from the mind of an anxious depressive

from the time i, as a little girl,
dressed up like a princess
[tiara and all,
pouffy, pink dress and all]
listened to my mother tell me
a fairy tale
of a woman who finds
her prince charming,
and is rescued by him,
and lives happily, happily ever after
in a magnificent palace by the sea…
and i, as a brooding teenager,
insecure and reclusive,
observed a
[now viewed as ridiculous]
romantic film
about a woman who finds her
one true Love,
and he rescues her,
and they live happily, happily ever after
in a beautiful three-bedroom home
where they raise two,
perfect children…
and i, as a young woman,
fully aware and adept,
recognizing the world for what it is
as *i see it,
seeing love dismantle time,
and time again....

i am fully aware that nothing can possibly last for a happily ever after.

the doubt is consuming,
the wall is well-built and
unyielding.
my heart remains too crippled
to possibly endure the grief that
falling in Love elicits.

but,
Love finds you even if you have
given up the notion of it.
it gallops in on its white horse.
has bright blue eyes.
sparks a smile that can illuminate
my somber heart.
has no regard for my opposition to itself.
is selfish and greedy and exhausting.

it is utterly impossible to avoid
being seduced
into the black hole
from which i will never leave
precisely the same.
from which i will surrender
a piece of myself
essential to my functioning.

Love sweeps in like a tornado
[destroying everything in its path]
and so the five stages of falling in Love,
and falling apart,
begin.

denial.
i feign disinterest.
i pretend as if he doesn’t
engross my thoughts
as if my heart doesn’t encroach upon my stomach
when he enters the room.
if asked by a friend,
“why does your face turn bright red
when he dares to utter your name?”
i pretend like she is the insane one
[when i am the one denying my heart.]

anger.
i become enraged.
Love has taken control.
the knowledge that i let Love
dismantle the wall,
that i have spent years building,
and reinforcing,
[brick by brick, piece by piece]
infuriates me.
i let him gradually demolish it.
and now i am powerless and susceptible,
and now he has me by the heartstrings.
he holds me in his greedy palms.

bargaining.
i avoid the fact that i am falling,
yes, i am falling.
oh, so deeply for him.
i watch myself fall from such great heights
straight into the ground
crashing through to the
center of
the world.
i even pray to God,
the one i'm not even sure i believe in.
i tell Him that i would do anything,
anything just to take back control.
to have two firm hands on the wheel.
to be the driver
instead of the passenger.

depression.
i cannot bring myself
to shove off the covers.
to crawl out of bed.
i am miserable and helpless and
he is all i can think about.
he is my first thought
when i am awake.
my last when my mind
finally tires of him,
and i fall into a
fitful night of sleep.
yet, i do not tell him any of this.
he wonders why i am so distant,
so removed from him.
what he does not know is that
he carries part of myself with him
wherever he goes.

acceptance.
when my nerves have finally worn themselves down,
when my heart has reached an understanding with my mind,
when Love does not appear as something to be grieved,
that is when i fall in Love.

never once have i
accepted Love from a man,
Love that could alter
my melancholy mind,
nor have i trusted a man with my heart.
[although i have been forced by Love itself to relinquish it.]

i have been obstinate and headstrong
and refused to give all of myself
in fear of losing myself.
but maybe one day, i will be
rescued from myself.

In person body language for the quickest returns
and obvious signs of disinterest and distress
Telephones for voices; plain, animated, or faking it
Letters for gesture, or a classic long slow catch up
And texting...
I know you got it
I may even know you read it
What's your excuse for delay?



Perhaps a brain lapse, perhaps some monotonous busyness
Perhaps I'm now an ignored fad, maybe you got better plans
Yet, could it be, our collective muscle memory pines for saying things by other means?

this will make sense in the end, or at least along the way... a modern version of the Ruben's judgement of Paris, although if you watch the debate, the mediator already insinuates the "confusion": to my left or to my right, ha ha, left to right, right to left, 1st 3rd 2nd... that's putting it mildly, if i were Paris i'd have given the apple of knowing to Hera, queen of the goddesses... naomi wolf... beauty is in the eye of the beholder... and your phallus in the hand of... mhmm... softer than the flesh of an oyster at the end of the day... they did say once in times just after Pericles: make my inner as beautiful as my outer, and my outer as beautiful as my inner... then take art as not representing images: or the "shallow" arguments... any man would have given the apple to the intellectual Aphrodite (karen straughan)... we all know that antigone darling is Athena: who speaks so little you start to equate wisdom to be a distant synonym of needing courage to engage with a plebiscite crowd... oh don't give that prize to her: she'll probably tongue-tie herself and will never be able to speak into a microphone, the intellectual Aphrodite knows all too well the conundrum... it's the cougar attired in crimson that fuels the whole debate... she doesn't need to have inner beauty, you phallus is already shouting 'sir! yes sir!' at the drill sergeant anyways... you take Aphrodite as a paradoxical beauty, namely that of long conversations and not long interludes of ******* and baking cookies... you'll leave Aphrodite confused... i once heard an English motto: don't take for a wife a woman that's too attractive... that wasn't intended to be within the bias of intellect, i mean a beautiful woman within the bias of being able to manage a harem of 72 male virgins... well **** yeah, artists leave clues, whether knowing or unknowing... they're working from triangles, poets end up writing from Δ, they obscure textures and antonyms of what appears to be monochromatic, we say: red, crimson, burgundy in x-ray confines... the point being: there's no intellectual debate to be had with someone representative metaphorically or not of Hera... you can't have a Parisian fashion week catwalk where you find dehydrated beauty on the outside and an anorexic ego on the inside... what you find in Hera is a volume (voluptuousness) on the inside, within which there's a leech libido that transgresses all demands for intellect... unless it's pistons-well-oiled orientated... please, read some Marquis... if you get an ******* having read a few of his works: you're qualified - or as i like to call it: neo-classical *******... ever masturbated over Bronzino's Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time? well, if you haven't i guess **** ******* and gang-banging is your outlet: mine are pictures of Aria Giovanni and Chloe Vevraire (googlewhack no. 3!): Chloe Vevrier... but if you're never done the Odysseus pokes fun at Polyphemus... yep: the ghost hand: nobody!


you know, you can cram a lot into a 30 hour "day",
which results in the complete erosion
for the capacity to dream afterwards,
to actually work from the unconscious and create
a subconscious medium vector that connects
to points of consciousness: 30+ hours awake,
however many hours asleep, and then awake again
for another 30+ "day" to digest...
the classical definition of the subconscious, in theory,
is that you get plenty of sleep,
and it's a bit like that schematic A x B (algebraic)
A knows x     and B knows x...
   something mutual acknowledgment
via the same schematic but
A knows x, B knows x,
A knows that B knows x,
A knows that B knows that A knows x,
   which is all very Aristotelian to be frank,
it's this hyperlogic of having to acquire
great technological feats and reduce such
complexities to cat-videos on the internet as
the Egyptian partake in the genius that actually
made it possible... the slogan goes
Moses, you fool! said Nefertiti...
    so B knows x and knows that A knows x
and knows that A knows that B knows x
and B knows it's not necessarily anywhere
alphabetically less, even though the French said
a, b, c... which was very imperial of them,
that's the imperial version of what the mathematical
imperialism proved with the English inches, miles
and furlongs... but in this French case of imperialism
it wasn't a e i o u, b c d f g h j...
            that's what 30 hours awake does to you,
you wouldn't think of alcohol as a party drink,
a social barrier deconstruct... after 30 hours
you're hoping to meet Vladimir Klitschko on your
way to bed... aye pleasing Cossack, give us a
smacker goodnight... one glove it filled with
whiskey, the other with naproxen and amitriptyline...
boom! k.o. snooze, baby:
you gotta love buddhist honesty...
at least you get to see the bright side of life...
  and if people start thinking that Kant was the harbinger
of ill fate... you obviously haven't met a necromancer...
it was only von Kleist for ****'s sake!
       and he had the American option of a suicide
pact with a terminally ill woman and a bullet from
a pistol in a ditch... you can't get more romantic than that...
and there i was, mid-afternoon, having done a few of
the household chores: the washing, the ironing and
cooking a two-course meal while my mother did
the taxes (seems only mothers understand their sons
these days... women my age?
   ever see David Attenborough describe Emperor
penguins? money was invented for women,
because it brokered the end of the brotherhood of man,
we became famished by feminine needs
and have reduced inherent sports in us (hunting)
to sledgehammer bashing entertainment...
i'm the "drunk" that would rather watch ten hours
worth of ping-pong that tennis...
    i don't know why they resurrect the Olympics
every four years, have a **** coverage of it anyway
and then go back to that Glaswegian diet
of deep-fried pizza and haggis... and i hope to never know,
maybe Sepp Blatter knows...
but that's 30 hours of being awake, and only not
able to relax, by writing...
                 you wouldn't see this sort of "abuse" of
alcohol anywhere in the world...
the Soviet sleep experiment is actually not that silly...
too much sleep can also make you feel the minutes
upon your wake as if you've been stung by a bee...
three of my all time favourite songs?
the stone roses'* i wanna be adored,
    chromatics' cherry,
and finally: i can be forgiven for having missed this,
i got into them seriously with the album aufheben
and didn't really move anywhere else,
the dandy warhol effect got me...
but this song out of obscurity, 20th century technology
translated into mp3 and then onto c.d. and then
back into mp3... a song from an album that doesn't
even appear on their discography...
the brian jonestown massacre's pol ***'s pleasure penthouse,
the song in question? fingertips.
so there's that three...
      but **** on me, i half expected android (2015)
to be like ex_machina (whatever year that was)...
same topic... what the difference between android
cyborg and robot?
                                  aren't robots the proper a.i.?
as in: in production, the thing that's not hand-crafted
is artificially crafted, because it is crafted to a large yield
of a product? isn't that so? i can't distinguish (as of yet)
the difference between android and cyborg, i guess
as a Latin man (a - z user) i have to condescend the Grecian
pompousness of demeaning Hebrews (original anti-semitism
originated in Greece, not Rome, the Romans gave
the Jews not elaborate architectural schemes to abide by
in honour of Octavian, but the supposed pride in Greek
thought, undermined what later science would provide
a Latin man with, given the translation of יחֵוָחֵ,
indeed variables... i once wrote a piece about
the two Adams... namely how אָ (alef)
and עַ (ayin) are prominent letters among consonants,
but no vowel kindred of Eve is equal...
or how Eve is covered in both mainstream Islam
and orthodox Judaism... and Christianity is
a Rastafarian dream for more jerky reggae reggae...
they never sing down with Rome, judgement upon
Rome... they always sing about Babylon...
well, polytheistic or poly-schismatic,
it's all Hindu from hereon in - apart from that
here's a very tiny heresy... is that yod he vav he
or is it yod he vav het?
         there is a difference, afterall:
he (ה)        and het (חֵ) obviously differ... oh!
xet!                   god this garden is a mess,
               i guess the fruit of knowing good from evil
was intended to say: till the land, deforest,
learn agriculture... that's good, the **** you do to each
other... well: that's hardly a tonne of grain...
but they so alike though, even when you apply a noun
to these two symbols!
  could have said he xet but instead it's known as he het:
no wonder the Hittites came along for a curious look...
mind you, had not a prominent Roman, a centurion,
asked for help... we'd be prudish in runic from the northern
invaders... so thankfully no one within the Roman confines
of encoding sounds didn't have the bright spark idea
of looking at the very tiny little island of Israel and that
four lettered word and how it became known
to say o = omicron, ε = epsilon and γ = gamma,
   and cutting those things apart leaving only letter
having done plastic surgery on the noun that denotes the
letter that's denoted by the symbol, rearranged it
and got the idea of εγo: ****** marvellous!
- this is not brian pallenberg's story about the pleasure
penthouse album...
but you know what really got me in those 30 hours:
day, night, day, night: a NHLF debate between
naomi wolf, karen straughan & antigone darling,
the part where karen makes the point that
once upon a time men who beat their wives
in Scotland were publicly whipped (dhaal,
straugan), and if they were beaten-up instead by
their wives, a plebiscite of good-wishers would turn up
at the house and apply the Freudian theory of
a castration to the man, bang pots and pans,
and then in public display him having to ride on a
donkey backwards, having to hold the donkey's tail
for stability...
     see that woman in red in that debate? a true political
man-eating beast of ***** readied in atom bomb
explosions... the one next to her isn't wearing any tights...
unconsciously you're thinking: i like her french freestyle
of not having shaved her legs... the smart one is wearing
jeans and she looks oh so desperate to get out...
    the discussion doesn't even enter the realm of ideas...
hen-picking is discussed... all poetry ascribed to language
is gone... is it politically correct to ascribe the sexuality
of female chickens with the word hen to women?
behind me in Blackpool stag-dos (dos? no does...
there isn't even a ******* spelling for that phrase...
hen-nights and the inflatable Juan)...
well obviously your mind is working out why you'd
**** the middle 'un right away... she doesn't say divorcee
which is so "unsexy" but say she's a mum twice,
a mum, a single mum... polly wants a *******...
her address is new york city? ******! i'm heading there,
right now! can a white guy use urban colloquial
in the suburbs on a piece of pixel paper, which he claims
is mere the cartesian extension of his thought
and disinterest in rhetorical skills? i hope so...
it's not like herr adolf wrote a disclaimer saying:
read this or a thousand volts up your ****!
that really was a constipated debate, plus the red was all
provocateur and peppered with "you know",
   and "i know absolutely nothing": there were no ideas
in the debate! whenever there was a chance to debate
ideas, the debate turned into a debated about words,
and what words to use: to simply brush aside any clinching
to a idea-debate... perhaps because feminism is
an ideology without any coherency of ideas, as stated
from the debate: a coherency of wording: and that better
be hen = an asexual chicken, rooster = an asexual chicken...
it's still a chicken kiev at the end of the day.
now? i might squeeze in another poem...
     but it would still be great to get any kind of analysis
comparing the movie android and ex_machina...
the only problem would be: both creators are men...
so that's gender-stereotyping already...
but hell! she gets to build a buggie that she directs with
a laser pen... so that's nice...
but i'd love a discussion on these two films,
given that the music in both films is very oomph!
thriller genre always had better music than horror...
horror music is too romantic... thriller music?
***** back-stabbing you whenever you think you're
going to get a comfortable 10 minute slot...
but it's there... aside from both robotic creators being male...
woman: ex_machina - out of the machinery of man
          ergo? deus, or woman as...
i actually have a problem with the word android...
the woman is a factor of playing the two men against
each other... the android actually find a mechanical
part of himself in the way the "human" talks to the woman,
while the "android" is prejudiced against the rigidity
of his ****** movement: unlike the "human" having
an intellectual rigidity... the woman plays the two against
each other... well, 30 hours no sleep...
  i'm doing the helter-skelter trying to throw ideas
by way of remembering the actual plot of the film...
this obviously adds nothing to the discussion:
meaning i probably gave away a "spoiler" -
but more the point, i need a refill and some fresh air
to breath, having farted into a leather chair for the past
hour.

i dreamed a rattlesnake was loose in the closet i heard it rattling i was afraid to open the door



a man suffering a toothache goes to see his dentist the dentist administers laughing gas when the man comes to his numb tongue swooshes around his mouth he asks how long was i under the dentist answers hours i needed to pull them all out



he imagines when he grows old there will be a pencil grown into one hand and a paintbrush grown into the other they will look like extra fingers grown out from the palms extensions of his personal evolution little children will be horrified when they see mommy mommy look at that man’s hands!



what if we are each presented with a complete picture of a puzzle from the very start then as our lives proceed the pieces begin showing up out of context sometimes recognizable other times a mystery some people are smarter more intuitive than others and are able to piece together the bigger picture some people never figure it out



i wasn’t thinking i didn’t know to think nobody taught me to think maybe my teachers tried but i didn’t get it i wasn’t thinking i was running reacting doing whatever i needed to survive when you’re trying to survive you move fast by instinct you don’t think you just act



many children are relieved when their parents die then they no longer need to explain prove themselves live up to their parent’s expectations yet all children need parents to approve foster mentor teach love



she was missing especially when her children needed her most she was busy lunching with girlfriends dinner dates beauty shop manicure masseuse appointments shopping seamstress fittings constant telephone gossiping criticizing she was too busy to notice she was missing more than anything she wanted to party show off her beauty to be the adored one the hostess with the mostest



i dreamed i was condemned to die by guillotine the executioner wore black and wielded an axe just in case the device failed in the dream the guillotine sliced shallow then the executioner went to work but he kept chopping unsuccessfully severing my head this went on for a long time



1954 Max Schwartzpilgrim sits at table in coffee shop on 5th floor of Maller’s Building elevated train loudly passes as he glances out window it is typical gloomy gray Chicago day he worries how he will find the money to pay off all his mounting debts he is over his head in debit thinks about taking out a hefty life insurance policy then cleverly killing himself but he cherishes his lovely wife Jenny his young children and social life sitting across table Ernie Cohen cracks crass joke Max laughs politely yet is in no mood to encourage his fingers work nervously mutely drumming on Formica table then stubbing out cigarette in glass ashtray lighting another with gold Dunhill lighter bitter tastes of coffee and cigarettes turns his stomach sour he raises his hand calling over Millie the waitress he flirtatiously smiles orders bowl of matzo ball soup with extra matzo ball Ernie says you can’t have enough big ***** for this world Max thinks about his son Odysseus



when Odysseus is very young Dad occasionally brings him to Schwartzpilgrim’s Jewelers Store on Saturday mornings Dad shows off his firstborn son like a prize possession lifting Odysseus in the air Dad takes him to golf range golf is not an interest for Odysseus Dad pushes him to learn proper swing Odysseus fumbles golf club and ***** he loves going anyway because he appreciates spending time with Dad once Dad and Odysseus take shower together Dad is so life-size muscular hairy Odysseus is so little Dad reaches touches Odysseus’s ******* feeling lone ******* Dad says we’ll correct that make it right Odysseus does not understand what Dad is talking about at finish Dad turns up cold water and shields Odysseus with his body he watches Dad dressing in mornings Dad is persnickety to last details of French cuff links silk handkerchief in breast pocket even Dad’s fingernails toenails are manicured buffed shiny clear



Odysseus’s left ******* does not descend into his ******* the adults in extended family routinely want to inspect the abnormality Mom shows them sometimes Dad grows agitated and leaves room it is embarrassing for Odysseus Daddy Lou’s brother Uncle Maury wants to check it out too often like he thinks he is a doctor Uncle Maury is an optometrist the pediatrician theorizes the tangled ******* is possibly the result of a hormone fertility drug Mom took to get pregnant the doctor injects Odysseus with a hormone shot then prescribes several medications to induce the ****** to drop nothing works eventually an inguinal hernia is diagnosed around the age of 9 Odysseus is operated on for a hernia and the ******* surgically moved down into his ******* the doctor says ******* is dead warning of propensity to cancer later in life his left ball is smaller than his right but it is more sensitive and needy he does not understand what the doctor means by “dead” Odysseus fears he will be made fun of he is self-conscious in locker room he does not comprehend for the rest of his life he will carry a diminutive *****



spokin alloud by readar in caulkknee axescent ello we’re Biggie an Smally tha 2 testicles whoooh liv in tha ******* of this felloh Odys Biggie is the soyze of a elthy chicken aegg and Smally is the size of a modest Bing cheery



one breast ****** points northeast the other smaller breast ****** points southwest she is frightened to reveal them to any man frightened to be exposed in woman’s locker room she is the most beautiful girl/woman he will ever know



Bayli Moutray is French/Irish 5’8” lean elongated with bowed legs knobby knees runner’s calves slim hips boy’s shoulders sleepy blue eyes light brown hair a barely discernable freckled birthmark on back of neck and small unequal ******* with puffy ******* pointing in different directions Laura an ex-girlfriend of Odysseus’s describes Bayli’s appearance as “a gangly bird screeching to be fed” Laura can be mean Odysseus thinks Bayli is the coolest girl in the world he is genuinely in love with her they have been sleeping together for nearly a year it is March 11 1974 Bayli’s birthday she turns 22 today Bayli is away with her family in Southeast Asia Odysseus understands what a great opportunity this is for her to learn about another culture he knows Bayli plans to meet up again with him in late summer or autumn in Chicago Dad wants Odysseus to follow in his footsteps and become a successful jewelry salesman he offers Odysseus a well-paying job driving leased Camaro across the Midwest servicing Dad’s established costume jewelry accounts Odysseus reasons it is a chance to squirrel away some cash until Bayli returns it is lonely on the road and awkward adjustment to be back in Chicago Odysseus made other plans after graduating from Hartford Art School he is going to be an important painter after numerous months and many Midwestern cities he begins to feel depressed he questions how Bayli can stay away for so long when he needs her so bad the Moutray’s send Mom and Dad a gift of elegant pewter candleholders made in Indonesia Mom accustomed to silver and gold excludes pewter to be put on display she instructs Teresa to place the candleholders away in a cabinet Mom also neglects to write a thank you note which is quite out of character for Mom Bayli’s father is a Navy Captain in the Pacific he is summoned to Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia the Moutray’s flight has a stopover in Chicago Bayli writes her parents want to meet Odysseus and his family Odysseus asks Dad to arrange his traveling itinerary around the Moutray’s visit Dad schedules Odysseus to service the Detroit and Michigan territory against Odysseus’s pleas Odysseus is living with his sister Penelope on Briar Street it is the only address Bayli’s parents know Odysseus has no way to reach them when the Moutray’s arrive at the door Penelope does not know what to tell them Mom and Dad are not interested in meeting Bayli’s parents it is not the first sign of dissatisfaction or disinterest Mom and Dad convey regarding Bayli Odysseus does not understand why his parents do not like her is it because Bayli is not Jewish is that the sole reason Mom and Dad do not approve of her Odysseus believes he needs his parent’s support he knows he is not like them and will likely never adopt their standards yet he values their consent they are his parents and he honors Mom and Dad let’s take a step back for a moment to get a different perspective a more serious matter is Odysseus’s financial dependency on his parents does a commitment to Bayli threaten the sheltered world his parent’s provide him is it merely money binding him to them why else is he so powerless to his parent’s control outwardly he appears a wild child yet inwardly he is somewhat timid is he cowardly is he unsure of Bayli’s strength and sustainability is that why he let’s Bayli go whatever the reason Dad’s and Mom’s pressure and influence are strong enough to sway his judgment he goes along with their authority losing Bayli is the greatest mistake of Odysseus’s life



he dreams Bayli and he are at a Bob Dylan concert they are hidden in the back of the theater in a dark hall they can hear the band playing Dylan’s voice singing and the echoes of the mesmerized audience Odysseus is ******* Bayli’s body against a wall she is quietly moaning his hand is inside her jeans feeling her wetness rubbing fingers between her legs after the show they hang around an empty lot filled with broken bottles loose bricks they run into Dylan all 3 are laughing and dancing down the sidewalk Dylan is incredibly playful and engaging he says he needs to run an errand not wanting to leave his company Odysseus and Bayli follow along they arrive at an old hospital building it is dark and dingy inside there is a large room filled with medical beds and water tanks housing unspeakably disfigured people swarming intravenous tubes attach the patients to oxygen equipment feed bags and monitoring machines Dylan moves between each victim like a compassionate ambassador Odysseus is freaking out the infirmary is too horrible to imagine he shields his eyes wanders away losing Bayli searching running frantically for a way out he wakes shivering and sweating the pillow is wet sheets twisted he gets up from the bed stares out window into the dark night he wonders where he lost Bayli



these winds of change let them come sailor home from sea hunter home from hill he who can create the worst terror is the greatest warrior

This little man that I know with money in his sockets and routine in his pockets has self proclaimed that he is a tight ***. When I envision a *** such as this, I imagine a bundle -- of securely aggregated, perfectly sharpened number two pencils. The businessman just shy of adulthood and too tired to remember –even the beginning of his of disclosure, denied his struggle to acclimate a multifarious lifestyle, appropriately suggested in the form of a triangle, and a circle, both of which embody polar opposing adaptations of humanistic routine.

The two shapes: The circle, denies the break in motion by imposing a constant cycle of diligent compression, there is no room for pause only steady flow and relentless drive. This influence of life impression slows down the heart, body, and soul while speeding up time. This particular commitment accommodates the dry colorless beings that embrace and accept boxed imprisonment.

Traditionally, the triangle denotes rhythmic patterns that elevate and drop to a point in which imposes a healthy reflective pause: progression, reflection, balance. As stated, as a provincial approach, a regular triangle flat on its base, peaking at the top represents a healthy, solid life routine. In contrast, the triangle can be flipped upside-down introducing an entirely new dynamic, composed of flat-lined monotony, tapered off to a regressed realm of destruction, regret and disorder. Despite the uniqueness of the standard triangle model to the man in question, it is important to compare the negative reflection, for it applies to the entirety of this investigation.

We used to be lovers, he and I. We shared my giant pillow-top that I bought on the black market for a meager two-hundred fifty. -- A mere steal at that rate.


We occasionally exchanged ideas, mainly about ethical concerns related to globalization and the environment.

I attempted to give him a cooking lesson once, but that failed, indefinitely. The bust was not my doing, but simply, a great disinterest on his part; or better yet an inability of not being better than me at something.

Everything has gotten so crowded.

like... flappy flappy pigeon imitate penguin go shoeshine your ***? like that? i don't even know whether pigeons find penguins to be more pathetic, or whether penguins find pigeons more pathetic... so one has the sky, the other the ocean... it's hardly an argument for either to be staged with a mediator; let alone a matador.

pokraka... (singular),
pokraki* (plural)...
             don't know, i'm not exactly
baby-faced pristine...
         but i don't even know where
that word comes from,
perhaps the riddle of the crow and
the writing desk... why is it that
the crow is writing desk?
          the crow stoops on earth hunched?
almost hunchback?
       maybe that?
     don't know, these fellas are doing
my slating (roof) and i'm autistic imitating
cat tactics of hidig, because i like the drunk
that i am to be hidden, and only seen
in between walls that can hear...
   or apparently but not really so...
    metaphysical question...
why is it that when you encode scratched compact
discs into mp3 form on an iPod
the product breaks? too much l.s.d.?
                 i swear to god, but you trasnslaste
a compact disk into software (it is hardware,
however you think about it; with no alternatives)
         it can **** up the hardware...
                 you have a scratched c.d.,
you translate it into a software package to your
computer, then your translate the "malware",
o.k. a scratched c.d. is literally malware,
                 on the topic of iPods...
                you can **** up your iPod if you include
scratched c.d. material... like itchy-itchy vinyl guys
doing hip-hop...
        but i have this sansa mp3 player,
and i have scratched c.d. on it, and it keeps working...
but the iPod i once owned? broken...
or should i say "broken"?
     no, literally broken...
          i picture prefect a cat's face and then
disappear when the builders arrive...
most of the time i'm a person that doesn't require
the chance exposure of my own face...
    here's to looking at brick walls, and clouds,
and drainage depots on the pave...
      to be writing poetry will eventually drive
your sorry *** into the ground and tell you:
why couldn't you become a crane-driver?
          as a fraction of a billion exemplum similis?
i don't know;
               why did you get plastic surgery?
i know... similis exemplar... that's a variant on the whole
topic.
                 why marvin gaye and the creedence clearwater
revival cover?
           i apparently don't know any latin,
and i find that stating this fact: i'm no big fan of
some grammar school rubric of "correct": toward
the status of ontologically proof riddled,
   correct.
                      *****'s here, coca is here,
sunshine (ugh) is here...
                            what else could you want?
only the etymological disinterest of the word pokraka,
derivative? krók (crow)...
         given the prefix po- (after) -
            well... imitating crow, or after the crow...
                           unto the priest... after all: crows are
symbolic of the priestly-caste in europe...
      also the opposite of onomatopoeic strain toward exactnes:
kra kra... what the crow breathes...
hardly a kraken, but almost... thus po- + -krók:
     i.e. after the crow... inherently so.

Dear Disinterest,

I must
                      Protest
Your sudden
                                   Prevalence
You've got my mind
In a metaphorical state of
                                                        Ambivalence
And I think it best
You relocate        

Rearguards,
A More Interesting Life

Beer:
All gone.
10 bottles each.

Twenty in all.
Crowding my desk.

White foam
covers the last film of beer,
and looks like the top of ****
in a toilet gone sour,

but at bottom of the bottles.

Stomachs:
There are no shirts on our stomachs and they heave and sweat.

Arms:
One Underneath her back, hers on top of my chest,
fingers splayed like peacock's feathers
and cold as freeze-dried hot-dogs
dripping thawing oil on concrete.

Legs:
Hers are a trellis. Mine are the base beams.

This is a trellis made of loose bones and loose limbs,
loose lips and and sweaty, tired thighs burnt out
from repetition
and stupidity.

We are stupid
because we like to **** each other,
and we don't do anything else.

Stupid is when you delude yourself.

Stupid is feeding
off the final boredom of your corroborator.

I get off on her looking disinterested,
it really does make my **** harder
and I can feel it pushing up against
her walls.

It's the most truth,
this truth of disinterest,
we've ever
shared.

it’s that time of year again
a time for re-evaluation

my gratitude awards
go to ...

disinterest in material things
those who see better values
cultivated kindred spirits
kindred strangers
who are yet to be met
a comfortable life
the cliff, the trees,
the creatures, the seas,
the music
the things i can do
and the freedom to do them
and the love
that was shared
this year

I am not a piece of art,
I am the product of your indiscretion.
I don't want your name,
I don't care about your profession.

Leave the pickup lines,
I'd rather drive a nail through my eyes.
No motive to disinterest,
I can't stand the self focused lies.

I am what you made,
Not an object to be sought after.
I crave meaningful talk
Instead of the shallow laughter.

it is cold seeping in my bones
and hot air on a summer's day
it is warm excitement and carefully calculated disinterest:
all at the same time

it is confusion,
joy and resignation,
mixed together in a melting ***
made of the last rays of hope filtering in

'Neath canopy of paradise
Super troupers' shafts of light
Illuminate his terpsichore;
***** he struts, the impresario
Gyrating on spindle shanks;
Needle thin and knock-kneed
He dances a samba
On stage of verdure;
Midst Elvis blue-black thrusts,
Steel rimmed amber orbs
Seek admiring and desirous glances
From the dour drab hen,
Mousy in her beige twin set
And mottled tweed skirt;
With nonchalant disinterest she exits
The arena; audition over.

16 Million
16 million babies each year are engineered by teen mothers
But lets look a little smaller
273,105
Girls who annually contrive babies to life in the United States
But lets divide that number down further
35,249
Adolescent girls whose lives become defined by a child in the state of California alone
But once more lets focus in even smaller
1.
One Athena Young.
Standing slightly over 5 feet tall, with chocolate kissed skin shelling her strong build and a wide white smile full of joyous laughter that covers convincingly that which you would only know if you asked her: that she is a teen mother whose heart and soul has sufficiently suffered.

Perhaps from birth she didn’t stand a chance
Pushed out of the womb to a path of dissonance between success and endurance
A low class family whose glance rests not on her best advance but on their personal pleasure
So on they prance leaving her alone at night to fend for her own life.
And as she navigates this path she is stopped in a trance of seemingly endless romance
That swept her up into a dance that waltzed whimsically one night to her bedroom where she let this boy advance into her pants.
And that once seemingly endless romance crash lands as he implants into her the blow that log jams her path of success and sling shots her to side of endurance.
Fraught and distraught because she was never taught how to not by the people who brought her into the world
Or maybe to spite the strife they have placed in her life because as words from her sorrowed soul said “its when you don’t care about disappointing someone that bad things happen”…
And happen they did as we bid goodbye to the boy who didn’t try to be a father to his joy and pride or a husband to a bride
But instead strode out of sight with a gun at his side to a land that didn’t care whether he lived or he died because he refused to stay true to the girl tangled in his tango.
Left her glued to a growing womb
A single struggling parent, seclusion and confusion in raising a brilliant baby girl in this wicked world she had not yet navigated herself.
And grades started to drop as her life was dragged and dropped to 4 different spots within 3 sun cycle slots.
She said if only they had known that chaos that was going on at home
And the baby that was growing then they could have shown her grace and love…
But they would soon know and throw her out with doubt that she could complete courses while her veins coursed with blood to flood nutrients to nourish her new fetus.
Alone.
No comfortable home.
A lack of understanding left her with no friends to call her own.
No potential for preferential favor on this jagged darkening path too well known.
Abandoned
When suddenly a light landed and handed her a second chance to better advance
To move past her heart-break romance
Her families abstinence,
Her friends distance,
Her schools disinterest.
What was this glorious light?
The alternative high school Mark Twain,
Provided shelter in the acid rain of isolation and pain,
Tamed the sinister storm that reigned and splayed her life into disarray.
For Shanti, a beautifully big-eyed bubbly baby,
Twain gave certain shelter and care from an elder so health could bury deep and fester while her mother, her positive protector, could center on gaining a degree that in theory will better their cumulative future.

But perhaps the hill to highlight is the hunk of hamlet handed to her.
A gallant group of life-giving girls, warrior women who baked and bore and breathed life into children.
Allowing her alienating anomie to be history by fulfilling her need for meaningful community. People who can share relating stories of baby daddy drama, family problems, baby progress. They understood and gave value to a valiant victor whose violent world had previously brought her bitter.
There was room to be a mother,
And room to be just another teenager
A people that taught her to lead her daughter to grow up with honor of her soul’s armor so the similar story would not cycler any further.
And her giving advice to her fellow friends raising soon to be men to avoid the vice she strides against, to teach their boys “to not leave the girl”, striving and fighting to brighten the bleak world that they are no longer merely surviving but thriving in with the aid of the high school who looks past the “normal” and “socially acceptable” and to the broken and vulnerable.
Now she sits.
Waiting.
Anticipating.
The degree her hands will soon hold.
The college campus her calloused feet will soon conquer.
Seeing her dreams of being a military general driving down the street towards reality
Thanks to the inspiring community.

So 1.
One Athena Young.
One out of 16 million moms
Whose once overcast life has forever been spun to the ever-brightening sun
By a school that showed her love and
By friendships that fought to rise above.

I am a guy.
Just a guy.
Not an "ummm...technically."
or "biologically female."
Not: "used to be a girl",
"Thinks she's a guy",
"Doesn't dress like a boy",
"What she got between her legs?",
"Wears makeup",
"Doesn't pass"-

Gender norms literally **** people.

Every "I'm sorry" is just a peeling paint job
over an intercity wall,
no one really wants to look at,
or fix,
or admit to.

This is not a problem I brought on myself.
My gender is not a problem,
You are the problem.

I'm not running from what's inside me anymore,
I know what's inside me,
I've made peace with what's inside me
It's the same old, same old,
with a new set of words
you ******* can't wrap your tongues around.

I don't care if you slipped up,
Fix it.
I don't care if you didn't know I was a boy,
Fix it.
I don't care about your cis guilt, cis excuses, or cis ignorance
Fix it.

Because you don't know the age limit
not to be Emily anymore.
The hundreds of dollars it costs.
Every: "Hello Ladies",
every "Sorry Miss",
every "What can I do for you Ma'm",
every "You'll always be my niece-"
"My daughter",
"My girlfriend".

The cis questions,
cis answers,
cis stares,
cis disinterest in my ******* feelings.

I am not going to hold your hand
and politely explain to you that
I
AM
NOT
MY
GENITALS.
That's your job cis people.
Fix it.

Every misgendering is peeking through the veil
of how people really perceive you.
It's all just a game they play along
with in your presence.
Going along with a trance they think
you've put yourself in.

They don't really see you,
When all it takes is
changing a single word
in one ******* sentence.
That would be no inconvenience to them,
But makes or breaks the world to you.
Covering it up with a strained smile,
Lying that it's fine.

Is it even a question that over 70%
of trans people **** themselves,
as opposed to 1% of the general population.
It makes so much ******* sense to me.

Because trans means knowing
I will never be properly gendered by a stranger,
Unless I get a **** I don't ******* want.
Being trans is waking up everyday
with the guarantee you can not
use the bathrooms in public.

Can't be called a guy
Hearing: "Emmett? That's a weird girl's name."
Having people ignore you
When you're on the verge of tears
begging them not to see
your soft curves and small chest and skirt
as one big sign that says 'SHE'.

Then being told:
"It's not their fault,
people just don't know."
"You have to be more understanding,
more patient -
be nicer about it."

How 'bout applying that to yourself?
Don't tell me I have to be kinder
about being denied my identity everyday.
Don't tell me to shut up about a system
so ingrained in my brain
I still misgender myself.

It's gaslighting,
A society denying reality
And telling us we are the confused ones.
The crazy ones.
For veering outside these neat little boxes
ahem, cages
of made up rules
they've tried to lock us into.

The consequences are absolutely deadly.
Is it any question
That people bleed themselves dry
Get drunk, get high
just to escape it all?

Then get thrown into a 'health care system'
for attempted suicide,
get misgendered by the nurses and doctors
who ignore why they're there in the first place.
Then denied hormones for their
'mental instability'.

We are thrown into a world of glass ceilings
and imaginary borders
with all too real consequences.

Make no mistake,
We are not dangers to ourselves.
You absolutely put us here.

Blame it on whatever generation or
individual you want,
but we are all participating in cisnormativity
if you are not constantly unlearning.

If you equate genitals with gender,
Ask what the baby's going to be -
As if it ******* matters -
Don't think to ask pronouns and get it wrong,
See every character, every face on TV
that doesn't look like ours,
have everything catered
to the way you turned out to be,

That's privilege is our danger.
The gaps in judgement
and consideration for our situations
is where we live
and our destined to fall.

Because when someone hits you with a car
It doesn't matter of they didn't see  you,
didn't mean to,
have never done it before,
are the nicest person in the world -
They ****** up.
And it still hurts.

Sure, if they meant to
it would be worse,
But I'm through with this rhetoric
about intent.

Don't think this is too drastic a comparison,
Gender norms literally kills people.
Every mark of 'self-harm' on our arms
Is a scar society put there.
Every trans suicide is a ******.

The question isn't why
we are killing ourselves.
It's how the ****
are we still alive.

To excel is like climbing a mighty mound
So dreary it seems trudging the desolated road,
But I've grown too weary doing inconsequential things.
Lazy to walk, craving for a comfy abode.

Though it's only disinterest that crosses my way
Like a torrent of the mountain creek,
Drowning me in trifling thoughts,
making my journey all the more bleak.

Hope I could find a tree along,
Bloomed with evergreen pomes
Of passion and perseverance.
I'd love to nibble at them for sure,
And regain my lost endurance.

I know I could transcend my limits
And ascend this arduous rock,
If only I took the first step
And started to walk.

Kindness is not nice.
‘Nice’ is soft and inoffensive
‘Nice’ is careful and non-assertive
‘Nice’ is easy and effects no change
she’s cotton wool trying to soften the pain
but not stuffed tight, just resting on the surface
ready to be blown away or pressed
under a muddy boot of disinterest

‘Nice’ is a damp whisper
a mouse cowering in the corner
hoping you will blink and miss her
lest she attract your notice
lest she presume too much
and cause a whisker of offence

Kindness is not like that –

Kindness pushes in, quick and nimble
a hero with no mask, unasked
unexpected, dodging the turmoil
leaving nothing unsaid and little undone
in her pursuit of creating a counter-disruption

Kindness defies convention

Kindness carefully aims her weapons of choice
and advances relentless and regardless
of any and all obstacles in her way
Kindness perseveres all the love-long day

Kindness doesn’t delay

Kindness is gleeful for the chance of invasion
ready to disarm with expert compassion
with her regiments of patience
armed to the teeth with gracious
placing tanks of good faith on all fronts

Kindness confronts

Courage is her currency, boldness her language,
trust and hope are her passports to lands long unexplored
happily wearing all-weather clothing
for any and all unexpected storms

Kindness transforms

Kindness weakens all defenses
and challenges all camouflaged pretenses
Kindness pours itself out to fill unhealed wounds
and on shrapnel-seeded battlefields
she - blooms

Kindness is not 'nice'  
Kindness isn’t in this for the likes
Kindness bites
She’s a take-on-all-comers, undefeated delight
Kindness never bails from the fight
never fails, never takes flight

Kindness is nothing casual,
nothing incidental
This Kindness is elemental
She is Avengers-Assemble,
End-Game-level
monumental

Kindness is not 'nice'.

Kindness is loving awe-ful.

Christmas died with Santa Clause
when I reached a certain age.
The magic revealed as scam,
the wonder now an act
maintained for the sake of form.

This descended, in my teens,
into outright distaste -
all the trappings
a failed attempt
to light a lost wonderland;
a decorated tree
incongruous and distasteful
as a chimp in a suit.

Anger waned,
disinterest set in,
and I merely wished to avoid it all.

But through your eyes
a miracle occurs:
Papa Noel, mistaking his season,
makes an Easter of Christmas
by rising triumphant.
A tinsel star becomes a true Polaris
and love,
for anybody's sake,
is everything.

Stuck in a straight jacket
That detaches from humanities
That disables civilized thinking
It strangles your insides
And steals compassion
And your breath of life
Withers inside this chasten

In this rubber room
Who’s pads make up your apathetical existence
You rot here like the ***** you take
You die here
Unless you bleed yourself of disrespect
Unless you bleed yourself of disinterest
Unless you bleed yourself of narcissism

Who cares
Your worthless in this state anyway
Find purpose in empathy

Or die here
Exist out of the minds of others
Others who have collective respect
Collective understanding
Collective empathy
And open mindedness

You’re locked here cause you prejudge
Guarded by your own stubbornness
You don’t accept
That you don’t know everyone’s story
You can’t know
You judge anyway

That hippie over there
He’s not a ***** loser
He has a family he loves
Worked hard in construction
And overcame a destructive alcohol and drug abuse
He’s better than you
He’s empathetic
Loving
Understanding
And embraces everyone

Kindness is not nice.

Nice is soft and inoffensive.
Nice is easy and effects no change, it's cotton wool - not stuffed tight, but just resting on the surface ready to be blown away or trodden into a muddy disinterest. Nice is a damp whisper, a mouse cowering in the corner, taking up as little space as possible, lest it be noticed, lest it presume too much and cause a whisker of offence.

Kindness isn't like that -

Kindness pushes in, claws out, quick and heavy, uninvited, unexpected, taking pleasure in disturbance, in leaving nothing unsaid and little undone in its pursuit of creating a disruption of difference. Kindness counts everyone a target, anybody a likely candidate for a three act matinee and evening performance of loud Kindness. Surprise is its currency, smiles its language, common humankindness its passport to lands yet to be explored, to vast red territories with drumbeats of gratefulness for the opportunity to march in with regiments of compassion and to leave a signature devastation of brutal Kindness.

Kindness is not 'nice'.
Kindness is loving awe-ful.

So today you'll be in love this girl from the internet and tomorrow you be in love with that girl from the internet and today your mother will ask you to look up from your phone for two seconds and tomorrow you will be ******* over a girl that you can't that you can't look in the eye because her eyes are miles and away and they're always watching you with disinterest, until you lose interest; some Catholic girl told me that long distance relationships make it easy to fall I to son and I got to understanding why God stays so far away. I know how to ruin myself with one hand, I know how to tear you apart with two. I know how stop taking care of myself until I'm overgrown with weeds just to watch you grow; some idiot said you don't forget how to ride a bike so I got lazy and stopped using one and some idiot said you don't forget your first love and I did the same thing. I saw the train coming and I laid you down on the tracks like I cared, and I did but I just don't know how and that's how the deal, no one knows how to do anything, hardly anyone knows how to derail trains.
And today I'll fail my test becase I didn't study, tomorrow I'll remember that a year ago you said my name for the first time; today I'll sit on my hands until they tingle just to make sure that I'm alive; we'll delve into the meanings of 'love' and 'lust', but in the end they'll both still feel the same, I'll wonder if you track dirt into your house with your boots or if you just track hurt, you'll always keep me right where you can see you but never where I can hold you. We'll speak well about each other and keep our dark secrets tucked into the waistbands of our skirts like crisp white shirts. I can't understand why anyone would want to live in the first world, where all we do is keep things we love in dusty boxes and sit in traffic and hurt the people we love and write about it.
And then we'll leave the internet and grow up and be gray and our tweets will die out like people do and then we won't think about it much. We won't think about it much.

A synthetic thunderstorm envelops me
and I forget where my life is.
I forget about you and your fluent tongue
of disinterest, puppetry, and misinformation.
I forget the speakers and soundscapes;
wires and ties and strings attached,
the way I struggle to sleep alone,
but cannot share my life with anyone.

I forget the next payday, the next lay;
the need to borrow words and feelings
just to make sense of my own.
Distraction and hunger for nicotine
become near-echoes of a past life-
an umbilical bond to old decades
of habit and mistrust for the sober mind.
I forget the ash and ends I have left behind.

The ocean is close but occupies no space,
only the airwaves with a rhythmic breath
to still my own, reducing my identity
to fractals of self-interest and oneness.
I forget who I am amongst the writing desk,
The Book Of Longing, the cooling tea;
the stagnant water. I forget flesh desire,
violent ***, and apologetic *******.

I forget, for once, the need to live,
amongst all of this living.

unanimous
perfect
agreement

hands down
no argument

Countermelody
without the selfish back talk
point reinforcement

the Visionary
failing
falling

lost to
Deaf ears
not for
lack of
Volume

but out
of generic
disinterest

the Artist
flailing
calling

blind to
Deafinition
not for
lack of
Hunger

contrary
starving for
consummation

Hand in hand

The multitude
   A sacred harp

The gemeni
   One point by perspective

Souls  Synchronized

When people see
Romeo and Juliet
Die together
They think
"How poetic".
Want to know
What's really poetic?
The sound of the chords
That resonate through the piano
When I take a hammer
To its keys.
Or the way my heart
Reshapes itself
To wrap around your soliloquies
About how you don't need me.
You see,
When two people
Fall desperately in love,
It isn't poetic-
It's the things we do
For those who don't
Reciprocate that love
And the ignorance we hold
Against their disinterest.
We **** ourselves every day
For those who live just fine
Without us.
And that's stupid.
That's life.
That's poetry.

To look, or not to look: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to forsake
The entertaining of such fanciful thoughts of love or lust
Or to pursue them against all odds of a benign response,
And by seeking, obtain? To look: to see:
Maybe more; And by a sight to find
In the glitter of an lined eye the interest and wanting
That impels said actions; ‘tis a reciprocation
Devoutly sought. To look: to see:
To see: perchance to lose: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that subtle glance what times may follow after
Whether the ice is broken or the heart instead,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of a choice to peek;
For who would bear the hurt of a scornful return,
A finding that the goddess is a medusa,
A turning of the fancies to stone,
A realization of disinterest, a knitting of the brows
A frown’s beginnings on a face so fair,
When she herself might her peace make
By refraining to meet the intended’s eye? Who would want
To face a rejection that is in all chance,
But for the regret that comes with a chance not taken,
Leaving what could be as what could have been
Forevermore, which makes us turn
And face the one to one million
Than never to face it at all?
Thus fear of rejections makes regretters of us all,
And thus the resolve to be one of a million
Is weakened by weighty o’erthought,
And an attempt to contemplate her soul through her eyes
With this regard are abandoned,
And lost to remain as fanciful thought.

It’s the damndest thing when attentions focused
on one thing beget the focus of another
Like the rooster crowing the sunlight
in the cold, ungrateful weather,
My eyes scan the ups and downs
of those digital stand-ins for those I’ve known
Seeing mistakes, my own and in others,
Seeing perfection, in other’s imperfect successes,
wantonly rubbed in my eyes

As I springboard from the travails of those
with whom I may never vocalize my adoration
I drop out of the air of a life far from mine,
I see mention of a passed on spirit
Who I truly adored,
no digital fakery of half-true fables necessary
to express my love for the ideals implanted in me
by such a tongue so supplicant to the truths in that vast ether
where I used to swim in the light,
never thinking of the dark climes below.  
What choice do I have on an accidental evening like tonight?
I no longer can mask disinterest for other’s soaring narratives
when my true care has been discovered,
been pried away from that dark corner of the airborne pool so ethereal.  

My care, my pride have been torn asunder,
by a mere errant glance on a mere sideways mention
Of a massive, earthly idol, who, if only for a stanza of years
held my full gaze with hopeful smiles and ecstatic promise
for bright futures now gone into grey pastures.  

I lay here an imposter in authentic skin
if only for the sight of words on screens,
with scant meaning in between.

depression
is not crippling sadness
as most think it is.
well, sometimes.
it is
apathy
most of the time

who cares?
no point.
everything *****.

I lost my job today
cried, a little
but I cry about everything.
mainly
apathetic
now I truly have no reason
to ever get out of bed
sure,
I'll look for another
way
to live
but this *****
leaves me with no motivation

no motivation
to apply to colleges,
even though I have
a 3.9 GPA
no motivation
to hang out with friends
even though I am
lonelier than ever

no motivation
to eat food
even though I am
starving

after
I left my now "old work"
I had the impulsive decision
to rescue a dog.
maybe
if I have another creature
to look after
love
feed
I will start
to care for myself, too.

the shelter
made my heart hurt
the kittens
weren't crying
just
sleeping
in their jail cells
uninterested
in life
or their possible new
friend
looking at their possible
rescuer
with disinterest
looking
through their cage
like me.

finnegan
was a terrier mix
a stray
he was whining
licked
my hand
when I reached to him
eight years old
missing
his right eye
life has trampled him
yet he is not hardened
I cried
with him

as I walked him
around the play area
he sniffed everything he could.
curious
investigating
not crying anymore
just happy to be free
from the hell in his cage
he
treated the workers
with affection
like he treated me
with affection

it took awhile
until he came close
and cried while I pat him
climbed in my lap
and cried
I know
buddy

walked him inside.
the woman,
at the counter
looked at me eagerly,
"so?!"
I looked away.
can't
do it
not
today
I'm sorry

him and I
are both looking
for affection
love
a way out of this mess.
but
I can't help him.
no job,
no sure way I can buy him food
buy me food.
I can't
buy a living creature
out of impulse.

he needed security
I cannot provide that
only warmth.

I need to be happy
he cannot provide that
only warmth.

goodbye,
cutie
puller of heartstrings
I promise
someone better than me
will take you away.
not today

lost myself
lost my passion
lost my lust
lost my job
lost
my
soul.

I am the past and I am the present. I am the digger of graves and the conveyance to them.
I am the string; connected to the puppets that wield my blows.

I am the thing they call, “Havoc” I am the Blue Monkey.

The key to my cage, that which sets me free is your disinterest, your apathy and hate. My freedom to roam unabated is your ignorance, and retribution’s ****** slate.  Man’s violence upon himself is my ignorant inspiration, and I revel in the thought of his de-creation.

I can be found in city and town, in far flung reaches around the world. I can be seen in newscast scenes, I can be found in the eyes of a starving child. My name is celebrated in ball ammo flight, and the pungent aroma of smoke and cordite.

I am the flame set to irreverent crosses; lighting the sky with racist delights, I am the tailor of white sheeted banners so bias. I am the unjustified 13 knots of retribution, fashioned on the hangman’s noose.

I am the thing they call “Havoc” I am the Blue Monkey.

Complacency is my friend, Revenge, my *****. Blood letting my delight, to even senseless scores. My hands are soiled with the lives of many, and I have been given freedoms in place of your outrage. Look around in farm and town, in village and city streets, my presence is everywhere…

Keep sleeping; keep sleeping,
For when you awake, I shall have to go.

I am the vehement articulations of opinion and rhetoric, and in spite of your diatribes,
It is they that give me wing. I am the developer of future battlefields. I was the architect of the Auschwitz oven, the builder of the Berlin wall. I was the sharpened blade of Tutsi, Hutu cleansings. I am the mix master of Jim Jones’s cool aide. I am confusion; I am disassociation, alienation and empty pride.

I am the thing they call “Havoc” I am The Blue Monkey.

You will find me in back alley shooting dens, on skid row’s bleeding pavement.
You will find me in lonely fields and dark forests, within the graves of the murdered unknown. You will see my reflection in broken mirrors, for I celebrate their fall,
And I will revel in the screams of your unheard call.
They call me destruction; I am your neutron bomb. I am the wings of the Enola Gay at thirty thousand feet, reaching out to touch you. With nuclear, holocaust treats.
I am dynamite, TNT, I am the thought imposed in political superiority. I am the IED
On the path of Man’s sacred journey.  I am travail and tribulation.

I am the thing they call “Havoc” I am the Blue Monkey.

I am the summation of all your perceived wrongs, and yet you tarry about,
Clanging self-righteous gongs,
You see, but you are blind, you listen but do not hear. Instead you wallow in the pits of self loathing and determinate fear. And in that fear, it becomes quite clear that indeed your hearts are closed, for to open them wide would cause your heart to collide with the awful truth about me.

Yes, keep sleeping; and sleep well,
For when you awake, I shall have to go.

For I am the thing they call “Havoc” I am the Blue Monkey…

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." - 1 John 4:18

a maladjusted little minstrel, rage focused in the pinnacle
least invincible principle of my environment, so biblical
i'm ti-red of the rituals habitual to assimilating individuals
like our voices and choices and self-importance, all cyclical

does your infallible tongue feel hungry and porous
like your horrid torpid fond memory abhorrence
the grossly ****** and unnatural discordance
the inorganic and unfactual that came before us
the dissident power of your bodies' diction in a chorus

swear i'm fine, it's just your eyes, inflected with disinfected distance
a forest of imbellished distrust, derealized with disinterest
making me feel like my lungs are full of fumigated insects
and that's fine, i swear, trust me,
i don't need to convince you of this
i don't want to climb into your mouth and wrestle the truth out
i want to go home smelling of wine and pass out on the couch
and your actions are latent, this is stupidly freudian
stop treating me like a ******* patient,
you're supposed to be my friend

coughing up horrible insincerities meant to be favoring
stop and listen to yourself giving your secrets away, wavering
like a white bible page ripped from the spine of glue on your mouth,
you gave in, balancing on the edge of a risky display
disobeying social conventions and being made prey again today

you’ve got dictionaries of fiction fidgeting with the infectious insecurity ignition
stop and listen
and a thesaurus that can’t arm you with the proper vowel consonant friction
to out-enamor their derision when you pout as you fit the description
never feeling completely comfortable in someone else's kitchen
i wish you would scream and shout but you just keep playing cards now
wish you’d unlock but it stops between your lips slow scowl
swallowing your tongue, the key, he cut out when you kissed
not hateful but afraid
afraid to let it out, ‘kid’
afraid the words would fit too much like a slit smile on a spit
afraid they would just flow like this

an unspoken conviction for viscious fulfillments
and dereliction of indiscriminate sauve depictions of riches
of addictions to princesses and affinity for infinitely angering insistence
of what she represses
expected on the table in an instant

the constriction of the snake in her belly
makes ******* and planning things
seem insanely oppressive
she was getting too old for things to be like this
but they all like it that way
this is why she hates yelling and kissing
always the same old
merry go round

you say poet as if it means perfect
when i know enough people with the bruises to show it
to realize it really means nervous
and i have nothing to show see
except the mosquitoes who ****** my blood
and would be delighted to tell you
what ugly things they know about me

They're silent now.

No more endless empty words.

The previously clean paper that was so hastily cluttered up with meaningless drivel to justify their already decided plans, now sit unreadable.

Not a word is being spoken now as a look of stunned surprise on faces that once were clean, smug, and pretty as a picture  would look pale from shock if they were visible and not now bathed in blood and fragments of brain.

A brain that once was so full of thoughts, experiences, images, hopes and dreams.

A brain of a person that had done so much and wanted to do so much more, but was so ground down by the struggle to convince others.

A mind that for a split-second forgot who possessed it and forgot the people he so loved, that would be so hurt from this one, fleeting, solitary moment of madness.

But how can this brain that was put to such good use, now be splattered on tables, across walls, and over the last two inconsequential people to have ever seen me before this act?

By taking a gun from my bag, quietly and without emotion, into my hand, pressing firmly into the bottom of my mouth, all it took was a quick snap of a finger to metaphorically stick two up to them, and to all the others who couldn't give a ****, slicing a hole straight through me, launching a cascade of blood and body tissue into the air, across the room, and over the representation of all that has hurt me.

The decisions they make so easily, in the comfort of their own lives, without a thought for the human cost and waste of talent and potential, becomes just ink on paper.

But that pen became a dagger, ripping out my heart; and the paper that only moments ago was being filled up with my pain has now become the blood-drenched ocean of my soul.

You couldn't or wouldn't see what was on my mind and inside my head before, but you certainly can't miss it now, as it drips down your cheek.

I wanted to wipe away that empty and meaningless look I saw on your faces as you mechanically noted down my comments that I knew meant nothing to you and would go no further.

So now do your best to flick off the blood and please make sure it's all properly written up, reported on, and filed away neatly, in the organisationally detached way that all good little servants and agents of pain and misery always do.

It's so much easier to do the devil's work when it's not happening to you or anyone you care about. Wrap yourself up in the policies and procedures; insulate yourself from the person; do only what the rules say; comforting yourself in the 'organisational justification' for change; and breathe a sigh of relief it's not you or those you care for or love - at least not yet.

Through the red of the blood soaked window, a bird flies free.
What drastic steps to have taken for that to be me.

But the bird now flies home to its loved one and chicks, but sadly this will not now be for me. There's only so much a person can take.

But when will those with power and privilege see and care?
Usually not till it's far too late, as they now sit there dripping in what used to rush through my veins, giving me life and a reason to be.

I hope your reason to be, your actions and disinterest, has been worth it?
Your memory of my last breath into your face and my head exploding into your eyes might just act as a reminder.

When you see reports about an atrocity splashed across the news, and hear the repeated cries of "why?", maybe the answer for the one responsible might just be "well, why not?"

But that might be too difficult to fathom in this shallow, myopic, sound-bite driven world, so hooked on demonising, labelling as mad, and looking for easy answers for want of anything more useful.

From knee-**** reaction and tireless and narrow 'Daily Mail' rants against anyone or anything that doesn't fit their limited view of the world.

Most things don't just happen for no reason.

The reasons might be hard to see for many, especially when they don't want to see, but for those driven to such desperation they are likely quite rational to them in their world, with their experiences, their pressures, their pain, and their responses, or lack of anything beneficial from others.

When potentially destructive seeds are planted and their care is continually ignored, or their roots so callously ripped away, don't be surprised if something unwanted grows.

Maybe firmer foundations, better planting, regular watering, and careful appropriate tending would go a long way to help.

Copyright: Gordon Warren (10/1/13)

Out on the empty streets
The ringing chime of deaf echoes cries
Stumbling through the brown alleyways
All I find is trash & dirtied lies
I need someone to save me, I've got no more strength
My soul's been stretched out to its limits length

I've looked for my secret
Yet all I've found is an illuminated crescent
Shining like the son of the sun
Who's only wish is to truly belong
To the morning bluebirds song

I need a way out of here
I need passage quick
The fields are empty, the cold-blooded moon high,
And all that can be heard are the sounds of crickets
Rubbing together in the tall, thinning thicket

A fire burns as the milkman feigns
Flicking his wrists as he whips the reigns
Toward a house full of the ripe insane
The grandpa on the deck, tapping his cane

Torn between choice and necessity
I feel free at least once in this life, oh' finally!
Cry for the moon and cheer for the rising struggle
Of the corrupt waning as the stitching of fought for love
Flies to the west like a snow white dove

Old times intertwine with the new
Waves crash along the beaches shore
What she wanted she couldn't explain
But I knew deep inside she wanted more

So I shake my head back and forth
Rocking with a splintered ship that wears no obvious sail
And I press my finger's against my heated temples
Looking for a moment that is never resting
Searching for a feeling without a name
Worrying whence I find it
I'll waking in the morning still the same

Black lit sky key to the weather horizon
A fortune for you is cast in all sorts of prizes
Hotel beds creased to make as the fake I.D.
Is checked and double-checked
Making sure who at dawn will pay
Rooms dressed for stranger's bashful vices
A rose colored wish only meant to entice

Each song I hear reminds me of you
Who knew true love was so fleeting and few?
I stretch my sun dried hands as I gaze ahead
If only I'd thought straight before I was led
The road in front of me graveyard dead

The abuse I'm feeling
Still runs through me
Is the heart serious
Or is it fooling?

I stand accused
Guilty and innocent
Shackle me let me free

The end

Means all the same to me

In brotherhood men learn to spread their wings
Mixing kindness with mythic grievances
The night wakes as the dawn slowly slips to sleep
Bubbling brook, I am here, try to speak

Cornered and alone now
Each hour a witness
Of a goal never finished
And inside myself I hear a wail
Of my soul setting sail
The waves breaking as I'm speaking
To a monk of no persuasion

Every prayer with reason
Drenched in hope for salvation
Appeasing what pains are held within thee
Each hour in wait ear near to the gate
Only humbled disinterest
Tempt the hands of sought fate

Of the five senses, touch was the first to go
When the rot set in.
Necrotic from disinterest; disused and numb,
A disconnected *****, a colony of one.
.
Then sound; your messages left unheard.
Just the tap tap tap of some manic mind.
No pause...just repeat; the eternal rewind.
Sleep starved, all words stick frozen in time.
.
For leading me into temptation; my gluttonous sins,
Taste and smell succumbed, then withered and died.
Staunch as a deacon, control finally mine.
The harvest ignored, bloated  on the vine.
.
Only sight eludes my metal fatigue.
The mirror much stronger, it haunts and it taunts.
Its warped funhouse images all I can see.
The bully I made...this cruel double of me.

Fever induced haze stole the dreams from the onset of sleep
Turned them to cigarettes lit at the gas pump
And indignation down both ends of the street
The first day we ran like bats out of Hell
The next we collapsed entirely
Swallowed by the Little Miami, ending up somewhere new
Like we planned it all along
All eyes averted as the calender hung itself
For the last time, and cried for November the twenty fourth
But the time stamped behind our eyes remained
Deep December year round
No fire came from the skies to melt the lonely West like the preacher told us
But we'd stopped listening long ago
So who knows how the speech ended, or if it just trailed off in tepid resignation
I suppose we could always just wait for the world to melt itself instead

Inward anger inhibits.
You keep pushing, knocking,
finally yielding determination to disinterest,
to frustration. Foreign concepts
like undeveloped film.
Until, barely latching onto the fabric,
you happen upon it
at some odd hour, the light
adjusts and your perception,
and you may grasp it,
knocking through rotten wood,
collapsing into understanding,
and free within hollow enlightenment
to finally progress.

If you wish to win your man’s heart somehow
Show interest rolling your admiring eyes,
As he raves over the pet subjects of his choice,
Occasionally responding to what he says

Simulate keenness, though you don’t have it
When he prates over his job and its challenges
Pep up his confidence through words of concern
Make him feel, you are there to share his tensions

A wife’s pleasing demeanor and care
Can ease a man’s life and his blues
As filtering sunlight melts the mists
That hides the meadow’s lovely blooms

Know his favorite food and the cuisine he loves
Prepare them oftener than he can expect
The easiest way to get into a man’s heart
Is through gratifying and titillating his palate

Though he may show disinterest in flattery
Compliment him over the ‘great things’ he has done
You’ll see his former stance suddenly changed
Through praise, sure, his heart you have won

In the privacy of your closet on cool, starlit nights
Lie closer to him, even feigning false passion
As a flower bares its perfumed heart to the bee
Give yourself completely to him sans restriction

Thus win him through the magic of wooing
Delight him with your soft whispers of crooning
Never forget to take care of your grooming
And sure, day by day you will see your love blooming

Kindness is not nice.

Nice is soft and inoffensive.
Nice is easy and effects no change, it's cotton wool - not stuffed tight, but just resting on the surface ready to be blown away or trodden into a muddy disinterest. Nice is a damp whisper, a mouse cowering in the corner, taking up as little space as possible, lest it be noticed, lest it presume too much and cause a whisker of offence.

Kindness isn't like that -

Kindness pushes in, claws out, quick and heavy, uninvited, unexpected, taking pleasure in disturbance, in leaving nothing unsaid and little undone in its pursuit of creating a disruption of difference. Kindness counts everyone a target, anybody a likely candidate for a three act matinee and evening performance of loud Kindness. Surprise is its currency, smiles its language, common humanity its passport to lands yet explored, to vast pink territories with drumbeats of gratefulness for the opportunity to march in with regiments of compassion and to leave a signature devastation of brutal Kindness.

Kindness is not 'nice'.
Kindness is loving awe-ful.

There are three sides to a story
and I've shied away from each
lost my touch I've grown so numb
to my own feelings
now a new language that I'm
in no way familiar with
only fluent in silence

My problem is inspiration
before long turns to disinterest
will to a won't
or a can't
or a don't
so I don't
try

words are objective
their meanings subjective
so splattering words on a page
like paint on a canvas
or colors on the world
is a step in the right direction
a try

a seed
that will hopefully grow into a
strong poe-tree
with multidimensional branches
that I can climb to escape
But there's no escape if I don't try.

I’m not sure you know what it’s like to love
someone you know is only going to demolish you.
What it’s like to give your body to someone
who doesn’t care what it would look like
turned inside out, the beauty of it
dripping from your bones, the words that haunt
you when the lights go out, the dreams you swore
to catch but just nearly missed.
I’m not sure you know what it’s like to watch
for the expiration date, wait for
that last good day before the question
is asked, the “where is this going?”
the self-promises not to reach out to him
days after you’ve gotten the wrong answer.
I’m not sure you know what it’s like to prepare
bomb shelters out of empty Ben & Jerry’s,
your roommate’s wine, your favorite leggings
and a blank document. I don’t think you know
what it’s like to play tag with each other’s tongues
in your bed while you just wait
for it to be empty again.

I love all the things you do,
all the stupid little hair flips and the smiling
between kisses, how you cradle my face like you just know
you’re going to tear my smile apart one day,
but you don’t get it.

You don’t know what it’s like to be the girl
everyone breaks. To have to watch days
on your calendar pass by while crossing your fingers
that today isn’t the day he grows tired of your jokes,
the day he finds the sparkle has faded, the day
the disinterest starts. You don’t know
what it’s like to hold someone you know isn’t ever
going to be yours.