Dueling mind
No, not mind but something else
Constantly fighting for what she likes
Never happy
But always empty
Dueling mind
Give it peace, maybe she will settle
Lets try and see
Not far from reach
Yet a thousand miles apart
She knows what she wants
Yet she still seeks
Like a blind man
She just wants to see
Like a baby she just wants to know
Her dueling mind won't let her go
It causes her pain
Her dueling mind won't settle
Her mind
Her minds

If our lives were like a dueling match, we would be the perfect partners. You can deflect every move I make. We'd be dancing th same dance, always, and neither of us would win.

but no friends and no invitations
from weaker, lesser duelists
three thousand on a mtg deck
like the true king of dueling

i watch the nerdom go down
you lost to somebody
who spent twenty dollars on his deck
and i laugh anyways like it means a thing

An empty shell
of where breath resided
A childhood fantasy
unveiled as grim existence
Echoes of lonely hopes
with wishes unfulfilled

Crack Me
Reveal Me
Smother Me
Bury Me.
I'm Dead.

Smooth velvet wind
whispers Love across my skin
A vision of possibility
emerges as a prism of celestial hues
Melodic waves
push my soul ashore

Envelop Me
Illuminate Me
Cleanse Me
Celebrate Me.
*I'm Alive.

Within the four walls of this library
sit three walls packed into the corner;
shelves, stuffed full of books with dog-eared pages
and slip-disc’d spines and fraying edges,
and a big white sign, which dangles from the ceiling
like a megabat hung on a cave mouth, sleeping and dreaming,
the word “NONFICTION” is inscribed on its countenance,
adjacent to signs shouting “MYSTERY” and “SCIENCE
FICTION” and “FANTASY” and “ROMANCE”
and a thousand other sorts of words
for myth and fabrication. But in this corner
live the rest, the et ceteras, the miscellaneous,
the kingdom of protists; for instance, care for some ethics?
Marx’s manifesto is stacked lazily beside a heap of essays by Rand;
you can practically see the two of them, shaking hands
uneasily, the will to never understand already forming
in their brains, and others yet remain;
Capote and the Clutters share shelf space
with the Mansons, hiding helter skelter behind
gnostic gospels and silent springs and a thousand
dreams for Freud to interpret (translated
from German for your convenience); nearby,
Orwell sings war songs in Catalan, accompanied
by the universe’s most elegant superstrings,
and the caged birds, singing of freedom,
harmonizing a melodious cacophony with the song
of the executioner. Butler criticizes his performance,
and she probably would have anyway, but Friedan thinks
he has a certain sort of mystique and Dawkins offers his own critique,
going on about genes and memes, extinction and delusion, but
not hallucinations—Sacks makes the distinction; let us continue
to praise famous men, and their children after them,
these naked apes, with minds so ***** that
they’re riddled with the emperors of all maladies; oh, Morris
Kinsey and Mukherjee could tell you all about these things,
maybe over lunch with Schlosser or dinner with Pollan,
minglings with Machiavelli over affairs of the state,
or affairs of space and a brief history of time; but,
if you're feeling too full to eat, or to pray, or to love,
ask Frankl what to do, let him change your life
with words from decades yore as he keeps on
his search for meaning just like every man before, at least
that's the case when these boys’ lives weren’t preoccupied
by artful war or bright and shining lies. And here,
by the holy bookend, lies some old and antiquated glossary
which lost most of its “glossy” many years ago,
for one flip through the pages will catalogue the changes
between what we thought we knew about the stars
and our bodies and doomsday as recently
as your last birthday, and all the things that everyone says
we now know that we know; speak,
memory, remember all you can
about this endless, sundry cosmos, and
the microcosms that it boasts; bury my heart,
if not at Wounded Knee, then maybe at this
library, where comprehension and speculation
find themselves in coexistence, packed into a single
point resembling the genesis, and fear and hope
take dueling forms, those of fact and mystery;
and now all that’s left to do is read,
until the end of history.

What happened on Weehawken Heights,
that warm midsummer’s day?
There are several versions of the “truth”
but none for sure can say.

The Principals were both well known:
Hamilton and Burr.
Aaron Burr had made the challenge,
Hamilton would not demur.

Hamilton choose pistols as the weapons
Then Burr proposed the site.
Per the Irish Code Duello
It was all proper and right.

Dueling was illegal,
so the Seconds looked away
so they could plausibly deny
that they had seen the fray.

Each man walked off ten paces,
and Mister Pendleton yelled “Pre-sent”!
Most think that Hamilton fired first;
wide and right, his shot was spent.

Aaron Burr was deadly accurate:
His shot, its target found:
Alexander Hamilton, wounded,
swooned upon the ground.


“this wound is mortal, Doctor.”
was all Hamilton could say.
They bore him to the City where
he passed on the following day.


Aaron Burr also fled the scene,
evading prosecution.
He had “Full Satisfaction”,
this hero of the Revolution.

What is full satisfaction
when Burr’s Star was past its season?
He never more held public trust,
indeed, stood trial for treason.

A person can be haunted
by a ghost that none can see.
Burr’s brilliance had been blighted
by a sort of infamy.

Towards the end of his own life
Burr said of his enemy:
“{Had I known}The world was wide
enough for Hamilton and me.”




On July 11, 1804, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr fought the most famous duel in American history. These two heroes of the Revolution were political enemies and Hamilton had done much to exclude Burr from the Presidency and from the  New York  governorship.  Burr,feeling he had been defamed by Hamilton's published remarks demanded the "Full Satisfaction" of a duel.  My account generally follows the account of the historian, Joesph Ellis. Any errors are my fault. Any items in quotes are words ascribed to these two famous individuals.  Aaron Burr never after held public office and eventually stood trial for treason for his alleged attempt to set up an independent country in the territory Jefferson purchased from France. After several years living in France, Burr returned to New york where he faded into obscurity. Alexander Hamilton is buried in the churchyard of Trinity Church in downtown New york.


Towards the end of his life, Burr remarked: "Had I read Sterne more and Voltaire less, I should have known the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me."[35]

Life, be not arrogant, though some have called thee
Terrifying and delighting, thou art so; sowing random confusion,
Overthrowing mortals with unequal puzzles of both extremes,
Humans, condemned, to collect travails, improvident provisions,
Live, Life! But only through us, for thy are slave to imprecisions, conflated constant reversible, the free choice of souls' decisions,
Random and inopportune, thy bedeviling choice of hurdles,
Our swelled heads so vulnerable to robbers and roadblocks,
But cannot thou onfess, rare is thy victory, oft thy defeat.
Until we meet thy comrade in arms, our paths irregular coursing,
Of our own choice, so acknowledge thou makest our path to veer,
Impotent prince, 'tis always our hands, arms upon the tiller to steer.

Is this a power hierarchy?
Does our dueling footwork
Convince us to
Lock into some sort of
Competitive symmetry,
Twisting into your
Mashed potato minefield with
Doo *** , doo dad laden
Dancing shoes?

Gimme your
Electronic sympathy, baby,
Infiltrate the airwaves with
Piercing eye contact and
Tremourous finger tip brushes.

Is my informality coming through?
Have I communicated with
Unlocked elbows and
Megaphone ears that not only
My body but universe
Lives here and in you?

Orient yourself to me,
I task while asking you to
Take off your straight jacket and
Stay a while. Unlock your
Pandora 's box so your
Monsters can meet mine,
Mirrored in different shades of
Shock and shame, operating under
Varied hues of the same name.

Lean into me, let your
Shoulders slender and shimmy to a
Tenderizing touch, the
Objects under your skin collapsing
To the 4/4 timed battle
Between form and perception.

The ingestion of the
Metaphor is the message, and
The tongue regards a tune
Differently than a taste.

Face symmetrical, nostrils work,
The blooming waste of consumption
Centered on the top right corner of
Your cheekbones.
I can't help but grab the
Slight upswing in the tone
Of your voice and spin it around;
Let's swing, darling.
I'd like to take your descriptors
On a date to the dance floor.

How long can we keep this up until meaning has waltzed out the door?

enthroned above the kingdom of desire
hardly born... a chestnut of wane fire
stealing metronomes from garden gnomes
shunning the gimme
of asking for nothing.

your breaks mend
iris slivers sleep in dungarees
of dross and stale glass

sick lemurs. dancing  in the Cherokee  of sublime Dementia

dueling rhapsodies of function

utterly bereft
of form ....
  
unformed.

We were pirates then
dueling swords of picket wood
on summer days when backyard pools
were Caribbean seas

We swung from frayed and creaking rope
tethered to the stolid limbs of shadegiving trees
plundering the ships we made from cardboard
and splintered pinewood crates

We laid siege to sandbox fortresses
with cannon fire from garden hoses
muzzled by the ends of our thumbs

Our shipmates were the tabby cats
and german shepherds we dressed
in tattered sheets pillaged from
lines strewn across the lawn
and patches held by rubber bands
covering bewildered eyes

We were pirates then
dueling swords of picket wood
on summer days we buried
in coves hidden along straits
we marked on weathered maps

Surviving still and sometimes found
in the darkest corners of the night
and the cloudless wonder of the day

The root cause

What makes so many
Weep and write,
What is the root cause?

Natty boy, c'mon,
This question, repeatedly,
asked and answered!
Turn the radio on!

No, scorn me not,
My answer sino-complex,
mine too.

Many of our devices
Record waves, cycles,
Of which the length, shape,
Endless are the variation.

Your expertise? Your cycles?

Read my **** poems,
A to V.
Even the equations.

I have known heart ache so real
My chest hurt for months.
The doctor had no pills for that.
Risked everything. Lost.
My own weakness seek and sought,
Self-destructing me.

I have known the soul ache that makes
Rising From The Bed,
The most agonizing decision.
A life and death incision/rescission.
A go/no go apparition questioning.

All this long after I was a man.
Two children, reso-possible?
Nope. Choices limited,
Sat in the sunroom,
Contemplating all this.

Say what you need to say.

I try every day to just grab,
Hold, get fastened to me,
The tiniest scrap.

So when I walk by the river,
One atomic iota of sun, a single rain drop,
Gives me cause to pause.

The cycle begins again.
Still unclear? Get graph paper.
Copy this overlay down.
My manic-depressive cycles lookalike,
But the amplitude variegated.
In 59 seconds, Live and Die,
A calculus point on a monthly cycle,
Which in turn, but a point,
A microscopic dot,
In a cycle longer,
A Hundred Years War.

You ok dude?
.
Where is this coming from
On the commencement of a
Three day weekend?

Fair question.

There is a button here,
Randomness incorporated,
Into some poetry sight.

Led me to a eleven year old, poet.
Now,
Know, you understand...the question, posed.

The tiniest scrap of hopeful buried here
In plain site.
These colorful, wordy points,
Scattered, on the cycles,
Usually at the highs and lows.

Maybe I did not answer it well enough.
Maybe nobody can.

Yo, need a job.
Yo, need money.
No cycle in my savings account,
Only a straight line downward sloping.

so I grab an iota of sun,
a solitary raindrop,
make a plan,
write this poem,
a cycle
inflection point.

I ask this question
Every ten seconds stil,
If you must know my truth.
Dueling banjos in my head,
never ever
have stopped playing.

This poem-answer,
Not my best.
But a cycle turning point.
Again.

Having fed the beast,
Maybe I'll get five minutes till
I write it again
In a different shape,
En pointe,
Standing up and beautiful,
I am a twirling ballerina,
who can twirl with out ceasing,
knowing the perpetual motion secret.
For but another mini-cycle

I am endless.
It is endless.
But dear god,
why must you commence with the young ones,
aged eleven?


6:40am Saturday.

Useless babble
Thrown forth from a drunk
Reminds me of a child
Playing with bubbles in a tub

You can't understand them
You laugh and you think
One's just a baby
But the other
How much did he drink?

Red and raw like my brain,
unable to shut down.
Thoughts crashing like electrons
orbiting a nucleus of dueling emotions.
Wanting to stay up,
Knowing I should want to come down
and stay that way.

Soon after the sky had cast off
The tattered cloak of night,
And the midnight sun had set,
Helios himself climbed above the trees.
Dancing across the tops of dueling oaks,
Those primordial brothers between the ponds
Who, over time, grew up and into each other,
He sat spinning madly.

Shedding his golden rays,
As a lab shakes and sheds the water from his back,
They fell deliberately onto
And through my open blinds.
And I, stirred by the small streams of light
Cutting through the dark as if empty space,
I opened my eyes, only to close them again.

Lying, silently, I wait,
Tracing shadows as they slowly shift,
Dancing across the dull, white walls.
Fetid clothes lay protecting the floorboards.

The stale smell of smoke lingers,
Trapped in the soft cottons and polyesters
Of the cream throw pillows,
The blue waves of comforter,
The vast canyons of the corduroy futon.

Wine, fresh on my tongue,
Tells tales of the evening,
Lost of late in a world so distant.
My memories slip away like slack tide
Beneath rotten planks of a dock.

Twin cities, London and Paris,
A cold Christmas morning in Montmartre,
The warmth of the café we shared,
All hung up neatly on the wall.
Maps of emotions I never knew I had.

Only the breeze may speak here,
Whistling through the fissures in the wall.

I do not live: I burn. In acrimony raging
Two souls are dueling within my breast:
The soul of a devil, the soul of an angel.
Their breathing is flame and it gives me no rest.

Not one flame bursts but two - whatever I am touching,
And in each stone two heartbeats I hear clash…
Wherever I go there is an odious doubling
Of two warring faces, which vanish in ash.

And everywhere the wind that follows me is spreading
The ashes: all my footprints are effaced.
For I am not living - I burn! - and am shedding
A trail of grey ashes across a dim waste.

The drive isn’t that bad
Gas prices could be better
But I’ve never been one for excuses
Plus you couldn’t ask for better weather

Coffee sounds great
Although it’s secretly still something I can’t stand
Hot chocolate just tastes better
Plus energy is never lacking when you’re on hand

Because you are the person
I would want to see if this day was my last
If I were upon my death bed
My last breath being cast

Everything that was said
All the journeys we’ve led
All the blood that we’ve bled
The life-appetite we’ve fed
All this makes me want your hands on my head
As I lay upon that bed

Despite us leaving everything for dead
Letting our vibrant colors flow over in thick red

So.
Coffee.

“It feels like forever
Although some things do go without saying
Oh, yeah you can get your own drink
I guess I’m not used to you paying

I know its crazy
I should call more
I guess I’m just lazy

You look real good though
You seem like you’re doing well
You have your same glow”

And that’s as far as it gets
Outside my head at least
Because reality has this annoying habit
Of making things so difficult to be released
Especially all the moments I’ve collected
Held captive for you
I think they will make things better
Or at least act as some sort of glue
To hold together the pieces
I know still exist
Or at least I hope

But maybe you don’t
Maybe I just can’t resist

So all the bits of my plan
Dissolve into excuses
Just like the sugar in your drink
Diving under after stringing up nooses

But old habits die hard
Still effortlessly creating conversation
Our classic dueling talks
Balancing philosophy and humor upon relation
Like the things we want to do before we die
(They’re all still the same)
And sharing space with all my old jokes
(They’re all still pretty lame)

And then a moment
Or two
Where I feel myself pushing against
The backside of my eyeballs, wanting to break through

And I feel you push back
Towards me over this silent wave
And we simply exist
Is this cowardice or are we brave?

But now the coffee is out
Our lives call us back
We are done
Just like that

Walking out I see my vision
Marred only by your presence
The very thing I set out to revisit
Remains simply a formless essence

So I drive.
It’s a long drive

I embrace my own journey and place
Reflecting on your influence, weighing each case
And trace the space you’ve forced me to face

I can’t live every day like it’s my last
Because then I’d just be making trips to you
And can’t afford the gas

Dreaming seems to be a cycled reality,
dueling matters of vague interpretation
almost holding on to a fugue
state of delieverance,
that returns to dreaming.

A wakefulness that pardons our stressors,
exploring how sureness of changing tides
have arrived to wash the shore’s footprints;
turning salutations to a once cumbersom
slumber to keeping these eyes closed.

The mind never rests,
it continues to timely act.
Despite the character of one’s gait
submissive to extrinsic. We dream the same.
A neutrality in recognition,
the deepest desire,
the social matter,
and the human acceptance.

We rise to sleep
to deeply wake
the harden reality we failed,
to accept throughout our day,
removing our knighly armor and face
our dragons which have their own vices,
yet our devices hinder. Our true dreams,
blur between eyes closed
changing to dreaming with eyes open.

Realizing all true negatives are true
positives differing only from accepting
that I can vertically add difference;
we can all equate to change
if you keep dreaming in mind.

The Show


I awake circa two AM to observe an Earth under siege.
Fearsome blasts of lighting lightening unceasing,
illuminate a sky that is divided into two; a grey white
boundary-less blob of cloud, bolt pricked in a steady
but random pattern for at the least the hour since I was
awakened and a blackened horizon lining defining the land of men.

I debate my choice of word; at some point I slip from the bed to
relieve myself for such is the age of burden I currently occupy;
but my fingers disobey wanting to write relive myself,
to assure myself, that I am, will be, a surviving witness to an awesome and terrifying spectacle, noting the appropriate dueling nature of “awesomeness” for it brings a joyous awe and a paralyzing fear with equal measure, but without any trace of forcible distributive equity.

The lightening is fulsome; sometimes well hid above in a
single whiteness that is the very definition of singularity,
without cue, but within, Z shape bolts of comic book proportionality.

Here’s the rub! All this demonstration is done in a complete,
comforter (!) of silence. The house periodically rumbles its
machinery, whether in fear, or because it must mechanically
do so in the same manner we breathe, or simply to alert me
that I frail human, am at the mercy of the skymaster above,
and the manmade array of pipes, compressors, big apparatuses pinstalled in the earth below to serve until they don’t, and then
we must service them.

The silence is amazing for it is total and domineering and absent thunder. The Show occurs in the largest venue available, the Bay,
but the well behaved audience makes no sound, not a whit,
no coughing, sneezing puncturing or punctuating (reader’s choice) the eerie quiet of a speechless world that cannot speak, as if its larynx was removed, but it’s eye were restored to the age of 20/20.

Well over an hour, closer to two, the demonstration is concluded
and we return to the supine, neutrally, even emotionless, for the gamut and gauntlet we have survived dry and in safety has
concluded and the thick picture window did its job admirably.

Wait Now, a pockmark of bursts in the absence of all light, the now blackness has replaced everything, except for a momentary pinprick of of cloud framed orange hue, a shell exploding far across the bay.

S. sleeps relatively unperturbed, until she does not; for a long minute she rattles the ship, kicking tantrum violently both legs, until the covers are disarrayed, only to fall back into a deep blue colored stage of sleep, and pulling the covers onto the custom fitted aperture neath the chin.

This secondary, receding lightening demonstration that has been taking place; as if a heavenly Lincoln~Stephens oratorical battle occurs over the nearby Atlantic of  nonstop proportion, leaving my my mind to dwell on this topic:

Resolved: This man, that pens this missive about sky missiles is a good writer, or even reasonably ok.

I am representing both sides (duh). and skip to the judges decision without further ado, for brevity is a skill I am profoundly lacking and appreciate, and the eloquence of the debaters is acutely not bad, as prideful acumen is the standard.

Sorry. Split decision, 3 -2, he is merely an ok writer.

Now past 4 AM, glance outside but once more, and there a slow slewing of dawn light emerging like springtime buds, the trees on the lawn are faintly distinguishable, outlined against a normalized, post-storm night sky full of debris EXCEPT in the not-faraway-enough-distance, a few straggler lighting bolts are yet appearing to remind me the night is indeed always awesome and full of terror, just like a good poem.

4:22 AM Jul 5 2023

Stupid
Stupid
What a fool he was
Was it really worth it?
Was She really worth it?
Was she worth fighting for?
Worth dueling for?
Pierre asked himself over
And over
And over again
He looked down
At the pistol
White-knuckle-gripped in his hand
He decided
She was
He lifted the gun
Aimed
Fired
In the same instant
His opponent did the same
Then
He fell
A hit
Victory!
Pierre had won
His grin cracked his face in half
His shout bent the air
He had won
He'd won
Oh, wouldn't she be proud!
He saw her face in his mind
Smiling
Her eyes shining
Like the stars
Only better
Sharing his victory
“It was for you,”
He told her
“It was all for you”
She nodded
“I know”
Meanwhile,
Back in the present
He felt something
A slight discomfort
In his stomach
Pierre looked down
He was bleeding
Quite a lot
He blinked
All of a sudden
Pain
The worst pain he'd ever felt
It surrounded him
It became a part of him
More blood
The entire front of his cloak
Had been crimsonified
His scream bent the air
This wasn't right
This wasn't fair
He'd won
He'd won
Blood trickled from his mouth
Bubbled from his lips
He realized something:
He'd never asked her name
Stupid
Stupid
What a fool he was
Was it really worth it?
Was She really worth it?
This girl whom he'd never met?
Was she worth fighting for?
Dueling for?
Losing for?
Bleeding for?
Was she really worth dying for?
He decided
She was

Down I go
Dying slow; no carpet rides
Beneath the blue below
Precious diamonds; pressure only grinds my bones
         That which dwells in these depths,
         Must be overthrown
         Like the stone, dragging me deeper
         Into this black cold
All my sunken attempts
Dress the sand in swords
For all the fallen warriors slain
By the dueling voices inside my brain
        Chained to pillars in this endless ocean
        Composure erodes like weathered boulders
        Yet, I stand staunch against the breaking waves
        For what is outside myself, I have no mind to claim

You ask me how I find the time,
But time is not the issue,
For they, are all prepared, needing only recognition,
For they, are all in readiness, needing only composition

I see a toddler swaying, see him to disaster lurching,
Somehow avoided with last second seer-like swerving,
Ten times in a ten foot walk across a patio,
My eyes code red at the incredible risk/reward ratio,
It is nature at it most incredible, miraculous, ordinariness

A young girl of ten wears a pocketbook across her forearm,
In the style of an elderly woman, as she plays with Barbie,
Tho her body immature, her psyche, says note my
Iconology, her accoutrement, texts a message subtly,
I am preteen, I am near woman, treat me accordingly

Dueling iPads in bed is a poem in my head,
rhymes accurate of screen reflections of an
X factor that stimulates my cerebral cortex.
Verbal ointment that I posses can't fix a flat tire,
but sets me up for a personal review, self awareness
Gone mad and with finger, on gas station floor,
In the grime, words are realized/written concretely,
what my heart speaks freely

Within each day, miracles present themselves,
Gauntlets thrown, note them well and be justified,
Visions, external to my physical self,
Yet product of internal chemical reactions
That blow through my veins, swirling,
Word leaves, on a November weekend,
Windswept from a thousand directions,

So you ask me how I find the time,
The question proper be amended,
How do the times find me,
How do I know them,
And why, do I share them

I Don't Like Guns...But

they make my husband feel
like a man and help him bond
with our sons.  

I don't like them or how he
describes the way they feel in
his hand:  "Better than a ***",  
I heard him confide to his pal, Joey...

but something has to protect  us.  
I mean it's our right to be on guard.  
It's our right.

My husband spends all his
time with his guns:  cleaning them,
polishing the barrels, studying their
details.  And talking...talking about
his gun rights, about his next NRA
meeting or  what happened at the
last or that he can't believe how
good the right gun in his hand feels.  

I don't like guns...they made me                   disappear.


Written for GUNS DON'T SAVE PEOPLE POETS DO:  DUELING WITH WORDS TO STOP GUN VIOLENCE. ..a Facebook group

Animated means to bring to life.
Animation is evolving.
Animation went from being point A and point B to finally involving the journey.
Animation has evolved to being three dimensional. Seeing more than just right and wrong but now seeing reason. So when my significant others attempt to shoot me down by telling me I'm too animated, I smile.
I smile because I have evolved.
I smile because I'm finally bringing you to life. You brought me into your life only, not to feel lonely anymore. All the problems that won't here between us in the past are finally arising as you are growing muscles on your backbone that only See's right and wrong.
Is it that the problems aren't transparent anymore or are your bones finally catching something in between them. Anyway you break down the definition of Me, you will always get that I am alive. Even the Greek breakdown of the word animate still say I'm soulful even more than your soul food.
It's not my fault when you want to send problems my way I change the environment we're dueling in like a Yu-Gi-Oh field spell card. You want me to get real like bullets but even then shots I avoid them like the matrix.
I can get real like the Hokages death and still show honor in our battles like I'm Goku. Animation shouldn't be the reason why our relationship takes a step back. That shows me that you were dead from the start and I should of started my prologue somewhere else.

Nothing matters because this is all too transient
Facebook smiling photos granola girls with  hair flying up
Faces red from drinking and being pressed by their boyfriends surprise birthday parties Oh
The boy you once loved happily smiling from campsites You knew he was different when he told you
I like computers not *****, dueling not drinks
Sense not sexuality
And yet he’s there, grinning without you, happy until you are finally Ashamed
Of what did not happen between you
Ashamed
Because his friends surely know of your shame, his numerous friends who are not your own because of some Accident of your narrow birth
That did not bless you with his indifference, his casual, easy way of holding on to people
Ashamed
Because you’re staring at a world that doesn’t really exist
And you know, you just know, that you still care what It thinks.

in the woods,  i was a boy of twelve summers
lanky and spry, my shadow faithful to my heel
as i trek. i suspect no doom. the world loomed
imperial.
in the woods, i was a boy who dwelled, tunnels -
deep in the sun.  my halo, entangled in my horns
my forearms red. i reject no truth.   i hurl moons
aerial.  
over white picket fences. i blend in with wild things
calmly.  i move through    the rough shrub and ivy.
[tall grass.]
lashing mid-thigh... bare skin, drum tight. cooling
where the wind kissed. my innocence inveigled
in the turbulent dusk.  bucks rut, then
lock horns; dueling
magnificent.

in the woods
i was a boy
who dared.

Dear Sirs,
            
He loved your magazine.

At night

it took him to places
where he could never go,
to warm and smiling lands,
to adventures in the paradise of his dreams.
He met happy friendly people,
who enjoyed life,
who had lives,

people who went
where they wanted
to do
what they pleased,
people who had no care
but for the next experience,
the ultimate daiquiri
the best bite of lobster,

who dealt with weighty questions
about
the marbling of steak,
the proper age of spring lamb,
the quality of truffles in Perigord.

He lay awake
at night
and wondered
about the snow depth in Aspen,
about climbing the Matterhorn,
about accommodations in Katmandu.

He imagined
Malay shadow play
on the ceiling of his house,
smiling Sherpas serving steaming tea
on the blue ice glaciers of Mt. Everest.
He dreamed
of
finger dancing in Chang Mai,
outrigger races in Tahiti,

a mysterious rendezvous
on the Orient Express,
lazy boat rides
on the Danube,

a visit
to Kafka’s house.

He loved your magazine.

He loved its’ breadth,
it’s many pages,
it’s thick cover.
He liked to tape it
to his chest

in the morning

when his house slammed open,
when he lock-stepped to the yard.
He felt its comforting girth
a glossy pulp breastplate
armor for a paladin
in a savage island’s
waking nightmare
of
numbing terror,
grinding fear,
sudden death.

He strolled about the yard
in sunlight without warmth
nodding to devils he knew
ignoring the ones he didn’t
deflecting their knowing looks.

Defense was automatic:

prison is a universe of deceit,
lies are the coin of its realms,
in the market place of its interactions
charlatans abound and falsity reigns
undisturbed by facts or connection
to an outside world.

A man can be
whoever he chooses.
Behind the walls
it only requires
imagination.

The best liars
present a blank façade.
a conscious mirror reflects nothing.                                          
it lies without effort.

But,
behind the reflection,
the liar dreads
front street’s abhorrent truths;
weaknesses revealed
raw nerves exposed
by
dueling tongues’escalation.

Under constant observation
in a search lit world
touche
means more than point.
Face is
the sole possession of the ******.
Loss of face is an injury to the soul.

Shame
triggers combat
mean street’s rock ‘n roll
the back alley ballet
injured egos’
minuet d’mort.

And so the duet began;
two bored men
picking at the scabs
of each others weaknesses
each wound answered with another.

Their hot blood’s impassioned words
attracted schooling convicts cruising the yard.
The observers circled ominously
the hint of ******
a carnal lure.

No one chose sides
it was a private affair.
Crocodilian eyes peered
out of the non-committal murk
awaiting a feast of suffering
reflexively prepared
to slide into the mix,
to make turbulent
the stagnant pool
of prison life.
Fury’s moment
relieves the boredom.

A crowd of cruel eyes
illumined the arena.
Fangs flashed
in their savage attentions’ glare.
Contending wills
weighed
by a deadly balance
clashed
with the gnash of steels.
Shanks fenced
point counterpoint.
A gladiator fell
his heart punctured
by a screwdriver blade.

The writhing form
grew still.
Life soaked the concrete.

Blood brought bedlam,
a contagious frothing madness,
goons, gunfire, and choking gas,
a grim entertainment’s finale.

Laughter and derisive shouts,
the demons’ choral refrain,
were funeral music
for a loser’s journey
on a gurney to the morgue,
and the pages
of a magazine
lay scarlet on the ground,
fantasies
trampled
under sullen jealous feet.

Our passage
shouldn't ****,
but when we pull
the blades from the
****** bath,
who's to separate defeat
from *******,
luck from loss--
you've lied dormant,
getting lax on the sweetness of love,
but yesterday
like a bat out of hell,
you awaken--
writing 3,
strolling up to me
confidently and whispering,
"compete".
A shiver for my spine,
a sudden grin,
and itchy fingers longing to bend--

My dearest friend,
now we begin,
should we pick a dueling topic?
A type of verse?
An emotion?
Draw the bounds of battle, Clark--
let's let the kiddos watch
from behind glass
as we tear our lives anew.

Feeling used up.
It all started as a way,
To suture oozing wounds and band-aid this pain.

Caught in the middle,
Of abuse and feeling myself again.
I create and I shake, like an earthquake of two dueling fates.

An artist and dearly departed.
Both tugging and pulling,
For a monopoly of my mind.

I quit and I writhe. I take and I shine,
Like a princess diamond set high upon the sky.
Sunshine from the outside; always setting in his eyes

Two minutes

Forever separated
By two minutes

Dueling digits.
Her alarm clocking
Two minuet meters
Faster than
My cell phones
Numerical contra-assertion

One bed,
Two lives.
In the same place
But at different times.

Forever
Is two minutes.
A Grand Canyon.
A Continental Divide.

We both get up at Seven.
But she get to use bathroom first,
Two minute headstarted,
Forever unfair

This will bug me permanently,
Perhaps forever,
Or for
At least the
two minutes
It took to scribble this