This chariot of heart ache
Pulls my heart strings
For goodness sake
Just the idea of the taste
Of your sweet tongue
Gliding beneath my lip
Makes me salivate.
Lets commemorate
The good times we had
And not feel morose.
After all just a dose
Of optimism
Is like light through a prism
Scatters a rainbow bright
Feels light
No bad imaginings in sight.
But then i yearn
My stomach turns
For our love's fire -so passionate
combusted and burned
Now it's trapped in an urn.
Saved and still present
Kept on the mantel
I really cant tell
If it can be reborn again.
"Let it go, for it's not meant to be right now" said my friend.
So my heart feels nauseated
My stomach is aching
They both beat in syncopation.
Pit pat.
Pit pat.
There "we" go...off to the past.
Only a memory now.
Gone just like that.

I loved an arsonist
who didn't love me.
Seeing him love her
was the match that ignited
my gasoline heart.
It combusted into
the flames of pure envious
friction, the flames
licking all cavities.
Each beat of my
slowly burning heart
pumped lighter fluid
through the arteries
only to create a wildfire
inside my chest,
ablaze with no hope of
containment, and no
source to extinguish.
My unjustified love for you
is nothing more
than the firewood that feeds
the malicious venom
in this inferno of jealousy.
I loved an arsonist
who didn't love me,
and for that,
my heart will smolder.

A star has stowed away
In a part of my heart
The sky being this large, blunt chart
With the bright backbone: a strip of powder cloud
And the fussy dust beneath our boots
The chaparral under foot
Blooming purple, dry, splitting the cough drop earth
Red rock by rock
Our talking warms me
The taste of mint julep and tea
We, sweet past times: all they matter
Had a nail between us to hammer faster
There could have been curtains in our home
Were we grown;
Cantaloupe soaking in the sink
To string up at the brink
Think of how dry it got
The plants in their ***
Unwatered, untouched
Living as such--
Meanwhile, the clock combusted
Pounded out notes upon every hour
Its golden limb swinging up, lilting, wilting in its tower
Life deployed beyond this, grazing every flower
Their implicit movement stalls;
My nights wrapped in my shawls
Dark timber bark laments
In the fire so well spent
Rocking, I have remained here;
From the farthest port
You came with teeth and things
That fringe
Deliberate and outward bending, which scorches
Retires on porch swings
Shares time, stolen from what silent world may be out there
Bundled, told: "Handle with care."
But I do not care to pick at straws, or to stare
Between your eyes,
The lines beneath them
The calligraphic flourish
Touring deep, steeply descending
The tiled smile, pretending
Creaking, scarcely there and perishing;
I have not uttered your name
In the dark of this home
I have printed it, though, on occasion
In the pictures I hang
On the walls of this tomb
Painted path, fire we fashion
All the bits of compassion lodged like salt in my bones
Only thinking of your thoughts
Sipping slowly from your cup
Shuffling to the border in the corner of the world
Where the blooming sky is hastened
In its spatial recreations
That has fallen falls again,
Calling back, fiercely contend
Dynamics of a spark
A black hole tears itself apart
The where we are, the where we start;
Oh, Come the Day we might
Give less regard to light
Were I to move to where you are
Across the room, one room too far
It seems to me that I, in staying
Have distended what was fraying
Yet I stay- at least today
And may tomorrow bring the rolling, cetacean clouds back into orbit
May the sun fall with the rain
May my love call back again;
Once more, I think,
Once more.

In silence and heartache,
The air has turned dire.
Our smiles were combusted
By miseries fire.
Its smoke has enclosed us
Within our own sphere,
Though soon you'll be leaving.
Leaving me here.

For long I'd accustomed
To being alone.
No need for direction.
No need for a home.
But one day you found me,
Your hands full of love,
And lips full of comfort
Which smiled just above.

Now loneliness taunts me
Whenever you go.
You take with you more than
You ever could know.
My happiness follows,
Forever it's yours.
In silence and heartache,
In rises and falls.

We're stuck in a terrible traffic jam
Of a river of red lights.
At the car dashboard there is a faint green glow:
It's 11 pm.
I already feel tired for tomorrow
Even if it hasn't started yet
For I know I have to wake up at 5 am.

As my mind fills with fatigue and frustration
I hope in my heart
That my dad would never stop driving.
I wish that he would
     drive
            d r i v e
                  d  r  i  v  e
                        and  d   r   i   v   e
To wherever the road takes us and just
Let the dim orange street lamps lead us
To a brighter tomorrow.

I beg to break free from the city borders for
I can't seem to take the stress out of me
So just take me out of the stress.
Let this auto's mechanical hum
Drown my thoughts.
Let every revolution of the wheel
Oust the monsters reigning,
Preying on my mind.

The greens of the rain forests and rice fields,
The blues of the mountains and the ocean
Would zoom in smudged colors
In the artwork that is my window.
Roll it open and the wind
Would gently kiss my face and stroke my hair.
I will sigh,
Releasing the remnants of
My exhaustion and combusted fossils exhausted,
And filling my lungs with the air smelling
Of pine trees and the ocean breeze.

So I hope that we would never stop driving,
And let the road take us anywhere
I don't really care
As long as its
Anywhere but here.

The decedent weighed 500 pounds.
Her shape was decidedly round.
When cremation was requested,
Her fat cells combusted
and burned the old funeral home down.

The director ought to have been wary
Of a corpse it takes ten men to carry.
He sought long, in vain,
a home for her cremains.
“A barrel, perhaps?” offered Larry.

Her overweight fatty remains
exploded when touched by the flame.
Some speculate gas
Leaking out of her ***
was possibly partly to blame.
.
So if you’re a “plus” girl or guy
And in the course of events you should die.
Choose the dirt nap, not flame
For your mortal remains
It appears Butterballs shouldn’t fry.

Our explosive behaviors where the water you which you were mixed with the cesium i am , or you claimed me to be

the atmosphere which we claimed to breathe from was hydrogen sulfide and yet that angiosperm which we claimed was poisoned with love never spouted.

however both of us being from the biosphere you acted like something that fell off of saturn full of air and water

you say my attitude was the reactant from which your heart thawed and combusted
though i believed other wise because your brain was made from only 1 cell and your heart was made of arsenic which flowed through my veins the night your lips infected mine.

Our relationship was not a commensaism and you did not harm me while i harmed you

your foolish frequencies flopped me right to the bottom of your food chain where fugus flourished and fooled me right into falling for you
our love was the hypothesis proven correct of Romeo and Juliet killing both of us in the end

you were an invertebrate that sent lighting through my limiting factor dressing me with barium
but too much pressure on my heart caused a reaction that Einstein himself couldn't solve

I wrote a perfect poem once. I scribbled it down on the back of a half used napkin. It wasn't short and is wasn't long. The lipstick laced food marks couldn't taint what was already perfect. There was no love and no sadness in the words. It embodied only emptiness - it's most pure form. Nothing left wanting, no thirst unquenched.

In a moment of clear sight, I knew only the right words were forming. In that moment the half empty bar around me sunk, drowned, imploded and combusted - for all I cared. I had just written a masterpiece.

This multiplying illness complexes this weariness
Earieness steers for thou
A three tier system is written
In the hearts of despising old *******!!!!

Not soon yet
Not after!!!!

Climaxing evildoer's
Initiate iniquities triangled love affair,
Many go the distance
Whilst the darers
They dare!!!!

Clean slates
Thou wilt not find in a confine of magic fairy tale cells
Im sick
Combusted of all energies
I feeleth that bursting flame
Arising from hell!!!!

Coffee beans
Boil near by one!!!

Some play on open courts
Whilst others believe in freedom
Of pistol range fun!!!


No extinguisher
To put out
The volcanic smoke,

Wiccans
To quick ones

No lighter to spark thine throat!!!!

Pleasures are shamefully no fun here
Even amongst thine own kind
Thou art a diseased display
Of settled bacteria!!!

Hysteria
Enters ones mind
To rid him the pains of this life,

Forget wrong and right!!!!!!

Thou knoweth neither,
Unborn one!!!!!

Thou art a star of creation
A leader of all nations
The moon
The earth
The sun
Captured beauty thou art!!!!

Thou photographic film!!!

tonight I faced my biggest fear
of a dog charging at me
and not letting it get hit by a car.
Unlike how you grabbed my ankles
and threw me head first into
a semi-truck and watching as
I combusted into dust and gray feathers on our 5th anniversary.
Maybe you were hoping to see a plethora of colors.
Just because I tended to inhale paint 
and spew it onto a canvas means
nothing. 
Y'know, it's awfully rude to build
a house on someone's spinal cord
after only biting their lip.
The blood didn't fill my mouth,
so I guess it didn't mean anything.
So until it does, I'll wait until summer
thaws the hearts of dead bodies in
every concrete cemetery 
so I can hear the earths core
sing my favorite song,
you hitting your coffee cup on
our ceiling like You've Had Enough.
You used to play it with your pulse
so loud the walls would shake
and start to erode at each crevice
your song made.
That poor house never stood a chance 
with the way our internal screams
messed with the plumbing.
But that's why you're hammering
nails into my vertabrae, 
and that's why you keep my coat 
on the tip of your tongue.
So I'll have a place to call home
and you'll always remember what my 
lips tasted like.
Vanilla and saltwater.
The taste of past lovers and sweet futures you always said.
But now your house is gone
burnt down by the fire that is my soul
after you three gasoline into my
intestines to get rid of the old letters
my mind sent through my veins.
never say you loved the hot waters of my skin.
you changed the temperature every time you got the chance.
which begs the question
how does one turn the dial
on a heart encaged like a bird?

Far-seeing the apple of your eye
Reaching for
The globe, glorious and tender in your sphirex hands,
Newly crafted, formed. Painted by the millimeter from
the pacific to the Indian.
North to south-- then the equator
Smack bang,
In the middle.
You'd shoulder the weight of the sphere
and you'd smoldered the downfall of the creation
As the maple combusted and we took a bite:
Sweet, deep crimson.
Scorned yet dazed; a lamb ready for the slaughter
Our sympathies could only reach an external level
As our animalistic inner, drove us to all fours
And the taste of sin, bittersweet.
And then the caw of the crow,
And the growl of the beast
Echoing across the mountains,
Valleys,
The curves deep,
The aperture wide spread as
The sun set behind our crystal eyes
Unveiling the sublime.
(For a moment)
Then,
Darkness.

She is not the cure to your cancer, that toxic heartbeat you hold so wearily, that blackened hand you hold so scarily. Tick tock sound of the clock. And yet her heart beats on in your song, her smile is sat down and made to wait a while. She’s an excellent choice for you my dear, if only you wasn’t so queer. If you only didn’t sit in my seat, if only you didn’t make the tea, if only you were a bit more like me. Like you, like you, like, who? You? A mirrored image is that what I have become, I am not here, I am not one, with you. You want to see yourself in my smile, to make me sit and play with you for a while...for this time shall too pass my sweet. I meet your hands with a full on gaze, a full on face, I am not what I seem, I am not what you chose to taste.

What a spectacle, too powerful to behold and yet you are beheld in her grace, you can see the mark you leave upon her face. Her novice ways to you are upsetting, you have too much time to let her forget sin, and happiness leaves a crown upon your face? You laugh, she laughs, you sigh, she cries, you swoop, she falls, you live, she dies. Embers burn brightly in her eyes when you talk sweet nothings in her ears, If I were to understand you would it make much sense? Does god look for you around corners in dark bars? Her sweet breath becomes tainted in the morning light, you watch as she searches for dreams untold. She was never pure, never here, never an apology. Oh woman of mine, sweet divine being, I will not betray your trembling sight.

There is beauty in the fact that you are not there. Left behind, she looks to the sky, learns to live, learns to die, without. You. Heartbeats shatter and fumble around your ears, colours explode to your left and there she stands, to your right. Job done. Move on. Left, left, left, right, left. Full stop. C’est suffit. She gave you something from the folds of her dress and the car rides down the dusty path. Heralded by a greater cause, no with, what or who for’s, no silence begging for attention, you are preceded by your own detention. Beauty, beautiful, beatific, be still, sweet girl around my head. Hold my hand, let me walk with you by my side. You are my introduction to be made.

Crisscrossed in the night, arms and legs are making shadows in the moonlight, sign language only lovers can hear, noises that escapes from even the most pursed lips, hits my fingertips; drag me with you, tear my throat as you hear me. Sigh. A midnight dancer , she misses the spot on which you had her stand, lost the grasp of her amazing hand, and by my sight, by which I see, she is a most superb delight, the most gracious flight you ever did heed. And let my love be born from holding you in my arms, from when I watch you and you, in return cannot see; your ignorance is that of the most majestic kind, your internal war I can see in your person, you are not a battle scar, though a battlefield is more apt to the tune you dance to. Your lonlieness is sometimes too large to bear, my back is small and weak, my hands only hold your heart first, your tears must fall, fall, failing, to the ground.

Smile. You make me. Dance, I for you. Hear, the night sounds of your dreams. Touch, my heart with your words. Write, me a sonnet made of lies and imagination. Paint, me a picture. Fire, in my eyes, for you. Burn, burn, burn out the night sky. The stars have all combusted and dropped out of the sky for this. Me, I am acceptable in the shadows. You, play a violin unaccompanied to your nightmares. We, make this our own. Belief, a hope i have for you.

I was told to always know my enemies
to know them as I know myself
so I became one, consumed their food
breathed their stars produce of alien air
combusted my intake
made rid of my waste

I stood in their playgrounds of learning
practised the art of something called love
found no happy medium there to recount
so I slipped away by midnight's moon
still studying their particular ways
and the very strange things they say

This recon was a waste of time
mostly harmless is what they are
just mostly harmless
lets keep it that way

By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

Growing Hazelnuts in the Pacific Northwest
(a conversation between two coastal poets)


we periodic update each other by
email or poetry...writers choice

~~~
my turn but
not an easy poem to commence,
for its eminent domain fraught
with relative comparisons favoring one side,
emphasizing the differences that life prefers to offer
a magnetic choice,
attract or repel

a language conundrum
an iron-strong irony that the poem's ending,
its commencement, its ceremonial completion,
far easier for me to forecast before the real work initiated
<•>
commanded  by you to write of me and mine,
with detailed, careful accuracy
as if it were a poem!

So Why Not a Poem Then?**

my hasty notes emailed upon my current status
you dislike for they are both brief and oblique,
poorly scripted, yet generous
with typological confusion, writing in this genre of
self-evaluation always is concluded by me as:

devolving into either boring, pompous or delusional aggrandizement or the final infinity-indignity of
mealy mouth whining

so an updated poem will be writ,
the happenings of my life have not changed greatly,
the struggle to earn daily bread that supports a familial universe, grows more difficult as demand for buggy whips drops even more ferociously with the onset of miracle
self-driving cars

your son fights fires, commands the earned allegiance of men who fight that which threatens the survival of others life and limb, mine, fights for the his daily bread which is only equivalent in its mind numbing insidious mental exhaustion

I make no judgements or place any emphasis erroneous

the California fire, your sons volunteered absence,
leaves living holes in your family to be filled,
and the burden shifts with the Oregon wind, northward,
upon your old-er tired-er shoulders,
a somewhat similar etching on my body
carved in Eastern Standard Time worry lines

reading between the lines of your concerns,
read of all the plans in process,
feel the cares and concerns that  lself-sacrifice impose,
among them the 75 acres of hazelnuts harvest ready
that need his missing hands to do the harvesting work

which makes my daily shifting of financial instruments
seem very, very, petite bourgeoisie

I have studied in some detail the minutiae of hazelnut harvesting methodologies which makes me into another
east coast expert poet - confident in his opinions validity,
tho devoid of any hands-on experience and would not recognize a hazelnut from the ones (nuts) floating in my head

well, here must also admit into evidence that every potted plant or tree I ever purchased in the Flower District (West 30's) died. ignominiously. that a delicious word deserved of being spoken aloud for the
accuracy of its sounds

as predicted ending this poem, far, far easier than the writing

we cross pollinate each others lives; selfishly think, nay,
convinced, each, I am the possessor of the better half of the deal, for me the loving of your ordinary of soil and ash,
*** wee football, the honest labor of building things
is getting an honors degree in sharing

though,
though worrying about our children
seems to be deemed a bi-coastal commonality

perhaps the Yankees will win tonite, (nope)
perhaps the Giants will upend the Seahawks tomorrow, (nah)
items of passing interest that will soon pass,
for your real serious worries are
combulated confabulated and combusted with mine,
what is yours - now mine shared

this intersection happens when two poets from opposite ends of these united states cross pollinate via manly hugs,
75 acres of friendship that need harvesting,
and the earned respect of insight into our singular
psyche so rich-earth deserved

with manly hugs and respect

your friend the n-man
Oct 20-22, 2017

~~~

I hate this empty feeling
In my stomach
Acidic and cold
Like someone punched it


I feel sick
I think I combusted
Wouldn't be surprised
If you loved it

I hate myself
I hardly speak
Because I hate what's underneath

I'm horrible
Understand that

A lioness with crystals around her neck,
Dances for the world to see.
She’s worth all of the rain in the atmosphere,
She bypasses the stars and gives the galaxy chills.

The sky aches and mourns in her absence,
While she resides in the tundra.
It’s no wonder she hasn’t combusted,
Cracking like thunder.

Bubbling like molten rock,
Still sweeter than lava cake.
She only aches for the quaking sunrise
And unfair, animated compromise.

She stopped breathing years ago,
When the ground became stable
She lives externally and deliberately
Flying through colours agelessly.

She’ll consume you, she’ll ruin me!
The sooner the better.
I've been craving her thunder
I'm yours to ****. Feed my culture.

Enjoying this choking feeling,
Wrapped in silk in an auto-mobile
Filled with pillows,
So we can drive faster than ever.

She likes the taste of epinephrine,
and I like the taste of her alone
She drinks up the world’s drought
And giggles while we sleep, parched and shivering.

...
But god ******, I’d give my only breath to her.
Transparent like a demon; simply human perfection.

We are not made of stars, I don't know why you told me that
Would it have made a difference if we were?
To be flaming ***** of combusted gas
Temperate and voatile
Already, that's how we exist...
So would it really have changed us?
(I think not)
Do you really think of me that way?
Combustible...unpredictable in every way
(Possibly not even there anymore)
Radiating your world from far away
So far...
You wouldn't notice if I disappeared
Do you truly think we're made of stars?
(It's not as romantic as you think)
Honestly, I view us more as a sunset
If we're going to talk atmosphere
The pinkish kind that melts and blends
Into the dark bruise of night sky
We mix and evolve into something atramentous
Something tantalizingly morbid
But our morbidity shall not keep
Us from living free and happy
Because, eventually, the sun rises
And brightens our venomous palors
Sweetens the berries of our tender youth
(Though not so young anymore)

You never say the right things anymore
Lucky you.
You have me.
(And I'll never let you go)
Star dust and all.

184 gone and in great despair
one hundred eighty four trials and institutions. 184 new reasons to forgive
to use, to be confused, to lose, and to get loose all gone
they are all gone. gone for good, forever, for evers and everys, somewhere on Everest, or likely just high up in the sky. Somewhere in the chasm of iCloud or hidden on the hard-drive of one of my Macs.

Tired and Hurt, Anxious, Alert, all of me is frustrated my skin is doing different things, all of it is baffling and I don't even know how I'm going to try to keep mildly sane, all of them are gone and I'm a total wreck, I am.

One-hundred Eighty-Four Notes on my iPhone gone. They're all alone, all of them on their own. Me I'm just by myself and squarely overwrought. Confused and upset, I wonder if the Mac God's have tried to take their pain and loss of the Jobbs out on me. All these note's are gone and I don't know what to do. Do I swear? Do I sweat? Do I call Apple instead of setting myself to burn? What have I done? What have I done to come down to a blank screen lost of all its myriad characters.

The pages don't care, I'm sitting perturbed in my underwear, baffled, unamused, furious, and feeling used. My trust combusted, my one hundred eighty four are gone. And no one cares. All my notes are gone and no one knows. My poems are gone, I sing this song, but all my words are gone don't you know? They're all gone....don't you know! I want my 184. I need my 184- don't you know! I just can't ignore, my 184.

His thoughts, his talks
Have combusted every corner
Of my cracking heart ,
Into ashes and dust,
Which fly no more,
Into cravings and lust,
Which I never adore.

I am trapped in this thought cloud
Flying beyond the horizons of fantasy,
Reaching non-existent places,
Impossible in my destiny.

I float around on this surface,
Swimming like a cinder-block
On this black tar of love,
Burnt from within,
And ready to burn further,
To win it all,
And to get that shine of a diamond,
It's tough.

touched in the head
to put his madness mildly
a clinical case
but it stood
and it grew
until 1982
spontaneous combusted
when his crate
could not be trusted
the doctors reacting wildly

age of 15 combusted first greens
age of 16 ******, no dreams
age of 17 started slangin' QP's
age of 18 got busted by police
age of 19  benzos got the best of me
age of 20 an empty shell is the rest of me.
...

Experiment in human perception:
Change your name to something different
And suddenly it is perceived
That your writing itself has changed;
Become darker, depressive; even suicidal.
The same words, emotions as before,
Now clothed in a gothic, demonic flavor,
By the simple association with a different name;
Nothing more or less than a collection of letters-
The 'd's not from dendrites,
The 's's not from synapses.
Were the Salem witch hunts inclusive in our very DNA?
Because no one can ever see inside a man's heart,
Only his clothing and name are visible;
And both can be combusted, at the whim of society,
Of whom no one person can know it's motives.
How can it be trusted, telling nobody it's name or mission?
Yet my name is out there for the whole world to see.
The different will always be searched out, persecuted,
Whether in school, or the world at large,
Whether in 1940's Germany or 21st Century America.
That's how it starts.

Walls I'd
Carefully erected
Deconstructed in
A few moments of
Brutal honesty and
Embraced doubt
You'll run
You'll reject
Never forgive
Heaven forbid you forget

Those doubts, crushed
When the pressure couldn't
Be handled and
I combusted
Wall deconstructed
Those bricks held in place by
Mortar mixed with my lies
Set carefully by insecurity,
Crumbling in the explosion
Telling me
To just be

But now, not
Too long later,
I'm scrambling
To pick up the pieces
Gathering bricks and ashes
Remixing my mortar of lies
Trying to reconstruct
My walls

I know
That it isn't good, but
It sure as hell feels easier
Stack brick, on brick
Hide away,
All hide and no seek
I know it's no good
But it sure feels easier

I know
Out of ashes can
Come a beautiful new creation
Redeemed and restored
Because
Lighting and sand make
Glass in a storm
Combine enough
Pressure and heat and
You get a diamond

I know beauty comes
From ashes and
I'm a rough cut diamond crafted
By Greater Hands

But I still want to
Scrape up the ashes
Mix my mortar,
Build my wall
Because it may not be good,
But it sure as hell feels easier

Help me believe
Your diamonds are
Better than
My bricks
Don't let me reconstruct
My walls of
Insecurity and
Self-sufficiency
Deconstructing all
You've built in me

I have
To love You more