Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought
countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send
hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs
and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the
day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first
fell out with one another.
  And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the
son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a
pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of
Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the
ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a
great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo
wreathed with a suppliant’s wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but
most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs.
  “Sons of Atreus,” he cried, “and all other Achaeans, may the gods
who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach
your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for
her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove.”
  On this the rest of the Achaeans with one voice were for
respecting the priest and taking the ransom that he offered; but not
so Agamemnon, who spoke fiercely to him and sent him roughly away.
“Old man,” said he, “let me not find you tarrying about our ships, nor
yet coming hereafter. Your sceptre of the god and your wreath shall
profit you nothing. I will not free her. She shall grow old in my
house at Argos far from her own home, busying herself with her loom
and visiting my couch; so go, and do not provoke me or it shall be the
worse for you.”
  The old man feared him and obeyed. Not a word he spoke, but went
by the shore of the sounding sea and prayed apart to King Apollo
whom lovely Leto had borne. “Hear me,” he cried, “O god of the
silver bow, that protectest Chryse and holy Cilla and rulest Tenedos
with thy might, hear me oh thou of Sminthe. If I have ever decked your
temple with garlands, or burned your thigh-bones in fat of bulls or
goats, grant my prayer, and let your arrows avenge these my tears upon
the Danaans.”
  Thus did he pray, and Apollo heard his prayer. He came down
furious from the summits of Olympus, with his bow and his quiver
upon his shoulder, and the arrows rattled on his back with the rage
that trembled within him. He sat himself down away from the ships with
a face as dark as night, and his silver bow rang death as he shot
his arrow in the midst of them. First he smote their mules and their
hounds, but presently he aimed his shafts at the people themselves,
and all day long the pyres of the dead were burning.
  For nine whole days he shot his arrows among the people, but upon
the tenth day Achilles called them in assembly—moved thereto by Juno,
who saw the Achaeans in their death-throes and had compassion upon
them. Then, when they were got together, he rose and spoke among them.
  “Son of Atreus,” said he, “I deem that we should now turn roving
home if we would escape destruction, for we are being cut down by
war and pestilence at once. Let us ask some priest or prophet, or some
reader of dreams (for dreams, too, are of Jove) who can tell us why
Phoebus Apollo is so angry, and say whether it is for some vow that we
have broken, or hecatomb that we have not offered, and whether he will
accept the savour of lambs and goats without blemish, so as to take
away the plague from us.”
  With these words he sat down, and Calchas son of Thestor, wisest
of augurs, who knew things past present and to come, rose to speak. He
it was who had guided the Achaeans with their fleet to Ilius,
through the prophesyings with which Phoebus Apollo had inspired him.
With all sincerity and goodwill he addressed them thus:-
  “Achilles, loved of heaven, you bid me tell you about the anger of
King Apollo, I will therefore do so; but consider first and swear that
you will stand by me heartily in word and deed, for I know that I
shall offend one who rules the Argives with might, to whom all the
Achaeans are in subjection. A plain man cannot stand against the anger
of a king, who if he swallow his displeasure now, will yet nurse
revenge till he has wreaked it. Consider, therefore, whether or no you
will protect me.”
  And Achilles answered, “Fear not, but speak as it is borne in upon
you from heaven, for by Apollo, Calchas, to whom you pray, and whose
oracles you reveal to us, not a Danaan at our ships shall lay his hand
upon you, while I yet live to look upon the face of the earth—no, not
though you name Agamemnon himself, who is by far the foremost of the
Achaeans.”
  Thereon the seer spoke boldly. “The god,” he said, “is angry neither
about vow nor hecatomb, but for his priest’s sake, whom Agamemnon
has dishonoured, in that he would not free his daughter nor take a
ransom for her; therefore has he sent these evils upon us, and will
yet send others. He will not deliver the Danaans from this
pestilence till Agamemnon has restored the girl without fee or
ransom to her father, and has sent a holy hecatomb to Chryse. Thus
we may perhaps appease him.”
  With these words he sat down, and Agamemnon rose in anger. His heart
was black with rage, and his eyes flashed fire as he scowled on
Calchas and said, “Seer of evil, you never yet prophesied smooth
things concerning me, but have ever loved to foretell that which was
evil. You have brought me neither comfort nor performance; and now you
come seeing among Danaans, and saying that Apollo has plagued us
because I would not take a ransom for this girl, the daughter of
Chryses. I have set my heart on keeping her in my own house, for I
love her better even than my own wife Clytemnestra, whose peer she
is alike in form and feature, in understanding and accomplishments.
Still I will give her up if I must, for I would have the people
live, not die; but you must find me a prize instead, or I alone
among the Argives shall be without one. This is not well; for you
behold, all of you, that my prize is to go elsewhither.”
  And Achilles answered, “Most noble son of Atreus, covetous beyond
all mankind, how shall the Achaeans find you another prize? We have no
common store from which to take one. Those we took from the cities
have been awarded; we cannot disallow the awards that have been made
already. Give this girl, therefore, to the god, and if ever Jove
grants us to sack the city of Troy we will requite you three and
fourfold.”
  Then Agamemnon said, “Achilles, valiant though you be, you shall not
thus outwit me. You shall not overreach and you shall not persuade me.
Are you to keep your own prize, while I sit tamely under my loss and
give up the girl at your bidding? Let the Achaeans find me a prize
in fair exchange to my liking, or I will come and take your own, or
that of Ajax or of Ulysses; and he to whomsoever I may come shall
rue my coming. But of this we will take thought hereafter; for the
present, let us draw a ship into the sea, and find a crew for her
expressly; let us put a hecatomb on board, and let us send Chryseis
also; further, let some chief man among us be in command, either Ajax,
or Idomeneus, or yourself, son of Peleus, mighty warrior that you are,
that we may offer sacrifice and appease the the anger of the god.”
  Achilles scowled at him and answered, “You are steeped in
insolence and lust of gain. With what heart can any of the Achaeans do
your bidding, either on foray or in open fighting? I came not
warring here for any ill the Trojans had done me. I have no quarrel
with them. They have not raided my cattle nor my horses, nor cut
down my harvests on the rich plains of Phthia; for between me and them
there is a great space, both mountain and sounding sea. We have
followed you, Sir Insolence! for your pleasure, not ours—to gain
satisfaction from the Trojans for your shameless self and for
Menelaus. You forget this, and threaten to rob me of the prize for
which I have toiled, and which the sons of the Achaeans have given me.
Never when the Achaeans sack any rich city of the Trojans do I receive
so good a prize as you do, though it is my hands that do the better
part of the fighting. When the sharing comes, your share is far the
largest, and I, forsooth, must go back to my ships, take what I can
get and be thankful, when my labour of fighting is done. Now,
therefore, I shall go back to Phthia; it will be much better for me to
return home with my ships, for I will not stay here dishonoured to
gather gold and substance for you.”
  And Agamemnon answered, “Fly if you will, I shall make you no
prayers to stay you. I have others here who will do me honour, and
above all Jove, the lord of counsel. There is no king here so
hateful to me as you are, for you are ever quarrelsome and ill
affected. What though you be brave? Was it not heaven that made you
so? Go home, then, with your ships and comrades to lord it over the
Myrmidons. I care neither for you nor for your anger; and thus will
I do: since Phoebus Apollo is taking Chryseis from me, I shall send
her with my ship and my followers, but I shall come to your tent and
take your own prize Briseis, that you may learn how much stronger I am
than you are, and that another may fear to set himself up as equal
or comparable with me.”
  The son of Peleus was furious, and his heart within his shaggy
breast was divided whether to draw his sword, push the others aside,
and **** the son of Atreus, or to restrain himself and check his
anger. While he was thus in two minds, and was drawing his mighty
sword from its scabbard, Minerva came down from heaven (for Juno had
sent her in the love she bore to them both), and seized the son of
Peleus by his yellow hair, visible to him alone, for of the others
no man could see her. Achilles turned in amaze, and by the fire that
flashed from her eyes at once knew that she was Minerva. “Why are
you here,” said he, “daughter of aegis-bearing Jove? To see the
pride of Agamemnon, son of Atreus? Let me tell you—and it shall
surely be—he shall pay for this insolence with his life.”
  And Minerva said, “I come from heaven, if you will hear me, to bid
you stay your anger. Juno has sent me, who cares for both of you
alike. Cease, then, this brawling, and do not draw your sword; rail at
him if you will, and your railing will not be vain, for I tell you-
and it shall surely be—that you shall hereafter receive gifts three
times as splendid by reason of this present insult. Hold, therefore,
and obey.”
  “Goddess,” answered Achilles, “however angry a man may be, he must
do as you two command him. This will be best, for the gods ever hear
the prayers of him who has obeyed them.”
  He stayed his hand on the silver hilt of his sword, and ****** it
back into the scabbard as Minerva bade him. Then she went back to
Olympus among the other gods, and to the house of aegis-bearing Jove.
  But the son of Peleus again began railing at the son of Atreus,
for he was still in a rage. “Wine-bibber,” he cried, “with the face of
a dog and the heart of a hind, you never dare to go out with the
host in fight, nor yet with our chosen men in ambuscade. You shun this
as you do death itself. You had rather go round and rob his prizes
from any man who contradicts you. You devour your people, for you
are king over a feeble folk; otherwise, son of Atreus, henceforward
you would insult no man. Therefore I say, and swear it with a great
oath—nay, by this my sceptre which shalt sprout neither leaf nor
shoot, nor bud anew from the day on which it left its parent stem upon
the mountains—for the axe stripped it of leaf and bark, and now the
sons of the Achaeans bear it as judges and guardians of the decrees of
heaven—so surely and solemnly do I swear that hereafter they shall
look fondly for Achilles and shall not find him. In the day of your
distress, when your men fall dying by the murderous hand of Hector,
you shall not know how to help them, and shall rend your heart with
rage for the hour when you offered insult to the bravest of the
Achaeans.”
  With this the son of Peleus dashed his gold-bestudded sceptre on the
ground and took his seat, while the son of Atreus was beginning
fiercely from his place upon the other side. Then uprose
smooth-tongued Nestor, the facile speaker of the Pylians, and the
words fell from his lips sweeter than honey. Two generations of men
born and bred in Pylos had passed away under his rule, and he was
now reigning over the third. With all sincerity and goodwill,
therefore, he addressed them thus:-
  “Of a truth,” he said, “a great sorrow has befallen the Achaean
land. Surely Priam with his sons would rejoice, and the Trojans be
glad at heart if they could hear this quarrel between you two, who are
so excellent in fight and counsel. I am older than either of you;
therefore be guided by me. Moreover I have been the familiar friend of
men even greater than you are, and they did not disregard my counsels.
Never again can I behold such men as Pirithous and Dryas shepherd of
his people, or as Caeneus, Exadius, godlike Polyphemus, and Theseus
son of Aegeus, peer of the immortals. These were the mightiest men
ever born upon this earth: mightiest were they, and when they fought
the fiercest tribes of mountain savages they utterly overthrew them. I
came from distant Pylos, and went about among them, for they would
have me come, and I fought as it was in me to do. Not a man now living
could withstand them, but they heard my words, and were persuaded by
them. So be it also with yourselves, for this is the more excellent
way. Therefore, Agamemnon, though you be strong, take not this girl
away, for the sons of the Achaeans have already given her to Achilles;
and you, Achilles, strive not further with the king, for no man who by
the grace of Jove wields a sceptre has like honour with Agamemnon. You
are strong, and have a goddess for your mother; but Agamemnon is
stronger than you, for he has more people under him. Son of Atreus,
check your anger, I implore you; end this quarrel with Achilles, who
in the day of battle is a tower of strength to the Achaeans.”
  And Agamemnon answered, “Sir, all that you have said is true, but
this fellow must needs become our lord and master: he must be lord
of all, king of all, and captain of all, and this shall hardly be.
Granted that the gods have made him a great warrior, have they also
given him the right to speak with railing?”
  Achilles interrupted him. “I should be a mean coward,” he cried,
“were I to give in to you in all things. Order other people about, not
me, for I shall obey no longer. Furthermore I say—and lay my saying
to your heart—I shall fight neither you nor any man about this
girl, for those that take were those also that gave. But of all else
that is at my ship you shall carry away nothing by force. Try, that
others may see; if you do, my spear shall be reddened with your
blood.”
  When they had quarrelled thus angrily, they rose, and broke up the
assembly at the ships of the Achaeans. The son of Peleus went back
to his tents and ships with the son of Menoetius and his company,
while Agamemnon drew a vessel into the water and chose a crew of
twenty oarsmen. He escorted Chryseis on board and sent moreover a
hecatomb for the god. And Ulysses went as captain.
  These, then, went on board and sailed their ways over the sea. But
the son of Atreus bade the people purify themselves; so they
purified themselves and cast their filth into the sea. Then they
offered hecatombs of bulls and goats without blemish on the sea-shore,
and the smoke with the savour of their sacrifice rose curling up
towards heaven.
  Thus did they busy themselves throughout the host. But Agamemnon did
not forget the threat that he had made Achilles, and called his trusty
messengers and squires Talthybius and Eurybates. “Go,” said he, “to
the tent of Achilles, son of Peleus; take Briseis by the hand and
bring her hither; if he will not give her I shall come with others and
take her—which will press him harder.”
  He charged them straightly furthe

It's all gone out of me, the hammer falls and I'm not ready to answer
Trembling, weakness supporting a tub of jelly
The pollen-filled air flies past like the
Pelicans at the edge of the harbor
Taking us gliding for an unpleasant ride
Down the corridors of plastic colors
Through the one word answers that bubble forth from
10,000 years away in hyperspace
Where the mechanisms of language become so convoluted
That they disappear completely out at the vanishing point
Coming up behind you again to drag you into that smoky allure
You remember hating and pinching your nose from
And hiding in the car, but the new fear is of becoming addicted to it
Just like your addiction to ego games and
Intellect, just like your addiction to pleasure and constant validation

The validation's there in the eternal self, they say
But I'm an intellectual
Too impatient for meditation
And lost along the way to enlightenment
That I truly want,
But then I'll never have it if I continue to live this way

It's wilderness calling from a tame fool
Sticking up for you the overgrown horoscope signifies
The shapes of skydives,
He comes in and out of our dull lives
And there's an electric current that solidifies between
Him, Us, and his music
Iron rods jutting up from scorched earth
A broken paradise
Crumbling in a whisky tumbler
Blackened by fiber filters, creations
Unlocked by flowing ontological
Caricatures, open wounds gnashing
At attention-seeking osteopaths
Fortune seekers clamber down
Soccer field bleachers,
Somebody lost his sneakers in the woods
Once there was a set of barbells along the trail
We fell in line and started
Counting each other
One by one it seemed like the green apples would never fall
It was up to us to wait for the shower
It would feed our kin
We'd begin to rise up together
But it could never keep up with our pen
We wanted the ghosts to follow us and overtake our mortal foes
But we couldn't command the armies of the dead
We derive all our pleasures from films and campfire stories
We contrive our adventures but we wait for them to happen to us
We take a passive role in finding love
And it blinks lights at us across suburban streets through windows in the dark
The mind begins to writhe with new memories it composed of old
An idealized time of a child with the perverse mind
Of a hogtied adolescent
Guessing that the course of existence
Isn't determined by the speed of your calculations
Testing the warm water on a naked toe
We could dive in and forget to breathe
And the water could carry us forever
Alleviating gravity
All the obstacles we perceived in past lives
Remain with us like
Chimney swifts on the bottomless April days of a
Klu Klux **** telephone operator
Who believed in the spirit and the holy ghost
And burned a quiet altar to Satan's minions every Sunday night
Drinking nail polish and
Obscure references to the films of the
Ancient Greek philosophers, who
Saw the medium as a means to a message
And patronized the elitest filmmakers to study the ancient Runes
And reveal their findings to a power-hungry public
That would not outright reject it
But that would have to follow it down the rabbit hole
Through the wide mouth of the trumpet around brass fixtures
And into the tight hot moist mouth of the trumpeter
And the elemental warriors would strike oil beneath the whole affair
Ending the time we spent hoping for any entertainment to create itself before our barren psyches
Busying ourselves with incomprehensible tasks and letting our indolence take the reins until we found our heads again out there amid the vapors of
New car chem trails and old railroad bunkers where spruce and cedar grow through cement earth, they force apart the ground with just their roots

We weren't ready to keep watch the following weekend but we
Had no choice when the government bond expired
And we had only technological solutions left to hope for
And wrongly we abandoned our research posts to fight the enemies
With giant weapons and uncreative slogans
Our drummers played so fast we marched along and killed all that remained in record doubletime
Rendering the events of that victorious day immortal in the ingenious accounts of
Philosopher/poet/historian Michael Jackson
Who gave one final performance
To save himself from what must not be

I have been so busying studying
That I need a distraction
A break from the action on my computer screen
My mind is so full of random facts and data
I am getting a migraine
My brain needs a break
Should I bake a cake
or is that the stress talking
Maybe I should  be walking
I don't want to walk alone in the dark
I hope the neighbors dog don't start barking
I really need my sleep tonight
If my eyes were not so sore
I might just cuddle up with a good book
Thinking of a temporary distraction
My feet will make some traction on the kitchen floor
I will make a cup of Hot chocolate
read a poem or two
Sit in my lazy girl chair drink the hot chocolate
and think of the best distraction of all
All of my poetry friends
Have a good day or Night
I wish to thank you all for your wonderful poems
and your friendship :) :) :)

Jew harp, Plath hearted, dream seamstress
who sits in the dark.
Who made me live here.
In a small room inside my head, little dictator
and I lit this place with music, just for you
Where all sounds but songs are dead-headed
Just before they bloom.

Totalitarian angel, rage-filled fragile smoke
who censored my tower of Babel.  
Who tamed my very rivers of song
to breathe the moon-tones as vapor, until as a sun  
you’d rise to scar these rivers, every single one
wherever you find them, with your face.
No matter how they run.

Paranoid animal with an understandable
aversion to caress and kinetic poetry.
Damsel who births her own dragons
like the fertility of hell, again and again.
Life and love belong to the monsters
the monsters you make of them
but all of them I’d befriend.

and I wonder.

I could chew my pen hand off
snared coyote.

I could swallow my tongue
dancing to dead note barks.

I could visually inhale that sun.
Take in all I can.
To get the eyelid ink spots.
The branded silhouettes
busying my eyes as I sleep
each night as I sleep.

Without this allergy to identity
you could turn this world backwards in me.
That hell of a snow-globe you hold
if only you knew what kind of world you controlled.

What sights
are seen around
this flower cart
The ever changing
sea of humanity
The exciting sounds
that shout about life,
young and old alike
living to the fullest
and some unfortunately not
Young and old busying themselves
in fast-foot-paces
Vendors of every
nationality pre-existing into one nation
Besides a lot
of people stopping long enough...
to buy and smell the flowers


I raise my petals
to the sun,
sitting in this whitened
cart
a fragrance
bundled joy...
Please take me home
and gently whisper close to me...
I'll send you
     to
     my
     love
           forever be


Filled to the brim
with goodies for your nose
and colors for your eyes,
while in the middle of beehive hustling
this whitened cart
of ours holds
little flowery kisses
helping to kiss away
your hectic day
Here time stands still for you
and entwined magic leafy
flower wands
help change your worldly view
A kindly wink from nature
     A kindly gift from you...


I once fantasized
a fantasy
of lilacs
of ferns of forget-me-nots
and many more

All herded two by two onto a pushing
ark-cart of white

But soon a flood of humanity
encircled that ark-cart you see
And soon they stormed their
yearnings for fresh fragrance
for lilacs
for ferns
for forget me notes
and many more

And the outcome was a pleasant
calamity as you can easily see
For those blossoms were
all swept overboard,
caught in the wavy arms
by the sea of humanity...

I'm a pendulum
Slowly swinging one way and another.
Always destined to be opposite,
Always almost touching one extreme or the another.
I long for the dull thud of metal on wood.
I remember as a child playing with the brass pendulum of my parents' clock. Interfering.

I'm a cuckoo cuckoo.
In my cuckoo clock.
Popping in and out.
Hidden inside or on full, crude display,
Chirping away,
But never will I not be the other,
In time.

I am the weather,
My own seasons,
A planet orbiting its sun,
Ever-changing, always running,
Spinning, dizzying, ever busying Myself but never getting to the sun.
Never knowing true dark or true light,
Only the insistent tick tock of day and night.
Regimented, regular dawns and dusks.
Waiting for the next change of scene
Wondering what it would mean to reach the sun,
Wanting to let the cuckoo break loose of its small, wooden case.

How does one feel when they glimpse
the pure night sky?
Alone,
Enthralled,
Fascinated,
Questioning,

And yet,
Dismal.
For we see only half, of the whole truth.

What stars?
I have seen the stars,
This is not their irradiant glory,
This is a poor semblance,
A portrayal of our Ignorance.

We cannot see
The stars,
By our own hands we have blinded ourselves,
From the single-most
Awe-inspiring,
Demoralizing,
Ego-diminishing experience,
And it shows.

Constantly busying ourselves,
we fail to make time to gaze skyward and
dwell,
When you look at the sky, you are
Forced to question.

Those who do not look,
Do not question,
Those who do not question,
Accept,
And those who accept,
are blind.

Blind,
Deaf,
And dumb.

Led here,
Led there,
From pasture to pasture.

Fed ideas like they’re kibble,
And the dogs are hungry.

It’s a dangerous thing,
to gaze up,
There is always the chance
Of choking
On your own existence.
How will we awaken the masses
From their eternal slumber?
A difficult task when
their heads lull ,
from the self-induced hypnosis.

The light is what we need,
And they stars,
They give it.
But we drown it out,
and substitute it with
the eternal hum of the artificial glow.

Deprivation,

The population thrives on it.

Honestly,
I would be stunned,
Nay, terrified,
If every mind awoke to the reality,
of the vast insignificance.

You can hear the minds imploding.

You can feel the torrent
of individual thought.

Danger.

Terror threat level Severe,

Burning red.

I have seen the stars,
Filling every void in the infinite blackness,
Radiating their celestial secrets,
Tantalizingly close to revelation,
Yet lost in translation.

You find your true self,
When alone with the stars,
No one except,
Your thoughts.

Oh,
what a dangerous place to be,
Floating somewhere between consciousness,
and stellar knowledge.

Will you rise to the Astral Summons?
Seek respite
from the electron hum,
Find yourself under the endless
luminous canopy,
And question.

Even if I were to study Kinesiology,
it couldn't give me the slightest hint
as to why you move, the way you do.

I could listen to a sub woofer's bass,
and it still couldn't give me a trace
of the things that make you
feel alive.

And even with scissors,
I could never cut out
from a cloth
just why you are the way you are.

The patch cord that you play with
amps up the sounds I hear,
and yet I could not ever
hear a single tear.

To me you are a subway station,
busying about, seeing me there
but not seeing me clear
A small blur, in the corner of your eye

To you, I am there then gone again
But to ignore you? I couldn't even pretend.

In the late hours that feel like mornings missed
You'll find a mind busying itself with chaotic thoughts;
Shadows of the past, troubles of the present, and dreams of a brighter tomorrow.
The burden has shifted in years past
To grander futures and love yet to live.

Even with the fair change in weather I find sleep impossible.
To have traveled you must have once been somewhere.
From that point I've surely walked far
But the shadows that follow feel impossibly tall.
Every time you shine light unto them, new shadows form.

As a form of survival we do our best to integrate and homogenize.
You wear a smile, try to believe in it, and swallow your pride.
No matter how many times the people who love you try to shine light into your dark corners
You can never quite forget the way a brilliant light fades, and eventually vanishes.

With these pieces of history properly organized in my mind
I can begin to reconcile my experiences with the world around me.
Every person and interaction an opportunity to be an even brighter light to others.
I could do no greater honor to the memories I have of that light
Than to take in it's essence and share it.
That is the closest a human can get to living beyond death
And I plan to live a life worth remembering.

We spend our entire lives running from death. We train our minds to give purpose and meaning to our pathetic existence as we gorge ourselves upon waste, trying to trick the fates as if purity would repel decay. But in the end, all attempts prove futile. You cannot run from death, he is always there, just around the corner, waiting to carry you away. In the end we are all the same; bodies left to rot, to sleep for an eternity undisturbed. The priest sleeps only feet away from the killer, their fate the same. All that waits is a silk rimmed box.
Death is the ultimate fate, silently crouching at the end of our ropes to rock us to sleep and whisper muted lullabies. He lays us down in our eternal bed and shuts our vacant eyes waiting for all to be silent, for the last tear from the funeral march to dry, for the process to begin. He grabs hold of our bodies, making them betray us as they consume us from the inside out. Our bodies swell in the absence of life, destroying our living form. Grave wax takes hold of our faces as our flesh collapses leaving the stains of death upon the finest white silk. We waste away to limp folds of skin sprouting flaxen hairs supported by hollowing bones. Decades pass and we return to the dust of which we are comprised, we dwindle down to our tainted bones clothed in the finest of linens and become no more to the world than a name on a slab of marble.
To those above we are a name, a fading face in the back of their minds. We are the ghosts that hide in their subconscious, furtively dragging them down to rest alongside us. As time passes our grave becomes no more than a strange combination of consonants and vowels, our life is forgotten, and the land that we lie in follows time and what once were flowers become weeds. The living march along in colonies like insignificant little ants caught up in the delusion of life, busying themselves with passing luxuries. The lives of those centuries dead don’t even pass their mind as they tear apart our sacred land, disturbing our sleep for a strip mall to go bankrupt in five years. And so we lie in our silk rimmed box; trapped in a perpetual nightmare unable to move, to speak, to cry. In death only does the holy man become one with the convict.
This is the world beyond life. This is where love cannot grow, where hates withers, where fear resigns. This is where the mind cannot venture, where the body is all. This is where all illusions stop, where truth reigns. This is where nature reclaims what is rightfully hers, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. This is the end, the inevitable conclusion to all our petty sufferings and attempts defy the fates. In the end we are all the same.

Beautiful garden guide
These beds wherein thoughts collide
Fetch syllables and rhyme to hymn
'Twix scented spore cloud of distorted sage
Smudge caramel blend energy
Begin cleansing ceremony
Mend this friend matter for me

As ***** digs to save unwanted flowering
Excavation stage psychic
Makes towering tracks on my consciousness
Mid-trance face met deep purple mess
All the while quandary sprout on my face
Where the universe has me meet solid stone
Thereupon I will sit
Admire the timing of it

Watch the wet rise fall
I have seen the seed grow
Ebbing lunar sheen flow into
Subterranean particles
Swallowing water into their memory
Symphonic seasonal sermon
With an allegory at heart
To be judged by mere mortals
Then consumed at its prime

So is my love
Watch it regrow
I sow seeds wherever I go
Busying my light body
Gathering buzzing energy where I can
Serve the flowering minds at hand
That forget me not
For I do not forget
Although stubborn attitude hardens my heart yet
Into sacred solitude where hard work can off sweat
This stoic smirk I have left that pleads gratitude for life

In doing so I derange my surroundings
Be it fork, trowel or bare handed
My own primal, tactile re-alignment
Proper communion with environment
To prove that we are all divine
In face of all we negate ourselves
For reasons I’m yet to know

Until then In this mud
I kneel stubborn as stone
Long time wont moving
For the mana that runs through me
Lights ablaze solar mane
Beacon for the like mind magnetic pact
We all made
Before samsara

Perhaps then you will join me
And grab a shovel

How do I know when to stop editing, to stop critiquing,
To stop looking for errors that I'll inevitably find
Courtesy of my flawlessly functioning mind
That does what It's told
And finds what It's told to find
In a sea of subjective humbug

Let's try working backwards. Let's try
Finding what resonates with us. How do we
Do that if we have no idea what resonates with us.
How do you find a hole in an air mattress or a weak spot in the drywall or
The small of your lovers back

You ******* look for it

How do you find a needle in a haystack
Why not try using up the hay
Before digging around for the small hazardous object
You ******* lunatic

Oh, but this is full of errors
I can see them from here

Have you not legs?
Well then have you not wheels?
Well what have you?
Good! USE IT.

Picture a room
Through the slit of an iron maiden
What do you see
A room

What do you feel

Why

Could you feel differently
If
You tried

Stop picturing, start looking, continue feeling and being?

Bah, try doing. Keep busying. Busying is key, and the lock is none of your concern.

It's probably a ****** one anyways. Who knows what it holds shut. Who knows
How effectively it holds it shut. Who knows what lies behind the thing that It's
Holding shut.

Shut up,

Ps. I love you

-MR-

lately, we’ve been talking about the way things change
we’ve been building cities with our mouths only to blow them out
as if the future is a candle, with trails of smoke like lace,
just the murmur of secrets across the grass getting
softer softer softer
until they disappear, until everything disappears
everything disappears

lately, i’ve been think about the way things change
like seasons and lovers
i’ve been thinking about how
the only thing more permanent than forever is never,
and everybody thinks it’s going to be forever until it’s not
i’ve been thinking about whether it’s a good thing or not
because all the rock stars whose names
we were screaming at concerts are middle-aged parents now
and it’s weird, but i think it’s kind of cool too

times change and things change and that’s okay
you can’t be sixteen forever, and why the hell would you want to be?
being sixteen was kind of a ******* nightmare
growing up isn’t inherently bad,
and if you’re gonna be peter pan
then you’re gonna be lonelier than a lost boy

and maybe i’m the kind of person who expects
everything to fall apart, but life is equally destruction and rebirth
everything disappears, everything’s gonna be different
everything’s gonna be awesome
everything’s gonna be awful

think of it this way:
everything’s gonna be wonderful
just like everything’s gonna be terrible
that’s just the way it is
luck of the draw, life is a crapshoot
and sometimes your hand is ******, but you’ve still got to play it anyways
or you’re just gonna fold over like house of cards

think of it this way:
even in the darkest of nights the moon is always
hiding out somewhere in the sky
and the sun going to come up tomorrow
i couldn’t tell you why exactly because i didn’t pay any attention
in science class, i was too busying doodling in the margins of myself
and looking for stars,
but the sun’s gonna come up tomorrow
it always has, and the sun’s reliable like that
and i know that only thing that’s certain is that nothing is,
and i know i’ve got no proof, but i’ve got a hunch
that everything’s gonna work out
and i know “you’ll be okay” always sounds kind of hollow
but it does ring true

and we’re still young enough to be dumb
and we’re still young enough that we’ve got so many possibilities
it makes me ******* dizzy
and if you’re lucky enough to have
the world in the palm of your hand, don’t clench your fist;
don’t let it slip through your fingers
don’t let go
don’t let go

Is it insomnia
when I don't care for sleep?

The sort of sleep that is belligerent
interruptions at each half past
in the middle of every hour,
intervals of interlopers
awoken by invisible passersby
floating enemies striking me
with the hatred of their kinesis
cerebral lightning at my heart
or attempts at my suffocation
as I wake to a coughing start,
intruders invading my dream mind
as well as its peace

anything that would hurt me
they revel in my breaking,
I can hear the clicking of laughter
of teeth...

Deserts and all our cities
should have crickets,
yet Vegas feels like its been dying
the quiet now replete
no chirp of the lucky bugs
nor busying of bees with their buzz
rather its the fizzle of neon panic
the beatitude of cheats
the machinations of gamblers' defeat

or sometimes mostly
this deep in the twilight
a swarm of Ninjas, Suzuki, Kawasaki roars
toward their kabuki foot rubs
a twenty gets you a dub
rub you long time
for an hour behind red doors

Try to spank myself to sleep
if not to exhaustion,
but I can still hear the distant piercing
screaming
of latter days & soilent green
the secret war as alien is to any sound
sleep.

They look like people
we look like meat,
the living dead
their sake's flesh
all torn away and beat
up like faithful lovers that creep
seduced by the sluice
of the street / symphonies,
of rocket ship Discovery

Can't turn the volume down
in the black of night
when my mind's eye
is behind a veil
in the dark of 2:22
(in recovery)
and still the aliens
wretchedly wail...

whilst i'm
slumming in attempts at slumbering,
the greys are watching
humans lumbering
               and *******
two twenty two
in the dim
twilight
morning...

Agnes:
Wine, for the Greeks, brought more than
burgundy to the screen, instead
illuminant pinks and purples and yellows
swirl and wirl and twirl in orchestrated
dances of Spring.

Cherubim soar, teasingly mocking these gods,
drunk with passion and their grape wine while
pegasi rest, swoop and land like swans to a water’s surface.
Joy and ***** happiness, lovely and sound,
they prance.

In a swirl, in a wirl and in a twirl,
you bring me back to my favorite scene,
when Fantasia was my insight on art
when my mother would sit and watch with me,
instead of busying herself with others.

I had not thought of that in years,
I had not remembered the jolt to my system,
to the system of a little girl, who, often alone
had to create her own art, often had to
imagine her own melodies.

Agnes, you’ve brought the next jolt,
I’m once again flying with the black Pegasus, swooping back
to the dark living room, followed by a stampede of centaurs
cherubim lulling me to sleep,
swirling and wirling and twirling my own colors,
carrying me back to her music.

Climbing up your delicious eyes
spilling harmonic
Qualms placed under skin
yelling your musical laughter
Makes smiles on many adjacent faces
Including mine which traces
A picture decades to come
Chatting with you warms my earthtop sad faces
On a older life bombarded soul
With procreated love child beckoning accidents
Traveling a never broken copious routine
Wanting a new heavenly body from
The transparent Jehovah
As I’m thinking
This woman drives my wicked smiles
Madly,
As hair’s lifted by imaginary grips of wind gestures
Lips singing with any whims ears from toes
Hand’s taping to walking jam sessions anti-woes
Is near to perfection on my optical viewers said
If only she'd could see inside my weary tiresome head
Sealing discreet looks stashed away in my
Spirited soul dread feeling fearing
eating possible future rejected misleading
My romance ideologies via scaredy cat spoon ocean breezes  
As you are the sea and im the beach
Waiting
Longing for waves of
Enlightening joyous enchantments
To form connections belting silently behind
Worrisome bee busying personalities
Round alumni tobacco burners superfluous
summoners sitting with hearts content
Hoping on days with wondrous conversing on end
From an angelic exhorting heavenly chorus breathing near me

This aggravation to make it is shattering all my truth

For my pinnacle of patience is
bubbling in a soup

Young and geared in a suit, no tie needed

Because every step that I take will be one that is bound strategic

Cousin, sister and sister moving forward I see it

Stuck in my own beliefs, but will I ever believe it?

I feel like my goals are old, but how do I know if I don't proceed with
Simply starting to seed it

dreams buried beneath the ground, waiting for the rain to seep in

Guess I'm too busying sleeping,

wondering, daydreaming

When will this fiction end?

When I will I then Begin?
Let this crucifixion begin

for my future is in a needle
And that needle is holding threads, of my imaginary friends

Let this phase be a state of promise and not a revolving trend

I think it takes time for a person to commence to greatness

Because what I feel inside has traveled from a basement
To a place with, patience,

prominence and perseverance
My mental radio sounds clear, no fuzz or interference.

I'm glad my soul can hear this.

I Like You the Most

I like you the most when your
Hands are on my neck.
Your fingers are large and cold and
Mold perfectly to the
Small nape that directs a narrow
Pathway to the
Rest of me.

And,
I hate myself for being hopeful.
I pretend to be
Busying myself with books and papers and pens,
When really,
I am only waiting for the
Light to hit your eyes and
Electrify me.

And,
I am empty when
It doesn’t.
I accept the unwholesome absence of your
Pale arms leaning against
My door frame.
My neck feels cold,
Because I like you the most when your
Hands are on my neck –

Feeling for eternity.

Today, I woke up to the idea of death
Such a peaceful thought
The kind of freedom that one fights for
And still don’t achieve.

My mind was convinced, but my body refused
Strange connection, this.
The mind demands something and the body denies
Yet they reside together harmoniously.
I looked out the window at the clear sky
And unwillingly got out of bed
Busying myself in the chores of the day
Avoiding the thoughts of death.

I know not the road I am on
I have no destination in mind
This route is unfamiliar to me and
This loneliness makes all of this seem worthless
In moments like these, I look for peace
A way to end this misery
After all, we all will die eventually

i love the idea of footprints
in the sense of people floating into your life
and whether or not
their presence is fleeting
or something much more permanent
whatever sidewalk that they step over
to reach you
will forever be stained
or intricately designed
depending on how you look at it
i love the idea of footprints
because each day
is a new blank sheet,
much like a fresh layer of snow,
it's flakes falling away constantly
like each minute that goes by
slowly but steadily getting closer and closer
to recreating the spotless canvas it once was,
and while these seconds turn to hours
and these snowflakes turn to avalanches,
each indent and blemish
in our personal blizzards
gets covered up by the opportunity
for new footsteps to be taken
and new memories to be hidden and protected
underneath the frozen tundra
of each of our minds
i love the idea of footprints
because they track
each foot that we travel
as we discover new sections
of the map
inside of our own minds
and as our fingers
are busying themselves
drawing out and discovering more areas
our feet are left alone to leave their mark
in the cracks beneath the sidewalk
while our fingers tighten their grip
in the gaps between each others'
i love the idea of footprints
because even if
i don't know where to go anymore
i'll just turn around and follow
my own path back to yours

What do you choose to do
In a life as complicated as you?

We run here and there
Busying ourselves with what we know
Walking to and fro
Figuring out how we should grow

Or not grow...

We seem to have such busy lives
Doing or not doing
Trying to make sense of it all
But end up falling short

What is this life that we know?

We meet people
We talk
We dance
We shop
We work
We study (or not)

When times are bad...

We cry
We get sad
We get angry
And just give up

When times are good

We cry too
We laugh
We dance
And maybe prance?

But it's all the same for you and I
When we do or not do
Whether we like it or not
Things happen

Good things
Bad things
It's all the same
For the good and the bad

But when things get confusing
Don't get hasty
Slow down just a bit
And maybe you won't get hit

There are much things in life
That we don't expect
We know nothing about the future
And that's what we should accept

But still...

During our days
Whether it be
Left or right
Up or down
This or that

We still have to choose
We still have to decide

all the noise which encompasses
the voices brought to static swoons
drenched architecture purchases
wrought with metal and iron to whisk
us to the pearly sheer moon

all plagued within busying decay
wilting upon thresholds of spinning stares
clinging onto flowers trafficked upon despair
how my palms are crossed and inked with delay

the soil gathering in roots
and stinging of clattering water drops
the garden shutter despite of love
as the voices carry in the breeze

yet I start to realize it is all
a facade to carry me away
and I cry out to the distant stars
like pebbles of emerald heroines,

"for all I have done, what in return?"

shall the heavens weep I shall sleep soundly
yet I feel the chatter in the marrow of my bones
maybe this twinkling sky isn't for me,
as it chuckles lightly oblivious to its bite

so plummet through this pearly moon
in search for that greater beyond
do not worry, my love
maybe I'll return in orbit soon

that particular moment in time
when a phenomenon
slyly becomes a noumenon
and subsequently becomes
a phenomenon
(retraction)...
akin to
jaclynglenn's
video
the downfall of social
media:
and i too,
do not read
the printed press...
because...
who would have
thought that...
journalists
could be jumbled
up with politicians
these days...
but the stage is set...
the day has come...
the phenomenon
of the neo-video
the reiterated
emphasis of
the πράγμα
    σε μηχανήματα:
deus ex machina,
composed via
**** in machina,
into:
    machina est machina...
funny...
i hear no chimes,
nor any cha-cha-cha...
but...
the once phenomenon
worthy
stumbles against
the noumenon...
and the ping-pong
that is echoed?
well...
no one "thought"
of any of "that" either,
did they?
             while i am
busying myself with
playing gardener for
the trim's worth of a beard...
no tulips or roses 'ere...
i like to spot
an explosion-implosion-
scuttle-hiccup-woe
dynamic...
i.e.
there was,
an original implosion
to begin with...
the explosion
was readily available...
i once retracted from:
deus ex machina,
onto:
**** ex machina...
onto:
machina est machina...
it's hard enough attempting
to bury your
shadow,
far more entrenching
to have to also
gravitate
around minding either
face, tongue, or d.n.a...
but a phenomenon:
an explosion,
coinciding with
the noumenon:
an implosion,
and then...
"somehow",
able, to, reintegrate itself
to the phenomenon,
via having
been made focus,
or a noumenon
scrutiny?
sooner i die
a hundred times...
than succumb to this
prodigy nuance
of paralysis of
the parable of:
           statistics...
no one is going to wake
up from
the snowball (effect)
of a phenomenon,
to be of market worth
of a "relapse"
of a phenomenon...
of equal number count...

no, baby...
not when you come across
the nouemenon...
or not the A.I.,
or not the res per se...

  17th - 20th century
continental philosophy
is worth ****...
yeah... like the english tongue...
all i ever wanted to use
it for was: ****,
****.... and...
                    ****.

come the blitßkrieg like
a Himmler or a
Hindenburg *******
dyßaßter!

   ****:                 ...oops!
was i ever to be
a bystander,
like the Yorshire
Terry?
              woz i's eve'?

c'uld 'ave 'ad it
'n' a Glaswegian
sock-it
           *****...
for whatever worth was
to come from...
schlang...

'acking gypsy worth
a riddle of a roma
'aking standard,
the bargain for a tartan...
but i ebb
toward
the: are the sport
of tipping for a tat'n'too
a precursor of
meal-a-tail-of-ill-and-'om-meend?
i.e. you tattoo you
got a forking
in the tooth, eh mate?
like: Barry Madonna...
like...
whistle for the ****'s
worth of a harmonica?

oh i ain't blatant:
but you are...
i'm 'ucking covert...
cockney...
fake...
    like:
  i will better fake
what you have in *******
vinyl!
gitty-up or no go?

orthodox ping-pong
rubric goes:
yes, there was a phenomenon
of the democratic
*******...
came across the A.I.
noumenon...
came out...
eh...
                 scarred
            pseudo-phenomenon
reconquista...

and thank **** i was neither...
nothing quiet compares,
though...
pork oven poked...
to suffocate from
a grill...
and... yes...
beef...
           stinking meat...
for the holy hindu's worth of:
mama smoking the ***
off a semi-skimmed
glug's worth...
  no... pork: oven...
y'us...
  beef: oven?
         can i poach some mutton
n'steph?

.apparently the closest thing to a "faux pas" in poetry is: citation... or at least: the ever grammatical man, template: obscurity; not much can be done, when citing in a poem, e.g. the awe in awkwardness associated with citing N., or H.; the heresy of writing a book: having read some book: prior. no wonder then: when the study of ethics ends, the study of etiquette begins; my, isn't that just one of those one-liners that is... completely unrelated to: what could become the jist of the whole?

not enough life for all the vinyl -
  but just about enough
of roads:
                       with that exception
being:
   not whatever might be my fancy -
or what might be a blue
Monday noon,
                           compared
to a crimson Friday's soon...
     sooner or later: whiskers plucked
from a cat and burned
   in a candle for some: obscurity
     of the act itself; and a spell.

mind you: citations don't really
work -
    i can see, clearly,
                               a lake,
a *****: a mirror,
                            a firecracker
   and a pebble-tongue
                              like an oyster -
                  a mirage, and a miracle;
but esp.: sometimes only for the vox,
a word only for the vox -
   and a word never for the logos...
   a tongue to replace
     a hand knocking on a door -
a gurgling throat
    with a teased uvula -
       rather than a murmuring throng
busying itself
                     with a church bell...

words... cheap as chirps...
               and...
      no... we're not at the stage
   of distancing words from actions:
that some words speak louder
    than other words:
                 and no white knight ladders
of action to compare them
against...
                      reads as plain as:
                                              a tabloid;
no, we're not there yet,
not here at least,
                               that's certain:
that's before we jump onto
the topic of
           lacerating
               the gills we breathe
with when not speaking:

σκεφτομαι -esque- αναπνεω
                     κατω απo                   νερo

(to think is like: to breathe
                                    under water)
      
       a voice in a crowd:
     they call it democractic -
                          that act of drowning:

              coin-flips and
                             waggling dogs' tails...
as some, with their "status quo"...
   as far as i am concerned -
          nothing has ever been
               beside being              in situ;

which was hardly going to be
   a one-man-mission-extravaganza...

too many vinyls,
       and a life that ends up being
a cul de sac...
                                it will hardly
be worth the compensation
      of furthering DNA
                  in a variety akin to:
a continuum of
             a shrapnel consciousness;
    literally:
  the cookie crumbles,
                        the crumbs and
      a fleet
                         of yummy yums
                     left on napkins.

Against the backdrop of a global catastrophe
witness us busying to fix the natural damage
heavily wrought
an endeavour in itself,
which ought to warrant respect
and the gift of time and patience

Our blood and sweat
a human resource
gladly spent to rebuild the detriment,
but not at any cost
not kamikaze squadrons
dashed upon the decks of a false progress

For each of us as batteries
are finite
and our spark will drain,
our light will die
unless the blinkered
see that trying is enough
for now

When foundations are rebuilt, safe
and feet feel steady
we will readily head skywards again

I swear I’m going blind*
The edges of my vision tilting and shifting
As if my eyes are prisms
And
Sight is sand in a glass jar.

The corners of my brain keep going fuzzy
There’s only 9 days left
And
If I think too hard
I find myself driving
And
Going 80 until I have enough room between,
The white lines of highways
And
My bedroom.

Sometimes I drive for so long
That I forget you’re in the passenger seat.
I’m too busy counting down the minutes
We have left
That I forget this is the last chapter
For you too.

I just keep busying my hands,
To ignore pain in my stomach
When I remember that it's coming to an end.  

I’m going blind,
I told you while I gripped the wheel
In hopes that it would make you
Stay a little longer.

At the expense of the future
Busying self with nonsense
The Most characteristic feature
Of **** Sapiens Sapiens