have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?

Once, upon a place
There was a fisherman
He had a river
Of his own
He had
Ten or twelve fishhooks
Of his own

And he had….
Are you listening?

So, he had…
A river
Fishhooks
But then....
Listen listen

He didn’t have
Fishes
Of his own

Every morning
He would go to the riverside
Clean the fishhooks
And call the fishes
Beckoning to them.

Soon, it’ll be noon
Evening
And then night.

Poor fellow

None of them
Were his
None of them
Heeded  him.

I have heard him
Address them
“Vave”
In desperation

Have seen his
Tear flooded
Fondness
Permeate  
The river

I feel sorry
For him.


Translator : Shyma P

the limelight is bitter like scurvy's cure
and yet I still reach for the plastic crown

the camera flash burns purple circles behind my eyelids
my finger twitches under the weight of the promises told with
crossed fingers in everyone's eyes

fishhooks tear my face and force the smile
skin taut and reaching for their arms
a touch an embrace
anything

why are computer screens so cold
the light bouncing off my crown
and into my eyes

so hungry

A firetruck races past the isolate Blue Fox and infinity. Dulcimer clatters fading brickwork on the cross markets and churches where blind men are the imagining heaven. Luminescent Volcanic leaves heated from sunfire beautiful in the Spring choke lanes which are battered by abstract cavern homes. What happened to the Orient Harpsichord Serenity? Where does the Blue Fox go? Incense Markets Sauna with Smoke are busy in Denpasar while I'm here at a North American shopping mall where Ivory Columns cradled in violet fauna do wait sturdy and enchanted in rows.
Here I'm waiting by the leather clay shade bench in silent meditation breathing community whispers and listening clear to water pour from the lionhead fountain. Parrots caw atop a wide gated ceiling facing Empyreus.

There is a fire in America. The Blue Fox is hidden beneath firs and palms bathing in humidity. The Blue Fox is writing prophecies of economic collapse and rampant pointless murders making the newspapers. Ash storms blazing while banana painted trucks row on row attend to Victorian wood panels cooling to onyx powder in too short a time. There is no room for learning when The End Times go too quickly.
I'm listening to Bob Dylan scream instrumental prayer on harmonica rough against my ears. The Blue Fox treads February Beaches a few hundred miles from Australia and whistling the words of flowers in his head. He chews on wheatgrass jangling change in his fur pockets like those cartoons. He is the vision of Bohemia, he is an active star dazzled in this beguiled galaxy, yet in his spine he carries the turmoil doppleganger kept by all and known by none.
The firetrucks are doing all they can to quell the lung-poison vase boiling an apartment dancing inside but it continues to grow in its enraged fury.

There's a fire in America boys and girls, come around and see.
Canoes of memorial gold row through oppression and genocide, the Inuits and First Peoples of ancient years are wondering too where the blue fox went when agony cries the air. Stories of wisdom replaced with stories of war. Balaclavas labyrinthine through  exotic Bazaars thick with music and plants hanging off fishhooks and brass coat hangers while I write and dream of such Valhallas in my shopping mall on a quiet afternoon.
Bill is playing the banjo with faded paint and a single broken string, there he is on Yates! Cowboy hat made of charcoal velvet holding a meager collection of change.  
Stephen Schizophrenia is lying on his back watching aluminum kingdoms hover on by expanding nimbus clouds. He has eleven dollars to his name along with a damaged half torn belt with his initials engraved on the buckle  He taps his feet to Edith Piaf howling "La Vie En Rose" while an Airplane collides with his sacred personal aluminum palace, suddenly he can't block out the repressed memories he's fought decades to hide deep and dark in his bleak jazz enthralled brains.

Maybe we're all supposed to fall apart. Maybe we're designed to hurt and cause hurt. Where is that ****** Blue Fox? He's ebullient, thoughts fragmented in sharp bliss glass cutting him through while he rolls around the sands catching Buddha particles in his paws digging holes on Kuta Beach to his Idyllic land where happiness is forever and therefore false.

The Blue Fox falls in love overwhelming with everybody and every soul. So many souls by the billions every place! Even the tyrants. Even the demons. Even the necrophiliac scoring an OD'd brunette at twenty six from Anaheim who collapsed flatlined by prescriptions on a 3rd floor Complex.
He adores the narcissist who loves everybody as fully as The Blue Fox as long as they are herself. She is the harmonic untainted flytrap unaware of its own venomous nature but jealous of Summer and jealous of those whose names are heralded through generation to generation.
He adores The addict who is hollow of everything but the ****** sizzling under his patchy skin while he sinks from divinity swelling through his heart. He smiles while the remaining light dies inside him, left with only the regret remedies of suicide.
He adores The artist who fled to the big City and became nothing but watered down pigment after the Capitalists tossed him off the nearest skyscraper shouting pretentious metaphors.

The Blue Fox loves them all! He has no concept of the corrupt, or the lazy, or the greedy and needy and crazy and forgotten. They are all equal to him! The Blue Fox is knelt on paisley carpet smooth and spectacular! His regular India ashram, uplifting his body and his mind. The blue fox knows no doubt. Or anxiety, frailty or tears. He has no impulse or desire. The Blue Fox is joy in form and breathing spectrums of color mixing to combinations we cannot perceive.

There is a fire in america. It rages on unstoppable. It engulfs countries thousands of miles and histories away. It swallows the morning, noon and night. It protrudes disease in its wake. It heats up the ozone layer allowing radiation to make us more than cancer the zodiac. It causes our terror. It blots out our ardor. It havocs our heroes. Nothing is clean anymore. There is a fire in America.

And America is the world!  I'm watching out the front doors of this shopping mall where an elderly man trips at the food court escalator and becomes more renowned with every lethal collision down the tiles of freedom. Paramedics arrive shortly after and attend to another scalded by that same fire.
Up and up it goes!

Lip locking over the fishhooks in our cheeks.
I would have bled for you
Even if you never asked me to.
You love feels less like torture
And more like a special type of ****,
A type that transcends a fleeting ****** high.
You keep me high.

We are poisoned harpoon heads
Biting into each other’s flesh.
We are swords clashing in battle.
We are refracting magnets,
Opposing armies holding atomic bombs
On our tongues.

My ribcage is Hiroshima.
Your hands are Nagasaki.
When we come together we make Chernobyl.
Your radiation setting my broken bones.

I just can’t get enough of your
Post apocalyptic voice singing funeral songs
Over the snapping of embers.
Your teeth clacking together like wind chimes
Reminds of the steady pop-pop-pop of machine guns.
Your eyes are the barrels of snipers.

We love in red and black,
Black and blue.
We love in cracking knuckles.
Scars like constellations telling lost stories in the sky,

You reminded me of a vampire
With the way you licked the blood from my lips.
You told me I was the sweetest thing
You’ve ever tasted.
A raspberry in a basket of blackberries.
We just can’t shake this red and black haze.

Remember when you tore my vocal cords
Out of my throat with your teeth?
Remember when I screamed horror movie
‘I love you”s into your mouth?
Remember how it echoed until you swallowed it
Along with my bleeding heart?

You left me ****** and broken,
Do you remember?
Do you remember your baseball bat arms
Breaking my ribcage?
Committing the burglary?
Do you remember the lacerations?
The scabs blooming in the shape of chrysanthemums?

Our love is a car crash.
Crazy and messy and deadly and sad.
But we just can’t look away,
Just can’t walk away.
Our love put me in the hospital
And I’m happy to pay the bills

Give me another sweetwater afternoon
That tastes of onion grass and birth
And doesn’t care where you take a leak,
Give me the safe and warm provincial air
Coming from the west like a beggar
on a box car,
Give me the humidity that blots out the June-day sun
While we think ***** thoughts
On my couch,
Give me the opportunity to exchange blows with Johnny Rebel up the street
And his grandday’s probably rolling
In his grave,
Give me the hicks I rolled with for laughs before they married too early
So they can ride around on bikes with me
Like we did when the world was ours,
Give me a couple more days in the acrid Juniata
So I can dive in its sloppy green body
With reckless abandon,
Give me fishhooks in my heel
So I can pull them from my nakedness
And get Amish-made whoopee pies after the tears stop,
Give me moss covered roofs and tons of **** in the backyard
And the idle lap of water beneath the trout-boat’s belly
While I tell myself I’m not a redneck to my sunburned chest and my open flannel.

Rucksack – Duffle bag – Backpack
                       Packed
Note books – Journal books – Poetry books
                    Book books
Tin cans – Pots and pans
         First aid – Survival kit
Complete with fishhooks, fishing line,
            Lighter, matches
  of the waterproof kind
                 Even a sewing kit
                                        Equipped
With extra sewing needles,
                       black thread, safety pins,
          Buttons,
                         Band-aids, gauze,
                antiseptics,
                        Burn cream
Just in case
                  it's ever needed
      Bucket hat Stuffed
              down somewhere deep
A handkerchief –
                          bandana too
      Flannels and sweater
                                       For cool weather
Tennis shoes
          For when hiking boots
     Get too hot
               A few days worth of food
     Vegetarian – salmon jerky – chocolate protein bars
                            Sleeping bag rolled tightly
            All slung heavily over my shoulder

“One fast move or I’m gone”
           Kerouac once said
   As he tried to run away from
     Crashing waves of stardom
        I just want to get away
      From crashing city noise
            And live life like a
              Dharma ***

Here’s to the boy
who waited for a girl
on his front door step
until she came home
after leaving without sound

Here’s to the girl
who has to hide her urges
behind a glass door
the strength to put down the razor
after shaving her legs

Here’s to the girl
who receives deluded comments
on the length of her skirt
from her own mother

Here’s to the boy
who didn’t have a father growing up
but is teased
because he’s more comfortable being friends with girls

Here’s to the girl
who finds solace
in people who are temporary

Here’s to the boy
that doesn’t feel safe
in his own home

Here’s to all the kids
who have been told it is wrong to feel
the way they feel
like our emotions are fishhooks
that need to be
reeled in

Here’s to you
Here’s to me
Here’s to anyone who has ever had
their heart crushed beneath the heel
of someone they loved

You are loved
You are important
You’ve made it this far
and you can make it even farther
have strength
and

Here’s to you

[ as the knot finds the noose, the night ]

full of dead Aprils and lilac fumes, marjoram rhinestones and the ****** cinders of delight
over charmed by lightning, nocturnal passions of a dire hope suspended in hopeless plight

ornate cups as fragile as a poisonous thought made of human love
sworn enemies sipping tea from intangible ceramics, their black silk gloves
gleaming in the twilight apocalypse of surrender, at war with wisdom
in mad gardens of eden,
two dragons horde stars enough to confound astronomy
and arguments
that hold for every possible lie, sustaining the hypotheses of heaven
in orbit of a void
a lush velvet, gaping maw at the center of faith
and our kites, tethered to the follicle of our I

[ as the knot finds the noose, the night ]

surrounding the red apples of forbidden things, clinging to a fork, branching off from the center
of non local truth... a tremor in the force that sings the Universe into question,
but never into being

our magnificence, savoring sweet Life, smitten by meaningless miracles, as befit a fools indifference
to Reality... our long wings on specks of dust
amuse the blizzard of unknown laws, and yet we persist in beauty and susurrus

the rustle of angels on fishhooks
as we reel in the big
One.       [ Divided ]

that’s her. the patron saint of gluing words together with chewed pieces of gum. feeding the public with consumable bites of confusion. saint dipped in jewel tone yellow. consistently writing notes to what she believes in. blessed and consecrated into siren lights. crows feet dragging along the sides of scrap metal. a cartoon closet with the inability to settle. fisherman’s sweaters that owe the intended man a blistered *******. black night gown thrown out an open window. velvet second skin rubbing the walls of mountain homes. the patron saint of birthday candle wax blowing through strips of hair. scaring away bits of violet holy air.

the cherub in the corner ******* on bits of blonde boy’s fingertips. she prances numb toes over bike spokes. wings are tattooed on her back to combat numerical rebellion. logic climbs spine as she tries to change lenses. her sunset tilted on its axis. renaissance painting on fragile ceiling tiles in public bathrooms. garden party with one flower to examine. eyes vacant as to avoid witnessing rebellion. little crane holding paper organs in place. bodies of water pushed into vacant sacred space. sleeping close to statues and warming brass within. the cherub angel floats above all girls with silly sin.

the apostle tied to few words. a ghost for a mother and piece of machinery for a father. exhuming quartz from 3rd degree burns. a smile painted on a German Shepard. thrift shop candy born because of ***** quarters. heels grinding coffee grounds and unbelievable pearls from an ungraceful mouth. spitting up fishhooks into fat tire beer. the apostle staring through crosses for a year. wiping down windows with the horizon’s morning breath. pouring peroxide onto ignorant mumble of wealth and egotistical evidence.

the dove predictably flies in upper atmosphere to avoid being seen. squeezing through sharp pieces of mosaic, evading gendered fantasy. birds eye view with potential to burn. landing on rocks watching serenity waste by. most absent parade. mourning in front of an uncertain feeling’s grave. without action there is nothing there to shame. animal comrades using up his skill of throwing wires to wind and sparkling in fields. ukulele vibration uncomfortably close to ski slopes. exhausted idealism underneath of secret thunder skies and metal tube lies.

the temptation from hell’s revived angel. her fall ungracefully surpassing earth’s quivering rotation. blood reborn with rocks for teeth. soft skin easily ripped during the denial of immoral needs. bubbling rapids sailed over with caution, weighing clothes wet as a reminder. favorite songs played forward and backward. promise of vengeful bulbs lighting autumn’s vivid memories. old prose inserted into the fat of your syntax, catching and toying with the rats in your mind.  demon angel not as red in old light.

My symbols are fluid now
Here , where my days ahead are less than
The many days I've left behind.
Chains are broken and knit into my wrists
As i reach for the stars bespoke my Zodiac
I summon a swarm of loose ends
That begin with Me
And cherish everlasting, the long braids of Summer;
now derelict in the shadow fallen-
Coiled into mortal frames
Resting on fishhooks
Above the pantry of my feast
Of Hours.

I long for the turn of the *****
And the hothouse Orchids of my dim horizon.
The carnal hope, throbbing in my skull
As i awaken the giants i have slain
For their off wit and plain speech.

I return to the calm in my cliffnotes
That capture the purity of my bewilderment
And the honest scope of my Heart.
I go wherever the charm is broken
And mend the Angels there
That have fallen.
I choose to Live. And serve the Dust
A Cup of Sea.

mass grave of wasted days
outer reaches of meaningless ***
system of grand ideas amounting to
            0
dead heat of futility
thought migrating out of the confines of the human brain
endless reduplication of signs signifying
            **** all
black hole of love
commodities on all sides
lonely ecstasy
appearing without being
fishhooks of want
time without number
number without form
substance rotted from the inside
boredom
            filling interstices of voids

and you, if you, always
            somehow
untouched by these pallid things

keep on your seeking
            if you can,
o joy, go on, if you can

look at me ******
i am the festering wound
of an abused child
forced to grow up too soon
thrown into adulthood
with nothing but the scars on my arms
and the mean words that you
drilled into my brain
bouncing around the walls of my skull
maybe a drill-bit to the temple
would make them cut it
the **** out
but it would probably be easier
to muster up the guts
to ask my mother
why she resents me so

and my ribs are nothing
but another cage
keeping my heart from leaping out
of my chest
of exploding into a better life
a life without you in it
because *******
twelve years old is way too young
to start cutting myself
i was too naive to even know
or understand that death was
the end of all ends
but now i understand it
all too well
spend my nights
restless in my sweat and blood stained sheets
blankets kicked to the floor
the want to die
the need to feel
those clammy hands wrapped around your throat
long fingers digging into scarred flesh
pulling you into the dirt
with the promise that you will never
have to open your eyes into this nightmare
again

and can you really blame
me for wanting it to
end this way
i always said that i was going to
go out with a bang
but ******
i clipped my wings for you
pushed the fishhooks of your
hugs and goodnight kisses
deep into my feet
through my wiggling toes
rooted myself to the ground
endured it so that you would
leave my little sister alone

what i had was no
childhood it was a ****-poor
excuse for a place to call home
and ****** it still is
but when you look at me
all you see are my flaws
but have you ever stopped to
look in a mirror
because i can assure you
it is not my face that you will find
staring out at you

and i think that
choking down the brightly colored tacks
handful by handful
would be less painful
than you telling me what a failure i am
but i don’t know how to make you understand
when you have known nothing
but a mother and father’s love
it is hard to be shunned by your own family
and i just want it to end
but can you really blame me

look at me goddamit
i am nothing but a walking sore
an open and weeping wound
instead of tears
pus and blood drip down my cheeks
still i paint you the same word
over and over
sorry sorry sorry sorry
i just want you to love me
why do you hurt me so

look at me ******
i am a poster-child
for a missing childhood
because cruel words
and the coldness of soap
bars and liquid
the growing amount of cuts
now faded scars
but still there forever
are all that i know
all that my mother gave me
my self-hatred and destruction are
the blanket i wrap myself in at night
cry into my pillow
so you won’t hear my sobs
and find another reason
to bring out your claws

Someone broke my best friend’s heart.
They’d been together throughout the entire lock-down.
And even though it looks like we’re entering a freer time,
he said it felt like she’d become part of the claustrophobia.

Explanations can snag on nerves like fishhooks.

I forgot how empty you feel.
how incomplete.
how utterly alone and misplaced.
how everything comes back in a flash
and before you can reach for your lines
you've been swallowed in compressing darkness;
breathing lung-fulls of tar and tearing at old wounds.
the scents make your hands tremble,
the buildings, your legs weaken.
the flash of red hair and familiar curving nose
plucking at your mind with razor'd fishhooks.
oh misery, oh woeful rains,
to think I'd almost let you alone.

I stepped out into the air and pulled the ground up really fast
I fished for concrete
And happiness filled me when the rough stone hit my bones
I laughed like I had fishhooks in the corners of my mouth
Almost , almost but not really
I'm happy I found the concrete under my face, life popped the gun and I ran the race
Now I'm tired and done trying
I can see how small every single one of us is
How do we have the audacity to call ourselves big?
Is this the world we wanna text in?
Right cause thats all we do
I'm glad that I found the concrete
I'm glad I stepped out into the air and pulled the ground up really fast

no one understands that I have nothing to gain
no one understands how it feels to slowly go insane
to have panic attacks so bad that I can't breathe
no one understands the pain I feel in my chest
Like I'm infested with a disease
diseases ****
No one understands the tears that fall down to the floor
until I can't cry anymore
My eyes are drained just like my soul
my soul is a hole, a pitch black hole in the universe that can't be filled with love
its too scared of love, I'm too scared of love
I find myself on the ground with a bottle of pills in my hand
Pills that I took like tic tacs
now the clock tic tacking away until the day..is gone
They will scream and they'll ask me why I did it
and I will smile like I have fishhooks in the corners of my mouth
i will tell them it's okay to fly into the sky with fearless wings
the scars on my arms will tell the story they are so curious about
my scars will tell them how my life is like a personal hell
I never got to choose to either live or die
I never got that choice
I'm in so much pain
18 years worth of pain is unbearable and yet here I am
I am a burden to the people around me
I want it to be over

Tough guy I am not
but im not too bad at tying knots
missing methods to cope with
all these morbid thoughts.
"this sinking feeling sinking in again, no matter what I try"
Still can't help but want to die.
I shy away from blades
as sharp thoughts edge closer
I'm closer to the edge but it all seems dull and pointless.
Apathy runs through me like
the bang I drank,
hoisting the corners of my mouth in a twisted smile as if on fishhooks held high by society's hand.
Forcing the young puppet to dance.
Find a girlfriend buy new pants.
Live laugh love and believe in romance,
but romantic notions make me natious.
Stop the ride I wanna get off it
just let me crawl inside my coffin
swimming in my feels like a depressed dolphin
see, world's just as dark as it seems. Take off your glitter and see what I mean.

I didn't know
By teaching things
Of salvation and of death
I would be tossed
Into such a state
No wonder I'm a mess.

How dare I contemplated the Lord
As if He told me to?
How dare I teach the ways of God
To those unwanting few?

It's said thoughts of suicide
Can accompany prelest
And I saw the damage the demons caused
When I decided to speak.

I know now what I've said
I've only learned from books
That's why my mind is troubled so
Plagued with Hell's fishhooks.

I need to fight back the thoughts
That well up in my head
I need to fight the demons back
Unless I'd find me dead.

Suicide, depression, please spare me, please.
I just want a single day of release
I would like to not feel like sleeping all day
And I want to win my life back.

But, alas, I chose my fate
And now I've got to heal my mind
I feel like dying, I cannot see
The light that I once had