can quite anytime,

Just one more night on the chin,
Ashamed of the blue in your eyes,
Frail fingers, cold skin,
Too late to say your goodbyes,

Another disillusion shattered,
Sunrise was calling our bluff,
She said I was there when it mattered,
I can only pray that’s enough.
 Oct 2017 nothing's Amiss
Onoma
waves always feel like
a long time coming.
tide high as nirvana
breaks down at eye level,
on the feet of boulders.
clusters of bubbles popping--
one by one as joy screaming
underwater.
to let out the imperturbable
truth, remaining silent on
what was first to last.
further out, the rims of waves
destined for the same, are
darkened by schooling fish.
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