I found a coven in the woods
Amongst an oaken forest glen.
There,
hidden behind a curtain of Spanish moss,
amongst fiddlehead ferns and fungi bloom,
two of Gaia's faithful maidens
Enchanted me unwittingly, and took possession of my gaze.

A Pair of Muses
One, of the forest
One, of the sea
Both wind and fire
Equally
In opposition and in sway

Their incantations softly chanted
In a tongue to me unknown
and I listened quietly entranced,
between them in the glow
Of their cauldron hearth fire
Embers burning low

She of the forest was enigma, playfully shy,
coyly toying with the strings all men share,
And in her den, among her herbs and powders and potions  
In preperation, and prepared.
She spoke in riddles and in parable,
Both with body and with stares.

Instantly she knew me
As I had never known;
As if Devined by a mysticism,
Ancient and pure,
So sublime it startles the soul.
In her eyes,
so sweet and sincere,
simplicity and innocence obscure
A strange and intoxicating knowledge
Of the rare and deepest old
Of the world and it's great secrets-
What its darkest reaches hold.

She of the sea
Was shimmering
A specter
Against the stars
Floating

She was Waves
Of aquamarine
Blue Green
Irridescent
Obscure and reticent
Behind her ever pulsing shade

Camaflouged by her surroundings
This piscian vision lingered in relief
Over a Gilded titan mother of pearl chariot;
The Persephone Throne.
She cast her stare upon me;
My hypnotized mind laid bare,
Wiped clean of anything I had seen.
No man could know her shrine of love
Nor the secrets that she keeps,
And none ever remember;
For one cannot resist her lair

An aquarian cavern,
A haven of calm,
Rest, respite and solitude.
It's lotus blossom lantern
Heart of glowing gold
Cast in shadow upon the ceiling
Glimmering radiant refractions
of the waning day

Her ocean sings soft and sweetly,
Casting mist into the air,
And a siren's song disrupts me
Ever suddenly
She washes over me,
Unaware

And though the seven signs they showed to me clearly
Still the stars I misread
through misted eyes,
and soon I fell to dreaming without sleeping
Or so I thought, though i shall never know

In their atmosphere I relinquished this mortal coil into the haze,
And disappeared completely
For an instant, just a moment,
perhaps it was hours.
Perhaps,
it was days.

And as abruptly as rushing water to the somnambulists face
I awoke,
As a dreamer awakes
from dreaming of waking,
alone and bleary-eyed,
dreary and confused
amid my own disheveled cave.
And where they've gone, I wish to go,
But where that is, I cannot know
For I would follow them until the days
Turned forever into nights amongst
The Forest and The Waves

Ours was like fireworks
in the mid-summer sky
Radiant,
       Iridescent,
                   Incredulous,
                              Alive
but the finale came suddenly, unexpectedly soon,
& the band played on,
as if nothing had changed,
as if a fountain of sparkling embers and flame
had not just erupted mere inches away.
And now,
where explosions once seared summer's sky with crackling thunderous incandescent delight
Only whispers and wisps of smoke remain,
Scattered by the breeze,
Whithered, then, by rain.
And of the evening's reveries precious little can be found:
some soured beer in crumpled cans, discarded haphazardly
surrounding a threadbare picnic bedspread
rumpled beneath the branches of an ancient live oak tree.
Dew now wet where lovers once had lain,
staring up into the night
in wonder, ignorant of such banal things
like: masquerading lust in love's robes, declaring,
"I've never loved a love as deep as the love I have for you,"
and truly being unaware of the uncanny substitute;
Or the unbridled disenchantment unleashed by abandonment
and the inevitable transience of an insufferable pain.

We ****** on bar balcony balustrades, over looking city streets.
We ditched tampons into trees rather than wait to satisfy our needs.
We left your ******* in a planter
on a patio under an eve
On purpose, So that some poor, unassuming shop-keep
Would find them
(along with cigarette butts and an empty bag of ****)
and have no choice but think to themselves,
"Did someone **** here?"
and then immediately understand the answer is
"Yes. Exuberantly!"

We defiled. every. place. we went;
giggling with glee at all of our indiscretions.

Oh how many indiscretions could there possibly be?
We shall know;
All of them!

And so we did,

And we were free.



On new years eve I carried you piggyback in your peacock blue sequined gown through the streets of our ****-soaked-gutter-of-a-town.
You were barefoot, drunk, and refusing to be told what to do,
that you had to wear your shoes,
that the streets were far to ***** and dangerous for your tender little feet- you said "Just let me be, It's fine. It wont **** me..."
then, looking at the gutter, continued,
"probably.
And these shoes already are, so..." sticking out your tongue
But I couldn't put you down.
Not in that place, not at that time.
Nor did I even want to. I could have carried you all night
(which was fortunate, because for most of itI did.)
We were declared the city's cutest couple by a stranger on the sidewalk whom we passed while galloping down the street, you, giggling, alight upon my back, running at full speed. This declaration was reaffirmed by everyone met.

A pixie, you know, will always trip you up
(they're natural pranksters you see).
Their magic is undeniable, but oh what trouble they can be.

- My toothsome little faerie - You meant trouble for me;
but what a beautiful, beguiling mess you turned out to be,

You snuck pixie dust into everywhere we went, and
Dispensed it with abandon-
Spread it like caution to the wind.
Sanctifying everything and everyone we met.
That poor city was baptized in our joy.
It's sins washed into glittering gutters,
where we lay sparkling, genuine and loved.


We broke the records that night,
all of them, known and not.

We loved harder than diamond,
than a trailer-hitch to the shin,
Deeper than the fathoms of the trenches at the bottom of the sea.

We made soulmates seem like strangers.
We spoke nonsense fluently.
We shared mind and body, food and drink,
and careless wanton play.

It was

The most
     *******
          Fun
   I've ever had
       in my life...

Probably the most that I ever will.


Every moment I was with you had
the sizzle and the tease
of a bottle-rocket, lit
and held between my teeth.

I knew that I'd get burned
If I held it to the end,
But I did it just to prove I could;
To prove to me
That I was brave enough
To be unashamed
  To be unafraid
   To be.

The only line
I've ever heard that worked...

"Hey girl...
            Bring your fine *** over here and let me tell you some lies"

Honesty is always the best policy I guess.

Deep beneath deepest reaches
of the furthest recess of my mind
I found a craven creature, singing,
madly clawing blind into the darkness
desperate to find a shaft of light
by which to see its tattered tethered binds 
unbound.

Screeching at its unknown captor.
Screaming to the sky.
Shrieking like a banshee being slaughtered but alive.

Bellowing, bruised, and blackened beast,
best buried deep below-
you'll never see the light of day,
Nor freedom shall you know.

Claw madly at your cavern walls;
Howl mournful;
Be untamed.
But do not expect a civil birth,
born free of shackled chains,
without first being bested
by him to whom you belong;
whose nights you terrify;
who wrote your sorrowful song

Mysterious Paradoxes

I just watched a man
take a token from the hand
of a life long friend,
again!
For the power of relief
from poison and pride.
A marker of 31 years
in recovery
from the hell
of addiction and drink.

Face Fear
face first
fearless and thorough from start to finish


“When I face fear, I’m given courage;
When I help my brother, I help myself.”


A third life is possible if the second try fails.
Even then it’s still the first:
3 in 1 like the ghost
and the father and the sun.
From our mother we are birthed
and led to find a guiding hand
and to help others who are lost
find the path and the light
and the love of a life
free from the powers
of persuasion by the devil
and his friends.

A simple solution -

Surrender to Win!

Amen… again
And again and again,
‘Til it ends.
It begins
In a place
Among friends;
One day at a time.
Everyday can be mine
If I find what I found
the first time I really tried.



Common solution
1005 old shell
11:19am
2-23-24

This is a call to Arms
The time for action is now.
Our government is preparing for War
They're building walls and cutting ties
to conquer us they must divide
us from ourselves and from our world

This is a call to Arms
The time for Action is now
The board is set, and we, the Pawns, are all in our place, facing an enemy we are told to defeat,
though they appear to be identical to you and me.

This is a Call to Arms
The time for action is now
We must revolt
Lest we be sacrificed to Kings
To Queens, to Bishops
To the knights of the realm and the castles they call home.

This is a call to Arms
The time for action is now
We must band together to be heard
We will not be cannon fodder
For the frontlines of a culture War

This is a Call to Arms
The time for action is now.
Defeat looms ever closer
The Reckoning draws nigh
Will you stand and deliver
Or will you bow down and submit?
Will you face the coming adversity,
or brave the consequences
should you turn your back to it?

This is a call to arms
They've taken land and sea and air,
Poisoned them to **** us,
and then billed us for the repair.
The enemy surrounds us,
Threatening life and limb and freedom.
Demanding fealty and obedience.
Demanding tribute for the war chest,
And soldiers for the ranks,
Demanding that we pay the cost while they set price.
They want us broken, not just beaten
Only unconditional surrender will suffice

This is a call to Arms
The time for action is now
To chant the castles down
To fortify the streets
Against the tyranny and the hate,
Against powers of subjugation,
Against the evils of the world

now

I found a boardwalk in the woods
leading, seemingly, to nowhere,
In a timberland swamp I knew from younger days;
Decaying and rotten, likely long forgotten.
I wondered how long it had been there, abandoned to its fate:
being quietly mocked by the still standing timbers,
as yet spared the sawmills blade,
for its needless sacrifice, as its strength is weathered away; used but unrequited, wasted, faded and unmade.

I followed along its decrepit path
as far as I could make,
and laughed to myself and thought,
"Such is life's disarray."

It's my own reflection of which I'm most terrified
Because it shows me exactly who I appear to be
It may not look like who I think I am, but it's the only me the world can see

Now it's been years and years since the man in the mirror
Resembled the man I know I can be,
But it won't be long until that monster is gone,
And the world only sees who I know I can be

I love how the contours
of certain words
are shaped like you;
How I conjure you,
in dreariness,
merely from a sound in my mind.

Simple little flower,
smiling in the sunshine,
face turned beaming toward the sky.

Creased, crinkled nose,
singing softly to yourself,
Searching the distance,
Seeking the next flower to find.

Gliding through a gilded forest, elegant and alluring,
unencumbered by the cares
of the world in which you reside;

Free, and joyfully for it,
and for solitude
and for time.
Radiant and lovely,
eyes dancing all the while.

Graceful as you fall
upon a bed of sullied sheets,
disheveled,
glancing off and back again,
biting your lip as if
to keep it from a smile.

Temptress, trouble, siren singing,
bless me with you gaze,
Caress my troubled, timid soul; enrapture me,
your willing slave.

Yet your spectre still abandons me, and I long for you by my side.
So I call to you at nightfall, and my dreams do so abide.

Why anyone,
who has seen the eyes of divinity
would ever think that they should leave
whatever space or place or mindset where
they found it, to deny intrepidly that,
without a doubt,
they sincerely believe
that they
saw nothing
out of the ordinary;
no mysterious magic miracle
meant to mean something
to the eyes of wonder
worn by children,
full of mystic revelry;
That there
in this world
with mind unmarred
nothing surreal occurred;
no mysterious light was seen
which no one else could see:
and (hold on)
dismiss that which is in his view of the world which he verily sees,
…and just … look away…
is strange to me.

Why would someone want to leave
the presence and the peace
of creation for some dream?

What motivation could there be to dismiss reality
…for some make believe world…  
that, in which, magic things - do not - exist?

I certainly cannot believe they’d look away intentionally…
Not me!

‘Cause you  never wrote any of the good parts down
You just lived ‘em
and let ‘em
s
 l
   i
     p
          
             a

                           w
                                               a                    y

You knew better
than to try to capture
the silliness in its hay day
because then you’d have
to face the facts of
the very choices
that you’d made;
and there would be no question -
whether it’s was worth it -
to waste the days by trading them
for nights of frivolity and frolicking -
Of frittering away.
What should have been,
and what is so,
and where it came from,
and who’s to blame
would all be there in Black and white,
instead of vanishing in the haze.

And in your own hand, no less;
your words,
a confession dictated day by day
of what, With your own eyes,
you did see
- All the magic and the wonderment of this tragic comedy -
through foggy lenses, bottle-thick and stained:
dreary ramblings in shadows made,
and heard and said
a many things
in drunken dangling reparteé.

Are we lost to a land of too many tribes,
  Too many choices, of too many scales,
  Too many communities of which to
avail?

  Could we be better off fractured and scattered
  Left shattered like glass by the highway
  A shimmering reminder to the wayward passerby,
  All is not lost though we
Subside

  Could that we merely be torn asunder,
  Pulverized, then obliterated by ritual fire,
  Then wrung from the colluding liquified minds
  Crystaline,
      Incandescent,
          Molten
Purifide

  T­o form as before but free from parameters previously applied,
  Forgotten in the furnace of insanity and strife
  Stiffled,
      Tempered,
          Emboldend,
Refined

I've been meaning to say this to you,
but I've been biting my tongue for some time-
You don't have to be so afraid of me.
You don't have to hold your walls up so high.
I'm not here in siege, to tear down your defenses.
I didn't bring towers or ladders to climb.
I simply came knocking,
here at your gates,
hoping to be let in.
I caught just a glimpse of your garden,
and I would love to see it again.

"Stars are trying to tell me
this is something like it"

The stars are trying to tell me something, but it's something I can't hear. Or perhaps it's showing me the light but it's shining on
something I can't see. The universe is singing somewhere vast and shimmering; expanding in upon itself, growing closer, still near exploding.
Reveal my soul to me


I stare into the heavens hopeful that she'll open her inky vale, shine her countenance upon me, and bless the growing glowing trail
of star dust and darkness and love and gravity, which spins beyond the precipice.
Ever in front of me.

I’ve been writing an unending melody
About a woman whose countenance could set a thousand ships to sailing
Just to crash on the shore at her feet.

Porcelain skin and emerald eyes, silken hair like spun gold,  
The envy to Helen of troy could be mine were I but more bold

A goddess of perfection sublime, in her absence the world is but gray
Her beauty must Venus abide, yet abhor to this very day

So now I’ve been plotting and scheming
I’ve got a ship set to sail in the harbor; at dawn we are leaving
To steal her away from a king and his land
And she’ll be mine if she’ll take my hand

Ten thousand women could never change my mind
A harem fit for a king’
Tender, supple, and kind,
Could never draw my hand nor heart from her embrace
I’d give to her all of my days for a chance but to relish her gaze


And now I’ve been plotting and scheming
I’ve got to have her for mine; and no, I won’t settle for dreaming.
So like a thief in the night I’ve come to steal her away
And she’ll be mine by the break of day

The music that lingers
in my mind when I awaken
is the rhythm of a life
of which I dream to live.

If I could get these symphonies
unlocked from the rooms
in which they reverberate and boom,
I would finally be who I know I should be,
but the rhythm's undone when I do come too;
I'm only ever left with the conclusion
that made my psyche break through-
A conclusion without the question,
a harmony without a melody,
a melody without rhythm,
a break without a build,
a crescendo undeserved.

I carry with me back to consciousness
no evidence of the brilliance observed;
no tally or tale or the things seen and heard.
But I know that I saw them;
I know what I heard.
I feel the rhythm inside me
and I hear the words.
I remember the beats
and the lost melodies.
Never-the-less...
they are incomplete...

just like me.

A clip of a phrase left to rattle around.
An earworm set to unheard sound.

"Dont be afraid
to get too wild"

These dreams are the compositions of some other soul
The music and musings of minds not my own
but I wonder in the early morning grey,

Do the people that I dream to be also dream of being me?

I awoke from a dream slowly
Sweet docile tones reverberating in my ears;
and as I came too with a rhythm and the words that broke through. I tried to hold onto them as long as I could do, but never can I keep them for more than a moment, maybe two.
It’s infuriating and frustrating,
because there is no way to capture the song that I heard: just the shadow of some snippet sneaking out the back door with the rest of the gang that got away already before getting caught in the midst of their thievery, when the man whom they are robbing walks in the front door

And there never has been.

I am no musical genius, but I know a good song when I hear one,
And I’ve heard such wondrous things
cascading through my dreams
Less now than before,
but I still find myself hallucinating wild bebop jazz
with muted trumpets and silky strings,
big band ballad piano swings,
deep-trance and euro-house dance floor thumpers, chaotic digital jungle themes,
indigenous rain-dance chants against primal drumming, Searing thrash metal with string burning sweeps of perfect improvisational leads, Merengue and Samba and Flamenco beats, with lyrics in languages I do not speak.

In my dreams they are full compositions, with layers and evolution and meaning; I just can't recall all the words and have not enough talent and knowledge of things to transcribe the notes in corporeal means.
Most importantly, the music of a mind’s eye or ear is not the music of the world, so I have no way to recreate the rhythms or melodies.

Mostly because I don't know where to begin.
Because the inception of the song,
in reality or dream,
is always a fugue of some other innocuous thing;
some music or rhythm that broke away from the meaning it has in the world
and echoed until it became a song I heard.

But I swear god once promised me,
In a vision unseen
that when I die, if I get to heaven,
The songbooks are waiting,
fully annotated, with lyric transcriptions printed up nice and neat, and not only can I see the compositions of these, but there are recordings of all of it. Everything!
That's the only heaven I want there to be:
The one with the words I lost in my sleep,
And the music of my hallucinations and dreams.

The soundtrack to my subconscious is something to be heard.
It’s too bad the world will never know of these things,
the mind music mingling amongst the mist of my dreams.
Such beauty deserves to be heard
By those here among us who love, live, and suffer,
who dance, cry, and sing.
But alas it is only a fantasy for me.
But it will be tremendous to finally free
the muses best work
when I inevitably meet
the maker of the muses and the music and me;
But until then the world will just have me to trust.

I promise.

It will be…

My Magnum Opus

What If these
were our last good days
We’d ever have to live,
What would be
the purest way
To utilize their gift?

What if these,
your last good days;
We’re passing by unclaimed?
Would knowing that
you wasted them
Haunt those that still remain

What if you miss
the last setting sun
Before the supernova arrives;
And in an instant,
oblivion comes
To take up all our lives

What if you fall
to endless sleep
on moonlit starry night,
never again to wake
from sleepless slumber
to see the light.

What if these
are your last good days,
Before feebleness takes your mind,
before your body breaks
upon the rocky shores
of entropy and time?

If these are
the Last Good Days,
Would you count them all well spent?
What if THIS is
the LAST Good day?
Is wasting it worth the risk?

I thought of myself
As a phoenix
Set aflame

Now
I'm just
Ashes and Dust

Look at the mess that I've made.

Before the muses all esaped, their voices used to fill my mind with too many things to ever say. Interupting each other endlessly, yelling and screaming and making a scene, each thinking their thoughts so much more important than anything else the others could posibly ever have to say. A sea of crashing caucaphony breaking in waves upon the rocky shores of a mind siezed by trying to decide who to listen to, to decipher what to take from them, if anything at all, each and every day. But the voices now are but whispers uttered from the shadows of a bedroom on the darkest nights. They had been caged, then they broke free, still contained though now released, then they escaped, and now they're free- having slipped through a crack which never got filled back in after picking up the pieces and putting them to together again.

So now the words dont come so easily as they did once, back before. Before the weakness became the very thing for which i no longer have the strength to bear the burden of its consequences, despite the pleasure of it's mistakes. The pain of losing makes it hard to see the light of everything you have to gain. And the heighth to which you rose before the crest informs how long the ride back down will take. The steepest peaks have steeper walls, and you fall much faster as you tumble uninpeded by anything, approaching terminal velocity before stopping dead as reach your fate. When you hit, theres a chance for it to give a little bit before it breaks. Sometimes, like on a trampoline, you bounce back, and walk away; Other times the world goes crashing in, colapsing underneath the very weight of all the things you carried down with you, like so many a ball and chain, revealing depths as yet unfathomable before the breach was ever made. Depths from which to reemerge seems impossible from down below; And just getting up is hard enough;  And ever harder after every fall. Harder still To walk away, much more the climb yet to be made.

It seems I never bounce back anymore... And no matter how long the fall may take, when the rock bottom hits you in the face, your mind shuts down, then hits reset and just sits there... and it waits...as long as it needs to assess the damage and make repairs that can be made to the fragile psyche your skull contained, before it shattered from the blow. As the gears come grinding to a halt, and then shudder back to life a gain, theres no telling what might come unstowed, and bang around until it breaks. Once the rhythms fall back into sync and you get yourself underway, then you can start ot realize what action you need to take. The reset button can be hard to find, and sometimes it doesnt work, or it breaks, Leaving a Jumbled mess of memory scattered everywhere there is space. And sorting through it all is treacherous theres no telling what might show its face.

Now my thoughts are interspersed with emptiness, but when they do come they flood the gates; and there never comes a warning of impending chaos on its way.  Like a Thunderclap before a Summer storm, from out of nowhere comes the crack of a lightning striking far to close for comfort no matter how far it is away. Then just as fast the stormclouds break, unleashing a deluge over the landscape. Then swirling the slipstreams they cluster and condense: And rythyms reveal themselves composed of gravity and weight, but the rhythms that i often find even more often slip away. Rarely are they ever permanent, and they always seems to change, mutating as it gets repeated, reguritated over and over again. inevitably the beauty which I thought I recognised at first, starts to seem uninteresting, like a too familiar word which all of sudden seemed awkward to say after saying it too much, and no sooner does it disinterest me than it slowly begins to fade- and as they do, they leave a broken trail of breadcrumbs eluding to the truth they once relayed, echoing from the chasm black in bits and pieces then descending back from whence they came, never to be heard again as they were when frist composed: Their rhythm and their melody the victims of the very thing they had portrayed; no sense of repeating the same thing. Yet never are the bits forever lost; merely to far away to hear or see, but quietly they linger ever on, a wave endlessly perpetuating into the distiance searching for something off which to richochet. and return, unexpected to the point of origin, whereupon its arrival its replayed.

(A Public Service anouncment)

Ahem...

We, the creatures of the night, are the rattlers of chains;
The seekers of magic; the bearers of the flame.

Howling shadows beckon and shimmer with laughter in refrain;
and the screeching darkness holds terror and wonder waiting to be claimed;
In back alley juke joints, shitholes, and diners, down sidestreets and highways, we search for the thing that sparks and ignites us, that dances and delights us, that reminds us that living is more than just work interrupted by sleep; there's excitement, adventure, pleasure, and pain.


The sun burns too bright to see the light which we contain;
yet, in the dark but a spark is as bright as any flame.

Aphorisms rarely confer the comfort they intend
                                    BUT
   “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”

An antique wooden trunk sits languidly beside the road (Alabama State Highway 98 Scenic Route, Main St. Daphne, for those that need to know) atop a concrete culvert cover amidst a color-guard composed of an unused ironing board, and a mildewed duffel-bag (but the nicer kind- made of synthetic blend, with the wheels that don’t really roll, and an extendable handle that’s stuck “in”; not the heavy olive-drab canvas of the pop-culture cliche, found slung across the shoulder of the love-lorn/shell-shocked/long-lost soldier returning home unannounced in a lifetime movie melodrama) discarded haphazardly, and awaiting their diesel-powered trash-truck ferry to the afterlife of moribund things; but serendipitously and surreptitiously it is to be rescued from oblivion by the unexpected happenstance of a passerby passing by distractedly (gone out of his way though he really has no where to go, just somewhere to be, eventually) meandering through town, down alternate roads making his way to a rendezvous with a friend to give them a hand, for a minute, with some chores they’d like to get through before they leave for Atlanta, because he hasn’t seen them recently, and he had nothing better to do.

How many others have passed by the unmapped X, but never saw it for they were so myopic in their missions and goals: rushed and unconscious, on autopilot, en route, to work, or to lunch, to mid-day meetings with clients for paper and gold; How many missed the possibility of adventure passing by, the childish excitement that could unfold, if they had just looked up from their phones and coffees and looked around for signs, untold? How many noticed the slight shimmer of fantasy left sitting by the road, but couldn’t stop because they were in a carpool, they weren’t driving, or just so unimaginative that to believe, for a bit, that a treasure exists outside the storied pages of fairy tales was too much to do, or too much to bear, with a rundown, old soul. Did a child see, with impressionable eyes, the chest of treasure left by a fool, unattended, out in the open (not buried, not even a bit, barely even hidden from view) and instantly wonder, too, just what might be inside? Could it be shimmering, shining jewels, loose and encrusting golden crowns, and goblets, scepters and silver candlesticks, precious oriental silks, or bullion and pirate *****; possibly a magic lamp, or maybe some enchanted tools?! A flying carpet!? Perhaps A Ghost of some grim ghoul. Did they beg a guardian to stop the carriage, but were denied and told, “we have to keep going little one, there’s much to get to that you don’t know. You have to go to school.”
Well, the glimmer caught the eye of one beholder and made them think immediately, “That looks like treasure!”

Indeed!
It did look like treasure: a literal chest, built of heartwood with a carved arch-top, weathered paint, rusted hinges, metal bindings and filigree.

(It was obviously empty of value, scuttled, broken, and relinquished to the refuse heap; However, To one with a limp, and a bad eye, and a deaf ear, brandishing a homeward bound insignia upon his chest and an island luck charm in black ink on his leg, whom you’d easily confuse for a pirate misplaced, you can see how it might seem to warrant an inspection.)

Plus: It’s uncommon to find a treasure chest
in the trash, in this century. Perhaps hope got the best of me; but also I knew its fate was not to be buried under heaps of plastic and rot.

I’ve a friend whose proclivity one could describe as a collector of things, useful and abandoned... but not a “hoarder” like on the television - Unless you count Ariel as such- with all her jetsam, Knick-knacks, thing-a-ma-bobbers, and dreams.

We are “of a kind,” prone to picking up after others, collecting aesthetic driftwood- anthropomorphized or just architecturally interesting, finding faces in fallen leaves, pointing to leaves that look like bugs, picking up bugs dried up like leaves and or sticks and stones and broken bones of small creatures long left rotting, beautifully decaying detritus of modernity - deemed useless; but still WE believe a greater purpose lies within, undefined by its usefulness, to be determined by it’s form Rather than function, appropriated and repaired  or dismantled and “re-crafted” into art, by simplification. Driven by a simple inspiration; To make beautiful decoration.

I pull aside, let traffic pass, circle back, reorient and reclaim this bounty of the proverbial “spring-clean.” Its condition is one of slight disrepair: needs hinges re-attached; but otherwise in fine shape. I collect this treasured trash and return to my path, on course to its new home with my friend to whom I was already bound; But now I come bearing gifts.

His smile was worth the drive and the dumpster-diving and the the whole day.

A gift given is a love lived-in, and a smile
shared with a friend Is love and life for me.

He cried, “Out!”

(In the darkest corner of a small wooden landing at the top of the steps to the fenced back yard of a rented home currently occupied by a trio of underpaid shift workers whom, as a kindness and in response to the predicted overnight cold snap, have taken into their foster care a destitute stray. A man of roughly 40 clearly hard worn years kneels doubled over and wailing mournfully to himself, his head tucked in and down toward his chest in an undeniably penitent posture similar to the pious prayer of those who heed the daily call, and face Mecca. Apropos of nothing, he just so happens to be faced to Mecca at this moment. This is, however, purely coincidental, as our pitiful subject here is not a man of clothe, nor one of great or even minor faith, much less a man of daily prayer or mindful meditation. Quite In contrast, He is a drinker and a drifter; drug-addicted, disaffected, dissatisfied, and dismayed. Yet he is also a dreamer of the highest order, completely convinced of the attainability of a singular salvation of creative elucidation, a dream he has been chasing unrelentingly for more than 20  years; and which he has just this very evening seen how truly attainable it is. Merely moments ago, In a vision of clarity which came over him unwittingly, and uninitiated by anything within his purview, our vagrant interloper has seen a crystallization of artistic inspiration which envisioned all the interconnections within his disjointed philosophical treatises, which he has spent the better part of three decades  composing, and in that moment he was overtaken by the sudden uninhibitable need to bleed the pressure wellingup inside his chest and his lungs began to squeeze. The noise they made directed itself toward the realm of sorrow. It is a wail of a desperation; not unlike one you might hear from fathers who’s lost there cherished sons, from lovers who’ve lost their lovers, and from children having a tantrum who need to eat and then to sleep, but refuse. He was at that moment all of these things in essence; a man rejected and alone, beset by turmoil of his own making, and both exhausted and famished; but his noise came joyfully, as it was the expression of something deep within him which he had recently freed; and so no effort was made to sequester or quiet the cries that he now seethes. It is simply the gasp and exhalation of soul which desperately needed to breathe.)

A soft wail arises quietly from silence to an open mouth, a single note, unbroken and controlled as much as one can control such a sound. From this beginning after a moment, almost a minute but something less, if you were to count; the wail completes with a sharp cutoff instead off dying back down. It ends, from an open mouth to clenched teeth and the tongue cutting off the sound. It makes a word but he did not consciously say it; it’s just the only word that could come…

Out.

GET OUT!
GET OUT OF ME!
Go the **** away!
I do not need you
I do not want you
I will not hold you
You have to leave
There is no place for you in here any more
Get. Out.
Get out.

GET THE **** OUT OF ME!

PLEASE!

(As he spits these curses and pleads, something moves deep with in him. he convulses and every muscle in him begins to squeeze and he feels as if he’s imploding and but his eyes are about to explode out, and in this seizing state, he feels the expelled energy escape, physically, through the center of his mind and forehead, like a boiler valve exploding with steam in a movie. It goes out and up and away and silently it leaves. A calm settles over the whole scene as he stills his body, still convulsing, and then he sees swirling among the phosphors on the back of his eyelids, where it burns an impression when one stares at bright light too long, something coalesce: an impression of an Iris, pulsing and folding into itself but without edge, as if his minds eye were right in front of him. He stays there penitent and quiet and keeps his eyes closed, in order not to lose it, because whatever it is he needs to know it; what ever it is, he cannot deny he sees it. He stays perfectly still while it’s centered in his vision, as if it were a wild animal he intended not to scare away, and silently he studies it and stares and considers what has just opened in his vision and what, preceding that, had thusly broken away. Slowly realization comes, as it’s elemental name is spoken silently from behind,
         “I am the one who sees,
            I am that which drives
         I am you, and you are me
                 We are together,
                   A single being
                         but You
                  are part of me”

and upon the realization solidifying, without hesitation he addresses it, directly and in a docile tone…

I see you
I see you there
staring back at me

I know who you are
I know you are me

It’s good to see you
I’ve missed you
Where did you go?

He lifts his head just a little, just so he’s holding it with his neck, it’s the first movement he has made beyond the minimum necessary to say the words he had to say and to expand and contract his lungs enough to breath. As he opens his eyes, the vision persists and he’s now staring at it outside of him, nestled into his unknowingly cupped and folded hands, like one would make to receive the sacrament of communion, which is ironic yet somehow perfect for this experience is the only religious thing he’s ever felt or known or seen. Now, with eyes open it looks to be an orb of energy without a glow, and he folds his hands closed around it as if to hold it, and he stands up with eyes closed; as yet unwilling to lose the vision and let it go. He turns slightly to the north, away from the darkness he had hidden in before and opens his eyes hopefully for the first time in ages.

He stares distantly into the foliage of a few scattered trees that occupy a greenway next to a drainage ditch called “flood street” to the people
that know, and in those last late autumn leaves still hanging on with incredulity, he sees the inner eye again, still staring back at him, and in that moment he already knows- it’s not going go, it is part of his mind, which now he’s opened it will be ever-present, even if unseen. He shifts his gaze over to the corner of a house not too far away and again he sees it shimmering, superimposed. It’s not external it is like a lens through which he sees now, and he becomes joyful.

He lowers his eyes in peaceful pause and starts to take off his clothes, he sheds his jacket, shirt and socks, flinging them to and fro and descends the steps into the yard and squeezes the grass between his toes. He presses hard down through his feet, to let the ground know that he is there and he will not sink. His stance widens. He loosens his shoulders as he reaches down between his feet, and sets his palms flat in the grass, exhaling deeply as he folds. Then breathing deeply in and upward he raises up towards the sky stretching everything inside, reaching as high as he go, and there he sees the Cheshire smile and he greets the moonlight glow

Hi how are you, I’m glad you’re here too

And then he begins to dance with it, in Meditative and intentional movement. He makes a show for the moonlight and the minds eye and he moves every muscle under his control, twisting and turning in soft ecstasy releasing decades of unwanted tension; finally letting all the build-up go. He lands down in the sweet smelling grass on his belly, arms folded and in his vision are two small flowers swaying slightly and only them, no leaves rustle because no breeze blows. It seems to him that they danced with him and he will remember this for the rest of his troubled life, though it should be a little easier now knowing what he knows.

Breathe in
   The briny bonne odeur
   Of a damsel replete.
Remember the nape of her neck
   As she lay there beside you,
   Soundly asleep.
Relinquish your body,
  Your soul, to the rubble,
  Your heart, and your mind to the street
Wring your hands and curse the heavens
The fates, The Gods
On your knees

And what of these torments
   Of This regret
   What of these torments and regret
Lain aside

• (preface) . Ante Up •

Never Gamble with more
than you can afford to lose

• Prologue : The Deal •

From the dusty haze
between hot mirage waves
in desert air
refracting red shifted rays
of the horizonal sun
bouncing off the highway
appears an indigent itinerant
who’s seen better days,
walking alone
at a leisurely pace,
west towards sunset
and night and escape,
without baggage or burden
beyond his distempered ways.

He comes suddenly upon an unexpected place- hitherto unseen by light of day


• I:  The Flop •
     LIQUOR IN THE FRONT!
     $ POKER IN THE BACK $

The flashing neon sign proclaims
From behind the dingy pane
Of a curtained window
By a door to nowhere safe;
With a sign that hangs
Beneath it saying

Open Buy, Table Stakes,
    No Limit Hold’em
Come on in and Play!

And just underneath it
Scratched into the widow,
In an unsettling scrawl,
By a steady hand
With a razor sharp butterfly
Switchblade knife…
It says

“There’s NO LIMIT to WHAT you can WIN”

That does sound tempting
So you do go in
Everytime…
And you’re greeted with a “Hello friend!”
By a bartender standing by himself,
in an empty room,
Cuffs rolled up and forearms wet
polishing glassware and tins with a towel;
One That’s seen too many rims
and broken glasses and spilled drinks,
and blood and tears and ***** sinks
It could NOT be clean,
but “**** it,” you think,
“There Ain’t nobody in here”
And either way, the alcohol is cheap…

“Can I get you something to drink;
maybe a double whiskey, neat
Or Tonic, Lime and gin?
The game already began.
You can head on back, if you want…
They probably only played one hand.”

And he motions to a padded door lit green with red light glowing below from under the jamb.

“Should I get a drink
and play a few?” You think,
“I don’t have much to lose.
And what if …

I win?”


• II..  The Turn •

It’s a gamble, going all in
It’s a big risk to take,
But if it pays off man
*******,
You got it made

And the hand looks good,
(it always does)
But this fella’s poker face…
It is uncanny, Man
You cannot read a thing
It’s like he’s made of stone
He don’t ever tell any kinda way…

And this ******* devil always calls.
He plays his hand in every game
Never sits out a round
Throws his money down
Folds his cards, then
Sits back …

… And he waits …

… And every hand he plays,
It seems the game is strange,
In some unexpected way -  
like cards you thought you had
might not be there when you look again
But you can’t remember if, or when, it changed.
It might’ve been you just ******* seen it wrong,
But either way, the ******* card you need
is gone;
And just when you notice-
He’ll look away,
And then back at you,
As if to say,
“I call your bluff kid, turn em up.
Let’s see this hand you played.
What’re you holding
That Made you think
you could win a game
I ******* made.”

• .IİI.   The River •
You’re playing too fast and loose …
         Like you ain’t afraid
            
But you should be …
         ‘Cause You ****** up
        
Too Bad the Bet’s Been Made


• IV.:.   The Showdown •

And then He wins
An when He wins
you can’t defend the hand you held
In any way
He takes his chips and stacks em up,
He doesn’t have anything else to say.
He doesn’t gloat, he just
… ******* smiles…
And He watches your face
As you sit and you stare
and you think good and hard
about the mistake that you just made.

“Read ‘em and weep”
It’s his favorite part.
It’s his little art:
Watching a soul
get crushed…
                                  …Ugh…
“…Again?”


• Epilogue - Wanna Buy Back In? •

Never
Pay More To Play
Than What You Stand To Win

How come no-one ever pulls for the bad guy. He's just out there doing what we all wanna do: Being self-interested, self-imposing, self-actualising, carefree, and ego-maniacle.

Really he's the hero- making destiny manifest by his own hands; the spiritual successor of the settlers and explorers, who just happens to have run out of room.

Is it not those do-gooder heros who are villians,  for real, by forcing these noble individuals to abandon their dreams and fall back in line, with threats of violence, persecution, and hard time. They are the very embodiment of fascism, through and through.

So lets here it for the bad guys who keep the world sane, by showing us were all humans, one and the same.
So three cheers for evil!
Hip hip hooray!
Hip hip hooray!
Hip hip hooray!

What is lost
   can never be found
      in the labyrinth of the mind.  

What was it you were seeking
   in this dark and dusty atmosphere?
Now doomed, you are, to find it;
   for you never will escape
The twist and turns of your
   mangled memory;
For what path is there to take?

Your string has been cut by the
   Brute
      Bullheaded
          Beast

Turn  corners
   Just to find dead ends,
Turn back
   To find them gone
With every disconnect
   recollected before dawn.

Then at the Sun’s behest
   The dew turns to rolling fog
     And that, which once was settled,
        Escapes upon the wind

Can you tame the unbridled misguided unrest, furiously seething, caged deep in your breast; devouring anything to come within reach. This ravenous, desperate, impotent beast seeks only release from the ******* of chains, to wander his cavernous, haunted domain.

Must you insist upon killing, in vain,
this animus spirit already restrained

The enlightenment that you so desperately crave lies buried beneath the beasts freshly dug grave. Exhume the remains, let it's death be unmade.
Resuscitate that which you fear you'll obey. The truth is the beast and yourself are the same.

See the beauty tremendous of entropy unleashed upon a life strictly structured to imitate peace. Embrace the chaos of your own destiny. Turn to the tempest, baring your teeth, and let loose the unbridled beast of the breach- unfettered, untamed, fearless and free.

Hark and Come Hear Ye Here
Ye loyal subjects of the king
Reports from the borders of our principality
warn of a gruesome pestilence spreading unseen,
This devilish scourge of affliction is Coming!
Beware of the telltale signs of corruption
In the countenance of those under siege of this heretofore unknown malady.
It has been documented
by trusted physicians that certain aspects of one’s physiology
Will present themselves shortly
before the fever of madness and fear
Takes control.
Take Heed of thy neighbors
Behaviors and be wary of
Changes occurring in regards to
Their normal routine.
If boils or bleeding of orifices be
Witnessed report the citizen to the nearest authority
Once the outward expression of the putrification is upon them, it is but a fortnight until they succumb to the terrible fate of mortality. Those most beset by the pox of this plague are without exception in a state of aggravated nervous disorientation. Keep safe, keep your distance, and warn others around you of such individuals afflicted, lest ye contract the pox, for there is as yet no alchemical remedy

Be wary of these ghouls wandering the streets
Muttering manically, wreaking of decay, flailing and gnashing their teeth in a rage.
If one of the accursed creatures approaches, It is a mortal encroachment ye must evade.
Make right with the lord and keep the faith, our souls stand for judgment, ensure yours will be saved.

Take heed of these warnings here given this day.

They are not to be ignored if you wish to survive

I found a boardwalk in the woods
leading, seemingly, to nowhere,
In a timberland swamp I knew from much younger days;
Decaying and rotten,
Most likely long forgotten.
I wondered how long it had been there, abandoned to its fate:
Quietly mocked by the still standing timbers,
As yet spared the sawmills blade,
For its needless sacrifice, useless decay
As its strength is silently weathered away;
used
but unrequited,
wasted,
faded and unmade.

I followed along its decrepit path
as far as I could make,
and so laughed to myself as I thought aloud,
"Such is life's disarray."

If everyone just needs to be loved for who they are, then why the hell is finding someone to love so ******* hard?

Maybe its just me, but is it really that much to ask? Is it so wrong to say, "I think I might could love you if we could get past all the games."

But honesty doesn't work in these twisted troubled times, because we are all so accustomed to normalizing lies, but for my own part I'll continue to be direct and hopefully one day my approach will be correct.

So
        This
-                         -
Is the one I don't like,
The one I keep tucked away.
The one that always ***** things up just to have something funny to say.

-This-
Is the one I was talking about when I had nothing else to say.

This
Is the one I warned you about back when we first got together and talked everything out.

This
Is the one I try to avoid
...
At least...
In my mind, anyway.

This is what I meant when I told you I was trouble,
I warned you before-hand to keep a lookout for mistakes

The more I make,
more I keep making,
I've lost control of everything.

This
Is what I mentioned might ruin everything

God, for me,
is a selfish thing.
I only want him there to blame,
Or to ask him for that
Which I cannot seem
To produce for myself by other means.

And yet, for me,
To disbelieve is equally
A selfish thing.
To pretend that I have come this far
Without some kind
Of Divine intervention...

How could this be,
considering
The sheer stupidity of my decisions
The risks I took
with my own wellbeing;
the utter disregard

So it is and must be
that god, for me,
Is looking out regardless.
There must be some plan
regarding me
or else I'd have been disposed of.

Does this mean
I am a chosen one?
Not just dust-
but a favorite son?
I think it must...
There's no other logical conclusion.

With you
I'm not trying
to be someone else;
I'm not trying
to be something
I'm not.

With you,
I'm not trying,
I can just be.

Can I just be
With you?

Heading out west when I get my money right, got some people wanna see me, need some rocky mountain high.

Spent the last year being busted up and broke down by bad ***** bailing at just the wrong time.

Never saw the trouble coming cause it came up on me slowly from behind, and from the front, and from the left, and from right.

Never knew I'd need no night rider to hold me tight. Always thought my self a loner, nobody on my side.

Got my dog and my old truck and about 300 bucks, got a tent, a tank of gas, and no strings to keep me tied

So I'm heading out west, as fast as I can drive, going 90 miles an hour towards the dying light.

Spent my days thinking and drinking all the time, making mountains outta Mole hills so I'd have something to climb

Now I'm leaving all that ******* on the Alabama line. Leave it blowing in the wind, leave it hanging out to dry.

So I'm heading out west, as fast as I can drive, going 90 miles an hour towards the dying light.

I remember thinking
My mother could sing like an angel
And my father could move mountains

It funny, you know,
How us kids grow up

-Guy Martin

“You’re doing a great job brain,
Driving the meat-suit…
Just killing it.”



Part 3.
I woke up...
What the **** am I doing?
That’s a bigger question than I want to face at 4 am in the dark with an urge to **** and a limp that makes getting out of bed a decision based on pros and cons:

            Pro                                 Con
I won’t **** the bed.       I have to walk.

Stairs in the dark are my nemesis.

I get up, turn on the light so I don’t stumble and fall traversing the disaster of personal space I occupy.
Middle class squalor.
Druggies live like this.
I am a druggie, so it’s fine, or so it seems.
Back to the big question- What the **** am I doing?
Nothing. Taking a ****.
I just have to get ok with the fact that I’m not going to leave anything behind. No great, unsung opera, or hidden magnum opus; no postmortem, unpolished, unpublished manifesto to find. Just sadness released and gifted to whoever should find me lying lifeless (unless it’s just something there looking for something to eat.)
(Pt4)I limp
Down the stairs one step at a time.
Bad foot down, good foot follows.
Can’t trust my fat *** to the broken ankle, but now the other legs getting a bad knee.
I’m ******* falling apart.

(Pt3cont)
It’s too **** difficult.
I just want to quit.
You’re not gonna **** yourself.
You’re too **** chicken ****.
You can’t do that to your mother, your father. You don’t give a **** about your siblings enough to care, but mom and dad are here and they don’t deserve that despair.
Sure would be nice if something else would do it. Like an act of god or a terrorist or drunk driver (but not you).
Your friend got away just a few weeks ago
and it was messy, but now it’s over for her.
Shut up dude.
Is that what you wanna do?
You’re gonna **** yourself?
Then do it... what the **** are you waiting for? The right time? You ******* *******.
What; are ******* scared?
Scared you might go to hell?
Or that you’re right and it’s just this one blip; and you, you lucky little ****, you only get the one shot, and it’s a blink of an eye and you’re gone; and you’re gon’ turn off the light and and never turn it back on?
Go ******* talk to a friend.
This is just the addiction again.
It goes away. (It comes back)

I don’t want to **** myself;
I’m scared I’m gonna **** myself;
Not immediately,
not imminently,
I’m just afraid I’ll lose the battle
One day
Not tomorrow,
certainly not today
But what if one of these days I can’t come up with a reason to suffer through.
Cause it’s getting harder to do.

(He sobs and screams and tells it to go but he knows it’s just sinking back into the shadows in the corner of the room)


Part 1

The part of my brain which I’m constantly fighting does not speak in language,
it knows only “do”
It does not even know “do not”

“Not” Serves no purpose
There is only do.
The lizard Brain licks its own eye as it waits for the next command.
It does not tell itself "wait,"
it just delays the pounce,
it eats bugs and does drugs
and serves only one purpose,
-Feed-
It’s not even in charge of “****.”
That takes to much cognition
How
Am I supposed to fight hunger?
How
do you turn off the need?
How
Do you tell a dragon you won’t chase it

How do you get a fiend to be free?


Part 2. I woke up at 3:54 in the morning to ask myself what the **** I’m even doing, to which I had no reply, and the dark thoughts that creep in in dark moments alone came creeping across shadows with there fingers long and scratched at the walls and wept and moaned…

It’s too **** difficult
to close the door
but the critters keep crawling in and making the interred corners there home.
Nasty little buggers,
disease ridden pests,
eating up everything,
automatons driven by “feed and fertilize”

But you can’t blame survivors for surviving
it’s all they know.
That is until they get squashed by a boot

Nobody likes bugs crawlin on their skin.
It makes you twitch and kick and scratch and freak out. A man will slap himself to **** a creepy-crawler crawling on him, he'd slap a friend without warning to **** a bug that lands on him. But the bug I’m trying to squash is the cockroach of the mind. And it’s the most cunning little ****** I’ve ever tried to slap. You ever chased a cockroach through a kitchen? - just slamming **** on the counters out of the way trying to chase it into a corner where it can’t hide from the light. You ever had one get away and so you gotta go searching through cabinets and moving boxes of cake mix and bags a of rice and packets of seasoning and other detritus until you finally discover it’s disgusting den and you see the signs of life… (mostly, that means bug **** everywhere). But the roach is rarely there, they don’t go home at night. They get out there and get to work, trying to get high.
It’s either that or home hungry, having a cry. That’s what I’m doing…

This ******* guy…

My dog is dreaming I can tell by her muffled barks and how she kicks. I wonder what she’s chasing? And where?  Is it the memeries of her ancestors hunting in packs she sees? Or is it great chases from her own past she relives. That one time she caught a bunny? Or stalking the neighbors cat, pouncing and chasing into a corner and catching and killing? Does she ever catch a squirrel in her dreams? She’s never caught one in the daytime, eyes open, on her feet. Can she imagine what it feels like? Extrapolate things? What purpose does a dream serve a dog? Or is it something they adopt from their masters; Like anxiety? Do dreams come with the imprint of human interaction or are they innate to brains? I need to go back to sleep.

(Pt4cont) He resets his alarm
A little later than before but he wants some time to dream, dream of a life where he’s not just some ******* druggie living in an attic at his parents home at 40 with no job and no life and no kids and no wife and very little will to live and even less left to give. Sweet dreams sweet Prince, you’re my favorite one, don’t tell the others, they’ll revolt and who knows what they’ll do to us when we aren’t looking.

Here comes the sun

(The screen just auto-switched from night mode to white mode. I’ve gotta go back to sleep, thanks for playing, it’s been fun. Fuuuuuck me…)

:Existential Crisis over (for now):

May 17 2024 3:54am-6:49am

We agreed to call it quits when it wasn't fun anymore. And it wasn't fun anymore for a long, long while. We ignored the exit signs because an uneexpected love bloomed and so we redefined the terms of the termination because we missed the first by miles. And determination turned to depression bitterness and resentment, then misdirected rage. I didn't want to end on sadness pain and disillusionment, so I tried to patch and glue the last good bits back together But i kept ******* up and it wasn't possible to make another attempt.

All I wanted was a peaceful ending
A pleasant parting between longtime friends

We'd agreed that it wouldn't be a big thing,
A painful splitting, uneven without amends

But what I got was tragic, uncompromising static
Undeserved sadness
And the loss of my best friend

Im Sorry that I ****** up.
I thought I could do better than I did.

I feel
like I died
a horrible, ****** death
at the hands of some great and terrible beast
with razor claws and gnashing teeth
that escaped its cage and pounced on me,
out of the shadows,
glinting eyes reflecting
fire from the wreckage left
by the mile-long circus train,
now derailed, after running into me

full speed.

The view from within became suddenly fractured,
refracted and infinitely cascading through
a shattered kaleidoscopic perception
of diverging dimensional superimposition, 
spinning mathematically through all permutations 
of every possible configuration 
of atoms in all of existence at once;
resulting in fractals of all of creation 
and I found it unnerving, so I made myself lunch.

As the sun starts to go down, I stop and take a look around to try to find a place to lay my head. If I lay here on the ground and maybe shuffle these old bones around I might convince my back I've found a bed. Then, as the colors fade away, I try to think about the days when I knew peace and I could get some rest; but I never get no sleep 'cause these old ragged runnin' feet run me ragged all night in my dreams...

And in my dreams there always seems to be the same old demons chasing me; and right behind me breathing down my neck. When the get their claws in me they always brings me to my knees, rip me open, and leave me there for dead; and, as the colors fade to grey, I try to thing about the days when I knew peace, and love, and happiness. Then the faces that I see bring me back up to my knees; they get me up a going once again.

And I don't ever need no sleep 'cause these old ragged running feet can run me ragged all night if I need.
And I don't ever get no sleep 'cause these old ragged running feet, run me ragged all night in my dreams.

Will it or won't it?
Statistically its the same.
It seems the odds don't change no matter how unlikely is the thing.
Will it to be or don't, but don't wait to hear an answer.
To be or not to be
Is not really that important.
Its not even the question.
If "to be" was how it's supposed to be, how come "not to be" is an option?
So how do I "not to be,"
if I think therefore I am, and do I believe that I am even if I think it?
And where am I when I don't believe in myself and my convictions?
Does it even matter what I think when I can't be sure if I exist? And if I might not be then what am I still doing here, when I could not be?
Should I stay or should I go?
But could I go and no one know?
And why bother leaving
when I know that if I go
it might be that no one would even miss me?
Might as well just stay here where my odds are 50/50.

What was it that i was going to say. I forget thing so quickly its kind of insane. Too often, it seems, I'm put out to shame when forced to admit ive forgotten the name of someone I've met, maybe several times, to whom I have just introduced myself again, who probably hadn't yet finished their name before I forgot who they were once again. Usually "Im sorry. My bad... I drink a lot." is enough to diffuse any awkward exchange. Still i know better, just as they do as well,and politley we continue as if nothing had changed.

They say, "third times a charm!" and with names this is true. I read somewhere doing so somehow can train your mind to the get through to the part of our brain which stores long term memories, which are physically much more permanently made, by tricking the architecture of our neural array, which allocates resources based on the way electrical currents pass though the brain, stimulating cellular structures to make proteins and lipids which then activate other part of the xell which begin breaking things down and /or mixing them up, reconfigureing the shape of some loose RNA which is read by a protein design to replicate the mirror string of code which determines what the cell will make and altering as little as a single subatomic partical of weight can then fundamentally alter what the neucleic acids say, and change everything about the properties of the gene that it was trying to translate...

But anyway, repeating the new persons name several times in conversation, or right in a row, at the outset will help you retain new information to the brain, either way it still functions kind of the same. The energy thesh-hold required to make a shot term memory important enough to save is 3 activations of the neural relays, then the neurons begin fusing together, i think, and the information is less likely to dissipate.

now i remember it was something about 'how maddening it can be to be forgetful," or something like that, but worded much better.
****, I lost it. huh... What'd you say?

Sometimes we cant stop talking
Try as we might it’s to no avail
We've something to say about every little thing
And we've no way to be sure
that the other can tell what we mean
And it seems like we never can completely frame
The point we are trying to make before someone chimes in with a tangential observation:

     See I don't think you know
     what I mean. What I'm trying
     to say is that the very thing
     your talking about is what I
     believe but a little bit different
     in some semantic way and,
     hold on, let me just think and
    finish my thought

    and then you can speak.

And then we are coming at nothing 
from obtuse trajectories
analyzing angles of attack without regard for the whole and then there's a misunderstanding
and we start defending ourselves over a miscommunication,
your tone inflects a verbal retreat and mine strains from frustration, is read as antagonism, and then received as an attack
All of a sudden we are fighting over some misdeed that we've already tabled for the sake of you and me.

And sometimes we just can't stop talking.

Oh Joy!
Oh sweetest thing,
Blossom and sing!

Were you a flower,
You would ever be 
never picked, or plucked;
neither clipped nor pruned;
Rather, left unfettered,
Unsung, in the meadow.

Such is the love of a poet
for the words of a soul,
And the soul
never met
but through pages and text;

Grow Perennial,
Hopeful
Ambrosial intoxicant
Evolve and sublimate,
Evaporate
And precipitate beauty and truth
Before grave turns thy youth
Beset by passing days;
When the inevitable click
of the last tick of the clock
puts a stop
.
to the flow of a beatific mind.

Let time spend its days
flitting and frittering away.
Let me remain
standing here,
Ad infinitum, held hostage
to a moment
of refrain

Oh Joy!
Oh sweetest thing,
Blossom and sing!

The hymn sung of dawn
by sparrow and skylark
to meadow and marsh…