AWAKENING

Sleep and slumber, dreams of wonder... weaving,
morning’s vacuum broke the spell
Pitted pillow, note of parting... leaving,
“from your friend, a fond farewell”
Sunrise throbbing, twilight aching... grieving,
daydreams, flashbacks, nightmares knell
Pale phantasms, visions sneaking... thieving,
plot to fill the empty shell

12 DELIRIA

1st Delirium: COLLAPSES

Fractured sky bolts, billows bursting... rumbling,
heavens tighten, turn the vise
Horsemen saddle shafts of lightning... tumbling,
jagged highways must suffice
Ruptured skyways, hailstones crackling... crumbling,
naked pearls of paradise
Toxic tongues of laughter stinging... stumbling,
ocean buckets choked with ice
Droplets drumming, thunder muzzled... mumbling,
washed out whispers pay the price
Smothered blazes, cinders smoking... humbling,
ashes shaped in sacrifice

2nd Delirium: DESCENTS

Asphalt alleys, ashen faces... frowning,
blowing bubbles, chewing gum
Drinking ale from tavern tankards... downing,
moonlit beads of painted ***
Stony stars and sea misshapen... drowning,
humble rivers’ rhythms hum
Apparitions aspirating... clowning,
diamonds dying , minstrels strum
Incandescent candles conquered... crowning,
vacant vapours, cold and numb

3rd Delirium: FATES

Tempest turmoil, tapered turrets... holding,
dungeons, dragons, chains and racks
Wheels of fortune, Tarot temptress... molding,
Hangmen, Towers, One Eyed Jacks
Sand dune castles, cryptic candles... folding,
warping walls of liquid wax
Idols colder, combed and coddled... scolding,
hide in fissures, peek through cracks

4th Delirium: LOST SOULS

Sunken cities, pilgrims peering... gawking,
squinting eyeballs, blazing sun
Janus facing, shepherds chasing... stalking,
friends embrace before they shun
Tearooms steaming, tumult teeming... talking,
lovers listen, poets pun
Broken stones unanchored, quaking... rocking,
slipping, falling, one by one
Beaten pathways, footsteps marking... mocking,
wedged in webs which spiders spun
Circus shelters, big tops tumbling... locking,
people pacing, soon they’re none
Numbered exits, zeros numbing... knocking,
midnight daylight’s days undone
Moon blood shackles, shivers shaming... shocking,
starlight striders streaking, stun
Hushed but harried hermits waiting... walking,
restless rainbows on the run
Pixies, elves, and echoes bouncing... balking,
fading fast when dawn’s begun
Bantum butterflies are flitting... flocking
sometimes conquered, overrun
Hocus pokus, seers focus... squawking,
voodoo wavered, witchcraft won

5th Delirium: INTROSPECTION

Sundown furnace, fires fading... coughing,
dusky dew drops drain the air
Empty chalice, sipped in silence... quaffing,
thirsting shadows unaware
Looking glass and lattice scorning... scoffing,
local loser gapes and stares
Faces covered, dancing naked... doffing,
peering inside, hope despairs

6th Delirium: THE VOID

Tales of taboos, mystic mythos... missing,
windows shuttered, bolted door
Kindled candles, tongues and anvils... hissing,
heavy hammers, echoes roar
Dark deceivers, raven charmers... kissing,
draging demons from the shore
Hopeless hollows filled with doubters... dissing
standing empty - nevermore

7th Delirium: SEARCHING

Martyred monks haunt runic ruins ... waiting,
banging broken bells below
Vaulted hallways, voided voices... grating,
churning Chinese chimes aglow
Granite graveyards, spectres spooking... skating,
blackened bushes, roses grow
****** dwarfs seek mutant migrants... mating,
packing parcels, ice and snow

8th Delirium: NIGHTTIME

Throbbing drumheads, fingers blazing... steaming,
coins of copper, beggars plea
Rusty residues of resin... streaming,
opal amber filigree
Orphan shades in shallow shadows... teeming,
steeping twigs in twilight tea
Cloister doorsteps, Prophets gaming... scheming,
tracing tracks of destiny
Blacksmiths blanching, horseshoes glowing... gleaming,
partially sheathed in black debris
Phantoms feigning, nightmares scathing... screaming,
dusty dreamers drifting free

9th Delerium: EMPTYNESS

Water wheels in wastelands... turning,
drowning relics in the slum
Rumpled rags of fashioned burlap... burning,
lit by bandits blind and dumb
Pastured prisons, ponies bridled ... yearning,
forest fairies under thumb
Sounds inside of cauldrons coughing... churning,
blaring bugles, tattooed drum

10th Delirium: ALIENATION

Rain unravelling, wistfully weeping... falling,
treacle trickling, fickle sky
Mushrooms sprinkled, visions sprouting... sprawling,
seagulls drowning, dolphins die
Rabble gasping, spirits broken... crawling,
lonely lonesome swallows cry
Babbling brooks and breakers ebbing... bawling
puppies paddle, puppets sigh
People passing ripple past me... calling,
rainbow colours, collars high
Chaos seething, lepers looting... stalling,
stealing stallions on the sly
Pencils pausing, scholars scrambling... scrawling,
scratching scribbles, asking why

11th Delirium: JETSAM

Silver sails sway pallid pirates... prowling,
Jolly Rogers, wind and sound
Parrots perching, tattered feathers... fouling,
tethered talons, tied and bound
Shipwrecked foghorns, trumpets stranded... howling,
spiral springs of time unwound
Magic moonlight, shimmers shaking... scowling,
burnt out matchsticks washed aground
Prairie wolfs, coyotes calling... yowling,
witching hours, midnight hounds
Tightrope walkers, grizzlies grunting... growling,
seeking islands, lost and found

12th Delirium: RELIEF

Slumber shattered, vapours captive... haunting,
chained in mirrors, breaking free
Scarlet skylines, daylight dawning... daunting,
rivers rushing to the sea
Silence softens, sandmen whisper... wanting,
piercing rafters, turning keys
Shadows shudder, notions fluster... flaunting,
moonbeam bullets meant for me
Mind in migraine, meadows trembling... taunting,
sparrows speak in harmony

REAWAKENING

Pitter patter, teardrops paling... pearling,
salting scarves in secret drawers
Mist amongst us, smoke rings rising... curling,
climbing from the ocean floors
See-saw circles, senses swerving... swirling,
swept away with silver oars
Courtyard jesters, sceptres twisting... twirling,
push the past to foreign shores
Passing pangs of passions heaving... hurling,
burning bridges, closing doors
Roses wither, icons waning... whirling,
time decays and time restores

You are not my children,
tender as you are.
You are not my lover,
though you cause my heart to yearn.
You are not my sun,
or my moon,
or my star.

I set you on this rock;
you will not make me burn.

You are simply sticks,
arranged upon the pyre.
You are clever tricks,
though you flaunt my clear desire.
You are not the match,
or the wick,
or the fire.

I set you on this rock;
To see what might transpire.

You will never be a pheasant's egg to be coddled.
You are only this: a calf led to the slaughter.

Shake this obliquity
Shake this obliquity
Out of the system
Abort the democratics
And silly semantics
Eat this eat that
Gnaw away at the ear
'Till pudding seeps out'
Let them fear

Don't be so finicky
Helicopter parents
Secure and stabilize
The family threshold is breaking
Fibers wearing out and oh
Turning apart so well

As it runs down my leg
The embarrassment and pride shed
Unlike the hide I wear so boldly

Shake this obliquity*
Restore all clarity
And wander through its waste
Pondering and pondering
Now so weak from harsh critique
Don't cry home for sympathy

Da-da-da-da*

Everyone wants it genetically modified
An intricate soul; not real but imaginary
All the telepathy is getting to me

Faraway lookalikes
Are jumping in my head
They're ******* on his parade
I know; it's not my parade

The painted eyebrows panic
With indulging fear
And all those protective eyes leer
For those caretakers are manic
And the feeling  is static
Because all this never shakes away

Delving into their induction
I am paranoid they see me an idiot
I am a coddled miscreant

THE  CODDLED  CHILDREN
I am Your coddled child, my Lord.
You have a tender heart that loves the human kind.
On passion way, with cross on back, You told
the girls who cried,"Each cry for her own self
as each has such a life
so full of strife."
You cried for Your old friend, poor Lazarus
when someone told You of his loss
though You give life and can return
those who have gone.
You sympathize with man and feel for his long pain,
and You intend to cure his illness and ignore his sin.
Just on the cross, You said,
"Forgive them, my dear Dad.
They don't know what they did."
You love like that.
Why should l not depend on such a tender heart
and be a coddled child
asking the help of his most loving Dad?
BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
____________

Always  in the spotlight,
but coddled by the darkness
A bright, colorful flower
that never wanted to bloom
She pulled the sheer, black curtains
over her eyes,
welcoming the night
An arrow shooting into the Midnight moon
swallowed whole by wicked sin
Flirting with the Devil
and soaking in the evil serum
She turned her face away from
the beacon in the night
never to return again
Leaving to the world
just a ghost of a little girl

Look at me and I'll look at you
Give to me what you used to
Do to me what you used to do
Kiss me
Reminisce with me
Extend your hand
Pull my fingers into yours
Leading me through those double doors
Mess up your bed
My heart
My head
Piece together your reasons in a picture you like
Shatter my picture on the floor
Step tip-toe around the pieces
Don't cut your feet on your way out the door
Just leave me bleeding in a heap on the ground
Reaching all around
Frantically gathering
Piling
Frantic Panic
Pieces and shards,
They're missing
I'd like to think they've imbedded themselves in your feet when you left
Maybe you still feel me every time you step
That sting.
Pinch.
Reminder of what you had and
Broke.
Took, cradled, coddled, and dropped
Too heavy in your arms my burden was
You cry
Tell me you're so sorry
That you want me it's just that
You can't anymore
Take your tears
Dampen a cloth
And wipe the blood from my chest
Reveal the gaping hole
Gaze into it like an orb
Remember what was
What you took from me and what I gave
What you gave to me and what I took
And I'm sorry about that
I can't give it back
Fill this hole in my chest with that which I lack
I want all of you
Every part
Your cracking neck and knuckles
The stupid way you dress
And that head of yours
Filled with intellect, goodness, and laughter
I want that too
I just beg of you to
Remember
Who I am and who you are
I'll wait for now
Until you do
Hold my jaw in your hands
Realize what's between your
Palms
A second chance
Don't let me go this time
I'll hold you up
Carry you
Carry me and
Hold me up
Just a moment and you ease me to the ground
In a pile of my blood and reasons
Curled into a ball
Fists in the splinters
Head to the floor
I feel the vibrations of your leaving feet
****** footprints out the door

Who Am I?

I am a boy and a man.
I am a son, a brother, a cousin, a nephew, and a grand child.
I was a boyfriend, a fiancé, a husband, and an in-law.
I am a bachelor.
I am surrounded and abandoned.
I am a family man and a loner.

I am a homemaker and a handyman.
I wear the apron and the tool belt.
I am a neat freak and a slob.
I am an amateur contractor and a contracted amateur.
I am a dumpster diver, a recycler, and a decadent waste.
I am a glutton, a scavenger, and a scrapper.

I am a friend and an enemy.
I am fun and an annoyance.
I am a lover and a hater.
I am creepy, cruel, and harsh.
I am tender, loving, and inviting.
I have a foul mouth and tender lips,
Drenched in jagged, soft-serve words.

I am a painter, sculptor, draftsman, sketcher, character designer, photographer, graphic designer, fashion designer, kitbasher, customizer, and crafter.
I am a reader, a writer, and a poet.
I am the Jail Baby, Ryan & Lisa, The Phoenix, The AntiFather, and The HEYMAN!
I compose symphonies of visual and intangible imagery.
I bring form to thought.
I destroy,
I create.
I am an artist.

I am a geek, nerd, freak, and otaku.
I have been punk, goth, prep, white trash, and metrosexual.
I wear glasses,
But only as a sick joke.
I am beautiful and ugly,
Clean and *****.
I am unique.
I am predictable.
I have changed, but am still the same.

I am a techie,
An electronic ******.
I am cutting edge and old school.
Digitally signed and sealed.
I am analog and obsolete.

I am an adrenaline addict.
I can chill, maybe slow,
But never relax.

I am blue collar, tradesman, and service industry.
I am peon and ****** on.
Oh, but I have done the ******* too!
I have been hired and fired,
Bought and sold.
I have worn the uniform,
I have said, “**** the man!”
I am the proletariat,
I am in charge.

I am a student, dropout, and teacher.
I am class clown and teacher’s pet.
I have learned, forgotten, and taught,
But never learned my lesson.
I don’t listen to what I’m told,
But always do what I tell.

I am a genius,
I am an idiot.
I have intelligence, but often lack the intel.
I am naïve, but wise.
I am right and wrong.

I have philosophies and ideas,
But no religion.
I have desecrated and blasphemed,
Prayed and praised.
I have lusted, envied, and coveted.
I am guilty and innocent,
Pure and soiled,
Good and bad.

I am a driver and a passenger.
I am an explorer and a shut-in.
I am wild and free,
Caged and stifled.
I was warmly wrapped in my blanket,
But burned through it.

I have rode, climbed, and conquered.
I  stood still.
I jumped in.
I have fallen and been defeated.

I have been abroad,
I have been nowhere.
I have drifted.
I have settled.
I have led and been led.
I have been in and out,
Here and there,
Around and AWOL,
On the run and trapped.
But, not everywhere.

I have applied,
I have procrastinated.
I have worked my fingers to the bone,
I have slept it off.

I have fought and fled.
I have quit.
I have endured.
I am a winner and a loser,
A champ and a chump.

I am fake,
I am real.
I have lied, cheated, and stole.
I have been honest, fair, and generous.

I am selfish and selfless.
I am a gift giver, gift wrapper, and gift taker.
I am a thief and a philanthropist.

I am insecure and confident,
Confused and absolutely sure.
I am proud and ashamed.
I am complicated and convoluted,
But simple to please.

I have blind faith and guarded suspicion
I have secrets,
But lie rarely.
I accept everyone,
I trust nothing.

I have pointed the finger,
Only to turn it on myself.
I have held grudges and forgiven.
I have trusted and misguided.
I have been Judas and Jesus.

I am a maniac,
I am sane.
I have been strong and weak.
I can keep it together,
But prefer to break it apart.

I have bled.
I have healed.
I have been abused and neglected,
Coddled and protected.

I have been kissed and punched;
Hunted, wanted, and arrested,
Ignored, overlooked, and invisible.

I have loved and lost,
Lived and learned.
I am a soldier of misfortune and opportunity.

I have blended in.
I have stood out.
I have stood up.
I have backed down.
I have been backed into a corner.
I have all the space in the world.

I have seen, interpreted, and perceived,
I have ignored, dismissed, and been blind.
I hunger, want, and need…
I am satiated and content,
But never at peace.

I have been misunderstood and underestimated.
I have been put down, put up, pushed away, and let in.
I have been known,
But never entirely.

I have raged, cried, smiled, trembled, and laughed.
I have been depressed.
I have been happy.
I have been suicidal. I have felt death.
I have been lost and found.
I have been broken, then fixed,
Stitched, yet glitched,
Scarred, but whole.
I am alive.


I took the chance,
I let the moment slip.
I walked the straight and narrow,
I ran down the road not taken.
I dream; some whole, some shattered.
I go with the flow, but don’t let the waves take me.

I am shards and reflections,
Machinations and reactions.
I am translucent pieces and parts,
Assembled and disheveled.
I am the big picture still focused on the details.

I am the sum total of heredity and experience.
I am not,
I am more.
I am everything and nothing.
I am a walking contradiction.
I am human.

I tried to be you,
But didn’t know what that meant.
I am me,
It’s all I know.

Who are you?

I am 17 years old
but have to still ask to go to the bathroom
I am 17 years old
and expected to know what I want to do for the rest of my life
So tell me when this stops
When I am no longer held to a double standard
"Respect your elders
But hold yourself because you
are a role model
and not to be coddled
but could you pretty please put your hand up to go ***
and honestly
can't you see
that your future depends on our needs
I mean fail my test and see where your life leads"
Growing up *****
but so does being a kid
and lets face it I can't be at "home" forever
Mommy and Daddy
will no longer have me
and sadly
the real world is a cavity
for not only success stories
but failures especially
and out there is deathly
so don't tell me
That I'm too young to leave class
but old enough to try and decide my future
without a confidence booster
This situation lacking humor
if only I would have been told sooner
that there is no fine tuner
for the future

She wants to be shoved up against a wall
then coddled when she says her back hurts.
Slitting her wrists in a lavender bath,
she wants you to bandage her up.
"I want you to hurt me," she'll cry.
And you'll be confused when she plays victim.
When you look into her doe eyes, don't be fooled.
She's a monster.

it's...
listening to metric - clone (2012)...
sipping a whiskey...
pretending to smoke a cigarette
with an unlit cigarette in hand...
the feel and the texture...
the scent of unlit tobacco,...

and then it's... contemplating...
british and "british"...
              and the caves... and... speaking
a language lacerated...
loan words...
   music of corvus corax... katrinka...
i would never...
listening to such music...
attire myself as: bwitish...
technicalities...
              the prefix will do...
                 anglo-slav...
                         like... those anglo-saxons...
but less specific...
because: you'd have to also call them:
   anglo-pseudo-germans...
          or quasi...
                        i'm not being
specific either... an anglo-slav i am...
a patchwork of guesses...
         serb? croat? slovenian?
       the yugoslav? ukranian?
           russian? czech? slovak?
                    i've just been listening to
some videos of nostalgia...
from the natives circa 1978 and...
nik nak paddy... old man... something...

to associated with the british...
to be british...
  do you suppose... there's a turk these days...
that would associate himself
as... an ottoman?
         i wonder...
         maybe the concept of empire being...
domino... connected by land...
and not scattered like the greek diaspora /
empire...

           the empire of roman?
weird... isn't it? to be surrounding a massive
salt pond...
            while the constant chance of having
your back turned...
seemingly protecting this salt pond...
yes... sea...

- i found the stare of love at first today:
but i was numb to it...
deer eyes of an indian girl -
darkened / riddled by the equator...
while i was... picking three kings of chillies...
some fresh coriander...
cumin powder... kashmiri powder...
and black cumin seeds...

    - i saw eyes and i also saw two
nuggets of charcaol...
   my knees left nothing of the sort of iritation
fo drop everything and swim
against the current like a salmon...

- come mid-thirties and...
   i'm starting to feel comfortable...
with the solo-project... the dodo-project...
looking for signs of: waking up
to what could have been an abortion...
or a genocide into a tissue, flushed down
the toilet: the horror of being circumcised...
without jewish or muslim...
social structures...
         it could be much worse... i could have
been circumcised...
i could have been born with
both a ****** and a strap-on *****:
seeking the ****** st. of tic-tac-toe and
a skipping rope of:
  that i have kissed a man...
that i have gorged on a *******'s
****** like a wrath and love of god...
that suckling to the **** didn't
pose a problem: got choc tinged teeth
and bitter-corn in between...
oh i'm pretty sure she wasn't in love
with me:
             a wry smile while i didn't
speak the "proper" native...

mongrel soul retaining a weird question
about who's who and who's a token
postcard on loan from...
lost from former forged empires...

on my way back home...
   i was... once upon a time...
that sort of guy... loitering... waiting...
making waiting... a ritual...
worth smoking a cigarette...
patience is a religion that's not invested
in peace to all: for all...
     first comes first...

nearing the magic number 35...
it's very sensible of me to state:
it's quiet impossible for me to share a bed...
with anything or anyone except
my shadow...
considering how when i expose
my shadow to sunlight...
mindless shadow pretends to have
eyes... when it crawls into my head
at night: when i sleep...
and tells the alternative story of
the day...

    to be wedded and with children...
one would most certainly need to be coupled
with prospects in one's early 20s...
after the mid-20s... well...
the boat's about to sail...
the solo- / dodo-project is...
  a bit like... with writing being concerned...
one's hope for a career in...
    a chemistry lab...
or the selfless-acts of hippocrates' students...

all very well to love children...
but... ******* them up...
never really becoming that...
nobel prize winning psychologists
with a break-through...
when the whittle cherbus... gremlins...
kritters arrive...
an over-zealous cat meowing / moaning
about curfew is one of those spin-offs
of madness...
talk to me about a babe crying...

- and yes... some people shouldn't drink...
their genetic disposition: ah ah...
their individual metabolism...
they never conjure up the amphetamine
(metaphor) ***** from the lullaby
zombied-out death-cult of sedation...
- and these same people shouldn't pick
up smoking a ritual tobacco stick...
even i venture to call it:
a bullet to the head...

  how is it... to become... selfless?
when... one... has become...
self-realized... past the groan of:
the facts... aged 25 and your brain
should stop... window-shopping
function suffixes... no?

i had an idea for a glove...
with a rubber-band...
to... restrict... the natural laziness
of the hand when walking...
but because i drink and only jargon
poor poetics...
in rage i ripped the rubberband
off my arm... lost to history:
lost to the void...
oh i know how that it feels...
would it have been of use...
i guess not...
     a bright idea in a bucket
of maggots and maggot ****...
is... about as much worth as...
a screwdriver is to a forest of nails...
chisel... n'est ce pas...
i was... asking: grit teeth...
soul... clenching... bizarre objects
of gradations of sharpening...
the obvious square-headed axe...
pulp...
      a whole rainbow of objects...
perhaps a scalpel is the last resort...

i smile because: i've turned angry into
funny...
who doesn't have the monopoly on violence:
well... i also do not have the monopoly
on c.c.t.v. -
   little help from coming from
under the iron curtain...
the local seem to be... all ah...
oh so detached... missing las vegas cousins
and...
if i could only allow you...
to allow myself... to fathom...
the maldives of my mind...
a drag of a cigarette... a bottle of whiskey
35cl... you start the bets...
who's about to...
      find prison in solipsism...
solipsism as a mental illness...
as an altruism: as a atheism as a...
genius maddy: spezial neds: youz callz
'em... quivering folk?
what'z that phra-phra-puccino?
    autist-spec:   ah yes! those rare breeds!
spazz-taculars!
i was one misunderstood for one of them...
i took the insult to the grave...
well... i took it to her grave...
by the god of the hebrews and by the mythology
of cain... from siberia came the huns...
the turks... the slavs and the mongols...
only germans ever came from
       afri-*******-ah-hahaha!
they skipped the toll of sanskrit:
the birth of writing...
why? it became complicated...
when beijing was founded...
but sure... a replica tux of skeleton came out
out... fringe kenya and landed in: old delhi...
as many consonants if not more:
down to the core: with the spices...
the unfortunate indians of north
america...
the somewhat fortunate indians
of: south america...
brazil: post-racial mecca...
argentinian beef and...
                             myths of nazis
living to old age...
                 no... oh no... i will not die...
first comes ol' lizzie then comes
my sodden sorry ***...
envelope of a missing postage stamp
of a world: we've been to the moon...
via new york and the leviathan london...
where's afghanistan cave fighting...
the pashtun women of... glorifying
copper and cinnamon / cumin and coriander
ash... and beauty...
how doesn't it sound:
the day the music died:
we sang dirges in the dark...
                 bye bye: may-pole luck with
christ: the advent of...
the crucifix is hanging... ornament piece...
but the... iron maiden isn't...
           it's enough to identify a god...
it's quiet another matter...
to torture him... and... sorry...
but if i were to be crucified...
   sooner me and the comfort of hands...
outstretched... than... hands-tied...
pushed onto a pole: to impale...
lost advent of etymology: slav...
and the lost "e" of paul...
to remind... the crucifix... well...
            to impale...
                       looks like...
the crucifix is missing limbs... it would take...
days... the arms that would be
flapping... agitating an imitation
of a swan breaking into flight...
the two lungs... imitating drowning...
while hanging... extended...
     to crucify... hardly: the affair of...
being... impaled...
perhaps joking: slav(e) gave the clue...
germans: whether orthodox
anglo-ßaß - celtic mingling...
    germs... who's eating what... "leftover"
etymological clues...
we can play this game... forever...
it's hardly the hebrew the original:
indu- prefix of... roaming... or not...
                      
guise them up as the exodus as the fomer
lands of Jagiełło...
the battle of Hastings: blip...
             who am i... but at least in england...
i can speak the language
like some conrad of masovia:
readied to sell the "lesser creatures"
for the... encouraged...
integration to the *****: kneel...
of the baltic pruß...
who weren't... coddled...
the welsh weren't coddled...
they were "told" to... brighten their
day to day... expand...
fathom the easily accessed seas:
expand...
who owned the monopoly of
the baltic sea: as if it were
the bosphorus...
beside... the danes?
expansion of: ****** come together
with a ******: breathing
h. p. lovecraftian h'america...
loot maine and call it... start:
bittersweet apartheid...
not me: i'm still half of Vilno...
and the most remote aspect of L'viv...
no... crusader songs... no crusades: per se!

i used to play video games...
i became... more fascinated
with the romance of: a lost year...
that the school re(a)d... it wasn't in any
fathom of an iota of red:
or a synonym in burgundy:
for the worth of the burgundians:
leftovers of the angevins...
that richard the lionheart
found a love for england...
the island... an abhorring testimony
of youth and no solance...
that old age never found him:
akin to: the needle never found
the mystery of the haystack...

i am not! lithuanian!
common practice of exodus polacks...
paul-lacking:
slav and "e" dribbling...
      like the germanic peoples:
who aren't lingua franca revisions...

    ⰏⰑⰣ     ⰔⰑⰂⰑ...

lingering "blame"... darwinism via
the default...
the monkey skeleton left africa...
arrived in india.. left a schism...
some went to хины
             some went to:         чeнa..

   anglican via: the great mother siberia...
is a mother...
beside the zenith advent of: mother...
muffer: af-af-rye-c'ah'cah!
******* twins to mind the rhodes!

the skeleton left africa...
yes...
   but... the hindu morphed the genesis...
a second time... into writing...
what... phonetic encoding...
beside... the primodial...
   hieroglyphics... from africa... would have...
ever... arrived at our...
emoji internet advent... door-step of
extending democracy / demographics...
central?

the wheel and the square also
left africa with the skeleton:
the arithmetic of bones and muhammad...
but the triangle settled in greece
and became pythagoras...
and the letter: Δ....

    the inter-racial violence of north
h'america... is not... beside the wery bwitish
advent of ****-stan... as... imaginary
loitering of a border: coming to survive
with Belfast-Kashmir...
           that's making priority of...
the written word...
over the skeleton jump-start...
       bypass...
              and the emoji... and... grafitti...
clue out of africa...
never met... the sub-continent of india...
or... the chinese ideograms...
or sanskrit...
but... ******... *** and bounty...
the mongols never made...
crimea... their capital...
hastings was forever a washington's
survival guide...
       that theatre gave the birth
of lincoln and... whitman was...
everything any other poet: including
homer and dante always dreamed of...
that europeans invited themselves
toward: finding h'america in a can
of sardines...
and that the h'americans believed
they found europe... in kent or essex...
or... in books...
or... in loitering... or being...
allowed to be obnoxiously loud...

            like that **** would still stink:
100 years from now...
but yes... the libido of a genghis khan...
i trace my libido to:
how i imitate the people who
check their blood pressure when i *******...
i... genocide my... fractions into
the moloch couldron that's:
beside... the prayers of a...
        tele-evalngelical church of praises!
h'america is nothing new...
it's just better: regarding...
what remains... a solid old.

we were driving home
taking side roads in a roundabout way.

and you spotted something on the side of the road.
bloodied, broken and (i assumed to be) dead.

you pulled over and we inspected it.
i was rather disgusted, but you picked it up and coddled it 'cause it had fur.

you kept coo'ing at it and asked it what it's name was (expecting no answer)
but it struggled to utter "Love".

we begrudgingly decided to take it home
and made a bed for it and nourished it back to health.

a week later we were drinking Earl Grey by the fireplace,
heard a rumbling
and looked around to see it standing there looking at us.
it was 7' tall and had an expression of awe, wonder, and terror
as if it thought we would ****** it at any second.

each night it had a different face, resembling one of your former playthings.
you never called it the same name twice.

a week later, it couldn't fit through any of the doorways.
we always came home to plaster, paint and drywall scattered everywhere.

i complained.
"Love has broad shoulders", you quipped.
it had grown too much for us.

a week later, i spent the afternoon at the bar and you were shopping.
we rendezvoused back home at 3PM.

only to find a gaping hole where the front door used to be.
everything inside totaled.
precious collections, expensive technology, jewelry...
all gone (or destroyed beyond recognition).

i railed, "Love ruined EVERYTHING!!!"
you seemed to take no note, kept your composure and muttered, "It always does" and just began sweeping.

the next day we got a kitten from the animal shelter,
and were laying in bed with it at night.
i asked, "Do you think Love will ever come back?"

you answered coldly, "It never does".

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are, ” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.

Violence meted out and labelled
War
Man everyone knows
Anything goes

Anything All of the Everything

Events of Summer quickly ensue, it takes hold of you quickly, while the police drive thru. You cannot find it half-way into the night, you could hold up on a park bench or lay your blanket on the slough. Perhaps when your dreams kick, your asterisks will come, build a map of your defense and then head for the sun. Some foe outwit the wounds of life, furry blister-like faces, when they take up the star dust diamonds, the trail guides take after hurrying up paces.

The festivities of fear are living oaths inside of marbled starve rocks, they harvest shoots and ladders, and keep tabs on wild beasts and livestock. There's no match throughout the campgrounds. There's no matchbook light to find us. If you're quick enough with your 70s, then perhaps you'll follow the nightness that's arrived us.

In aide of her lift-gate, shredding pensive miens and speeding mimes, taking ward of one thousand fathomed depths, assumes courageous anti-hate isms. She can come quickly with a syzygy, her van packed with fresh woes of Sunday, then around Monday humbly hides her stuff in the small hems of her bed linens. You can't outwit the governess who preys on handicapped children's thrift finds. She makes clothes and keeps her hands to bed. She bares new graves for time's new roman epithets and moving pictures. She  unplugs her bleeding tongues under some new sone for her monarchic archetypical audiophile party.

While the umberphiles sleep, nyctophiliacs stalk grizzlies. Mosquitos quaff at human blood, while their offspring keep drinking. The idle bugs throes, misanthropic and useless, teach electric lusters' mouths to grow into fiery hoops with which to slip past all the clueless.  The arachnids might dance, the haunting verbs they might fray. The Egyptians at first glance, try to hide their heroine pyramids away.

So hush little violet dormant flowers, fake your fertility and keep your skeptic drink. Keep each one you might meet, within one hundred feet of where you sleep. Keep your arms length's supine, your supplies out of reach, practice wrapping yourself up inside boxes where the souls can sleep.

If you only once catch a fool, avoid the plague-speak certain lips might tell. Each uttered word commanded with too much ******* across the bandwidth. Mortal courses can't be taught, human voices can't keep the draught, ferocious abstract engineered humanity has escaped this truant absence and immorality. You, you catch a fool, she could preach hurts and djinns, it could dot the I's of when, and unfurl the sighs of men. Berthed earthlings that the **** ascribes, hurts the worthless and sours true purpose widths of curfews and its curses, all these biomes perfervidly reserve the fury for their furtive perversity, elements to obscure the telemetry that has coddled such a dark conflagration of immensity, it's the cluelessness of these transgressors that forces the abhorrence towards all-white-everything professors.

It Glimmers and Shines, this key to the forbidden chest;
A locked chest hidden away deep inside
Where no passerby may look upon its dark wood.
Oh how the key glimmers in the hands of the owner,
Marvel at its simplicity…oh me…
Dare I open it? Dare I try?
My heart is lying recovering inside
Hidden away from the light of love for so long.
Foolish one I let it open, so easily handed over
This brilliant key to one I thought was true.
How horrid is fate to me, tricking me so…
And how this gent so tenderly picked me up
Coddled and bandaged my wounded heart till
No tear could be shed, no blood able to be spilt…
How quickly my heart began to cling to him
As if it were a life line and my red ribbons end.
Yet seemingly overnight this god who revived me
Became a brick wall my heart was ****** against.
What torture was brought to my little heart, being
Healed so well that even the gravest beating didn’t leave a scar.
How bruised it became, my heart over night,
Yet no tear was able to be shed though it’s all it wanted to do
No blood was wasted for he beat so tenderly that it didn’t wound.
Oh but my heart was battered and confused
Unable to tell right from harm…
The man so roughly played that so soon he grew tired.
So bored of my heart from playing every day
He then kept me up on a shelf, there to watch him run free
And leaving me there to rest till next he desires me again.
Once again I’m lifted and roughed up to no end,
But how can I refuse the man who so tenderly cared for
My once broken and bleeding heart?
After his worst places even he would take me sometimes in his arms
And hold me and heal me till I cry and am well.
This viscous cycle leaves my heart so bruised that it can’t even cry
I am left wandering, that even with such admiration for this gent…
If it is still worth the ache and sorrow
Just to feel wanted again and loved if only for a moment, even by a friend.
To put yourself in such a relationship is very suicidal no?
And I can’t open my mouth and say what pain I’m in is his doing,
His hands squeezing my heart till there’s no more feeling…I haven’t the
Heart to say – he’s ripped out its vocal chords and thrown them away.
And the pain to see as he plays with me and then quickly discards,
The brilliant key to my chest of safety dangling so plainly about his neck.
Oh my suicidal heart, throwing myself at his feet begging simply to be held again
To be loved is all I want still sits on that shelf and wonders if the key is still mine.
I sometimes sit alone with my heart, waiting on the shelf till he’s home,
Watching him wander about filling his tastes with others, yet always returning to me…
My heart foolishly hopes and hopes and hopes that maybe this time he’ll stay,
Maybe this time he’ll find that I’m the one he need, the one he wants,
And sees the pain he’s put me through and again takes to healing the wounds.
Oh kiss my face, tell me sweet airs of kindness, and just convince me once again I’m his…
That he is mine….
Oh silly suicidal heart, so willing for the love almost mine,
That I would purposely place myself in such heartache’s hands as his.
I lay silently beside him, darkness surrounds me, and I long for the courage to reach out first
To reach in the dark for that brilliant, beautiful key about his neck-
So careful I will be not to wake him…simply to take back my heart, my poor foolish
My poor broken, suicidal heart.
I long to simply lock my heart up once again in that strong chest of wood,
Maybe then my suicidal heart will finally be at rest...and finally heal loves wounds…
But till then I am lost, lost in the tide of the crashing waves of this emotion filled
Irrationality of his affections, continue to be smashed into the jagged rocks of my
Own self doubt, reality and confusion…too weak to fight and too tired to reach for
The key, the freedom of this heart ache, to my simple safe wooden chest.
The last sanctuary for a wounded soul, for I have such a foolish and suicidal heart.
Alas – I am forever lost.

leather of codes

child of no garden I want to be trash shining metal bucket streets

echoes of his scars crash deeply from his quick glance and words
his crushed inner faces blow by me like shotgun shells flipping ejected
a warm burn enters my ear and falls to the ground like pure seed

there has been a siberian tiger heart perhaps
a trumpet's bright coming tip in the night is his voice

but night has no color, only the air of space and eternal infinite collossalness
he has not been there, he knows I think I have been

his voice hunts in silence the opening of his throat
I never felt my neck arch as though I were angelic spinning holy pollen

my feet are broken from my birth's uncertain angles
my white skin is somber to me and it dreams of thick, muscular hair

his back hunts me like a prowling silent perfect killer

he has no meat for me in his most beautiful kind thoughts, nor ice
I know he does not want my soul, its irrelevance like bad country music

he glares at me his eyes are beautiful in their transubstantial wizardry
as though I a child with no hope to ever be less or more

this is the way beer cans bounce of cars better than wet silken ******* may rise
he has felt his lover's wine fully enter him in his sweetest moments

I am a child of no garden he would have
but thoughts of exclusion are often only private codes of want

his serbian tiger motion is utter but I am child of no garden until I can dance
I know he so poignantly relevant would in some fierce and mad
teach me of my father

that I might be coddled beyond redemption  my white skin
he wants to giggle a soft stance or a minion of pretense

I am fully truly what he sees, yet I cannot touch him
he has no time for me I would see my heritage's murderous take

he knows I bow down to his conspicuous innocence
he has forgotten the child he knows I think I have been

he wears a leather of codes I can never remember

you are far away
you are star gazing
you are engaged with the sky, he is your lover your body craves to
be coddled in star bright supernova a red dwarf he sings to you
sweet sounds at the speed of light
i am observant
i am patient, i see your energy expand as you are raised from
earth He calls for you and I listen - i am always listening -
as you fly above tops of trees and enter a realm somewhat
like the sea
i miss you but i have let you go
i know you have the answers to the questions that you ask
you are in love
& i want you to be happy
you are supposed to be happy
i am happy when i am star gazing
& i am happy when you are far away
because you are loved

Porcelain goddess gaining momentum
Wishing she was anywhere but here
Popularity on hermit hiatus
Bile creeps up her throat
Bloated and dizzy
Binge. Binge. Binge.
Food a constant companion
Over indulge with sloth
Gluttony floods the senses
Smiles wreathed in decayed ruin
Mirror image rotund, unclean
Distorted into a thin, glowing unreality
I cannot make it through to your blistered self
Protected and coddled by strangling disease
You clean your toilet everyday
Hiding KFC wrappers under your bed until the smell permeates
Filth and Rot have become your calling cards
Twisted around the pinky finger of an esophageal acid burn deity

Love stumbled into a garden, one sunny spring morning
Light trickled through the branches
Shadows danced along the grass
Birds sang from up above
There were flowers everywhere
Cold wind touched her spine in shivers

"Tend to the garden, love, it needs you"
So she watered the rows of plants, she nurtured the seeds
She watched them bloom, she never looked away

"Tend to each one, love, they need you"
So she knelt on the dirt and spoke to every flower
Caressing their petals, cradling their leaves

Then Summer came

"Never leave their side, love, they need you"
So she never slept, never dreamt
Never ate, never turned away

"Protect the garden, love, it needs you"
So she sheltered it from the storm
Coddled it away from the summer heat

Autumn came

"Careful, love, they're dying"
She felt a panic in her chest, but didn't let it show
She gave them more water, she gave them more care

"Save them, love, they're dying"
Determined, she did everything she could
Paced the garden, wondering what had gone wrong

Winter came

"Heal them, love, look what you've done"
So she watered them more, she cleared up the snow
She brushed away the frost biting at the flowers

"You hurt them, love, look what you've done"
Wilted, here they were
The garden gray, shriveled, lifeless

"I don't understand" Love whispered
Tears fell from her cheeks
The shadow replied,
"You killed the garden, the very one I trusted you to tend"
"But I cared for them, like you told me to" Love shook her head
"Did you?"
"Yes, of course, I sacrificed everything for them"
"Love is not sacrifice"
"Then what is it?"
"Love is letting go."

It is
a single blood-red rose,
Lounging in a field
of Sunday morning daisies.

It is
a venerable novel,
ripe with life and adventure.
Love splattered across the pages.
The binding,
begging and writhing to free the secrets
coddled between the lines.

It is
how your mother takes her coffee.
A little cream,
no sugar,
and the promise of
9 AM jitters.

It is
Expecting a hurricane,
only, having to recover
from a day in the sunlight.
  
It is
a tiny footprint in the sand,
a greasy fingerprint on a doorknob,
the intricacies of a fragile snowflake.

But above all,

It is
You.

human detritus deaf to empathy
misanthropes bound by apathy
just above the dotted line we
signed our own death warrants
guilty as charged
existential and intellectual suicide

we'd rather gouge out our eyes
bury our heads in the sand
than give a moment's pause to
consider our own arrogance
**** sapiens
we carved our legacy into the globe
and we will rest in the husk
of a massive unmarked grave
a solitary chunk of floating rock
adrift in outerspace

"the fate of every successful species
is to wipe itself out"

can we harness the courage to turn away
from our vapid lives before it's too late
can we unplug our minds from the machine
extricate ourselves and learn to breathe
with lungs instilled through millennia of
evolution before we suffocate in ennui

humanity is on life-support
it's tempting to pull the plug
let Mother Nature reclaim her earth
from an entitled race of
self-destructive fools
coddled from childbirth but

there is a nascent impulse that
echoes in every heartbeat
living within our blood
to regard one another with the new eyes
science has built each of us
no longer can we trust self-styled
leaders of the free world
the impetus rests within the crux
of self-acceptance

anarchy is the litmus test

Porcelain white is painted polite.
Grown-up to be perfect, and pretty in lace.
Long shiny hair ******* with a bow.
A beautiful pro at hiding her woe.
Dressed to the nines with diamonds that shine,
to blind those from seeing her broken design.
Her body a shrine all knotted with twine.
Privileged, and coddled.
Loved, and swaddled.
Prepped for ascension,
despite the fine lines that grow in her spine.
Cracks in the porcelain, rigid and sly,
grow bigger with rigour as time flies by.
One more bawl and she’ll break above all.
I am a china doll, would you like to see me fall?

Yesterday, she caught her curves
in the center of her palms.
She cuddled the skin
and coddled the effort
that she put in
to make it shrink
but she still thinks
it made no difference.

© Matthew Harlovic

I'm sure my mother breastfed me enough
& coddled me when I gave up on ever cleaning my room
and keeping it clean for longer than a week
after she'd clean it up for me

I'm sure I've always preferred taking baths instead of showers
because I like taking my time
submerging my body in a divine
warm pool of pausing life for a minute because I need to breathe
and procrastinate the stressful mess I've made

I'm sure I'm afraid of confrontation and telling the truth
when it means someone will hate me
even if I know it doesn't matter what people think,
I'm sure it's an instant mirror that shows me something about myself
and monsters are supposed to stay under the bed, not inside of my subconscious head

I'm sure I want everybody to love me
but I'm not sure if I want everyone to know that
because what's unattractive is repelling
and if I'm alone it means hurting gets overwhelming
and I'm sure all sadness is a tantrum
but just because I get quiet cold inside instead of **** on my thumb
doesn't mean there's any difference in soothing addiction

I'm sure all sadness is a tantrum
and I'm sure all tantrums are affiliated with believing
untrue thoughts, whether logical or foolish
just because you have a mosquito bite doesn't mean you
need to itch it

You made me promises,
And I wrapped myself in them like melodies on a hazy Sunday morning,
I savored them, twisted them and made them into fibers that I wove into my existence.
And then,
Then you broke me.
And I let you.
I let you because I didn’t know better.
Beyond time and tide you were a brilliance, a light, that warmed and coddled me into this desperate oblivion.
A ***** oblivion.
Polluted.
Shards of glass beneath my feet.  Clothes made of extreme anxiety.
And in this moment, I blame you.
But, no longer.
I accept that I allowed your entrance into my life.
I allowed you to be more for me than I ever trusted anyone else to be.
It isn’t my fault that you disappointed me.
I suspect that I am not the first of your disillusionments.
Look at you.
Your physicality is breathtaking.
Every muscle, every nuance of your outward being is a tantalizing treat of enticement and temptation.
I know it isn’t where you end, though.
You had it in you to devise your plan of promises and expectations.
Did you catch what I said there?
Devised.
A negativity.
Not something endearing or stunning.
Maybe I am wrong.
It has been years into this.
And I was wounded well before you.
In consideration of that deep disdain, I must not always believe you to be a fraud.
Surely, not every fraction of your being has set out to malign my heart.
Yet, you have.
Maligned me.
Cast me out into a void that stinks of rot and old.
And so, I float. I linger. I coast along.
Slow-motion.
My own private Hell.
Wondering every time you go out if you will return with the stench of infidelity wafting through the air.
So, I float.
Oil and water, flesh and bone, separate and together.
Endless.
Or, is it?

Floating down the street,
coddled by the roll of Spanish tongues,
I have never felt more alive than
feeling *** burn my stomach
Blood flowing, giddy
The mountains, my North Star,
peek over the crumbling buildings and
yearning to break through the clouds
Quiet noise rumbles
Even the air tastes different here
My Spanish is broken but my heart is whole
My mind has stopped wandering and my hands stopped searching
I am so alone in the most lovely way -
surrounded by millions of people and miles away from those who hold my heart
I am defined by who I am in this moment
No grades, or tears or memories have followed me here
Finally, my joy is independent
Exclusively made by my own beating heart
to be shared with the world

ghost in a gutter in a sidewalk
once i taped my body
like dozens of wires now
i lie down palms flat
atop vessels of pavement

i can tell you so much about
wiring also about breathing
forests into your lungs, they
haunt your lungs like the child
my mother never gave birth to,
i’m not convinced that it’s not
still in her womb. they called
it a miscarriage but sometimes
i see the child when i’m taking
a bath; stare at my fingers
and the wrinkles are newly
discovered bodies coddled
by electric fences.

the feminine bleeds
not always red, not always white
seldom enough
for words - she inters herself, crouched
chambered, begs for
cleansing, hand held cupped

round- her curves
familiar to self, unknowable;
unselfish giving - she bleeds, not enough
mutilated even by her own kindness, cradled
without righteousness, coddled by an unnamed
nebula .....she curses her own image, and likeness
slivers it, cuts it raw, for dead left - visible
a world denies
knowledge with sacred
alibi - scribed hieroglyphs, scrolled - she bleeds
white, and a

desert conceals her face
calculates her dance - her movements
mythical, she cries inside
out

tears of salt river-ed, rested
underground, a birthing place securing
her masculine seed coming to
light -  Madonna paints her
face black, "Oh Czestochowa, pray for us
Oh Mother - we beseech thee"....

She bleeds - red,  the
world turns with season - she re-seeds our flesh
feeds us with her *****, prior
to the sacrifice -"Witch, it is, Witch....burn it," conceal
in alabaster stones
lone, unmarked - her womb

tomb it only in site
of an unflinching god - hold him, birth him
in sorrow grieve and give him,  his blood shed
"take it ,drink it" - red,  she bleeds - seldom enough
as the masculine prepares for HIS resurrection
feminine for trial

He is reborn - she never dies
she is Wisdom (Sophia) eternal
He - Godhead
she - Feminine
denied....