i once loved, and it's a shame to
agree to: better have loved and lost,
than to have not loved at all.
and as i browse the pages of
a saturday newspaper article
i like to think about virology applied
to mental illness...
and how they: life is ****
   story could really be a viral infection...
i don't know, it's not exactly
h.i.v.,
                oh i can contain my own
*******, i'm writing it on the flag
of colour white,
next time you get a brain haemorrhage
and then get diagnoses as schizophrenic:
i'll take you the crucifix on golgotha:
and imbed your head into
the cross... silent anger, contained:
and all the more concern for inhibited
humour... because as Borat said: jak sie mash:
i like. so please, don't tell me
you weren't gagging for the new golgotha...
because i wasn't...
         and i know, most of the time i have
my mouth attached to a head of a struś
gagging himself in a pit of sand...
yes an ostrich, the grand inspiration for
francis bacon attempts to redefine geometry...
oh coming out of communism and into
capitalism, for a kid?, can be a rough ride...
you don't know what ideology to appease
and what ideology to dictate...
         but i'm wondering whether or not
mental illness can have the potency to
        become virus-like...
     and drain,
and i mean: drain the soul out of you...
or whether man as mammal ever did exist...
or whether this new fashion of
feline existentialism can ever take off,
narratives about spending time with your
bonsai tiger... you'd really think japan was
a bit freakish... but it just has a large
ageing population and no one thinks
that euthanasia is a standard of humanism,
unlike ******* ***** into a face of
a woman... because right there, no
one died... if had any of those anemic
tadpoles actually lived...
    which brings this about to concern me:
so... we live for nine months, in, let's
basically say: in an environment without
oxygen, you got gills stashed in there
with that umbilical chord...
how can it ever be a miracle of birth...
that's what a god might say...
a human would look at it and say:
huh? you joking? i'm part of this horror?
     but not until you have a brain
haemorrhage and get diagnosed as schizoid
and then you think: so what was the point
of forgiving your enemies come into this?
      i can't believe it has become so, so personal,
to actually have this nagging, decapitated
doll-head on your shoulder telling you to:
repeat! repeat!
       i could literally be writing this in
Auschwitz and be like: Neddy needs a jumper
and a diaper... cos like that really needs
you to fathom the logic of assembling an
Ikea chair...
                          i mean, talking in the west
is a bit like farting into a hippotamous' nostril
for a ******* jackuzi effect...
  jack! i said ***! what's with this jacuzzi?
English, mein gott... confusion everywhere
you pigeon **** onto a top-hat.
by the way: everyone becomes
dyslexic on the word hippopotamus -
there's a reason why hippos exist...
        you want acronyms, you get shortening...
and yes, since english society has abolished
asylums, the society has become a breeding
ground for asylum instigators,
rich russians, bewildered chienese...
it's en masse, one, massive, cesspit...
   i mean the part where you don't get the brown
steamturd floating about like some
  celebrity you'd love to slap with much
more than mere paparazzi epilepsy...
because violence matters, esp into language games...
i was just asking, because there i was,
working on a roof on some construction site,
and she calls me up and says that
she hears voices...
          that's what i mean certain mental
delinquents and their choice of Samaritan...
  what does a roofer know about "voices"
if it doesn't equate to a bad conscience?
    that's why i'm wondering whether certain mental
illnesses have a virus-like profanity attached to them...
oh yes yes, the unison: bob marley: we're one
type of ******* to boot, like i'm supposed to get
a hardy and a 'ard on about it...
               ******* spoof of a light-bulb moment: PING!
and there... ain't that just dazzling?
phantasmagorical blurp at the feet of
Eros at Piccadilly Circus... my ego is a canon
that just simply shoots out viagras! and questions.
and yes... that's what we call being part
of the clown...
    and if there's a lord of flies...
what's the guy mentioned by beelzebub drunk
doing about the mosquitos?
           ah... boundless at the crucix, once more!
i'm just wondering where
does mental illness become solipsism,
  and when in fact it becomes a sort of virology...
   i can romanticise mental illness as a type
of solipsism, that it has a cage, that it can be contained...
but when mental illness goes outside of the novel,
strolls outside its cage and becomes
something akin to kissing a *****,
     i want to know.... because i swear i have been
affected by someone's mental illness being
hidden in the shadow of taboo...
   look... i'm ******* exfoliating with vocab!
        how can you become normal after someone
exposes you the symptom of "voices"...
that's demeaning given the past history of
having relationships with angels and demons,
that's like a neuter noun.... voices brings up
more concern for a pronoun-****-up than
a clear, noun association... angels, sure,
i could start looking more closely at pigeons...
demons, doubly sure, i could start
chasing bats...
              but i need to know whether mental
illness is worthy of taboo, i.e. it's worth
the category of being physical, in that it can be
contagious... whether it can act like a virus....
whether it can become an epidemic...
    and to be honest, i think it can,
but that seems pointless, since western society
has exchanged asylums for taboo...
                  look at me now,
a once budding roofer, reduced to writing poetry,
i might as well be an ******...
            safe-guarding king Solomon's harem...
oh sure, eunuchs were able to **** his *** slaves...
they were slaves themselves,
what they weren't allowed is to usurp
    the ******* crown of the king passing his
d.n.a., mind the frivolity, never the seriousness
of geneticist, yawning when their genesis was to come...
    i'd love to see hans andersen on the trail of
dolly... the sheep... and dolly really does become
a trinity of animal prior to human in the out-reaches...
what with laika (man's best friend)
and later fiztgerald... oh wait (man's worst enemy,
the money) Baker....
   thanks to de Sade and baron Sacher-Masoch
we could truly begin the orthodox occult of science...
   how the two patron "saints"
interpolate... it really is a dualism worthy of
dangling a crucifix... shame the first monkey in
space wasn't called Brian...
    i don't know, then, perhaps, the Caesars at
the coliseum wouldn't boast so much about
   the: lacking the ambidable thumb
(yes!) googlewhack no. 4 / 5 -
mandible thumb you idiot! d'uh...
but still, a googlewhack at the end of it...
type in: lacking the ambidable thumb
and, yes = 1 result in the google algorithm...
http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Have-Thumb-Deformity/728760,
i call this the alternative version of, or rather,
the digital version of fishing...
     a tail like a thumb, the grip baron...
   but my peacocking the tongue shouldn't
be deemed as: straitjacket panic button prone...
  why would it?
****! he used the colour azure in his blue period,
that picasso did! chain him! gag him!
stash him in a kitchen stove!
i mean the inspection of genuine viriology
dynamic concerning mental illness,
the anti-thesis of solipsism, as the proper counter...
or should i say: membrane / barrier?
    can mental illness make ranks, i.e. spread?
like a virus can?
            well, if you take to explaining a zeitgeist...
ideology akin to communism and ****** can
become virus-akin... so i guess... yes...
it had to become a self-serving question easily
answered... mental illness can be very much
akin to a common cold... it's not really a case of taboo
being the lock-and-key to contain it...
nor the asylum... i suppose the best prescription
is the idea of solipsism...
              but isn't this grand,
i'm actually lethargic, coinciding with
    a tax on robots... and the French slashing
their 35 hour working weeks to 32 hours...
    and the Finns paying their unemployed
    (2K, placebo dosage for the actual
   237,000 unemployed) - a random €560 a month...
such are the times...
           it really has become a sort of
year 0 orientation lesson... because it's just
gagging for a guillotine to snap it awake,
so a decapitated head of Charles I at Whitehall might
say it's final farewell...
              and is mental illness capable of
being akin to a viral infection...
     it probably can... you probe the waters in an
environment of poets... they're good enough
to succumb to a white rabbit experiment...
              question is: do you apply the rule
of solipsism or an actual asylum? in a post-asylum
society, i don't think there's an option
whether solipsism should, or shouldn't be used
to counter the more serious form of the flu...
   but, as ever, it comes down to the age-old
cartesian model of dualism... or as any siamese twin
might attest: i'm not that further away from
my sister as you might think...
  the dualism that served so well for so many years
to appear "peaceful" became a real dichotomy...
  the ergo suddenly failed... when people realised
that the fact "i think" didn't necessarily
precipiate into "i am"... given what the media is
interested in, and how many people become missing
and all that... the numbers were too much
for player uno to simply give up the canvas
of newspapers and t.v. to some poor schmuck
trying to impregnate his canvas on which he worked
his paint-brush (power) and paint (wealth) onto...
   the cartesian ergo simply failed...
    oh sure, the other two facts worked... but they
didn't necessarily congregate universally
in the crux of ergo,
        i was told it would be a monsoon of thought
established on earth... instead i got a light-shower
   and the Gobi desert.
in the same way the subconscious exists
as a fake of the trinity...
           to me it has no need for a chisel...
as a realm... treat the conscious as a realm
akin to Hades, and it becomes wholly
de-personalised... there's not individual in it
that might require it... it's a covert mechanism
of subterfuge... but if we're talking
making rabbit heads with our hands
   in the shadow form... we're talking
nothing but puppeteering...
   or like saying, let's create an evolved
version of the definite (the) and the indefinite (a)
article...
                      well... there must be
a direct and an indirect article...
                well there is...
con                                 and sub-con,
       un-con is an indiscriminate article...
meaning: what are the evolutionary gains
of dreaming, given the cinema?

From the 1880s into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows). From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated.

Examples of Jim Crow Laws

Nurses: No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which ***** men are placed. (Alabama)

Buses: All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for white and colored races. (Alabama)

Railroads: The conductor of each passenger train is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the car or the division of the car, when it is divided by a partition, designated for the race to which such passenger belongs. (Alabama)

Restaurants: It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectively separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.

Pool and Billiard Rooms: It shall be unlawful for a ***** and white person to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards. (Alabama)

Toilet Facilities, Male: Every employer of white or ***** males shall provide for such white or ***** males reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities. (Alabama)

Intermarriage: The marriage of a person of Caucasian blood with a *****, Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu shall be null and void. (Arizona)

Intermarriage: All marriages between a white person and a ***** person or between a white person and a person of ***** descent to the fourth generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited. (Florida)

Cohabitation: Any ***** man and white women, or any white man and ***** woman, who are not married to each other, who shall habitually live in and occupy in the nighttime the same room shall each be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twelve (12) months, or by fine not exceeding five hundred ($500.00) dollars. (Florida)

Education: The schools for white children and the schools for ***** children shall be conducted separately. (Florida)

Juvenile Delinquents: There shall be separate buildings, not nearer than one fourth mile from each other, one for white boys and one for ***** boys. White boys and ***** boys shall not, in any manner, be associated together or worked together. (Florida)

Mental Hospitals: The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case shall Negroes and white persons be together. (Georgia)

Intermarriage: It shall be unlawful for a white person to marry anyone except a white person. Any marriage in violation of this section shall be void. (Georgia)

Barbers: No colored barber shall serve as a barber [to] white women or girls. (Georgia)

Burial: The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons. (Georgia)

Restaurants: All persons licensed to conduct a restaurant, shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room or serve the two races anywhere under the same license. (Georgia)

Amateur Baseball: IT shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the ***** race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race. (Georgia)

Odysseus is angry without knowing what reason scared hopeless longing not a good student teachers raise suspicions Mom claims he is mentally not right in third grade parents send him to well-known psychiatrist conducts many tests finds Odysseus’s i.q. scores quite high doctor’s diagnosis is learning disabilities emotional anxiety recommends weekly appointments Odysseus continues to see various psychiatrists all the way through college in late 1950’s early '60’s psychiatric field is somewhat unreliable one downtown child’s psychiatrist chats about other patients then gives Odysseus baby ruth candy bar another psychiatrist with office in Wilmette tells him parents need therapy advises he will someday live independent of parents free of their influences

Odysseus Penelope Ryan Siciliano play in undeveloped land across from Schwartzpilgrim’s apartment building there is big tree they often climb near corner of commonwealth and surf streets Ryan is going on about his favorite actor errol flynn and movie “they died with their boots on” suddenly two bigger older boys approach bully them down from tree Odysseus does not recognize older boys from neighborhood bigger older boys push Penelope to ground then elbow trip Odysseus punch Ryan in stomach panic shoots through all three of them bigger older boys glare down with taunting eyes after terrifying moment Ryan then Odysseus jump up flee across street they hide beneath parked cars in underground garage of Odysseus’s building hearts pound in terror hearing footsteps on concrete grow louder they hold their breaths voice speaks out "they’re not here they’ve gone Odys where are you?" Odysseus and Ryan crawl out from under cars feel ashamed of their cowardice in front of Penelope and putting own self-preservation before her protection Ryan is particularly disturbed explains his family are sicilian code of conduct Ryan insists Odysseus swear never to divulge their weakness Odysseus promises later Penelope tells Mom

harper is broad-minded exceptional school housed in old english tudor building on second floor along hall is long glass cabinet displaying among other things 9 large jars each containing developing stages of fetus girls wear uniforms of navy blue skirts with knee socks white blouses blue sweaters which are school colors boys are allowed to wear blue jeans and shirts in good taste Miss Moss teaches fourth grade classroom is duplex with stairs leading up to balcony directly under stairs is secret meeting place and beneath balcony are classmate cubbyholes there is sunroom facing south overlooking entrance stairs to school where older students hang out Odysseus thinks Miss Moss is pretty wonders why she is not married she has deep blue eyes dark thick eyebrows premature graying hair she wears in bun he has crush on Miss Moss thinks she is best teacher he has ever known she teaches greek mythology assigns each member of class character in ancient greek mythology Odysseus is appointed Hermes son and messenger of Zeus Hermes has affair with Aphrodite resulting in child Hermaphroditus Hermes also fathers Pan rescues Dionysus saves Apollo’s son there is voice speaks inside Odysseus’s head no one can hear voice except Odysseus it is voice of smart-*** disobedient twisted child when Miss Moss says “where shall we begin today?” Odysseus automatically answers in his thoughts “how about up your sweet ***?” it is uncontrollable voice for his amusement only often he tries to ignore voice but sometimes it speaks out when voice speaks out Odysseus gets in trouble his friends think voice is funny adults get offended when he reflects on classmates at Harper and distinction of their privilege he wonders what went wrong they are troubled class in fifth grade they cause miss penteck to have nervous breakdown and retire other classes produce famous actors playwrights renowned restaurateurs prosperous investment bankers leading doctors Odysseus’s class produces delinquents gangsters social dropouts drug addicts suicides they take their privilege and run it straight to hell

creature inside Odysseus can be little monster teaches Penelope how to go berserk going berserk involves entering strange residential building in neighborhood elevator up getting off about middle floor pushing all elevator buttons scrambling down stairs knocking over umbrella stands spilling ashtrays ringing doorbells pounding doors running out lobby doors escaping uncaught Penelope is good warrior princess brother and sister can be little terrors

Ryan Siciliano and Odysseus go to see “the magnificent seven” at century theater they head south along broadway street college-age girl with large bouncing ******* appears walking north Ryan and Odysseus glance at approaching girl then nod to each other no plans uttered as college girl passes both Odysseus and Ryan reach up grab her ******* pet squeeze then run do not look back keep running laughing all the way to theater they watch movie with jaws hanging open mcqueen is brilliant all seven are so groovy movie inspires both Odysseus and Ryan.

in 1960 Mom and Dad send Odysseus and Penelope to sunday school at temple shalom teacher calls him aside "Schwartzpilgrim what do you want to be when you grow up?" Odysseus answers "architect or maybe an indian warrior" teacher says "do you know story of judas maccabi? he was a great warrior leader learn about the festival of lights and wield your sword wisely Odys Schwartzpilgrim" Odysseus replies "yes sir" two weeks later he gets kicked out of sunday school for pulling seat out from under girl during solemn religious service he never learns hebrew nor is he bar mitzvahed

Odysseus is hyper-sensitive about race and religion knows he comes from race of people who once were born into slavery nazis systematically exterminated millions of them at aushwitz-birkenaub belzek chelmno majdanek sobibor stutthof treblinka black and white photographs of faces emaciated children adults flicker before his thoughts knows jews are hated not considered caucasian in europe and russia not allowed to own land for many centuries what does it mean to be member of race of people who are despised and blamed? he sympathizes with all minorities particularly negroes who were forced from homeland collared into slavery and native americans who were cheated out of land and slaughtered by white people

You were sitting in my golden room
You threw my things off their perches
and proceeded to wall on my antique bed.
My bible was pretending to lay silent on the floor.
Oppression wasn’t in the Quran on my bed but the 2000 Red Dodge Ram
Drove you away.

Your parents deemed
my short haircut
a symbol of homosexuality.
They placed my name among the delinquents.

You would always rock your skinny jeans.
I know you were wearing them when you tried to slit your own wrists.
You found things to live for when you found me.
We shed our pants, camped out on my battered couch, and watched Rocky Horror.
I’ll never understand;
you can have love affairs with Panic!At the Disco and Carried Underwood.
You drug me to Jarritos Mexican Soda
And hugged the stranger in the TWLOHA t-shirt.
You texted me “Goodnight, seep tight, don’t let the zombies bite” when you finished my “No mas pantalones” notice.
We went to Sweet CeCe’s to celebrate getting fired from your therapist.
I know you’re okay
the same way you quoted John Green in my room that day
and I still miss you.
Keep your smiles and your paints.
we’ll be 18 one day.

We were kids trapped in ultra suburbia
A dying town disguised by perfectly lined houses
Filled with children, fake smiles, and cancerous spouses
To escape it all we rode our bikes like a teenage armada

Not knowing where our wheels took us, they took us away
We found adventures in silly things like abandoned houses and railways
All of us held hands while we sat around the fire
Coughing out our hearts quietly so we didn't wake the earth

I remember the time my parents yelled at me
For being a little too girly
Or when her mother burned her with cigarettes
For doing something she'll never regret
But in all this pain we became better people
Let's not forget the times we got in trouble for being us

River bamboo arrayed in lace tiers
consoles the birdbath on its loss of robins
Intemperate August staggers in liquored air
of wavery heat and layered sighs

Leaves relinquish their rush
toward this “ripe on time”
Blackberry brambles have ceased to reach
now bow to ponder their plunder
while petunias, those bold delinquents!
bloom as if the frost’s lethal cling
were some myth
the antique roses had made up

Bud, bloom, revive!
See the generation of the bee!
Bud, bloom, survive—
to do it all again
for the single sake...
of treasuring beginning in the end...

Her bicycle, my geranium
have found eternity together
on the sun spattered patio

She—
opens the screen door
as I—
climb the morning stairs
She—
squints smiles amongst sleepy freckles
who has not brushed her hair
in a late August moment of not caring

And I know it will all happen anyway
no matter what I do....

It was Halloween night but I had no candy.
But I did have an air rifle and it came in handy.
Because I had no candy, some punks started vandalizing my house.
Just because I shot them with my air rifle, people called me a louse.
I pumped the air rifle ten times and shot one of them in the *****.
The **** juvenile couldn't walk back to his house, he had to crawl.
I put pellets up their ***** so that a valuable lesson would be taught.
Before they vandalize another man's house, they will have 2nd thoughts.
But the cops came to my house and I was the one who was placed under arrest.
Apparently it was illegal when I shot them in their *****, ***** and a girl's left breast.
Sadly, shooting the girl was an accident, I shot her as she was walking past.
After I got out of jail, her dad paid me a visit and put my arms and legs in casts.
There was a valuable lesson that those juvenile delinquents learned.
I shoot people who are vandals, that's why none of them have returned.

caveat! —bursting out as the fuse fetters away
wafting t'ward oil spills, tranquilized guns
with pace maker minds
and time to ****

sickle celled, graving shores
plead to crawl underground
through cascading bile and sedatives
that sift through these negatives
like bangled thieves
who crawl on broken knees
and lie idle under haunted bridges.

bouldered bones intertwine
or veins cut along a dotted line
caveat! cries the sayer's sooth,
for he says it scours and devours—
the slinking nightmare sleuth.

the tar is interrupted in carved equinoxes
soak in the crippled toxins
as the air becomes as thick as theophany
and tharm like grease in blood that take me in,
through ash and mud and
all the spider webs caving in
like delicate gorges forges beneath
nightmare sleuth reaching zenith

caveat, silhouettes
stretched out like oil in water
and this silicon tomb can hold me no longer
for i must break out before i am a goner
because it's a mistake that i'll never shake
your face turns opaque
and there was nothing in your eyes
but dripping flesh

wring out all your words for me
your jeers and your juries
but go cling to your crutch
your kings and your qualms
and the church that burns
in its hallow vacancy

for none can resist the urge
that thieves its delinquents from catatonic catacombs
and quagmire junctions
where the swamp will **** you in
and festering sweat sticks like guilt to your skin
and hell is a nightclub where every loss is a life
and heaven's a daydream with your neck to the knife
it needs no rhyme or reason
and every slip of your broken lip
just lose your grip and give in to the treason
would you rather burn at the stake
than suffer your cement heart break
with no reason or rhyme
it's just the weight of the season

backdrop collapse
railroads unfolding
and like a cell storm the train
is coming your way

and slinks away like a nightmare sleuth
it just takes one swipe of the claw
or one bite of the tooth
and it drags you in
feel the sidewalk sleeping
and the blinking lights creeping
above the overpass
and the cold wind reeling--
it'll be your last.

Parents shield young child eyes
As elders clutch their beating chests
These people look at us and think
"Punks"
"Burn-outs"
"Delinquents"
"Youths"

"Always causing trouble where ever
they go"
I'm not a bad kid, honestly,
I'm just playing your part

I                                                                ­            
I've never hit my children.
My own father spanked me perhaps ten times:
for riding my bike on a busy street,
for "acting up" in church.
I have no nostalgia for these beatings
(as in: "Sure glad Pa whupped some sense inta me as a young'n—
   don't know where I'd be if he hadn't.")
  
He would make me pull down my pants and underpants
enough to expose my buttocks,
position me between his legs so he could hold my own legs still,
bend me over his left leg with his left arm,
and hit me with his bare right hand.
What I remember as much as the pain
is his angry expression: Was he angry at me?
Or at something else?
I believe it was mostly an unpleasant duty;
usually done because my mother had asked him.
They were afraid we'd become juvenile delinquents.
  
I suppose his own father had spanked him--
and that he, in turn, had been spanked by his father--
a family tradition. . . .
  
There've been times with my own children--
God knows they're far from perfect--
where I've almost given in to anger.
Somehow I've always caught myself,
always remembered that unseemliness. . . .



            II
Our house is kind of ugly from the front, a split-level
with the whole left side facing the street being a solid brick wall.
Our picture window faces the grass and trees of the back yard.
Each morning, no matter how much of a hurry I'm in,
I open the curtains to this window--
that my children might see not just the man-made objects of our living room
but some hint of the grace and beauty of the whole, great, natural world.

I am a criminal,
So you and the papers say.
They would put me away
For countless nights and days.
Tucked away "safe" in jail,
All for the choice of herbs I inhale.
That they would only have their way...

Yet I am no marauding mobster,
No gangster for hire.
I smoke in the evenings
When daylight is fleeting
And withdraw to my rooms to retire.
I am no plundering pirate
Pillaging your private property.
I go about my day,
As right as I may,
You will find no evil protégée.  

I am spoken in the same breath
As delinquents and undesirables.
The infamously unfavourable,
Mire on our tireless society.
Well I am tired now,
Fatigued.
I've grown weary of living
In your narrow minded
Make believe.

Yet I leave you be.
Keep to mine and own.
It is you who lights the torches
From high deluded throne.
It is you who crafted and rounded
That perfect stone,
Hurled with such indiscrimination
Always many, never alone.

Each night now I wonder,
When I cross that imaginary line.
Such fools we've been,
The waste obscene,
Who really commits the crime?

They nickel and dime me
So money can't find me
While debt keeps climbing
With inconvenient timing
A note reading foreclosure
Spells my doom
As a realtor's brochure
Sells my room
Poverty looms
Over my head
As everything is taken
Even the bread
And what I use to bake it

They come with a gun
Demanding that I run
They tell me I can't stay here
Police presence engenders fear
So this place I once held dear
Will no longer be near
And the bank
Maintains rank
Over the poor
Locking the door
So I hit the floor
Hatred in my core
I adopt an attitude
Of eat or be eaten
This simple platitude
Will get me beaten

Money isn't that hard to make
If that's all you're trying to do
Yet they take all they can take
Like they've got something to prove
They don't mind
Separating bees from the hive
Power is control money buys
So the rich are seen as wise
Even if they're destroying the world
Forcing families from their homes
And now the rocks they hurl
Are delivered by drones
From lethality to loans
We're stripped to the bone
And feel all alone
On a planet of exploitation
It's tough to live the full duration
When we're stuck at a bus station
Called placation
Where the wealthy do what they want
Because they have money to flaunt
Giving them status and power
To build their ivory tower
By evicting delinquents
And bombing huts
A dog-like sequence
We're treated like mutts

The cumulus accumulate
Usurping heaven's gate
Creating a second rate
Decrepit estate
For us to deflate
Into a state
Of hate
And wait
For a mate
To feel great
So our slate
Has low weight
But once it gets late
We ask for a rebate

We run for the frivolous
But that fun is insidious
And it's slowly killing us
From emptiness filling us
We withdraw into shells
Of similar mundane hells
Until the bank comes knocking
Then into the streets we're flocking
While they're progress blocking
And pistol cocking
We kneel and worship them
Begging for mercy
They're the problem's stem
Yet we wear their jersey
Which is absolute insanity
But money controls humanity

Home airs have become quieter,
Things are back to normal...
Here in this house, which isn't my home,
The soundless afternoon winds bring a touch of melancholy,
Holiday season is finished, the hours pass by so slowly.
In the living room, my eyes strayed upwards,
Towards a Christmas wreath left hanging on the wall...
A sunbeam was shining weakly over it...but,
It rested on the wreath long...long enough, it dazzled me with a reality
That changed the preponderant gloomy atmosphere...
The wreath will be kept, for next year...
It is sad to think, another season over
Another year over....and
December is still eleven months away,
But.... the reason for the season could linger on, if we choose to.

It is said, charity begins at home, but it doesn't have to end there...
We quickly stretch our hands for our family,  close friends in need,
They are our loved ones, it feels good...feels like Christmas!
But the old, the blind, the disabled people, are strangers, waiting...
What if we gave them even just a bit of ourselves....even just for a while?
Some warmth, or smiles...a hand to find their way,
The Christmas feeling would be alive! Stronger!
For the street children, the orphans in a hospice, it means Christmas,
To be fed, kept warm with clothing and shelter, any time, day, or month.
They... we...would feel a heavenly kind of peace surround us...
It would mean everything for the prisoners, the juvenile delinquents
If we could spend an aftenoon with them,
Listen to their rumblings, litanies of their pain, their losses,
Hear their past moments of glory...of how it is
To be neglected... deserted by their own loved ones...
It is Christmas day, to see them lifted from their agonizing silence, beaming...
To see a child's lost front teeth, as he/she gives a smile of happiness
While holding a bag of goodies and gifts of toys,
Would melt the ice...the stone-cold airs dwelling within...
Maybe, even the lukewarm souls could change...
It is Christmas for them...... for, these short-lived holiday moments,
Mean the world to them...

Yes.....
Charity begins at home, but it does not end there...
If only we could stretch our hands...bearing in mind---
A kind deed done to our fellow human beings,
Is as good as done to God.

The sun shines bright on that Christmas wreath on the wall,
Any time, any day of the year....
Even if it's not there at all...


"Whatever you have done to the least of my brethren, you have done unto me..."        (Matthew 25:40)


Sally

Copyright 2015
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan

Through the whispers of a kiss,
Misguided video kite flying blissfully ignorant of this,
Double life tragedy,
An unreachable majesty,
Of first impression dissatisfaction and no love actually,
Or one who's too cute to fall for your imagery,
Sick of hearing soppy similes,
Sucker symbols and sentimental soliloquies,
Angels ate my face and gave me this grimace,
Dwelling with the devil's delinquents influenced my appearance,
Fallen archetypes of valor and prestige,
Resurrected by the words of the assassin's creed,
Memories are paintings hung up by despair,
As I drift in this blizzard taking in more cold air,

Yesterday's heroes
neoteric delinquents
the Grateful dead.

HEY SOCIETY,
you don't really like us, so what do we do?
so we give in to stringing up all of our words
from our emotions and call it poetry
the same poetry that is left on the doorstep
at strictly three o'clock am in the morn
with the corners of the dollar store notebook torn
hey society, how about you share some of our
deep inner pain's blame?

SINCERELY,
the chaotic souls,
adrenaline junkies,
cursed delinquents,
paranoid teens,
and fluorescent adolescents.

I rode in a car with a kid accused of ******
He was the driver, and he wanted to safely
Get me home.
I used to call him one of my best friends,
So maybe I was blind sided to think he never murdered that man.

I once stayed around a "drug dealer" for 3 days straight
He got arrested because he got caught
Cops considered him dangerous.
I always thought he was one of the nicest people I knew
Now he's bailed out and new and improved.
He talks all the time about how
Drugs will never affect him again

This girl I knew overdosed on pills.
She never saw the police,
But I heard her lips turned blue,
Her eyes turned dark,
And her skin lost color.

Ever since then she's been in therapy.
I think it's okay to not trust her
I think it's okay to not trust someone
That would blame you for their problems

In a distant world things seem so distant, its consistent the distance is always distant
No resistance,
Achieving is noticeable through  persistence
The crimes logically committed are lost to delinquents
In sequence commuting through short existence
Its fiction
"knowledge" the most powerful addiction
Controlling power that can put "nothing" to extinction.
Unlocking impossible is possible
Highly unprovable
But possible
Do what you believe
That's what you'll receive
Thinking is a process indefinitely intrigues
Mastering can put you on  top of all leagues
Every time it gets harder to prestige
just breathe
Think twice were all animals
I can even turn vegetarian's into cannibals..


nothings impossible its logical...

March 20th
I couldn't sleep
Life was good
Mom got rid of that piece **** car
We had money again
I had a new Daddy
And it was the most my sister had been stable
I was thinking how my birthday was only 31 days away
I would be turning 10
But that was not what had kept me up
It was the paranoia of something bad happening
life was too good
to quiet.
I didn't understand
I wouldn't stop images in my head
Of of being robbed,death,seizures reoccurring...
I couldn't sleep
Not a wink.
I never understood why.
March 10th
Mom kept coming home late
I became scared if something happened
I had a sensation telling me that she was in a car accident
Or she was going to be in one
Would I be in the car?
She came in and I broke down
Crying
I told her that I was afraid
Afraid of her getting into a car accident
Of her getting hurt
She said that it wasn't going to happen
She would call me, now that she understood
April 10th
Excited that 11 more days to go
Til I  turned 10
Finally I was going to be out of the single digits
I would be a double digit
I would be older and cooler and get more respect
I could hang out with the older kids
My sister Emmy and I
were hungry and bored
So we decided for once to get along
And watch a movie til mom got home from work
Mom was a 35 year old teacher who worked with drop outs,delinquents, and victims
I thought of them all as my family
The movie wasn't over and we called 100 times
Wonder where she was
I got scared
Headache
tear eyed
heart sank
felt weak
but brave
THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK
My new Dad came running down the stairs
Before he could say it.
Before he could
I already knew
I jumped up and said "MOM WAS IN A CAR ACCIDENT!!!"
He looked at me funny for a second and then said "Yeah."
He told us to go over a friends house
We could of spent the night but I couldn't tolerate it
Turns out she was trying to make life better for us.
She wanted to go work with autistic kids, in a different school...
With a better pay and better hours.
A better life for us.
Not that she didn't love her job.
She wasn't leaving her 2nd family.
She was doing this for us.
April 12th
It was the longest 2 days of my life
It felt like 2 weeks or 2 months
That was when time became slower than slow
She was bruised,cut,and broken
Not just physically.
Emotionally was the worst pain over all.
To be 9 not 10 just quiet yet
To see your mother in pain
As she cried on my shoulder
And her little solider was out to war
So her older son couldn't come home anymore
He couldn't be there for her
In her time of need
He was fighting for peace
But peace is what needed to be given
Not just her, but to all of us
I was scared ,But brave none the less
There was darkness all around
Time was slow
To this day
April 10th is the most hated day
The day where I almost lost my mother
But someone else lost theirs
She is still in pain
Emotionally is still the worst
As she cries on my shoulder
I know
I understand
That
WE WERE LUCKY
WE WERE ALL HURT
AND THIS PAIN...
Will be taken to the grave.
But while we are alive.
And we all survived.
I can see the light again.

poetry, is almost dead
it’s gasping for breath
reaching out ,tearing at the bottom of our pants
clinging to anyone it can
A  solider of culture
being dragged from the battlefield,
after an open fire attack
by generations and generations

Poetry,
words strung together with beautiful precision
feelings reveled
people laying naked
exposed
Bleeding on the stage, on the page,
on the bathroom walls at the Mall
On the subways, in the sand
even writing on their hands
trying to save

….
what’s dying

This is why we slam.
this is how we resurrect the language
energy emitting from our bones like electricity
catchy beats and in your face attitudes
give flesh to the skeletal body
of poetry

This is why we slam.
because Poe wasn’t tough enough
Keats is too old fashioned for us
and the philosophical words of Robert Frost are foreign to us.

Today he who is shunned for his talented tongue
mush break the mold,
ignore the sweet sonnet and the subtle hiku
that is
misunderstood
modern day delinquents
those too ignorant to recognize
an onslaught of alliteration
                or
a well placed metaphor
those who find poetry
a bore

This is why we slam.
let our strength ring out through our voices

This is why we slam.
we speak our truths
pick off the paint covering the ugly reality

This is why we slam.
to be heard.

When the traditional beauty of Owen, Wordsworth and Dickenson
Just won’t do
us slam poets hear the call
and we come through

This is why we slam.
To face the harsh reality that is society
to attack
the politics,
the racism
the injustices
of life itself

Fast words whizzing from our mouths
from our hearts
slamming the ****** silence
and complacency
that has become today’s reality

This is why we slam.
To be heard,
to resurrect the dying art.

This is why we slam.

As suitors go, I’m sturdy and fun, fresh faced, considerate and neat.
I’m socially literate and wear all the best shoes on my feet.

I’m looking for love and a little adventure,
a fun-loving confidante who wont over-censure.

But my dates with you have been obscenely pristine:
dancing and golfing and luncheons on Eggs Florentine,

argued law with your Father while drinking dark coffee,
and swapped coleslaw recipes with your maid in the lobby.

You’re smart and you're keen and your sleuthing is swell.
You keep only good company, sending delinquents to jail.

You’re modestly perfect in all that you do.
But I like a girl with more Hullabaloo.

And I regret to be the one who must give you this news,
but George, Bess and I are all dumping you.

Delinquents perform instantaneous falls into a tortured well.
Where in seamless fashion increase the heart rates in echoes,
and tell the leaders to walk fast, for we are close behind.

The road to true freedom lies in heart of sinner. where thoughts of lost loves and lifes dance ever so quick to judge me, for I am a holder of sin and triumph and I can never let that go.

They try to say that my salvation will sail above me. That the beauty of the trees and stars were not mine from the start, and that everything ive earned and learned I should be looking up to thanks.

But what we've hold to be true is that my blood should have all the thanks, my heart and my soul are the only things that push me to my next day, and fill my world with what I have to give, and what ive had taken from my life.

The people of my generation have lost there way in thinking for themselves. Mindless bags of bones following the kin before, with no lungs to breathe in the new air. The air of despair and heartbreak, of pain and tourture. The air of lust and love, and the feeling of being alone.

Sharing the falsity of told news they looked up for the blame.
Which told us doing nothing and knowing the same was always best,
and lies kept the mass in the fog, to never see the light.

So we struggle to find a breaking point, never knowing how much torture is enough.

gradual buildup
of bull-****
now all I can see
is through it
and all I want to do
is ruin it
all the flawed accounts with fake people
I can't stand it
I can no longer contribute
to the scene of social media fiends
who do anything
simply to be seen

relinquish your dependence
wave goodbye to all delinquents
then find you become in sync
with everything you feel and think

Picking up the pencil with haste.
I Harshly applying the words onto paper.
Not wanting my words to go to waste.
The pencil glides along like a thin razor.
Ideas just burst within me.
They scatter around my mind,
Crying to be let free.
Becoming wickedly intertwined.
Continuing my crooked pace.
Not daring to stop for a single minute.
The words giving me a chase.
I catch them like delinquents.

Made of glass wood and cement
Thirteen monsters were council sent
Families lived in high rise flats
And children roamed with the dogs and cats
A little park near a collection of shops
The bus drove round a circle of stops
***** old lifts with gum on the floors
Held strange odours and graffiti on the doors
Darkened stair wells where creatures hid
Causing havoc like delinquents did
Behind the flats the landslide sprawled
Bees buzzed and insects crawled
The river flowed under a bridge which spanned
Connecting the residents to grassy land
Happy people but rough round the edges
As they peered from windows and leant over ledges
Bikes on balconies and clothes hanging down
The disillusioned youth wearing a frown
Drunken rows and secret affairs
All newcomers were greeted with stares
Tiny halls and narrow little rooms
The strange feeling of living in tombs
Sad faces watched the explosion together
The homes they once shared now gone forever

The blackboard had been wiped clean
of all the equations and answers.
All but one question remained.
"Why Are You Here?"

My first thought was
I'm here to try and
keep myself out of
there.

I'm here to bring
attention to
the broken hearts,
the alcoholic writers
and the dreams we
never share.

I'm here to show my face
and prove to them that
I am  everything  they
could not  ****.

I'm here to read the works
the mad men left
behind.
I'm here for the ******,
the ***** and the one
night stands.

I'm here to fall in love
and fall out of favor.

I'm here to use as much
as I can without dying.

I'm here to break their laws
and  to expose all those who claim
to understand this vision.

I'm here to **** them off and
provide them with  reasons
to speak thy name in vain.

I'm here to steal from
the rich and keep it.

I'm here to write it
all down without
losing my mind or my life.

I'm here to avoid the crowds
and admire the
empty city streets at midnight.

I'm here to burn the red candles and
fear not the coming age.

I'm here for what lays beyond
the ice.
Here to share the
secrets they  all **** to keep.

I'm here to give thanks to
La Muerte, Little Martha
and The Skinny girl.

I'm here for the girls who
sing alone and shiver at the memories
of growing up  in a broken home.

I'm here to write something that the
Convicts and the Delinquents could
both relate to.

I'm here for that Raven haired
girl with the perfect bangs and
sculpted brows.
The girl who smiled her Blood red lips
and called me Dangerous.

I'm here to write about the Hummingbird,
the lonely Writer  and the habit that
killed a certain girls everything.

I'm here to laugh as they
all cry.
Here to cheer over their hissing sounds.
Here to celebrate at their time of mourning.

I'm here to be as far apart
from all of you as I can.

I'm here for the invitation
that I never received.

I'm here to take the
blame and provide an escape.

Here to prove her right when
she was oh so wrong.

I'm here to act as if I didn't know.
Here to play with the
guilt that plagues them in their sleep.

Here for the Latch key kids
and unwanted dogs.

I'm here for DMT ,the LSD
and the secrets they both
hold but never tell.

I'm here even though
most times I wish I  wasn't.

I'm here all alone
although it
wasn't always this way.

I'm here to try and put these
words in their place.

Here to keep their spirits
up while trying to keep
my own from dying.

Here to fill the pages the young
will read tomorrow.

Here to share what it is I do
without exposing my true sorrows.

I'm here to finish what they  
started without mimicking their style.

I'm here to keep them
on their toes while
concentrating on tomorrow.

I'm here to remove the  Globe
from all curriculum's.

Here to put an ending to
all of the foolish lies.

I'm here to answer your questions
as honestly I can.

I'm here today but can be gone
tomorrow.

I don't know what we're all
doing here,
I can only speak
for me.

The troops are worn out,
the Army stretched thin,
we’re recruiting delinquents,
the old and the dim.

We got rid of the gays,
to preserve the troops’ purity .
Even those who spoke Arabic,
no matter how fluently.
(Mistakes will be made,
for lack of translation.
But isn’t that better
than eternal damnation?)

We’re telling the soldiers
“One more tour of duty.”
The program’s called “stop loss;”
it might cause mutiny.

The Humvees are patched
with armor homemade,
that won’t stop the bombs
or rocket grenades.

Veterans are stricken
with nightmares and fears.
Some find no escape from
their dreams or their tears.

It’s no longer a war;
it’s called occupation.
But we don’t seem to know
how to rebuild a nation.

We’re good with artillery
and planting land mines.
But what we can’t do
is win hearts and minds.

The lessons of history
seem lost on our leaders,
who don’t seem to be scholars,
but careful poll readers.

There are those we must judge
for their lies and their crimes
and the grief they have caused
in these sad and dark times.

How many years
will we take to recover
from this ill-planned debacle
and it’s not even over?
It will take Iraq longer,
from all the blood spilled,
from the wounds we inflicted--
their country, we killed.

Everywhere I go,
No matter the pull I tread low'
Low beneath the underpass and gutter
Filled with slime grime and clutter
Of mind
Of rats
And delinquents not men
Let loose in a remote controlled pen
Freer are pigs and caged little hens
We don't know we chase
An unquenchable thirst
And blindly can't see the fishing wire
That it's dangled from in front of our faces.

The second I look back,
I am filled with this feeling,
That I get every so often,
like when I think of those days,
the days I spent without a worry,
surrounded by my fellow delinquents,
We did not care,
We were there,
And we weren't going anywhere

But that was so long ago,
Today that is not so,
I have learned each goes their own way
Like a wave, we part ways
The fracture I feel won't escape
From the bricks that hold it in place

Teen spirit is underrated by all,
You and I, You'r dad and uncle Paul,
We all remember what it was like,
youth is valued for this exact reason
We all worship this way despite
one day, we return to dust
Maybe then, I'll feel this way too.