I am so close
to saying goodbye,
to being finished
because I can't
live anymore.

I walk about
with a smile on my face
while my insides are being
ripped apart,
with a mask so heavy
it encases my body
so densely and restricting
while withering away
whatever is left inside
slowly killing it.

PROLOGUE:

“’We must stop this brain working for twenty years.’” So said Mussolini’s Grand Inquisitor, his official Fascist prosecutor addressing the judge in Antonio Gramsci’s 1928 trial; so said the Il Duce’s Torquemada, ending his peroration with this infamous demand.’”  Gramsci, Antonio: Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Introduction, translation from Italian and publishing by Quintin ***** & Geoffrey Nowell Smith, International Publishers, New York, 1971.

BE IT RESOLVED: Whereas, I introduce this book with a nod of deep respect to Antonio Gramsci--an obscure but increasingly pertinent political scientist it would behoove us all to read and study today, I dedicate the book itself to my great grandfather and key family patriarch, Pietro Buonaiuto (1865-1940) of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, southern Italy.

Let it be recognized that Pete Buonaiuto may not have had Tony Gramsci’s brain, but he certainly exhibited an extreme case of what his son--my paternal grandfather, Francesco Buonaiuto--termed: Testaduro. Literally, it means Hardhead, but connotes something far beyond the merely stubborn. We’re talking way out there in the unknown, beyond that inexplicable void where hotheaded hardheads regurgitate their next move, more a function of indigestion than thought. Given any situation, a Testaduro would rather bring acid reflux and bile to the mix than exercise even a skosh of gray muscle matter.  But there’s more. It gets worse.

To truly comprehend the densely-packed granite that is the Testaduro mind, we must now sub-focus our attention on the truly obdurate, extreme examples of what my paternal grandmother—Vicenza di Maria Buonaiuto—they called her Jennie--would describe as reflexive cutta-dey-noze-a-offa-to-spite-a-dey-face-a types. I reference the truly defiant, or T.D.—obviously short for both truly defiant and Testaduro. T.D.’s—a breed apart--smiling and sneering, laughing and, finally, begging their regime-appointed torture apparatchik (a career-choice getting a great deal of attention from the certificate mills--the junior colleges and vocational specialty institutes) mocking their Guantanamo-trained torturer: “Is that what you call punishment?  Is that all you ******* got?”

If, to assist comprehension, you require a literary frame of context, might I suggest you compare the Buonaiuto mind to Paul Lazzaro, Vonnegut’s superbly drawn Italian-American WWII soldier-lunatic with a passion for revenge, who kept a list of people who ****** with him, people he would have killed someday for a thousand dollars.

Go with me, Reader, go back with me to Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House-Five: “Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time . . .”
It is long past the Tralfamadorian abduction and his friendship with Stony Stevenson. Billy is back in Germany, one of three dingbat American G.I.s roaming around beyond enemy lines.  Another of the three is Private Lazzaro, a former car thief and undeniable psychopath from Cicero, Illinois.

Paul Lazzaro:  “Anybody touches me, he better **** me, or I’m gonna have him killed. Revenge is the sweetest thing there is. People **** with me, and Jesus Christ are they ever ******* sorry. I laugh like hell. I don’t care if it’s a guy or a dame. If the President of the United States ****** around with me, I’d fix him good. Revenge is the sweetest thing in life. And nobody ever got it from Lazzaro who didn’t have it coming.  Anybody who ***** with me? I’m gonna have him shot after the war, after he gets home, a big ******* hero with dames climbing all over him. He’ll settle down. A couple of years ‘ll go by, and then one day a knock at the door. He’ll answer the door and there’ll be a stranger out there. The stranger’ll ask him if he’s so and so. When he says he is, the stranger’ll say, ‘Paul Lazzaro sent me.’ And then he’ll pull out a gun and shoot his pecker off. The stranger’ll let him think a couple seconds about who Paul Lazzaro is and what life’s gonna be like without a pecker. Then he’ll shoot him once in the gut and walk away. Nobody ***** with Paul Lazzaro!”

(ENTER AUTHOR. HE SPEAKS: “Hey, Numb-nuts! Yes, you, my Reader. Do you want to get ****** into reading that Vonnegut blurb over and over again for the rest of the afternoon, or can I get you back into my manuscript?  That Paul Lazzaro thing was just my way of trying to give you a frame of reference, not to have you ******* drift off, walking away from me, your hand held tightly in nicotine-stained fingers. So it goes, you Ja-Bone. It was for comparison purposes.  Get it?  But, if you insist, go ahead and compare a Buonaiuto—any Buonaiuto--with the character, Paul Lazzaro. No comparison, but if you want a need a number—you quantitative ****--multiply the seating capacity of the Roman Coliseum by the gross tonnage of sheet pane glass that crystalized into small fixed puddles of glazed smoke, falling with the steel, toppling down into rubble on 9/11/2001. That’s right: multiply the number of Coliseum seats times a big, double mound of rubble, that double-smoking pile of concrete and rebar and human cadavers, formerly known as “The Twin Towers, World Trade Center, Lower Manhattan, NYC.  It’s a big number, Numb-nuts! And it illustrates the adamantine resistance demonstrated by the Buonaiuto strain of the Testaduro virus. Shall we return to my book?)

The truth is Italian-Americans were never overzealous about WWII in the first place. Italians in America, and other places like Argentina, Canada, and Australia were never quite sure whom they were supposed to be rooting for. But that’s another story. It was during that war in 1944, however, that my father--John Felix Buonaiuto, a U.S. Army sergeant and recent Anzio combat vet decided to visit Moschiano, courtesy of a weekend pass from 5th Army Command, Naples.  In a rough-hewn, one-room hut, my father sat before a lukewarm stone fireplace with the white-haired Carmine Buonaiuto, listening to that ancient one, spouting straight **** about his grandfather—Pietro Buonaiuto--my great-grandfather’s past. Ironically, I myself, thirty yeas later, while also serving in the United States Army, found out in the same way, in the same rough-hewn, one-room hut, in front of the same lukewarm fireplace, listening to the same Carmine Buonaiuto, by now the old man and the sea all by himself. That’s how I discovered the family secret in Moschiano. It was 1972 and I was assigned to a NATO Cold War stay-behind operation. The operation, code-named GLADIO—had a really cool shield with a sword, the fasces and other symbols of its legacy and purpose. GLADIO was a clandestine anti-communist agency in Italy in the 1970s, with one specific target:  Il Brigate Rosso, the Red Brigades.  This was in my early 20s. I was back from Vietnam, and after a short stint as an FBI confidential informant targeting campus radicals at the University of Miami, I was back in uniform again. By the way, my FBI gig had a really cool codename also: COINTELPRO, which I thought at the time had something to do with tapping coin operated telephones. Years later, I found out COINTELPRO stood for counter-intelligence program.  I must have had a weakness for insignias, shields and codenames, because there I was, back in uniform, assigned to Army Intelligence, NATO, Italy, “OPERATION GLADIO.“

By the way, Buonaiuto is pronounced:

Bwone-eye-you-toe . . . you ignorant ****!

Oh yes, prepare yourself for insult, Kemosabe! I refuse to soft soap what ensues.  After all, you’re the one on trial here this time, not Gramsci and certainly not me. Capeesh?

Let’s also take a moment, to pay linguistic reverence to the language of Seneca, Ovid & Virgil. I refer, of course, to Latin. Latin is called: THE MOTHER TONGUE. Which is also what we used to call both Mary Delvecchio--kneeling down in the weeds off Atlantic Avenue--& Esther Talayumptewa --another budding, Hopi Corn Maiden like my mother—pulling trains behind the creosote bush up on Black Mesa.  But those are other stories.

LATIN: Attention must be paid!

Take the English word obdurate, for example—used in my opening paragraph, the phrase truly obdurate: {obdurate, ME, fr. L. obduratus, pp. of obdurare to harden, fr. Ob-against + durus hard –More at DURING}.

Getting hard? Of course you are. Our favorite characters are the intransigent: those who refuse to bend. Who, therefore, must be broken: Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke comes to mind. Or Paul Newman again as Fast Eddie, that cocky kid who needed his wings clipped and his thumbs broken. Or Paul Newman once more, playing Eddie Felson again; Fast Eddie now slower, a shark grown old, deliberative now, no longer cute, dimples replaced with an insidious sneer, still fighting and hustling but in shrewder, more subtle ways. (Credit: Scorsese’s brilliant homage The Color of Money.)

The Color of Money (1986) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0090863 Internet MovieDatabase Rating: 7/10 - ‎47,702 votes. Paul Newman and Helen Shaver; still photo: Tom Cruise in The Color of Money (1986) Still of Paul Newman in The Color of Money (1986). Full Cast & Crew - ‎Awards - ‎Trivia - ‎Plot Summary

Perhaps it was the Roman Catholic Church I rebelled against.  The Catholic Church: certainly a key factor for any Italian-American, a stinger, a real burr under the saddle, biting, setting off insurrection again and again. No. Worse: prompting Revolt! And who could blame us? Catholicism had that spooky Latin & Incense going for it, but who wouldn’t rise up and face that Kraken? The Pope and his College of Cardinals? A Vatican freak show—a red shoe, twinkle-toe, institutional anachronism; the Curia, ferreting out the good, targeting anything that felt even half-way good, classifying, pronouncing verboten, even what by any stretch of the imagination, would be deemed to be merely kind of pleasant, slamming down that peccadillo rubber-stamp. Sin: was there ever a better drug? Sin? Revolution, **** yeah!  Anyone with an ounce of self-respect would have gone to the barricades.

But I digress.

Bradley, don't climb, the boy's mother says as she pries him off the bronze left shoulder of Sam Walton. She dusts the boy's coat. *Wait here a second. She begins digging in her purse. Her grey, sweatpants'd husband holds a point-n-shoot digital camera. The wind is inconveniencing him. The fog is inconveniencing him. Sorry, sweetie. I'm looking for a tissue. Every word his wife says shatters like glass.  He's been on the road too long. Of all the places, why make a pilgrim's stop at Kingfisher, Oklahoma?

It's the 7th of December. A day FDR said would live in infamy. It's also my birthday (thanks for setting the stage, Roosevelt). And here I am. Making my own pilgrim's stop at a subpar statue marking the birthplace of Mr. Sam Walton with no one for company but a green thermos and these tourists.

While his mother is distracted, the boy tears at yellowed grass. He pretends to feed the blades to Sam Walton's open-mouthed and unexplained canine. The husband sighs.

Ah! I found them, the mother reassures. Grimacing, as though shards of her words have lodged in the far corners of his brain, the husband asks,

Are we ready?

Not bad. The tiny bubbles from the champagne firecracker on my tongue as I lower the green thermos. Reminders of spilt coffee dot its sides like the little, overlooked  coastal islands of New England. Reaching? I know. But I'm learning to take notice of things, Sam. Patience.

I got into town before the liquor store opened. I vultured behind steering column. After a glance, a longhaired shopkeep with an oak cask belly shook his head in disdain for my entire generation. Turned the key. Flipped the sign from closed to open. Not to appear eager, I waited for a commercial break on the radio. I walked through. A bell chimed. Thirsty, son? the shopkeep asked.

I always am at the sound of a bell, I responded.

Let me get this off real quick, the mother says to Sam Walton as she wipes dry, white bird **** off a deep-cut wrinkle in his bronze forehead. Can't take a picture with you looking like that. The mother turns around. Offers an unsteady, white flag smile to her husband. Looks down at her boy. Bradley, stop playing with the grass. I mean it. Drop it. Stand by Mommy. We're going to take a picture.

Why?

Whiskey modge podged with ***** with wine with gin. Champagne. Champagne. Confused? lines joyously sparked from the edges of the shopkeep's eyes and lightning'd down his cheeks. Making him seem pleasant for the first time. Proud, even. I've organized the drinks by country of origin. Notice the flags?

What does France's flag look like?

France is over here. Looking for a wine? Perhaps a rich cognac? He led me down a densely packed aisle. Little ratings cards jutted out underneath each bottle.

Champagne, actually.

I see. I see. Is something ending or something beginning?

Both.

The boy places his hand on the dog's head. Pretends to ruffle its frozen fur.

Ready?

Ready.

Click. A flash goes off. Automatic.

Now can we leave? the boys pleads.

Why are you being so antsy?

It's just another stupid statue. I'm tired of this stupid trip. I just want to go home.

Today's my birthday. I lowered the champagne as I poured it into the green thermos. I kept watch for shoppers and cart crewmen in the parking lot. No one seemed to notice the transfer. The shopkeep ended up selling me an American bubbly. Silent Girl. I liked the artwork. A large-breasted woman with puckered lips stared down the sights of a .44 pointed directly at the drinker. Black and white. Refreshing to see someone so up-front.

The mother opened one of the rear doors on the family's Tahoe. No, you don't get a toy. Brats don't get toys. Brats get quiet time. She slammed the door.

Just you and me, Sam. A drink. Sorry, I didn't bring another cup. I lean in close. Trace the wrinkles of his forehead, where the sculptor stuck his knife deep. As I do, my own wrinkles become more apparent.

You know I heard a minister talking about you a week ago. I remove my hand from Sam's face. Take another drink. Apparently, your last words are his claim to fame. He said your nurse divulged them to him. You should see him. Each church he visits, he opens with, 'Anyone know what Sam Walton's last words were?' He doesn't ease into it or anything.

'Sam Walton's last words were actually, I blew it.' Can you believe that? 'I blew it.' Don't worry, Sam. I didn't buy it. That answer is for the customer. Not for truth. People love to think at the end of your successful trajectory, you'd just Solomon out. Fizzle. 'Vanity! Vanity!' I'd like to think there you lied in your hospital bed. In your private room. 7th Floor. Curtains open. Blue sky free of blackbirds. Your family around you. And your mouth tasting like metal. Like blood. The gears of your existence grinding to an end. And I bet you hated everyone in that room. Your wife wiping spittle off your mouth with a red handkerchief. You pushing her arthritic claws away. I bet one of your grandkids was at the end of the bed. His hair unwashed for two days. Uncombed for six months. A tall cow suckling your success. And I bet that clumsy hair was blocking the television. You told him to move.

When he moved, something horrendous was on. A soap opera. Something frustratingly ironic. General Hospital. Hit the red button. Called in the nurse. And your last words, 'Change the channel.' She put it on a Cowboys game. You watched Aikman throw an interception. Closed your eyelids. Changed the channel.

It's the 7th of December, Sam. It's my birthday. A milestone, Sam. So, there's cause for change. I told you the same ambition in you coursed through me. That I too, had sat in the back booth of diners alone -- conspiring. And while you're eternal bronze, while you're family photos, I'm mortal to a fault. But allowed to change my mind. I don't want to be ambitious, Sam. That's what I came to say. I'm not coming back to wail at this wall. Legacy, you taught me, is not in my hands. Even if I make a helluva go at it on this sphere, I run the risk of getting turned into half a statue with an idiot dog sidekick. You can dam a river, but ultimately rivers don't give a ****. They flow where they please.

That's the end. The beginning is that I can go anywhere from here. That's worth celebrating. I tilt the green thermos and let champagne run down Sam Walton's still face. This river runs onward. Without fear of legacy, of memory. I'm going to love, Sam. I'm going to love fully. Onward. While you stay put. A stupid statue.

Sam Walton is silent. Quiet time.

A child wanders the hall before school starts
The emptiness and loneliness are his education
New children enter the school
As they exit the bus
Light shines on the school
As it exits the Sun
Yet the wandering child's eyes must adjust
To colors he's starting to see
Colors like jealousy and frustration
The wandering child is powerless to the explosive light
And searches for ways to extinguish it
He finds his solution in the room where we keep our guns
The room sits in the dark center of the building
Across the hall from where we keep our children

Kids have been playing with guns for a while now
Everyone my age that I know
Imagined shooting up their school
These are well adjusted people
It's just the times we live in
And what it takes to adjust

There are some things that will remain true
Killing is wrong
And murdering a murderer is ******
The executioner hides his face in shame
He's ashamed of the enjoyment he feels
From the power he holds over other people's lives
Unaware the power he holds
Is meant to come from love
Love that has been buried
For the temporary thrill of death

It seems like a dark joke
Giving a child a gun
And then asking them to go through high school
Because kids are ******* stupid
And some people never grow up
And high school never ends

The wandering child takes his newly found arsenal
To the densely populated cafeteria
Only to realize the other children are just as well armed
They drown in tension
When their actions have megaton weight
Before anyone can say anything
Everyone starts shooting
They grade each other in their minds
And their test comes at the end of the barrel
They find validation
In blood splattered on the wall
And bodies that once stood now lying
The gunshots deafened the wandering child
And the smoke blinded him
Reminiscent of the emptiness and loneliness before school started
This was his education

Today I watched a bunch of ants eating one another
Their ant hill collapsed as rain started pouring
Yet they continued killing each other as they drowned
They all seemed to be the same size
But their problems seemed so much bigger
So they found comfort in killing one another instead

A dozen fellows draped in threadbare tread densely,

Profligating goons in obsidian gowns
gathered under rainbow
moonshine shaking bronze hands,
howling and ******,   in the shambles of the moon,  
rap'n and nod'n to the notes of midnight.
The mellow marines mourned over malice,
lionizing over lost ones,
many howled venerated, exalted in wonder
in  favor of their thrilling grace, and delight,
and brilliance, and might!
but some neighboring sticklers,
    behaved haughty and in disdain,  
of the crowdy Cavaliers bellowing echoes
signaling out
                 to the seers of the sea,
singing to the wands overwatching the wedding,
and ravens listened,
   roving like noble patrolsmen.

Traveleres and trainees at sea
   humble and bright
niave, and frieghtened
in traverse,
           volatile and toiling,
           tireless,
Lunatics, (laughing, laughing, laughhing,)
Rumaging through rain,
fireciely,
rallying and rableroused,
through towering halls of mohogony,
     hefty and wholesome were their hearts
though, beast of the woodsy edifice
were foul and benumb
scowling with contempt,
haste to devide and devised to hindrance.

Hence the heroes heed
   to the valleys of rose, and violet,
and strawberry fields of forever,
 seeking Saint Nicholas,
in the bustling Byzantium,
      in the murky shadows of doubt.

the perfect poem

would start by acknowledging its imperfection
and yet would bind the heart to listen
in any mood
any clime, any mind...

it would forgive contingent interruptions
in its contribution to evolution

and to grandly synthesize the facts,
it would pierce its central theme in one or so lines,
a one-stroke ******
embedded somewhere safe, an apex valley
of words and symbols to communicate
rather than excommunicate
or bemuse...

an accord of human
commonality,  invitation to wonder
or to leave off reading for later|

to wake or soothe to sleep,
it would be a poem you could wear into battle
or soft-intone to soothe a dying loved-one's breath.
the perfect poem would promise laughter
after every tear, catharsis guaranteed.
it would be godly and irreverent,
honest and veiled.
erudite, but conversational: a soul-mate in the etymons.
chalk-full of sultriness,
elementally seducing
with allure of verbal petrichor,
released from a long-awaited desert cloud,
dripping at the center aching...
and all wants fulfilled
(but for the other yearnings it instilled).

even a cursory perusing-over yields
a boundless sphere of cheer!
(you may not find it here, or anywhere)
an epic of haiku in casual/dress wear...
therapeutic, silent or aloud,
empathy in every line, attentive to the reader's work.
a collaborative lore
entwining evermore and more,
tolerant of others, wiser for their scorn --
it would shift its meaning, each read through:
twelve interpretations would do;
in fact it would take up residence in you,
it would help with shopping, too,
save the queen, start a culture all its own
a witness to atrocity and fame,
a judge of victors, the criminally insane,
an analgesic to the lame.
both densely, and loosely writ
it would be spontaneous, yet crafted by a practiced art.
it would rhyme, as if the muses commanded it to rhyme
contrived at the dawn of time
to be contrivance free...
for your particular ears, for your soul, right now
an ever-present origin of meaningfulness sent
like similes for your life only --
it would foster to create within itself
expression's manifold and measure,
in line with styles all in vogue
the global culture's wold,
hermeneutic gold.
it would be made of wood, and snow
of sun and space, the universe in tow.
it would spiral, dance and sing beneath its sounds
teach a novel lesson, for novel ears,
    each and every time
it would be memorized, and hung
glazed with caligraphic meditation
in a cloister boarding only **** monks,
it would bear no clumps.
it would smoothe out all the lumps,
it would offer more than i can say...
the perfect poem wouldn't even mind being thrown away;
it would come again some day.
in fact, on second thought, it may come a different way--
created in the fae-lines of the eyes,
the ears and mind: the double prance
of in and out and everywhere resize
the meaning-giving dance.

“I've realized,” I write, “the Groucho Marx of the mind is chaos personified. The Groucho Marx of *my mind *was chaos, I revise and already think I should revise again – “you never know where you'll end up,” I think, of me and of Groucho. Either way, Groucho Marx came to me in a thought when I was thinking about a poem I will not finish, that would have been about him. “We were just four jews looking for a laugh,” Groucho says at least twice – once when he was alive and once now as I invoke him – the heavy glasses, the synonymous greasepaint lip, the cigar – lit, with smoke that surrounds and engulfs me, threads tangibly through the air, through my eyes, and through the insides of my sinus densely, like mossy Eldritch Horrors and old movies somehow without stopping my vision. He has a mouth but it doesn't move, he is not alive – instead he is a ghost, instead he is dead but standing there, with me, in space lighted from within – space that's white like the smoke – thickly. Among all this, a ghost in a black suit. At least, I think the suit is black, or bluing black. It is tinged with 50 years of rotting celluloid, and paired with a white button up underneath – no tie.
         Growing up all five of them were poor, very poor – so poor they were Jewish-in-New-York-in-the-early-1900s poor. Forced outside of the world, into their world from birth, while their mother, Big Duck, put them up to instruments and got them begging early – vaudeville was their daddy after all (“after all” being a refrain in the poem I'll never finish, repeated like a mantra – after all! after all! after all! after all!– in that text, and used like a drug – afterall – and always driving deathward to an end that never came and can't, after all is written down) – with the jokes they told and sang and played, on their piano, harp, and banjo, all the time – and here is how she learnt how well Chico could play the piano, and how well Harpo could play the harp. And how poorly little Groucho played the banjo. The shame she felt, the shame she must have felt – but here my poem consumes them, because I am already sure that childhood is wrought with fear of birth order, sure as I am that middle children lack something, and maybe have something for that lack, but It's me, not Groucho, that takes over, saying Groucho was the obvious middle child, and of course lacked Big Duck's approval – Big Duck hated the banjo strumming and myriad puns he threw, I say – puns being a part of the poem, the poem which would have (but never) ended on Groucho ducking soup. I wanted it all as a joke and still do, but who will disappoint? Who could? There are options – Groucho, myself, the poem, etc. all working poorly. It is hard to imagine the lack that would culminate in a poet – maybe this gap is wider than a middle child – writing three brothers into a brawl, cartoonish in the streets. May be even harder to imagine the discontent and fear at work inside a child of five – birthing chaos. Maybe I misspoke – I can't know,  I'm not a child of five.
                  Groucho is dead, is still standing in front of me expectantly, not moving. Right in front of me when again I hear his voice – reanimate and filtered through a phonograph – weakly rising above it's own eroded texture – “I was misquoted, I was misquoted... Quote me as saying, 'I was misquoted.'” I wanted his life entropically spinning this place, spinning throughout this place, a ghost – to live forever is to die forever in every gaunt lie, misquote after misquote re-shaping our dead selves until grotesqueries we never intended are held comfortably under our name. Groucho, aimless, escapes because he pre-empts – he uses his whole self to decimate his cultural body, to save the self he's sacrificed. Groucho means to become a void, or Groucho becomes a void more correctly – Groucho means nothing, can only mean nothing, because he's focused his words – his self – around his lack – the words' lack. Because the words always lack, and Groucho is all words. I see him take out the greasepaint container, which is in a shoe-polish-looking canister, and then I lose Groucho again to facts – he was the outsider using words to one up them. I see his wit like a weapon. His being in Hollywood was a stress on Hollywood's peace of mind. I see him tearing balsa wood from up under the street and chucking it into styrofoam towers, which crumble. I see the SUVs that swerved to pass him run into walls, deflating the cars and the walls while the drivers run screaming with ketchup pulsing from the real wounds in their necks. This is where my poem was – more or less. My poem had Groucho gleeful – “Groucho skips, Groucho skips, Groucho skips,” it said, “down the streets throwing rocks at cars...” – the melodies of my naive poem's schoolboy nihilisms never broke enough – “In Groucho's perfect world every day would be spent disrupting traffic, smashing bugs and ******* everywhere,” it said because it was too young to understand, because it had no void, and could offer no revolt from meaning – revolution being radical agency expressed through violence against every order, hatred for every structure including itself – in Groucho's perfect world really there is no language and no one knows what happens after all.
            Lingering is the thought that Groucho means something – lingering is the vaguest, most insistent and warlike imprint of a metaphor on Groucho's face, ineffably moving me to continue but Groucho is no friend, and Groucho is not with me, because the Groucho of the mind is not Groucho, Groucho hates the mind, and Groucho negates all possible Groucho's so the imprint is not Groucho's. The ghost is a misquote, the poem is a misquote, the letters are a misquote, I am a misquote – and this is a misquote too. His cigar (growing bigger) is puffing out that white cloud smoke but still I can see him – the smoke just goes into the space around us, the space that redacts and recreates itself every time I consider it – a copy of an 18th copy, with only Groucho remaining in all iterations, like the borders of a decomposed jpeg quietly losing logic. Groucho the lie, Groucho the memory – a man shaped around the falsity of metaphor and language – floats, as subject, through my memory – punctum with no point, void. Here he is – naked, a stark black silhouette I'd never claim. He's staring, but he's not staring at me because I'm not there. What's left is overstated nothing – the ghost of a man who negated logic, left in the mind of a poet who has long since given up on the man, and soon will give up on the poem.”
There is nothing left here. I am alone, I am dizzy – overcome with boredom.  I want to say, “Groucho is not here, was not, cannot be here” – I know instead I need to end on a mute point.

I think I see the mighty hills of Darjeeling.
What magnificence, it is that they bring!
Bold as a King, so high its peak.
Where the oaks grow densely and so do teak.

I think I hear a whistling of Toy Train,
Elevating the twisted track, so slow they gain.
As small as an ant climbing up the King’s feet,
Singing and moving while sounding so sweet.

I think I observe a little streak of falling tear,
Fall from the eyes of Darjeeling, the valiant emperor.
I looked amazingly at the hills of Darjeeling.
All hail Darjeeling! Our benevolent King!

It was raining
I stood at the intersection
poetry romps in my heart like a little digimon
the world seems outsize
the city disciplined
because of the rain
transparent umbrellas
in the lens of the live cam
misty skyscrapers
extendable streets
picture of the past
withered like a leaf on the bench
the rain falls from somber sky
and visits every part
it is the countless stitches of time
moving densely together
mending the scattered
cold and lonely
little hearts.

grit sand conglomerate binds
friction holding - heel steady
tottering
navy lace snags
upon brick dipped in night
save for - street lamps poignantly
establishing form to
lips seeking
to traverse the topography of your structure
tongue craving - salivary essence about mine

my curls remember being dragged
across,
- then –
pressed firmly against the brick
snagging
on vertical groove and red clay
your pelvic bone
ground deep – pressurized
into dust against my own

Serotonin, oxytocin fuse
Blown -  
Neural patina – thick
Pompeii to Vesuvius
Diffuse
Carbon filament lattice
Clings - to
ancient couple
cuddling
in ashen grave

Compressed densely

Perchance time will compress this grit
creating friction under sole.

The moon is missing
Old stories oppress the scorned clock's hand
What is this interminable waiting?
Lost are the World's metaphors
Lost and fled to a dark place
Once beehives born in new orchards
They now dissolve in time's dead way
And die in the viciousness of niceness
Densely social and devoid of empty
Do I dare ask these forbidden questions
She is missing, missing to me
I know where she is but I can't find her
  but now I see the harvest corn
  and a bursting city of goldenrod
            
  (this can only mean good)

In Africa the lissome eucalyptus leaves
Sharply ovoid, a washed celadon,
Turn their silvery backs, yield, bend with
The promise of on-coming rain.
You taught me this
Sign, this tree-voiced prediction, long ago, among
The tenderly sloping, densely viridian hills
And heavy, somnolent, rolling fogs of Iowa.
And so, I turn my back. I yield, oh, how I yield.
But, you didn’t foresee, didn’t know
How, much later, my heart would
Flake and flay
How great sheets of myself
Would peel, would fold
Would slough off just like
The bark, the back of those massive whitened eucalyptus trunks, you
Didn’t, couldn’t foretell how this long union
Scars, clings, sinks so deep, tattoos itself so that eucalyptus-like, despite
Repeated rain lashings, leaf bowings, droopings and sun decimated leavings
My heart, my soul sheds, molts, reforms, renews itself and just as those
Sharpened leaves arch and curve and arc and sway
So I bend, I turn, I give in, I give in
To the chafing wind, to the scouring hurt, to
The on-coming African
Rain.

Isolated faces paradoxically surround
Bound by wants infinity
I strayed away from banks
Cause greed was just to trendy
The idea of friends and numbers
Threw me to the ground
Figured we'd crown 4 quarters instead of 100 pennies
Swede shoes, silk shirts, and bentleys
By some is defined as plenty
While little Lenny with stomach empty dreams of Denny's
Or some water or a Father would help immensely
Afgani blowing and Hennessy gulping MC's
Take their aperture and narrow it densely
Make millions off the Emmys some how erases Memories
Of pennies struggling in this world
Mother fiend'n they're just fending
Against the many
In class they're considered lowers
Below us they just a penny
I say our morals need reordered
cause no doubt that they're all Quarters
And deserve entry into this bank of respect
That has become run by hoarders
Loving to build borders 3 times the size
Of their self righteous shoulders
This is a disassembly of a culture surrounded by sentries.

Thirteen androgynous men and women, dressed in pressed black suits, like some swarm of government bees, stoically entered the dilapidated school bus with solemn disregard for the general mass of people surrounding them in the California street, and the sun was shining. An ecclesiastic figure, swathed in purple robes with wild glittering gleaming beads adorned across the body, stepped forth from the shadows of a cluster of palm trees; it wore an incredible mask, damask as a rose with intricate golden patterns around the cheek and toward the forehead of which was embellished with an etched geometric pattern that seemed to resemble a flower and faint lines that would require a keen eye to be seen and elaborated upon. The hood was up and formed a velveteen waterfall at the back of the head, as it crumpled over, though it was probably designed to look that way. As each member of the secretive yet oddly unconcealed cult traipsed onto the growling, garish yellow bus, the pensive figure gazed on and regally followed the group, taking a place at the back, holding a staff with arms crossed, and the rest sat coldly, staring ahead, unblinking and sedate. The hours passed under the drab desert sun as a singular cloud passed overhead and gradually dissipated into invisible vapours that fell gradually into the densely blue backdrop of the California sky. The old school bus chortled along the deep black road, with pristine lemon lines hugging the left-hand wheels and a driver as stoic as the passengers. There, in the desert, amongst the snakes and the saltbush, a rusted old bus, full of strangers had parked, and with little fuss the suited men and women reached below their seats and removed a piece, they exited in an orderly fashion with eyes fixed ahead and hands immovable from their guns, gripped tightly as if life itself was within those guns. Colt M1911 to be exact. Every gun, though not obvious to an outsider, was loaded with a single bullet (230 gr Federal HST) and cocked, with the manual safety on. Each of the silent group had left the bus, with their apparent leader at the back of the line, holding the staff and the driver stayed seated with the engine off and staring straight ahead into the vast expanse of the sandy hell ahead of him. Twenty metres from the stationary bus, the man and women formed a perfect circle, each were standing a little over an arms distance from the next person. The robed figure took centre stage and uncrossed its arms, the staff outstretched in the left hand. A magnificent golden rod, a thousand etched stories from base to tip, each one emblazoned with fantastical jewels, this staff could belong to a Queen, a King, a God. The followers were still silent, and still stoic, despite the glaring sunlight reflected from every wild diamond and ruby on the majestic phallus like object. The masked person made a crude attempt to engage a member of the round by walking before them in a cyclical fashion, making eye contact with each but none did move, nor bat an eye. Finally it took its place, back at the centre of the circle and made an unholy sound that sounded as if the Devil himself were dying. Garbled words and unnatural screeches thronged from the unmoving masks mouth piece before suddenly falling silent and it raised the staff higher before striking the earth with passionate fury, and this led a simultaneous movement from the centralised hive mind as they each removed the safety from the own weapons. A single shrill scream echoed across the valley and a second strike to the ground from the staff was the indicator to raise the guns to the person to the immediate right. No noise was made, but a third strike of the staff to the desolate, cracked ground caused thirteen concurrent shots to ring across the arid lands, followed by thirteen solid thuds and a ghostly silence fell across the desert once more. A perfect circle of death among the cacti and Kangaroo rat, and the silence finally broken by the starting engine of a school bus as the driver awakens from his trance and returns back to an apparently civilised world. The fine figure gently steps over a corpse and lifts its robe so as not to disturb the pooling blood before sauntering into the basin of a lonesome American desert and fading into obscurity.

The mosquitoes supped histamine limpets into our puckered flesh
dew gilted grass entombed our feet in dappled domes
refracting the overhead fireworks
smears of whirling color
accented by smoke mote ghosts

I forgot to wear my contacts
my near-sightedness
makes you giggle nervously -
a hard full body ****** of a laugh
it arches your spine
pulling our hand-holding into an expansion
only the lining betwixt finger inlets
galvanized our pulse

well, that and your voltaic laugh
its flourishing timbre
resonant
reverberant pyrotechnic
thickly glazing aural canal

lascivious tomes penned themselves
densely
upon neural plane
dendrites imprinting chemical insignia
moment captured in impressionistic blurs

An echo of slants
A frozen stretch
Humming terra ensconces - you
Forlorn
Ever-crooked
A never-stagnant aeriform environ
Tugging and vibrating through root
Hairs furling densely about and
Through
Dirt clods

I see you as a burst of ocean mist
******
Into a nestled and worn monument.
Breathing over a humming terra nova
slowly etching away the noveau stone

You are the water tipping
about the crystals
of lone rock husk
freezing and seizing at precise locus

Then expanding about the form
Edging it to molecular capacity
before it heaves heavily - wedging

A simple puzzle lain right beside its obvious match.
The edges might be roughened
but you can tell they belong
They lay there beside one another
echoing curve and angle
of that which they once clung crystallized

Now they lay beside one another
braving the same storms - and shifts of land
but having different drops of rain fall
about their own dynamic crystallization
and different animals walking over them
and different blades of grass clinging densely
in the padded earth beneath them
brushing

Sometimes bridged together
by an animal astride the two
they are together once more
Over time they burnish into fragments
and dance about the creek beds
and about the base of grass beds
and again - though maybe temporarily,
are together again

Hallways of stone
My knees scrape against the cold lifeless floor
As condensation soaks into the fabric of my existence
I came looking for you and I found myself
Lost
Fallen before a door, densely metallic
No one in, no one out
There used to be light here once.
We could move through pathways freely
Tracing the space between our selves
Settling in one another with fluidity.

I am here alone now.

I write you letters often
Little invitations to return
Back to a place we used to be
Back when I could find you here
There was resistance then too
But you opened the door if I knocked enough
Fists pleading with steel gates
My hands are broken now
They were broken before but
Now
I stopped to bandage them

Do your walls have windows?
Can you still see me here?
Desperately craving connection
Hoping for a moment to see you
To feel your soul's energy again
For this hallway to hold life once more
Or am I invisible without the sound?
Without the pushing and fighting,
Do I cease to exist?

I know this isn't about me
Things are not that simplistic
But I thought
I taught you
How to love me


I tell you I feel disconnected
And you say You'll be fine
Right.
Ok.
I'm still here if you need anything
Still waiting in these damp halls
Alone with the hope of something more
Because I believe in you and in us
But I won't beg you to love me

Enlightenment is explosion                                                        ­                                                           Its means your mind is virtually certain                                                          ­                                      Either been butchered                                                        ­                                                                 Or wobbling or wondering                                                        ­                                                         Like a curtain thrown from system strongholds                                                      ­                          Threat of retaliation,                                                     ­                                                                 ­     with its more we feel the beauty
Trash bins for leftover, Buddha said the same thing                                                            ­             A Zen master would say sidewalks                                                        ­                                             If you work too hard the latent anarchists or God will attain anything                                                         ­            Not to make everyone the same prostitution                                                     ­                        Capital into an asphalt jungle, the proportions of our own body                                                   Ritual *** on the other hand it may be too idealistic
Blood **** ended no need to talk about         Unorganized and we can see the beauty                                                           ­                             Her face covered with blood you try to do it all at once                                                             ­         Since most of the victims realized that you are one                                                              ­              One whole, many thousands of innocents                                                        ­                          Brainwashed whites with reality                                                          ­                                        Anarchy and savagery grew emptiness                                                        ­                                 Subsequently died in a wise and effective way
If an artist becomes,                                                         ­                                                                 ­  Short intense raids on the system river                                                            ­                               Sources and supply and human life                                                             ­                                     Put some strength into their veins and die                                                              ­                         With fingers encircling and incantations of Satan worship                                                          ­   Her pretty face was smudged little by little                                                           ­                        She moaned of eternal life
The meaning lies in a flash about fifty yards in almost a direct hit                                                      From a secluded densely wooded suffer in your difficulties                                                     ­    Exploded inside your body                                                             ­                                                     The projectiles began calmness                                                         ­                                            Something in itself is enlightenment weapons especially for guerilla distress                                       Your life in your effort thundering in the midst                                                            ­                 We saw beautiful blossoms of some meaning in their ****** toll                                                   Know the answer, but while it lasted

This is it;
the deepest I can fathom,
the fastest I can light
the flying arrow quick
released from not
so sure cocked
finger.

This is it;
the flattest I can color
the plainest I can reek
thru silicon weaving
densely threaded cloth
fibered shirt,
insignia emblazon
on Polo front
pocket.

This is IT;
the peak,
the twin peaks.
The n-peaks?

I realize
the game continues
and IT sets to zero,
derivatized as partial
IT-equations, is easier
to solve.

This letter was not meant for you
it was meant for me with you
to that crystalline time when we were two
before the shattering was through.

The mornings in 
when we lay oblivious to the shuffle and the city din
when the weight of the world was still 
not enough to budge us a single inch 
from between the linens.

So I recollect
all the fragments I thought I left
I'm not one to dwell but what else
is left for the lonely boy at the bottom of a well?

But now there are three
There's you and there's me
and there's who we could've been
And I've not spoken to him yet
as I'm not sure this specter is real
Or maybe I'm afraid to ask if he once half-lived,
was he thrown from the wheel
and tossed down the well here with you and them?

But I've fooled myself again
What I saw as a window
was only a mirror that needed mending
And what I heard as your voice
was always the wind
hurling back at me my own laments.

Beauty brutally murdered my captain
One touch, and the crew deserted
a hasty mutiny to an unknown island
Where I before with calm weathered
the waves, now the torrent upends
the bow, wrecked upon rocks
that could've been havens.

So I'm thrown from the sea to the sands
Left alive by a wiser hand than
I, doomed to make beach castles, just a man
mending the grains, seeing the slate
wiped clean again and again
forever banned from the mountain
and the densely wooded lands.

One day I'll abandon my post
cut short my careful tending
and set off from the coast
Leave behind the crooked lines
and SOS signs, the feeble moats
Face the interior, each step deep down
and further down into the jungle dark
and every fear the most
Hope beyond all Hope that all I own is Hope
and one day reach the sun, then I'll know.

And what keeps me shuffling through the dark?
The thought of you shuffling too
alone and apart
Not the thought that our end
will be as our start
but that the art
of the whole **** thing
is all we are.

I long
                    like
something plush weeping
         into a pillowed hug

of empty oxygen

though I try the Brave Game,
                                         (and usually win)
               flakes of me run
           off my arms and face
and scrounge around the corners of the room
          
                                                           looking for your mellow sting.

supposedly,
“heartache”
is figurative.
                        But I definitely feel
a              s t r e t c h i n g
mush
right where
the Doctors say my heart
                       should probably be

a slight tremor
(      echoes      )
      through every joint
of my toy frame,
              like a thousand elfin voices talking
                      about your favorite foods,
                      and the color of your hugs.

    the tightening
muscles of my throat
        send their regards to your
amicable eyes

              2.5 is a smallish bird
when one observes
             the blue expanse of my ocean life
but it pecks my most tender tissues
                     when I sit [flat] inside Today.

I miss
      like
someone resized my skin

                                            incompetently.

though I am grateful
for your delicate absence
                      (the elusive Good deserves you most)

I feel as if
the petty bird’s wing tensions
        won’t be satisfied
with the look of my dappled shoulders
till you stroke them densely
with your matter-of-fact fingers.

To your owned basement of the air
From hearing my earth giants,
You make benign the aery introspection
For chiral black and white caves,
Blue floor boards, blue electric pans
Hear this last business, is outside
Blank walls, stagnating a corporeal
Chamber of dazzling originals,
      Densely deserted.
                  But airrenters
Buy other peoples bean sprouts, a singularity of stripes,
Foreign war.
Such nothingness destroys
Your earfull of shadows a living being
Earfulls, which, the content, wouldn't conceal
Life for caressing boughs of every waterway;
Death, someone else's solid stays at home.

I'm far from a prophetic
man.
I don't care enough
about those Ill leave behind.
Or those I pass on
Gaffey street.
Through the years
of living hard and without
I've come to discover
greatness.
I've come so close
to cracking.
So close to embracing that
injured hand
of madness.

I have emerged from
the solitary prison cells
and the sad existence
of life locked into
a drug den I called
my home.
I've come out
the other side
with a densely
colored vision of
it all.

It's not all
in Greys,
but with the times
I've spent in the Grey.
Thus gave birth to
my convictions.

Veiling streaks on hill and yard
o shroud the yearn of coldest heart.
Low fog does densely cloud in shame
that you and I could feel the same.

Igniting hope within the grey
shall raise the shooting eye
Onward the light; be bold yet humble!
this might be more than mere a stumble.

New radiant warmth beneath the canopy
gives promise of the sweetest progeny.
Velvet hands to touch and feel,
let this desire be our seal!

Early storm comes as monsoon
as if the branches were to prune.
Ends you and me too soon.

Ok, first the basics
If you turn on the tap, just a dribble
And hold a straw, just off vertical underneath
The water will flow to the end of the straw
And drip off

Imagine many straws, densely packed
Just the tips showing
All sloping at an angle
And fixed to a steep roof

Water (rain) will be shed
And the roof will remain dry

The steeper the roof
The quicker the rain will shed
But the steeper the roof
The more material is used

Then there's the thickness
The thicker the better surely?
Well, the thicker the layer of straws
The flatter the angle at which they lay
And so the less efficient they are at shedding water

Thatching
Like life
Is a compromise

I buy the gluten-free protein bar, peanut butter and chocolate, because this is who I am now. This is me. This is me as a lighthouse of personal fitness, a man of discipline, of a principle or two. And I surf only the most densely populated dating apps, looking—somewhat feverishly, I must admit—for a likeminded woman, a scholar, a child of the moon, a frequent quoter of the Dhammapada, an insatiable and acrobatic lover, and I imagine her driving the dark streets seeking me. Polly in a Prius. My future muse, near but out of reach. We'll reclaim the arts district. She'll piggyback to the open mike, her ****-me shoes clicking in her hand. We'll spend a year politicizing every ****** encounter. Consensual assaults in perpetuity. And she'll say I'm a white man. And she'll say I think this is my privilege. And she'll say she's into leather and she finds my *** offensive and she'll hold my head against the wall. And at the end, if there's an end, I imagine our naked bodies wrapped in a stained comforter, all of the desire spent. I imagine our minds sober and clear, wondering how we could have ever been so kinked out, so on fire for something, and yet so ******* unable to remember a single ****** or whether or not we transcended. I'll vacuum the apartment. Polly will take her Warhol prints, pack up the Prius, and go anywhere, anywhere not here. Seattle. Maybe Portland. A few weeks will pass, and I'll find a note in whatever book I'd been reading before she left. It'll say: I loved you to the max. I loved you to the max. I loved you to the max.

Is a man
who acquiesces to love's embrace
ever sinless? (never a lamb)
always libidinous? (perpetually the wolf)  

I pondered this (stigmatic) question
as I entered the densely-wooded trail,
to seek my analogous answers
in the enchanting mystery of the naked forest--

Much as I had before,
seeking truth and solace in love's embrace;
tucked within her ample *****,
where I had once lain my head
gently flowing with the rise and fall
of her chest--

much like the advances and retreats
of aching waves on the beleaguered shore.

I traveled the woods, taking it all in--
as I, the woods,
and the woods, my love,
and the earth, my foundation,
and the sky:
My god.

I heard avian sprites dance in the thickets and brush,
scampering away from my intrusions.

These birds; be they so timid in my presence?
Or, in their sprite-like visage,
do they simply mirror such intrinsically motivated ambulations;
their impalpable purposes impervious to Man's prodding.  

I feel I seek their fleeting company in my mind's eye,
who wanders incessantly in its dreadful musings,
while my earthly senses
merely soak in what is to be seen.

And I see the naked overturned tree--
victim of the vitriolic hurricane's rages;
who lies ashamed before my queried glances,
silently panning from empty branches
protruding from a battered trunk,
down to her meandering roots--
who look meaningless in their desperate search
for earthly riches.

I almost feel guilty enough to cast my eyes from her sight--
and she is left to only rot in the foliage
that once entertained her life;

and her in turn having once contributed
to the beauty
I precede,

in the impending vernal equinox
alluded by the returning chansonettes
of those dainty birds--
who sing and dance among those branches sturdier than hers.

I felt her woes accumulating in her shameful exposure
to wicked love's throes and I wept alongside her.

(Pitiful, unspoken empathy.)

---

I finally make it to the overlook,
and the rugged solitary picnic table--
where I sit and gaze over the cove,
and the shore that lurks beneath
my commanding earthly footing.

Sighing at the merrymakers perched atop their aquatic vessels--
their cries and screams of elation reaching me,
like mocking phantoms lurking in the woods,
echoing off the hollow shells

(and I write this all with numbing fingers
and tearing eyes, blinking furiously
in frigid but calm winds never hiding their presence)--

I see them, closer now as I make my way to the beach;
but how is it I am the one sinking,
when my feet are the ones planted firmly on the shore?

My shoe'd feet seep into the wet sand--
a dull orange, so lifeless and cold;

Infinitely malleable.

As I once was,

in love's embrace.

---

In the sand:
the lukewarm tracks of man and beast--
traveling side by side,
their destinations a mystery to me,
but their paths encapsulated in the gritty earth
where I once again sense the duality of my soul.

Man and beast imprinted in the malleable confines
of my innermost being, where
the ceaseless waves crash onto the shore
of my battered conscience,

and I feel sinking atop my muddy thoughts
the footprints of man and beast--
the biped and the quadruped--
stepping in tune to nature's melodies.

When I acquiesced to love,
man and beast did not step harmoniously
in the sand,
and the waves of lust crashed over my conscience
like the perfect storm.

In utter torment,
I shied from its ceaseless beatings,
but I foolishly dug my withering tendrils into the mutable sand,
and the wind's booming voice furiously knocked me onto my back--

and though her advancing body had suddenly lain atop mine,
with kisses like icy daggers and eyes like amorphous storm clouds--
her words and my conscience
lay heavier on me still;

On the shore,
and in the woods:
Where I lay naked and exposed,
where I lay shameful and remorseful,
where I lay hopeless and tasteless,
where I lay to this day--

rotting in the foliage that once gave me life,
and I in turn,

beauty.

The wailing winds sear their caress in my memory
The cold of an eastern Pennsylvanian winter
Stinging yet rejuvenating, surrounded by ubiquitous gusts
This place is sacred, this hallowed ground
My toes rocking on top of the semi frozen hillside
Staring out across a chain or rolling hills and deciduous forests
Trees packed so densely together I see only one ever extending canopy of leaves
Seamlessly shifting colors as if on a whim
I feel small in this moment
Amidst the grand expanse of nature that has humbled my soul
The mist and lingering breath pouring from the nose of a horse tamed yet yearning for the open pasture
The clouds that soak up the pinks and blues of a setting sun
The wailing winds seared into my memory
I am home I am home.

The North African morning light is thin and ****** and
Walking men are rinsed in the dim blush, they
Walk with heads down and
Cradle, eyes bent, contemplating, gently sipping
Steaming densely syruped espresso from miniature paper cups,
Bought from the nearest cafe. Their
Spreading hands are wrapped
Delicately around those doll-size paper
Cups (sometimes glass ones)
And still they walk, tasting tannic liquid
Courage, holding, with tender precision,
Candied black strength. I
Drink too, though because homemade, not
As strong a cup -
And now we both, the walking men and I
Tip heads back and face the newly purged
Light, emboldened by borrowed audacity.

American Nightmares
Prologue
The pale moon hangs, glowing in the blank sky, shining just enough light for the thick foliage and densely pack trees to be seen. Evening sounds silenced by the sloshing of rushing feet racing through the woods.  In the distance a beagle howls in frustration. Sniffing and wheezing as he tries to pick up a lost trail.
Deeper in the woods a lone figure races at a maddening pace, bumping into trees, scratching his flesh against their harsh bark; causing bleeding. The young man’s eyes water up from a mixture of sweat, pain, and fatigue. Fear permeates his entire being
A thin orange suit clings lazily to his sweaty bronze skin, almost mocking his emaciated frame, which is actually a couple sizes too small for the jumpsuit. The dark figure has been running for days. Hot on his heels, his pursuers persisted. He knows being caught would mean a far worse fate than what he escaped.
Another mile and his legs began to leaden. Each step becoming heavier than the last. The sharp sting of lactic acid burning his side. Breath becoming spasmodic. Eyes bulging, still he maintains a frantic pace.
Running full force until his left foot catches the edge of a dark brown rotten root rising from the earth. A cloud of dirt explodes from ground immersing him in a brown mist. Spittle and blood spew from the runner’s mouth as he coughs violently. His breath rushing away even as he tries to calm himself.
Crawling from the dirt he searches for some sort of purchase, finding none he rests his weary frame against the nearest oak. Then the waterworks really hit. The sound of moans escaped his busted and parched lips.
“I will make it home.” He repeats over and over, like a mantra.
His fingers feel the frame of the tree he is resting against. Hands begin falling and rising for some strange reason, until they settle at the base. There just inches away from his digits sits a patch of mushrooms. The forgotten pain of hunger returns, so without examining the fungus he plucks them up and swallows them whole. Then half crawling half stumbling he moves to the stream which lay a few yards from the tree.
Cupping his hands he fills his palm with water; then slurps it up, repeating the process again and again till he has drunk his fill. Next he splashes the cool liquid on his face, hair, pits, chest, and other portions of his body massaging the blood and dirt from his aching skin till he manages to cleanse the wounds all over his person. Closing his eyes, he finally succumbs to the exhaustion that has been ******* him.
A bulge of earth begins to rise pushing his limp frame away from the stream and pulls him back to the tree. Then branches and leaves coalesce around his body till he is safely hidden from plain sight.
He awakens; eyes dilated, and body shivering. While brushing away the brush he turns to the tree, stands up shakily, and then wipes away the rest of the leaves and dirt, not noticing the slowly growing dark spot on his orange jumpsuit.
Tears streaming he softly whispers “Hello tree my name is John.”






















Chapter 1

Tree, sweet Tree, I beg of you tell me. Why does America hate me? I did everything I was told to do. I went to school. I stayed away from white women, never made eye contact with white men, became a teacher, and took care of my people.
What the hell was all that for? I am going to end up another dead black man in the backwoods of some southern hick state! I got these stupid leg irons weighing me down, and hells hounds are riding my trail.
Stupid ******* animals!
Filthy ******* *******!
What is the ******* point? Huh?
My dad was a good man too. He followed the unwritten rules of the white man. Never stole anything or hurt anyone, mostly. Do you know what they did to him Tree? Well do you?
They tied him to a post, sliced chunks of flesh from his hard muscular frame while burning him alive. They burnt him alive, Tree.
My father was a strong and righteous man, a man who loved his wife and child. My mother, who was barely half his weight and a good foot shorter, she had the palest skin of any black woman I have ever met. Her hair was the perfect shade of earth with eyes a couple tints darker. Her nose was tiny and lips thin as any white woman’s. I’d imagine she was as white as any ***** could get. She had a voice that soothed my darkest pains and fears. At night when I went to bed she would sing to me.
Oh my darling
Brown skin angel
Don’t be frightened
I’ll be right here
Hold you tight and
Watch you sleep
Guard you tonight
While you sleep
Oh my darling
I’ll be here
To keep your heart
Safe my sweet dear
Everything will be alright

I remember when I came home that day. I saw my dad clutching the tiny limp frame of my mother, sobbing furiously. Her body looked paler than usual. I had never seen tears fall from my father’s face. I don’t think he even saw me come in. I just stood in the doorway. I stood there and waited for him to say something. I wanted to cry but I was so scared that I just held my breath instead.
Our neighbor came and took me to their house. Back then I did not know what had happened. It took me over seven years to find out what happened to my mother. Do you know what happened Tree?
A handful of white men came to our house and ***** my mother.
Sometimes in my nightmares, that horrible scene plays out. I hear the sound of rapping at our door; the yells of angry men echoing through the house. I see the wooden door bulge as it begins to crack under their onslaught. Then I watch as men with no faces explode into our house, sweeping my mother off her feet, ripping the clothes off her body as she scream in horror, I would wake up in a state of horror and sorrow, weeping.
I am haunted even now. I cannot begin to imagine the pain my father felt, but I do know what happened next, because I snuck out of our neighbor’s house to comfort my father. I watched as he left our home with rage and violence in his heart. In one hand he held a knife; it seemed to be a foot long, half handle half cold hard sharpened steel; in the other hand he carried a gun. I followed him from a safe distances, heard him scream for the men that had attacked my mother.
When the sheriff came to calm him down, dad was startled and turned around accidently cutting Mr. Brinkley with the blade. The sheriff and his deputies arrested my father. I was certain that everything would be okay. The sheriff was a decent man. I heard him talking calmly to my father. He told my dad that he understood what was going on.
That night white men came for my father. They hollered for justice, screaming “bring out that ******* ******.”
The sheriff tried to reason with the mob. He told them “This is between me and my prisoner.”
He tried to stop the mob with force, but there were at least fifty men. Probably more if you counted the people that kept joining up with the mob. The mob broke down the prison door, took my father from his small stone cell, all the while taunting him.  “You’re gonna fry ******.” From a distance and hidden in shadows I watched.
I saw an old lady spit on him. I watched as children raced around my father, dancing in and out of the procession, and tossed stones, from the side of the road, at my father. The mob drug him down to the town square. Tied him up, and lit a fire beneath him. The whole time my father’s head was hung in defeat. I swear he knew what was coming. It seemed that In the face of that onslaught all emotion had faded from his face. I guess he didn’t want to give them the pleasure of seeing him squirm.
As the flames started to consume his flesh, I saw the sheriff go for his gun. He raised his pistol and aimed for my father’s head, but the men in the mob wrestled the gun from his hand. Meanwhile my father had given into the horror and pain. He began to howl like an animal as the flames danced across his flesh crackling and pooping. He screamed for some sort of mercy, crying out for someone to shoot him.
I raced from the shadows, stealing a gun from some old white man. Then I shot my father in the head. Most of the men in the mob looked on dumbstruck. That gave me enough time to get away so I hightailed it out of there. I never went back for anything. I spent the rest of that night in the woods praying that what I had done was the right thing.
In the weeks and months to come I slept very little. When I did manage to fall asleep my dreams would cycle from the flaming horrors of my father’s death to the ****** of my mother.
Still, I managed to make something out of myself despite those sick atrocities. By working hard I finished school and became a teacher. A couple years after I started teaching I was arrested. They took me to jail; brought me up on some ******* charges. Part of me was certain I would end up being lynched, so when I was sentenced to a chain gang, man I was relieved.
Had I known what was gonna happen I would have preferred being lynched, at least then I would have been dead. Instead they worked me **** near to death, starving, and beating me like a slave. My brown skin has brought me nothing but grief. So tell me Tree, why does America hate me?











Interlude

“Tell me tree, why does America hate me?” John sputters.
A soft breeze caresses his skin.
“Why the hell am I talking to a tree?” He cries. “What is the point?”
The blood stain on John’s clothes still expanding, and his shivers become far worse.
“Tell me tree, what is the ******* point? America hates Negroes. I’m going to die out here. Say something.”
The air swirls around him, and a soft voice fills his head.
“Do you think you are alone in your suffering? Know now that you are not. My children suffer horrors too.  Listen carefully and I will tell you.
John turns to find the source; finding nothing he collapses, listening straining to hear the voice again.















Chapter 2

Dear John I am the spirit of the winds, mother to the natives. Do you think that yours is the only tongue to taste the bitter fruit of America’s wrath? My child let me tell you of the first people of America. Listen to the tragic tale of my children. Before the Europeans came many tribes roamed this land. They were human and as such had flaws of their own, but in many ways they were poetry in the form of flesh.
The men would hunt during the day. Anything they caught was considered a sacred gift. They would use all that they could from the body of the beast. They treated my mother’s brown dirt earth, flesh as sacred, and I loved them for that. Women held equal value and had equal say in their tribes. There were wars, of course, but mostly my children strived to live in harmony with the land.
Then white men came. My children welcomed them with open arms, helped them survive, and do you know how they were repaid that kindness? Once received and no longer needed, it was returned with treachery and violence. Bit by bit they pushed my children back. Pushing them off one parcel of land and then another, slaughtering tribes after tribe. Still my children survived.  When the white men could not **** all of my progeny, they came for the children. Some parents wept, some fought back, and some merely accepted it as inevitable.
I watched it all. I saw the men on horseback come for the children. The songs of lament tortured my heart. The tears of the children ripped at my very soul. I lashed out at the white men with all of nature’s fury, biting their flesh with my fierce and frosty winds. I sent the fiercest wind I had at my disposal. However, the children were still taken.
The children were dragged to schools far from their homes. They would cry out in their native tongues. I remember my sweet Rose. Yes, Rose was her name, John. She was as strong as the oak tree. Passion coursed through her veins faster and harder than the river’s water. She was born so tiny that the elder of the village was certain she would not make it. Yet, when she broke free of the womb coughing and sputtering, she cried with such a powerful voice that even I was taken aback. This tender babe had my attention. I swore I would watch over her.
The first seven summers of her life were spent in the loving care of her tribe. Her black hair grew almost down to her feet. Her eyes were brown, brimming with the unknown depth of her soul. She was unafraid, the pride of her father and joy of her mother, a creature to be cherished.
One fall morning as the orange sun was slowly ascending the soldiers came. Little Rose was wrenched her from her parents’ arms. Her father’s rage was stopped by a bullet that bled him dry. No one else would fight for this child, so I beat against the soldiers back. I struggled to wrench her from their arms and return her to her mother’s safe embrace.
The soldiers did not even recognize my fury. With that failure I watched Rose’s mother fell into despair. Her prayers of peace and love soon turned to prayers for vengeance and the return of her child. Many nights we wept together mourning the loss of father and daughter.
Rose’s mother could not join her child, so I tried to watch out for her. I followed the soldier to a tall white washed building that had been liberated from the southerners during the previous war. I heard the headmaster say “in order to save the child, we must **** the savage within.”
Day and night I raged against the solid white structure, slamming shutters and doors, pounding the roofs with torrential fury. Only stopping when I realized that the children were shuddering in fear of me.
At night Rose would sing the songs of her people. During the day she would stare in defiance as the teachers tried to make her speak the English tongue. She refused to yield, so they responded to her spirit with violence. The taste of soap saturated her mouth while the stinging welts marred her backside. Still my Rose remained strong. I was filled with pride. I had seen older children fall into silence and subservience.
Rose was a cut about the rest. Still, one can only fight for so long before the fire begins to wane. Each day some of her resilience would fade. I could not enter the building to comfort her, but when she was outside I would wrap her in my windy arms, cradling her spirit against mine. I would carry the whispered words of love her mother sent, and return Rose’s love to her mother. Had I known what was going on in that building maybe I could have blown harder, maybe I could have pelted the nuns and the preacher with sharp stones and hardwood.
As the glimmer of light faded even faster, I started catching the whispers of my children. Their dead bodies began to scar the sacred earth. One after another fell, faster and faster. I watch their flames die. What kind of wind was I that could not fly them away from harm?
One day while blustering away I caught the most horrid sight. I saw a sick man lay his hands on my Rose. She shivered in disgust as he groped her bare skin. He took such sick liberties. In my rage I waited and stewed, plotting and hoping he would come outside. My anger gave me more power than I had ever known. I flung him to and fro spinning him round and round, beating him down every time he tried to rise. I hurled stones and sticks at him. When I was spent, his face was dripping with blood, his lip busted and swollen. He ran like a coward.
Rose remained trapped in that house of horrors. More children died. Day after day Rose lost more of her language. Till one day she could not remember the songs of her people. I watched her sobbing while trying to recall the words as a nun slapped her in the face.
One night under the pale glow of moonlight Rose lit herself on fire. She became a burning flame to match her once radiant spirit. As she burned she screamed out for release. I tried to put out the flames with gusts of wind and heavy rain, but I was too late. Rose fell to ashes resting on the moist earth. Gathering what I could of her remains I sent her last words and ashes home to her tribe.
That night rang with lamentation of her people. Sobs of regret filled her mother’s body. As hard as tried I could not comfort Rose’s mother. She would not be consoled. On the coldest night of that year Rose’s mother walked from her abode, slipping off her clothes, she moved in silence. Every step adding to the numbness she longed