Those that are complacently designed
By the simpering vanities
of a domesticated world
rarely find the peace of mind
of which we all strive
because their materialistic
beliefs constrain them
in pools of normality
Drowning them in the pressures of society
and hanging them out to dry
in downloaded photos
that never fade
our lives are all dictated
by the subconscious influence
of one another
thus our souls
are irrefutably intertwined
locked together in endless struggle
mind against mind.

setting the stage:* driving through this tiny southern town i call home, i saw a man.
out the window i saw him, mid 60's, walking up to a small white box-shaped house.
a word, with no obvious association to this man in particular, came to thought.
the word: complacent.
i proceeded to conjure up an entirely (insert appropriate emotion here) story about this man.  
(the story of this man being a symbol for [what i believe to be the majority] of humankind.)
the entirely (insert appropriate emotion here) story goes:

his entire adult life, the man has spent each day working hard at a job not his passion .
this job has enabled him to provide food and shelter to his family for 40 years.  
as a young person, his face lit up when he spoke of his dreams and aspirations.
the light has since gone out.
he is not unhappy, no. (complacent)  
he has accepted this is the way of life.
he works 8-5pm, gets home and watches a bit of television, eats supper with his family, perhaps smokes a pipe, goes to sleep.
and repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat,repeat...for forty years.  
he never gets angry, never raises his voice or fist.

now here is me.  
my life is an emotional rollercoaster.  propelled by my heart. one second of blissed-out lightness is followed by deep-gut sadness is followed by adrenaline-fired passion is followed by bone-hollowness is followed by complete calm is followed by intense panic... and on and on for 25 years.

complacency is something creative minds envy during the hardest times.
the days of existential crisis
the sleepless panicked nights of 'what am i doing with my life
the tender kisses transformed to screaming matches with our respective beloved.

i need something to wake up for each morning.
i need art like my lungs oxygen.
i need feeling too much like my body blood.
and in the hard times, if i were to try complacency for awhile,
surely i would cease to function.  

and surely a deep-hearted sadness consumed me as i thought of the 'man' and of all of the people living perfectly complacently on this earth.

and then again, is there no admiration to be found in this 'man' who has worked so hard, poured some much sweat and blood into a job not his passion so that he can provide for his family?  the tears swell in my eyes as i type these last lines.

How deadly is the sight of the flying witch,
she's mighty and flawless, her name is Lynn
elegant and graceful in her broom she'll go,
All of her victims had that exact same thought.

She seizes you with kind words
and for your soul offers you gold.
With her, you enjoy flying,
for you trust you won't fall.

Once in her cave, she speaks with friendly words
she fills your belly and fabricates a loving home,
It's hard to see her as from the underworld
It's hard to see what's about to come.

Before you realize she attempts to take control,
eating the brains of whom you call your own.
She's yelling and screaming, how putrid is her soul.
The witch is evil, but no one cares of what you know.

Now down the stairs she complacently goes,
raises an eyebrow, it's diabolical, it's smug
she then smiles to her husband, a mere puppet of hers
Satan is that woman, the witch who yells.

A pleasantly bubbling creak murmurs softly, complacently flowing as a creak does, day in and day out
By the crumbling bank stands a strong willow tree, rooted by the prolfic stream
Thoughtlessly taking the water of which it needs, a simple commodity to a tree of such stature and poise
And gracefully, beautifully shivering at the base of his trunk, there lives a daisy, white and pure
The willows roots indulge themselves, thirsting, thirsting for more
Negligent to the flower below who makes its view that much more lovely
Than just a simple stream, and who provides to the animals and children a blustery smile
Beckoning them to the shade where they might play and the daisy might watch over them
And as the roots take and take they choke the misguided flower, leave her to wither
One soft petal falls to the grass rendering her no more than a tainted ****
No child will ever present her to his good mother now
Not now that she is no longer the pure beauty she once was, not with such an imperfection
And though she may beg for mercy, she must weaken and give herself to the strong roots of the willow
Until she is but a dying cause with browned stale edges and though she lay so close to life, stable life
She does not possess the power to take rein so she the sage awaits the logger in silent knowingness

Icarus’ sister exists only in living stone,
the watchful daughter of the craftsman
in the middle of his own labyrinth,
once his prized creation, placed in
the prime line of his drafts, design, eye
of his genius, now a relic existing
in a dusty nowhere cobweb corner
stained with Minotaur blood,
watching her fleshy father
falteringly stitch wax, feathers, twigs
to a frame that could not
take the water and sun of every day birds,
not even the weight of a son’s pride
who complacently raveled and unraveled
his father’s clew, half hearing  cautions,  
his mind flapping beyond the planets.

She cried over how Daedalus could
dote over such mortal error
while she exists in perfect neglect,
cried a tear turned prayer that
mixed with the dust, the murderous
blood crusting the rusty teeth of Perdix’s saw,
knowing hence  that men **** their best dreams,
fear the successful  flight of  their ideas, and  
that her faith, trust now forever lived with the gods.

Hephaestus heard her and bellowed her mind,
taught her to seek inspiration in the rejected
metal slivers that littered the workshop
like the sand of Naxos where Theseus
left Ariadne in her abandoned dreams.

In the cry of that other lost daughter
she heard the sound of ascent,
saw father and son in erratic flight
and followed to the top of the labyrinth
to watch two glints align in descent
and one splash into the sea.

Graced with the knowledge
that forbearers would
name the waters below for this fool,
she deposited Icarus in their father’s arms,
and flew away on brass wings of her own design,
wingtips skipping waves, seeking the sun.

If you were granted the gift of temporary flight...

     Would you ascend...
          Just so you could feast your eyes
          on the horizon,
          beyond the confines of weather-worn tiles
          set upon unsuspecting rooftops.

     Would you take soar...
          Just so you could briefly leave the ground
          below.
          And as the land beneath you diminishes,
          all that's you tethered to your earth
          almost instantly would turn into nothing
          but specks of insignificance.

     Would you fly free...
          Just so your heart could entertain the possibility
          of being ensnared by the breathtaking
          view of the sun,
          as it rests its pompous girth upon its bed of
          clouds;
          Like a bratty king sprawled over lavish sheets.

     Would you burst through the boundary...
          That separates heaven and earth.
          Just so you could be bewitched by the full blown
          moon,
          be enthralled by the siren calls of the stars,
          and be a part of the spectacle that is the
          universe...

If you were granted the gift of momentary flight...

     Would you still ascend?
          Knowing full well that soon gravity would claim
          you with less than no pity nor remorse.
          And all that you had complacently forsaken...
          Will greet you with the harshest of punishments.



                    *I would.

If thine eye offends thee
pluck it out....

War offends
my eye.

All my
senses
defiled
*****
disemboweled
by the
abomination
of war.

My mind
disregards
denigrates
reneges
warps time
destroys values
alters psyches
lays waste
to my
conscience
of hope.

Mine eye offends me
the complicit witness
complacently
ambivalent
turning deaf ears
to groans
of the wounded
wails of the aggrieved
silence of the dead;
shutting doors
to sanctuaries
where refugees
seek safe houses,
locking factories
where men seek work,
level homes
where women nurture,
strafe playgrounds
where children laugh,
raise cities
where people
learn to be human,
immolate mosques
where
God's Children
cry out to the
Beneficent One.

Mine eye offends me,
my gut sickens,
to witness
the slaughter
of innocents
droning on
no angels to save
the million Issac's
savagely smashed to bits
by a Tomahawk's blow.

God's vengeance
escalates
the celestial ledgers
dripping red ink
from excessive
collateral damage,
people reduced
as objects used
to secure a loan
indeed an ARM
on a real time
American nightmare
whose reset rate
is mounting body counts
and massive budget allocations
protecting undisturbed flows
of corporate profits
valued in barrels
of imported blood.

Mine eye offends me
an innocence lost
Veritas vanquished
life is devalued
humanity debased
compassion defunct
empathy a twisted satire
an indelible weakness
incidental hostage
to the torridness
of the lurid play
of savage nations
projecting will,
a devastation
of action.

Mine eye offends me
the message of
sweet Jesus
a way of light
transformed into
biblical justification
agitprop verse
stoking blood lust zeal
for apostate infidels
sons of Abraham's
unworthy spawn,
of Hagar the *****
******* child Ishmael
turned out again
from tribal tents
of an absentee father
from an unfriendly
paternity.

This black *******
an abomination
in the sight of Allah
celebrates
a zeal to ****
unholy disciples
yearning to fill
banana crates
with body parts
draped in
drab Hijabs
decorated with
satanic verses
from a
Holy Quran
carved with
bayonets
of self righteous
Crusaders
armed with rifles
inscribed with
Gospel verses
on deadly gun
barrel stocks
to ramp the passion
of the righteous Crusade
against Godless apostates.

Mine eye offends me
as I witness
the **** of
corporate mercenaries
churning bereaved
Blackwaters
beholden only
to shareholders
gobbling spoils of war
to safely exit
to private vomitoriums
to expunge the excess
of gluttony
only to
quickly return
to engorge themselves
at the public troughs
again.

No constitutional
restraints
save the
strict guidelines
of holy
corporate governance scriptures
ruthlessly enforced with
golden carrots
of multi-million dollar
stock options
and the brutal stick
of shareholders divine right
to quarterly dividends
and above average
equity returns.

Corporate warriors
anointed by
holy oil
proffered
by capitalist shamans
and US Senators
conferring
jurisprudential deferment
on civil law
recusing them from
any behavior
to recognize the humanity
of captive insurgents.

Mine eye offends me,
as the flag
draped coffins
of returning
servicemen
and women
continue to pile
on the boiling tarmac
of Dover Air Force Base.

Tearful salutes,
folded flags
and mournful dirges
of prerecorded Taps
are small compensation for
shattered families,
and a wasted life,
unnecessarily spent,
criminally sacrificed
in a pointless conflict
in service to a lie.

Mine eye offends me
as I watch
my country's soft parade
of growing militarization
xenophobic fear
compelled patriotism
salute and goose step
to the flash of sword
and the sound of guns
and the glittering
medals of valor
adorning the chests
of a nations warriors.

How barbaric
are we?
allocating
overstuffed
apportionment
of weapons
and armories
while
people are
foreclosed
forcing armies
of unemployed
Joads
to ride
en masse on
an Acela Express
to a crowded
poor house
a listless journey
on pock marked
highways
arriving at
dreaded
destinations
to defunct
townships
offering
empty factories
and closed schools.

Screaming in silence
I scratch at my eyes
with numbed fingers.

Matthew 18:9

Music Selection:
The Doors, The Soft Parade

Oakland
3/17/10
jbm

i am of the light
despite
my shroud
that crowds the villains in the toppled telemetry of my steeds
galloping gallantly from the burning cities of my dreams

i shall gleam from her or he
that which delivers
their truths faithfully to their dreams
open wounds turn invitation
in the pity of hungry thieves
who dared to dream
of peasants king-ed.
as we sing
sing
of desperation
in passionate confessions
of jaded wisdom
passed on through every failure
never to falter
in the betrayals of Walters
lost
in loss-less flac files
i have miles to go
smiles to grow
daggers projectiles
from mild mannered children
freshly ridden
of maniacal miracles
spiritual
but not stupid
we are troopin
this lucid movement
grooving
to the repetition of the drum
the gas blow back of a gun
the bursting bubbles of bubble gum
having fun
i learnt goodly on the run

learned nothing in victory

learned nothing in simplicity

complacently

snickering it all away
bullet by bullet
case by case
and eventually the blade
in my compassionate displays
we shall congregate
and hate ourselves
**** the donks to hell
dwelling on the cellar doors
that darkos teacher adored
in verbal massacre
of the written literature
of cracked brain fixtures
seeping the lines
in cold tingles
down the spines of maniacs

just relax

mix it down on a track
spit the thesis into pieces
through the creases of cracked sneakers, and out the speakers
of trouble seekers.

mistakes make us

deliberate chaos
tossed  
upon the fakers
who cry to think
the dream
became a reality
mistake us
for serrated blades that rip the hearts from beasts
sometimes i stop to think
while having a drink
conclusive brinks
of sanity creaks
of my humility
secreting
frivolously
the disposing of my jealousy
of your feelings

hellaciously
i rip a felony
from a face
in appealing agony
antagonizing me
in the frenzied forensics
of my oblique
outlooks
none of us
were ever crooks
speaking to self
while being booked
in hell

Mirror Opposite

I am what I am?  What am I?  Hedonist, Activist, Devil, Bodhi, Perverse Geek?  I am what I am.  

I am violent tempered but always happy. I am sickened by the worlds decay but delight in the cause of the infections that lead to that same decay.  Opposite ends of the same slide rule.  I ask myself daily; “Self, what are you today?’  The response is never the same and always confusing. I am what I am.

I AM, isn’t that what God said in Genesis?  Was God indecisive too?  Fool, you are not a god!  But, I do believe a god rest in each one of us.  

I am pleasure.  Who doesn’t like to find pleasure?  Come to me.  The sweet, sweet embrace of another, the moisture of the kiss, the exhilaration of the something new, dangerous and palpable, that causes an alkali sensation to rise from your throat.  

I am what I am and that’s all that I am.  Are my forearms as big as Popeye’s?  And, just what caused that deformity anyway?  Surely not *******, as the midnight comics suggest or we would all be his brothers.  

I am Buddha.  My inner being screams in disgust at being reborn again and again and again.  I know how to break the wheel of karma but, that Ferris wheel holds wondrous deprivations along the way and who am I to not try on one or two of those hungry ghosts.  

I am Fey.  My wings clipped and banality killing me slowly.  Where is my golden acorn to plant under a full moon to renew my magic?  I am attracted to hell and repelled by a chorus of angels.  If there is really nothing better then cloud-sitting in heaven then why bother, Give me Valhalla.  At least in Valhalla  you could get good tickets to a fight.  I am a mirror.  

I reflect what society tells me while struggling against the media-ocricy that streams into my sensory organs like polluted waves from the Valdez.  A elephant seal of anarchy covered and drowning in my own conservative opinions.  

I am female hear me roar.  If for no other reason then being told that, however in touch, I can not be a feminist.  I pay homage to Aphrodite upon her shell, Dianna by her stag?  O.K. Maybe not a feminist.  How about sexist, or racist, or bigot or xenophobe?  Maybe.  

I am  Worm fodder.  I wish to believe in another world after this but hide behind science and its violently anonymous creator.  When dead will we all lie quiet as the grave in out grave as the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms get in my guts no doubt.  Would that be so bad?

I am the shade of Inubus and Quatezecotyl, Crowly and Repoche.  Lapping up their words and making a **** pile of their experiences.  What am I?  

I am what I am.  Silent when I should be loud, and an abomination when I need to be beautiful.  Polar opposite made flesh with a grin.  

What am I?  I am a Questioner.  There is no knowledge that can withstand time.  Every question is correct and every answer is wrong.  How do I know what is truth.  Is there really TRUTH or just Memorex.  

I am a Seeker of arcane thoughts and novel philosophies.  Everything has been said.  But, can it be said in a manner that makes sense at this point at this time grasshopper?  How many licks does it take to get to the center of the tootsie pop?  I want to know!  

I am the Thinker. Elbow on knee, hand on chin.  Why did they **** Copernicus?  Was it really just for a heliocentric universe or something much more political?  ROY G BIV are the colors of the rainbow but what if we could see ultraviolet and infrared?  What if I stood inside the rainbow would it be back as all the colors mixed?  I am what I am.  

I am the Adventurer.  Sword in hand and cod piece attached correctly.  I head out in search of what I question and seek and think about.  How else would you find your own truths.  Truth, not beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.  If every grain of sand is an universe unto itself then I wish to explore each and every one to delve into their faceted trivialities and pillage the knowledge from them.  

I am an organic being content to take over a new world each night in my dreams and complacently ignore my biological clock counting down to unknown oblivion.


Wolff

Shouldn't we see the world for what it is? Whether the land as barren as an oceanless sea or a forest thick with shrubs and trees of green and wildlife prouncing about. Can we not take what we want if we both want the same? What are miles as the crow flies and leopards roam? Are we not creatures of the flesh? We should ravish these bodies in the blistering sun of our own making; it would be so easy.
      It's like the world has stopped turning, and yet the birds still sing. We are silent. The nights and days grow longer; we know it's only a matter of time. It slips. The time slips, and we are complicit in its passing over us. We are frozen and complacently lost in the reveries of the words caught in our lungs.
      I am asking every question I can. Why now? Why should I long for something which I do not yet know? Yet I do. We kick up dust in our rhetorical dance, and it is only the steady rain of the passing days that can settle it again.
      We both have roots in places not near. What does it mean to uproot the life? A transplant to other lands, and if anything should go wrong, we might rot into the soil if only to be reborn again — we are resilient and as sure as a passing day. Let me water your roots where ever they choose to grow, and let me shine down to encourage where ever you choose to bloom.

I try to remember the "good times."

Just to realize I'm drowning,
Drowning on Hallmark lines

Remembering the "good times"
Smiling complacently
Drowning on Hallmark lines

And I realize the memories
Were all good

One lines.

Fifteen uniform clouds
Roll across the prairie
In a neat little line on the horizon
Kicking up dust storms as they go
Hurrying along
Silently
The settlers driving their wagons
Keeping their lips tight
And their eyes sharp
Because there are Indians
Lurking behind every rock
Bandits and thieves
Waiting in the hills
Snakes
Scorpions
Buffalo
Guns
Disease
Separation
Heartache
­ Might surprise them at any moment
Might make them victims and this moment their last
The settler’s hearts are racing
At 120 beats per minute
Pounding out a rhythm
Unlike anything they’ve ever known
Their hands are working at nothing
In the thin dry air
Twirling, twisting, pirouetting frantically
Their jaws are clenching tightly
Spasming, biting, drawing blood from their tongues
Their eyes are wide, unblinking, terrified
Seeing it all as it really is,
Really should be
And secretly, perhaps subconsciously,
Unrealizing,
They hope life will always feel this alive
But then,
In a few weeks
When they’ve made it to the city
To the town
To the shelter and comfort of ease
Civilization opens up her greedy maw
Swallows them whole
And licks her ****** fingers clean
So as not to stain her tidy white frock
And the settlers do nothing
Complacently allowing themselves to be digested
But they are thinking
“This is what I wanted?”
The voices in their heads have reached fever pitch, disgusted, screaming,
“This is what I wanted??”
And still they do nothing

A certain quiet glinting in the corner of my eye
a prickle-necked foreboding in a sullen winter sky
An ultrasonic wavelength tuned to sorrow and to fear
comes manifest, projected through my wish to bring it near
A pressure change, a slamming door, a thought of things undone
comes seeping through the paintwork for a bit of spectral fun

And I can sit complacently and watch the show unfold
My perfect explanations make me curious and bold
I wonder how my brain will paint this misty-coloured scene
What face will fly from memory where no face should have been
I have no need for magic or for spirits of the dead
But seek the secret passages that twine within my head

And here it comes, as if on cue, parading through the wall
(A weaker man than me would think his wisdom rather small)
The wraith is clothed in folklore, stepping past without a glance
And I would laugh it off but for one ghastly circumstance:
For all my knowledge, nothing helps the second that I see
That solid as I feel, this ghost
                                                     does not
                                                                ­       believe
                                                                ­                      in me.

What is this pulse I feel?
Stark, ever-present, the tumor with which
life is sustained.

The sky today is remarkably dismal
raindrops along the sidewalks
which I cling to:
not out of reliance --
but out of need.

The world is a bleak gunmetal grey
The Promethean fire of our reluctantly naked sun
cannot even bear to expose itself today.
So, it hides.
It hides like we all do.

What is this pulse I feel?

It hides like an introvert at a party
who escapes himself
into the blare and blur of a horrid
solidarity of bottles and children
and the illegal activities with which
they so complacently cling to.

Hides like a man in a pin-striped suit
who is concealed under white teeth and
leather lounge chairs and contemporary
architecture.

Hidden like child at a shopping mall
whose mother is almost attentive
as the child hides in a clothing rack
and screams:

"You'll never find me!
You'll never find me!"

And the mother realizes that her
child is gone
And the mother finds her child.
And the child never realizes
that he will never escape the eyes
of those whom he doesn't want to see.

The child may want a mask but masks never conceal effectively --
and if they do they're uncomfortable
and press against your face and suffocate your skin.
And it's easier just to let everyone see you
than to be an isolated mask amongst the ranks
of autonomy-hungry deoxyribonucleic acid.

What is this pulse I feel?

The child dies in a car accident several years later.
Oh, well.

And so, I am here --
the world is sullen and steel
as the raindrops fall upon the sidewalk.
It's as if the world is a graveyard
no one dares exit their shelters to
let the cold Truth gently fall upon their faces.

What is this pulse I feel?

The water falling from the Sun's shelter
answers my question:
"You are a raindrop, you fall from the sky
and land, cold, onto these concrete streets.
You may distinguish yourself amongst the other molecules
but you are all Hydrogen and Oxygen.
Your identity is nothing.
You are but an off-key baritone singing in a chorus.
The chorus is an ocean;
the aggregation of all human water molecules.
What's one drop to do?"

This pulse I feel?
It is one of billions, and it is indistinguishable.
I cling to the sidewalk as I step further --
hands in my pockets, stepping further.
Step.

I hear the abyss calling.
It takes the form of falling rain.

Portentous corpses always found a way
Of capturing her soul
In ways that serenading chrysanthemums never could
The golden skies we would
Rejoice in
As we felt the warmth dusted upon our blushing flesh
Always faded too quickly into
A deep rustic bronze
And soon dust
Whenever she began to take notice

The whispers of whiskey sang
A sweet lullaby
Every night
When she gathered all of her
Albatross thoughts in the empty bottle
And sent them sailing away
With each encumbering sip

Becoming less and less aware
Of her tragic state of reality
Was merely a method of survival
So that when she laid her head down
Each night
At least in that moment
She feels complacently numb
And dignified in the fantasy world
She has created for herself

As she slips away to dreamland
She cannot help but think
She has never felt more at peace
Than in the moment when
Reality all but vanished
To make room for what will never be.

I sit alone in this park that I’ve known for so long, and listen to bird’s songs, in the hopes my mind will grow tranquil and clam.
I await words to write, to relieve some strife, seeking merely a sliver of a slice of peace of mind. But time comes to a halt, as ghosts with a waltz, dance through my head causing dread, harboring memories from when I was young.
Still naïve and oblivious of the strenuous afflictions to come.
With thoughts collected, I reminisce these recollections, of when the world was filled with bliss, and wish that life was still like this.
When every day is an adventure to be treasured and joy is never severed, I’m care free because responsibility does not exist, within, my limited vocabulary yet.
Each day is met with set structures from a structured home, where mom and dad, still pretend they’re glad, which means I have no reason to be sad. And so, I still don’t know, what it’s like to feel alone, in a broken failing home.
Normalcy becomes conformity, complacently but blatantly forming a shell of apathy.
Because now dad yells,  and the children’s eyes swell, with tears of fear, my mom’s with sheer, determination to captain this ship, stubbornly sit, amidst, these waves of irritation mixed with infidelity.
I found myself stuck in a storm, totally torn, as my joy is worn consistently down. I clown around to be sound, but a permanent frown, is brazenly embroidered into my broodingly breaking soul.
Time flew by ignored my cries to slow, and so my consciousness consented its blissfulness to turn to bitterness, my brokenness was all that I knew, and soon, it was all I could show.
Although now I’m older, still too often I smolder with rage, and both shoulders have boulders, for chips but I’ll fight fate, abate my hate, to keep my future family safe.
Safe from the games my parents played to hide their shame, of a marriage disparaged by barriers, bolstered with a selfish taint. I will sufficiently and selflessly safeguard my wife from treachery. To not neglectfully or carelessly, lead her into insanity. For bride and seed, I will succeed, to do everything my parents failed to do for me.

The plantations have been privatized
The cotton fields paved with concrete
They still exist
Despite how much you resist
Needing working bee's
They persist
And insist you enlist
From the stone like mass
Sky scrappers are erected
At the tiptop, a ******* runs the show
He tells all the little white men
Who work beneath him
What to do and were to go
You're too tired to even think
But you have to work
If you want to eat
From cotton
To poppy
From slaves in shackles
To droids with imperceptible chains
Leading and whipping the pack,
NASDAQ reigns
Grinning like a fool
All complacently cozy cuddling your coins
In an ornamented box
Where your view of the stars is blocked
Politicking away with a bottle scars of yesterday
Telling yourself "Everything will be okay,
It has been this far."
All the while Uncle Sam blows freedom smoke
Up your *** with his federal cigar
Buy, consume, sell
Get drunk, stay distracted, inhale
Imbibe thoughts instead of ale
You could read a book for fun now,
Or to cure boredom in jail

I stopped being a story teller when I learned to read. I don’t think I ever learned to write. I think I was a story teller long ago, before the truth mattered. Before the truth became an obsession. Truth can get in the way when we want to tell a story. Truth has a way of narrowing the walls around us,  putting the pressure on us, and sometimes squeezing the blood from us.

When I look at what I write, the things others would call poetry, the truth is nearly always inversely related to whatever value the words have. You see, there will always be someone who has felt more intense pain or joy. There will always be someone who has behaved more heroically or shamefully than any person about whom I can write. There will always be some common man or woman who has transcended his or her circumstances far better than anybody I have ever met or observed.

If I feel compelled to write about things, acknowledging that whatever great stories I might have had inside were long ago flushed from me by the waters of truth, then I must create people and events. I must conjure them up like ghosts. These apparitions have no form to be washed away.

The people who follow my words like tracks of an animal--predator or prey--should know I feel closest to being one who says something of value when the words are the greatest distance from the texture and grit of events. If I were to tell the truth, it would hurt. It would hurt me to write the truth, and it would hurt the reader who reads it. That reader has often rested complacently with the belief that the words are true, that history is really history rather than one of an infinite number of versions of the truth in this thing one might be inclined to call the book of life.

When  you read my words, please don’t forget I don’t like the truth. I avoid it even in my stories that I believe are based on "real" occurrences. I avoid the truth. Yes, I may have seen the eyes of bloodied Vietnamese children when I was twenty, and yes, I may have sat in a bunker and listened to someone tell me they saw innocents slaughtered on the Mekong,  or what the young warm blood felt like on their hands, and yes, I may have heard someone’s last words before hospice sleep, but all these things are only shadows cast by some light whose source I cannot see or comprehend.

Truth hurts. If you have read my words before, and felt something, there is no way to rob you of the feeling. Please, however, know that I was doing my utmost to hide the truth, because trying to reveal it would have been even more futile.

Playing,
strategizing,
my next
               move
examining
where to go,
thinking a
                    few
                           steps
                                     ahead
finally,
complacently declaring
Check Mate.

Watched me
secretly
Forgot me
purposely

Met me
Harried me
Regretted me
Married me

Made me a Mother
Made me a Wife
Gave over all others
Gave me a life

Loves me in Happiness
Loves me in Anger
Loves me in a dress
Loves me naked, with Hunger

Counts me as a blessing
Counts me as a prize

Relies on me when stressing
Relies on me to tell no lies

Lays his head upon my lap
Lays his demons upon my sword
Lays his dreams upon my alter
Lays his problems outside the door

Sits in Silence at my tears
Sits grinning at my Triumph
Sits still in between the years
Sits complacently inside Love

My Valentine is not a day
not just one inside a year
He's everyday I live and breathe
He's the salt inside each tear
He's the foundation stone
of this Temple I call
My Life
My Valentine is
My Husband
and I am
His Wife

Wit woven and intermittent on paper
Hours owning a prickling pen in hand
Revision, re-take, rewrite - time wasted on how to shape "her"
The missing masterpiece, the babbling baby, the dark demand.

Hours owning a prickling pen in hand
Unreal voices vexing me - understand?
The missing masterpiece, the babbling baby, the dark demand
Threatens to overthrow my complacently creative mentally limp land.

Unreal voices vexing me - understand
Driving and dribbling me ballsy 'cross court; pressure and pain - insane
Threatens to overthrow my complacently creative mentally limp land
Uncouthly killing my deep desire to do what I love because I can.

I push past pressure and pain.
Wit woven and intermittent on paper
My wife, The Pen, I go now to **** her
Revision, re-take, rewrite - time wasted on how to shape her.

Complacently living in an unspoken word
Because letting it out is too absurd
And living with this is easier than
Falling and starting from where we began
Because I can’t acknowledge this trial
So I hide the feelings of which it’s compiled
Running from shame and running into it
No one is here to help block this conduit
I'm confused and unsure of what I can do
Relying on ideas I know are untrue
My emotional foundation is so unstable
Because I base all of it on you

I have this mad dream of getting the Ninth Symphony back onto paper. I want it to scream even louder because I put it in a cage. The cell will be overtly tone-deaf and unmusical in the most obvious of senses but will still roar without complete complacently. After which I will know that I am Man. After which I will know that I am God. After which I will know that I am Me. This is my truest and deepest ambition as a poet.

Well, until tomorrow when her name comes up again: Haha!

After the preaching’s
Done-finished
Picking at the scabs
Of our guilt,
At week's end / day of rest;
Just when we almost had it
Bygone / Forgotten
From our minds...

           It's a kinder kin to amnesia
A softer fog of fugue,
A healing art of our brain farts,
Not soaking in shame's
Diminishment
Or stewing in self-helps.

"Deliver us!"      (bow down genuflect)

But then again
Here we are together to gather
Uncomplainingly
Complacently listening
Absorbing every lash
Of the metaphorical whip,
To be guided back to good

Such sermons for the flawed
humans that we know
We are -- unworthy...
But willingly we suffer
The word.
Oh how to be just like
The lamb...

So now, afterwards, when we have been
Emotionally & verbally punctured
Full of hollow
We are holes unworthy
Of being
Made whole...
Or so, we've been told
"It is written."

Now then let us meet for
homily
After King James harangues us
His version of fellowship,
Let us have verbal
******* with the word.
(Begotten?)
Perhaps over supping
Or during beer & NFL
Or some blood
Sport
Non-emasculating,

Reminding us how
Weekends roar
And Life is
Worth more
Than the inner wars
We are ourselves
Fighting.

After the sermon,  
Let's have true verbal
*******...

(Without be getting a shred
Of guilt)

vanished...the body's limitless wealth of holes, how some are never emptied...intimidating to consider a lifetime of losses stripping awareness from my heart like demons pit-falling complacently from the apex of a carnivorous plant...

ruined...the body's limitless wealth of worries, how some are never conquered...my heart and my brain aren't speaking to each other anymore...

broken...the heart cannot really be scarred, it just heals back the same way it was before...this is why heart transplants are so successful...

broken fingers, happens sometimes between lovers...there is no treatment, you can stabilize the finger, to shore up the pain, but it isn't the finger that hurts....

The quiet whispers of the soul
resound complacently throughout
the echoes of time
haunting our fractured minds
Calling us away
to places of darkness
that hurt and scar
My eyes glisten and sparkle
with the unforeseen knowledge of time and place

I love him I love him I love him...

But this whispering grips my heart
and keeps me still
with the pain of breathing in
and the terror of speech
Unchecked speech
Scared speech
Bleeding speech
-.-.-
Please, remember the echoes

A timely observation; complacently inscribed,
finding truth in aberration and restitution in denial.
So long conversely spoken, unmentioned but believed:
to live without intention and die conventionally.

With wide consideration, the bearer must unload
a prideful commendation: what glory in control!
Internally awoken, vehemently believed:
to live without conventions and die intentionally

I treat my brain like this paper.
I write and draw over every inch
until not even a single letter can fit.
Scattershot pieces of ideas lay freshly inked
on the surface…

Then I rip everything apart.

It’s convenient looking upon the confetti rips
strewn over the ground.
It’s so much easier to find the doodles and words
I forgot about long ago.
  
But I always fasten it together again,
though perhaps not the same way each time.
Sometimes, I make animal shapes like butterflies
or a pouncing tigers held together with safety pins.
Other times I just  slather glue on the pieces
then drop them on construction paper.

Should I so choose,
I have complete control as to where each doodle is placed.
Ripping allows me to see every angle of my brain
thus allowing me to see every angle of the world I inhabit.

I do this often,
for fear if stopped
friends and strangers won’t find me
objective or comforting.
The ripping saves my brain from staying sedentary
and saves me from living complacently.

Heart, roused with blood
you are lively as the sun,
but ever are you small,
and fiendishly are you undone..

You are majestic,
and as important as Night,
but you are destined
to fail amidst this fight..

This fight..
Between Dark and Light,
too cold for the moon,
and too warm for the sun,
you increasingly sway to opposite ends
and ever do you believe to have faith
but your faith is melted upon my will...

Darkness rouses thee,
and in curiosity innocent,
you crack open the closet
that hides the dark commandment
that shall ever bind you in despair
and shall twist you though you were as air..

Light rejuvenates you,
and through the longing days
of evil trodden forth
you complacently design yourself
a structure of immunity
to swell and flee fast
against this growing evil seed..

Together you two,
designed by Love and Hate,
have conspired,
to remove the 3rd; Innate..
For no man on Earth,
nor in Skies, or in Seas,
might chose the middle,
where lies no man to be..

You might protect us,
and you might save us,
but you fuel a pollution strong,
that ever writhes within us,
a dichotomy of song
that ever equivocates us
and ever decimates us..

The Heart is our enemy,
and yet is our savior,
but it is not ours,
nor our being
you decide our fate so idiosyncratically,
and perceptual; to be such a misnomer,
For the Heart is a will, not a being, no, not even a power,
and is tortured by our breathing..

The Heart is a riddle,
no man yet may dare defy,
for within this heart is a circle
of ritual and lie..

The Heart is life,
but at it's own free will,
and it alone decides our strife
that with pain for it we seek to fill,
So how, on Earth, Heaven, or Hell,
does it list us as its friend,
and how does it follow us to the End?
Man may never tell...

As years faded by
I was in-denial I was living a lie
swallowed by my own false identity
by burying reality deep inside
more high than sober
living in a nightmare that is never over
with everyday, my senses fade
and I complacently follow into your malicious games
losing touch of why I stay
constantly confused of who I am underneath my name
told myself every night this is real
but when walking during the day I am filled with shame
I'm not an object for you to steal
layers of your delusions
I'm trying to peel
all my colors, you have concealed
even though I am now miles away
I'm still trying to remember how to feel.

-a.t

Fingertips bled four days
Vocal chords raw, tattered and ripped
Record collects dust, simply unplayed

Skin rolls through a lathe
reveals a new true color
pinkish, and a little bit softer

Feet broke, and terribly hurting
ankle spurs shard
Can't walk, can't talk
or play my cards play my cards again

Head numbed, complacently dumbed
for a second, spun
out of control, had to run
far far away
to an awful forgotten place
Spoke once, never again


Truer words don't come
to the meek
for they do not speak

unless forced
A struggle to shrug
no one gives them a hug

'Til all is well
heated from beneath
broth boiling in unison
formed once its poison

Next side is bubbling
stirred beyond its coined
phrased unison its poison

If depth makes
for those willing
try sitting try stirring
envy those and transparent osmosis
emit shades out of possible control