I trusted crookedness
Others stopped trusting me

I dealt in lies
Others never believed my words

I hurt others feelings
I fell into a gutter of sufferings

I touched others respect
I found no place in society

I kept to evil
My soul caught in flames

I did whatever God forbade
I have never been happy

ODE TO  RIOTERS
The clouds rumble , O! sons of Malice ,hear
The smoke of arson and roar of lies
In the name of God in heaven; to the tune of lords near
Ignorant men  , followers of Dionysus fly like flies.
Think ! read ,what the history of man tells
Of fire that Prometheus brought for our happiness
But, ingratitude of satanic forces by  spells
Inflame the fire of Ire and burn the huts; brings unhappiness.
Tempters like Hera of Zeus pleasantly smile
Resting in Bars or legislatures , counting votes on computer screen
Echo of slogans on Equality, Fraternity, Liberty from a mile
Makes in social conscience  a  scathing scene.
The land of Buddha. Abraham Lincoln, prophets of peace all
Sent by God to every race and all clans dull,
Told the people all over to be kind
Loving ,lovable and of service mind.
(2).
O! political crookedness, in struggle for power  you tempt
People to compete and hate and conquer
By communal spirit forgetting  Divine Spirit and contempt
Religious heads and political aspirants together
Like criminals think and twist the holy ideas, even
They hold holy books in left hand and in right hand gun
And advice disciples to die and **** for heroic heaven
For them, as if death is an easy going fun;
The First Estate of France still as  impulses here in world
Reign the countries as rulers  of Democracy mocking
And they jointly exploit subjects ; and devotees of the spiritual world,
Misguide men and women  by prayers rocking
Hope of Heaven and horror of Hell
Make the people, forget all , and yell
When the villainous leaders signal by baton
The desperados become boys wanton.
(3)
O! devilish War-Lords, do you read Vedic Books?
What they mean ? for you mean? as they tell of God ,the sole Creator
The Creator of you and the “Other”  in your hooks.
The Preserver and Destroyer , may not be for you Pharaohs greater,
O! Pharaohs , you don’t  cause rain, make the Sun rise
And the greenery, birds and fish flourish .
When the Earth rumbles and tsunami rages you give the price
The rewards of hatred you sowed nourish-
All around ,as chemical war terrorism-a horrible nightmare
But, Epicureans! All are from Him and unto Him all shall return.
Marketing competitions and sale of arms cause the Wars
As history reminds us :none gained but failed to sustain peace;
Still, the blunder of division of people and exploitation stars
Rise , at the West with the dying Sun’s horses and Mars.
Politics and Economics -two horses of Civilization unbridled
Terribly gallop with men on them girdled.
(4)
O! cruel  egoistic  businessmen ,you globalize immorality
By greed, you trade with  fanatics and  terrorists,
Spur clashes: Multiculturism versus monoculturism  denying plurality
Challenging Eternity; certainty of scientists.
At Saranath,Lord  Buddha told  disciples on the Middle Path of  life
To Torah “The Lord our God , the Lord is One”, so Jesus taught us all
And guided to worship  God in” Spirit and truth “ in our life
No other Lord but Allah deserves worship of us all-
Allah is the Light of the Earth, and of the Sky ,O! Lord
God is the Eternal  Light  to illuminate all  ;to be worshiped
Bhagavat Gita says,"The body is the temple of God
In the Spiritual realm : all are from the One ,the  worshipped.
God is the only One without birth and death
The Unique unlike the creatures on earth
The Force is called “atma” by Vedas no trade and
Sciences  tell: it is Eternal  , cannot be made by human hand. .
(5)
O! the ill -taught  simpletons , think !why shall we spoil life
in feuds communal or political  for the luxury of masters
Suicide never a sacrifice; if at all ,it is beheading of human in life
At the altar of regal, egotist power-mongers.
The Only God is the  Seed of all; names may differ by language difference
Holy books use all noble qualities to the name the Supreme Lord
Then, why the sons of that One Lord, in repentance
Think on action : virtue  or evil and pray: forgive ,O! Lord
In democracy, we are free to believe  the God or not
Still, we can be human by refraining from paining others
Freeing ourselves from communal hatred, the vicious knot
As the political fences   encircle us that make us enemies of others.
Stars in the sky and the Sun and the Moon
Are mortal ones from God for our boon.
Let us be men and women loving all , serving all;
Not severing heads; but lead a life ,culturally tall.
                                             ***********
Note:atma=soul.

Crooked frame on a white wall
with its squared edge on all four sides
sagging to its left, lifting it right up
exposing its crookedness for all to see

Crooked frame on a white wall
why wasn't you adjusted?
wasn't your crooked stand exposed to every foreign eye?
or was your content so beautiful
that it captured the stare of all who glanced?

If so, it must have been content of pure gold
to have kept hungry eyes blindfold

They have now thronged brimful, all the barazas
In their elderly gear, in a move to cut off my thing,
The Maasai chiefs and elders have their fangs now,
More glowing in the crudeness of despotic culture,
Their foul circumcisers’ tools sharply menacing,
All focused on my ****** *******, the only joy of my nature,
They want to maliciously cut it off in their selfish solace
Minus mine consent the right of a young girl,
Chided by evils done in the name of culture,
Kwani? a maasai and culture who creates the other?
Can’t we create culture that  is so darlingly to rights of girl?
Other than receding back to crookedness of un-gendered past
Denying I your posterity the rights to self worthiness,
Kindly I beg that you don’t cut of my *******.

Homage to the late poet; Kofi Owonor


By
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)


In one Sunday Nation article, Professor Ali A Mazrui analyzed the inter-politicality of The Jaramogi Odinga family and The Kennedy family by arriving at a difference that the Odinga’s have curse of long life but the Kennedy’s have a curse of early death through violent and untimely  mode of death .Mazrui made these analogies in reference to violent death of John F. Kennedy and the subsenguent Chappaquiddick bridge tragedy.Similarly,the salient difference between a European and American or a Japanese and African writer or African artist is that most of African writers die early in the mid of their lives through violent death but in contrast American and some European writers die peacefully and comfortably in their old age. Early and violent death is the dominant bane, fate and misfortune that now and then besmirch an African writer. This position is in recognition of a fact that my child-hood American popular literature writers in the name of Mario Puzzo author of the God Father and Robert Ludlum an author of several anti soviet spy series like; Borne dentity, Borne Ultimatum and Icarus Agenda plus very many others like The Matlock Paper had just to die recently in their late eighties. The most surprising of all is Phillip Roth whom I read at the age of twelve years while in my primary four.  Now I am forty years and this year 2013 Phillip Roth is still alive and active to the American literary civilization that he has been touted by the Ladbrokes as a probable candidate for Nobel Prize in literature. But sadly enough on 22 September 2013 in Nairobi the black angel of early  death has carried ahead its  foul duty by claiming the life of Africa’s most honorable literary scholar Professor Kofi Owonor during the helter-skelter of Alshabab terrorist lynch of the upscale West Gate Mall in Nairobi.
Actually this essay is meant to be a deep felt homage to the late Kofi Owonor, Killed by Islamic terrorists in Nairobi. However, the essay also goes ahead to decry the violent and early deaths of several other African writers. The deaths which have almost turned Africa into a literary dwarf if not a continent of artistic bovarism. Kofi Owonor, who peacefully and honorably came to attend Story Moja Literary festival to be held in Nairobi, was violently shot by the Islamic fundamentalist terror group known as Al shabab. Whose gunmen lynched the Mall in which was Kofi Owonor and his son. The terrorist were sending out the Muslim catchword on which if one fails to respond then he was known not to be a non- Muslim on to which he is shot or held hostage for ransom.Fatefull enough, Kofi Owonor was not muslim.He was an elder, an Africanist, a scholar, a poet, a realist, a rationalist, a Christian, a religious non-fundamentalist and a literary liberalist. He could not respond with any tincture of religious irrationalism to the question of the terrorist. He was shot dead and his son injured. Too sad. This is actually the time when Christian positivism goes beyond rigidity of other religious affectations in its classic assertiveness that the devil kills the flesh but not the soul. And indeed it is true the devilish terrorist killed Owonor’s flesh but not his literary soul. They are such and similar situations that made Amilcar Cabral to observe in his Unity and Struggle, in a section on Homage to Kwameh Nkrumah to rationalize that the sky is too enormous to be covered by the palm of a sadist nor to be vilified by the spitting of the filthy ones; Truly, like Nkrumah, Kofi Owonor was the sky of African intellect never to be covered by the brute of the cannon from the parrel of a Muslim terrorist.
Kofi Owonor is not alone neither are we alone. You, my dear reader and I  we are not in any historical nor literary solititude. In Africa God has blessed us with the opportunity of the dead relatives in the name of the living dead. We are not the first and the last to grief. Owonor is not the first and the last to dance with fate. Even Ali A. Mazrui in his literary expositions of 1974 otherwise published as the trial of Christopher Okigbo.A  novella in which Mazrui cursed ideology as an open window into the moving vehicle that let in  a very bad political accident to Nigeria in the name of Biafra war which claimed life of  Christopher Okigbo at the Nzukka battle front. This was one other sad moment at which Africa lost its young literary talent through violent death.
Reading of African literary biographies in all perspectives will not miss to make you attest to this testimony. Both in situ and in diaspora.Admirable African American writers like Malcolm X, and Dr Luther King all died through violent death. Even if in the recent past, the Daughter of Malcolm X revealed to Sahara Reporters, Nigerian Daily, that Louis Farrakhan was behind the assassination of her father, wisdom of the time commands us to know that it was evil politics of that time that made Malcolm X to die the way international politics of today in relation to crookedness which was entertained during the formation of the state of Israel that have made the son of Africa professor Kofi Owonor to die.
An in-depth analysis into the life and times of African writers and artists will show that the number of African cultural masters who die violently is more than the number of those who died normally in their old age. Some bit of listology will show help to adduce the pertinent facts; Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko, Lucky Dube, Walter Rodney, Tom Mboya, J M Kariuki, Che que Vara, Ken Saro Wiwa, Anjella Chibalonza, and Jacob Luseno all but died through violent death. Lumumba died in a plane crash along with Darg Hammarskjöld only after penning some socialism guidelines. After writing I write what I want, a manifesto for black consciousness Steve Biko was arrested and tortured in the police cells during those days of apartheid in south Africa.Biko died violently while undergoing torture in police cells. Lucky Dube was fatefully shot by a confused ****. Walter Rodney who was persuaded by his student who is now the professor Isa Shivji at Dare salaam University not to go back to his country of Guyana, desisted this voice and went back only to be assassinated in the mid of the rabbles that domineered Guyanese politics those days of 1970’s. This happened when Rodney had written only two major books. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, being one of them. Tom Mboya was shot by a hired gunman in down-town Nairobi, some one kilometer away from the West Gate Mall, at which Kofi Owonor has been shot. Mboya could have written a lot. Even more than Rudyard Kipling and Quisling. But fate or bad luck had him violently die after he had only written two books; Challenges to Nationhood as well as Freedom and After. Both of them are classically nice reads until today. He had also submitted sessional paper no. 10 to the Kenya government which was a classical thesis on Africanization of scientific socialism.
J M Kariuki, Che and Saro Wiwa are all known for how they violently died. Powers that be and terrorists that be, expedited violent death against these writers. Thus, brothers and sisters in the literary community of Africa and the world as we mourn Kofi Owonor we must also let Africa to unite in spiritual effort to rebuke away the evil spirit that often perpetrate terror of violent death which  especially  claim away lives of African writers.

References
Ali A. Mazrui; Trial of Christopher Okigbo
Amilcar Cabral; Unity and Struggle

Playing again
the playlist of memories
trying to feel
something
we used to have
but
nothing

the feeling we used to share
the warmness of your skin
the touch of your lips
the sweetness of your smile
the crookedness of your nose
they all are gone
I could not feel it
I could not dream it
I dont even remember
how your face is like
Time surely is unyielding
it makes my body
not to remember  
any of those feelings
Its like you've never been in my life

But somehow
the pain is still there
its like
im still hurting
from a wound that
has totally been healed
its like
i've moved on yet stuck
im happy yet sad

or
does it mean
im just broken?

We,
the uninsured
being inured to this,
the will of gods.
Our lives doled out in tablet form
from birth to breath by those pharmacists
with death proscribed,
prescription wise.

My eyes have seen the crookedness that shake
foundations,
three times a day we pray again to all the gods
to open up and swallow pills and god just nods
his head,agrees that we need medications.

The ***** top bottle throttles me
but I am strangled happily by those 'dolls'
the greens and reds of fol de rols
a plague on gaudiness unless instructions say,
take the pills three times a day.

These games we play, I'll say,
are just a side event,a small diversion to prevent us
from ever having to face the facts,
but we're inured to that and so,
on and on and on we go until the end is reached.

I plead,
just one more pill,
it appears that this is not the will of god or any pharmacist,
I missed the last bus home,but home is hell and
so that's just as well.
I wait in the wings to see
what tomorrow brings.

There's a painting by Botticelli
I've always loved,
showing Venus being born naked
from the ocean and
not fearing the current.
Those around her renounce her body,
scrambling to clothe her,
turn her virginal,
contain the way her eyes cross galaxies,
shine all the way to Pluto.
But she is soft, unwavering,
not noticing the mortals' concern
about her *******
and bare collarbone that could catch water
at its base.

I found you halfway across the world on the steps of the Uffizi
and in the 3 hours it took you
to show me some of the best art on earth,
I was transfixed only
on the orbits of planets in your eyes.
Shortly before the sun set,
you took me through the secret corridor
Cosimo de' Medici built to walk across the
rooftops of the city
where you kissed me but
told me you didn't believe in love,
that all you needed was art,
and Michelangelo,
and in that moment
I saw Venus in your collarbone.
Saw a shell under your feet,
saw the universe in the way your freckles connected,
saw how you immortalize yourself
among the rest of the art in Florence
so no human can bring you down to earth,
can make your heart stop,
show you what it's like to cross timezones
with a single touch.
And here I am,
wanting to be your Botticelli,
to paint the uneven ***** of your shoulders,
the crookedness of your right ankle,
your fear of exposing yourself to someone
who could love you.
It must be lonely out there, Venus,
on your little fishing boat by the sea.

Botticelli's painting was found
long after his death,
laid into the floor of
an abandoned villa in the south of Tuscany.
Venus looking lost and mortal
between cracked paint and chipping walls,
like the way you hide between
the dusty statues of the dead statesmen and fading portraits
long after the museum closes,
just you with only history to hold.
You want to believe in love
as past-tense,
like you've lost faith in present participles and the fact
that art is still being made,
and people are running barefoot into future conjugations
together.

Don't come back to land, Venus. Vanessa.
I won't be here waiting with a towel
or an art critic
or a spaceship.
But maybe,
just make a little room for me on your shell
under the sun,
atop steady waves or Florentine rooftops.
Throw the map overboard.
Let's forget the shore.

And Michelangelo and the rest of them
will smile as they see us off.

There is a couch and it is where I fall.
My seventeen year-old legs,
bandaged with bumblebee knee socks,
arch like ****** pink lawn-flamingo joints.
Crookedness meets at
cigarette skin thighs: grape-kiss fingerprints,
like mental leprosy, projected.
My eyes meet at where fingers told me to stay
and where the knuckles followed.

Acorn ***** hair sleeps in a tuft,
woken by the brush of a thirty-three year-old soccer coach.

-

My Vans grip sandpaper tape,
preceding clicks: sliding up and down,
like graduation day maternal comfort,
like dirt-under-the-fingernails *******.
Clicking wheels, sound waves
smacking across asphalt jungle.
Sounds escaping and reminding me
of how I'll never.

I'm not in love --  not sure if I can,
be affectionate towards the things
I don't understand.

I'm not in love -- even if I could,
I don't think I'd care like I should.

Open as a glass, vulnerable as clear water,
this is the place hot with birth. I’ve risked more
for less. Much, much less:
I ordered a nightstand from a catalogue,
the wood from Brazil probably,
pressed in Mexico, packaged in China,
traveling to my doorstep in pieces
seeing more than I’ll ever see.
Electric eyes of nocturnal forests,
the habits of the ocean
when the land’s not watching.
Connect bracket 3 with bolt C,
drop of blood, cross my heart
and fingers. It has four legs
but the drawer won’t open,
its crookedness leans against the wall
for support. There’s no money back
guarantee but there’s value in knowing
one cannot build furniture.
Now I take pictures and send them
with my Christmas cards.
I pull it out at parties and point to
the scratches and empty nail holes,
the unused brackets and each joint
where the wood has split so bravely.

the quietness of content
between two people
walking down the sidewalk
after splitting a pint and a crepe
is something new to me

the quietness of unsettled
emptiness in the dregs
of heaving lungs in a public toilet
is familiarly foreign
and suddenly unwanted

i occupy booth seats
instead of the space between
two metal dividers
and a toilet paper dispenser

i study the dimples of your cheeks
and the scent of your hair
i've become a student
learning the feeling of having
instead of a teacher of wanting

i do not see any crookedness
to your teeth or my own
i taste lager and nutella
strawberries on your breath
and don't ask
what else?
no sign of do not disturb
in my eyes
only, please continue
speaking

when i sway to the counter
and ask for the check
i am surprised by our obvious pleasure
when the waitress giggles
"oh i'm sorry,
i didn't want to disturb you"
i didn't realize we looked so happy
so together in a moment
shared over candles and two forks
on a coffee shop table

i admit it was
effortless

i see now that
food, love, humans
the things i made complicated
were

effortless

all this time, you were just a phantom I assigned

to your face...

to your hard shape and soft eyes.

a phantasm

a love imprinted on your soma by my soul

so desperately wanting to see yours.

and here I am, calling you to me again

with no right after a thousand revelations

and every suffered revocation

youd think I'd learn why you disappeared?

but you will never be gone from me

I can sense these things.

my eidolon's soul fits you perfectly

Youre my perfect idea of beauty

all your crookedness and pain

every hunger in your eyes

every burn in your touch

the redemption you belive you will find in my destruction

to hell with the truth.

Im in love with your lovely brand of pain

the phantom of your ***

the soul of your love lies too well with you for me

I am convinced.

My vision of who I insist you are is all I need.

a breath on the wind and that look in your eyes,

still; all this time, a phantom i assigned.

a blueprint so well laid, in my heart and soul

I still believe you should be mine.

from* The Blood You Don’t See Is Fake (September 2013)

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/the-blood-you-dont-see-is-fake/paperback/product-21966942.html


raiment

we are not here
to enshroud
the myth
of the woman
who swims
naked-

we are here
might our sons
mourn
the stickman’s
belief
     that his wife
went to pieces


praise act

you pull a reddish pup like a sled through a town that surrounds you.

I think you are my brother but more importantly you think I am yours.

you feel not like yourself but like a tooth you belong to.

up ahead, we work together.

I pop myself in the mouth with our father to achieve a crisis of no faith.

our father?

he is made mostly of the words that display my words.


proof

my birdcage was a stuffed bear and my bird was a moth.  oddly the bird protected my sister from knowing she was molested and oddly its cage promised my brother he would again be gay.  oddly only because it was planned.  I was more spelled than born and consented often to being sounded out.  I carried with me a grey blanket that I held like a curtain when asked.  my eyes were peepholes I had to avoid.            


all

     the first time I can recall a teapot whistling in the manner I’d imagined

a teapot
to whistle

     my brother was cutting himself in the tub, gingerly, a test run…

-

the whistling scared the **** out of him, the bejesus

-

being made of nothing allowed brother
to volunteer
in New Orleans
after Katrina

     he opened a few refrigerators

that’s all it took

-

without my brother, I’d be in his words

beside myself

     some ****** eared stranger mucking up a white door
listening
as if to a radio
announcing the missing

     blow up dolls

by name


funereal

as some things incorrectly have wings, we stamp a chicken into the hood of a cop car.  the groundskeeper on break inside the church wonders aloud how much is left of the lord.  a boy not part of our boyhood bikes over to us with his feet he’s named individually show and tell.  the cop chuckles but straightens out when he sees what I’ve made of my hand.  the boy says careful it might stay that way for good.


infant travelogue

mittens on the forepaws of a dead wolf.  

one must be serious
about art
but also
flirty.

I will raise you as my own.  

I will make two parts
of your mother’s
passing.

she will live in childbirth.


notes on the saints (iii)

a crookedness within a white cat.  a naked boy on crutches.  a girl in a pink jumpsuit jogging in place beside a man rolling a tire.  all of this says I’ve witnessed my father by himself on a child’s swing ******* two unlit cigarettes.  we don’t exist until god begins to worry.  our neighbor is an old woman with a gun.  she is afraid her color will suddenly change.  when she chases my father home I understand the riddle of his cigarettes.  around him I pretend to be asleep.  I hear him watering a rag and wait for him to press it to my nose and tell me my dreams are bleeding.  when a kitten, the head of our white cat would stick to the refrigerator door.

Ideas are bulletproof that is why they are harder to win over,
Especially when affirming instances come one after the other.
The body succumbs while the mind knows better,
Hopping from one stone to the other hoping we get to a constant somewhere.
Throbbing wind whispers a beep,
Rushing cars swooshing their trip,
Her voice looking at me knowingly,
“You know it but here’s the story.”
The high improbability and the comparisons,
The stretch that echoes unfounded sounds,
The conversation that could’ve been,
Shall and must remain as a romanticized fiction,
Started, peaked, jumped, risked, failed, hoped, failed, and left for the conclusion.
As you have absolutely no choices,
To raise your eyes and ears is something to give your best.
Everyone’s kinda moving,
It’s not a race but for everyone the road is ending.
I would still have that grin, whisper, and crookedness,
Inasmuch as nothing of those are even close to any semblance of realness.
I must remain the best parts of what I have to offer,
A refined, mature, swaying, itching, panacea of everything you wish I wish I could cater.

Do we really want to leave our hometown?

To hell with this middle-class neighborhood, decorated with manicured front lawns of emerald grass smeared in geese ****. Nobody, but Arnie looked behind the identical white-brick houses for the skeletons half-buried in the backyards. Arnie used to be distracted by the pure white porches, the perfectly red-layered brick, and the ebony pavement seared from the heat of the cascading sun. As the summer morning stretched in monotony, Arnie went over to his mother’s house and looked more closely at the aluminum siding, sweeping his fingers across the crookedness in the fortifications. He touched the void in the blackness and the cracks outlining the surface. Underneath there, no rich substance laid in the soil.

But he knew something full of dread and full of anger resided in the dried-out bark and withered flower petals. With his shovel, he sifted through the dirt and wondered how much longer the seeds could sustain themselves in this soft and vulnerable soil. The ground decayed under his tennis shoes as Arnie closed his eyes, and felt the wind brushing up against his shoulder. He imagined the weather cloaked itself in the guise of a carpenter, chopping down the ancient trees with scythe and axe, and snipping down the stalks of tender flowers before they could grow to maturity.

Later that day, his mother told him children in this neighborhood either blossomed early, or never even experienced first bloom. Arnie ran around in circles, wishing the leaves and petals lost their infatuation with the wind, so they wouldn’t drift away, floating aimlessly from town to town searching for their heaven.

He knew no one wanted to live in this small town their whole life, wasting away in the sunset as the birds weep alone in the nests lined against the rain gutters. His mother and father worked every single day, consumed with their busy selves, they forgot to schedule for an exit-plan, their get-a-way maps stayed locked up in the bottom desk drawer, the hinges rusted over the years.  

When he turned, sixteen Arnie’s parents bought him a new shiny red 2010 civic. They handed him the keys and right then and there, he thought they wanted him to travel, to see worlds that looked different from the one he dwelled in. As he turned over the engine, Arnie realized the automobile appeared less and less as a transaction for his spirit. Not an anchor, but rather a cement block tied around his ankles, the knot tightly secured. The candy coat paint was too bright and too shiny.

He slept in bed that night and wondered would he ever leave his cozy room, as the blankets warmed him up from the approaching winter. He knew he was sheltered, but this shelter was home.

He kept forgetting if the walls were supposed to keep the elements out, or barricade him inside. The roof over his head made him feel secure, but sometimes he felt his home confined his body, his soul, and his spirit, as if his house was a bird cage. He told his mother, Don’t tell me the sky is the limit, when this ceiling
prevents me from spreading my wings, and flying towards the heavens.
I’m leaving this town, he thought.
Our generation believed we were the salt of the earth, as though we’d conquered the city, and yet we still ended up salting the earth, daring anyone to defy our intelligence and uniqueness. Yet, we were not original, we were not even different.

Arnie napped on his autumn red couch and his body didn’t feel made of flesh and bone. It felt composed of stones, and he couldn’t get up. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to get up. He had millions of ideas that roared through his mind every twenty minutes. Like a subway train, but they always became derailed. Off the tracks before they came into fruition, before they reached the station, with every sip of wine with every **** of bud. So he waited patiently for the next train,
hoping to go somewhere with his life. Though eventually, he knew that train would not come whenever he pleased. He had to leave this couch, get off his *** and go.

Suburban mansions furnished with comfortable furniture and luxurious amenities. Wide flat LED screens were the new remedy. We had become tolerant to obscenities that flash and sparkle in the highest resolution, surround sound, so the brainwashing was soothing, as the subliminal messages were grooving. Through our ear canals and advertisement clutter pollution. Soul distortion as Arnie watched graphic images, but it was in the clearest quality. So he was in awe and disgusted, but at the same time he ******* loved it.

So stop saying you invented this and you invented that. Arnie knew the sun already scorched every original idea into smoldering ash.

But he didn’t want to burn. He wanted to survive. He didn’t want to remain a burnout. He wanted to rekindle the hearth and leave this godforsaken slow-burning ashtray, where everyone was trying to find a match to bring the light back

But we sit in assigned seating,
complacent in our concrete prisons, our youth decaying rapidly,
angst already cemented in our minds
Faux utopia where young minds rot in classrooms
Classrooms with no windows
We have opulence
but no oxygen
we can’t breathe but
we don’t know if it’s from this airless building
Or the smoke that surrounds us
so I guess we are LOST
Can’t you see? This (grab shirt) this is false confidence
we fuel our arrogance with shallow compliments
we are hypocrites
a walking contradiction
only our masks hide our lies so well.
Our souls are engulfed in sin from the day we are born
So I guess you can say we were all born
with something original.
But Arnie is oblivious to the shadows
that attach themselves to his weak shoulders
He’s stopped his afternoon naps by the tree,
The shade
is the brother of the shadows
There is sunlight
only a few feet away
Arnie only has to reach
Reach out with his hand,
To feel the warmth of the sun,
there is light
in this dark world.

There was once a boy
A boy that resembled a toy.
A boy who wore oversized shoes,
Baggy pants and unusual spectacles.

A short stub,
That lazed clumsily around the room,
A boy whose appearance was hardly noticeable,
And presence engulfed.

The poor boy was constantly annoyed,
Teased and bothered.
Thrown around the room
Like the rag he seemed to be.

There seemed no escape,
From terrifying bullies,
That roamed around the school,
Waiting patiently to crush him.

The helpless boy waited,
For the Bully to take him,
Grab him by the shoulders,
And smother his dreams in pain.

One day, however, the boy waited.
He waited patiently
For the bullies to take command,
But they never did, they just walked past.

The lonely boy discovered,
That he pertained an unknown power,
One that left him nameless,
And devoid of appearance.

He knew he was not vitreous,
See-through or transparent.
But he could roam through a room,
Unnoticed, overlooked.

He could run through a clear field,
And go unperceived.
He was able to devour a thousand meals,
And never be blamed.

Such abilities brought wonderful joys,
And grand pleasures,
However such leisure brought
Terrible solitude in return.

The assurance of his safety warmed him,
Knowing he’d be free of harm.
But the gawky boy was lonely,
Devoid of company or charm.  

He roamed the halls alone,
He sat absently in his desk.
And slowly his loneliness
Began to consume him.

He was overcome
by the colorlessness of his pale skin,
The crookedness of his misshapen brow.
He slowly fainted, into a mirrored glass.  

The boy had become,
That he had always been;
Another shadow,
Another gust of wind.

His pale skin disintegrated.
The oversized shoes sank.
His spectacles shattered.
The smirk evanesced.

The boy became,
That which cannot be named.
A light breeze,
A faint whisper.

You could've stopped me from crookedness.

Once you've sat at Wisdom's feet
and heard her teach the Truth
Light's unbearable and dark
and Teachers most grievously painful

For there is no error in the plumb line
Any tilt and crookedness is exposed
Every hearts' wickedness and deceitfulness
cries out and stinks as dead men's sores

In a long Victorian styled dress little Connie waltzes from person to person hugging their waists.  She gives me a lingering squeeze with her porcelain colored arms. The crookedness of her teeth does not stop her from flashing a smile with every embrace. She is such a loving spirit for a third grade homeschooler.  A fountain of youth is in her blue eyes and I hope for the sake of the world that growing up will never remove her wild joy.

The rain comes as a disappointing
flourish to the night.

I would go out in it.
I'd be away from my cave

at least. Nothing
is unusual these days. A time of

crookedness and dirt.
My events bleed through the present.

"The trees have already begun to senesce"
my professor says, as she indicates
the oak whose leaves have been colored to dirt.
And a chord is struck in me,
for without her definition
I know what it is to senesce.
This is what it is to shed my leaves,
to watch their fingers wither and release
my autumn comes crisp
and crunches under rubber soles,
it feels like a barren womb.
All I give birth to is empty spaces
between fingers of dusk and
silhouettes of dark against light.
Crookedness is my legacy, and exposure is my blight.
And yet if I am like those dying branches
then I too must come awake again.
To senesce is to die, yet only for a time
spring is ahead, and she is waiting.
And I will follow,
follow that thought like deer prints in the snow,
like the sparrow's straining song,
like green blades lifting their arms,
like the smell of the earth swallowing the rain,
like there is a time when death will not call my name so sweetly
that I choose the dream over waking.
That I too will shed my ice
and become heavy with the weight
of fragrant flowers.

Today I met a stranger,
She seemed to know my name.

Her face was so familiar,
But something wasn't the same.

Her voice touched on memories,
Part of me began to ache.

Her eyes so like mine,
I felt my fragile heart might break.

Then a darkness fell over her,
And the light faded fast.

A crookedness in her smile,
Her laughter didn't last.

Now I'm standing all alone,
In a state somewhat beguiled.

That's when I realize this beautiful stranger,
Is none other than my child.

a crookedness within a white cat.  a naked boy on crutches.  a girl in a pink jumpsuit jogging in place beside a man rolling a tire.  all of this says I’ve witnessed my father by himself on a child’s swing ******* two unlit cigarettes.  we don’t exist until god begins to worry.  our neighbor is an old woman with a gun.  she is afraid her color will suddenly change.  when she chases my father home I understand the riddle of his cigarettes.  around him I pretend to be asleep.  I hear him watering a rag and wait for him to press it to my nose and tell me my dreams are bleeding.  when a kitten, the head of our white cat would stick to the refrigerator door.

he approached my window
this sad boy
   or so he seemed
he had pleading eyes
that weren't true
looking deeper
i sensed a crookedness
cunning
but i gave anyway
but not because i was fooled
i was intrigued
   i craved a fable
what has brought you here
   i asked
what misfortune have you encountered
   to become a beggar
   to lose all sense of pride
   to become less than humbled
   and at the mercy of others
in order to survive
   his answer i had forgotten
as soon as he started to speak
because his fabricated drama
was unremarkable
ordinary
so this time
my selfish reasons for giving
were unmeasured.

When I'm suffocated
laid on the table
desiccated
and my bones arranged in order
are lined up to draw attention to
the crookedness of life

and the harsh lights of the mortuary
serve to soften the lines
surrounding me

the door closes on mortality while
infinity drags on.

the message label on my toe
reads
tag and bag
he's good to go
and that will be the end of it.

I do not fear the great expanse
the slow dance to obscurity
assuredly
it will show me things
I never felt before

and the door will close, but
who knows how many other doors
lay behind the other doors
behind this door?