Harrowed by this most singular form, we are a
Coalescence of two

Pedals in cathedral stained glass windows
In glorious form
And resting on tables
Placed seemingly, unassumingly
Placed in insurmountable space
Seen by seers and filled by philosophers,
Nonetheless echoing through cavernous halls

Patterned textures of a Parisian tablecloth in my hand
While my other holds yours in its softness
Recusing sonneteers’ burdens,
Varied recollections of a ringing sound
Excusing intelligent ponderings,
Echoes of faltering and exaltation

With a kiss, we speak soundly
Amplifying what we’ve heard all our lives,
But its crimson is of our origination
To be heard once by us and hence,
Echoed to be heard throughout

You asked me how I am doing
and I said “Good”
You asked me to be honest
and I said “I’m fine”
You told me to expand.
I replied,
"I'm not good at all.
And I want that to be simple enough.
I'm not being exaggerative
or selfish
or birthing drama for drama's sake.
It's just that I am here.
Here on silly earth,
And I feel alone at crossroads in my life.
I am under no illusion
of my incredibly blessed
or undeserving existence.
But that's just the problem.
LIFE is starting now.
And for the first time,
I have had to make choices
choices on my own
choices
that
(according to mother)
will shape who I fundamentally
become as a human.
So that's a bit distracting.
‘You need to remember not to let people down.’
‘You should consider how you love someone, not just when to.’
‘You ought to be more assertive or it'll all come crashing down.’
She reminds me of my
uncontrollable imperfection
on a daily basis
Not necessarily through her words
I doubt she wants to inflict this on me.
But the way way she stares at me sometimes
from across the room.
Silently.
Like she’s trying to admire a painting
that secretly
no one quite appreciates
or understands
but everyone seems to find profound meaning in it
so you go along
with the show.
Which I wouldn't have a problem with
if I could wake up refreshed in the
morning.
And not tired
like I am.
All the time.
I’m tired of being fifteen.
Because inside,
I don’t feel fifteen.
My mind turns on fifty year old gears
churning up one hundred year old
philosophies.
But
The age in which I currently must suffer through
is misunderstood
and incorrectly represented.
Teenager is a word parents
shudder to hear.
A word elders instantly accuse.
A word authorities doubt without reasonable basis.
The drum pumping my soul
is in fact a solo ensemble.
But
I am naturally clumped in with the lot
of marching bands
that clash and crash,
stomp and slam their drums
as they parade the flag
of fickle rebellion
into the air they barely know.
Don’t get me wrong,
the stereotypes of my age and time
are drawn up
from some truth,
but one truth shouldn’t result
in one outlook.
You don’t roll dice with
only threes on the faces
or only ones.
So it is hard to watch as
everywhere I go,
titles and labels
are being stuck into me
like toothpicks in a fruit salad.
And first of all,
just because society cuts me up
and breaks me down like a pineapple
you can buy with leftover quarters
doesn’t mean that I’m up for grabs.
And secondly,
No one should be branded
simply because
it is easier to ignore them
than to know them.
Don’t hear this as a “oh she’s a teenage girl” moment
hear this as a “she’s a human and wants to be heard without your filter over her words” moment
So, I’m having a hard time with that.
Not to mention the rest.”

“The rest?” You asked.

“You know,”
I said,
“How I have to decide what school
I am going to commit to
which is slightly like choosing
between your two parents.
You can’t pick one happily
and freely
without knowing what could’ve been
if you lived with dad instead.
It’s tricky to wake up in the morning.
It’s tricky to get out of bed
because I know that sooner than later
I will either be moving
that bed into the basement
or into a dorm
which won’t be on the campus I really desire
because God knows I didn’t
save enough pennies for that.
My whole future is before me.
Almost literally
considering the number of pamphlets stapled
over the dreams I carved so meticulously
out of my ‘mind wood’
with my ‘What do you want to be when you grow up’ knife.
So that’s intimidating.
And all those “it’ll work itself out” speeches
that surround me
don’t make the choices
suddenly blare across the radio
or start blinking from neon signs
telling me what to do
what to chose
what to be.
In the end,
all those “don’t worry about it”
and “you’ll figure it out”
do nothing but put a knot in my gut
that no amount of research
or interviews
or Friday night pig outs
can untie.
Because this stuff,
these moments as I build my foundation
for my single LIFE with little slippery Lego blocks
are not made with cheery hand-outs
or inspiring quotes.
LIFE is formed by me
choosing which Lego brick color
choosing which Lego brick shape
and of course
choosing which people will
help me to construct it.
It’s tricky
It’s messy
It’s loud
and it makes other things
hard to focus on.”

“Other things?”
You said.

“Other things.”
I reply.
“You know,
those books I have to read
those graphs I have to draw
those tests I have to study for
those miles I have to run
those words I have to memorize
those labs I have to finish
those annotations I have to complete
those poems I have to parse.
Just THOSE.
Don’t get me wrong.
I don’t mind school
Unlike the kids who complain
that they are forced to educate themselves.
I have no problem learning.
In fact, I want to
long to.
TEACH ME, WORLD!
TEACH ME HOW TO UNDERSTAND YOU IN EVERY LANGUAGE I CAN!
It’s not the books
or the deadlines.
It’s the people.
Bleh.
The people.
The cowardly childish people
with their smug clothes
and horrendous attitudes
that you can smell just over
the stink of their pomp.
Truthfully,
I feel for them
because they don’t feel for themselves.
and because there is little way to prove to these kids
that they can be them
not doctored them
or decorated them
the “them” they thrive to be
not the “them” they try to be.
So I’m surrounded by people
icky people
whose glares and stares
and whispers like cold ghosts
leave me too feeling torn between
being myself
(whatever that even means)
and being accepted.
I want to be free
to try new things,
but new things are poison here at school
new things are demeaning
because they’re demanding.
So,
I have moments where I say
‘Be you. What does it matter?’
But then when I am alone
at the table
at the only open table
with the last chair
the one that squeaks if you
rock to the left
when I am
listening to the music no one knows
and reading the book no one chose
thinking about the movie even no theater shows
that’s when moments of guilt ridden
loneliness bring me to say
‘Put yourself away for now.
Put in a pin in it.
Come back to what you want
after you’re done being what
society thinks you need.’
Because
it is hard to be loved
by one sided people
it is hard to be loved
when the world wants you to say
what it wants to hear.
Us teenagers think we wear invincibility cloaks
So we never have to see those under the invisibility cloaks
‘Don’t question it!’
seems to be the motto of most I meet here.
Because who wants to learn,
who wants to try
if it makes them question their comfort?
And of course that all just touches the surface
of that other thing.
The thing I don’t want to really talk about.”

You pushed me to tell you.

So I did.
“I’m afraid
of God.
I’m afraid
of Death.
I can’t go off of blind faith
like I did when I was young.
I can’t accept ‘Jesus loves you
this I know’
because this I don’t know.
And no one
Not my parent
Not my mentor
Not even my Bible
can give me enough hope in this regard
to bring me to accept not knowing.
This amount of stress is me
Sits as a damp frog
Pestering me to choose
Croaking up unformed opinions
in the form of tar
that I get trapped in.
How can I believe in something
How can I devote my life to something
How can I pray to someone
that I am not even convinced has cared
for a thousand years?
I want to think God knows my name
that he is above me as
those shiny, divine painting portray.
But they’re lies.
And people expect me to believe
that he is smiling down on me like
a new daddy over a crib.
He isn’t a father to me.
So, I feel lost
and confused
and scared that I’m wrong
and even more terrified that I am right.
I’m scared of
God.
And I’m scared
to die.
I don’t quite think I even know
how to live yet.”

“Oh,”
You said.

“Yeah,”
I whispered.
“I know.”

We both paused.
Remember?
My arms rested
at my sides.
Heavy.
Yours swung across
your chest.
Nervous.

“So you’re doing great then?”
You managed to slide through a smile.
“That’s good to hear.”

There was a stain on that one table
You were gently in view
I fiddled with it instead of smiling at you
The crowd was loud, but I spoke louder
Briefly fastened by a gaze, then freed
A chance soon wasn't one
At the table, silent
Left to remain
Where I stayed
Searching
Safe

real is the form.

here now is a colony of words,
or an empire of assault from the
many truths that smite us.

our hearts gallop altogether
past the prairie of imaginations:
this movement, this locutionary,
this waltz adagios its way
to a pace that knows no sojourn.
let us raise our clenched fists
always angelward.
we are young in this agronomy.
our hands remind us of their increasing responsibilities.
our inner light realizes the throng of our shadows - away from the dark
we go pursuant to all effulgence.
let us unpin our juvenile wings
  from the clasp of what startles
us back to our flawed origins.
a flumine of flawlessness awaits
the steep end of our possibilities.

let us not neglect this.
let us, hand in hand, straightforwardly, break from our nascent states and unfurl in a craze of the so many things that capture our potentials.
outside my home, the streets are vacuous, famished from the twirling laughter of children.
once, the grass is giddy from the lightsome meanderings of our superfluous feet! where did all the days crawl to? these limbless serpents that pillage the fruits of our sageness.

i look outside and the mellow moon
enters with its lithe figure
through the hollow spaces of doors
to lairs where the youth are sleeping, unmindful of what dreams log onto the papers of their souls.
heed the call and do not let
it go, running off into another hapless length of waiting.

real is the form.
there is no lie in our rawness.
the voice inside us is tender
with message, purging our poisons
into detox and preparing with
new energies, our
flesh for our consigned ventures.

the voluminous pages are still
white and new, words besmirched still yearn to be written - there is no getting realer than the realization of our clarion call:

real is the form
and in the blank veranda of green
we sift through wordlessness,
gaping our mouths now,
contributing a verse,
     or a song!

Solitary confinement
With my thoughts
Scrutinizing hip-hop's;
Southern and western rapper's lyrics
Making my annotates
Trying to explain my thoughts,
Beyond Hellish...

Analysing stealth notion
In a taciturn booth
Making my annotates
Alone with my "Endeavour—able" thoughts,
Forking folks like a chess game,
Queen for Knight or checkmate...

Metamorphosis reactions,
Merging quarks and quarks... ,
Forming viihunnid, I —
Will be causing earthquakes
From the southern hemisphere in the north side.

"Don't leave out the graphic details."
Oh, trust me. I won't.
The gruesome, disturbing, intimacies.
The bone-chilling, hair-raising fragments.
It's almost too much to bear.
But not quite.
This vulgarity is just enough to keep them on the edge of their seats.
Every tiny, twisted moral of the story.
In between the cracks, find shining slivers of redemption.
Only to immediately cover them up with rotten deception.
Good, ***** flair. Scummy additions. Sick annotations.
Keep the masses rollin' in.
Complexity, concentration, then chaos when they want more fear.
The blood-curdling, stomach-churning truths.
The disgraceful, distasteful deductions.
We've come to the conclusion they crave this coagulation of ****.
Dark disdain eating away at the corpse of wellness.
Vermin, pests, gnawing, slobbering.
Choking on the bones of prosperity.
The decomposition of this life is what they love.
Flies, gnats, swarm. Maggots clump.
Crack, rip, slurp, gag, choke, ******* die.

The cat lies on the table. She is keeping her own council, a philosophical feline. It is mid afternoon, an hour before the possibility of tea and cake. Already the room is retreating from the lamp's light into a dusky gloom. Outside the winter garden lies still, damp and cold and still.

Rain comes. A winter rain, almost snow, spreads itself across the window.  Ice-full it is a drum with tiny particles rolling across a taut skin of glass. The cat stirs, turns on his side exposing a tummy of white fur. An old cat this, a silent presence now, hardly a purr on a waiting lap.

Books. Piles of books. A book open to reveal pencilled annotations. Several arrangements of papers paper-clipped together, colourfully highlighted. There's a scholarly journal 'borrowed' with a concert programme marking a ‘required’ read. Telemann and Bach infiltrate an investigation of Jewishness in George Eliot's Daniel Deronda.

A framed photograph stands companionably amongst today's letters and the coloured cards of Christmas to come. There's a red-haired girl, a portrait against old roses., a child in a school-blue dress, freckled with green eyes she is smiling carefully, as though not convinced taking this photo is a good thing.

As darkness encroaches, the stories in this space circle the lamp like moths. They rise from the table, detach themselves from the walls (like bats) and float in their own form. Catching leaves, wish-making in a September wood; the fierce tide pouring across the Lindisfarne causeway; small children picnicking by a cricket field. The recent thrill of Jerusalem. Taverner's Mass –

Oh Western Wind,
when will thou blow,
the small rain down can rain?
Christ! If my love were in my arms,
and I in my bed again!

Here in this small suburban room there comes together a past; a life reverberates in a temporary peace, a truce in the long campaign of family, ageing, ****** discomfort, obligation, regret (always regret), passion unspent, books unread, poems still to write. And this waiting for a clear answer yet to come, a promise yet to be fulfilled? All is contained here as the alarm clock's digits move towards 16.30 and it is time for tea and cake. Time to rise from the table and feed the cat.

the second coming of self harm has entered a town called Both.  

having a baby is a mouthful.  

-

think of yourself as a journal death keeps.

This is not a love poem.
Because
I know nothing about the entrancement of Romance
It’s like watching a mime mimic antics
It makes me panic.
No, I write epics and tragedies.
About political catastrophes.
About the rhythmic anatomy of poetry.
Not about “How do I love thee…”
But let me count the ways that these days
Have grown strange;
The passage of time has seemed to stop.
This black clock’s bold Tock and
Tick have been erased and
I’m still sick with the aftertaste
From the venom of your kiss
Your toxic lips made me itch that
Poisoned twitch One-thousand times
Before my bloodshot eyes
Went blind to your beauty.
“A most unfortunate disability”
Professionals told me
But I just sighed and smiled insignificantly
“No, no, you see this,
Ironically, is immunity.”
Imperviousness to seduction

But this is not a love poem.
It’s a professional epiphany
An observation

All research and annotations state things like
Blind Fortunes and
Heart complications are just
Minor alterations that
Spark fascinations in
Lab coats and stethoscopes.
Isotopes of foreign hopes
Are my safety ropes to cope with my
Distance away from you another day
And there I go again.
Every ******* word I say will start out right
But then convey to betray me with the
Cliché decay
Of a fluttering heart.
And on this day when time has stopped
I’ll re-lock my jaw that dropped
And, with Blind Eyes, this mental case
Will try to trace the chalk outlines
Of  lucid days
With the white spine
Of the brain stem

But this
Is not
A love poem.
Because
I refuse to be Entranced by Romance.
I’m the kind of guy who would Panic in
That Frantic state of mind
And draw away from Sunlight
To find warmth Moonshine
To bite the bullet and lace up these shoes
Because eleven shots and twelve steps
Is the closest I get to refuge.
See, I dream in the Black and White
Of a first version television box set
About Bloodied tragedies
And political catastrophes
Set to a beat based on
The rhythmic anatomy of poetry
Rarely about “How do I love thee…”
Or the bedpost marks of
Fading, Chalk-Laced Memories.

though equally bright

the glow from pregnancy
and the glow
from a beating

are set apart
by their
duration.

mental age is a relic of my son’s afterlife.

when dimmest, our women
young and old

climb trees.

so plant.

300 violins play in the background
As words flow out of me like a punctured ink pin
Drowning the paper like a flash flood
They play a symphony to the written sins  
300 orchestrated violins plays their strings
The music
Out weighs the strange annotations on the pages
My words they use as their music sheet
Sounds emanate as they guide there bow over the strings
Following along the music sheets
Penned by me
300 violins play a soft soothing tune in the beginning
But they all start to scratch as they follow the path of the words
Playing erratic and panic
What verbs must I have use
They all seemed to play confused
300 violinist playing off key
Composed by me

The lamp will burn the longest as we watch,
blood to pavement in the form of a breathing heart.
Plastic flowers sigh within these annotations,
the cement can only hear what we create.
Voices unheard of from those running into the dawn,
hammered out by ignorance.
Moon craters shift toward fingers
that pierce the sky dripping sobs
and curses and faces white as chalk.  
Tombs laid by hearses,
not with haste
but, a decent taste of prayers and monstrous mourning.
The flowers today keep us here, the constellations keep us high.

Melody
And harmony
Listening
To a symphony
And its playing my song
My time is short
And my thoughts are long
A new face to court
Caught in the throng
I think to myself
What's going on?
Life is intangible
I am incredible
Considered an animal
Living against the dramatical
Keep your eye on the ball
And try not to fall
Lest you find yourself
A vegetable
Notice me
Maybe you can see
Past the words
Into the picture
Furtively
And have the courtesy
To notice these
Literal annotations of beauty
Out of bureaucracy
And in to destiny
The rest of me
Is catching up
But can you see
The hidden meaning
I'm good at this
So probably not
So enjoy with me
This absent thought

1.  COYOTE SONG
  
A warm beautiful sound
Howling at the moon
Into the cold dark night
  
2.  TRUTH
  
I have seen the greed
And what it does see
A lot of my friends died rich
  
3.  BUTCHER I AM
  
I stabbed Bukowski
In the back again that
bstrd smoked way too much
  
4.  OKLAHOMA
  
O. K. OKIE EYE
Would live here amongst the wells
save the tornadoes
  
5.  UNDER FORTY ?
  
Poe died old
comparingly
  
6.  SOUTH DAKOTA
  
A cold place in hell
And a bolder stone
American Reminder
  
7.  HIGH SCHOOL ******?
  
I needed a date so
I traveled outer space
Searching comet's end
  
8.  YAHOO!  PAYPAL PLEASE
  
I owe poetry so
Much.  so pay up.
Donations are accepted.
  
9.  A TEAR FOR PAL
  
Mike Dembo American
Pizzaman.  Married man
Walking ocean floor
  
10.  SLIP
  
What was' I thinking?
That I could be saved'?
drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip...
  
11.  TRASH TALK
  
I strong armed the mother
That was in my way
To get my fix today
  
12.  FANCY FANTASY
  
Anytime I want to
**** somebody famous
Yes, I think I will
  
13.  CELEBRITY PICNIC?
  
The *****'s gather on
Street corners they promote
Themselves believing their lies
  
14.  50% OFF?
  
American people give
Me your retailed money
It's President's Day
  
15.  TO THE FORGOTTEN 1'S
  
Forty-one more nations
Annotations have been
Made I have found you
  
16.  1 BUNNY DREAM
  
A ******* Playmate
Enters my room hip hop
Hippity hoppity
  
17.  DEAD POEM SOCIETY?
  
I murdered you haiku
In cold blood
Now I'm going to ****** you
  
18.  TABLE FOR 1 EACH
  
An oreo and fig
Newton meet for lunch
One for me, one for you
  
19.  CUTE COOKIE CRUMBLE
  
An oreo runs into
fig newton.  Fancy
meeting you here, crumb
  
20.  31 JAN 09
  
A man died today
on State Street in Hackensack,
New Jersey.  So cold.

the shadow of summer haunted her like an inconsiderate ghost, but we had been sad since last tuesdays and it didn’t matter anymore.

it felt like a bouquet of “just fine, thanks” and burned fingertips and concentrated annotations of ethical etiquette, so we sat in our rooms and held onto our own hands until the buckets passed and we could all puddle-skip past the broken bicycles.

Writing becomes the margin
The annotations,exclamations..
In the corners of my life.

I am stifling in the sutures of some silicone filled future
where the real becomes the fiction and with a predilection for affection.
I search out with some conviction to look for something more.

In the corners of my eyes where constellations live and die..
..and where stars are born and burn
I turn in to inner space
Hoping there I'll find the place
Where this pen that meets the page is divested of its rage
And in the margins once again
Only peace and ink blots will remain.

Books are made to frame these words.
Sturdy things with wire bound spines.
Many times, I have looked within and been taken far away..
..from where I lay..into another world within this world.
In the whirling of narcotic free.
A story.
This is the me.
The light against the night the wrong way round
The day that breaks without a sound and yet remains unbroken
A token that will win no prize
More constellations in my eyes.

Progressively I believe in more and more of my own lies.
And surprisingly..I knew this would occur
This event was written in the margins when I wasn't there
But was read and readily digested as another fiction.
Fact.

Something that I missed..I lacked?
In the margins..life is difficult and to define a future..
..has no future but the snipping of another suture
Binds these wounds and hurts abate.

I would not write against the margin of my fate
Nor relate the pangs of hunger as I take
An empty page again..to sate my rage again.
I must behave again..
..must be brave again.

In and on a dusty manuscript where one more dream was stripped
And one more life was ripped to shreds
I put to bed my haunts.

cuticles strewn into dismemberment
pulling myself away: picking, peeling
learning to breathe dusty air

i’m never there, you’re never here
tangled pathways in the color of scar

can you hear broken breath,
can you see fractured light,
can you taste salted tears
all before they slip by, unnoticed?

morning has never been a friend
always revealing dreams as nothing more than
silver screen annotations to the life we lead
vs the life we need -
i need to give up wanting
so i rid myself of this lump that rests in my chest
when i try to speak when things are amiss
and tangled becomes knotted.

fingers dismembered gardens -
poppy leaf, red raw
a wallet of unrecalled, trifold and unstable
wanting, wanting, wanting
to fidget into the arms of understand
me

I invite you every-which-where, to hang with whoever, because, if "not-the-bother" came not-with, neither would have I. 

                                             [page 3] I invite you every-which-where,
                                              ­ to hang with whoever, because,
                                             if "not-the-bother" came, not-with,
                                               neither would-have-I.

I could show you that rock, I just found, and be sure you'd see the lion's-face in it, too, and if not, not so-say, as a saving throw (for my sanity). A welcomed throw, at that. But, merely, a prediction. An-[Dad just startled me, by design, kicking down my bedroom door. This wasn't left in as some song-for-sympathy, but a solid,  and tangible-manifesting of a shared assumption: that this planet won't pity us, even for an instant.]

Projected predictions probably-not-preferred. They aped me, in April, when I accidentally abandoned discretion, and made you [page 4] aware of my more-amorous intentions. [I made that too wordy, for my reached-for tone.] Regardless, I don't misread your messages, rather, I'm quite sure you've sent zero. Real appreciative of those rapid minutes, relived, wrapped-up in last April, that I got to hold you, and reel, and ring-in, your ear, right-next-to-it.

I know, it "isn't-like-that," But I hope it wasn't awkward. And that hug, that wasn't-awkward-hug, well, no, it wasn't weird for me, alsotooeither---it's always... just, a little-too-tough, to let go of you, leaving me. I can't even remember, the lie I allotted, to attempt an escape. From my outcry of "awkward hugs!" as I hid, you still made an anxiety, into an awesome-day. "Even-if," you wouldn't have-shown, [page 5] had today not been paid. And---wait, no, you know I don't mean-it-that-way. [I'm sorry. I think about you reading this, and my writing will ramble. Maybe, when re-written, post-forced-revision, and transcribed. Maybe I'll annex all these tiny annotations. Maybe I'll never regret the exhibition, if I never air-it-out.]
...

I have shown my words
the folded edges of my book
the accidental rips
the mindful confusing to all annotations
the highlighted quotes
the underlines
the arrows
the connections.

I have shown my mind
the unhealthy parts
the mistakes
the mindful confusing to all thoughts
the highlighted memories
the underlying reasons
the why's the who's
the connections.

I have shown my art
the wrinkled pages in my sketchpad
the cross outs
the mindful confusing to all compositions
the highlights and shadows
the underlying feelings
the what's and why's
the connections.

I have shown my book,
I have shown myself.

"Cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right",
The boy exhales deeply,twirling dust motes in the light.
His pencil moves laboriously as his notes limp to the end,
And he shifts back from his studies and grimaces at a friend.
The girl gazing along the row admires his boyish face,
The frown lines from thinking have left a shallow trace,
So she whispers across to him that he needs to smile,
And he grins at her and stretches, adds annotations to the pile.
I observe him from the whiteboard,
Feel a rush of maternal pride. Young, strong and full of hope,
The world is open wide.
Then emotion clutches at my throat, sins forefathers have done,
A hundred years ago he'd have been,
In the trenches with my son.

I sit here, night after night, pouring myself into the cracks of history, bathing in obscure knowledge for the sake of trying to aquire some sort of superiority. Pointless. I've been burying myself in dusty scraps of information since I was a boy, and none of it has prepared me for you. You throw the beauty of an experience across my shoulders like a blanket and I shrug it off with mere facts and annotations, as if I'm afraid of what it would mean to accept the simplicity of you reaching out to me, not to explain but to share. The simple fact is that I withdrew from things a very long time ago and now I don't know how to come back. Always I must explain and analyze, pry up old tombstones thinking that if I can only find some kind of secret that I'd be able to step back into life. You told me that I hold too much back. You're right. I hold most everything back, bury it in the mass grave where I dumped the corpses of many selves. I don't know how to participate in life anymore, only to observe and calculate. And I'm afraid that if I can't figure out how to change that, it will strangle us.

i am saving words.
i find them in dusty corners,
old words piling up over the years,
and i collect them in my hands.
i look under books i wore from use,
between scribbled annotations in their pages.
in my journal i find words
i thought about a lot,
and sometimes, i find words in the spaces
that i thought about too much.
i search in the bathroom sink,
where they get caught in the drain,
and i work up a sweat to pull them out.
i search in places i used to go
just to remember again,
i am saving those words.
some of them i meant for my friends.
a few look like they were
for people a bit closer than friends.
most of them are for myself,
and i am saving those words for myself.
i am saving them to remember
the life i've lived thus far.

god closes the food truck and waits for his carefully chosen **** to buffer.

even
over this
a star

[untitled]

I vandalize the outside of a church in a city designed by men with bad teeth and there I mistake a drop of blood for a penny and begin to last forever

~

[abuse errata]

this mannequin
that we now
deliver
to the oral
loneliness
of circles
died
left-handed

~

[the quiet that comes after a two car accident on a country road]

could strangle
an owl
cast
perhaps
as a mole
listening
to the belly
of a stopped
deer

~

[the men of left field]    

I think / in a past / life / my sense / of touch / was yours

-

mother / ain’t once / lost / while pregnant / a baseball / in the sun

-

thunder / is lightning’s / empty stomach

~

[I see in your newer work]

the propping up of rootless boys and the past changing only what was. your father the spinner of flea market globes. a bat in the barn with the head of a chicken. your mother returning to god the ghost you painted for death. your son wetting the bed. right of owl, left of crow.

~

[annotations for son]

a small creature was shot
stumbled
and became
my handwriting.

two of my legs
need god.

~

[sculptural]

a moth attacking the ear of a white horse

[on a family farm
littered
with oar-beaten
scarecrows]

-

baby talk
in a suicide note  

-

sign language, mosh pit, 1991

An inner page
frayed but full to four edges with marginalised annotations leaving nothing unsaid over the bleeding watermark shouting its insistence that nothing is ever finished only paused pending further inspiration from yet unheard whispers from beyond the perimeters of this captured inner rage.

What happens when the lines between reality and dreams begin to blur?
One second you walk down a sunlit street to go to work,
The next you wake up in bed staring up at your ceiling.
Which one is the dream, the walk to work or the alarm sound?

The shadows in your dreams appear more real than the faces of your day,
The conversations with shadows more genuine than the ones you have with people around you.
The breeze felt before you wake up seems fresher than the weather forecasted,
The sensations in real life seem duller than the ones from your dreams.

Maybe the dreams you have are premonitions of the upcoming day,
Maybe they’re annotations to the day you had before.
Perhaps the stars you see in the sky at night are a lie,
And the ones in your dreams are brighter and more majestic.

What becomes of you if you can no longer separates fantasy from reality?
If you wake up to repeat the things already done in your sleep,
If you walk in the footprints left behind by your shadow.
But most importantly, is it worse to blur the lines of reality,
Or to dream about a reality that is more beautiful than the one you’ll wake up to?

We are all used books-
A little warn- our pages
Sometimes torn, or frayed
Around the edges. Coffee stains,
Lipstick stains, and other various
markings covering words the new
Keepers of these books will never
Get to read. Annotations fill the sides,
Streaky highlighter runs over
Quotes that resonated with the reader
Who came before the last. Tabs and
Folded corners call attention to
Metaphors, riddles- everything
That needs analyzation and
Clarification.
We are passed down and handed out
Until we find a home at last- Someone who
still wants to read, what has
Already been read, many times before.

the abandoned books of women

hurry, grief, your mice
to a nearby
field.

close, silence, your mouth
in the ****** scar
of mine.

distill, wind, the river
your ****
fiction.

scarecrow
if I am worn, let me help you

undress.

loss of the family dog

be alone. enter snowfall as a heavy breather in a white dress
window shopping
for a red.

know

that in between heaven and hell, there is war. hell thinks it a nightmare, heaven thinks it hell. hell sleeps more than your sister in love. heaven counts warriors and can’t put an angel on why the numbers keep changing.

as increased chatter is good for morale, call your mother and say you are her appetite.

scoop the brains of your buddies into a helmet.

annotations for daughter*

the second coming of self harm has entered a town called Both.

having a baby is a mouthful.

–

think of yourself as a journal death keeps.

.....

also:

for those interested, I have 15 signed copies of my full length poetry collection *‘earth is part earth and there’s a hole in the sound I made you from’ (Dec 2015, 98 pages) and 8 signed copies of my full length poetry collection ‘eating the animal back to life’ (July 2015, 316 pages) that I’d love to mail, free of charge, for sharing and/or for burning. send me a message with a physical address along with the collection desired if this is something one hand or two of yours would like.

( Barton)

i know no bliss like getting lost within
the endless expanse of your genius.
trace the chasms of space-time
right to their origins: a big bang
rupturing split atoms, sending
every ounce of matter cascading
into the blossoming cosmos—
spiraling outward for all infinity,
unfurling like the petals
of some intergalactic carnation.
i cannot fathom a better metaphor
for the majesty of your psyche.
you are the monastery where i seek
solace from this miserable existence.
i could stand amidst these hallowed halls,
stretching out all around me,
admiring the stained-glass windows
set like so many precious stones
for all the days of my life
and still come away dumbstruck
by their effortless incandescence.
let me bend back the pages of your brain
like my favorite book: well-loved, highlighted,
and fit to burst with the scrawling pen
of my annotations. feed me, Dark Strider.
nourish the broken bits of my spirit.
wild and free, unbowed, unbent—
you answer to no one. you deserve
nothing more and nothing less
than a thousand-thousand poems
written to commemorate your existence.
you are an encyclopedic library displayed
in kaleidoscopic multicolor, i want to drop acid
and wander, psychedelic,
through your neurological pathways
from this day until my very last.
if i could, i would fold this world
like a map to bring me closer to you.
you incite deathless joy
and take away the pain.
your mind is the cathedral
where i finally find god.

the ruins of the city are too much for my poetry to sink in,
i've dwelled in rational emotions and irritations of love,  in

all my verses,
all my pauses,
all my annotations;

the ruins of the city are too little for my emotions,
the regular of love and unhappiness doesn't bubble my words anymore
the humble repeating people stopped pleasing, for
the rubble of first glimpse that i've caught

she wrote in my favorite book
with witty comments and neater handwriting
straight lines with her black pen
careful not to write over lines in ways i hadn’t been
careful not to hurt the words i’ve told her i loved
and i suppose that must say something
about how maybe she is a gemini
she certainly has a twofold relationship
with permanence
i noticed that
she underlines every capital letter indicating importance
when they aren’t at the beginning of the sentence
like Before and Investigation
she underlines what she thinks is important
and circles what she understands
she does both to me
and though i may not understand why she chose me to write on
i cannot help but smile at her annotations

RIGHT IT IN A SONG


Was it wrong to write it in verse, how often does feeling good become a curse

Positive annotations bring out good vibrations switching emotions from deep inside

Marking time still stuck in slime, simple rhythms  or tones to make my mood reverse

Internal grudges needing nudges, memorable melodies forcing fonder sensations outside

Morning madness  our Peace on lease, forget the violence wishing the silence will resound

Many saying what is this all about, singing smiles carry clout teaching us to take it in stride

Seeking comfort for my soul as a role not as a sound, even with my mind and body in rebound

Silence is deafening new notes bring reckoning, broken hearts repaired, anxieties pacified

Await unknown musicians to soothe sensations, lives weight not as great when we hear it unwind

Twirling turntables send tones soft as sable ready to bring us from a quagmire of quotients ready to release us until we are ratified. R.C.

.i simply can't get this song out of my head, for a second day: nancy & lee - summer wine... just like i couldn't get jimmy rodgers' kisses sweeter than wine (then again... that might have been the jackson browne & bonnie raitt rendition, i'm guessing most probably the latter)... as i'm pretty sure it's nancy springfield and lee the 70's tash-donning pornstar - sly upperhand singing on the side in between eating oysters...

as i knew i would end the day and begin
my catch-2-hours of: night proper with
a bottle of wine...
how else to celebrate: 'you know,
i really enjoy working with yeast-dough...
oh hell yes, it's much more fun than
the usual dough associated with poaching
dumplings... it's the perfume of yeast...
catch me with a cube of fresh ones
and i'll sit for a while just sniffing it...
yeah... sniffing fresh yeast before actually
using it...'
or at least that how to do it proper
without wanting a take-away pi-za-za...
the sauce is extra herby (extra
basil and oregano) and there's
an added chilli or two...
and enough mozzarella to drown a slice
of ham in with a mushroom or two...

cooking... whoever said it was supposed
to be this pre-****** liberation
1950s postcard homecoming of the housewife:
who said that cooking was a feminine
"job"?
after all, who is Milo Minderbinder?
and who was the cook on the Pequod
or was it Essex?
perhaps that old saying from the Demeter:
it's bad luck to bring women onto a ship...
bad luck indeed: having to name a ship
a woman's name...
but cooking... he hunts and then has
the audacity to cook the **** thing?!
stereotypical - i guess...
what else could i possibly write:
to "correct" myself...

was that anything, in italics, as an introduction...
akin to talking over a radio playing
in the background?

otherwise:
'it was of your making and
then objection, inference and resignation
and revolt. well done'....

and and and...
how best to sum a slow-pacing...
i would have never managed to: well done or
do myself by reaching for the skeleton...
like: it was of your own making,
then an objection, then an inference -
pause: resignation and a crescendo of revolt...

the dignity of walking (cogitans per se)
is being referenced...
and any comment is not a kick-in-the-teeth...
but perhaps i... lack the basics in
identifying very common psychological
apprehensions...

how can something can become so simple?
did i over-romantise it with the latin?
in terms of morality:
i "trans-gender" myself as
new pronoun!

θought: i.e. I ought...
besides, there's the crude manifestation
of a will... when all the knives have
been sharpened...

a comment and i don't know what to do with
it!
i don't know: like it? love it?
dislike it?
can i just keep it, can i just sit on it?
can i pickle it?
can't it wait?
am i expected to provide a dialogue?
which is why i rarely comment...
i could never leave comments
or annotations on books i've read
in the past...

it seems so simple, though!
it's like everyone is supposed to keep this "reality check"!

'it was of your making and
then objection, inference and resignation
and revolt. well done'

a well done i'd call an inedible roast
of beef... a well done i'd call:
chewing gum chicken ******* that
were allowed to sit in the oven for
a period that: doesn't excuse them being
165 degrees when a thermometer is spiked
into the flesh...

what is so "blantantly" obvious!
william buckley jr interviewing norman mailer,
public intellectualism and being drunk
at the same time...
and this horrid testament of gory:
for the better health of the public discourse...

i imagine all the books that never arrived
at the hunchback's angel's purvey
of: what's worth reading... and what isn't...

there i was "thinking" that:
the per se suffix attached... "something"...
it's clearly not a noumenon: res per se
(thing in itself)...
and if it's thinking in itself...
it has to be complicated... adored for what it
is... esp. if it's not related to
some moral θought: I ought...

of the comment provider...
it's quiet staggering...
when you can emphasize with someone...
you hope they're writing about themselves...
you dare not think they're writing about you...
but... in their writing: they are like you...
writing about yourself...
so no... they're not writing about you...
they're writing from a "solipsism" venture
into the horizon "undistrubed"...
you can only retort... i've just come back...
from where you're thinking of going...
and it's not what any hope wishes
itself to envision...
for better or for worse...
for either life or dream...

it's so simple though!
i should listen to strangers more often!
(a) it was of your (own) making
(b) then objection
(c) inference
(d) resignation
(e) revolt

what's that in terms of schematics
and geometry?
that's a pentagram! i haven't seen...
schematics evolve past the square...

that's why i don't like commets...
if i could comment on everything i've ever read...
third-party sourcing someone for
a first-person reply...

perhaps i'm not playing the psychology
game - if it even is a game - at all?
the psychology was just a tow-along
dog with a leash and a muffer...
fair enough: muffer "vs." muzzle...
FF ZZ...
there was this concern for:
what sport will there be demanded...
for man to perform... if he truly
takes walking to the task of countering
all other pleasures: coinciding with
a physical exercise of the body?

i call this: prompt...
how could i not come to such a simple
conclusion, prior?
how could i have possibly coupled:
the freedom of thought...
free speech...
when being... bound to an otherwise:
automated body...
an automated heart... a conscious-unconscious heart...
same for the liver, the kidneys, the brain...
and how... only when it fails...
do people... give it any conscious effort
to mind its existence...
a heart-attack will leave the heart in the hands
of someone who will prize it above...
as long as he is able to sacrifice an eye for it...

walking is where thinking "happens"...
it's a forever dasein since there's
no real "here" or "there"...
and... there's the pervasive interlude...

to have to abhor explaining "things" to oneself...
what are the chances of conjuring
the royal-we or the royal-one...
in that first person via third person meddley?
is there a "they" to be made inclusive...
from a perspective of: the horde of hallucinations?

perhaps i am mad:
but i do know that such conditions do not
become viral,
or at least they shouldn't...
it's not like a schizoid hallucination
can be passed to the next person
with the impetus
of a common detrimental cold: or... zee flu...
you can't "somehow" ingest
symptoms of something akin to this:
without a self-regarding
violition to become... debased to begin with...

i will rarely dare to leave a comment...
on anything...
in so doing i will always want to bypass
"the work"... "in question"...
and speak to the narrator...
because whatever this is...
is it's own purpose...
once i click on the save button...
i do the Pontius Pilate deed...
this poo'em becomes
an abandoned house...
it becomes a squalor...
it becomes a "*****"...
a point of reference for all things
public... akin to a toilet...
**** on it, **** on it... comment: yes do...
**** it... ******* over it...
take Alice with you for
the walk through the corridors of...
not another imagining of not yet another
Elysium...

sometime ago: this would have been...
exactly january 8th...
at ten minutes to 1am...
perhaps it would have been five years
ago...
where was i five years ago?
somehow not right now, "here"...

after a while i get a brailled response...
⠼⠁ view... it's cruel... to have to resort to +
a ⠼⠁⠼⠁ is ⠼⠃
well because of the equals (=) symbol...
morse... contra braille...

count them! (⠼)...
⠁(a and 1)
⠃ (b and 2)
⠚ (j and 0)
⠊ (i and 9)...
and all the other "numbers"
follow suite...
because you really couldn't
write an la dièse: A♯
in braille... then again... perhaps you could...
but that's how i figured out...
it's not exactly the case that
people are born into wheelchairs...

some skydive... some ride horses
competitively...
some scale mountains...
they fall...
i like walking... i always liked walking
more than i would ever care for running...
ignorant of me then...
to "presume" that people are born into
wheelchairs...
like "nothing happened"...
ever...
that 101th carrot a man would eat
being going blind...
or rather: not eating that 101th carrot...

ask blind willie johnson what he
thought about picking up the guitar...
better than waxing a phallus
with forrest gump intent of also playing
the do'whip stoopid toto too!

no... something happened...
Melaine Reid... sure as **** she wasn't born
in a wheelchair...
that's not being mean:
but can i at least enjoy walking when
i don't have a need for the 50th goldstruck marathon
gimmick to celebrate the olympics:
but not the ping-pong or the archery?

can i? it's not like i'm about to swim
like an octopus with inks spare
for a page... that just requires
a dabbling in... a Rorschach?!
really?

who is this person that would have written
either circa 15th century german music
or the dignity of walking (cogitans per se)...
well... certainly not circa me, now...
i was expecting a slow night...
to have written something and not have
clinging to it...
i was welcoming it to have passed
with the purpose of time as:
neither classic... nor worth any intellectual
debate...
something private for those...
wishing it to be most private...
never a taunt...

you can guess when a comment is asking you:
is this a taunt on purpose...
or a taunt... without purpose?
- about how to start a d.m. escapade...
how something is not, "punctuated enough"...
or how... when diacritical markers come to play...
it's somehow... "overtly-punctuated"...

feed me to the lions! feed me to the wolves!
never expect me to go down easily
as being fed to democracy in the lineage
of anglophile "public intellectuals"!
give me the wolves! spare me the mob!
the anonymous mob of the comments!
i'll probably sound german when
i have to: reiterate:
geben mir der wölfinnen...

perhaps i chose the feminine...
over the masculine... thinking of the valkyrie:
kyrie eleison!
when wolves showed up...
or the crab-bucket intellectualists...
i said it once... i'll say it again:
crab-bucket intellectualism...
even in my darkened abode i will never levy
myself to leave a remains of my self...
not in the comments...

but then again: i am chasing
1 millions words as a pauper...
semi-, oh lord! i have somehow missed
the calculation to offer: relief with!
precision!
if these not be hebrews...
then they must be anglo-ßaß!
esp. h'americanißed anglo-sächsisch...
the scurge of the spitz...
the pomeranian... the bohemian...
the bayer...

oh i'm content with my dole...
my dice roll...
i usually ridicule myself...
there's no better humor than...
self-deprecating humor...
and it always involves...
not succumbing to cheap psychiatric
metaphors associated with
a melancholic... i.e. the diagnostics...

rhyming should only happen on a whisper
of a whim...
spontaneously...
there should be no...
dissection scrutiny.... no fibula no tibia:
oh god... there's also a crest?!
what's a coccyx supposed to be?
ancestral tripod / pivot...
something we'd make of a monkey
should he not jump at your command...
break a few bones,
wind him up... until the jack 'n' box
would pop out?!

it's a poem: it's not a book...
it's certainly not an investment worthy
of these modern binges: season rocky XI...
star wars episode... X...
or some spin-off...

if it were as simple as the retort to the question:
why do you **** people?
- why do you pluck flowers?!
dracula, b.b.c. and what not...
it's not exactly a cliche if...
there's an afterthought lingering behind it...
no "great" punctures onto paper
would ever give
the secrets of constellation or...
if it wasn't for the drinking and the loitering
in the antechamber of spontaneity...
what sort of whim,
what sort of "inspiration"...
what muse... would be bound to loiter...
in a day...
for a day: where the zenith is here...
and the nadir the everyday welcome "chores"
that have, already been disclosed...

i looked at the output of the commentators...
someone's bound to be peacocking...
for a solid minute i thought i was
i.q. 95... sub-minimal...
and a reply to these comments would be?
a "conversation" with this current mask,
of a voice, only 10 minutes later: 10 minutes
too late...

so... why bother?
there's a better vision in my head...
10 minutes from now...
i'll be pandering a cushion
to allow my heavy head to fall into its cusp
and ready me with 6 hours of blissful night...
perhaps i'll dream: i hope not...
unless the dreams are less dreams
and more: ciphers...
upon waking i do not meet the litany of:
i think, i am, i will be, i hope to be...
instead... with a backlog of a dream...
i will wake up as:
de- and -cipher...
half an hour upon waking...
having to relax my strict rules of memory
being reserved for "things" that happened
to me when i was 4 years old...

that's when i break the rules for having
an extensive memory...
when i dream and sleep...
or rather: when i dream i forget that i slept...
and when i sleep and not dream?
i'm left with a hangover of not being awake
for 8 hours plus...
"conundrum" or what?

but if i do dream... those 8 hours of sleep
will seem like a breeze...
otherwise i'm ******...
when i wake up and persist with eyes closed...
de- and -cipher...
de- being i... and -cipher being: the dreamed...
past-participle...
perfect grammar doesn't really matter, now...
given that the royal-pronoun game
has been abandoned...
what with no care for the royal-we
or the royal-one...
one was not expecting to come across
the Mongolian Vay... of They... of the horde...
seems times are...
some on the way in... some on the way out.

My world is falling apart at the seams
like the books on my shelf.
I'm filling them with annotations, post-it notes, highlights.
But I'm not filling myself.

Literary figures come to mind at night.
They form one literary nightmare.
Bleed into each other like one story.
And in class, I can't tell them apart anymore.

And I can't tell who I am anymore. Who am I?
The girl suffering with eating disorders, depression, anxiety?
Or the girl who loves the books filling her shelf?