I have an army at my sides
Teenage soldiers marching along side making no commotion
Ready to shoot cartridges of heavy emotion
and landmines of loud music
Marines scream their motto ‘Semper Fi’
We reply with an attitude as if we’ll never die
Everyday, unknown soldiers
Our brothers and sisters are dying
in drama filled warfare
Someone tell me these crosses on
Highway sides are okay because
too many populate the green surface they’re held by
I can’t stand hearing how a
14 year old gets shot by a
15 year old now locked up for
16 years all for
17 oz of ****** so now a cop can tell
18 family member some ******* about how kids make ******* decisions because
“We don’t know any better?”
From swing sets and sand boxes to
Slick rides and ****** tension
We’ve been changed from overalls to overrated double standards
As a whole we’ve lost out innocence
We’ve been termed as the lost youth
So let’s get maps to find out way back
3 paces east and 4 to the north
We will end where it all began
Chances are that 90% of people won’t get
our fascination with funny pictures of
Cats on the internet, but that’s because they don’t
understand the generation the 90’s gave birth to
I’m only 16 and growing up scares the **** out of me
I don’t know what one person can do to
stop every disease and flu from passing
through and staying true to humanity
Tom Wargo was quoted as saying;
“Growing old is mandatory;
Growing up is optional”
If this is true then I want to stay
17 on the inside, I’ll be
82 on the swing sets laughing away.
Other parents will whisper and wonder
But I won’t care.
As long as I can stretch my toes
to touch the sky and grab it’s mysteries
I guess that’s why they say plant your foot firmly
in the front door because my toes can’t latch onto nebula's.
So when I fall I’m going to need a platform to land on
If we rely on one another to thrive, strive and survive
Then where will i fall to if my generation single-handedly kills one another till nobody is left?
We live in the moment but the moment has passed
So seize the next moment and live for tomorrow
So when tomorrow becomes today
You’ll be ready.
We
Will be ready
We won’t be killing
We won’t be stealing
We won’t be lying
and most importantly
We won’t
Be
Dying

We spent cartridges
like honeydew wine water,
they flowed in all directions
as we tormed the ramparts,
spilling destruction with
concentrated-fire.

Split second decisions
left us unable to think,
to think about the color of our socks,
what coffee flavor intrigued us,
or how we wore our hair.

All we cared about
was one more day
above ground,
it was survival of
the fittest,
not who was neatly-dressed.

'i've only ever really read one poem. i, i have to admit.*  
You know, that, that one poem that everyone’s read, whatsit,
Howl by Ginsberg, 'best-minds-of-my-generation-destroyed-by-madness,-starving-hyste­rical-naked,' , yeah, that one;'
'It's just, I identify with it so strongly.' she says,
'That poem is soo me.'
It's funny how commentary on a generation 60 odd years ago come across as timeless insights..
how we learn that true spirit of rebellion and counterculture three generations ago,
  as it is taught to us by two generation ago countercounterculture academics.
but I guess, inevitably
                                         we
                                                  return,
  to those half drowned pontifications inevitably decried into transcendental truth by the onward spilling ratchet of cultural recognition;
  that sense of universal oneness generated by the unwashed ramblings of beat-generation hipsters dense innuendo in run on sentences running, running from their upper-lower-middle-class New York homes and their privilege of true vacant meaninglessness and despair,
   to those nervous tucked in shirted clean shaven scholars swooning over the same seme drugged, melancholic bearded men profussing the deepest of opaque truths only found up the furthest reaches of their own *****.
  As we push through to our lectures, the mosaic in motion of blazer wearing mac-users and mac-pac wearing blazers,
  As we hysterically interpret the formatting conditions for our reports, which could hang in the balance of whether the dreams we once had will ever be actualised,
  As we felt lost and found and found and lost at those park benches under the stars, where occasional strangers strolled by offering sessions and life-stories,
  As we paid exorbitantly to get out of our parents homes, and into tin-can flats with broken windows, absentee landlords and cracked paint only held together by all the moss, (the empowerment that is wage slavery,) for in our youth, poverty is not an ever-present pejorative, but the rite of passage to show that we are alive,
  As rituals of manhood are defined by two things and two things only; how much insomnia one can accumulate to meet insane and inane deadlines, and how much one can illuminate the walls in ***** from all the beers, spirits, cheap wines and questionable home-brews,
  As the government dismantles the human-rights commission, and we nervously attend the rallies initiated by the radicals, and the man on the megaphone calls on the crowd to chant and we can only mumble and laugh nervously at ourselves,
  And when the next speaker runs onto stage feeling the need to plead to this already nervous, placid mass that this is in-fact a PEACEFUL PROTEST, and that we are all true patriots and they insist everyone start singing the national anthem and we all look down and we again mumble, or pretend somehow not to hear them,
  and when, in this biggest independent rally around a unified cause our generation's ever seen, we have never felt so alone ,
  and isolated,  
                                  we
                                             remember,
                                                                    those earlier days,
  When we'd bleach our hair; we'd poison ourselves white, in the vain mystic hope that this was just the transition period to the time when we'd get true colour into our lives,
  Remember our wonder at the Eurocentric Asiatic television representations of the Abrahamic faiths, given transubstantiated holy revival by the medium of Saturday morning digital pastel pasture; when we were children staring excited and wide eyed into the Metatrons Fire of Sinai 'Random Almighty Mega Damage'; as Dante and the seraph class Tyrant-infused-Michael inevitably made battle with YHWH, -in the one True End,- as we grinded within the monolithic emerald obsidian halls, Mystical wonderment spilling forth from our reddened hollow eyes, at the beautiful unlimited expansive world contained within our console/consoling digital unit discs; conformally mapped and etched into the convex hull of our minds,
  Where we were gods, doing battle with every possible creature in morphospace, filleted into overpriced cards and cartridges, for which our strategies meant so much to us though none of us really understood the game,
  When we could quote verbatim every piece of dialogue in GTA2, and get concerned glances from our parents as we conjured veiled imagery of bukake-ladled innuendo which we didn't really understand until six or seven years later,
  When sexuality was a special secret club our elders and the kids in the years above came across so wise for being a member of, rather than an anti-turing test; a farcical ritual where everyone tries their best to imitate the hyper-reality of MTV while hiding the nervous feelings that this whole thing was really meant for someone other than us,
  When creating a whole new lexicon for our self-hood (be it artistic, ******, political or philosophical) felt like existential emancipation; a transcendental rebellion against the normalising identities and semantics of old, rather than an impenetrable circle-**** taxonomy,
  When one day we'd unveil a new term in some text, and it would completely change our outlook on every corner of our lives,
  Or, the next day, when we'd give up and just sit back on rolling banks, and look out at a veil of stars,
  Or the next day, when we'd wonder desperate and painfully, which of the last two was the real pursuit and which was wasted time? (Or was it this day, the day spent building an illusory dialectic between them?)
  Remember when we were in kindergarden, and you had to pass through the kitchen, -the adults zone,- to get to the toilet, and you'd feel both shame and wonderment listening in of the snippets of conversation muttered by these titanic figures; discussing abstruse issues from the newspaper in foreign yet noble tongues?
  Remember when we were teens, and every form-checking observation and question from these same adults was so painstakingly pedantically banal and asinine, that one could only respond with monosyllabic grunts and silent hysterics?
  And remember as 'young adults', when we'd inevitably entered this same dull Aristotelian world of forms, how we'd ask the same adults for advice on filling these paperworks, at once still asemic gibberish, and at once the fine-print that contained and predicted our lives?
  Remember when our dreams for the future were not bounded by the economy of our grade point averages and just how much debt we were willing to incur
                                …
I've seen the best minds of my generation climb into pre-packaged little boxes; and pay through the teeth for the privilege of doing so.  
  Akin to a 'Howl' they call it? Our cry for selfhood? What a scream.
It's not even a cry. Barely a whimper.
More of a zombified groan, completely aware our intrepid Journey of Self is just a pricey guided tour. (Tv Ad's static commodified existential emancipatory platitudes; 'your place in the world' / 'well it's my place and it's my time' urgh.)
And so we march asleep; all lame all blind.
  Trudging through the mind-fields; arguing, unravelling the semantic distinctions between the empty boundaries and the boundaries of emptiness.
  Transcribed down for essay deadlines,  /  assessing our lives trajectory as dead lines,
Becoming increasingly aware,
  We are not the living beings, the dasein, the Übermenschen being actualised; we are the machinery through which the institutions, the factories, the markets and education facilities actualise themselves.
  (While the only acceptable language we can breathe in opposition to these ratcheting pedagogical machines is the lexicon they provide us..
  ('oh, you hate systemic neoliberal alienation; the deestablishment of ontological anthropocentrism? Tell me more about the esoteric uselessness of academic culture.') bluh.)

But

       the more we follow those phantom images we built of ourselves,
the more we become aware they are but sirens; hypnotic dreamlike figures luring us to our doom,
  and as this awareness dawns; and the cognitive dissonances and schizophrenia grows,
       We


                                just try to keep calm and carry on regardless.

Can we really claim the arrogance of having a better path?
The conceit that there's a better cliff we should be guiding ourselves to to top ourselves off?
I don't know,
I reaally
really
just don't know.

You may talk o’ gin and beer
When you’re quartered safe out ‘ere,
An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it.
Now in Injia’s sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin’ of ‘Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.
      He was “Din! Din! Din!
  You limpin’ lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din!
      Hi! slippery hitherao!
      Water, get it!  Panee lao!
  You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.”

The uniform ‘e wore
Was nothin’ much before,
An’ rather less than ‘arf o’ that be’ind,
For a piece o’ twisty rag
An’ a goatskin water-bag
Was all the field-equipment ‘e could find.
When the sweatin’ troop-train lay
In a sidin’ through the day,
Where the ‘eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl,
We shouted “Harry By!”
Till our throats were bricky-dry,
Then we wopped ‘im ‘cause ‘e couldn’t serve us all.
      It was “Din! Din! Din!
  You ‘eathen, where the mischief ‘ave you been?
      You put some juldee in it
      Or I’ll marrow you this minute
  If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!”

‘E would dot an’ carry one
Till the longest day was done;
An’ ‘e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear.
If we charged or broke or cut,
You could bet your bloomin’ nut,
‘E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear.
With ‘is mussick on ‘is back,
‘E would skip with our attack,
An’ watch us till the bugles made “Retire”,
An’ for all ‘is ***** ‘ide
‘E was white, clear white, inside
When ‘e went to tend the wounded under fire!
      It was “Din! Din! Din!”
  With the bullets kickin’ dust-spots on the green.
      When the cartridges ran out,
      You could hear the front-files shout,
  “Hi! ammunition-mules an’ Gunga Din!”

I shan’t forgit the night
When I dropped be’ind the fight
With a bullet where my belt-plate should ‘a’ been.
I was chokin’ mad with thirst,
An’ the man that spied me first
Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din.
‘E lifted up my ‘ead,
An’ he plugged me where I bled,
An’ ‘e guv me ‘arf-a-pint o’ water-green:
It was crawlin’ and it stunk,
But of all the drinks I’ve drunk,
I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.
      It was “Din! Din! Din!
  ‘Ere’s a beggar with a bullet through ‘is spleen;
      ‘E’s chawin’ up the ground,
      An’ ‘e’s kickin’ all around:
  For Gawd’s sake *** the water, Gunga Din!”

‘E carried me away
To where a dooli lay,
An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean.
‘E put me safe inside,
An’ just before ‘e died,
“I ‘ope you liked your drink”, sez Gunga Din.
So I’ll meet ‘im later on
At the place where ‘e is gone—
Where it’s always double drill and no canteen;
‘E’ll be squattin’ on the coals
Givin’ drink to poor ****** souls,
An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
      Yes, Din! Din! Din!
  You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
      Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,
      By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
  You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.


Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-leads
Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads,
Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,
Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.


For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.

At goodwill Buy the Pound
every day is black friday
Hundreds of soccer moms line up their
white sneakers on a black and yellow caution tape line
zombie over it streching for yu-gi-oh cards
wait for hazmat suits to wheel out eight bins full of trash gone treasure.
When the bins are locked in place the hazmat suits go back to pack another load

The air horn sounds.
You do not want to be anywhere near that caution tape line when this happens.
At goodwill buy the pound
If you're not part of the fight,
you're part of the floor.
They need to find their
puzzle peices lost in cat liter
Johnny really needs
every single nerf dart
DID YOU TAKE A NERF DART?!
WE TALKED ABOUT THIS JO-ANN
THOSE WERE FOR JOHNNY.
Johnnys grandma is not the only elder throwing elbows
varacose veins are curb stomping dads hauling consoles to make a quick buck
Skinny College aged video game collectors swim through the mom-pocalypse
raid the stashes for disguarded NES cartridges
Jo-ann grabs a twinky boy by the black graphic hoodie.
Tosses him back into the horde
lunges for a barbie doll hidden under some wires.
This is not a place for nice children.
If you aren't willing to push around some nanas
you will leave covered in nike prints.
This place turns people.
Ever look at someones mom and think
She looks like she's always wearing a mask.
She is!
Buy the pound is her natural habitat.
One grandma keeps so many cats, her living room is a Petrie dish
I think she just wants to be in charge of a small third world countrey.
Granny needs to go rally up the soccer moms at buy the pound.
To lead those cats into a mother thirfting revolution
These woman leave feeling like they saved their family a fortune
Dumpster diving for sport.
Every tossed or trampled stranger
One flip flop closer to
feeding their children
clawing through poverty

When that airhorn sounds again.
They scurry back to their carts.
Tell their children
"Make sure nobody steals this"
as they line back up in haste.
Touch their all white nikes to the caution tape line.
Hold their family close like brass knuckles.
when that airhorn sounds.
It's time to fight.

All weapons of
   the fates you've sealed
Are no match for
   this pen I wield
The power to
   articulate
Ticking rhyme bombs
   to detonate
The conflicts waged
   gambling mankind
My perfect hand
   is treaties signed
Hellbent hounds pray
  like dogs, I hunt
Frontline this notebook
  battlefront
With metaphors
  of mindless drones  
Like similes
  to brainwashed clones
Whose C4 booms
  and IED's
Can't build bridges
  like ABC's

Or tear them down
  with death regimes
By rusting through
  the war machines
Flamethrowin’ my
  verbal grenade
With ****** noun
  scorched-earth tirade  
On militant
  cold-blood elite
King cobras know
  I'm packing heat
Seeking missile
  resolution
Winged raptor
  devolution
Prehistoric
  barbarism
Literacy
  cataclysm
Stockpiling
  extinction bones
We're cavemen carving
  fallout stones

My Hiroshima
  prose explodes
With nuclear
  bushido codes
Released from my  
  katana's ward
To free my press
  from shogun lord
Oppressing haiku
  imagery  
And samurai
  epigraphy  
Expressions of
  my ronin soul
Omitted by
  the daimyo
Satsuma is my
  poetry    
My final draft's
  Nagasaki
  
Ink cartridges
  strapped 'round my neck
I print no charge
  or background check
And ****** every
  live round free
Of innocent
  blood elegy
And killing sprees
  of gunned-down news
Domestic violence
  black and blues
A Number 2
  pencil dependent
Obsolete
  lead-head amendment
Open carry
  shoots a blank
Empty shell case
  at my think tank
So grip this peace
  then **** and pull it
**** my diction
  write the bullet

It's not suicide that's on my mind 
It's ****** that sits behind my eyes 
That awaits to appear before my pupils 
That anticipates the visual through my lenses 
That contemplates the bare face without a mask 
Violence is on my mind 
But is it out of my grasp? 
As I sigh, it's testing for me to blink 
My eyes envision the scene 
Standing over the sink 
I'm standing there with myself 
Think...
About something else!!!
Rabbits 
Cabbage 
Sandwich 
Guns 
****! Where did that come from? 
I don't need help
I refuse, because I'm not confused 
I need to do this 
Momma always told me that wants are just taunts 
So I take her words and try to define and categorize my choice 
Credible: check 
Eligible: check 
Inevitable; yes, I have the perfect excuse despite the notion of being rightful 
Momma didn't counsel that etcetera 
So I don't even think of the sentencing 
The authorities aren't as preventing 
So they don't know what I'm thinking nor do they know what I'm doing 
Until it's done 
They might catch me because I will neglect to hide or run 

1st degree 
My 2nd attempt 
My 3rd resort 

In this case is my mind my best resource? 
If I recourse and explore my feelings 
I will still have a passion, maybe to do it in a more gruesome fashion 

A murderer's mind is like fish's eyes 
Restless 
Selfish 
(how so when the attention is steady on the potential victim? 
Although, but Is this really being considerate?)

I have plenty of lifeless bodies in my psychological attic 
One time I got this guy looking spiffy and brought him into the living room where I tried to sit him upright on the sofa 
It was a pain in the *** for my brain in the past 
I thought about his family more than of him, overall it effected my comfortability at home 
So often times I found myself in the basement 
Heart racing 
Quick movements and fast pacing 
Thought I was drawing attention 
For revenge to trace it 
So I tightly secured my spaces 
Kept two firearms adjacent 
I think about the things that I do 
Thats dreadful enough for comrades to contact taboo 
I hope retaliation was only nightmares and don't become déjà vu 
Because if that's the case then if I can remember the handle was still lodged into my waist 
As gas operates and bolts rotate from the Izhmash make 
Majority of the exploded cartridges run stray 
I run in between Subway and Chase 
Where I can take cover 
And aim my muzzle 
Before my corpse completely turn into rubble 
I was penetrated too well now to move with bustle
Then I suddenly remembered my mother 
...
I wanted to stay alive 
...
I couldn't cry because I seen this before 
Just from the other side 
But who cares? 
I just wish those men would look me in my eyes
As I would 
But they rather witness my demise from a distance 
*******!
...
Here I am 
Criminal minded 
Blinded 
From any 
Uummmm I don't know 
Natural state or thought 
But guess what? 
Guess who I'm studying while i'm placed in front of the mirror? 
Noooo I said guess 
...
You'll find out soon enough
...
(Shoulder shrug)
I guess

walking through the big flea market

off of highway 19 north of Tampa

looking for whatever and something

curious and kitsch or campy



merchants selling in the parking lot

used blenders and old cameras

burnt out or faulty devices

DVD cases and game cartridges



old rednecks shout out opinions

in a cacophony of drawled signifiers

representing visions of despotic rulers

reigning a tyranny of taxes and decline



old glass containers and windshields shine

scattering high afternoon sunlight in the Sunday sky

sitting and resting used and content waiting

waiting for the wear and reduction of time



the market continues into indoor aisles

criss-crossing within a ramshackle structure

plywood walls supporting sheet metal roofing

an aroma of every greasy food wafting into one



people wrapped in worn fashions

whites in Ts and denim

muslim women in headscarves

a black deputy strapped down in uniform



the deputy enforces commerce laws

around the alternative marketplace

a variety of commodities are still available

bongs and e-cigs and incense and **** ****



parakeets cry out down one aisle

a stack of blue aquariums drone a bubbling hum

the stench of cedar and rat **** and hamsters

reptiles basking in the arid glow of heat lamps



all is right in America’s America

the flea market is the floorboard of that promise

an opportunity for anyone to begin

or start again and over and over



a liberal conservatism can be guarded well

with rifles or tazers at bargain rates

a conservative liberalism is applied openly

in the atmosphere of everyone for anything and everything



the dream of the flea market

a black market and a carnival

all of America’s cheap art on display

its people swirled into one



equal in their struggles and desires

reaching for resources and derivatives

buying low and selling higher

stealing and selling short



walking through the big flea market

on a hot and cloudless Sunday afternoon

looking for whatever or something

it’s a fun thing to do


**originally posted to my blog https://sublimeobscenities.wordpress.com on 4/27/2014

She’s the type to eat a bowl of ice cream,
shoot a gun, and be fine. I’ve never seen so many pieces
under someone’s rug before, but she keeps
herself in cookie jars, in ink cartridges, in book binds,
anything she can find. I’m surprised she even looks
in the mirror anymore. It’s not possible that she’s herself whole.
But she braids her hair back when she rides her horse,
she channels old Miranda Lambert
and pumps that kerosene melody through her veins
like it wont’ catch fire. I’ve seen her
poke her head through old sweaters like she thinks
it’ll be something new this time. I’ve seen her paint
her skin in expensive body washes, the washcloth
like sandpaper as she tries and tries to smooth
all of the uneven edges she’s collected.

I bet you could watch her memories in a wishing pool,
like in a mini mall, with all the pennies heads down.
They would spin themselves around the surface,
suffocating one another so that only the good ones would shine,
but she dare not pour herself into something that reflective.
It would only reveal what she ties into the waistband
of her old American Eagle jeans every morning,
and that would just be too **** hard. It’s easier
to venture ******* with a crummy perspective
and a realistic approach than it would be to even consider
that maybe this time it wasn’t her fault
for expecting to much, and that maybe people just ***** up.
That maybe, for once she wouldn't blame it on it getting her hopes up
that made her fall, but that no one was there to catch her.
I’d rather watch her cry herself to sleep for months

than to pretend I admire the harsh falsetto she bites back
in all of her lullabies. But she’s the type
to burn old pictures for fun, to delete contact names,
to swallow all her sadness and paint her bedroom a new color
than watch herself come undone.

brought bones to
a gun fight,
cartilage and
cartridges.
/
Does the rope
around my ankles
make me look fat?

A couple days ago
I bought twelve cartridges of ink
For my fountain pen

"Guys," I said
A couple weeks ago,
"I'm a writer"
And you all nodded so
"No you don't get it
I don't just write things
I'm a writer"
And you all nodded so

I bought twelve cartridges of ink
For my fountain pen

After it is done and we are spent
like cartridges,after we
began,begin,became the firing pin,became,become
again the bullets in the gun,
in and through the blackened chambers run,
we killed the sun and kissed the night,held
it tight to let it know
but it knew well that it could go
and went,after
we were done and spent.

She always laid out her paints
right before bed.

The oils nustled up against her thighs.
Some of them,
cradled in tiny white baths of containers,
lay in the open space
of her folded legs.

"Just in case, something hits me in a dream, I want to wake up and run and be ready at the right moment."

The carpet is rough
and stained with the shrapnel of dry paint
that *****
your soles
when you walk through
the living
room
to the
pale kitchen,
while she gurgles and
pops
in her sleep.

All the time,
the paint gets on the floor,
she paints in thrusts.

"You're going to have to pay for this mess, you know,
I'm not paying to have this carpet cleaned,
it's not my ****."

Condescension and guilt
spread through your lips
numbing you
in a fog of arrogance,
that you perceive
as good-natured caution,
while she hurts the canvas
thrusting harder.

She
paints
clowns.

Tall, fat clowns,
with long tentacle fingers,
bellies
out to                             here,
and tiny people
curling in black oily slicks at the corners
under the pressure of the clowns.

"Why the **** do you always paint clowns?"

"Why can't you just let me be?
you don't know anything about art."

The bed
is tiny.

***
is soft,
methodical
and
pre-emptive.

"I'm tired of stepping on your paint at night,
I'm tired of my feet
looking like a rainbow."

One night,
you come home smelling
like grease and fried chicken.

Your button-down
with the slippery gold name-tag
is dabbed
in the chest by leaves of oil
and
shadowed in the armpits
by
strokes of sweat.

Your manager kept talking about:
"You need to improve
your checkout efficiency,
you've been lagging lately."

Dropping the heavy black
flak jacket
with it's flare of orange lining
on the floor,

You see her,

with her arsenal of paints
arrayed at her criss-crossed
limbs
like the implements
of
a war.

She looks up
at you,
black circles
under her eyes,
an easel
holding up
a canvas of almost minsicule drippings of fabric.

"Oh,
I see you're still there,
great."

You walk to the kitchen
and open the fridge,
there's a half-gallon
of 2% left.

An apple
slowly crumpling into itself.

And a bottle
with a swig of orange juice left in it.

***** always leaves a swig.

You take the bottle up to your mouth and swallow down a trickle that you can feel in your bones.

"Don't drink from the bottle."
she says
with a nodded head.

"I can do what I want,
I bought it."

She looks up.

The clowns
she says:
"Are the type of people
that gain power,
the ones ruling the world,
the ones who become *******."

You laugh like an idiot
"People like me."

"No, you're not a clown,
you're one of the tiny ones."

"*******."

You want to wash yourself
of the stink.

Drain it all down into the gutter,
let the stink
sit there.

So you take a shower,
while she stares at the white cartridges
of paint,
and a conflict brewing.

I drew his cartridges of loaded hope and daddy’s dancing shoes from his piano too many women n’ ***** bluez that cut of coyote teeth on his mirror in lipstick
A portrait of a saint
A portrait of a ******
A portrait of love and death
A portrait of humanity
I’m alive
I    th e   stra n g e r
I the collapsible paraplegic
I the daughter of the govenor and the daughter wailing sax

His mirror melted into red wax
Of confusion
In this open room bathroom where he is lying behind me invisible through all the lipstick he bought me that is drawn all over his reflection, my reflection, this place, this death sentence, the rest of my life to lead after 16 on my own, I can only hear the image screech I used to be behind me
26 wires into different parts of him to machines that make him breathe
candy colored computer heart pumps and wicked adreneniline bumps and heart breaks and candy necklaces and bad legs and I don’t know this now but in three days after a year of this ******* he’ll be gone
stroke.
Here I go.
Again.
On my own



1/10/2010

The Moon was rising, over the hill
Along with the evening star,
They lit the lane he was walking, ‘til
He could see the lights of a car,
They were headed up in the narrow lane
So he had to jump out wide,
Then it hurtled over the flowing rill,
Rolled, and lay on its side.

He stood in shock for a moment there
Then ran to do what he could,
But flames burst out of the tangled wreck
At the edge of McNalty’s Wood.
He heard a woman, screaming in pain
Who was trapped inside the car,
But the tank blew up, as he knew it would
So he watched it, from afar.

The door on top of the wreck flew up
As the air began to scorch,
The woman climbed from the burning wreck
But was lit like a flaming torch,
She stood engulfed for a moment there
As the flames devoured her hair,
And screamed, ‘I’m coming to get you, John,
In the dead of the night, beware!’

Then all he saw was a staring skull
As the flesh peeled off the bone,
The body shuddered, and then collapsed
As he turned, and ran for home.
His heart was pounding a steady beat
As he ran, and stumbled there,
The voice that rang in his ears was shrill,
‘In the dead of the night, beware!’

He knew the woman, he knew the car
And a terror entered his soul,
He’d left her stood at the altar, while
He hid in his coward’s hole,
He’d packed his bag, and travelling things
While her father stood at the door,
Loading a pair of cartridges
And sworn to even the score.

He’d left the town in the dead of night
Had driven a hundred miles,
Buried himself in the countryside
In a shack called ‘Seven Dials’.
There were seven clocks in the tiny shack
That would tick and tock in turn,
They each were named for a crying shame
And the seventh clock was ‘Burn.’

The first was named ‘Disloyalty’
And the second ‘Coward’s Toll’,
The third had hands but a vacant face
And its name was ‘Empty Soul.’
The fourth had written across its face
A single wording, ‘Scare!’
The fifth was draped in a veil of lace
With the only word, ‘Despair.’

He thought of stopping the ticking clocks
But they ticked on through the night,
He’d wake up drenched in a sweat, and when
He rose, his face was white,
The sixth clock hung in the kitchen, was
The only clock to chime,
But then would lock, the ticking stop
While the name said, ‘Out of time!’

He lay low after the burning car
Would not go out for a week,
He locked the doors and the windows,
Every night, but took a peek,
The world outside by the darkened wood
Was a place to chill and scare,
The wind would whisper among the trees,
‘In the dead of the night, beware!’

A month went by, they buried the corpse
That they found by the burnt out car,
He thought he’d beaten the woman’s curse
So he left the door ajar,
A gale blew up and it swung the door
Out wide in the dead of night,
And a shape appeared in the doorway
As he woke in a sudden fright.

She seemed to shimmer while standing there
In a charred silk wedding dress,
‘You didn’t think you’d escape me now
That you’ve left me such a mess,’
A breeze had lifted her veil by then
There was just a moment’s lull,
Then he stared at her and she stared right back
From a charred and blackened skull.

He screamed as only a man can scream
When the terror eats his soul,
A flame burst out of the wedding dress
And devoured the woman whole,
The shack went up and the ticking stopped
Of the first six dials in turn,
But above the crackle of flames he heard
That last clock ticking, ‘Burn!’

David Lewis Paget

At such moments of weakness
The heart must hold its own
Foot on the gas
Hand hovers over the break
Attention to form unconscious

Straddling between youth and adulthood
Taste shifts
Memories lift
And love becomes a necessity
Loneliness can **** the strongest of men

In between the cracks of work and downtime
The dog barks at the shadows of felines
Waking the whole ******* neighborhood up
The empty coffee cup stained brown and black
Newscasters praying for another foreign attack

Masks of men reflect the insecurities of humanity
We fear many things
Some we know not why, but we feel we must
The shadow has no name
Yet it has always been and will be

Evolve!
The scientists say so easily
Religious Revolution!
The priests have always thought
The cost of blood to be so cheap
War!
Bullets rust in their cartridges
And bombs tick in their gold casings

I've attended one funeral
And it was a struggle for me to weep
I forced myself into tears
To fit in with all the others

I've been comfortable with death
Since I first witnessed the end of love
Between the two Gods
That bore me, hence bringing me here
Their Sun's hearts were not warm enough for one another
The best and truest way to introduce a child

To the Pains of Life

The fact of pain, terror, intimidation, and death
Is very real
And though I have not been to war,
Killed a man,
Shot a gun into a crowded street,
That does not mean that I do not feel its weight
I do not wish to be the judge
Wielding the ultimate sentence
Nature is the only worthy one to wield that right

Yes,
The Pains of Life
Are here and they are
Forever changing

But, I take comfort in the old pains
That of the body and the simple mind
Though there is no such thing as the latter
And if you think I'm lying, ask the hatter

Rippling through lines attending the masquerade ball
Seeping through the back door unnoticed, the red curtain falls
The play is starting, the actors in position, the stage is set
I trust no man with two, one, or five of anything and doesn't bet

Bend your nose to the ground
Smell the wine soaked soil
The sun is high, the miles long
Beware the rattler as it lay in coil

The Pains of Life
Are the Joys of Life

Each one of us
Is seeking our Eden

she's gold on one side
silver on the other

heartened and free
she runs like a car wreck
racing at breakneck speed
trudging through sand to conjoin
two-fold into one.

little passes by her that goes unnoticed.

she drinks in every opportunity
to swallow what ever happening will feed her today's lesson.

equanimity hostility frivolity passivity.

she knows the streets have taught her more
than she will ever forget.

and she can remember how it felt
to taste ***** in her mouth
when she looked in the mirror
that mocked her every breath.

she tries to back step
and unmake a bed
that she's told she made
and must lie in
for the rest of her life.

she wants to call consignment
and have it undelivered
but they won't take
bug ridden
**** stained
sprung and un-stuffed
pieces of junk that carried
peoples dreams in the dark.

there's no worth, they say.

so she's left
carting around holes and dead air.

melted glass and ***** cartridges.

spent fits and broken tin.

wondering
what kind of legacy this is
for a very pretty tousle haired girl
that trusts her with unfeigned eyes
and believes in super mom?

she cries at night
and tries in the morning
being as tangible as they expect-

but in that socketed place
that holds spun sugar contemplation
she buries herself.

one two-fold parades all day
playing puppet gurrl games.

she lives in a land of
pots of gold and rainbows
clover and blue moons
moving one step at a time
towards what's expected
because she knows nothing else.

day in and day out
running like a car wreck-

gold on one side
and silver on the other.

Quiet Jane,
Your mind was insane,
Your thoughts fell to the
bottom of the earth into
a pit of burning fire and
as it fell, it yelled out your name.
Oh, Quiet Jane.

Pictures around the room,
Framed with macaroni and glue.
Windows stained with the cracks from
the fist of Quiet Jane.

Empty cartridges laying on the floor,
Holes in the wall and in the door.
Twenty old bottles of Gordon's gin,
Smoky room, the walls are caving in.
Pacifiers scattered around the table,
Unused, but open nappies in a cradle,
But no small child seen wandering the hallways,
What's going on, where's Quiet Jane?

We are all talking much louder
Than your shoulders can translate
There are escaped sovereigns hiding from
Modern anthems of star spangled spasms
Underneath our hearts there are cars and cartridges
Condoms and consoles coiled around our flagpoles
We are through being told what not to do
So whenever we fool around with tiny tyrants
Please know that we are talking about you
And I am supplying your mind with ecstatic silence
In order to finance these fading fitness regimes
And measure your symbols in systematic struggles
We are all insignificant bundles of nerve fibers
Hoping to one day be born again
As an alchemical magus fluent in many languages

i walk around the carnage of my souls carcasses
your empty promises lying around like shells and cartridges
you were the harness keeping me from falling into this heartless fortress
i should have known your touch wasn't just harmless
it was there to harvest
my dreams my hopes my aspirations , until you **** out every thing
and there is nothing but darkness...
your love letters look like habeas  corpus
summoning  me to a court, with a sentence to the gallows

i have swallowed all your lies and the pain
the shrapnel of what we were once are still stuck in my heart and brain..
too scared to love and dream again
too scared to even mention your name
too scared that you were the dame..

harbour abyss
shallow dwell our shotgun cells
open wide
tastes like magnesium
swallow now
magnesium magnesium

fall down you barrow folds


     why are all the snails out?

                                 you haven't heard?
    it's been forty weeks of rain
    it's been forty years of rain

      crush them if you see them-
       don't you know we're in a bubble economy?


the churches crumble
cats lie bored in parking lots
surrounded by nothing
pat pat


the summer heat


dye your bones
in rohypnol veils

empty into cartridges
shoot up
sky burial
float the concentric
lace of vultures


    do you ever pantomime being hurt,
                              just to hide your hurting?

       hahahahaa,
                                        no



this ******* heat


  pavement swells
dig up the dirt
relay the dirt
reseal over                                   spit your teeth
tap tap                                           from the mountaintop
                                                    i­nto the ocean

spend the days watching
    kids stamp on the ants
and then cry as they learn what it is to know death

mothers stare on with tired eyes


        the summer heat  
        the summer heat
              who took all the rain?  



-sosososo,
there's this game,
this game, you see
  you
make a jigsaw
but replace every odd or so tile,
with an image of your own design


after a few tries,
the whole thing becomes entirely incomprehensible,

but at least it's yours

Culture Vultures dining on carcasses,
a culture of artist that,
act as if everyone is targeted,
and we are whether bisexual or bipartisan,
or both no vote only the onset of mainstream socialist monarchism,
a subconscious stream of consciousness consumed by a constantly contradicting condition of consumerism,
an avalanche of retail therapy and the avant of avant-gardism,
doesn’t have to be a better product or improved edition,
just has to be better packaged and marketed,
sold our souls so we don’t own anything anymore not even our own cognizance,
just look what what the mass media market did,

our collective memories and ancient traditions all but forgotten,
designer jeans symbolize a degenerative disease like Parkinson’s,
want to end this madness but don’t know who started it,
so who can we blame but ourselves in all honestness,
as we absorb Virtual Reality and ignore Actual Reality creating an occultism of Oculus,
Rift we drift into thee abyss of dark indifferences…

Neglecting the blueprint everybody’s a studio gangsta these days just ask 50 Cent,
morally bankrupt lazy played daisies try to copy Jay-Z’s blueprint,
but no body has a DJ Clue or a Ty Dollar to spare still everyone’s got their two cents,
all opinions given with no wisdom taken from the Grand Architect,
what good is good advice if we don’t take the time to listen we just dismiss it quick,
showing off trophies donating charity checks,
acting like champions we bare and beat our chest,
wearing fool’s gold and blood diamonds but we’ve won nothing yet,
honestly feels like we haven’t even started yet,
still we feel exhausted from this rat race for dominance,
slaves of an alien race we pledge allegiance with our obedience and faux pas ambiance,

And it’s all almost over for our entire empire so every moment better cherish it,
white robes with Chipko flip flops we hold the reins to Her Majesty’s chariot,
whipping the 500 horses faster in the fast lane will get you buried quick,
so I try and pace it and not get too wasted still I feel very sick,
when captain screams “You move too slow sailor!”, that’a when it’s time to depart this ship,
but you can’t rush good art and I’m an articulating artist for all the artisans,
in a constant state of affairs is why I haven’t married yet,

which of course means no divorce from any or all of this,
so I continue to translate transmissions without prejudice,
love is star crossed colorblind and my wonder mind is in wonderland’s luminescence,
as I illustrate illustrious illuminations off every edifice in this hedonistic eden like Edison,
with an ample amount of ambiance this is this rebels renegade Renaissance,
I write light before I become just another martyr for the Martian’s master plans,
my words are honest sonnets on tablets of mono-cultured monograms,
mono-glyphs that shine like a beacon on the Tower of Babel atop a cavernous monolith…

This is all honest in all honestness.

Here at the docks with assorted Goddesses and narcissistic walruses,
way up down under not trying to be negative but the only thing I’m positive of is,

we are cultivating a culture of artist that,
act as if everyone is targeted,
and we are whether bisexual or bipartisan,
so stay up and keep your eyes open because the games have just started kid.

This is all honest kid.

And I’m open to discuss everything except religion and of course politics,
so if you’re having issues then tell me what the problem is and maybe we can solve it quick,
and please don’t blame the Dalai Lama or Obama’s broken promises,
see we all have soiled wings just like these vultures that pick at our carcasses,
as we dine on Soylent Green served hot from the meting *** of concubine colleges,
wrong right black white day night see everything has it’s opposites,
so even the kindest animals will turn into carnivorous cannibals when all that’s left,
is blown kisses well wishes ***** dishes corrupt princes and spiritual paralysis,
this is the age of the dawning of Aquarius and the end of our passing genesis…

But what do I know I’m just a Son of a Gun on the run writing this mystic futuristic hit-list,
dressed to the nines with a bottle of moonshine and a bunch of empty cartridges,
in the Wild West with Clint Eastwood clean as a whistle mixin’ with ***** Harry’s pharmacist,
The Good Bad & The Ugly drink in acid rain and eat magic cactuses…

Howling at the full moon with peyote coyotes absent minded off the absinth mix…

Alive right here left for dead insane and out of practice with,
no clean water in the canteen and circling are the vultures just above us,
this teenage wasteland has no purpose with,
riff raft rats and religious rabbits in the crosshairs with deserted desert tortoises,
see these badlands will make the most professional professionals seem like just silly naive novices,
there’s nothing more to see here in this mirage except my rusty gun as it tarnishes…

my visions getting blurry bodies stopped but my mind’s still hurried this is what exhausted is,
and I’d escape if I knew a way out but instead I stay because I’m not sure what my other option is…

See I knew I would go I told you before everyone is targeted,
so soon it seems I’ll be just another rotting carcass that,
the Culture Vultures overhead dine on as their dinner when feeling peckishish,
terminated no terminator but like Arnold said, “I’ll be back.”, like I just started this…

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆

Worldwide Bestselling Poet

On the desk, there lies a fountain pen
It doesn't take cartridges
Rather, you dip it in ink and press it to paper
It makes a sound, not unlike fingernails on a chalkboard
But not like it either - it's satisfying instead of goosebump-inducing
Slowly scratching the page until it's gone
The ink has bled onto page 3
I've pressed too hard
But this paper is thick
Previous poets pondered profusely
Pretending this pen was a pipe
Holding it between their teeth until an idea came ripe
This pen holds a history of poetry
Of spilling thoughts that otherwise stayed internalized
And of sometimes spilling ink
It gets everywhere
I love it

******* there’s twenty dollars down the *******
Five cartomizers for this electric cigarette
Why am I even smoking?
I quit five years ago, so why even put this in my body?
Where is the logic in that?
Because I like what it does to me
I like the relaxing hush it puts over me
But ******* it!
These five little cartomizers full of nicotine ain’t compatible with the battery because they’re for the rechargeable e-cigs
The ***** at 7-11 didn’t tell me that, why would she?
It’s her gain and my loss.
That’s her logic “this clueless kid doesn’t know any better, he just wants his nicotine fix.”
****, just ****
So now I either go buy the rechargeable kit for another twenty dollars
Or I just buy another disposable one for ten dollars and make the twenty I already spent completely worthless
Well
I’m not spending the other twenty, forget that right now!
I’m gonna buy another disposable one, then smoke the five nicotine cartridges, then the one it will come with then the first one I bought if it still has some juice left in it
All before the battery runs out and I gotta buy another one
Goodbye lungs!
Logic

I’ve been bleeding
black and blue bubbles
through extruded cartridges.
Leaving doilies soiled
on your dressed tables
without placing a touch.
Trying to donate gifts
from my darkening life
to a priceless recipient.
Pushing your peace away
with each bubble blown
onto ink-smeared surfaces.
My mental misfires
cause my life line
to tangle and retreat.
I’ve tormented my threshold
with a shattered appendage
that over extended its reach.
As I twist tourniquets,
I represent one unconditioned
for appreciating being love in truth.
Please, reset my uneven mending
and apply an encouraged healing
by molding me in wrappings of you.

I long for that cold, blued steel against my skin as I anticipate the end.
I could easily take my life.
In the corner rests my rifle and cartridges.

I don't know why I don't do it.
I don't like living and I don't appreciate my days.
Joyless. No afterlife. Nothing.
So why don't I just
*Tie this knot.

I'm really sorry
That I broke your atari
You look at me with ****** brewing in your eyes
And a boiling rage that you just can't disguise
You mutter "Mint condition 1977"
And how you had it since you were eleven
You hold your game cartridges lovingly in you hands
And say that know one understands
I'm gonna be sleeping with one eye open tonight

your words cut deep,
deep in the flesh of my soul
and that was how it’s always been,
I guess. And we were just waiting for
words to go between the words we said,
to add up to the little things that brought us
together, saying words to each other slowly,
without affixing other words that can drive us
away from each other, like when the love was said,
and when the love was gone, and all we ever did was
say ‘I don’t love you no more,’ instead of what we always
told each other, as if the words ‘don’t’ and ‘no’ are always just
negatively inserted between the cartridges of our vocabulary, and instead
of loving each other more and more, we settled on elisions, thrown between
our words, our sentences, our 5 AM conversations, our used-to-be-connections.
your words cut deep and we tear our tangled limbs. elision. that’s what it will be.