A Bus Enthusiast who piles his buses high
This has nothing to do with I
The Fishbowl King
He is just doing his thing
Buses he loves
Every bus almost to think of
Name a bus, the Fishbowl King has
He is into Music but beyond Jazz
The Fishbowl King has over 9,000 buses in his collection
Now that is something to mention
The Fishbowl King is a man on the move
It’s has buses being his mission he wants to prove
The Fishbowl King is committed to what he has established in buses
Don’t try to change otherwise
You might be in for a surprise
You may find yourself in wanting to apologize
But that I must emphasize
Yet the Fishbowl King reigns supreme
It’s those Fishbowl buses in what I mean.

I am God of the fishbowl,
Every reality past these water blurred walls doesn't concern me.
In my fishbowl I am heard,
I matter,
I make a difference,
There is a God,
There is a God,
There is a God,
I know because as I swim closer to the glass I see his face reflected back at me.

Looking out the fishbowl;
The bumbling bees, buzzing to serve the ravenous queen.

swimming through my head
searching for the words you said
sometimes upwards, you try to swim
but i’ll always push back
when you wanna dim

why you’re so far away
all these things we’ve to pay
why can’t we be together in the rain
or just somewhere else, somewhere
on a hell-bound train?

it seems that’s the place to be
at least for us, not totally free
why do we deserve this
i’m asking myself all the time,
but i know today it’s fine

you’re living in my head
and also tomorrow won´t be bad
as you keep swimming around
i´ll prove it, once i’m a fish too
i´ll prove, you’ll be found

I love the time of year, in the town where I  live,
When dark fluffy rainclouds block out the sun,
Raindrops sprinkle down in periodic fits of showers
And the colors of life look more brilliant than ever
It gives me the feeling of living in a fishbowl
The air itself seems to adopt a verdant green hue
Signaling the rainy season is in full swing.

Optics, said "the fish"
I swim
You watch
Babe
Stop looking at me
I’m busy
I don’t have time for your petting gaze
I’m working here, man
****, it’s hot in here
Fix the pump
This riveting?
I’ll tell you what's riveting
Watching you tap on the glass
Babe
Here's a bubble
You got it wrong
I'm a bird
And I'm gonna blow

yesterday, I caught my words crying
not out but within.
cryptic and concealed no more
as the rain poured up
and the ice melted shut. The muscles
isotonic strain kindles heart filled
hurtful strength as
endurance accelerates.  
Wasted ones and fives
on groped lonely women.

The ******* forgot the fishbowl
and his keys on government steps
but remembered the leaky wineglass.
Total recall enforced
the key ring's silhouette rolls on by
looking for the keys
to grab a broom and clean up this mess
of market debt and ajar markets.

Ceiling tiles mist and swirl
and wait for mercy to strike again

Bodies moving in the glass
But, alas, the snow falls
Outside the globe
Who knows?
While inside
This side, like flowing tide
Points and pirouettes
Reflect in shapes like snowflakes
More unique
A picturesque finesse
But bleaker in the light
Than under glow of moon
Because they know
The show
Lacks something from
The airport shelf
Becoming
Something greater than the self
Silent ballerinas dance
Underwater glitter
Fancier than windows taller than the sky
And why
Can't they appear
And here
We disappear
In light among shadows

the urban ecosystem
breeds the urban beast;
the two-legged feral brute

they board their clockwork motorcages
the young ones in predatious packs
the old, too weathered to care
animal autonomy
born from sweatshop routines

i imagine myself
as a metropolitan jane goodall
observing and assimilating
taking note of the cacophony of
hoots and and hollers
the city-born mating calls
the high-topped courtship dances
******* civility born from enslaved mindsets

a young, dark-skinned boy
let's rhyme flow freeformed
to the rhythm of a young girls dancing feet
stomps and claps excite the celebration
of abandoned social etiquette
and of my foreign presence

i resemble some exotic missing link
a mix of this, that and the other
my skin, a rare quilt
and this draws more attention
than a gold-dusted african queen

i place myself in the back
peering through the windows of this transit jungle
feeling my heart skip beats
boom...boom...shhhh...
i must've left my rhythm in my other heritage
because i can't catch the ancient flow
but my neck leads my head in bobs

my brain rattles with old soul memories
and i see these young folks on the train
held back by centuries of black struggle
but forever rejoicing in african pulse
forever embodying our ancestoral pride

and i think, how peculiar
on the outside looking in like a fishbowl
exiled from my own brown-skinned tribe
with my oppression fitted like a glove
my blackness a mere disguise
my blackness camouflage
my blackness
not quite
black
enough

Telling someone who was raised to believe something to be one way that it can be another, is like telling a fish in a fishbowl about the oceans and their creatures.

a ribbon of fire
a curl of lace
and your eyes swimming
in the fishbowl
of my heart

I've got a fishbowl between my shoulders
So the whole world can see inside.
They want to know what I'm thinking
And what's on my mind.
Everyone gathers around
Coming from everywhere.
But the jokes on them, you see
Because there's nothing in there.

Squeaking, the kitchen door swings, unwillingly, in its rusty bends, a nodding, a blinking of astonishment. Where did that girl go in such a sturdy stepping out? She was just sitting there, as the early sun beams poured the yellow of a dusty swirl into the fishbowl. That fishbowl! An empty globe, a void, where she choreographed reddish tailed dreams that wouldn't turn to gold. There, there she goes, in the winding road, her shaggy curls hasting in the summer blue; in her arms, with her scarf looped around it, the glassy fishbowl pulses, waving its bright red scratched tail.

we're just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl,
year after year;
running over the same old ground,
what have we found?
the same old fears,
*wish you were here...

-------------_


Sobbing into palms on the front porch.
Is this our story?
Highways, rushing speeds, is this our story?

Little Marra's wide eyed opaqueness.
Is this our story?

There's a line in a song, it's Pink Floyd, not their best song, I'm sure a Tibetan monk words it better but I'm lazy. I do not wish to search the google gods to find a deeper way to say it.
The song is "I wish you were here"
The line goes:
"We're just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year, running over the same old ground what have we found? The same old fears"

So I'm sitting on a mountain facing new realities.

Is this our life,
Layed out over the back table
like the time **** played memory games with the cards, sprawled over white plastic,
That wooden deck,
winds blowing cards into ruffets of thin air.

Is this our lives,
As we try
to apply
Ourselves to these forces before us,
As we move our bodies to rhythms
Only to deeply aware of
The disposable landscapes

Is this our earth?
As ancient hands
Let sands
Slip
Through fingertips
Is this our story?
We ask
When death rips
At family
And we run away from the emotions
Streaming from our lips.

Who are we but souls in bodies
Living out picturesque moments,
Gritty unpleasant moments
All the moments

Is this us holding hands on swing sets at twilight?
Using all our might to hold on
When the rabbit hole has opened and we're slipping down
But even when we've hit the ground
What have we found?

A million moments before us, a million shapes we mold into
Running into open blue
Unwinding into
the only thing
true
This light behind the minds eye,
Looking into you
until you
is me
is you
is we
What do you see?

Is this our lives on a standstill
Ferocious oceans
Or just moving motions
Broken down to a cell,
Is it hell,
Or heaven as well?
Whose to tell?

We just orbit somewhere between
A gazillion worlds
Trying to place it,
Trying to hold on
But this molecular wind
Is moving strong
and
We're drifting
Along
May as well sing a song
Get lost, so, so, so lost
Get found
Get wound
Unbound
Round and round

I heard a Pink Floyd song "we're just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl year after year, what have we found?"
Nothing yet everything,
so just keep on living it
(whatever IT is)
For all its glory
You get the pen,
It's your story.

I don't wish you were here
I've let myself fall
Until I'm not me at all
How can I wish when
I go swish swish
At the speed of light
Your on your own flight
Diving off the deep end,
Somehow we're still in the fishbowl
No matter how many times we roll
Out of this moat
What's it all about ?
Trying to stay afloat
Or releasing
as this boat
Rocks us deeper
And deeper into
absolute nothingness.

This is our stories

Splayed before the minds eye

So cry all you can cry

And live it for all its glory

Feel all you can feel

You get the pen,

Now write your hearts story.
------

-

Today was interesting. I primed my walls. They used to be pink. Now I'm painting them grey. This is symbolic, I think. What would the girl who picked out the pink paint ten years ago think about her choices now? I don't know. It's pointless to ask. She won't answer.

The paint can looked like my fishbowl. My fishbowl is empty now. My fish died. He was purple. Until he died. Then he was grey. I poked him with a pencil. He felt funny. Definitely dead.

The fish was purple and then grey and dead. The walls were pink and then grey. Are they dead? Is my room dead? I think it might be. Or maybe I'm dead. I don't really know.

I feel dead sometimes. Today I ate a lollipop. I think I went numb because next thing I know the lollipop is gone and so is half the lollipop stick. It tasted like cardboard. It hadn't hurt me so far so I finished eating the cardboard-flavored lollipop stick. It made my stomach feel funny. But I wasn't numb anymore.

As I fell into the immaculate spiral of being
I found, in light, the stunning sensation of meaning
I lacked only the need to articulate
For I was the Love, the Pain, the Hate.

I was rocked, gently in a morphous womb,
Swayed and cradled by the room
She held and sung me lullabies,
To my fears, I said my goodbyes.

I opened my chest like a double-door,
And absorbed the sunshine, evermore.

The firmament held
true against the
rockets sent
by man.

in the big fishbowl
even the smallest gaffe is
subject to review

I like to make lists,
of things I've lost, assignments I've missed,
Of people I want to meet.
And I admit, most of those people are poets.
And I know how typical that might seem,
aspiring poet looks to understand a greater inspiration,
be enlightened by the sound of their voice as humans,
not the voice they use on stage, a made-up persona, a super hero.
And all of that? Is true.
I want to ask questions, I want to hear about their triumphs and their regrets and try to match each one with things I've heard from other poets, relate it to myself.
I'd think maybe I can be great one day, display one of my own poems on a trophy shelf.
And for every person on that list I have another someone,
on another list labelled People I am Proud to Know.
And all of these people are poets.
People you will probably never hear of,
And if you have, you still can't possibly understand the origin of their stage names,
The inspiration for their concepts.
And I will try, with every ounce of my being to spill out the trivia into a fishbowl as if these people were goldfish. As if I could ask you to stick your hand in and try to grasp the idea in your bare fingertips with my muck of explanations as your only net.
But its hard, because not all poets have pens, not all poetry is built with words.
It is built with sweat and and laughter and pride.
In name calling I wish I could go by on stage.
There is poetry in the way she kisses her boyfriend,
There is poetry in the way Malawi still sparkles in her eyes,
There is poetry in our long nights and jokes and the way they tell me to shut up simultaneously.
There is poetry in our dances on the sand.
I will forever follow in their footsteps.
When we were little, they they used to make me cry just so they could be the ones to tell me it was okay.
There are still days I cry. There are still moments I feel homesick no matter where I am and feel like it'll only get better if they let their baby sister crawl between their sheets.
I follow in their footsteps because it makes me feel like I know where I'm going,
through sand or snow or mud,
there will always be poetry there.
I feel it. Its all I've learned to know.

My palms in my pockets jingle
the keys to my cave as I make
my way to wherever I’m going.
My legs propel me, and my feet
dodge cast-off gum and dog dung.

And on my head rests a fishbowl.

An extra load on my skull,
but I don’t mind. I rather
like this bowl. It gives me
a barrier, and though thin,
the glass has yet to crack.

I hear my voice resound,
bouncing around the tiny
space, and I smell my breath,
minty fresh and foggy, and
through the fog the world and
its creatures are phantoms.

When I’m addressed, it’s like
floating in frigid freshwater
as they call for me from
the sheet of ice above.
They suspect I’ve lost
my soul in the fishbowl,
yet as year after year
goes by, I feel just fine.

I am an astronaut taking
a space walk, drifting around
and watching the universe
unfold under a sheet of glass.

And when I close my eyes,
I am in a womb, or a coffin,
and I often can’t tell the
difference, nor find much
of a reason to tell.


-
by Aleksander Mielnikow

I get the hunch that the ashes of kindergarten,
Lunchboxes, the national anthem
Are floating from the edge of us
So many sophomore stars from a cigarette’s tip,

Somewhere down the mountain we lost our winter coats
And bicycle summers, and plastic sailboats,
No puddles and rainboots, or slick soft dogs
And paper flowers, captured fish and frogs

We try to jump in puddles, and we float

Deep-bright and hissing in the city chill
Childhood traded for strange soft skin
Grumpy cats and boardgames for mixed drinks and casual ***
And the cicadas gaily chirping fall away like

Fishbowl-helmet astronauts, lost without gravity
Mercury, Venus, Youth,
Maturity, Jupiter, Saturn

We are never kids again,
Nor adults until we die

wait until the phone rings
and the teacher goes inside,
under the slide at Recess:
you can put your lips on mine

it's been said that a goldfish will never outgrow its bowl.

in reality, that's kid glove understanding. what happens is the buildup of hormones and other toxic secretions in the water first stunts the fish, then eventually kills it.

see, i could have started this off with: it's been said that a goldfish will never outgrow its bowl. maybe that's what happens to people in small towns— and that might have been a good hook, but it would have also been intellectually dishonest.

and i've always valued honesty—in theory, anyway. it's in practice when things start to tangle, but i suppose that's how it tends to go for everybody else too.

i’m not sure how artists have the patience
to sculpt marble slabs into gods
or why they feel it’s worth their time

but i do know that
the nights i stay up until 3 a.m. are usually the worst
and the mornings i wake up at 8 a.m. are usually the
best

and that it’s worth the money to buy a decent mattress
instead of losing sleep on fiscal responsibility
and i feel grown-up having wrapping paper in my closet
and extra birthday cards in my desk

and i might always be crazy
always holding on to pieces of the past
tacking them to my bedroom walls
and pretending it’s okay that i still think about it all

but i won’t forget that some people are brave enough
to put on big white suits and fishbowl helmets and leave
their families to go walk on the moon
or that i flew on a plane by myself even though i was
absolutely petrified of being alone in the sky
or that spring exists,
and that winter cannot, and will not, last forever