BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR TELEPATHIC PROSE
Lee Sharks & Jack Feistfrom Pearl and Other Poems

1.     Compose real poems telepathically, with mind control powers, inside your glorious brain.

2.     You are your own best advocate. Insist the world acknowledge your poems as artifacts of tiny doom. Accept nothing less. Threaten to smash yourself in the face with gasoline and set your hair on fire. Leap over the seats to aggressively stand inside the world’s personal space and get up in its grill. Take this container of Tic-Tacs and smash it on your forehead. Crush each Tic-Tac individually into your eyeballs and ask the world if it likes your poem, and if it likes your poem, then eat your poem: “Do you like my poem? Then eat it.”

3.     Always seek constant approval, then punch your cat in the face.

4.     Arrive alive. Don’t text and drive.

5.     Always write poems all the time.

6.     Never professionalize writing. Professionalism is the last refuge of responsible people looking for work.

7.     Your life is your poem. Take care to write it biographically. Failing that, invent false biographies and post them on Wikipedia.

8.     Get as much education as you can, then ****** your education in the face to save it from sloppy education. Get enough education to respect your contempt for education.

9.     Give it all that you have, as deep as it goes, as desperate and total as taking a breath.

10.  Also be pedantic mundane pig-critic of precise punctuation juggling and ruthless crossed-out darling murdering of your own puny sentences. Save every draft and revert to original after enormous work, then drown yrself in the bathtub. Remember: editing is organization.

11.  Be long-sighted prodigy of skeptically believing in nothing, but also believe in destiny, but quietly, and hit yourself in the face for naivety’s sake.

12.  You are a seamstress of words—place each stitch carefully, deliberately. Develop a series of rituals and perform them, without variation, prior to placing each word. Allow the frequency and intensity of these rituals to grow until you spend hours, each day, touching and retouching your left index finger to the tip of your nose in a rhythmic, counter-clockwise motion, in sets of thirty revolutions, in order to place a single character. Spend years of your life shut away from the world, wasting away into an awkward, unhygienic shadow of your former self, and have, to show for it, a two-syllable word of Germanic origins on an otherwise clean, white page. This word will be redoubtable, the bedrock of your writing career. Go on to spend vast sums of personal wealth and total dedication, alienating the remaining handful of long-suffering friends who continue, despite all odds, to solicit the memory of your humanity, in order to learn the arts of metalworking, Medieval alchemy, and font design, recreating a metal-cast, alpha-numeric set of Times New Roman font, from scratch, going broke long before “numeric,” and with only the half-formed germs of the characters W, N, and sometimes-vowel Y.  hat are such retrictio s to  ou?  ou are a poet,  ot a mathematicia .  ou are a creature of steel.  ou  ill  rite a  e  and better  orld, a  orld  ithout the letter   , forgi g it, o e smoki g husk of a  ord at a time.

13.  Turn over a new leaf. You’re not getting much done like this, anyways, let’s face it. Break the chains of your censoring, conscious mind; tap into the spontaneous well of unconscious human brilliance that springs from the source of dreams. Thwart the stick-in-*** tyranny of your internal editor by making a commitment to write constantly, without ceasing, editing, or even thinking, no matter what, ignoring the anally retentive quips your brain will no doubt make. Make a further commitment: you will not only write, irrespective of internal censorship, but in a way that is unconscionably terrible, on purpose. Your writing will be, by turns, embarrassing, infantile, automatic, and marmaduke poppers—or shall we say, antagonistic to the indoctrination in repressive concepts such as “sentence” and “word” of your reader, who is always, and only, you. Let your writing be a spiritual discipline of Bat-a-rang pancakes and lightly alarm clock, ding—your toast is done.

14.  Always Alka-Seltzer eyelids all the time.

15.  At last, you are ready to make it new, to ****** your darlings, to first thought, best thought, to your heart’s content. Your adverb will be the enemy of your verb, the difference between your almost-right word and your right word will be the difference between your lightning bug and your lightning. You are ready to have a spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling, then censor the s**t out of it. You are ready to turn your extremes against each other: Unlearn your apple pancakes and burst through the mental barriers; then slow the flood, let the lovely trickle out & edit, edit, edit. Capture spontaneous gem of native human genius, then marshal vast armies of technical knowledge & self-discipline to ensure it glimmers and cuts.

16.  Believe in things like destiny. No really—the path will shatter you so many times your shards will have splinters, your bombshells, shrapnel. By the time you get there—which you probably won’t—even your exhaustion will be tired. Exhaustion of mind and body will have passed so far beyond the physical, and through malaise of spirit, that it will emerge on the other side, as physical exhaustion again. In the face of this, nothing but a little Big Purpose will do. Besides, a little ideology never hurt anyone. Feel free to be all Voltaire with your bad self, in public—but don’t give up.

17.  After all of this, when your will is finally broken (again), and you have given up for the final time (again), start over. The former model wasn’t working. Refashion yourself and your writing. Lather, rinse, usurp your noble half-brother, and repeat, until you get somewhere, or die in the trying.  

18.  Achieve consistency of voice; it is the signature by which you will be known. Your “you” should ring out clearly from each individual letter. In this, the writer is like the salesman. Like a new car, neither the writing’s merits, nor the reader’s needs, will be the final, deciding factor. Ultimately, the deciding factor is you.

19.  Unlike a new car, it is difficult to drive a poem, to use it to get to school or work. Unlike a car salesman, a writer does not wear enormous ties.

20.  Be so consistent that your writing consists in composing the same words, in the same order, creating the some overall voice and style, consistently, over and over, an eternal return of the same. Maintain this disciplined drudgery over the course of years. Let years become decades, and decades, an entire life: You will have “found your voice.” Variety is the spice of life, but consistency is its signature.

20.  Be so consistent that your writing consists in composing the same words, in the same order, creating the some overall voice and style, consistently, over and over, an eternal return of the same. Maintain this disciplined drudgery over the course of years. Let years become decades, and decades, an entire life: You will have “found your voice.” Variety is the spice of life, but consistency is its signature.

21.  Then again, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Throw things up a little bit. One day, put on your hobgoblin hat, the next day, your small mind.

22.  On second thought, re: #16-17: Stop here. You don’t look like much of a writer. Save yourself the trouble of a deep investment that is sure to yield no returns. The prize is big, and not many take it. The Iliad showed us that the prize of writing is life eternal, and taught us to long for that promise; but the Odyssey taught us not to bother. There are many suitors, a single Odysseus. While the husband wends arduously homeward, Penelope weaves impending glory, an evaporating glamour, enchanting them, until he arrives. We are in for a bad end, if we chase another man’s wife, or a prize not rightfully ours. There are many suitors, a crowd of them. They begin as a chittering swarm of bats and end in the very same manner. You cannot have what is not yours. What is yours, no man can take. So, like Emily says,

I smile when you suggest that I delay ‘to publish’—that being foreign to my thought as Firmament to Fin. If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her—if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase—and the approbation of my Dog would forsake me—then—My Barefoot Rank is better—

23.  Therefore, take these Sturm und Drang commandments to the trash heap. Return to step 1, as the only useful piece of advice: Compose real poems telepathically, with mind control powers, inside your glorious brain.

(c) 2014 lee sharks & jack *****

from Pearl and Other Poems:

http://www.amazon.com/Pearl-Other-Poems-Crimson-Hexagon/dp/0692313079/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&qid;=1429895012&sr;=8-1&keywords;=lee+sharks+pearl

TURN OF THE SEASON

For Friends and Family


Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
                                          -Robert Herrick

Intoxicated nights of orange halogen lights-
Illuminating through misty blown water.
As the April breeze ruffles the newly sprung leaves upon the trees,
Men pour malted liquor inside clandestine cellars of tuxedo staff and obsequious waitresses

Echoes of an engine shuffles on down the alley,
Startled it hides in the cornered places.
Men enclosed in smoke talk of days of old-
And better times,
And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.

Woman go about chatting of useless things and waste the night away.
Men sit about playing games of little meaning and waste the night away.
Both will head to familiar places at mornings first rays
And April effortlessly falls into May

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
Slowly trudging through the paces
Slowly they tighten their laces

And set out for another monotony dipped day

Planting their ears to the ground listening
And many things they'll hear and say
With many hindsight memories in their mind glistening
And their lovers will whisper are you listening
And they'll say "yes yes my dear have no fear I am here"

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
And they'll make many a plan and in cases
And step over cracks in fear of dark places


The clink of a glass carries on down the hall
The bartender while wiping the counter yells
"Last call"
And they'll retort "for what reason"
And he "none at all"
Then the bar goes the way of the shopping mall
And summer slips effortlessly into fall

What reasons can they make when the night is through
When it's time to wake what will they do

As the days retreat with their hairline
And each mirror more distortive than the last
They'll retreat further, further into their mind
And what will they find
With their sanity fleeting fast
A desperate thought floating in the breeze
A candle to thaw the freeze


Intoxicated nights of solemn solitude
Tucked in the back thoughts of a lonely suburb
Trying arduously to abandon actuality
But failing and jumping the curb

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
"Sorry love they're not home I'm afraid"
"They've gone to the races"
Each two lovers in two different places

Rest assured rest assured they'll return
They'll unconsciously sell their freedom
Rest assured rest assured they'll return
At this moment they are Carpe Diem

Rest assured rest assured
They'll be plenty of time
To fumble with furniture
Plenty of time
To spend with her
Plenty of time to waste
Plenty of love to give
Now's to go slow not make haste
Now's to go slow and live


And they'll remember childhood
As a warm August kiss
And where their feet stood
And what they missed
And when the leaves
Upon the trees
Fall down down down
To rise to their knees
They'll remember who they are
And who they use to be


So, before you grow old
And wilt away
And the December cold
Melts the summer’s day
Enjoy what you have
For what you have is to enjoy
For what you haven't
Are merely foolish toys

This summer began as the last one did
And will end when Autumn bids
With the sun and stars above for you to see
Run around like children in the heat of lunacy
...


Though I've fasted and wept,
Wept and prayed
And stayed stoic long
Through passing day
And bards’ men song
I can never,
Never truly say
I have achieved arête

No, I'm not the son of Xanthippus
Who instigated the apogee of Athens
The past beacons of Atticus
Dims my own ember passions

Though I've loved and lost
Loved and lusted
Won a few
Others busted
Though I've seen the world at the needle point,
With all the sordid souls suffering
I've lived like Cummings
The farthest extent of emotions
I've kept a drug induced devotion
But never could I stop from wondering
Never could cease sundering

I've seen the valleys of my life
Where the flowers are disseminated like t.v. static
And the only sound a high tinnitus pitch
They've said go, Go I don't love you anymore
Not pretty enough to be a poem
Not intelligent enough to be of any use

Though I've smiled and agreed
Agreed and died
Through all this hell
I have tried
...



They're troubled tonight
Their restless gaze fails to penetrate the maw of a darkened window-

To have
To have not

To operate in the probity of normality
To practice trembling sobriety
To lose an arm for the ones you love
To have in heart the morning dove,

Assures that come evening tide
Through shroud and delusion
Secrets the world shall confide
And lift your illusion
...

The very next morning
Or so it would seem
Awoke the old men
Rendering a dream

Patiently focusing
For a clearer account
The words from the past
They seemed to mount
And as they pressed closer
Not to be deterred
It crested their mind
And then they heard

"Soured metal, rotted walls
Darkness hangs from hall to hall
Broken bonds burning ambitions
A feeling half held until fruition

Life a moment
A last choking breath
Happiness a second
Before eternal death

We exist only
In the time between
A hint of joy
Goes often unseen

Until again
The crest breaks
And life slips by
But leaves no wake

Such was the tale
Of the great eluder
A hidden knife
A dark intruder

A ****** thorn
Upon the rose
A heap of sand
At the toes

Left undone
The last request
Above the head
The water crest"

Intolerable mornings of required communion
Accompanied with formulated phrases
Men limp from church
Their mind wondering
Far from there
To their childhood breakfast table
Breathing the memory becomes stable
They hold on to it as long as they are able
Plates of porcelain
Decorate the wall
Floral patterns swirling to the center
Across the room mother enters
The image wavers and ripples like water disturbed by a pebble
"Honey set the table
Get the biscuits, gravy, ladle."
Set the trays down equal from the middle, a cup to the left, forks and knifes to the right-
Get those filthy boon dockers off my floor and out of sight
Go get your brother without causing a fight
BREAKFAST TIME
Rise and shine on the biscuit line
BREAKFAST TIME
The sun is up and shining
The coffee is on and the bacon frying"

The memory dissipated into a fleecy cloud.
It hangs heavy on their heads.
Remnants of yesterday remembered in indignation
When slipping off to bed.

I'm in the December of my days
And stuck fast in my stubborn ways
If only I could grasp youth for longer
If only my frail body were stronger

If only I were confronted again with every last myriad encounter where I chose reticence
Opposed to openness
My martial mind refuses any peacefulness
Perhaps the reason of my restlessness
...

Shaking off the foreboding dream
A distant luminary seemed to gleam
An old man frail but proud
He spoke a poetic oration aloud

"My head is swollen, my mind it wanders
My tongue is twisted stumbling it stutters
My thoughts are lost in the colliding clutter
My meaning is lost under soft mutters

My smile shields my solemnness
My eyes reveal my weariness
I am a man of little happiness
But refuse to possess helplessness

I am as I decree
An old man wrapped in misery
But not one broken to submission
Just one in a transition

I have tasted the bitters of love
Witnessed the horrors of death
I have choked my linen dove
To its final breath

No, I am not a careless senior
Full of content
Shriveled in demeanor
Mind absent

I'm dying not dead
No resolving to expiration
Living instead
No meeting expectation
No bowing my head

In credence I say
I'm living for today

No consideration for tomorrow
No more drowning in sorrow"

...


The day was overcast
Fitting the mood
Black suits stood in formation
While the lucky ones heaved their load.

"He was not an exceptional man

Not one of great worth
No wife, no kids, no friends.

To an outside eye it would seem as a waste
And maybe it was
But that's the nature of things to end abruptly
On a minor note"
Written by
Tyler A. Sullivan

The leopard and the lion chose to become friends,
For they were all proud of claws on their paws
They each glorified one another for their mighty,
Ability to live on meat of other fauna throughout a year,
They each admired one another for running speed,
They each remained firm and loyal to one rule;
Lions don’t eat leopards neither leopards eat lions.
They felt warmth in their companionship without verve,
Until the time they initiated a certain joint venture;
To hunt an antelope as it was famed to be the sweetest,
Again, there had remained one antelope only in the world,
They dilly and not dallied anyhow about such glittering project,
They both endevoured to set forth by each dawn for a whole year,
Tediously hunting throughout a day, the lion doing a great part,
Setting ambuscades and arduously sleuthing to orient on trail,
The leopard severally fainted in the field due to exhaustion,
On one eve of christmas day, the lion captured the prey,
When the leopard was a sleep shivering in fevers of malaria,
Their prey was a middle aged female antelope with swollen hips.
The leopard was sparked to fire of life by a mysterious fillip,
He boldly requested work, now to help the lion in carrying,
The un-suspecting lion relinquished the carcass to the leopard,
Feat of shrewdness gripped the leopard, he took off
Running away with a lightening speed, the antelope on his mouth,
The lion again began to chase, shouting to the leopard,
To be a gentleman and stop running, for them to share the plunder,
The leopard never listened, he craftily climbed  to the apex,
Of the most tall and most slippery tree, he perched at the peak
With the antelope on his muscular mandibles of voracity,
The lion remained at the stem, wailing like a toddler
His family does not climb trees, not even a shrub,
The lion wailed, using all styles of wailing,
Pleading with the leopard to donate even an iota,
Not even a small piece of antelope bone dropped
To drop on the ground for the lion to taste,
Human leopards are not good hunting companions.

They began without notice, in the city of Mombasa
By the Al shabab shooting baby Osinya in the head,
Killed the mother, leaving a slug stuck in Osinya’s head
Killing and mauling many others macabrously,
Killing for no other reason, but tribe and faith,
Their victims confess different religion and ethnicity.

They had initially lynched the West Gate Mall
In Nairobi, killing the aged and seasoned darling
Of African poetry and true fountain of peace
The dearest Kofi Awonor, in full watch of his son,
Confirming a trail of the ghastly curse of fate and death
That totted him arduously from his home in the west
Of the tropical gulag that makes the land of Africa
From where the terror maestro ; Boko haram reign scot free
Mayheming, Killing, ******, and kidnapping harmless virgins
Killing For no other reason but tribe and faith,
Their victims confess different religion and ethnicity.

They have now killed fifty peasants in Mpeketon town,
****** them in circles to puncture their virginity
and brutally kidnapping those that are not *****,
Using the AK 47 and the Ak 74 to shoot and ****,
Without reason nor course but failure of mind
Botched down by authenticity of holy diversity
Heavenly packaged in God’s idea of tribe,
Uhm! An African man with a gun is a brute of brutes,
Giving an African a gun is simple mess of the world
In to helter-skelter poise tilting peace higgledy-piggledy,
Killing one another like animals premised by Charles Darwin
As overtly seen in the warring Congo and CAR,
Where Africans **** one another in a stupid dint,
To ape Rwanda or no! To outshine the Jewish Massacre
In the Ammonium chambers of fuehrer Adolf ******,
This stupid Africans baser than wild beasts,
Who told you that your greatness will come
from killing your neighbours; the fellow peasants?
These African men are the modern homoguerrillus,
Which one call cheap war making man
They and **** ! ****! ****! ****! ****! ****! ****,
For no other reason but faith and tribe,
Their victims confess different religion and ethnicity.

Gunshots of the gunmen in Africa are not
A song of the caged bird, no whatsoever,
They are cowardly maneuvers of the weak
As the weak and cowards rarely forgive,
They arm themselves to the teeth
With deadly weapons from Russia or wherever
Only to shoot and **** the old and malnourished
Peasant women, killing the likes of baby Osinya
Shooting a suckling baby to prove your heroism,
These African men are really a Whiteman’s burden,
They **** their fellows from cockcrow to chick roost
For no other reason but tribe and faith,
Their victims confess different religion and ethnicity.

So...there's this girl who's rather smart
that, when her lips begin to part,
drives me up the wall in a good way.
I sort of want to see her everyday.
She's usually busy though,
so I occupy
time with one constant sigh
until she calls and then I go.

I don't really know too much about her ---
she's Aphrodite's caricature! ---
no,no, that's a bit rash and inflated,
but in my stomach butterflies've congregated
each time her face comes to mind.
Severely interesting,
her hands are often clean
and she's never proved less than kind.

I think it might be good to write her a song
(I should've been writing this all along)
so that she'll feel sublimely delighted
and is happy, though consistently derided
by the upkeep of her garden's flora.
She could use a lot
of things uncommonly wrought,
like poems stuffed with anaphora.

      In time all the snowflakes will evaporate.
      In time the sun will sleep under an iron leaf.
      In time acetylene darkens human hate.
      In time all time will seem quite brief.

So, in honor of her I have created
this mediocre song so dominated
by use of the Yeats-stanza's rhythmic-rhyme,
offering it to her as ends to the crime
of my deplorable mannerisms.
I hope it's well-received,
being arduously conceived,
but I'll openly accept criticisms.

Coral, though you must (and do) work a lot,
work harder at those things which can't be bought
(i.e. relationships, love, and empathy)
for even the natural workaholic bee
requires mutual love.
Even while working
find a small moment to sing
this song. I hope it's enough.

Breathe in the freshness
of the arduously picked commodity,
That you hold between your lacquered fingers.
Don’t let synthetic ingredients
dissolve your thoughts
and obscure your vision.

The liquid remedy we sip  is drenched,
With pain and protracted nurturing
Carefully fostered
through inclement weather
drink in the story that comes with it
That fuels caffeinated conversations.
Refined and defined leaving us blind
to the painted secrets of lives that were once lead
different lives intersect,
different thoughts and opinions interject.

Leaving lipstick kisses on the porcelain skin
Sipping away worries and pain.
Inhaling the smell of impelling advice,
fragments of sugar coated anecdotes melt,
integrating within, interfering
with the raw, strong, sharp taste
that can pierce through.

the rare intense, earthy aftertaste
is tainted with artificial garnishing,
suffocating the fresh natural essence
neatly contained in the teacup
ready to serve and ready to present
taking shape of the porcelain guise

Don’t sprinkle it with processed collaborations
of sugared doubt,
Contaminating your imagination
Manipulated by dainty voices
Resonating in your head
Like the delicate teacup
You anchor with your soft hands
Weighed down by the overly sweetened tea.
No longer holding significance
of the vast fresh fields it sprouted from
Forgotten and drowned
in the voices of someone else’s drum beat.
cloudy vision reflected in the saturated tonic
you sip elegantly, pasting a smile
suppressing your own desires,
under someone else's acceptance.

It started out as a flame
Flickering
Dancing off a matchstick that was an idea.
It kindled an idea to help renew,
To regenerate what was once lost.
The fire grew
And with it
A passion that could not be extinguished.

The warmth was welcomed by her body
A body so cold
So helpless against the dangers of the world
And herself.
The fire gave power
And with the power there grew an inferno
Once ignited, could not be smothered.

The fire whispered
Through smoke and cinders;
It whispered
To encourage the distressing ideas that flowed through her.
She was frozen
Frostbitten to the bone without the fire
And so
To stay alive
She stayed close by the hearth.

When friends became concerned
They tried to call her back
But she was too attached to the blaze.
While the smoke tangled in her hair
And coursed through her veins
She drew in ever closer.
She huddled towards the light
That was leading her to her dangerous desires,
Cutting everything off
Except for the sea of flames.
She clung to her damaged thoughts
And kept the fire steady.

Going almost unnoticed
Her skin turned red and warm;
She was too happy to embrace the heat.
She understood she was too close,
Yet she rose from her perch
Roused by the incandescence
The feverish luminosity.

She
A mere mortal
Drew within reach of the alluring fire.
The flames licked her face
Her hands
Her hopelessly lost mind
As she dove in
Headfirst.

Everyone she had turned away watched
Unable to help.


She registered one single thought:
It's too hot.

But
It was too late.
She couldn't step away from the furnace;

For suddenly she was bound by ropes of her own doing
A funeral pyre just for her.
She was stuck within the depths
Of the scorching fire she had so arduously cared for.
She tried to call out
To those just outside the fireplace
Watching
Witnessing
But the fumes enveloped her
Stifling her pleas,
Her cries for help.

She couldn’t breathe
The embers burning her lungs as she inhaled,
Silencing her voice as she exhaled.
She flickered for a second more;
The life left her eyes.
She collapsed
Leaving ash and bone to intermingle into nothing.


What she had once mistakenly perceived
As an idea,
No larger than a matchstick,
Was something she could not control.
But no one could control a fire that destructive
Or
Deadly.

I found a spoon in my garden.
Could you even call this a garden?
The planters are all full of
pine needles and stagnancy.
Even the bench I'm sitting on
is rotting and covered in ants.

Anyway this spoon was barely visible
among the dead leaves and dog ****.
Not rusty, save for the edges that had been
knicked by a lawn mower at some time
and then bent perfectly
down the
middle.

A memory of playing superheroes
disrupts my study.
Someone was trying to prove their
strength by bending it
"with their mind".

Eventually we tired of our
mind's lack of capabilities
and used brute force to
bend the dreaded spoon
but the celebration was nonetheless
sweet after being able to bend
our mother's cutlery.

Back then the garden was tended.
My mother put us to work
and my
"secret garden" was born partly
out of my imagination and
a lack of reality.

My mother called one plant
"lamb's ear" and I didn't
argue because it was the softest
thing I had ever felt or ever will feel.
Did she make that name up?
Surely, she wouldn't lie to me.

And now that lamb's ear, like
everything else is covered in
a thick, itchy layer of pine straw
and stagnancy. To let the plants
even begin to heal from their
prolonged exposure to cold,
mistifying darkness I would have
to scratch through the
allergy-inducing tentacles.
Push them out of the way.
Dig up the dead, dry earth,
plant new seeds and tend to them
arduously--all while wondering

why couldn't my family just
take care of what they had?

but then I notice this spoon.
I've gotten carried away again
and now I forgot to write about
what I meant to write about in
the first place.

It's not healthy to let things rust.

He is my least favorite vegetable.
                                                   
                       No amount or level of preparation makes him taste better:
Boiling-
brings out his bulbous, insipid ego
the texture of his flamboyant ignorance.

when I timorously sip him in soups or broths,
his oozing insidious misogyny
contaminates my blissful dining, contorts any ingredients still pure.

I fry him, striving to remove the  
excess of impertinence which
permeates the oxygen I feebly inhale.
but he evades my maneuvers:
usurps bliss and violates all semblance of tranquility

I cannot prevail
against the throb of his assaulting narcissism

I must instead attempt
to comment
(arduously, fraudulently)
on the delicate iridescence of his silkily mucoused membranes
and admire deftly
his indefatigable ventures to pervade my
every.
serenity.

I wish upon the burning candle;
I pray for this to be my last - another year of despondency I cannot handle.
I wish arduously for nothing but my quietus as I blow out the ember,
and everybody claps without a second thought about what my wish could render.

As
            The ground          shifts
                  My fingers throb
  ancient knowledge
                   Flows through
      These
                  Palms
      The banter of
               Geographical boundaries
         Clashing against
                     Foamy tides
     This
                  White noise
        Collects dust
        amongst a light - polluted
    Chemical factory heart
          Pumping          arduously
                  so as to hang on
By a spiderweb thread
                Carefully
             Rushing in & out
     Of
              Distributed consciousness
The
              Asphalt buckling heartbeat
Slows to match the
                 Acidic raindrops
        Devouring
                 My coniferous mind -
      
                 it's silent




               **lifeless ambience

On God's holy mountain
I traverse a spiral path
of an upward climb
towards His higher ground.

My progress varies between
arduously slow and immoderately fast,
while trying to avoid same mistakes
that keep me in a circle going round.

Rockslides are temporary obstacles
that can only impede, but...
Never prevent me from reaching the peak
where one day, I'll be found.



Author Note:

Learn more about me and my poetry at:
http://www.squidoo.com/book-isbn-1419650513/

Years go by
By the fears
The tears
Stream
Down
The cheeks
Dried by the shears
Of the wool
Placed
Over men's eyes
Blind
To Women
I find
My demeanor
Like the creator
Of all this beauty
The painter
Sits in my manor
These are the tenebrous
Feelings
Of being pecunious
Arduously
Surreal

TURN OF THE SEASON

For Friends and Family


Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while he may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.
                                          -Robert Herrick

Intoxicated nights of orange halogen lights-
Illuminating through misty blown water.
As the April breeze ruffles the newly sprung leafs-
Upon the trees,
Men pour malted liquor inside clandestine-
Cellars of tuxedo staff and obsequious waitresses

Echoes of an engine shuffles on down the alley,
Startled it hides in the cornered places.
Men enclosed in smoke talk of day of old-
And better times,
And many men before and after grasp the image-
Of their obscured faces.

Woman go about chatting of useless things and waste the night away.
Men sit about playing games of little meaning and waste the night away.
Both will head to familiar places at mornings first rays
And April effortlessly falls into May

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
Slowly trudging through the paces
Slowly they tighten their laces

And set out for another monotony dipped day

Planting their ears to the ground listening
And many things they'll hear and say
With many hindsight memories in their mind glistening
And their lovers will whisper are you listening
And they'll say "yes yes my dear have no fear I am here"

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
And they'll make  many a plans and in cases
And step over cracks in fear of dark places


The clink of a glass Carey's on down the hall
The bartender while wiping the counter yells
"Last call"
And they'll retort "for what reason"
And he "none at all"
Then the bar goes the way of the shopping mall
And summer slips effortlessly into fall

What reasons can they make when the night is through
When it's time to wake what will they do

As the days retreat with their hairline
And each mirror more destortive than the last
They'll retreat further, further into their mind
And what will they find
With their sanity fleeting fast
A desperate thought floating in the breeze
A candle to thaw the freeze


Intoxicated nights of solemn solitude
Tucked in the back thoughts of a lonely suburb
Trying arduously to abandon actuality
But failing and jumping the curb

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
"Sorry love they're not home I'm afraid"
"They've gone to the races"
Each two lovers in two different places

Rest assured rest assured they'll return
They'll unconsciously sell their freedom
Rest assured rest assured they'll return
At this moment they are carpe diem

Rest assured rest assured
They'll be plenty of time
To fumble with furniture
Plenty of time
To spend with her
Plenty of time To waste
Plenty of love to give
Now's to go slow not make haste
Now's to go slow and live


And they'll remember childhood
As a warm August kiss
And where their feet stood
And what they missed
And when the leafs
Upon the trees
Fall down down down
To rise to their knees
They'll remember who they are
And who they use to be


So before you grow old
And wilt away
And the December cold
Melts the summers day
Enjoy what you have
For what you have is to enjoy
For what you haven't
Are merely foolish toys

This summer began as the last one did
And will end when Autumn bids
With the sun and stars above for you to see
Run around like children in the heat of lunacy

monday: putting ***** plates aside
tuesday: ignoring the ***** plates
wednesday: being bothered by the ***** plates
thursday: intending to do the dishes
friday: forgetting to do the dishes
saturday late afternoon: meeting a woman in a pub who tells daddy that she has a dirt allergy
saturday evening: arduously scrapping off fatty chunks from the dishes, groaning about such a hard kind of labor and thinking about easier ways of cleaning ***** plates.

from saturday night until sunday morning: making love to the woman from the pub; putting ***** plates...

I woke up to a sunrise this morning -
a beautiful pink sky
with gentle clouds of yearning.
My drowsy eyes arduously stared;
(still in a dream) they were not prepared
for what would first meet them - this sight -
when they had closed for the night.

Slowly, my smile starts growing
as, slowly, the sleep leaves me.
The blushing sky whispers.
The blushing sky sings
songs of life, of beauty and wondrous things.

Incredulous, I am rapt.

I can't help feeling undeserving.
After revealing it's kingship
it slowly sings me back to my restless sleep.

I woke up to a sunrise this morning -
a beautiful pink sky.
In the dawn, the only person alive.

when in piles of tiny heaps
shapely mounds beneath our hands
seasoned stand on grainy shores
arduously may grasp the sands

wavy spikes of flapping sea
thrown to castles terror bound
are screaming yet so perfectly
tranquil as may silence sound

the grip of august imagery
while storms upon or crash its faith
dwells in floods of eddies lost
to empty fancies abdicate

laid in sea of solemn voices
do twilights flush in garb of light
narrated by swirling chords
shivering break apart tonight

albeit the ebbs of moments rife
drench may dreams of saline pain
shovel tides preserved in drops
slip through fingers, dissipate

venturous as lonesomeness
of scarlet night's insomnia
stubborn hunts the night's last star
in delusion finds panacea

the elixir of destiny
solace in carnal myths of dawn
and joys which heart incarcerates
in barren cages of a conch

Her beat had been so bastardized that a tree had grown to protect it;
To harbor silence in pandemonium.
Isolation was the only remedy to a disease persistent to turn past into present,
So she grew on her own terms, and her heart beat for no one but herself,
Because to let someone in, meant to risk axing away at the barricade she had worked so arduously to withstand.
When she fell into him the first time, the wounds were preemptive.
Her brittle bones cast away at the hopes that he would see her heart before her mind;
From which idiosyncratic branches wrapped around her fingertips,
And the oak shards springing from within, just barely inching away from his own heart.
Strangely enough, he didn’t seem to mind.
When he stripped to bare back the scars were evident,
They cascaded from collarbone to the dip of his hip.
That’s when he brought her closer and whispered marvelously:
“I would bleed again for you.”
At the beginning, the boy hurt,
Yet he still saw the heart it held between the prongs of wooden cage.
So he continued to hurt, for her.
His mission rooted in the purpose of painting her the canvas of what life ought to be.
Penciling in the possibility of a reality where her aching shoulders could be lifted,
And a new smile plastered onto her lifeless frame.
He painted her in the image of who she used to be-
As if he knew her before she grew weary at life’s expense.
In the canvas, the wooden cage had disappeared, and a luminosity introduced itself.
He had uncovered her heart, and no longer was it encompassed by a shell, but freely beating;
Beating for him.
Every morning, day in and day out, meters of her branches gradually retracted,
And the boy’s scars gradually sealed over.
Oddly enough, it seemed as if they had healed each other.
That the quiet embraces they held each night didn’t pierce him,
but rather comforted his mind that this time, it would be different.
Somehow, she would come to love him, and him, her.
She saw in him a soldier; whose battle wounds were ghastly.
He had lived through hell and came back to dispel the stories,
But instead of stories of agony and woe, and anger and spite,
He spoke of the morning dew on dandelions reflecting the sun’s rays and how they most beautifully sprung from nothing.
He spoke of the quiet whispers of the wind bringing music to deaf ears.
He spoke of how if you listen closely, you can almost hear each cricket sing its song
in a field of thousands.  
Each time he kissed her,
he did as if it were the last.
Each time he held her,
he did as if she were asleep.
Each time he healed her wounds,
he did as if they were preemptive.

I got this idea I would write you a poem,
One you could read sitting safely at home,
Or keep with you out and about while you roam.

A poem about all of the memories I held sacred,
Laughing, singing, kissing, and cuddling in bed,
One to remind you our time wasn't wasted.

So I laced up my heart and I shrugged on my soul,
I popped open my noggin and I went for a stroll,
Right down Memory Lane and left at the Rabbit Hole.

I kept on goin' 'til I hit a velvet rope with posts of brass,
But I musta gotten too close to the bulletproof glass,
Cause a big grumpy guard threw me out on my...

I realized, still rolling, it's all one massive museum,
Motionless memories mummified so I can keep 'em,
Lined up and locked away, as if someone would steal 'em.

Arduously ordered, organized for instant access,
A mental palace fit to make even Sherlock jealous,
That Dewey Decimal dude don't got nothin' on this.

The slide shows replay every minute on the minute,
Time-compressed and Tetrised-in so each moment fits,
Bio-digitally encoded on neurode and inked onto skin.

Tear-rusty gears grind waterlogged cogs in reverse,
This melancholy machine made to reflect you in verse,
Is a planetarium perpetually projecting my universe.

By Joseph Childress

This was all expected
Though
Not intended
I've been waiting for this moment
Of contentment
I knew this
Was temporary
Rarity at it's finest
To find
The kind
Within you
This was meant
This was unpreventable
The ability
To love from such a distance
The physical properties
Physicists research arduously
Is hardly relevant
Our spirits connected
Synched
Without wires
We became electric
Telepathically
Put aside
Our pathetic attempts
At being unsympathetic
And agreed
For once
For final
For I know
Our wants
Are far more than what we need
And these
Past few years
We're important

Thank you.

Don't awaken me to my failures
for they're my most dependable friends.
They never forsake me;
my baneful lovers until the end.

They're the sun that blinds me as it hovers
and abandons me in the twilight.
Why is it that the sun will always go down on me
but you never will anymore?

This is my ode to severence
so severe that I will bleed out
if you extract yourself from my chest.
So sleep there and keep me arduously alive.

I've been to every surgeon of a lover that loves to cut,
and none of them can fix this breach in me.
So I stuff it with rambunctuous patterns and accessories.
I wanted you to be a ravishing accessory for me,
but you're only an accessory to my spirit's assassination.

The coronet of my history still carves a hole in my brain.
With this hole in my chest
and this hole in my brain,
I feel eternally chained to the pain.

It's as if you pierce me just to see if I still can feel.
I can tell you without proof that it's the only thing that's real.

So now my molten emotions have erupted;
evanescing everyone I know away.
I'm lava that not a soul can caress.
It's not a fun game anymore.
I don't want to play anymore.

Tired of feeling like I'm ******* deranged.
They used to cheer my name,
now they whisper it,
as if my maudlin disease is contagious.

I wish I was the hero of my own epic,
but I was drafted into a tragedy
patiently awaiting my somber ending
that seems to never want to visit me.

Turn of the Season (Expanded 2019)
TURN OF THE SEASON

For Friends and Family


Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
                                          -Robert Herrick

Intoxicated nights of orange halogen lights-
Illuminating through misty blown water.
As the April breeze ruffles the newly sprung leaves upon the trees
Men pour malted liquor inside clandestine cellars of tuxedo staff and obsequious waitresses.

Echoes of an engine shuffles on down the alley,
Startled they hide in the cornered places.
Men enclosed in smoke talk of days of old,
And better times,
And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.

Woman go about chatting of useless things and waste the night away.
Men sit about playing games of little meaning and waste the night away.
Both will head to familiar places at mornings first rays,
And April effortlessly falls into May.

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces,
Slowly trudging through the paces,
Slowly they tighten their laces,

And set out for another monotony dipped day,

Planting their ears to the ground listening;
And many things they'll hear and say,
With many hindsight memories in their mind glistening,
And their lovers will whisper are you listening,
And they'll say "yes yes my dear have no fear I am here".

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.
And they'll make many a plan and in cases,
And step over cracks in fear of dark places.


The clink of a glass carries on down the hall;
The bartender while wiping the counter yells
"Last call",
And they'll retort "for what reason",
And he "none at all".
Then the bar goes the way of the shopping mall,
And summer slips effortlessly into fall.

What reasons can they make when the night is through,
When it's time to wake what will they do ?


As the days retreat with their hairline,
And each mirror more distortive than the last,
They'll retreat further, further into their mind,
And what will they find
With their sanity fleeting fast,
A desperate thought floating in the breeze,
A candle to thaw the freeze.


Intoxicated nights of solemn solitude,
Tucked in the back thoughts of a lonely suburb,
Trying arduously to abandon actuality,
But failing and jumping the curb.

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces.
"Sorry love they're not home I'm afraid",
"They've gone to the races",
Two lovers in two different places.

Rest assured rest assured they'll return,
They'll unconsciously sell their freedom,
Rest assured rest assured they'll return,
At this moment they are Carpe Diem.

Rest assured rest assured,
They'll be plenty of time
To fumble with furniture,
Plenty of time
To spend with her,
Plenty of time to waste
Plenty of love to give,
Now's to go slow not make haste,
Now's to go slow and live.


And they'll remember childhood
As a warm August kiss,
And where their feet stood,
And what they missed.
And when the leaves
Upon the trees
Fall down down down
To rise to their knees,
They'll remember who they are
And who they use to be.
            ...
And they'll come to age
Lost among the rushes,
And they'll gaze back on hesitation
Condescending conversations
Sharply silencing hushes.
             ...
So, before you grow old
And wilt away,
Before summer loses hold
And December has its day,
Enjoy what you have
For what you have is to enjoy,
For what you haven't
Are merely foolish toys.

This summer began as the last one did
And will end when Autumn bids
With the sun and stars above for you to see
Run around like children in the heat of lunacy.
...


Though I've fasted and wept,
Wept and prayed
And stayed stoic long
Through passing day
Scrutinized by throngs
I can never,
Never truly say
I have achieved arête.

No, I'm not the son of Xanthippus,
Who instigated the apogee of Athens.
The past beacons of Atticus
Dims my own ember passions.

No, I have not achieved what desired
Thrown to the wind it seems
Another day is expired
Forever slumbering in dreams.

Though I've loved and lost
Loved and lusted,
Won a few
Others busted,
Though I've seen the world at the needle point,
With all the sordid souls suffering,
I've lived like Cummings:
The farthest extent of emotions,
I've kept a drug induced devotion,
But never could I stop from wondering,
Never could cease sundering.

Oh do not say to me I have
squandered my time,
Racking the innermost emotions of my mind.

Oh do not speak of me
As if I were not here
But some sailor sunk at sea.

Oh do not confront my convictions,
As if I were a child
Lost among the maddening crowds,
Dreaming wild.

No, I am lost to the Demos,
They will not understand.
I wear a veil of pathos,
Deepening desolation with every  reprimand.

I've seen the valleys of my life
Where the flowers are disseminated like t.v. static,
And the only sound a high continual pitch.
                 ...

They've said go, Go I don't love you anymore
Not pretty enough to be a poem
Not intelligent enough to be of any use
                 ...
Though I've smiled and agreed
Agreed and died
Through all this hell
I have tried
...
You are not wrong who deems
It's all madness it seems

Life was so much more back then
At the apex of humanity
At childhoods end
We are met with insanity
  ...


They're troubled tonight,
Their restless gaze fails to penetrate the maw of a darkened window-

To have
To have not

To operate in the probity of normality,
To practice trembling sobriety,
To lose an arm for the ones you love,
To have in heart the morning dove,

Assures that come evening tide
Through shroud and delusion,
Secrets the world shall confide
And lift your illusion.
...

The very next morning
Or so it would seem,
Awoke the old men
Rendering a dream.

Patiently focusing
For a clearer account
The words from the past
They seemed to mount,
And as they pressed closer
Not to be deterred
It crested their mind
And then they heard

"Soured metal, rotted walls
Darkness hangs from hall to hall
Broken bonds burning ambitions
A feeling half held until fruition

Life a moment
A last choking breath
Happiness a second
Before eternal death

We exist only
In the time between
A hint of joy
Goes often unseen

Until again
The crest breaks
And life slips by
But leaves no wake

Such was the tale
Of the great eluder
A hidden knife
A dark intruder

A ****** thorn
Upon the rose
A heap of sand
At the toes

Left undone
The last request
Above the head
The water crest"

Intolerable mornings of required communion,
Accompanied with formulated phrases,
Men limp from church
Their mind wondering
Far from there
To their childhood breakfast table,
Breathing the memory becomes stable,
They hold on to it as long as they are able.

Plates of porcelain
Decorate the wall
Floral patterns swirling to the center,
Across the room mother enters,
The image wavers and ripples like water disturbed by a pebble


"Honey set the table
Get the biscuits, gravy, ladle."
Set the trays down equal from the middle, a cup to the left, forks and knifes to the right-
Get those filthy boon dockers off my floor and out of sight-
Go get your brother without causing a fight
BREAKFAST TIME
Rise and shine on the biscuit line
BREAKFAST TIME
The sun is up and shining
The coffee is on and the bacon frying"

The memory dissipated into a fleecy cloud.
It hangs heavy on their heads.
Remnants of yesterday remembered in indignation
When slipping off to bed.
  ...
With no more action left in my bones,
With no reprise resting at home,
With no pleasure found when I roam,
Distant memories I sentimentally comb.

These gems
Are all I have left,

I'll leave none for anyone else,
Just an old man
Riffing through the shelves.

Poor in mind, poor in health,
Just an old man
By him self.

I'm in the December of my days
And stuck fast in my stubborn ways,
If only I could grasp youth for longer !
If only my frail body were stronger !

If only I were confronted again with every last myriad encounter where I chose reticence,
Opposed to openness,
My martial mind refuses any peacefulness,
Perhaps the reason of my restlessness.
...

Shaking off the foreboding dream,
A distant luminary seemed to gleam,
An old man frail but proud
He spoke a poetic oration aloud.

"My head is swollen, my mind it wanders
My tongue is twisted stumbling it stutters
My thoughts are lost in the colliding clutter,
My meaning is lost under soft mutters.

My smile shields my solemnness,
My eyes reveal my weariness
I am a man of little happiness,
But refuse to possess helplessness.

I am as I decree,
An old man wrapped in misery
But not one broken to submission,
Just one in a transition.

I have tasted the bitters of love,
Witnessed the horrors of death,
I have choked my linen dove
To its final breath.

No, I am not a careless senior
Full of content
Shriveled in demeanor
Mind absent.

I'm dying not dead,
No resolving to expiration
Living instead,
No meeting expectation,
No bowing my head.

In credence I say
I'm living for today

No consideration for tomorrow
No more drowning in sorrow."

...
The heavens opened with their finale word
Come old man and join my hurd
Or was it the universe who spoke
What who gently stirring
Now awoke

Both, one or two, or together in unison
Whispered of sweet reconciliation
Come home my tortured son
Saved from damnation

Or was it darkness who called
Finally silence for body mauled
By time ever moving hand
Come rest in the ***** of the land.

His perception thinned
And then it was as he never been.


             .....



The day was overcast
Fitting the mood
Black suits stood in formation
While the unlucky ones heaved their load.

                    ...


Words spoken to strangers and colleagues.


"He was not an exceptional man

Not one of great worth
No wife, no kids, no friends.

To an outside eye it would seem as a waste
And maybe it was
But that's the nature of things to end abruptly
On a minor note"
Written by
Tyler A. Sullivan

I want to read the kind of poetry
that sears it's verses into you
that makes me want to turn
yellowing corners to read more
and squat over my treasures
In the corner of the bookstore
Arduously inked thoughts
of tortured frame and stories about
passive aggressive dinner parties and
sun drenched lost ethereal loves

It's so hard when you've been hiding
to come out of it again.
You can't do it
You can't do it
You can't do it,
But you've done it before so no one cares.
Somehow you'll push through it and suddenly you've added it once more,
Realistically they know that you'll do it again,
But this isn't realistic because it's about the imaginary.

You build yourself a home,
And tell yourself it's safe,
Then you disappear there for most waking hours of the day,
Then you have breaks from school when you should do revision and work,
You want to try so hard, so hard
Because you want to finally prove you can
You can be smart.
But you can't pull away from this,
You're trapped inside and you want to stay there,
The world keeps screaming at you that you're doing it all wrong.
You already know that but you keep going along;
It's that way or no way;
The world won't let you stop
No matter how hard you beg.

The home you've devised by yourself
Is filled with what you want and things you're scared of,
People you love so arduously
Yet continue absently,
Catastrophic events that break your heart
Even though they never came to be.

So you're screaming at the real walls surrounding you
Back in the harsh reality where nothing's as you want it,
Crying out that you want them here with you;
That it's the only way you'll get through;
Your whole world depends on these stupid, dejected, lovely, astute
Daydreams.
And to everyone else you could attempt to explain this to,
That is all they are:
Daydreams.
When the only thing you want,
Is for them to be reality.

what a silly cycle it is
for me to arduously switch off
between running
and running through television channels;
certainly a perfect analogy
between being perfectly ok
and moping in the absence of what would
normally be
a conversation between us.

so between 2 opposing universes of
happiness and
hopelessness,
i spin in little circles;
indecisive, almost
until one day, i break this silly cycle
and no longer see your face
glaring through the light of my
television screen,
no,
only myself;
my own reflection
in the puddles between solid ground
and my active feet.

There are days when he mentions your name. I take it like a sugar pill — a little too sweet; becomes a coating of whateveritis on my tongue not long after; on my teeth, the grinding; what am I saying — I am no longer able to taste anything; maybe it’s better this way.
- There are days he says it might make me happy to be with you instead, it being easier. He is 7,307 mi away, and there are a million and one places you and I could ‘accidentally’ meet in this city. Today, I agreed with him, that it might be easier, but not for that reason.
- There are days when I wish he would stop being in my conscious so that I can remember memories from before him more clearly. I want him too much, so my mind focuses on the memories I share with him more. I have no energy left for anything else. I can’t remember what came before him and I can’t picture life after him.
- I became too confident that I have mastered the few concepts on life we so arduously pored over together; I have forgotten how to state them in words.
- There used to be a time when I couldn’t picture life without you too. I make too many drafts now, and edit posts after publishing [kudos to Adam Jones].
- I wish you didn’t let me give you up so easily. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t have been honest and clear about my intentions so there would be room enough for you to guess.
- I still can’t picture life without you.
- But you leave too quickly, I don’t know if this means anything to you. If I mean anything to you.
- I am still waiting for you to come back.
- Come back.

When I pen, what really is the intent.
To answer a question or delve in sophistry;
to express the self or churn a story?

Most likely,
a surgical act to extract the knives lodged in the chest.
A walk to meet a lover, when the legs do not answer.
A savage, deafening scream that only I can hear.
An arduously extracted knife, pushed back through the chest.

The pen is my voice hoarse, a pitch I cannot reach.
It is total silence, less the pummelling waves.
It is my eyes closed, where logic makes sense.
But it is no map, but a maze, where I lose my hands.

*It is across my back, a different dimension.
Where the right is sullied with nothing available.
It is wrought and taut in every direction.
A lost heart, a lost soul, a lost art, a lost woe.

This M is a ****, treat it with needle and thread.
This K is a sigh, cage its noise and beware.
This C is a life, what burdens will he bear?
This I is a lie, why should anyone care.

I give and I write. One and the same.
A grave and thimble to protect my faith.
A loathing and swelling to numb the brain.
A mangled lie, as always, I go away.

Intoxicated nights of orange halogen lights-
Illuminating through misty blown water.
As the April breeze ruffles the newly sprung leafs-
Upon the trees,
Men pour malted liquor inside clandestine-
Cellars of tuxedo staff and obsequious waitresses

Echoes of an engine shuffles on down the alley,
Startled it hides in the cornerd places.
Men enclouded in smoke talk of day of old-
And better times,
And many men before and after grasp the image-
Of their obscured faces.

Woman go about chatting of useless things and waste the night away.
Men sit about playing games of little meaning and waste the night away.
Both will head to familiar places at mornings first rays
And April effortlessly falls into May

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
Slowly trudging through the paces
Slowly they tighten their laces

And set out for another monotony dipped day

Planting their ears to the ground listening
And many things they'll hear and say
With many hindsight memories in their mind glistening
And their lovers will whisper are you listening
And they'll say "yes yes my dear have no fear I am here"

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
And they'll make  many a plans and in cases
And step over cracks in fear of dark places


The clink of a glass Carey's on down the hall
The bartender while wiping the counter yells
"Last call"
And they'll retort "for what reason"
And he "none at all"
Then the bar goes the way of the shopping mall
And summer slips effortlessly into fall

What reasons can they make when the night is through
When it's time to wake what will they do

As the days retreat with their hairline
And each mirror more destortive than the last
They'll retreat further, further into their mind
And what will they find
With their sanity fleeting fast
A desperate thought floating in the breeze
A candle to thaw the freeze


Intoxicated nights of solemn solitude
Tucked in the back thoughts of a lonely suburb
Trying arduously to abandon actuality
But failing and jumping the curb

And many men before and after grasp the image of their obscured faces
"Sorry love they're not home I'm afraid"
"They've gone to the races"
Each two lovers in two different places

Rest assured rest assured they'll return
They'll unconsciously sell their freedom
Rest assured rest assured they'll return
At this moment they are carpe diem

Rest assured rest assured
They'll be plenty of time
To fumble with furniture
Plenty of time
To spend with her
Plenty of time To waste
Plenty of love to give
Now's to go slow not make haste
Now's to go slow and live


And they'll remember childhood
As a warm August kiss
And where their feet stood
And what they missed
And when the leafs
Upon the trees
Fall down down down
To rise to their knees
They'll remember who they are
And who they use to be


So before you grow old
And wilt away
And the December cold
Melts the summers day
Enjoy what you have
For what you have is to enjoy
For what you haven't
Are merely foolish toys

This summer began as the last one did
And will end when Autumn bids
With the sun and stars above for you to see
Run around like children in the heat of lunacy

Brands

With their duck tail hair cuts all slicked back
And their Stradivarious long sleeved shirts;
With their half-soled, horse-shoe-cleated Brogues
With the arduously turned up toes,
The heart throb elite of high school’s boys
Walked the 1950’s hallways to their class.
Small town West Coast America on view.

With their reversible, pleated Pendleton skirts
And Jantzen turtleneck long-sleeved sweaters,
The girls eschewed the circle skirts
With crinolines beneath,
Held tight by elasticized waist-cinchers.
They walked in snow-white baby-doll shoes
With never any stockings.

Those who had the wherewithal
To own the latest fashions
And dress themselves in well known brands
Were somehow deemed superior
In all the gracious arts of living
And looked upon with envy-eyes
By those who dressed in J C Penney.

It wasn’t wrong - it wasn’t right
It fed some egos, damaged others
But it was just the way it was
And somehow we survived it.
Today you couldn’t pay enough
To make me wear a brand name
And I still love J C Penney.
ljm