I stepped in through his ears, covered in hot mud
and rolled off his tongue clean as a whistle.
I was no longer a whisper, he uttered in a painted mirror.
Scratching out two eyes that saw nothing but themselves.
He came to wonder
if there are ants in my stomach feeding an army
off the peaches I couldn’t eat for six summers.
Three winters with no springs yet, the snow up to my neck.
My eyes spilt pearls like a Japanese ghost, onto the white cold
he buried me in.
and when that melts into the lush green we’ve yet to writhe on,
I hope there are limbs left to entwine us,
I hope there are streams made to wash us.
My body unchilled is sight for him to absorb,
and record and plan a trip.
Diction may be a skill he knows
that I have learned to be versed in,
but no matter the assemblage of my alibis,
he finds me guilty, so I choose to make quiet familiar,
and comfortable and the stringy nerve endings I've grafted
into his skin and his kiss when I love him,
are threatened to be severed with scalding water,
poured from the darkest kettle called
doubt.

I want to know what your favorite is
Because I think it would tell me lots about you.

Whether you care most about intent
Or style or diction or timing.
Or if meaning is your all.

And then maybe I can use that for us
And see what you notice most there:
Intent, style, diction, meaning.
When our lips touch, do you judge it by the repetition
Or by the desire?

Slowly, I will come to understand you.

There's a simplicity to your grace.
The moment I first caught a gaze as I was lost in your face.
Admiring every beauty mark, every gesture, making sure not to miss a detail.
Probably looked like a deer in headlights; you're not just a gust, you're the prominent wind to my sail.
You speak volumes with silence, a powerful talent.
You're a gifted bird when others can't land it.
I'd journey alongside each one of your curves, take pit stops to poke at every nerve;
Just so I can see what it would take to get you on that verge.
Take a dive off your forehead to land on your lips,
Lay there in bliss while your words serve as a blanket for me to reminisce.
And as I lay there in splendor of the ideas you render,
I jot down love poems for practice so I can show you once I get better.
I even have one I wouldn't mind to display.
I'll show you it now; you let me know if it's worth something to say.
It goes:

YOUR LOVE IS AN INSTRUMENT AND I WANT TO MASTER IT'S HARMONY -
CAUTIOUSLY, PLUCK AT THE STRINGS, HOPING I'M NOT MAKING A MOCKERY.
ALL THIS IN HOPES TO MAKE A MORE CELESTIAL TUNE,
I'LL BE STEADILY PRACTICING WHILE RIDING TO YOUR HEIGHT IN A HOT AIR BALLOON.

I hope you can find pleasure in the diction I splurge.
Because you need to know you breathe life into each one of my words.

Cannot fall in love with the poet.
But I am already in love with the poet.

For only the poet knows how to please me
with the rhythm
of words
the sensation
of rhymes
the aesthetics
of images
the purpose
of diction

on the same page
our words are intertwined
  our rhymes are smooth
   our images are blurry
    our diction is precise  

and we end it all with an exclamation
of one last cry.

His eyes are gentle like his poetry
sometimes they are difficult to look.
I am not always the woman he thinks I could be,
wrapped in the sheer sheet of romance,
relishing every love letter - an endless rainfall,
grasping for breath at everything splendid,
and at the end of our poem, always
yearning for more.

I am already in love with the poet, but I
have to go. And for one last time,
in our world of perfection,
together we write.

**** this restricting world!
**** this corporate America!
Just kidding, we’re free

or

we’re told we are free
given a right to life liberty and property,
well originally,
but now we have the right to pursue happiness,
not to be happy, just to look for it,

But my search is over.
Who could ever be happy in this polluted world?
No polluted like the air,
polluted in the mind,
We are sick twisted carbon copies of what was once greatness

No room in the curriculum for questioning
MCAS MCAS MCAS
SAT SAT SAT
AP AP AP
these standardized tests **** originality  
****** questioning
Memorizing the test is blinding,
shutting out the good things in this still wondrous world,

you see me sitting quietly in my room,
My mind is screaming
you see me sitting calmly at my desk
I violently ****, and pull, and stretch the cage I’m in
taken captive by a so called reality

A reality in which money is the same as success
A reality where feeling is a sign of weakness,
and a reality in which fun is only for stupid children
when did this horror begin?

Money is meaningless just a piece of paper
feeling is NOT weakness it’s what reminds us we are human
and fun is something everyone needs sometimes

I was given hands, a mind, a mouth and legs
these are (from what I’m told) the tools required to rise above this reality
Yet this image, this illusion is stopping me
this illusion that my tools are inadequate broken

It’s like that favorite toy a young child has because
as I said fun is just for kids, by the way thanks for denying us Trix
anyways he’s at school all day
just waiting to play with it,
unable to think about anything else,
and he gets home and runs through his mom cooking in the kitchen
rushed up the stairs
almost trips but doesn’t
and he gets to his room picks up this fantastic toy and
it’s batteries are missing

This is like me

My hands have the ability to write,
to draft new ideas
beautify the world with diction and rhetoric
unify the world with strong words
that have positive connotation,
because I don’t want to pursue happiness
I’m a little greedy and it’s like this
if I have the right to live
and the right to liberty
than I am making **** sure that I am happy

My mind is a holy vessel
or it was before I let it be molded
before I betrayed the great thinkers that came before me
it should be home to morals and ethics,
yet it’s filled with lies
all my productive thoughts blocked
by the newest TV series on ABC and FOX

My mouth would be very useful
if my mind would help me think of something intelligent to say
oh I wish I didn’t betray
let them in day by day
infusing me with poisonous thoughts
thought of memorizing facts not understanding them
thoughts about questioning being the same as stupidity
thoughts lacking individuality

My legs should help me
stand up for what I believe in
Like Martin Luther King did
Like Fredrick Douglass did
Like The Framers, Rosa Parks, Abbie Hoffman
and Abraham Lincoln did
Stuff I would fight for
live, cry, and die for-
But I’m feeling crippled today

We’ve run out of Prophets Renegades and leaders

we are part of a generation too easily influenced and too quickly swayed
but what can I say? I am a victim just like you
and I’m curious as to what we need to do

I have-I’m not sure yes yes I think it’s an idea
and I might need you

Lets hold each other up
support our crippled legs with one another
lets question even when we’re told there’s no room
lets resurrect originality I mean after all
we have the right to life liberty and property,
well originally

More smoke than air in lungs if your a buyer.

More fire than water in blood if your a writer!

 It's 4am, settle down, your not tired?

All that caffeine will shorten the time before you expire!

                                                                                                                When the sun is up , I'm in my bed.

                                                                                                         When the moon is up, I'm out my head.

                                                                                                        Cabinets open, take the tie off the bread.

                                                                                                  Twisted close, my nickname's ***** thread.

Cans over here. Cans over there.

Can you get out your recycled chair?

Spinning around, rolling eye glare.

Perched on a throne in a 4 walled lair.

                                                                                                  Coordination of letters into a poetic diction.

                                                                                                      Separate each word like fact from fiction.

                                                                                                           Space things out; "and" "or" transition.

                                                                                                Correlate the points for a literary  prediction.

the common words used
don't qualify as diction
hold no versimilitude
leave me to ponder what is so compelling
about the word like
that you have to use it
several times
in every sentence?

i hail a car
in time's square
i'm going to Harvard
the world's premier academy
where i won't be asked
to stop using "big words"
but instead receive diatribes for being prolix
because they're too pretentious
to admit ignorance

you!
how dare you try
to say you never
shoved your tongue down my throat
no fancy words
no "flowery fluff"
there it is,
now fight it!

I hide in my room
pain isn't pellucid
in the dark

EEEE!
it's a womanizer
mujeriego
or a bat...
murcielago
i always mixed up those two words
an idee fixe

as i declaim
to anyone who will listen
in my Faux-cab-you!-lair-EEEEE!

My happiness comes from me ask my friends and the world around me blossoming in a spark of crimsony red moon glow on forethought walks through the shivering lenses of percept that trickle down our backs as we enlighten ourselves with all that is in between and unseen.

It is as if our aged limbs were caressed into a symphony of leverages and their shapes. We cannot be cadavers. We are arms of cheer and picture jasper, adolescent googled-eyes gathers with virile fixations on our partners as we prey on the map lines subtly employing our eyes as we dart across each dimple, pimple, freckle, and gently worn rash lines.

These are the dogs of our incessant barking. Idling for sincerity, as actors swiftly press Winter into us while our limbless diction presents our inadequacy Rd upon our ugly and I'll-tempered neighborly-things. Aliens of the afternoon, first floor agony and karmas standard for living in a reduced climate One.

Wearing down the hooves, undulates from Pepperdine mark trails with breaking breads and twigs and bones. Undulates from another world, behoofed and bemoved, curdling their sappy reselling a of drat and unkindly remarks. And we have begun to wonder when evolution will kick-in. When will the military come for them at the doors and vacate is all from our nontoxic lie-shrouded apartment complexes, condos, and cabins. Slaughter numbers of letters and integers right out in the street; loonies in the town square and the moose are crying.

Used to be convincing, now I'm word mincing
Funny guy telling lies, stop that face from wincing
Shut the word forge down, absurd surge start to pour out
Brain matter splatter in colored conviction, how I rattle off with four dimensional diction
Once this **** was scripted, now these lips don't do cryptic, legendary fiction, not yet mythic
Contemporary Christians sit listless, labeling those they hardly know
That's we, people like me, as infamous and wicked, can you even conceive
Not that I need the acquittal, never say please for a spoon full of ******
Hate this human disease; doubtful economic, muted mumbles of Ebonics, questionable hearts freeze
Turned cold-blooded because violence it seems is our cure all reprieve
Instead of honest admittance, no room for forgiveness, when we elect politics that lie
Ignite the engines that chain drive, infernal furnaces of the reapers design
Calling out to the sky; "forgive us were blind!"
Upon final inception, the birth of nightmarish conception
Awoken to world of hard line lesson, seasons of trick testing
So tell me then, can you live with A or B? dip those toes into sea and you'll know what I mean
Dare you to please.

The beast cobbler somber suited to putrid minions,
And picked apart the whiskers of death and scribed a diction,
"He hath no fury than an arcade weapon scorn"
Tis I blasted through virtual vitriol levels with life unborn,
Licking the literature scriptures and propagandizing dilemma,
I trained Cerberus into a vicious *******,
Biting heathens with the molars demons fear to run from,
Too **** farmer to sail away from my problems,
I reaped too many seeds to bleed,
So all your fuming won't do absolute **** to me,
I'm a dark stepchild of instability and fertility,
Shallow stocking delinquent seeking fire with an angel match cracking humility,
I'm a typhoon buffoon with Hanna-Babara tendencies,
**** with me and get a lethal dose of dynamite and Trojan Horse remedies,

Writers are quite dangerous.
She came to the bar, to watch,
And listen, to hear stories.

Carefully, I tread. For fear,
That my own diction, would become
Trapped in her world of fiction.

Though, of course we swapped pieces.
And still, only selected to paint,
A vision of my own creation.

Small freedoms, but they matter most.
As I'm a prisoner to demon's I host.
Be wary poets, of power most foul.

Ensnaring half spectres of being,
In a prose, a thought or a feeling.
Reality is as real as you write it.

And then the Spark -
did ignite in me terribly so -
dose of doubtful Diction - unleashed.
And the soul needs comforts too -
Soothing for its Aches - Oh! - but the Aches!
It Aches terribly so.
Humanity toxically hurts - causes the pain.
Yet, Company can cure this curse -
Paradoxically entwined with Mankind.
If only all men were kind.
This Spark would surely not burn - bleed -
so terribly so.
- No -
This Spark would blaze up Celestially - Angel's push towards the ethereal beauty - and then -

Proceeding in the wake of mankind's scourge,
Spoken are the words of this great demiurge,
At dusk the cowled of the night shall emerge,
And convey a true evil on God's Earth to resurge.  

Unleashed and unfathomed, behold the words of a phantom
Turning cities into craters and the oceans to chasms,
Imagine: a picture perfect world, can it exist,
Without the plague of the human race, lost without a trace in abyss!

Ignorance tragic, the magic of bliss,
Static damage to the rabid on this planet of ****,
An example of this: the progression of time
Deteriorating in abundance, a final judgment for mankind.

Exterminate the population, man, woman and child,
Convictions, the arrival, apocalypse nigh!
None will survive, total disaster, blood stain alabaster
Abstain, refrain, salvation from a heavenly ******* shall be sought in vain.

Unexplainable cataclysm,
The missing piece of the puzzle unseen in catechism,
But it was written somehow and somewhere
And the emergence of its purpose was unclear, deny what you fear!

The end is near, malevolent seraphim invade,
The end is here, a feeble humanity kneels and prays
It was revealed, none prepared and none spared
And act of evil, fitting for the slaughter of a people.

Mephistophelian ascension,
A requiem for the souls of the ruined be sung
For a destruction, beyond all human comprehension.
Alarum with no human intervention!

An apoplectic annihilation, fed lies by inhalation,
Microbial immolation, infected detestation,
Evasive evasion, catastrophic, melancholic
Leaving mankind intoxicated by his own narcotic

Whilst hypnotically induced, the demons invade,
Equestrian quartet lead the massive evil brigade
A battalion of stallions, on fray to slay grace
Laid to waste in the face of the inhuman race.

To keep pace, without a trace, Messiah on Fire
In dire need, erase calumny the Heavenly liar feeds
Desire breeds and hatred grows
Within those a crueler fate chose the pyre to bleed.

An ascension to an unknown throne overthrown,
A crown adorned in thorns be thy Kingdom's scorn
To the Black, I am sworn, prophet to the swarm,
The scores of the forlorn born to battle in the storms

Of Ragnarok, the magma rocks rain from the sky,
The Earth will end in fire, watch the genesis die.
Terrestrial crucifixion, the mortals' last affliction,
Desperation bringing forth a dogmatic dereliction.

Infliction of pain, deadly diction to the slain in vain,
A spoken name, confliction causing friction
An addiction to the wicked, auspicious yet pernicious,
Foreboding a sinister outcome of ecumenical wishes.

As I watch the sky’s canvas change
I begin to think of the painter.
That one who is watching the same elsewhere,
and what he might think of such a scene.

Sitting, he would be looking out watching the sky’s stage alter,
painting gardens’ clouds, each colored different, span silver through red;
switching-- torn between red roses, white lilies, or orange tulips--
forming the garden's space, quickly. The eve’s sun dips down gently,
giving way as blue hues ascend opposite that orb’s retreat.
Envious, Sun lets Moon's beauty pull lovingly over him.
Nature’s nocturnal chorus singing, lulling its audience.
The bittersweet dark—another day, the painting not quite done,
put to sleep. The silent din engulfing his mind’s empty thought—
darkness switching on that light which calms artists’ creative springs.

“Light Regardless of its source—may it be pure
as the sun’s rays, or some modern substitute—
has some aesthetic quality. I’m not sure,
however, where from the light best contributes.
Is beauty derived by where the light emits?
Or is it enlightened by where the ray hits?”

He began mulling this thought over; turning it over and over—questions born.
A discource of such phenomena will show a thought forming--
nay, a riddle; with answers hiding, not wanting to be known:

“Is it the sunset’s orange and red that awes,
or the blueing clouds opposite that cause pause?”
The dams holding thought buckle; ideas, questions flood the bard’s mind.

“Is a smile’s worth found in its owner’s mouth,
or the ensuing grin, no longer pout?”
Plain idea, now broad. “Because a smile can be contagious…

“Is the eloquence of a speech seen as art,
or inspiration now gained to do one’s part?”
Words, an entity with power, reign over—the poet awakes.

“Is a poem’s verse the beauty of the bard,
Or diction plied with inferred worth— it’s guard?”
That ability permits the ineffable to be explained.

Eyes adjust to the sun’s speed—now energy and courage’s built--
awakes from that swoon. “The slothful lovers stay behind,” thought Sun,
“Neglect not that flight presented, which taken, betters the will:
'Brighten the world.' That dark denizen inspires warmth in me.”
The sun’s rise concludes those thoughts studied the night before-
grabbing his brush, thinks: “En Guarde stubborn canvas, my mind’s at ease.”
Vitality-- flying wild thoughts which emerge--decides
what key his baton should direct them, either the drawn sun’s source
or the face which welcome’s its colors being exemplified.

After a minute of looking I turn my gaze,
happy to leave that place .
Knowing full well in a full day
I’ll have this dream occur once more.
That daily walk, whose length directs my drifting thoughts,
rotates the sets of beauties dreamt, each fresh from a growing list long as time.

I remember how warm the look in your eyes used to be.
You see, I play those moments back in my mind,
Time after time.
A little light just for me.

I remember how safe I felt whenever you held me close.
That strength you swore would stay for any length of time.
You promised you'd always be mine.

I remember how your voice used to sound.
Your song would make my heart pound, but now?
I'm so damaged I'm numb.

And you are too but by *** and coke
And not a word is spoken between us because now,

You lie here.
In my arms.
Fading fast.

While I try to fend of the pain the morning is bound to bring back to you again
And pray it migh last.

But the look in your eye is so distant.

The warmth,
The heat is gone.
Cold feet.

Your hands are shaking as you ask if it's really me there.

You don't even recognize me.

So, why do I care?

You appologize, but the diction is slurred.
The meaning is blurred.
I can't breathe near you.

Still, I can't bring myself to leave you.

So, I kiss your cheek and tell you that I know.
I also know that yo won' remember a confession of love to me,
Your "saving grace sent from above," so I pretend not to hear.

I hold back a tear, tuck you in bed.
And remember the things that I should have said.

The young novelist wrote in his rented room, a claustrophobic nook under the stairwell, where the ceiling sobbed dust each time the owner hurried down to work or hurried up for a forgotten prescription. Shelves crammed with the owner's yearbooks and photo albums lined the walls. He typed at a long oak desk. On which, he had one plant, a gardenia, white flowers in full bloom, and a quote by Buddha on an index card in a four-by-six-inch frame. "You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."

The sun had quit for the day. He got up and poured out his cold coffee in the bathroom sink across the hall. He dried the mug with a paper towel. Then to the kitchen, where he pressed the button on the box of Merlot, filling the recycled mug. The denouement was coming together. But he hadn't hit his stride, tapped into that secret space where words flow with natural rhythm and proper grace. His hungry or starving or emaciated mother character--he struggled with the diction, the balance between subtlety and a Coca-Cola slinger's criminal word abuse--would decide to eat her baby. Not the ******, the denouement. Critics would **** as only critics could.

He drank one cup of wine while standing in the kitchen then refilled and stepped back into his room. The plant and the Buddha quote were suggestions by his mom. She didn't like him spending so much time alone. Time alone killed her uncle. The young novelist argued it was an indiscriminate heart attack. No, his mother said, it's from all that cheese he would eat. Cheese, his mother contended, was the unitary measure of loneliness, killing you one comforting slice at a time.

Google the symbolism, his mother said of the gardenia.

Secret love.

Oh good.

That's just the first result.

I always loved them.

That was only the first. I bet they're part of the funerary tradition.

Your father used to get them once a year for Pastor Mike. Do you remember that? Around Christmas time. It was your father's way of saying we appreciate your work.

Secret love.

The quote made just about as much sense. A devout--dare he think staunch--Methodist since she was old enough to disagree and berate, his mother's selection of a Buddha aphorism begged suspicion. The young novelist assumed this was an appeal to his academic worldview, a panoramic ideology that protected him from having to value or defend anything, really. Buddhism is **** electronic dance music; Methodism is vaudeville, tired and exploitative. And if his mother was trying to be cool, that disgusted him. But if his mother was trying to meet him halfway, that excited him.

That's it, he thought, the mug now half-empty. The mother is not hungry, not starving, nor emaciated. It's a loving mother. A mother that knows the lows of living. She eats her young in an act of compromise, to protect, to prevent confusion and isolation, hell even Kraft Singles.

He sat and scooted up his chair. He wrote in a fever, a frenetic fictive dream, page by page, scene by scene through the night.

Wake up with a jump and a start.
This isn't just prose,
this is an art.
To weave your stories, through and
through, with
broken pen and missing shoe.
With mixed conviction,
perfect diction,
convicts swoon at your traditions.

As long as you believe
the lines make sense, they'll breathe
your soul and lack pretense.
Self-defense from knives to words and songs to birds,
soaring
o'er the roar and o'er the dives,
through the skyscraper's windows, break a floor and seek to strive.

Words are not just words,
I've heard many a stern voice
attacking a sturdy herd of
wavering wordsmiths who have
forgetten that they have a choice.
Alliteration counts as craftful creation
and the tale of poets shows it: these
sentences are paintings of a nation.
Decorating time and space
and all its stations of making a
stand.

You're a poet,
perfectly pathological,
hurting through rose- colored
opticals and bleeding for something
beautifuly better, just getting lost calls
but keep searching for the right letters; don't let the sands of time make you hate your written desert.
It's worth your weary hands.

Our choice of poison is devotion,
too much: inebriated.
too little: insufficient.
Our choice of diction, susceptible,
an anomaly: dissected in a lab table.
Poked by: forceps wielded by
gloved hands.
There is no mystery to our misery,
because the venom of our loneliness
is a composition of our aesthetics.

Allow me to show myself to you
Before you paint a picture of me without a reference
Let me show you what beauty looks like
Below the surface of the skin

I’ll show you the flowers in my mind
They’re so vibrant you’ll think it’s magic
If you tried to recreate them, you’d never be able to find a shade that matches just right
Some of these flowers might be wilted, but they’re still growing
I try to be like them

I’ll walk with you
Down the spiraling staircase, from the garden of my mind
We’ll walk among bookcases filled with my thoughts
In a giant library of ideas

My mind is a castle
With thick walls
And moats deeper than your imagination
The drawbridge is almost always closed
If you see it open, you know that’s one of the good days

My castle is built of similes and metaphors so strong
They could shatter a window better than any rock ever could
I use diction as bricks
I built this castle myself out of literary devices and pure magic

My hypothetical brain castle is full of more secrets than you might think
There are trap doors down every hallway
Hidden rooms full of memories i like to keep to myself

My castle has a dungeon
I like to lock away the things I don’t want to think about
There are doors that don’t open, in my castle
Keys i lost a long time ago
When i lose another key, it’s called “forgetting”
Usually I don’t even notice

There are vines creeping up the side of my castle
Things that shouldn’t be there, but they won’t go away
Later, you’ll realize they made it more beautiful

Sometimes, I mistake the castle for a prison
I forget that these walls are meant to protect me, not keep me sealed away
My castle looks more like a cell, than a home

I feel lost among in my library of ideas
The books full of my thoughts seem to be written in a language i do not recognize
I fall down trap doors i forget are there, and i mistake the flowers as weeds
My castle looks more like a cell, than a home
And all I want is to escape my own mind

Sit back and over-analyse
the lies that you were serving my mind.
Providing a way to relate
and trying not to overcompensate
for my lack of you,
I should have known you’d
***** and moan enough that
in time,
I could make your whines rhyme.
(Maybe that’s why your speaker points
were always the lowest.)
In this debate,
rate my way and rate of diction,
because truth is stranger than fiction
I sigh
cause I’m lying through my teeth
when I say “I’m okay”.
Sit back and wait for
what you think you have to say
We wager away our
bad experiences,
nearing another night of searing
dreaming
playing make-believe
with a ballpoint pen.
Remember the way all this started
with an oration and the weight
of what came to be a bad break up
make up
break up
wake up
to a world where you two don’t fit together.
Force your cracks into each others’
like broken heirlooms
Shake off the dust,
Can’t shake the thought that you’d be happier
without me.
I can’t see through this cloud of doubt without
an explanation,
an answer to the chance
that I can’t distinguish
the morning dew from her rose petals
that she tried to drown you in
from your tears.
“If this ain’t love
then how do we get out?”
Get out of this mess,
regress back into an obsession
with death,
and destruction,
let me provide some instruction
on obstructing these thoughts
that threaten to consume
what I assume is your last shred
of sanity.

the only time we care about the poor
is in disaster,
there's been freedom for decades,
but we're still owned by slave masters,
incorporated trademarks
branded on our spine,
the american dream,
might as well be bovine.
flagpole sitting flappers,
never expect to fall,
'33 til infinity,
greed affects us all,
and it's more,
than a disease,
there's no atticus,
instead, great gatsbies.
and boo radley,
aint gonna right these wrongs,
all we've got are our words
and the will to stand strong,
and it seems we're just monkeys,
launched into orbit,
in spaceships,
that only fall once reality hits,
and i don't see any solutions soon,
we consume and presume,
that this is all a cartoon,
asterix fiction,
we lack conviction,
we lack the diction,
to speak our mind,
we are confined,
to the roles,
and the moulds,
and the holes,
that are made for our souls,
we stay out of the spotlight,
even when the times right,
allergic to great heights,
like madden going to superbowls.
ice cold,
a wise man said was cooler than cool
but these fools aint never heard of ice-nine,
it's the right time,
got the right rhymes,
who cares about these thugs,
i'm set on madoff crimes,
who cares about the dealers,
follow the money like the wire,
we're civilians in vans under apache fire,
and the cover-up is comin,
the cover-up is comin
the cover-up is comin
the cover-up is comin
the only time i'm hostile,
is within,
when i gotta smile
at these businessmen,
that are tearing us apart,
and ******* on our soil,
tearing out our hearts,
creeping like the mcboyles,
i've toiled in the trenches,
for most of my days,
as have the majority of those i know,
and we can't just quit,
we gotta get paid,
materialstic societies depend on dough,
so we dream of being on boats like samberg
the only threat to our fatasses is the hamburg
-ler, there's no cure, there's no care,
there's no health, it's not fair,
but if you keep on dreamin, one day it'll be there,
simply stare at the sun, things'll brighten up,
keep buying that product, trust me, they give a ****,
fall into place, stand in single file,
and whatever you do, don't forget to smile.

Why is all the world light, and I am small underneath?
Just a black bottom under this apple tree?
Why am I in the limelight, the foreground?
The light pours no citrus drink, but a cyanide fruit pit pound!

The over-saturated curtains tail my frail feet.
Much busier than a yellow-black bee, bumping till its stinger gets caught in a fabric hemming
and it dies with no one noticing.
The girl who reads, the tree that sifts its rotten leaves;
they care less, less for a discoloration that unfortunately eats at me.

Even when the elders waltz the foxtrot dance so that even my dwarf legs can follow suit,
I will never be quite slow, or fast enough? for all of you.
I disintegrate daily into almost nothing.
I stare, but no one stares at me.

Oh, haven’t I written a piece about shadows and light?
What’s with me! I use the same machine work!
Metaphors, imageries, diction, diction mutating to a deeper fiction. Unoriginal it is!
The masses cling onto clichès with their pointed teeth;
why can’t I, I lodge into that all-inclusion?
Why do I repeat my own themes? Have I never learned critical thinking?
I depend on repetition: same old, same old (did I mention the old ‘same’?)
thing to grasp any new concept!

Maladaptive daydreamer
who cannot conjure up any ink
of fresh difference! What purpose do I hold
in this awful, spineless world?
I am too awfully, awfully simple and dumb
to succeed in any other playing field!
Reality, what foreign entity is she?
Maybe a solemn quiet would do it for me.
(So maybe I’ll have an extended vacation,
and revisit my only talent some other day.)

What do the (sappy) honey-loving poets write on?
The (sawdust) stardust in eye pupils, and
igniting our hearts alight (till it guzzles that red stream and we become only such, and the carpet gets a free dye job).
Apparently, everything pure and worthy is atomized into
(carbolic soap I allow carbonation of its soda acid in my eyes) diamonds.

On the subject of atomic level substances,
let's rehearse the Compton effect:
Heat me up to a hundred keV
like cheap microwave dinner, so that I propel—
whoosh!— tink against metallic beings
till I decrease, and I am powerless.
Each new orbit of opportunity I seize,
I result with less, and the opportunity snatches from me.
Glistening shoe shiner whose price tag appeals to the average Joe,
then I swipe: scuffing up my rounded toe.

She tattooed those other girls’ arrow on herself because:
“I’m pulled back to soar farther,”
yet this stretching has lasted for… months?
Compare this not to a crossbow, but to that of a
medieval rack, that gruesome torture device!
My tissue is tearing asunder, but this is polar from breaking bread!
I ache, I ache, I ache! Isn’t yoga supposed to tranquilize you to a grounded state, not death?

Why is the world so light when I am so heavy?
Why must I “lust for a life” that lusts not for me?

Somedays I don't feel like writing
and it worries me because
'Writers write everday --
real ones, at least.'
I fear being ordinary,
which is tasteless because
maybe being ordinary
is what I need.

The appeal of snapbacks
and hipster haircuts
is starting to make more sense.
Blending into a crowd
might suit me better;
to be invisible but
to no longer be insecure.

Rap lyrics make more sense,
even though I can't relate;
these words are my sedation,
these clothes aren't armor
but marketable camouflage.
My words have been said before,
but that might be okay because
I'd hate to torment myself
wondering about my relevance.

So, to move on, I write,
and I write, and I write
to pander and to conform.
Substituting thought for
appealing diction and
strong imagery, afraid
to show myself because
maybe you're too much
like me, which, surely,
would eat me alive.

My son is now 18 and I can see the change
in his shifting stance, the boldness and
complexity in his presence, deep dark
diction beneath smoky stained clothes,
scattered cigarettes piled up in *****
ashtrays, ghostly fumes filling the
cold air, as he dashes up the stairs to
his bedroom.  And as I stand in the
kitchen over the stove steaming a
fresh *** of boiled chicken, salad,
and mashed potatoes, I can hear his
smooth slick words echoing across
the room.  The heavy giggles and
sensual thoughts seeping inside his
mind, running game on his main
squeeze like the world was his
majesty, like a crowned creation
falling into submission to his
nation.  I step closer to the stairs
and listen to the soft sounds of Joe’s
song, I Wanna Know, playing in the
background, slow rising beats curling
up in the air towards divine enchantment,
hypnotizing harmonies beyond a bed of
thin sleek sheets.  And as I breathe in the
soothing melodies, I’m forced to remember
the days when I was young, a rich tasteful girl
full of chemistry and flawless formation.  I was
grooving to the spinning jams like it would be
this way forever.  I had forgotten how much
time had passed by, how the waves
of his existence was on a new wavelength,
how the stars in his eyes intensified in
immense shapes, how the shimmering
moon was his light inside his kingdom,
the cosmic space taking him into a new
sea of discoveries.

A poem is like a naked person,
That needs redemption and mercy,
And every expression to impress,
And comitted like a press.

Every expressions are specious,
And rhythms  ostentatious,
Poets with their dulcet lips,
Giving vulnerability to your hips

Poets use one's Achilles' heels as
Leverage,
With many diction and language,
Their words can't be insipid,
So they play the cupid.

Poets seems complaisant,
Tantalizing those counts,
She said poet are killers,
But they claim to be healers.

Poets take their hyperborical expression
To the peak,
Making all your bones weak,
She said Poets are liars,
Oh! Poets are murderers.

Poets will make your soul tremulous,
With those words, sounding mellifluous,
Poets take you to the imaginary world,
Perhaps with just a word.

But Poets change their environment,
Releasing the truth from its confinement,
Chastising the revolts and destroyers
With mere pen and paper.

But she wouldn't agree,
Not to any degree,
She said Poets are liars,
Oh! Poets are murderers!

The Victorian ladies bubbly
Her back-hand-fly Hubby
At the back wing, he had her
high swing voice pls another
try Oh! my he's mouth dry
The aircraft of man
The spell lift oh! ****
Grand slam fascination
Had their private
back room with the singer
Tina Turner the rolling river

Don't be a two-faced wing
Not left in the back feeling sick
On your back burner- Goes-flick

Wing debate became
The revelation who
will back up
your words
We need stronger wings
of communication

Recount music reverberation
Catches my butterfly
Butterfly tip nails
Say goodbye to the messenger
The back Man Voyager
The trip candlelight lover
Butterwing lobster red-fish
wing hippy hop sing

The tower Trump
She had a collection
of stamps feeling
Larger than butterflies
in her stomach

One of a kind muscle's
No  bumps the best
butterfly kissing

The Tattooed was a fraud
The bash the wings all clashed
Around the bend, they
left one wing not to be fooled
So heartbroken more that
meets two wings
to be eye spoken

Life is complicated
Butterfly Malabar
Your eyes cried every
night in the daylights
I never stop to
wing him book-nights

How she phoned
I saw his light starry-bright
The North Star
The banded Native
New Yorker Hub

The gift of gab
All wings of disorder
Rehab more lovers
What wings to order
She's Fragile heart
He's fly by night so
domineer
Buttercream cake was
the best year
Every emotion high-gear
Bewildered by wing's
Wrong time to be
Glancy with her sigh
Always high in life

Not to be the burden
But why such big
production
The backyard mansion
But down to earth
butterfly takes flighty
fashion

The Lotto money rolling
But I  stay flying__
Butterfly bedtime
The sticker Honey
lullaby Airforce

Army-green but her
honey eyes bitter-fly
course
The back of her
butterfly dress
He was impressed
At her best not to
be married

The Cosmo
Morpho one
Zebra longwing needed
a short circuit to pursue
her  long wing___*
engagement
Ms. Chicken
Got burned so many wings'
What an embarrassment
Sapho longwing Sax

Milestones away Mexico
hot humid  outwinged
Maybe the print was forged
But Sage flower colorful warm
cocoa browns so dazed
Kachi Polo suits
She is wearing the butterfly
pin she was backed away

The Bed-put up his front
So tucked in
He had an extra wing
The trousers melody
Madame Butterfly was in
What a blessing of the sing
They were eating like
babies butterfly flounder

Wing talk became flighty
inflictions without
her medication
On her butterfly tablet
Such lucidity of visions
Made quite the
Butterfly reactions

Like the Aphrodite Queen
with Greater love diction

Syiphina Glasswinged
butterflies names
Try the eighty-eights
Of courageous wings
of fame play eights
one summer he screams

He came to see her in four
love generations
In his sunshine
Floridian hummer
Not the ****** birds
In the norm Palm trees
Met the butterfly storm

Ceylon Rose endangered
The Habitat off
With their hats

With her Man and her
butterfly hat she waves
and asks to sit in another
lower back sting
She just hears his
voice and sings

paper playgrounds for people who are post-
trauma,
who talk to words instead of
people
who talk to people.

we, on our page,
we play with words, we
dance and distance and die for each other,
(cry for each other),
exploring letters & sounds & rhythms & rhymes
and crying
                                      up
as we mix each other        and calm each other
                                                                                  down,
we slip & slide & lock our lips & hands & feet
(and paint each other
against each other's bodies,
changing letters to other letters) and listening
to the winds
which warn us from the coming sandstorm,
the tornado'd gravel in our playground of ink addiction and diction,
and we
            fall
                    and bleed
                                    but know
the loyalty of letters
playing on (these)

Then there are those times you write
Because otherwise the words will tear you up inside
Like supercharged particles
Of steam under pressure
Or uranium reaching critical mass
So you set to the task
Grab pen and paper
Or iPhone and browser
And start uploading your sins onto clean white sheets
Of loose leaf or LCD
As if possessed by some other self
Or non-self
Itself a fountain of diction
A percolation of syntax
Bubbling up and out so as not to **** the messenger
And lines flow
Kia ora koutou katoa
Nga hoa
Me toku whanau
My friends
And family
Be well
See well through this life
And her pitfalls
Tall walls and
Crash courses in experience
Standard variance and deviation from the mean
She can be mean
She can be cruel and unkind sometimes
But you’ll find rhymes to make lines line up like signs on the highway
And find even in grief there is beauty
Truth in pain
Life in suffering
There is no judgement inherent in these things and none at all other than that which we place upon them
Negative or positive are uniquely human conditions
Everything else just is
It sits within itself
Without apprehension of the fourth dimension
Not beating up younger selves for poor decisions made by poorly equipped versions
Nor fearing an abstract time hence
From whence march our fears about death
And a life well spent
And incontinence
And I think my phone bill is going to be massive
And I think my 2 minutes is up
And I think my 15 minutes is up
Where was I again?
Words have surfaced
Simmered and settled down
Beauty in the badness
Truth in the madness
Tiredness overtakes
Like post coitus
An **** of the monastic order
Intellectual intercourses subsequent exhaustion
And sleep calls ceaselessly
As if nothing else mattress

I'm a black actor
So my monologues are gospel
my dialogues are political
my blocking is a statment
My diction is forgiven

I'm a black actor
So Shakespeare speaks above my melanin,
Avant guarde is a canvas too fresh for color
And the urban expierence
    Is a glove that fits too well to remove

I'm a black actor
So my casting is guaranteed
My bio line is their defense against vulturous social critics circling the audition table
They need a black actor
I'm a black actor

A storm blew through early, left frost
etched, lit, glistening, on
a window's waking surface.

I sit framed by that translucence,
my daughter aligns, orders
mirroring matroyshka doll members.

I reflect on an essay*, how
poems are a symbol of  will,
concluding a pact, perhaps

achieved in diction, image metaphor,
adherence to structure, rhyme, form.
Might these devolve to decoration? Or,

trace the transmission of "will to
commitments," expressing “intent”,
"weakly lost or strongly spent?”

Frost etchings fissure, shift, glint, slide
on their emergent effluence,
configure in gusts of cognition.  

I sense a covenant in these lines.
my daughter adjusts her doll's placements,
the promise of one revealed in the other.

Copyright © 2004 Gary Brocks

——————————————
Attribution:
Stanzas 3, 4, and 5 are greatly influenced by my reading the Robert Frost essay titled *THE CONSTANT SYMBOL.
The short phrases in italicized quotes are direct quotes from that essay.

It's been a time and a half
And I finally understand
The reason you've gone
With the shaman so long.
The spirit is free.
I'm a color
Splintered in three.
Crystalline
Crystal eyes
Well spoken with diction.
Many a words I've spoken
Have been in ode
Romancing you with every breath

In the desert
The door is ajar
We trace the steps of Aztec gods
1/3 becomes 2/4
The sands gleam emerald
Our bodies elongate to equine form
We blended the horizon line

Quetzalcoatl stands before me
Serpent in feathers
Glows like the spectrum all together.

He hands me a seed.
And his
Eyes smother like lightning.
And I
Speak in codexed volition.
And we
Blur the horizon line once more.

I stand on the Pacific
20,000 leagues
Equine force
Carries me to the beach.
Sand once more.

I feel a twitch in my jaw.
Each hand holds a mandible
And pulls.
Roots emerge
And a tree not soon after.

Is this what the seed was for?
I trot the beach,
Jaw no longer in tact.
My pallor flesh caked in coagulate
Almost recreates my tan skin
A gift from the god.

I've been on this beach for miles,
And
Miles
And
Two whiles.
My architecture meanders
The brevity of sanity.
One eye sees black,
The other sees fine.
My hair has become matted
It knots behind each earlobe
And drags on below my knees.

Is this what Quetzalcoatl wanted?
To see me sifted with the grains of sand
In the palm of a child's hand
At the beach
While on vacation
With mom and dad?

20,000 years have passed.

you know you take
words and some cement and glue
and you make them all stick together
into verse and poetry;
and you gather love like a rolling stone
and you blow wild seeds in the air
and you’ve got fine diction
and refined sentiments
and it’s made into a poem
and it all makes sense
oh baby,
it all makes too much sense

you work like Vivaldi
and make poems about seasons
or you work like Goethe
and pour roaring poetry
to outdo Shakespeare
and you frighten Edgar Allan Poe;
and you have great insight
like the Buddha or some Great Prophet
or Only One Savior
and you give us mighty fine inspired poetry
pure, pure spirituality;
or you just take Revelation
like the countless mindless followers
the Great Being has been plagued with since Inception
and you make verse
and oh, it all makes sense
it all makes too much sense
and you take my foibles, our foibles
and your poems
laugh at them
or you put fine words together and string beads of harmony
like a millions-dollar necklace
Richard Burton might have offered Liz Taylor
oh you know you make poems
that come across time and cyberspace
and they all maketh perfect sense
but
how about
baby
you and me make verse
that knocks out sense and makes no sense?
poetry that takes the mickey out of meaning?
no, not for a change -
but forever?
no, not for entertainment
but for nonsense?
so that senses is knocked senseless
and we escape you and me
to North Caledonia
to Paradise of rhythm and senseless-beauty
and we have a beat
and we have a pulse
and the street gang says in awe:
Oh, hey
see these two babies move
they’ve got the style
they’ve got the swing
Yeah, they’re a fine couple of babies!
so we got no sense
and sense-less is meaningless
so we got no sense in nonsense either
or senselessness for that matter
we got nothing baby
(well, nothing on as well)
but plenty of rhythm and sway
we drop all fine subjects
that determine our lives
so we are all freed of lies maybe
(we don’t know what will happen)
and we got the spirit of poetry
beyond sense and line and word and form and intent and purpose
and that gets all the universe rocking
(no doubt, there’s enough rock already)
baby
in one baby-making sway
how about that, baby?
you and me
abandon sense
and dance naked between planets and stars?

Did I ever ride one of these casino busses?
That's how I met my wife.

Is this weird enough?
seven measured spans of ten plus some,
this bit, this collection of second chances,
in how many?
in ever,
how many spans of tens have passed, without me?
or,
without the star stuff Sagan says  
I am made of?

or I am made? I was.

That's the measure of my worth,

nay, I say.
Rue the day I told that lie

shall be my epitath, should I leave without
a-counting
them there ex
acted, mockinbird killin' days and ways we was

when we was
never governed, as a people, or a tribe.
as ids,
we was wild injuns, us kids was. we did as we pleased.

life was fine,
livin' by the river, you can imagine a cloud

occlusion of green greasewood smoke
softening a barely waking moon
four thumbs high at sundown

keeping fairy tales down low enough
that grandpas
can snag

-- and release and come back jack, right here
--to this dangling hook

and it's always gonna be this way

catch and release,

life's story your story goes on.
You never lose your place,

that's mortally impossible
to pose a

quandry
quandary (n.)"state of perplexity," 1570s, of unknown origin, perhaps a quasi-Latinism based on Latin quando"when? at what time?; at the time that, inasmuch," pronominal adverb of time, related to qui"who" (from PIE root *kwo-, stem of relative and interrogative pronouns). Originally accented on the second syllable.

pronomial adverb, eh?
Writers were warned away from adverbs,
back when grammar tyranny strained
at knots and gnostic gnats magi-ifical
add-on augmented at your own risc

made you notice
tech times change faster than Timex

Sinclair-- sorry, senility function was left on from earlier missions

Force-recon recollected war stories being moved permanently into fish story status before
legend adds a layer
of gloryshit
at funerals.

Reduced Instruction Set Chip, chip
chipping is
addiction diction
A.I. *** us a whole Yah bus win, it's
Free Play day at the Ol' Folk Home.

We sing old songs on the way to Viejas and
laugh about all we left in Vegas.