There I was
- Alone -
in someone else's cozy home
(I didn't break in; it was open)
Watching home alone
With no-one home

... and I was ******
That's when you guys phoned
And now we're not alone
It's  me and you ... guys . . .
On Christmas Eve.

Jeez - should we just have a cup of nog and forget all about it? I think I saw some in the fridge ...

No?
Turn around?
Hands behind.. m. My back? Right...
Yeah I got it. I'm coming..
Take it easy!. Fella.
Jeez-us-merry-tap-dancing-Christmas
Am I right? ... No?
What's that... shut the **** up?
- Alrighty,
Amen...

Much like Romeo,
with his yearning
and his poor-me soul,
my fickle heart
has led me astray
down a dark
and lonesome road.
Searching for
a certain door
beyond which I can find
the glint of cat-eye magic
I saw sparkle
that I've been chasing
this whole time.

I wish there was something supernatural
Like a ghost that exists
Or a god up above
Or aliens
Or anything
Faeries and magic and dreams
Just something
so this whole ******* thing
doesn’t seem so mundane
What a
******* boring world
we live in
with its intricacies and economics
and evil and greed
no hero’s or heroines
Just sandwiches and dope
And taxes
what a joke
How did we come to exist
And not just survive
but thrive
By playing tricks on ourselves
Like paying to live,
when we can just do that For free
I guess the fee
is so that we don’t
have to try so hard,
but then why is it so ******* hard?

{He types this into a 5-year old iPhone [which he resents(for various reasons, like how addicted he is to it And how it’s function is diminishing, because it’s older) which is basically modern magic, alchemy at the very least], ignoring the technological marvel In his hand that provides everything he needs for modern assimilation, but he just wishes it wasn’t still in his hand}

May 17th 2024 7:18am

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.

Dear _,

There's something that I'd really Like to say,
though I don't know how to start,
or if I even should.
In Fact, if we're being honest,
objectively I probably shouldn't;
because I'm worried it might
come off the wrong way;
or worse yet, get misinterpreted,
as something much more than it is-
simply a sentiment to share,
offered unconditionally,
as bookend to prop up a story
that we've shelved.

I AM going to say it,
so please pardon my intrusion.
I know that you need respite
from entangled inclusion in my
desperate emotionally confused conclusion
that a lifetime of romantic love could be hiding
just beyond the horizon,
and it's so near I can nearly taste
it but it's just out of reach.

So if you can wait for a moment,
just a minute,
or two,
before you walk away;
(maybe a day at the most,
i just need time hope)

I could run by the far side of the nearest horizon to see if it is
... and I'll bring as much
as I can possibly carry
to prove that it's there
and there's plenty to share...
on my way back home, to you.

(not my home obviously,
I'm just an wandering fool
who keeps falling in love
with anyone who can prove
that they feel for me
what i feel for them too.
Alas! It is true
you never did say
that you felt this same way
but thats fine
in my mind
i feel confident you
will eventually see I've got enough love for two!

See, my cup runneth over;
the well spring is new.
It flows as if endless
and collects in a pool
at the corner of my eyes
right on cue
when i think about living my life next to you.
So drink deep from this well
from which i am willing to share,
perhaps unsustainable as it may be
in the end.)

But if you can't ...
(and I know that you can't,
I heard you and believed you
but I can't just let loose
without at least trying
to hold on a few
extra moments to gaze
and admire your effortless beauty and poise
and your strength,
before inevitably the reigns are let go
and the horse I rode in on is finally released)

... i understand
and I can easily see that;
and furthermore
you were nothing if not perfectly clear
every step of the way
that this day would appear.
you already knew
you could not commit,
and i was fine with it then,
so I have to admit
that since nothing has change
in the tiny little bit
of time intervening;
that there is no reason for me to expect
that the terms are now different
or less circumspect
So I want you to know
there're no hurt or hard feelings
On my side of the street.
it was delightful to meet you
and spend the wintery-est storm,
the budding early spring
Snuggled and warm in your bed
and your orbit
circling around such a Beautiful view.

I see that you need to recover and reset,
and respond to the still recent personal upheaval
beset upon you by your last lover'sleaving;
that you need time to recenter
and refocus your vision
on your family, and steady yourself
both for them, and for you.
But Forgive me for how
this might sound coming out
- I do not Intend for it to come off rude,
to inspire regret
or review
of the decision you made -
but before I place the ball squarely back in your court,
and walk away from the dreams
I've dreamed of you,
I'd like you to know:
if you do come around,
and ultimately decide
you might like to try me
(and us) again in the future;
I'm open to the opportunity
and just waiting for you.
Obviously I can't know
what is coming down the line,
but if I'm here and still free,
I'll still be hoping to see
you coming back to me.
It might sound suspicious from a man
who appears as I do,
but I swear to you,
I mean what I'm saying,
and I hope you'll believe.

I'm not typically a man
of great plans or delusions
who sees his own future
and wishes it to be.

I've rarely envisioned a life for myself
that is calm and quiet and settled well down. However, with you,
from the moment we met,
I've been prone to romantic fantasies
And daydream of a life
made simple and steady and profound
by the sure hand of a woman
and A family of my own
and a home, (Not alone!)
with the laughter and noise of children at play,
and the comfort of knowing it will be there,
to stay.

Before -
I only ever dreamed of myself,
adrift on the sea, crashing
head-long into oncoming waves,
pointed towards god know where.
Far from land and from people;
solitary,
silent and weathered;
cracked like tough leather
tanned by the sun,
the salt air, and the suffering;
near starving and dehydrated,
quietly desiccating
On the deck of a ship at the helm
sailing endlessly off into
sea foam and brine
splashing up into view
with every sine-oscillating
rise and fall and repeat;
glad to be free
from the people I left
to watch from their widows walk
for the return of wayward man,
longing for their love, long lost to discovery, danger, distraction, and despondency.

Yet now, I've been given a beatific vision
of this life far less likely to be my destiny.
An adventure I never had fully considered;
at least, not with hope of it coming to be.
Perhaps once,
in some barren despairing moment
a half-hearted revery of a wife
and wedding and progeny befell me,
in madness, to lift from me some
unnamed uncanny sadness,
but never without the caveat emptor
of failing spectacularly,
or the derision of knowing
it wasn't for me;

... and this time I'm reminded
by one who knows me well-better than me
- who has suffered my love and still lives to tell - of my tendencies toward boredom
and desperation,
and selfishness of pretending that I can be still, when I know that I can't,
never could and never will.
When I asked her if I should tell you all this,
in response, She simply stated
(in no uncertain terms)
I should never be careless and wonton
with another good heart
just because I've been lonely
enough to promise anything,
even the impossible,
especially if it's impossible for me
to ready myself for the necessary drone
of a daily routine,
and of the imbecile's lust I constantly carry
for an easy end to ennui...

And all of a sudden
that tender pool breaks loose
and becomes a great river
and rushes right through
like a flash flood rising unexpectedly soon.
"Hell it just started raining.
It couldn't have been more than an hour or two.
How did this much destruction
come barreling through?
It was just ankle deep not ten minutes ago,
maybe fifteen, but ****,
how the hell did it already rise to the roof?"
Once water gets into the attic
you call it a wash and try not to watch
as the house starts to move
with the current,
downstream
a piece or two at a time
'til it finally lets go of its roost
on that hastily laid foundation you built
and you KNEW
you half-assed it,
its what you do:
you cut corners, take shortcuts,
and skip steps just to prove
that your smarter than everyone else in room
or the world or the nuthouse
or whoever it is you are trying to impress
with your witty repartee
and you smart-*** worldview
while you **** up the task
that they asked you to do.
Now look what you've done,
you stupid old fool,
you weren't paying enough ******* attention
while you were working on something
you don't know how to do.
Well you better get started on trying to fix it,
you know it might not still have all the pieces;
or worse yet, you'll finish
putting it back together
with what now seems
like more than you started with.
****** man, your seriously ******* this pooch!

Sometimes you can manage to salvage some bits
you can put back together
with whatever sticky goo that you happen to use.
(I like duct tape and super glue
but epoxy will do
even good old white Elmer's can prove
priceless in a pinch,
when you need it to stick quick,
if you got nothing to lose.
it's called field expedient,
when you use what you have on hand nearby
and you don't waste any time
trying to find the perfect solution,
you just stitch a quick fix to get you through
until you have enough time
to go back and re-fix it
with the right parts and knowledge
and a proper set of tools.)

Sometimes you can shape
those scraps
into whatever gaps
or holes ultimately show through
when you do finally manage
to get something done,
and have something to show
for all your foibles.
Sometimes they'll stretch a bit further than usual,
sometimes you gotta reshape the whole profile
and shave a bit here and there to remove
the evidence you ****** it up
in the first place
to keep up the ruse
that you knew what you were doin
when you told em you knew,
despite not having any ******* clue what to do.

Fake it til you make it
only works if you make it,
otherwise your just faking
your whole way on through.

And as you spiral around
outing fires you literally lit
and then wandered away from,
you often get lost and confused and forget
why you changed venue
and what you were going to do -  
so you're just vacantly searching
a burning house for clues
'til you get where you first had the thought
to move for whatever unknown reason
and then you remember
in flash as you enter the room
and re-see the trigger that set you in motion
but that summarily refused
to remain in your mind
more than a step or two;
so as soon as you walk through a threshold
its gone
like a ghost that can only haunt one certain room.

As you relight the fuse
on the sparkler that you
stupidly chose to use
as a torch to light your way
around the maze-like encampment
you constantly have to maneuver through
because you seem to bring it with you
wherever you go
whether you intend to or not,
and there's not a whole heck of lot you can do.

So instead making
these conflicting things a matter to consider
when thinking of me,
I've composed this letter to you
and now I'll seal it and send it to oblivion,
free of the burden of bearing
my lovelorn palpitations uncertainly felt
but certainly in need of a longer gestation
in the pit of my stomach
to see if I can stomach
the simplicity,
and the shattering specter of losing it all
even if I did give my best efforts
and try to do the good life honestly.

So I bid you farewell,
and bon voyage to me.
I hope you remember me well
someday long from now and think
back on our time together
ever fondly.
I know it was short
but for me that means more
it makes everything stand out
more poignantly.

Kind regards and true love,
though I never confessed that
and revealed the true nature of my feelings
to you - fortunately.

Smiles, Best wishes,
And lotsa hugs and kisses,

Love,
Yours Truly, (for now)
(but not later, not anymore)
(Nevermind, never say never)
(Yours forever)
(And a day)


Ps. This message is set for combustion
as soon as I finish rambling aimlessly.

Envisioned: 3/21/25 10pm
Composed: 3/22/25 6-10am
Revised: 3/24/25 12-4am
Published: 3/24/25 4:03am
Edited: 3/25/25 2:30-4:30
Destroyed: pending...

It's winter now

                                Finally

I can tell by the presence
of two avocado trees
and a bevy of succulents, grasses, and weeds,
bamboos and air plants and dried-up leaves,
a snake plant thats also called mother-in-law tongue, one night blooming cereus, pencil plants, ginger, all potted and stacked.

She calls it "The Winter Jungle," and its my favorite time of year.

The already cluttered and cobwebbed chaos of crystals and minerals and Hodge podge is enshrouded inside lush green,
Jumbled and crowded.
The air is heavy, hot, and dry.
She'll turn on the shower, full heat,
to steam up the sky and the illusion is complete.
In clouds, the jungle blooms.
Its snakeskins and skulls and tapestries weave
a hypnotic pattern.
There is life here,
and death.
Her miniature tiger skulks lazily through,
while his pantheresque sister lays quietly.
A chow mix hound off in her mahogany cave atop a lanolin cushion, sits sentry.
Butterflies adorn the walls with beetles and moths,
paintings of wild women and valleys, of deities and dangerous deserts,
and soft simple illustrations
of various things,
bones and feathers and coins and dreams.

And feathered dream catchers have done their work it seems,
for I, like the great hairy ape,
sitting, quietly,
surveying from above,
cannot shake the uncanny feeling of love.

This atmosphere is enough to enamor, but the woman whose presence the the atmosphere holds
                                             is shamanic,
a healer,
              the oldest of souls.

And it is warm here
in her jungle,
but just through the door
is the grey cold of winter,
and nothing more.

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.

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…

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?

Tonight, I drank
In revelry
To celebrate the life I've made;
The life that was not handed to me;
The life I was compelled to create.
Tonight I drank to you and I,
Despite the mistakes and the pain.
It's not the losses that I've suffered
Which remind me of the consequences paid;
It's the simple fact
that now,
Despite the effort that was made,
I'm left with only memories
Of days I treasured day by day.
I would not trade the ones yet coming
For any of the my other days.
But know that since you became my history,
The future will never be the same.

Show me the secrets in the shadowy places that good boys and girls  should never see; like rock'n'roll rumbling in a dingy divebar-backroom, or lovers in a rain soaked alley.

Show me the secrets in the hidden places that only the lonely children can see: the shoe box treasure chests of broken shiny things, bric-a-brac in old tin cans, a cobweb covered crawlspace comicbook, or a lost love's lost love notes never sent and never seen.

Show me the secrets in the wilderness gardens that only the dreamers may dare to see: Dandelion promenades of pine needles paved over rotten leaves and treebark leading away to toadstool terraces among orchards of fiddlehead ferns and ghost pipes ascending to trumpet the day.

Show me the secrets hidden behind curtains that spirits and mediums only should see: the souls untethered and howling damnation at their veiled purgation in a dustless dimension forever unheard.

A funerary dirge
Blows in softly on the breeze
Distant and muddied by the
City Rhythm thrumming and thumping quietly between me and the revelry trumpeted bold and brassy piercing the caucaphony intermittently
Mixing melodies of bouncing horns into
A melodrama drawn in minor key

A black cat skulks the shattered streets around me underneath the shadows cast by broken rigs of steel and octane
Bouncing on dinosaur goo baked and shaped into ***** donuts filled with pressure almost explosive if released suddenly.

He meows softly from the street-
side of a broken boxwood promenade,
Unkempt and cracked, between he and I,
Sat upon the low steps of a split landing
Leading to the threshold, transom, and door of
1603 Rendon St.
Somewhere in New Orleans
during the week to be in Louisiana
- Mardi Gras -
(Deep Gras to those who know it)
the trumpeted herald of the Holy sacred Lenten season of self imposed sobriety
But here we are, all by our lonesome
just me and myself
And also Steve.


(Steve I just made up. There is no Steve. Well… not really.. kinda well. It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing…
But that’s the thing)

I put my hand out,
“Are you familiar?”
                                         Mow

“Tsc tsc tsc… no that’s not your call?”
Pss Pss Pss

                            Mreooow!

“Who are you? Why are you staring at me” the miniature panther seemed to think. He won’t much come nearer, rather he skirts a radius clear about me, but he lays down lazily on the roots of a laurel oak not far, but no closer, and stares and stirs and mews a few times softly and then slinked away silently off somewhere,
as if magically, without me seeing
Him leave.


Him was familiar.
Him definitely seemed
to be a warning of something
coming;

“I hope it’s a good thing!.. “
I thought - intentionally naive -
“That’d be nice.”
“Something good, for once.”

(Like me behaving… That’d be nice to see.)

Good Ol’ Steve…

I wonder if he’ll come back later…
…and if his life is interesting.


A siren wailing in the not too distant city
Reminds me I still hear,
That I’m still here.
just out here in it
chasing dragons and meeting demons
Witnessing magical mysteries
all through the streets…

In a liminal space surrounded by aether
I came to see the countenance
of a lover long lost to me,
martyred by addiction and impotence
and ignorance and arrogance,
A love taken for granted;
yet undeservedly so


In her eyes spun a spark
I had since never forgotten.
She proffered a smile
I have since longed to see
and greeted me tenderly
with warmth and a kiss.

We shared some time in a
soft sweet way
as if again lovers
no longer estranged

In a steam covered pool,
playing chicken alone,
I hugged her thighs hard
and looked up
as she brought her face close

I said,

"I know this isn't forever.
I know that it's just for right now;
But it feels like coming home."

"I've missed you"


She said "I've missed you"
Kissed me again from above
A goodbye

Then I woke from the dream
and refused to open my eyes.

And under my breath I begged
"Please... don't go..."

But she was already gone
And the day began
and the dream
drifted away
And I fell back to slumber
and dreamed anew
of another time
later
Lost and wandering
Muttering to myself
A poem of love and loss
And learning to let go,
Rhythmically
to the plodding pad
of my wet bare feet on concrete
As I made my way somewhere
that would never feel like home

Oooh~ I Caught the tail end
of the tail trail
back from the parade,
coming from Canal zig-zagging
back the back way,
(maybe south, no north…)
to Bourbon St;
and the tail trail promenade
was full of talent on display,
and temptation,
and it was passing
right. in . front of me.
A veritable smorgasbord
of bad decisions one could make.
A circus Maximus of humanity,
in Grecian magnitude;
this bacchanal goes rolling
through the streets every year,
and this year it’s encircling me.

^Rocking This Sweet *** Suite^

Boppin’ around the outskirts of town,
With bottle o’rotgut, a limp, and a smile,
Wearing a thin coat of mornin’ sunrise
to cover the patina of Stale *****
and gutter dew,
in his Gutter-Suit
and a Pair o’ boots,

Is man of means
(if only “means well”)

On sabbatical from livin hard;

Taking it extra easy
this very evening,
and looking for something to do.

^In the Big Easy^

“Take it Eeeeasy,
Take it eeeeaeeasy”
he sings to himself softly,
and then - to no one in particular
in his purview -
“I been livin’ hard my whole ******* life,
trying to prove I ain’t got nuttin’ to prove,
and all I got for all it took
is a whole lotta ******* nothing-to-lose.
Man I gotta figure it out,” he muttered,
swaying slightly under the *****.
“This ol back’s only gotta a few seasons left,
dude. We gotta come up with something new.”
He reaches back with his right hand
and places his fist in his back,
knuckles to his right hip,
as he limps a shuffled cadence
favoring his unhealed broken ankle,
which lends his pace
a meandering sashay
of someone strutting,
and belays a a bit of class in its stance,
with his arm held out of view,
much akin to the prideful rigid reserve
of a French maitre’d,
but with a derelict sheik
uncommonly seen.

“Otherwise it’s broke street,
on the corner of no-go rd,
and you know what that means.
Yes you do…
You gotta big brain buddy,
why don’t you use it to maybe do something good for you?”

There is no response…

He looks weathered in a way
that only rough living can wear on a man -
leathered skin,
wrinkled brow,
creased crows’ feet at the corners
of his bright gray blue eyes
(eyes that seem unsettling, at first glance
• almost animal •
due in part to a golden yellow ring
around his pupils,
and a wild flitting movement
as if he’s constantly seeing someone unknown
entering into his view;
But this wild-eyed creature turns
uncannily human,
as soon as someone
willing to listen more than a minute or two
gets caught in his gaze
and locks eyes for the first time;
And let me tell you,
it does something to you.
That gaze is magnetic,
and his hard scrabble appearance
is softened and sweetens
when he’s looking into you.
It’s not something that’s common these days
(steady eye-contact, that is),
what with all the distractions
we’ve entrenched ourselves in
with our phones and computers
and near constant stuff to do.
But his eyes are soft,
and  welcoming and it’s hard to not believe
he means no harm.
So, despite his appearance,
most people don’t shun him,
as people are often wont to do
when confronted by poverty
and personal suffering-
but he doesn’t wear that as armor,
as many of the indigent community will;
he simply lived what he was given
and doesn’t complain,
“Cuz, what good would it do?”  
He’s profoundly joyful
in his demeanor,
and He’ll tell you why if you let him,
cuz he’s “playing with house money
everyday he wakes up”
and he’s “still gotta a lot o’ livin’ to do!”

As he shuffles along the the shaded city streets
Every now and then, he stops
And squats,
Puts his hands on his knees
And props himself up.
He looks
like he might be having a heart attack,
but his back just hurts
(like it always does),
and he just needs a second
to let it breathe.
Once it’s released,
he pops back up, and continues about his way, spry for a man his age
but still brittle and broken
and whistling the blues.

There’s something astounding
About our place here standing
on a planet circling a burning furnace
full of hydrogen atoms colliding
and fusing and slowly eating itself alive,
flaming into the light and heat and
imposition of a life giving god
casting countenance through the emptiness
and unfathomable distances of outer space
Until the day it decides it’s tired
Of All the effort it takes
to scream into the void for all time
and hold the cycle steady
so that something it’s never touched
can “count their days” and keep a schedule
based on dividing entropy
arbitrarily into increasingly small divisions
like eons and epochs and eras,
then to centuries, decades, years,
Months and  days,
down to hours and minutes and seconds, and eventually atomic rates of decay
so small and short and fleeting and transient
as to be inconsequential for them to be named.

It is the only star you see during day,
And when it hides away it’s shine
A vast dark void reveals its presence
Just behind the painted skies she illuminates with radiation from the chaotic energy that shattered atoms release and reverberate and it reflects and refracts and reveals the presence of the heavy elements it made that coalesced into small collections of elemental ***** spinning and floating and collapsing in upon themselves under minuscule but compounded atomic weight

And in its blanket black indifference
little signs of somethings distant and gigantic and ancient shine through the darkest reaches of infinite shadow and silent solitude

5000 years ago our ancestors took a rudimentary set of lines and scribbled simple symbols on the nocturnal symphony because they realized the points of light passed through the same part of the night at a given time, and If you knew which specks were in what patch of sky you could figure out how to navigate great distances because the heavens are ever wide and the same sky flies over every place, and no matter how far you had wandered into the wilderness or how far off course you’d floated away, you could always find a way back home, no path necessary, from any place where you had found yourself, whether you’d been trying desperately to find some sort of peace of mind of any kind, or simply running from some thing terrible or even menial, it’s all the same.

But moving south
Across the equatorial belt
Into the southern hemisphere
Sailing west away from land
Dancing north toward the horizon line
The heavens shift in subtle
Variations so the stars you might expect to find are in a completely different orientation that cannot easily be aligned
But you can always seek out the belt and dagger of the Titan Hunter of the sky. And it might confuse you as to why he seems to be there upside down or on his side. But do not worry you have not lost your bearing it’s simply a matter of of perspective from the angle which you find yourself considering your local night

And a flat earth theory would try to have you believe that there’s no such thing as an equatorial divide, but the fact that Orión Cartwheels across the horizon from the southern side, while  from the north he takes a strolling path across the southern horizon line, and yet he never changes his permanent position directly in the summer spring fall or winter sky, tells you somethings out there further than we can fathom and somewhere even farther is the beginning of time.

You should believe me when I tell you,
     "I can only break your heart."
Don't believe you are the exception,
Immune to all my charms.
I'm masterful in my deception,
In that I give away my play,
In a manner that seems endearing,
Like I'm kidding when I say,
     "Don't fall in love with me."
It's not hubris, or vanity
That makes me say these things.
It's a pattern; it always happens;
Every time its the same.
Dont let me in, beneath your skin,
Don't trust me to refrain.
Foolish girls get fooled
Only to get thrown away;
Tossed aside once boredom sets in;
After depleting the thrill of the chase.

Well it seems that I'm up to my old tricks again
        But this time i know the consequence
Still I cheat lie and steal just the same, and then
        I wonder why no one still calls me a friend

somehow its always the same
why even bother to change
you never feel any shame,
If you never look back and you just walk away

Well I guess that I'm back on my *******
          But this time can we pretend its different
Then I won't have to lie about where I've been
      Or what I've been doing, or who I'm with.

But if the rules stay the same
then results will never change
And if you can"t win the game
why even bother to play,

when you can just walk away?

Every Girl I've ever known
I've loved like a lover
Whether they knew it or not
Though
Only a handful
ever gave me a shot
And I hope that those
that did Don't regret it.

The ladies that
let me love them
Let me learn to love
so deeply
That my poor little sad-sack,
woe-is-me world-view
became wholly incomplete
And to the women who wore
my burden on their heart,
I apologize again profusely.
I was never worthy of such tender treatment,
a fact once unbeknownst to me.

I hope one day
you'll forgive my sins
as I have
forgiven those
who sinned against me,
(Though a precious few
those may be)
and to those I'll love
as yet unburdened
by the weight; just wait...
One day you'll see.

Friday 7/12/24
2:53am

Gabby Bayou

Man this swamp is haunted
I swear to god
You can’t see the ******* but you hear em say **** through the trees
Warning you to “stay away”


You just gotta deal with all the **** there
So much ****


It’s insane


But I don’t mind a little muck and mire
I love to stomp around the swamp
Splashin’ up mud and Makin’ waves
Besides I got these hobbit feat
That don’t sink
Cuz
I’m creature of the place
And so I make my way down
To the woods that surround it
every now and then ,
And set up shop for few days

This forest is my home, you see
You cant take it away from me
I’m rooted here and moving on is
A tough play to make.
But it’s not too bad
I like it here
It’s soft and warm most days
And as long as you keep an eye on your corners
Cain’t nothing scary sneak up close
And you can usually escape

There’s dinosaurs out here, though
You hear ‘em roar some times
sneaking ‘round the thicket parts
Hunting their favorite prey


But this old lizard-skin-Leather-backed
swamp-stomping’ dragon’s
Got claws and teeth
and it don’t seem to me
much like he can be
killed no-how, anyway

So you know I ain’t afraid

It was terrifying visceral scream
In negative color!
Nega-green and purple-blue shimmer,
cascading yellow dark
Upon a fourth dimensional screen,
But it was a mind’s-eye view of the black side of the eyelid, so it’s just a thought
A passing dream
But it was ugly
evil
vicious
mad
Vendictive
hurtful
and obscene

But you weren’t sure you saw it and you surely don’t want the thing.
So we’ll let go of the vision and forget it’s being
It certainly wreaked of hell in that room for a scene.
It scared me to think
How evil I could imagine
Might intervene
Chaos actor in shadows and driven by destroying beautiful dreams.
…



.“,’(@)’,”.

“How does it all end? You may be wondering…”
He said, solipsistically,
standing in solitude,
Aloof, upon a stage; lit by a candle
held in his left hand,
burning low and dripping wax
across his white knuckled fist
clenching it like the last threads of a fraying lifeline
trying to slip from the grip of a dying man
desperate to hold on,
for a just little bit longer,
while he waits to see
if the prayers he’s prayed
fell silent
upon deafened ears
or if a devine deity exists,
Somehow, and also cares
enough to intervene,
to extend a helping hand
to swoop in,
and save Him

- To save the day -

“…Well…
The cancer’s coming.
I know that for a fact.
It’s in there somewhere;
That’s safe to say.
I can feel it
growing
deep
inside me;
gnawing steadily;
Obstinate and tenacious;
Toothlessly teething; persistently
eating me away.
Trying to replace
as much of me as possible
with its black bleeding heart
and its horrible face;
Laughing all the while, quietly,
as it sneaks itself into everything:
every ***** interior,
every
           nook  
                      and cranny

- any open space -

Insidious,
as it is inevitable,
as it always is and will be.”

So to excise this darkness
Invading my mind and growing in my body
I’ve begun to pray;
not to God, or gods,
but to myself-
the only savior
not out to pasture:

I entreat thee,
Oh Spiritus Meus,
Come save us!

- You are the ONLY way -

I need this too bad to let you ruin it.
You can diminish it, if you need to,
But I have to finish it;
Or else
it finishes Me.
If it doesn’t **** me
It will be unending;
Because it has, as yet,
Never
             Gone
                        Away

- And I need it to -

Because I’m ******* through;
I’ve found the needle in the stack of hay;
The treasure that I’ve been seeking
Out here in the wild

- These streets and alleys -

Among the gutters and trash and strays,
with the animus that is lurking
inside the deranged and damaged
People with whom I spend my days,
and nights, and wee hours
muttering and laughing
and yelling and crying
and listening and looking
and losing and finding
and lusting and *******
and living and dying
and loving and failing
and flailing and flying
And falling and bouncing
and breaking and binding
And picking up all of the pieces and trying again,
and again
and again and again
just out here surviving as best we can
every day after day
after day after day
on endless repeat until a night intercedes
and we push back against
the dark days ennui,
and revel in reckless distracted abandon
while the clock ticks away;
we’re just striving to stay upright
to make it back home from the fray,
to see another sunrise alive
so we can be sure we see  

- another ******* disappointing day -

And people wonder why we do it
but we’re proving that we’re strong.
We may be stupid, but you can’t **** us;
and you know what they say:
“If you’re gonna be dumb,
you better be tough;
and you never can pray enough.”

- To the ones unafraid of the muck and mire -

That comes with wallowing in the pain,
it does not matter if it’s inflicted or inherited, self-imposed, or someone else’s to claim,

It all. stings.. the same…

And the barrel burn of whiskey
and the ***** of numbing needles
And the rush of powdered breathe
and the dreary dregs of hangovers
all do the same thing.
They take the edge of the blade-
the one that cuts the deepest
if it’s left unsheathed-
the one in our own hand
that we forgot to put away-
and dulls it beyond repair.
It fills the senses with distraction;
dumbs down a ******* brain
That won’t let the little things go;
won’t shut-up for anything.
It draws the focus off a soul that’s aching
to cry out its sorrows and
name it’s demons names;
To demand that they come forward
to their inquisition;
To have them answer
for their crimes of passion
and persuasion
and all the pleasure they gained
from seeing us consumed
by our self-inflicted pain;
To hear repentance for their intrusion;
To see their face carry shame:
So we can forgive them
And then forget them
and put them up
or down,
or aside,
But asunder;
The manner does not matter,
but We must
release them

- To be unburdened -

Lest we bury ourselves
underneath them
on our last day.

This satisfaction, for us, is deception, though,
for their judgement days never came;
and a more immediate solution
presents itself every weekend,
or every so often,
Sometimes it comes around
on say… a Tuesday;
but we always know it’s out there
for us whenever we want it,
and that’s usually every day.

Why wouldn’t we need distraction
from that achy old wailing thing
inside our breast and in our heads
clouding our brain?;
in front of us
impeding progress;
forever and always
in
      the
           way

- so we settle in -

to the maintainence method
that allows us to keep the days
from turning black under the shadow
of the unbearable burden
of our own crushing weight;
And you can’t judge
someone who is there
unless you’ve been there
and got away;
and if you’ve really been there
and you got away,
then you won’t judge them;
and if you judge them:
you have not seen
what they have seen;
and you cannot know
what they have done
and you dare not have anything to say.
You cannot understand
the means of survival
that people use
when you don’t need them;
and it’s easy to put a label
on something you define
without experiencing.

So don’t stand there scoffing at me
for being someone you pity and shame;
you’ll never understand

- The Beauty of Surviving -

Because for you,
It’s not a thing.
For you lucky few
Without the claws of demons
On your neck and opening you veins,
I give you this one piece of perspective:

If the demons do, one day, come hunting you,
Make sure
                     You know
                                         Their names.

- To banish demons -

you must call to them
To drag them out
into the light of day;
and only then can you be sure they leave, because from Light and Love 
They run away.

- It’s time now, for me -

to put the treasures,
and the troubles,
out on the table,
where all
                  can see it  
                                    on display.

(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,  have taken into their foster care a destitute stray, a man of roughly forty 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 welling-up 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 a father who’s lost there cherished son, 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 this 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 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 have you been?

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 itc closing his eyes again, and he stands, 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 that he has 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, 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, palms pressed to the sof, cool dirt, grass threaded between trembling fingers, and in his vision are two small flowers swaying slightly, but swaying alone, as no leaves rustle because no breeze blows. It seems to him that they danced in response to his repose, and he will remember this for the rest of his short and troubled life, though it should be a little easier now knowing what he knows.

Die for rock n roll
Or live for something new
Get excited dude
It time for change so embrace it
Take your leave and go do you
You say you love meeting new people and doing something scary and true
So go have an adventure grow up and become the next real you

It what she's about to do
Y'all can still be friends
Don't make it about you
It's her next phase
You don't get a say
Besides
She gave you so much time to use
And you didn't
Use it
Not properly
you gambled on
a future horse
and that was the wrong thing to do
Now you're stables empty and you gotta move

You've been sedentary for far to long
You've grown complacent and yet
You still are disappointed
Dissatisfied too
Your complacency is the root
It's the problem you can't topple
It's because you need to ******* move
GET UP
GET OUT
GET GOING

It's slipping by whether you don't or do

Remember, "Novel experience." Remember?
"Some things are just for you."..?
You get to see what happens
It'll be strange and new
It's what you do
You're actually pretty good at this
It being still you can't see through
So bop around make some friends
See what's out there
But don't do what you used to
Don't waste it getting wasted
     But Get back out there!
Go be you

Everything is a Psy-Op these days.
Who knows what to believe?
Certainly not the mainstream media
or its blatant complacency.
Are we actually the "Great Satan?"
It's getting hard to believe we're still free.

Do you feel free? (I certainly don't.)
- And If so, do you have money?

I bet you do;
But do you have time
for yourself,
and Your friends,
and your family?
And Not just
A little chunk,
carved out of nights and weekends,
like a free minutes for a cellphone back in 1993;
but real time,
time you can invest,
that you can commit to you;
not just free-time, but
Time free enough just to be.
And even more important -
Do you have energy?
For all this free time
they give you for a fee:
Or did you sell your youth,
your dreams,
and your soul,
just to avoid poverty?
For a promise of "one day,
some day
soon,
You can stop working
And rest your weary feet
But not right now...
                                  (while you could enjoy it)
Not yet...
                            {the machine still needs to feed}
you must invest.
                               [it needs strength and vigor]
You can't expect to eat for free
                         /and to it, you look ******* tasty\

it's not like sustenance is out here
Simply growing on trees; does water just rain from the heavens into your sink? No, We have to make our ***** nature clean.


But yes – back to rest – after a while... sure
That is, however, only after:
once you've served enough
purpose to the capital beast.



- And If you do not,
do you long for quiet and peace and solitude,
Or joy and comradery?
Or just a day off
to get some things done
and then another one
where you can just be?

There's no freedom left
in the land of the free,
at least not for you and me.
There's some for those
That are in control
of the wages and the prices
of the commodities.
But for those of us
they rent by the day
or the hour
or the lifetime,
For a modest fee;
there's just "**** it up" and ****-sandwiches to eat.
"Now, Come on boy! Aren't ya hungry?"

Unless we rally and rage
and riot and fight
with fury and fire,
pitchforks and torches
Muskets and mutlitudes
Clawing and gnashing teeth.
To bite the hand that beats us back
The fight is getting easier to see,
That's why they are building cop cities and training facilities and internment camps.
But beating them is getting harder and harder to do.
Because they've know what they were doing, and when we were told
we didn't believe

Of God:

Hey! There you are!
I'm so glad you're here.
We been waiting for you to get back.
We thought we had you a few times
(nearly caught you once or twice,
but you Slipped through my fingers
cuz you looked back-
and what am I gonna do?
Call it for you? Nah man!
You're one of my favorite players!
Get back out there champ,
if that's what you wanna do haha!

... Yeah no I get it, take a breather, we got all the time in The world.)

But seriously, I wanna hear from you:

what'd you think?

... About creation! The whole thing! My Creation!
I made it just for you!
Well I made it for everyone and everything; but your bit I made special just for you. Had some good stuff in too- real love, real heartache, a couple breaks for contrast so you could see how good the view could be from way up too, and brother you climbed the mountain I put in front of you. So how'd you like it?
You have a good time? From up hear it seemed like you were. Looked you were killing it. Just saying. And you didn't even know all the rules. You figured out a bunch of though. You had us in the beginning. You shoulda seen the odds on the pool. Man I bet big and won big to, you little heart attack, you made me crazy the whole game, but you put up numbers dude. It was a laugh riot mostly, for us. We were having a blast seeing what you'd do. You cooked up some crazy times my man. You did a good job, at least to me. So tell me about it. I got all the playback cued up and ready for review. I got some deep cuts lined up to show you I know you forgot about, cuz "sOmE tHinGs are JusT FoR YoUu."

You little ****, most people don't get it. it was refreshing seeing you.

So let's get into it man! I been waiting an eternity to do this, so we could go back to the beginning and see it through, back to the end knowing it would be alright the whole time. I bet you got some questions too.

Ah ****! How'd I lose?

I've learned so much this time around.
What to do and what not to do.

('Hole lotta that - "what NOT to do" - figured out a lot of ways to **** it up, but nothing wrong with narrowing the scope by processes of elimination. It's the long route and it's a rough road but you learn the lessons, cuz if you don't you do em again, that's just the nature of that proof)

I found the profane and the profound often overlapped more than you expect them to. I found that in the end it didn't matter much what way you go as along as you stick to it and keep going as long as you can or care to.
There are no wrong decisions, just impositions and responses and consequences. But all paths leading in all directions lead back to the place you're going to. You spin the globe and pick a spot and set out in a direction, and go wherever you want to. Eventually you reach a point where you gone as far away as you can, and your next step forward back or to either side just starts your path back home , but with different views.

Sure, some people get lost and never make it, but they just start again until they do.

"I didn't set you loose all over creation just to lose some of you to the rules. The rules don't matter if you play for keeps and keep on trying to win a hand or two. The buy backs cheap and we'll keep playing as long as YOU want to."