BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR TELEPATHIC PROSE
Lee Sharks & Jack Feistfrom Pearl and Other Poems

1.     Compose real poems telepathically, with mind control powers, inside your glorious brain.

2.     You are your own best advocate. Insist the world acknowledge your poems as artifacts of tiny doom. Accept nothing less. Threaten to smash yourself in the face with gasoline and set your hair on fire. Leap over the seats to aggressively stand inside the world’s personal space and get up in its grill. Take this container of Tic-Tacs and smash it on your forehead. Crush each Tic-Tac individually into your eyeballs and ask the world if it likes your poem, and if it likes your poem, then eat your poem: “Do you like my poem? Then eat it.”

3.     Always seek constant approval, then punch your cat in the face.

4.     Arrive alive. Don’t text and drive.

5.     Always write poems all the time.

6.     Never professionalize writing. Professionalism is the last refuge of responsible people looking for work.

7.     Your life is your poem. Take care to write it biographically. Failing that, invent false biographies and post them on Wikipedia.

8.     Get as much education as you can, then ****** your education in the face to save it from sloppy education. Get enough education to respect your contempt for education.

9.     Give it all that you have, as deep as it goes, as desperate and total as taking a breath.

10.  Also be pedantic mundane pig-critic of precise punctuation juggling and ruthless crossed-out darling murdering of your own puny sentences. Save every draft and revert to original after enormous work, then drown yrself in the bathtub. Remember: editing is organization.

11.  Be long-sighted prodigy of skeptically believing in nothing, but also believe in destiny, but quietly, and hit yourself in the face for naivety’s sake.

12.  You are a seamstress of words—place each stitch carefully, deliberately. Develop a series of rituals and perform them, without variation, prior to placing each word. Allow the frequency and intensity of these rituals to grow until you spend hours, each day, touching and retouching your left index finger to the tip of your nose in a rhythmic, counter-clockwise motion, in sets of thirty revolutions, in order to place a single character. Spend years of your life shut away from the world, wasting away into an awkward, unhygienic shadow of your former self, and have, to show for it, a two-syllable word of Germanic origins on an otherwise clean, white page. This word will be redoubtable, the bedrock of your writing career. Go on to spend vast sums of personal wealth and total dedication, alienating the remaining handful of long-suffering friends who continue, despite all odds, to solicit the memory of your humanity, in order to learn the arts of metalworking, Medieval alchemy, and font design, recreating a metal-cast, alpha-numeric set of Times New Roman font, from scratch, going broke long before “numeric,” and with only the half-formed germs of the characters W, N, and sometimes-vowel Y.  hat are such retrictio s to  ou?  ou are a poet,  ot a mathematicia .  ou are a creature of steel.  ou  ill  rite a  e  and better  orld, a  orld  ithout the letter   , forgi g it, o e smoki g husk of a  ord at a time.

13.  Turn over a new leaf. You’re not getting much done like this, anyways, let’s face it. Break the chains of your censoring, conscious mind; tap into the spontaneous well of unconscious human brilliance that springs from the source of dreams. Thwart the stick-in-*** tyranny of your internal editor by making a commitment to write constantly, without ceasing, editing, or even thinking, no matter what, ignoring the anally retentive quips your brain will no doubt make. Make a further commitment: you will not only write, irrespective of internal censorship, but in a way that is unconscionably terrible, on purpose. Your writing will be, by turns, embarrassing, infantile, automatic, and marmaduke poppers—or shall we say, antagonistic to the indoctrination in repressive concepts such as “sentence” and “word” of your reader, who is always, and only, you. Let your writing be a spiritual discipline of Bat-a-rang pancakes and lightly alarm clock, ding—your toast is done.

14.  Always Alka-Seltzer eyelids all the time.

15.  At last, you are ready to make it new, to ****** your darlings, to first thought, best thought, to your heart’s content. Your adverb will be the enemy of your verb, the difference between your almost-right word and your right word will be the difference between your lightning bug and your lightning. You are ready to have a spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling, then censor the s**t out of it. You are ready to turn your extremes against each other: Unlearn your apple pancakes and burst through the mental barriers; then slow the flood, let the lovely trickle out & edit, edit, edit. Capture spontaneous gem of native human genius, then marshal vast armies of technical knowledge & self-discipline to ensure it glimmers and cuts.

16.  Believe in things like destiny. No really—the path will shatter you so many times your shards will have splinters, your bombshells, shrapnel. By the time you get there—which you probably won’t—even your exhaustion will be tired. Exhaustion of mind and body will have passed so far beyond the physical, and through malaise of spirit, that it will emerge on the other side, as physical exhaustion again. In the face of this, nothing but a little Big Purpose will do. Besides, a little ideology never hurt anyone. Feel free to be all Voltaire with your bad self, in public—but don’t give up.

17.  After all of this, when your will is finally broken (again), and you have given up for the final time (again), start over. The former model wasn’t working. Refashion yourself and your writing. Lather, rinse, usurp your noble half-brother, and repeat, until you get somewhere, or die in the trying.  

18.  Achieve consistency of voice; it is the signature by which you will be known. Your “you” should ring out clearly from each individual letter. In this, the writer is like the salesman. Like a new car, neither the writing’s merits, nor the reader’s needs, will be the final, deciding factor. Ultimately, the deciding factor is you.

19.  Unlike a new car, it is difficult to drive a poem, to use it to get to school or work. Unlike a car salesman, a writer does not wear enormous ties.

20.  Be so consistent that your writing consists in composing the same words, in the same order, creating the some overall voice and style, consistently, over and over, an eternal return of the same. Maintain this disciplined drudgery over the course of years. Let years become decades, and decades, an entire life: You will have “found your voice.” Variety is the spice of life, but consistency is its signature.

20.  Be so consistent that your writing consists in composing the same words, in the same order, creating the some overall voice and style, consistently, over and over, an eternal return of the same. Maintain this disciplined drudgery over the course of years. Let years become decades, and decades, an entire life: You will have “found your voice.” Variety is the spice of life, but consistency is its signature.

21.  Then again, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Throw things up a little bit. One day, put on your hobgoblin hat, the next day, your small mind.

22.  On second thought, re: #16-17: Stop here. You don’t look like much of a writer. Save yourself the trouble of a deep investment that is sure to yield no returns. The prize is big, and not many take it. The Iliad showed us that the prize of writing is life eternal, and taught us to long for that promise; but the Odyssey taught us not to bother. There are many suitors, a single Odysseus. While the husband wends arduously homeward, Penelope weaves impending glory, an evaporating glamour, enchanting them, until he arrives. We are in for a bad end, if we chase another man’s wife, or a prize not rightfully ours. There are many suitors, a crowd of them. They begin as a chittering swarm of bats and end in the very same manner. You cannot have what is not yours. What is yours, no man can take. So, like Emily says,

I smile when you suggest that I delay ‘to publish’—that being foreign to my thought as Firmament to Fin. If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her—if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase—and the approbation of my Dog would forsake me—then—My Barefoot Rank is better—

23.  Therefore, take these Sturm und Drang commandments to the trash heap. Return to step 1, as the only useful piece of advice: Compose real poems telepathically, with mind control powers, inside your glorious brain.

(c) 2014 lee sharks & jack *****

from Pearl and Other Poems:

http://www.amazon.com/Pearl-Other-Poems-Crimson-Hexagon/dp/0692313079/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&qid;=1429895012&sr;=8-1&keywords;=lee+sharks+pearl

The moon rises high in the sky
To the light of day we say goodbye
As the sun goes away
The wolf comes out to play
The man goes away
And the wolf comes out to play
A ***** of flesh it desires
A primal instinct it requires
It runs with the wind
On a hunt for those who have sinned
To eat their hearts full of mud
It's mouth dripping with dark red blood
Sharp teeth and ragged fur
Protection you cannot procure
To the light of day we say goodbye
As the moon rises high in the sky
The form of man goes away
So the wolf can come out to play

A land only nature has touched
A lion to its prey, clutched
Before that though
The Lion crept up real slow
Crouched down real low
He puts on a good show
Creeping and crawling
Absolutely stalking
His ***** orange coloring
Unseen by a prey so alluring
His big tufted paws are like a quiet breeze
Unheard by a prey totally at ease
His eyes focus, like a morning lotus
Finding the sun with such slowness
Silently stalking towards prey, not yet ferocious
A gleaming meaty meal ready to devour
Just another moment and little prey will cower
First a pounce with claws drawn out
Then a bite and a shake, making the prey shout
Now a *****!
Chewing prey up before its deceased
Drug across the land only nature has touched
A lion has won it’s hunt, quiet now, be hushed
Can you hear nature sing, the way she does
With violence and beauty no matter if lion or cheetahs
Now humans are different! Or is it really so?
The desire the same as a beasts hunt, reaping what we sow
A need to ***** and overpower
A craving to devour

There were once men, playing a lying game.
They had no heart, they knew no shame.
Like Sirens, what their songs told,
were stories of flesh on beds of gold.

Merely this, is what their songs were about,
for wine and flesh they lusted sparing doubt.
For all their bubbles, fizzle, show and gleam,
true love for them was but a funny little dream.

Some, it is true, had  the voices of blue suede kings.
Yet, danced on rubble, coughing smoke, 'n' kissing rings.
Thankfully, their lyrics were quite naturally cold,
faintly sparkling true hearts, despite their gold.

No songs can, in the spirit, ever remain,
or one's path meaningfully ingrain,
unless dotted by a hearty blood stain.

Still, some blind and sleepy were enticed,
those who dropped their heart, who'd lost their *****.
Much like a robber, who rests his gun in a heist.

Others, scrambled to plug their ears
wishing to avoid both song 'n' tears.
They knew not, that when fighting fear,
'tis not enough to keep it from getting near.

Simply stuffing their ears with wax,
failed to fade the hottest new tracks,
cause tanks groove on these tracks.

As tanks, they pop 'n' roll till you die.
Therefore... relax, pick your time, and lie,
not to your conscience, but on the ground,
so they pass over you, leaving you safe 'n' sound.

"You cannot fear what you haven't tried."
Remember, Odysseus wasn't deaf, only tied.

He, chose to fight and listen to the Sirens' songs,
using threads of logic, to keep from snapping their thongs.
Tightroping on wrong, he but fell to the song.
He wailed and spat, yet, somehow grabbed the gong.

And after a short but needed rest, after this soul defining test,
he did not lament the virgins lost, but carried on with his quest.
He, knew the lying men and their calls were real,
but to forms he didn't kneel, nor aimed to cut a deal.

He, stuck to his dreams doing his best to warn and tell the rest,
that though Sirens charm, they harm. "'Tis Ithaca who gives zest.'"

So, next time you see the chanting men of lies,
and their enchanting plastic bunnies in bow ties,
know that rhyme and shine may polish coal,
but listening to your heart should be the goal.
*"With a twist of logic to correct your steer,
you will run through fear, and forever, keep it rear."

I never thought I could ever feel so nervous,
and so proud looking in the mirror.
Sister, in some ways our resemblance is uncanny
and that never makes me feel terrible.
Even if we both cling to our bottles of perfume,
nailpolish, and beer
to remedy our despairs,
I'm proud of you.
I love how you don't ever leave your effervescence at home.
It's contagious, and everyone eventually wants a sip.
You found your beauty quite recently-
but I want you to know its always been there,
it began when your eyes first became
those thick lashed squints
from smiling too hard.
You admire things, and they admire you back.
I hope you won't forget that
when you chase what seems to be difficult.
Sister, I know there are days where you
don't see what greatness you deserve,
when you believe you have to be sorry for
your *****.
I know it because I've seen you, and I know it
because I do the same.
You always remind me to never apologize.
And now I do you.
Sister, don't let that crown fall over those
smiling eyes.
You are stronger than the chance you might be sad.
You are finer than the fool who won't call back.
You are better than the boy who should be a man.
You carry troubled teenage girls over your shoulders
every single day.
You save them, as much as you can and give them that warmth.
Don't forget to warm yourself.
Because the heat travels, sister.
I feel it too.

Blazing and looting and *****'s
Screaming "surrender!"
Machetes through a violent haze.
A group of scoundrels rioting,
Crashing and trampling as they
Wildly start howling while
Throwing bottle bombs.
Uncomfortably cramped into a secret crevice;
Violets, soothing for a moment.
Then bodies toppled over and
Singled out
Is such an existence for one to
Be devout to?
A sudden breeze, caress the aftermath of  
A loosely worn disease.
Sleepy eyes, seemingly far off and
drooping low; solving puzzles.
Gazing with purpose and intent;
A veneer that's out lost upon a pier.
Swinging to a requiem,
Pacing In a retelling.
My friend, again, speak amends and
Shine a light that transcends my
Fears and my tears that prevail;
So misguided In deed.
So sure so certain that
What's done is right
But now the meanings all disguised and
Out of sight.

I’m singing his song.
I’ll be singing his song.
My lips are singing that song,
So why do I think this is wrong?

Yeah, my lips are singing
And the air from my lungs, like a
Sigh makes my voice start a-ringing
Why do you blame it on me?
It’s my lips, my lungs, my face,
My teacher that carry the music.

It’s not like I’m having your baby
(Besides, I’m too much of a lady).
I’m just singing that song;
Your song.

What’s the big deal?
It’s not like I’m a seal
And you’re the ringmaster.
I’m a sea lion woman
And no one can tell me otherwise
(Except *****).

No, no, no, no, no, no!
It’s just fear;
A simple word,
A simple anagram for fare.
Food isn’t bad.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
I’m afraid that the one moment I have
To show what I’m made of
Will just reveal
Cracked vocal chords,
Notes sung off-key,
Wobbling words,
A rushed rhythm, racing to
Finish the song,
Incompetence,
Failure,
And it’s all on purpose.

I don’t want to sing your song;
At least not well.
I don’t want to sing that song of yours;
The one you know you’d ask me to sing.
I don’t,
And I probably shouldn’t,
But I will.
If you want me to.

Each note in my ears
conducts an orchestra of memory
a rush of blood
from my heart to
my head
                I remember
                my summer of love
                                                  making
The­ King of Carrot Flowers in California
                                                  his stubble- cactus needles
                                                  rubbing­ my lips numb like *******
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, in Michigan
                                                   her hair a brambled bush
                                                   tangled in my fingers
******* for the Holidays, in her bed
                                                   her body like going home
                                                   each time "the last, I swear"
Every Little Thing She Does, in her car
                                                    trips to the playground
                                                    wh­ere we explored like children
and
The Communist Daughter, who set me free
                                                     the feeling of forever
                                                     my hand in the small of her back
                                                     as we danced in our underwear
                                                     to Waltz #2
I remember lying
on blades of grass
as hot air balloons
fell into the sky
stirring her algae eyes
my mouth dry and expectant
I knew exactly why I had to leave.
The Southern State
called me nightly
when I heard the train
shouting my future.

So
I rode her to Chicago
with Tom Waits
on my smoke breaks.
From Chicago to Dallas
I wrote poems of
                              "true love"
                              "****** obsessions"
                              "surprise thoughts"
***** singing
'1. 2. 3. 4.' in Chris's guest bedroom
                                                         ­       her boyfriend calling
                                                         ­       we whispered promises
                                                        ­         of a future before
                                                          ­       we kissed goodbye.

Music fades away when you arrive
Spreading the doom with every stride
The stare of hatred locked in your eyes
Sinister cravings behind sacred lies

You want me to beg
You want me to look
You want me to bend
And follow your rules

Judging from throne made out of gold
Taken from people that you control
Deep in your cave, the smell of decay
Surrounded by slaves, you ***** on their brain

You want me to pray
You want me to lay
Down on the floor
While you’re taking my pay

Kingdom of blind, darkness inside
The bread and the wine, poisonous bite
Be sure that someday the people will rise
You will back down when they finally realize

You want them to beg
You want them to cry
You feed on their weakness
That’s how you survive

The blindfold developed some holes by the time
Now we can see what’s on the other side
You made yourself bed with flameable lies
With spark it will turn into ocean of fire

You want me to beg
You want me to pray
You want me to dive
And make me obey

You are destroying the lives with your madness
Leaving them cold, fearful and helpless
You spit out your words, shooting out aimless
I stand up to you now, ready and shameless.

i can’t listen to the Strokes without thinking of my first love,
and how I only fell in love with them because
they were his favourite band, and i was in love with him.
i can’t listen to Mozart, Chopin, Satie, or classical music of any kind without thinking of my mother playing piano late at night
while I fell asleep to the sound of her fingers emanating warm melodies.
i can’t listen to Elliott Smith without thinking of being on the bus on the way to high school, and how much solace his music brought me
during those deeply lonely years of anguish and abandonment.
i can’t listen to the Beatles without thinking of my entire family,
jamming together in the garage, without thinking of love.
i can’t listen to the Weepies without thinking of my best friend,
driving around in her car on our way to anywhere, how those songs are symbols of our friendship in the form of sound.
i can’t listen to Regina Spektor without thinking of myself, throughout all stages of my life, without feeling alive, reminding me of who i am,
as an artist, as a lover, as a being.
i can’t listen to Tegan and Sara, *****, Rilo Kiley, Metric, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or Broken Social Scene without thinking of my high school friends, all those concerts we went to, all the late nights.
That was the music that made me brave.
I can’t listen to Jazz music without thinking of my grandfather, and how many times I sang with him while he played the piano and smiled.

most of these people have come and gone
and i could go on
but if I’ve loved someone, there is a song that I will always associate
with them, and that time of my life.
music is the definition of every moment.
it’s one of the most comforting truths that there is.

lock up
when anyone
seems

particularly disappointed
or demanding with me
not ideologically, but
in tone intensity,
conversing
forcefully

either I
turn off, go numb, freeze
taken over by survival mode

or I fight err flight it
usually trying to fly
with some fight
as I navigate
the exit

my 18-pound shewolf triggers me:
all barkybarkbark wanting things -
like ******* carrots after dinner,
and if I don't get them at first yip,
she insists, paws, jumps, getting
all super-***** indignant
(kind of adorably)

sometimes, I keep giving in
and get them (repeatedly)
because I'm a pushover

sometimes, I block her out
until she goes full self-righteous
and I feel bullied, get up and go
into the other room to breathe
and stop shaking

sometimes, I can extradite myself
before it gets all fullreactivejacket
like when my brother (drunkenly)
told me he didn't want my son
around his, because I told him
Santa is just a cultural myth
that we pretend for fun
when he asked

apparently, I'm an *******
for making decisions for my kid
that I'm comfortable with, not him,
and thinking there's way more magical
**** in this world to be excited about
than a random fat man breaking and
entering your house to bring presents
as long as you leave him cookies...

I have a mouth on me, but I try
not to use it, because I am
quite accurate in aim
and loaded with
cutting truth

but I
don't wanna fight
anymore

because I lived
in a war zone

in the beginning
the fights would last for
d   a   y   s

or should I say,
the raging lectures
while I tried to reason
how and why
my thoughts
differed

he always had a way
of making me feel
solely responsible
for everything

he'd go onandonandon
until I acquiesced, agreed and
promised to give in to whatever
he believed the solution to be
(usually me cutting someone
out of my life or giving up things
I thought I liked)

and if I disagreed,
or picked holes in his argument,
he would start back at the beginning, because I must not have been listening

it stopping,
and subsequent silence
was such an enormous relief -
when adrenaline stopping pumping
and I could hear myself think
just grateful and happy
to be done
with it

I would disassociate
hard

sometimes
there would be
a traumatic scene
that was quite ******
but then a few days later
I couldn't remember
what happened
but knew
it was

bad

I started writing
some of those episodes down
so I'd know what happened to me -
for future reference, that I wasn't
crazy

so, I
latched onto
the peace and quiet
while it lasted

and as his words
had less and less effect,
the more crazy he'd act
to get me
in line

once when
I did not acquiesce at all, proud
in the face of his domineering storm,
standing firm, calmly disagreeing,
stating my case matter-of-factly,
he cupped his hands over my ear
and screamed as loud as he could
rage rattling me
into tears

I wish the imprints
on my psyche faded
as fast as the bruises

I don't know if I'll ever be
completely normal

but I do know

I will try
to tread lightly
around your triggers
and not take it personally
when they inevitably
detonate

I will learn them
like I know my own
and I will understand why
you do what you do

because when I say yes,
it's going to be
to everything

beating on the rough skins
tummy to vibration ;
              the strum
                    that actions
               your cutting heart
wetting out for mammal
i clown on the drums
go to town
vetting out the taughtless thought within you
it's tough
it is trough
seeking you out
your sputting heart
a mation behind the curtain
a certainty somewhere
gulls creation
your bird of weather
your brimstone
your ***** of feather
your tell
your chore
and your wreckage yard
I pass you a code
to rive free your missive
with glee
you can mare
yawn over into public
with folds
scruff
and a sodden little battle cry

I drum for this
I drum for your honest heart
that you can be
locomotion
you can be domicile to yourself
sparkhouse