כֹּפֶר the price of a life, ransom {Kopher}
for a captive... long now global science of us
we, the users of knowledge, by grace.
we, the conscious...
asking who or even if,
we even imagine we know
what is being governed, now,
after history fed to the greatest generation
has proven detrimental to mental satisfaction,
after the information age unleashed all we ever knew,
at once, into the first television advised generation
Boom, watchadodame,
- why does it feel so right to break rules, reasoning
really, if we did have fore thought, as a gift,
that also held hope and all the hell's imaginable,
to which any living in a city have been exposed
using retellings of Homer et al... so who made the rules?
From point A,
something feels wrong
smart people believing war the good evil,
best defense is a good offence, a will to ****,
for duty and post humus glory, guaranteed.
----------------

How much of the lifestyle,
manifested by industrial wealth,

and war regulated trade agreements,
and a royal arrangement of ancient gens,
and primogeniture passed on in trust, true
riches never rest, history hides the old wisdom
--
scribe, find records of Haman's service to the king.

According to the laws of the Medes and Persians, also
Daniel, the name from the clock set to messiah proof,
--------------------

I laugh, inside, not O L, but
I laugh, it counts, does good, like
a medicine, heals a rift right ghine
phine fine, fine as may be, infinitely
small or large, as may be, infinitely
expressed as ever itself, ever in always,
luckyghucker
time
to think and make do
with probable
cause, slight smile,
so small that none could notice,
but the maker of the slight adjustment
from inside the face,
looking at you.

Did you feel watched?
Did you feel watched over?

Me and you, anonymous, us
time takers, wind breathers,
horizonal scanners set at right angles,
perpendicular, flat plane, smooth
to ever's inside edge, flat as a puddle.

-----------------------

Come and see, he said,
we hear, he said, the very next day,
we assume, some unnamed happening,

time and chance, place and position,
facing or looking away, per haps
as haps may,
occur in curving spacetimed minds

dragged into ever decreasing space
and ever increasing mass, until
energy loses any reason and ceases.

---------------------

A hap, a done deed, a past
intensity set to vibrate, in tune

a mileau of all we imagine known,
all the why, indeed, all the how,
all the non this thats
all the not that thiss, and thoses

hissing lizard language, legendary
tellings of sacred made firsts, first man
first wombed man, first figuring self will,
auto both knowing, first communion, join

objects to subjects, I am you and you, me,
eye to eye we see each the other, and if
you ever once saw your self in another's
pupil, reflected back from the shiny surface
of the arranging eye connector linking our mind

into init we form, initiation locking gnosis, recon
complete, proceed enfolding all we thought to ask.

If can is proven indeed, done, then
now was done in wordlessness, then,

and now we think we can know that,
we think we can predict the emptiness,

beyond all we think or ask, here we are,
carrying our sanity for peace sake, acting as
if the material tenon and taches
and
כֹּפֶר the price of a life, ransom for a captive,

knowing, from the oldest whole tales told,
by those who take pride in privileged knowing,

we wander as the learners, long, long, longing
to learn for ever, loving learning left behind
in song and dance and ritual geometry,

vectors from point to point, looking up,
noticing the motion, feeling the earth move,
watching the red wanderer sink in the west,

as we watch our world roll around as a ball
of dough rolled into a loaf, to be baked,
in a fire hot enough to seal the spirit in,

fried bread invention came after horses,
stories change as fast as reasons to believe,

just imagine, knowing of the existance
of these tools we use with out needing
years to learn to tune the ideas into words
communicating meaning sought for through

instants in prayer to the unknown, spirit form
life and the universe share, as spacetimemind.

Okeh.
We agree, we think in ways the Andrew Carnegie,
could not imagine, we have watched children
play multi player global war, in virtual reality,

we have sat in grand theatrical kivas, in cities
builded on shifting shores of pre ice age oceans,

not all that long ago, in our long now dreams,
looking through today to yesterday, holding
certain truths self evident, if, just ifery per se,

chance, indeed, pure luck, peaceable, wise
to take such a chance, otherwise, you miss

the fit, pocket, proper cache for fallen stars,
caught in literate child private interpretations,

hey, kid, what'd'ya make of that, one knot,
Phrygian Turk's head, knowledge found, held,
loops in thought that have one side,
one edge and potentially infinite width and length,

and infinite points in between all pastless,
until one manifests in common sense, as certain
aha,
gravity is to materiality as wisdom is to life.
Thought then do, wisdom indeed, grace
for grace, deep calleth unto deep,
fret naught, the curve is gentle,

we discern, we learn, war has never,
and can never, win, for one reason,

one cost of knowing the truth, and dieing,
for it, as that was the set price  כֹּפֶר nicht wahr?

One and done, live and learn, yearn to make
peace seem the easiest option to war prep economy.

Be ye warmed and filled, and find that often
enough to dare to share because, you know,
knowing hap in happiness is luck in life,
and the entire precept reception system,
is cross wired behind a chirality governing on
and off.
And when we, or any so sighted form of us,
see eye to eye, face to face, we engage circuitry,

we enable agreement, mind to mind, I see you
imagining timelessness between us, as a distance
mere words bridge with no slippery stones to step

where there
is the pedestal, the pedal to push, to open a fore
thought judgement,

a precedent, I once followed such a thread as this,
with just such a muse as this, described as clear text
derived from imaginary messages killed as carriers,

open the window atop yo' head, go up… old bald head

chrome domed ****** spy, I
never believed your cover story, so

The Metaphor, or Parable, or Symbolic Containment

Field, vast expanse of horizontal and hither and yon,
as vast as
ever, plain plane flat out out from me/you on
any of seven points, counting now a time deemed
right now
six planes slice us in communions, centered here,
and now
spinning with effectual prayers to counter balance
recognized jolts
of merest word gnosis, recoknown, recommuned,

ah, we,
yes, us, the people filling *** holes in dementiatic
wishes to be left to sort ourselves out,
if you do not mind, after the rapture,
there you are, of another mind,
entwined with winning being truth's only edge,

no thread we cannot catch breaking, and watch
as we once knew the truth never broke, we
let be a big old lie, and that old lie became the law,

and writing spoken scrambled words, became power,
as it is written, so it must be done, the spoken spell,
has been offered and recorded in the times of us,
we who read at will in any script known,
on a thrown away phone, fixed for seven dollars,
and a passing focused attention on the techne,
old idea, wisdom, principal known, fret not,
stop it
right now,
this is the way we came, we are not lost,
nor dead… this was an exciting concurrency.

Peace be left with us, let us think we all imagined so

.

Without you life has no meaning
A lonely book upon a shelf
Stories held for no one reading
Waiting silent by myself

Pages turned with nothing written
Chapters come without a clue
Words repeat in shades of darkness
Sentences of lonely due

Without you there’s no direction
Empty highways ramble on
Stark and barren roads dividing
Moving constant on my own

Painted lines without an ending
Solitude at every cost
Seeking all but finding nothing
Always on the edge of lost

Without you there is no music
Lyrics sung that do not rhyme
A violin whose strings are missing
Loneliness three quarter time

Melodies in empty function
Concert halls without a stage
Choruses now gone forever
Notes erased upon the page

Without you there is no reason
Nothing but an empty heart
Never beating, always waiting
Longing for a brand new start

Opened wide as you I beckon
Fill my world with wondrous view
It’s true, my life would have no meaning
If my life was without you

He’s the space man, and he’s out of this world
Planets **** about his waist, fingertips warm.
On Sunday he blitzes the Milky Way
like a silver bullet, its the crazy guy holding the gun. Not me. For he's
like a star just born. His fingertips warm
treading lightly through the maze
of light and creation.

A keen look in his curling smile, he
leaps to catch the morning's first flight
on the climbing glimmers of a shooting star,
that so shimmers against the warm Spring nights.

The sunken sun, resting below
his feet, his body stands alone.
Wrapped in a pink and yellow glow,
he sets out on the voyage home
to the furthest reaches, the universe edge
where vast forests creep in the dust and smoke,
he waits,
in silence
he waits,
for Monday
when he's reborn. His fingertips warm.

THE PONIES IN SNOW PARK


Under flapping green and white awnings
On a wide Toronto street I feel your gloved hand on my tweed coat.
You are cold. We run. It is one o'clock, winter afternoon.
Waiting for the car to warm up we touch mouths and tongues.

This is what I always wanted. We are young. We are wearing
Our favourite clothes. The green and orange plastic pennons
Of the service station slap in the wind.  The ponies stand
Far away, at the edge of the woods in Snow Park.

Some bear their share of the burden of the meaning of life
More easily than others. I know that
When you are alone you must build walls
And figure ways to smash them down.

I know how some mouths opened over you
Like Borgia rings over a wineglass, and how, therefore, it was
Hard for you to abandon the problem many of us loved:
How can I avoid doing harm; how can I avoid harm?

Out of the changes in human emotion,
Out of the changes in faces and lives,
You took the power to do with me what once
You might have done for sadness, or for love, alone.

Our shape refuses depression.
I point at birds. There is music on the radio.
I grin and hug. A few silver minutes now
Of ponies, music, dull orange breast feathers.

                              Paul Anthony Hutchinson

This poem was published in WAVES
pahutchinson@icloud.com
Copyright  Paul Anthony Hutchinson
  www.paulanthonyhutchinson.com

i am small
gotta crane my neck to make a connection
look down to feel safe
close my eyes to feel whole again
look in the mirror to remind myself
that i am taller than i think

i am small
in that i lower my voice automatically
when afraid that i might be wrong
in that i look away spontaneously
when afraid that eye contact
might mean more than i want it to

i am small
in that i describe myself that way
and therefore i am
gotta have some excuse
for the crooked, sneaking way
i move through this world
gotta have some reason
for the volume at which i express myself
at 2 hours into the morning
loud and clear upon virtual pages
trying to tell myself
that i am louder than i believe i can be
and that i am right, have been all along

i am small
and i don't mean in age, of course
because my years betray nothing
of true experience
to be honest, i feel like i've lived
decades within my own mind
it's more that image, that casual description
thrown about
of a girl who sticks to the edge of the staircase
a girl who smiles just enough to warm hearts
a girl who looks away before her eyes can speak volumes
a girl who only wants to be a few inches taller, really
even if it's just my soul that grows
or my self-confidence

Our rabbit tails flicker
on the edge of the heat-rush
like making love,
a viciously tender blush.
Here we are, Running,
from useful death;
our needed kindnesses.

Nature’s necessary provocation,
starts the ride,
ensuring death for an ensuing life.
Our blood is fast and heated,
releases and builds the tension,
in ligaments, Quick enough
but strobing the scut.

We are also the foxes
and so forwards we must follow it,
just as the time follows
the seeping wisps on the horizon
of the un-risen sun.
Come live with us and dine,
so we may die, when we need to.

There is a reason for your greed.
Follow those sparking tails
pinpointing life
in the living grasses.
Smell the heat
through the dewy stems
and be what must be done.

Feed your children of every description
to end, a forgotten bone milestone
but with endless input.
Become the prey of your own actions.
The grass takes your meat,
fluffs it up with sun,
for the rabbits
each and every time, it’s time to.

Veined wings fell when I died,
Fell in mid flight on one last
May Day, on fire with the sun—
Only the dust knew me there,
It fell so gracefully with me.

A downy feather, once was—
Dropped from on high, before
A great white falcon turned the air,
Even thought to prey or of stooping,
Of noble birth was I, falling earthward.

One dry— red, pine needle fell,
Lost in thick piney bed of so many
Others strewn on the forgotten said,
The wind as it unceremoniously fled
And now no path was leading there.

At one grassy edge of a ******—
Bay some gravel clay gave way
To form a place where water, airy,
Lolls and eddies into tiny whirlpools
This was all the dance of my days,

Only the dusk knew me there—
And the unobserved eclipse going
Through all its phases and a forest
Fired, under clovers without bees,
Veined wings— fell when I died.

I don't remember summers before I was
at least five or six but I'd
imagine
from the VHS tapes stacked on one side of the TV stand
with names like "July '97"
that it was hot
like no air conditioning on the third floor of a tiny house
and it was sweet
like the juice from a strawberry
all over a tiny
chubby-cheeked face

the first summers I do remember
were long and full of
bugs and soccer and
library books

and the smell of pine needles

fast forward to when they changed
from freedom to
work
in a world where I had never felt
so simultaneously old
and far too young
but still it was
cold water and cold mornings and
warm afternoons in a field
talking about nothing
that seemed like everything

and then it was sea-breeze and bus rides and
fidgeting through the morning just to be
barely able to stay awake in the afternoons
and the best field trips I'll ever have
54 hearts at the edge of the world
young and
utterly convinced of our own brilliance

and then?
too long
running and reading and breaking and
barely putting myself back together

and then it was four months
of the hardest work I've ever done
in my entire life
four months of pain and a deadline
I for once didn't know if I could make but
I had to, for you
it's
work I still don't talk about
even in the place just before sleep takes over
when you feel like words
are just a cotton-candy haze
and you could say anything
and let your future self deal with it in the morning
(some things
are locked away too deeply
to be unintentionally spoken)
(this is the summer
I only talk about
in bold one-liners
not meeting your eyes
because the only way I can face anyone
with this in plain view
is if I am wearing it
like armor)

and last summer?
last summer was long days of the best work
and long nights with the best company
when I didn't care how sleep-deprived I was
I only cared about
the amount of time I spent with you
I was
(I am)
willing to push back sleep
push open my eyelids
for another moment
watching you fight the same battle

last summer smells like
the ocean
it looks like a dimly lit bar, cheap beer and
a cheap dress, a clean white shirt
glowing slightly in the light
of the neon sign
it sounds like
music loud enough and close enough
that we can barely hear ourselves
screaming the words,
breathless and
dancing like we may never get the chance again
(it sounds like singing off-key and
a playlist that
hasn't ended yet)

I'm finally learning
to like summer

Mindless matters of the man filled with sovereignty.
Merry he was filled with sorrow and glory.
Universal he rises only to choke on the edge.
International he hid himself from speech.
So he got away on a boat that drove him insane.
Intervals came and the American he blamed,
For being a sociopath, killing is wife and taking his fame.
Things became basic as he floated on original keys,
And the waves danced while the sun became blind.
Love the action of a territorial move,
That causes every issue of life to become happy or dark.
Pain is the outreach that condemned his electronic heart.
The he laid in the “kool” breeze and everything was sound


© Robyn G Neymour

Four guardians sit at the gates of worlds,
Who know far more than they know,
Some sit, some stand, some rest beneath,
Their past are lost in the mist.

There is one who rests in the cold north wind,
Who was once a giantess of renown,
No name we know or when she was born,
But she was ancient ere man was born.

There is one who stands in the wind of the east,
Where the rainbow bridge does rest,
A horn to blow, a sword to swing,
And his parents do no one know.

There is one who stands in the hot south wind,
On the edge of the fiery plains,
Wait he does for the end of time,
When he'll march with a fire storm.

There is one who sits by a well, in the western wind,
Three daughters he had, three wells once known,
Nine mothers are known but a father has none,
And his sons shall be well known.

Down the Helway some will come,
To call of the cold north wind,
To rise from the grave and tell the old tell,
Of what will someday come.

The shining one at the rainbow bright,
The east wind does stand guard,
Before the bright city a city or brass,
Where they drink and laugh and flirt.

On the southern plains where fire rages,
And all the plains are ablaze,
the hot south with with a sword in hand,
Waits for the sun to set.

Heads will roll and then speak again,
With the voice of the wise west wind,
A sip from the well that will cost you an eye,
On the edge of the cold ice plain.

Four winds are blowing and will come again,
For compass will ever turn,
Their pasts are obscure and their futures ignored,
And few are there left you see.

Four guardians sit at the gates of worlds,
Who know far more than they know,
Some sit, some stand, some rest beneath,
Their past are lost in the mist.

~Muninn's Kiss, February 21, 2014

As Some early rap group plays in the background of my life
The relationship with my Brothers has changed my insight, it helps me decide when to lie and defines who I am, what I mean to the fam and everybody who truly knows me as Sam.
That isn't to say I'm not intimate today,
I love everybody in a different kind of way,
It makes me smile even just to say it.
I have people in my life, worth the slang I derive from these pretty soulful lines
Something I cannot measure, but simply as a sense of pleasure
All in a world I feel is mine, making them Brothers and therefore a lifeline
Any person I can call when I need little time,
If I need a friend or a relationship to mend, some cash in my pocket for my next canned soda
Looking at the twizzlers thinking I could use them as a straw, daydreaming again, just a big kid standing a little too tall.
Looking from the top thinking that's a long way to fall,
But as I get closer to edge and look down on,
I see that my Brothers already have me harnessed up, they intend to let me jump.
Letting me learn my mistakes to help discern from the fake,
Because the ones who criticize you are the one's who hold you when you cry,
Trying to make myself better, if only for my guys.
The brothers that I never had, they help me see who I want to be
Help me envision what I want, but make me stand to reach my next treat
To find the earth from this place up here.
Looking, I contemplate how I want to create to change, or maybe cause fear
If only small things, I will be the force to define the voice of my people
A generation left behind to figure out what is evil.
A knew definition nowadays because of where it's living, in our hearts and even in this page.
All I want to do is sleep because without my Brothers I'm just dead meat.
All I want to do see a world made for me and you, my Brothers, a relationship above all others.
The thing that means the most to me these days, is the fact that no matter where I go, my Brothers will be with me. Something I can always see, it resides somewhere inside of me. Emotionally and Mentally. Today they rest with me. Humans, people, beings, whatever they are to me, you couldn't possibly begin to conceive.

it's out there somewhere, hovering
at the edge of my mind as i turn
it's out there somewhere, that haunting
form, a musical note, a flute

it's out there somewhere, in the glide
of a kestrels wing above the moors
it's out there, somewhere it's waiting
just beyond my reach, in light

it's out there somewhere calling me
persistent, it pulls me, always
out to the hills, the woods, out there
somewhere on the blue horizon

it's out there somewhere, I call out
asking it to come for me now
it's out there somewhere, answering
follow me, move, get up, come, walk

it's out there, somewhere inside me
in every dream and whispered sign,
footfalls to follow, blown open doors
i live with it, out there somewhere

i knew it all so clearly once
high on a rock strewn windswept Tor
i saw it spread out across the land
a flying shadow, a glow, a gleam

i heard it in the forest close
tracking my every cautious step
smiling behind my back, laughing
it's out there somewhere, i saw

it's out there somewhere, I know
i smelled that scent of old, ancient,
it's out there somewhere, primordial
lobe, in the depths of memory

it's out there somewhere, alive

You saw it coming,
you knew it
I had my chance,
I blew it
You held my hand
We walked to the edge

I couldn’t jump

We danced to the river’s song every summer’s moonlight
          drawn together by impassioned currents stir
Lovers swimming in dulcet waters cleansing flow
          washing the sweltering day’s memories away
          to paint on the moment, beneath a sky full of  stars

Cinnamon summer hues glistening colour
          moonbeams ricochet off goose-bumped flesh
Trembling warmth rippling through shivering passion
          arousing all our secret places,
          pulsing wildly, with a feral potion
          racing through our veins
Tasting summer love’s awakening appetite
          blissfully sharing what was ours forevermore to keep

Twilight colored your eyes
          with the songs we never knew
Crickets chirrup to a cadence
          only raging hearts beat to
          sating a restless ache, sweet nights of summer bliss
Quenching a budding common thirst,
          whispering in blissful harmony
          only revealed in the cattails' purr along river's edge,
          swaying with a rhythmic summer breeze

We went down to the river every summer night,
          making  love with stardust in our eyes;
          set free like shooting stars,
          setting fire to the heat of the night

                                                 *wild is the wind

I came to a courtyard of my own making,
To a cottage by the sea at the worlds edge.
I furnished it with my left over life, complete,
Barren and colorless and I wrote the newest
Book of psalms out of tinder and flame, a tome
Of grey and useless poems, unheard of songs
And reams of flesh.  There in the lightest dark,
By the Druid stone that was placed just for me,
I planted a creeping yew tree.  And the moon
Sang in celebration and silence like a fallen
Priest.  
                    Under the covering hazel trees,
That sprung to life after the longest winter,
Which taught me to forget my name, I now
Struggle with light and my body, warring, torn
Is fading slow, like the always arriving, down
Turning solstice, the climates of the mind,
Where it is digging the never ending shallow
Hole only the spreading eternal yew, that I
Planted, will ever know and only the Lazarus
Moon shall ever rise above.

I came to a courtyard of my own making,
Was it dream that led me there or my eyes?

It happens
more and more rarely
in my ankle
run, run, run
catch the streetcar
named desire
(I cry with you Tennessee)

decanting the hours,
a rush  into nowhere
in honeycombed memory
the dregs of days
set my teeth on edge,
deepen the archway
of naked irises
hurled into midnight

It happens
lighter and lighter
in my left shoulder
pierced with sunset
lost in a sparrow

Max didn't even want to be there.  His coworkers had invited him, and he hadn't had an excuse handy.  

In truth, Max's coworkers didn't want him to be there, either.  They had secretly hoped that he wouldn't come.  Everyone else was going, though, so they felt bad not asking.  Now they wished they hadn't

Here he was, though, sitting around a table in a seedy local pub, waiting for "The great Garbo: Magician and Hypnotist".  Probably just another hack who was filling time between kiddy birthday parties.  The show was supposed to have started ten minutes ago, but hadn't, and now Max was being forced to socialize with people who he spent a great deal of effort trying to avoid most of the time.  It was crap, and he wasn't happy about it.

In truth, Max was very unhappy in general, but in a way that his brain was unable to put into concrete words.  He'd been unhappy for so long, in fact, that he didn't even recognize that he was unhappy.  He had just long ago come to the conclusion that the world was unpleasant, and he was the only person who understood that.  Everyone else was a foolish prat who could barely keep from being distracted long enough by the next shiny toy to notice.

He regarded his mostly empty beer that he had been nursing.  He heard his co-workers talking about some new superhero movie when the lights finally dimmed and a man walked onto the beer-stained stage and threw his cape (the **** had a cape!) dramatically over his shoulder.  "Good evening, my fine ladies and gentlemen!  I, the Great Garbo, welcome you.  You may have seen so called 'magic' before, but I promise you that when you leave here tonight, you will be filled with awe and wonder!"

Max yawned, rather loudly, to glares from his co-workers, as Garbo continued his spiel.  He looked lazily around the room, hoping to catch the eye of the waiter for another drink.  If he was going to be forced to watch this swill, he was going to at least be liquored up.

By the time Max looked back towards the stage, Garbo had wrapped up, and was starting.  He began with a number of standard tricks with rings and never-ending handkerchiefs.  Each time, Max would mumble something under his breath.

"...Obviously had it up his sleeve"
"Trick ring, there's clearly some sort of mechanism there"
"...had that deck set up before"

Meanwhile, his co-workers shushed him as they attempted, in vain, to enjoy the show.

Soon, though, the magician got more creative, juggling a set of ***** that turned into doves, which then flew back into his hands as ***** again.  Then he turned his entire coat from dingy black to a brilliant  red with a wave of his hand.  Max remained steadfast in his desire to remain unimpressed.  Surely this was some sort of electronic trickery.  He stifled another yawn, then decided to go to the restroom.

He got up, and tapped one of his co-workers on the shoulder.  Was it Reed?  Or James.  His co-worker looked at him warily.  "Hey James, I need to take a ****.  Need to get through".  He looked annoyed.  Must've been Reed.  "Can't you wait until the act is over?".  Max rolled his eyes, and then mustered up as much sarcasm as he could (which was quite a lot). "I'm sure the 'Great Garbo' won't miss me.  I'll just be a minute".  Reed (yes, definitely Reed) sighed and got up to pull his chair back so Max could get out.  Max picked his way through the surprisingly large crowd towards the bathrooms, not apologizing on the way, when he heard a voice.  "You sir, you would like to volunteer, would you  not?"

Max turned, and Garbo was looking at him expectantly.  He hadn't heard what Garbo had been talking about. He recovered his wits and responded "Nah, I'm sure one of these simpletons would love to, though".  From the crowd where he had left he heard someone yell "Oh come on, Max, maybe he can hypnotize you into having a sense of ******* humor".  Max gave the finger in the general direction of the voice, earning him a few boos from the crowd.  Garbo put his hand up to calm the crowd.  "Come now...Max, is it?  Surely you've been impressed with some of the show tonight?".  Max scoffed.  "I'm impressed that you're able to make a living off of parlor tricks", he said, before turning back towards the bathroom.

"Max, I think you need to come up here"

Max suddenly stopped.  He felt like he had been going somewhere else...but that couldn't be the case, he was supposed to be going onto the stage.  He turned and amiably made his way up the few stairs

"Now Max seems to be unimpressed with the show.  Shall I show him some real magic?"

The crowd clapped

Max wondered how he'd gotten on stage.  He had been going towards the bathroom....he needed to...

"Max, you seem unhappy to be here.  I think I know what'll cheer you up, though."

Garbo reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small rubber ball.  

Max suddenly came back to himself.  "I don't know what drugs you gave me to convince me to get up here, but this show is over and I'm leaving.  I'll be sure to let the police know that your show relies on your audience being high"

Garbo grinned a toothy grin as Max walked away, and then spoke right before Max got down the first step, dragging each word out carefully.

"Who's...a...good....boy"

Max stopped and considered this.  I mean...he certainly wasn't bad.  There was certainly room for improvement, for sure, but he wasn't bad, so he must be good.  He slowly turned and stared at Garbo, and was surprised as his mouth started moving.

"I am."

Wait. What?  Max's mind reeled and his eyes widened in fear, but he did not run.  His legs didn't want to move.  His eyes seemed to be locked onto the ball.  That looked like a really nice ball.  He wanted it.

Garbo took a step forward.

"Who's a good boy"

This time Max answered more confidently.  "I am.  I'm a good boy"

The crowd clapped and whistled, though they weren't sure what they were seeing.

Garbo moved the ball back and forth, and Max watched it intently.  
He wished Garbo would throw the ball.

"Who's a good boy!"

"Me! I'm a good boy!"

"Whosagoodboy!"

"I am!  I am!  I'm a good boy!"

Max had fallen down on all fours at this point, though he barely noticed.  Everything seemed to be growing in size.

"Who's a good boy!"

I am!  

"Who's a good boy!"

(I am!)
Woof!

"Do you want the ball?!"

(Yes! Yes, throw the ball!)
(Oh god, what's happening?!)
Woof! Woof!

"Do you want it?!"

(Make it stop!)
(Yes! Throw it!)

Max could smell so many things, now.  He smelled the beer, he smelled Reed's aftershave.  He smelled the strangeness that Garbo reeked of.  Garbo scared him, but Garbo also had a ball.

Garbo finally relented and threw the ball, and a yellow streak flashed by him as an excitable Golden Retriever ran to intercept it.

Max picked up the ball in his mouth and stood proudly.  There was still something scratching at his brain, though, and he couldn't figure out what it w--what had happened?  Everything was wrong.  He couldn't stand up.  Max wanted to yell for help, but to do that he would need to drop the...

...ball!  He had the ball!  The man who threw it was calling for him.  He ran back towards the man, who pointed at the ball.  The man wanted the ball, but Max didn't want to give it back.  It was his ball.  Suddenly, the man had a treat.  Max dropped the ball and took the treat.  He heard a loud sound and he turned to see...

..the crowd.  The crowd was up on their feet cheering.  His mind filled with fear again as he realized that something was terribly wrong.  He felt wrong, everything looked and sounded and smelled wrong.  He was a....

"Good boy, Max.  Good boy!"

Max received a pat on the head, and the scratching at the back of his head faded a little.  "Crate, Max", said the man, pointing to a small crate at the edge of the stage that several people in the audience could have sworn wasn't there at the start of the show.  Max ran to the crate, where he found a bone and a squeak toy, which he bit into to hear the satisfying noise that it made.  Laughter echoed from the outside of the crate as the man closed the door.

"Everyone, a round of applause for my assistant Max!"

Suddenly Max resurfaced.  He was acutely aware now that he was in a cage.  Fear gripped him.  Surely his co-workers had noticed!  He strained to look through the bars of the crate.  He spotted them, and they were applauding excitedly.  He saw, with trepidation, that his coat was no longer on the chair where he'd left it.  He had been erased from their memories.  A guttural terror crept up through his stomach which became a frightened whimper as the sound was forced through his new snout.  No one seemed to hear him.

Max lost track of time, but eventually the show ended and everyone left.  They wouldn't remember what happened, only that they were left with a feeling of awe and wonder upon leaving.  They wouldn't remember Max.  At this point, Max was curled up in the back corner of the crate, unwilling to move even as Garbo opened it, reached in, and started scratching his head.  

Suddenly, as if the final structural support of a dam had been breached, the endorphins from the scratch overwhelmed what remained of Max.  He was filled with the warmth of something he had been unable to feel his whole life.  His tongue lolled out of his mouth and he started panting excitedly.

Max was happy.

You got to use it all, all of it, your whole lousy stinking life.  Put it down on paper, scribble it with your pens, hit your typewriter hard and fast, pound it all down until your knuckles bleed white hot blood and scrawl it out with your last breath.   Give it your all until everything aches and drive it through the cold lonely nights down roads going to nowhere but heartbreak and faluire and pain.  And when the weight and depression kick in and get too heavy push down on the gas even harder and drive straight towards the edge laughing.  Let it punch you in the face until your eyes are swollen and you can't see anything but the darkness and despair and dance there with your guts spilling everywhere and your mad heart spewing out its broken teeth and black blood.  Don't forget to laugh, a howling and insane laugh!  Don't just be the bad punch line, be the whole god ****** ******* joke.  Use it all, all the misery and horror and loathing and pity and let your **** get hard and your ******* wet and just enjoy the ******* pain of it all.  Get drunk off it, get high off it, get off off it and spit your life back in its own face.  Just ******* be yourself for all it's worth.  Live painfully so you may die beautiful. And for **** sake, love madly or not at all.  Don't buy that fake *** hallmark puke, it isn't worthy of the stink of ink its printed with.  True love is only found in the beating hearts of lunatics down on the dance floor in hell.  They may not always dance that great, but man, they are ******* beautiful.

Shoot me up, just a taste
Numb my core with sweet novicane
Poison my veins, rippling clear across my brain
So strong that I don't feel a single thing
Not a pinch of delight, veering on the edge of insane
In a dream-like state
Soundlessly floating away.

I've met you before, Lucy
But this time I intend to stay
I'm captivated by your prison, chained inside your domain
In this realm of impurity, you are my desired escape.

You both are just standing there,
One of you captured in your own stoic silence.
Unwavering but trembling on the inside all caught up in your archaic pride.
The other sputtering words bubbling,
A tortured smile on your face,
Grinning at your own sin and your own mortality,
Like its just a joke …where no one can find a punch line
At least I don’t .
It seems steep
For the two of you to loiter so close to the edge of an abyss so deep,
Just toying with the thought
Of your metaphysical leap.
You make me question my mortality,
You make me question everything.
You breaking my heart when your smiling and I’d just love to scream.
Try harder, don’t you dare ******* leave me.
And to the other, to not be scared
There’s no way I could express
The million ways I love her,
All wrapped up and under cover of
All the complexity you left me with ingrained in me.
You made me bulletproof and weak in the knees,
And put deep in my heart a desperate need to question every bit
Of everything,
Don’t leave.
Not yet,
You silly stubborn women,
Covered in decorated scarfs and nighttime robes,
Don’t go in your clever masks,
Please please stay.
I don’t know how to feel alone.
You held me as a child and I’v grown and I know
That I would crumble into missing you.
You made me who I am today.
please stay...

i remember it like it was yesterday, which i have to say is strange, because i have trouble remembering everything else. i remember you were sitting in front of me and i was terrified, palms sweating, eyes watering. i was truly scared if you, or rather of myself. a little part of me hated you too. you looked so, self-righteous sitting in your rolling chair, with you perfect posture and your clicky pen. when you started to ask me question i ignored you. id been shacked up in my head for so long i forgot how to talk to people. anyways, my head was comfortable, familiar. i had a bed full of memories and a closet full of monsters. i had drawers full of hopes (i never opened them of course), but they were there, it was nice to know they were there.

my favourite possession in my mind however, was a little glass jar on my nightstand. it looks empty at first glance, but the harder you look the more you see. there are colours, like rays of light, they swirl around and hit each other, a vibrant crimson color. theres a green in there to, if you saw it you'd swear mother nature put it there herself. theres also a blue, its the largest of all the swirls. it looks royal and dark, beautiful.

theres also a yellow. but its different, not in its beauty or vibrance, but in its location . it isn't in the jar. the yellow swirls around the edge of the glass. occasionally bumping into it  almost as if it wants in, but theres no way for it.

i remember holding back, never telling you that because i thought you'd think i was crazy. so i didn't say a thing. but man do i remember that jar. that room. i remember the colours, their saturation, how they moved. i remember the monsters beating on the closet door looking for a way out. i remember the bed of sweet memories. but im sorry, i don't remember more important thing, like how to feel. i truly am.

A sweet, chirping grey jungle tree;
Stirring up bloodied doses within me,
I hath been abducted by morose darkness;
And its fetal, yet obnoxious messes,
For t'is flowered cave smelling just like death!
And to me, death is more like an obsession
In a glaze this phony, and dripping wet
Cold that I hath met about, in person.
One that hath fascinated me; with wronged tears
A single soul is not yet there to hear;
And lurking pools of fears, all blended
Into the versatile skin of the unfriended
Moon, being the beige universe, and evil—
Although he knows not how I should feel.

I, had been enslaved by the worst sun;
And tied to the post of unwanted salvation.
I, not being the privilege of Life now;
I shall go tonight, and not return tomorrow.
I had enough love, but with no love to be,
I shall not halt to see this side of me.
And hark! By the solitary lights of the moon;
The Earth was once my saluted destination;
But who could fight for a savage battle
In an attempt to experience rebirth,
Born with no contempt for the world;
But with Remorse bludgeoned, and hurt,
As though I had committed but treason;
And living was just to hold a vain reason.

For such reasons would be censured venom;
To them, who raved not at my longest poems,
And my guilt’s blood would be their songs,
They had committed justice, and no wrong;
Which a dour soul could adore at a lonely night,
Whilst being mute towards the shifting trees,
Torture and denial were the nail of Sunlight,
Waking me up to the enchantment of ragged bliss.
Had I, another day, woken up to another peril;
I acknowledged my embedded fate as an Evil,
To recite the spells that had infuriated me,
An indolent vice that had but been meant to be.
An insult, that such straggled **** may hate;
But so, forgiveness is far a threat too late.

Such fortuities, I hath not cornered to embrace;
And I shall not be back to sing conned waste,
And by being gratuitous and to *******,
I want to be the handsome rebellion to my fate;
Had I found myself trapped on the defunct floors;
I could not escape marked death at Midnight's door,
And at that sick moment I had been flawed,
Frightened, slackened to my rawest flesh,
By the metal edge of a cut sword, and then;
I was but Death at the rotten night, my friend!
Such fiends, such rage—were far in their summer bliss,
And yet I but grew as a faint shadow in peace;
I watched their flaked nostrils from inside my tomb,
My tomb, and its scraped walls—my quiet home,
I could not breathe now, nor bend towards a kiss;
I was the soul the Earth had forgot, had missed;

I, roused again now as a darling apparition;
I wear a black mask and utter repetitions,
No soul shall want to collapse in my steps—and bolt!
I hath entrapped many daydreaming in sloth,
Those with looser complacency, and breath
In their nostrils lives such straggly wrath;
And in such hair so ricocheted and unkempt,
How canst one but find a stranded scarf, a lamp?
With the odour of blood I can taste, and yet
Makes my hungered mouth groaning wet,
I hath drunk from too many souls, and I
That shan’t live any more, nor shall I die;
Ah! Now I shall ****, and begin with the dirt—
Cleansing such Earth off of malignant worlds!

What a disgrace, a scraggly—yet resilient disgrace!
A bend in the road had I been, and was I mean
To the world but sought not to know me?
And at times of need, their race but leaned to me;
And their fair promises, and royals, had not been true—
Unlike the verity of the justice I had found, and knew.
Unlike my bosoms, that had faced too much sorrow,
These ghastly sighs and temptations shall know now;
I hath found the world to lay my head silently,
With no love to be, and cut my love reverently;
That the stars should watch us meanly, but sure
They would not be a stale aura to my picture.
But to die, to cease demurely without a certain name
Shall be one that feels not my pool of shame;
And t’is crime is no exception, o my lover—
I am exempt now, from the insolent love, forever!

What an imbecile, that we embraced to softly!
What a butterfly that cannot fly in me;
Not a life that holds my chest, nor my blossom
Not a purity that holds clear my poem, o thee!
An ink on the page, but yet ‘tis my story
That I want freedom to writ my fierce destiny.
What a blurred visage to my vision such is,
What a menacing world to want a kneeling kiss!
With no love to see, and with no called name,
They hath no trifling tales nor misspelled shame;
That I had perhaps been too morally confused,
That Death was ethereal, but coldly infused;
Ah, thou, so to thee Death is no exception—
Having not thought of my hurt, my inflammation!

For a living fate can be unassuming, and uncertain;
For humans can die, and be nauseous;
For such lives are a demerit; and for a friend;
For a destiny that can be true, but tedious.
From a love that I am already free,
From a love so ubiquitous; and in unison,
I am obliged to no merits, nor tragic beauty;
I shall seek and give no compassion, nor reason.
And in a vain attempt had I hastily tried;
And in a vain triumph had I sullenly dried;
And in bewitching the silky skies had I died;
So shan’t I return to the boisterous Heavens,
The Lord bitterly misplaced me, and lied
To me behind the graves, and rained gardens.

For in the days that followed my death, hath I sworn
To kidnap back the life that had been blown;
And be the Black Spirit they would find pertinent
To hear the trespassing of death, and their moments
To crunch the life of the ones before me;
Amicable as they were in their apposite defence,
But not as the lush presentation of their beauty;
That I should entrance and ****** them, hence.
Who couldst defend my murdered youth but me;
Who couldst strongly step on my bursts of anger;
Who couldst restore my prone poetry but ******;
Who couldst live but I, who lives forever;
Who couldst separate my from my agony;
Who couldst live but with ill fate, and be?

For the age that I hath lost, and thoughtless’ burnt
And of being grace, and kind hath I not heard;
And with delight, shan’t I stop and turn;
For no obvious reason, for no maddened alert.
I am stronger in my rebirth, and with sharp, strident
Steps, hath I grown more braced and confident;
For no reason, for no further light hath I doubted;
For no marks, nor discourse hath I faulted;
For such apologies, and humility are obsolete,
For my imagination of such is clear, and yet;
I hath no more obligations so, to be met—
And with such unwavering strength crystal clear,
And everlasting sleep to me so near,
I am to grow out of the vines of my grave;
And descend carefully on the midnight’s cape.
And yet, who is sleeping sweetly in his wife’s bed;
I shall soon send him into delicious death.

For the life that had been obediently drawn;
For the miraculous night that turned to dawn,
For the life that had belonged to me, and so
I am to be above the stars, and ever in the know
All my victims so sternly, thoughtfully, and deeply
I am to **** reverently, and by sweetness, vigilantly:
“I am to drink the redness, and be the Sun’s equal”
My voice singing through the forest’s damp halls.
And now yet, with the futile man dead in my arm,
I fling myself into another chained woman’s charms!
With her blood so capricious dripping down my throat;
I can feel myself furiously sweat, and sweetly float;
I am to rouse in transparency through the roof;
And be the midnight, no more aloof!

And to be the Spear of the universe, and hell;
I would like to wish every fault and demerit well;
Soon, there shan’t be the raucous singing of jingle bells,
Death is in everyone—eating off of their shells.
Ah! My lover’s flesh, that I am devouring eagerly;
Now is but a piece of provision so sweet to me;
In which I canst indulge in but a locked pain;
Feeding off of his blood and its red rain;
Ah, I am so hungry, and those eyes are for me!
He gasps, and I am free now, as the flannel sky;
I am free to haunt and grasp all about me,
I can feel their smell descend about so nigh.
My lover, and his vain woman of the scorched past
Are now in death, far from their sly voices and hearts!

And to be the Sword of the Space, and devils;
I feel honoured to be part of the evils;
And be the taunt and haunting to all men,
To all this Earth’s visions, emblazoned fiends!
To me, all of their deaths hath been inscribed;
Ever since I was grown from dead, and my lungs
Hath been imbibed with more pronounced vibes,
And choruses more awesomely sung;
I am to assimilate those humans, now, ha-ha!—
And be a creature of the night, the Hailed One,
They shall bow to me in flash, and in my old Stanza;
All murders are to be spoken, to be done!
My enemy, and his once powerful screeching speech;
Gunned down into his last breath, the gospel’s ditch!

And the vitriolic dream, now, that is too high;
I shall not stop until all petrified souls shall die,
There, above me, the afterlife writing in agony,
Justified in every sense, and be the last poem
That I shall write in my dated prose of destiny;
I hath become the Satan to destroy, and numb
All the rhymed births and breaths of life, ah!
I hath been ****** into this fate, of my own;
And be I never a praised, nor a soft wife—
Yet I am impressed already, by closed immortality;
And my youth forever, with its endless passion
And latest bursts that happen in eternity,
I am to counter and cure all my halted questions;
I shall go and return, I hath all the time in me!

And Ruthlessness, then, that is too holy;
I hath admired thee with all the blood in me,
And to restore the humanity in me prominently;
I shall **** all, and make their deaths permanently!
For all deaths are idyll to me, and my abode,
An abundance as I roam, and float about!
What hath happened to my human, and bold songs,
For they hath not been a sky to me, all along;
What a condescending spirit a human is,
For they think what a fierce not is;
Whilst all that is thin is bold, and a rose;
What a singing displeasure to my prose!
Ah, to **** all, and cherish all their dyings,
I shall cut and devour with my heart singing!

Then, into the skies, as I ascend I hear
All flowered flesh is but towering so near;
They hath heartbeats and clueless rainbow;
They are not to fight me with violence,
They hath no tyranny, nor are above my shadow;
They hath no abode—but my impertinence!
Ah, and blessed am I, so meekly blessed;
This is but the best day I hath ever had,
For so anger and betrayal are not unwise at all;
And so holy are miseries, and miseries are ******.
I am to **** more, and bring my joys to Fall,
I am to eat, and devour more in summer.
I am to drink more, and bleed in winter;
To celebrate deaths, and merry more in my walls!

Then, into the Earth, as I descend I see
That I descend with a later moon, and be
For all who loved me, there shall still be death;
For I shall arise amidst these unhearing walls,
For the many teardrops that were shed,
For the shrieking pains I shared, and their toll;
For the world, that hath not been too exquisite,
For the crowds, that hath all along lacked such wit,
For the Sun, that hath ne’er been a soul sweet;
For a love that ne’er had a single beat!
For a love that I hath fragrantly cursed,
For a love I hath determined to make worst.
I am to eat, as though I am the Sun, the West;
I shall put its whole black pit to sleep, to eternal rest!

With all good cheer hath I spoken, and thus I turned
To see further stomachs and chests lying down, churned
And eating off of them is a swarm of butterflies
That were stirred to life by my own puke of frights;
And I, spitting out but flames and fires from within me
And my mouth that hath burnt thousands of thee,
I am not afraid to claim my rights, as I please;
And to destruct far more indeed, as I wish—
Which I celebrate as an ordinary gift, and yet
Hath made and shall render all conscious souls mad!
And all about me hath gone to precious sleep
In their admiration of my prominence, and weep;
And all about me hath turned to obstinate death;
Ripped down of breath, and any traces of life, of late.

With sainted grand glory hath I writ, and rejoiced
The merry and cordial pleasures of deathly bliss;
For such splendour, are not lovingly present every day,
And the vanished worlds have become dear to me today;
That now, as I devour another’s wrist, and arms
I am absorbed within death’s knocking charms;
And his limbs offer farther delicacy than the stars,
And his soul be a playful drink two worlds apart;
Another one, that tastes like those fine vines,
And grapes, and the fruits smelling like Truths.
Ah! I sit there, leaning softly against the Cedar Mine;
Sipping his blood by the humming Eolian lute;
His veins dry and graze me, sickly, too fast;
I hath not had a drink and feast too vast!

And with deadening love hath I lived, and existed
In the world into which Faith hath not fitted;
Like the ode in me, trying to tie the Moon
Whilst such dimmed favours laid in the Sun;
I had been crafted only, but in vain
I had been transmitted also, but in pain
And all despaired, with my talents, to death
To be woken again in renewed hate;
What a fault of thine, o thee, and perhaps mine;
At times a rustic stupor to me, and yet is fine!
I am the Evil to be, and Satan so free,
At peaceful hours shall I come to thee;
Finding my ecstasy in Death and ******;
My civilian songs to the Earth, forever.

Vanity covers the road to redemption
Self-doubt is the admission I fear
When no other way seems as clear

The mind extends what the heart has bled
Upon the word the mighty pen has sped
From the womb to the tomb it is said

Doubts are the window I must choose
And my faith is one I must not refuse
Or it is more than life I will have to loose

On the water’s edge time slips away
My constant will I must learn to sway
God’s the same as he was yesterday

BB2013

Amber drips from the 60’s-style lamps
on two end tables.
Brassy-orange and bulbous,
they illuminate the tangled tracks.

The light spills onto the floor
like heavy freight abandoning its car.
It spawns the locomotive shadow
cast by my grandmother’s sunken-in couch.

I nestle myself snug between the pillows,
dense and flattened by years of Sundays.
Sundays that bring my father
close to his brother, not a brother at all.

I peer over the edge
and heave a hushed “all aboard.”
Grandma sleeps to unwind
the day’s knot of exhaustion.

Each bone-bleach white fiber frays
from the chemotherapy that robs
her gnarled hands of their strength.
This one-way ticket marks the end of a journey
of a once well-oiled machine.

The exhales of a CSX
spout its peppery breath out in opaque puffs.
I am a conductor, tearing the ticket
of tonight’s traveler.

Rising to my bare feet now,
I sink into the cushion like wet sand.
The train thrusts and in a single bound,
I leap from the ledge and leave my lone passenger.

The cars whir and hum alongside me.
Deafening metallic wind rusts the edge of the rug.
I’m still waiting for her return,
and in denial that it was her last train.

And I told him, Ivan, don’t shout.
And he did, and he couldn’t hear me;
he was too busy, leaning over the edge,
teetering on the point of immortality—
on the edge, on the edge, on the edge.
He’s still there.

Then, is it okay to cry enough?
Isn’t it okay to keep helping him?
Or am I too stupid to believe—
“Ivan, please stay. Please don’t go”—
that he would stay, even after I’m gone?

Because, I still cried, even when I left him first.
Because I didn’t want to stay to see him leave me,
and is love okay this way?
Is this what love for me supposed to be?
Am I really that naive to have believed its lies?

I left. But I can’t help but feel that I’m the one who lied.

i must admit i've missed the touch of pen
against recycled paper, recycling thoughts
and sensing coarse unity against
the edge
of my right-most finger and its adjacent palm-side.

it is with somber truth from which I can not hide that I
shout
for you to r e a d my w o r d s;
i know not why,
but these are my offerings in such a life;:
all i can honor for a god or a friendship or the strangeness of sequences,
all i can serve as a side to my heart.

at times
i wish
i were more
blunt,

and at times
you throw a glance
which shuns my person
into shyness,

these s e a r c h i n g e y e s run-a-marathon
while you look away,
seeking a face of interest. it is
silly, on my mind's part,
for even if we find a point of interest, it will
remain visual;
these teeth, this tongue-
we forget our purpose when it is most desired.

as it stands, i am a bird alone.
no, i try but remember not the last time i took off with another:
i am single, i am solitary, i am contradictory conflicts
.

through contradictions words stand strong and i will always have you,
even in death I will write you,
even in life at its fullest,

apologies fly like fireworks;
my obsession with my premature death is leaking onto pure word-pages and suddenly the sanctity of poetry is
tainted

but it is looming here,
in this atmosphere,
this knowledge of the end of life before it's started;
and that is why danger is seductive
and adventures are a weakness,
and that is why:
I love with all my soul.