We were dying that year,
the year they fell,
and when they fell I felt nothing;
but I heard them hit the ground.

Amazed by her nonchalance
I sat the children down, the sound
of fighter jets outside the window,
to talk about the day’s events.

I’d spend the next ten years
studying the art of empathy,
pushed along by the shame of
standing zombie-like and unaffected

while others wailed in horror at
the collapsing twin towers, and now,
the haunting realization that so many
had to die in order that I might learn to feel.

The ones that jumped live with me still.
More real today than when they leapt.

     We define our lives by brick and plaster,
     row after row of rooftop satellites staring southwest,
     straining for a glimpse of God while
     our garbage appears at the curb before morning.

     There is no talk behind dark shades, no debate,
     only flickering lights of transmission
     and lives backed into corners, swept up in
     a dustpan of mindless television.

     The fighter jets brought me back to life,
     my neighbors stay mostly out of sight,

     until one of them encounters
     their own catastrophic collapse,
     then the others congregate curbside
     in the flashing red light

     to watch men stretch yellow tape
     around a scene that looks familiar
     and wonder why they cannot feel;

     like the day they fell when I felt nothing.

tachyphylaxis - tach·y·phy·lax·is (tāk'ə-fĭ-lāk'sĭs)  n.
1.    A rapidly decreasing response to pleasure following initial administration.

I didn’t know this
demon had a name.
Ugly as it is it fits,
a random mish-mash
of unpleasant sounds
and equal unpleasantness
felt.

I’ve known the *******
forever, manifest in vitamin cures
and psychological processes,
SSRI’s and stabilizers.

He attends to the end of
affectionate loving and all
the designer vacations
you've ever taken.

He is the golden handcuffs of
square foot home ownership
and his business cards are
set in silver.

To put it bluntly
his continuous presence
is intent on destruction
of any contentment.

He is all things along the way
that appear so promising at first
but never last.

Synonymous with tolerance,
antonymous with precedence,


the antagonistic leaven of all living.

I don't always know what to say
Or even what to do.
When long paragraphs of genuine praise
Go unanswered, this is my excuse.

You give me praise like I don't deserve
And don't comprehend how to respond to.
In the end, I read and reread
And think of what to tell you.

I count you as a mentor, a friend
I respect your opinion.
I think of you as a light, a guide,
Sense is your dominion.

I wanted to thank you for noticing misplaced words
In a blog for rhyme-schemes and thoughts.
I want to thank you for seeing the best in me
And continuing to see when I cannot.

Your middle name is Beautiful.
Mine’s a bit more complicated,
like bitter on the lips
leaves you thirsty in the sun.

I’d hope in time your love
might make it different,
it already has to a degree,
but for now
my best advice for you?

Attend to your own miracle,

release your pent up energy
while I entertain you from below,
I’ll shine a single beam on
what might fuel desire

and watch you take my light in,
see you from the outside
blink slowly,
each shut a deposit,
a snapshot,

a field of vision for future use,
for future reference.

They say the eyes are
a gateway to the soul,
painting pictures behind eyelids
there forever to recall,

While the moon shines red,

on me but not you.

I.

Everything meets
in the middle,

all that is
and was
and done
or said

eventually.

So they say while
the fulcrum creaks
and the lever sags.

     That’s where
     they’ve
     lost there way.

Take two magnets and
try to push them together
to meet at center, instead
they slide from side to side
and go around, no force
can bring them together.

     I say everything
     that goes around
     comes back this way,

the wrong way,
to haunt or remind us
but never to the middle,
never offering peace.

Maybe that's why
some say suicide
is a valid option,
as if to trick
the sacred balance,
sneak up on
magnetic rejection
and force your way
to center.

     Sometimes I dwell
     on the mystery of
     Golden Gate.

Such a sacred place,
the breeze, the sun,
her hypnotic beauty
and the fact that
no one jumps at
night.


II.

Nero:    "Jax, do you believe in Karma?"
Jax:       "Not today"
  
     But I believe.
     I believe because
     I have lived it.

     My Karma is Grace
     and I can’t tell you
     how many times she
     has found me,

always where I didn’t go willingly,
dragged by a massive darkness
and held up high while the weight
of death sat across the divide
on the other end of the teeter-totter.

Let’s go to hell
and pretend
to be wearing
disguises.

Wade across
the chasm of
darkness
into a place
of utter despair….
Oh wait,
we’re already
there….

And he’s
already here,
always is,

kept in check
by Benedict
and crucifix.

Prancing
to and fro
looking for
weakness in
my defenses
like a
velociraptor.

Usually its
short barks
and snorts,
And the
clicking
of
nails,

but today
he’s in disguise,

Satan
in sludge state,

a black liquid
shadow
wherever
I go.

Standing still
would be the
end of me,

Yet all
that is
within
me
wants
to dive
right in

like the town idiot,
succumb to the lure and
come forth covered
in feather.

he brings
much pleasure
at first
everything
is well
yet fleeting,

have some more
soon the sludge
will take you,
its inside of you,
swallowed you,
you of it and
it of you,

wake
and choke
and spit
in fear

this time
May be
the last

Don't stuff it
Back down

don’t look
in the mirror

Only God can
pull it out
but you have
to ask,

you have
to believe,
the key?

Don’t ask
too late.

At night we were a fresco 
painted by an astronaut, our 
messy bed the chapel of a
voyeuristic God, where glory 
worked with hurried hands
in frenzied fellowship and
hallelujah was a sigh that
quivered on my lips, then we
nodded off like angels of our
own apocalypse; it was made-up
love, when we woke up,
the dreamed up stuff of kids.