There are
just
some days
you
cannot
write.

a t-shirt. one that is a terrible color. 
my mom's least favorite, burnt orange. 
it shares a disgusting likeness to rust. 
and yet my dad would wear it everyday. 
regardless of everyone around him's distrust. 
"no one would dare to wear that in public" 
my mom said, she was wrong. 
perhaps when she married him she was not aware 
of my dad's inexplicable connection to 
this terrible color, or to t-shirts in general i guess
for about six out of the seven days a week regardless 
he would be wearing that same shirt
for the almost 20 years they have been married 
he can be found wearing that same shirt
however, there's a slight misconception
he doesn't have just one shirt 
he has dozens of those nasty burnt orange colored shirts 
and i suppose i forgot to mention that it's to support a football team
which seems shallow in theory but the aforementioned is
non-other than the texas longhorns. 
my dad grew up there and attended college there. 
he wasn't even a part of the team, and yet 
for the last 35 years he's been wearing that same shirt.
i simply can't understand his undying affinity 
i barely recognize the mascot of our own school team. 
there is a certain dedication, a certain love that he must feel towards this place, towards that team. 
however as i'm writing this poem i simply can't ascertain what it's all supposed to mean? 
texas, a place of southern accents, cowboys, and racism. 
not somewhere i typically tend to associate with even
though it was the place where i was born in 
on a Tuesday almost 17 years ago at about 1pm 
and of course i arrive
too early for my own good, 
so i stayed in a hospital in ICU until they said i could
be taken home to a house i barely remember. 
i wouldn't call that place home. 
and yet, my dad wearing another variation of his classic burnt orange t-shirt today 
that reminds me that's where i came from 
i came from burnt orange beginnings. 
and even though i might live in a blue ocean paradise as of now. 
that's not where i started. 
i tell myself that i am so much more that the place my life began in. 
so instead of loving where i started and the color that comes with it. 
i continue to despise that burnt orange color and compare it to rust 
and all other things that fill me with unexplainable disgust. 
but in the spirit of honestness. i don't hate it as much as i contest 
don't ask me about it however because for sure all i’ll do is protest
but even when i was little seeing that orange shirt and ******* car 
arrive in the driveway of my old school was truly the best 
looking for that ugly orange shirt at the end of the day when he always asked me what i had learned
hugging that terrible orange shirt when i'm crying 
after scraping my knee on the concrete
taking car rides with that orange shirt seated beside me 
that seemed as long as a lifetime to go see the turtles on the north shore  
after watching him present himself at a showing of a house we could never afford
watching that orange shirt fumble and stumble teaching me to drive 
fixing my air conditioner with this orange shirt at 2am
after a nightmare session that left me too rattled to sleep
that orange shirt who attends these loud rock concerts that he doesn’t necessarily enjoy simply to watch me be happy
that awful orange shirt that has seen me sad and happy and everything in between.
you know seeing that orange shirt for nearly every day of my life
has conditioned me 
and truly i hate it, the dustiness, the rustiness of it all. 
it’s disgusting, appalling and above all terrible. 
but for some godforsaken reason i also love it. 
i love it with my entire heart,
i truly love that stupid orange shirt for all of its awfulness
and logically i know it's not the shirt but the person inside.
because my dad is one of the most amazing people
i know and i hate to admit
but that color has grown on me, because of him
it's become home to me, 
it's my dad.
and maybe i'll never figure out why 
my dad loves his college football team so much 
maybe i don't need to 
what i know is that while burnt orange may be a truly terrible color, 
it's become home to me.

Some nights,
I dream of my father's fists,
or the blue-green color of his eyes
and how they watered,
became oceans,
when he'd had too much to drink.

There was a galaxy inside of him,
a great, gravitational mass.
He opened his mouth and swallowed worlds;
became a death-eater,
teeth biting down into a swollen black tongue.

When I was a fetus, I felt him pulling,
so I gnawed my way out of my mother's womb.
Covered in her blood, I met my adversary.
I dove into the sea to stare him down,
but could scarcely remember my amniotic swimming.

I drowned. My lungs filled
with the emptiness of space,
and for ages I floated, unmoored,
drifting by stars forever unimpressed with me.

One day, the universe will collapse,
time flying backwards toward its end.
I will see him as he was when he was new,
a stardust embryo not touched by awfulness.
I will know what it means to love.

I paint my windows black
so I can't see the sun
I have no feelings now
since you said that we are done
I run through the hours
searching for our abandoned days
These feelings inside
are simply driving me crazy

I paint my front door black
so everyone can see
You meant more than life
to the sane man inside me
Now I hide inside
the darkness of my room
I cannot stand this awfulness
of the encroaching doom

I paint my windows black
so you can surely see
There is no reason now
for plans of eternity
You crushed a heart
that was infinitely so kind
I don't know
I simple lost my mind

I paint my soul in black
as it is no use now to me
I sweep out the past
so useless can't you see
Everyday is Hell in here
I can't take a second more
Paint it black now
as you walk out the door .

I paint my love in black
it's no use now to me
There is no use
in pretending tomorrow will ever be
I cut the rope
You can hear the fall
The story's over now
it was time for my last call .

I saw three men on the roof today
and there was another,
with a big beard and a bigger smile,
that oversaw a jerry-rigged machine
making terrible noises
hooked to a white pick-up
that fumed with dark smoke
and smelled of awfulness

they each seemed willing to do what
they must, and happy to do it in fact

three men on a roof
one on the ground
working on this gray
and dreary day

the future seemed simple then

A text for five voices.

Note on text: For formatting reasons, this should be read on a full screen, or in landscape mode on a mobile.

i. Blank copy

I look out of the window at
the houses as they pass and they
don’t so much slide past
                                    or glide past
                                                the motion isn’t smooth.
They sort of click past.
They tick past, dit-dit-dit:
House after house after house after house
                                                dit-dit-dit­-dit-dit
My eyes don’t quite refresh the image fast enough
to keep up with all the houses
                                  as they pass.
It’s 10 o’clock when I arrive at my office
and no-one is there yet
and I turn on my computer.
I sort of just
                sit there
                for quite a long time. Then
at 10.37 I print a document I’ve been working on
and I pick up my mug and I go to the kitchen where the printer is
and I put the kettle on.
I log on to the printer but instead of pressing
                                                Print
  ­                                              I press
                                                        Cop­y
                                                        instead­.
The machine whirs
The light goes
                        across
And out comes this copy this
        Copy of
                nothing.
I pick it up from the cradle.
It’s warm.
And I hold it and I look at it and I think:
                                                This is a copy
                                                                ­of nothing.
And since it is no longer an empty piece of paper but now
                                                             ­   something more
                                                            ­    something
                                                   ­                                imbued
I don’t put it back in the paper tray
and I don’t put it in the bin.
I carry it carefully with my tea back
to my office and put it
                                Carefully
                    ­                            on my desk.
I close the door.
Usually when I arrive and no-one is there I keep the door open for a bit.
It’s my way of letting people know I’m here.
It also helps me get a sense of what’s going on in the building
which students are there and what they’re doing
and once I’ve got a decent enough idea
or if there’s someone around I don’t really feel like helping
                                                         ­                           I close the door.
Today it is quiet.
It is a Friday.
                     Fridays are quiet.
It is the seventh of March.
It is 2014.
              I’m looking out of the window as I recall
              without much interest
              that yesterday was my father’s sixty-first birthday.
The buses tick past the window.
Without really thinking I
roll down the blind
                            Until the window is as blank as my copy of
                                                              ­                                           nothing.
I look at it but I
don’t
              sit
                     down
                                   yet.
My computer makes a noise and a purple box
tells me I have a meeting in thirty minutes.
                                                        ­Oh shut up I tell it
                                                        out loud.
Now I realise that I never did print my document
so I go back to the printer and the file is still there waiting for me
and I press Print All
                     and out it comes
and the piece of paper looks
Obnoxious
                     scrawled over in heavy black print
                     and ****** coloured columns
                                                                ­      and smelling
                                                        ­              Smelling of toner.
For someone who claims to be conscious of the environment I
print excessively. But only at work.
It’s the combination of it being free
                                          (or at least, no cost to me)
and that feeling you get when you
swipe
your access card to log in to the printer
and tap the screen dit-dit-dit to choose this or that.
It feels
       to me
              like being a grown-up.
It’s intoxicating.
I don’t want to go to the meeting
and I’m suddenly annoyed by this ***** piece of paper
which
       I ***** up
                     and throw in the bin.
**** it.
Not even in the recycling.
**** it.
Who cares.
              What difference could it possibly make
              whether I throw this piece of paper
                                                 which I will now have to print again
              in the black part of the bin for waste
              or the green part of the bin for recycling.
I go back to my computer and press Print but
this time
I keep clicking my mouse
                                   ditditditditditditditditditditditditdit
                         ­          Yeah.
                                   ditditditditditditditditditditditditdit
                         ­          ditditditditditditditditditditditditdit
And I go back to the printer and the name of the document comes up on the built-in screen
dozens and dozens of times
the same name of the same document
and I tap
              Print All.
And as the machine spits out clone after clone I
mutter under my breath:
                                   **** it.
                                   Yeah.
Then out loud:
                                   **** it.
                                   Yeah.
And as I throw them in the bin and go back for more I think
I’m going to buy a car. Yeah.
And I’m going to drive my car to work and
when I finish work I’m going to drive it
to a big supermarket
                            a hypermarket
                            a super hyper mega market
where I will buy and buy and buy,
and on my way home I will buy petrol to put in my car
       And I will go on holiday
       I will book all those last minute deals on the internet
       And go to Turkey or Lanzarote or Corfu for a hundred
                                                         ­      or a couple of hundred
                                                         ­      pounds, every month maybe
And I’ll fly there on a big plane.
I’ll soar over the ocean on a big plane.
And when I come back
I’ll soar over all those people outside Stansted Airport
All those
people
With banners
Moaning and complaining and protesting
Banners saying things like
                                   I don’t know
                                                 “Down with planes”
And as the flight attendant smiles goodbye I’ll think
yeah.
       Down with planes.
                                   And I’ll drive my car home and I will
                                   stop
                                   worrying
                                   about
                                   everything.
I go back to my office.
I retrieve one copy of my document from the bin and I
put it on top of my copy of nothing.
Whereas before the document offended me
                            now I have difficulty
                            telling the difference between the two.
My colleague arrives and she tells me about the motorway.
She’s always telling me about the motorway.
I think about my car I’m going to buy and I
think about being on the motorway.
I think about being on that part of the M25
where the planes are so low you duck as they thunder over you
and they come
                     in rapid succession
                                          dit dit dit
                                                        rapid­ eye movement
                                                        ­radar.
I think about being stuck in traffic there and the air
thick with exhaust fumes
mixing with the air around Heathrow
and all those tons of jet fuel from the planes zooming over
Blink and you miss them
                                   but always another follows.
I go to my meeting.
I realise that I have picked up my blank copy
along with the document I printed for the meeting.
Someone says they wish I’d printed more than one copy
as it turns out it would be useful for everyone to have one
and I laugh in their face without explaining myself.
                                                         ­             I make notes on it.
                                                             ­         My copy of nothing.
                                                        ­              Without really realising
                                                       ­               I’ve scribbled notes on it
but as I look at my spidery black biro handwriting
and think with some real despair about how I have mindlessly
destroyed
something pure
the notes
              disappear
                                int­o the paper
and it is clean again.



ii. Ringing sea

My eyes don’t quite refresh the image fast enough.
What I’m looking at
my rational brain tells me
is a video of two people having ***.
I have seen that before.
But what I’m actually watching is a video of
my husband
                     having ***
                                          with another woman.
And my eyes don’t refresh the image fast enough
So I keep seeing his face.
The whole picture melts away and
I just see his face
                     Which belongs to me.
                                          It’s my face. I – own it.
                                                        It’s my- my- my-
                                                        And it freezes there
just his face is all I can see then the video continues for a
split second then freezes again
                                   His face
                                   His face
                                   His face       It’s him
                                                        It’s him
                                                        It’s him.
I stop the video and I put the phone down on the table
and I breathe very deeply and
every time I blink, between every saccade
there is his face
                            a face I know intimately
                                                      ­         and it’s looking away from me.
I turn on the television. It is Saturday.
He is flying back from Asia on Tuesday. I have until then to
                                                              ­        what?
The sound and light from the television
flicker over me
And I sort of just empty,
Quietly, like a balloon disappearing into the sky.
I don’t know what I’m going to do but
for now that’s
fine.
The brown armchair swallows me up
and I cry for two hours without really noticing.
The cookery programme I’m not watching finishes and I think
the news is about to come on so I turn off the TV
and I put on my shoes
and I go down the stairs and out of the house
and I get in my car.
It’s raining and I just sit there.
Without starting the engine I flick on the windscreen wipers:
                                                         ­      Dit / dit.
                                                            ­   Dit \ dit.
                                                            ­   Dit / dit.
It takes less than three seconds for them to pass
from one side of the windscreen to the other.
And I get this feeling this
unexplainable feeling
that I want to crawl inside that moment
when the wipers are moving from one side of the screen
                                                          ­                   to the other.
I flip down the sun shield and look at myself in the mirror.
There are two lipsticks in the glove compartment.
I pick the darker one
                            and apply it
                                                 carefully
                                                       ­          sensually.
I start the car.
West London ebbs away to the motorway
My car is silver and in the rain it feels invisible
I don’t know where I’m going
                                I follow words on signposts I recognise the shape of
                                without really reading them
and I keep driving
I let my eyes come away from the road and
watch the fields and trees tick past like cells of film
and I look at the cars on the other carriageway
and I notice they’re all silver like mine
                                                        (onl­y mine is invisible)
and I duck as a Boeing 777 soars over near the M4 interchange
and let myself scream soundlessly under the roar of its engines.
I wonder where it came from.
                                          I think about the people on board.
I think about their mobile phones and
all the ******* there must be on them
and I realise
how many videos there must be in the world
of people having ***.
I take the M23 past Gatwick Airport
                                          the motorway ends but I keep driving
until finally I come to the sea.
No-one is here because it’s March and it’s raining.
I have always loved the sea.
Not sailing or swimming or surfing
Just being near it, for me it’s
                                   a spiritual experience.
I’ll lie on the stones and gaze at the sky for hours
but not today.
                     There are some flowers tied to a railing
                     somebody has drowned.
Presumably they never found a body to bury.
The awfulness of that strikes me like a stone.
                                                        It­’s the not knowing.
                                                        ­The lack of 100% concrete total proof.
I take my phone out of my handbag.
                                                        ­But I know now.
The shingle crunches underneath my flat shoes.
                                                        No­w I know.
The cold burns my ears and the wind picks up as I get closer to the water
the tide slips serpentine up the stones
white-edged
                     beckoning me.
Without realising I’ve slipped
                                                 out of
                                                            my­ shoes
but the stones do not hurt my coarse feet
and the wind
                     howling now
                                          catches me behind my knees
quickening my stride.
The spit curls around my toes.
And then I catch myself wondering
                                          whether my husband will call me or
                                          text me when he lands
and I hurl
       my phone
              into the sea.
On the drive home I listen to the radio.
The news is dominated by the Crimean conflict
and the referendum that’s coming up there.
Florence Nightingale
                            is all I can think about when they talk about Crimea.
Until recently I never even knew where it was.
At school you only learn about Florence Nightingale
                                   not the geography
                                          not the conflicts
                                                 not Ukraine’s edges so charred by
                                                               invasion and,
                                                                ­             subsequently,
                                                                ­                                  explosion.
                    ­               We live in so many war zones.
and I’m wondering what else I never learned about when
the story changes and now they are talking about a plane.
A plane is missing
                                   between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing
                                          and the blood drains out of me.
It isn’t like floating away like a balloon this time
it’s like plunging off a cliff.
And at once I see
                            with brilliant, burning clarity
                                                        m­y phone, ringing, on the sea bed
The light from the screen illuminates the stormy water but
I can’t see the name:
                                   I can’t see who’s calling.
I need to know.
I need to know it’s him.
       I drive back at twice the speed limit.
In the dark the flowers look menacing and half-dead; my
shoes fall off in the same place
But the tide is in so the whole beach looks different.
I’m up to my waist but my
top half
       is as wet
              as my bottom half
                            because the rain
                                          is torrential
                                                      ­  and I can still hear the phone ringing
                                                        b­ut I can’t see the light in the sea.
and I howl
       his name
but the wind carries it away soundlessly
       and I can’t tell if I’m
              further out
              or if the tide’s further in
                            and the ringing grows louder
                            as the current takes me powerfully by the waist and
                                                             ­         the stars rush by overhead.



iii. Acid rain

Every time I blink, between every saccade I see
a brilliant but infinitesimally brief flash of colour.
       Purple
       or green
       I think.
                     One on top of the other.
It’s hard to tell for sure because they’re so brief.
It’s like when you look at a light bulb for too long
                                                            ­   or stare directly at the sun.
I see it sometimes when I’m on my bike
or on a really big rollercoaster
                                   going downhill at 100 miles an hour
                                   the wind blasting through me
                                   the screams whirling through the air.
But I’m not on a rollercoaster, I’m sat very still
it’s Monday afternoon and I’m at school.
I haven’t said a single word to a single person today.
I didn’t even answer my name in the register.
I feel a bit dizzy like
                                   everything is turning together
                                   but I’m on a different
                                                       ­                 axis?
I think the bell goes, I’m
not a hundred percent sure,
but I leave anyway and no-one stops me.
       Outside in the sunshine the flashes of colour are
       several thousand times brighter.
In the next lesson I slip in my earbuds and
it looks like the teacher is singing the words.
                                                 I put on the most obscene song I can find.
I must have it on too loud
because eventually she notices and
she forces me to give her the headphones. This is the first time
someone has spoken to me today
                                          it feels a bit surreal
                                                         ­      but the world stops spinning
                                                        ­       a bit.
After school I go into the supermarket on Wigmore Lane
the enormous white of it is tinged in green and purple
and all I want is to buy a drink
                            I have a feeling of exactly the kind of drink I want
                            but I can’t find the right one
                            even though the fridge must be longer than
                            the driveway of my house.
Racks of newspapers and magazines clamour for my attention
       the only real colour in this great white warehouse of a store
       red tops and blue spreads
       and green and purple and green and purple
              and green and purple…
They’re talking about that missing plane in the news
and they keep using the same phrase.
They’re talking about the people on board the missing plane
and they keep saying
                            Missing
                      ­      presumed dead.
Not dead dead. Presumed dead.
I start wondering what it’s like to be both dead and alive at the same time,
as if all the people on board that plane are like Schrödinger’s cat
              (cats)
and we won’t know whether they’re dead or alive until we find the plane
and pull it out of the sea
and look inside
                     so
                         until then
                     they’re both.
Out in the car park I count the planes as they descend onto
the runway less than a mile away.
       One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
       I figure about a hundred and eighty a plane maybe,
       which means fifteen hundred people just arrived in Luton.
Nobody comes to Luton for the scenery.
Soon they’ll be gone,
A town haunted by a ghost population of thousands an hour.
                                                 filtered onto the trains and buses
                                                 and out from the sprawling car parks
                                                 to the motorway, and
                                                 onto connecting flights back into Europe
              but none of them will stay in Luton
                                                           ­                  Missing
                                                         ­                    presumed dead.
As I bike through Luton I think it might not be so strange to be dead and alive at the same time.
I’ve lived here my whole life and the whole place
                                                           ­                         which is a *******
                                                 moves with the mundanity of machinery
                                                 like the big car factories by the airport
                                                 the lights on, the production lines rolling
                                                 but all a bit automatic and lifeless.
But in the airport, it’s different.
The air, with its artificial chill, hangs with a faint shimmer
and the people here move purposefully, and with charge
                                                          ­     excitedly
                                                       ­                      or dejectedly
                                                      ­         but not neutrally
heading for the gates where they are sealed two hundred a time into airtight tubes
like Schrödinger’s cat:
                            dead and alive in the air;
                            one or the other on the ground.
                                                         ­      My teachers say I have an
                                                              ­ “odd way of looking at things”.
I leave my bike outside without chaining it up and go into the terminal.
In a café in the check-in hall I find exactly the drink I want
and I pay £2.75 for it.
                            I look at the departure boards.
                            Edinburgh. Bonn. Marseilles.
                            A green light flashes next to each gate as it opens
                                                           ­                  green and purple
                                                          ­                   green and purple
                                                          ­                                 Missing
                                                         ­                                  presumed dead
The flashes of colour are growing brighter
every time I move my eyes a green and purple streak follows behind like a jet stream
but the bustle and activity of the airport is so much that I can’t keep my eyes still
       so they keep darting
                            this way and that
                                                 until my vision is painted over
                                                            ­                 green and purple.
The streaks roll over each other like clouds of acid rain.
       This is the final call for flight 370 to–
My bike is gone when I go back outside
The front of the terminal is a plateau of thousands upon thousands of cars
and it’s probably in one of them
                                          but I’ll never know which.
The car parks reach all the way back to the runway.
Green and purple acid rain from all the jet fuel mixed with the air
melts a hole in the fence and I slip through
moving purposefully
                            with charge
                                          across the green and purple grass
                                          scorched by a hundred thousand landings
                                          a hundred thousand people arriving in Luton
And there on the tarmac
                     glinting in the rain
                     surrounded by blinking amber
       there is my bike
       its black handlebars spread like the wings of a jet plane.
I duck as an Airbus screams in just a few feet over my head
the rush from the engine lifting the soles of my feet from the ground.
I pick up the bike and start pedalling
                                                 pedalling down the runway
                                                 pedalling towards the blinking amber.
It feels light, nimble, fast
the tyres take the asphalt with ease.
And the faster I go the lighter I feel
       the acid rain eats away at my clothes
       and they melt off my body and pool on the runway below,
                     Lighter
                            and lighter until…
                                                 The wheels lift away from the ground
                                                          ­     and in the air I am dead and alive
                                                 and maybe nobody will
                                                                ­                           ever
                                                            ­                               see me
                                                                ­                           again.



iv. Burning sky

The faster I go, the lighter I feel.
I’ve taken the night watch and the yacht
is cruising across the Indian Ocean
penetrating the black abyss like a white bullet
and the lights in the portholes send shimmering white bullet shapes
for miles across the endless ink.
                                                            ­                 What?
                     We’re not going very fast at all
                     But it feels like any minute
                                                 we might drop off the edge of the world.
I hope we do.
I feel light and dizzy and irrational
                                          and I feel aware of being
                                          light and dizzy and irrational
and I wonder if this is what going mad feels like.
Have you ever felt like you’re living in a corner of your own life?
I
       feel like that a lot lately.
Marc is sleeping.
We didn’t speak much today.
I can’t really remember how long it’s been
       since we left Victoria but the fight
       we had there
                            in a bistro by the port we
       said things we
       said things that
                            we can’t take back.
The Seychelles were stifling.
The heat was stifling.
He was stifling.
And the people were stifling
                                   the people kept talking about pirates.
                                   They kept warning us about pirates.
                                   You’re sailing where
                                                        the­y say
                                   You must be careful
                                                        t­hey say
                                   It’s notorious
                                                       ­ they say
I have fantasies about being kidnapped by pirates.
Not stupid Johnny Depp pirates with *** and parrots, no
       Real pirates.
                     Nasty pirates.
                     With dark snarls and AK-47s.
When we were at sea off the Horn I’d see things on the horizon
Dots or lights I couldn’t make out
And I’d imagine the rifle against my neck
Their hot breath
Chains and ransoms.
                          I’d wonder how much we’d be worth.
                          If we’d make national news.
                          Would it be David Cameron to announce,
                                                       ­        regrettably,
                                                    ­           we don’t negotiate with pirates,
                          or would it be someone less important?
                          Maybe just the foreign secretary.
                          What is the worth of my life at the end of a steel barrel?
But it would only be a buoy, or a plane on the horizon,
and I would get into bed with Marc
       disappearing under the covers like a different kind of hostage.
I
              oh
                                   I
                                                 Sorry
I’m crying.
                     I don’t know when I started crying.
The thing is I don’t know if it’s me breaking the marriage
or the marriage breaking me.
I’m watching everything literally fall to pieces and for all I know
it’s me with the detonator.
And then
              everything
literally falls to pieces
                            My mug of coffee falls from my hand
                            shatters on the deck
                                                            ­and the sea rears up nightmarishly.
Above me
a long orange **** of flame
is burned into the sky.
                            No, really.
                            That’s not a metaphor.
                                                       ­        There is fire in the sky.
It’s about a mile up and a mile away.
Look.
       There.
              ****.
                            **** **** ****.
What is that?
                                   Marc!
I call for Marc.
                                   Marc!
       There is fire in the sky.

–              Katherine.

       Fire in the sky.
       Fire in the
       Fire in

–              Katherine.

       Fire

–              Katherine.

       What
              Marc, what?

–              Are you awake?

       I think so.

–              You were calling out again.

       Calling

–              Calling out. You were shouting.

       What
       where
       What time is it?
                                   Where

–              Dubai. We’re in Dubai. It’s 7.
                They delayed again while you were sleeping.

       Dubai?

–              Katy I really think you should see a doctor.

       Don’t call me that.

–              Pardon?

       Katy.
       Don’t call me that.
                                          Like

–          ­                                       Like what?

       Everything’s okay.

–

       Everything’s not okay.

–               There’s
                 doctors. You’re not well. You’ve been confused since,
                 well actually since before it even happened.

       You think I’ve been confused.

–              Not right.
                Not you.

       You’re **** right.

–              Forget it.

       Thank you.

–              Go back to sleep. ****.



–              Are you still seeing it?
                The plane? On fire.
                                   You’re dreaming about it, aren’t you?

       Yes.

–              It’s affecting you?

       I’m
              just
                     unhappy,
       Marc.

–              That’s not just it though is it?

       What’s that supposed to mean?

–              Something about seeing that
                                                           ­   plane has scared you.

       We don’t know it was the plane.
       The one that –

–                            No. But, right place, right time.
              They said

       Maybe.

–              It’s still a coincidence.
                It’s not

                                   What

–                                   A sign.
                                     From god.
                                     Or
                                          whatever.

     ­                                     Whatever you think it means.



                            Katherine.

       The thing I don’t know, Marc
       is if I’m more scared that it was the plane
       or that it wasn’t.

–

       Imagine.
       Vanishing.
       Into thin air.

–              I know.

                            No, you don’t.
       Disappearing
                            into thin air
       Or falling
                            out of it.

–              Falling.

       You can’t imagine that.

–              I can.



–              I can, Katy.
                I ******* can
                                          Imagine.
       ­         Falling.
                Disappearing.
             ­   Into thin air.

                *******
                            i­nvisible.

                 I am
                           right
                          ­          ******* here,
                                                        K­atherine.

       I see you.
       I see you Marc.
       But you’re not
                            solid.

       I’m not
                            solid.
                          ­                              See?

                           ­                             It passes
                                                          ­     right through.

       Now you see me.
                                   Now yo–



v. 2015

Have you ever felt like you’re living in a corner of your own life?
The hotel room here in Singapore is almost identical
to the room I had in Mexico City.
The heat feels the same and it’s the same
nondescript decoration
which doesn’t really belong to any time or culture.
It gives me a headache. The neutrality of it.
As I check my messages I remember
                                                        ­       I’m not in Singapore.
I’m in Kuala Lumpur.
I haven’t been home for nearly three weeks now.
It’s ridiculously late
The IOC conference is at six thirty
              and I’ve been asleep all day.
                                   I get dressed and grab my camera
                                   and leave the hotel with a large, black coffee.
At the press call I see a man from Reuters I recognise.
       The coffee here is terrible.
I talk to him about his family
              his daughter is four now
              he’s shaved off his beard since I last saw him
              and he’s moving, he says,
                                                 near me apparently
                                                 to Southend.
                                                       ­               “London Southend” he jokes
                                                                ­      with a roll of his eye
                                                             ­         and inverted commas.
I say yeah that’s quite near me then move away to take a phone call.
Inside the press conference there are ten people at the table
       the women are all wearing identical powder blue suits which
       strikes me as idiosyncratically Asian for no good reason.
The men all wear simultaneous translation headphones
                                                      ­                but the women don’t.
I wonder if this is because they speak better English than the men
or if it just isn’t considered necessary to translate for them.
       They have given the Winter Olympics to Beijing.
              I wonder what is lost between the
              Mandarin spoken by the mayor of Beijing
              and the English spoken by the translator.
                                                     ­          The space between words.
                                                          ­     The space between looking left
                                                            ­                               and looking right.
It’s a nice atmosphere in the cool air-conditioned room.
I’m struck by how nice everyone is
       except for the British delegates
       including the man from Reuters who speculates
       that the voting was rigged.
A while later someone else calls it a “farce”.
              I get a photograph of the IOC President’s face
                                                            ­          as it falls
              and email it to my office from my seat.
Outside, the Petronas towers rise above the conference centre like
enormous empty silos.
This is my first time in Kuala Lumpur
                                          the last city I have to visit before I go home.
I get in a taxi and say the name of my hotel
                                          and the city flashes by.
I look out of the window at
the buildings as they pass and they
don’t so much slide past
                                   or glide past
                                                        the motion isn’t smooth.
They sort of click past.
They tick past, dit-dit-dit:
Building after building
                            dit-dit-dit-dit-dit
My eyes don’t quite refresh the image fast enough
to keep up with all the buildings
                            as they pass.
The taxi stops and I pay seventeen ringgit and get out:
it has gone by the time I realise this is not my hotel.
I don’t know where I am but I was in the taxi long enough to know that I
am some distance
                            from the centre of the city.
I look up at the name of the hotel the driver has taken me to
and the English transliteration is very similar to the name of the hotel I am staying in.
       I go inside.
There’s a nightclub in the hotel
I order Glenfiddich
                            double,
                 ­           cut with water.
              not because I like it but
              because there’s something about scotch that feels
                                                           ­                         moneyed
              heavy amber liquid in heavy-bottomed glasses
              it helps me buy into this idea of the travelling businessman
              even though that’s a lie.
                                                        I’m just a man who takes pictures.
                                                       ­ And I want to go home.
I sit at the bar which is as long as my driveway.
I swirl my glass and watch the amber legs trickle down the sides.
A moving light above it hits the gloss black surface
with an open white like the early morning sun on my gravel
                                                          ­                   as I get into my car.
A girl from here, young enough to be my daughter, is talking to me.
She points out her friends and I half-wave, uneasily
and she asks what I’m drinking.
                                          A news alert on my phone says a piece of
                                          plane wreckage
                                          washed up
                                                        on Réunion
                                                        i­n the Indian Ocean,
                                   east of Madagascar and south of the Seychelles.
The girl seems nice. She says her name is Dhia
                                                            ­                 it means “glowing”.
She doesn’t seem to want anything,
certainly not ***;
her friends have disappeared so
                                          I dance with her.
As we dance I see something in her eyes that is at once
both young and
                     endlessly wise.
She has deep brown eyes exactly the colour of earth
and a small mouth which smiles brilliantly.
In the half-light they open up to me like pools
                                                 and I imagine
                                                         ­             swimming
                                           ­      in them.
Even though she’s only nineteen, twenty-one at most,
there is something about her that’s
                                          maternal
       ­                                   spiritual
                    ­                      nourishing.
She asks me what I’m doing in Kuala Lumpur and I tell her
I don’t know.
She asks me what I did today and I tell her I
                                                               ­              slept
                                                           ­           then took some photographs.
You’re a photographer, she says, and I shrug
then she leans into my ear and says
                                                        don’­t tell anyone.
What
       I say
and she says
              I’m a princess.
And I look into her eyes and she isn’t lying.
She says no-one is going to recognise her
but
       just in case
                            she isn’t supposed to be seen drinking.
Who would I tell
I say to her.
She grins and finishes her beer and it’s true
                                   no-one is looking at her
                                   but she’s the most magnetic person in the room.
In the taxi I say the name of my hotel extremely slowly
and the driver replies in perfect English
                                                         ­      yes sir, I know where you mean.
Kuala Lumpur ticks by in electric darkness.
I flick through the news as we drive
                                                 I see the photo I took this evening about
                                                 a dozen times
                                                 or more.
There is something bitter about the tone in all the British press when they talk about the Olympics
as if:
Beijing get to do it twice?
                                   What about us?
I think about a country with a quarter of the world’s population
and I think about the tiny little island I’ve come from
                                                        and I feel smaller than I’ve ever felt.
The aircraft wing that washed up in Réunion is from a Boeing 777,
they say.
The same type of aircraft as the one that went down last year.
The one they never found.
                            It was going from here to Beijing.
                            Last communication at 1.19am.
And it’s at
                     that
                     time
                     precisely
                                   my phone rings.
It’s my boss in London
she says the Chinese Olympic Committee
are scheduling press conferences.
                                                    ­    It looks like I’m going to Beijing.

It’s boxing day (the Brit name for the day after Christmas) and Pamela, Lisa’s grandmother is visiting our little pandemic ark. Pamela’s a Cowboys fan so we’re watching them slaughter Washington - between commercials - but now a Tesla commercial is running. “Those electric cars,” Pamala says dubiously, “seem problematic.”

“You’ve heard of global warming, haven’t you, Pamala?” Leeza says. Leeza addresses everyone (even her grandmother) as if they were her age (12). It’s both seductive and lazy. “This whole system,” she raises her arms to include the apartment, the city and America, “will collapse - we’re DOOOOMED,” she concludes, as if speechifying to an eager crowd.

“Everyone’s heard of climate change,” Pamela says, sipping her eggnog. Pamela is as well informed as any of us and seems rather envious of the future, even the coming awfulness.
“Leeza’s her own theatre,” Her mom says, grimacing indulgently.
Leeza’s full attention was now on the pastry tray - having spotted two small eclairs under the bear claws - she'd lost interest in the conversation and saving the planet.

“The system won’t collapse,” Will says. Will received his early acceptance letter from Harvard the other day and now he knows everything. “We’ll lose Florida, South Carolina and New York,” he pronounces calmly, “so there’ll be some.. migrations.”
“Thank you, professor,” Lisa says, rolling her eyes as if to say ”Harvard people.”
“I think the Covid might get us all - before climate change,” I say, in the spirit of the holiday.
“Well,” Will says, grinning, “that’s what ALL the people at inferior colleges think.”

Leeza, passing by my easychair, curls into my lap like a cat, gently petting my hair. “Don’t be mean to MY friend,” she says, purringly - I was suddenly her possession. Lisa comes out of her chair, a sly smile on her face, to lay crosswise atop Leeza (and me).
“Ugg,” I managed to say, squirming to get comfortable, then “Akkkk.”
Lisa says, “Leave my poor roomie alone!” and starts baby-kissing my head.”
Will starts in our direction like HE’S going to pile on. “Egggg! I shrek, “HELP!”
Pamela whoops with glee as Dallas scores another touchdown.
“Like beating a dead dog with a stick,” she says.

i want you now,
and i wanted you 20 minutes ago
i wanted your hand between my thighs 19 minutes ago
i wanted your legs wrapped around my waist 18 minutes ago
(i wanted mine around you at 18.5)
i wanted your dress on the ground 17 minutes ago
i wanted my hands in your hair 16 minutes ago
i wanted your flushed skin against mine 15 minutes ago
i wanted to kiss you everywhere i could 14 minutes ago
i wanted your hand in mine 13 minutes ago
i wanted to kiss only your lips 12 minutes ago
i wanted to hear you say my name 11 minutes ago
i wanted to hear your laugh 10 minutes ago
i wanted your voice to be the only thing i heard 9 minutes ago
i wanted your gentle smile 8 minutes ago
i wanted your small touches and tiny intimacies 7 minutes ago
i wanted to kiss you everywhere again 6 minutes ago
i wanted to kiss only your lips again 5 minutes ago
i wanted your opinion on everything alive 4 minutes ago
i wanted your life and mine intertwined 3 minutes ago
i wanted your arms around me 2 minutes ago
i wanted even your awfulness 1 minute ago
and now, i want everything you'll give me

It seems as if the volume (events, objects, actions) of this container (life) continues to expand (time) while the amount of it's contents (meaning) remains fixed - so like a gas it spreads itself to fill the empty areas of that expansive expanding sphere. When once the container was small (childhood) and the thick smog (meaning) hung heavy amongst and within (events, objects, actions) and perforated and perfumed everything with it's grace and energy; now the vapor is spread thinly, diffused between draping canopies of void.

But for short instances, in a frenzied expansion (something new), this gaseous cloud will rush and clump (a loss of reason), ****** as by a vacuum to fill that new-found cavern (my only muse). Here in these moments of freshness (passion consume me) comes energy and heat as molecule duels molecule - how they fight and tangle their tendrils! jostle for space! collide and separate! bind, release!

Then woe and oh (contemptful contentedness)! The awfulness of entropy (a sudden stop). The waves subside and the sea stills. A lake in stagnation - and was it ever a churning roaring ocean (feeling)?

I do not know at all
what does it mean to know
I do not know what I mean
I do not know what it means to lie
and give truth and truth
which does not exist at all
and there was never in the world

I do not know what it means to be
to be or not to be but possible
be smart or stupid
that's just how the question stands
that's just how you can be
great if we are already at the same time
greatness and awfulness
inferior worth

I do not know I do not know at all
what does it mean to know and be
I do not know what it's like to be
and I do not know what is nothingness
what is happiness and what is
misfortune in this world
and even light for me is emptiness
remains empty until the end of life

25.07.18

Yes, Eric Alterman.

You all do realize I hope that
Republicans McConnell, Rubio,
Chaffetz, Hatch, & Paul Ryan
all forcefully denied Obama's
2013 request to Congress for
authorization to strike in Syria
after Assad's use of chemical
weapons in the city of Ghouta,
they all answered an emphatic
No! ...

with various shades of political
double-talk, America First, &
"oh look where it might lead"
pontificating & conservative
posturing,

but now! ...

oh now when Trump launches
a missile strike they're all praise
and "God Bless America" &
proud, & pumped & feeling
like real Americans again,

oh good god the hypocrisy,
the shallow interest driven
ethics, the lies, the brazen
pretence & self-serving
awfulness of these cold
calculating humans of
ours.

I got the flu in mid January and it's nearly Spring and still I cough
but I decided to force myself to go out
and get on Bart and go to Berkeley
and I saw things
stared at an ad for "American Idol" on the platform
for an unseemly amount of time trying to figure out which
human representation had been more photo-shopped
Fascinated, coming out into another land other than work home bed

Standing on the Bart platform, with no evil smells like the New York City subway and a breeze
and a polite voice telling me when the train would come
And at the next station an ad for the Jewish Museum and a young Ethiopian Jewish man
has an exhibit there and I felt good, that yes, there is such awfulness in Israel
but even there, like here, some can rise

And then Berkeley and my favorite cafe,
and it so reminds me of Columbia University, only cleaner
but it doesn't hurt about my X anymore
but it reminded me of my cat who was dieing in July and
he didn't want me near him too much because
dieing things like small spaces and not too much attention
so I left him in the closet curled up as cancer worked it's inevitable devastation

And I was coughing and tired, an invalid at the end of the day
but I made it to the Shattuck Cinemas to watch "Lincoln" and they have
a bar, and couches in the theater and you can take drink in if you're over 21
and that was our idea, in my days as a theater manager, we'd
talk about ways to bring more people in and we suggested couches and alcohol
and our manager laughed and thought we were crazy
but here is crazy and people walk in and love it
I sat in the back and took up a whole two seat couch selfishly and
listened to people come in and say how nice it was

Today I was an invalid again and could hardly get up
but the memory, it was worth it
I am slightly more alive again

Giving you up,
You belong to the world -

not with me.

the world keeps turning;
with each turn,
I
in turn
turn away from you
and your awfulness
your ways
your rejection of me.

you enjoyed stumbling
recklessly falling and breaking;
whatever remained of my love
- my awful, broken love.

with each sunset -
I see you - setting with it
being the darkness that is my discomfort
the pain that lingers on
eating bits of me.

you are clumsy -
a person of the world
- I
well, I
- a person of the boundaries
of the tortured soul
that clings on the sanity
that is, love

the world has you -
I have nothing - nothing
that is you.

- nothing of you;
******.
The world has you - not I.

“Life is, at its core, a smattering of multicolor streaks and blotches
on a knock-off Jackson ******* painting, don’t you think?”
you say between impossibly tiny sips
of your organic loose leaf herbal something-or-other tea—
or at least I think that’s what you said;
I was too distracted (by the general awfulness with which
your incomprehensibly long nose hairs
mingled with your bristly auburn mustache
as elevated nonsense poured out of your speech-hole)
to fully ingest your attempt at insightfulness.

But I reply:
“Aren’t you saying that what you’re saying doesn’t matter anyway?
Abstract expressionism, existentialism, nihilism, all that stuff?
Life has no meaning—so we better talk about it!”
Heh.

But my dialectical cynicism is no match
for your allegorical *******-ism:
“Ah, but we create meaning!
The lonely abyss of individual experience,
when shared, isn’t so lonely anymore—
Mon Dieu! This tea tastes like sunshine!”

I can’t avoid a sigh-and-eye-roll combo.
When my eyes return to the table,
I see my upside-down reflection in a dessert spoon.

          I painted a *******-esque piece in 9th grade.
          My art teacher adjusted her cat-eye glasses,
          the gold parts of her hazel irises sparkling behind them
          while she said something about the creative subconscious.
          The first drip took some self-convincing;
          the blank canvas on the floor seemed to taunt me
          with the possibility of mistake.
          At first I pretended I was ******* himself,
          trying to think the elevated nonsense he may have thought.
          It didn’t work.
          My friend told me to “just go for it,” so I did.
          I began with green for no reason at all,
          and ended with yellow for reasons that I knew existed
          but that I couldn’t explain.
          Elated, I realized my painting made sense to me.

“Would you like a sip?”
I can’t avoid a smile because
****,
this tea does taste like sunshine.

..and it hurts
when the blades flash
and blood spurts.
See the face
watch the glass
then smash the mirror
watch as cracking up you'll pass
into the seething red hot boiling mass of indecisions.

Incising with precision and then it's too late
any hate you ever had against yourself
your mum or dad is dripping then it's gone.

Who said life goes on?
it does maybe
you cannot,did not,would not see
the sympathy that wrote itself upon the stone
when laid at rest
three miles from home
in St. Marys churchyard and you thought life was so hard
it's harder now
but not for you.you flew away
leaving family to pray and cry.

...and the awfulness of wondering why or what they said
that brought you to this
dead end
full stop
final resting place.

But you know different,don't you dear?
there's no resting place for you in here.
Like there,
you're just a square peg in a rounded hole
another lost and weary soul.

..and you're not going anyway to anywhere
no floating through the air like you read in some ghostly story book
no angels come to tuck you in
you're on your own again
but this times it's for keeps.

The figure, old and decrepit,

lies in a silent tomb of regret,

he ponders his life and where

it has betray him with longing stare,

he slowly rocks to-and-fro

and yet he longs for one love so,

that he cries himself to sleep at night,

seeking some sort of holy plight

to fill his violent life with but one light.

-

he wishes for dreams sweet,

but his requests betray him,

he remembers bloodstained sand at his feet,

and the point at which men’s screams sustained him.

He remembers a thirst for death,

an unquenchable bloodlust.

-

He remembers bodies

covered in entrails and dust,

He sits and thinks though,

of only one retained image,

the figure of a child,

it was a haunting vision.

-

a stray round caught a woman’s throat,

her child covered in the blood that spared her coat,

He remembered this child,

that had watched his mother die,

a boy no more than fifteen,

didn’t so much as flinch or cry.

-

But what held him still,

because death was dealt before,

was the look in the boy’s eyes.

-

This look was hatred for everything that lived

because this woman had not,

this was his terrible decision,

causing awfulness and derision.

-

Within all men with emotion,

when anger’s strength is that of the oceans,

this warrior to-be, a devil’s scorn,

now has nothing, baptized in blood,

the man remembers his son, his brood,

as he was warborn.

The inconsistency.
It pushes you away
And ***** you right back
The inconsistency is a being
It’s alive as it pulses you closer
Then farther away
And even closer the next.
Intoxicating.
You forget what normalcy and relevance are
You forget the good and begin to hate
The fiery negativity floods your veins
Your thoughts, your emotions, your intentions
Until that hatred is turned on yourself
Deep corners of your soul are tainted
Gasping for air as the being consumes you,
You see the light for a moment
And all that is shown is the good
Beautiful, joyous moments are breathing
Laughing, loving, pulsating again
You relax
and remember what it’s like to love
To be loved.
The fear, the hatred, the awfulness disappears.
You breath
and life comes back.
Momentarily, your tattered soul lightens
The inconsistency is addicting.

i love you and that is the yes weight
and the high noon trauma.
the unborn cathedral
of tiny smart people
and the near dark
nova.
the grove of our open wound sustains
and the very love of our bleached dream
.... a godless cream
in a crimson
church.

our idols, a dim mirth. and nothing as it seems.

But -

Oh how the awfulness trumps the blue
and the black behind it
shines ! what might we, the feeble guttersnipes do ?
but save a prayer to a dead god
and march to wane fields
behind it...

love-blinded ?

what are your terms ? the Devil may ask of you and you and you ...

but the true quest is a riddlement,
a prune on the throat of a mute Sun
singing the bleak queries
of an afterbirth, after thought
has abandoned
a hazard's guess.

Tomorrow is a crumb of soft words
and a walk of the plank.
The high stench of probable cause
and the noisy stench
of a chaste complaint.
a dreary ruby
groomed in the *****
of the earth
to be the first
fool.

and the last lust.

a complete waste of light
where the darkness falls
like an anvil chanting
a hammer's
song
but tone deaf
and sparks
sadly.

Home ( less)
is where the start is,
when you become a magnet
for misfortune and a scapegoat
for those who would look down on
you,
those who'd pass you by without
a second glance

by some grace be it God's or some other
deities there are places
where though ill
at ease you can find a moment to forget the
trials, the tribulation, the awfulness of your current
situation.

The universe spins on a pin and things change,
you might begin to see the light
I said, might, it's difficult to alter one's perception
when the view you have is limited, but hope, that
which springs eternal is something you should never
lose,

Living proof,
A roof over my head
alive
not dead
working
loved
happy,

it takes time and sometimes a long time
and the magnet you became seems to
get stronger the longer you're down on your
uppers.

But you must engage even when disengagement
seems preferable or inevitable,
there is nothing more frightening or terrible than to
be totally alone.

It's not easy, but to be honest nothing is easy that's
worth anything and your worth is inestimable,
your resources are legend
you just need to tap in to them.

My thoughts are like a river
Flowing through what used to be my soul.

My thoughts drown rational feeling
Or any decent emotion.

My thoughts war goodbye to the beach as they drag my good mood into the cold, dark depths of them.

My thoughts cause the same amout of trauma as a near-drowning.

My thoughts are sometimes still and transparent
Showcasing the horrors they hide

My thoughts at other times dark and murky
Ugly and sinister
Concealing the awfulness beneath its surface
Waiting to surprise you

My thoughts look inviting at times
Refreshing
But My Thoughts are a dangerous weapon to the unsuspecting
And the most common one can **** me as easily as drowning in my swimming pool.

Life is a tyrant with an army of darkness
That wields weapons of pure awfulness,
While I am a fool that stands against it alone,
And all I can feel is fear in my bones.

Depression, Anxiety, Loneliness, and more
Stand together in that mighty large army.
But Life has a far more effective weapon to use on me,
Hope! It’s a well placed trap that keeps me from being free.

Hope is a promise of an end to the loneliness,
But in truth it is secretly an empty abyss.
And it will make me defenseless and easy to slay
With all of the destruction that life will send my way.

I will be struck first with anxiety
Which will lead me to stay away from society.
Depression will be the next to attack,
And it will leave me far behind with no chance of a comeback.

Finally loneliness will strike a near fatal blow,
Making me feel like I’ve reached an all time low.
Hope will still be there to deal the final strike,
Stabbing me in the back with a large metal spike.

I will still be alive but only because they want it so,
So I can feel all of the  pain they inflicted and know
That they will leave but soon they'll return,
Because there will be much more of me to burn.

Bystanders will walk by and offer words of encouragement
But they will keep their distance and pretend that I am nonexistent.
Because no one wants to take time to assist a fool,
Thus leaving me thinking that people are cruel.

Before the battle I helped many individuals heal,
From their fights with their own demons and things that were too real.
Now it is my turn to call for their aid,
But alas no one wants to help remove the blade.

So I lie there, with a sword in my back,
Pinning my to the ground making a crack.
I feel the blood drain from my the wound,
Leaking the pieces of my heart which makes me feel doomed.

But I will take advantage of this,
And become a man that is emotionless.
I will remove this blade and stand tall,
Letting life know that never again will I fall.

It can send all its weapons against me,
But I will be strong like an oak tree.
Hope will no longer make me feel weak,
Because I am now an hopeless freak.

So once more, against life I will stand alone,
But this time there is nothing in my heart but stone.
And all of those who had ignored me will be sorry,
At the sight of me, a powerful one man army.

rules for wars
and other fictions

and the grave digger
gives me a nod
hands me a shovel of thunder

what to tell the children?

shadows can't exist
without light
and on my bended knees
lightning in the air
looking up

what to tell
the little boys and girls?

be amused,
smile,

darlings, it's not odd, not at all

we humans shed our skin like snakes
and one man's freedom fighter
is another man's terrorist

hell broke loose in Palestine
hell broke loose in the Ukraine

the angels' weeping choir
and cat eyes turn grey as the sea

the cat stares into the fire
cold as the sea

child, have you seen some
awfulness?

what could it be?

my cat howls into the fire

what to say to the children?

(welcome to the night)

pawns and kings, the rooks
the bittersweet comedy
of the heart and other losers


what to tell the children?

Being alone with myself is tricky because my mind constantly looks for trouble, a something waiting around the next corner, a shameful memory goblin ready to pounce and at times my scrutiny is so intense I'm practically blinded, set out on a wobbly tightrope, with no safety net while below a granite slab awaits.

And I wonder is anyone else out there familiar with this cold, damp, mind tunnel or is it only a certain few of us who sense some stuff is best keep hidden away, an ancient wrong, an awfulness never to be faced and freed from the darkness, a nowhere place where very few actually survive.

This remote black hole of my unholy secrets live, thrive, out of sight, out of mind, certainly God knows my cloak and dagger self yet God never interferes or removes the sticky fear I've created to block all forward progress, at least not until I'm willing to turn my willfulness over, release my need to be in control, my strong addiction to keep myself safe from life.

So here I sit, tired as hell, afraid of life, no sense of direction, just an ingrained habit to get busy, distracted, while inside a burning desire awaits, longs to live life, to face and be rid of fear, to trust an unknowable Source continues to wait patiently, to make all things new, the very moment I trust the Light at the end of the tunnel.

Catholics cross themselves
trusting in the cross of Jesus
its a blessing and a curse
the awfulness of it all
and the blessed hope.

The 66er
Born to parents
Who swore
They would change everything
But couldn’t even
Change a light bulb
Hid away
In his cube
Coding
A product of the
Uranus-Pluto Conjunction.

And here
He remained
Abandoned to his
Morbid nihilism
Because he knew
He was more likely
To be nurtured By aliens
Than he was
By his Terra Mather.

He thought about
Writing his masterpiece
"It’ll take an Omish Village"
The synergic *******
Of Hillary’s Village
With M Night Shyamalan’s Village
Because to raise children
In a global village
While A river runs through it
Due to sea level rise
Might require less cars on petrol
And more carts on ponies.
But he doubted
The world was ready.

At five he drove home
Like the other blind insects
Turned on the AC
In his apartment
Even though it was December
And he lived in Maine
Lit his ****
Took a drag
And watched his neighbors
Drain the power grid
With their Christmas light display.

Poor *******
Being born
Progerically old
Knowing that nothing good
Lay ahead
Because nothing good
Came from behind
No escaping the pain
Of this ontological linearity
But **** took the edge off.
And hedonism
His only escape
Out of the awfulness
Of nothing.

Suffocation experienced analogous
to absent echocardiogram
or electroencephalogram blip
(Derek Chauvin - he of
George Floyd infamy) iron maiden grip
linkedin with psyche subjected
to laceration courtesy cruel horse whip
mine inexcusable
(albeit clueless faux pas)
family members living social in Bend, Oregon
and Oakland, California did yip
private information across cyberspace did zip.

Apology (ex post facto)
extended regarding about
mine guilt ridden conscience
programming mental state
think sufferable infinite
jesting Möbius strip
casting dark shadow of doubt
looping along outer limits
of twilight zone
futilely shucking off
emotional tailspin (kamikaze) fallout
impossible mission
unable to muzzle or thwart lout

who poetically blurts out
simian old routine programmed
erroneously heavily incorrectly
peppers entire Hollerith
or IBM punched cards
yielding botched defenseless redoubt,
when Yankee doodles dandy
teapot short and stout
convection currents trigger
whistle Dixie when liquid piping hot
a microcosm concerning plate tectonics
across webbed wide world
yielding necessary oomph
to migrating trout.

Absent awareness
flourished amidst ignorance
sixty plus shades of gray matter
hotly doth smolder and burn
unbeknownst rancor did furiously churn
when yours truly divulged
he made aborted attempt
to couch his genuine
paternal care and concern
lack of discrimination
and judgment I did not
(honest to dog) recognize nor discern.

Understandable blameworthy
grievance against me,
not granted app parent permission
thus culpability I obediently yield
words that sparked hurt
now utilized to wield
heft to communicate authentic love
(cryptically coded)
and hermetically sealed
hopefully in due time
mine discretion well healed.

Comeuppance generated
desire to **** self awoke
resolution to make amends
bedevils this bloke
who deservedly receives just desserts
invisible hand doth choke
living daylights, hence
nightmare scenario I evoke.

Following objective forthwith
pained papa doth aim
constitutes feeble attempt made
to reach out and accept blame
reckless transgression
to spout warrants claim
if religious, thence within perdition

while still alive
mine flesh set fire to flame
analogous to burnt offering
even that sacrifice considered lame
imposed upon lovely bones,
I cannot utter nor name
one garden variety primate repurposed
thru cremation his cruelty destiny will tame.

Awfulness permeates nerve wracked soul,
because behavior concerning yours truly
hashtagged boneheaded rogue
(as easily attested to courtesy the missus),
indiscriminately sharing sensitive information
innocently celebrating their joys and sorrows
concerning welfare of deux biological chicas 
which pathetic body, mind and spirit triage
attributed to where fool rushed into
where angels fear to tread.

No ambition, exertion, inspiration... arose
these last few days melancholy grows
a brief lull occurred,
whereby lack of crafting poems or prose
insync engulfed and teed off par
for the course
stainless steel pitch forked shows
with mettlesome irony
(perhaps witnessed
by dearth of posting)
finding me figuratively pitched
upon horns of dilemma.

Far from human league,
(more'n mark twain fathoms
into deep purple troubled waters)
I flounder amidst flotsam and jetsam
mankind receding toward lost horizon adios
at sea within Lake lachrymose
moody blue foo fighting
wretched beastie boy feels morose.

Subsequent diminution to write,
nevertheless mustered
aforementioned reasonable rhyme
attempting to describe psychological plight
thru arranging words, I take flight.

I have poured rivers of tears,
Remained with filth and some miracle
To help me recover my faith...

I Have been putting back together
Pieces of work
But evil and awfulness must go together
You killed me
For your filth had to survive.
Clean her
Clean her somehow
Of the worse
You will not love
And not because ugly or too beautiful
But because of the filth you made her of...

I am used to being in role of victim. Having my energy ****** out of me by dark forces isn't fun.
Having my heart drained of love and warmth till there is nothing for me. Every shower I try to get rid of the feeling of awfulness that comes with being an empath. I want to care too much, love too much and be the imperfect me. I can't do that when parts of me that I enjoy caring for are exhausted, tainted and impure with emotions of others.
I can't function when I don't have all of my wits and strengths.
I can't function when I lose my mind.
I can't function when I am not all there.
I envy people who can socialize without feeling like you aren't enough for the crowds. I don't trust many and unconditionally love few. I am not perfect and I don't try to be perfect.