The napalan man in a violet cape  
descended the stair with a lopsided gait
a wretched procession, subscribers in cue
rattling off as they stream from the pew  

sounds and smells from a shadowy place
a catholic priest to gin up base
lanterns strung from bolted doors
cobbled streets and wooden floors  

stepping stones and iron bell
fortified by the citadel
hallowed halls and sepulcher
dragon cane for the horse drawn tour

castle turret,  archer holes
centaur scribed in chamber bowls
garden columns in courtyard view
the blood ballet and hullabaloo  

ancient tombs on warrior grounds
gods and saints who made their rounds
goliath still with battered scythe
knelt in prayer and mummified  

battle fires and crowds that roar
gallows, caves, abysmal war  
gargoyles flock the terraced *****
pearly gates to bring on hope  

serpents, snakes and burning ash
lava bombs and trident clash
mariners drift in absentee
as neptune rises from the Tyrrhenian Sea

Today was my greatest accomplishment,
An achievement round which I rally


And yet you're another absentee.


I drank from the pool of triumphs sweet,
Bitter as you would not share with me


For instead you're another absentee


Do not mistake their value is rare to me
But it seems an incomplete victory


Without you,
Absentee

The emus formed a football team
Up Walgett way;
Their dark-brown sweaters were a dream
But kangaroos would sit and scream
To watch them play.

"Now, butterfingers," they would call,
And such-like names;
The emus couldn't hold the ball
- They had no hands - but hands aren't all
In football games.

A match against the kangaroos
They played one day.
The kangaroos were forced to choose
Some wallabies and wallaroos
That played in grey.

The rules that in the West prevail
Would shock the town;
For when a kangaroo set sail
An emu jumped upon his tail
And fetched him down.

A whistler duck as referee
Was not admired.
He whistled so incessantly
The teams rebelled, and up a tree
He soon retired.

The old marsupial captain said,
"It's do or die!"
So down the ground like fire he fled
And leaped above an emu's head
And scored a try.

Then shouting, "Keep it on the toes!"
The emus came.
Fierce as the flooded Bogan flows
They laid their foemen out in rows
And saved the game.

On native pear and Darling pea
They dined that night:
But one man was an absentee:
The whistler duck - their referee -
Had taken flight.

You troublesome *****, always away,
just when I need you the most,
off to Hawaii on holiday.

You bask in the sun, glorious day!
native *** you sip with a host;
you troublesome *****, always away.

All the pressure! My Life's in a fray.
Your note arrives through the post:
off to Hawaii on holiday.

I search in my mind, words just wont stay.
You're what? They're giving a toast!
You troublesome ***** always away.

Do you think it's a joke, a game we play?
You get to leave; you always boast:
I'm off to Hawaii on holiday!

O muse, it's the end, no more disarray!
Next time the pig won't be the roast.
You troublesome *****, always away,
off to Hawaii on holiday.

339

I tend my flowers for thee—
Bright Absentee!
My Fuchsia’s Coral Seams
Rip—while the Sower—dreams—

Geraniums—tint—and spot—
Low Daisies—dot—
My Cactus—splits her Beard
To show her throat—

Carnations—tip their spice—
And Bees—pick up—
A Hyacinth—I hid—
Puts out a Ruffled Head—
And odors fall
From flasks—so small—
You marvel how they held—

Globe Roses—break their satin glake—
Upon my Garden floor—
Yet—thou—not there—
I had as lief they bore
No Crimson—more—

Thy flower—be gay—
Her Lord—away!
It ill becometh me—
I’ll dwell in Calyx—Gray—
How modestly—alway—
Thy Daisy—
Draped for thee!

The wind plays a haunting tone
It tells me that I’ll die all alone

Far from my friends
A breaths away from where they can no longer defend

My footsteps fall to the sound of guns
It’s too late to become undone

Shiny eyes watch me
The little, waiting absentee

With ****** wrists wrenched behind my back
Standing bound before a man on horseback

And a ***** rag covering his eyes
The absentees’ about to die

Long live France; Long live the future
And the flower falls to the shots of the shoo

Wake up to a pulsing morning.
Sooner than you know,
circles back to ******* Monday.
               Empty batteries.
               Empty call log.
               Empty stomach,
and ash-mouthed, empty-hearted anger
leaves its streaks on the walls
of the insides of the skull--
               it's a kitchen, that mind you got:
it's covered and crusted--well used I suppose--
but smells funny, needs dusted
               and swept
               and mopped
               and wiped down
               and shined up. Dress down
the absentees in your life--I'm sure you know how--
'til it circles back 'round--
               to breakfast,
               to Monday,
               to you.
             In your bed.
Fight the throb in your head and push back
on the sheets that still rush up to claim you--
slack jawed with maimed thoughts--though it's
late in the day.

'i've only ever really read one poem. i, i have to admit.*  
You know, that, that one poem that everyone’s read, whatsit,
Howl by Ginsberg, 'best-minds-of-my-generation-destroyed-by-madness,-starving-hyste­rical-naked,' , yeah, that one;'
'It's just, I identify with it so strongly.' she says,
'That poem is soo me.'
It's funny how commentary on a generation 60 odd years ago come across as timeless insights..
how we learn that true spirit of rebellion and counterculture three generations ago,
  as it is taught to us by two generation ago countercounterculture academics.
but I guess, inevitably
                                         we
                                                  return,
  to those half drowned pontifications inevitably decried into transcendental truth by the onward spilling ratchet of cultural recognition;
  that sense of universal oneness generated by the unwashed ramblings of beat-generation hipsters dense innuendo in run on sentences running, running from their upper-lower-middle-class New York homes and their privilege of true vacant meaninglessness and despair,
   to those nervous tucked in shirted clean shaven scholars swooning over the same seme drugged, melancholic bearded men profussing the deepest of opaque truths only found up the furthest reaches of their own *****.
  As we push through to our lectures, the mosaic in motion of blazer wearing mac-users and mac-pac wearing blazers,
  As we hysterically interpret the formatting conditions for our reports, which could hang in the balance of whether the dreams we once had will ever be actualised,
  As we felt lost and found and found and lost at those park benches under the stars, where occasional strangers strolled by offering sessions and life-stories,
  As we paid exorbitantly to get out of our parents homes, and into tin-can flats with broken windows, absentee landlords and cracked paint only held together by all the moss, (the empowerment that is wage slavery,) for in our youth, poverty is not an ever-present pejorative, but the rite of passage to show that we are alive,
  As rituals of manhood are defined by two things and two things only; how much insomnia one can accumulate to meet insane and inane deadlines, and how much one can illuminate the walls in ***** from all the beers, spirits, cheap wines and questionable home-brews,
  As the government dismantles the human-rights commission, and we nervously attend the rallies initiated by the radicals, and the man on the megaphone calls on the crowd to chant and we can only mumble and laugh nervously at ourselves,
  And when the next speaker runs onto stage feeling the need to plead to this already nervous, placid mass that this is in-fact a PEACEFUL PROTEST, and that we are all true patriots and they insist everyone start singing the national anthem and we all look down and we again mumble, or pretend somehow not to hear them,
  and when, in this biggest independent rally around a unified cause our generation's ever seen, we have never felt so alone ,
  and isolated,  
                                  we
                                             remember,
                                                                    those earlier days,
  When we'd bleach our hair; we'd poison ourselves white, in the vain mystic hope that this was just the transition period to the time when we'd get true colour into our lives,
  Remember our wonder at the Eurocentric Asiatic television representations of the Abrahamic faiths, given transubstantiated holy revival by the medium of Saturday morning digital pastel pasture; when we were children staring excited and wide eyed into the Metatrons Fire of Sinai 'Random Almighty Mega Damage'; as Dante and the seraph class Tyrant-infused-Michael inevitably made battle with YHWH, -in the one True End,- as we grinded within the monolithic emerald obsidian halls, Mystical wonderment spilling forth from our reddened hollow eyes, at the beautiful unlimited expansive world contained within our console/consoling digital unit discs; conformally mapped and etched into the convex hull of our minds,
  Where we were gods, doing battle with every possible creature in morphospace, filleted into overpriced cards and cartridges, for which our strategies meant so much to us though none of us really understood the game,
  When we could quote verbatim every piece of dialogue in GTA2, and get concerned glances from our parents as we conjured veiled imagery of bukake-ladled innuendo which we didn't really understand until six or seven years later,
  When sexuality was a special secret club our elders and the kids in the years above came across so wise for being a member of, rather than an anti-turing test; a farcical ritual where everyone tries their best to imitate the hyper-reality of MTV while hiding the nervous feelings that this whole thing was really meant for someone other than us,
  When creating a whole new lexicon for our self-hood (be it artistic, ******, political or philosophical) felt like existential emancipation; a transcendental rebellion against the normalising identities and semantics of old, rather than an impenetrable circle-**** taxonomy,
  When one day we'd unveil a new term in some text, and it would completely change our outlook on every corner of our lives,
  Or, the next day, when we'd give up and just sit back on rolling banks, and look out at a veil of stars,
  Or the next day, when we'd wonder desperate and painfully, which of the last two was the real pursuit and which was wasted time? (Or was it this day, the day spent building an illusory dialectic between them?)
  Remember when we were in kindergarden, and you had to pass through the kitchen, -the adults zone,- to get to the toilet, and you'd feel both shame and wonderment listening in of the snippets of conversation muttered by these titanic figures; discussing abstruse issues from the newspaper in foreign yet noble tongues?
  Remember when we were teens, and every form-checking observation and question from these same adults was so painstakingly pedantically banal and asinine, that one could only respond with monosyllabic grunts and silent hysterics?
  And remember as 'young adults', when we'd inevitably entered this same dull Aristotelian world of forms, how we'd ask the same adults for advice on filling these paperworks, at once still asemic gibberish, and at once the fine-print that contained and predicted our lives?
  Remember when our dreams for the future were not bounded by the economy of our grade point averages and just how much debt we were willing to incur
                                …
I've seen the best minds of my generation climb into pre-packaged little boxes; and pay through the teeth for the privilege of doing so.  
  Akin to a 'Howl' they call it? Our cry for selfhood? What a scream.
It's not even a cry. Barely a whimper.
More of a zombified groan, completely aware our intrepid Journey of Self is just a pricey guided tour. (Tv Ad's static commodified existential emancipatory platitudes; 'your place in the world' / 'well it's my place and it's my time' urgh.)
And so we march asleep; all lame all blind.
  Trudging through the mind-fields; arguing, unravelling the semantic distinctions between the empty boundaries and the boundaries of emptiness.
  Transcribed down for essay deadlines,  /  assessing our lives trajectory as dead lines,
Becoming increasingly aware,
  We are not the living beings, the dasein, the Übermenschen being actualised; we are the machinery through which the institutions, the factories, the markets and education facilities actualise themselves.
  (While the only acceptable language we can breathe in opposition to these ratcheting pedagogical machines is the lexicon they provide us..
  ('oh, you hate systemic neoliberal alienation; the deestablishment of ontological anthropocentrism? Tell me more about the esoteric uselessness of academic culture.') bluh.)

But

       the more we follow those phantom images we built of ourselves,
the more we become aware they are but sirens; hypnotic dreamlike figures luring us to our doom,
  and as this awareness dawns; and the cognitive dissonances and schizophrenia grows,
       We


                                just try to keep calm and carry on regardless.

Can we really claim the arrogance of having a better path?
The conceit that there's a better cliff we should be guiding ourselves to to top ourselves off?
I don't know,
I reaally
really
just don't know.

Absent body, absent form.
Absent absolutely,
As if you were ne'er born.

Absent voice, absent deeds.
Absent frames,
Of histories ne'er seen.

Absent opinion, absent feeling.
Absent choice,
There's nothing left to be.

Absent, me.

I feel my feet on the ground
but it's my heart I haven't found
perpetually getting lost in my ego
instead of just letting it go.
A deep connection I feel
to all that is real
rooting me into being
the very notion is freeing.

Free to me is the best way to be
but my heart you see, is an absentee
leaving through the side door
searching for something to stand for
forgetting all along
there is only one place it belongs
here.
now.

If thine eye offends thee
pluck it out....

War offends
my eye.

All my
senses
defiled
*****
disemboweled
by the
abomination
of war.

My mind
disregards
denigrates
reneges
warps time
destroys values
alters psyches
lays waste
to my
conscience
of hope.

Mine eye offends me
the complicit witness
complacently
ambivalent
turning deaf ears
to groans
of the wounded
wails of the aggrieved
silence of the dead;
shutting doors
to sanctuaries
where refugees
seek safe houses,
locking factories
where men seek work,
level homes
where women nurture,
strafe playgrounds
where children laugh,
raise cities
where people
learn to be human,
immolate mosques
where
God's Children
cry out to the
Beneficent One.

Mine eye offends me,
my gut sickens,
to witness
the slaughter
of innocents
droning on
no angels to save
the million Issac's
savagely smashed to bits
by a Tomahawk's blow.

God's vengeance
escalates
the celestial ledgers
dripping red ink
from excessive
collateral damage,
people reduced
as objects used
to secure a loan
indeed an ARM
on a real time
American nightmare
whose reset rate
is mounting body counts
and massive budget allocations
protecting undisturbed flows
of corporate profits
valued in barrels
of imported blood.

Mine eye offends me
an innocence lost
Veritas vanquished
life is devalued
humanity debased
compassion defunct
empathy a twisted satire
an indelible weakness
incidental hostage
to the torridness
of the lurid play
of savage nations
projecting will,
a devastation
of action.

Mine eye offends me
the message of
sweet Jesus
a way of light
transformed into
biblical justification
agitprop verse
stoking blood lust zeal
for apostate infidels
sons of Abraham's
unworthy spawn,
of Hagar the *****
******* child Ishmael
turned out again
from tribal tents
of an absentee father
from an unfriendly
paternity.

This black *******
an abomination
in the sight of Allah
celebrates
a zeal to ****
unholy disciples
yearning to fill
banana crates
with body parts
draped in
drab Hijabs
decorated with
satanic verses
from a
Holy Quran
carved with
bayonets
of self righteous
Crusaders
armed with rifles
inscribed with
Gospel verses
on deadly gun
barrel stocks
to ramp the passion
of the righteous Crusade
against Godless apostates.

Mine eye offends me
as I witness
the **** of
corporate mercenaries
churning bereaved
Blackwaters
beholden only
to shareholders
gobbling spoils of war
to safely exit
to private vomitoriums
to expunge the excess
of gluttony
only to
quickly return
to engorge themselves
at the public troughs
again.

No constitutional
restraints
save the
strict guidelines
of holy
corporate governance scriptures
ruthlessly enforced with
golden carrots
of multi-million dollar
stock options
and the brutal stick
of shareholders divine right
to quarterly dividends
and above average
equity returns.

Corporate warriors
anointed by
holy oil
proffered
by capitalist shamans
and US Senators
conferring
jurisprudential deferment
on civil law
recusing them from
any behavior
to recognize the humanity
of captive insurgents.

Mine eye offends me,
as the flag
draped coffins
of returning
servicemen
and women
continue to pile
on the boiling tarmac
of Dover Air Force Base.

Tearful salutes,
folded flags
and mournful dirges
of prerecorded Taps
are small compensation for
shattered families,
and a wasted life,
unnecessarily spent,
criminally sacrificed
in a pointless conflict
in service to a lie.

Mine eye offends me
as I watch
my country's soft parade
of growing militarization
xenophobic fear
compelled patriotism
salute and goose step
to the flash of sword
and the sound of guns
and the glittering
medals of valor
adorning the chests
of a nations warriors.

How barbaric
are we?
allocating
overstuffed
apportionment
of weapons
and armories
while
people are
foreclosed
forcing armies
of unemployed
Joads
to ride
en masse on
an Acela Express
to a crowded
poor house
a listless journey
on pock marked
highways
arriving at
dreaded
destinations
to defunct
townships
offering
empty factories
and closed schools.

Screaming in silence
I scratch at my eyes
with numbed fingers.

Matthew 18:9

Music Selection:
The Doors, The Soft Parade

Oakland
3/17/10
jbm

Trump STILL can't stand the thought
That Clinton won the popular vote.
In efforts to cause a major distraction,
He's keeping the voting fraud rumor afloat.

Clinton received two point eight
Million more votes than he--
Votes from voters physically present
Or votes from those voting absentee.

He says that he has evidence
Of widespread fraud. We can surmise
That he has his "alternative facts"--
A handy euphemism for lies.

It's a preposterous, baseless claim,
A mere BELIEF that he maintains,
Another false conspiracy theory,
An insult to people who use their brains.

Voting fraud is an issue
That Trump loves to keep in his sights.
For him it's a very useful excuse
To go after voting rights.

If there was so much voting fraud,
The chances of which are very slim,
Does Trump ever wonder how many
Fraudulent votes went to him?

The more he whines, the more he harps--
He's even driving Republicans mad!--
The more he loses the smattering
Of credibility that he once had.

- by Bob B (1-24-17)

You weren't there to check for monsters
hiding underneath my bed.
So I hid under my covers
as I lay awake in dread.

There were monsters in the daytime too
one even stole your shoes.
Hiding deep inside myself
was all that I could do.

You weren't there to show me how to fight
when the bullies knocked me down.
So I lived a life of fear
insecure upon the ground.

You weren't there by my side,
but you were always in my heart
and I grew into a man
even though we were apart.

Father to a beautiful little girl
with monsters hiding in the night,
but I chase them all away
and tuck her covers tight.

I hope you’re there for her
the way you couldn't be for us
a growing little girl
needs her grandpa’s love.

when they write about existence i just think of:
blinking out of every instance -
snapshots of life, vibrating to
a culmination of sounds
preserved in the Bermudas,
or simply the overhaul of νεως
anywhere with internet access
and twitter account...
existential arguments: each
and every insistence exaggerated
and later gagged on...
just like i think of theatre and poetry:
i think of theatre as poetry on
the menopause...
theatre is poetry on menopause,
the last remaining depth of continued life
having a chance in the Darwinian cold
of absentee hearts and economic cheese
graters with broken bows playing
out-of-tune violins...
when they write the word existence,
i can't take them seriously,
they later come up with the somehow
happy alternative of what's called life...
such sad happiness when blue in green
opens up so lazily like 5 a.m. on the
Camden High Street in winter,
when it's still Armageddon bleak black
of ghosts chasing shadows into a
revenge against the grave...
some say you never really turn 30 when you
haven't bought Miles' Trafalgar Sq.
prior, meaning you lost out on being 30 when
you turn 40, and so on and so forth
in that Zeno paradox of two steps forward,
three steps back...
yes, the Grecian augmentation of the w...
less sharpened edges...
but still a Oui oh you... then a flamingo flamenco
with the teasing all blues...
i don't know...
whenever they write existence seriously
to later want it to underpin life as such,
i take their serious offensive on creating a
membrane of cushion and powdering and repeat
their seriousness, leaving life aside to
do its method on all of us:
existence - out of every instance... based or
biased as out every instance, the pickled gherkin
perseverance, persistence (dictionary mode),
out of every instance... a slaughtered bull
for pagan sacrifice meaning: insistence;
thus ex- instant into re- instant
i.e., out of (every) instant into a repeated instant -
that which we all keep secret,
that speciality of ours we do solo to keep
the nerve, to keep the homage, like
some did toward Catalonia... but in our own
very special way... it's not such a big
foreboding word after all...
it's rather mandible when the scalpel hyphen
cuts it open... just words, such words
that allow such things to take place...
cut life open... well... you end up with strife...
and that's what it is...
but at least cutting up the word existence provides
a bed, a cushion, some covers...
perhaps because of its etymology bias...
life is hardly up there in the etymological arithmetic
times table... cut the word life open... and you
get no game of words, no play, just the end result:
strife... but i would hardly attach
too much seriousness with the word existence,
as i already said but haven't:
the Cartesian maxim is subjective... it personally
relates a man's translation of life as pleasurable
with a pleasurable experience of thought alongside it...
true to say: physical exertion didn't give him
the biblical presence of work - harder for the mind
to make a sandwich that isn't there than for
the body to make a sandwich that is there...
hence the revision of Descartes: not that he was wrong,
he fooled everyone with a subjective statement
like an artist might create a piece of work...
because aren't there people out there that
experience the joys of life, but not that of thought?
while there are also those who experience more
joy from mere thought than from life itself
that joy of probing someone into action?
there are equal numbers of each...
and so translating thought into being he revealed
to me how translating ex- into re-
we can attribute a variant (metaphysical)
interpretation of the nadir of Einstein's parabola,
since we're no longer dealing with Newton's vector...
translating ex- to therefore mean re-,
we seek to guide ourselves toward that one
instant where all passions are lost...
or to put it more bluntly... ever watch the non-thinking
side of this? no? are you sure?
to translate ex- to therefore mean re-, never seen it?
never heard of drug addicts?
as in my case... it's not the addiction per se,
it's what i do with it that's leveraging me
to continue... i could have succumbed to
william styron's darkness visible -
but you see... i write while intoxicated...
the relaxation technique works simultaneously with
a chance to stretch my legs, and do what
the devil would have said regardless:
i make word of idle hand that would have
lifted a hammer... fair enough to the devil...
the devil makes work of idle hands...
well, idle hands make the devil into a caressed cat
when the mind excuses itself from idleness
that the body assumes, to later turn into a poker match.

Absent minded
by my own volition.
Warmly embrace
mental attrition.
State of rest
is my mission
on listless and free day

hey hey!
Big Bill
a slingin' his heart chords
Endless visions of bright sunny fjords
sigh
I am yet unescaped
            mind neatly taped
to a lonely widowers table

   mind is unstable
           find an old drunkard
untell this dark fable
i cant sleep and im feeling...
rrreaal tired.


blank unaware

can't help but

stare

into

distance.



I am absent

when you fall in love with an angel, you must understand that there are things you will never understand.

- when you first go to run your hands through her hair, her halo will slice your palm. and it will hurt like hell. she will mend it with the touch of one golden finger, and leave so abruptly that she is gone almost before you even blink. the thing you will see is her at the doorway. terrified eyes, blood stained hair.

(later, she will tell you that she never realized how breakable humans could be. when she explains what it takes to make an angel bleed, you begin to understand )

- ask her about the sky, about stars and suns and galaxies light years away. ask her whether or not the universe looks like a blooming garden. never ask about lucifer - she will become a soldier before your eyes.

and not, do not, donot, ask about god.

do not ask about rebellious older brothers and absentee mothers.

(do not infer about a war you know nothing of)

- in a science class you are taking simply for extra credit, your teacher will be talking about quantum physics. he will explain galaxies and refer to stars as "celestial bodies," but you won't be listening. suddenly you will only be able to think of the way her mouth curls at the sides, of the way her golden skin glows, of all the puckered scars that crisscross her torso, of the graceful arch on the bottom of her foot. celestial bodies are certainly on your mind but they are so much more than gas and light and heat and touch and --- oh heavens ---

when the teacher asks if you are alright, you will flush an even deeper red. supernova.

(at times it is lovely to be in love with an angel. but at other times, it is not)
- beware when you fight, it is like the world is ending. her anger conjures a thunderstorm, and soon the entire country is three inches deep in water. you shatter a picture frame. a bolt of lightning catches the house across the street on fire. you are screaming at the top of your lungs – something about duty, something about god – and there is a crash of thunder that shakes the foundations. the weathermen talk about the storm for days. you flinch and change the channel.

(no matter how right she is, she will always let you win)

- there are times when she won't visit for months on end, and when she finally comes back to you, she is not herself. there are new scars across her chest, and she does not speak. she sits with you in her arms for hours, her nose buried in your hair, and her arms squeezed tight, so tight. she does not cry. you do not cry.

you do(not) cry.

(but you do remember the miles and miles of white scarring. you wonder if angels are as immortal and unbreakable as they think)

Novus Ordo Seclorum [43]

All Seeing Eye,
in all ways always has It’s all seeing eye on me,
& you might think that in a way that makes me paranoid,
but in all actually it makes me much more comfortable if anything,
because I’ve got nothing to hide in all honesty,
even though there’s two sides to me like I’m Siamese,
& I’m buzzing like a drunken honed in honeybee,
& I see everything even when drinking absinthe as an absent absentee,

'cause I was told that I may hold all that I see & all that I see is everything,
because all of me at any time is capable of seeing anything,

just like the All Seeing Eye that keeps it's eye on me,

honestly honesty is still the best policy,
see even though they still attempt to dilute these truths by telling lies,
I'm still able to describe these truths successfully,
through the modus operandi that I choose to use at any given time,

see these gifts are given & received,
with a well thought of methodology that’s made of modesty,
same mold that was honed by the greatest minds this world's every known,
not mold as in fungus but mold as in the template of successful artistry,

though I must admit when I first started writing scripts I was a bit diffident,
which is different than indifference but anyways either way,
I one day realized the significance within it's magnificence,
& chose to show it since I wrote it so it could be given away,

but I made one promise,
as a poet on that day,
& that was to be modest,
but also have the confidence to not let doubt get in my way,
but it's hard to stay modest when you've written more modified sonnets,
than any other literary artist that's living today,

plus your words are some of the hottest & the girl you've got is a Goddess,
& you’ve made possible what was once thought to be impossible,
as an apostle who's gospel is God-sent in the words of rivals & bibles,
not as a disciple of Jesus Christmas but a disciple of this Divine Existence,

& that's why I see them trying to boost my pride,
& why at the same time I try to resist it,
because I promised to stay modest plus if I'm to be honest,
it wasn't me that made this all happen it was the poetry that did it,

& all of a sudden in a flash & in this instance,
my instinct tells me that it's possible they’ve spotted me,
& it's time for me to flee so I get lost so I can write more life lines,
instead of staying here risking getting caught & writing my own eulogy,

as I observe them like stars in Astronomy,
& observe their behavior like signs in astrology,
as an Anthropologist not an Apologist I observe them,
them this system they live in & all of this honestly,
including this Bureaucracy which is actually a hyper inflated Hypocrisy,
but honestly their mockery of our honesty doesn’t really bother me,
because unconditional Love is my only philosophy,
like Spinoza laying the basics of ethics in the literary form of poetry,
as I serve sermons religiously & responsibly to break the monotony,
& build bridges to doorways to construct my own autonomy,
changing the whole social topography & emotional geography of this society,
by writing the autobiography of our collective ecology & all of it’s prophecies,

I pay dues do the work & the math so in due time I can study Deuteronomy,

I am a prodigy,
& also an oddity,
that will not be brought down or bought off,
by Their Demonistic Mock Democracy,
armed with a picture perfect memory & an unlimited supply of energy,
I expose these moments from dark to light like photography,
from the Dark Room to the Light of Day,
it’s all part of our odyssey whether or not it's all done consciously,

see my conscience sees,

that The All Seeing Eye,
in all ways always has It’s all seeing eye on me,
& you might think that in a way that makes me paranoid,
but in all actually it makes me much more comfortable if anything,
because I’ve got nothing to hide in all honesty,
even though there’s two sides to me like I’m Siamese,
& I’m buzzing like a drunken honed in honeybee,
& I see everything even when drinking absinthe as an absent absentee,

'cause I was told that I may hold all that I see & all that I see is everything,
because all of me at any time is capable of doing & seeing anything,

just like the All Seeing Eye that keeps it's eye on me,

feeling,
alright with the All Seeing Eye on me,
seeking,
all night for some sobriety from this anxiety,
reaching,
a point of enlightenment that shines vibrantly,
teaching,
illuminations of thought that soak into the subconscious silently,

finally, I’m free,

& as I rise above the clouds I see,
the All Seeing Light above watching me,
& that’s alright with me I give myself up willingly,
traded my gifts for a gift card now I’m on a 24/7 worldwide shopping spree,

finally, I’m free, & finally, I see,

that the All Seeing Eye,
has it’s all seeing eye on me,
illuminating all of the darkness,
so that we can all shine on vibrantly,

finally, finally,
I am, you are, we are free!

∆ Aaron LaLux ∆

from The Holy Trilogy Vol. 2: Mandalas
available worldwide here: www.amazon.com/dp/1721134158

I want to be super me

Shave off my eyebrows
as an act of demolition
leave no roots to grow
let sweat beads know
this is a law of prohibition
against the curse
I want to be the last one on earth
and yet the first
to birth a warrior generation
all colors
all sizes
all shapes
and variations
of a people whose DNA serves as an abbreviation
of perfect

Simply

I want to love without working

I want to kiss the thickly oiled
pus inhabitating pimpled t-zones of anglo saxon adolescent girls
and tell them they’re beautiful
just after they’ve reached out and grabbed one of my locs
only to ask me if my natural hair is artificial

I want to eat lunch with the friendless 14 year old boy
caged in elementary special ed class
Immediately following him walking me
arms pinned
in front of the boys during recess
asking them how should he **** my ***

I want to tell him of a Savior
That can mold him greater than his absentee father
or molesting godmother that has affected his behavior

I want to wrap my arms of comfort around the shoulders of every insecure woman
that was confident enough to tell me
men would only see me as ***
but never as beautiful
I want to reach my go-go-super me hand in
and choke the life out of the wormy wretched murderous spirit
that eats their lives
I want to starve its lies
leaving it to die by granting the grace of a new name
befriend them with but a call and response game-

Me: “those who look to HIM are radiant!”
Them: “their faces are never covered with shame!”


I want to sound the finger snap
hand clap heard round the world
while giving a standing ovation
to all of the open mic night writers that hid their jagged daggers in a cloak of being truthful
saying my words and antics scored high for the stage
But for the page
this thing I should think twice about calling poetry
would never ever be suitable

I want to carry the little white boy on my hip while singing
The rendition of “You Are My Sunshine” that I sing to my kids
just after he hurls “******” in my direction
in a vile attempt to reduce me from perfection
I’ll teach him that the coned sheet his father keeps neat
and breaks out for story time at night is but a cry for help
that the most important thing he could ever do with his life
is to recognize others as his brothers and sisters
and to love them even as he would love himself
I’ll tell him communication isn’t erasable
and before he speaks he should remember to care
I’ll give him a lollipop
then fly through the galaxy to land on a planet
where I’ll purchase every CD created featuring John Mayer

I’ll speak and smile at every cop
That’s harassed brown people

I’ll drop an offering in the basket of preachers
that think I can’t deliver the Word
because as a woman in ministry
I’m not equal

If mine eyes can see my shell’s end
I’ll make love to my husband
in a way his second wife would never be able to transcend
even if earlier it was his day off
but instead of living it with me
he chose to leave me alone with our kids

If loving without working is tough as a glass jar of vlasic dill pickles
I want to pop the lid

As soon as offenses are committed
my earnest desire is to be super me

I want simply

to easily


FORGIVE.

Old memories preserved in black and white.
Reminisce of a time less contrite.
Seen through the lens of those without strife.
Young and free with a passion for life.
Replaced by wisdom, fear and guilt.
For the life one has methodically built.
With walls and doors, and windows to see.
As the world passes by this absentee.
Surrounded by frames of the finest wood.
Of snapshots of the potential that someday could.
Climb the mountains unreached by the hands of our time.
Instead stuck walking for fear of the climb.
For fear of the fall and all it might bring.
Fear of the inability to rebuild his wings.
Compliant with gravity, compliant with normality.
Unfamiliar with the rebellion that once filled his soul.
Defining his life where their now is a hole.
Replaced by a scar and filled with his tears.
As the joys of his childhood continue to disappear.
Chased away by the light of reality.
Youthful dreams replaced in actuality.
Ambitions refocused towards sensuality.
Mind made up of generalities.
Soul defined in spirituality.
As his life moves slowly into irrationality.
And though the colors here are always bright.
They are most vulnerable in the absent of light.
Replaced by the darkness and a mind numbing truth.
One we all have forgotten from our youth.
That the potential of life knows no bounds.
And that which we can create will always astound.
Those who come after us and those who continue to follow.
Will continue to fill our world as if it was hollow.
In need of filling with that which they create.
Building from our ashes on a brand new slate.
Their artistry challenged only by those.
Who have left footprints in the sand with their bare toes.
So which life do you wish to live.
One of solitude or one where you continue to give.
Give your time, give your energy, give your heart and your soul.
To the child in you whom you continue to out grow.
Continue to neglect who’s dreams have yet to be filled.
By the world you once dreamed of with those Legos you use to build.
Dreams filled with sky scrapers all in black and white.
Only to be interrupted by mornings first light.
Life’s colors seeping in as they begin to fill your days.
Your youthful ambitions still here in many ways.
Still clinging to you through those memories of yesteryear.
Captured in your childish smile radiating so clear.

alright kid, listen up. They’ve been calling you ****** for too long. Ignoring your humanity for too long. The first thing you need to do is study up on your state’s gun laws. Waiting period? Hand guns? Age restrictions? You might be from the south - in which case you are in luck. A neighbor will have a rifle or shotgun, probably not locked away too well either. If you still can’t get your hands on a piece there is always the gun show loophole. Everything is legal if you buy it at a gun show. Now you’ve got your hands on a weapon you’re going to need some ammo. How mad are you? Remember to account for human error. Now you need to work on concealment. They’ll see the weird little *** with a cop killer from a mile away. Trench coats don’t work. Who the hell wears trench coats nowadays, you’ve gotta think. The night before you should sketch out a birds eye floor plan of the school. Mark the exits and choke points. You’ve seen 300 right? Make sure to leave a copy of your manifesto for a perfect utopia on your bedside and eat a good dinner. Get your eight hours. Tomorrow is the big day. Getting shot only hurts for the seconds it takes you to hit the ground.

The school yard was quiet. First period slowly meandering along. Outside the sky is grey and the birds perch atop telephone lines in judgement. It goes Bang, Bang, and Bang then silence. Then screaming. Ears ringing and sweat dripping.

This just in. A shooting at could’ve been you high school has left thirteen dead and six injured. Let’s shove the camera in their face and ask them to relive how awful it all was. That’ll get ratings for sure. The shooter was sixteen year old could be the weird kid in your neighborhood. He got a gun from insert political belief here and brought it to school that morning. He opened fire in the middle of shut up and listen class. Now we are going to show you every page of his crazed manifesto on repeat for the rest of day. You can also find it online on our website or on Amazon.

Death came quicker than he thought it would. Suicide by a police officer is honestly very efficient. with each bullet unloaded on him it was like slipping into a dream. No more eating lunch alone with his crippling social anxiety. No more name calling. No more absentee parents. No more PE classes getting hammered in touch football. No more loneliness or anonymity. At least now they would all remember his name. The feeling of getting punched in the chest and the taste of iron on his lips were his best memory to date. Darkness now.

We make monsters
and don’t go to their funerals
everybody living with survivors guilt
I was never mean to him
who saw that coming?
everybody wants love
but nobody wants to give it
so instead we capitalize on tragedy
and lament our own foolish ways
too little way too ******* late

I'm sorry for not being here
My dear and faithful friends
I'm trying to make time
Do you have some you could lend?
Just address it to my homepage
An attachment you can send
I will use it wisely... I WILL READ!

The End

Disown.
You throw the word around,
like you understand it -
like you truly think you are the one
who has been disowned.
My life has been unimportant,
           I have been neglected,
deemed not good enough.
Why is it that you resent me
when I was the one disowned
by you,
           my father -  someone who is supposed to love me,
   but instead
left me.

I'm picking up pieces of something
that doesn’t exist.

So don’t dare
let the word ‘disown’ slip out of your mouth,
unless you are apologizing
for what you’ve done
to me.

Try your best to escape and free
Your mind is not your identity
Your genetics, your family tree
Your looking glass eyes can see
Through the window an fatefully
Change your perception of reality
And redefine who you are to be

My new persona is in a coma down in Barcelona
Now I'm Jonah in love with Mona from Arizona
Drinking corona with Fiona in the streets of Verona

Creativity is a proclivity that unshackles our identity free
Journey with me far from the vast sea of mental captivity
Exclusivity of proactivity creates a glorious life of festivity

Consent to your dreams to the absolute umpteenth degree
Augment your schemes and forget about the no guarantee
Reinvent thee extremes, and you will never be a life absentee

Remember as you read that we are all connected eternally
On this marble together spinning we are all just guests
Wandering around trying to solve our personal quests
Humans being we happened to be, but only temporarily

May as well attempt and squeeze life to death and manifest
All your aspirations and ambitions should be put to the test
All so blessed with a mind, and a beating heart in our chest
So why not invest the rest of our time to aspire to be the best

In the city that never sleeps
Nobody has time to dream

No one cares for the color scheme
Everybody on these streets are mean
Women over here dress to ****

Yearning for a life to steal
Outrageous trigger happy police
Ruthless, spiteful and rigorous
Kindness comes fatally priced

No time for love or paradise  
Obsessive depression is what's subsidised
Beggars on my train struggle and scuffle
Oblivious oppression lurking
Delirious children deceived  
Yesterday's conception grieved

Craving lust is a must
Ageless shame is  
Rationalized pain
Everyone here idealizes blame
S*erenity is an absentee in this chaotic city

My hard boiled brain just don’t connect
The world I try to sense and see
This patch of light I can’t reflect

Fractions of my imagination collect
A soupy spongy murky sea
My hard boiled brain just don’t connect

Stand my guard and take effect
The menace yet to be
This patch of light I can’t reflect

Beat my chest and then protect
Walls of chain and sorcery
My hard boiled brain just don’t connect

Take flight now child and dilute my respect
Branch out from your bonsai tree
This patch of light I can’t reflect

But all these flaws I reelect
From a ballot absentee
My hard boiled brain just don’t connect
This patch of light I can’t reflect

It might be the pungent steam from a ***
steeping herbs meant to bend its sippers'
minds to potent effect, or an unanticipated
digestive reckoning from that mawkishly flavored
brand of store-bought paste they pass as butter.

However the dough arises, their collective
recollection of storied events, lengthwise sliced
and ritually rehearsed, hops facilely on the ****
of a bucking and overtly nonsensical wind.

Tea parties with slippery perspectives
have been shown quite clinically to induce
heightened sensitivity in participants,
so it's prudent to set about tidying the facts:

The hatter, it's become clear, shifted one place
too many and disappeared with a trace -- leaving
behind his hat to nobody's great advantage.
Lacking a wearer, the headgear's reputation for
producing madness has rapidly diminished.

The march hare pulls off his change in a very
separate and seasonal way: the bunny's
bottom half somersaults its top to occupy
both his spot and the hatter's vacated seat.

The dormouse upon its latest arousal
is re-visioned to be small, but not much mouse
at all. He's plush with the long-in-the-ear habit
of a pink stuffed rabbit, which the crusading hare
furiously declares is most curious, casting
doubt on the vermin's commitment to "no room."

Alice remains foremost in tact and is given
a bonus of two spare feet complete with slackened
bootstraps. She keeps them and her other luxury
items well-sheltered behind a stout table leg.

The absentee hatter doesn't dare shame her
with a radio-show call-in decrying
the waste. She's generously agreed to
cover the medical expenses from his firm flop.

Your words---love , deserve, forever---
Cling to my skin
Like clothes sopping wet,
******* futilely at my neck,
Impossible to shelter from
The torrential nature
Of your need

Your need,
Like the clamoring cries of an infant,
Screechy, demanding,
Hanging helplessly on my arms,
You pine for affection
From this absentee mother figure;
Futility resurfaces.

I feel the weight of you,
Pressing on my chest:
The crushing force of responsibility,
Of dedication, of obligation eternal.
I have written nothing
Since your frigid winter crept into my home
And ravaged my bed, my body, my dreams.
You created my hollow life.

You carved your name
Into my tender wrists
With teeth honed to knives
And fingernails like acid;
You seared it with a kiss,
Poured your toxin in my veins,
Planted rue in my garden.
Ruined.
Never before have I wished more
For death's swift embrace
Than when I hear
My name in your mouth.

I find questions to the answers damning;
They quote the darkest volumes,
And speak in whispered tones
That haunt my mind with lemmings.
Thrilling chills reverberate
Throughout my spine, intoxicating
The superfluous influx of aeon.
In Elysium I await.
Forgotten songbirds’ melodies
Are ripe within their own stages,
However, the message behind their incantations,
Mocks the frigid winds of change.
Apologetic reverences deny the peaceful hum
Of every ***** and flute of desire
And of all the lyres to be strummed.
Stumbling upon a corpse of old,
Necrosis doth eat away,
Putridity and phobia have at last been lead astray,
Maggots upon maggots, an **** of disease,
Now struggle for control here,
In the epitome of our dying age.
The eyes that once saw hope,
And the heart that once felt love,
Our absentee in place of rot,
And are swapped with rustic carrion.
The dismal breeze that flow
Swiftly under the crest of raven-wing,
Solidify bones as well as the toxins that
Cryptically burn and sting.
A creation of mass panic, euphoria
Are bound to allow riot’s treason,
A repentance of nostalgia
For uncountable reasons.
Alas, we have but come close enough to success,
To amount in a drowning of failure,
To kiss the shores of dreams come true,
And to be denied of those dreams’ savior.

it’s all a lie, how i say i’m
a writer; i’m a fraud, and none of it is
mine. my pieces are edited over and
over, occasionally by those who’re
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
but i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.


    my first real crime: i applied for a writing course-- i guess stanford didn’t see how my fiction wasn’t just me, and it was jenny, my good friend jenny who edited this piece-- made it worthy of  praise, worthy of pride, worthy of
stanford.
i remember that morning, a sunday in may, my phone waking me in vexation, and with a grudge i pick it up, reading jenny, my good friend jenny say: cher, i got in, i ****** got in, check your god ****** email. now.

congratula

  *******, i can only internally scream, it’s
all a lie.
    i’m not who they think  am, i’m
a fraud, a really good
fraud, a fraud who
deceived not only stanford but also
       themselves, a fraud with
too much pride     so they
forced themselves to apply. i don’t deserve
any of this, at all. i faked my skills, my
     piece isn’t mine, it’s all a lie, i’m not
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
cause i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.


     and another time: on the flight to san francisco, it sank in-- how i’d be stretched thin, pretending and acting and deceiving a professor, a real stanford professor, how there was no way in hell i’d be nearly as good, i was misunderstood cause i wasn’t anybody, you see, i’m just me; a sad, short, fool; like i was once again the sad and  anxious kid alone in
preschool.
then in a blur, i’m checking in, these students sitting here all assured and then there’s me, o me, about to be marked as an absentee because apparently they see me as an equal, an equal who was at the very least
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
but i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.


this is insane,
i can’t stay in this house full of writing
   students, they’re almost like mutants,
writers are an absolutely crazy
lot, they’ll give me  a blood clot and
whatnot. well, maybe the expository bunch
will be alright, but that’s just a hunch. my
concern is with the creative crew,
         cause everyone knows the
            most catastrophic murders are
creative.  they know no bounds, they’ll write
whatever to the grave, their poetry so sharp
it could ****, and i know,
just from looking at them that, well,
i’m *******, cause i’m not at all
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
and i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.



     and now a paradigm: i’m in class, my first class with twelve others, and next to me, my friend jenny, my good friend jenny, sat quietly, and in my chair i’m in internal warfare-- my head reeling, face flushing, all sorts of anxious feelings. so we’re waiting for the prof, and the moment he shows up i’m about to throw up because i know i’ll make myself out to be the weakling, the pleb, the imbecile amongst the others and i feel like a criminal. matthew, the prof, gives us five minutes to write, and all i could write was a pathetic seventeen syllables, and it truly was terrible, something like:

we are born as light
and struggle not to drown in dark
but it’s all for naught

  and i clearly remember his face, that expression showing subtly that i was a disgrace when i recited that haiku, and i felt as if that that was my cue; to leave, that is, but i couldn’t. and so i sat in class for the next three hours hanging my head in shame, because i knew that i wasn’t
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
and i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.

it all makes sense after a beer and a whiskey, honestly, as honest as is this statement, i'm only a misogynist with regards to white girls, who i find so, so adequate for feministic fickleness that they could never produce 1 billion blue indians or 1 billion chinese.

i tell you how it started, i was at university,
first year i met this french psychology exchange
student, she was older than me,
she got drunk at one party and crawled into my bed,
when i climbed and felt frisky,
she just told me to put a ****** on,
prior to she was stiff watching some cartoon
by studio ghibli, man i was young and frisky
about loose the white of virginity and enter
the blackness of personal psychologies
passing via the rainbow of the visible world,
it didn't work out with isabel, we climbed
arthur's seat and took a picture
while she scolded me for napoleon
and the duchy of warsaw as the re-emergence
of poland but missed marquis de sade's picture
hanging on the wall... who's sick then,
the one who pleases the many or the one who
displeases a few?
plato's picture also hanged on the wall...
she was oblivious to the fact that an 8 year old
child can be categorised as a native speaker,
because that's when i started my anglo oral examination
to speak it.
later i spotted her after my first session with a bottle
of whiskey in lycra, going to the initiation ceremony
for the lacrosse team... i never joined... i just puked
into a bucket.
you never realise that when people label themselves:
i'm an atheist... i'm a christian... i'm a muslim...
i'm agnostic... you see the labels... you see how
they rememeber of themselves in terms of nanometres?
they kept their memory very cancerous...
the proto-socratic maxim in modern times
stands as: remember yourself, knowing nothing
is worth the existence of an encyclopedia -
feel and make the facts absentee...
just remember yourself as some point in your life
to re- re- repeat yourself so i can known you
as i can know myself, just so we can interact
like in a school playground... if you don't...
forget it... stay with your ***** **** stiches of a partner
and tell me whether your children got an a at a-level.
so he told me about her eagerness for *** with
strangers... she was apparently abducted...
so he told me he ****** her... believing him...
not getting enough... i went to a brothel in my second year,
and i didn't really understand the emotions of
someone who's ~******* outside a brothel,
well she really did let that one rip among one of the
major proofs of solispsism: someone farted in a crowded
space and appreciated by himself alone,
all the perfume companies who even hired
the best chemists could produce the scent of solipsism,
therefore the proof of solipsism: we appreciate our own
but loath the ****-burp of others; hey, i just took
all the theories of existentialism into hades via ****.
but that's the thing - back when darwinism was
active, active enough to build pyramids, motto active:
strength multiplied by ****... back then...
chaos known as god entered and said this that
and the other... we can now say democracy is safe...
demo tapes everywhere, half complete scripts...
but the limit of democracy comes when
you start to disagree with yourself... that's the limit...
obviously a high proportion of people
succumbed to the democratic weakness
and started to disagree with themselves or
the ontological starting point and ventured into
ethical questions to give birth to conscience...
first year was magical, second year had a highlight
where me and this guy played golf on the street
with glasses, smashing them next to a graveyard...
about a dozen jewish couples got married
when we took over stomping the glass with golf sticks...
so it's like this, make memory as selective as nature is,
as bizarre as the colour of magpies and parrots...
plus... you wouldn't get existentialism
if you changed the cartesian expression that
thought precipitates into existence...
sarte's explanation that existence comes prior to essence
is true, he stresses the essence: i think,
but existence doesn't really precipitate into thought,
because then we're all analogue: god doesn't exist
because of such and such parasite...
this world is beautiful but harsh, but with harshness
comes adventure and with beauty laziness...
what's crucial is to curb the precipitation of thought
into existence... unless you innovate and materialise
a telescope or paracetamol... for the majority of us
the one thing guiding us is not res cogitans,
but res vanus... not the thinking thing, but the empty thing,
and the empty thing is primarily filled
with the first linear association, thought, and later
being - which is why most of us think about being millionaires
but never are... and therefore create the lottery,
then we put our thinking into to being millionaires
as a mere chance, luck... which is really emotionally debilitating.
i agree... an unjust world of freedom with a just god
who's whimsical existence has freedom like ours...
rather than a just world of slavery with an unjust
god who plays us like puppets;
go on, complain... but that's hardly a logic i wish i could
understand like 1 + 1.

With the buzz words, "the starving strive," there's no ****** to tilt the pain of not choosing to live life with blind eyes. Even the meek survive is inscribed, each inner-lip that spells out love is just another disgrace four-letter word of a four-letter cause. The environment we live is mocked and shaken to the core, what is this, "One Life To Live?" It's not one day at a time, it's day in day out, sit straight up, you can't just observe. As I choke from swearing, it's curse words that ring bigger than my mouth, I prefer to leave my pants off just get some head, choosing cuddling for grammar wars that then go on eating out. My prayer life is just another absentee ballot with full circles voided, I'm on my knees each morning and night, but I can't figure out when I'm going to start saying the right words. The horror of the story of being a kid, living life as a child has come and passed, I went from eating cereal with orange juice and Chocolate Nesquick, to stereotyping heavy metal to passing grass without letting the teacher's snoop in and find out. I listened to Paranoid, Parabol, Tool, Marilyn Manson, Black Sabbath, and the Irresponsible Hate Anthem, we wore our shirts inside-out, until we got a block away, then flipped the tags and turned our shirts right-side out. I couldn't mentally prepare for loss, ACT scores, or four years away bottoming out. I just jumped on my V-Card, grabbed a hot girl and took to the forest to get my card punched out. I sat on the back of the bus but not because I was cool, I just wanted to distance myself from any other kids that would try to ask me anything, and hide behind the seat in order to try and skip school. I'm fifteen, Dad bought me a suit for job interviews but its funerals I'm using it for, my best friend's Dad died on Christmas Day, but we were getting high and tripping too. One week later my Uncle is learning from Smith & Wesson, except it's footsie he's playing with his big toe, and it's his head that's learning the lesson. Four days pass and Joey used red rope licorice for tie a noose from his fan, two hours later, I hear about a guy falling 48 stories, but the truth is it's my Cousin Stan. Whether they die in a box or shooting up on the bathroom floor, I get tired of wearing my Summer-suit on Sunday afternoons in winter on the way to the funeral parlor. Closed-casket, national anthem, an equilateral flag placed over the grave. This wasn't the first time, it was the fifth, but the **** is I'm just in the 10th grade. There is no variable, to taking breaths, but the lungs give up trying to breathe in, especially when you're dead. The mental anguish subsides with cigarettes and coffee, but the look on their parent's face every single time I'm there, it will always haunt me.

I miss you. I am not thinking of you.
It's not at all painful for me to think of you
So much.