1
Though still within our infancy,
we strive to thrive, but woefully
we flash and flaunt our 'primacy',
display our trophies pridefully.

Our terra firma ecstasy
destroys survival's harmony,
lays waste to life on land and sea.
Mankind, thy name is vanity!

By doubting Nature's regnancy,
defying laws with levity,
we strain our spheroid's symmetry
(perhaps a fatal fallacy?)

for, swallowed in the 'world of we',
we feed on vain insanity
with thoughts beyond eternity -
so strange when looked at mortally.

No use to seek a remedy
ensconced in ancient prophecy
for if not handled skillfully,
as clay we'll pay the penalty.

                              2
The Moguls rule with cruel decree,
control the crowds like puppetry,
pursuing greed addictively
with no accountability.

The wind, it reeks of Royalty
(awash in waves of perfidy)
while blowing ’cross the peasantry
(eclipsed in clouds of treachery).

The Queen, well steeped in snobbery,
sits, preening proud Her pedigree,
on throne of sculpted ebony
while sipping Sect immodestly;

to sate Her Regal Majesty,
a caviar clad canapé
is served with golden cutlery
by maidens bent submissively.

The King is bailed from bankruptcy
by Knaves who hoodwink artfully
the down-and-outer evictee
who wallows in their lenity.

Forsooth, the Money Monarchy
exalts the dollar dynasty
engaged in highway robbery
by Peacocks plumed in finery.

Yes, Jesters and the Fools agree
to truckle to duplicity
and laugh about it witlessly.
Long live the peon's penury!

                          3
To champion an oddity
(like two times twelve is fifty three)  
one reaches to theology
through paths of circularity.

In bygone trials of travesty
the doubters, draped in blasphemy,
endured the pain and agony
inflicted by the papacy.

Inspired by the Trinity
fanatics bent cosmology
in geocentric fantasy
while Bruno burned for heresy;

and aged women, randomly
accused of wicked witchery
by justice framed in infamy,
were racked and shown no clemency

That epoch of credulity
(when savants fostered sorcery
and practiced ancient alchemy)
arose in dark age quackery

as clerics dripping piety
(while raging, raving rabidly)
pervaded thralled society
with callous inhumanity;

'repent', they bellowed, 'verily,
forsake the world's iniquity,
live lives of want and chastity,
and give your gelt to God through me'.

                    4
The Masters make a mockery
of freedom and democracy
by holding down the uppity,
released from shackled slavery,

now fettered in a factory
else strewn across the Bowery,
still chained in bonds of bigotry,
immersed in seas of poverty.

And colliers, tapping balefully
in sunken-mine solemnity,
yet thrum a mournful monody
some call the digger's elegy.

To children, pale and raggedy
(behind a day of drudgery),
the boss man, oh so gallantly,
bestows a penny, niggardly;

though some are fed (belatedly),
their eyes recede in apathy
while bellies bulge, inflatedly,
with mothers watching, wretchedly.

When met with health adversity
or broken bone infirmity,
the pauper dangles helplessly
with no insurance policy;

and those engulfed in lunacy
are ailing blobs left floating free
in ******-dream obscurity -
a mired madhouse odyssey.

Ignoring mankind's unity,
the rich and poor dichotomy
breeds dismal doomed finality,
eventual nihility.

                        5
Renewing days of chivalry,
wild warriors fighting valiantly
bring freedom neath the gallows tree
while blending blood and burgundy

to toast the slaughtered enemy,
and so convince the colony
to cede with smile on bended knee
and yield her diamonds, silk and tea.

At first they call the cavalry
and then again the infantry,
so proudly primped in panoply,
with arms from finest armory

(embraced in hands so tenderly
bestow benign atrocity) -
and soon atomic weaponry
will extirpate posterity.

                          6
Misusing high technology
(to feed the face of gluttony)
depletes our Rock of energy,
now slowly dying thermally.

Our gadgets breathing CFC
fuel ozone holes' immensity
while cloud bursts, raining acidly,
wilt woods in their entirety,

and rivers, tainted chemically,
polluted biologically,
refill our cups methodically
and drown our souls organically.

Adjusting genes mechanically
may well blot out the bumble bee
annulling fruits' fecundity,
but brings big bucks reliably.

We wager perpetuity
to revel momentarily
in shadow-like obscurity
ignoring the futility,

but if we bet unknowingly
on fickle fate's contingency
and thereby act haphazardly
we're doomed to lose the lottery.

                 7
The modern day bureaucracy
abuses trust egregiously ,
embeds itself in obloquy
and offers no apology.

It paints the past in reverie
to camouflage the tendency
to strip away our privacy
which paves the path to tyranny.

With earlobes lurking furtively
that listen surreptitiously,
and eyeballs peering piercingly
we've lost cerebral sovereignty,

and those who dare to disagree
must hide away in secrecy
else crowd a black facility
(with water board anxiety).

                  8
Yes, sans responsibility,
our marble in this galaxy
will crumble in catastrophe
ere ever reaching puberty…

fROM THE dESK OF THE pOET**

I'm embarrassed to admit this. The night before last I ate an excessive amount of Sour Chewy Sweettarts. If you've ever had them you know that just one or two have enough toxic chemical dust sprinkled on them to make your mouth numb for several minutes. Well I got into a rhythm of eating one, then adding one to it, then another for three, then four, then five, then  six all the way to seven at one time. In that experiment alone I consumed no fewer than 26 Sour Chewy Sweetarts and even that was after having warmed up with several single helpings.

Sour Chewy Sweettarts were at one time marketed under the name  "Shockers". Let me tell you they should have respected the truth in advertising inherent with that label. The intensity of tartness conferred from all these ***** Wonka treats was remarkable and very well could have been the most face-squinching sourness I've experienced in my fifty-plus years.

The unfortunate downswing of these hijinks is that I developed a chemical burn that spread across the entirety of my tongue all the back to and including the area where my uvula hangs.

It's my own stupid fault. I could feel the chemicals eating through too many layers of cells long before the administration of candy pellets had reached four, even five-count multiples. By the time I had the seven pack ****** down to gel the burning was so bad I had to squint my eyes. The question that found priority amongst all that came to me at that moment was "how long is my mouth going to be so alternately sensitive and numb that I won't be able to eat my beloved jalapenos and spicy vittles?" A couple of days later and that answer still has not been found, although progress has been made to the point where I have faith it WILL indeed heal...you know how paranoid I can think sometimes, surely my mouth will never heal from THIS god forsaken self-inflicted injury, after all, I deserve it, hence the term "SELF inflicted". It's nothing but payback being it's usual self. If I never get to taste the wondrous seasonings of a well-mixed chili recipe cooked to perfection by someone who really knows how to make chili...if I never sigh with uninhibited satisfaction after downing a swig of Dr. Pepper or Miller's High Life or Guinness Stout...if I never again will be able to tell the difference between prime Angus beef and succulent Maine Lobster it is for good reason that I've been deprived of these tender mercies. It's because I knew when to stop and I kept on eating, though tears had begun to form.

No, it's more than that. It's because Universal Forces were all the while begging me, whispering in  my ears, "Stop! Stop! Enough! No more!" What would have happened if Joseph had ignored the Lord on that cool December night? Gabriel let Mary in on what was going down, what do you think would have happened if she'd gotten jealous of Joseph and disregarded the angel because he didn't have quite as much clout as her husband's Messenger? What would have happened? Nobody knows. But I know what would have happened if I'd heeded the advice of the benevolent spiritual  beings who were trying to warn me to lay off of the Sour Chewy Sweettarts. I wouldn't be sitting here typing on the hp laptop about how I got the chemical burn from hell.

But it seems like valuable lessons may be learned at every turn. So it is that with almost every experience I am resigned to also look at this one as the hard earned silver lining. Just what exactly have I learned? Well, first of all I've learned that it would probably be a good idea in the future to regulate severely the amount of Sour Chewy Sweettarts (aka Shockers) I eat in one sitting. If I ever eat them again, If the emotional scars of the chemical burn will free me in my sweet tooth's cravings for Wonka Sugar to ever again opt for the sour stuff. I learned that eating Vlasic Kosher Dill Pickles with such a freshly de-sensitized/throbbing chemically-scorched tongue is a prospect that shares much in common with a full day of taste-testing ghost peppers. Only on a slightly smaller scale does the briny pickle juice pack it's own searing acidic punch.

Other lessons? Oh I'm sure I could fill a book with lessons this has taught me. Writing that book might be the most useful, benevolent gesture I ever offered my fellow man but I don't know if I can do it. But if I did, this would have to be the first couple of lines on the very fist page:

Make sure you're going to have a LOT of alone time the morning after.

But that's just plain good advice.

And like that
my voice has been stolen away
Anxiety barricades like invisible steel walls
Trapped, I’m left banging with clenched fists
A prisoner within my own head
My brain a chemically imbalanced warden
My mind in solitary confinement

It took sixteen years to become acquainted with my old self.

The self that:

Could not write on crumpled papers,
Or sleep in untucked sheets,
Played her scales robotically,
Left no word incomplete.
Labelled all the cupboards,
Books were organized by name,
This was the life I led.
I never knew that it would change.

it took 4 weeks to fall in love with my new self

the
self
tha
t

writes on ollld receipts,
   kicks the covers        off the bed
     ~lets my fingers play freely~
         not every sentence has an en-
            stores shoes with coffee mugs!!
               writes in mArGiNs to save time
                  not all rules need to be   f o l l o w e d
                    not all poems need to

                        sound the same

who knew that little pill
would teach me how to live
not erase the 'me' that showed
but bring out the 'me' that hid
16 years of worry
of obsessive, anxious thoughts
who knew that little pill
would change me
I,
for one,
did not
.

- p. winter

Breaking waves crashed upon my feet
toes poking into the dampened sand
on my face I felt the sun
and considered its warmth and power
got lost in quiet reflection
and found myself searching deep
within my own soul for some answers
to the great universal questions
but I did not know why we are on earth
or by what mode our story began
I was just as the sand, but a tiny speck of dust
one in the cornucopia of humanity

the wind blew a swirl of sand
large enough to partially blot out the sun
wind gusts with such force and power
I could no longer see my reflection
but stood still for fear of the ocean so deep
when I heard the slightest whisper of an answer
as if the wind sought to respond to my questions
surrounding life on earth
and how it all began
from just asteroid dust
to the gross expansion of humanity
I looked down at my bare feet

I felt on my back and neck the heat of the sun
Worried I was being burned by its power
from both sides with the sea’s reflection
I stepped into the deep
and in the darkness I found some answers
to my most pressing question
about the source of water on earth
and if colliding comets are where it began
mingling with asteroid dust
to create a hospitable environment for humanity
from fins to feet
and back to dust and sand

the frigid water squished me with such power  
there was no more time for peaceful reflection
as I sank further into the deep
no longer looking for answers
I had but one question
was this to be the end of my time on earth
when it feels like it as only just began
am I to just become more dust
catching in the dry and voiceless throats of humanity
I sank fathoms and feet
until I lightly touched down on the sand
but I could see no sun

I tried to locate my reflection
but my own face was lost in the deep
I cried out for an answer
but my mind only reeled with more questions
mainly relating to if I was still on the earth
had I been taken back to when time began
before water and dust
long before the taint of humanity
I felt as though my feet
were caught in a quagmire of mud and sand
unable to ever be dried by the sun
never touched by ultra-violet power

distorted and skewed as the water was so deep
but holding answers
to my questions
it came up from the very earth
and I began
to strip away the flotsam and dust
and stand up for all of humanity
in an instant is was just at a few feet
stopped suddenly in the sand
and shown me the grace of the sun
in all its glory and power
I saw my own reflection

I, at once, knew the answer
I no longer needed the questions
we were part of the earth
that was how we began
from magnetized and electrified dust
we mounted a charge to become humanity
growing legs and standing upon feet
walking away from the shore and sand
to stand in a meadow grown by the sun
feel the mountain power
and experience the quiet stream reflection
that can take a Being so deep

free from the bane of answering questions
I felt free to fall into the earth
become as it had began
dissolve back to dust
and let go the trapping of humanity
trade in my five-toed feet
and melt into the dunes of sand
warmed by the setting sun
granted power
through reflection
there was nothing so deep
as to have all the answers

I sat upon the red clay earth
thinking about how it all began
scratching around for a handful of dust
that represented humanity
I tossed it into the air and it flew a few feet
and landed amongst the sand
sat baking in the sun
void of power
lacking the ability for reflection
falling off the cliff into the deep
seeking answers
finding only more questions

was this how it all began
truly, no alien force or god hand, just dust
morphing into what we know as humanity
clapping hands and stomping feet
on the chemically altered sand
drawing energy from the sun
to give our homes power
no longer seeking inner reflection
to anything running very deep
instead seeking only safe answers
by asking mundane questions
never considering one’s place on the earth

my teeth clamped tight and crunched some dust
wishing it were the bones of humanity
starting with toes and feet
eating mankind like the ocean does the sand
like comets to the sun
like power
does to those impoverished and lost in reflection
leaving bodies buried deep
offering no answers
to any child’s question
to the state of the earth
to how this all began

it started with the civilization of humanity
when we planted out feet
firmly into the sand
grew crops in the springtime sun
and felt the corruption of power
lost sight of our reflection
somewhere so deep
that the true answers
only come across as more questions
as we slowly destroy the earth
same way it all began
by turning the land into dust

I saw my feet sink into the sand and get burned by the sun
Its power caused a reflection and my soul sunk deep
Looking for answers to questions about the state of the earth
Then it began to all turn to dust and I watched the end of humanity

Searching your mind,  
Revealing your soul.  
A piece of my mind,  
Making you whole.  
The depths of your feelings,  
Defines the depths I will go.  
I know what I know,  
Time for me to show,  
How well though.
Like never before,
Here I go.  
Persuading your body,  
In so many ways,  
You're powerless to evade,  
The prowess of my ways.  
Caressing your tenderness.  
These moments your memory will replay;  
Haunting parts of your body in a special way.  
Reminiscent of this very day,  
Our parts bonding as we lay.  
Still influenced in ways you can't see,  
Rather feel, so its as real as can be.  
These unique pleasures bestowed upon you,  
Impaling your reality with my point of view.  
This abundance of energy; this vitality.  
A reflection of you and me.  
Enticing you mentally,  
controlling you physically,  
releasing you and me chemically.

The revolution will not take place in McDonald’s
Born out of lethargic, flaky or fickle bodies

Words and actions, powerful ammunitions
But vessels, our bodies, control those manifestations
An armament, the body
Matter without which revolution cannot happen

Us who struggle, while we waste away
Those invested in maintaining power and privilege
Don’t only safeguard their money
They protect their bodies too
And only that of the offspring
Invested in perpetuating power and privilege

They not only monopolize learning and leadership
As mechanisms of dominance and control
They run and eat to fuel that constant fight

Man, wealthy or poor
May give into the vise of fast food and intoxication
But those invested in control
Conscious of power and privilege are no fools
Fortified not only by lawyers and henchmen
But by doctors, fitness trainers, fresh harvests
Having the choice and access to fresh produce

Us colored children from the hoods, the barrios
Our moms, or dads, or single parents
Working month to month
Frustrated because we don't eat fruit and vegetables
Instead eating frozen, canned, chemically enhanced
Microwaveable dinners and junk foods

Skinny, chubby, or obese
Eating our twinkies, doritos, and coke
Can’t even run a block without running out of breath
Diabetes, heart disease, cholesterol, asthma, obesity
Not even looming in the back of our minds

We need youth to represent our communities
We need youth to fight for our communities
We need youth whose minds and stomachs are filled
Not with fodder and capitalist waste
But with food, ideas that fill them, fuel them
Not out of a temporary desire for satisfaction
Rather a prolonged political exercise to fortify themselves
As agents of a transformative process in the world

Frozen, canned, chemically enhanced lunches at school
Soda fountains, fried food, fast food, junk food
May always be subsidized, marketed, made affordable
To be part of your breakfast, lunch and or dinner

Still never reject an apple, orange or pear
Those with power and privilege
May not even have to think about
Their regimented diets
With endless fruits available to them

But for us, a single fruit made available to us
Has to be a daily reminder
An act of defiance
To chose to strengthen our bodies with it

A slippage of those invested in our chains
When the owners of industry
Have socialized us to think
Coca cola, pizza, and burgers
Are parts of our cultural identity
A modern industrialized upgrade
Our diet decisions driven by capitalist consumerism

There may be no specialized fitness trainers
Expensive equipment
Lush parks, jogging tracks, bicycle lanes, or bicycles
In our neighborhoods
But there is a space right next to your bed
Or a piece of floor where you live
And you have your body
Just do a few jumping jacks, push ups, sit ups

You need to have the patience and love
To protect and fortify not only your mind
But your body
To know that the more you fortify yourself
The more you are going to be able to fight exploitation
The more you are going to protect and fight
The ones you love, and even the ones
You won’t even realize you have saved as a result

We may not always have the access to healthy food
But we have the choice to request it collectively
In educational spaces and to take the initiative to exercise

Words do not echo.
Words do not cry.
Words do not,
Identify.

Scrambled and stirred,
Frozen and baked.
Pulled when needed,
Eaten to be fed.

Pieced together,
Black or white,
Laugh or fight,
Wrong or right.

A sound is bound by key,
A picture by color pigments,
Emotions chemically,
But words contain,
Everything,
And absolutely,
Nothing.

The same word
Can be
Completely
Different,
Depending who, what, how
When it was read
Or written.

What if every word,
Was positive in meaning?
Harmless,
Could not
Destroy feelings.

Words have no senses.
Words have no bounds.
No touch, sight, taste, or smell.
Words have no sound.

Words have no sound.
Unless read aloud.

In the mixing bowl
thou hast perfected praise.
Conforming to your mould,
your flaky crust begins to rise.

Steamy and buttery out of the oven,
you make my life chill,
when the morsel of butter enters the
    blueberry canyon
to have its fill

Chemically inducing nirvana,
a world in the eye of God,
blueberry bursts of epic epicness
down my throat you trod.

In my stomach you swim, my friend.
"It is not good for muffin to be alone,"
pop goes the cherry muffin to join you,
and in swims a blueberry clone.

Nom nom nom.

I think it's time to do an update
Of The Seven Deadly Sins
Most people do not know them all
Sit down and let's begin
I'm not really religious
But, I think they're a bit stale
So, I think I'll spruce them up a bit
In this my sinly tale
Gluttony, a sin of course
I think it should be changed
With an asterick, obesity
There, that's one sin rearranged
With dinner plates much larger now
And fast food all around
I don't think God prepared the world
For the obese people we've found
Hyper-obese children
Fed from chemically laden food
I think that gluttony can be renamed
To Obesity....don't you?
Greed...there's not much to say
Unless you're not in the one per cent
You know, the ones who have the cash
While we're still making rent
Unless things are all equal
This will never go away
Someone always wants all that you've got
There's not much more for me to say
Envy....not a really bad one
To me, it should not be on the list
Although some might seem envious
Of that bracelet on your wrist
I mean, really, how is envy
Something that should condemn your soul to hell
I mean I like my friends TV
But, I know he likes mine as well
Condemning both our mortal souls
For being envious of our tellies
That just does not hold water
Exactly like my wellies
Lust...I know, a good one
It gets confused a lot with love
To me the only difference is
With lust, you wear a glove
Lust and envy...make them one
A piggyback sin, if you will
It's like combining two commandments
Thinking evil thoughts before you ****
I lust for things I can not have
And for some, that would do me in
But, I can't see how lusting for a big tv
Can be a mortal sin
I think that  additions should be made
now, while I'm here writing
I think that reality tv is one
To be a sin it is inviting
Hoarding, that should make the list
I mean, most of them are lazy
I think how one defines celebrity
Has gotten rather hazy
Now, sloth...can be removed I think,
Or at the least, re-defined
Today, they're abusers of the system
It's the avoidance of work they say
So, here's what's in my mind
One who's known as sloth like
Avoids spiritual work as well
I say, cut them off of welfare
It's not worth sending them to hell
They'd be getting a free trip there
Again, avoiding doing stuff
Just cut their payments off and then
They'll work and quit their guff
Anger, keep it on the list
Because, it's a good one, I admit
Of all the ones upon the list
I think Anger's a good fit
Finally, we get to Pride
And I'm confused
I think the sin is blurry
And the word is overused
Pride of Man, it is a sin
but, aren't you proud of your young child?
when they go and score a winning goal
This as a sin, I think is wild
I am proud of my home country
And I hope that you are too
But, pride itself, it's not a sin
Aren't you proud of what you do?
Gay people have their pride parade
They are proud of who they are
But, pride itself....come on now...let's
Draw the line, not go so far
Combine the list of deadly sins
With commandments, make an app
Change punishments around a bit
Instead of limbo, give a slap
I think that things are sinful
And I know you won't agree
But, this is how I look at things
It's just me being me

I've been focused on nutrition
sense before recognition
of a requirement of nutrients
for my life.

I eat for nutrition
I shunned the processed
chemical ick
a lifetime ago it seems
no longer remembering the taste
of chemically created
food stuffs.

though I know if I were to get a taste
it would satisfy my buds
they were made with my buds
in mind
hijacked my senses
lied and lied and lied
told my body it didn't need
nutrition
that is could live off of
intuition
and stuff in boxes
and bags
and cans

I've become my own food processor
now
I have mouths to feed
now I know what to feed
and where they make feed from
so we stick to the grass-fed

I'll teach them how to eat
even before how to read
its just how I see it
once that sugar laden
red
chemical construction
touches their lips
they will instantly desire more
Twain and Fitzgerald
will take them longer to digest.
so these are my priorities
now.
I am a nutrition seeker
a truth seeker
and I believe I come from
a line of healers
all who knew nutrition
is the key to life,
here.
the basic building blocks,
the amino acids
of life,
here.
when you're nourished
it all makes more sense
but stay out of those center aisles
their chemical composition
is too dense
my kidney could no longer clean
the code of food stuffs.

My strong little kidney
I'm so proud of it for
releasing its grip on its twin.
it wasn't for us anyways

Black power!

I stopped hiding from my roots, I do not let my natural tightly coiled strands become chemically manipulated into bone straightness. I'm no longer hiding from my roots.
My natural hair will represent this

I went on an interview today for a position as a dental assistant, checked out the office on the website right after and then
oh no
The staff is all white, what if I don't get hired because of...

Black Power!

I stopped hiding from my roots; the sun is not my enemy. I no longer veil from its rays because the fear of getting "blacker." Look at that skin; love its rich deep melanin. Follow my movement; I'm no longer hiding from my roots.
My black skin will prove this

The other night I went out with a couple of new friends,
to be more precise they were homemade Alantians.
Born and raised in Atlanta!
It was a nice warm night, and at the end of it they wanted to take some pics to post up on their instagrams. But guys wait; let’s get into the light, I don’t want to appear all dark next to you light brights. You are all mixed which makes you effortlessly good lookin'
snap
Ugh I hate it I'm to black, don’t post that.

I stopped hiding from my roots, I rock my tightly coiled natural strands.
I'm not ashamed of who I am, Look at my skin and its deep rich melanin  
Walking with my fist raised up in the air to represent what I on a daily contradict.

Black Power!

Forgive me, I'm new to this. When I was growing up the things that embodied our black nation was never accepted.

Black power! I'm ready to follow this radical movement.

Everything with us seems perfectly entwined,
Like Lego locking together,
It just fits like we should know but don't,
Is this another life lesson I wonder,

You are actually perfection on a plate,
All my wishes confirmed for my eye's to feast,
You listen, converse, laugh, speak sense,
Your like my concious more innocent,

When alone in my thoughts I know,
I fell in love along the way,
I'm evaporated by your honesty,
Our souls melt into the Ether,

Alien yet familiar fears dwell,
A fool for love and lust,
Heart brashly on sleeve,
Afraid I'll chemically combust,

I cant see your thoughts either,
Are you just honeymooning this new behaviour,
Don't misread that I'm wanting it fast,
My heart prays to God It will last,

All I need is something more concrete,
I cant sweep this away just for encase,
Every waking moment I long to embrace,
In you my love knew we would meet,

But for now we go with the flow,
Fear you will bin me for another,
All helplessly in love and lost,
I'm almost certain my heart'll pay the cost,

We lock just like Lego blessed from above,
Humanoid Lego a gift of true love.

© Susan Michelle Baker

Hair burned into beautiful submission
Face acrylically defined and chemically composed
Adornments meticulously chosen
Scent tested and approved
Smile practiced and performed
I am a porcelain doll
Sipping tea, at 6 am in the quiet of a sleepy-city apartment
Porcelain doll dainty wrists
Washing dishes, feeding cats
Folding linens, singing hymnals
Praying for peace and safety
Porcelain doll knitting sweaters
And folding paper cranes
Reading poems, setting tables
Wearing cardigans and pearls
Porcelain doll decorating cupcakes
Lighting scented candles
Watering potted plants and humming childhood lullabies
With my porcelain painted lipstick mouth


But lipstick can be dark
Eyes lined black as city alley ways
There is anger at injustice
The world outside the confines of a pastel doll house
It’s messy
It’s hard
It’s iron and concrete and coal
And I am too
Biking through the brick metropolis
Sunglasses and headphones
And anarchist literature
Evenings spent sprinting through the smog
Heartbeats synchronized to the crude drumming of the city
So hard to impress
I’m on the metro
Eyebrows structured and defined
And adorned with a calculated air of apathy
See me social justice march
Down highways with fervently entitled youths
See me armed against misogyny
Until my peers learn to better conceal it
See me smoking cigarillos
Drinking black coffee
Breathing the tainted air of the city that birthed me
And chanting manifestoes.

But my manifesto can be love
And love can conquer anger and fear
And hatred
Love can reconcile, it can erase timidity
And it can abolish resentment
Let it wash my face and take the need for vengeance from my spirit
Let it replace the thirst for power with thirst for truth.
I burn incense
And wear long skirts
Naked face and braless lazy days
Reading pacifism in the park
I walk far to find pure air to breathe
I sit and deconstruct my dichotomy
Under a wise and ancient tree
I trace myself backwards and forwards
I meditate on the paths I have traveled
I cry for the things I have seen
And for the things I have done
I contemplate transcendence
I drink wine and listen to folk music
On the terrace of my home
I bike barefoot to buy Indian takeout
And eat it in silence on the floor of an empty room

I think only of death
And resurrection
Of betrayal and redemption
Of opposites and compliments
And how to progress in knowing how divergent pieces of myself can learn to harmonize
I think about minimalism and materialism
Sentimentalism
And swords and pens
And how this race I run was rigged from the start
I think about blackberries
And the complexity of their literary and symbolic significance
I think about the number seven as I see it reoccurring in every possible sequence and equation
I think about God,
And TS Eliot
And If I dare disturb the universe
I think about porcelain dolls and ****** activists and ***** hippies
I think about war and peace and politics
About corruption and poverty and imperialism
About western ideals and conspiracy theories
And communism
I think about being radical,
And how both sides of this ideological war are defined by fear
And I think about love, as radical but defined by the absence of fear
The absolution of fear
And how I am fairly certain it is the answer
I think about the inevitability of art and war
how they create each other
how they destroy each other
inspire each other and annihilate each other
and how there is nothing that is innocent.
I think about pain and privilege
And stacked decks of cards
I think about dreams and nightmares
And prophesy.
I think about the darkness within me
Tendencies to lie and manipulate and steal
The darkness that I know could make me very great
But alone in the ashes of the world
I think of the curse of wealth and power
And I try to evaluate my motives
And the driving force of my ambition
But I don’t know.
I think about grace and all the things I don’t understand
And toil and fate and destiny
The shape of these things, their origins and culminations
And what this black box of secrets contains.
I think about so many things,
Until everything I was on the outside is gone.
My body is gone
My painted face and sculpted hair
My varnished nails and pierced ears
All my clothes and appendages and freckles are gone
My blood evaporated
My brain an invisible energy in the wind.
My home and street
And city
Are gone.
And even in such complete concentration
When it is only my essence and nothing else
And I transcend throughout my past and future
When I am spread thin
And stretched into the corners
When I fill the cracks and crevices
And melt into the pores of everything
And my spirit is awaked to a dimensionless reality
Even then,
Scio Nihil

I know nothing. .

I wish I wasn't so upset by a lack of music in my ears,
I feel so alone when no one's there to dry my tears.
I'm wasting time trying to figure out what I feel,
Instead of realizing all the things I have that are real.
I've skipped all the good and jumped to the bad,
I'm a worst-case-scenario thinker that's always sad.
Questioning intentions and arguing compliments
Instead of worshipping myself and my accomplishments.
Tell me why I should have the right to complain,
Besides the fact that I'm burning alive in pain,
A mental pain that exists due to a chemical imbalance
Kind of ironic that a libra would encounter that challenge.
But nevertheless, here I am wanting to scream,
Asking God why I can't have what I dream.
Not sure why I feel so empty when I'm alone,
but when people are near, I turn hard as stone.
I'm a catch 22, a ******* hypocrite, too.
Being a happy person is hard work when you're naturally blue.
Fighting the same battles, years after years,
An internal struggle to justify all these **** tears.
But when the music is gone, it all comes to the surface,
I am an endless cliche of a girl with no purpose.

The kids chemically induced
Reduced to ego threnody.

Amidst chaos he possessed influence.
Would disregard coincidence
And curse at the omnipotent.
Known as lonely pessimist
Could laugh at their own ignorance.
Pops was drunk.
Waved goodbye
to any kind of innocence.
Patronized
Sympathized
Irrelevant
Sunk below the sediment.
If humans could be celibate
This death would have ended it
Instead of only him.

This planet orbits a yellow sun like ours.
It is in the Optimum Zone to support life.
Sure enough it has a wide variety of flora and fauna.
Highly intelligent life has evolved in its seas and oceans.
Its continents, however, are dominated by a species of primates.

Over the past 300 of the planet’s years they have developed
Some fairly high technology.
But they remain carnivores
Who regularly commit genocide.
They cut down swathes of natural forest
To grow chemically protected
Genetically modified nutrition-sources.
And they mine their planet empty
Of its mineral riches.
The planet’s ecosystem is being rapidly destroyed
By them.

Socially and psychologically they remain primitive.
Yet they possess the means to blow their world
To pieces.

With heavy heart I have to advise
We sign this planet
“No Entry”
For the foreseeable future.
“Forbidden” indeed.
A planet we call MW Orion 8478-3
That its natives call
That ever so common name:
“Earth”.

Paul Butters

Three summers ago
I loved a boy
who's hair when moved
by wind or hand
was always magical,
who possessed tanned skin
and eyes so blue
they were waters to drown in.
Around him I felt enchanted
and he was enthralling.
He captivated me,
turned me into a slave of my emotions,
with words and promises
I knew he couldn't make come true.
"Run," my friends urged me, "as fast as you can."
But without him life was jaded,
their warning
had been voiced too late.
Already I had pricked my finger,
on a spinning wheel
and fallen head over heels
in that chemically induced slumber
we sometimes call love.
He opened a door for me that led straight
into a world filled with
bushes of roses
and buckets of sunshine,
I promptly forgot that too much sunshine
scalds the skin
and turns it a burning, vivid red,
almost as vivid
as the crimson blood
a touch from the thorns of roses draws.
I knew I had been warned so I stayed there
bleeding and burning,
swearing to myself as I suffered
that I would never again
give my heart to someone
who would not give me theirs in return.

This summer, three years later,
being around you
means feeling like being able to combust spontaneously
and I cannot forget
the sensation of my skin in contact with yours.
It made me realise
that though I have always loved you,
I started loving you a little bit too much.
You are my every thought.
They say you never make the same mistake twice,
that it is your own stupid fault the second time around.
But if it really was a choice
why then is it
that I spend all my nights these days
pleading with the universe
to let me unlove you.

(In response to "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg)

I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by sanity,
seen bold new visionaries resign themselves to clinical long-haul deaths,
drug-numbed to their own suffering, and everyone else’s;
seen raving revolutionaries give up, retire to minimalist Swedish-designed armchairs,
and never move again;
seen the horizon dim and draw ever closer,
and the tenacious lunatics with the wanderlust to stray beyond
become fewer and further between.

There are uglier destructive forces than madness:
Consider cognitive rehabilitation.
Consider absolutely nothing immeasurable.
Consider utter rationality.

Ritalin, lithium, risperidone, duloxatine. [I thought I heard a man speaking in tongues,
then I realised he was simply reading out loud from a pharmaceutical directory.]
Imagine a generation of loan brokers and loss adjustors;
Hicks gone these past seventeen years and Leary still alive;
sharks floating in formaldehyde;
all true human significance lost in pretentious symbols,
and repetition
and repetition
and repetition,
and no one raging.
No one raging for real.

Where are Plato’s maniacs now?
Where are their lunatic songs?
I hear only the steady, rational tapping of the accountants’ calculators,
occasionally, some lost and lonely *** crying out for one more shot,
and the PA system calling the next patient through, the doctor will see you now,
or asking would the owner of a light blue Honda Civic please move their vehicle,
as it’s blocking in a black Lexus full of lawyers with an ambulance to chase.

Is there really nowhere between here
and the bellow and buzz, the shiver and shriek of the asylum?
Someplace between this sterile, static, silent, windowless room
and the fizzing frenzy of the electroconvulsion suite,
there must be somewhere we might have paused and breathed and set up shop,
where we could have been happy – if we’d wanted to be –
and no more or less sane than we chose.

Dr Thompson saw it coming: the dawn of this new Age of Equilibrium.
He knew that football season was over, for good this time, and made his ballistic decision
to go stalk peacocks and hound Nixon through the Kingdom Hereafter,
assuring us, ‘Relax – This won’t hurt’.
He was right.

Safe and stable and sanitized, we can no longer follow your desperate, ***** verse.
Straitjacketed by reason, we perceive our world only in terms
of quantum and co-efficiency, of the logical and logistical,
of what can be conjured in the duration of the average commercial break,
of what can be computed to at least two decimal places.

We are the chemically castrated.
We are lobotomised by mutual consent.
We are the perfect ones: regular and moderate and so healthy, so functional.
We are the white strobing smiles of the toothpaste ads,
the poster children for good mental hygiene,
the footsoldiers of no more conflict.

We have lost our skill for the alchemy
that once distilled genius from the seething crucible of lunacy.
We medicate those whose vision would otherwise put our own to shame,
leave them as myopic and blinkered as the rest of us,
the breadth and depth and distance of their sight no longer a worry to anyone.

Give us back our madmen: we need them.
Give us back our crazed anthems, our burning shrouds, our leprous one-man-bands.
Give us back the fire and the filth and the fornication that kept us howling through
those endlessly polluted nights of Windscale and Watergate, McCarthy and motorcades, Hanoi and Hiroshima.

Please.  Give us back our madmen.
I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by sanity.

there's a fat plastic tube taped sub-clavian carrying ruby fluid
from a clear bag that hangs overhead
draining mysteries of modern alchemy
into your body, its lifetime measured, silent droplets
inside a hermetically sealed hourglass we can only watch, not touch
but they don't change you

by protocol your nurse wore her nitrile gloves doubled-up
lest she get this stuff on her fingers - it's toxic -
advised you to flush the toilet twice,
making certain to eliminate stray molecules that might
be exposed to sitting innocents

i should be in the next chair, holding your hand

we might share complimentary raspberry danish,
stare at a silent TV on the wall
as it broadcasts flashing pictures of calamity from
the latest war or storm savaged country
but we’ve been living there for years already
our home not populous enough to draw serious media attention;  

we’d wrestle sips of anemic coffee from free paper cups
yours going into a red can when you've finished
because that brilliant color insinuates itself into saliva, eventually
as it does to blood and *****;
i could take mine home

i'd read moving captions at the bottom of the screen
to know what's going on in the images
while you'd feign interest in this tedious world and remind me, again,
how life is tenuous

ask me the name of that dripping liquid just to see if i was listening,
an appellation alien - if life were fair it would be easier
but i’d get the pronunciation wrong
maybe it could be a French word i remember reading to you from a menu in Paris
we might paste it thickly, soft cheese onto torn chunks of baguette
savored between sips of cabernet from long stemmed glasses;
pronounce it “good” as if we could own it

****** and gigolette -
we’d stolen the whole earth that moment,
grinning like a pair of cat burglars at a cafe table where i'd held your hand
but here we are, old again, bitter enemies
for the moment, i'm glad for Ativan and Motrin,
the only names i can remember from your tray of saltines and ginger ale

instead, i'm sitting alone at home with cigarettes and bourbon,
more congenial poisons
staring at a white, unmoving ceiling, pretending I’m working
we're like that, you know, tug and tow - where you go,
i'm heart-bound to follow
Doctor Jack insists i'll live much longer, a little sicker after
i might adjust expectations for a worn-out liver, headaches,
possible blood pressure elevations; short warnings written on the label

while yours smile, with more tricks than carnival barkers
they say, now, a handful - or only two - more tricks up their sleeves,
the grinning, white-coated thieves
Jack smiles, pats my hand, a warm man

smoking is prohibited in the clinic
i'd hang from the window ledge to get the next nicotine fix,
but it won't open to alive, mowed grass outside -
these proceedings always sequester hidden behind curtains in private,
a secret art of undertakers doctoring flesh to look still-living,
love making in mid-evening darkness we've long forgotten

i’d draw deeply chemically-treated air, forget it’s now happening
remind myself a paternal need to stay healthy for survivors
while trying to avoid living in midst of your horrors,
a preoccupation that subsumes my mind

if you’re right - and you always are - how could i bury you?
when the dog died,
i dug her hole in our garden myself, deep through tree roots to bedrock,
then beyond, depth a measure of devotion;
carved a stone with my own fingernails, her name in a crossed heart
and we two cried like shivering babies
as we shoveled all the dirt back in to cover her

these are words of a weak man, selfish ******* that i am
and really, all of life's slumped over in my lap right now,
just this little girl sleeping
but i should be in the next chair
if you'd only let me sit there
again

In my chemical dependency class we have to write down days sober chemically, and says sober emotionally.

Days sober chemically: 55
Days sober emotionally: 75

But they don’t ask how many days it has been since I thought of you.

They don’t teach you how to control cravings for a person.

I could write a book on ways
to control the urges to smoke a joint,
but I am helpless as
to how to prevent myself from texting you.

I don’t have withdrawl symptoms from *** or *****.

I do have symptoms
of a broken heart.
I can’t remember the last time
I used, but I can remember the
last time I felt your skin
against mine.

Last time I took a shot was,
I don’t remember when.
Last time I felt your lips
against mine,
was on the 29th of
November.

I don’t have a craving for **** or *****,
but I do have a craving for you.

I can stop smoking whenever I want.
I can stop drinking whenever I want.

But I can’t quit you.
Because, baby, you’re the monkey on my back.

You don’t encourage me to drink or smoke,
You encourage me by existing.
They say that we all have the power to be sober,
But, what if I don’t want to be sober?

Because when I become sober from you,
Is when you have passed through.

Framed.
I surround myself with an abundance of its glorious aftermath.
A cheap thrill for the night.
Let a half hour soak in the wrath.
I've continued to overdose myself with an endless cycle of euphoria
a sinful, deadly deception-
a vindictive vice.
Where manslaughter may be the only token for temporary happiness.
Be hypnotized with me, no pressure
as I am eager to embrace a mouthful of its alluring poison
like candy,
sweet candy.
A marigo-round of dileberate madness.
I spin around;
it's the sensation that brings me back every **** time.
knowing I wont come back every time.
I'm addicted.
So very addicted,
atleast I can admit it.
It's the sweet taste of cotton mouth,
it's the beautiful realization I figured myself out.
Spin me.
Let the drug seep through my pores
and bless you all
Hold me.
Let your sensation be my only amusement for the night.
I crave it.
I wont let myself go through withdrawls.
I can't control its endless cycle of euphoria
After all,
my addiction is to be
chemically happy.