It never ends, fragments of visions collapsing upon themselves painfully. Her swollen eyes opening, and bursting with orange fire. Then closing just as fast. In between those agonizing seconds she sees everything. Thousands of years cycling over and over. Visions of visions within visions.


Cassandra saw her city razed to the ground. The wall which once stood firm against the onslaught of enemies crumbling with the ravages of time. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again she saw her own grief. Her cousin had fallen in battle. She closed her eyes again, and scratched at her itchy eyelids.



Ten weeks passed without a blink, not even a fraction of an opening. She was disciplined, but the longer she fought the more her eyelids would burn. One blink to ease the agony and she was forced to see her father’s skin. A purple mass of dead flesh bubbling swelling, exploding, and rotting, with maggots squirming in out and around till flies formed and flew away. Another corpse left out in a burning city. One among many denied a peaceful death. Buildings crumbled to dust, the bodies became one with the earth. Cassandra cried without opening her eyes. Her father stroked her long soft curls, whispering reassurances. “It’s all right my child.”


Another three or four weeks passed. She had become blinder than Tiresias the blind prophet. Unable to recall if that was a story she had heard, or would hear in the future.  She sobbed spilling each and every sorrow she could. Every tragedy yet to come. Her father smiled gently placing a warm cloth upon her brow. “Shush my child these nightmares will fade soon enough.”


The young girl opened her eyes again. This time a years’ worth of history unfolded. She saw soldiers gathering arms. Battlements born of the Bronze Age burning with righteous rage. Steel blades clanging against bronze shields in preparation for war. Boats fully loaded departed.


She closed her eyes once more. It would be another two months before she opened them. In the meantime she pleaded with her father to leave the city. Day in and day out begging, sobbing, and screaming until she was sent away.


It was becoming harder and harder to keep her eyes closed. There was a burning force aching to escape. She managed five more weeks until she could bare the pain no longer. As her new sisters bathed her pale dry skin with the sweetest scented oils the young girl recited all that she saw and felt.


The first footfalls of the first soldier’s feet to touch the beach. The feel of the sand as it swirled in, out and around the soldier’s sandals. The general howling commands. The green eyes hungry for battle. The faces contorted in controlled rage. All that intensity burning under the once civilized façade. She closed her eyes again.


Cassandra sat silently in exhaustion, as the sisters slowly brushed the knots out of her long brown hair. They brought her a blindfold, which allowed only a small comfort. This time she only managed to resist for two weeks. The vision came upon her with such force that she cried out and collapsed.


Now the city was burning. Citizen screamed as they ran in terror. Brave men rushed forwards to be impaled on the spears of other brave men. Arrows swallowed the moonlight picking at the earth and scavenging for some bare flesh to devour. Blood ran like red rainwater. Streets streamed thin crimson pools diluted by warm summer showers. The stench oh, the stench, it made Cassandra ***** up chunks of soggy bread and half-digested beef mixed with red wine and stomach acid, while she tried to force her eyes to close.


Finally, she closed her eyes again. The sisters tried to sooth her sorrows, to no avail. Within a years’ time the young girl lost the ability to close her eyes. Cassandra eyeballs slowly burnt out until there was nothing left but charcoaled eye sockets. By the next year she could no longer speak. Cassandra became paralyzed by the futility of her existence.


In her mind the war had come and gone. The sieges were no longer an issue. She no longer felt the urge to cry for the dead. What was, will be, and what will be cannot be undone. What cannot be undone has already happened. Apollo had cursed her. Her beauty had enraptured him, her wit had charmed him, but her will had enraged him.


She was only thirteen with brown eyes and long hair of rare quality, soul so powerful that almost anyone who met her could feel its energy. She shamed the gods with her purity, and unwillingly ensnared their affection.


At first Apollo came with strong arms and tender words. Wooing to the point of painful pleasure. Her eyes could not handle such radiance. His skin burned as his chariot burned. Hair golden flames, skin solar yellow, eye orange as the sun. Each kiss burnt like the worse fever, taking her against her will, savaging her sanity. As if, as if being a god gave him the right to take such liberties.


Apollo viewed her early rejections with whimsy, believing them to be some cute token of her modesty. A god can afford to wait, after all eternity was on his side. After the first hundred no’s his affection gave way to anger. Until his desire could not bear rejection any longer.


At last he cried out to Cassandra. “I will have you or else.”


With a firm but fiery hand he swept her up.  Forcing his mouth against hers. Parting her pursed lip with his powerful tongue.  He shoved his tongue into her mouth, until tears streamed down her cheeks. She could not resist with words, because her mouth was occupied, so she took the only action she knew available to her.


She bit down as hard she could. Lava spewed from Apollo’s lips, roughly singing the inside of her mouth. Without realizing what was happening she swallowed. Her skin began to glow, tiny childlike limbs lengthened and tightened. From her eyes radiated the most powerful light ever seen by man or god. For a moment Apollo cowered beneath the awe of her power, stumbling backwards to the ground dumbfounded.


Regaining his composure he slapped her aside. Scowling in rage “How dare you. You. You worthless *****.”


Her lips parted now of her own volition. Her voice raged with a deep and powerful resonance. “How dare you, you whimpering fool.” The power still flowing inwards filled her with confidence. “I see you for what you are. A tool, a man made invention.” The radiance of her skin was slowly fading. “I see too much now.” She cried out in an ******* fury. A smile crossed her lips. “I see what will become of you and your ilk.”


With strength previously unimagined the young girl thrusted her small hands out throttling Apollo’s throat. He trembled in fear. “You cannot hope to contain the power of me. I am generations incarnated. Passing power from one age to the next. I will not be enslaved.” Her skin began to blink, her voice loss much of its force. “I am Cassandra, and you a merely a passing phase. I will tell the world of all I have seen.”


The last bit of godly energy faded from her skin. Cassandra collapsed. “I still see it all, and you will never touch me again.”


Apollo brushed bits of earth off his person. “See all you want, I care not.” He lunged for her. A flash of thin white light flung him back.

Confused, Apollo rose. Glaring he screamed “You may see all now. It is a gift my blood has given you, but soon it will become a curse. For no mortal wishes to believe that the fates have already written their story. They will ignore you, and in doing so you will find that this power you have gained will be for naught. Thus will be your curse to see all, with no power to stop it.”


Cassandra’s eyes opened wide, seconds split into eternity. She felt the passing of all those around her. She felts time’s stench and rot all around her. Her skin would wrinkle to a certain degree but she would be eternal. She saw cities rise and fall. Some to rise again others to be forgotten. She saw herself seeing each of these visions again and again. She lived her immortal life over and over, events unchanged be anything she said.


The only real comfort was that she saw Apollo wither away. As the old gods fell to ruins weakened by the rationality of new gods, then the rationality of structured reason. Then came the rise of something new and better. Reason with abstraction, abstraction with order, a cycle of energy which emboldened and empowered man. She chuckled.
“Go away little godling.”
And like the little thing he was, Apollo ran.
Her father shushed her, wiping the tears from her face.
The sisters bathed her; singing songs of love and adoration.
Troy fell under the onslaught.
Apollo came and went again.


Cassandra’s eyes opened wide closed and open wide once more, seconds split into eternity. She felt the passing of all those around her. She felts time’s stench and rot all around her. Her skin would wrinkle to a certain degree but she would be eternal. She saw cities rise and fall. Some to rise again others to be forgotten. She saw herself seeing each of these visions again and again. She lived her immortal life over and over, events unchanged be anything she said.


The only one real comfort was that she saw Apollo wither away. As the old gods fell to ruins weakened by the rationality of new gods, then the rationality of structured reason. Then came the rise of something new and better. Reason with abstraction, abstraction with order, a cycle of energy which emboldened and empowered man. She chuckled.
“Go away little godling.”
And like the little thing he was, Apollo ran.
Her father shushed her, wiping the tears from her face.
The sisters bathed her; singing songs of love and adoration.
Troy fell under the onslaught.
Apollo came and went again.

So… he looked on, watching from afar the imagery of family.
Now alone, sitting in place on an old cranky stubborn
porch, eighty-one years of tears laughter and memory/smiled;
his smiled gleamed through the haze and humidly
of another summer day:   a day that reminded him
of his younger years when the joy in many eyes gathered
                       for a day of barbecue and rejoice

in his voice, as his raspy cough briefly interrupted the moment,
was the song of an elderly man missing the days of innocence
but briefly in this time, in the sight of the young boy
he now studied from across the street
he saw a familiarity.  His vision saw support and togetherness;

his hearing heard the song of compassion
and in the charcoaled flavored heat, his heart felt
                 what he thought was forgotten;

the genius and destiny of hope.  In his life he has seen
once inspiring  brick-layered sidewalks become the mask
of crime that has kidnapped a neighborhood once
proud.  He has seen the dreams of children become temporarily
paralyzed by the heights of poverty and many visions
of fear.  He watched in silence over all these years

but the tears of his mind has always been vocal.  

                                The shackles
of osteoarthritis that now held on to his bones and the slight
battle with old-aged deafness that now challenged
the vibration of harmony  and not even the parade
                 of high blood pressure marching through his veins
could keep him from feeling the pain and decay

of days passed.  But as he looked on at the sight
of burgers and hotdogs sizzling on the grill;  as he looked on
at the pleasantries of young and old joining in good times
and fun playing the games of life; as he looked on
and lived again through the body language of the young boy
                        who now looked back at him

he saw the glimpse of renewal in a community
holding on to the aspects of a neighborhood’s inheritance.
For the first time in many decades, he saw the enjoyment
in dancing trees that waltzed in the breezes of tomorrow;
                           he felt shades of sweat trickle down his bronzed almond skin
that was the welcomed condensation of happiness
and he smelled a renewed energy of genetic fortitude
that was family all in the aroma of summer cooking --

                                  and so…he dreamed on.

I am not your accessory
a statement piece
to your spineless connections
The thousandth image-oriented festivity
That you thoughtlessly threw
Due to the boredom of your own reflection
I am not a string of pearly witty conversation that you casually bring up when you aren't capable of employing stimulation
I am not a magenta lipstick you reach to cover up your mindnumbing gossip about the neighbors indecencies
You try to duplicate me and slip your right, then your left foot into vintage leather Jimmy Choos
Oh but your archless perception of life
Doesn't quite fit your soul next to mine
Empathy was never your strong suit
Oh but a tailored cold charcoaled judgement suit--that fits just.right.
Still you try to wear me, despite discrepancies
And oh how you hate the way I mock your silhouette
I clash with your champagne clings
You try to bash me against silverware but I remain mute
"Oh but if I can't make her an accessory, I shall make her an appendage!"
Oh how Christian and courteous of you
In the same way you asked your bridesmaid to step off the alter when she came out to you on that heavenly day
You ask me to be your brothers appendage
Oppressive and aloof
Asking was always a waste of time for you
You expect.

it's almost beautiful, we created the thing called
money, in order to turn tribalism
into a myth of Eden (alone, stark naked) -
          it's almost as if we deviated from
creating it and asking for family values,
            but never got them,
       i'm trying to imagine a Russia where
Rasputin wrote a book
that might have resounded with Nietzsche's
ubermensch - but thankfully precipitated into
world war i & ii... fancy the interlude:
a cold war i, now the cold war ii...
you should be happy, to be honest, it's the best
status quo you'll ever get...
but **** me, 1970s disco craze: even i'm
like Mozart-who?
               a little notebook, and my getting
drunk thoughts in it, funny how drink intellect
knows all too well about the: diminished responsibility
white flag -
              as with the **** chokes come the
drunk-and-writing-a-poem jokes,
                                i'd say blame Al Capone!
you know how many diacritical distinctions i could
insert into that surname? diacritical marks
are ulterior forces at-be when all punctuation goes
*******, not sentences, but words -
Cá       ponè - cockney slang Capone on the phone:
        we had fun: because you really don't say
Cáponé like you might say a torero's olé, do you?!
me? i find it grand to paint syllables with
diacritical marks, i mean: it's not even a blank canvas,
shame the semi-colon isn't minded in distinction,
but still, i already know that poets are scared of
punctuation, hence breaking the lines and not
engaging in a paragraph... tying shoelaces seems about
fine when it comes to modern poets,
talk about knitting jumpers, or scarfs by grannies -
sold as doing that same activity on shredded wheat cereal:
- = a hanging pause (suspense);
       , = necessary pause (or the expected
in a rhythmic cyclone);
   then i say to all my would be assassins:
you'll be doing me a massive favour, to be honest.
at times it really is the age of trusting entertainers
and not the media and certainly not the politicians -
it's almost stating the obvious.
i was in St. Petersburg for a month, and every time
i wanted to go to a danceclub to dance she refused me....
me and my naiveness in thinking that people could
actually be seduced by good...
      i don't mean being exposed to a tsunami
among the other elemental congregations of Shiva
there goes my belief in people being good to each other...
shoom! gone... bye bi!
(origins of dyslexia? maybe).
                                 she took me to the opera and
she started her snarling condescending approach to
the new-rich girls in the next booth...
     **** me, relationships leave me so ill-equipped
i actually find it staggering that i had any...
                 i must have been really naive in believing
that people could do good that i ended up
   a hermetic pessimist or misanthrope -
i never expected to be one, or share the juices of such
a calibration of humankind:
but it's funny how a movement overstates the cartesian
sum and never the cogito,
and when you by chance encounter the actual cogito
organising a movement, you represent nothing
representative of the movement's sum,
because the cogito is actually so staggeringly
divergent from being affiliated to the (e.g.)
         French revolution's guillotine locomotive.
when utilising only one hand in writing?
a black notebooks is written into at a rhombic degree,
yep, slant.
        i have two or three decent points to make,
but, obviously, i have to utilise verbiage to state them,
let's compare that to building a thousand homes
before the leaning tower of Pisa comes along
and people say: wow! in the immediate sense i
will require compensating that exception with
enough social housing for the tower to actually be erected:
that's natural: regurgitating maxims from no experience
would be an equivalence to an exoskeleton:
no experience, no harm... and where's the fun in that?

(interlude no. 1)

almost 15 minutes in an opera house, long enough
for the march from your seat into the street and a smoke,
  i still can't understand while people adopted money
for the demand of talking to each other via pebbles,
we are in our billions and made it so demanding to
only appeal to the few for company... i mean, should
i be sad? we made our company so unbearable because
of engaging in the concept of money that we later had
adapt to books as the conversations we need to have
among people we can't even talk about the weather to.
people always think that talking about money is
shallow... as if it's some really necessary version of
the crucifix (which to my mind sounds like a name for
a charity and the need to be thankful for it being there),
then again: something so geometrically pure
hanging over us and then comes Rodin's the kiss:
that really is a miracle - walking on water can hide itself,
turning water into wine (40 days & nights in the desert would
do that to you, every time you rehydrated, any liquid
would be intoxicating).
             oh hell, i have the notebook narrative,
i need to take a break after having written the unexpected
intro, and subsequent interlude.

it seems to me that language can never be sampled,
sampling language
is anti-scientific,
because it breaches an objectification of things,
which sad,
    are the Balkan states Slavic, Christian or Turkish?
i'm asking because a Greek said
it's Byzantine, and then lapping allah illha Allah
turkish took to Istambul...
*how best to defame a god with ensnarled capitals,
each, levelled,
                                only Islam will reign under the
praise of my name, which alone, will sing my praise.
   to move mountains, one must move throngs.
          to move people you expect them to become
mountains: or sun-tanned noon
  having been charcoaled into obliteration.
     one thought: an ottoman janissary: and vlad
the lesser crucifier and the adamant
impaler, who said that homosexuality shouldn't matter....
   imagine the comparative pain...
i can't: therefore i won't.
                     thus the black scripts of notation...
better than uttering original maxims,
          as in... better to engage in transcendentalº
dialectics
     ºin ref. to Nietzsche: the masses do not hold
an opinion on sanity: hence my concordance
with "him" - and insanity in individuals (self-dividing
                      duos in calamity of one):
insane individuals are rare: but conglomerates are
the norm - thus an agreement of shared truths
that has no debate to support it, because it has been
"plagiarised",
   the transcendental aspect is the lack of dialectics
(replaced with diacritics),
     and also the historical novelty of shared observation
with a disparity of a century's worth of history:
governing still the caveman and the modern man,
            as if the two were mutually compatible.
that one could rewrite the other, and so too true in
reverse.
   i find it harsh having to relinquish the authority
of language, as my own it used,
but only when school-friends suggest it, those
with ******* family members do i foremostly
experience it as my own: well... thanks to you
i'm not a plumber because your father detonated
the atom bomb and never bothered checking what
the gorilla did next with the grand censor of fertility
to protect an aesthetic...
           but then again: you were always Irish.
oo! well: sodomite that oops... it'll be worth something
in 30 years' time. strange how it must read...
Holocaust deniers also have the same lysergic trip.
             insanity in individuals is rare,
among groups it's the norm, within a framework
of Nietzsche: thus an agreement of shared truths,
that has no debate to support it,
because it has been "plagiarised" (necessarily experienced
more than once),
   ºthe transcendental aspect is the actual lack of
dialectics, and also the historical shared novelty of sharing
of observation (the tsunami cult, the earthquake cult)
with a disparity of range toward the century-range...
   philosophy infamously aks purposively
unsolvable questions: or questions that require many
more questions... or what is known as a transcript
of Aristotelian awe: of those who commit to error
with that science of pure wording, to spur people on;
philosophers are the adventurers in error:
only because this engages them in providing a "gravity"
locus... for others to hone onto and correct...
(oh how i'd believe had there been a Koranic surah
on the mindful hoplites)...
         purposively erroring: philosophy;
philosophers are pioneers: birches... scientists
are all but oak: auburn well established.
       but what of transcendental dialectic that expands
into shared truths (as experience) within the dual-disparity
of nearing death and the dawn of the 20th century
   and never-nearing a life at the dawn of the 21st century?
excluding dialectics and diacritics has given us
such a society, where everything is nearly snowflake
lucratively dissolvable and gentle...
                   few people utter truths,
even fewer utter truths than need to be debated...
             for the over-lord truth is mono, or glue...
        but still the tactic of avoiding certain truths
for the necessity of sitting in an armchair rather than
on a cold pavement... for in their pluralism
they express as many universal traits of non-experience,
as they subsequently express enough
    particular traits of experience
(translate rhyming into philosophy and you get this...
going cross-eyed in allocating an understanding,
summarised by the word zez).
hence the unwinding: universals (x, ÷):
       and particulars (+, -):
    of time, and how to encourage abstracting
worded coordination into an advanced literacy rate,
that'll fail, because literacy is power that requires
labouring anyway.
  because you did say "encapsulating a zoo"
readied to perpetrate a staging of a freak-show.
examples: universals (x, ÷):
       and particulars (+, -)        are zeniths in
the narrative compensation to nothing -
        in literature a surprise turn of the plot,
a summarisation, as such stand-out moments,
or quotes: here is a version of encoding verbal
"mathematical" synonymity -
         i too would wish to create a language
that doesn't abide by the language of miles,
but that of metres, but then there's the thesaurus
distinction between metres in deviations of
centimetres and nano in close-proximity
          ruby, crimson, burgundy, bled throughout the week
until pale grey and with an epitaph.
      language never brings us together,
it never did, we all wished to be cats and have said
meow... but we rarely and will never say...
that's nearing toward shame...
  i absolve humanity of the original sin...
                    if sinning was so original i would suggest
other forms of compensating it rather than prayer:
i'm thinking of the original shame...
it's that story of a serial killer who believed he
had no universal traits concerning him,
he had no systematisation of conscience,
he denied having a sense of guilt...
          it's hard to believe such things,
given the ceiling is the universe...
        it's hard to become a rat in a solipsistic maze...
that's ****** had to believe...
                   to deny having universal a priori
is also to deny particular a posteriori...
                           even though nothing really happened
apart from god laughing and man yawning
and the devil crying. it's very hard to believe people
these days, even though they deserve it,
                    it's hard to summate oneself in being
able to;
  thank god philosophers didn't complicate simple words
with remnants of Latin like psychologists did,
there's the prior (a priori) and there's the after (a posteriori),
or the two within a-: without a prior (to) / priority -
                  or without an after / an imitable vogue / trend /
    zeitgeist.
          can you write something like someone disclosing the fudge
of what's technically an arithmetic summary?          
no intelligence is being undermined here,
         what's being undermined is what's critically an optical
   java transitory period.                                                    

(int­erlude no. 2)

the laziest philosophers always write about the word
philosophy without actually philosophising,
you can say as much when saying: i'm thinking about thought.
of all the professions, philosophers don't know theirs...
it's true, if you do it, you do it not-knowing / unconsciously.
modernity does in fact overprescribe the word genius
because it doesn't give practitioners of philosophy any
credit in the slightest of actually being recipients of
life... every time a thought spawns from nothing
the limitation of expressing it is: you don't exist;
soon enough you hang up having any competence in language
and say to people you thought you knew: adios amigos,
good luck: then you wonder why they're so
prematurely depressed, and then you forget about them
and think of a million Chinese carpenters:
simply because it's less depressingly so.
     do you ever write encapsulating a rhombus on a page
with your literary / wanking hand? i know i do,
write in a notebook askew - or that's what's called the
future of absurdity: i'm thinking about thought -
some later claim morality, and some later claim god -
        that should sound more simply as: ought i?
    but it doesn't... hey, here's to self-projecting ****** -
it's not even that good people invented god,
  it's that evil people did...
                  which is always a bit ****** having that
microchip in my abstract mind (the brain) i sometimes
try to get rid off while acting as an atheist for pop super!
       does that sound highly idealistic?
it probably does... have i an influential counter to it?
n'ah. thinking about thought without the either or of
ought leaves me asking outside the box / transcendental
questions about what self is ingested by that
Pontius Pilate... talk of the "true" self and talk of
the "false" self: who the **** is the narrator then?
are we all bleaching our handshakes these days to
give a handshake?!
    some men would claim to be the husbands of that
insatiable "woman" that's Sophia,
         who, after all, is better equipped to satiate 3
men, than a man to satiated 3 women:
the trinity of ****, vaginal: oral - funny that,
how perfectly that plays against all those years of
practising to a demand of the churches': kneel!
i'll just watch you **** him off while Mary Magdalene
spread the schematic that resulted in the Islamic
******* analing the "respected".

(interlude no. 3)

just can't be bothered mate...
  never did so much charity work pour into
      herr Herrman's charity chest of
the never thought of set of poems.

- and a day later, just a blank,
what a formidable evening,
why do i queue for even a trombone, violin,
       a viola, trumpet or a sax to add to my voice?
but in musicological terms: that's exactly what i'm doing.
it's hard to not see this as a cure:
with 16,713 views matta's echo babylon is
truly the antithesis of Prokofiev, or any other,
as might call it: windy character.
        classical music was bound to tornados and
zephyrs - modern music is the epitome of rhythmic
sampling, drum eroded violins,
           and other things happened, too.
rhombus within the framework of the hand-written prior,
on tiny scraps of rectangular paper,
because it's easier to write like that: slanting
and therefore for the imagery of cascading -
and as the pronoun revolution dies down,
                    and the voices go unheard,
   people will start to think about thought
and later thought per se for transcendental purposes...
     because choice will be ejected from
having competent access to it: namely?
   i can't see those **** the ***** protests seriously
if people can't take to shooting guns,
          i mean real rebellion... obviously i'm egging
on the situation and spraying gasoline on it
(obviously), but if the French give you the statue of
liberty as a present, you get to look at the appendix,
and start thinking: where are the guns, so
it looks like a genuine protest? i thought the idea of
being able to own guns (by the people), was to suggest
that if the government was electorally undesired,
people could start shooting... the tongue isn't
a

set wilting flowers with a bright smile
sketch hearts on curling paper scraps for him and
steal carved needles by dark.

“Stay away from him –
He pulls strings with no puppets at the end.”

the other nurses wore white on white
like the ceilings and floors,
screams and sharp chokes.
hard cuts on soft hands,
straight lines piercing bones.

the sky is a violet
whispering,
red and aching
scattered leaves and broken twigs
bruises upon lip-stained skin.

trace braille for the songs in his mind
rub charcoal on your cheeks
the hollows of your eyes –

he trips on wires,
a dead noise.
a rope sunk with the ghost of his last voice. ©

I should have kissed you before you ****** on your smoke,
Before the fluorescent elevator lights illuminated the flaws
That danced and drifted along your skin.
The thick smoke mingled with your shadow,
A shadow of a man; no face, only a cigarette.
You breathed in smoke, but your lips were positioned for a kiss.

I don’t look like the other girls, the ones you used to kiss.
I can still picture your eyes, reddened by smoke,
And your lips as ashy as your cigarette.
And I hoped you, too, could forgive my flaws.
Like how my body casts too wide of a shadow,
And the sallowness of my ordinary skin.

Things that really shouldn’t remind me of your skin,
like old leather books with burnt paper that I bet taste like your kiss.
Such books I read in the shadow,
And hide, like the way you hid behind your smoke.
Because, like the way I love a bad book and its flaws,
I could love you and your cigarette.

I’ve held your hand, the one that holds your cigarette,
And I felt the sandpaper of your skin.
I smelt the airy cologne you use to cover the flaws.
It smelled light; you used just a kiss.
Now, I smell only smoke,
And the memory of your touch is a shadow.

In the hospital you were no longer a shadow,
But a body, surrounded by walls as white as your cigarettes.
Your voice cracked from the smoke,
While needles pulsed life into your skin.
Your lips were cracked with only blood to kiss.  
I saw you naked, and I saw your flaws.

Your favorite vice was your fatal flaw,
And the black fire of death became your shadow.
It followed you around, and it saw our first kiss,
Which was our last, because you chose your cigarette.
So a charcoaled monster brooded beneath your skin,
And your flesh succumbed to the white ghosts of smoke.

You died in smoke, from your flaws.
Your skin’s now dust, roaming with the shadows.
So I’ll smoke a cigarette, ‘cause it tastes just like your kiss.

A feeling, an ocean and a dream to describe:
It’s another mid afternoon morning and the sunlight billows through the windows and pierces my eyes; they fight for consciousness and after some struggle with my two-ton eyelids, I managed to pick myself up and stagger off to the shower. Twenty minutes later, cleaned and clothed, I make my way downstairs to see what faces still linger in the house from the night before. With each step from under my feet comes a cold shrill scream; the nails, with a century of twisting and turning wiggled themselves free. With the slightest exchange of pressure, the nails give way and plunge back into the body of the stair from which they had escaped.  
It’s quiet downstairs. There’s not a sound; no voices of laughter echoing from the floors and off of the ceilings, not a sound of friends or strangers’ feet as they scramble to rustle up their clothes and belongings from the night prior. I had grown accustomed to hearing this in the morning and in all honestly, I’ve grown quite fond of the array of faces that had made camp here for the night. Usually this means front row seats to a race track where they all spin and run into one another to get started on their endless lists of routines and obligations. For the lucky few who get to vacation rather than push papers on the weekend, this meant a new companion and hopefully a day of company. Unfortunately, today the house is hallow, so empty it could make someone dream.
After pacing the house for a bit, the stillness starts to settle in; the leaking faucet growing unbearably ever more predominate with a slow crescendo of slurred reminders, drip no one’s home, drip you’re alone, drip what are you going to do? Drip, drip and the deafening silence like a parasite is crawling its way up and under my skin. My feet and hands get restless so I grab my acoustic guitar and head for the door.
On the porch, I take refuge on the cool concrete and light a cigarette; as the cherry churns the paper burns slowly, mimicking the melody of minors strummed ever so softly. My mind starts to wander, slipping into its self, lofting away like the ribbon of smoke from the cigarette. How funny it is that the greatest of men and minds have achieved the unbelievable; they unraveled the wheel, the moon met man from a tin can, empires leveled by the push of a button and as a tired heart’s tick softens, a surgeon’s scalpel cuts open and easily replaces it. With all the trophies brightly polished placed on the mantle of man there is not a space for the trophy that is truly worth parading; a cure for emotions. Irony, like a well aged whiskey, drunken my humor and ferments my appreciation. As a disease loneliness infests like a tumor, endlessly growing. The thoughts that once retreated so easily at the first hint of war are now back, glowing with vengeance tailored with armies; and they’ve got me cornered, it begins.
I start sinking, farther and farther down, unable to swim in this brackish abyss; any attempt to kick my legs, swing my arms has become a day dream, perhaps its only momentary paralysis caused from my leap of faith from my raft of hope that in my mind I had been previously enjoying the warm weather and smooth sailing; until the vessel caught a flame and was swallowed by the ocean of despair.
The light that once danced all alone up on the surface has retreated from fear. My lungs now burning as they cling to my last breath, they swell with anger, splitting at the seams from the pressure of the ocean’s hand gasping my poor lungs, tension alone compressing my entire chest I can feel the sharp pains as they are growing nearer and nearer to exploding, I clench my already squinted eyes from the burn of ocean’s salt. In some last attempt for survival with my eyes firmly tightened, just as the water starts to creep its way down my throat into my lungs I can feel the water begin to thicken.
No longer sinking into the great void of salted rift tides but resting gently on a mattress of sand. With my back exposed, the sun quickly heats my sopping wet T-shirt, my bones fill once again with life. Have I, by some lottery of luck, washed up on the beach? Scrapping the sand from my eyes in pursuit to unravel this mystery, the sand has magnetized itself to pruned skin and drenched clothing. I clear my eyes to the best of my ability, I can still feel the sand gritting in the folds of my eye lids and after a few fresh breaths of air which fill my sore lungs with relief, I roll over to sit up and dig my feet deep into the sand. I look out shielding my eyes from the blinding sun with my hand. I look to the left and then the right and quickly darting back and forth from each position, there is no ocean in view. What was my inevitable aquatic ending has now vanished; no longer sinking but standing. I am alone in what has become an ocean of sand; a desert of wandering and mystery.
With the blistering sun and vultures circling over head as constant reminder that this is in fact real; I began to stumble about for shelter. After what seemed like hours of hurdles the moon flies high while the sun sleeps in the southern sky, I find myself under a cliff of overhanging rocks; sitting down the rocks are warm and almost caressing. This bit of refuge reminds me of my mother; as a child I remember straying from her in a department store. Unknowing then that she had not been tailing me like a blood hound, until I turned around and as far as I knew she had vanished from the earth. After sprinting and retracing my steps like map I see her, the site of her from across the store fills me with joy, still sprinting I run to her, eyes like a fountain they poured into her arms as she held me there in her arms; they were warm and safe.
A faint smile crawls its way onto my face and the same tears of relief rain from my eyes and floods the ground; the sand now flooded starts to move vigorously from side to another. Out of the mist of their rumbling out gets pushed a blade of grass, and then another and another one by one pull their way out of the sand  to the surface; as the flowers start to blossom the slumbered sun awakes to a lush field of flowers filled with life. Within the field I move freely about, running in circles of familiar joy; the large sunflowers sway in the breeze of my arms as I run past them. The garden is beautiful with explosions of color all around held by peddles of flowers, and a small pond in the very center; a garden this perfect had to have been birthed by a gardener with the most beautiful of hands; Hands much like my grandfather.
Kneeling down beside the pond I splash some water with my hands on to my face to clear the filth from my pores. A gleam catches my eye from the mirror of the water, and I’m staring myself in the eyes. The pond isn’t reflecting what’s circled around me, but it’s reflecting me as a child, a bit older than the child crying for his mother; my face in the reflection, so precious and young just beaming full of life.
As if the pond were a movie screen the memory that had started to fade with age in my memory is playing crystal clear. I can see that little boy surrounded by familiar trees and flowers with the fields running farther than my eyes can see. That little boy is laying on the equally little wooden bridge that stretches over the little pond, my father laying beside him on the bridge with their heads and hands poking playfully over the edge of the bridge. Through the eyes of that little boy I can see a stick in hand trying to catch the nonexistent fish just as his father had showed him. My father looks down at me with a smile flooding his face as he says to me, “you know, Chad; I’m very lucky to have you, you’re all I could have ever asked for in this world. You’re a beautiful boy, a perfect son and I love you very much”. I remember watching a tear roll down the side of his face and watching it fall and disrupt the surface of the pond. Back on the other side of the glass; as his tear hits the pond the ripple breaks up the memory and just like the garden, the pond with the little bridge, my father and his sweet child; they all disappeared just as they had throughout my life. This time things felt different, not the cold touch of my bitter friend loneliness, but seeing that memory polished, shining new brings peace to my heavy heart.
A sharp sting burns my lips, the cigarette now burnt to the filter rips me back into body leaving the army, that ocean, the desert and the garden all behind. From footsteps behind me “I hoped I’d find you here”; I turn around and there she is, standing silhouetted by the sun, my angel. Charcoaled hair and island sky eyes, she had come to rescue me. “Hey you, I was hoping we could spend the day together; are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” I smile and nod my head. “Aright then come on.” and with that no longer in the vantage point window watching, but through a door and living.

Along the brittle sandy shoreline fish carcasses, pungent like morning breath and stale milk attract unlikely furry hunters before noon. These unleashed dogs trot slowly. The burden of the sun cracks feverishly upon their sticky, rotted coats. Their tongues roll out helplessly dragging their intimidation down with them like foolish clowns on Sunday morning. On the upper crest of the beach an old woman sits dutifully in her black latched beach chair. Her eyes, beady and gray reflect out into the vast lake. She does not blink. Her cottage, crafted purely of cedar wood comforts like the smell of an old book. On rare occasions athletic fresh water fish pierce through the water’s surface. Flying fish echo their rippled splashes throughout this vacant canvas. But still they are rarely seen or heard. There are hardly any tourists that visit cedar bay. No oiled teenage girls or playful sand kneed toddlers. Once in a while a charcoaled pit circled with empty beer cans lingers in the morning light; its smoggy remains clings tightly to summer clothes that will soon reek of burnt leaves and gasoline. When the time is right, some noble person will try to rehabilitate this stoic landfill, to lift

away stark-lit layers
ill suited for human plea-
sures. It shall rest in piece.

She's not used to charcoaled hands,
a pushing path
of guiding graphite.
It moves her body in certain ways
breaking boundaries
forever stable.

Scrambling across the tiled rooftop,
I avoided peering down.
The sight of charcoaled pavement
emerged as an unbecoming comrade to this city’s
easy skyline.

One cord. One hand.
A fear of falling in another
My attempt at a Sunday Night Football
twisted to the anticipation of
a roadside tackle from the opposite team below

The view from up here
was my only peace
A great inhale of chilled air
filling the bottom corners of my lungs
You are safe. You will not fall.
You are content and happy up here.

And that is what scared me the most.

The roof groaned at my passing weight
I stood at the brink of it all. Admiring
the city inside me
the metro, the lights, the busy buildings
It was filthy and a little unbecoming
but I was lucky. Nothing
was wrong.

Then I slipped off the edge of the rooftop.

Gripping at the pipes that rimmed the building,
the hooks of my fingers rioted for a savior.
Sprouting blood like fireworks on a holiday
I begged not to fall. The pipes wailed as
my legs reached further for the ground,
like a child stretching towards their mother’s arms
I cried at how simple it was -
To let go or to bring myself up
not knowing if my will could
get me up to the rooftop

I thought hard for us all - my only undoing -
Then I unclasped my broken fingers
and fell down onto the concrete.


November 7,  2013 3:59 pm
Revised: December 9, 2013 1:53

My contempt wraps your ocean
Of childish notions like a vice
I am a wispy poison
You cannot touch me
As I am made of smoke.
My elements confuse you, enrapture you
I captivate you as I
Stride forward through shadows
To greet you with
Painted lips and charcoaled eyes
You have given me your heart
Unwittingly and unknowingly;
The one whom you made this way
You are mine under lock and key

Sacrificial droves
wildly waving
antenna-mills,
charcoaled palms outstretched
merely feeble
attempts of withstanding poor decisions,
my decision
already calculated,
minute tongues warn
pleading wide-eyed,
muted by a dishwater gull
peg legged watching -
understanding with a single bulging eye.

My top buttoned suicide
finally undone,
shaky windswept fingers
childlike in efforts made,
those made to measure ambitions
superbly shined
befriended balconies,
that leap of faith
faith,
belief in my own boldness
stream uselessly in rivers
from numb sockets,
one single step..

White feather.

What is it about stairways?
An image of promise,
Or is that mystery?
Cascading in slanted light,
Tempting us forward,
Upward
Delivering us to romanticized paradise
Or ornamented haven.

To sanctuary disguised as a sun dusted bedroom,
Where doubtless, is a hidden love
Of the sort that once uncovered,
Will ever follow us.

Or maybe to dark wooded rooms,
Glowing with strings of frosted light.
Indigo ceilings and charcoaled walls,
Lit up

Or a creaking hallway that will usher us
To chipping french doors with a glassy view,
Where we will glimpse a new and equally hopeful vista.

Perhaps enchantment
In the form of rolling, dark green gardens,
With another Stairway that is their own, but is
Descending,

And which, at its very sight, we can feel tugging at our hand;
Breeze itself, defined and determined
It will be an alluring yet familiar pull.
Luminescence between our fingertips.

The sight a vow that will pull us down those steps
Cool stone alive with mossy cracks, that curve, disappearing from view
Laying us down to wonder,
Only in a moment to reemerge in the clearer eyes of our mind.
Where surely, round the corner, we will just be able to make out that the steps are met
With an unclouded, rosy woodland.

The aspen encompassment of a measured and ghostly chemistry;
Flourescent tree line and rocky hem,
Savage and most lovely,
If we only have the courage to climb or to descend them, a perceptual promise awaits,
An ended hunt.
The perfect tincture of Wilderness and Refuge,
That will make us feel the scope of our existence,
without ever having to doubt whether we are safe.

Death by fire.* The skin melting off of my bones and the smoke choking my throat and holding me down, my screams unheard of by those outside and seeing the dance of fire around my charcoaled bones.
Never knowing truth. Never understanding why I am here and what God wants me to do, to have him laugh in my face saying "You were always wrong!" Even when I thought he said it was in His plan, not ever fully understanding the ways of the universe that He so graciously let me explore.
Relapse. Becoming so sad again that I throw away almost a whole year of becoming who I am to succumbing to the hellish act of cutting open my wrist to see the blood flow from my body and to let the demons out again. To feel the sting, wait, numbness of it all.
Him touching me again. Never being able to say no. Feeling the touch of his sweaty palms around my waist, his fingertips making trails down my spine to my bare bottom, feeling parts of me that do *not belong to him.
Nobody believing me  Everyone telling me that I am a liar again, that I made it all up for attention and to break my family apart because I was "jealous" and I was "overreacting".
Losing her.  She can easily have any boy she wants, even other girls like her. I can lose her so easily, she's so beautiful. People constantly flirt with her, temping her to be theirs. But I am just me, and I feel like I am not enough, because she is everything, and I am nothing. No matter how dominating I am, I will always submit myself to her, because I belong to her. She can't leave me. I am hers.
Not getting into UC Berkeley.  I know I am not good enough, but I try to be my best. I try to get good grades and keep myself busy. I do not just want to attend this school, I need to be a part of this school because if I do not, then who would I be? All of my life's work would be thrown away and I would be feel hopeless, useless, and undeniably a failure. If I do not get accepted then I know I will never accept myself.
Going insane. I've seen these faces before, in the corner of my eye, hearing manic laughs within my mind, voices not there and things that run amuck. They are not there. They are not there. but oh! how they truly are sometimes. I just hope that they are not real.
Her taking her own life. Sometimes I feel like I do not help her at all. I can feel her sadness starting to creep back up on her again, wanting to take her and swallow her whole. I try so hard to help, but who I am to do that? I am powerless, I am weak. She is the strong one, not me. But oh, how sometimes even she succumbs to Deaths somber friend, Depression.
My parents finding out before the time we wish. Everything would die if they found out, they would extinguish our love so quick and **** everything that ever led to us being in love. If they found out, I wouldn't be myself anymore, I would lose the part of me that made me feel whole, I would lose the part of myself that I never knew that I was missing, I would fall apart, I wouldn't want to live anymore. What am I without you? Maybe life could happen again, and maybe we could find each other in the future when we are out of our parents hold, but that does not mean we would still be in love with each other. We would just be ghosts of each other's pasts, haunting each other throughout each other's lives and making us each feel so alone. Who would I be without you?
Last but not least, myself. I can easily do so much damage to everyone around me. I have hurt my love before, and my best friend, and my parents, and everyone else. I am my own worst enemy, and I can destroy everything that lives. I fear that I am constantly on self destruct without my love, that I am already dead and wishing to **** everything due to my unhappiness. Only love can cure the dead in heart.

You move on all fours, hands are your feet
getting pink-breasted by a garden tulip
and roses gather your thorns to a side street
where we once met, in love just enough.

There was much in that café sort of city,
I thought it was Christmas even in summer:
even on a grey day, you made it pretty
while the clouds so septic, swept me under.

Could not digest the place that is love,
for it felt overgrown and I was just a guest
dining with what is pure, nesting doves:
the meal charcoaled my stomach to unrest.

And I learned that a stationary loving
   is not worth a lifetime of running.

Yes-
You walked into this
knowing that
you would get burned.

But still you touched
with already blistered,
and charcoaled hands
because
once
is never enough
for children to truly comprehend
the lessons
their mothers taught
them

Don’t play with fire sweetheart
for your heart will turn into
ash
once
her
ambers
go out.

You choked on the heat
of your desires
after they went up in flames,
setting your insides ablaze
and of course
with help always arriving
a second too late-
who could
save you
from the firestorm
that had just
erupted
in the shallows
of
your mind?

So don’t play with fire sweetheart,
because you will get burned.

The smoke will
char your lungs,
leaving
you panicked
for release.

And lust will do that-

It will
set alight
everything it touches
destroying
anything unwanted,
that even dares
to stand in its way.

Arson is a crime.


By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu

you hide behind your
painted lips of dahlia
and charcoaled eyes

thinking cheap concealer
can enshroud the
burning thoughts
that churn in your mind

The slow saunter of charcoaled amber courage slithering down my throat, the old familiar burn of a love gone wrong and one too many nights spent staring at the city lights, wishing for that ******* pool of darkness to finally overtake the senses. It never happens. This place may as well be a brilliant hell-bent flame never dying out. Some broken swing jazz plays in the background, left over from an alternate time-line where life never progressed from the fall of the roaring twenties. A depressing state of depression, lost in gloom. Smoke hangs in the air like meat at the butcher shop, thick and over-powering, the somber stench of stale Camels, American Spirits, and matches burning down to the tip. Even the cool night air filled with the falling rain does nothing to move this smoke or smell away from the nostrils or eyes. It’s getting late but still the lights shine, the eyes burn, and the whiskey continues to be pored and drunk. A phone rings somewhere in the distant room, I barely make it in time before the last ring. I shouldn't have picked up. Not on a night like this...

My heart is breaking as I hear of her footsteps lightly walking away from the door, knowing the end of her walk was not much farther down the line. It’s too late to save her. A cop tapes off the scene of the ******, rain drenched and keeping reporters at bay, miserable in his line of work. But a man must earn a living in these modern times. A man must earn a living in these modern times. Her lifeless corpse lays uncomfortably on the floor, traced in chalk, with her scantly clad black dress slightly as-cued of her earthly surrogate, she looks like an angel of broken memories. Blood from her wrists and a suicide note that just doesn't seem right. The bruising on her neck looks fresh. Too fresh to be from any day or time but the present. Heavy boot prints lead on the concrete towards the streets, washing away in mud and continuing downpour. The world is on fire as the flame in my heart dies out knowing what must be done...

I sit lonely at my desk, scarred by broken glass and endless wars, sifting thru notes of tragedy that all blend into one bad noir movie repeating some forgotten enchanted quote about life and death and everything not meant to happen in between. It is what it is. It’s always what it shouldn't be. She wasn't old, just shy of some milestone birthday, but she lived hard I'm told by the few that knew her...

There's a barely audible knock on the door, heard only by the quite constant repetition of flesh meeting hardwood. I stand to open the door but before I can pull myself together to walk the some odd number of feet towards it, the door slowly opens and in steps someone I knew from a past life. There is not enough whiskey left in my glass for this encounter to be of any good...

It was that feeling
you experience when falling down
the drop
of a rollercoaster.

I’d lost my breath
as it escaped my ribs
hand in hand with my voice
and in that moment everything went silent.

An old fashioned film played slowly
in the back of my head
as we staggered between
two vehicles of fatality,
deaths forewarning tapping mockingly
on my shoulder.

Blank eyes
on calloused hands
my fate sealed as I pressed
myself into his body.

Our sins
smoking off his tires
evidence through charcoaled black lines
on glistening pavement

my heart stops being for an instant

and I finally know the truth.

As I struggle restrained
by charcoaled fleece,
unvocalised and uninspired
another “baa” to add to the
manured gears at work,
plagiarized -
sunlight awakening
and moon-dust
dozing serene,
by a need for purchase -
an invasion of the minute
green-noted men,
outlining fortune tales
of a win every time
just pay the million deposit first,
success is guaranteed
just be lonesome.

Perhaps my insatiable curiosity
of fictional footsteps, lotions,
potions in various flavours
rows upon racks
of wondrous words
are leading me astray,
Vicarious witnesses might
consider me a dreamer
uncommitted to a prospect of wealth,
am I truly shuffling along
instead of chasing paper moths
straight into a debt induced flame?

We wrote our hearts in permalink
and etched the light into our eyes
and in the ink that never fades away
we lettered each and every day.
In peppered nights with parasol
where in the heat that spiced the hands and touched the soul
we founded dynasties
and finished mysteries
then slept like dogs among the charcoaled logs of past desire
but woke to another more intense and spent a little of the fire before the coming day.
and was it thus this way?
Did I really write all night
did she come to me all dressed in white with hunger on her lips
did I rip the pen away and leave the page unwritten and unread
were those words she said meant for me
and could she, could she not see excitement on this parchment where the ink was legible?
to be honest it was hard for me to tell
and in the telling it gets no easier for me to see.
The ink is in the permalink, the permanence and what substance that there could be
in this the mystery
in this the she, and she is this and this I see?
simply put
but strangely said
again we stammer off to bed in hesitance another permanence
but that is good
and that is too and both of us know what to do.
The pen is light upon her page
and the stage is set
we get another taste and tuck into the chapter one with other chapters more to come
and with the wetness of a passing storm
both her and I are born.

Shush, stop replaying echos of the past
they have been blown by the east winds
right to the cliffs of the angelic twists
and I stare at the window, as everything moves
like the sun never rose
and the moon never shone
never surrender to their voices
as the hollowed beats of their soul
is an empty sack of sarcastic laughter
founded by the foundlings of St Elizabeth
who litter the Aspire asylum with loathe
and the troops of their dusty bags vent
to the charcoaled hues of the ceiling
Where the castaways truly hide inspired
as emptiness get inhaled in the alveoli
to the dense of the unpenetrated amoeba
and they all get sick, in a dread of a century
Let’s run.....It’s the borbounic plague taking its toil

The prettiest place you’ll ever be
I’ll look down and see an old cigarette box
Scattered amongst an insurmountable sea of trash
It’s ****-eyed
Diagonally sticking out of the decrepit weeds
It screams, “I don’t give a ****”
Neither do I
I think its beauty surpasses that of Mount Everest
Because I get to feel it, taste it, be in it
I don’t have to gaze at a postcard
Tell myself---over and over---it’s real!
All I have to do is tear it in half
Just a dream sought out by people who are starving for nature to be real
Like one thing didn’t get taken away:
I’ll show you! Here’s a postcard!
I tear
I scream
I don’t give a ****

It’s beautiful because it never imposes that it is
I’ll look at him sitting with a docile glaze
Open your mouth
Decay
Black, old, tattered, toxic to me
Because I can’t look at you
Ugly, tangible and ugly
Crazy *******
Just don’t rob me, okay, okay?!
I’ll keep walking and cross the streets that are slowly caving in towards that place
They tell us we don’t want to be
Fire? Fire would be best
Probably the best thing to happen
To these forgotten about streets
They’ll nod their heads and crisp into a charcoaled deep-fry

But I cross, because I don’t care about you, you or you
******* CAR
I’ll walk with a purpose because in this whirlpool I can’t have a purpose
So I’ll pretend and walk, walk upward, look forward
I see you, sir, I see you, your eyes feast upon my flesh
You’ll never get me but you sure as hell will get to me

Beady-eyed

I hope the sun will melt your scummy body into these streets, and you’ll burn with them!

This place is beautiful I’m telling you
The Great Wall of China couldn’t compare to its concrete magnificence
I’m dying with it; I’ll take five deep breaths and revel in the fumes of progress
I’ll be on your postcards
We aren’t just Any Town, USA
We are the future *******!

And I’m smiling but I’m melting and the flesh, the smell of flesh, unbearable
I’ll take ***** air any day
But before it’s too late, tell those ignorant foreigners
Tell them they can have it too!
We are coming fast

Dying from starvation, dying from hurricanes, dying from AIDS

That’s old news
Tell them they can be beautiful too
And die clutching the remote,
The remote of freedom

CNN
playing
quietly
in
the
background

given cutest toys,
they drew, charcoaled
evil monsters.

eyes bleeding lead,
fingers bled,
graphite stained.

asked to draw
things they loved,

created Things.

the novice drew her sewing set.

half term, big schoool.

sbm

an under 30 year old should be partying right now,
gimmicks of chums  and the laid leases on the daisies -
well -  not this one,  he's finishing off a second beer
of his feline promenade  that's english suburbia twirls
rather than a grand archway  of paris -
sitting underneath the sea of black and the moon
marked clearly  hardly scythe or fully chubby -
somewhere half-way between both -
well, the beer was blossom, the cigarette
a morbier cheese - and the traffic,
this traffic night traffic - watching it on
collier row road  by the aquarium store
on the brick up-stand, sometimes the moon,
sometimes the traffic - busy bees and dressed and
attired - ready crowd pleasers - i was there once,
hardly a success story, from pedigree pampering
self-conscious bewilderment, to a near-homeless
mutt ragged with 3 weeks of unwashed hair
prolonged by wetting it -
hardly a stink, but still the grease from the pollution;
and lie the children of dentists are told,
pea sized amount of toothpaste, brush quickly
under 30 seconds... go over it, and as nicotine staining
proved prior to this tactic, indeed teeth became
nicotine stained, now using less toothpaste and
shortening the brushing to under 30 if not under
10 seconds... my teeth have no nicotine stains...
after all, we need dentists and what not, we need
to feed them, we need the middle-men to tell us
it takes 3 minutes and a thumb's length of toothpaste
to get the job done, twice a day...
indeed, my mouth was converted into a toilet -
it's mint in my mouth, it's charcoaled roses on my neck
and cheeks, it's quasi-mint under my armpits
of anti-perspiration unshaken can snow muck,
i'm well oiled like Cleopatra - i have babe powder
on my *** - all the pleasant toiletries you know -
but what i don't have and you won't ever give me
is the smell, the smell like Jack Daniels from the
brothel and the sweet taste of the girls -
see, a pea sized dollop of toothpaste and under 10 second
brushing, and still the nicotine staining doesn't
coat the inner side of your chop chopper chops;
ah but still getting drunk watching saturday night traffic,
everyone's so busy i figured the best job around
was to get a profession in laziness.

Time beats her pulse into
charcoaled stillness:
Persistence reminding a heart
to keep going

The girl lived in the wild,
For she was the wolf child.
She ran with her pack every night,
Howling in the moon light.
One day an old woman came,
Soon the girl became tame.
Years went by,
Every night the wolves would cry.
Still, years carried on,
But the girl was long gone.
Finally, she returned,
Only to find her old home burned.
She ran into the cave,
The scene was a charcoaled grave.
There was one wolf surviver,
And he spoke to her,
“You’ve been gone for many years,
Thats when we met one of our greatest fears.
I hope you found what you were looking for,
Because the pack is no more.
My life is near its end,
Goodbye my old freind.”
The girl stared at the wolf in shock,
Her stomach sinking like a rock,
“But I found my real family!
Can’t you be happy for me?”
The wolf looked at her with a grim face,
“Wasn’t This your rightful place?
I thought we were your real family,
Guess you don’t agree.”
The girl opened her mouth to speak,
But the wolf collapsed because he has grown too weak.
The wolf shed a tear,
“Guess this is goodbye, my dear.”

Moment,
A suicide letter I write in 8th grade.
I heat metal chains
with my straightener.
Press.
Watch as sink holes
begin to expand in my hand.

Maybe,
A list of considerations.
Starting to see the crimson crust,
the weeping sores,
furrowed skin,
the combust of myself as beautiful.

Mimic,
I think I am copying my mother.
She sinks into her sheets,
a mess soaking into a towel.
Us only speaking when she finds
something to yell about.

Maniac,
The day I forgot to wear long sleeves.
My mother takes my straightener,
metal chains, scissors, “You’re crazy”
Pens curler, pencils, I’m Crazy.

Maternal,
I try to find a mother in a therapist.
Scar cream fills the sink holes.
The left over sores only remind
me of the depressed image of ill bed sheets.

Moral,
Learning that misshaping myself
would never fix the sick in her voice.
Watching as my hand
Extinguished the charcoaled
Sores with new skin.

Memory,
Looking at my left hand
and the scars that have
become only small ashes
of a fire.
Only a moment.

©DelaneyMiller

Existing is comparable to being
stuck inside of a movie theater,
watching the scenes of my life
projected on a screen that is
small enough to represent the
size that I feel.

On that screen would not be a
film that is vibrant in color and
filled with hues found in daylight,
a sight that would be considered
dazzling to the average person.

A black and white motion picture
always was better-suited to my personality,
painting a more honest image of both
the darkness that rests inside me
and of the specks of white light that
sporadically interrupt the infinite canvas of
charcoaled paint that
long ago dried on the
crumbling walls of my brain.

These layers of paint keep
thickening with age
and the heaviness stopped
feeling artistic quite some time ago.
It refuses to be washed away by
compliments, or what I perceive to be
sugar-laced lies told because
spreading goodness is man's civil duty.

But if I'm being honest to goodness,
believing that the slightest
trace of beauty lives within my organs
fills me from head to toe with fear because
the beauty people often see is
the kind that is tragic and
romanticized to new extremes in the
twisted culture that we call ours.

I do not wish to be art anymore.
My life is not a movie plot
waiting to be predicted,
and my mind is not a painting
meant to be criticized.

I want nothing more than to
be whatever creation I was
placed on this earth to be,
and I need at least one person to
accept the parts of me that were
accidental and poorly designed.
I need someone to love me
despite the malfunctions of my making.

-mp

Time to leave my darkness
onyx clothes to blend in my murky skies.
Placed down, back pressed on charcoaled street.
Eyes extend to the constellation above
sparkling brightness bursting through the coal.
The beauty of  nature’s life,
eyes closed to suppress the hope within those stars.
Time has evaded me as I wait to become road ****.
Goose bumps on a summer night,
death is stubborn.
Resting here alone, isolated again.
Slow traffic spoiling my intention.
Forsaken control,
muscles clenched as I fade into my pavement.
Heart stomping with anticipation.
Who will extinguish my fire?
Inflicting pain onto someone’s life, while I escape mine
Seems selfish!
With unsealed eyes,
the air ripens and shifts.
A breeze winningly lifting me.
Tingling body, feeling alive.
Jolted up, leaving the black pavement.
I stay nearby, waiting to see the driver.
The car who would have killed me.
An older black haired woman driving a black car
She looks like my mother.
How ironic.

© Jl 2015

I put my fingers to this screen, pen to paper, a retrospect connecting two beings.
I paint modern Latin into charcoaled emotions. Digital inked expressions raging to be exclaimed.
A grey ball burst into a colorful mess.
I’ve finally begin to enjoy the flow of images that have been clustered inside this membrane.
Scribe my boy, scribe with the madness that has detained you for an inconceivable amount of time.
I cry as this ecstasy is so refreshing and this sorrow is so sublime.