You grip my throat sporadically, erratically – not often.
And trickle in through passages and pores I can’t defend.
Treacle through fingers.
But you avoid me too, and I hate it just as much.

I wait for your hand to loosen,
I breathe cool air,
Then I feel your absence.

Your gloopy venom is addictive.
I tasted you once, and now my tongue yearns,
And eats itself –
It flickers and twists and spits its serpentine-self out. In vain.
A vague, dull shadowy lustre remains,
Undulating under baited breath,
For another foul injection.

In reality I fear you. I despise you. I hate you.
If you’d only never return,
I could spit you out forever,
And tongue sweeter, healthier, more benign stuff.
No more swilling,
No more idiosyncratic sways upon social norms,
High Society and empty smiles that stifle natural intentions.

You are a disease, and far from untreated.
You are the last drag, the last hit,
The very last dose that no one actually wants.

I rebuke myself wholeheartedly
At even entertaining the idea of having you in my company. Yet there you are –

In every message, in every ransacked draw,
In every turned out rucksack, every old coat pocket,
Every ***** shirt, every unstitched button,
In every visitor’s news, every car back-seat,
Every dusty notebook, every empty fruit-bowl,
Every old, long-unseen smile, every dowsed fire,
Every man woman and child I sit across the table from.

There you are. Somehow. In some form.
Turning my sweat cold like cheap wine,
In what is otherwise an already disturbingly depressing
Struggle to maintain some kind of equilibrium or serenity,
Let alone with your smug mug cropping up scornfully uninvited.

You ****** me before I recognise you.
Helping yourself to the food on my plate with a wink,
While I do nothing as if handcuffed, and chained at the soul.
Then I move to eat.
Hand to fork.
Fork to mouth.
And it tastes of you.
It reeks of you.
And if I were anything but human,
I’d spit you out onto the kitchen floor,
Stamp on the bile you’ve stolen from me,
Burn you with kerosene,
And wage a third world war on the very concept of you ever existing.

But I am a human.
And moments later you have me
‘******* and thinking of death’
As coy and Marvellian as you like.

I indulge in full-knowing paralysis,
Lapping up your unvanquished honeyed venom,
With a voraciousness that redefines Lovesick –
Giving it a whole new meaning
Going beyond the epitome of disgust.

Enslaved, you have me smash myself against the ceiling.
And eat myself over again from within.
Consuming me like the fire I found you in.

You have me rage and conspire against those I don’t know.
But I will conspire against you one-day.
You have me hate others, but I will forever hate you.
You have me search my soul and grate it upon street corners
And the pavement of city-centres,
While you gleefully, whimsically **** my past
Or polish vain, rose-tinted hopes that without you
I’d know were futile and unjust –
Until I ruin them myself, knowing all the while
That you are the author of my unnecessary devastations.

But I will smash your green demonic skull into obsolescence
In some back-alley where none will find your
Bubbling frothing corpse.
You will be utterly repudiated even by the rats.
And the flies will drop you,
Iota
By
Iota,
Onto the tracks at Dalston to be rendered into absolute oblivion.
And I will go, a man unshackled, about my business –
Whether it be of importance or not,
It will be with a conscience cleansed.

But for now, vile sham of an emotion that you are,
I do your inglorious bidding.
Zombified and putrid, my actions smell of you.
They reek of you.

You intoxicate what should be left alone
And endured with silence and rapidity.
Yet you elongate these private, personal trails torturously,
In some sensational Cold War.

It goes without saying,
The world would be well rid of you.
Yet godlike, you endure the ages
Just as we endure you.

Perhaps Keats was too afraid to admit it –
You are the original
La Belle Dame Sans Merci.
Pluto’s daughter in persistent disguise.
To be seen presently
‘******* and thinking of death’.

I closed my eyes
And tried to wake up
In a world that’s too far away
That struck from above.
Taunting me with honed voices,
Not a single was distinct.
How cruel were those noises!
With every possible hint
In an alienating stint
followed by the clue
It came as on cue
And I heard that song
Of stories not heard for long.
Then I stumbled upon the truth,
‘We all go places that we may never belong.’

Average-joe protagonist wipes beer glasses
at the helm of his sports bar, blissfully ignorant
of the imminent laughable tragedy. Clouds circle,
and there's that obligatory radio broadcast,
the one that warns of inclement weather-
rainy, with a chance of Selachimorpha.
You hum the Jaws theme, tracing pickup lines
on the skin of my back, while sharks pour from the sky,
the improbable tornado dropping great whites
on the California shoreline. One arm curled
around my waist, you tickle erratically
until I squirm away, only to creep back again,
and put my head in the mouth of the sand tiger,
wandering too close to the edge of the water, foolish,
but this is a b-movie, we swam out too far
knowing how it would end. The extras
scream and scatter, arms flailing,
going through the motions of surprise,
stumbling in their scripted attempts
to flee the inevitable. Predictably,
they fall. We all fall, and the girl trapped
in the hammerhead's belly
has this peaceful expression,
as if she can't quite remember why
she ran away in the first place.

They could practically be heard arguing throughout the whole diner, but they were oblivious to their small audience of onlookers in the heat of their conflict. Tori stood there with her hands on her hips as her husband, Hank, made himself clear that he was upset. He was sitting up at the counter on one of the barstools eating his chili. On the other side, Tori poured herself a much needed cup of coffee.

“You’re a waitress, not Mother Theresa! A mother with two hungry mouths!” he bellowed out to her. “That’s less money that goes into our pockets! What the hell were you thinking, Tor?”

“Was only helping a poor guy out!” she shot back. “He looked hungry and—big deal—so I bought him something to eat! So forget it, Hank, cuz I’m not sorry!” She remained defiant in her stance, unapologetic in her Good Samaritan role. Her boss never allowed her to give free food away, so the food was on her. It was a hot dog and fries, one time, some bacon and eggs, another.  She got the man bagels, donuts, toast, oatmeal—whatever she could supply with his usual cup of coffee he ordered. It was obvious from the word go that he had little in his pocket, and he could barely put a tip on the table—usually a nickel or a dime, sometimes a few pennies. He wore the same shabby tee shirt, flannel shirt and bummy jeans. And those pitiful shoes—with his dingy white socks poking through at the big toe of his right foot—that was pitiful.  So what if she had two young children? Nobody was going into the poor house because she bought a poor guy a few meals.

“Well, stop buying him food! No more!” Hank commanded. Tori gave him her best you’re not the boss of me look as he put his spoon down and walked over to the booth towhere the man with unkempt, silvery hair, and an untrimmed beard, sat.  That was his usual spot, and that was Tori’s booth to cover.  

The man just stared at him, not seemingly startled by the younger man who boldly confronted him. “Hey, look!” Hank said, lowly, yet sharply, “Straight up and no *******. Get a job. Get a life. Just quit taking advantage of my wife. Got it?”

It didn’t seem like the intimidation was working. The man just stared at Hank, his deep, soulful, brown eyes could penetrate right through him, and Hank wanted to shift his gaze away. He didn’t though, for that wouldn’t have given him the menacing upper hand. “Well!” he demanded, fidgety and frustrated, “What’s your problem?” The response was simply the same silent stare and Hank blurted out through clenched teeth, “Don’t take nothing no more from my wife!”

Unexpectedly, the man placed his hand upon Hank’s and said, “My son, don’t be angry. Sin no more. I give you my blessing, and go now in peace”. Hank quickly pulled his hand away, his face burning with embarrassment. A few guys at table nearby snickered at the sight of the pair.

“The guy’s nuts!” Hank got up and moved back to the counter. “What does he think? He’s Jesus or something?”

“Hank, quit stirring up drama or you gotta leave! You’re gonna drive out business!” Al chimed in. Al was in the kitchen helping the cooks in the back to get out orders. Now if anyone had a right to kick Hank out it was him. He owned the place.

Hank, still enraged, pointed his finger at Tory and promised, “We’ll talk later!” He quickly stormed out. Tory was not to be dictated to, feeling vindicated for her kind actions.

Well, everyone thought the man who tried to bless Hank was harmless, off kilter, maybe, but harmless. He didn’t seem to cause any trouble, and he minded his own business—only spoke until spoken to, and it was always with grace. Was there something special about him? It was only Tori and fellow waitress, Bonnie, who put more stock into this than anyone else would.

“And what if he is God?” Bonnie asked.

Al scoffed, trying to keep the conversation at a low minimum.  “You sound just as loony as he is”

“Well? And what if he was?” Tori backed up Bonnie. “Or maybe even an angel! You know they can come in many disguises! Maybe God is trying to test us to see if we really give a ****. Did you ever think of that?”

Al shook his head. He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. “Test us?” he asked back as if Tori had no sense at all. “You’ve watched too many TV shows!” He raised his hands up in a grand fashion of showmanship, knife in hand,” Or maybe I’m not the owner of Al’s Diner, but I’m really God myself”, he mocked.  “So, as God, my dear little children, I command you back to work! Come on, now! Chop, chop!” He started to shoo everyone away. “How you think we are going to feed the masses, huh? With loaves and fishes? Customers! Customers! Get those orders moving!”  

The smells and sizzling sound of hamburgers on the grill were enticing to the senses. Tori and Bonnie went back to busily retrieving orders, and Al went to chopping some tomatoes, but soon he was playfully tapped on the shoulder.  It was Amber, another waitress who never seemed privy to the conversation.  “You remember this song?” she asked him, singing the tune in an off-key way, “What if God was one of us, just a slob like one of us….”

“Just a stranger on a bus, trying to make his way home…” Tori sung along, cheerfully moving about, adding a pretty, more melodious tone to the song.  

“Exactly”, Bonnie exclaimed, enthusiastically. “Like God’s gone undercover!”

Al rolled his eyes, for he thought he made himself clear he was done with this talk. But he couldn’t help but get a kick out his quirky waitresses. “Sure I know that tune—a few decades back—blonde chick—what’s her name?” he asked, smirking.  

“Joan Osborne”, Bonnie proudly stated. “Cool song, too. Makes you think a bit…at least for me.”

“And so why not ask him who he is?” Joey asked. “He’s got a name.”

It was like everyone forgot Joey was in the room though he was busily busing tables and sweeping floors. Tory, Bonnie and Al stopped what they were doing and intently looked at the teen. He seemed to ask a sincere question.  Al burst out laughing. “Now someone’s talking sense, and chalk it up to the kid with good wits. Yeah, Joey, these ladies just want to exist in fantasy land. Go, Team Al!”

Joey shook his head and said, soberly, “Not taking anyone’s side. I just think he’s got a name and he’s got a story behind him…and it isn’t what you think, Tori…or even you, Al.”

Al waved his hand to dismiss the whole thing. “Yeah, his name is probably Ralph, or something. Even then, I bet Tory would believe he is the Almighty right there in the flesh!”

“I would!” Tory shot back. She looked at Joey and answered, “Maybe you do think I’m as bad as Al does, but you’re too polite to admit it…but…yeah…I did ask him his name.”

“And, so?” Al asked, pretending with wide eyes to be full wonder, like he was clinging to every word, anxiously. “What’s his name?”

He was simply finding humor at her expense, and Tori wished she never said a thing. She reluctantly replied, “I am what I am.”

What?” Bonnie asked. “What does that mean?”  

Al replied, “I am what I am! Well, that sure don’t mean Popeye, sweetie!” With a comical, gravelly voice, he did his best Popeye imitation, “I yam what I yam and that’s all I am!”, squinting up one of his eyes he teased Tori, “Got that Olive Oyl?”

Bonnie and Joey laughed along at the sight of him, and Al added, “Look! I may be practically an atheist, but I’m not ignorant to the bible. That’s just what God said to Moses when he asked the same question!”

Tory defended the poor man that she so proudly helped. “So what if he does think he is God? He’s not doing anyone any harm, is he?” Al completely ignored her, so Tory to turned to Joey, and asked again, “What harm is there in it?”

Joey slightly smiled at Tory, trying to remain respectful to her beliefs, and said, “Truth be told, I don’t know much about God. I’m not a churchy person. He pointed over at the poor man in the booth and said, “I just know if God existed, it’s not him.”
  
Tori was saddened by Joey’s words. It was not that because he didn’t believe her ideas were feasible—that maybe God was testing them—but that he didn’t even know if God existed. The youth nowadays—who did they have to look up to?  Who guided them? The internet? Their cell phones? So many people seemed to have walked away from their faith or had none at all. And Al reminded Tori so much of her own dad. She grew up in a home without religion. Her mom had a vague notion of God, but her dad was a huge skeptic that had the same mocking spirit that Al had. Neither her father or Al were bad guys, but there were no miracles in their worldview. There was nothing divine, and everything was so ordinary and practical.

But Tori always felt awestruck by the world, nature and the animals, a curious minded child. She was the one who had that childlike faith—even now as a grown woman—and she yearned to know God, personally, not just know about Him. She just had to believe that this world and the universe were not all just for nothing, not at all a happenstance, not a just a brief journey on this earth and then that was it. It was after searching and yearning that Tori went to her friend’s church, and soon became a Catholic. She might have been alone in her family in this endeavor, but it gave her life more meaning.

Tori would look at the figure of Jesus upon the crucifixion and oddly was comforted by the sight of him that might bring others revulsion or doubt—the nails piercing his hands and feet, the thorn of crowns, the blood, the tragic sight of his lifeless body so cruelly tacked up upon the cross.  She raised her own two children to know God, and Hank’s lukewarm feelings did not match hers. He wasn’t much help in that department at all. But she knew by looking through the bible that true life was about helping other people, that God loved the poor and the downcast. To find your life, you had to lose your life. To feel exalted, you had to humble yourself. To give your life, to save someone else’s—well, that was the greatest gift you could give. That means you gave it all.  She might not have been the smartest person in the world, but she didn’t need to be bible scholar to figure such things out.  

Well, it would be a while before Tori would see her special customer again. But one day she ran back into the kitchen and told Al, excitedly, “His name is Bill!”

Al shot her a strange look, and then he got the connection. “Oh, so that’s God name?” he said jokingly.

Tori pulled him by the arm and took him out front, summoning Bonnie and Joey over, too. Bill was sitting in the same booth he often did, but there at the counter stool sat a petite, sixty-something-year-old woman whom everyone was about to meet. “Al, Bonnie, Joey, this is Bill’s sister, Mary”, Tori introduced her. “She shared with me about Bill’s story, and I think you should know, too.”   She looked like Bill, but had black dyed hair and was better put together. There was a warm and gentle way about her that intrigued Tori. And she sat there to shield her brother by keeping him out of the conversation, for she didn't want to upset her brother by mentioning something that might cause him pain.

Actually, they all were intrigued by her story.  Mary had told them that Bill once had a family, a wife and two sons. He couldn’t keep a steady job, though, and he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. His wife divorced him years ago and moved out of state with their two boys. His sons never tried to contact him, and he hasn’t seem ever since. For quite a while, Bill lived on his own, but he didn’t take good care of himself. He was living more poorly than ever—not eating right or caring for himself, erratically taking his medication, and so it wasn’t a surprise that he lived a deluded life. “He does strange stuff like that, think he is God”, Mary admitted to Tori. “He’s been made fun of a lot for acting that way, and it’s my job to watch over him and see that he is safe. So now I help take care of him, and he lives with me. Bill’s always been too proud to accept my help, but the doctor says being with me will help to give him a better life”. Mary was a widow, and she didn’t have much money herself, but she did what she could to protect her brother.  

Al looked embarrassed, knowing now the truth about Bill and realizing he was making fun when he should have known better. Mary gave Tori a huge hug. “And thank you”, she said to Tory, “for looking out for my brother, too.”  Everyone, even Al, was deeply touched by their embrace.  

“You know that Tori is a saint”, Bonnie bragged on her behalf to reiterate the same sentiment. “There should be more people like her.”

Tori remained humble and disagreed, “No, I’m just doing what we should all do in this world. If anything, it teaches me that we should all see God in every opportunity.”

Al whispered into Tori’s ear and told her, “You want to give him something to eat again, well now don't bother paying for it. It's on me”.  She smiled at him like was ready to give him a big hug, and he added, “Don’t think this makes me all buying all this God stuff—or anything”.

“And why not?” she asked.  

He replied with his own question, the ultimate question that people have been asking for ages. "Why would any god allow a man to suffer like that? Just look at him! How could that happen and you still think there is some guy in the sky that's all warm and fuzzy, like some invisible Teddy bear?"  

"Oh, you mean so how can God be loving, fair and merciful?", she snapped back, hurt that Al would make faith sound so childish and idiotic. Tori thought a moment, and simply replied, "I could ask the same question. Is life fair? Is it just wishful thinking? Actually, all my life I've wondered such things. The difference between us though is I don't know all the answer any better than you...but I still believe."

Al waved his hand away at her, "Whatever..."

"Wait!", Tori commanded him as he walked away. Al stopped and turned to face her like he was more than through with this conversation.  She said, "Maybe if us mere mortals did our job on earth of helping others, it would better a whole nother story. You'd probably have a different point of view, Al."

She didn't expect Al to have some bolt of enlightenment when it came to God, but before he went back to the kitchen he left her with words she wished he didn’t say. “All those people way back then…all those prophets and saints…supposing they were around today. You think they'd they stand up to today's world? I don't. Wouldn’t they on meds, too? I'd say we wouldn't see them any differently than we'd see Bill.”  Blindsided, she never did know how to follow up with all that. Al just knew how to rain on her nice parade.

Joey never said anything about that day, but when Bill came in again, Tori surely took special notice of them sitting together for a while. When she passed by the table, Joey was watching Bill walk around, and she quickly noticed the new black and green athletic shoes on his feet. Even on him, they looked sharp.

”They fit alright?”  Joey asked. Bill nodded, and shook the boy’s hand. He never said anything about it, but his silly, old grin—along with a few missing teeth—was priceless. He truly was happy to get those shoes. The old ones, with the hole in the toes, remained on the floor to be pitched out.  

Tori had to ask Joey, “You bought those for him? That’s so sweet of you!”

Joey smiled. “I just never could stand those beat up, old shoes”, he replied. “They are a good brand, but didn’t put me back that much. I’m not making a big deal about it, though. I’m not even going to tell anyone I did it. Only telling you, because you asked.”

“Makes you feel good, doesn’t it? Like it really makes a difference”.

“Yeah, it does. It’s like buying God a pair of shoes.”

Did he just say it was buying God a pair of shoes? How odd to hear that from Joey, but how that statement impacted her, and Tori would never forget that.  She gave Joey a peck on the cheek and a hug. He was like a little brother to him. She didn’t feel old enough to be a mother figure, but she felt some kind of sisterly feeling for him.

Joey went on to explain, “Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about Bill, lately. He lost his job, his family—he lost everything. No, he’s not God, but I was thinking…though I don’t know that much about religion or God, I thought that if you do

For you sweetheart I would....

...writhe in the ecstasy of the tragic
or behave violently,
enmeshed in ******,
heroic havoc

I would stalk the thing that hurt you and stab-it.
or quickly tie it up and drag it,
as I whisper as a crazed maverick ; click, click, son!
and swallow back the drip, drip, umm....
of the vial of acid...….as I sip, sip, yum-
Facing the truth of the mirror I find myself presently hung

For you sweetheart....!
I would sacrifice the self
relegate my identity to the bottom shelf

I would Focus on  opposites...
and pervert the lost truth of buddhists; preaching and installing the sinful cysts...

of consumerism & material wealth, I hope you get the gist.
I would Climb to the monastery & maliciously yell
“Come on you drunk monk Its for your helllth!”

Doing what you always wanted
by changing the state of truth
from overwhelming presence
...to an unseen, veiled stealth

for you I would jump out of the highest helicopter sans parachute
!ha! writing and dying, but for you,  its such a hoot

For you Sweet love,
I would divide by zero,
March up to physics and blackholes say “hey F-yourself” unceremoniously killing the hero
remembering so vividly
how we intoxicatedly emptied oil on the baby-seals relaxing on the soil of the now empty sea shelf

but for you oh dear, I would empty myself of fear
and empathize with a jellyfish
GAH!  
I hate Jellyfish.

Please Imagine sweet- love,
how we would get married,
and go through all the steps to have a sweet- baby
and in the birthing room while you’re extra weary,
I would ask the simple question to hold and carry
this special
special
little baby

I would look you in the eyes, smile widely and drop it
While you pleaded, choked eyes pleading for some God to stop it

But thats a little extreme so lets take time and rewind the scene
So that you wouldn’t think of little ol’ loving ego me as being so especially mean

Then, amidst candles start smoothly & sweeten the deal with cannibalistic clipart
Preparing to Dine on the sweet meal of a sweetheart’s sweet heart.

For you I would
I would **** a man and smoke salvia at his funeral
Then desperately plead my case,  
so surreal while I Appeal deliriously and unable
to the divine
or the courtroom of an esoteric, alien race

Oh love.
I would bury myself in venomous spiders
submit myself to mysterious haitian-zombie rituals
To keep you pure and far from pitiful
I would Self-immolate to distance you from pain and the sinful

Then
I would put the world to sleep
so that they won’t stir, wake,
or open their eyes to peep
the pain of the sun,
burning the Sea-t
of their corneas
with its brilliant and all-encompassing,
luminous heat



Oh for you bella, I would put down three 1/5ths of law and turn the key
Oh beautiful, now the mothers against drunk driving are sooo MADD at me
Because for YOU
I Crashed into their headquarters traveling erratically and so haphazardly

For you I would do everything
not just anything
but
everything.

I would chill with monks that do all the ****** up things
Go to a girls house, burn the family, burn the home
have ******* with the survivor hopefully alone
and afterwards take a long time to gnaw viciously through my bones.

for you I would discuss that maybe this voice Isn’t fit for the world
So i just wink out of existence
to protect everything from my impact, characterized as it is, so spun and twirled

For you sweetheart, I would even let this poem go unwritten.
Just so the world would not be smitten
With the space between the righteous and the wrong
the difference, is what we feel,
For you truth I write this song.

Ostensibly and indefinitely, I would infinitely
remember thee
and it all planning to never do it again.
...because my Circuitry is charged with the pain to amend me.

For your own amusement
I would help possibility incarnate
fulfill itself A-moral and without hate
the good the bad and the ugly because …..remember
When it comes to poetic possibility  
The U-and-I-verse doesn’t discriminate

I would free the slaves from freedom
I would emulate pagans and heathens
I’ll be all you don’t need when you seek to amend the world of men

For you sweetheart I would publish this as a children’s night time book

The summer I interned in New York, I fell in love with someone I'd only seen from a balcony window.

I'd fallen in love with strangers before, on buses and in lines, watching their shoulders straighten and their faces grimace in half-sunlight. I fell in love with these people the way you could fall in love with a poem, finding personality in the way that their eyes flicker nervously from left to right, tiny instances where their stanzas throw you into a daze. But this time was different. For once, I wished to know a stranger without the brim of my sunglasses, for once I felt something when I knew I'd never see him again.

His apartment was cluttered, bottles of water and the empty cans of energy drinks piled in a corner where a conscious person would have fit them in a bin. There were clothes on the floor, and although I knew his high rise box was laid out just as mine, he must have used the expected closet space for something else - his clothes were everywhere, crumpled in heaps on the floor that were too erratically placed to not have some sort of lingering system. Posters of people were taped to the wall, covering the matte eggshell white, edges falling occasionally to show signs that he wouldn’t always live there. I hoped that if he ever owned a home, that those staring portraits would be stapled or pasted thick to his walls, just because he would be the sort of person who wouldn’t change his mind about what he liked or what he wanted.

I would watch him from the same eggshell white room of mine, with nothing on the walls and not a scrap of anything on the floor. From my blow up mattress to my suitcase of clothes, kitchen stocked of single servings and a solitary set of dishware. I had no curtains and no carpets, no television or pictures of friends huddled in an unexpected embrace. For all anyone knew, I could have been squatting. I would look out at him from the window spanning the entire north facing wall, aware that if he ever looked out, if his eyes ever darted south, he would see me cross legged on the tiled marble floor, hovering over an overheated laptop and cardboard coffee.

I would get home at seven forty-five, shower in the New York water that tasted like dust and gin, and towel off, walking to the balcony. He, just like I, had a long, narrow balcony spanning about four feet on the right edge of his loft, and I would lean on the edge of the concrete slab, smelling the foul city air, taxi music floating from the lumpy yellow marsh below. That was when he would unlock his door suddenly, sometime between eight and eight-ten. He would step with his entire body and move into his crowded room and stand still for a moment, as if to collect himself; restrain from tearing faces off the walls and pummeling fabric into the floor. Sometimes he'd shut the door closed with a twitch of his foot, untying the half apron around his waist with one hand and pulling the red tie strapped flat onto a black dress shirt loose with the other. Once, he did all that in succession and proceeded to slide against the shut door until he hit the ground, falling into himself like a dropped jack's ladder and rubbing his fingers from his jawline to his eyes, up into his hair and back over.

But most of the time, he would just force off his shoes, never untying the laces, and move to the balcony just as I did. He would go out to the balcony too, but he would always keep going, moving to sit on the edge of the short wall, socked feet dangling over the city. His legs would be splayed wide, hands placed right in front of him, flat on the ledge. He would look down at the golden sea below, and when he was done with it, spit a flickering cigarette into the glittering bank.

He would also smoke when he woke up. He got up at six, like clockwork, and would stumble back out into the smogged pilot's seat in a plaid bathrobe, hazy faced and staring down. I don’t think he was ever late. He would get dressed slowly and fix himself in the mirror for a good half hour at the left of his room, until finally turning around just to watch the door for a moment. Sometimes I could swear that he watched for so long that he must have thought it would up and race away.

He slept with the lights on. He never came home late. He didn’t go out at night, never blundered in at two in the morning with a lithe model girl, long hair framing icicle eyes. On weekends he would sleep all day, rising every few hours to go back on the edge of his balcony and smoke. He would stare at the faces on his walls, the callouses on his palms, the murmur below; but never, ever at the empty loft across the way, dotted with a blue plastic bed and a speck of a person.

I left New York in September, on a red eye flight vastly cheaper than the rest. I put my toothbrush and toothpaste into the front pocket of my luggage, squeezed the air out of my mattress, and left. I hadn't left a trace in that home of mine, and it didn’t leave any on me either. When I left New York, I felt nothing. It was almost like I had never set foot in the city, forgetting to socialize with the locals the way someone could leave their hat at a bar.

I never knew if the man across the canyon hated coming home to a loft like I did. I wondered if it bothered him too, the lack of walls or rooms to compartmentalize the space. I wondered if he didn’t like to eat at home, if he felt sick when he watched the sunrise. I wondered if when he looked at the tidepooled city, if he also saw salvation. If he wondered every day from eight to eight-ten about what a dangly thing of a human would seem like to the loft across if it was spit from the edge of a narrow, four foot balcony.

Erratically you

It was by chance I came to Portugal.
I was a failure in Norway and a bigger loser in Britain.
I could not absorb a culture that makes the working-class
dumb workers and ignorant soldiers.
It was a day in May when I came here, didn´t want to live
by the coast, which was like living in Liverpool with sunlight.
I bought a ruin/stable got local workers to help me restoring the place.
One day I looked up and said: “I´m home.”

like a compass that has lost north
spinning without pattern, without end
my heart races erratically, unmoored
by just the soft touch of your hand

HUMAN HISTORY 2: LET'S DANCE
(A few words of acknowledgement: While these are my ideas and thoughts, I drew heavily on the story of 'Waterlily', written by Ella Cara Deloria. The discussion between the two Sioux women described below are drawn from this book. Her book beautifully details the life of 2 Dakota Sioux women and with them the customs, beliefs and beauty of the Dakota Sioux people. I am deeply in her debt.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Let's dance.
Lets dance.
Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.'
-D. Bowie


I.
'Hao, Kola!'
'Hao, Kola!'
Greetings between two
darkly tanned men, black hair
long and waving erratically in the wind,
their deep black eyes smile
and embrace these two warrior friends.
'Hao, Kola!'

II.
Out in the open prairie,
under an intense blue sky,
a few sharply white clouds
float in contrast against it;
two Peoples drew towards
each other for a ceremonial sing,
as was customary before the Great Sun Dance.

Ill.
'Hokahe'. 'Hokahe'.
'Hokahe'. 'Hokahe'.
Dakotas and Omahas meet.'
Hokahe' floats on the fresh morning breeze.
Colorful war standards wave and
flirt about gracefully.
The Omahas have come to sing.
The Omahas, proud, magnificently bold.
The Omahas, self assured in painted red face,
wearing heavily fringed buckskin white,
brilliantly adorned.
With war standards and lances held high,
the Omahas were a breath taking sight.
As there on the prairie's lush green grass
Omahas greet Dakotas with ceremonial song.

IV.
Two Dakota women overheard talking:
Blue Bird: 'You met them?! What are
white people really like?
Are they gentle, kind, as their
skin would imply?'
Smiling One: 'No, they are very hard, very
stern and dull towards each
other. They pass each other without
recognition. Very unmannerly.'
Blue Bird: 'And what about the children?
How do they play?'
Smiling One: 'Oh, this is so sad I would
say. I don't understand the
reasoning behind their ways.
These people actually detest
their children. You should see
them; slapping their little one's
faces and lashing their poor little
buttocks to make them cry!
Yelling and screaming at them
anytime of the day. I have never
seen children treated this way!!'
Blue Bird: Deep in thought, hugs little
Water Lily. She feels sick with
sympathy for these unknown
children. Only crazy people
teach their children like this.
What makes white people act so crazy?

V.
The Sun Dance time has arrived.
All the different Peoples, Tribes.
The Dakota, Teton, Omaha
make good on their vows
to the Great Spirits,
renew the hopes of their families
for peace and plenty from the land.
And they danced.
Looking straight into the sun,
because they knew it was what made them one
with the world and each other.
And they danced.
Time itself was lost in the sun
and new life was begun.
And they danced.
Danced around and sacrificed on
the clean cut pole,
blessed and made holy
just for this ceremony.
And they danced.
Till the sun was thrice Earth eaten
and moon time rose full in the sky.
But now on a different scene
and a People from so long ago,
who in their naked skin,
danced and howled at the moon.
Howled at the dead and the living.
Howled and danced,
danced and howled cause they were human.

VI.
Alone,
orbiting on this blue-toned Earth
I want to ask:
When will we, today’s humans dance?
Dance in global community?
Dance on the lush green grassy plains?
Dance on high hillsides, howling at a full, lush moon?

VII
'Let's dance.
Let's dance.
Put on your red shoes and dance the blues...'

~~written 10.1.98~~

if only emotional abuse scarred my skin the way physical abuse did, because maybe then you'd see that your words and your demeanor are the reason why you say i have issues with channeling my anger
maybe if your screams bludgeoned my skin the way a punch would destroy the filaments under my tender flesh, you'd notice how much you're hurting me
and it scares me that you can't even see what you're doing
it scares me that one day i'll be one scream away from erratically fainting to my demise, falling effortlessly to the floor, heart still beating in my chest and brain activity picking up faster than ever before
it scares me that you're not scared
your words are like knives carving my organs with cynical words
"worthless" is inscribed through the hemispheres of my brain
"damaged" is engraved into my lungs
i can't breathe
and im beginning
to not feel anything
anymore

Tangy scent of ginger ale,
Hands stained cotton-pale,
Flames crowd your barren soul,
A childless mother, not completely whole.

Colors burn through your mind,
Words blaring that aren't so kind,
Forever trapped in an endless maze,
Your own father called it a "passing" phase.

Only you know the truth of it all,
You miss the days before the Voice would call,
No matter how long or how good the day,
The Voice always got away.

"Illusions," they called the voices you heard,
But to you they were as vivid as the song of a bird,
Chirping outside your window to greet this fruitful morning,
Soon to be faded by the Voice's scorning.

Dull and gray your nights transform,
Like a passionate magician with no acts to perform,
The last straw pushes your limits too far,
Like a flame engulfing spilled tar.

Bucket of white and paint brush so clean,
You're painting your flaws away before they'll be seen,
A gulp of ginger ale along the way,
White you've been painted and white you will stay.

You find a pair of scissors and snip off your hair,
Leaving your scalp looking erratically bare,
You head to your room for a final glance,
Really, it's because you're hoping to be given one last chance.

"You've been bad," the Voice would state,
In a tone of voice you're starting to hate,
You grab your phone and make some calls,
Then head to the bathroom with the checkered walls.

A few moments later you lay in the bathtub,
Already your fingers feel slightly numb,
You read the instructions and swallow the pill,
Inhale and exhale to get rid of the chill.

Your eyelids grow heavy and your head is sore,
You turn on some music that you adore,
Your chest feels tight and you brace yourself,
Place your phone on the top-right shelf.

Your best friend finds you later that week,
Her fingers start shaking and she's too shocked to speak,
She clutches your phone and as she dials 9-1-1,
She finds your note that writes, "The Voice won."

This is my romance
I long to fly,
sunsoak, sundance,
buzz and sing

When I'm a bee,
I fly erratically,
looking for flowers.
to help make honey

Where are you, Queen?
I respond just to You
I bring my nectar only for you
I feel your presence near

Buzzit! I feel strange,
downright deranged.
What's that in black?
Is our hive under attack?!

Humans are very fine
targets for my behind.
Buzz, buzz, I make a pass;
Now he gets a piece of ***

Uh-oh, what's that smokin'?
Bzzt, I'm feelin' heartbroken.
Bee hearts are so tiny
And easily broken

I'm flying
erratically
so high now



I'm out of breath
I'm closer to death

I'm going down now,
drifting
I'm going to sleep now, dreaming
of my Queen in our Hive of Honey
When I'm a bee

My fingers danced across your skin
Dipping across valleys
Sliding down chasms
You radiate warmth and love
Filling me to the brim
Our hearts beat erratically
We cannot turn away from this
We stick together
Bonded by sweat and memories
We cry out each others names
Tasting salt and meaningfulness
We no longer act as two
We have absorbed each other
Returning to the beginning
Sinning.

Confusion, illusion, frustration
I'm hurting still.. don't know why
We are not meant to be, so let me fly
My wings remain under yours,
so please close the door
How am I suppose to close this book of love
If you are still around and our bodies fit like a glove
You say it's just physical but it's more to me
Skin on skin, lips on lips, entwining and free
You don't even want to try
But hey I'm not the one who is going to cry
I want to Scream, shout
erratically, passionately
and tell you that you are a fool
it's hard...I know you are not for me
But I don't want to lose you baby
How do we become friends after being lovers?
When all I can remember is that summer
I don't understand why my inside is pleading for peace
I can't seem to be able to cease
Fed up and fed up
I want to stand up and up
It's not about me so let it go and drain the cup!!

Intertwined silhouettes in the evening twilight,
the wind causing the raindrops to fall erratically in spite.
Your kiss, an everlasting promise and each drop of rain in all its glory
is a beautiful note in the symphony of our love story.

This terse verse was not
coerced or rehearsed,
the characters dispersed,
automatically, erratically,
forming statically cohering
patterns emphatically stating
my state of mind unwinding,
binding to the page,
for my pen is but a player and
this paper is its stage.
So now these thoughts have autonomy
despite their bond with me,
they're free to be a part apart from the
constraints of my mind, and now without
restraint they find their way to yours
as you perceive them.
I emit, the pen transmits,
now you receive them.
Adopt the words with
your optic nerves.
But be warned that these forms
Do not appease norms.

Driving down the road
I experienced the glow
Of daytime's luxurious light
That was until it became night

Now that night has happened
A light follows me from the darkness
It pervades my rear view mirror
It's blinding magnitude magnifies upon reflection
The light intimidates me

Like the time
I didn't know what to say
And you had nothing to say
So we went our separate ways

Traveling alone
The light seems brighter
It's constant peering presence disturbs me
I feel this condemning nightlight is my jury

Like the time
The ****** I injected landed me in jail
I used it to sedate the voice that I failed
When you saw my love and bailed because I'm male

I drive lonely and high
There's an exasperated sigh
When the lights gets closer
I feel it may bring closure

Like the time
You entered my vehicle
To protect me from the light
I confused your compassion for love
I felt so stupid
When foolish fits me like a glove
I feel so putrid
The odds of someone being gay are slim
So why when my hopes are dashed
Must I crumble into idiotic ash?

My eyes grow larger
As death's sights grow smaller
And death's light grows taller
My mistakes create magnification
And I begin to drive erratically
When you are my love's activation
I continue to die sporadically

What mists are these

That grow heavy in the palm

Making bruises weep

These mists that place themselves

By treaty or inheritance

With such ferocity

Embalm the soul with tears

Announcing their pleasure

To be resurrected

These mists that represent a tragedy

An imagination that beholds a bleeding

Yes, a bleeding from mine eyes

A conflagration of blood

That flares a collaboration of turmoils

With effortless deployment in the mind

Erratically as if impediment does not impose

Itself upon their mortal breach

An unresponsive pace that energizes

The tragedy of my great lament

I can’t wait
for stressful planning
and credit charges
for emptied drawers
and stacked luggage by the door

I can’t wait
for communication hardships
and endless researching
for early exhausted mornings
and lethargic confusion

I can’t wait
for belonging searches
and metal detectors
double checking my facts
and momentary panic that i messed up
.....
...
I can’t wait
for airplane seats
and window views
long tiring flights
and transfers in unknown territory

I can’t wait
for screeching plane tires
and strange new air
feet planted on foreign ground
doe-eyed awed
and misspoken anxiety

I can’t wait
for looks directed at me
cautious wonder of the one who’s not native
meeting new people
stumbling over rehearsed words
i don’t know if i’m saying it right

I can’t wait
for new apartment doors
and an unknown bed
thriving in the heart of
the place i wished to see
for several years now
where my dreams took root
and blossomed erratically

I can’t wait
for late night calls to family
i miss you from little sisters
backwards sleeping schedules
but finding my way just fine

I can’t wait for all of this
it couldn’t come any sooner

But most of all
I can’t wait to say
I finally made it

DISCLAIMER: READ THE WHOLE THING IT IS MUCH MORE GENIUS TOWARDS THE END



Bypass the circumlocutions of elementary rhetoric and the obvious bulges into the ethereal realm of supersolid supercalendar emigrations of the wednongues of vogue emigrating into a new frontier of boundless awakening that blisters the sore solid metaphors of a crumbled bricolage of articulate history becoming a reiterative gabble of entropy that curdles the blood-boiling hatred of those envious of those that capitalize on the true girth rather than the flaccid otiose etymology of differential physics becoming a denatured figment of prideful imagination on a frolic with desuetude in the normalization of the wernaggles of ewnastique that defile the ridicule of even the most astute aspirations of those that despise history rather than reveling in its subtle ironies that swelter in connotation rather than suborn the cadged bridewells of those that are estranged by the Dousk Remix rather than the Voulez-Vouz Danser populism of true urbacity expanded upon a national stage as an anthem not for profligate saturnalia but rather an ode to the odium of the reckless titanism of titanic intellects clashing with the dudgeons of intermittent eye-rolling irreverence double-dealing a stacked deck of pleckigger on an intellectual stagecraft for bandwagon apostasy that leads to solidarity among tentative allegiance. We barnstorm for a grift in the grimace of an alpenglow winter to lead to the salvation of all people united under the banner of neat nexility rather than long-winded elocution reserved only for notched caliber against the nativist diatribe that serves the subservience of the engineer of the white chattel indoctrinated into turnstiles of professed irreverence for demarches of solidarity that is gainsay for gain rather than pittances for pitfall. Rhetoric should be duly curtailed against the overcomplication of hypertrophy and trimmed into the sweet success not of saccharine fads of foofaraw but engineered resistance that galvanizes albatross intellectualism into a revved engine without purpose that mobilizes because of estranged impotence in the revelry of the subtle rather than the cordial tethers of emergent entelechy of the esemplastic orthobiosis that we should all strive for not just as pioneers of the socially engineered harbingers of a remedial society but also for the trendsetters that communicate with the canvass and the celluloid rather than spelunking dormitage of drifted anomaly perceptible to everyone but heralded as prominent by the rigged ambeer of a toxicity of a plumage of city over state and country over planet. We need to provide the verdure of the verdant forest that survives the conflagrations of rage indoctrinated by systematic attempts at stilted ignorance that is engendered more by Leftism than Right-Wing thinkers because in general when observed in organic settings we notice that the Right-Wing escapes the sloganeered jaundice of limited bounds for otherwise boundless thought and provides more seminal pathways that reconcile normative virtues with entrenched inveterate harbingers of economic success. The faulty deadstocks that propel the retinoise of the anomaly among Leftism to disregard the girouettism of a world that is so piebald with dishonesty that it elects a patronage that seethes with passion but aimless in its curiosity for deeper embedded candor because the popular might count themselves among the aristocratic Left but the truly Promethean belong to a centrist tribe that borrows the ingenuity of spurned but never spurious interpretations of a sputtered history that remarks with revelry  rather than disdains with #CancelCulture irreverence that seeks to deracinate all context for insipid utopianism that is a shared prerogative of the delusional Left against their complaints of Sebastomania among right-wing zealots that are equally invalidated by the frogmarch of a dilettante history curbed in storms of a pure tempest rather than a banal reiteration of novelty phrased with participant intonation rather than blathers of whispered arbitrage ennobled by hypocrisy immune to criticism among those that crusade for economic justice without understanding formal flombricks of the true gnomic riddles of alchemy fundamental to global panoramic pleonasms becoming the aleatory vagary of admonished warning that spars against spartanism. Instead of pilfering from the exorbitant defalcation of immunized partisan bromides against the ratcheted warranty upon defective obsolescence we must coalesce around the imperious ****** of divinity bequeathing the living water of a fully-lived life that qualifies its felicity not by junctures but by an overall harmony that conforms to the finicky demands of an overly polarized complexion of dimpled conformity founded on girouettism that earns more traction than the deasil sundial emergence of brimstone rejection for alabaster limelight we must urge others to ditch the conformist utilitarian usucaption of the usufruct of manipulative sports for domineering talents suborned into inclement straits because of unwitting albatross that replicates into a fission of uniformity encapsulated in the half-assed witticisms of attempted belletrist succeeding only in alienating the noxious fumes of alveolate diminutive reduction rather than expansive detritus that scrapes the wreckage of a turmoil to build masterworks out of broken sculptures themselves indemnified from a categorical judgment by the panoramic oversight of proctored civilized ambition. We need to exhort self-education that hinges upon not a listless acquiescence to a second-exit impulsive barnacle to the urchins of brimstone because of an insipid blather of flapdoons of brittle banality because the hackencrude is an outmoded entity to the vast resources of the sizable capital of the growing power of the intelligentsia over the weakened grasp and wrangle of terminus meeting consuetude weakly enough with pleasantry to appease but ultimately a complete witwanton persiflage of sizzled destruction rather than the savory contemplation of the cotqueans of majesty derided but never derailed by terminal revivals because the generativity of the titanic original might not be a popular indoctrination but the liberated thought of the untethered is ultimately more decisive in world affairs than the synergistic hive of bees building an imperious defense against dynasty built only upon provincial hatred of hidebound illiteracy combustible into the brazen bravado of a reckless intrepid effrontery against civilized chains into the ******* of complicit interconnection rather than dissolved dissolutions that solve global problems more fundamentally rather than driving through avenues of wide pressures gilded with expansive growth but ultimately bereaved by the ultimate succor of the youthful exuberance of captive audiences rather than the wily connivance of genius unbounded. God is obviously a benevolent provider of all bounties and despite the conspiracies that predicate heterodoxy the uniform mannequin of a mascot Democracy ultimately becomes a fickle bandwagon allegiance to relationship rather than a true witness to authentic ******* to a subservient relationship to a creative God synergized with energies that should exceed all galloped windlass into demarche and expose rather than rundles of ridicule interminable because of the permanence of kitsch memorial rather than living sculpture that breathes a swiveled light that beckons preened self-accountable responsibility to a dutiful matriotic duty of optimism rather than a contrarian futility of those that despise the unequal suave crackjaw dementia of the temulentia of derangement among crowds that provide fewer bounties and more deprivations calculated to indenture need rather than motivate want. We must motivate want by fueling ambition rather than quelling dissent in defensive posture because that strategy of antinomian discord is a dead-end street against an inveterate enmity that can never be fully deposed but only opposed with nominal futility raging with violence rather than seething with the motivation to reform because reform is an efficacy mobilized. Novelty of wednongue propriety grown through the heirs of drastic impertinence gilded from the siphon of lavadero hypogeiody blasphemous in bletonism that guards a piebald scrivelo because the sought dementia of an overwrought alacrity is a purpose without a terminus but an ambition soaring through scraped ice cream stratosphere that marvels at the minutiae of the civilized anthill that becomes a beehive of industry when the rationale of moral reform becomes insuperable rather than suborned into effete recursive cycles of pittances of pitfalls obsessively pondered but never solved because the fustilugianation of a forever tampered travesty is the esemplastic rejection of a categorical aim that leans of windlasses of elegance that surpass the levy of hatred and achieve sizable filagersion to squirm above the squawk upon populace rather than the consternation of an urbane but cloistered metropolitan arrogance contravened by the historical emergence of happenstance locales fostering the most well-guarded treasures of bohemian pedigree rather than dimpled resolve faffling on ergasia in bromidrosis rather than cavorting with a skeptical indoctrination by default evaded by those that equate an improbable scenario with a definitive solution to acatalepsy quandary because by reckoning with indeterminacy we grow in historical lineaments and solve global detritus by recycling the rattled brevity of promontory preens of plumage into a recursive ostentation defalcating heavily from sturdy macroeconomic proofs of the trendsetter rather than the trend and therefore grapple with profound personalized disdain rather than cordial harmony. Essentially by the logical positivism of proof we remind ourselves that obviously a chattering blather swims in tentative irony as long as it is a penultimate relativity because the lack of capstone ensures that the relevant treads beneath the mountain of rapprochement in benign endeavors to survive and thrive in definitive conclusion rather than intermediary conclusions of amnesia in jaundice. By the gnomic apothegms that guard the fortress of the demassified we have quantulated that the preposition of continuance is in fact a guarantee of the fickle supremacy of the recent and even more preponderantly the supremacy of expectancy of latent junctures that never manifest becoming a dictatorial rule of driven alacrity of wastrels that should fast from conclusive opinion and rather favor the primordial fabric of the inveterate truths rounded by the conversion of alchemy solidified by calculated canon converging with esoteric apartheid against the simultagnosia of the simpleton drivel of primordial myths bowdlerized from history neither lewd nor depraved but moribund because of the conclusive ****** of a peremptory intermediary certainty predicating a more precise foresight. The lackluster luster of numinous foghorn subliminal graft is a nativist confusion of legionnaire mettle swaddled by the cosseted grasp of interminable boundaries that demarcate linear time even when supersolid filigrees of elemental confusion erratically swerve into oblivion that becomes a forestalled happenstance so hapless that the connivance of alveolate synergies necessarily precludes event from becoming indelible because the tentative judgment wallops the tributary incontinence of the warble of axiolative jaundice materialized by crystalline fabrication neutered by soundbyte sclerotic calculus inveterate in summations of conclusion only because of peremptory weights upon geometric certainties rather than logarithmic dampers of attenuation that spar against spartan priggish epithets upon the flamboyant grit of grisly specter of speculative sepulchral venal vanity. The timberlask cineaste irony of the partisan usucaption of sapwood is a pirated timber of startled alarm becoming a useful or useless cacophony of barnstorm for the deadstock of past cadasters of rigmarole in the docimasy of pretense in impartial circumstance in specialized oratory bounded by a hemmed bailiwick of verdure denatured by the flombricks of subtle persuasion that ignores minority fringes of opinion that occupy that majority that cowcatchers brush aside rather with cruel contemptuous unkempt slippery agenda for drivel that spawns ingeminated redoubled explosions in participle bias rather than conglomerate arraignment of arrayed brooked swamps turgid not with the pettier travesty but the charade of a brokered ceremonial calculation against the wrikpond spurious by degeneration into corruptible complicity that thrives in obscurantism but never obscurity when the omnified owns a capitalized swiftboat of never a temulentia but always an optimism in the curvature of lineaments into the self-educated shepherd of the ultimate autarky rather than insubordination in the scrappy schlep of demographic ripples of swift enrichment at great personal flops in the floppy disk of a Democratic enrichment rather than a parched rectiserial hidebound tome. A quirky time stanched by tomes of patricide against family ingratiated by parrots to anthem but lacking the lettered verve of ignoble but parsed parsecs of finite light captivated into prismatic conscience we launch the demerited ploys of foible into the heralded controversy rather than the unheralded mercenary hands behind dogmatic ripostes livid because of the suave prestidigitation of the sublime mastery of the syncopated irony of mismatch attuned to radical rhythm we become bloated slaves to a rich lineage decried widely in attempts of covert coup raxes of a largesse of continual primipara perversions of courted cotqueans of uxorious justice that by defalcating from tributary orthobiosis in specious conjecture esteemed by rattled martexts aspiring for fraternal solidarity with the ****** esteem masquerading as the auctioned flivver that the merchandise of fluminous optimism cannot be an effusive blanch of blarney bolstered by bumptious bromides of brunt blackmail but rather the artform of subterfuge needs the insidious and invidious traction of creepy Thriller subtlety to garner the vapid traction of immobilized discontent foster to malcontent rarely abridged by even the most polite courtesy of diplomacy because of inherently insatiable demand that it skulks in undetected quarters flexing in the shadowy penumbra of transparent crackjaw enigma becoming an obvious blister or a gabble of raw jaundice sweltering into thermolysis by the eventual convergence rather than the improbable divergence of fissile time beckoning its own flashy revolution while denaturing the very presence of delusion as a herald more of the authenticity of animadversion rather than the sclerotic carapace of ragged asphyxiation in the aplomb whisper entombed forever by milquetoast inefficacy in hypersensitivity rather than a flourished malfeasance of a predatory grip upon seizure among catatonic graves of incontinence braving tribulation for crucibles of the most prosodemic surgeries of the furtive froward recalcitrance of deliberation in ignominy that enables that transmogrified skyscraper of Titanic lies to become a sunken vessel of harbored prestige lost on penultimate dice rather than winning pokerish villiany. Essentially the jeer of Morel Under a Disco is a winning brandished authority to chug the capers of inscrutable difference in blandishment imposture to cavort with an elegant plot twist that enthralls abiding decay to revert into a primordial confidence of livelihood to deter the frogmarch of time into the despairing quagmires of a livid balkanization of a simultagnosia of ageotropic monoideism fomented on fervor that leads to the paralysis of privacy and the expedited furor of moribund depraved proclivity so that the offset of morale and rationale can outfit civilization to brave the tempests of cordial divisions cemented by courtesy in order to safeguard against the yeggs of paranoia seeking ultimately the craven caper of disillusioned subconsciously felt retraction of indelible deeds into evaporated constructs that vanish too quickly to spawn the vigor of a cadged and utilitarian expanse of reiterative generativity that sustains the spanned sapience of primordial alacrity to ensure that brevity in outlook becomes longevity in subsistence because without a logical positivism grounded in unshakable tenets of God the demoralization of the vast majority is ensured and entombed in aimless squalor that leads to sheepish temerity compounded by wistful latency in regretful regression rather than a spandex bluster of a bravado of obesity to weather the persnickety wednongues of perdurable badges of instinctual shame slandered into prima facie denatured transmogrified cultures seeking cosmogony out of ordinary bricolage because the eventful triage of the nimble eludes parochial sight while the vastly capable outfox and outpace with such frenetic verve that they fasten against accident and transcend against heterochrony in ridicule that the unseasonable but seminal sauce flavors better the partially indentured optimism of a curated matriotism better than it serves the obviously interminable cycle of listless demiurges of malcontent that fuel conflagration rather than reformation to their own remorseful peril. Thereby, it is obviously concluded that to micromanage a society you must exert the capacity of a selective magnetism obviously predicated on demassified capacities for oaths of gratitude to endear and endure in the humane heart for the majority that sway few but encounter many that they find proper scruple grounded on axiomatic God to sustain not a lifeless priggish inclination but a bounded felicity that is not a carapace of an indigenous and insidious decadence to the extent pursuits of happiness swelter among the marginalized majority bereaved in powerless squalor slave to temptation not to derelict fascination but to provide aim to aimlessness and predicate their worldviews not on Racial Identity Theory which postulates too many counterintuitive pessimisms that are essentially neutered fustilug predicates of a world that requires such drastic seismic reforms in societal dynamics that the earthquake capable of such a realignment would exceed a 10.5 on the Richter scale which is 32x more powerful than the biggest earthquake in recorded history that would be so catastrophic in its implicit implication of the pretense that the consummation of the theory achieves the traction necessary to jostle every crowd into alignment that the collateral damage would endanger the very integrity and vitality of the Republic itself while exerting a tremendous existential dread of radical permutation that enables many travesties that abnegate the prerogatives of a privileged society in search of a facetiously engineered impossible utopia that could only be achieved by a dictatorial authoritarianism working in concert with benumbed sloganeering to engineer pessimism and malcontent rather than nurture the fair-natured optimism of a society that flourishes because it assumes naturally that the universe conspires in the favor of prosperity. If any hint of casuistry is evident in these postulates I wouldn’t be surprised but for rhetorical sanctity it is necessary for a nation bereaved of national icons not to despise the captive imagination of tyrannical transparency but grow from the liberating and partially liberal parable of a life maximized in limber for romantic enthralled growth that heralds with due consideration the paragons of time with reverence rather than soundbyte enslavement of parochial interminable twinges of a newborn and widely shared collective guilt of a decisively antinomian and pessimistic view on the evolution of human societies beyond catchy kitsch verve nexilities of bravado mutilating thirsts for inclusive mandates that are Boa Constrictors prowling with serpentine vitriol to vastly over-represent extreme fringes to dissuade nuclear families in an overt ploy of depopulation because the truer pathway to liberation is one that feeds the hot hand in the casino and bets that the winners will always win by deregulating their ability to bet large sums because of a transcendent supersolid mastery of time that the march and demarche of a boundless prosperity gouged by the fair demands of egalitarianism enables the card counter to achieve such a decisive advantage that his indentured socially coerced eleemosynary inclination to feed the flock endures throughout all epochs because of the necessary and incumbent scruples of God-fearing men to distribute their winnings won by cheating time to conquer time itself.

Save for the few stars peaking through there is no more light in the room.
We are clothed only by the night now. Touching is the only way to see you.
Your back moves in a rhythm I try to follow. I tilt my head down to smell your hair.
I find an ear and start to bite. You halt everything your are doing.

**** pushing hard against my hips. Shoulders pressing harder into my chest.
Nails raking my thighs. Legs writhing. Constricting. A moan painfully breaks out.
Your hand guides me in with near urgency, and precision. We lay still together.
I begin to follow your rhythm now, completely in tune with your movements.

A hand presses on my face turning it to face you. Unbroken kisses and bites.
Your other hand lacing on top of mine holding your breast. You press firmly.
My other hand snakes all the way down to what must be a garden like Eden's.
"I love how you move." A barely breathed whisper confesses into my ear.

With your legs on the outside of mine I can keep my hand free to move.
Your first hand moves from my face to my wrist holding on for dear life it feels.
Your breath is shaking going in and comes with force when you exhale.
I try to keep up with your hips.. your tempo seems interrupted. Distracted.

Kisses go away for now as we both are just trying to breathe. Keep breathing..
Our bodies seize up. Muscles twitching erratically everywhere. I see colours..
Eventually you turn statuesque, holding this pose for I don't know how long.
I start to fear you are not breathing anymore, you're so still. Heat just radiates off of you.

Eventually you return to Earth from some out of body experience. Breathing...
Muscles slowly relax and eventually your whole body lays quietly on mine.
Both our breaths are slow and drawn out. My pulse pounds away in my ears.
As I kiss the tears standing on your cheeks I realize I can see now here in the dark.

Depleted-
I feel depleted, emotionally, physically, mentally-
I don’t feel like me-
Like a shell of what I used to be-
This tree of life grows so continuously-
In this undefined times-with these undeveloped rhymes-
I grow so empty-
And this potentially could be the end of me-
Heaven set me free-
Free to fly so casually-
Happy-feels like a casualty-
And I’m just hammering-
At myself-by myself-
My health depletes so erratically-
And magically I’m still battling-
The enemies are gathering-
In my head-in my bed-
Better off dead-
So demanding-
Here in front of you Lord I am standing-
Commanding you presence-
Are relationship is so adolescent-
So co-dependent-
Just demented-
And I am repenting-
Descending into a world of pretending-
Where the smile is vile-
And the eyes are the lies-
Of all that I am inventing-
The façade is cementing-
This is not my intention-
Expression is only expressing-
Meir fraction of my aggression-
Positivity-I could use a lesson-
But negativity is just not letting-
Me-
Be free-
Freedom from demons-
Is how I’m dreaming-
Like I said-I’m simply depleting-

She sits there, fingers twitching erratically
Hands clasping, unclasping over each other

With the sunlight fracturing through rippled eyelids
I imagine I can almost see right into her eyes
Like paper soaked through with tears

But then she lowers her head
Shoulders sag from her weighted thoughts
Rays now falling to her ocean of hair

I wouldn't mind
But I can see the weariness she feels

She sits cross legged
But yet her back is weathered with unlived age
Her half smile barely reaches her lips
And her eyes

They're closed to contain the break lapping under her lashes
They're closed to trap the tears threatening to become lakes

They're closed and I don't mind
There's never a shortage of her to immerse myself in

Now it's her hands
Her hands are still moving
Wrinkles disturbing the still waters
Visions of waves promising to drag me down
To suffocate me among the depths of all I love of her

Trust me
I won't mind

My heart races, erratically, lacking a proper rhythm.
A rhythm that could only be rendered by another heartbeat.
My soul soars frantically, searching for yours in a forlorn prison.
I strive on, praying, yearning, not ready to accept defeat.

I gaze into your eyes, longing for some sign of affection
I see nothing, because you feel nothing towards me.
I gave you my heart, trusting you to not break it, and you denied my attention.
Look at me now! I'm dead inside! What else could I possibly be!?

Twisted nightmares from the most morose parts of my mind start to form
I imagine that I am in a hospital bed, waiting for you to say farewell
You couldn't even say goodbye? Of course not, you have no desire to mourn.
My worthless love, absolutely useless to you. I'm alone, locked in this prison cell.

But I keep optimism in my heart, and I fathom that perhaps you'll realize
How much I truly loved you, and how much I sacrificed.
My pulse diminishes, my eyes start to close, at last, it's almost time to die.
How I longed to be yours! After my death, will you be satisfied?

Before I die, I glare at the doorway, my stomach full of knots, my vision is blurry.
I think of my scars, covering my body, each representing a time when you weren't there.
I promised I would wait, I'm giving you one last chance, please hurry.
But you never show. The machine flat lines, and you finally prove that you truly didn't care.

When life gives you lemons,
You squeeze them in your eyes,
You don't think twice, regret
Or get to question why.
For it is written in fate
For it is how it is to be,
You don't get to choose it ,
And you don't get to cry.

You'll fight it, hate it, neglect it and whine,
You'll curse it, resist it, run from it and hide.
But it'll catch you one way or the other,
It's better if it catches you this way than the other.
For it stings like a bee,
Then pains like a wound
And you may think you are enough to take it,
Before it comes back and bites you in the moon.

One shot, two shot, three shot, four
Glasses become empty but the lemons keep coming more.
It's no fun with the acidic
Sourness creeping into my soul.
Yet it keeps coming more, more
And more...

Call it fate,
Call it luck,
Call it magic,
Whatever you must,
It is easier to blame others
Than to put myself under the bus.
A *****-up here,
A ****-up there,
One by one my life has scattered everywhere.

So I take these lemons that life owes
And the ones that I already own,
Trying hard not to put them all in my drink,
Days go by but it feels like a blink,
Maybe I do down them all
Maybe that's become my thing.
But hey, I don't whine about it anymore,
Or fight it, hate it or neglect it
Life keeps changing erratically,
This is the truth, this is my new reality.

A passion surges to the fingertips,

of the chisel wielder.

Hacking erratically at the stone,

he is desperate to hone

the elusive allure of inspiration;

the influence that

ensnares his mind,

and blends his days and nights to infinity.

Though he labors incessantly,

fueled by elements that arouse and dissuade,

he is no closer to the cusp

of the enlightened state to which he journeys.        

His ardor,

though noble,

is also his curse.

A slave to his art,

he is forced to endure

the miserable delight,

that epitomizes his craft.