I've felt a lingering, encompassing contentedness
and I only hope she will stay.
I woo her like I would
a friend, I brew her coffees and teas and
we speak of the world in terms of
relativity and we laugh.
There is the most catalystically crucial point:
we laugh and laugh at all that
once seemed something
to be sorry for, or ashamed of, or
beneath our bustling cognizance.
Our jocundity is riddled with shining
jewels of barbaric opulence as I frantically
bare my canines in a persuasive exclamation.
I hope she'll stay,
but to receive and not give would never convince her.

It was midday and the clouds loitered around the edges of the sky as if they were suspicious of the sun. Beams of light ricocheted off of goggles and snow and beads of sweat that were caught in my oldest brother's beard.  The hike up was our way of earning our run. The hard work and constant determination to get what was important to us made the view and the ridge taste so much sweeter. Finally able to rest, I planted a granola bar in my mouth and squinted through a frame of icy eyelashes to see a sight I had seen before, every day for the past week, but still punched the air out of my lungs. The powder was up to my thighs and the snow lovingly seeped its way into my boots just to kiss my toes with painful numbing. I wiggled them to try tickling some sanity and warmth into them. I only hoped that my toenails wouldn't fall off, but they would inevitably be purple. I pulled up my balaclava to dodge the lunges of frostbite's ravenous teeth. Each nip of cold, the company of my brothers, the view, and the raw interaction with the mountain created a moment that reeked of a dream: a seemingly perfect balance between pain and pleasure.
      The hype of the day kept us from settling our thoughts and quickly my siblings were bounding down the mountain on tele-skis, skis, snowboards, and giddiness. My mind was simultaneously crowded and opened by the superfluous love shared between myself and the people I shared this moment with, the people I look up to, the people who raised me.  My four brothers' elated screams echoed off the mountain ranges that boxed-in the valley below. I joined their chorus of "Shred the Gnar!" and yodels, knowingly embracing the carefree and somewhat foolish mindset of Mother Nature's glee. My skis led the way and found fresh tracks. The lines of the songs that blasted into my ears were translated into the lines that I skied. The music shuffled from Wu-Tang Clan to the Tibetan Monks Of Gaden Sharste & Corciolli but the abrupt change of pace did not hinder my contentedness. I have gained a knack for happily going with the flow, knowing that what the universe hands me is often what I need. The peaceful bellowing of the monks allowed me to take a moment to appreciate that my life is this one on top of this mountain not limited by my economic state with this physically fit and capable body and this working mind. While just minutes before, the fearlessness of Wu-Tang's hip-hop allowed me to bring an angst and stoke for life into my current experience, while also finding the gangster within me. The random shuffling of songs only fed my innate addiction to change and let my enthusiasm multiply and blossom.
Although childish in our hearts and in our unpracticed aerials, we were not childish in our perspective. We had a shared mature understanding of the bigger picture. This was a vast understanding of the world that comes with being a small, overrated mammal sliding on some sticks down the biggest thing it could get its hands on. Each of us took our fair share of tumbles and we iced them each with cacophonous laughter that got muffled by mouthfuls of snow. To be atop a mountain, to go almost unnoticed by a mountain really teaches the skill of not taking things too seriously. In one instance, I grabbed some air and landed scattered into a disorganized pile of all my gear. But my commitment to the bettering of my skills, my world, and myself, let me rise from even my greatest wrecks and the most deadly of wreckage, not unscathed but changed and always for the better. With such a brutal fall, I gained the experience necessary for landing it next time...and the next time, I did.
         After reaching the bottom, without hesitancy, we followed our spontaneous urges to pursue more. Every run I took and every moment spent on that mountain came from a drive to experience and learn. It was based off of my ceaseless search for something new...or for the rad or for the gnar or for swagger or for living a life that could inspire. The seed of this search was planted in me by my five older siblings who all held within their bellies a fire of the same breed. And we sewed that common thread together on ridge lines and in powdered fields where nature is in perfect harmony with man and my head is in perfect harmony with my heart...where my intelligence and ambition trust one another and I trust them because they have gotten me this far and I know they are not tired yet.

Life is the treasure and knowledge is the fire to kindle and wisdom the outcome to distill it

Poverty is taking away food from a fellow human being
Poverty is not being grateful that you have slept having eaten a comfortable meal
Poverty is going out there with a poor self image and using the presence of others to mask your inadequacy
Poverty is not knowing how divine you are, your soul content

Poverty as a woman is not being able to say how you feel and what you feel because you are afraid of rejection or disappointment
Poverty is trying to make a guy feel insecure because you yourself are insecure
Poverty is trying to have multiple ****** relations to either draw a man or men towards you or simply for the sake of trying to fuel your self esteem
Poverty is dreaming and letting the birds talk about it as a could have been
Poverty is stabbing a person you love dearly in the back
Poverty is blaming society, culture and circumstances at home for not progressing forward
Poverty is killing because you are stuck in unorderly primitive and unruly state and you do not know tranquility

Poverty is wanting things to remain the same because it protects you from growth and the awe of advancement
Poverty is living in the past and endlessly trying to change the present
Poverty is not knowing what to say because you have forgotten how to compose yourself in the presence of others
Poverty is thinking for short term satisfaction breeding inevitable lack of long term contentedness

Wealth is inviting the future fearlessly
Wealth is loving abundantly
Wealth is joining the heart's dance by yielding to emotions of pure positive vibrations
Wealth is making the heart intelligent so your desires are not  of a marginal durability
Wealth is seeking the truth because it will wash away the lies and test your bravery as it opens up the wounds and the pain of reality
Wealth is knowing that in giving a lot and asking less more than half the time; you remain abundant
  Wealth is imagining what a future 'you' would be like and in pursuit you strive to make your future self proud
Wealth is having an open mind and seeking first to understand than to be understood
Wealth is trying to find better solutions for either parties, a higher way; which healthily benefits either parties

Wealth is having someone who will support you no matter what
Wealth is sticking to divine principles because they will stand no matter what
Wealth is treating another better than you treat yourself and in essence you treat yourself as the greatest being
Wealth is being patient and persevering for good things because you will honour them as you understand what it took to earn them
Wealth is making a promise and keeping it, it boosts the progress of the whole Universe; even the promises we make to ourselves
Wealth is cleaning up after ourselves and engineering our personhood to not rely on insubstantial and baseless objectives and mantras
Wealth is taking a stand for one's own life and not waiting for a hero to pull up the yardstick
Wealth is going to the dam with a  broken rod and teaching yourself how to fish until a master comes and philosophises your decorum, approach, conduct and credo on the whole process of being independent and going out into the world,
Wealth is unlearning all of the miseducation that we have been fed since the day we were born and relearning and rewiring our psyche to be conscious and cosmically aligned with our divine purposes and use the resources around us to make the raw a tangible gem and vice versa.

Say no to poverty.
Live a sincere life of truth and meaning, we only have so much time to pay off our debts until we're rich enough to give back to the world again.

I am not the girl you marry
I am the girl who 10 years from now
Will out of nowhere cross your mind
In the midst of contentedness
And have you wondering
What happened to her
I am not the girl you swear forever to
I am the girl who you'll think of
When you ***** your finger on the diamond ring
You bought for the one you plan on spending your life with
I am not the girl you have to try to forget
I am not memorable
In any particular way
But one day you will think of me
When you're sitting in a bar
And the short blonde girl next to you
Orders a glass
Of whisky.

I'm not happy
Nor am I angry
I am somewhere in between
But I am not content

I miss the happiness I had
Back when we first met
Those first few months
When everything was exciting

A week without you
Felt like an eternity
And we wanted so badly
To just pause time

But now when we're together
Time drags on
And you always leave
Before midnight

And when we argue
There's no rush of adrenaline
No intensity
Just a dull ache

I wish things
Weren't so comfortable
To the point where nothing
Is the same as everything

I used to be your everything
But now i feel as if
I am nothing
And I am not content.

in spring when there is nothing but the melting snow and the bare brown twigs and life ready to exhale
there is no flower for the bee to buzz in so he comes after me and I puff up

the summer makes them greedy with blooms to fight over and nests to gaurd and, tending to my own business,
they sting me anyway for being and i puff up

summer days get shorter and blackberries ripen and i gather heavy friuts and the branches bounce back,
and there are the bees consumed in their work and this time i am stung only by thorns

and finally autumn comes and i bite into that first crispy apple and juice runs down my wrist and my hands are sticky and sweet and bees come wildly swarming around me like a halo

and we are happily drunk with the joy of autumn together

It's not always going to be perfect
some days will be busier than others
with more work done than attention given

some weeks will be harder than most
time, us both lacking enough of it
wishing there was more to have and spend

now and then
the chaos of priority will challenge us
to choose between the crazy of our schedules
and the enjoyment of each other's company

I'm not sure when this will happen
or how often
but one thing I know for certain
is that each day will always be better if it ends in the same bed
and each morning brighter if it starts with light peeking in to wake us from the same window
spending a night together
is the only way I know how to stop time

the hectic of life will come when we least expect it
the struggles, right smack dab in the center of contentedness
there will be moments where we question our own sanity
wondering what to do with all this passion
when the only real option we have is to embrace it

we're not always going to be perfect
we're not always going to be ideal
there is too much unknown in life to call us a kind of forever
I can not promise that we are
but I can promise a few things

we may not always be successful in our pursuit of each other's happiness
but I can promise you
I will always try to find yours first

I will be your tomorrow
always pushing you to make it there
the call of a new day and a guarantee of something great the next
so that even in the lowest of points you know the future is rooting for you

I will wear a smile even when you're not around
just because I know it's your favorite look on me

I will be as grounded as possible
just so you know there's always a part of this earth that loves you

and when the day comes when we do argue
I can promise I will push the bull in me aside for a little
us, both taurus, could easily fight to the death but I
want nothing more than to be the first to surrender

it's not always going to be perfect
I, will not always be perfect
but you have never wanted me to be anything close to it
only happy

some days we will question how worth it all of the effort we put in is
you'll have my laugh and the curve of my lips to remind you
and I'll have yours

The keys of my keyboard
alight with will, imagination
and this mental life
yet all words pale
in comparison to
the scene lying before my mind.
Rain falls, in the garden and on the street.
I see it shimmer on the tarmac, dripping
from an old tree
I remember when it was a mere sapling.

Sometime otherwise, the scene darkened
and a dusk sky
I fell in love with summers ago
graces us with her subtle indigo
which I see through this window.
I witnessed so much I am thankful
for, every moment remembered has
some significance, rarely is it obvious.
Though this life can be lonely at times
on occasion it is so kind
that I feel in my head
and it feels right.

Once, from a dark desk
in a quiet room  I felt it
through the window, with it
came the sublimation of all
that I knew. I was contented
then, for a long and wonderfully lonely time.
I savored the moment, sublime, knowing it
fades to leave memory, not answers why;
Contentedness, wandering in mind and
wondering why. Everything has come
together, objects in space, movements
through time; cloud, rain, reflections
in water, tarmac, shimmering, leaves
dripping, time easing, sky clearing, the
opaque steam of a condensate wall fading,
The azure gradually fades into indigo and
again onto navy blue until finally, a black
absence tinted with skyglow, space in all
its darkness, teeming with twinkling stars.

Moments tied to memories, tinged with emotions
evocative of time, reconcile space and my mind
with a sublime environment, separate  from mind.
Its function is to divide subject from object,
Self from world, me from you, I from all
and shade
from hue.
Such are some of things
minds do.

I want you to love me in a sweater,
grey,
cable knit,  
a little too big.  
I'll wrap my arms around you,  
like fluffy wings,  
keep you safe for a change.  
(There is something about you that makes me want to.)

We will tangle up in warmth,  
and I'll curl my fingers in your hair and press kisses in each curl.
The contentedness between us will be tangible,
filling the air around us.

I want you to love me in the soft way that I love you,
Warm linen sheet-like,  
A nestling-into-you kind of thing.
We fit together,
you and I.  
Just right.

I want to feel your sleepy breath on my neck,
your lovely eyes fixed on mine.  
Your fingers can trail along my shoulders,
your chest can heave contented sighs.  
The crook of your arm could be my pillow,
the space between us nonexistent.

True beauty is unique,
It lies skin deep,
   It doesn't need compliments to be built,
Its flawless because it comes from the image of God in which it was created,
   Meaning it has no physical mistakes,
Because God is perfection,
And it only builds through acceptance and contentedness..

I'm just listening to Counting Crows,
and I get this feeling,
That I am so close to understanding,
Something, myself? Something.
And it leads to this eerie feeling of contentedness,
In the darkness.
But I'm just a step behind,
And the more I think, the more...
I lose my way, The more I question,
instead of listen.
But it scares me to let such a moment pass,
without pursuing... it.
Whatever it is.
Poetry? I think not,
Just splutter along the road of my soul.
Sure to be meaningless in the end, but,
Looking at it now, looking back a bit...
Oh to be **** half in the past,
And nirvana just out there,
A bit further along the way.
Almost childly, I blindly,
Reach my hand out and up,
Hoping that I'll be able to grasp the Sun,
As if I won't get burnt,
That since it seems so close,
I just need to grasp,
and the world will be mine.
But some things are not for mortals.
And demons, like kids,
Must too, one day,
Wake up.

take some time to count, to verb
some syllables for some wrecked
page. a Lostman's book in ****-
tered thought; nature, and death,
and sole body. then, when she talked
about her better years as those of
drug-induced past-life. younger than
yesterday kinda years. that which finds
metronome slowing, the Universe energy
vibrating weaker while growth found in
apathy, and solid death of purposeful
movement.
                         then a shot,
that moment to break from wretched self-
criticism -- that post-idyllic criticism --
that which hinders forward movement.
           the shot,
which finds contentedness thru some
repetitious mentality . .
                                                 [lost it]
         . . repetitious fallacy?
              [got it]
let's leave some break for transmigration
in thought to prelude of forward movement.
understanding now is not enough; but
agreement in hast. but dissolution to that self-
efface hit rapid. brought back, her thought
of the younger than yesterday years; now,
now is the greatest point of any a count-
less past-life. from them, no matter a sweating
season, the Long Dark, or the cycle-seasons,
             all is now. and never
did she or i talk of the past again.
                   our foci,         [one second]
drawn to point of second and next second upon
following and on for another. now, shivery
wine-drunk, reminiscent of tiny furnace and
woolen blanket apartment. that now,
that was true striving of second successful ***** Den.
        a great thought downfall; she's been long gone.
            [next second now]
she complained of the wind. her eyes were freezing,
she said; her life has begun to bore her, she said.
we moved to playground and climbed in the
slide; a nice dampening. cold plastic barely felt for
her. this Long Dark, and in it, an always fleeting
warmth.                  [break
                        ­to **** for concision in thought]
now then, a diner, of course this face is known. they also
know a companion vacant. asked of, pleasant enough;
responded, well enough.
       [disheartened, well enough]
and then, wholly intrinsic with a blasphemous self-
Oralee while passing time trying to think. unable,
if only for sole point of trying. and epochs worth,
thought and gone; now compulsive, now unres-
ponsive, now chewing lips because they're part gum.

Rain is refreshing in a strange, backward way. It shocks you out of a deep, prolific lapse of participation in reality and reminds you that you’re still here. You’re still corporeal, tangible, you can feel and you can decide. But rain is still rain. It can be cold and unpleasant to be faced with, or it can be warm and welcoming. Beconing you forth to splash and smile in the reality you forgot still applied to you.
    I left behind the idea of full, around the clock consciousness during my last frigid thunderstorm. I realized, during a session already dedicated to realizations, how exhausting it was trying to live my reality to its current extent. How frustrating and soul-crushing it is to have the ambition you truly believed in and planned to embark upon, forgone by the limits of a situation you have no control over. I kept a small jar of ideas and plans in the very back corner of my closet. They were safe, they couldn’t be taken out back and shot nor could they be taunted and destroyed from the inside out. When I was cornered in my intruded closet, when I was taken by the collar and shaken for my truth, they were found. Both above-mentioned circumstances played out shortly but in the opposite order. That’s when it began to rain.
    I decided on an alternative: selective awareness. I keep myself alive only feeling and participating when the rain is tepid and pleasant. When I feel the temperature beginning to drop, I fall back asleep, floating through lull and lash, until the sun comes to change the course of my simulation. For days, all I will see is fog. I’m lost and isolated, but that lack of direction comes with an onset of contentedness. There is no one who can see me wandering through a deluded course I have set for myself. I don’t know where I’m walking, I don’t know what’s in front of me, so the warm rain will give me a pleasant surprise as it melts away the fog and gives me hope for sustainable warmth.
    The cloudiness that lingers in my head, even when I’m experiencing kindness and sensitivity, reminds me that my effort to make my reality more livable is as viable as staying completely shrouded in fog until I wander off the edge of a cliff. Eventually, as I age out of my simulation, I’ll have skin thick enough to withstand the hailstorm I’ll be forced to reckon with. Resilience is necessary, but hope exists. I often forget it does while I’m wondering, but serenity and light remind me that fog isn’t all I’ve devolved into. Rain will come, and so will spring.

You won't leave me be
Stealing my contentedness
Stop making me care.

Realisation can be a harsh pill;
One I've always struggled to swallow.
The dose, in this instance, was to be
That my happiness isn't a reward.

It's not earned through great achievements;
Contentedness isn't product of valour.
It's not found in deep breathing and spiritualism,
It's not created by anything external.

No.
My happiness will always be through
consistent fidelity and belief in a purpose.
A purpose that simply has to be weightier
than the small stuff we're sometimes thrown.

It's the consistent drive:
To love.
To laugh.
To make laughter..
To put pen to paper.
It's a thousand-melodies,
On twelve piano keys.
It's the gnawing hunger inside of me,
That says it would be simply unacceptable
For me to leave this world,
Until I have brought forth
Everything I feel I have within me.

Happiness is always going to be a fleeting thing for me.
And that's alright.
Because I'm only just getting started.

the leaves of my mind die,
without rustle, without why,
an incessant new season of direction
of spring, of beauty, of need,
orthodox and counterclocks
of bathroom stalls and
desperation calls--
in the tile we prove our worthwhile
as the hounds and haunts of yesterday
test our haul,
and I'm a magician and a *******,
a lover and a shotty terrorist,
the mad house rings,
sing, sing, sing
of yesterday--of fever dreams,
make me levitate to heavens,
push me away for doorknobs
and summer screens,
those are temporary,
lionesses in heat,
to be appeased
for the watering hole
and mouths of summers sought to soon--
we can romanticize the afternoon,
we can romanticize the mundane gloom,
but in the end we are nomads,
bouncing off shoreline and magazine subscription,
confused of endings
and brave in the face
of annihilation.
Rewrite the histories of our forefathers,
rewrite the reinventions of the wheel,
until it's all progress and simmering,
until the *** is full and festering,
when the now is soon,
and yesterday is dead,
the magnificence of misery--
hits like a runaway diaper truck
to add injury to insult,
to add scorpion to sting,
and if your mother is a dancer,
be not ashamed,
but praised,
she filled a primal need,
more than can be said about
Hemingway or Artaud or Bonaparte or the spring,
I have mountains to climb
and ****** rhymes to satisfy--
if you feel love,
boast,
if not welcome to hell,
a perpetual ****** roast
of ego,
of soul,
of every lover you let go--
the luck lies at stoplight kisses,
the luck lies in ***** sheets
and clean sneakers,
if sorrow is a gateway drug,
heaven is my fix,
if sorrow is a gateway drug,
I'll buy two hells a week for
the rest of my endless years,
if you love me,
do it,
don't doubt,
don't simmer,
ignite,
burn  brighter than former,
than the mourner,
than the funeral singer,
and make dinner on the ground,
we'll howl as the gravestones depreciate,
we'll howl as the stock market
solidifies in ice,
we'll howl as we realize the trite,
and I'm wrong often
but mostly right,
ask the machine gun,
and the sparrow hauling the olive branch,
ask murderers and the stain on your pants,
time is a circus of the three-ring variety,
too much to focus,
too much to bore,
too much to whine,
but under the cover of freedom--
enough to die in contentedness
and lie in the pangs of eternity
with a sigh, a slip of the tongue
and a pair of rolling eyes--
let not your daughter drown,
let not the horns on your head weigh you down,
the tomorrow is soon,
the now is ancient,
the promises to be fulfilled
will leave you begging-
bring on the fantasy,
the daydreamed celibacy,
the marooned integrity,
I've got a moon,
fourteen clouds,
and a headrush from nicotine--
drink of my youth, it's light, easy, cheap--
enough to get you drunk,
but lacking the dexterity of luck--
the burden, the burden
of always giving a ****.

I pulled on an oversized sweater
to stop my hands from shivering as I typed my soul out to you
I arranged the alphabet into a story
made only for you to ball up
and throw into the chute
down to the garbage pit in the back of your mind
it was thanksgiving and
you packed my things
and you left
everything the way it was
incomplete
you
left
me
standing in my room
twelve years old and confused
the grand return came
as I conquered ninth grade
and I pulled on oversized sweaters
to stop my mind from wandering towards the mirror
listening intently to my stepmother’s words
and the drunken cries to God
you wept yourself to sleep on the porch every night
and what was I to do but wonder
fourteen and impressionable
you left again
to find a better life than the bottle could supply
you wrote me letters on Tuesdays
signed with an Ichthys and a verse
and I pulled on oversized sweaters
to stop the chills that sank deep into my heart
on nights when I needed someone who wasn’t there
and found someone who
didn’t need to be there in the first place
sixteen and licentious
you came back
and stopped leaving
found contentedness in the bottom of a Bible
etsi deus non daretur
and I pulled on oversized sweaters
to silence the questions brought forth by my past.

SELF  CONTENTEDNESS

Little frog, don't drink much
Though big size does entice.
Water can't your aim catch
And you'll pay such high price.

Don't you know that your size
Won't match that of a cow?
Water brings your demise
But no bulk will endow.

God gives you certain height;
Don't reject; don't abhor.
That will bring you a plight
If you look for much more.

Satisfaction's a gift
That makes life smile to you.
Your low height toil can lift
To see what you should view.

BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
____________

I spend most of my time staring at blank pages and listening to a snare on 2&4. I carve cuts into the tips of my fingers and bite nails off out of boredom. I also wonder how I should be living, because something feels wrong. Should I be this sad?

And every adult I have ever met talks of High school as the best years of their life, so what am I doing wrong? I have friends, I have time, I have people who care. So why do I pace up and down alone in an abandoned theater and feel grim under Friday night lights?

I wrote songs about change last year. I wrote songs about getting better. And every single ******* one of them still applies today. Now I just write to cope, and I'm trying to write better, but it's hard when I'm so jumbled. It’s hard when I get scared.

And Daniel told me to draft my work and avoid contentedness, and I trust him and I tried. I was never content. My time is flashing before me and I have the guts to wear a frown. I'm in the "good ol' days" right now, so why aren't they so good?

Interesting
        The chance to start over
The smooth clean slate of a brand new surface
Never corrupted nor covered
Never torn to shreds by an unnamed power

Compelling
        The opportunity of new love
A chance to kiss a new pair of lips
To caress the curves of the hands so personal
And walk amongst the wet grass with new life

Sacrificing
        To give up the habits to please the guest
To not wonder about yourself when you rest your head
But depend completely on another for contentedness
Equal forces of give and take, a balance

Committing
        An act of finalization
A marriage proposal, a slit of the throat
Some trenches just too deep to wander
A few possibilities to be left unexplored

Separating
        Forgetting the magnetism of the first touch of fingers
Longing for a kiss on a new, softer mouth
A trail of footsteps leading down different paths
The pedals of a rose begin to sway to the floor

Soaking
       The pedals curl and harden, touching ground all too dull
Melt into the earth and return to where it came
The roots begin to emerge on a mutant species
Water is sprung from the dirt and rejuvenates the body

Interesting
        The chance to start over

Don't get me wrong
I love the Bachelor
and the Bachelorette

The getaways
The fun dates
the good looking people

But is it that's what's wrong with dating today?

Instead of worthiness
We're in it for the pic
what looks best on instagram
while inside we yearn for contentedness

But restlessness is what we're given
got to keep up with the joneses
we're afraid to let ourselves feel
for people based on status

Is it a twilight zone scene
can't be because it's around
from the beginning
ancient royals doing the same
but now we're in a modern aristocracy

So I'll turn off the Bachelorette tonight
I don't need fancy
I need supportive
and sweet
In it for the long haul
and loves me wholly
Miss me with the fake love
and give me the real

an intrepid image of consistency to living painlessly
floats aimlessly through an adjacent sea of complacency
that finds way to drift further from shore.
worries of capsizing and baptizing
in this ocean of social chastising
leaves me coming back for more.

descending the sail paints
images of pale
skys clouding progression,
shadowing the sun’s oppression
to shining through the cracks,
dreams reflect the water
of sailing to shore and
never coming back,
the table in cabin
covered with cigarettes butts
and empty bottles,
leaving stains of black
on the whispering floorboards
that sways with the current
that restores more
contentedness to being
lost at sea.

but, I wake up to reality
sea sick            
                                                MJB

That clever fine line, so subtle in form
En dormir yet greedily alert to vulnerability
Nimble tentacles easing you over
Once steadfast, comfort in being
Then slippage, slow, painful crumbling, curiosity grappling with descent
Transition seamless as a lullaby yet fiercely combative
Happiness, contentedness, numbness, collision, abyss
That clever fine line, so subtle in form

I'm walking laps around my apartment complex.
Passing a red-headed girl with a bottle of Corona,
a few Johnny Rebs talking adderall,
headlights, streetlights, lighters,
swirling, combining, but never providing enough bright.
I'm still bearing a slight headache from Saturday night,
but finally past the nausea.

I spent the day conversing with Rachel's family.
The domesticated, scene of warmth was a sharp
contrast to the hell I put Rachel through in
the waning hours of night.

I woke at 9 this morning to find
her barely covered in a ratty,
blanket, no pillow under her
ruffled hair, her eyes burnt red,
asking if I was okay.

I thought she was overreacting.
She shoved water in my face.
She said, "Drink it, ******."
Like she'd tried a few thousand times before,
and apparently she had,
I just didn't remember any of it.

She had saved me around 4.
She cleaned off a death mask
of filthy ***** by force.
I wouldn't comply because
I wasn't coherent.

Tonight as I touch each crack
of the pavement with my sole,
the rest of the human family
is pounding beer, suckling the barbeque
off their pudgy fingers,
and howling at a nation divided between Cheese and Steel.

I'm stuck in the trough of existential contemplation.
Old Mr. Huxley self-medicated with mescaline
and said he discovered the "is-ness", and somehow
found contentedness in "everything is".
That never made much sense to me.
Bukowski found god in ******* and drinking beer.
Vonnegut said when god created the world,
man asked what his purpose was. God was surprised,
and he replied, "I don't know. Make one up."

as day closes
I lay on my right side in night’s envelope
knees bent in semi-fetal position
my right hand reaches up and across
resting upon the coolness
of my exposed left shoulder
chin touching upon forearm

I ponder sunlight’s hours
where the insecurity of others
spews green venom
and imaginary superiority
reeks yellow breath

in the darkened quiet of sleepless sleepiness
I find that little spark
the enabler that allows me to love others
in a sometimes unkind, uncaring and thankless world

it is the comfort and peace we all seek
a feeling of belonging
to the earth
to the universe
to one’s self

no matter what others may think
no matter what happened during the day
no matter how hard it was
in that last moment of conscious thought
before drifting back into the womb
of softness and dreams
I know that I love myself
in triumph and contentedness
I love myself
no matter what

My heart yearns for what once was
   my mind fighting to hold the line in a quiet battle
  
Time, relentlessly persistent in its attempts to erase
   dragging my life forward into fading memory

Moments attenuating, absorbed by the past
   distorted in all but the essential
  
But their essence is distilled in my soul
   dormant in an archived strength and purity

Occasional mindbursts of beauty are released
   refusing to be contained or denied

A certain scent in the air, a certain quality of light
   a lyric of song, a touch of breeze...all catalysts

Spontaneously transported into a joyful state
   I'm consumed by a déjà vu of carefree ambiance

Bejeweled compartments spill their contents
   washing over my mind in a composite nostalgia

Familiar waves of concentrated being saturate
   my existence for a compelling glimpse of the idyllic

In those fleeting reveries of peaceful contentedness
   I feel completely at home within myself

Bitter feelings, words of hate
Depression won't discriminate
Angers' fist flying
leaves the moonbeam's offspring crying
for the arms of shelter that come from depth-less love

Vision changing, rearranging
all the karmic energies of me
Freedom from the heavy sadness
letting go of all the madness
Yearning deep down for you to follow me

On this path of joy and rapture
with honest, unpretentious laughter
and contentedness.....eventually.

The air is incredibly thin.
I can’t breathe, and my
hands are shaking.

When I was a boy,
a playmate hit me
in the head with a
glass ashtray.

In an instant,
my father had snatched
the boy up and carried him
****** outside, suspended
by one ankle.

I’ve heard also,
stories of my great-uncles
two brothers, run out of
Saint Louis County
because they’d fought in and
been banned from every tavern
on both sides of every main drag,
of every township therein.

Maybe that’s where this
comes from.

There is a fire inside that
most days is only embers,
but stokes far too easily into
infernal inferno.

The grey mush in my skull is
jacked into some electricity
with jumper-cables made from
too many sour thoughts,
a fierce depression, and
huge piles of self-doubt.

Gladness, contentedness,
feels like fraud, like failure,
like not leaning into it sturdily
enough.
Like not staring into The Abyss hard
enough.

It feels like obscenity to
not see conflict,
to not rail against
some dark thing,
some enemy.

In doing so
is found the ability to
feel like
enough.

But,
what
is
enough?

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

Autonomous you don't wanna miss
Synonymous with anonymous
Alcoholics drinking like the glass is bottomless
Lost confidence and gained higher consciousness
Now doing opposite to avoid consequence
Pertinent providence prominence
Profits from the pompousness of old profits of our fifth
They were out prophets then
Now it's promises
Back to provenance of our populous
No predominance
More contentedness with our documents with what's cognizance
And the monument of spiritual opulence
Wheather hypothesis
Or is what it is
To remain in the violence
Or turn optimist
All your perogative
Wish you well
Wish you rocket to the fourth dimension ****
But most of all wish you to close your eyes to hear what it says
Cause that you don't wanna miss
It could be your bliss
Reminisce but remember they're remnants
Fragments
Resentment you keep in your sentence
Is your penance
What you recieve is your resemblance
No regrets for pass but remembrance
Your true presence is endless
Practicing temperance
Life is tremendous

Herein lies a plan for a quiet life,
Of restrained passion and stolen smiles,
Drenched in moments of still solitude;
Plentiful contemplation,
Abject contentedness.
I do not promise happiness, nor
Do I profess that such a thing can be granted
With nary a twitch towards
Narcotic impulse or deluded blessing.
I do, however, guarantee a life
Well lived, and a handful of
Fragile years on this bitter, dusty Earth
Resplendent, shining,
If you allow the light of the world
Into yourself and become free,
To be who you truly are.