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I am the grand central
swirling vortex of the known universe

pathway of consciousness
a worldwide metaphysical interconnection

hub of modernity’s magnificent  metropolis
prime mover of it's empowered citizenry

eye of a Mid-Atlantic megalopolis
bridging an expanse from Boston to DC
trajectories of an Acela Express
accelerates time, coheres a region

magnetic compass axis
gyroscopic core
web of iron rails
touches all
transcontinental
cardinal ordinates

my constitution of chiseled granite blocks
manifests steadfast immutability

opulent terminus of marbled underground railways
subconscious portals to inter-borough worlds


the Zodiac streaks across my painted heavens
splashing aspirational mosaics of
bold citizens onto universal canvasses
my exhalations burst galaxies,
birthing constellations
promising potentialities of
plenteous abundance
as a right of all
global citizens

transit vehicle for mobilized classes
of fully enfranchised republicans

my tendrils plunge deep into
cavernous drilled bedrock
firming an unshakable edifice
-a new rock of ages-

rails splay out to the
horizons farthest corners
northern stars, southern crosses
nearest points on a sextants reckon

I am the iron spine
of the globes anointed isle
I co-join Harlem and Wall Street
as beloved fraternal twins

commerce, communication and culture
is the electricity surging through my veins

the worlds towering Babel
rises from my foundations
the plethora of tongues
all well understood

I open the gateways of knowledge
guarded by vigilant library lions

route students and scholars to
the worlds most pronounced public schools

beatific Beaux Art is boldly scrawled on my walls
in dark hued blues sung in gaudy graffito notes

swanky patrons sip martinis,
nosh bagels with a smear and **** down
shucked lemon squirted oysters

reason, discovery and discourse tango
to the airs of Andean Pipe flutes
with violence and discordant dissonance
deep within my truculent bowels

I am the road to work,
a pathway to a career and
the ride to a Connecticut
home sweet home

my gargoyles and statuary laugh
at pessimistic naysayers

I am the station for
centurions, bold charioteers
homeless nomads and
restive masses

I stir a nation of neighborhoods
into a brilliant *** of roiling roux

beams of enlightenment
stream through colossal windows
today's epiphanies of the fantastic
actualize resplendent zeitgeists

sipping coffee in my cafe's
the full technicolor palette
of humanity is revealed;
civilizations history is etched
forever upon the mind

eight million stories
of the naked city is bared
as splendorous tragedy
it's comic march
of carnal being
exalted

a million clattering feet
scurry across marblized floors
polishing the provenance
burnishing a patina
exuding golden footprints

I am 100 years young and
thousand years away from
the crash of a demolition ball

Doric Columns and
elegant archways
coronate commuters
each day with a
new revelation of a
democratic vista

I am the grand central
my spirit flows as
one with the mass
in the vibrant
heart of our
throbbing city

Music Selection: Leonard Bernstein, On the Town

written to mark the 100th Anniversary of Grand Central Station


Oakland
2/8/13
all of
America’s
gubmint hatin
yahoos, pining
to get their
country back,
should grab
yer rifles, stock
up on ammo
and giddy up
down  to Texas
to join the
secessionists
headin out
of the Union

Rick Perry
promises to
keep his promise
to close all the
gubmint departments
he can't remember
the names of

Ron Paul will
finally be liberated
from the tyranny
of his federal
paycheck and
can return to
his district to
practice medicine
unencumbered
by the acceptance
of medicare
payments

Ted Cruz will
move to coronate
his Cuban born
daddy as Viceroy
for life of the
western hemispheres
newest banana
republic

the last act of
of the Compartment
of Education will be
to turn every
public school
into a Holy Ghostin
Jehovah meetin
house

Judicial magistrates
will criminalize
poor people
or just make
them slaves
and all prisons
will be turned
into profit driven
plantations,
overseen by
the local
Sheriffs who
will be paid
time and a
half and 15%
of all profits

unfortunately
the Cowboy’s
will lose it’s
moniker as
America’s Team
if rattlesnake
booted
Jerry Jones
can’t make a
deal to turn
his stadium
into a sovereign
independent
territory as a
protectorate
of the USA

To assure
national purity
Texans will
build a Jericho
style wall to
define the boundaries
of their heavenly
kingdom and outlaw
all trumpet playing
within earshot
of their perturbed
borders

The Eyes of
Texas as the
state anthem
will need to
be reworded
The final stanza
will be changed
to "Until Gabriel
blows his nose"

keepin the ungodly
out and the chosen
people safely
insulated within
the shining
Lone Star State
will rise again
as a solitary
confederacy
of dunces

Music Selection:
The Eyes of Texas

Oakland
11/18/13
jbm
11/19/13 marks the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address... to hold the article of freedom in such disdain sickens me...
Dear Sun-God,

The Bel fires are lit again,
but not to rejoice as before,
for they are flames of my bereaved heart.
They are embers of manifold sadness I feed upon
the feast of handfasting.

Every Adam and each Eve
a rich union of sprouting forests
with flowers and horns to crown their wantonness.
But for the Son of Moon,
No Son-God can be held
to coronate his nativity.

The flowers are shades of November
And the horns are spikes of pain;
for I cannot hear you in the air
nor feel you in the ground near.

The earth was shunned by the hands
that strum its heartbeat
and was sent back to slumber
in the pinnacle of May.

Have you not seen the call of Pleiades
when you took flight in the heavens?
Have you not heard the semantics of  
the desert you landed on?

You left me the afterglow of you to stare
As I drink the ocean of our distance.
It might have put off the ache
if you had proclaimed the omens of farewell
and not a multitude of air for me to embrace.

If your feet touch my sacred earth again,
I will kiss you like infinity
and enfold you akin to eternity.
Be grateful I made it known
what compensation to deliver
against your undeclared departure-
your prelude to your return.
                  
                   Love be not mortal,
                   Child of Moon
"Abscission of Eschewal”

If I am still, I can hear the voices.

Chimes of advices, softly spoken, coronate in neon in my peripherals. Messages, abscissas from the x-axis of words and sounds, just parallel, float their fog of transmission to me.

“Touch that wall,” a voice’s suggestion nudges as I crookedly gain my balance by clutching the flat surface of this white wall, one fourth of the surfaces confining the contents of a tight enclosure. Just under the ventilation shaft, the wall is vibrating. The voices are louder near vibrations.

The enclosure, with every surface bleach white, is a bathroom, a corner taken at the edge of the convenience store off the four lane highway by the high school.

Its sink compacts spotless metal into its design, and the crafting lines visibly run parallel upon in its surface, reflecting generously to the bags under my eyes. The soap dispenser’s cubic structure cut into a visitor's vision like the blade of a pencil sharpener, showing every pixel and every angle of my face inside it.

Feint grooves dig into the wall in the shape of a triangle and a pair of scissors. Opposite that wall, a door with no handle stands; in the place of the handle rests only a circular lock. Behind the door, I hear a sigh, a winded slurp, the kind joggers give after high speed exertion on a morning run.

I hear the air rush, hitting the nostrils.

I hear a whimper.

I push the door open, slowly, and the hinge pops in intervals as it wedges open.

In front of me, a stool sets with a touch screen phone running on top of it, and a limp woman curls in a ball upon the floor, facing the bathroom. Her eyelids are missing.

A video plays of her on the touch screen phone on the stool. In a Skype window, she, a brunette girl with duct tape wrapped around her mouth, flickers in the thick black mire of what appeared to be another lavatory with a single fluorescent light with faulty wiring blinking a white glow upon her matted, unwashed hair. A black frame and darkness outlines her figure, filling the rest of the room. Her eyelids are missing in the video, just as her eyelids are missing in person, but she grasps to consciousness in the video, and she turns her eyes frequently with nervous twitches, wheezing and whimpering in the Skype window on the phone.

“Incoming call, 785-135-1581,” a white screen with green buttons interrupts.

I touch “Accept” and pick up the phone.

When my ear touches to the phone, I hear heavy breathing.

“No breeding, Jonas.” a male voice whispers.

“How do you know me?” I ask.

“Mating. They want to keep you from it,” the man continues.

“I won’t let that happen,” I assert.

“This was in protest, the first. Eyes open, so they can see,” the man says on the phone.

The male voice I heard on the phone, The Heavy Breather, inhales and exhales.

“Are there anymore?” I ask.

“I didn’t need anymore. Find out about her. See for yourself.”

I check her wallet.

I see credit cards, visas, and a 5x7 with her standing behind a podium in a lodge in a small town with a banner behind it, and a picture of a man racing on foot, crossing a finishing line with an arm outstretched in front of another racer to prevent him from finishing.
On the banner, a slogan reads, “Keep unborn and unflowered: cleanse the youth.”
Seated before her in the lodge are several lawyers, doctors, and town leaders conversing, smiling, and greeting.

“Look what they’ve done, colluding together, excluding us.  Leaving us alone. Partying while we suffer. Those in The Colluded of the Equinox kiss their wives and girlfriends and children in public they hoard and tell it all to us, flaunting their miscreant deeds. They hide in shadows and do every wrong thing, but they only rarely do wrong in public, and they are never together at the same time. They keep hidden company. They rejoice in their evils, oppression. We live not more than a few miles from them, wherever we live at anytime. We live with them. One sin from an unlucky man is worse than a thousand sins from a lucky man. Is that it? Is an unlucky Christian worse than a lucky atheist? They spew their mantra: 'It’s so much worse than you think.' They tell you you’re not what you think, that everything you know is wrong. 'Submit,' they say. You know what I did? I did what I wanted. This woman on the ground before you is what I wanted.”

“All this to stop from reproduction? This society…” I ask.

“I hate it, also. Be it willing or unwilling conspiracy, it is still conspiracy, high crimes, ” The Heavy Breather responds.

“Crimes before whom?” I question.

“I don’t know,” The Heavy Breather admits.

“I know some. First, they stare. Peeping in your windows, following. Then, records, whole security camera videos, receipts in stores, gone…written in ink that disappears. Records of existence...gone.Wherever you were, you were never there. That’s what they want for you, to delete every backed up conversation, memory, and recollection, so they can instill new things. I shopped in stores, and the devices were amnesiacs,” he recounts.

The woman on the floor moans and stirs, but she settles again feebly.

"They can't get rid of all that at once," I interject.

“No, but they keep scraping the little details of life away, proof of life, covering them up. They have cleaners, cleaning up our little spills of progress and success. Witnesses, like the devices they own, are amnesiacs." The Heavy Breather asserts.

"Even if the electronics are wiped clean, they must have seen us at stores or parking lots, somewhere. They can think for themselves and put it together, right?" I ask.

“Those that remember us have no incentive to continue those memories. The Colluded of the Equinox brainwash. Married people are telling the ***** not to get married. They force celibate priests, figures in white hoods.
The Colluded of the Equinox force people like quivering lures, closing doors until the only ones left are of seclusion and chastity. They are in all religions, hierarchies, in every ruling body, replacing reproduction with work, with ‘purpose,’“ he continues.

The body on the floor twitches as I hear the Heavy Breather grunt on the phone.

“These are their protocols. These are the Colluded’s motives. The Colluded condemns displays of affection, physical acts of love, reproduction. The Colluded controls the population. The Colluded tells the women to focus on each other and obey advertisements’ models of how they should behave and look…conformed and emotionless. The Colluded are survivalists, locking the reproductive organs of selected citizens to save money and keep control. The Colluded use the magnetism of credit cards to lock your urethra…the tingle you feel when you sit down on your credit cards in your wallet…it lowers your ***** count,” he growls.

“The answer came to me. 'Write your message on her insides,' said the sentence that was scrawled within my closed eyes in neon. It should read: ‘She threw us a stone instead of bread, the way corrupt people do.' You can go, now. I have work to do,” he suggests.

I heard a motor crank on the phone.

“Should I expect the authorities here?” he asks as the sound rumbles in the background.

“Carry on. I didn’t see anything,” I reply.

I grab the cell phone from the stool, press the 'End' button, put it in my pocket, and walk out of the bathroom, pushing the woman on the floor with my foot on my way out far enough from the door to close and seal it in front of her, nodding to the convenience store clerk as I push the glass door open and walk out into the street, cranking up my car and leaving to the open road.
ciannie Nov 2015
Feel my breath adorn your stiffened shoulders
Now your cloak, as thick as heavy satin
Beneath ruby black sleeves your skin smoulders
From tattoos inked in my red-lipped Latin
Our songs are pressurized into jewels
I place the lovely earrings on your lobes
That stern gaze I taught you won't suffer fools
Nor entertain hissing genophobes
My precious mineral complexion acts
As the speckled fur underneath your crown
Tenuous heart strings of mine set their traps
And from my throat queue the trumpeting sound
Hold still, stand up proud, bare that throat fresh blue
Take the steps - and thus I coronate you
attempt at a sonnet
(a poor one)
Kurt Philip Behm Nov 2016
The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final goodbye
The teeth tear inward
Like the regret for today
And the regret for yesterday
And the lament for tomorrow
Its promise broken
And your khakis red
And baptized
A stigmata
To self infliction
As the music plays constant
And the rushing you feel
An emptying of sorrow
Onto the crushed ceiling
Of a dream in reverse
Of all life in reverse
Until two arms grab you
And you fall from the sky
And you fall from the sky
Waiting
For the ground
To coronate the outcome
And for one more answer
To a ‘why’ unquestioned
And to love you one more time
But the lights are now dim
And the voices muffled
As an ***** can be heard
And store bought flowers smelled
And an old woman cries…
As a young woman cries…
And a stranger pronounces
What you feared the most
They didn’t know you
And couldn’t know you
The exit sign flashing
But there is no door
“There is no door”
—and then the music stops

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)
Venus Aug 2022
I write words of meaningless sound
Pour my honesty upon the ground
Coronate me with a cardboard crown
My poetry left in a heaping mound
I’m forgotten, as seen as a shadow
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2016
The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final goodbye
The teeth tear inward
Like the regret for today
And the regret for yesterday
And the lament for tomorrow
Its promise broken
And your khakis red
And baptized
A stigmata
To self infliction
As the music plays constant
And the rushing you feel
An emptying of sorrow
Onto the crushed ceiling
Of a dream in reverse
Of all life in reverse
Until two arms grab you
And you fall from the sky
And you fall from the sky
Waiting
For the ground
To coronate the outcome
And for one more answer
To a ‘why’ unquestioned
And to love you one more time
But the lights are now dim
And the voices muffled
As an ***** can be heard
And store bought flowers smelled
And an old woman cries…
As a young woman cries…
And a stranger pronounces
What you feared the most
They didn’t know you
And couldn’t know you
The exit sign flashing
But there is no door
“There is no door”
—and then the music stops

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Sep 2018
The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final goodbye
The teeth tear inward
Like the regret for today
And the regret for yesterday
And the lament for tomorrow
Its promise broken
And your khakis red
And baptized
A stigmata
To self infliction
As the music plays constant
And the rushing you feel
An emptying of sorrow
Onto the crushed ceiling
Of a dream in reverse
Of all life in reverse
Until two arms grab you
And you fall from the sky
And you fall from the sky
Waiting
For the ground
To coronate the outcome
And for one more answer
To a ‘why’ unquestioned
And to love you one more time
But the lights are now dim
And the voices muffled
As an ***** can be heard
And store bought flowers smelled
And an old woman cries…
As a young woman cries…
And a stranger pronounces
What you feared the most
They didn’t know you
And couldn’t know you
The exit sign flashing
But there is no door
“There Is No Door”
  —and then the music stops

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2023
The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final goodbye
The teeth tear inward
Like the regret for today
And the regret for yesterday
And the lament for tomorrow
Its promise broken
And your khakis red
And baptized
A stigmata
To self infliction
As the music plays constant
And the rushing you feel
An emptying of sorrow
Onto the crushed ceiling
Of a dream in reverse
Of all life in reverse
Until two arms grab you
And you fall from the sky
And you fall from the sky
Waiting
For the ground
To coronate the outcome
And for one more answer
To a 'why' unquestioned
And to love you one more time
But the lights are now dim
And the voices muffled
As an ***** can be heard
And store bought flowers smelled
And an old woman cries…
As a young woman cries…
And a stranger pronounces
What you feared the most
They didn’t know you
And couldn’t know you
The exit sign flashing
But there is no door
“There is no door”
—and then the music stops

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)
All those petty lies,
Futile tries,
And what’s you’re prize?

Nothing.
I don’t have a thing
To crown upon your head.
No crown
To coronate you an *******.

Disarming you upon your decent,
Shocking you when you’re grounded.

Stop seeking my comfort,
For soon I will lose this pity.
Don’t **** with me. Not that they’ll ever even read this. Ugh some people are so ******* annoying. They degrade themselves or say that you’ll do something bad to them just to be complimented or to get a gentle confirmation that you won’t do anything bad. I’m tired of that.

Title is from the song King Nothing by Metallica. It’s a good song.
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2019
The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final goodbye
The teeth tear inward
Like the regret for today
And the regret for yesterday
And the lament for tomorrow
Its promise broken
And your khakis red
And baptized
A stigmata
To self infliction
As the music plays constant
And the rushing you feel
An emptying of sorrow
Onto the crushed ceiling
Of a dream in reverse
Of all life in reverse
Until two arms grab you
And you fall from the sky
And you fall from the sky
Waiting
For the ground
To coronate the outcome
And for one more answer
To a ‘why’ unquestioned
And to love you one more time
But the lights are now dim
And the voices muffled
As an ***** can be heard
And store bought flowers smelled
And an old woman cries…
As a young woman cries…
And a stranger pronounces
What you feared the most
They didn’t know you
And couldn’t know you
The exit sign flashing
But there is no door
“There Is No Door”
  —and then the music stops

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2021
The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final goodbye
The teeth tear inward
Like the regret for today
And the regret for yesterday
And the lament for tomorrow
Its promise broken
And your khakis red
And baptized
A stigmata
To self infliction
As the music plays constant
And the rushing you feel
An emptying of sorrow
Onto the crushed ceiling
Of a dream in reverse
Of all life in reverse
Until two arms grab you
And you fall from the sky
And you fall from the sky
Waiting
For the ground
To coronate the outcome
And for one more answer
To a 'why' unquestioned
And to love you one more time
But the lights are now dim
And the voices muffled
As an ***** can be heard
And store bought flowers smelled
And an old woman cries…
As a young woman cries…
And a stranger pronounces
What you feared the most
They didn’t know you
And couldn’t know you
The exit sign flashing
But there is no door
“There is no door”
—and then the music stops

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2020
The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final goodbye
The teeth tear inward
Like the regret for today
And the regret for yesterday
And the lament for tomorrow
Its promise broken
And your khakis red
And baptized
A stigmata
To self infliction
As the music plays constant
And the rushing you feel
An emptying of sorrow
Onto the crushed ceiling
Of a dream in reverse
Of all life in reverse
Until two arms grab you
And you fall from the sky
And you fall from the sky
Waiting
For the ground
To coronate the outcome
And for one more answer
To a ‘why’ unquestioned
And to love you one more time
But the lights are now dim
And the voices muffled
As an ***** can be heard
And store bought flowers smelled
As an old woman cries…
And a young woman cries…
And a stranger pronounces
What you feared the most
They didn’t know you
And couldn’t know you
The exit sign flashing
But there is no door
“There is no door”
—and then the music stops

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

— The End —