I know what you were expecting.

You can’t remember the last time you met my eyes.
I can’t remember the last time I believed a word
Out of my own mouth.

I shivered in the dark and you thought I was crying.

You held my hand in the car.
Just to keep me upright I was drunk and
Stumbling I was so ******* angry
At you and everyone else.

I forgot what listening to music alone felt like.

I forgot how we are the mistakes we make
More than the questions that come later.

“It really is,” I whispered, “It really is a beautiful world."


     “This really doesn’t feel safe,” Jamie said, her voice holding just a hint of fear. She was probably right. By anyone’s standards, this was straight up stupid, and here I had convinced her to come along with me.
     “Nah it’s totally fine. I wouldn’t do anything to put you in too much danger.” I said this without a hint of doubt in my voice, confident as usual. I had to keep the fearless and confident image or she might change her mind. I hoped the risk would be worth it in the end, but I couldn’t really be sure. How could I know unless I tried? If I didn’t try, I would just be left wondering how great it might have been.
     “We are really freaking high.” This time Jamie said it deadpan, more of an emotionless observation than anything else. Again, she was right. I looked down the long white ladder past her. It was probably 80 yards to the ground from where we were. Above us was another 20 yards of ladder, leading up to a narrow platform. We were climbing a water tower. The platform above us circled around the tower just below where it began to bulge outward into a spherical shape at the top. There was no safety cage around us, nothing to break our fall except for the climbing harnesses we wore. Each harness had two straps, each with a clip on the end. One clip would be snapped onto the first rung, then the next clip to the second, and so forth until we reached the top. It wasn’t fool proof but it was better than nothing.
     “But seriously my hands are getting tired. How much further is it?” Jamie was great, but complaining was one of her most annoying flaws. Most people wouldn’t have made it this far anyway. The fact that she had was just a testament to the athleticism and strength she had underneath all that complaining.
     “Close. Maybe fifty rungs. Hang on for another five minutes and we can sit down and rest.” Yet again she was right. My hands and forearms were burning like crazy. I had long ago learned that climbing with gloves on a slick painted surface was asking for trouble, so today we had no protection from the narrow rungs pressing into our skin.
     For the next fifty rungs, the only sound I could hear above my heavy breathing was the clink and snap as each clip was removed and replaced. It was surprisingly calm this evening, the sun not quite finished slipping below the horizon. It was late August, so the temperature was still somewhere in the 70s this time of day. The backpack on my back seemed to get heavier and heavier the higher we went. I could feel the straps digging into my shoulders and trying to tip me over backwards. This bag was far too big for what I was doing, but I needed some way to bring a sleeping bag and blanket up. Finally, my hand left the last rung and found the top of the steel platform. I unclipped from the last rung and snapped on to the hand rail that went around the outside edge before I reached down to take Jamie’s hand.
     “Thank you sir,” she said, “I see chivalry is not dead.” Her hand brushed a few loose strands of long blonde hair out of her face as she stood upright next to me, looking out over the edge.
     “Ok, you were right. This is worth it.” She said in a matter of fact tone. I laughed softly.
     “This isn’t actually what we came for,” I said with a grin, “We aren’t done climbing yet. I just didn’t think you would actually come if I told you how far we were going. But the view is really nice here.”
     “You can’t be serious. I didn’t see anything going up any further.” She sounded rather incredulous.
     “We have to follow this platform around to the other side. There is a set of stairs going up to the very top. At least it isn’t another ladder.” I tried to sound confident, like it had already been decided that we would go on, but I couldn’t stop a tiny bit of a pleading tone from leaking in. I knew there was a small chance that she would want to stop here, but I also knew that going just a bit further would be completely worth it. I had scoped this tower out from the ground several times, using my trusty binoculars that I bargained for at a neighbor’s yard sale. When I discovered the stairs going up past the platform, I used an online satellite map to take a peek at the very top of the tower. From what I had been able to tell, at the very top there was a completely level platform, twelve to fifteen feet in diameter, with a secure looking rail around it. Amazing what a person can find online.
     My hope was to spend the night on that platform, hence the sleeping bag and blanket in my massive backpack. Tonight was supposed to be the brightest and most active meteor shower of the year in North America and the weather had decided to be kind to us star gazers, leaving a clear and cloudless sky for the evening. It would be perfect. Perfect if Jamie would go along with it, that is.
     “You are the worst kind of person,” she said. She wasn’t facing me so I couldn’t really tell how she felt about it. Finally she turned around and rolled her eyes. “Ohhhkaaaay. Let’s go. We’ve already gone this far.” She was used to situations like this. I was the one who always wanted to push the limits, go a little further, risk just a bit more, and she was the one who always asked me to reconsider and then went along with it anyway. I always felt bad for a little while, but I got over it pretty quick. It’s not like she didn’t know me well.
     “You are the best kind of person,” I said with a wink and a grin, “But let’s rest for a bit. My arms are tired now.” We sat down and I took off my backpack, setting it on the platform beside me, digging through a side pocket. I pulled out two bottles of water and a box of Poptarts.
     “Poptart?” I offered, “Snack of champions. All the professional water tower climbers eat them I heard.”
     “How are you not fat,” she replied, taking a delicious cherry snack from the silver wrapper. It wasn’t a question really, it was more a running joke between her and I about how much I should actually weigh. She’d usually joke that one day all the junk I eat would hit me at once and I would wake up weighing 400 pounds. Even though she joked, she wasn’t beyond being bitter about my eating habits since she worked hard to keep a perfect physique.
     Next I pulled out two plain white pieces of paper and handed one to her. I began folding mine delicately into the perfect paper airplane, using the flat section of the water tower for some of the more delicate creases.
     “I don’t know why I hang out with you. You are literally so freaking weird. Like who the hell would bring paper up the side of a water tower just to make a paper airplane.” She laughed even as she criticized. I knew she didn’t really mind. She had on multiple occasions told me that my “quirkiness” as she put it definitely made me more interesting to be around. I guess I was a little odd, but I didn’t really think that was a bad thing. I did what I thought to be amusing or entertaining. It wasn’t my fault the rest of the world didn’t seem to feel quite the same way about life.
     “In fifty years don’t you want to be able to set your grandchild on your lap and tell them all about the time you tossed a paper airplane off the side of a water tower? Grandkids don’t want to hear boring stories. I would know. I was a grandkid once.” Jamie just shook her head with a grin and started folding her airplane. Mine was finished and ready to be launched into the great unknown.
     “This is Air Farce One to ground station Loser, requesting permission to take off.” I did my best Top Gun impression, trying to remember how cool Tom Cruise sounded when he said it.
     “This is ground station Awesome to Air Farce One. Ground station Loser could not be located but we can go ahead and give you permission to launch. Have a nice flight.” Jamie still had at least a little bit of a child left in her. I tossed my paper airplane over the side, watching it glide several hundred yards before landing in the low branches of a tree. Mission complete.
     “What perfect throwing form you have,” Jamie said sarcastically, "You were probably one of those nerds who just made paper airplanes in class all day as a kid." Ouch. Yea, that had been me. Jamie wound up and threw her airplane with all her strength. She had made more of a dart than a glider and it flew fast, eventually landing in a tree considerably further than mine had.
     “You win this round,” I said with mock disgust, only barely able to hide a smile, “Let’s keep going.” I removed my clips from the rail and began walking along the platform. The bulb at the top of the tower was much bigger than it looked from the ground. I could just imagine the thousands of gallons of water above and beside me.
     Eventually we reached the stairs. It was nice of the designers to have taken pity on the poor inspectors who had to climb this far up. A ladder going around the outside of the bulb would have been terrifying. The stairs curling around the side felt much more secure. Reaching the top, there was a narrow platform leading from the edge of the bulb where the stairs ended to the flat space in the center of the tower. There was only a handrail on the left side so Jamie and I were sure to snap our harnesses on. The sun had almost fully set by now, the last tendrils of light just enough to see by as we made our way to the center.
     “Okay this is cool. You know what we should have done? We totally should have brought an air mattress up here and slept or something,” Jamie thought aloud. “I’ll bet the stars look amazing from here. Oh and look you can already see the city lights over there!” I loved seeing her excited. She would take one hand and play with her hair while the other would point at things. It was kind of weird when I thought about it, how she always pointed at things when she was excited. But that was just Jamie being Jamie.
     “You read my mind.” I pulled the sleeping bag and blanket out of the backpack and laid them on the flat steel. I probably should have realized how cold that steel was going to be. Oh well.
     “We are so in sync right now,” Jamie laughed. “This is awesome. You were right.”
     “Wait so what did you think was in the bag?” I asked. She hadn’t mentioned it before and I never said anything about it.
     “Honestly I thought it was a parachute or some **** and you were going to try jumping off the edge,” she laughed, “I would have tried to stop you but I decided I really won’t feel guilty when you die doing something stupid.”
     “Brilliant!” I exclaimed, “I am so going to try that next time!” I wouldn’t really. I liked doing risky things, but I wasn’t suicidal. We spent the next few minutes getting the sleeping bag and blanket situated. I loved the fact that Jamie could be spontaneous sometimes and that she was totally okay with just camping out on top of a random water tower on a Wednesday night. How many people in the world would have been okay with that? I was lucky to have her as a friend.
     We had everything settled by the time darkness fell completely. The climbing harnesses had been stuffed into the backpack and the backpack had been strapped to the railing on the side of the platform. With the sleeping bag laid completely open, there was still at least five or six feet of open platform on all sides of us. It felt secure enough.
     “I also forgot to mention that tonight is a huge meteor shower.” Jamie and I were on our backs, looking up at the infinite blackness.
     “I love shooting stars.” She said softly. Her eyes were wide and I could see her making fake mustaches out of her hair. She had kicked off her shoes and socks and was wiggling her toes in the night air. There was only a sliver of moon, just bright enough that I could see the glow of it on her cheeks.
     “It makes me feel small,” Jamie whispered, “I feel like that should bother me, feeling small, but it doesn’t. It’s weird because it’s almost comforting to me. Here I am, this tiny speck of dust, floating around on a larger speck of dust in the middle of infinity.” She wasn’t usually one to enjoy philosophy, but on the rare occasions she spoke like that, her point of view and opinions usually inspired me. She had a beautiful mind. She just didn’t often care to open up and share it like this.
“It makes me feel like it can’t all be an accident. Some people say that we got here through a series of random and fortunate events, that there is no great plan or design. But I just don’t see how that can be. How can mere chance create something like this? Of all the possibilities, of the infinite infinite possibilities, I just can’t believe that people, that you and I or anyone else were put here by accident. I don’t think that life could be an accident.” She spoke softly the whole time. Her voice never raised or quickened. Words seemed to flow forth effortlessly, as if this all were prepared and practiced. She was able to speak without doubt or hesitation, with such certainty that even the greatest cynic might have stopped to listen.
     She continued on, weaving words as though spells, playing ideas as though harp strings. She talked about her life, telling me things she never had before, teaching me things even I didn’t know. Jamie didn’t seem to be Jamie for the next while. Instead, she seemed to have become a font of wisdom, ideas, and genius. At least, that is how I saw her. She was able to take a single idea, and examine it from all perspectives. It was as though she held it in her palm, slowly rotating it to peer closer. She made connections that I had never thought of, inspiring me to think even deeper, loving the moment. All the while she lay there, watching the stars, wiggling her toes, and making pretend mustaches out of that long blonde hair. Eventually, she turned silent.
     “But what if it is an accident?” I said. My voice was unusually soft. “What if it was all an accident? What if there is no plan, no fate, and no reason for anything? What if there is no beginning or end and we are just insignificant bits of space dust? The idea of it not being an accident just seems so conveniently comforting, almost too convenient.” Jamie was silent after I finished. My heart was beating fast and my mind was alive. I didn’t feel close to being tired.
     “So what if it is,” she said eventually, “What difference does it make? Even if it is all an accident. Even if there is no meaning to life at all, it seems like a beautiful accident to me. Here we are, you and I, able to share this with each other. That seems like a beautiful accident to me. Here is this great big world, all the adventure, all the excitement, and all the love that it is filled with. That seems like a beautiful accident to me. Here is this infinitely huge sky, filled with stars that are incomprehensibly far away. If this is all an accident, it is the most beautiful I can imagine.” She paused for a while longer. “I feel that whatever you believe, it doesn’t really matter. Perhaps you believe there is a supreme design and plan, or maybe you believe that life is an accident filled with chaos. It doesn’t matter. We all live in the same world. We all see the same beautiful sights, we are surrounded by it. It is only our perception of it that differs. I choose to believe that such an incredibly beautiful world cannot be an accident.”
     I was quiet for a long time. Jamie had, for all intents and purposes, rocked my world. Hers was a perspective I had never thought of before. I, who believed I had thought it through from every angle. I, who believed myself smarter than the world. I realized then, at that moment, laying on the top of a water tower in late August watching a meteor shower, that maybe I was not a genius. Maybe I did not have the world figured out like I had believed. Maybe, just maybe, I was just a cynic; a cynic blinded by the misfortunes I had seen and suffered; a cynic disappointed in a world that had not treated me well.
     Jamie took my hand in hers, interlocking her slender fingers within my larger ones. She turned her head to the side and looked at me, still sporting a fake mustache. The sliver of moon was reflected in her eyes just so that I could not really look into them. Her lips were curled into just the slightes

My hands are pressed gently into his palms. His fingers are running over the gaps between my knuckles and are folding down and along each crease like a little boy bent over a desk in the back of the classroom concentrating on making a paper airplane out of yesterday’s homework. I half-expect someone to tap my shoulder and say, “Are you paying attention?” No, not really. I am focused on the way his lips are moving a fraction of a second out of time with the faint country song we hear playing from outside. I begin to sing too. Half way into the second verse, his eyes meet mine again. He takes my aircraft hands and leads me to the middle of the living room. The overhead fan gazes at us. I feel the paper airplanes inside of my chest swirl. We are swaying. My arms are draped over his tired shoulders and his are encircling my lower back. I see that his shoelace is untied. I am leaning my weight against his chest, balancing on my tiptoes. I do not tell him I can feel his heart beating. I look up at him again. He is already staring. I notice a subtle pink in his cheeks. I do not realize until now that my lips are only inches from his, the gap between them begging to be closed. So we close it. I fold into him like creased paper waiting to be flown. Someone opens the door. She says, “The song stopped playing. Are you even paying attention?” I speak up and say, “No, not really.”

I thought about this and around this for a long time, so I guess it's time to write it down.

THE NATURAL ORDER.

There is a natural balance in Earths history and mankind's tentative balance along the scale.
  When humans began to band together and create communities, control of fire / light created a need for oil . Eventually settling on whale oil.
   So it was by the grace of whatever one might want to attribute it to,that let petroleum come into play at a time when whales are in danger of being annihilated and dead horses were clogging the streets of cities in the east, left dead or dying by the Cartmen who simply unstrapped the sick or dead animal and moved on.
  .Oil / petroleum led to the creation of the internal combustion engine.
   So again a hand stirred the ***.                
  Consider these improvements( if such they were )created rapid growth and burgeoning cities . Again Providence stepped in to create radio , telephone and airplanes, essentially at a time when growth of humanity was so great , that new ways of farming , new ways of seeing the world-  were  becoming more and more necessary to a shrinking world.
   Unfortunately, at a time when we, the American initiative creators of so many trends, ideas ,Innovations and inspirations around the world, were suddenly slammed a blow that at this point, 40 years later; it's very reverberations are still being felt.
   Consider if big oil and trickle-down had not ,for spiteful and greedy involution, taken down the solar panels from the White House roof, that Jimmy Carter had installed in 1977.
  How far ahead would we be now ,in clean energy and how much less damage to the ice cap and the atmosphere would have been done??  To date... my guess is that it is incomprehensible.
  So if nature does create a balance, it seems we are coming to a critical Junction.

Right now -metaphorically speaking- we are riding shotgun in a car with a driver ,who like us ,sees cars up ahead disappearing around the curve and all hitting  their brake lights. Now any reasonable driver at highway speeds is 65 - 80 miles an hour would at least take the foot off the gas in preparation of  tapping the brakes.
  So many politicians right now are refusing to accept the brake lights... see no reason to tap the brakes to interrupt cruise control, in all actuality, completely refusing to do anything except go around the curve at full speed.
   Around that curve we may find nothing but smooth sailing ,  or we may find a catastrophe in the making.
   Nature will accept the cruise Interruption now (maybe) brakes absolutely, but Full Speed Ahead will lead to the sickening crunch of seawater rising and  spilling salt water into the lands that are used for growing crops and food -  leading to millions , maybe billions of refugees with nowhere to go.

Or we will reach critical mass of sheer ignorant arrogance and nuke ourselves into a situation that does not have the technology or population to hammer at the planet so freaking hard.

Most likely the first scenario would instigate the 2nd and those of us who crawl up out of the ashes will start the evolution to revolution journey all over again.

Ain't nature Grand ???

Your love for me
Lifts me like the air beneath these paper wings,
Soaring into the setting sun.

I fly to greater heights
Everyday and every night,
As long as I glide upon the current of you.

My flight makes your presence known;
The way I'm controlled by the direction I'm blown.
I ask send me soaring further into your arms.

And now there would come a time
a swift sharp clock on the bed
Blaring its little chime in between the hard bells
Like an angry little arm
Charming if not for the alarm

And everyday I slap the face of it
Like an unwanted *****
And she is silenced
Quick unlike
Said chick

But I am a cruel guy and have no sense of wet and dry
Nor cool or heat
There's nothing bothering me

Time just ticks off and I laugh at it

But my cells divide and turn into little old protoplasmic men
And yet I am not called upon them
Because they are stupidly designed and I have no sympathy for arts and crafts
No masterman
who failing to raise his hand
Clams up
With such poor artwork

Slap that ***** in the dilapidated sistan

Now In San Francisco
Where the alley streets stink of ***
And the European facades are just that
Crumbling
Poopy
And full of ****
And what yet are they dreaming to be?

The church that survived fire
Great conflagration
God didn't make a rainbow at the end of that,
Now did he?

He's a water-sign
Dolt
And water only jolts your mind
When it scatters true light,
Ain't that right?

But it's all the same
Just different hues
And the news
Isn't new
Just Blaring and yelling
And speeding television crews
Riding their stories
Up and down the many stories
Trying to build a city of angels
On a bituminous hill

Shills

No life skills

And I walk the city streets with a ugly old leather
Brief
Casing the joints and rolling my own
Unhappy and alone
Kerouac and the dreams on the monangular input where the triangular avenues meet
And he has no road

While airplanes shake their jets on the tarmac and trebuchet into the air
Going god knows where
Seeing a new piece of the sculpted pinball
Perpetually trapped in the machine

How bout Nippon
Or Hangujin
Or Han Chinese
Or Berlin
Anywhere but when
A little ways along the state
Of "in"

All these strange things

To be away in airplanes
where the blur between
the sky and the sea
is the most comforting place to be.
I'm sorry I can't be there.
You know that my insides
will press against my skin
harder and harder and
I will try to hold it all in.
But I burst apart, if I am to remain so still.
Maybe the day we stay, and remain,
the sun and the moon will collide.

You’re so close to the stars. i wonder if you can hear the secrets i told the constellations that one night i got lost on the roof trying to find my way without you. maybe you’ll get lost in the darkness up there and feel the way i feel when i get lonely sometimes. you’re going to cities I’ve never seen and you’ll be walking on roads my feet haven’t touched and in a way I’m jealous of the new air you get to breathe. the little intricate fibres that make up my lungs are burning with this constant northern oxygen I’ve been force feeding them. i wonder what its like to breath you in at 30, 000 ft above sea level going 600 miles per hour. i wonder if my lungs would burn out of blissful breathlessness for you. I wonder what jet lag looks when it's painted across your face. i hate being on planes, but I’m so curious about how tightly you’d let me hold your hand up there. until i met you i didn’t understand why people thought it would be so special to travel around the world with another person, because i’d always thought it would be better to be lost alone. but i get high off the thought of walking european streets with you.

Artificial wind
heard overhead; turbulent,
roaring, and distant.

SMOKE of the fields in spring is one,
Smoke of the leaves in autumn another.
Smoke of a steel-mill roof or a battleship funnel,
They all go up in a line with a smokestack,
Or they twist ... in the slow twist ... of the wind.
  
If the north wind comes they run to the south.
If the west wind comes they run to the east.
  By this sign
  all smokes
  know each other.
Smoke of the fields in spring and leaves in autumn,
Smoke of the finished steel, chilled and blue,
By the oath of work they swear: "I know you."
  
Hunted and hissed from the center
Deep down long ago when God made us over,
Deep down are the cinders we came from-
You and I and our heads of smoke.
  
Some of the smokes God dropped on the job
Cross on the sky and count our years
And sing in the secrets of our numbers;
Sing their dawns and sing their evenings,
Sing an old log-fire song:
  
You may put the damper up,
You may put the damper down,
The smoke goes up the chimney just the same.
  
Smoke of a city sunset skyline,
Smoke of a country dusk horizon-
  They cross on the sky and count our years.
  
Smoke of a brick-red dust
  Winds on a spiral
  Out of the stacks
For a hidden and glimpsing moon.
This, said the bar-iron shed to the blooming mill,
This is the slang of coal and steel.
The day-gang hands it to the night-gang,
The night-gang hands it back.
  
Stammer at the slang of this-
Let us understand half of it.
  In the rolling mills and sheet mills,
  In the harr and boom of the blast fires,
  The smoke changes its shadow
  And men change their shadow;
  A ******, a ***, a bohunk changes.
  
  A bar of steel-it is only
Smoke at the heart of it, smoke and the blood of a man.
A runner of fire ran in it, ran out, ran somewhere else,
And left-smoke and the blood of a man
And the finished steel, chilled and blue.
  
So fire runs in, runs out, runs somewhere else again,
And the bar of steel is a gun, a wheel, a nail, a shovel,
A rudder under the sea, a steering-gear in the sky;
And always dark in the heart and through it,
  Smoke and the blood of a man.
Pittsburg, Youngstown, Gary-they make their steel with men.
  
In the blood of men and the ink of chimneys
The smoke nights write their oaths:
Smoke into steel and blood into steel;
Homestead, Braddock, Birmingham, they make their steel with men.
Smoke and blood is the mix of steel.
  
  The birdmen drone
  in the blue; it is steel
  a motor sings and zooms.
  
Steel barb-wire around The Works.
Steel guns in the holsters of the guards at the gates of The Works.
Steel ore-boats bring the loads clawed from the earth by steel, lifted and lugged by arms of steel, sung on its way by the clanking clam-shells.
The runners now, the handlers now, are steel; they dig and clutch and haul; they hoist their automatic knuckles from job to job; they are steel making steel.
Fire and dust and air fight in the furnaces; the pour is timed, the billets wriggle; the clinkers are dumped:
Liners on the sea, skyscrapers on the land; diving steel in the sea, climbing steel in the sky.
  
Finders in the dark, you Steve with a dinner bucket, you Steve clumping in the dusk on the sidewalks with an evening paper for the woman and kids, you Steve with your head wondering where we all end up-
Finders in the dark, Steve: I hook my arm in cinder sleeves; we go down the street together; it is all the same to us; you Steve and the rest of us end on the same stars; we all wear a hat in hell together, in hell or heaven.
  
Smoke nights now, Steve.
Smoke, smoke, lost in the sieves of yesterday;
Dumped again to the scoops and hooks today.
Smoke like the clocks and whistles, always.
  Smoke nights now.
  To-morrow something else.
  
Luck moons come and go:
Five men swim in a *** of red steel.
Their bones are kneaded into the bread of steel:
Their bones are knocked into coils and anvils
And the ******* plungers of sea-fighting turbines.
Look for them in the woven frame of a wireless station.
So ghosts hide in steel like heavy-armed men in mirrors.
Peepers, skulkers-they shadow-dance in laughing tombs.
They are always there and they never answer.
  
One of them said: "I like my job, the company is good to me, America is a wonderful country."
One: "Jesus, my bones ache; the company is a liar; this is a free country, like hell."
One: "I got a girl, a peach; we save up and go on a farm and raise pigs and be the boss ourselves."
And the others were roughneck singers a long ways from home.
Look for them back of a steel vault door.
  
They laugh at the cost.
They lift the birdmen into the blue.
It is steel a motor sings and zooms.
  
In the subway plugs and drums,
In the slow hydraulic drills, in gumbo or gravel,
Under dynamo shafts in the webs of armature spiders,
They shadow-dance and laugh at the cost.
  
The ovens light a red dome.
Spools of fire wind and wind.
Quadrangles of crimson sputter.
The lashes of dying maroon let down.
Fire and wind wash out the ****.
Forever the **** gets washed in fire and wind.
The anthem learned by the steel is:
  Do this or go hungry.
Look for our rust on a plow.
Listen to us in a threshing-engine razz.
Look at our job in the running wagon wheat.
  
Fire and wind wash at the ****.
Box-cars, clocks, steam-shovels, churns, pistons, boilers, scissors-
Oh, the sleeping **** from the mountains, the ****-heavy pig-iron will go down many roads.
Men will stab and shoot with it, and make butter and tunnel rivers, and mow hay in swaths, and slit hogs and skin beeves, and steer airplanes across North America, Europe, Asia, round the world.
  
Hacked from a hard rock country, broken and baked in mills and smelters, the rusty dust waits
Till the clean hard weave of its atoms cripples and blunts the drills chewing a hole in it.
The steel of its plinths and flanges is reckoned, O God, in one-millionth of an inch.
  
Once when I saw the curves of fire, the rough scarf women dancing,
Dancing out of the flues and smoke-stacks-flying hair of fire, flying feet upside down;
Buckets and baskets of fire exploding and chortling, fire running wild out of the steady and fastened ovens;
Sparks cracking a harr-harr-huff from a solar-plexus of rock-ribs of the earth taking a laugh for themselves;
Ears and noses of fire, gibbering gorilla arms of fire, gold mud-pies, gold bird-wings, red jackets riding purple mules, scarlet autocrats tumbling from the humps of camels, assassinated czars straddling vermillion balloons;
I saw then the fires flash one by one: good-by: then smoke, smoke;
And in the screens the great sisters of night and cool stars, sitting women arranging their hair,
Waiting in the sky, waiting with slow easy eyes, waiting and half-murmuring:
  "Since you know all
  and I know nothing,
  tell me what I dreamed last night."
  
Pearl cobwebs in the windy rain,
in only a flicker of wind,
are caught and lost and never known again.
  
A pool of moonshine comes and waits,
but never waits long: the wind picks up
loose gold like this and is gone.
  
A bar of steel sleeps and looks slant-eyed
on the pearl cobwebs, the pools of moonshine;
sleeps slant-eyed a million years,
sleeps with a coat of rust, a vest of moths,
a shirt of gathering sod and loam.
  
The wind never bothers ... a bar of steel.
The wind picks only .. pearl cobwebs .. pools of moonshine.

When he was in second grade
He picked up one piece of paper.
And on it he drew a dinosaur
With a stubby green crayon.
And he handed it to his nanny
Who smiled and hung it
In a frame in his room
Where it protected his bed.
And just about every Sunday,
His dad took some paper
And creased its sides
With his sharp nail
Until it was a plane
That soared over their heads
And gleeful smiles.
And his father promised him
That every Sunday
They could fly their planes
In the front yard.

When he was in high school
He picked up one piece of paper
And on it he wrote his midterm
The morning it was due.
And he handed it to his teacher
Who frowned and vandalized it
With red dots and lines,
Criticizing his work,
Just like she always did.
And his father rubbed his shoulder
As he cried about the stress
He told his son not to worry
And to keep trying his best.
Then he picked up the paper
And creased its sides
With his sharp nail
Until it was a plane
That soared above their heads
And his son’s tear filled smile.

When he was in college
He picked up one piece of paper.
And on it he signed his name
Swearing that his behavior would get better.
And he handed it to his professor
Who scolded him once more
Saying that if it continued
He was guaranteed to fail.
And when the news reached his father,
He screamed at his failure son,
Which he had been doing a lot of recently.
And his son yelled back
While his words collided with his dad’s.
Because the screaming continued,
But the listening had never started.
Then the boy crumpled the paper
And slammed it to the ground
So there would be no planes
To soar above their heads
And their identical scowls.

When he was an adult
He picked up one piece of paper.
And wrote a proposal to his boss
While he sat in his office.
And as he went to deliver it,
He heard a frantic voice announce
A tragedy in New York.
And the news made him stop
Right there in his tracks
while he dropped to his knees.
And the office panicked
For the sake of their own safety.
But he only heaved in sorrow
Knowing his poor father
Who he hadn’t spoken to in years
Was on that plane
That had soared above people’s heads
And their frightful shouts
And crashed into the tower.

When he left home on Sunday
He picked up one piece of paper.
And on it he scribbled down
A eulogy for his father.
And he drove past his old front yard
Where many years ago
His imagination used to fly
Along with his paper airplanes.
And he arrived at the funeral
Where he delivered his speech
While the water sprung from his eyes,
Forming artwork on his cheeks.
But before they lowered the casket
he took his tear stained eulogy
and creased its sides
with his sharp nail
until it was a plane
that would rest on his father’s chest
and soar within their spirits.

Sweet Oriental Angels

with your cloth-thread harps

play your song on dizi flute and

mandolin echo soft

in the foreground

to the cruel industrial drum

of a new world.

This palace orchestra scrawled on scriptures

now a specter of labors

and dawns coated in smog.

I was a little girl once
lying back down on a scratchy old blanket
wishing on stars and listening
to coyotes howl at the moon.

Sometimes it's hard to know the difference
between a wish and a prayer
a hope and a dream
between life and loss.

You left at 11:23 at night
and by 12:02,
it was as if you had never been there.
I stripped the bed of its sheets
and left them to be washed,
I scrubbed the dishes you had used
and stacked them when they were dry.
I hid your hat that you had left
but I slipped on your shirt
and tried my hardest
not to inhale you.
I washed my body of your fingerprints
and my hair of your scent,
because if you couldn’t actually be here
I didn’t want to remember that you had been.

I hear planes taking off every half hour
and it reminds me of the way your heart beats when you kiss me.
I write poems in my head when your lips touch mine and silently write them down when you’re not looking,
because I would never want you to know
you’re my biggest muse,
I would never want you to know
you’re all I can think about.

I hate airplanes.
I hate them
More than
Anything
I've ever hated.

Except the flight
From Dulles
To Ft. Lauderdale.
I like that.

Especially at night
When it feels like
Stars
Can be caught with
A thin fishing line
Twenty feet away

And eventually you
Go off the mainland
And can't tell where
The water starts
Or
The stars stop.

Then you see a
Sudden line of lights below
And beyond that
An infinity of bright bursts
Of lights
And lamps.

All darkness,
Then suddenly
Light.

I really hate planes.

But not the flight
From Dulles
To Ft. Lauderdale
At night.
I love that.

That night, I stared at the night sky,
Soaked up the stars
Enough to form constellations of my own
And named them after you.

That is the thing about stars,
The more you look
The more you find.
Scars, alike.

Though, I am a novice
In the realm of
Pain and suffering,
I have already understood
The difference between
Papercuts and broken hearts
Chaining souls and holding hands
Flying paper airplanes and shooting darts
Abandonment and negligence.

And for once,
I want to believe in afterlives,
Wishing on shooting stars that are
Confused with fireflies,
If only it was as simple as
The art behind tracing your lips,
Falling asleep to the rhythm of your breath,
Your glinting eyes floating in pools of bliss.

But, we are more than music.
A noise
That beats in our ears;
A scream
That burns our throats.
Of Shattered vintage vases,
Wrecked ships
And sinking boats.

The bleeding has no bias
From the Congo to Dallas
The days of waiting, the Fever-soar
The African corpses were out

Of view, from the World’s eyes
If a sneeze can defile
Ebola can ride airplanes
Traverse Seas, all through

Your plastic gloves, your pores
Contagious still with death
Your fear may taste the curse
A thousand dead more, a common ache

The bleeding has no bias
Jesus will not bring you back from the Dead
We have to walk through Hell alone
They say, I have no more words

The bleeding has no bias
No funding, on protocol that works
The virus rages on, splitting old scars
Of what it means to be from the

Old continent, of what it means to be black
And the coughing up of more blood
Where paranoia and fear are conditions
As common as kindness and hospitality here

The panic of believing a silent enemy
Can catch you without you knowing
These are the days of waiting
These are when the numbers soar.

my mind is going crazy,can't stop thinking.words, phrases, sentences, thoughts, running threw my head. can't stop, my mind won't stop, life *****, work *****, bills ****. only stable thing is my life is crumbling,my empire wrecked. trains colliding, airplanes crashing, how do i stop this, how? it hurts, literally having chest pains, mind racing, heart beat pulsing, most excruciating pain imaginable to mankind...heartbreak.wheres my parachute?i'm falling.

Reservations wreck havoc on play things that believe that
Life is but a game
For there are greater powers around here
Cracks crease with an ease that seems surreal
But is very very real
Unfortunate sub-ordinates that smoke cigars as if they
Will never die
That they are immune to the illusion of man
Pages burn while buildings yearn
To take more lives slower and slower and slower
Friends were fiends before I got to them
Now they are friends who may seem fiends
Somedays
And friends of friends
Along the other ones
I'm sure they all do the same
Because thought is a wanderer which lingers
Smokes a cigarette
And flicks its ash on every corner of the brain
Making the membrane
Nothing but a litter box where felines deficate in
Corner curbed with the red lights always on
Remember when you wrote me that song?
An' right when you were about to sing
And I wished it and wished it and wished it
You said to me
"That is why I can't do in with it"
That is why you couldn't do in with it
You picked up your things
And walked on day the hall
Heart wood beating
In a crawl
I had no one
And neither
In the end
Do we all

I think I’m falling
With no parachute,
The wind is cutting me
Busting me in two.
When I hit solid ground
I’ll break to pieces,
Guts bursting, heart showing
Everything it releases.
I believe I’ll be fine
With falling so far,
Especially if falling
Takes me to where you are.

Let me replace the filth
with something more beautiful
(when i did it was peaceful)
I'd like to erase the guilt
but i can't
cause it's useful
and you
you're not truthful
at all
you're removable
and that's all that I need
to prove that I can move through it all
and thank god I learned fast
that you're not who I thought you were
cause there's better than you
everywhere that I've fallen
& even when I stand up
& dust off
I laugh at the silly stuff
when your words mean nothing
and everything turns back on
when I shut you off
& you were my rock
that I just threw down a mountain

They come amongst
a cacophony of noise
and clutter, little voices,
uttering unintelligible sounds,
amid giggles and laughter.
Sometimes it's pushing
and shoving,
"Mom he's touching me!"

Leaving as they go a trail,
of ever changing strange things,
like dropped Legos, paper airplanes
rubber band and old bent nails.

Once I found, to my otter amazement
A freshly dead intact Grasshopper,
Neatly folded up in brightly colored
Special Occasion Wrapping paper.
A gift no doubt from one of them,
left right out, on my Dinning Room Table.

Other times they emerge slow and stealthy
a  pair of Ninjas, all in black and scary.
Or as merely Batman and Robin,
Maybe Spidy and the Incredible Hulkster,
All of their personas assuredly entertaining.

As they barge through my door,
they tend to sing loud a lot,
True, squeaky, off key, yet sweetly.
Most are songs I've never heard,
Or just made up for the moment.

If I'm a little down, feeling kind of blue
five minutes with them is a sure cure
Funk gone in a flash, replaced by nothing
but happy.

Consummate story tellers they can be,
The nine year old should be the "Town Crier".
No news fit to print, ever went untold
from his lips, always relayed with such gusto.
Ask him a simple "How was your day?"
and he will recite 15 minutes of vivid detail,
all for my very delighted amused approval.

The six year old is sweet enough to eat,
Always bright blue eyes a flashing,
Not to be outdone, he will try his best,
to **** right in and share his days happenings.
Little brothers need always to try harder.

We all three laugh and joke,
and sometimes I break out,
the oh so dreaded "tickle fingers",
chase them all around 'till I catch one
and then for sure their screams of delight
and giggles do indeed fill up the room,
not to mention my old soft heart as well.
These little boys are pure magic.

Watching them thrive and grow, is my tonic.
A battery charger I can't get enough of.
Smart, charming, funny, sweet, cute and happy,
the loves of an old man's life. With them around,
who needs another.

They are a precious gifts from my kids, their
Mother and Father. Another chance to have
children close, be their loving guiding grandfather.

In them I see my son as a child, now a fine
grown man, In those boys I see the very
reason I was put on this Earth,
A life of human creation, come full circle.

Airplanes on a Still Day

(Two in One Hour)

The sound softens
Something inside my brain—
Tangible, hypnotic,
Remote and forgiving,
Like a little Buddha within,
Or flying this sound trail
Through the draftless heavens.

The tiny drone
Rids the world of
Human clatter and its rush.

As a child, I savored it inside,
A sliding down the spine
And into the heart and through me;
A reverse of the rush of wine.

Back then, it was unquestioned, enjoyed.
But fifty or more years later, I asked why.
Time moved by and left no answer.
Nothing but a spring-like stillness aloft,
Unbound by seasons below.

But as I relished that sound this afternoon,
I felt the sense of spring again
In that aimless hum.
And knew at last why pilots sailed
In any weather, in crystalline air.

Up there, it was always spring,
Always sweet and calm
With promise;
A miracle that they ever descend!

If silence had a sound
Or utter calm
Were an elixir,
This would be its form.

Does a wish even mean anything anymore?

It seems that people wish and wish and wish,
More each day and day and day.

But they don’t receive any of their wishes, just more days.
It seems like it’s impossible for a wish to come true anymore.
I’m sitting here in this room and I’m surrounded by is troubled memories.
All these troubled images and feelings.

I look up to the clock and it’s 11:10.
Oh, what a time to be alive.
Because I know in just one short minute,
One little minute,
One rapidly approaching minute,
It will be 11:11.
And that minute seems to last forever.

It is in that minute that the dreamers and the believers and the prayers,
They all become the wishers.
They all wish for better jobs, or better cars, or better tomorrows.
But sadly, no one ever told them that tomorrow never comes.

Tomorrow is just a day away.
But tomorrow will never be here because when you get there it’s Today.

Tomorrow is such a strange thing.
But yet so many people wish for the pain to cease, tomorrow.
For the girl or guy to like us back, tomorrow.
We all wish to find a million dollars on the ground, tomorrow.

We wish, we wish, we wish.

In that minute at 11:11, we spend a lifetime wishing for something that we know we NEED.
We don’t WANT a new car, we NEED one to get to the store to buy groceries for our children.
We don’t WANT that other person to like us back, we NEED them to because we need a hand to hold, lips to kiss, and a shoulder to cry on.
We don’t WANT to find money on the ground, we NEED to because we’re running out of money to pay the bills, money to pay the rent, and money to live.
We don’t wish for things we WANT, we wish for things we NEED.

We need comfort.
We need happiness to come and see the way we’ve been living.
And for it to say “This person needs me.”

I wish we all had our wishes, oh that is what I wish.

Some people look at wishing as Child’s Play.
But I look at it as a lost art that has become unrecognized.

Because there are so many people in the World,
Wishing for a heart that needs healed.
A hand that needs held.
And for stars they need to show so they may keep wishing upon them.

Sometimes, when we wish for a better day, we get a terrible one.
When we wish for more food, we go hungrier.
When we wish for riches, we receive rags.
When we wish for love, we find hate.
Happiness, we find pain.
White, we find grey.

And sometimes we wish for the day but we find the night.

And if it was all up to me, a wish would come true for me and you.
Wishes would be like horses, and gallop toward prosperity.
Those wishes would be like spaceships, and fly to unknown places.
And they would save everyone with good graces.
Wishes would be like cars.
They’d travel oh so far.
Wishes would be like airplanes.
And probably do something that rhymes with airplanes.

Those wishes would save our souls.
Those wishes would make the World whole.

I wish everyone who wishes wishes would have their wishes come true.
I wish pain would turn into serendipity.
Sadness would turn into happiness.
I wish the World would be whole once again.

I would wish for a better today and to never see tomorrow if all it holds is pain.

I’d wish the whole World would be happy again,
And I’d wish you all the best,

But sadly, it’s now 11:12.

School, oh it's boring,
in class I always was snoring,
the teach, busy teaching, I'm ignoring,
the clock, please end today, I'm imploring,
I have a date later, with this girl, who I'm adoring.

Young, bright eyed and dumb,
talk, laugh and play till we're numb.
Summer, climb trees, pick and eat plums,
do silly things, sometimes get caught and run,
days of our youth, days of paper airplanes and gum.

Hot cup, your large couch and a wooden floor somewhere abroad
You caress away my unexplained tears, "Sorry I don't usually cry"
"You will be okay",  my favourite almond taste, how you always knew
Lyrics become far-off places when you search somewhere to hide

Daydreams,trusted moments and you remembering everything
You follow me in the rain, "What do you listen?"
"Everything" I say and then you defend my broken pride
Conversations become last escapes when lost in your soul

Airplanes, my headphones and a mind I miss in the arrival's room
You ask my hand for a waltz, "I don't know how to dance"
"Neither do I", your laughter the most wonderful sound
Memories become romantic adventures when covered in chocolate

There's a yearning in my heart
and it's so persistent
I see stars shining
their brightness dripping into the sky
laying down a blanket of
soft twinkling souls
carrying them away to a place
where everything lasts
but I look up
and it's raining
the clouds are gray
there's no moon to light up
my corner of the sky
and I see an airplane going on by
and I ask
can we pretend
that the airplanes in the night sky
are shooting stars,
cause I could really use
a thousand wishes right now.

Tokyo
By Anthony Caceres

Flashing lights, Flashing people
Blurs of the past come to haunt
Blurs of the present come to taunt
Blurs of the future come to flaunt
Sitting here by the bus stop
Watching people fly by like the airplanes above
Everybody set their bodies to fast forward
While I’m rewinding as slow as I can
Reading the latest manga as I get ****** into the lights
Like some late night ramen
I feel like I can walk on air
A skywalker
I can’t escape the death walkers
I know
But I can slow them down, to a point
With a late night text
and the horns of rampaging cars
Busses and Bikes
Awkward mannerisms
and long hikes
Tokyo is far away
But as long as your still here with me
Tokyo will forever stay

Two birds flying at night crash into each other
and as they spin falling from a cloud of feathers and starlight
they are reminded of a time before they learned how to fly...

Will we fold into each others secrets
would we fit each other like a spoon
won't you take my hand and chase stars with me

we'll catch them if they fall
and bury them in the backyard of our childhood dreams
so we can always find our way back there

Chase the shoreline
fly with a flock of airplanes
we'll signature the moon
as we dance our footprints upon the clouds

swim with me through an ocean of bed sheets
and Sunday mornings
and we'll chase dinosaurs from our bedroom

The warmest place in the world is next to you
let me sip coconuts in your arms
won't you plant my name behind your tongue
that it may bloom in a garden of your smiles

We'll find a beach to name after our children
and serenade the ocean as it refuses to stop kissing the shore
we'll use toothbrushes as tuning forks

fake a limp at new years eve and ride the elevator to the highest floor
and dance with me above the skyline

'cause if you sing me a lullaby of forgiveness
I will keep you from all the broken promises
we can finger paint sunrises on each other skin

Be orphans with me
so that we can name each other
the way we once named the stars
as if the constellations held the promise
we could find our way home

Its as if
A solemn oath
To reminiscence
Had memories
Had dreams
Are you tired of me yet?
It just seems
A luxury given
Fluffed pillows
Explaining the simplicity of slumber
Had a memory
Your a dream
Are you gone from me yet?
It was fact
Actuality
Nirvana upon purple hills
Had memories
Haunted dreams
Are you done with me yet?
It was peaceful
A gloomy rainy day
A solemn oath
A luxury given
Fluffed pillows
Nirvana upon purple hills
Delicious night
Filled by yellow pills
Are you high off me yet?
Its as if
You were a memory
Within a dream
A haunted nightmare
So it seemed
Stuck in limbo
Or purgatory
No longer deserving your glory
Naive
Gentle
Kisses
Sweet and simple
Sent me flying high
Are you tired of me yet?
Leave me to runaway
I'm Wilson
Castaway
I am gone from you yet..
Nirvana on purple hills
Fought the fray
Are you done with me yet?
Roaming
To home im phoning
Airplanes
Night walkers
Street and sweet talkers
Getting high off me yet?