I

In that November off Tehuantepec,
The slopping of the sea grew still one night
And in the morning summer hued the deck

And made one think of rosy chocolate
And gilt umbrellas. Paradisal green
Gave suavity to the perplexed machine

Of ocean, which like limpid water lay.
Who, then, in that ambrosial latitude
Out of the light evolved the morning blooms,

Who, then, evolved the sea-blooms from the clouds
Diffusing balm in that Pacific calm?
C'etait mon enfant, mon bijou, mon ame.

The sea-clouds whitened far below the calm
And moved, as blooms move, in the swimming green
And in its watery radiance, while the hue

Of heaven in an antique reflection rolled
Round those flotillas. And sometimes the sea
Poured brilliant iris on the glistening blue.

                        II

In that November off Tehuantepec
The slopping of the sea grew still one night.
At breakfast jelly yellow streaked the deck

And made one think of chop-house chocolate
And sham umbrellas. And a sham-like green
Capped summer-seeming on the tense machine

Of ocean, which in sinister flatness lay.
Who, then, beheld the rising of the clouds
That strode submerged in that malevolent sheen,

Who saw the mortal massives of the blooms
Of water moving on the water-floor?
C'etait mon frere du ciel, ma vie, mon or.

The gongs rang loudly as the windy booms
Hoo-hooed it in the darkened ocean-blooms.
The gongs grew still. And then blue heaven spread

Its crystalline pendentives on the sea
And the macabre of the water-glooms
In an enormous undulation fled.

                        III

In that November off Tehuantepec,
The slopping of the sea grew still one night
And a pale silver patterned on the deck

And made one think of porcelain chocolate
And pied umbrellas. An uncertain green,
Piano-polished, held the tranced machine

Of ocean, as a prelude holds and holds,
Who, seeing silver petals of white blooms
Unfolding in the water, feeling sure

Of the milk within the saltiest spurge, heard, then,
The sea unfolding in the sunken clouds?
Oh! C'etait mon extase et mon amour.

So deeply sunken were they that the shrouds,
The shrouding shadows, made the petals black
Until the rolling heaven made them blue,

A blue beyond the rainy hyacinth,
And smiting the crevasses of the leaves
Deluged the ocean with a sapphire blue.

                        IV

In that November off Tehuantepec
The night-long slopping of the sea grew still.
A mallow morning dozed upon the deck

And made one think of musky chocolate
And frail umbrellas. A too-fluent green
Suggested malice in the dry machine

Of ocean, pondering dank stratagem.
Who then beheld the figures of the clouds
Like blooms secluded in the thick marine?

Like blooms? Like damasks that were shaken off
From the loosed girdles in the spangling must.
C'etait ma foi, la nonchalance divine.

The nakedness would rise and suddenly turn
Salt masks of beard and mouths of bellowing,
Would--But more suddenly the heaven rolled

Its bluest sea-clouds in the thinking green,
And the nakedness became the broadest blooms,
Mile-mallows that a mallow sun cajoled.

                        V

In that November off Tehuantepec
Night stilled the slopping of the sea.
The day came, bowing and voluble, upon the deck,

Good clown... One thought of Chinese chocolate
And large umbrellas. And a motley green
Followed the drift of the obese machine

Of ocean, perfected in indolence.
What pistache one, ingenious and droll,
Beheld the sovereign clouds as jugglery

And the sea as turquoise-turbaned *****, neat
At tossing saucers--cloudy-conjuring sea?
C'etait mon esprit batard, l'ignominie.

The sovereign clouds came clustering. The conch
Of loyal conjuration *******. The wind
Of green blooms turning crisped the motley hue

To clearing opalescence. Then the sea
And heaven rolled as one and from the two
Came fresh transfigurings of freshest blue.

Evening slipped into the long abyss
So fell the red moon
Malicious shadows forecasting doom
For the cursed animal man
Inhabiting the precious earth

Fearsome rolling rivers ran dry
Black smoke filled the spanning azure skies
The churning murky green oceans gave up the bones of their dead
When the moon turned red

The crust of the hard ground shook
Split and burst into deep fiery crevasses
Dark yellow orange smoldering nooks
Swallowing all of life
So obliterated was mans world as we know it
Destroyed
Barron and dead
When the moon turned red

This poem is copyrighted and stored in author base. All material subject to Copyright Infringement laws
Section 512(c)(3) of the U.S. Copyright
Act, 17 U.S.C. S512(c)(3), Tammy M. Darby Jan.10, 2014

I believe in the Western Wall, the rough stones that feel soft to the touch, and warm so many hearts, the vines that start at the top and fall into the cracks of the temple that once was whole.
Starting in Pre- K, I learned all about the basics of the Jewish people; the history, the culture, and the religion. The idea of it all coming to life felt out of reach. Originally, I was going to have to wait until the summer of sophomore year to visit the land I have learned about for many years. Yet I was in eighth grade when I first visited Israel with my class.
It wasn’t real to me until I boarded the El Al airplane that would bring me to the place that I had anticipated through pictures, descriptions, poems and ancestry. The trip moved fast; I constantly hiked and had fun with my classmates of nine years. The concluding days were where I would finally discover the answer to the most confusing part of Judaism to me—the Western Wall.
As I stood in front of the wall like so many had done before me, my prior confusion about why so many people cared about a single wall vanished. All around me people were dancing and singing, and as I got closer to the wall they grew blurry in my vision and eventually vanished (just used “vanished”, maybe use a different word?). All I could see was the wall that stood so tall above me. For the first time, I had no questions. My tears answered them all.
My teacher told me to choose just one rock to remember forever. They said to look at the wall standing in front of me and close my eyes. The rock you first see will be yours. My rock’s sides are straight but the middle looks like the thick white cream cheese craters of the moon.
    _
I cannot say that I fully grasped the meaning of the Western Wall until I returned for a second time this summer. As my feet guided me along steps I took just two years ago, I spotted the rock that was mine. As I looked into the crevasses, my mind drew a picture of my tears that came out just two years ago. I remembered the look in my face even though I could not see myself. I remember not being able to describe my cry and not being able to identify my tears from my friends’ that I embraced with. Our warm salty tears fell onto the limestone ground beneath our feet.
At that moment, I realized we Jews have something strong that cannot break. We pour out our hearts onto paper and push the bits of our heart into the hands of our people. We trust those who stuck their prayers into the Wall, because we are all one people. We are the Western Wall.

I believe in the Western Wall.

It is in my blood
I can feel its presence
When it’s on the verge
To emit a surge, every time my heart beats

An impulse,
Scurrying it’s way through the crevasses of my brain.
Tainting the walls of grey matter with a tendency for unpredictability,
Out of my reach.

I hate it
I don’t want it
I never asked for this

I can’t slow my mind down
Thoughts so fast, hit me with whiplash
It’s insanity.

No.

I’m not insane
I can’t be
I’m rationale

I think about how I think about things,
Like it’s a cycle that never stops..

Which I guess could be my downfall
My vision says it all
When thoughts travel my mind
In dark tunnels at times
My eyes blind to the surroundings

Tunnel vision that make you claustrophobic;
You feel trapped
When all you see at the end of the tunnel,
Is the darkness of insanity

But..
I’m rationale

I acknowledge I have a tendency to be blind to my surroundings,
How can I be blind if I can clearly see?
Is life objective or subjective?
I just want to understand--

You're stupid —
What was that?
Felt like a surge, on the attack
An impulse

That voice
That’s it.

Unpredictability

That lies,
In my brain waiting to be brought to the surface
With the surge of an impulse.
It’s the insanity that taints me,
From seeing what really is

I’m not stupid, I’m a learner.

Granted with the gift of analysis,
But darkened by the cruel nature of impulse
To taint my minds innocence

I'm not scared to think about it anymore

I am insane, because it’s what you make of it.
Insanity grants me with the gift of perspective,
Throwing a million different ones my way
Ones that are positive and ones that are new
Traveling at hundreds of miles
And this even includes

All the negative perspectives as well

At the times when I don’t want to hear them.

Insanity must be embraced and never repressed.
Repression tells you no don’t do that, it’s wrong.
When insanity isn’t embraced, it is feared.
When something that’s inevitable is feared
You’re no longer insane,

**You’ve completely lost it.

Being alone with you is like being alone.
But being alone is like being nothing.

I love to hold your hands while we hike through the crevasses
especially when you could fall and I'd have to save you.

Rocks are coldest when compared to your hands
I think as we break contact to scale yet another.
My favorite lyrics become distant rhythms
the moment your mouth moves and song bleeds out.

I think the catchiest song
is the sound of your lexicon.

But you're not singing,
you are simply talking

about that moment when the cigarette, dribbling with smoke, pulls away
from your perfect lips, the lowest of which hangs in a perpetual pout.
That is the soft line of flesh I would like for my tongue to skate upon.
Pirouettes are crisp and cantilevers are hopeful but I would much prefer

To enter a deep outside edge
while performing an open stroke.

But that is slicing ice, not kissing.
And we are climbing rocks, not kissing.

*What's the difference?

Between food and ***, it's difficult to decide which of these pleasures we enjoy most. Washed my hands, I'm a good host. Besides, eating with my hands is the part i enjoy most. The flavors spilling over, dripping, running down my wrist. The potency and aroma, only one thing smells, and taste, like this. Your lips; soft, fleshy, texture, the juices running down my lip - Drip, drip. The taste, I'll ****, lick, bite or sip;the clear liquid so thick, your mainstream, runs quick. Concave crevasses, my fingers still fit. The colors of the flesh, delight, changing shapes, move and shift. Fuzzy little peaches, mangos wild, for fruits like this. Taste of heaven, leaves a stain that sticks. Without the tender fruits of your *****; none of this would exist.

Weather Advisory: A long one*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be not fooled,
by the evening-tide,
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.

Be guarded,
for the easy transformation,
a tranquil shedding
of the day's husk,
into the faded light of dusk,
just one of nature's machinations
to delay the inevitable.

Evening-tide,
a colored compilation
of a few mischievous hours,
when sunlight is invaded by
streaks of pink, azure and gold,    
just before the
palette is plunged
into a stainless steel can
of gothic black,
skyied glory rendered into
common house paint.

Evening-tide,
an alleged easy calm
surfeits some souls,
supposed easy passage from  
the day's contusions to
a relaxation from humankind's regulations and rules,
but not for me.

Evening-tide,
when appetites unsated, simmer,
the in between hours when
humans transform themselves,
from day laborers to creatures
desiring, aroused, hungry  
for night time pleasures,
searching with false courage for
boundary lines to sever.

Evening-tide,
it was at evening-tide that
David espied, desired and
stole Bathsheba for his own,
with a King's arrogance
rent a kingdom,
murdered for profit,
birthed an Heir,
a prince, who wrote,
by evening-tide:

I have seen all the works
that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit.

Evening-tide,
fear closes my throat,
confusion reappears,
a low grade flu infects
deemed persistent, incurable,
revisits, medicine resistant,
my insights, my speech,
to blind and bind  

Am I Gloucester,
blinded, but faculties
possessing vision,
the future to clarify?

No, no, it is to a king,
Lear,
to whom I am
son and cousin,
kith and kin

Sunset visions of
ultimate demise
ours eyes behold,
but plainly put,
at Evening-tide,
our dementia -
a precursor,
a periodic but hostile guest
in the hostel of our memories,
cracks and fractures us,
spirit first, body second.  

We are bound helpless
by a knotted tongue,
slow dying malingerer,
inside a head of ill repute,
unable to locate our knowing,
and every word selected,
a battle galactic, oft lost

Evening-tide,
I am cold,
and the issued command
is bring an umbrella
to warm and cover.  
What an old fool am I,
tis not blanket or a
Bathsheba I seek,
but at Evening-tide,
Babel's nefarious treasury of words
unlocked, for tis closed,                    
the gatekeepers,
drunk and absent,
drunk on absinthe,
and creme de mentia
and I have no key

Evening-tide, prithee,
I beg of thee,
consideration please,
check this hideous amusement,
that makes this
King's speech confused,
odor of smokeless cordite ignited
where the synapses have burnt,
injured, beyond repair
injured, by mine own aging.  

Reverse the diagnosis
of the panel of wordsmiths:
Alas, weep and be comforted...

Evening-tide,
a reverie of colored tears,
downward sloping,
arrive to tingle my tongue,
warming comfort for an *****
willing but unable,
a wounded soldier,
a veteran of poetry,
now prone and pained
beyond repair,
beyond healing,
immunized to the
heat and solder,
drugs and salves,
that heretofore
might have closed
the cracks of rack and ruin

Evening-tide,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't
put Humpty together again^

Evening-tide,
my hair, the color of old age.
Irony, my skin yet smooth,
unwrinkled, not in need of the
toxins that are employed
to fill crevasses on
the outer banks of age of comedy

Alas, the toxins natural from within
have seeped from their
latent resting place and have
contaminated the groundwater
that lubricated my mind,  
from siege engines poured,
a contamination of
mine own making.  
After a life long battle,
my Jericho walls have fallen.

Lear and I faint recall the love
of our beloved Cordelia,
but try as we might
her name escapes our grasp,
******* by bite of aging's asp.

We grow drunk by night
on a drink not of choice,
unhappy fury,
the residue within
the imprisoned poison
of our polluted tears,
that come only after our
misspoken and misshapen
guttural croaks
of our Eveningtide prayers
are both
unintelligible and unrequited

Ice blue eyes
Sharp as the serrated edges of a chainsaw blade
Carving my frozen heart
To conform to your fringerprints

Feather soft lips
Rose colored by nature
Speak words of silk
To dress my **** perception
Of what happiness could be

Golden straw hair
The farmer of flowing cornstalks
They bloom the scent of revival
A harvest moon illuminates their beauty

Wine bubbles burst
Pops replaced with giggling
A drunken serenade
To pull whiskey breathed sailors
Near their soon sunken imagination
Premonitions showing their fantasy

A toast to the woman
Who shall teach bronze haired children
With her brilliance
Coupled with cunning of their father
May she be happy in my dreams
Where she has yet to emerge
From it's dreary depths

in this world of the limped nuptial
i’ve appeared as a power-missile of the lac-dye
that is used by the hindu women
to paint the border of their feet

the tooth-ache of some-one pumpkin
that grows on the thatched roof of a hut
has wringed spirally  
my mythological birth with corporate death

managing and arranging  my thoughts
on what I was in the past
what I would be in the future
or what is my dos at present  
the wonder-paintings of the altamira cave
unfolds its wings beside my painful in-growing nail

and in her own sky of miss marry  
my hands become so much condensed in every drops
as if within that moping smog
without any speech
speaks the twinkle twinkle little star…

beside  that labour pain what awakes then
is the patronage of a one-horned idea
along which while walking  without much preparation
i can enter into any e-mail

though our love pulls a very long-face about itself
and in the opinion of the married women
the sigh of the sin θ of our love wants to cultivate
mustered-seeds on the soil of the inhabitants
of this human-life
with a stick by which the monkeys are driven out
what more can i say in lieu of
a piece of red-salute written in green ink

if i say in the dawn of the 52-cards
i touch your face
by the hands of a school-boy
your calmness and earthly perfume
make me stunned

then in this field of sweat and war
the explosion of logic and intellect
of your top-floor
seems more famous anchor than the milk
that spilt over on the fire

and more to say
when daubing all over the body
all taste of the path of joy
enter into then fort of gold you can notice there
when in some unknown moment
my pajama dies socially
by the bite of the snails and oysters

to keep the heart of the break-kiln always move
this form-less interactions are so well
in the harvest-arrangement of the late-autumn
we are all uttering the name of cherry-flower
and begging shelter from the mango leaves

the cause of spreading over of the fragrance
from our secret myrobalan to every side of the pillows
is not only such that in the morning
an empty ink-*** says to the rain-water
you are beautiful

it is also remarkable that
coming to our half-articulated  travelling
the writings carved on the granite stone
become very much ashamed also

and  taking the busy market-price of the sun-glass
in the fold of the **** cloth tied at the waist
my both hands are also marked very much
in the omnibus of the dancing-bar

such is just because it is the art and science of navigation
that pastes some earth-wave
having no number-plate
with the public
rolling down  on the mat of the summer

it is impossible
to memorise the history of  those
so much contended-hunger
so much contended-sleep

it is all right that the staff-members
of our vibgyr university are all alive  
but they are the existence of some
bio-data only

arrangement of so much smiles and tears
in the nomenclature of banana-bed of mrs sofia
is not to tell the directionlessness of her fishery products
but if the culture of the wild trees assuming figure
then there remains no separate entity of the rbcs
inside or inside-up of the veins and arteries

all are the world of cosmetic-surgery
all are the arena of displaced national integrity
that is the only way to get admitted
into the still water of the horse-race

so the making of this self-portrait of the tip-cat game
by own-hand
so is the fancy of the engagement ring of the bursar

as a result of the headache in the au fait knee-joint
all the rats on the rice-*** of margaret  
become very angry
and when they make their performance  
you can’t catch them by extending your hands

so there is this sky-blue printed sari of desdemona
now take refuge under her perfumed disaster
and it is feared that there may be the drops of sweat
on the lobes of her nose extremely devoted
that the trees become to reside in

how much confusing is that cascade
in each of whose earings the dark fortnight
and whose eden garden is so large
that all those  people with crevasses dwell there

they stay in a group of nine
neither eight nor ten
just n for 9
n is also meant for the nancy
and the narcissus
and the sensational appearance of the
nereid  

once again we rub green-chilly after pouring water
in the parched-rice on the ancient plate made of brass
it is right that the peak is separated down from the temple
but it does not hurt the priest

by the right of our walks strewed outside
we too when hiding ourselves in the regime of fire
with our intention and activities
with our standpoint
with our conduct and  behaviour
or any instant rule or direction
or our deeds
that compel the rotation of the deodorant

thus after the eye-operation
the love between you and me is now
seeing more week-ends than before
to her knee has been submitted many caws
painted in water-colour

in every corner and every hole of the body
that pulls the rickshaw the wind enters
and in every root-cause of the sufferings
the ripple of annihilation of love

from the shop of dip-swimming now
you can also purchase soundlessness  
to feel  the spirit of  chrysoberyl

now you need the work for 100 days
to gain the power you need to keep pace
with the graph of the terracotta
that may also be a long day of fasting  

then on the back of that hungry conch-shell
a globe shouts
the other’s world puts its office-water
in the fountain of cactus the roaring of which
pours so many telephone-calls into the ears

then in our market the ear-bursting sound of the generator
then in our forest-land
the bullet-fight between maoist and the joint-force

then with the enlarging and waning of our moon
are the bright fortnight the dark fortnight and the leaves of wood-apple

you may say now
those demerits relate to the seeds of the gm oranges
but just think the scanning of hibernation of the philtre
or of the kite the thread of which is cut off
they can’t escape their responsibility too

then tell me to whom i could give
my sad melting point  

but then to do any work means
this trigonometry
outside the territory of copyright

then the connection of the biscuits
with the thoughts of the fire-works
is clearly dismantled

the border-zone of all relations thus keep themselves apart
and due to a sharp difference in the chromosomes of sand-stone
our dwelling-house becomes a museum

to build a hospital with a big moustache
at last within the hypnotized company
the shadow of our bed-room appears

then the light of the social moon  is like the materials
with which the inner parts of the sorrows of the pomelo
is made up

it may be well for making great
the art-work of the horse-rider
that is wrapped with the handkerchief of ocean  

it must be waiting for my shampoo-power too

some cure may be offered by the paraffin
and her open hair

but one deed of the rose-petals
and the convex sweet drops of molasses  
is the flame of thumb-impression
that is born and brought up by the pan-cake
in-between sauce-pan and peter pan

in this all-pervasive panorama of slang-opera

you become even more beautiful

just by looking at the sea

thinking where is the ice

though you don´t miss it

it´s just weird

that it´s no longer there

no kids ice skating

no crevasses banging

I could drown myself in cups of coffee, in nicotine, old books, and whiskey.
But that won't make me crave you any less.
I could immerse myself in the deepest of enthralling literature, poems, a sea of colloquy,
Waves, strangling the current of my mind.
But you'd still be the resonant word.
I could listen to the sweetest of voices on repeat, golden like honey, sticky,
But my ears would only ever truly answer to yours.
Serpents tend to bite their own tails, a mythological and alchemic symbol of the cyclic nature of the universe: creation out of destruction.
But I'm not breaking my heart, loving you.
Swollen, yearning, daydreamed astray, gathered fast by night.
Curiosity deniable no more, innocence lost, hands wandered exploratory below.
Clambering desperate over themselves, those hands fell over folds of warmed flesh, over forgotten nooks and unfound crevasses, over trembling thighs and aching calves.
Astounded by the vast array of fresh delicacies, of unencountered sensations and deepest pleasures, she stood by loyal as those hands swiftly accustomed themselves to pursuing true ecstasy.
What divine rapture. What soaring heights of pleasure to ascend to. And what a delicious revelation to encounter such unimaginable ecstasy.
That twelfth year become a fourteenth, a fifteenth, a sixteenth.
And with the passing of each came a series of ever more adventurous trysts, the sorts of which Cousteau, Armstrong, and even Columbus could all be truly proud of.
Depths sounded, crevasses plundered, self’s nectars tasted and devoured, the pleasures of the flesh went unearthed.
Elaborate constructions lovingly shaped, waxed and honed, years of heady experimentation, trial and errors, fantasy and dreaming, all in the pursuit of even harder, better, faster, stronger *******. Perhaps it was that, or was it more a case of welcomed companionship? Ambidextrous frustration? A carnal appetite, most terrifying in its magnitude?

Isn’t it time then, you tried a little tenderness?
Be good to you.

written two years ago and a bit, but suits still....

Weather Advisory: A long poem pouring ahead

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be not fooled,
by the evening-tide,
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.

Be guarded,
for the easy transformation,
a tranquil shedding
of the day's husk,
into the faded light of dusk,
just one of nature's machinations
to delay the inevitable.

Evening-tide,
a colored compilation
of a few mischievous hours,
when sunlight is invaded by
streaks of pink, azure and gold,    
just before the
palette is plunged
into a stainless steel can
of gothic black,
skyied glory rendered into
common house paint.

Evening-tide,
an alleged easy calm
surfeits some souls,
supposed easy passage from  
the day's contusions to
a relaxation from humankind's regulations and rules,
but not for me.

Evening-tide,
when appetites unsated, simmer,
the in between hours when
humans transform themselves,
from day laborers to creatures
desiring, aroused, hungry  
for night time pleasures,
searching with false courage for
boundary lines to sever.

Evening-tide,
it was at evening-tide that
David espied, desired and
stole Bathsheba for his own,
with a King's arrogance
rent a kingdom,
murdered for profit,
birthed an Heir,
a prince, who wrote,
by evening-tide:

I have seen all the works
that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit.

Evening-tide,
fear closes my throat,
confusion reappears,
a low grade flu infects
deemed persistent, incurable,
revisits, medicine resistant,
my insights, my speech,
to blind and bind  

Am I Gloucester,
blinded, but faculties
possessing vision,
the future to clarify?

No, no, it is to a king,
Lear,
to whom I am
son and cousin,
kith and kin

Sunset visions of
ultimate demise
ours eyes behold,
but plainly put,
at Evening-tide,
our dementia -
a precursor,
a periodic but hostile guest
in the hostel of our memories,
cracks and fractures us,
spirit first, body second.  

We are bound helpless
by a knotted tongue,
slow dying malingerer,
inside a head of ill repute,
unable to locate our knowing,
and every word selected,
a battle galactic, oft lost

Evening-tide,
I am cold,
and the issued command
is bring an umbrella
to warm and cover.  
What an old fool am I,
tis not blanket or a
Bathsheba I seek,
but at Evening-tide,
Babel's nefarious treasury of words
unlocked, for tis closed,                    
the gatekeepers,
drunk and absent,
drunk on absinthe,
and creme de mentia
and I have no key

Evening-tide, prithee,
I beg of thee,
consideration please,
check this hideous amusement,
that makes this
King's speech confused,
odor of smokeless cordite ignited
where the synapses have burnt,
injured, beyond repair
injured, by mine own aging.  

Reverse the diagnosis
of the panel of wordsmiths:
Alas, weep and be comforted...

Evening-tide,
a reverie of colored tears,
downward sloping,
arrive to tingle my tongue,
warming comfort for an *****
willing but unable,
a wounded soldier,
a veteran of poetry,
now prone and pained
beyond repair,
beyond healing,
immunized to the
heat and solder,
drugs and salves,
that heretofore
might have closed
the cracks of rack and ruin

Evening-tide,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't
put Humpty together again^

Evening-tide,
my hair, the color of old age.
Irony, my skin yet smooth,
unwrinkled, not in need of the
toxins that are employed
to fill crevasses on
the outer banks of age of comedy

Alas, the toxins natural from within
have seeped from their
latent resting place and have
contaminated the groundwater
that lubricated my mind,  
from siege engines poured,
a contamination of
mine own making.  
After a life long battle,
my Jericho walls have fallen.

Lear and I faint recall the love
of our beloved Cordelia,
but try as we might
her name escapes our grasp,
******* by bite of aging's asp.

We grow drunk by night
on a drink not of choice,
unhappy fury,
the residue within
the imprisoned poison
of our polluted tears,
that come only after our
misspoken and misshapen
guttural croaks
of our Eveningtide prayers
are both
unintelligible and unrequited

To even commence to define how profoundly I fell in love with you, I would need the capacity of a thousand-page manuscript written in the most romantic idiom.

Each, and every retention of us is stowed into the back of my conscious, and concealed deep into my heart.

Every beautiful memory plays through my head like soft music.

I would say my heart is immovable.  There are days that I try to sojourn the thoughts of you, but its intolerable for me to do so.

I am so engulfed in your perfection. I do not think there has been a single day that you have escaped my thoughts.

I can feel your presence with me if I ponder our memories deeply enough. Your presence weighs heavily in my heart. It is as if part of your soul occupies its crevasses, and fills my cracks.

Your eyes are echoes of a hundred distant galaxies no man has ever revealed. Vast windows that reflect the constellations.

My heart is certain the universe resides in them.

As I begin to study your face, I feel like nothing but love can exist.

Your porcelain perfection never ceases to weaken me.

You weaken me with love, trust, and desire. Like the finest specimen created by the hands of Gods.

As I anticipate the connotation of love, the implication is “you”.

Even if the fire for what you feel for me dies, I do not reason the passion I have for you will ever dim.

I do not begin to recollect if I had ever felt this susceptible.

I let this passion be valued like the rarest stone.

I would give up the entire world if it meant I could have you in my life endlessly.

Your happiness is of grave importance to me, when I study your smile, I can overlook the darkness of this decaying reality.
  
Every heartbeat of time my mouth declares three unpretentious words.

“I love you”.

I say it like an invocation.

Not one moment did my tongue express profanity against these golden words of poetry.

I love you. “ I Love You” . And solitarily just you.  

I wallow in my own sorrows at the thought of the culmination, when we shall one day part at death's hand.

For I deeply distinguish that you love me equally, and this brings vast pleasure to my temperament.

I sense security in your encirclement, your heart is my home.

My heart qualms of my fragile weakness that I consume when I dream of you.

You make me susceptible to the sickness of love.

If love was a poem, you would be the title.

I am sitting at a desk,
back straight, head forward, eyes open. Blink.
Economics melts into white noise as
supply curves become demand curves become supply curves, elasticity.
Water weeps through the crevasses of the windows and ceiling,
mocking my ever fragile existence.
Ankle deep in yesterday's cold forgotten words unsaid,
the lesson advances.
Demand curves become supply curves become demand curves, consumer surplus.
A single drop christens my desk and terror fills my long hollow eyes
as the ceiling mutates into a congregation of puddles.
Rain that felt of hydrochloric acid
dissolved the very flesh I tried to escape.
God is not so sweet when it comes to sinners,
confining me to the barriers of an insignificant wooden desk.
The class remains like mannequins,
indifference radiating from their plastic cores.
Supply curves become demand curves become supply curves, externalities.
The only witness to this nightmare,  
my last breathe finally deserts me.
I tense as the numbing waves climb up my spine,  
injecting lethargy in each individual vertebra.
Malicious tentacles wrap around my throat and water floods my collapsing black lungs.  
White noise consumes the entire classroom as I float in and out of paralysis,  
only to open my eyes. Blink.

cigarette smoke clogs her arteries
twelve packs a week
bleeding teeth and nails dawdle in her broken hallucinations
the cloud of harsh chemicals mask the iron in dust
it coats her tongue and hands and feet
the minerals latch onto the crevasses of her flesh
refusing to relinquish their rightful territory
she knows all of this
all it took was ages in a bathtub
overcome with mildew
for their stubborn tendencies to become evident
she's since abandoned attempting to scrub the brine away

We climbed from bedrock
to Idyllwild the home
of Pines to Palms
and Suicide Rocks
but not for us
only for those
poor tired souls
for whom the world's gone
flat
refusing
the night threw
itself boldly into the fray
of winds which blew
from storm to calm

so this morning we awoke
to a placid knap
slipping on snowy piste
to turn cold snaps
hot
spiced Nepali tea
sipped from ice
nipped cups
I see promise
picks up

from backward leaps
time forward flips
breaking free range igneous
into pan
piped sizzling
congenial song
that carries on the tree line
like spring
water sprung from
creeks to go scurrying off
with wet socks
until pulled up
by old school granite skies
hanging pools out to dry
in sopping blue rinsed sun

ahead any bald rocks
or hairline fractures
are long since dialled in
as baseless fears
knowing this mobile age
can merrily slip like air
through numb fingers
while baseline hands declare
“hold me close to gather”
edelweiss echoes gone
rappelling through time
the route we've chosen's
to be tied to each other's
peaks in the way of sun
and moon

come what may
be it creases in our skin
or crevasses
we'll win the battle to slim line
any overhanging ridges
so I take care to tighten
my girth hitch to top notch
and hold firmly
to both your conviction
and reach

that setting
out to move mountains
we call home
achieves more than
staying home
and calling mountains

so bright
you have me forget
all things too trite
banal office hype
shopworn old hat
mowing lawn weekends
too dishy to be clichéd

you polish off the stereotype
slam the Dior on out of shape
and dull as ditchwater tripe
keeping a victorious secret
or two in the slip knot
too tranquil shade
taking allure to new heights
we'll never drop
down from
tonight

a porcelain grizzly bear is on my desk table
I stole it from a gas station in Oklahoma
driving 100 miles per hour
in the hope for something hopeful
a tiny minuet grasp of freedom of the road
of the cigarette endlessly burning
endlessly producing knowledge
imagination
little scroll stories that flash through the mind like rain drops or
shooting stars at night
or the clock on the microwave turning from 4:00
to 4:01

A subconscious journey
a path
a walkway
a minor walkway into the many hallway'd mind
perhaps there are no doors
no official room or building
simply hallways binding into one another like ******* eye lashes on a woman of 47
and in these hallways there are rats that like to chew on the soles of your high heeled boots
leaving you
bare foot
then the hallway floors turn into your stomach
flabby
filled with chicken skin and peanuts
A subconscious dilemma
dementia
the dogs got loose
I'll trace them by the foot prints left in the desert like snow

“Ah” my money brother told me
a snow storm
I cover my eyes only to see that I am starving from the wind
and food is scarce in my belly
everyone is dying of hunger
but the poet eats on his fingernails and the poems he abortions through the vaginal mind imagination that creates in his skull made up of glue metal objects and pizza boxes left out on side streets for hounds cats and old serial killer'd military men have left the war only to find trash on the side street and windows with yellow lanterns flaming up in the night like a forest fire
or a **** girl of 16 running through the city streets high on methamphetamines
I called the doctor he's drunk on something I made up in my mind
and Beethoven is on the bathroom shooting up ****** which isn't mine
where is the poem heading
only the humming bird and and ant on the wall will because they do not care
I am hiding something beneath the crevasses of my fingernails of 5
of 10
of 20
of 15
“there's nothing to whisper about” I told her sleeping ear in the midst of drunk A.M. night with nothing to do but make love smoke cigarettes and comment on the noises outside city of sirens that do not attract but chase the negros of criminal car thieves and the drug dealers of KCMO

she took off her dress
something glowed in her eyes
on her belly
in her *******
her legs that grew like plants in a swamp
or in a pond where the deer feed and drink
I kissed her lightly
I saw the moon shake in jealousy
so I left the room through the window
I crawled on my highheeled knees onto the roof and sang
I sang
I sang a song that didn't make sense  and I puked up tiny words of
misleading information to the past of my life
van
desert city Michigan land of
rusting
rusted
old broken toyed up frozen over
antiques
the pond is frozen over
winter won't leave me alone
poking at my eyes
the wind plays a sad song
I miss the tree of life
I want to taste the forbidden apple
but I burnt my tongue on a hot iron
or was it boiling whiskey that I drank from the oven

I took a step into a hole
the subconscious mind began the breath like a young man that crashed in a blue volvo in 1963 on a street next to a ***** house and the lights were loud and the women were thin with
thin
thin
thin
thin
and their ******* pointed
and there eyes shifted only to God
only to 1 dollar bills and the 1 whiskey and 1 more pill of the serene night
of that
hope of finding beauty in a high
but the Trees burn
and the soil is over used
bare no child dirt
the children are deaf and blind and cant run up a mountain
reach the stars
reach the ravens
reach for the
violin
that corrodes the mind like lice
like bleach on the bathroom floor
like termites in the basement
chewing on a sound
gnawing on the night's temple
this may be a problem
painting you
I'm out of oils
and the fridge is warm
that is where I keep my pistol
turn the heat on
turn the water off
lets go out dancing
lets make love
lets ****
lets kiss
lets talk about the sky
as we sit
on our bellies
drinking wine
drinking the dogs breath
drinking the hands sweat
drinking the intellectual thoughts of a book
the book is dead
Savio stands with a sword and cuts his own throat
yet nothing pours out
what is next
where does the Van go from here
where is the next highway thought
the next Used Car Dealer Ship
where is aluminium bathroom
the dishwasher with no dishes
the light bulb that dangles like a child's loose tooth in his molding to man mouth

Look over there
child
mother
indian man with no hair
old?
80?
50 probably
look over there God
look over there
look over there
behind those strange purple white blue trees
I think I see myself
standing in water
with toes
with fingers and fish circling my ankles
look over there
a deer spine
a dogs leash
an unwashed sweater that cost 50 dollars

all my pants have holes in them
all the paintings in my house are fake

her bodied was patina'd
by a kiss of lipstick

soothing
the ride back home
a swig of alcohol
as the city night ***** dominated
quietly burns
where is the loud jazz?
bursting like ******* through windows
where is the passion?
where is the drooling for a womans touch?
where is the television with a baseball in it's skull?

where is the wisdom?
I can only hold onto this rope for so long
my hands are soft
and sore
and this hole is deep
this hole smells like New Mexico
this place stinks of dog and a man who cannot wake up from a dream
because the woman he loves
is in an ocean
and he's chasing her
his eyes are strong and wide
his mouth is full of salt water
and as he looks up
there is snow
there is snow and the water freezes over
and his lover is far
she is on the other side of the shore
she is beautiful in the snow
and his eyes grasp onto that beauty
before he is frozen still


a seagull in winter flies with the crows
what a beautiful sight
I once met an ant
on a leaf of a tomato garden
the ant didn't say much
I complemented him on his life span of a day
I asked him if he ever contemplated suicide
but I guess he never got the chance
the garden dies
the tomatoes grew ill colored
and the stems
that were once straight
like young women in sun dresses
now bends
like an old man reaching for his glasses on the pavement in a sand storm of pain
he hollers out in his used up antique washed out voice of time and too many cigarettes too many women's lips and too much coffee at 5 Am
cursing death
to come
cursing god
to reveal himself
like *******
and the Garden begins to decompose
like that of a squirrel in a suburb street
or a mouse in the cats feline belly
the garden descends bent-wardly to death
to the ground
to the origin of life
of  seed.

A journey into a subconscious mind
or maybe the glance through a dying man's eye glasses.

I remember when you told me to
let it go
The words slipped out of your mouth but never did you let pride slip out of your fingers
I know, because every syllable still stings
The surface of my heart.

Mr. Building, you let go.
Allow the wind to blow against your hair and
create wrinkles on your clothing
But never let it
Knock the dreams right out of you
Because
I believe in them and never will I
Even stutter those words to you
le-le-let
Me take your hand and help you carry those burdens
Don't ever drop your ceramic hope,
Cling on to your glassy aspirations because dreams
Are made of fine china
So precious
So fragile
So so so beautiful
Please don't let  your chin fall to the ground.
Lift yourself up,
Because the world deserves to see
How tall He's built you
But prove to them
That when the earthquake comes,
You height's got nothing on your
Foundations.
And if telling me to let it go
Is to break me back into concrete,
Powder,
Cement,
Then by all means demolish these
Stories and hammer through these
Crevasses
Because every broken window
Is worth seeing you succeed.
It'll hurt me to the very ground,
But your standing tall
Will help me recover.

I remember when you told me to
let it go
Your breath smelled of coffee.
I can tell you've had a rough night.

And maybe
Just maybe
you spent
those sleepless nights
Deciding whether you should
Let it go, too.

Light flanks the snowbanks
my memory thanks the simple soundscapes
of textures closing in
as walls and ceilings
and snow and sleet

We can blame the weather
but we'll be here forever
cursing ourselves
mid-stride

Stopping motion
mid-explosion

a simple thank you from the
particles we've denied

All things moving outward

The molten core of earth
Our mother

Chaos empty space
Our father


     Standing, surrendering.
        The weather tethers at my veins.
     Pushing.   Pulling.
             My emotions run high with the hopes of a new sunrise.

     Guide me,
          show me,
                 lead me to the holy water you sip like its never ending.
     Show me the truth behind every iris that passes my curious glance.
          Breathe in this cold sterile air while we dream of something tangible...

     Strange winds come on strong in the heart of the mislead, the outskirts.
                We thrive on the untouched surfaces of the mind..
           We breathe in the discomfort...


This is the nothing substance
I'm looking for

Seeking ever leaking truth
of faucet water too heavy

Minerals come to life
and return to the ground
in the instant of
midair waterfall

Weightless feeling fateless
determining the future
on solid ground grasses
fishing baitless

naked sameness

emotion

motion

ion

on


     Seeking direction in the wake of misdirected affection.
                                                     Faulting to the backbone of habits.

     Falling faster, I pause in the balance catching my breathe.
                                         I inhale everything surrounding my mind.
                         Exhaling all my simple poisons.
     A detox of wandering souls and singular holes.
     Eating.    Feeding.    Breeding.
             Filling all this space for all those after me.

     Fill me.
        Fulfill me.
     Accept the darkest crevasses of this mind.
                                                  I still turn a silent shy cheek...


Sea oh double
em oh en

Common ground
from the firmament I send

Confusion permanent
in an ocean

Oh see an end

Painless drifting aimless
seeking searching
for the seam
into which this world
is born

The lifeseeking thread that never ends

The bloodborne
pathogen

Of caring void
and emptiness

Caress you like a stone

Forever there

In the loveliness
of human hair

Saying, I was there

When emotion became
the firm ground
never sinking

Thinking of the way out
but never escaping

Mountains around
an ever growing feeling


     Drifting aimlessly into the empty serenity you present so pleasantly.
              Once again I slide further from comfort and balance...
                     Feeding off any sense of insecurity.
                            Craving that whole duality of my circumstance...

           I keep treading the muddy waters I choose.
     My body gets trapped in the
                                     sticky egos and messing misunderstandings,
                                                                                         in which everyone laughs away.

     I'll schlep the dirt from my soul and shine light once more.
            Exhausted and tried.

                                      Ill shine...


Your light
is not lost to
my dilated eyes


     It's lost in my own lost hope of withering dreams and lost star seeds.
            It falls away in every cold shake I make within whiskey's withdrawal.
                 It fades away in the simple staggers I make and unfulfilled chances I take.

     But, not all is lost.

     I still keep this little light of mine.
     I still let this light shine.

     I'm just a little more aware of the spaces it awakens and the souls it helps take in.
  
          It's ever shifting in this cosmic wake, it hides, it shies, it cries.
                    Like me, it knows when to pipe the **** down and listen to the world.
        Listen to everything it allows.

     It hears souls like you.
                                 It feeds me.


Feedback,
I've got my need back

Shaking like a lovesick
fiend

On every letter of your speech

I'll filter this wormhole
off kilter
into every relationship
in front of my eyes

Until we meet again,

I won't stop telling stories
of jackals speaking english

To fetch our sweet meat
from top shelves
and ruins

Blue and bruised
flesh alludes
to stories unspoken

and broken glass
dreams of unity

Bottle falls

Slow motion

It all seems
like a dream
in endless blue
love tokens

"You look like love,"
she said one night,
cold with the
whispers of winds
on old cobblestone
and hushed
footsteps
of snow-covered
boots.

He stopped
in his tracks,
the cherry of
his cigarette
pulsing
like the colors
of a spinning
satellite
lightyears away
from their newly-found
lives.

"What does love
look like?"
he asked,
syllables hanging
close to his face,
blue eyes
darting
from her lips
to her hands
and back again.

But he knew.
He knew from the first
time he shook her hand
and saw the
sweat glisten off her
brow,
and listened to her
listless stories
of how summer
never truly loved her,
that one day
he truly would.

She smiled,
lips cracking
from the dry air,

"It looks like an
overflowing sink,
fresh with bubbles
from soapy dishwater
left unattended
to waltz in the kitchen.

It looks like ice
cracking
to the sweet smoke
of scotch
and the divot
on the couch that
sinks our thighs
and the thought
of any afternoon plans
deep
in crevasses
we're both too sleepy
to crawl out of.

It looks like all
the things
the world
took from me
and promised
it would never give back,
but instead packaged
in a
candle
bright enough
to illuminate
all the dark places
and remind me
that even though
others have treated me
like a
flicker,
I'm truly a
flame."

Bullet-wrapped words
Spill from dangerous mouths,
nonchalantly slurping rumors
from fragile adolescence.
A golden-plated intention
wears a mask of gentle feathers,
but becomes warped with ignorance
and indirect self hatred.
Careless and trivial,
the public twists reality
into sweet butter braids,
melting into an oily confusion
that only small children dare to question.
It is I who asks for something more
and aimlessly wanders varying distance
for reasons unknown,
and I float on words of people
I’ve never heard of,  
and follow their fingers as they
carry and steal innocent piano keys,
as if they could truly open locked doors.
Though attempted and failed,
the insignificant longing
trails behind a broken consciousness,
wriggling between the wrinkles of time
and crevasses of awful brain matter,
allowing this to never begin,
never continue,
and never end.

Dustin
     Amanda

Light flanks the snowbanks
my memory thanks the simple soundscapes
of textures closing in
as walls and ceilings
and snow and sleet

We can blame the weather
but we'll be here forever
cursing ourselves
mid-stride

Stopping motion
mid-explosion

a simple thank you from the
particles we've denied

All things moving outward

The molten core of earth
Our mother

Chaos empty space
Our father


     Standing, surrendering.
        The weather tethers at my veins.
     Pushing.   Pulling.
             My emotions run high with the hopes of a new sunrise.

     Guide me,
          show me,
                 lead me to the holy water you sip like its never ending.
     Show me the truth behind every iris that passes my curious glance.
          Breathe in this cold sterile air while we dream of something tangible...

     Strange winds come on strong in the heart of the mislead, the outskirts.
                We thrive on the untouched surfaces of the mind..
           We breathe in the discomfort...


This is the nothing substance
I'm looking for

Seeking ever leaking truth
of faucet water too heavy

Minerals come to life
and return to the ground
in the instant of
midair waterfall

Weightless feeling fateless
determining the future
on solid ground grasses
fishing baitless

naked sameness

emotion

motion

ion

on


     Seeking direction in the wake of misdirected affection.
                                                     Faulting to the backbone of habits.

     Falling faster, I pause in the balance catching my breathe.
                                         I inhale everything surrounding my mind.
                         Exhaling all my simple poisons.
     A detox of wandering souls and singular holes.
     Eating.    Feeding.    Breeding.
             Filling all this space for all those after me.

     Fill me.
        Fulfill me.
     Accept the darkest crevasses of this mind.
                                                  I still turn a silent shy cheek...


Sea oh double
em oh en

Common ground
from the firmament I send

Confusion permanent
in an ocean

Oh see an end

Painless drifting aimless
seeking searching
for the seam
into which this world
is born

The lifeseeking thread that never ends

The bloodborne
pathogen

Of caring void
and emptiness

Caress you like a stone

Forever there

In the loveliness
of human hair

Saying, I was there

When emotion became
the firm ground
never sinking

Thinking of the way out
but never escaping

Mountains around
an ever growing feeling


     Drifting aimlessly into the empty serenity you present so pleasantly.
              Once again I slide further from comfort and balance...
                     Feeding off any sense of insecurity.
                            Craving that whole duality of my circumstance...

           I keep treading the muddy waters I choose.
     My body gets trapped in the
                                     sticky egos and messing misunderstandings,
                                                                                         in which everyone laughs away.

     I'll schlep the dirt from my soul and shine light once more.
            Exhausted and tried.

                                      Ill shine...


Your light
is not lost to
my dilated eyes


     It's lost in my own lost hope of withering dreams and lost star seeds.
            It falls away in every cold shake I make within whiskey's withdrawal.
                 It fades away in the simple staggers I make and unfulfilled chances I take.

     But, not all is lost.

     I still keep this little light of mine.
     I still let this light shine.

     I'm just a little more aware of the spaces it awakens and the souls it helps take in.
   
          It's ever shifting in this cosmic wake, it hides, it shies, it cries.
                    Like me, it knows when to pipe the **** down and listen to the world.
        Listen to everything it allows.

     It hears souls like you.
                                 It feeds me.


Feedback,
I've got my need back

Shaking like a lovesick
fiend

On every letter of your speech

I'll filter this wormhole
off kilter
into every relationship
in front of my eyes

Until we meet again,

I won't stop telling stories
of jackals speaking english

To fetch our sweet meat
from top shelves
and ruins

Blue and bruised
flesh alludes
to stories unspoken

and broken glass
dreams of unity

Bottle falls

Slow motion

It all seems
like a dream
in endless blue
love tokens

So appears another empty promise
I made to myself
In this disinterested cloud of delusion
What once were my dreams
Are now dull precipitates
Pooling into my minds crevasses

I may appear calm on the outside
But a storm rages in my mind
This too I will weather
And come out the other side
For the better

As I drag through life on my knees, bleeding
I try to unlock the chains that pin my body down
And while I cannot find every key to free me from the weight
I have learned strength and endurance
and other tricks to ease my journey

Though the years I have hashed my blood onto paper
Smiling as my emotions bled into clean sheets
Forcing the purity of the page to match my damaged and ***** soul
Yet I have never thought to cut out my darkest experience

Instead, it swims within my stomach's acidic pool
Remaining dormant until a thought or melody claws at its bones
Until it can no longer be contained

So I begin ripping through my lungs and intestines
Simply trying to locate the source of the misery
As it torments both my body and mind

And by my own hands,
The acid spills into the crevasses of my muscle and bone
Sizzling through the structures on contact
Until I no longer recognize the dead stare reflecting off of metal and glass
And so I destroy them by using them
To **** whatever shambles of my body remain

As I sit in a puddle of blood and feel the air ticking away like seconds on a clock
I smell the familiar perfume of death, nestled with regret

I promised myself that,
if I somehow survive another night,
I will try to face the thickest chains that bind me tighter than ever before
Those that continue to stain the ground with my past and
Refuse to let me stand without fear

And so I begin

Bed sheets labeled wrinkle-free,
skin stroked
with lotions from
bottles stamped,
“reduces age-lines.”

Crevasses form
and crows’ feet caress eyelids;
folds spread
as little rivers
from her mouth.

New lotions,
more massaging
feed her desire
for perfection. Her glance
catches flaws others ignore.

Love falls short.
Heat from her lover’s body
warms her palms;
fetid kisses barely
brush her lips.

Wrinkle free love;
another misnomer.

Nature's contributions cascade along the steep trail.

Numerous white patches and yellow splotches

set on a blanket of green

amid immense coverings

so blue that it seems parts of the sky have fallen.  

Pinks protrude like boulders in a creek

while reds try to hide around rocks and crevasses.

Faded petals,

past announcements of spring

now reside alongside signs of birth,

buds seeking an identity.

Arrays of mature blossoms parade full and ripe

along a path of short lives and slow deaths.

Fallen relics, grey and mossy

display across the emerald carpet,

a memory of another time.

The basement of my mind.

   Cluttered with **** storms and broken promises,
          Withered alongside reminiscent daydreams of passed past nightmares.

I stare...
   Into the internal dwellings of my deepest catacomb.

          Unable to process what resides in my literal unconscious dungeon.
   It's everything i've attempted to hide.

To die.
   To let dwindle between cobwebs and dust bunnies.

My breath falls short.

   Sifting through the residue of forgotten treasures and material shackles.
          They bond me.
Surround me.
   Overwhelm me...
          The unresolved burdens have taken residency within my hindered chakras.

My chest  is heavy.
   The weight distribution of disappointment is sharper than expected.

It eats away at me.
   An elusive daily ritual.

Tucked away it remains far from common thought patterns.

Waves of emotion.
   The tides roll in.
          Upon their migration my muddled secrets and hidden betrayals are uncovered.
               Discovered.

The look in your eyes when they fall upon my frailty.

My internal stack of unfiltered, unregistered, and unassured disheveled boxes.
   Full of disheveled useless things.
          Covered in a thick layer of problems i'm incapable of handling alone.

Alone.
   It sits unaltered and ever growing.

The piles.
    The filth.
          The remnants of what should have been happiness.

It all falls into misplaced sediments.

I'm a mess.
It's showing.
I'm naked.

    This hell.
This murky chamber of unwanted mementos from failed attempts and lost friendships
          This dreadful, endless room.

Oh, to live in a home without a storm shelter.
    Without room to store unnecessary baggage and all the unclaimed items in my mind.

To find solace in meager living.
   All this weight fitting into a backpack.

To minimize my insanity into a carry on.

   To leave.
To go.
    To be light enough to feel the light.

To escape this cellar.
     To live.

To release my self from my own idealogical prison.
    To penetrate the bars of fear.
          To dig myself out from all the things I never want to speak of.

To be free.
     Ahhh, to be free.

To breathe fresh air over molded dust clouds and stale particles.
     To touch without needing to rinse my soul clean.

To re-stack, rotate, and Tetris these piles of insecurities.

To break habits
           that i've reinterpreted from childhood addictions and failed father figures.

To be better than what i've become.

To set fire to this sham of a lifestyle.
     To be reborn in the ashes of this outgrown armor.

To let go.

To make you proud.
     To find pride in myself.

To not be embarrassed by my place settings and mismatched knick knacks.

To allow souls into my temple without them stumbling into my isolated lunacy.

To welcome love.
        To love.
    To love even the darkest crevasses of my being...

I need to renew my license to live.
     Overdue and out of line,
           My past self has expired.

One step at a time, breathe.
    One box at a time, breathe.
       One thought at a time, inhale.
    One lust at a time, exhale.

Inhale.
    Exhale.
Breathe.
        Repeat.

Awaken.
      Accept.
  Grow.
          Repeat.

The distant surf
crashes against the old
Spanish wall.
Sounding like slow
volleys of gunfire
ricocheting off
the jagged cliffs
above.

The sea side stillness
of the night is
disturbed by
my footsteps.
They crunch a
million grains
of sand with
every step
I take along
this jaded
asphalt.

At this hour
all of this is
closed,they put
hours and gates
around
whats free.

Wet feral cats
chase giant
wharf rats all
through the
cavernous
crevasses
between the
break walls
giant stones.

Across the Harbor
on the calm side.
Lights shine bright
from the
giant cranes
and the
deep green
Span dressed in
strands of
Blue.

The lights
reflected off
the still water
and danced
along small wakes
left by
passing boats.

The fumes
of sweet
scented fuel
hides just
beneath the
smell of
salt water and
the rotting
bait fish left
behind by
hopeful
fisherman in
chunks along
the rocks.

A quarter mile
out on the breakwalls end
the Gateway to
the Angels sits
as still and proud
as an ancient Oak.

Its dependable
Lighthouse
vigilance and wisdom
washes over me
as I pass this
night counting
the seconds
between
the shine.