You were a giant garden, growing beauty as I, the small bug, admired all that you were and everything you became. I saw the air you breathed in and the seeds you spewed out; my spots and wings were nothing magical to you. You made life, with help from the sun, and all I did was eat everything you created. I destroyed your flowers, slowly and softly - but it took a bigger toll than I had thought it would. I thrived off the misery I caused you. You lived for life and I lived for destruction; for chaos is the only disorder that keeps us sane.

I woke up feeling morning pain
Another barroom brawl
I didn't make my bed last night
I slept out in the hall

I made it to the correct floor
I just couldn't find my keys
I can't keep living life like this
Can someone help me please?

I'm sick of empty promises
Every bottle seems to be
An enigma in a riddle
And they all keep calling me
I'm sick of empty promises
And of bottles holding dreams
My life's an Escher painting,
So, it seems

Different bars, the same result
I always wake up ******
Sunday Morning Sunshine hurts
and I'm always here alone

I am tired of the drinking
Of the searching, of the fight
But, I end up every morning
Still feeling like last night

I'm sick of empty promises
Every bottle seems to be
An enigma in a riddle
And they all keep calling me
I'm sick of empty promises
And of bottles holding dreams
My life's an Escher painting,
So, it seems

I wake up in dark back alleys
And if I make it home at all
I end up in the stairway
Sleeping, curled up in a ball

I'm not looking for redemption
Just a way to stop the sounds
Of the bottled empty promises
Before I'm in the ground

I'm sick of empty promises
Every bottle seems to be
An enigma in a riddle
And they all keep calling me
I'm sick of empty promises
And of bottles holding dreams
My life's an Escher painting,
So, it seems

And it's difficult to remember something as the very name of Eisenhower
Or flowerbaskets
And tired movies made of silicone and
Aftersex
Or sixteen candles echoing out of an imaginary suite with cigarettes at every table
And green lawns
Barbershop conversation
The reflection of the sun in special trees
Or my best friend Jesus Christ
Or the smell of the theater that one day with the cynics who just got back from a tennis match and barbwire still laced delicately around their thoughts and
Nihilism
And automotives
And priestess Jane or Henry's gloomy doppelganger who reads alternative magazines and loves the aesthetics behind broken glass
And fine tuned musical instruments

It's difficult to remember
Lonesome Fridays smoking on a park bench trying to finish the puzzle
Or synagogues you've never been in
Or insurance
Or newspaper articles detailing the misadventures of Mr. City
(Of course of course! Take your shoes off at the door and make yourself at home)
We're tossing all our sewage into the ocean
that's far from clean as it
LOOKS anymore these days
That's anything
And everything except for the glowing mountains seen faded and wintry behind Apartments and the
"Glorious Mexican House of Spices"
Never been in there either

It's difficult to remember
Times of Mr Twin Sister
Or Joan Jett in the hallway
In a highschool who's psychology classrooms have become a time capsule in the ground/
Or the gentle skinny ******
Wearing Broadway makeup and
Kafka tattooed on his shoulder
I like his hat
He looks at me suspiciously
Or the guy who is yelling his order at the counter when it's quiet here anyways
Or the mariner who has a hobby of the saxophone
Or 1970s *******
Or the sheepskin bikeseat fad that's yet to come but I'm predicting it now!
Or two dollars and twentyseven cents at the beginning of Allen Ginsberg's America
"I've given you all and now I'm nothing"

It's difficult to remember
The Oriental
Sacramento flies
Midnight Moon
Quarter to four
"The Immortalization Commission"
Remodelled hotels downtown
Where mandalas on the floor became a
Tiger lily luminous
And the kimono is yesterday's painting/
Dearest Darling
When I was feeling down!
A staircase in reverse (??)
The sound a kiss makes
It's difficult to remember
Colleen's earrings
Or Washington State
Or air conditioners in Bali
The Indian ocean's daybreak hymn
To Seminyak
Or whatever happened to Steve from the Airplane out of Taiwan
On 3 days awake
Hello Kitty nursing stations
****** (Kubrick's version)
Cardboard taking up half my bedroom
It's difficult to remember until I jot it down and then its a sudden forever
Sunshine Superman in a cafe spontaneous
drawings with someone I just met who has some ******* attitude/
Who hops fences and has feral ideas
People! En Masse! Te Amo!
You're all in wolven liberty
And vague postulators
And holy prostitutes for the dollar
Sad eyed intellectuals
With undergarments made of breakfast cereal/
Seaferry poetry is different from
Trestle in August poetry
Or henna handshakes
Or the Napoleonic era
Sweet Cherry Pie
The tulip's tongue
Garabajal
Cloudy first day of July
Was hotter yesterday
But not too hot

It's difficult to remember
Antiquity
The pale horse Studebaker outside the clinic
With a glossy red trim and **** I wish that was my ride
Andy Warhol's exploding plastic inevitable
Nearsightedness
Angels and their ability to shower with a a snap of their fingers
Distant harp music
Better him than me
Bananas almost ripe
Green aquatic
Reclusive junkies
Palomo's appliances
Questions for the next time
How much I like what you like and how I like that you like what I like
Ahh that's not my bus
I'm trying to get to the city!
That one quote Socrates is known for about knowing nothing as true wisdom
Supermarkets being built on top of liquor stores burned down a while back
Monopolies
Tragedies
"No Love Lost"
THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
Your guess is as good as mine
Never tried to eat Asian food in Asia
It was all pasta and good cider that tasted like pineapple
Rain hitting the window and I'm
Drowsy again
God Save The Trees!
Curly hair looks good on boys
Torn up blinds
Queer as a three dollar bill
If Bill costs 3 dollars I'm sure he's caught something better safe than sorry
Sage advice
I'm the very model of a modern major general
Golden yen and international currency
Incense in the bedroom and how good it smells
There's my bus! Applying for a better job than the one I got now
But that's how it always is right?
Chasing satisfaction
1007 apt
Porch ornaments
Unique names
Unique style le style
The extra charge on foreign ATMs
Cordoroy polo shirts
Flooding in New York!
When someone's face screams *******
"Slippery when wet"
Dine N Dash
Grass gone yellow
Confidence in dyed hair and capes as long as wedding gowns
But less expensive
Doors that always seem to be locked and I'm wondering 20 year later what's behind them?
Albino animals
White thoughts as clouds or
Abstractions
Weathers nicer in Florida but who cares
Festivities this early in the day
Automatopeia
Do sad orphanages still exist?
Just like the movies
Midnight in mirrors
That sick puppet at the shoe shop used
To know how to really hammer it down
And now he's weak and forgotten
Never heard the words of a true prophet only Oceania
Or the private temple near Apollo Bay
Like Japanese gardens behind that gate
Will I ever see it
Make a proud example outta ya misbehavior
Form without function
Exhausted spiritualism
*** Kettle Black
negative photographs of dark rooms
And there's laughing coming from SOMEWHERE
Essays on kleptomania
Had a bad dream I became a cliche
Surrounded by other freaks and there was a lovely ***** I fell in love with her
We married in Oregon by the sea her name was rosy
***** rosy
Check your mailbox for nails
And what you don't wanna hear/
If you were a vegetable you'd be organic!
Empire
Satirical bubble gum
Satori
Linda Lovelace and her special party trick
That's someone's fantasy
Diamond in the rough
Mister guy with two black eyes frequents the adult playhouse
Hes fully stocked on fishnet leggings
He's too proud to put them on himself but
Has nobody else around
Boo hoo
Swigs back the whiskey and trips down the stairs getting a third black eye in the process
Marion came by with her dog the other day
Wanted her box of clothes back but he loved to sniff them to remember her
But she wouldn't have it

"Honey I'm going to call the police!"

"Ah they don't give a **** they have bigger things to worry about"

"Yeah you got that right shrimp **** enjoy my unwashed *******"

And she never came back again
He started losing the vertebrae in his spine 1 by 1 and you know where this is going
I won't say he was a poor man because he had it all coming to him the *******
But he coulda had a better start if you ask me.

It's difficult to remember
And even more difficult to forget
After the fact

Seagull opera
Giganticism
Portrait of the artist as a young man
Losing one's pencil when the best idea of your life drops down from heaven and into your sorry head
Signs graffitied to have funnier meanings
Cruelty
Impassive
The Loyal Lioness
And Bangladesh has too many kitchens
And not enough dishes
When I was young I used to say Island as "is-land"  
Which is true it is land
But the Europeans probably stole it from somebody else anyways/
I left my future behind
And objects in the mirror are closer than they appear
Im no illusionist
I'm terrified of the cracken
Father feels the same way about
Hotels
Why bother/
This has been going on and on for a while are you tired yet
Is your patience being tested
Mine isn't because this wasn't an all-at-once kind of rambling
It's extremely important to laugh at least
Once a day
Otherwise you'll find yourself a politician
In no time at all
Rockefeller
(         ) Quaint home to die in
I think
Trains create great music
Float on
Sink into yourself
Roses in a crooked alley
That's people
Busy busy busy busy
Let's describe a situationist
I'm not a fan of bright colors on clothes
Your best shade is blue
Bricklayers transcription of Don Quixote to a skyscraper
Rocket thyme
& Garden
Erratic children's
Insomnia
The doorbell repeatedly
Vancouver riots/ I saw that live on the news!
Pictionary with the surrealists
N Dada TV set MC Escher
Antenna
You're in the Twilight Zone now
Dear Ramona
I'm trying to make it up to you
With a brightness only seen when you're ready to see it so please for the love of God don't blame me when it's not appearing
The tapestry hidden
Keep your blankets clean
And avoid hospitals unless you're fine with fishbowls & the halogen
The water gestapo
Storage lockers full of unacted plays and
Antique microwaves
Emitting the nostalgia of the cold war era
And what a waste of time that was /
Walter Wanderleys presence in Autumn universities
The opening of Vivre sa Vie
Salvador Dali's pluvial taxi
Lightbulb epiphanies
Aquariums and their protestors
Zebras in the shade
Two wrongs dont make a right
Elizabethan theater
Saloon shootouts in a fever dream
I lost and bled out all over the rustic wooden floor
A maiden reached out for me and El Paso did play I woke up and pretended nothing happened/
Funerals for bad People who did bad things
My first memory of a cat beneath the mattress
Hello Dolly!
Auditory learning
Psychotherapy
Lillian the landlady lost her ladle and labeled little Lyle as a lair
The Black panther movement
Reading symposium some years ago and
Making note that Phaedo was still my favorite dialogue/
Zen Buddhism
Xoxo xoxo
The day Gypsies were replaced with
Surface ****** appetite
And not the real thing
Newspaper clippings
Hypnotism when all other options are out
Mystical visions of sidewalks
And the love of your life stepping through a door you've never seen
Maybe Yes No I Don't Know
Creature comforts
Che Guevara's problem is that his beard made him too easy to recognize
(Also that little hat!)
Chinese cough medicine didn't work
For long I still wheeze sometimes
Domestic violence thru the wall
Ceiling fan probably doesn't even work!
Dimpled laughter
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
In skytrains to Commercial
Bermuda in her mind
And courtesy in her voice
I'm no Arthur Rimbaud
But you already knew that
Alcazar of Seville
Filling up the shipbottle
Here's your paradise
Now relinquish it as it is
False!
Hare Krishna
Nowhere Fast
El Diablo and the
Portofino loaf left rotting on the countertop
Latin children speak of the sacred viper
You'll hear of it after this but we'll never see what the ******* meant
Heads alternating round the social current
Of my lively city
There's a dog soaking up the rain
And songs are made in honor of
Recent catastrophes
Trials are dealt
Cards cast to the gutter
New York quiets down for the news of another war
You scratch my back I'll scratch yours
Skeleton key
Ballad of the last wailing zoo
THE ATRIUM
Complexity in simplicity
That's how Brainard got me!
Elderly overcoats
Hiding purest LSD
Is a fan of Hawaiian T shirts
And a communist
What if I was a Freemason
Or owned a tanning salon
Faint crimson
What did Marv look like again?
"You're surrounded by people who love you"
Coffee when one needs it
GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY
Tattoos on the wandering man
Oriental chimes and the people who own them
Bus stop regulars
Vines overtaking power lines
The hypnogogic state
Strawberry light softening
The mind
Sister Ray LOUDLY PROCLAIMING
doitdoitdoitdoit
Passing the graffiti n Pluto neon
Halal wide awake another Saturday
Where's the Karaoke
Flashing by here
Those who find comfort in a bridal scavenger hunt
Or expensive beer
And here comes the hooded clown
Clamoring about his favorite
Loudspeaker
Telling me my time is soon and the noise
Drowns out the drowsy bliss
After hour spirits the perfect time for
Writing and trying to read distant Chinese
Indecision on the tip of the tongue
"NOW WHO IS THAT KNOCKING
ON THE CHAMBER DOOR?
COULD IT BE THE POLICE?"

I'm completely off the topic
And into Apartment lobby photosets
Low battery phone calls
Confessions
Nauseated reverb
Trying to see the attachment people got with bingo halls
And moving companies
Ah no luck again
Eve is at it with her showtunes
Halfway methodology
Triage
Paisley headbands left
Distraught on the quivering
Heater
Dwindling sunsets
We're truly disciples of the moon spirit which grants us more energy
(This is according to a drunk I met one night)
Or ***** old men
When the horizon is engulfed with
A winking cinder
Suitcase at the door
Last time
First time
Magician never reveals his fetishes
(They all have to do with bags under your eyes)
Employment office dramas of my friend the one who blinded a social worker
And the one who blamed Islam
And the one whos philosophy entirely consisted of Spooky Action at a
                                            DISTANCE
Parisian riots
Queer youth
Didn't make the team! Jester
'cross the hall who's beard suggests
Ishmeal n car battery n expired vegetables n rain which crosses the line n
***** cranberry n
Poorly fitted suits n
Harsh pigment n incense shops n
Bocca     secret towns
With churches more beautiful than any you'd find in your own city
n the cultural market
Xylophone ear to ear
Soul cleansing starting at only
$89 (with a 6 month guarantee)
Sophie's birthday and her picnic at Victory Park
The nearby bums trying to sell tea mugs and
Loose wires beside gated convenience stores
I'm an Island away attempting a poem
And never bought a scratch n win
Or heard the same song more than seven times in a row or been in a column
Or escaped the washhouse
Invested in a birdcage for next year
Been to a palm reading
Visited Oasis
Smoked salmon
Told anyone else about Montana
Screamed the things I'd like to scream
** Word of the day
Or kissed a lunatic or swallowed the corpse of yesterday
I keep her on my neck until
I'm too anxious to let go
Counting streetlights
Jeans worn in and faded to be sent off to
A lonely caffeine addict
Christmas Eve I'll be reading a postcard from San Francisco
Asking the same questions
My imagination is made of a different material than last week
Now it's the same color as your hair
HEY that's a good pickup line to use in the heart of the Canadian Embassy
Drinking discarded music resembling a sweater you may have said YES to if it wasn't so unsure of itself
And now Mr. Acker Bilk ascends thru the window of an August home
Like a lazy hornet
I'm still lost without identification
Or a nice belt
As happens when one uses a quality item too casually
How did uphill suddenly seem so downhill?
I'll claim a waterfall
For SALE that inevitable Indonesia
Greyhound O another greyhound O another greyhound
I'm fretting too much about not enough
Delayed the Airport and the yellow question

????

II

What if I knew how to read the curb?
Or translate drunken droll
What if I was never tired again and could
REALLY do anything I set my mind to?
What if I was the first cigarette that cured cancer instead of caused it?
What if I could end superstition
And walk underneath any ladder I wanted?
What if I could make it with a young Audrey Hepburn!?
What if I stopped pretending to be a microphone and got on with "it"
What if the grocery store closed later
And I opened earlier?
What if parking lots werent so sad
All the time?
What if gravity simply had enough of exotic birds and specifics?
What if we stopped trying to recreate what is truly lost?
What if foreign children embraced
Wasting time instead of
Midnight starry bicycles
And the antics of a monk
Disguised as a romantic?

There are those that worship God
And those who worship the Sun
And those who worship nothing at all
But I suppose on the last bus
We're all the same exhausted
Voice who can't wait for next pay day
What is an empty bank?
Or authenticity
What is there to prove anymore?
I hope I don't die tonight and regret
Being impulsive for once
You're a smart shadow
And a dull character
Pushing the last of the daisies
Get the lamp to turn on again
Give the pavement something to look forward to with your walk
Be consistent in being inconsistent
If there's a word there's a ***** and a poem for it!
We all oughta worship
Nothing at all except
Clarity
Compassion with ones neighbor who either forgot the pay the electricity bill or couldn't afford to
We're a swimmin

1975 Art Institute is tactic for Odysseus to put off dealing with real world also investigate range of visual techniques gay instructor fruitlessly endeavors to ****** him he enjoys several affairs with beautiful girls yet Bayli haunts him main building of school is connected behind Art Institute of Chicago Odysseus spends lots of time looking at paintings Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” Gustave Caillebotte’s “Paris Street Rainy Day” Ivan Albright’s “Portrait of Dorian Gray” Jackson *******’s “Greyed Rainbow” Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Black Cross New Mexico” Francis Bacon’s “Figure with Meat” Pablo Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist” Balthus’s “Solitaire” Claude Monet’s “Stacks of Wheat” Paul Cezanne’s “The Bathers” Vincent Van Gogh’s “Self-Portrait” Edouard Manet’s “The Mocking of Christ” Henri Toulouse-Lautrec’s “At the Moulin Rouge” Robert Rauschenberg’s “Photograph” Mary Cassatt’s “The Child’s Bath” Peter Blume’s “The Rock” Ed Paschke’s “Mid America” Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” Jasper John’s “Near the Lagoon” and John Singer Sargent James McNeill Whistler Diego Rivera Marsden Hartley Thomas Eakins Winslow Homer his 2nd year at Art Institute involves student teaching during day then at night working as waiter at Ivanhoe Restaurant and Theater gay managers teach him to make Caesar salad tableside and other flamboyant tasks wait staff are all gay men once more Odysseus experiences bias from homosexual regime he is assigned restaurant’s slowest sections it bothers him the way some gay men venomously condescend women and their bodies Odysseus loves women especially their bodies he thinks about how much easier his life would be if he was gay in 1976 the art world is managed by gay curators gay art dealers he wonders if he could be gay yet not realize it can a person be gay but not attracted to one’s own ***? Ivanhoe hires variety of night club acts one night he watches Tom Waits perform on piano in lounge Odysseus feels inspired in 1977 he graduates with teacher’s certification he considers all the sacrifices teachers make and humiliating salaries they put up with he does not want to teach candidly he feels he has nothing yet to teach teaching degree was Mom’s idea Odysseus wants to learn grow paint after Art Institute he flip-flops between styles his artwork suffers from too much schooling and scholastic practice it takes years to find his own voice he has tendency to be self-effacing put himself down often he will declare what do i know? i’m just a stupid painter one topic artists do not like talking about is their failures how much money they cost creation requires resource paint and canvas can be expensive how much money is spent on harebrained ideas that never pan out? most artists resort to cheap or used materials few can afford their dreams he gets job selling encyclopedias that job lasts about 5 weeks then he finds job selling posters at framing store on Broadway between Barry and Wellington Salvador Dali Escher Claude Monet prints are the rage his manager accuse him of lacking initiative being spacey after several months he gets laid off he finds job waiting tables during lunch shift at busy downtown restaurant other waiters are mostly old men from Europe they play cards with each other in between shifts teach Odysseus how to carry 6 hot plates on one arm and 2 in his other hand the job is hectic but money is good experience educates differently than books and college a university degree cannot teach what working in the real world confronts people learn most when they are nobodies he reads Sartre’s “Being And Nothingness” he wants to discover who he is by finding out who he is not often he rides bicycle along lakefront taking different routes sometimes following behind an anonymous bicyclist possibly to come across new way he does not know or to marvel at another person’s interest

truth is this life is too difficult for me the violence hatred turf wars tribalism laws judgments practices rules permits history i’m not prepared emotionally to withstand the realities of this world not equipped psychologically to deal with the stresses of this world not prepared emotionally to withstand the realities of this world not equipped psychologically to deal with the stresses of this world i’m sorry am i repeating myself i apologize i’m not prepared emotionally to withstand the realities of this world not equipped psychologically to deal with the stresses of this world god please protect teach me strength courage fairness compassion wisdom love i’m not prepared emotionally to withstand the realities of this world not equipped psychologically to deal with the stresses of this world

buy divinity purchase devotion earn reward points own 4 bedroom loft with roof garden deck porch pool parking in paradise’s gated community pay for exclusive membership into sainthood become part of inner circle influence determine fate destiny of everything step up to the plate sign on the line immortalize yourself feel the privileges of eternal holiness i’m living inside a nightmare inside a nightmare inside a nightmare hello? i am dizzy in my own self-deceptions lost in my own self-deceptions alone in my own self-deceptions there was a time once but that time is gone there was a place once but that place has vanished there was a life once but that life is spent remember when things were different truth is i’m weak skittish anxious alienated paranoid scared to death pagan idiot stop

breath deeply push stale air out imagine kinder more respectful loving world please god do your stuff angels throw your weight around clean up this mess planets align stars shine ancient spirits raise your voices magic work there are words when spoken can change everything words rooted to spiritual nerves if voiced in  particular order secret passwords capable of setting off persuasions in the mind threads to the heart if a person can figure out which words what order tone of voice rate of pronunciation time of day then that person can summon powers of the supernatural Isis goddess of celestial sway of words whisper secret earth water fire air reveal your alchemy winter spring summer autumn teach about passages patterns sublime eastern western sun fickle moody moon unveil your heavenly equation north south east west  beat the drums blow winds show the path to healing path of the heart blood dirt hair *** bare the mystery of your trance dance the ghost dance sacred woman with ovaries cycles flow smell beautiful girl eyes sweetness strange awkward skinny scruffy boy great bear spirit bird jumping fish wise turtle where are you why is there no one to back me? jean paul sartre what was your last thought before you died? was it nausea? nothingness? or a wish?

Whilst I was dreaming, streaming up and down my arms
The confining, winding vine
I became another stone in the great wall
Which lines this labyrinthine

One door leading to another, my steps echo upon the stair
If I don’t believe it, I can’t perceive it
That’s the advice you always gave me
But I was too stubborn to ever receive it

There was some confusion over the illusion
And now the fusion has occurred
Don’t bother trying to dig me out of the hole I’ve made
I’d rather my screams never be heard

A silent midnight hides my vengeance
In the comfortable depths of my abyss
Please tell me you don’t understand
So I can explain the meaning of all of this

Rapid eye movement, shutting me down
Fathoming the phantoms eating my soul
Don’t come any closer, or you’ll be a monster like me
An empty shell, delusion filling the hole

Your chimerical notions of bravery sustain me
Starlight keeping time with my every heart beat
You are the only dream, the only perfection
All else in my eyes has become obsolete

The vines entwine our hands
The maze once endless is now clear
Why do you save me every time, even if I don’t want saving
Why do you destroy all that I fear

Eye lids pried open and even in reality it’s always you
The darkness calling me, and I remain thinking
I wish to be among the stone, wrapped in vine alone
Tricked by the eyes, in the abyss I am sinking…sinking..

Whilst I was dreaming, streaming up and down my arms
The needing, bleeding vine
I became another victim of love
I became yours and you became mine.

What if Escher had it right
and "within" is really "without,"
and stairs turn inside out
and "up" is just the same as "down?"

Imagine if you will
a "topsy-turvy" sort of place
(or is that "turvy-topsy")
where time marches retrograde
and all effects precede their causes.

I know, I know, your life is busy
but can't you drop it all for half a day
and step out with me
(with Escher at our side)?
We'll cross the edge of time and space
where an alternate universe or two
is just a dream away.

Hurry up now (or then), let's go!
We have to get back
before the sun ascends in the west!

Its twisting
   Spinning like a
Waterfall gracefully
   Pouring itself in
Its open lips
   A selfless gift
Never leaving
   Me to you
   Fading forever
Whole pieces
   Tender cradling
Always moments
   Of sublime

walking out of the liquor store
wine bottles double ******

asphalt concrete curb stone
the great expanse of the universe

the mundane
welded water tight

that Escher print
of ribboned minds

personal accounting
money as abstraction

automobile documents
layers of bureaus

the great and powerful
realm of ideas

shared fallen history
the strike of the pen

ideals ethics
the avoidance of sin

cold is coming
warmth is rare

plug into existential wetness
yet suffer banality



Friday, November 1, 2013

You aren't the first to walk these roads.
These lonely, gravel trails  covered in broken glass and nails.
Every time a rickety car breaks down and fails
it leaves it's wreck along the side of highway,
just watching the traffic pass them by.
They are monuments to every effort we have made and given up on.
They are why you MUST try.

Whether you live in a town or a city,
there are going to be some pretty ****** moments in life.
It takes a lot of strife to get a small amount of satisfaction
but the chain reaction
of doubts and down 'n' outs
is drowned out by the radio static and
I don't mean to sound dramatic but
I understand.

I just want you to know
you're not going to go on your own this time.
Every moment spent crying is time that could better spent trying.
If I told you I don't have these moments,
well, I'd be lying.
Because I've felt the color drain from my face
as I try to remember the last place I left my courage
because it's not at arm's reach this time.
Sneers and eyerolls draw spirals around me
like I'm at ground zero of an M.C Escher painting.

I can rephrase suffering so many ways.
But at this pace, I still can't outrun my own thoughts.
I find my courage at last
but there is no sticking place to ***** it to,
so I just say "***** it."
I can't say I knew it would end this way,
but if all this poem comes down to
is a whiny teenager trying to be edgy
than I guess I...

i swirl in van gogh.
i am charcoal stains
on blue,
a smile of barbed wire
for the painter,
i am mona lisa, true.

monet, he paints me
calm waters,
water lilies floating
in solitude,
he doesn't see
the fire sprouting
in my veins.

picasso cannot stain
my heart with colour,
magritte cannot
create a masterpiece
out of my eyes.

to be immortalized
i beg in pink
lick the brush
and paint myself
alive.

end my days
in escher,
sketch myself
out of the stairway,
into the globe.

throw myself
at deaths eye,
kiss the canvas
rotten, ******,
*pretty.

MC Escher drew it
Unshure the best way through it
Down is up
Around is down
Gravity hilarity loops
Infinity turns and hoops
Puzzling faces, birds and places
Morphing yin to yang
Ending is beginning to
Circle around again.


The pen, they say, is mightier,
but is it keener than a knife?
This brittle blade of insolence,
unleashed to lash at life.

'Yeah, innit, Bruv, he got right up in my face,
cos my phone was out in lesson time
and he called me a disgrace.
Like, so, whatever, mate,
I told him where to go,
trying to tell me English,
while I'm textin' my new ***.'

The pen is not mightier,
it is tarnished and obtuse,
a vision of a different age,
wrought blind from its misuse.

Its sapling song of innocence,
split south across the grain
and cast across the classroom,
yanked up and lobbed again.

'Do you get me, Blood?
He was pointing at a seat,
expectin' ME to sit there,
as if it were a treat.
I told him where to stick it
and called him out a clown,
I **** this one-way death pit
as I'm walkin' round and round.'

The pen should still be mighty
and not a strangled stream,
that's crawling up an incline,
like an M. C. Escher dream.

Its muddy banks lie dormant,
both acorn and an oak.

'Cut that ****, you KEENO,
let's ******* for a smoke.'

I watch the loping invalids in the courtyard
nil by nil by nil feet
How to describe a sensation such as heat
to them? The interminable sun and so on
I wonder if they understand that
Light itself is not heat

whereupon the bell sounds
their minds divide and fog in the somnolent air

I look at a Dupuytren in the room
Cord around the chair
His clothes hanging off him
Trying to move his remarkable shock of hair
From his eyes

My room looks out beyond the yard
It is high up - precarious
Through that picturewindow, the world without
is framed, beyond the walls the oldtown
spires and roofing
I see my own sadness, my impotence
In every inch of the heights

the girls come back, propping black bikes against
the gate;
my legs are wrapped in a blanket
and I feel nothing below my waist

Through a system of cables and consent
my companion molls in Bergonic poise
each day the room behind his eyes receded, the heart
lessening
the birds gathered around the bathroom doors to be fed

He read about Escher in bed
waiting to be plugged
unbeknownst rigours of treatment, and
unbeknownst methods
until he forgot those days in Margate
the sound of his nieces
and everything he read about Escher –


the light makes dull
the precision of the thorn

How could you?
I hate you.
Please never leave me.

Abstract and surreal
Still
Something you can see
With your own
However many eyes

Patters emerge

And these steps lead to
Where
This beak is just a tail
My face
In a mirror ball

And misunderstood

Still it is art
In its highest form

It is a silver snail between the lips,
cold as a quarter bitter as a penny,
Not even the aftertaste of chlorine.
Patchy F# smoker’s exhalations
Grit the teeth and the ball of cork
lolls in its belly.
Look down your nose
it looks back at you,
Blurred.

Look back at you.
On sticky tile bare toes clenched,
and chin lowered to chest, pool-parched lips
Took the Acme Thunderer and—
Blew.

echoes whipped from ceiling to surface to
bare-slick backs of streamlined swimmers.
Spines curved into fins—
Lungs collpasing slow as a circus tent
Even the bubbles tittered with reverberation
Faster.

Not a splash as pointed feet flicked at the ankle
Casting expanding triangles of wakes
And lips kiss-close to the plastic lane line
Breathed.
And finger-tips yearned for that two hand touch.

And now—
Blow.
Only shivers of sound.
Just spit it out.

That unmusical clang as it hits the desk.
Exposing distresses of is and was
escher-impossible to tell which is which.
Waiting for that hollow echo
of high ceilings and deep water.

"One thing good I can say about the hotel,
There were plenty of skanky crack ******
Strolling the boulevard.”
So began my Expedia travel review.
As usual, I got less than I’d paid for.
My review title:
“Next Time, Sans the Engineering
& Construction Inquietude.”
Pulling into the parking lot
One immediately recognized the scene,
A modern version of Cecil B. DeMille.
The 10 Commandments.
Pyramids of Egypt
Reconstructed, Escher-like
As a 21st Century construction site.
Oh, yes,
Everything Habib had in mind
When he subcontracted
The entire task to Hershel--
Hersh from Kanersh--
The famed,
But cursed
Jewish architect.
I digress, yes, but only partly.

Noise-induced stress, anyone?
The electrified multi-frequency drone,
Saturates like a post-war Levittown
Sea of Cape Cods . . . cods?
Bacala: stiff, salted, yellow & oily.
Cacophony:  a Festivus for the rest of us.
Oh yeah, Mr. Costanza.
Post-war?
Hardly, the mahogany wax
Still faintly, freshly sober,
New cards shuffled.
New cards dealt.
At that mahogany conference table
We weep at stacked decks,
Aces & Kings for the privileged few
Deuces & treys for the hoi polloi.
That hinky Bretton Woods poker game,
Convened while the war went on,
WWII still raging, guns still firing,
Tanks still rolling & rolling along.
There sat the Ruling Elite,
The 1%--as they are calling us these days--
We didn’t even offer
Our Gold Star mothers,
A moment to
Hold their breath.
Not one decent interval of silence.
Nein, nein, nein.
It was let’s get back to business.
Capital resuming its
Uncivil War on Labor.
First, add decades of slow boa squeeze.
Inflation, insidiously mocking Calvin--
Your ethos of work
In smithereens--
(Smithereens.
[From Irish Gaelic smidir n,
Diminutive of smiodar,
Small fragment.] ...)
A recipe for Sisyphus,
Your down-the-ladder warped reflection
Stares back at you as your
Up-the-ladder false hopes
Go escalator bye-bye; and by,
Staring at you,
Pinning you to a wall
With Econ 101 clarity,
As taught by Karl,
Another wily Jew:
It is a treadmill, after all,
Noting again the clever juxtaposition
Of a Jew and a handful of Christians,
Devotees of random Protestant sects.
The following link is a gift to some struggling writer @wattpad.
(Who Cares ON HOLD INDEFINITELY Chapter Twenty - Page 1 ...
www.wattpad.com/4225578-who-cares-on-hold-indefinitely-chapte­r-twe...‎
Apr 22, 2012 - Leanna was totally stunned by this and immediately halted in her tracks and began to scream at such a high decibel, Opia could hear her ears...) That’s right, another commercial in the middle of a ******* poem. The proceeding link was a gift to some struggling writer @wattpad.@*******.
Expedia Review:
The Windemere.
Its last syllable from Old English 'mere',
Meaning 'lake' or 'pool'.
A magical name
Reeking, swirling through your mind,
Lavender & English lakes
With steam ferries.
Ne c'est pas?

I arrived at the front desk?
The computers are down,
Having earlier that day
Been hacked into.
No restaurant.
No bar.
Nowhere.
Scaffolding & drop cloths,
Everywhere.
Construction materiel,
Everywhere.
When you finally get your swipe card,
You Notice that the “Buy One, Get One”
Pizza promo, laminated on one side,
Expired about 5 months ago.
The drive to the room
Is wry recognition that
The Windemere Hotel
& Conference Center*
Is actually a ****** motel.
Backhoes & cranes,
Everywhere.
Multiple, out-door spaces
Sectioned off with police
Yellow crime-scene tape.
Everywhere.
Railings on balconies
Appear to be seconds away
From giving way.
Odor, anyone?
You can count on it,
The moment that electronically-challenged keybox
Gives up its flashing green dot ghost.

Most times you get less
Than you pay for.
$47.00 a night?
Please ask,
Next time,
What's the catch?
“WHAT DID YOU LIKE ABOUT YOUR STAY?”
Again, Numb-nuts,
You think it’s a poem.
But it’s actually my
Fakokta Expedia Review.
WHAT DID I LIKE?
This one I had to think about,
Coming up, quickly . . .
(An advertisement generated by algorithms for your amusement follows)
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Coming quickly with Dwight David Eisenhower,
The man we liked & called IKE.
When asked if his VP Nixon--
Running for President himself,
In a tight race with JFK—
Had distinguished himself in any way
In his 8 years as his Vice-President?”
IKE replied:
"Give me a minute and
I'm sure I can think of something."
Not a ringing endorsement.
IKE knew something
The rest of us had to wait for 1973,
Reserving a room at the The Watergate,
Close to Foggy Bottom & Georgetown:
THE WATERGATE HOTEL
& CONFERENCE CENTER,
Just like The Windemere,
Another ****** motel.
**** me! What was I thinking?

Not to mention lack of privacy,
Be it acoustic or visual and,
In one case a veritable DEA bust.
Crack ***** in residence next door,
Cranes her neck around the balcony wall,
A would-be nurse, perhaps,
Offering home hospice &
Concern for your raspy,
***-smoking cough.
Her pox face bursting in on
The long anticipated
Marijuana Miller Time.
On the veranda, early evening,
Lighting up your first joint of the day,
Desperately in need
Of some herbal peace of mind.
Ne c'est pas?
Her big crack-***** head
Giraffes like crazy around the wall,
Invading your balcony space.
*******? Who was that?
Let’s lock the doors.
Let's hunker down for the night,
Taking turns keeping watch,
Like a couple of shitless scared
Grunts of the DMZ.
(Urban Dictionary: scared shitless www.urbandictionary.com/define. Ph?term=scared%20shitlessIt's when you scare someone to such an extent, you scare the **** out of them, at times causing them to excrement all over the vicinity . . .)
The Expedia Review goes on:
Anything interesting about the surrounding area?
Oh, yes, as previously mentioned:
Plenty of crack ******
Strolling the boulevard.

Hey, Windemere Hotel,
*** am I doing in Mesa, Arizona,
Two days shy of the summer solstice,
And 119 degrees?
That's another story.
But for now,
Hey Windemere,
Here’s a tip:
Next time it's total facility makeover time,
Shut the **** hotel, please.

Breaking waves, folding in river bends (meandering)
with an effortless grace
Cupids mouth, foaming to return -
broken and filling up the landscape.
Cracked horseshoes
waltzing across a vibrating brain,
all the worlds night
quartz, cutting drunk into
your Green city.

Banishing a sense of self
uprooting positivity, displacing our discontempt -
boil out the water from the soup of human condition.
Boredoms grace.

We're rotting, lizards tongues
wearing the past, skin deep
Imbued.
a morbid relocation of entrance
authority, a fee
Reflecting light off your face
always leading back,
back towards a tabletop nausea.

Caked in powder,
i make my way over -
licking my finger and rubbing away
at the cracks formed years ago
wandering in and out of Escher's *******,
hoping to settle mind and body
numbed and lethargic,
medicine doesn't help.

An open patio door,
grooming in the whisped brown dawn -

7.34am

God's rags, crisp
displacing particles against the mountain lip
red light brewing in the observers mind.
Cubes of water
pushing through into tomorrows wake
all unwrapping like 1,000 words
diluted into one second.

I'm tired
appetite gone
graven, knowledge of the inside of my mouth
encyclopedic and (almost) boring.
It's closed again
at the crux of abandon,
the skies youthful,
built from wood, holding up the trees.
Excess - child's play for Atlas.

Rogue, electric Blue.
Mollusc in hand
living, lipless
just outside the geopolitical borders
heading back towards maturity.
Nihil,
projects objectivity, sycamore due, borders
as happiness combed our soft necks.

A situation is only what you make of it,
we're all in on this
living together in leaves -
by roadsides
making homes where we sleep.
The sky is on fire
exploding into fruition
as hot chlorine licks against unwashed belly buttons and hair
going blind and stripping back
it breaks you.

Tempting wishes piling under
a steaming white bath towel
hot wet pure
smothering a body
that's stretched into
an Escher tessellation
melting the ground you walk upon
to wax
and you sink
into deep breaths
demons dissolved
in the exhalation

8:55 A.M.
Wednesday,
December 3, 2014

Eyes dry, stagnant like a box fan
in a windowless room in summer.
Del Monte plastic blades—black
on the serrated side—dice rotting
pizza tomato trash air.

Stomach like a battery acid pond.
Flannel, Dockers, hair slicked
tight like road signs, tossing oyster
crackers to acid ducks. The sky's
on fire.

Clouds textured like *******
and never-ending like Escher.

Jet planes carry ***** comatose
patients into the sun to burn
out like a light bulb
a few flickers of life gone.

Hands dry, faulted like missing
bathroom tiles at Exxon-Mobil/
Sunoco/Shell beneath the metal
sink where crabgrass sprouts
from the cracks like

cheap caulk from Second-Hand Hardware.
Bent nails, rusted patching trowels,
ants in the quick-dry drywall mix.

I'll never reach Nirvana.

I cannot put my finger on my dissatisfaction

I cannot slake my thirst
I cannot sate my hunger
I cannot itch this scratch
I cannot imbibe it better
I cannot forget it, worse

deaf--dumb--blind--limp--sad--stupid

I feel I am seeing in the second dimension
when I know the fourth is called for, now!

I cannot expunge this record, these memories, or the lack thereof
I cannot remember the effort, or, where things stopped or started

I cannot describe this inexplicability,
I cannot remember the introductions

criss-cross logical thinking
twanging words, tungsten,
copper, and sheets of steel

sautered, bolted, shorted
circuits crackle and spark
blue like the ocean water
burning the water in skin

and I find nothing on an endless loop around the
Möbius strip, no, nothing, neither starts nor ends
I'm stuck in some Escher stairwell, so frustrating
I feel like an imbecile that knows not of a named
thing that stands before me, if it were a snake, it
would bite me, what, (                    ) it is so close?

boy, this stings,
this ***** to be

struck by something, and
                             I don't know
                                                             what

I cannot find relief from catharsis
no, that hasn't ever worked at all.

dizzying, myopic thing that keeps me awake
show yourself, show me how, or what, wants
this thing thing thing this thing of something.

I cannot find my (          ), no,
I cannot find anything at all.

Nightmares haunt my ever waking.
Never giving. Always taking.
Always giving without volition,
or is it a seer’s gift with condition?
Both contend. Neither understood.
Whether ‘tis those to bleed
or others bled?
It remains.
In consciousness I presume Logic’s domain,
But in dreams I occupy and Escher’s fantasy.
One way out is another door in.
Oh how this dream ceases an end!
Awakening is not an escape, but a taunting of the perishing day.
It remains.

I still wonder if it's me who was the dys-
in our dys.functional family.
I sit atop guilt
as though it were a fine bed.
And bed is where I stay, most days.
I am the same.
Could the future be the past--
since time's not linear?

Escher struck me
not because of his geometric impossibilities...
incredible symmetries...
but my wandering mind was drawn
to the pattern, repeating...
sinking together pieces in a puzzle...
             you know the feeling.

I know it may not seem clear
but there is some stability
in fear.

You should always know what can or is killing you.
We can argue if fear is a choice,
and maybe the usage is wrong,
but death's voice isn't truly welcome
until you've seen it's face more than once.

And what do I know of facing death?
Nothing.
Standing at the razor's edge
and a stick-up and Eye-Mart Express are as close as I've come.
So,
it's fair to say
that fear, for me,
sometimes isn't a decided election.

It's a place.

The sleep-with-one-eye-open,
pray-for-omens,
waiting-for-that-other-s­***
place.

The optimist says,
"I will be prepared... A beast of battle."
The pessimist says,
"A meeting with the creator is best."
The realist says,
"Get over it."

When I watched that fly
on MTV
buzz about that ****** chic
Deftones video...
when I heard the stories
of money and glory...
and power...
and of the sour...
I knew I was done for...

It's so 'Romeo and Juliet'
except
no one will sing about my love affair
with the warring houses
of drugs
and self-worship.

In dreams, I create infinity.
I walk down Escher’s infinite stairs
and trip – as a board breaks.

In dreams, I fall.
I fall and land in the sand.
In dreams, I build buildings
Eight miles high.
Each floor a mirror of different sights.

In dreams, I create life.
I satisfy that which is not satisfied.
They breathe, they live and die.

In dreams, I cancel reality,
I find my escape, and break the ladder down.

In dreams, I create infinity.
I manipulate time.
In dreams, I live forever.

Yes, I think I did it
Didn’t I do it
I mean, you saw me do it
Yes, you did
You saw me do
What I’ve never been able to do
Which was to say
Love you
Love me
It was nothing
Nothing at all
Nothing to do
Was it even true

I stare into space
Implacable clockface
Worn-out bookcase
All the knowing I stuffed
Shelved, just in case
Ornamental armament
Bounded & staged
Dialectical argument

I did nothing
Who did nothing
You did
No, I didn’t
Who are you talking to
Who’s asking
Don’t answer a question with a question
Don’t tell me what to do
Relax we’re only talking
Don’t patronize
Don’t criticize  
Well that’s what I mean
Was I doing Nothing,  
Or Something?
What did I do?

I mean
Was it Nothing
Or
Was it Something
Tell me
Was Nothing Something
or
Was Something the Nothing I did
or
Nothing the Something I did
I’m an Escher painting
One hand painting the other
Thing is
I don’t know
But that is the very thing I know

Talking to a friend today
She says
I got to go
My daughters calling me
Thing is
She doesn’t have a daughter
Or does she

Thing is
I know
She wanted to talk about her thing
And I wanted to talk about my thing

I know
How this looks to you
But here’s what you need to know
I’ve listened and listened and listened
I’ve been a listening machine
So shut the **** up
I’m not your therapist
This I’ll only do for my daughter
You mean our daughter.
Whatever

But, here’s the real thing
A think thing
You don’t have to say anything  
But’ it’s better if you do  
Because I need you to
But not like this
So maybe it’s better if you don’t
But, that’s not the real thing
Maybe It’s better if you do
Or don’t
Then Don’t
Then Do
Don’t
Do
Don’t
Do
Then Don’t
Then Do
Please Do
I think I’m thru with you!
But wait
I have to think this through
Where have I heard that before
Not from me.