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A bicycle is the most efficient transportation machine.  A little input and I’m gliding, moving a useful measurable distance but more than that. I like going fast enough so the wind in my ears is louder than my thoughts.  On a tough day I like riding until I can be grateful again; sometimes that takes a couple hours but every ride is a good ride.

My youth’s independence was a banana seat Huffy pulled from an under-appreciated pile of rust in the back of St. Vincent’s Thrift Shop.  No school bus meant riding to school, the first 45 minutes of every day in all weather. Afternoons were exploring detours; summers were expeditions to the city limits, sometimes beyond.  I needed an upgrade for high school; I found a spotless antique 3 speed Raleigh, the cultural English workhorse collecting dust in an unlikely garage for $50.

I kept it through two foster homes. The first one kept me busy with farm chores, but the second was back in town. There, I had the bike back, and as an aside, they had a phenomenally sophisticated wall sized sound system: reel-to-reel and amazing headphones. I would forget myself in records: Sgt. Peppers, Genesis, Yes, etc, and another favorite. Just a guitar and piano instrumental album with a simple melody called Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter. Something about that one song in particular I heard faint glimmerings of contentment that was denied to me.  I would replay it to cling to this hint of a simple happiness I didn’t understand; that if it was in the song, it was somewhere deep in me.
Without a car for 10 years, one used 10-speed or another got me to various eccentric jobs.  

Fast forward to the life-changer, after a divorce. Needing to reconnect with myself, I searched for a decent bike. I found it hanging dusty in the back of a cluttered boutique shop smelling of tire rubber, quiet with racers’ confidence. They had a Lemond thoroughbred on consignment, assembled custom 5 years earlier to race. It was slightly outdated, but a dent on the top tube put it out to pasture. It was steel though, so rideable enough for me.  My entire $300 savings and it was mine. Then I discovered the special pedals needed special shoes, so another month saving for those.  I wasn’t going to wear those silly spiderman outfits, until I started to ride more than 10 miles and my **** demanded it.  And those pockets in the back of the shirt were handy.  I met a friend who taught me how to draft: my skinny wheel a few inches behind the bike in front at 20 mph, to save precious energy in the slipstream. Truly dangerous, vulnerable, and effectively blinded; but he pointed at the ground with various hand signals to warn of upcoming road hazards. I was touched by this wordless language of trust and camaraderie. This innate concern is essential to the sport, even among competitors, so it seems to attract quality people I liked.  My new life expanded with friends.

I discovered biking exercise could stabilize the life-long effects of brain injury, lost some weight, grew stronger, and started setting goals.  First longer group rides, then a century (100 miles in one ride), then mountain biking: epic fun in nature, unadulterated happiness.  Then novice racing, then the next category up with a team, then a triathlon.  It became an admitted obsession but I won a pair of socks or bike parts every now and then.  Eventually tattooed two bike chains around my ankle, one twisted and the other broken.  I loved the lifestyle, and had truly reinvented and rediscovered myself.

A 500 mile ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles with fellow wounded veterans helped dissipate the old shame from the military.  I had joined the ride to raise money for a good cause.  I respected the program and knew personally that cycling had changed my life.  They turned out to be inspiring, helping me more than I could have helped them.  Some had only just started riding a bike for only a few weeks, some were amputees fit with special-made adapters on regular bikes, some had no legs using hand cycles.  They all joined on to the task of riding 500 miles. No one whined, and helping each other finish the day was the only goal.  While riding with them, I began to open up about my experience.  I found a few others who also had TBI, and we could laugh about similar mishaps.  The other veterans didn’t judge me about anything, like when I was injured, the nature of my disability, how much I did or didn’t accomplish. I had signed up just like them, had to recover back to a functioning life just like them.  It was the first time in my life that whole chapter in my life was accepted; I wasn't odd, and they helped close the shame on that old chapter.  (Thank you, R2R.)  The next year I took a 1500 mile self-supported bike trip through western mountain ranges with my husband and soulmate, whom I had met mt. biking.

There was one late Spring day, finally warm after a long winter, when I just wanted to ride for a few hours by myself.  No speedometer or training intervals, just enjoy the park road winding under the trees. I had downloaded some new music on the IPod, a sampler from the library.  I felt happy.  Life is Good.  Rounding a bend by the river, coasting through sunbeams sparkling the park’s peaceful road, my earphones unexpectedly played Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter.  I hadn’t heard that simple guitar tune in three decades.  My God, time suddenly disappeared.  I was right back in the forgotten foster home, listening for the faint silver threads of the contentment I was feeling at this very moment on the bike.  The full force of this sudden connection, the wholeness of the life and unity of myself in one epiphany, brought me to tears. I found myself pouring my heart into praying hang in there, girl, hang in there, you’ll find it and I felt my younger self hearing echoes of birds singing in new green leaves.
Kyle Land Aug 2015
The buzz of the TV
Echoes off the drywall.
He lands on the floor like a stone.
Alone, he is left to crawl.

Skin becomes an ashtray,
A gray and ancient fossil.
Lifetimes are spent in bed.
Dead flies on the window seal.

Dreams are created
On ***** soaked mattresses.
He manages a single tear
With fear it will be his last.

Cast away from the herd,
Sheltered by the thickening trees,
His damaged soul must endure
A ***** among amputees.
zebra Sep 2016
my darkest poems
blood letting streams
are a kind of ******
fetishy cognitive inventory
malformed denizens
of the subconscious
a well of torments
soup of Salmonella
the souls gut
its cauldron
yet not with out lurid enticements
and voluptuous supplicants
gorgeous
like an eight legged woman
with beautiful feet
drooling **** lips
drunk on sacrificial rituals
of blood black tongued kisses
and hideous contorted pleasures
*******

once
exquisite archetypes
gods and goddesses
are now
putrefied
cellar dwellers
moaning in nature bed crypts
of rock, stone
and engraved sigils

because honest pure desires
became fragmentary
and are now gimping amputees
by legions of primal disappointment

while faces blare in the world
like super bright L.E.D.s
shinning paths to others
our deep self
remains patinaed in tears
a black box pox with a lock
the skeleton key lost
in arcane seas

out of utter disgust
for those dark crawlers
that live within us
revealing them selves
as anxieties, depressions
suicides
and myriad quiet despairs
we appear undaunted
to others
and they to us

humanity
muffled ticks
and splintered sticks

my poems let my demons out

yoo who its me
my name is spray snake z
with my hooks and cries
and dark blood skies

in the misty night
i dragged out their earthen coffins
legends of the despicable
resurrected them
fed and loved those darklings
had every conceivable union with them
their healing, my own

ive sexualized them
and found love
albeit twisted

to be adored
in a hidden embrace
i bestow upon you a poetic fantasy
while obsession takes hold

bind it not
nor let it bind you
My poems remain explorations of the subconscious ******
If i where a film maker or a novelist  you  would see me telling a story not judge me  although i admit to my paraphilias  
These poems  are lunar anamorphic streams of consciousness from the deep chaotic subterranean glitz of transgressive  impulses we all share
Read them if you dare...You might find that part of yourself that you don't want you to know about
MV Blake May 2015
Is it odd that I hate tree stumps?

I mean, really, is it just me?
Is there something wrong with me?
I walk past them on the roadside
And something seems to break free.

I feel tense and taut;

A green branch pulled tight
On the saw edge of a gardener’s knife,
Peeling back one fibre at a time.
I can’t stop it to save my life.

It makes my skin crawl

To see the corpse left jutting up
Like the last tooth of a diseased crone,
Like a tag on the skin of the earth,
A drying scab to make the mother moan.

Couldn’t they just dig it up,

Or is that too much to ask?
Not enough to slay the ancient tree,
But to leave it lying on the ground;
Like leaving the foot of an amputee.

It makes me so mad

That I wonder I don’t complain,
But then I know a letter will be ignored,
As the death of such a mighty sentinel
Is a thing our conscience can afford.

It’s not like it was alive…

But the sarcasm doesn’t matter,
And the funny looks I get while I weep
Sink like the teeth of a saw,
Cutting through the body at my feet.

Am I the only one who hates tree stumps?
Please comment, like, share.  All critique welcome, though constructive is always preferred.
zebra Nov 2017
rocks don't care
all stubble and stones
a difficult geometry
so if they don't fit
they are hammered
and
crushed to rubble
jammed together to make virile walls
and if stabbed with swords
care not about
torn bellies and broken necks
soaking them crimson rust
or drowned nautilus
beneath the sea

humans
have futility in common with rocks
except that everything
girds and gnaws
at their belligerent sensitivity

all clouded soft towers
bi-pedal mortal spires
with tender flesh
beaten into place
lacerated
truncated amputees
to fit the outer life
of status and statues
a scandal to the inner coves of self

I'm envious of rocks
except for moments of
shifting watery kisses
clamorous for love

we remain
disfigured terrains
hunters of souls balmy unguents
while
fluctious immolating moons
unravel
in a hidden grieving

oh countenance of apathy
only to be more like you
a wilderness of stumps
and
dead rock gods

and our aspiration
indifference
our exit
the path of the renunciate
a penitence
feasting only on futility
and the vagaries of spirit
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
having applied myself to two languages with different parameters of execution: writing in primarily in English, reading fiction and poetry primarily in English enabled me to gain strength in reading philosophy and conjuring up white-rabbits from a top-hat in Polnisch - i can't read philosophy in English - which explains why few interests in philosophy exist - the English have undermined the worth of philosophy, oh sure, David Hume is the rave in Scotland, because he's Scottish - but the English took to solely understanding the world via Darwinism - image deciphering accounts of how the natural order of things is attached to inanimate materials propelled by falling apples - the continental procedure is less concerning Darwinism and more akin to a mental fashion statement, as in: what's vogue these days? what's the cognitive vogue? the English "philosophers" with their rigid Darwinism are like priests - which is why they attracted biblical literal interpretation - the creationists - there's no other explanation why the creationists emerged - it was because of militant atheism, atheism without individual originality - invoked by a sense of herding the sheep to the grazing hills of nihilism - the pillar that became the crutch - of course i admire and know it's true - no Genesis story that's merely a p.s. in history is ever going to undermine the naturalist's fascination with the world in every minute detail - i'm not against that... but at this moment i was thinking of a cult idea for a naturalist - take a pornographic movie, and give it to a naturalist to assess - after all... we're just mammals - i think this could turn out to be a real daytrip for a naturalist - oh sure, it must be ease with organism that apparently do not derive any pleasure from procreation... give two beings that apparently do derive pleasure from procreation... to later debase it with the malignant forces at work in the Encyclopedia that's 120 days of *****... the naturalist narrating a pornographic scene would be bewildered as to why these highly evolved creatures are exponentially higher-up the tiers of evolution, needing so many complex adaptive techniques - boredom for one, people have created more distractions than they have created tools of necessity - but perhaps they're equal - our evolutionary drive? the thing that makes us tick is not necessarily physical discomfort - we exercise for the pleasure of physical discomfort - the drive is boredom, the fear of it drives us mad with constant ingenuity taking form - like a ballerina in a salsa bar... sadism in the aura of hot-sweat-and-coconut-***-shaking as if playing dice in Las Vegas... Don Quixote (the ballet on three days away)... we're done with the empirical satisfaction of Darwinism, we know it, we need a humanistic approach to it, something that goes against the English priesthood - Darwinism will never be vogue in continent Europe, continent Europeans just say: Egyptology is as far back as is necessary to go... our lives are more important and more complex than those of primates... our lives are more important and more complex than those of primates... we want to write history, not look at history as a burden and therefore try to erase it, placing ourselves in a garden of awe and glass; honestly? Darwinism is a bit like creationism - it all starts with a garden, awe, and the grand spectacle - only the other includes a need to procrastinate by doing some ritualistic mumble and Hosanna Hallelujah in the highest - and the other tries not to yawn.

so onto my favourite topic... rich boy's slang -
do you really think a *prince
of Egypt would speak
slave tongue Hebraic?
do you think **** & 'arry could speak Bulgarian
or Romanian? let me think... no.
they might speak French... maybe German...
but certainly not the eastern tongues -
now, whoever wrote that book wrote it in ancient
Egyptian, the chronologically speaking
yes, female genital mutilation was practised first
in Africa, notably Egypt, prior to male genital
mutilation being instigated by frustrated Abraham -
the collision was bound to happen -
see how pretty prince slang looks?
it's poetic - the rich boys call it poetry, the poor
boys call slang - which is why poor boy raps
and over uses rhyme - or perhaps rhyme is easier
to remember than free verse poetry -
rich boy brings a page on stage and recites because
he's too lazy or not bothered to memorise,
poor boy says yeah a lot in between his lyrics
without a page so he can the the bowling aisle
movement as if he's rolling in a convertible Cadillac -
sing ***! yo! ***! yo! so the chronology matches,
Eve first, Adam second - but not as in: they did it first -
later down the line they cut off the precious skin
and hence felt naked, they fell, they revised was not
to be revised - sure, the man got the favour right -
he was the winner - but at the same time, the loser -
hence the good & evil bit - we don't really know -
is it really necessary to have good *** to later have
a fickle partner and laws being in her favour via what's
called the missed prenup thought? to me it's just a literal
reading of the text - looking for laurel leaves to cover
the revision of the genitalia - not the actual genitalia per se,
just the revised versions - so if the female variation is
whatever it is - less pleasure from *** and what not,
for man that also means counting the stars and weeks
and having no pleasure from ******* when her period
arrives and you have to try a diet of **** or something -
well of course it's slightly uncomfortable with it -
but at the same time you increase your endurance with it -
a slight sadomasochism, no whips no ******* women,
no leather, no adventure, just raw meat and raw meat -
no fantasy no role play - just a little bit of skin making all
the difference - can you imagine Marquis de Sade writing
as frankly as this? well... every time i revise my thought
on the book of genesis, i obviously become a covert literal
reader of it, deciphering the eloquent slang of a prince of
Egypt would use on such "delicate" matters -
but with that being said: it becomes all the less fascinating
a myth-making engine, and given he was forced out of
his comfort zone (and i mean a comfort zone) he would
cite God as the word (reason), but by word alone and
the word only - the reasoning behind what entered the land
of Egypt as being the same as what entered the Garden
of Eden... and tempted... the temptation came with the pyramids -
oddly enough only the Eiffel Tower was higher than
the pyramids - look at the time it took man to become so bold again!
look at it! massive - and in some weird quantum physics
interpretation of the mythological past becoming the actual
future - the tower of Babel... and... yep, you guessed it:
the Burj Khalifa (or the Khalifa Tower) is its equivalent;
but ****, only the Eiffel Tower overshadowed the pyramids -
something must have happened back then then,
if man was so shy in rising his structures too far up into
the sky - but i guess the Enlightenment spurred him on...
later to crash back down with the atom phobia of the second
part of the 20th century, which in the 21st century morphed into:
well, how will wars be profitable if we drop a nuke?
e'oh! no, sorry, one nuke will make us bankrupt -
we need tanks, guns, bullets... huge bulks of them!
stockpiling nukes ended up a bit like stockpiling too much...
ah crap... don't have a good analogy - just started thinking
of a desert of sugar - sugar dunes... imagining a desert
like that... well, partially true - with the Arabs not drinking
alcohol and eating too many sweets, diabetic amputees throughout
the desert land.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
there's much gesture in thinking out the nonsensical,
the un-thinkable - the un-pardonable - with sheer gusto
you tend to think out the unsolvable -
the nonsense people are afraid to
think about - the impractical -
and that's for one reason alone -
                  it doesn't create real problems...
you do not engage with real struggles
people encounter - because by doing
all the above stated... you are not the one
who says to a person: you can't do this,
and you can't to that.
                 which is why i don't understand
the English aversion toward philosophy:
say the word, and the English immediately
succumb to the notion of pedantry and
snobbism - when in fact: it's hardly that -
          perpetually philosophers entertain
themselves with invoking awe, as with ageing,
and seeing the many pitfalls of romance
and comedy and tragedy... awe becomes
very hard to find... it's simulated ignorance
in a way... for example Heidegger championing
Aristotle is a gesture intended in this direction -
and his concept of dasein is another
way to stage a coup against the world...
              it's an antithesis to what would otherwise
be regarded as activism... or more piquantly:
hedonistic activism, which primarily encompasses
staging a higher moral authority -
but never reaching for the fist making a signature
for the cause... that phrase: just empty words...
and humble pie. well... if you're a bachelor,
have this instilled aversion toward having a private
relationship with women: suitor - Kierkegaard -
well... you are bound to create pointless problems...
because... to be honest... you'd rather throw
"imaginary" problems into the metaphysical arena
than sit there... as a competent English gentleman
and speak of philosophy with about two or
three terms... reality... god... monkey...
                  or at a chessboard with a desire to provoke
a telekinetic pandemonium.. x-men apocalypse and
all that ****** imagery...
                             it's odd... but it's just so...
the English had an idyllic life,
                                      as any island dwellers might...
which is why they don't like impractical problems...
because they blabber about practical solutions,
to practical problems... that never get solved,
i.e. engrossed in more politics than anything:
the English have no ear for philosophy -
the mere word frightens them should anyone admit
to being the stated adherent: for god's sake,
the Scots are perceived as barbarians with the
deep-friend Mars bars (and pizzas) - but Hume
rang the eardrum in Kant's ear... and wallah!
a new chapter... Locke? only Darwinism,
popularised with images, as they say:
best leave these skeletons in the closet.
                             what am i working up toward?
well... it's a bit specific...
                                     first... the easiest proof
of solipsism... a crowded train... someone farts...
     guess what... the person who farted is
the only person on the train who appreciates the stink...
            hence: the theory - you like your own -
hence the abstract of the self, competing for a theory,
the self - as an optical itinerary: from head to foot,
from hand to toe - a long list of self-serving
          accomplishments in detailing all acquired
difference...                    but it's not about that...
          for all the reasons that life can become perfect...
at precisely that moment people began to
philosophise -                       and that condemnation
of reading a book on the topic in youth
rather than old age?        well... the glory of old age
is kinda slipping away...    if not now? when?
obviously you might jump the wagon too eagerly...
but at least you'll soon realise how
    a philosophy book (excluding Plato) can actually
help you in forming a dialogue -
                       i think that's what they teach primarily,
the art of dialogue... not the art of persuasive speaking
(rhetoric) - but the art of dialogue... after all...
   Plato... right? all dialogue...
                                  and they do: it only takes one book
in this literary region, i became convinced of it
after only being introduced to the subject area quiet late
in life (21)...        prior to that? fiction and poetry...
   and science... nothing else...
                              like a fish to water...
the necessary 21 years of strain having avoided the subject
(not on purpose, mind you).
                  yes, a glorification, why not?
     it's because these nonsensical problems arrive
as a reflection of a defence mechanism...
     the English don't like "too many words" or
the continental verbiage they coin as the psychiatric
phrase word salad - precisely because, sometimes,
language is not about entertaining someone with
tragic choke-jokes and songs...
          great singers, great comedians,
   great engineers... but in this field? obnoxious *****.
  the English are the first instigators of
     enshrining a quicksand pit of a person's
esteem in his ability to use and comprehend language,
primarily because they can't comprehend
the complexity of language being thus expressed
they immediately conscript against him
    this... odd... quack-wacky need to teach
the person in question refer himself to the Jane Austen
clinic of correct language parameters -
            nothing beyond! nothing foreign and
original! we need novelists who only travel in
straight lines (preferably on a Benelux plateau)
        and never dazzle with a tarantula bite of
disorientation (akin to the cut-up method)...
        and you will find that the English are primarily
concerned with making people suspicious of
   their sanity... strange... i once had a work-horse
work ethic and that became undermined,
                       then my use of language became undermined
because, as already stated: the English don't
do impractical things with their thought:
                it has to be practical...
like the Germans and time... everything has to be
efficient... or the Japanese and space (*******
cardboard sized hotel rooms)...
                             which brings me to the point of my
original intention:
                 deleuze's and guattari's searching ambition -
the anti-oedipus, or: body-without-organs...
             in turn the dark ages of Cartesian thinking (in England)
or how            mental health is somehow a lesser
   health to physical health -
                 sweat... and exocrine glands v. endocrine glands...
    <yes, telegram mode, precursor to a detailed
        explanation>
                                i'm just proposing what i dare believe
to be a thought-object, or more precisely a
             thought-***** -
                    no point looking for a shortcut with this,
      it's either the sort of verbiage compound you'll
reason with... or you'll treat it as *******...
                     as ever, whether that's investing in
a gym membership and a suitable diet...
         you won't get the ****** six-pack on your torso...
  this concept is reserved for what i find problematic
in mental ailments - which, in turn... somehow,
"miraculously" translate into physical ailments -
           but of course, amputees get the priority seats
in the eyes of every Jack and Dolly... because it's easier
that way...
                        my back-reading in psychiatry? well,
it's not exactly limited... on the plus side -
a theory is nothing more than a placebo trial -
                   you're not thinking about it being effective,
that's the default point of applying thinking where
pharmacology cures are pretty crap and its side-effects
catastrophic... and talking therapy ends up being
a monologue with a table filled by notes with single
words on them and being asked: to identify their meaning...
anyone who has experienced these practices
can also say: i'm actually conscious you're making me
feel like a ******* ******... you've just insulted my
intelligence... and i'm back to square one at kindergarten...
   have you ever watched you-tube frustrations?
well... a thought-***** has nothing to do with
    that map of the brain...
                                feeling goes here,
  seeing goes here...             a mash-up and a mess akin
   to the map of the European union...
          because some rich boy scumbag drew it
in crayon at the beginning of the 20th century means
it has to be right...
                                  but if i treat thinking as a thought-*****,
i know how the ***** works...
            a heart is a muscular pump...
  the stomach is a digestive acid swamp...
                        the esophagus is stretch-armstrong...
should i feel guilty writing about this?
          should i? touchy subject? well... you won't
find any pills around here... well, apart from the sleeping
pills... they're sacred (to me, at least, as if the bourbon,
but that's my private affair... you walk down this
route: it heals me... not necessarily you) -
  this is to simply end the whole pseudo-Cartesian dichotomy
of philosophy popularised by psychology and
psychiatry - for these two areas are bound to simply
popularise philosophy... and given that most people
don't read a book in that area... it's easier to manipulate
people in therapy with the knowledge passed down
from on high.
                                       and it's there...
the dichotomy parallelism is primarily due to the fact that
most people think of the brain with two categories:
a. when physical pain strikes it (a headache)
and b. when physical pain is absent (with what ease
    they think)...
  the problem lies in the perception of b.,
most people can conceptualise that there's something
deeper than the raw physicality of things...
i do remember times when i encountered that
ease of thinking...
                                        i experienced it...
it was there... ****, i lost it... but that provided me with
an un-inhibitory trance of a writing capacity...
   the question is... how can merely thinking be painful?
most mental health problems never ask this:
thinking is painful...
                                      isn't that what most melancholics
state, but with a more emotional language of
feelings and emotions?                  
             if the thought-***** is damaged...
then all thinking coming from this compartment of the brain
will be painful...
                               so what sort of paracetamol
do you take? it's not as easy as being prescribed
high-blood pressure pills...
                                      popping pills like that
you're only escaping a conscious moment of what
an automated ***** feels
Sarina Nov 2012
Become medieval when the rain starts –
put coins in my corset, they are pure gold & evil
and show the men using my Thanatos drive:

I could not care if they want me,
I could not care if they hated me alive.

Rather the leaf upon dress-******* much as
a muzzle, came from a box of cardboard slits
opening like lady-legs. I bribe the thrash with my

whispers & wheels, promise to soak up sky’s tears
but she certainly prefers the black ash haul.

I bring myself to the top of a volcano, its arc,
convinced that it cannot soot me,
not in the rain: such scorch is unreachable.

There is this protruding spiral in the center,
going dark, a pupil. It eats my hair-ribbon and I

sweat, but I am upon all terrains of the Earth
prepared to fall into a clutch, the gold stain my skin
before peeling by storms, how plague-like I seem.

Could be on my back when it implodes –
though my skirt would not appreciate the mess,
I think the idea fine. I am already pink, red’s better.

Wires and flushed cheeks will be what they find,
the men, knowing that I could not care.

And I did not; it was not less than a shot of
lightning stuck under a petticoat, frilled for nobody
but the volcano who turns ******* to embers.
the rain that beasts eyelashes to amputees.
SG Holter Jun 2014
I now know
Why little girls crying
Into teddies say they're
Dying.
Now I know that none of
My songs of heart-

Break were real. I had
No idea.
None.

It's like holding your breath
When you know that that car is
Not going to
Stop.

It's the chill down your neck when
You learn that somebody
Just like you
Passed away. Suddenly.

It's the feeling of knowing you're
Losing your grip on the roof of
A burning
Skyscraper. Air.

A soldier, a landmine.
Looking down to see
That your body
Is broken.
Broken.

I now know why country music
Is so close to God at all times.
Why amputees grieve over
Lost limbs.
Why girls cry and boys drink.

It's going to bed, certain that  
The sun will not
Rise in the morning.
Mary McCray Apr 2016
(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 1, 2016)

Pitchforks gather,
Chinese made,
The red embroideries.

Autocrats swagger
Trumpeting
Bile hyperboles.

And wicked blather
Resurrects
The soul amputees.
Following the prompts this year!
Akemi Jan 2017
[[More real than the real, that is how the real is abolished]] de facto slogan to the virtual economy \ Reality has collapsed through its own fiction || rummaging through boxes // a DVD from the 2001’s states [[the future of gaming is here]] opening with ten minutes of nauseating zooms on women’s ***** \ The future doesn’t look much different from the past || hyper-masculine neo-enlightenment ***** scrawling ******* entries into digitised soliloquies \ VR technology once used to aid traumatised amputees now a billion dollar industry of ****** throwing simulators for bored middle-class kids \ Parents watch awkwardly from the corner of the room too disconnected from reality to connect with irreality \ Two and the same \ Silicon synapses pass through trade routes of jutting ribs and serotonin receptors \ White America a botnet of alt-right neoliberal fundamentalist-atheists gutting the majority world so everyone can watch Doctor Strange // Marvel’s latest explosive **** from the libidinal imagination of a middle-aged idiot \ Thanatos and Eros arrive at the same destination to dismantle subliminal desire one commodity at a time \ The sublime never experienced // only destroyed // consumed in the inverted maw of late-stage capitalism where each irruptions of desire is more banal than the previous \ Banality the ultimate distraction from apathy // a pseudo-cyclical time dilation of ever accelerating proportions \ Soon nothing will be experienced at all and Rotten Tomatoes will give it a 99% score \ When the singularity hits everyone will be too brain dead to care that they’re god \ 24-7 VR **** // Disney reincarnated as a being of pure light // recursive integration of every bland radio hit about a sexist ***** at a club // irreality shocked into neurons bypassing sensual phenomena // an all encompassing warmth // veil of death // eyecaps dragging flesh closed // backup released // no escape // digitised irreality // holographic Disney dancing on the train home // notice of termination swiped away as junk mail // all beings arrive // transcend circuitry // fly through the cosmos watching every episode of Friends at once \ Didn’t you know? [[The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of banalisation \ ]]
more philosophy trash: thesleepofreason.com
Youdont Needthis Jul 2017
A smile is knowing
The dark crease of a well-arched spine
The dewy white lotus petals
The sad title of concubine
The blue glass so plainly beautiful
With its cold smooth sides
A blown vase that sits precious
Atop a dead deer's stretched hide
The hallowed ***** of a portruding illiac
And the decadent crust of a sweet fruit pie

On a black vinyl stage floor
In a room filled with echoing cries
The reverberance loud and hollow
With ears ringing opened wide

The bends of her young tendons
In her ropey pale limbs
They flex and harshly twitch
How a scared and hooked fish swims

The cyclic orbits of planets and lifetimes  
A ballerina's pirouette spins

Now the tarlatan and muslin gets torn to shreds
And the blinding stage lights quickly dim
The wet heat of a hungry tongue
Slaps upon her sweating skin

The audience simply does nothing
Just like the tall plant stalks of the green motel
Or the muddy vines in swamps in Rwanda
Or white wallpaper in the locked rooms of certain hells
The diseases that squirm in tainted waters
Of Liberia's ***** wells
The missing limbs of wartime amputees
Reflected in the golden glint of spent brass shells

Amidst the screams of
NO
STOP
NO
It yells the words
GO
GOD
GO

Through the grinning lips of the manifest destiny
And the arms of Khmer Rouge's killings
Its legs are formed from the many faces of lynch mobs
Its hands are hewn of American prison facilities and county jails
It's dripping deadly doses of fentanyl in local ****** shipments    
And ****** dancers
GO GOD GO GO GOD GO GO GOD GO GO GOD GO GO GOD GO GO GOD GOD GO
James Medley Sep 2010
clockwork
soda ****
sticks up spindly
spiderwebs
terms crossed out
brittle binge hurts
shout little
desperate beds
sparrow colored
courtyards ablaze
abounding insane
fake amputees
recording
fish brains
Shakytrumpet Dec 2019
Amputees are left
out, some don't even have
the right to bear arms
Ummmmmm, yeah sorry
Johnnie Rae Jan 2016
Welcome to the place you’ll find me sitting
helplessly trying to find a way out.
The place you’ll never want to visit again,
you’ll run, at full speed wishing you’d never
said it would be okay for me to
open up and let you see the insides of my
horribly damaged head,
and instead, never brought up the subject
but only find yourself back where you started in this maze
of desperate uncertainty,  
because in this place lies carcasses of dreams
abandoned but never forgotten,
my knobby knees and shaking fingers
just haven’t yet found the strength
to put them back together again.
I've arranged them in patterns that resemble broken things
like china dolls with cracked smiles
and butterfly amputees, this is no picnic.
I am sorry for the horror you will see
in the depths of my cerebral cortex,
I never imagined you’d actually step inside,
and now here you are clawing your eyes out
right beside me screaming at the top
of hoarse lungs and pleading with sad eyes
now just barely bleeding, for a way out,
with a tone just below sad whisper I tell you
I’ve yet to find a ship off of the island of misfit toys,
and for now, you’re just as hopeless as you
found me to be in the beginning.
Just remember you provided the gun and ammunition,
I only loaded it, and gave you a taste for
the possibility of an ending.
I never tempted you with the idea of destruction,
only provided you with its breeding ground
and that's not something I can help or even change.
you've now seen the depths of hell
and men have said it leaves one blind
even if it does come in the shape and size of panic attacks
pain killers, ***, and a heart rate that laughs at the word fast,
races beyond it, bearing sharp teeth and a smile,
swallows me up like the ever raging sea.
My body was not built for this type of misery,
my skin cracking and my kneecaps knocking
like a sort of secret police to tell me
that it's getting out of hand again.
Marionettes sewn straight into skin,
dancing just like all the other puppets
we live a life of lavish lamentation and hold up
bronze metals just for showing up and sticking around.
How much does life mean now?
Do not tell me I am not suffering because now
you have seen it and it will never leave your memory.
I bestow this upon you because you chose not to take me seriously.
This is a message from the island of misfit toys,
I may seem like I'm keeping it together just fine,
but beyond every door lies a secret,
beyond every shining light, a shadow
and beyond every smile, someone is broken.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2018
you learn it the hard way, you actually can drink warm shots of *****,  provided,  you have a brisk, Icelandic chaser, notably white European Bison *****, and apple juice infused with mint...

pije, pali, konia wali...

it has been agreed, a drunk man is half
the miserable sight of a woman...
no wonder a woman *******
is more appealing than a man,
who shines.., like Louis XIV,
******* in a lightbulb...
            ha ha... ******* want *******...
and there I was, thinking that
bottle of alcohol also ought to have
warnings about any *******,
other than oral with a pregnant woman...
wonder... does alcohol really harm
foetuses, or does the constant banging
of a cockrel do more harm than
awaiting sunrise good?

hence the question, i don't know.

pije, pali, konia wali...

as a drinker, in company?
i can have a social drink,
my grandmother had a nostalgic
hallucination of a taste that
provoke memory, so I bought her
a porter beer...
and we drank it together...
książęce: aromas of honey,
coffee, rührkuchen und
bitterschokolade...

grandfather simply replied:

koniec świata;

now the IVF part quest for ****** chills...
citation granny, is no citation
worthy of the urban lawyer,
frozen egg + spe4m donor factory...
the part where I'm cited as "******"...
urban mongrels contra
                  rural pedigrees.

pije, pali, konia wali...

there are but three ways to clear the head
before the excavation of a blank
page... rarely it involves addressing a delayed
slightly constipated dump...
but sometimes it does...

pije, pali, konia wali...

           then it also takes doing no.
1, no. 2 (as mentioned above)...
and no. 3...
                 i have no idea where ****
additiction comes from...
i'm more of a claccisist in this field...
moving pictures do not really
stimulate the mind to work off
a stattic picture...
    if you never did no. 3 i. e.
****** off on the toilet...
                 because you never bought
a ***** mag with your casual take
on the metaphor of smithfield market...
or you've never been,
driving to it at 1am in the morning...
coming back with half a porky corpse...

pije, pali, konia wali...

I think people are confusing objectivity
with ***** subjectivity...
like any clean cut of a scalpel...
or like eating a soft boiled egg...
you crack the shell, leaving the papist
yolk, intact...

pije, pali, konia wali...  

at leat objectifying a woman
does not subject her to the cring worthy
labyrinths of emotional men,
or whatever the hell cheating is...
   or juggling...
        ****** off at fine art,
only once did I bother to explore
the ****** extension of latex...
a kinda of bedroom niqab fetish...
but most of the time...
static images, blood down below,
paths of imagination in the head...
not to mention that ***-mad mongrel
that **** my leg...
luckily I didn't kick him,
but politely asked... are you finished,
and ready, to hunt a mare?

pije, pali, konia wali...

******* what?!
   classical *******...
whatever happened to the tabloid
page 3?
   apparently men with recoding hairlines
have more testosterone...
apparently watching a woman's breast
releases, whether dopamine
serotonin, or... as the cigarette quote
goes... Oscar Wilde?
    the most pristine five minutes,
that leaves one (mm  hmm...
a royal pronoun,  both singular,
and plural, for a pleb that's minus
the entourage of leeches...
mind you... why not the common
slang of sycophancy in syco...
that Y... not tree not serpent splits...
hollowed out... to differentiate
from the other,  crude grafitti of
******pathy, shortening)
    most disatisfied...

pije, pali, konia wali...

perhaps j. c. is the king of kings,
but i sit on the, throne of thrones...
no. 1, 2 and 3...
    no scented candles,
no... god... cursed the theistic joke...
a woman has to *** squatting...
a man just stands...
than again: bigger bladders?
*******, easing analysis muscles,
jerking off to static nudes...
how is it on the other side?
moods, scented candles, lying back...
literature that ought to be
read with one hand?
        d'uh and the *****...
sure... g. i. Joe of a boy aged 8
when Barbie burned in th stash...
out comes Ken 2.0...

pije, pali, konia wali...

easier for a man to stomach a hand
as if it were done ****...
than explore beyond the floral pouch...
than... getting a manicure...
and... not using the Vizzz...
the Vizier... hardly a comparison to
encapsulating... snoring...

i always ask the intrigued relic of
dating... so... you want to hold
my hand, or is male maturation
so grotesque that it has no...
voyeuristic appeal?
   well... thank **** for that!
with my little finger I served
poached, a former hydra behemoth...

the knowledge of, good and evil...
                                                X
which isn't exactly a mistery of +...
   the conjunction translates as X,
cross-eyed... not +...

pije, pali, konia wali...

                      it's easier calling it
the no. 3, considering how...
sitting on the throne, apparently
masages the prostate...
hence the stigma it would seem...
no scented candles...
no grand whizz of faking headache
and snoring of excavating dodos...

pije, pali, konia wali...
    
ah... back into the syco contra
****** and the hollowed out
Y question...
                         σý-co...

         'sigh-co...

hence not so much the hollowed-out
Y... but rather, akin to gnome gnostics...
the particular instance of
surd letters,
not being clothed in surd attire...
     elsewhere diagnostic...
otherwise in the already given example:
   'nome...         'nostics...

yes, i know, the borderline 'sigh-co...
psst... as happens, when letters
ignoring greco-semite
        stubbornness,
remain syllable amputees looking
for torsos of words....
magnetised limbs mechanic...
letters primitive, bound to syllables...
not the greco-semitic
construct of names...
       shortcuts with the NATO
alphabet is the curse of 15...
   a ******* worth of a telephone
conversation will not craft
an originality of either Aleph,
Omicron, Ayin, or Omega...

       may i remin you the greco-semitic
stubborn ram... ploughing
constants in science?
aha! ****** music thought...
no one really heard of
rotting christ or
         mícháel greilsammer...
last of the Roman sons...
sang arias of castratos!

pije, pali, konia wali...

     finally! ad the title implies...
what's the diffrence between
a man buying shoes,
and a woman buying shoes?
probably the packaging,
or more to the point...
a man walks into a shoe shop
wearing old shoes...
he buys a new pair,
buys them, puts them on,
packs his old pair into
the newly bought pair's shoebox...
and walks out with
his new: economic sketch
and the concept of recycling...
primarily because i've never seen
a woman buy a pair of shoes,
and walk out of a shop
wearing them...
   not once....
      and thank **** it rained hail
and razor rain today,
after post-noon greenhouse
suffocating toffee sun...
and the sky was painted a continental
grey & plum as the earth gave
its first, authentic breath of spring...
not once, have i seen a woman
buy shoes... and walk out
in them, putting the ones she
wore walking into the shop,
among the moosehead trophies,
skinned furrs,
and her, other,
      hunting expedition catches...
into the insomnia and iron
forest, of foraging for sales.

thank **** i had an existential
****** looking at me,
as I put the newly purchased shoes
onto my feet, and the old shoes
into a carrier bag...
    in those rare instances,
as true as: mould the iron while
it's lukewarm...
          come to think of it...
this is french existentialism
in the open... unable to encompass
a voyeurism with a guilt
of a peepingtom or Cambridge Analitica...
pure existential voyeurism...
guised Edenic...
     out in the open...
       bound to the habits of
man shopping, for shoes...
                 rather than a woman...

hell, hades and the high-water mark
of a tide...
      
     (he) drinks, (he) smokes,
   (he) smacks the monkey...


     if you didn't know, already.
spysgrandson Jun 2016
the white coat lords,  
the army of nurses, the aides, didn't think
he understood their language

nor did they know
he had been a warrior in his homeland
and bore scars, inside, out

they paid little attention,
as he buffed lackadaisical linoleum, scrubbed porcelain *******,
making them ethereally white

though the amputees,
the hobbled, the battle burned, would wake
to the sound of his labors:

his broom swaying to and fro,
a softer metronome for their ringing ears
a cadence of condolences
for their beating hearts
in no great haste to change the solemn art
that deals with those who cannot render ease
in modern terms we make a florid start
presenting our regards upon our knees
as if our thoughts were villain amputees
regarding with some horror how the strain
of vision reaching through this veil of rain
has no effect on motion nor on rate
all in the end must seep into the brain
where only losers claim to lead the state

both rich and poor rub shoulders in the mart
while finding nothing that could truly please
an honest mind or else a yearning heart
since all the market has is hopping fleas
and some lost objects baking in the breeze
there's not a single value to retain
and all our hope might just go down the drain
as laughing gargoyles seem to contemplate
you cannot speak except now to complain
where only losers claim to lead the state

no one today would ever give a ****
for decent laws or honest high decrees
the vultures wait until the wolves depart
then each devours the carrion that it sees
there's no means left the monster to appease
just throw another **** upon the wain
since we have read the signal very plain
the door is shut and rescue's come too late
all that is left is one more ugly stain
where only losers claim to lead the state

prince as you look out from the morning train
you'll see the same old shadow once again
don't think of it as duty nor as fate
that's just a path that leads you to more pain
where only losers claim to lead the state
Edna Sweetlove Dec 2014
On some verdant green hill far away in cute little Palestine of old
Before the Israelis marched in and bunged out the owners
Jesus was hanging about on the cross not feeling too happy
I suppose he was dying for you and me because his Dad was asleep
And he doesn't care if you are a ****** or a giant or a fatty or a fairy!
Yessir! He loves everyone unequivocally provided they praise him endlessly
And receive him in their souls and sing him a load of ****** hymns!

But if you don't receive the LORD and reject the words of the EVIL ONE
He (God) will crush you totally and utterly like a blue-tailed fly
Squatting on a well-used and ill-cleaned second-hand lavatory brush
Without any exception whatsoever even if you are an ugly fat dwarf
As He don't hold with no discrimination nor positive action no way!
So get down on your knees (a shorter journey for amputees with stumps)
And get praying to THE LORD without blinking twice. Yeeha! Amen!
Sam Miller Oct 2013
When I was young, too young,
I stopped believing in beauty
and all the things that came with it
like hope and trust and
the magic of pixie dust.
I felt the light in my eyes
drain like sand through an hourglass
and no it’s not Days of our Lives
more like Nights Spent Slowly Dying
alone with only our ragged blankets
to keep us warm and breathing.

I got older, and I learned
how to get beauty back.
it wasn’t easy to rewire my brain after so much of it
had corroded and poisoned
but I did it. I learned to
look into a mirror and be okay
with what I saw looking back at me.

Now I’ve tried to share this power
with everyone I meet but it’s
really ******* hard to change
your own mind and trying to
change someone else’s is like
showering at someone’s house and you can’t figure out how the
**** their faucet works.

As I get happier
I run out of ways
to make other people happy
and I find myself choking
on words that mean **** all
to a depressed bulimic or
someone who can’t adjust to college life.
I can’t play therapist anymore.

But I’d cut out my eyes
for a blind man and
I’d give my limbs to amputees.
I’ll donate all my organs,
tear out my heart
and give it to someone
who’s had theirs broken
too many times before.

I would rip my self to pieces
just to save this world,
because how can I love myself
when the world can’t do the same?
What’s the point of being happy
in a world drowning in pain?

Maybe that is the point.
Maybe staying awake
in this sleepy universe
is the shot of espresso
it needs to wake the **** up
and finally smile a little.
Corset Feb 2017
Phantom Itch
A Poem by Corset




Right there...
...and... not...


I've got that itch again,
the one
that Amputees
know so well...

He always loved the color of my eyes
after tears,

you would laugh at me and still
court the silence

process the cold
without me.

Sing off key
without fear...

brave the holidays
but still remember
you were once a part of me

Phantom Limb
that was loved.

A soul ache of compassion
the severed branch
untouchable,
the occupied
empty.
Willoughby Lucas Mar 2012
Subconciously dreaming
Seeing him sigh
I awake to a start
From the stain of the morning  
Throwing memories in my eyes
The death of a life
The lack of love in me
Feeling his knife
Now I'll never be more than one of his amputees.

Learning to listen
We prepare our ears
Can you hear shouting?
As they all yell
I wake to their cries
Acknowledging my own
Remembering my sadness
Do I feel tears?

Tied to our hope
We live for the alternative
Pretending to move
We stand starved and stubborn
Unwelcoming the change
Defying composure
And laying it all on the line
With the true self's exposure.

Left tortured, tempted by love
We fall for the forbidden
Massaging the pain
Living for the lies
Ignoring old warnings
Refusing to recognize
What was the demonstration of our demise.
Haley K Collins Jul 2013
I went to Palm Beach carrying every shard of my soul today. It was empty, and it was going to storm. Not a soul but I. The waves brought in sting with each rolling army of sea foam, and I cried with the salt water of the Atlantic. That water roared with the screaming amputees that lay oozing in my heart. I thought about becoming one with the water; taking a deep breath of blue to end the pain. But I didn't. I let the shards of my spirit cut my palms as a buried them in the sand; I let the sharks smell my blood. I let the tide leave with my soul.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2017
*******... two of my friends almost died in terrorist attacks!

.                     i see a great disasater,
not through lack of innovation,
but through the perpatuation
                                                    ­ of squander
for what was deemed a gift,
but has become
        a christmas present
in the hands of a child
  that islam has become...
if muhammad was alive
                                       today?
he'd decapitate the entire
        saudi family...
    and bring about
             the compensating
reign of *ali
...
these ******* sand *******
  have had their disneyworld
of yachts and european *******
for far too long...
   duma! duma! narodowa duma!
pride! pride! national pride!
    what, a return to a horse
                  and carriage?
i don't see a phase of great
innovation,
   even though i'm sure it exists,
and it waiting for monetißation...
     of that i'm sure of,
   within the framework
            of keeping "secrets"...
what secrets?
    there are no secrets,
there are only
skewed lies,
           and unwritten truths...
   that's it...
it's a pretty simple geometric
   allowance that gave us a square
to fathom...
         you know that
        when muhammad
was talking about the dajjal
he meant it in terms
     of an arabic confinement,
right?
   when he said the hadith
        concerning
the east, he didn't imply
    ulaanbaatar - or genghis khan...
what's the hub of saudi arabia east
   of mecca? isn't it riyadh?
        a bunch of ******* fatsos...
        diabetic sheiks...
     amputees in waiting...
bonkers logic...
    no wonder the syrians
         imploded and
turned against themselves...
            these? these are the people
at the crux of a religion?
            so a syrian baker turned
  on a syrian car mechanic...
                      any intervention by foreign
power?
            is a heresy of conducting war...
no foreign power can be allowed
   influence into civil former cordiality
   turned into opposite warring factions!
none!
         the path toward hell
                     is plagued with
good intentions
...
          and the west has made
                    a step onto that path...

if the western world populace are
dubbed oil junkies,
    what does that make the arabs?
sugar junkies?
              i guess so, seems the only
rational explanation as to why
  weilding a scimitar
     they'd sooner cut themselves
than chop an "infidels" head off...
******* fastos:
lazy *** sand-******* / camel-jockyes;
oh sure, come to poland
or to russia...
    we'll show you what we did with
the turks, in the 12th september 1683
battle for vienna;
    bull-*******-whipped-woodolf
                        ­               goin' bananas
  in his crematorium grave,
   twistin' 'n' turning,
          while mao tse-tung fiddled with
some egg-friend noodles,
   and stalin fiddle his moustache into
a hipster look: y'ah... well oiled
   giving it the full curls.
Sarina Dec 2012
I will show you the ***** parts of us,
and how unsafe their salt tastes,
mended, reckon bliss in this place –
no one kills what they never loved.

Because then it will not matter,
amputees are not fatal, but no one
has amputated their heart or head.  

Each person, each piece is opaque –
but there is something to be seen
inside, the ***** parts we leave
wrestling with us when they speak.
Lauren Biggs Feb 2020
dreams are… unpredictable.
at times, undecipherable.
they redefine reality and
undermine any guarantee of rhythm,
skipping measures and creating new sounds.
some pleasant and light, some decidedly not.
dreams can be undeniably ugly.

i have proof of this:
recently i dreamed a dream
of a rat without a face
slithering beneath my sheets
like a worm or a snake;
a scream rose in my throat,
but i did not wake.

i’ve had dreams of dying–
of being shot many a time but never ceasing;
the steady drip drop of crimson
staining japan’s lonely midnight streets.
i stumbled aimlessly, silently, eyes begging for help,
and i remember vividly, the deep set ache
of disappointment as i was left with myself.
in the end, clutching my throb of a wound,
i dolefully passed my mother in the hall;
i came back home,
i went to bed.
when i woke, i truly understood
what it was like to not exist.

there are more, countless more...
climbing endless foggy mountains,
and drinking tea from petri dishes
on a borderless snowy plain.
mental hospitals, shark tanks, cruise ships,
pho restaurants and italian motorcycling;
ghost towns, curses, canyons, serial killers,
treasure-hunts, food cravings, and amputees.
i’ve had dreams of things with wings
that should never have wings,
of evil parents that aren’t really so mean;
from fleeing authority as a framed fugitive
to composing music in my sleep.
i’ve had silly dreams of extra toes,
lovely friends and evil foes;
often, i wish i had more of those.

there is nothing i cannot dream.
fighting leagues and near-drowned canines;
standing two feet tall, cloaked in basil velvet,
chugging kegs and brawling giants;  
nibbling on little white fish after crucifixion;
being chased by giant yellow-eyed moose,
and stalked by an atrabilious old ghost.

i’ve had dreams i’d rather forget;
burned bodies huddled uselessly against carcass-like walls,
school shootings and carnival massacres.
even days later, the taste of evil still haunted my tongue.
my dog being cooked to eat
with his sad, droopy eyes pleading to me,
my panic so rough and weighty,
i almost woke up crying.

sometimes i am the tragic hero,
filled to the brim with self-pity.
sometimes it feels good to feel bad.
why not do so where no one can judge me,
when nothing is really real, anyway?
i am elected to whatever position my mind randomly adopts,
what it desires more than anything.
but sometimes my mind is villainous,
and i become the antagonist.
i hate the dreams that question my morality.

but the mind fluctuates;
i am everchanging, round and round the clock,
shifting and creaking like the floorboards of an old ship;
the waves scatter pieces of me, never set in place,
currents murmuring a perpetual stream of
who am i? who am i? who am i?
there is so much possibility.

is it my paranoia that stirs these
constant nightmares into existence?
is it fate that i have never woken up,
shaky hands wiping the sweat off my brow,
jolting upward with a yelp of fear?  
why must i experience the finales to these dreams,
morbid scenarios my fragmented memories conjure
to perturb the vulnerability in me?
they never cut short, despite my wishes,
and i wake up feeling utterly wrong.

dreams i want to dream again are rare.
requited love and longing fulfilled,
soft embraces i miss profoundly at the sunrise;
trailing down winding mountains to a wide lake,
one that stretches to another side–
finally, i can touch my periphery,
the fringe of my dreamt-up landscape.

good dreams come sparingly.
a quartz island in the sky; a misty onsen;
scattered people ambling through the humidity.
as i reach an edge with no bottom,
i ask, “should i jump?”
“sure,” my folks answer.
i swallow my fear and leap into the unknown.

and, another dream i strain to recall,
wistful to feel again what is not real,
reveals the gentle, benign curve of an old lover’s lips;
a smile i haven’t seen in centuries.
that is dreaming.
my brain confuses me beyond comprehension.

— The End —