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.

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

"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.

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 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

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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 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

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…

“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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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."

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."

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

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?

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.
…



.“,’(@)’,”.