For to rest in the gymnasium
Is to watch others wrestle.
There is no pendulum
Which is not but itself a pebble.

I am the gnomon.

For all are free
And each person is their own mason.
From the block of marble we chisel
Out who are ourselves.

d.c.
there's a capitol riot
everything's burning
and yet the senate is quiet
no shots ringing out
now there's the riot
deep battered constitution
they grill it, bake it, fry it

flint
on a diet
water pipes busted
turn on the tap
try it
have a glass on stage
let it touch your lips
lest you digest
what's vile

just do it, max
just do it, max
just do it, max
just do it

things you said
play on repeat
in my head
this isn't how I want it
but at least you're okay

Take all your taxes and see if you aren't able to get more done with them
Then those that represent you.
Do those that do, really represent you
Or do they resent you?
And secretly tread with scorn?
If you truly want change, seek an office
Grab a gavel
Do your part

Have you yet made companions
Of Vulnerability & Confusion?
For they are the parents
Of Arrogance & Ignorance.
Whom foster the children
Compassion & Patience.
Who give birth
To Innocence & Logic.

Innocence & Logic,
Which grow to be
Virtue & Wisdom.
After the puberty of
Focus & Knowledge.

Communication is like compassion,
Both synonymous with mutual understanding & love.

Collaboration is like patience,
Both synonymous with consent & mutual acceptance.

Kronos to Atys,
Time to Humans;
Never reaching to grasp their true Nature,
Compassion & Patience.

Only when the waters recede
Is ever there patience,
Only when they flood
Is there ever compassion.

For you compromise all balance
And so you comprise limited liberation.

For, as you all 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘦 to be,
You are unworthy.

Son; As I speak now,
With this voice -
This is liberation.
I have freed my mind,
But for whatever reason
My body is unwilling to follow.
My movements are rote & mechanical;
I am without control.
In this way,
I am one with Nature.
Kept in kinship with the other wild animals.
My movements are not my own,
Directed by instinct & by the forces that govern.

You who are the greatest gift
Which Futures could bestow,
You who your ancestor smiles upon;
The triumph of all our ancestors.
You whose presence is the present.
Whose present is presence;
Free-will,
Self-awareness.

Consciousness;
True cognizance,
Harmonious cognition.

The best.

You who must go with your father,
Who has freed his body but not his mind.
He will liberate it
If he is as compassionate & patient as you have yourself proven.

Please. For I like the other animals
Am still a slave to myself.
Please, end my life
In this way I live it.

I, your loving mother & his royal wife,
Ask you to dream of me -
To hope with me,
This will keep you close to me.

Forget me not,
Untie the knot(s) -
See to it
That all break their binds.

For the love that freed my mind,
Which my body cannot find,
Carry on. Look after my husband,
Time.

the cringe of nightly thoughts
that linger on past the dimming
of lights on the bedside
it's night like these
that keep alive
the torment I carry
and cannot relieve
no matter how hard
I might try
it's nights like these
I am still happy
to be alive

i'm upset
because of x
no
actually
you always get angry at y
anyways
i'm upset

Memorizing license plates,
Every passing face,
Mental logs; time & date.
Act stupid to maintain,
This farce, this facade.
One fake one, one falsely named.
Living amongst shadows,
Only remnants remain

timber
down falls the old growth
to be cut to pieces

tumbles
dropped into the ropes draped
towering, it is now laid to rest

down
the forest floor becomes a new bed
dread before, what comes next

is it right to follow the law
if it is not right?
is it just to dole out justice
with a lady liberty lacking sight?
when so many are the disenfranchised
and the majority of wallets, tight
is a moratorium ending
harming or mending?
where is the break in our dark
someone illuminate rational light
for the contrast is stark
between those who laze
and those who fight

rush in
for an invitation
for the chance
to see new nations
not freelance
rather via indoctrination
rifle in your hand
in your heart contradiction
cause it's not your land
but they are your victims

the man you just shot
two kids and a wife
as you lay in your cot
you think of their lives
as her husband rots
like little tiny knives
you can still see his eyes
as you lie in the night

still here, still going
despite not knowing
where
gonna get to where i should
be headed
once it's something that's connected
and clicked
cause my past
is something i can forget

and the light of god
like a flash bang
down dark hallways
men blind
flying
like moths toward a lamp

it was a cuckoo who flew the coup
took wing from his nest
off to push out eggs, like ***-pa
just another everyday coup d'etat

leopard leaping from his perch
pushing onward toward his prey
a small friend to no feline
trapped in a quick sand
left only to bay

you are these animals

the heart murmurs
what the mind will no longer hear
it's no longer a need
to just be firmer
or to share,
the hopes and fears
because it doesn't draw you near
and i am left
holding my heart out

If I speak honestly,
What resentment should I harbor
For how words are received;
So long as you, too
Speak the truth, earnestly?
My commitment to honesty dies
At the prospect of a lie.
Brought as like a cat,
Planting at your feet
Dead mice

The type to go
To die, "before his time."
If there is such a thing.
Sunglasses inside,
Though I'm trailed in shade
And trapped within,
Nights that rule day.

Sleep like a pillow, no one there

In my heart, in my head

Can you call?

When voices are lost,
And nothing but silence echoes

Truly, it is too much-
To love with your all, it takes a cost
At the expense of yourself, you let go

Rear cheek,
And rob the moment of any frost,
Recompense, in word and not wound

What a world it could be,
If we weren't so self consumed.

"I am a victim of circumstance."
Are we not all?
Play not devoid
But freely strum the chords
Of sympathy and even empathy,
Far from pieces which are familiar,
For situations one might sparsely fathom.

When someone's fallen
Reach out a hand to help them up
Even if it slows you down,
Even when it is not expected.
For when is a fall the expectation?
And who among us is the exception?

Reflect, act, remark.
If I am to cross the line which signals finish
It will be knowing you
Have completed the marathon.
Having waded the haze that is "competition,"
In a day & age where that means so little
And should still mean less,
I will have been obscured by nothing.
For in that trek, I won;
In the journey of the sport of love
I went the distance for a companion.
When I knelt,
I chanced a "prize"
But it was you who made me champion.

i saw an odd ball of light the other day
and thought it must've been an airliner,
but it was a god's ocular
sizing me up

so when it crossed my mind
i took hold of it,
"let him look"

up, at the black overhead
grimacing at me
i shouted

"well, old man? what's the verdict?"
and all the stars shone down

in the tiny cracks, that they cut through the sky
i swear i heard
"*******"

and I will submit,
on my knees,
if you want me to be

There is not one
Which I have not rewarded,
One I have not punished.
From Cyrus To Moses
And each of their children,
That is their nations.
From Rome to Germany
And their siblings,
That is their family.
You stand with your tribe
And you stand against the species.

a tale of lust
seduction, and ******
get cable!
and the programming
can pain your brain
rot away all the gray matter
leave you numb,
but there's so much
these days that desensitize
so chuck those harpoons, abraham
it's a white whale you're hunting
anyway

Dreams that torment -
Between my chest
Is still her lance,
Driven squarely through my heart.
That circumstances were unfortunate,
I should wish for death absent my love.

Do people not see the separation of culture?
The quiet segregation of our artists,
Where we all hurt for their hidden toils.
By the media corporations that pay
Real artists pennies on the dollar.
Who bully those to ghost write
For people they believe will sell better.

Your feed is targeted, more selected
Than you can even imagine.
The profile built on most of you is
Down to a T, it should scare you and
I do not fear monger.
I have heard screams from one with no mouth;
I have seen myself programmed
To live out a life to completion
At the direction of others

Did they care
When mothers passed from SARs
Or did they appear on nightly news programs
To kid about killing grandma?
Where was money spent, meant for the grid
Meant for widespread infrastructure
When my brothers and sisters
Died in cold, down in Texas
Of all places, yes, even the desert is cold
Compatriots please, reawake
Before the stranglehold turns to shackles

i keep trying to write about you
but i don't need to
moreover i think you get
a sick sort of satisfaction from it
i hope it's enough to know
you started it
enough to feed your emptiness

51 seconds have gone by
and i want you to write
despite, having just sent
what i had said
this love thing's for life
in my heart
like you're in my head
it's awful trite

i am full of red flags
the difference between you and i
is i look at you
and see them too
but i can still look beyond them

Commoners' indignant?
Youth disinherited?
Ha. Nay.

Intellectuals disrespected.
Visionaries neglected.
Aye.

Yous who don't learn,
Refusin' to see eye-to-eye.
You slight genius, Truth.
Ay;

Afraid to even say hi -
Much less engage in honest, forthright conversation.
Rely on your superstitious,
Your hope is to pray
For ignorance like arrogance be your prey.

Lambs what be foul predators
Fat on the blood of their own ewes.
Singin',

"We know not what we do!
We know not what we do!"

Yet, you do so willfully.

Soon-to-be-nothings;
Absence, as nothingness, will be your eternity.

For the unworthy are rejected, universally.

The Gordian Knot?
¹ The mesh of civilization.

To untie it is to understand it,
To know it.
This is to TIGHTEN it.

To cleave it is to try to conquer it;
It all comes undone,
Never to be re-strung.

You can be Prometheus,
Who was actually always celebrated,
Or you can be Aeneas -
The one who was really ChAINhed to the rock.

What matters is learning,
² All else is for naught.

everyone is her
everything said
is something she wrote
i'm a fool
but you are too
good
maybe separate
we'll learn something
a call away
hop and skip
but i know
i'll never see that day
nice while i could
stomach being the only
one to care
no longer stand
the empty things you say
leave me drained
i understand
you're not a player right
you just crush a lot
top, but i feel like
i'm getting ******
all my life
the worst people
been my destruction
and my own
everyday betrayals
layers of
dis-function

i can't care about
what's in front of me
i need to be
40 steps beyond and behind
and predict the flow of time
anticipating, every chance moment
taken and missed opportunities
and the effect geopolitically,
globally;
famine, natural disasters, disease
there's so much
it's hard to breathe
and that just reminds me of the higher rates of asthma in urbanized and industrial areas

I wounded myself
With what cuts you
To see if you would notice, that
You're not alone.
To see the world through your view, that
I might better understand you,
I lost myself
To see how to make it
Back onto the path.
What I saw;
No person was too far gone
That made love their epitaph.

Looking for something casual?
Is it a hassle?
Juggling all the many things you say?
Contradicting hypocrite,
Who can't get out of her own way.

in disguise
an angel weeps
having fooled even herself
in thinking she had fallen from

the bolt is stripped
worn from years of tightening
and the washer is worse
barely keeping them from contact
though we say we can stomach it
guts can only carry so far
where we've little else

i have no pride
you hurt me all the time
and inside
i've died
long ago
so it's just numb
i was dumb
to think things
would be any different

Easy to conceive,
The likes of thousands of souls
All as miserable as me.
In the likes of this world,
Like moss on a tree.
Stumped, but still living.

is it selfish
here, misdirection
did you know
the male seahorse
gives birth
while the fairer ***
just gets to get on with living
what a world
they must see
more color cones
so you know it must be pleasing
leagues under the sea
where did vern learn

to think up all these beautiful things
and keep them to ones' self
forego wealth, you know you could have
or was already yours
knowing you could do more
rash tings, from the emotions
spending, on things i can't afford
i am no better
especially after tonight
i am so much worse
i am horrible

calls for resignation
disgrace, dishonor, desecration
of the office held
the law venerated
you talk of people
like chattel
to be corralled, choded
castigated
but hold yourself
to no such judgement
you're a problem
of your own making

no one talks about
how translucent they are
or perhaps they'd rather not mention it
there's something you lie to yourself about
maybe you don't even know what it is
i know it's uncomfortable
facing uncomfortable truths
growth can often times be painful
but it will hurt you more
to remain the same

What torture ignorance is!
When you treat ignorance as such,
Perhaps it is.
Being so ignorant,
I could see it.
For the foolishness of it
Is that it is the only route to wisdom!

In how we define it?
By how we describe it?
Of how we perceive it?

Perception birthing perspective,
Yet both products of their environment!
"Self-copulation?"

Of course, given context,
The definitions fluctuate.
So, then our perception of it
And thereby our descriptions of them,
Change or fluctuate also.

Like the rain falling.
Like ice forming.
Like water flowing.