~

forcefully polite people spitting surreptitious spite engenders empathy for flight


~

lexical tempests ****** objectivity's flight, and the world secretes meaning

the heart de-sexed
by cloistered syllogisms
artifice sign-posts

red cheeks heat cold tears--
open heart psychology
bloodlets winter cheer

.



overcome, undone, a man before a beaten horse collapses, clinging




.

started the day hearing jokes about clitorectomies and other female bodyparts being mutilated. at lunch i learned that the bible predicts that a 'dark-skinned leader' signals the end times. the other morning i was the shouted subject of various ****** accusations while i went to **** in the woods, and called a "******* hippie-tree-hugger-******"... as a joke, .. test.. target of overspilling hate and ignorance.. i think.  i've witnessed extreme homophobia combined with a disarmingly authentic homosexual playacting --a moment of hand-holding or flirtatious banter that almost convinces one of a sincere, sensitive fondness or even a vulnerable sexuality beneath the surface of these men..  yet alongside such blatant racism to drain the hope in humanity from any listener: "Ferguson hasn't made people crazy--it's made black people crazy... And people wonder why there are stereotypes... IT'S BECAUSE THEY'RE TRUE!!!" and comments like, "it's all about the Jews..." and "I think Obama is a ****" randomly dot the conversational landscape of each day

sharing all seasons -
international home of
earthling family.

this is life lost -
deaths of brothers and sisters
cut me, raging tears

rage of tears at dawn
--how are you?
my beloved strangers...
earthlinghood revised,
blogospheric species-hope.

first day
adless surfing -
wet my pants.
the old concentration back,
i breathe relieving sighs.

infotainment age -
authentic journalism
revised and found

#riseupoctober -
"The Souls of Black Folk," asks Du Bois,
do you have a *soul?

my white-washed education
didn't give me one; love did.

Trent Lott's lot:
a segregationist, blogged
into mississippi's mud.

Coltrane's music
fire in my chest, supreme
love-train of Cornel West

Chimamanda sings
inclusion and awareness -
what do you sing?

untimely autumn
frost, grinding into duff
a bigot's words.






.

again your words garner tears
i am fought from within
between wretched smiles aching with the shame of words i've shared
listened to, copied, written, "shared"
and yet never truly shared

those doors are gone: i have shared
and one has listened, shining love as hot to bear as sun...
refracted in my tears the warmth
is as a solar flare of unexpected love--
distrusts flung of self for undeserving care,
i waver-wallow, sing another cracking grasp,
slurp my sniffle-ramen soup to comfort ten-year wounds
all open now, shining, wincing in the sun.

i would bare my bones, it seems,
in urgent need to stamp the world an honest love.

what have i waited for? better words to come and scare us into final sum?
a final balance done, as if a math could send us there?

where? where has the daylight gone and come?
how old this starlight sinking from
i try to laugh and fail,

giving fame another final finger-flipping off
as that one girl said once, long forgotten, "cradling
her last fledgling flying ****,
and kissing it on to fated final flight"

yes. discovered now by one, i heal in single sun
i beg from those in shade or hurting from my blindest words a balm
a balm of knowing deep i seek to undiscover harm...
a balm of knowing deep the wholesome love of self that overflows to all...
Mokume told me, "love them" as i struggled with their hate,
he asked my love as to her love for me,
he asked me of my love i held for her--and which was more,
the love of self or love of her
and so i wavered in the meanings love has come to bear
while he taught stridently the meaning of Yoruba masks,
the bowl atop the symbol-studded head
the brims so overfull they shower all who look,
or dare to touch its bursting river-majesty

i would cry out, give voice my wild rage
if that would loose the bonds, arrest her plight
but cowardice sustains a safer silence
long imbued complacency of guilt
--ensconced escapist narthex ease and shade--
i do not speak the secret all avoid
when speaking it condemns me to a pretense
loathe of self the ears that hear and do not hear
deep cloister  of a falsely sacred quest
to give into the hands encompassing us all
which hand it down again, below a conscience
as above removed, vacant as her eyes

our thievery done,
you steal my ****** prize--
gems bouncing on moss

apotheosis--
not so pretty naked
in the winter

men are beautiful;
they argue over the price
of abortions
















.

direction rests still
geometry of shade-lines
enframing world-ground

sublime dialogue
fashions friendship never worn
warming in the snow

it felt good to leave the tourists behind
---with their cast-iron grated stairs
and photo-flashing-falls,
question-comments cookie-cut---
embrace the woods:
soaking wet approach,
brinks of shivers in the dripping wind,
an old, broken filter
   slurping bubbles from a cardboard tired puddle;
whisperlite stove finally working,
the first cous-cous dinner warms our little white dog
   dreaming on my rising falling chest
   pressed by sleeping bag and snort and sigh;
we sleep our psoas sore--
unknowing we have just begun...
haven't yet begun!
yet bodied abject pain to shock our senseless raw
   with scoured glimmer-vasts of love beneath
a frozen fly on Frosty Mountain
zippered hail in midnight breath,
i *** in numbness gusts--
i bite my smile ice,
whoop the sleeting world for we are here at last.

.


                                                                                                  breath of sunlight
                                                       meeting dawn's ownmost
                                      steaming,
                  boulder soil
ascending






.

the bomb does not explode. there,
only aftermath is real like amputations
thoughts are cutting through my flesh
from years ago. when that marine
i went to high school with told us
of his tumor, the surgery he
couldn't pay for. the nuclear facility
he was stationed by. his bunk-mates,
their brains cut also, angry now
and as he loudly spoke beneath
his bandaged head we nodded, cut his
story out as perhaps true, not worth
looking into

the one i write for
is the one --
i write for one,
the one among --
the only one--
one lonely solitude
i write for one.
you are the one;
i write for you --
the one who reads
and knows i write
for just the chance,
that one among
the many, that one
i write for,
that one
that you
who reads and feels --
the one who knows,
the one,
the one i write for
is the one you know
as you.

nescient of origins,
                   roaring narrow views--
a wend of finite specieshood
                           collides around a pond-shore
                                                      ­   dreamt in colors algae soft.

car sized turtles sink
                glow into the liquid cool
                              while stegosauri billow bottom silt,
their diamond spine-points
         tacking to my gaze an oil depth.

time slows in,
         viscous under water  sun
                                  silent evening stomp.
sipping breath above,
               bone-dry families
                                coo their brittle nests
while scaly giants
          skinny dip.
ripples red and gold
             darken black as tar
as yawning maws,
                eyedrop lashes
                               squeezed,
feel the draw of kismet
             gravely wink in jetsam
                           at their young,
who, tugging tail-end games
                       despite a brooding storm
                                                        ski­tter jubilance.
i dive in stasis
          nudely arched
                       above my shadow
as other apex mouths
           arrayed in awe
                              foresee

puddle moon
illumes cave wall symbols--
game season's over

dreams of bardo--
neither dead nor living
seasons pass












.

no last words--
     i open her blank eyes
     dry of tears

words signifying nothing
                             call questioning into question,
                                                       ­         make vociferous doubt a ruse
                                                            ­                                               played upon itself;
the diversion of division appears,
                                         an emptiness clothed with fullness,
                                                       ­                               the semantic womb called void.
there lies a trans-truth
                             between truths our grammar cannot harness,
                                                        ­                                    and a 'meta-truth' we imagine.          
trusting in the world that spoke to us,
                                                           we speak,
navigating riddles with nascent symbol-shifting
                                                 ­                   beyond speech,
                                                         ­                         revealing the artifice of words
                                                           ­                                                               an­d the mutability of true thought.                                                
to encompass only by dividing the always-already encompassing~
in gathering this,
                      there hints a ceaseless gathering

Samaria can burn for all i care.
unchecked **** existed there as well.

each of us is torn.

you dare proclaim: you love me now.
but acts of speech will not belie
your inner need.

i  will  not
return your spineless love
i only see you as you were
passing me
another errant body uninvolved
you haven't changed
your distant eyes avert
your guilt to span the globe
your condescending anger
poorly compensates
your shame

you chose a silence then,
seeing from afar,
you ran and wrote a story
as if my story were a gem
as if your facets claim a right
to make of me a cause

so now i lock you eye to eye.
you owe me nothing,
my pleading done
i'm only here to shout --
to poison what you see as well --
to crack you into seeing hell as hell

sweet weakness soothed you
just for being powerless

while i retched in corners,
alleys, on the train

my captors blinded me
to hide themselves

but you see.
and you flail with understanding,
broken more than me.
you mutter pridefully
you're 'bearing witness'
... but an aperture of musing
only fades into the smoke
you ****
into a screen

regurgitating pity
to be swallowed by your peers,
you have found your hiding spot
in brightness, plugging in

no longer even passing by

before i even write the title,
i set it to draft
selected as unworthy before it's born

i tell myself i might not want to write about writing
because of something someone said sometime
about mistakes

then if i remember right
i edit my memory:
after editing this poem
i am seeing clearly:
a censored Mnemosyne
raging from her shaded, titanic head

music may be involved.
or film,
or living well
or finding myself unable to speak out against bigotry
or those who'd impose their choice on another's body

the chills.
inseparable sensate emotions.
often they spread over the left side of my back, neck and head
.usually they feel good.
i think they may always feel good
like tears
and the urge to sing alone
or the sharp yearning:
i must tell this someone something soon

like
'the ocean overspills imaginal seas
and yet is less than what i want it to mean'

spring morning steps,
barn stairs topped with boxes
--spacious vertebra


t'ai chi warmth on sand,
overwintered brick and moss--
bird sounds, heartbeat

sh
they said it sarcastically to twist the lump in a throat sideways
another throat
i won't whine about mine
it's in the beak of freedom
refracting azure skylight's promise into pain

bitter silence wins the immigration race
acceptance in the dark
i vacuum floors too deep for walls
or ceilings
or actual bars we could talk about

"then i'll tell him where to buy a cheap cell phone  and when
so that it can't be traced to our  beautiful weather today

perfect for the beach  don't ask where this C-4 is from
we have plenty  azalias are in bloom

this is all the electrical wire you will need
and in here that's for the fuse  my wife will be here
to trim the roses this afternoon  she shouldn't need

to come in the house  some batteries  ask if you
need more  electrical tape  a thyristor if you want
should be enough for the circuit  help yourself
to whatever's in the kitchen  i'll be back in two days"

a metaphor for a metaphor:
a mirrored mirror.

the pulmonary hackers whoop
as engine screes of social-
media roar by in caps

and i am left with my own noise;
i've internalized it now,
real traffic beyond my upstairs office walls,
my mother's fading garden,
my epson printer humming like a tomb

imagine yourself                                                                                                                                                          here,

                                                                               at the beginning
                                                                                                  and end
                                                                               of all things

                                                     where a mass of unthoughts points vaguely


to a blank center-->



                                                                       ^where desires converge^
and where a sovereign evanescence
                                       wheels your neoteric self upon the world. silently;

        steaming boundaries condensate
                                            along that transfinite faultline
                                                                                pressing through existence;

                         lightning summoned to our complacent
                                                                         belief in peace.

O muse and counter-muse; Mother-muse, protector muse--
i am sold.
i agree  again.

gloried ****** sung to grey-orange, setting Suns;
dusk of human brains
                 ticking to the clockwork
                     deaths of Cultures passing.

the due-dates of a paper-legal
              monocultured crop:
cropped
                        to quarter-halves
                                   mcworlding
                                        grins of bottom-lines.

...entire countries checked,
a people's lives and deaths
are filed into off-shore savings banks
reduced to anti-trust...
what wonder at a child's warrior-role,
with only armies holding out their hands.

upon an ancient Shield:
peoples drowned in fear,
seas of understanding, wild
                  as the darkened myth-clouds playing coy
                                 to hidden waves of lucid thought.

symbol-caves, lingual-wombs of families yet in tune,
--shadow-crowded politicians shade us huddled there
                 while Mother-Thetis marks the moment
of our forking fate.

brimstone burns again!?
death as entertainment and a ruse...
i huddle with you there, my Family
                       formed of Stranger-tongues
and linnet's wings..

i've savored distance from the storm,
settled in communal cowardice,
forcing smiles slowly into numbing real...

but only choice revealed is truly real.
when done with hiding here
the other's ripe for overcoming fear.







.

on chair
on floor, on earth--
this depends

how joke about racial slurs? about ****? how does one chuckle and say, pointing at a kiln at a summer camp, "hey look, a Jew-oven?" or at a bungalow attached to a lodge, and call it a "****-shack?" how does it come to be, that hate can be ejected at random, toward unknowing strangers, inside a company vehicle, and for 4 other so-called professional men to let it go unhindered? ..that a comradeship in hate can develop, such that one can call a little girl, age 7, maybe 8 or 9, a "pre-****,"and actually get chuckles in response, and even a comment--"yeah, hey look, a free child"? how is it that i've come to witness a resurgence of hate speech in 2015?

my new-found "faith in humanity" is yet again becoming encumbered.. my mind whirls, repeating the slurs i heard, now silent, but increasingly visceral... i burn on an imaginal but no less real stake each time i hear the word "******" used as an insult.. the burning is an anger, a promise of action.. a promise of consciousness

midnight piano--
a hand on my shoulder
and tears drop

post lobotomy,
my friend's blank stare
freezes me

the linguistic turn:
signs, desiccated sense-scapes
earthing sky wisdom

you cried my arms a perfect dough
like foreign pastries
scratch atonement for the tongue

i love it when you say i should
i shouldn't this or that
as if the stars had tabletted your mind
with what was pleasured best
and sparks in mine were best left dim
until the frosted world commanded fuel from two..
it eggs the burning fibers -- gaze
release  be somewhat more across the gaps
our bouncing would incurr

untimely spring  my step
become a kneecap brace
of hanging here
in reinverted sight
my laughing arms outstretched
both reaching for the earth
in giddy disbelief

you could mean anything
...the higher i fly i see that now
of split horizons into sun again

my screaming holds the jointed sweets
of vanity undone, remade in other grins
of wincing where the tissue does not hold
clawing bark to finger
weight away

our nylon bed aluminum
ringing stars
in squeezing eyes
suspended over dancing leaves
so many stillness-ecstasies aloft
our rhythms seasoned
thinly darkened to the house
where whispered creaks could drift
ignite another blush
to faintly mirror
heated gasps we recreate the meaning of

breathe when steps up the climb redden.
see deep true endlessness forming waves.  
many abjurations will cloud alone,
to never green again.
taste dust sometimes,
enjoy sneezing--
cry.
play the moon;
know selfish worlds darkly,
grow flying genders into acts
sensing beneath ground live stars resting:
freely read to recall ancient ways to poem...
hidden wisdom gone stale speaks past
as poetic forests fall wilting.

the bigotry in me
proclaims you bigot-this-or-that
a silent death forgone before be met

the unapparent--yet habitual--whole you are
prereduced in pornographic quips
or tongue-slips given over to a politician's herd

remains in static symmetry's conclusive wan
sinks in double-speech's soft caress:
single, oceanic oil spillage shrug
,the value dancing buzz--
atop sommellier ****

smashbook wasn't nearly as offensive
with its objectifying koan-click--
on and on, smash after smash

you sit here, and here, and here
angry soldier, oversexed boxer,
underpaid, overworked mexican

what will my face look like once i am born?

being the "sum of what the world 'thinks' I am"
is written, smeared in blood across the cave i've come to love
and leave behind but only in an understanding:
selfhood carries with it all we lack.
it carries on its seas the diatomic algae fruiting slowly back
it carries on each ladder-rung the selves that other's see,
the lovers' feelings felt,
the mailman's kindness kept--
a stranger's instant siblinghood in eye-flash recognition wept.

my heart is tattered there, and rebuilt here;
i could not be the beating love-train joyful as the sorrows,
the pain and lonely misery, the mind-split cosmic surd of this
that Jenkins must have felt, before her captors left hir dead...
--a bullet in hir back, a simple heart-stop pellet placed--
i could not be the beating love-train joyful as the sorrows,
without your words, your rich, kind thoughts of me
that others do not know they have,
that Kiesha could have known.

some rabbit holes
go only so deep

then  mycelium


i want you in this bliss

cannot *******
on this medication -- read
patients' bill of rights

"they deserve to suffer," the moralist chimed,
tones of genocidal rhetoric cutting out the sun

blank season--
cherry blossoms still
wound an aging heart