as i bathed in the ashes
of a swirling monstrous din
the cries of  a woman
hysterically expunging
ghastly portions of an all
consuming horror
pierced my ears,
cuddled my heart

as i huddled in a corner
biting lacerated knees
i beheld ax wielding
firemen swagger into the
jagged dangers of a
metallic avalanche, its
voracious maw
swallowing last
acts of heroic love

as i genuflected toward
Trinity's steeple,
i was cowed by
the rushing noise
of a splintering tower
collapsing downward,
billowing outward,
a gray predation
scattering the proud
humbling the mighty
breeding terror
threshing anything
fearfully racing
through the city's
cavernous breaches

as i fled down
Wall Street
screaming adrenalin
outran bits of the city
cascading down
stalking, nipping,
gnashing at fleeting steps
chasing reeling refugees
into miraculous sanctuaries
shielding trembling confusion
in blanket's of grace

as i peered into
the mortal wound
of the South Tower
incomprehensibly wondering
what my eyes refused to
understand; a slow
astonishing epiphany
of the grisly hell unfolding
in the upper floors
was confirmed by the
intermittent slow
cascade of leapers
deciding it was
a good day to die

as i decamped
temporary refuge
i entered an unsure
midnight of a blackened
street joining a growing mass
of refugees trundling eastward,
our burning eyes yearning
to perceive a river of escape
hoping the bits of torn cloth will
shield nostrils and cover mouths
protecting tinged lungs from
emulsified ash of glass
and asbestos laden air

as i made my way
northward, enveloped
in ambivalent confusion,
shell shocked  by civic turmoil,
covered in terror dust;
amassing voyeurs
rushing downtown
incredulously asked
what we witnessed,
a Jersey Journal stringer
refused to believe
people jumped
from the upper floors,
as vendors in Chinatown
marked up bottles of water
and a barkeep of a
crowded SOHO saloon
refused me entry
to use the
bathroom fearing
contamination risk...

as i stood depleted
on Christopher Street
ATMs and wireless
phones out of service and
my PATH way home
shut down;
a Sisters of Charity
AIDS hospice
brought me in,
wiped the terror dust
from my clothes,
gave me grape juice to drink,
set me a bed for the night
and put me to work
in the kitchen
to feed God's children.

as i stood on
a late afternoon
Washington Street,
witnessing Seven WTC
plunge into another raging billow
the collapsing day ended
in a room shared with
a young man traumatized
by the days events.
We related our
halting incomprehensions
as the sound of fighter jets
circling the city filled
the void in our
disjointed narratives.
My roommate related
that he was on the plaza
as jumpers splattered around him.  
A tearful PA Cop pleaded for help
to cover the dead.  
It was the last request of this
trembling public servant
as a jumper crushed him
as he finished speaking.

as i fell off to sleep that night
my young roommate
tossed and turned
in the maelstrom of
a deeply troubled sleep.
  

Music Selection:
Philip Glass Koyaanisqatsi

9/10/13
Oakland
jbm

wandering
across
the splinters of
squandered
seasons
the Hajj
of the
lost ones
completes
a broken
circle

returning
with hope to
burrow back
into the safety
of desecrated
graveyards

welcomed
home to the
embrace of a
cadaverous cloak
and the kiss
of carrion
smudged lips,
Hajji's eye
the decrepit
visage of
criminal
depravity

germination
of this
Arab Spring
mocks us

aromas
of jasmine
elude us

emulsified
concrete
clogs our
nostrils

burning eyes
filled with
asbestos dust
form
grateful
blinders
to the
ruination
of reason
betrayed

arcane
remnants
of our life
lay inert
in the open
****** of
fractured
habitations

amidst
jumbled rubble
the decaying
carcasses of
razed buildings
boast grotesque
sculptures of
twisted rebar
cradling artifacts
of a past life

pink
hair curlers
splashed
with sickly
blood grown
mold

scavenged
bicycles
limp on
banished
parts

smashed
skulls of
dolls weep,
her
dismembered
limb reaches
for a lost child’s
nursing
hand

the charred
remains of a
Persian rug
maps the
scale
of a city’s
deconstruction
and a frayed
regions
disconsolation

electric luxury
flowing water
the friendly bustle
of the street
bespeak
expired memories
foretelling an
unimaginal future

sectarian strife
enforces  a communal
solitary confinement

in cold blood
we willingly
murdered
compassion

we
butchered
trust

we
euthanized
our
common
humanity

constructing
buildings is
easy

rebuilding
ourselves
impossible

Music Selection:
Segovia, Capricho Arabe

Oakland
5/13/14
jbm

The Marshmallows decided to have a top Party
Dressed gaily in white, pink, red, green and yellow
They mingled and floated around looking arty-farty
We're going to dance in town not partying in a garage
And guess what, We won't invite Toffee he's not like us

Go melt and burn says Toffee with rightful disdain
who wants to party with a bunch of soft silly buffoons
Overblown and presumptuous you lot melt in the rain
Nothing to you all but egging and hot air you poltroon
Who wants to dance with mixed up softies with no brains

I am Toffee hot and hard and always ready for the bite
You can't lick me in a hurry and I take a while to crack
I am brown with brawn and brains and ready to fight
Got rhythm with the moves, tastes and flavours top whack
Not some boring twirls or stumps gathered together tight

Come try me if you dare and see me squash you down flat
I'll go into you hard your softness yielding like knife on butter
Can marsh you with my strength till you're nothing but mellow
Or stick to your puffy wooly state and squeeze you still flatter
Till you beg and squeal your surrender showing you're shallow

I am not like you and don't think, see, look or taste like you
I am brown and sweet, hard and chewy and I really don't care
For emulsified vain brainless no substance marshmallow tools
Who can only be brave and big when all packed together like
So go party and kid yourselves softies I don't party with fools

Small pebbles crash through ashen skies,
So intricate and divine.
They pitter patter the pane.
Window pane;
Inner pain.
Cracked and spidering;
The sensation remains the same.

Snapping crisp twigs like heartstrings.
Plucking the chords on this beating violin,
A somber sound barrels around  cathedral ceilings,
Dripping melodies in pools at the edges of cold lips.

Victorian grace with hippie peace.
What a hollow sound without the clash of chaos you bring.
Oil and water, emulsified.
Fire and ice, married.
Beautiful chaos, skyward bound.
Earth to ash, burried.

some gone girl is speaking when next to my bed
whispered linnet murmurs preying online thru perilous sheds
blue under trees under the moon to leave shadows in your head
god is unloving and fabled in redress
i am a tomb i came too soon i am the tomb to live too sssoon
with lead palms crawling out of skin molds to scratch at the moon
fingers left crinkled and shriveled under what is new
uncluttered archers in stone slit platoons
letting them go letting them go letting it go letting them go
im staring down sideways to watch it unfold
everyone can smile and everyone can glow
but it takes a special evil to hide it from all
limbic numeracy is past reaching goals
it spreads and descends upon the lives it unfolds
its holding a Mesmer that cloves what hasn't sold
then spreads it like skelter across the crust of the world
god god god god how the **** are u where have u been
i need u we needed u like now its like
i ******* never want to see u again
like here is the palm in the eye of the world next to a
doctor boring gold mines into the veins of the scourge
riding checkered pale hearses across blank frail reading boards
educating all our current lovers on eternity and remorse
ur lacking the emotion to understand why it hurts
ur lacking the heart to feel when it ******* burns
your understanding is nothing to the weight of my birth
u live like a vulture failed in naming her worth
i dont give a **** what u take into your remission
the reaper undevils me u know im lacking ambition
the burning in my throat is the lane of my life
empty bottles living rags eating forbidden apples like its nothing
screaming and unbelieving and inhaling the rest at night
bareskin is deadskin thats the only way she could like
its unburdened there where the aqua violet struts and stares
im terminally confused and in unending repair
thats the only way i can survive it not that i like it
just the only way to survive in it and its ******* nothing how i like it
it just reminds me of this and i want to burn in hell again
i need it to continue ill burn in hell again
**** u for thinking you owned anything
im alone in this no one is watching and touching m y shoulder
when im writing this i am alone in this i already disclosed it
i am emulsified in it the world that is forever unopened
and i never even learned how to calm down
and breathe in
this is all that its worth and u arnt enough human to unveil how it hurts

Drawn to your canvas shoes and charcoal skin.
The temperate colors you were painted in.
2:45 and I'm mooning over your pure hue wondering,
Why you haven't squeezed out of that tubular life I found you in.

Watercolor tears emulsified by inert years,
Wash away the impressionism you pressed over your fears.
3:45 and I'm looking for a place in the sun to dry my freshly painted sin.
I guess it's safe to say, these tubular lives, we're bound by them.

The place I call home isn't easy to find,That place that is deeper within my mind

Slowly walking on thin white vague ambiguous lines
My social life becomes a spiral of lies that control my love for Him who died and rose as Christ

Only I will understand this place called home in my mind.

It's a tattered city with emulsified lives!

(a stout rendition of Captain Oh Captain)

Mine eyes espy the glory per the ending
of another work day beckon Bailys Irish Creme
with Absolut certainty that Fireball named Brandy
the Patron Crown Royal abets dream
quest proof positive to expunge stressful Boss
distilling this cooked Grey Goose a gleam
with nary a clue how my ceaseless toiling efforts
play within the lager corporation scheme
assigning exemplary skills and talents within
what appears to be a ******* up losing team.

No exit out this grueling twenty first century rat trap
whereby Scotch chief en gin that air
except to drawn displeasure and wallow in sorrows
downing ***** or house brand beer
despite  drunken state erodes axons and synapses
snap like chattering teeth of broken gear
quickly cause tenuous grasp on queasy reality,
sanity, and tenacity rent asunder and tear.

Now that work day done at long last, not a moment
to tally date with Jack Daniels to delay
this linkedin the conga line wants to wash away
sounds of barked orders *** bling – may
king me insides writhing with anger as if type cast
in diabolical formidable, horrible play
whereby each active scene increases assistance
for Johnny Walker to glide and sashay.

Argh, how those last remaining minutes to escape
hubbub tick away at the pace of a snail
to these myopic eyes, which suspect manager
surreptitiously turns back clock hands male
lush hiss lee deliberately toys with sanity, thus
seek counsel from Jimmy Beam without fail
when super ***** ping head honcho will cease
cheap trick renouncing cruel act with ale.

Without sh malt s, Hops, skips and jumps
inebriation welcomes me by rendering taps
receding thoughts of being bound, cramped,  
and emulsified in dark cubicle Schnapps
as if invisible taut cord tears into virtual tatters
and this life of Wry lee loosed like *****
from shredded material trailing a tail that
rivals tales of Aesop's.

That  ambler liquid of the gods soothes palate
and tongue helps a  comfortably numb
feeling to settles within thine body electric
dulling the senses with heavy eye lids plum
met to close shut tight riding the wave of ecstasy,
reflecting about dad and late mum
though come the morrow, a hang over with
sensation akin to Gunter Grass loud internal tin drum.

Upon rising sober with total amnesia sans
pandering as a buffoon
realizing fallacious gimcrackery while ensconced
in fermented cocoon
an email fried off from the top dog quickly
reminded yours truly how I did goon
off the rails, perhaps cuz of living within
a trackless caboose sized wife named June.

some gone girl is speaking when next to my bed
whispered linnet murmurs preying online thru perilous sheds
blue under trees under the moon to leave shadows in your head
god is unloving and fabled in redress
i am a tomb i came too soon i am the tomb to live too sssoon
with lead palms crawling out of skin molds to scratch at the moon
fingers left crinkled and shriveled under what is new
uncluttered archers in stone slit platoons
letting them go letting them go letting it go letting them go
im staring down sideways to watch it unfold
everyone can smile and everyone can glow
but it takes a special evil to hide it from all
limbic numeracy is past reaching goals
it spreads and descends upon the lives it unfolds
its holding a Mesmer that cloves what hasn't sold
then spreads it like skelter across the crust of the world
god god god god how the **** are u where have u been
i need u we needed u like now its like
i ******* never want to see u again
like here is the palm in the eye of the world next to a
doctor boring gold mines into the veins of the scourge
riding checkered pale hearses across blank frail reading boards
educating all our current lovers on eternity and remorse
ur lacking the emotion to understand why it hurts
ur lacking the heart to feel when it ******* burns
your understanding is nothing to the weight of my birth
u live like a vulture failed in naming her worth
i dont give a **** what u take into your remission
the reaper undevils me u know im lacking ambition
the burning in my throat is the lane of my life
empty bottles living rags eating forbidden apples like its nothing
screaming and unbelieving and inhaling the rest at night
bareskin is deadskin thats the only way she could like
its unburdened there where the aqua violet struts and stares
im terminally confused and in unending repair
thats the only way i can survive it not that i like it
just the only way to survive in it and its ******* nothing how i like it
it just reminds me of this and i want to burn in hell again
i need it to continue ill burn in hell again
**** u for thinking you owned anything
im alone in this no one is watching and touching m y shoulder
when im writing this i am alone in this i already disclosed it
i am emulsified in it the world that is forever unopened
and i never even learned how to calm down
and breathe in
this is all that its worth and u arnt enough human to unveil how it hurts

Drinks Heron Me
(a stout rendition of Captain Oh Captain)

Mine eyes espy the glory
     per ending of another work day doth
     beckon Baily's Irish Creme
with Absolut certainty that
     Fireball named Brandy
     the Patron Crown
     Royal abets dream
quest proof positive

     to expunge stressful Boss
     distilling cooked Grey Goose gleam
with nary blue clue how  
     ceaseless toiling efforts
     play within lager corporation scheme
assigning exemplary
     skills and talents within
appears ******* up losing team.

No exit out this grueling
     twenty first century
     rat trap where by Scotch
     chief en gin air
except to drawn displeasure
     and wallow in sorrows
     downing *****, or
     house brand beer

despite drunken state
     erodes axons and synapses
     snap like chattering
     false teeth of broken gear
quickly cause tenuous
     grasp on queasy reality,
     sanity, and tenacity
     rent asunder and tear

Now that work day done
     at long last, not a moment
     to tally date with
     Jack Daniels to delay
this linkedin conga line wants
     to wash away sounds
     of barked orders *** bling – may
king me insides

     writh with anger
as if type cast in diabolical
     formidable, horrible play
whereby each active
     scene increases assistance
     for Johnny Walker to glide and sashay.
Argh, how those last remaining
     minutes to escape hubbub

     ticks away at pace of a snail
to these myopic eyes,
     which suspect manager
     surreptitiously turns
     back clock hands male
lush hiss lee deliberately
     toys with sanity, thus seek counsel
     from Jimmy Beam without fail

when super tramping head honcho
will cease cheap trick
     renouncing cruel act ale
ling me without sh malt s, Hops,
     skips and jumps inebriation
     welcomes me rendering taps
receding thoughts being bound, cramped,
     and emulsified in

     dark cubicle Schnapps
as if invisible taut cord
     tears into virtual tatters
     and life of Wry lee loosed *****
from shredded material trailing
     a tail that rivals tales of Aesop's.
That ambler liquid
     of gods soothes palate and tongue

     helps tubby dee
     sensitized comfortably numb
feeling settles within
     thine body electric
     dulling the senses with
     heavy eye lids plum
met to close shut tight
     riding wave of ecstasy,

     reflecting about dad and late mum,
though come morrow, a hang over
     with ascension sensation
     akin to Günter Grass
     loud banging his tin drum.
Upon rising sober with total amnesia
     sans pandering  buffoon
realizing fallacious gimcrackery,
    
while ensconced fermented cocoon
***** hound tippled top dog
     quickly reminded yours truly
     how I goon
off the rails, perhaps, cuz of living
     within a trackless caboose
     sized wife named June.
********
Poet script:

An out of character bon mot
to defy anyone trying
     to stereotype my verbose thick plot
poetic dry (humor) rot.

The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get
came to this teetotaler, racking his noggin you bet.
Hence...I brought you Harvey off the wall banger...

“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom,
in water there is bacteria."

Low density
slow entropy
expansive ethereal
immaterial inclusive
conducive conclusive
collective perspective

Interjected perplexing
Vexed intensive directive

Perspicacious intonations
repulsed over nullified
Emulsified dry mindless intrinsic duplicitous insistances
redacted and reacted upon retroactively,
in posthumous alacrity,
as backed and packed to me
are primitive tenacities
by classless massless animalistic catastrophes
in baseless traceless
uniformly adjacent replacements

Tasteless abasement
in braced,
placed erasure of nature
Replace her with infrastructure
Good old abundant mother, **** her

I'd love to plug her with rubber
unsung troubles debug her
rewind and entice
and drown and rend blind with devices incisively derisively winding
her planar engagements
to ownership taken
forsaken by god
but we're shaken by odds
of new values in clods
of endowments toward rods of power each hour we glower
and how her entreatment
might trap and devour
if we weren't so clever
we'd sever our heads as we shower
in the ichor of the dead
and instead we're just thicker than blood
with our money and crud
replace water with crude
and a bad attitude

I'd be true to the money
but wouldn't it be funny
if deigned be the dummy
as warless and lost
in the loathesome defrosting
of planetary exhaustion?

Now tell me the cost
of the death and the offing
of all we've been coughing
to the air we've been drawing from
gnawing the earth to her bones
always want some more worth from our home
but it's worthless if we end up alone