like yellow flowers
on faded dreams
you came to me
gently,
with the soothing voice
of a sweaty spring
thank you, old friend
for being able to be
dark enough to see
the hidden light
in me

i will not go into the times we shared
asphyxia and summer air
juxtaposed to form
an inseparable pair

who am I, old friend
when the ship´s horn blares
if you made me who I am
(if you made me scarce)

like yellow flowers
on faded dreams
you left me
softly, without
any warning of
the lack of color
(there would be)
without your splendor

Janie pushes the metal book cart back into its parking space in the Document Delivery Department of the St. Louis Public Library and hangs the last sticky note for October 30, 2012 on the wall by the head of the department’s closed door. She retightens her brown scarf under her chin, tucking the wispy hairs above her ears back into hiding. Having your hair begin to prematurely gray as a teenager has dramatic effects on a person. Her mother wore scarves around her wrists when Janie was growing up and when Janie begin to wear scarves to conceal her salt-and-pepper hair, her mother just smiled. The clock hanging on the wall above the children’s section reads 11:28pm.
Two more minutes.
She reorganized the pens and books on her desk and set the box reading NOTES onto the right corner or her desk with three blue pens and a stack of note cards. Her coworkers learned fast that Janie does not like to talk. She does not like eye contact. She loves the silence, and never ever to ask her about her hair. Her manager gave her the NOTES box after about a month of horrible miscommunication and everyday it fills with requests for books or tasks that Janie has to complete. She completes the tasks one by one, alone, in her back office in the Reference Department and hangs the completed sticky notes on the wall by her manager’s door. She works the night shift and locks the library up every night. When she’s alone she can talk out loud to herself and those are the only voices she cares to hear.
“Goodnight, books. Good night, rooms.” Janie shut the heavy wooden door to the library, placed the color-coded keys in the front right pocket of her jacket, and began her walk to the bus stop one corner away. She avoids the main road, taking her first right onto a side street that she knows would spit her out right beside the bus stop.
“Goodnight Taco Bell Sign. Goodnight Rite-Aide. Goodnight Westside Apartments. Goodnight Jack-o-Lantern smile.” She stopped in the middle of the alley and peered up at the Jack-o-Lantern grinning down at her from the third story window above. “Mother wouldn’t’ve liked your smirk, Jack. She would’ve slapped that **** right off your face.” Janie, satisfied the pumpkin was put in its rightful place, smiled as she trotted on.
“Mother carved smiles into her arms and that’s why Daddy left, it is, it is.” She kicked at a crushed Mountain Dew can as she remembered that night from years ago.

“Mommy?” Janie pushed opened the door to her mother’s bedroom and saw the moving-boxes torn open and all their contents scattered across the floor. She tiptoed through piles of scarves and silverware and corkscrews until she reached the bathroom in her mom’s room.
“Come to us like rain, oh lord, come and stay and sting a while more, oh lord…” her mother’s voice was slipping off the tiled bathroom walls. Janie pushed open the door and saw the blood for the first time pouring from her mother’s wrist. Her mother was naked and perched on the bathroom sink, singing to a red razor blade.
“Mommy?”
“GET OUT!” Her mother jumped from the counter and perched on all fours on the floor. She began to growl and speak in a voice too deep to be coming from her own throat.
“Mommy! It’s Janie!” She began to cry as her mother, still naked and bleeding, twisted and writhed onto her back and began to crawl towards the door that Janie hid behind.


“Thirty-Three percent, dear. Just a thirty-three percent chance.” She shivered trying to clear the last memory of her mother with the words that all the shrinks had echoed to her over the years. “Schizophrenia is directly related to genetics, little is known about the type of Schizophrenia mother was diagnosed with except that it is definitely passed on genetically. But, there is only a thirty-three percent chance you could have it, dear. Thirty-three percent.” The sound of the bus stop ahead reminds her it is time to be silent again.
“Disorganized Schizophrenia.” She mouthed to herself as she stepped back out onto the busy street from her alleyway. She tightened her scarf and saw the bus pull into the pickup spot. She walked forward to the bus, again immersed in her self-imposed silence.
Stepping out of the February cold, Janie removes her wool scarf as the bus doors close behind her.
“Where to baby?” The driver smiles a sticky smile. Her nametag reads, “Shannon” and has a decaying Hello-Kitty sticker in the bottom left corner.
“The Clinton Street drop.” She hands the driver her $2.50 fare and avoids the woman’s questioning eyes. The night drivers are always more talkative, curious.
“Your ticket hon.” She tears Janie a ticket stub. “Everything is pretty dead this late, I’ll have you there in ten minutes top.”
Janie begins to shuffle towards the seats, ignoring the woman.
“You mind if I crank up the music?” The bus driver asks, purple fingernails scratching in her thick blonde hair. “I need to keep my eyes open and blood flowing and music is my fire of choice you know?”
“Sure.” Janie shrugs her bag onto her shoulder and walks on before the woman can say anything else.
“Route E-2, homebound.” Shannon’s voice crackles over the loudspeaker.
She shuffles down the bus towards her usual seat; second from the back right side.  Shannon starts the bus rolling before she reaches her seat and Janie can hear her singing along to “Summertime” by Janis Joplin. The bus floor, today, is sticky because of the morning rain. Two years of riding public transportation has taught Janie that staring at the floor as she walks to her seat is better than the risk of making eye contact. The bus is usually empty this late but if there ever happens to be anyone else on, it’s better not to converse. Safer that way.
She plops into her seat filling the indention that ghosts of past passengers left. The seat is still warm and Janie squirms around until the stranger heat is forgotten. She tightens her scarf and sighs. The brown pleather seatback in front of her is peeling towards the top. Janie leans forward and idly picks at the scab-like dangles of brown as she watches the sodden city canvas roll past her out the foggy window. As she picks, the hole grows. She twists and digs her unpainted nails into the seat until her hands feel wet, warm. Looking down, they are covered in blood and mud.
“What. The. Actual. ****.” she whispers, wiping her hands on her pants leg. She cautiously picks off another piece of pleather and a trickle of deep red begins to run from the seat back, clumps of mud now falling onto her knees. A puddle of blood and mire splatter down her legs and pool around her feet as she picks at the seat. Her white tights are definitely beyond saving now, so she digs faster until her thumbnail catches on something, bends back, and cracks. She gasps and withdraws her shaking hand, watching her own blood mix with the clotting muck in the seat, half of her thumbnail completely stripped off.
Looking around, all else seems normal. The driver is now muttering along to some banter by Kanye West, completely unaware of Janie’s predicament. She closes her eyes.
This is a dream, this is a dream, wake the **** up.
She opens her eyes to see the pool of filth around her feet trickling towards the front of the bus. Panic sets in with a whisper, They’re going to think it was you, your fault, you’ll be thrown in jail.
“But I didn’t do this.” She lashes out to herself. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”
Next stop, E-2. Shannon blares on the intercom.
“It’s just a dream, get your **** together, Janie.” She laughs at herself, manic.
Prove it! Her subconscious screams.
Convinced to end this moment she has to continue; Janie plunges her hand into the pleather grave one more time. Frantic and confused she laughs as she digs, spittle of muck splashing on her bus window.
Faster, faster, faster.
Deeper, deeper, deeper.
Realer, realer, real.
Wake up, now!
Then, as the bus slows, one last chuck of mud splatters to the floor and Janie sees a pink piece of her thumbnail stabbed into the white of a bone in the bottom of the seatback pit. Her white Ked’s were becoming so red they were almost black. She pulls her knees up to her chest and begins to rock back and forth. Clenching shut her eyes she begins to hum. Janie’s sweet soprano harmonizes with the buses deep droning purr, their wet melody interweaving with the driver’s alto and Lil Wayne’s screech made her feel dizzy as the bus turned right.
She take my money when I'm in need
Yeah she's a trifling friend indeed
Oh she's a gold digger way over town
That dig's on me
The bus slows to a stop and the bass is shaking. Janie is cold. She slowly peeks out of her right eye, expecting to be instantly immersed into the same dismal scene. The seatback is whole again. Releasing her knees, her feet fall back to the floor and her shaking fingers stroke the solid pleather.

“Ma’am? We’re at the Clinton Drop.”
Janie hurriedly picks up her bag and flees down the aisle to the bus doors.
“Everything alright, dear?” The bus driver asks, smiling.
“Fine, just fine.”
“You be safe out there tonight. The night is dark and only ghouls stroll the streets this late.”  Shannon laughed as Janie’s jaw dropped. “Happy Halloween, dear. It’s midnight, today is October 31st.”
The bus doors opened and a cold wind ****** the warm bot-air surrounding Janie into the streets. She begrudgingly followed, her mind spinning as she stepped onto the pavement. The doors slammed behind her and she turned to see Shannon pull out a tube of lipstick and smear it, red, across her cracked lips. Shannon made a duck-face in the mirror and reached down to crank up the music as loud as it would go. The bus exhaled and rolled forward, leaving Janie behind as it splashed through the potholes.
She surveys the surrounding midnight gloom and the street is quiet and dark. Even the stars are hidden behind swirling clouds. She begins to hum, hands in her pocket, and shuffle towards her apartment.
“Goodnight, stars. Goodnight, street.”
As she approaches her single-bedroom apartment, digging through her coat pocket for her keys, her thumb pulsates. She grasps the keys and pulls them out as she steps up to the apartment. Sticking the cold, silver key in the lock she looks down at her thumb and in the shadows of the porch sees half of the nail completely missing. She laughs as she pushes the door open to her bare apartment, light flooding out. Without any hesitation she closes the door behind her, sheds her clothes, and slips onto the mattress in the corner of the room gripping her thumb tight. She reaches out for the glass of milk on the floor beside her bed from the morning and it’s still cold. Nursing the milk, surrounded by blankets and solitude, she reminds herself,  “Only a thirty-three percent chance. A nice, small, round number. Small.”  
She sets down the empty glass and curls into the fetal position under the heavy blankets, pointer finger tracing circles on her thumb. Only when she has heated her blanket cocoon enough to feel safe does she remove her scarf and allow her thick white hair to fall around her face.
“Goodnight, room. Goodnight, mother,”

Find the lighter, use it as a lighthouse on a walk below the wall you watch along the wave-formations. Who Wants a Cold One? a Coors Light ad corrects.. When it comes to your home, the little things matter.. an insurance ad blares.. my computer is infected with 3rd party applications unremovable to my meagre tech-ability.. there is a hero as Joseph Campbell once theorized.. in myself like a sick bastardly virus waiting for moments to prove to me "I AM THE SAVIOR, I AM THE CHRIST, I AM THE WARLORD, MICE, MAN, AND VICE".. the windows of opportunity close, I am left waiting the door

& the elevator.

Thirty-thousand years ago, there was nothing but a breeze.. a viscous breeze across chill-spined pterodactyls.. warm-under-the-jungle-brush tyrannosaurus rex, and to think one day I will be just a legend in bone..
Charlotte said she thinks of death and so did Jen. They sat next to the all-you-can-eat and discussed the inevitable. I was sour and playful with no-will-to-understand, just reminding my hair of breezy summer days of 10, thinking of strangeness, of place I was in.

When it's quiet sometimes, I think of old dreams.. dreams I sunk below drown-level as a child in bed and belief. Both mommy and daddy were arguing in the kitchen, this was 7 or 8.. they argued so often one could hear mom begin to cry sometimes, and dad I could see in minds-eye with a grimace so closed and so creased he was hurt and yet honest.. I did not understand so I hid under-stood-silhouettes, oh adulthood..

once in dream I was in pulsing green graveyard like crayon realism strobe lights, tombstones all-round and faint-buzz of outside and one of those strange balded henchmen of badguy Jafar from Disney's Aladdin came peaking outta nowhere with curled eyebrow and baggy one-thousand-one Arabian nightlives parachute pants, curled toes brown-beige moccasins to.. he let out conniving 'HEUHEE!' and slapped me right-side cheek and I JOLTED up bedwise in real time to feel actual physical sting for a few lingered seconds then the sobs of poor mother outside.. I never remembered a dream so clearly again.. they all come, Pro-Found, and dizzy away after hour or two for rest of eternity or perhaps to Place I Can Visit at Death to Review Every Vision and I wonder... when your life flashes before your eyes and the light is encroaching, scenes of mother, brother, father, son, daughter, best-friend, party, break-up, heartbreak, slip-fall, first-sip, first-drag, last-leg, first-kiss, first-hit, first-game, fear, love,  HATE, wait.. do the Dreams come to? Are they all flesh-ed before your eyes as you pass into Light? Are they brought to direct remembrance as you cross the border with Passport of Gods and a Goddess (and which Picture appears on the Page)..?

I remember the old eczema taking bits of skin to carpets round-town and round-lower-mainland to disgust of friends old and new-- this was era where confidence ate itself in mirrors, the sober reality of ugly-ness chiseling away at my Goodness Attempts.. All That Pointless Pain was no Exception nor a Rule, it just **** Happens every once-and-again to the sound of life farting. I used to miss school for feet so impossible to walk on, pussing and bleeding and staining the sheets, shoe soles, carpets, and soul.. limp thru the hallways of Brooks Secondary feeling like bad flavor additive to multicultural Planet Earth-- sleeping 'til the bell rang drinking coffee singing songs I said '**** the ******* educational system and **** me I'm so flatlined..' someday I felt things would really get better and lucky young me I was right.

A half-decade later, I am 21 and hoping, floating, free in the breeze as the wings I have grown keep on wishing the subsistence down. The girl, whoever-she-might-as-well-be, sits immediately vertical chatting frantically to boy with a bit of a cowlick slouching on-up over a bundle of colored paperwork. It seems late in the season for homework, and assume they may have some affiliation with a crazy-hep computer design group in the tradition of Nouevau Silicon Valley.... I sit at my laptop, inching a word a million cubic millimeters closer to God or Divinity or Crescendo or A Bunch More ******* You'll End Up Ignoring---

It's a sunny day, the rain having slathered-off into obscurity somewhere with the Monsoons when the Sun gave the Moon a Soft Slap and the poor purity white-kid went off whimpering, bleeding nose-- I sat, the other night, playing another Grand Strategy game as Tom divided his time between a vaulted and damaged lover, his labor, and his life (friends, food, video-games, vice)... Chai, old Chai the Thai Guy mentioned past his nose in previous iterations of Depictions sat and described his pins-and-needles upset at his bosses at one his three many jobs.. desperately firing text-messages into receiving-space-panel and reflect and back unto Tom's smartphone dash asking him to order a six-pack from a local delivery service cuz his adrenal was giving him heartpain with hurt, and Tom being Busy as All-Ways Tom Is wasn't able to decipher the scramble in-time to make contact before closure of the liquor stores.. poor not-so-poor Chai at first felt castrated at realization he would miss the 11 PM dot-time, but didn't mind as he rendezvoused with Tom and I at Willows Beach where Tom reminded him of a whiskey he'd bought sitting counter-wise at his place.. we kissed a few Mary Janes rightsideup, dragging our butts in the sand to discuss what was wrong (each of us had a problem that night, save for perhaps a less-vocal Tom, I describing my annoyance that a lazy consensus had erupted in my sorry-hometown between my sorta-friends and friends-of-friends that my writing and sharing my writing was arrogant and I an arrogant *** for sharing and I just confounded that they would find my passions so trivial-- perhaps jealousy, perhaps complacency and judgement-for-lack-of-anything-better-to-do and ah **** em all if they think like that, I'll write and be the arrogant me they think I am and share 'til I'm blue in the face and dead perhaps for outspoken intellectualism in their autocratic pointless-waste worldviews.. sad that I dislike them only on the basis they disliked me first..)

I had planned to stay late and leave early-morn (5 or 6 AM) to catch a first-off morning bus back home and sleep, hoping for most part to avoid the shattered-***-mess of a home I was living in.
About 2 days ago, give or take, a water-line for the laundry machine had erupted to soak our entirely-carpeted basement suite, forcing the poor new landlord (a sweetheart of a man named Ron having just taken possession of the house from previous owner on May 1st and, it seems, left 'holding the bag' as they'd call it in day-trading-investment-lingo) to tear out the entirely-soaked carpet and replace it with sensible laminate flooring and rendering the entire suite virtually unlivable for indefinite-few-days and so for me work and friends and especially writing become a welcome reprieve to I, a first world Refu-Jeez.. us, so terribly-off I sip a latte near sunny panorama windows-so-clear-they're-not-there overlooking the crosses of Yates and Blanshard with European church of Gothic architectural style poking heedlessly into empty-open blue.. ironically and strangely there is a liquor store quite literally right next door, and's one I shop at often for its decent prices (God is Dead or Just Drinking to Cope with Sartre and Kierkegaard's Ultimate Thesis) (Kierkegaard especially '*** Kierkegaard seems a good and long friend of God the Almighty) (...I talk with such Judaeo-Christian Catholic rhetoric it never ceases to amaze myself as it bleeds to page..) (stranger thing is, tho, there is no beginning, no middle, no end.. you read or you are bored and either/or is just fine..)

There is some hypothesized crescendo-bliss Tech Singularity on the way in the try-dition of Ray Kurzweil and William Burroughs.. Oscar Wilde to.. (see The Soul of Man Under Socialism in essay-collect book De Profundis).. one day we will all be eternal happiness expressed in song and dance and LED erected-projections of Imperfect Universe (Our Imperfect Earth) with lives stuck on infinite repeat.. our idea of Paradise.. and for those with ability to remain rushed to cortisol (stress-the-best hormone) it will be Hell on Earth, so DRAB and THE SAME all the TIME and it's READ and it's WRITE and it's RIGHT.. the world runs faster with every passing day so desperate to discover the Globe is Flat so we can Hop Off the Other Side into what one might assume to be The Better Place.. elusively picking-up speed thinking 'closer now definitely closer now' unaware (or, secretly aware and unwilling to admit for what will one do when one cannot run?) they are Running in Circles Over and Over and Over and Over and Over Again... cannot take the hint in the fact the Pacific (same Pacific) has been crossed a hugeillion times, nor the same McDonald's in the Azores of Atlantic Portugal is the Same ******* McDonald's stopped-thru on the then-trillionth time last year... and all whilst the International Space Station remains muted up-above crossing 'round and 'round 'til the Jehovah'n Day of Judgement (Chris Hadfield now below with advice for how to run a little faster even blinded in one eye..) then there are the dying Prophets Predicting Industrial Collapse who preach upon the Mount of Internet Sinai Eternal and state "the world is now unsalvageable and we are all about to die.. if ever you wished to find Buddhistic Nirvanic Peace, now is the time so start meditating and imagine Death as New Life and Geopolitics as Game".. forever and ever and ever and ever.

It is only natural to find existence to be 'weird..' layered with Who's That's and giant What The ***** everywhichway you turn.. did it start in a Big Bang, will it end in a Big Crunch, Big Freeze, Big Bang.. ? all questions once ignored for certain ignorance and resurrected as questions concerning the Nature of the What The ***** (also known as 'Science').. and if it did start in a Big Bang, did I start in a Big Bang..? and if it does end in a Big Crunch, will I end in a Big Crunch..? am I a sudden flash of REAL in a Universe that isn't me..? or am I an entire Universe.. perhaps even more than that...? the questions pulse in youth like bad words or bullets. I once stayed up all-night thinking of infinity with my head soaring space-wise forever and ever and ever and I stopped in sudden panic thinking: I could lie here up all night and all day 'til the towered age of 37 (I was 14 at the time) and still be no further on the Universal Map than from thumb-tip-middle to thumb-nail so I wrapped up the attempt with a mix of fear and incredulity, went to school next-day exhausted and tried to explain it all to friends.. they got it, I suppose, but we were all 14 and played basketball instead (I imagined infinite-spinning-basketball on thumb of Michael Jordan).

It's always best describing life in form of Disembodied Poetics.. sure some Philistines won't understand '*** their minds are made of Clockwork, Digits, and Blockthought.. but the general psychic underly implied in all with human faculty will ring-a-ding-ding! and remember all such ancient thoughts and feels as forgotten as a child, locked away until the Spirit rose-up from a rosey thorn prickle to flower straight-up into a Rose! or so I hope as a one-of-many writers-- all of which will write so-as to speak on your behalf.. all floaty and marking a purpose.

the anger swells inside of me like a balloon, ready to burst. Band of Horses blares in the background, and tears begin to fill my eyes, threatening to drop if I don't pull myself together.
stop it.
stop trying to break in
stop trying to make me let you in
i won't
won't won't won't
i won't let. you. in.
stop
i hate you
i hate how my heart beats faster when
i'm by your side
i hate how you make me more of myself
i hate hate ha te hate you i hate you
but more than that
i adore you

Synchronicity -
It means all of the events
flying, WHIZZING!, d-r-i-f-t-ing by us
as we ourselves float through the world
are related, connected, entangled,
and emerge from some kind of
divine symphony.

The sounds of laughter, tears dripping,
hearts BREAKING, SMASHING, SHATTERING,
the scraping knees crawling through the rubble,
hands SLAPPING TOGETHER as heads turn
towards heaven in prayer-

The warm embraces, -sighs- of comfort, lips smacking,
bodies pressing together in the hopes of being
reunified for a few moments, the glances,
the poems, the letters, the rings exchanged
and matching cemetery plots-

The triumphs, WOO-HOOS, celebrations,
toasts, clinking wine glasses, bottles, mugs
bumping fists, patting hands drumming
confidence into chests-

They are all supposed to be
one godly plan.
Like high notes, tragic sonatas
and joyous fingers plucking
heavens strings into
gracious cords and
silent pauses between tracks
are all one concert that we're conducting.

But doesn't it all feel so fragile?
One broken instrument, one
distracted player, one missing page in
your play book, a hand swished too hard,
eyes-too-penetrating or overly
aggressive dismissal of your
prized pianist
and the whole orchestra
falls into chaos.

What's it mean? What was that lyric?
What key is it in? What is the right tempo?
Do I emphasize the earthy drums that provide stability?
Do I drag you along on a magical carpet ride of echoing
falsettos, throats tugged like the handle-strings
drawing across my violin eyes on an exciting journey?

Or do I sink into the minor keys of my pain-
Songs that I don't share, playing on headphones
now I want to blast them, sob them out, sing them in whispers
at first, let them grow in me like my apathy, swell into tumors of
fear, and hurt and eat me from the inside out!

I want to shout songs of suffering. Have my piano keys
spin you into my anxiety, guitars raising the key like water rising
one floor at a time in the Titanic that is my beating heart.

I want to watch the drummers sweat as they beat out the rage
of having my most precious friends, objects and opportunities
snatched away - over and over - despite the progressive movements.

I want to draw you back into my finale with my fear. It will have to be so disturbing that each note raises hairs on your neck. When I drop my baton, leaves you with my night terrors - so foreign from the concert I'm playing that I'll need

electric guitars, wild wind instruments, theramin and a chorus of sirens and banshees to scare you back into your seat. Songs inspired by fear, pain and sadness, anxiety and misery are all you'll find at this concert. Songs that make bowing an act of submission and never respect or adoration. My forums lack fan clubs. Covers of my songs don't exist.

Please - leave your hearts at the door. Chances are that fate,
the ultimate conductor, will rip me out of this black-and-white
universe that traps me like a suit made from
straightjacket fibers, anyhow. Because life, no matter how unified they tell you it is, LIFE doesn't get remastered. There is no deluxe version, b-side, or re-recording.

No one can auto-tune my words. The dangerous, raging guitar solos of insults and fury that have wrecked
all of the men who really cared at one point.
The friends who survived the mounting anxiety of watching me
skip like a CD in the broken walkmen we had as kids. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I meant to! Mean-! Mea! Meant, Meant, Meant, Meant <silence>, SLAM "Meant to call you,"

Or maybe ([SARCASM] IF YOU'RE LUCKY!) you'll hear track 4. I'll sing, "I need your help!", "Wow, *****, just come over!", "This *****!", "I didn't mean it", "Don't get like this again!". Against the anxious, building, manic tones, my panick blares while "I'm not good enough", "Can't do that", "my disease makes that hard", "Do you like me?", "**** this!!!" blares like an infernal choir pressing you to madness.

See, human symphonies aren't coherent - music theory isn't a predictive corpus. Experience shows that you can't make it come together. Too often, we don't get any rehearsal time. The death dirges that have stolen away my family, one at a time, creeping up from a silent, whispering stocatto'd-doom drown out any of the romantic, epic harpsichord solos that I still only dream of.

The angry, head-banging, 'where's that mosh-pit for grown-up children with kneepads?' beats don't motivate me anymore. They break down the walls to the studios where I was writing expert concertos. The earthquake-like blasts of my self-loathing fear have already torn down too much sound-proofing and the record studio collapsed because noone had the credentials to get in. My only dance consists of turning off the lights and yanking up the covers. Being a one-hint wonder isn't happening. Then again, can you blame me for not stopping? I don't pass this after I hit it.

In the end, the musicians don't always show up. It's like, - We've all been to that concert. Ya know, where everyone feels the awkward energy of a 4th grade Christmas Carol musical? Where, the costumes weren't convincing. Of course neither were the conductor's falsehoods, lies, omissions, or the promise that you'd enjoy this show. Cover art, like my critic's ratings, just don't do me justice . "Smart, engaging, relatable" the new listener's proclamation that "I'm falling in love! I can't get enough!" are marketing gimicks that just don't last.

Synchronicity, like destiny, has revealed itself to me as a fantasy. Reality's crumpling threads don't always find their way into skilled weaver's hands.  These strings have all snapped. In the end, I'm left smashing drums with trombones, crying over the rusted saxophones that can't croon for other hearts anymore. Just wait, my closing number is a Celine-Dion covered effort to stay afloat in the monsoon that I've been summoning for over a decade. When everyone leaves my audience, the program is either left behind or taken only by the weirdos who resonate with this kind of tortuous tune

I end each night walking the aisles of my darkened auditorium-soul now. I like to follow the echo and chase "coulda!" "woulda!" shadows across walls. I find your ticket stubs and nostalgia pulls me away from the dimming lights. In the end though, I can't counter the reviews that my show has no point. The tragedy isn't teaching any lesson and the cacophonies I birth don't generate fans. Plus, requests for autographs have become suicide invitations for an artist who can't release a polished track.

Synchronicity:A word invented and popularized by psychologist Dr. Carl Jung in the 1950s.  We all no better now that this is not a word that exists. Yet, the potential leads us all to chase after seasont tickets.

Synchronicity, defined as the false hope that it all means something. Synchronicity, the hope that you'll get to be the big strand in something special. Synchronicity - the promise of a heavenly choir, or divine symphony; of course we've already fallen from grace too often to question our unfulfillment. Sync-ro-nic-it-eeeee, like an old worn-out cassette tape, rarely comes with the equipment and support needed to hear it. Synchronicity - The jagged, little red pill that I can't take. Synronicity: the seemingly fate-driven world that we all stop believing in when the silence sets in.

Synchronicity: a series of seemingly random events that promise you a long night of unsurpassed concert sound. At least it's not alcohol I'm left lacking

Synchronicity, the artists that't leaves us entangled in distractions. Like scratched soundtracks. Synchronicity: the band I quit that has since left me wishing for buttons:

Pause. Stop. Repeat. Shuffle. Fast-Forward? Rewind!.....
..... Skip.

...................Eject.

So the clever artist manages to push all her friends away,
And the clever artist decides to distract herself from her plight.
The clever artist goes outside to paint
In the rain.
In the middle of the night.
The clever artist crafts damaged brushstrokes.
And the very clever artist watches them wash away.

The clever artist sends herself mostly blind
As she watches her foggy breath over a flashlight.
The clever artist thinks about the silence that blares,
Despite the music coming from everywhere.
And oh the clever artist!--
Dropped her brush in the dirt.
But she still managed to disguise her hurt..
The artist cleverly insulted the paintbrush in hand;
Clever words, metaphorically meant.

It was then the clever artist ran inside
Her hair dripping from the rain, tangled and wild.
The stupid artist sits down before a page,
Taking her favourite seat.
And writes the worst excuse of a poem ever made.
Becoming the least worthy poet you'll ever meet
The stupid artist can't write,
Nor paint for ****.
And of her friendship skills?
Well, **** it.

My autism's a part of me,

But it is apart, you see.

...

Who are you?

With your ‘normal’ view.

Are you just one thing, or are you a person

With thoughts & feelings, that are your own unique version.

Preferences, ideas, talents, and dreams?

That are bound by senses that meet at their seams.

Are you fat, short sighted or visually impaired?

Are you ever wondering why I just stood and stared.

Those may be the things that I saw the first time I meet you,

But you’re more than just your ‘normal’ diagnosis…. True?

As an adult, you have control over how you’re defined.

Your normality means your perceptions are refined.

So why would you single out one characteristic of mine that you can make known.

As a child, I am still unfolding, I’m not fully grown.

Neither you nor I yet know of what I am capable.

If you think of me as just one thing, then one thing’s inescapable.

You run the danger of assuming I have no chance of achieving.

And my heightened senses know this, it’s only you you’re deceiving

For I am not endowed with any ordinary sense.

You need to know this before I commence.

You take for granted sight, sound, taste, touch and smell.

Never once realising that these things can be as painful as hell

For me.

You see.

My world often feels hostile, and makes me so fearful.

I may appear withdrawn or belligerent, whilst others are cheerful.

Or mean to you, or antagonistic,

Defending myself, then going ballistic.

You tell me we’re going on a trip to the shops

And out of the world my safety net instantly drops.

My hearing, you see, is hyper acute.

But I’m put in the car, though I loudly refute.

At the shops, walls of people jabber and whoop.

The loudspeaker booms and adds to the soup.

Music blares and lashes and whooshes.

Tills beep and cough, a coffee grinder swooshes.

The meat cutter screeches, a baby starts wailing,

I’m starting to malfunction and am rapidly flailing

As trolleys pass creaking, and fluorescent lights hum.

I’m starting to panic, but also turn numb.

My brain can’t filter the input, the voltage is massive

I’m in overload with no chance of staying passive.

My sense of smell is stratospheric.

That fish on the counter is NOT atmospheric.

The man in front hasn’t showered today,

That Stilton cheese – someone take it away!

A baby goes past, it’s ***** needs changing.

Things are going faster and turning deranging

They’re mopping up pickles on aisle two with some bleach and a rag.

My stomach is churning, and I’m starting to gag..

And there’s so much hitting my eyes!

This trip has turned into the world's worst surprise.

The fluorescent light

Is not only too bright,

it’s that flicker.

The space seems to be moving, getting quicker and quicker.

The pulsating light bounces off everything and distorts what I am seeing.

I don’t know what I’m doing, or saying, or being.

There are too many items for me to be able to focus.

The world starts to drain me of my internal locus.

My eyes try to compensate by tunnelling my vision

Fans on the ceiling, twist my senses into nuclear fission.

All this affects how I feel just standing there,

and I can’t even tell where my body is in space, do I care?

You’re yelling at me now, and shaking my shoulder

But the fiery fog is down and is starting to smoulder

It isn’t that I don’t want to hear your instruction.

I just can’t understand, due to mass self-destruction.

You're shouting now, but what does "£$%^&&% NOW! !£$%^&*" mean?

My senses will **** me in a collusion so obscene.

Once we’re back at the kids home, it all feels less absurd.

And now when you speak, I can hear every word.

Simple instructions, that I know off by heart.

And I cling onto these so I won’t fall apart.

You tell me what you want me to do next and I’m able to reply.

Now I’m happy and it’s easy for me to comply.

Now I’m OK and I’m running about

And performing my ritualised songs, which I shout.

Then a visitor grabs me saying, “Hold your horses, cowboy!” – This means danger!

I can’t stop the horses, I’m me, not the Lone Ranger!

And I’m thrown into panic when what you mean is, “Stop running.”

But I don’t know that! Those stampeding horses are coming!!

That’s my life, you see, it’s not “a piece of cake”

When there’s no dessert in sight and you’ve made a mistake.

When you say, “its pouring cats and dogs,” I see pets flooding from the sky.

Tell me, “It’s raining hard,” so I won’t fear the animals will die.

Puns, sarcasm and allusion

Simply generate confusion.

Tell me facts and keep things clear

So I can live, yet not in fear.

It’s hard for me to tell you what I need when my senses are reeling

When I don’t have a way to describe what I’m feeling.

I may be hungry, frustrated, frightened, or perplexed.

But I can’t find the words, and lash out, angry and vexed.

Be alert for my body language, or my gestures and obsessions

Then you’ll handle my feelings like your own treasured possessions.

Watch out for me compensating for not knowing the right word

By mimicking my favourite film star, or something just as absurd.

Rattling off words or whole scripts, which will leave you confounded

That I’ve memorised from Disney, because they make me feel grounded.

They may come from the TV, or speeches, or a book

And though they make people give a funny look

I just know that saying them gets me off the hook.

Show me, show me! I’m visual, you see.

And I’ll understand rather than you just telling me.

And be prepared to show countless times.

I’m listening, despite my ritualised rhymes.

Visual supports help me move through my day.

They relieve me of the stress and I feel OK.

I don’t have to remember what’s happening next

For I operate on a visual text.

This makes for smooth transitions in my life

And we’ll finally progress without anger or strife.

I need to see something to learn it, because spoken words are like steam to me;

They evaporate before my mind's eye, and are gone instantly,

Before I even have a chance to make sense of them,

They've died in the ether, leaving me in mayhem.

I don’t have instant-processing skills.

Instructions and information are my life giving pills

Images can stay in front of me for as long as I need,

and will be just the same in years, for they'll never recede.

Without visual help, I live the constant frustration

of knowing that I’m missing big blocks of information,

Not to mention falling short, by being a misfit

And I'm helpless to do anything about it.

Unlike other people, I'm unable to learn

If it's normal interaction for which you do yearn.

I’m constantly made to feel that I’m not good enough

And people are stern and people are tough.

They think I need taking in hand and need fixing.

Never knowing the world and my brain are tranfixing

I avoid trying any new things, for I'm sure I'll get 'dissed'

And another grown up will be angry and get 'real ******'.

But no matter how “constructive” you think you’re being.

Look for my strengths, though they're hard for the seeing.

There is more than one right way to do most things.

It may look like I don’t want to play with the other kids on the swings

But it may be that I simply do not know how to start

They just think I'm weird, and set me apart.

Teach me how to play with others.

Remove my autistic shrouded covers.

Encourage other children to invite me along.

They might learn something of value from my life's different song.

And rather than spend my day as separate, secluded.

I might show an ethereal delight at being included.

I do best in games that have a clear beginning and end.

Random play is something my fears won't transcend.

And just one other thing, a sort of confession

I cannot interpret a ****** expression

Or body language, or other peoples' emotion

So in group situations I'm resigned to demotion.

I want to learn, I want you to teach me.

Reach into my mind and help me to see.

If I laugh when Tommy falls off the climbing frame,

It’s that I don’t know what to say, nastiness isn't to blame

Talk to me about Tommy’s feelings and teach me to say,

“Are you hurt, Tommy, I'll get teacher, then you'll be okay?”

If you don't I'll meltdown or blow-up, and get in a stew

And this is a thousand times worse for me than for you.

For my mind will go into overload

My sense of equilibrium will start to off-road.

For I'm well past the limit of my social ability.

As those off road lights glare at my own disability.

If you can figure out why my meltdowns occur, they can be prevented

And my behaviours will abate, less frequently lamented.

Keep notes about me and a pattern may emerge.

As your understanding of me will gradually converge.

Remember that everything I do is a form of communication.

It tells you, when my words cannot, how I’m reacting to each situation.

My behavior may have a physical cause.

Think for a moment, just have a pause.

Food allergies and sleep problems can affect my behaviour.

Just look for signs, for you might be my Saviour.

Because I may not be able to tell you about these things.

That blunt my affect and cause my mood swings.

Throw away thoughts like, “If you would just—” and “Why can’t you—?”

You didn’t fulfill every expectation your parents had either, that's true.

And would you like to witness a constant rewind.

Of the traumatic deficits by which you're defined?

I didn’t choose to have autism.

Or to live with this division

Remember that it’s happening to me, not to you.

But without understanding, my chances remain few.

With love and support, my horizons are broader

But I can't live my life by other peoples order.

Patience. Patience. Patience, are the three words we need to live by

For my dreams to be reached, and my confidence fly.

View my autism as a different ability

Rather than as a freak show disability.

Look past what you may see as limitations and feel for my strength

I may not be good at eye contact or conversations of length

But have you noticed that I don’t lie, or cheat at a game

Or pass judgment on people, and make them to blame?

I rely on you, if you can make me your personal vocation

All that I might become won’t happen without you as my foundation.

Be my advocate, be my guide

Be my strength, stand at my side.

Love me for who I am, and not what you know

And we’ll see just how far I can go.

Matt Revans 2014
©Copyright

I push the button,
3
2
1
The jaws of the train clunk as its mouth opens,
the 9am crowd surging through its hollow body,
eying up the row of sickly plastic benches.
The wheels tighten, I loosen my tie,
off to the office, I sigh,
as I pull out today’s ‘New York Times’.

My eyes drift towards the woman across from me.
A fragrance of citrus and strawberry drifts off her shoulder
as she plumps her pout in the screen of her smartphone.
A bead of sweat poised on her collarbone
glitters like the diamantes on her nails.

We slow,
screeching against the rusted tracks
before the machine-lady hybrid speaks:
‘East-
a split second pause
-Sixty Seven Street’.
No one gets off, so we simply sit
beneath the sizzle of electric bulbs,
their garish light numbed by ***** glass
that cradles the bodies of last week’s flies.

Like an aged rattlesnake, the train creaks and hisses through the tunnel.
I’m attacked by a river of thick black hair
belonging to an olive-skinned woman who yaps into her cellphone:
‘no, no, quiero ver Times Square!’
I close my eyes and listen as her tongue rolls and dives
taking a bite of my bagel from Starbucks.

‘East-
anticipation
-Seventy Two Street’.
Although preoccupied with different thoughts,
expressions
destinations
the bodies on the carriage drift and sway with the motion of the train,
as it stops
and starts once more.

Two children in uniforms twirl around the carriage,
their laughter more electric
than the current that bristles below our feet.
A man
tickled by the dreadlock that sweeps over his face,
looks on with jeans so baggy
his legs melt into the seat.
The Jamaican flag blares from his t-shirt.

Next to him, a man bakes in a moth-eaten waistcoat
clutching a wallet with quivering fingers.
I follow his gaze to a picture of a woman
black and white with coffee stained edges.
His wrinkles deepen as he smiles at his
wife?
alive?
I notice glittery pools of the past forming in his eyes,
perhaps not.

‘East-
my stop
-Seventy Nine Street’.
As I glance down at the platform’s monotonous shades of concrete,
and brush the dust from my grey tweed suit,
I think to myself
how colourful Upper-East Side is.
I shall never stop travelling on the 9am subway to Seventh Avenue.
Without it,
how boring my life would be.
Without it,
I wouldn’t be me.

he stands paces searches out windows feeling headache considers no matter who you are where you live we all come from same place a ****** he scribbles all i hear is *****, ***** ***** ***** new york ***** california ***** nordic ***** parisian italian spanish british irish japanese polynesian ***** ***** from all over the world ***** next door new ***** at work all the foxy ******* running around town ***** whipped pussyfooting ***** juice ***** lips colors flavors aromas squirters gushers hairy ***** ******* pierced ***** droopy swollen wet dry irritated itchy incontinent stinky ***** we are a nation of ***** obsessives he imagines Federal Bureau of ***** as an FBP agent he can show badge civilly detain any female especially those with thick dark eyebrows or difficult to decipher yet trained eye can discern fat lips within his authority to direct her to expose ***** excuse me ma’am but your eyebrows warrant examination of your bush please assume position this won’t take any longer than is necessary sometimes certain detainee’s inspections require unrestricted scrutinyhe thinks why don’t governments militaries realize power of *****? instead of inventing employing weapons of mass destruction why not use ******* to distract ****** young male soldiers? imagine furry rabbit rockets with pink twitchy noses floppy wet lips darting through air shooting everywhere distinctly resembling smell taste warm ***** yet fatal mechanisms that could attach **** **** consume who could resist? probably someone would come up with ***** defense system (PDS) which would intercept scudding ******* before they reached intended targetshe wakes up early disorientated turns on tv commercial TUMS blares in groggy dyslexic state by mistake he reads backwards sees **** on tv questions what is this place i lived in? america fat turkey on map with brains in new york city *** in d.c. paw in miami stomach in midwest ******* in california nested on egg over mexico he writes i envision statue of liberty alive real beautiful woman little children tumble run around her giggling laughing innocently playing hide and seek with her gown then some bigger older men approach offer her gifts to pull up her dress do other things she appears startled at them refusing to accept their crass proposals men continue to bring more gifts promise her things despite her cold-shoulder suddenly she appears worried perhaps she is thinking about someone special maybe her family men’s offers keep piling higher eventually she breaks down accepts their proposals men gather around her very close i cannot see what they are doing but can hear whispering conspiring heavy breathing then i see her hand reach out all at once she spills burning torch catching fire to gown

it's a friday night and i am sat at the top of the bleachers with three packs of maltesers i told the cashier were for my friends with a blurry grin and the hot chocolate in my hands lied. it's lukewarm and tastes of milk, not sweets, and the taste of it still taints my lips because i'm forcing myself to drink it anyways. the stars are yellow set against navy hues and they're blinking down at me.

there's announcers shouting something about the game occurring on the field but i'm not listening, never listening, never apathetic or empathic enough to want to. the music blares, cheers roar, announcers boom, the scoreboard flashes-  it's cold enough to be huddled beneath blankets but i've only got a sweatshirt hiding my hands, hiding my fingers, hiding me. my ribs shiver and the ghosts in the spaces between them gather closer for a warmth that won't come. the moon says hello to me and i struggle to catch enough air to say it back.

my friends are nowhere to be found and i can't feel my fingertips and the flavor of lukewarm hot chocolate leaves me and i'm closing my eyes, shutting them tight, disconnecting.

there's suddenly no one here, just me and the blackness behind my eyelids. it's like i'm watching humans but never being one of them. maybe i'm meant to be an alien- maybe that one star blinking at me is a planet welcoming me home- maybe if i lay my lungs to rest they'll leave me be.

i can feel my heart giving up on me.

Have the trees all fallen?
/
In my absence,
Did the lights turn out in Santa Fe?
I’m walking in a shadow,
Cast by who knows what because
The skyline’s bare
/
Now the leaves are gone,
And in their wake the branches
Lie gutted on the pavement
Stripped to shiny bones
That smile and smile,
The call to arms blares out
So sickly sweet
/
A mind rang out across the room
That blazed so hot we’ll never know
And in one blazing human breath
They breathed their last
/
to think they were children
they were just children
/
I feel a great and quiet darkness
Has snuffed out those sparks
That could have ignited the world
And so I wonder
How many million seconds, meant to be,
Now never will?
/
Do good men die so other men
Might learn, or worse still, win?
Will those sparks
Snuffed out in Santa Fe
Ignite this world of apathy
To shame?
/
I ask again,
Have the trees all fallen
Down in Santa Fe?

She is sleek , a little battered
scar across her back
but in her silver dress
whoa, never had a girl like that
long legs propel her fast
in any direction I turn her head
She lets me press her buttons
she lets me turn her on
just one flick and she'll be roaring
or one twist and she sits
motionless

When she breaks down
I pick her up, fix her up
god bless
She's hot in summer
frigid in winter and
always in that dress
She soothes me when I'm stressed
blares out my worries when
I've got them on my chest

She yells out songs at
the top of her gravelly voice
or she whispers lullabies
it's my choice
loud, quite, she doesn't care
I could be rich, or broke
she'd still take me anywhere

I've cried in her arms
I've loved in her lap
I even let her wear
my favorite baseball cap
and see my feet
Once she kept me warm
during my sleep
watched my eyes shifting
underneath my lids
If she lasts long enough
someday she could hold my,
my kids

The television blares, it blinks, it shakes
A cup falls out of the cabinet, it flies, it jumps
They shatter.
Someone's banging on the door, they scream, they holler
She's laughing in your ear, a witch-like cackle
Ha-ha-ha That's all she's says, that's all she does
You keep your head facing forward, don't dare to look around
It's all madness, the footsteps on the ground
Who's creeping down the stairs, you didn't have guests
Who opened the window, who made such a mess?
The laughing
The constant laughing like chimes, it intensifies
Cold sweat, warm tears,
Your body is paralyzed in face of your greatest fears
Do it! Punch a wall, kick a desk!
But sweetie, there is no time for rest.
We must go, we must hurry!
They're almost here!
Who? You feel dizzy. Not another surprise please, I beg you, not another.
The room starts spinning, the ceiling circles you like a volchar.
The small man, with the elf-like features, he's tugging your arm
He's pulling you, as she laughs with such insanity your stomach churns.
Who are these people, what is this hell
A piercing scream is released into the air,
You believe it was your own, but with all the creatures yelling in your ear, you can't be certain.
The noises crank up, the objects fly off the walls
The TV changes from loud channel to channel, from voices to white noise
This is the worst, this is the peak
But suddenly it all stops with a screech.
The tv is in its place, normal channel, normal news
All the items are in their spot, all organized, all unused
There is no laughing. There is no man. There are no footsteps. There is no pulling hand.
But it was all there. You know it was.
Silence. Eery silence.
Now you're left in the confusion of your own mind.
But perhaps you've been there the whole time.

Afloat I am,
The blind horizon spreads to no end.
O river of rivers,
The queen river,
Flow as you wish,
Gather silt forever
That on your shores
Men may harrow, then sow
The seeds of happiness
And sorrow to grow.


Afloat I am,
The blind horizon spreads to no end,
Hilsa leaps at the moon,
How wondrously they blend!

Hilsa leaps at the moon,
How wondrously they blend!
O river of rivers,
The starry river,
Your blinking waves drum
Of Behula's shiver.
I too am lost,
The tattered merchant fool,
My peacock barge rides
Fate's whirlpool.

Hilsa leaps at the moon,
How wondrously they blend!
When the whistling wind wakes
All courage is pretend.

When the whistling wind wakes
All courage is pretend,
O river of rivers,
The wise river.
Who would speak for us?
If not you, may be never.
Yet the mountains rise
From the hearths' ash,
You are silent, while
The history is brash.

When the whistling wind wakes
All courage is pretend.
Heaven's horn blares slender silver
For whom to comprehend?

Heaven's horn blares slender silver
For whom to comprehend?
O river of rivers,
The hungry river,
The consort of Ruin.
An arrow in Falguni's quiver.
The infinite wasteland beckons
Hold onto heart's dream,
One more sun above
Anguish and scream.

Heaven's horn blares slender silver
For whom to comprehend?
Afloat I am,
The blind horizon spreads to no end.

Now that it's past the time
that all reasonable people go to sleep,
I warm my engine
and roll alone through sick slickened city streets.
Roads rise up in strips
there polished black backs reflect up a red ribbon of road
beaming down from the two electric eyes,
telling me where to head to next.
With concentration my eyes pick shadows from the dark
and i slide past them
breaking there delicate images
with the water that whips off my balding wheels.
The radio blares stupidly
because he's a ladies man
because they aren't going to take it
because he has 99 problems
because Jesus loves you
because...
There is no reason for this.
For burning fossil fuels
as i rip through the frigid night.
No reason,
for singing the tune
to the words i don't know.
No reason,
for speeding up
and letting go.
No reason,
to let myself spin at last
screeching,
screaming,
and finally smiling,
through that final crossroad.
They will find me,
broken and content,
blood pooling and painting,
a polished portrait of my shortened and hurried life.

The oceans’ froth betrothed to lunatic scoff
The sublunary elegance of a subdued earthen cough
Infectious pulchritude conjures snow-globe turpitude
Defiant humility professes to know the rudeness of the crude
Distilled casually in a leery trance
Terpsichorean choreography of a hallowed prance
Callow scowls affix the hebetude of anger to the sauciness of banter
Gallant cavalries court the cult of she and enamor and enchant her
Foretold calamities proceed like clockwork from God’s destructive jaundice
Death deployed as a sententious homily of wraiths that taunt us
At every turn fatidic inspirations work to cement a known outcome
Averted gaze away from rampant gays and fire-and-brimstone bunkum
We cherish a world where the stodgy and outmoded monopolize choice considerations
Where hedonism abreast of asceticism are internecine intimidations
Suffer like Christ and buffer like tenacious poverty sustained by rice
Dare to glower with menacing insistence at the known outcome of errant dice
Soothsayers soothe prayers but cataclysm still dares
To pulverize innocent insouciance and become the cynosure of trepidation and stares
Heaven blares a deafening “obey” while hell stays silent to lure the prey
Hobnob with hobgoblins and expect opprobrium to park and stay
Gentility and class-divisions orchestrate a frozen system of tenacious prisons
Stalking the lifeblood of mainlined ecstasies and surgical incisions
Minority Report within the grasp of the majority uproar
Dalliance with a self-fulfilling time means there will always be a bout between Bush and Gore
Lecherous eyes prize a hedged bush and irascible lies seek copious gore
But because the bush ensconces the ****** in bed with China the twin towers imploded for common core
Mondegreens serenade a mistaken flirtation with a time traversed and mastered
Swelling tides hearken the moon to make a hypothetical bonanza out of disaster
Enumerated infinity within esoteric grasp and pandered sequester
Bedazzled of foreknowledge  it charters the uncharted exploitation faster and faster
Burgeoning funds entertain a mind cloistered by infamy and oppressed by indecency
Burbling puns ecstatic about the perpetuity of guns hector the province of a token leniency
Squander the day and indulge the night by knowing exactly the demise of every shooting star
Knowing the origin and legacy of every single scar
Knowing the path creates the path known
Every single stock you know you should with alacrity own
Prosperous kinship and insubordinate brinksmanship win the prejudiced award
Fencing with lethal intent the specter of death devolves into irenic accord
Envy the impregnable corporate machine and its unassailable pipe dream
Hunt the Wolfs of Wall Street until panic evolves into cacophony of screams
Democratization of prophecy will cue the most titanic robbery
Shills looking for upstart thrills will pretend an unwarranted snobbery
Paradox is impossible because every moment elapsed is indelible and irrevocable
Every frisson of love is fertile and impregnable
So rejoice that the masters of the clock invest in select stocks
And hope that parcels of secrecy tumble from the 1919 White Sox
Emerald Street knows When the Music ‘s Over
Brandished crumbs adorned with sportive panache clothed in a lucky clover
Deprived of snide tithes and the confessions of millions protest a catholic cabal of universalism draped in quaint overalls
Mock the hegemony of the sailing class and their brisk and copious squalls
Opulent scions vouch for the failsafe prerogatives of Zion
Sleeping awake we indulge the oneiromancies of Orion
Cinematic wonders regale glorified eavesdropped blunders
Until the secrecy of the machine is so conspicuously in sight it tears the elected pantheon asunder
A master race of an intelligent nepotism in denial of its own disgrace
Exploits the argosy of secrets of the flying-disked race
But one day a challenger like a rooster will orient the demotic vogue towards the treasure trove
And pirates will prosper in burgeoning droves
Myths foisted will debunk themselves as eternity preens its chosen wealth
Even the most furtive endeavors will have to equip even more stealth
That day will prompt an arms race and a worms race
To burrow beneath the chasms of malcontent and adopt and insular embrace
They billow now with toxicity and malignancy
Even death will have alternative contingencies
The resplendent future will capture the common heart
For the accumulated wisdom of words will make us infinitely more smart

Its funny, as I am sitting here in the back of the auditorium, listening to all my friends on stage. The song is The Nutcracker, and suddenly it all comes back. As the bass thrums in my ear and the trupet blares loudly across the audience, I remember those winter day where She would take me to The Nutcracker. Two young girls in tow, She would cart us around, another venue every year. It was grand, the high light of my season. I could watch women with long limber legs and men in their toy soilder costumes, prance gracfully across the stage in time with th music. As I sat in that darkened auditorium it all came back to me. She used to take me to see this, to listen to this music. I had the urge to laugh madly, and cry out in anguish. Its a funny thing how precious things become long after they have ended. When the memory still stands while the erson fades. In that darkened auditorium I felt a pang of sickening nostaligia and longing. For She is dead and I am still here, and now I have no one to take me to the Nutcracker

I live in limbo.
Suspended somewhere between towering
Steel Titans and
an ocean of corn.
It's that time of the year again.
I know where I need to go.

I sit in traffic, start and stop.
This line stretches to the main road.
I'll be here awhile.
I close my eyes and I'm there already
My quarter mile square of peace
that shouldn't be peaceful.

A car horn blares behind me,
urging me to scoot up fifty feet
just to stop again for another five minutes.
I just want to get there and away
from this fight,
away from these angry people.

I know they're just anxious
to get home after their
daily nine to five
in the city.
They keep inching West, like me.
But I'm not going home.

Finally at the light.
I turn up the radio.
It's clear the stiff in the three piece suit
in the next lane
is not
a fan of Van Halen.

I return his surly glare
with one of my own.
Past the light and
I keep rolling on.
Past the restaurants and
tanning salons.

I stop at the grocery store
and pick up some orchids for her.
I pick the purple ones
because I think maybe,
she might have liked purple.
But I have no idea, not really.

Breaching suburbia,
where I pass housing developments
that someone had the audacity to brand
with snooty names reminiscent
of high end golf clubs.
Who do they think they are?

As I go, the houses get bigger,
further apart.
The windows down,
I take a cleansing breath.
The air, a little cleaner
than before.

Coasting into rural territory,
I glance at the equestrian farm
and abandoned barns,
ripe with decay,
that might crumble
at the slightest touch.

On and on,
just trying to get
to that place,
where few go but me.
That peaceful place
that really shouldn't be peaceful.

I pull up to that familiar octagonal STOP.
Look right to the llama farm,
Left to the empty bean field,
Straight ahead at the sign: Plain City - Georgesville Rd.
I think maybe they call it Plain because
It all looks quite the same.

Over hills that send my stomach into my lungs,
Past the Canaan Community mobile homes
Which is apparently "A nice place to live."
I know its up here on the left,
That old gravel drive that
no one else sees when they pass.

One more hill and I'm here.
Pulling in under the archway that reads
FOSTER CHAPEL CEMETERY.
I turn down the music,
slow the car,
turn off the engine and listen.

Birds, slight breeze,
the occasional passing car
that sounds like a jet plane out here.
Sinking sun sets this place ablaze.
Wish granting dandelions and silk flower petals
strewn by the whispering wind.

Cars pass by, they don't look this way.
I imagine if they did,
they would marvel that a red Grand Am,
and a living person were there where
hardly anyone ever goes.
This is a place for the dead.

I sit on a cracked stone bench
and watch a monarch
flutter and rest on someone's resting place.
I come here when I can't breathe at home.
And sometimes I'm awed by how
beautiful it is here.

How peaceful it is in this moment.
Then I remember why I came today.
A hundred yards of hundred year old
headstones that have since been
weathered illegible.
A few, I can still make out.

Six feet under,
the bones of people I never knew.
Sometimes I wonder about their stories,
the things they might've done
when they lived.
Bow my head for the ones who died young.

On my way to the back,
I look over one I've read a dozen times.
"Jonathan Alder
First white settler in Madison Co.
Taken by the Indians in 1781,
Returned to his mother in 1805."

So much history here.
People who were buried here
after death.
And of course there's her.
The girl who died here
at the hands of a very bad person.

Incongruously dead among
the dead who belonged here,
she was gone before my birth.
I never knew her,
never knew she was here before
I found this place by accident one summer.

Took the second time I came to notice
the wooden cross wired to the fence in the back.
"KILLED HERE MARCH 17, 1991"
It makes me sick to see it.
But still, I lay down the bit of life
I plucked from a bucket in the store.

I always come a month after
the anniversary of her death.
I imagine it might be sufficiently awkward to run into
her family, who may wonder
why a girl who never knew her
would lay flowers in her memory.

There was some rumor years ago
that she haunted this place.
I don't know about that.
But if her spirit still roamed here,
tormented soul, I'd like to think
that she is glad for the company when I come.

For I come more often not in April,
but when I'm angry
or can't clear my head.
I find peace in the beauty here,
and wonder in the extensive history,
and a reminder.

She reminds me that
she never had the chance at life that I do.
She reminds me to appreciate
the life I was given.
Reminds me it could be taken
from me any day.

Some think it strange to find peace
in a place of death and tragedy.
And I must agree.
But this is also a place of rest.
A quiet place for the dead to sleep,
or maybe wait for company.

I don't always do right.
Don't always say the right thing.
I can be volatile and childish sometimes.
And I come here when I know I need to be humbled.
And I wonder to myself,
Isn't this a strange place for peace?

The ruler comes down from on high
Dragging himself along the earth
Insulation going up like confetti
Take cover, take shelter

Ice the size of softballs
Comes streaking from the sky
There’s nowhere left to run
Huddled under the bridge

And then a sound like rushing water
Feels like a freight train overhead
We weep and cry and gnash our teeth
As the trumpet blares

Drove down Telephone Road
Where it crosses the highway
Sandcastles washed out to sea
Old bills put through the shredder

I walk along Pacific Avenue
Santa Cruz, CA
I walk down past the nice parts
to the bus station
near seedy bars
and a sandwich board reads
Cafe Pergolesi one block
with an arrow pointing

It's not too early to scout locations
It's the location of my opening scene
I approach, and I see, it is still alive
in this summer evening
people outside and in
a trod upon, worn and comfortable air
various levels to the porch
even ash trays on the tables
like Vegas, everyone is welcome

Inside, this is no Starbucks
You don't see a line clearly where you must order
and pay
like a theme park
or a hospital
or a slaughter house
where you are funneled

It's not too clean
But it's filled with comfort
Huge couches beckon
A Victorian house
One people lived in
with spaciousness and windows
Real air permeates the place
An ATM is casually smashed between a couple of tables
but no one cares
you can't mass produce this wonderful mess

A friend's band CD blares through the speakers
badly recorded
a barrista in carefully torn fishnets sneaks a break
on the back porch with her cell phone

I buy water and a cookie and settle into a huge worn chair
Every room has a different theme
But I want comfort
I pull out my notebook and write
I have a shopping list of scenes
And I add another one for this place

Would they let me shoot here?
I don't know
But I think I could live here
It's so non judgemental
People buy things
But there isn't that corporate pressure
There are no special names for dumb things
just small, large, cookie, beer

This is cafe bliss

maybe a black mouth
opening and closing
usually you can see the gums
the teeth
lips stretching over them
there’s nothing
a gaping entrance to the void
there are two stale muffins on the table
one soaking in milk
it’s been two hours now
the room at the top of the stairs
is growing louder and louder
a piercing bellow
drowning out all thoughts
but it doesn’t
i want to scream
throw myself into it until my entire being is lost
between the teeth
the white black lacuna
corn splitting from the cob
a rotting banana
an empty carton of milk
my god, could life be any more boring?
i caught a cold
sneezed at the floor
achoo achoo
get well soon cards at my funeral
loraclear on my casket
dirt over
grow me like a mushroom
expanding into the root systems
puffing into a bulbous fruit
pick me and slice me
but i trust only supermarket goods
picked by mechanised beings
******* on an industrial conveyor belt
modernity made physical
look into the slaughterpens while you eat your steak
barter your children for another shot of coffee
hah hah hah, doesn’t affect me
strutting your cash like an empty slot machine
rigged to emote only with your colleagues
while the television blares another thousand deaths
**** this ****** world
consume me until there’s nothing left
everyone’s a nihilist
someone brought back a dozen breadloaves from the women’s refuge
eat them before they go off
turning our bodies
pouring soap down the sink
all the fishes scales rot away
they slowly sink into the depths
and line the seabed with teeth and ribs

how did i turn to this dead end?
how did it get this bad?
there's no turning back now
i have no where else to go

i can't go forward,
I've already been to far back
how the hell do i get back on track?

there has been no questions answered
no apologies accepted
no smiles
nothing but silence and heartbreak hovering over me
how did i get to this point?

it all started with heartbreak
all of the risks we had to take
I'm followed by this haze
wondering, when will i get out of this maze?

i made my decisions,
i wish we could have a revision
i turned left on this maze,
and still,  for you, I'm crazed

your voice blares through the speaker
my soul is getting darker and darker
i can't stand it
but i know i can't quit

with every step,
it feels like i have misstep
the torture is getting worse
its like I'm cursed
and i know the end
is not near
get me out of here

I'm stuck in this heartbreak maze
i hurt in so many ways
its all because of you
how was i supposed to know that you're love for me wasn't true?

i hope you're happy
because i am unhappy
I'm going to die soon
from my big heart bruise
i hurt way too much inside
the pain will never subside

who knew heartbreak could ****?
i know you're having a thrill
don't be happy much longer
soon enough, your guilt won't make you any stronger

so here i am,
stuck behind these walls
i know you don't care at all
i sit here and give my last brawl
how did our love ever fall?

i hope you got what you wanted,
now I'm gone

it is no crime
to say
“**** it”
and
move on
with my
life

it took me years
to realize this but
even now I take it
as a privilege and
not a rite

times like these
always bring me
back to this debate

and every time
I say no no no
I need to do it
because I can do it
I gotta prove I can do it
gotta show ‘em
gotta teach ‘em
gotta learn ‘em
about what
I
can do

it’s times like these
that make me look
out the window at
the clouds and truly
appreciate them

the trumpet blares
out of the speakers
and I realize that I
might be cut out for
this world after all

Tracks of rain and light linger in
the spongy greens of a nature whose
flickering mountain—bulging nearer,
ebbing back into the sun
hollowing itself away to hold a lake,—
or brown stream rising and falling at the roadside, turning about,
churning itself white, drawing
green in over it,—plunging glassy funnels
fall—

And—the other world—
the windshield a blunt barrier:
Talk to me.  Sh! they would hear us.
—the backs of their heads facing us—
The stream continues its motion of
a hound running over rough ground.

Trees vanish—reappear—vanish:
detached dance of gnomes—as a talk
dodging remarks, glows and fades.
—The unseen power of words—
And now that a few of the moves
are clear the first desire is
to fling oneself out at the side into
the other dance, to other music.

Peer Gynt.  Rip Van Winkle.  Diana.
If I were young I would try a new alignment—
alight nimbly from the car, Good-bye!—
Childhood companions linked two and two
criss-cross:  four, three, two, one.
Back into self, tentacles withdrawn.
Feel about in warm self-flesh.
Since childhood, since childhood!
Childhood is a toad in the garden, a
happy toad.  All toads are happy
and belong in gardens.  A toad to Diana!

Lean forward.  Punch the steerman
behind the ear.  Twirl the wheel!
Over the edge!  Screams!  Crash!
The end.  I sit above my head—
a little removed—or
a thin wash of rain on the roadway
—I am never afraid when he is driving,—
interposes new direction,
rides us sidewise, unforseen
into the ditch!  All threads cut!
Death!  Black.  The end.  The very end—

I would sit separate weighing a
small red handful:  the dirt of these parts,
sliding mists sheeting the alders
against the touch of fingers creeping
to mine.  All stuff of the blind emotions.
But—stirred, the eye seizes
for the first time—The eye awake!—
anything, a dirt bank with green stars
of scrawny **** flattened upon it under
a weight of air—For the first time!—
or a yawning depth:  Big!
Swim around in it, through it—
all directions and find
vitreous seawater stuff—
God how I love you!—or, as I say,
a plunge into the ditch.  The End.  I sit
examining my red handful.  Balancing
—this—in and out—agh.

Love you?  It’s
a fire in the blood, *****-nilly!
It’s the sun coming up in the morning.
Ha, but it’s the grey moon too, already up
in the morning.  You are slow.
Men are not friends where it concerns
a woman?  Fighters.  Playfellows.
White round thighs!  Youth!  Sighs—!
It’s the fillip of novelty.  It’s—

Mountains.  Elephants ******* along
against the sky—indifferent to
light withdrawing its tattered shreds,
worn out with embraces.  It’s
the fillip of novelty.  It’s a fire in the blood.

Oh get a flannel shirt, white flannel
or pongee.  You’d look so well!
I married you because I liked your nose.
I wanted you!  I wanted you
in spite of all they’d say—

Rain and light, mountain and rain,
rain and river.  Will you love me always?
—A car overturned and two crushed bodies
under it.—Always!  Always!
And the white moon already up.
White.  Clean.  All the colors.
A good head, backed by the eye—awake!
backed by the emotions—blind—
River and mountain, light and rain—or
rain, rock, light, trees—divided:
rain-light counter rocks-trees or
trees counter rain-light-rocks or—

Myriads of counter processions
crossing and recrossing, regaining
the advantage, buying here, selling there
—You are sold cheap everywhere in town!—
lingering, touching fingers, withdrawing
gathering forces into blares, hummocks,
peaks and rivers—rivers meeting rock
—I wish that you were lying there dead
and I sitting here beside you.—
It’s the grey moon—over and over.
It’s the clay of these parts.

He drives along the empty road
Till his headlights fall upon the deer
He stops, inches from its body.
Its dark eyes widen with fear.
Hazel brown eyes: Just like his daughter’s

He blares his horn repeatedly
To scare it off with the loud sound
A vain attempt; the stag stays
Unmoving, it holds its ground.
Obstinate creature: Just like his daughter.

He groans in frustration,
The animal stares in silence;
Its eyes shine with a hint of anger
It’s stance the picture of defiance  
Quietly rebellious: Just like his daughter.

Through his window, he shouts at it
To move off the narrow road
But the deer just stands, looking confused,
Instead of running off to its abode
It doesn’t understand: Just like his daughter.

Doesn’t it know to run away?
He’s never seen such behaviour;
Such a myriad of emotions  
Expressed by a simple deer.
It’s an enigma: Just like his daughter.

He looks helplessly at the deer,
Unsure of what will happen now
He’s almost out of options but
He knows he’ll find a way somehow.
After all, he never gives up: Just like his daughter.

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

Walt Whitman
walks by me
somewhere in 1891

I nod to him...he nods to me
lost in himself
Clinton is being inaugurated

Brooklyn Bridge
saunters by
dressed in the summer of '67

the subway
wears its best graffiti
the music of trains and Coltrane

the Flatiron Building is jaywalking
the Empire State
chats him up

a child's hopscotch
almost washed away
a moment's masterpiece

Robert Moses
looks across Long Island
longs to build the city only he sees

he gazes into my future
I look into his past
I pass Robert Mapplethorpe

a man in a white suit
nailed to the darkness
by so many stars

an old saxophone player
busks Rogers and Hart in Central Park
"...I didn't know what time it was..."

two obese Chinese
take up most of the sidewalk
both speaking fluent - Irish

Leaves of Grass
lies scattered across the road
read now by the wind

a car caught in traffic
blares out Joel's
"New York State of Mind"

I laugh at such
a happenstance
a walk-on-part in my own movie

escaping the borders
of the body
I walk through times

I am all the times
of the world
they intersect in self

Walt and I
sitting on a park bench
waiting to go somewhere else

an 1990's rain
falls on an 1870's NY
they are beginning Brooklyn Bridge

I meet my self
coming and going
an older and a younger me

time held prisoner on the wrist
I turn and walk away
into this the newest of centuries

i appear with boots and a saucy smile on
in the doorway while she's cooking the women
gossip over the sizzling pan of hot butter
under her heaving chest on the stove

i'm wearing a magic cape mimicking a windmill
with my bright pink ***** standing *****
big as a barn in the morning sun
lusting after dominance
fat and wrapped like a chorizo sausage

she sends a half-wave into my
direction of space and says--on the counter
i'm ******* an older latina lady with a chiquita banana
deep in my mother's kitchen with
the sticker on the tip of my **** for reference
as the sun dances and rises just
before pancake breakfast

her dank breath smells like
pollo broth and fiesta cigarettes
but her **** is wild soft and new
like a banana being peeled and sliced lengthwise
warm ***** hanging on either side
fat enough to be chewed on

psychedelic salsa blares
on the radio all morning
and i'm holding her skirt up to
reveal beautiful hips and thigh muscles so
i can **** her harder and faster
at her request

hands fly and the big bowl of
seeds spray downward in gravitational collapse
she's singing mexican gypsy secrets
with a cigarette lit and just hanging lopsided
off her lipsticked marshmallow lips

she's holding a yellow crayon in one hand
like she'll be scribbling notes shorthand
and dribbling cane syrup over my naked body
with the other as the floor begins shaking and
the walls shed plaster the cupboard doors creak
on their hinges and mom walks in the room looking at me
like i'm the crazy one

but the cataclysmic miracle is done
senorita is kneeling and wiping my ****
with an authentic mexican flag handkerchief
her sweat and my *** cooling on her thighs
working holes in her new blue kneesocks
and i'm re-zipping her dress over the
glistening expanse of her brown back

she stands trying to fix her freshly ****** hair and
we both light a cigarette try to forget the whole thing happened laughing at our secret as her cherry toes finally uncurl like an ember drifting in campfire smoke she just juts a hip out licks her lips again and smiles

"bueno."

The rain splutters at me in foreign tongue
As my mind hurdles under a mushroom
Shelter from the pelting lashes
Of nostalgic memory
Such vulnerable home from woes
Like a rodent hole in flooding summer

They tell me I am a finicky rat
That will not survive outside Sakubva
Ratatat-tatatatat-****!
Oh but how true!
Each day I walk out in the morning
Come evening I pick every footprint I left
Back home
Prompted by need to use my footprints
Once more

Take care!
The radio blares
Save save save save
The television frowns
Wise up
Recycle is the trick in these hard times
Discarded beliefs, discarded memories, discarded tastes
Can be recycled
Recycled dreams, recycled husband, recycled wife...
I scrap my bottom in amazement
After all there is always a grain of virtue left
In what we discard -
O how I love the scent
God has made it that way
That each time you ****
Before you go
You save a nostalgic glance at your ****
Suppressing a sense of loss
For a part of you left behind

Like kites tied to strings we are
We regale in our false splendour
At time's mercy
The fruits of mental *******
Deflowered by new ****** worlds
Of lewd dreams in striking G-Strings
Gyrating ***** of fantastic insanity
That lure us
Into the heavy -bosomed clouds
Pregnant with cultural retribution
For the anarchy coursing our veins
Like the burning pain on my back
Each evening when I bend double
To pick up and bag my footprints
I left in the morning

This is not madness
When I tell you to let your beak
Of tolerance peck and peck
On your *******...
What difference is there
Between **** in your belly and
**** steaming betwixt your legs?
What difference is home
When you are young and when old?

Riding on the back of butterfly dreams
When I am a newborn macho
In the bullring of entrepreneurship
Or O such cosmopolitan hunk
In the realm of fashion and modelling...
Sounds like sheltering under a mushroom
That springs and dazzles but a day
Hope I will hurtle back
Hope sweet home, home sweet home
I am a finical rat
That won't live away from home.

-dougwa-

The lighting of streets' corners -
Even those corners that hitherto were dark and unwelcoming.
As the sunset bleeds
on the city's disappearing silhouette.

The shimmering traffic;
The blares of multiple cars as they try to rush home.
As windows smile brightly to passersby.
The return of Santa Claus!


The holiday seasons,
Winter to the snow laden,
Harmattan to the arid lands.
Chilly on all sides.

The warmth of the fireplace,
The joy of the days to come.
The jingles of merry bells.
The bright lights of Christmas trees.

A reminder that all of humanity can still be happy.
That there is still hope.
That we can share in each other's joy.
And always be there for each other.

It comes on
and he laughs and you laugh nervously along.
(This song saved your life.)
The radio blares the **** of the latest joke, but songs
aren't allowed to save lives any more so you keep quiet.
Music isn't a cure, and The Cure have been long out of style and
it happened
before anyone had ever heard of Twenty One Pilots anyway and
since long before Rose killed herself with a twenty pill crash diet.
it happened
but he laughs and you laugh nervously along.
Those chords saved your life
But "can you believe we
ever listened
to this song?"

The sunset looks beautiful with the windows rolled down
and you wonder how you ever survived this long, anyway.

Woop As the siren blares/

Scared nervous/
I hear a loud pull over!/

Its the Grammar Police/
awwww snap
They want to see my diploma/

I keep my hand on the pen
Like I don't even notice/

In my window of opportunity
Asking/

Son Do you know why I pulled you over?/
Cause I'm in the office
sir writing these poems?/

I take full responsibility
I don't got no diploma
I just got this GED/

He said that's not good enough
Put down the pen son
Your coming with me/

Now there's Turmoil thru the streets
drama around every corner/

There should be no commas
Period I question marked your honor/

Butchering with clevers
run on sentences for ever/

The alphabet guys set up
Planted evidence missing letters/

Sworn I had it down to a T
The I before E
how does that go?/

Well don't look now
I done broke another law/

How ever this may trouble you
I keep my vowels sometimes Y & W/

Somethings not write I'm reeling feeling uncomfortable/

Is it me?
Well don't you see/
A fused two V's?/

That's my story
I'm sticking to it
my testimony/

Yet we speak it double U/
confused by another rule/

They label me an outlaw
In the middle of the court room/

A mystery/ A victim being pursued/ by the Grammar police/

The jury siding with the prosecution
I may never be released/

Its Invictus/
The defense rest
Now they have an eye-witness/

With an eye on who did this/

There,     their,      they're,      hair,     heir      and..... here/

The Ironies in the rule book/
similar sounding confused look/

If i where to spoke this and not
wrote this you would have not notice/

No no Input
was it done on purpose?/
For a purpose?/

One things for certain/

If l lay dying dead in the street
It's cause you took shots at me

Just remember I wasn't perfect/

But you are the grammar police
Just doing your job I know working/