cut
an apple
into few slices
and leave it
for days.

indecisive.

not
tucking in
your bedsheet
every morning.

intentionally.

Upon learning of the recent death of Willard Thomas, I decided to interview some of his former students in hopes of discovering the truth about this controversial figure.

    1.
"God, what a man! I've never known anyone who experienced life so intensely. His mind was plagued by unanswerable questions. His body was racked by the suffering of fellow human beings. His soul was tortured by the absurdity of existence.
  
His life was a struggle with the cosmos.
  
You could see it in his face.
You could feel it in his words.
  
And what a teacher! He hypnotized the class. He made books come to life.
  
We saw him in the meadow with Emily Dickinson,
drunk with daisies and the sunrise.
We saw him lugging Cordelia about the camp,
brains burst, arms aching.
We saw him fling the iron at Moby ****!!
defiant to the last. . . .
  
He was obsessed with truth.
He was in love with justice.
He was the hero of a tragedy called Existence
and he played his part surpassing well."

     2.
"Mr. Thomas was an ***. I know you shouldn't talk that way about a dead person but you said you wanted the truth and that's the truth. Every day he came into class with that ridiculous paisley tie and those irritating starched white shirts with the collars curled up at the corners and those baggy pants down to his shoe-tops and that mess of frizzy white hair and that grimace, that stupid idiotic grimace. And he couldn't teach worth ****. His lectures were a bunch of gibberish about "truth" and "justice" and there was never any discussion. The only ideas that interested him were his own. He thought of himself as some sort of tragic hero. He was a fool, a fraud, an ***. . . ."      

[In case you’re interested, I’m definitely in the camp of former student #1.]

today

I will fade away,
or maybe

yesterday
I have died
just to be awaken
in another bad nightmare,

I will never know.

Vulnerability and sensitivity,
forgotten in my memories,
left to decease amongst my bitter mind.

Optimism can be a solution for a lifetime,
happiness through virtue and materialistic belief,
yet this bittersweet taste won’t leave my lips.

Writing of a virtual fantasy to take over,
while I screech at others to remain realistic,
it’s foolish to believe it’s only an idea – not a dream.

Entrances of desire can be discovered on trampling triumphs,
I wish to wear these heels of hope towards the platinum kingdom,
yet must I tear away the typewriter to write with my fingertips instead?

Embarrassment discovered through emotional outbursts of immaturity,
apologies scattered within forests of no sounds, reverbs or life itself,
leave me in both a desired yet painstaking isolation of romantic fantasies.

Mind reading is impossible to the ignorant egotistical individual,
assumptions lead to the destruction of blooming lotus flowers on a tainted feeling,
for honesty’s beauty is desirable – only under management of the mature one.

For the mindset of two cannot be replaced through absent-minded behaviour,
through words of the time, dreams of past lives, an ocean of hope mixed in with sour taste,
the skies show illustrations of words collected throughout time – not our goodbyes.

Finding love is to find unfamiliar beauty, noble and true,
pure in the eyesight, throughout duration before death,
a beauty that demands indulgence and conquers one’s
personal soul, their total being, consumed in every
pocket of essence. Stronger than the Devil. Oh lover,
I’m being torn apart beyond violent sobs in the corner
alone. In genius ways, it's like I’m being applied to evil
for when I’m cursed to be not around you. I vowed to
never write poetry again, if you accepted my hand.
Until then, I’m sure you’ll enjoy master of this world.
As the Devil runs riot and commits himself to his
own death, no longer able to rule earth.

He
adores
the
idea
of
his
non-
existence.

The doubt is with the night
forever hanging in the head
it sips all the fire
the flickering stars, the
bickering meteors
the maelstrom spews hate
over the pinned madness
the magnetic field emits hate
over the pinned sadness
if it sincerely wants
to be accepted
look no further than
how life has been enacted.