I am a certified expert in the sequential pushing of buttons,
this pushing performed, on a good day, in concert with the
expensively purchased, somewhat rare mental model of
the workings of a recently commonplace variety of machine
dependent at its core on the minuscule presence of increasingly-rare
earth metals allowing for the conditional flow of groups of electrons.
These machines, like their precursors, are further dependent on
the supply of slightly less increasingly rare combustible material
for which armed conflicts are routinely fought and many have died.

My interest in the machines began at an early age,
enticed by the illusion of control, and on the whole,
I think, motivated by the idea that these machines
processing information, the core mechanism of reality,
might be used to create understanding.

In the interceding years, it is increasingly apparent to me
that while some are used for this purpose, most,
like most things around me, are controlled and engaged by
multi-personed organisms concerned primarily with:
1) self-preservation AND
2) the collection of, and limited divestment of,
unit notions of rarefied value, insured by the
existence of another similar organism valued for its
1) self- and nearby-environs preservation AND
2) recent track record of insuring continued relatively easy access
to the aforementioned important combustible materials.
—it is generally considered to people's credit that this notion
of value is thus-derived and no longer as frequently derived by virtue
of possessing a metal which, while of certain non-combustible use,
is basically just pretty rare and really, really shiny.

I find myself again shortly in a need of convincing such an organism
that my button pushing is of sufficient quality,
on sufficiently frequent good days,
that it should consider me a temporary part thereof and divest,
of itself to me, sufficient units of value that I might happily
continue to push buttons on its behalf in the pursuit of further units.

I am, for some reason, somewhat less than thrilled with this prospect
finding it, despite its marketability, a maybe less than important enterprise.
I am existentially concerned by the idea that my whole value may derive
from my button pushing, and is thus further dependent on
the availability of rare-earth metal and also-rare combustibles.

In some delusion of importance amongst 7 billion plus similar primates
and a unfathomably vast universe,
I thought you might be interested to know

I don't know what pieces of me want you.
It's lucky for you, honestly  
if I knew where they were hiding
I wouldn't think twice about ripping them out of me.
I would leave gapping holes in my chest,
I would abandon my mind for the sound of static on repeat,
I would swallow combustibles,
and paint my insides on the walls of my bedroom
if it meant I'd be able to want happiness for
myself
more than I want it for you.

It was the winter my mother discovered her identical twin sister was dying. It was a season of falling into knowledge of another's body failing; the body you were born with. All that had been sculpted in a body was slowly being chipped away at day by day by day. It was a season of maybes. Maybe she tasted Ohio snow instead of morphine. Maybe behind her eyes lies another world no one has access to. Maybe she is already gone and what remains is pantomime of living. Maybe she will die before Christmas.

It was the winter I saw my mother touch someone on a regular basis. She smoothes and strokes her sister's arms as if they were soft sheets. Through sunset in the eyes to moonlight in her hands, she does this. Maybe she even whispers "taste the snow". How literal we take our lives when they are taking us on our final journey. Where do we receive direction on what to do. We don't. We go on nerve endings and will power and love we contain in the corner waiting for moments like these.

These are contained, constrained paragraphs - no combustibles here. Precise and to the point. What snakes beyond the lines that are laid out? That is the real saga. It is winter and there are a city of birds outside the window. They flock when my sister-in-law arrives with her bread crumbs. This is a parenthetical detail to the main narrative. But surrounded by family and hospice workers. Women brush their hair, people buy tickets to movies, fill their cars with gas. She does nothing but walk towards herself. Sometimes slower than before. This is her task. The dark wing she flies under and the walking, walking, walking, walking. No cold ash in the mouth here. Yes, Ohio snow and the scent of flowers in the room.

It is morning and she lies in her bed. It is afternoon and she lies in her bed. It is evening and she lies in her bed. Some say "resting" but I prefer ruminating in a roomful of memories. You are thinking that death is delicate, soft and slow and nothing dangerous about it at all once you have decided it is the road you will meet yourself on. This is no abstraction for you nor art one must be taught. Instinctual, the I in you meets it full faced. The moon glows from the bulb in the ceiling, silver speckled stucco are the stars you peer at. You do not question it. A thousand windows ago were birds water rock sand desert wind. Now there is your own pale reflection where once there was the world forever, I shall not entirely be emptied of beauties, the gift of your small breath, the drenched grass, smell of your sleep, lilies, lilies ...planetary wanderings through the black amnesia of Heaven. You touch still remember still feel still. Ambivalence rests in your red needle slammed arms. But there is beauty in blood too. The pulsing, veins and rivers of it. The deep underground river you sleep in. You there on your back eyes to the moon lit room, not a relic but a woman avoiding death's lip to her ear, the shadows on a face, the abyss of absences. The moon mingles with the image of a woman warm and flushed with life and history and future.

My aunt remembers names lucidly. The keeping of names is sacred. Before naming things and people was wind stone snow.

How to explain there are the perpetually open graves. One need not give oneself over to death. Fluid in the brain circling like liquid around a planet need not destroy you. Your bones might turn to tin but it still does not claim you. Creaking when you breathe means you still breathe. Yours is not the stone face of the woman who does not feel. The mirrors may seem to fail you, but you face them anyway. You live now in a ponderous house, with strangers, family, friends, co-workers flooding in. "Where am I"? you ask. In the citadel of love.

Snuggled for warmth,
Kindled the flame,
Bathed in the smoldering February rains.
Untamed desires,
Unkilled delights,
Fueled by the incandescent summer nights.
Did you feel the burn?
The radiance quickly flickering.
Did you feel it fade?
The fire slowly subsiding.
Drenched in goodbyes, we're watching the last cinder die.

fire engulfing the combustibles
the soft flickering of red and orange sparks
gentle, but powerful
the smell of charred oak filling my nose
a wave of light, one after the other
lingering warmth on my skin
as if i could ever replicate
what it felt like to be beside you

fire provides us warmth, light,
perhaps a vague sense of security in the hardest nights
but come too close,
and the fire
will burn
you.

Kawasaki revving on a long 5 *******
screaming pipe, watching from behind
a beautiful carousel of red and blue
flashing between my eyes

All along these tired roads
between the wandering streams cutting daily into the sediment
eroding the trust of those ancient riverbanks
exposing the bodies laid to dust

Those great crackling xylophones
marimba of memory and curdled blood
Screaming now, cracking between the gunshots
like bones
Souls forever past it

No forgiveness, no chance
No indictment on a ruddy road

I fall off my bike, skid a mile or two
feel the deep earth grind my skin,
tempting me with heat and a sweet goodbye
a challenge I'll never win

I skid past the officer in a ditch,
hole in his head and a clipboard ripped in two
Poor man, back with the sediment
wrapped in a carpet of beige and mud
all we've ever done

I'm not sure what I'd have said
As I slid past on my way to death
where the Appalachia slammed into Africa
saying we were all in this together
once before
as dinosaurs

So how are we any different then?

Bunch of stardust
and Sediment
Acting like winners
and consumed by lust
for dust and rocks
a part of us
Leading back our dark descent

Kawasaki flips and implodes in a ball of combustibles
behind me the sky explodes into red
and fire of passion deep in our star
of hearts, I know we'll all be the same then
empty of body, devoid of toys
stripped of lies, those knowledgeable clothes
and return to perfect Eden
where dirt and earth are us,
and dust we discriminate
obliterate into the neverend

Lillian Virginia took a photograph and stopped making fountains for City Hall, in 1963... She had Miwok dreams
and now, does  portraits of
the South Sierra...
all 1964 and Kodak Moments-
and cemeteries in Paris.
extensively abroad, she died at 31 in an explosion
on assignment for “ Combustibles “ magazine
In 1973.

I play a piano
in my
Living Room
without
Irony.

In a Papertown.

Dial a burn up, mobile
crematoriums 24/7 at
your own place with
environmental friendly
combustibles, discreet
and always punctual.

www.burnup@phoenix.ie