1.
From my
uneasy bed
at the L’Enfant,
a train's pensive
horn breaks the
sullen lullaby of
an HVAC’s hum;
interrupting the
mechanical
reverie of its
steadfast
night watch,
allowing my ear
to discern
the stampede
of marauding
corporate Visigoths
sacking the city.

The cacophony
of sloven gluttony,
the ***** songs of
unrequited privilege
and the unencumbered
clatter of radical
entitlement echoes
off the city’s cold
crumbling stones.

The unctuous
bellows of the
victorious pillagers
profanely feasting
pierces the
hanging chill
of the nations
black night.

Their hoots
deride the train
transporting
the defeated
ghosts of
Lincoln’s last
doomed regiments
dispatched in vain
to preserve a
peoples republic
in a futile last stand.

The rebels have
finally turned the tide,
T Boone Pickett’s
Charge succeeds,
sending the ravaged
Grand Army of the
Republic sliding
back to the Capitol,
in savage servility,
gliding on squeaky
ungreased wheels
ferrying the
Union’s dead
vanquished
defenders to
unmarked graves
on Potters Field.

The Rebels
joyous yell
bounces off
the inert granite
stones of the
soulless city.

The spittle
of salivating
vandals drips
over the
spoils of war
as they initiate the
disassemblage,
the leveling and
reapportionment
of the grand prize.

The clever
oligarchs
have laid claim
to a righteous
reparation
of the peoples
assets for
pennies on the
dollar.

Their wholly
bought politicos
move to transfer
distressed assets
into their just
stewardship
through the
holy justice
of privatization
and the sound
rationale of
free market
solutions.

In the land of the
pursuit of property,
nimble wolf PACs
of swift 527, LLCs
have fully
metastasized
into personhood;
ascending to
the top of the
food chain in
America’s
voracious
political culture;
bestriding
the nation to
compel the
national will
to genuflect
to the cool facility
of corporate
dominion.

As the
inertial ******
of the plaintive
locomotive
fades into
another old
morning of
recalcitrant
Reaganism,
it lugs its
ambivalent
middle class
baggage toward
it’s fast expiring
future.

I follow
the dirge
down to
the street
as the ebbing
sound fades
into the gloom
of the
burgeoning
morning,
slowly
replacing the
purple twilight
with a breaking
day of cold gray
clouds framing
silhouettes of
cranes busily
constructing
a new city.

The personhood of
corporations need
homes in our new
republic; carving
out new
neighborhoods
suitable for the
monied citizens
of our nation.

First amongst
equals, the best
corporate governance
charters form
the foundation of
the republic’s
new constitution.
Civil rights
are secondary
to the freedom
of markets; the
Bill of Rights
are economically
replaced by the
cool manifests
of Bills of Lading.

The agents of
laissez faire
capitalism
nibble away
at the city’s
neighborhoods
one block at a time;
while steady winds
blows dust off
the National Mall.

Layers of the
peoples plaza are
plained away with
each rising gust.  

History repeats
itself as the Joad’s
are routed from their
land once again.

A clever
mixed use
plan of
condos and
strip malls
is proposed
to finally help the
National Mall
unlock its true
profit potential.

As America’s
affection for
federalism fades
the water in
the reflection pool
is gracefully drained.

We the people
can no longer
see ourselves.

The profit
potential of
industry is
preferred over
the specious
metaphysical
benefits
of reflection.

The grand image,
the rich pastiche,
the quixotic aroma
of the national
melting ***
is reduced to the
sameness of the
black tar that lines
the pool and the
swirling eddies of
brown dust circling
the cracked indenture.

From his not so
distant vantage point,
Abe ponders the
empty pool wondering
if the cost of lives
paid was a worthy
endeavor of preserving
the ****** union?  
Has the dear prize
won perished from
this earth?

Was the illusive
article of liberty  
worth its weight in
the blood expended?

Did the people ever
fully realize the value
of government
by the people,
for the people?

Did citizens of
the republic
assume the
responsibilities to
protect and honor
the rights and privileges
of a representative
government?

Now our idea
and practice of
civil rights is measured
and promoted as far as
it can be justified by
a corporate ROI, a
shareholder dividend,
an earmark or a political
donation to a senators
unconnected PAC.

The divine celestial
ledgers balancing
the rights and
privilege of free people
drips with red ink.  

Liberty, equality
fraternity are bankrupt
secular notions
condemned as
expensive
liberal seditions;
hatched by
UnHoly Jacobins,
the atheist skeptics
during the dark times
of the Age of Enlightenment.

Abe ponders
the restoration
of Washington’s
obelisk, to
repair the cracks
suffered  from
last summer’s
freak earthquake.

I believe I detect
a tear in Abe’s
granite eye
saddened by the
corporate temblors
shaking the
foundations
of the city.

2.

The WWII Memorial
is America’s Parthenon
for a country's love
affair with the valor
and sacrifice of warfare.

WWII forms the
cornerstone of
understanding the
pathos of the
American Century.

During WWII
our greatest generation
rose as a nation to
defeat the menace of
global fascism and
indelibly mark the
power and virtue of
American democracy.

As Lincoln’s Army
saved federalism, FDR’s
Army kept the world safe
for democracy.

Both armies served
a nation that shared
the sacrifice and
burden of war to
preserve the grace of
a republican democracy.

Today federalism
crumbles as our
democracy withers.

The burden
of war is reserved
for a precious few
individuals while
its benefits
remain confined to
the corporate elite.

Our monuments
to war have become
commercial backdrops
for the hollow patriotism
of war profiteers.

We have mortgaged
our future to pay
for two criminal wars.

The spoils of
war flow into the
pockets of
corporate
shareholders
deeply invested
in the continuation
of pointless,
destructive
hostilities.

Our service
members who
selflessly served
their country come
home to a less free,
fear struck nation;
where economic
security and political
liberty erodes
each day while the
monied interests
continue to bless
the abundance
of freedom and riches
purchased with the
blood and sweat
of others.

America desperately
needs a new narrative.

The spirit of the
Greatest Generation
who sacrificed and met
the challenge of the 20th
Century must become
this generations spiritual
forebears.

The war on terror
neatly fits the
the corporate
pathos of
militarism,
surveillance
and the sacrifice
of civil liberties
to purchase
a daily measure
of fear and
economic
enslavement.

It must be rejected
by a people committed
to building secular
temples to pursue
peace, democracy,
economic empowerment,
civil liberties and tolerance
for all.

Yet this old city
and the democratic
temples it built
exulting a free people
anointed with the
grace of liberty
is being consumed
in a morass of
commercial
polyglot.

3.

During the
War of 1812
the British Army
burned the
Capitol Building
and the White House
to the ground.

Thank goodness
Dolly Madison saved
what she could.

The new marauders
are not subject to the
pull of nostalgia.  

They value nothing
save their
self enrichment.

They will spare nothing.

Our besieged Capitol
requires Lincoln’s troops
to be stationed along the
National Mall to defend
the republic.

The greatest peril
to our nation
is being directed
by well placed
Fifth Columnists.

From the safety
of underground bunkers,
in secure undisclosed
locations within the city’s
parameters, a well financed
confederacy employing  
K Street shenanigans
are busy selling off
the American Dream
one ear mark
at a time, one
huge corporate
welfare allotment
at a time.

The biggest prize
is looting the real
property of the people;
selling Utah,
auctioning off
the public schools,
water systems, post offices
and mineral rights
on the cheap
at an Uncle Sam
garage sale.  

The capitol is
indeed burning
again.

Looters are
running riot.

The flailing arms
of a dying empire
fire off cruise
missiles and drone
strikes; hitting the
target of habeas
corpus as it
shakes in its
final death rattle.
I make a pilgrimage
to the MLK Jr.
Monument.

Our cultural identity
is outsourced to
foreign contractors
paid to reinterpret
the American Dream
through the eyes
of a lowest bidder.

MLK has lost
his humanity.

He has been
reduced to a
a Chinese
superhuman
Mao like anime
busting loose from
a granite mountain while
geopolitical irony
compels him to watch
Tommy Jefferson
**** Sally Hemings
from across the tidal
basin for all eternity.  

MLK’s eyes fixed in
stern fascination,
forever enthralled
by the contradictions
of liberty and its
democratic excesses
of love in the willows
on golden pond.

Circling back to
Father Abraham’s
Monument,  I huddle
with a group of global
citizens listening
to an NPS Ranger
spinning four score
tales with the last full
measure of her devotion.

I look up into Abe’s
stone eyes as he
surveys platoons
of gray suited
Chinese Communist
envoys engaged
in Long Marches
through the National Mall;
dutifully encircling cabinet
buildings and recruiting
Tea Party congressmen
into their open party cells.

This confederacy
is ready to torch
the White House
again.

Congressmen and
the perfect patriots
from K Street slavishly
pull their paymasters
in gilded rickshaws to
golf outings at the Pentagon
and park at the preferred
spots reserved for
the luxury box holders
at Redskin Games.

They vow not to rest
until the house of the people
is fully mortgaged to the
People’s Republic of China’s
Sovereign Wealth Fund.

4.

A great
Son of Liberty like
Alan Greenspan
roundly rings
the bells of
free markets
as he inches
T Bill rates
forward a few
basis points
at a time; while
his dead mentor
Ayn Rand
lifts Paul Ryan
to her
Fountainhead teet.
He takes a long
draw as she
coos songs
from her primer
of Atlas Shrugged
Mother Goose tales
into his silky ears.

The construction
cranes swing
to the music
building new private
sector space with
the largess of
US taxpayers
money; or
more rightly
future generations
taxpayer debt.

Libertarians,
Tea Baggers, Blue Dogs
and GOP waterboys
eagerly light a
match to the
the crucifixes
bearing federal
social safety
net programs
to the delight
of NASDAQ
listed capitalists
on the come,
licking their chops
to land contracts
to administer
these programs
at a negotiated
cost plus
profit margin.

Citizens
dependent
on programs
are leery
shareholders
are ecstatic.

To be sure
our free
market rebels
don disguises
of red, white
and blue robes
but their objectives
fail to distinguish
their motives and
methods with
some of the finest
Klansman this
country has
ever produced.

5.

DC is a city
of joggers
and choppers.

Corporate
helicopters
wizz by the
Washington
Monument,
popping erections
for the erectors
inspecting the progress
of the cranes
commanding the
city skyline.

USMC drill team
out for a morning
run circles the Mall.

The commanding
cadence of the
DI keeps us
mindful of the
deepening
militarization of
our society.

A crowd  
rushes
to position
themselves,
genuflecting
to photograph
a platoon on
the move.

I try to consider
the defining
characteristics of
Washington DC.

DC is all surface.

It is full of walls
and mirrors.

Its primary hue
is obfuscation.

Open
communication
scripted from well
considered talking points
informs all dialog.

The city is thoroughly
enraptured in narcissism.

Thankfully, one can
always capture the
reflection of oneself in
the ubiquitous presence of
mirrors.  

Vanity imprisons
the city inhabitants.

Young joggers circle the
Mall and gerrymander
down every pathway
of the city.  

They are the clerks,
interns and staffers of
the judicial, executive
and legislative branches.

They are the children
of privilege.

They will never
alter their path.

You must cede the walk
to their entitlement
of a swift comportment
or risk injury of a
violent collision.

These young ones
portray a countenance  
of benevolent rulers.  

They seem to be learning
their trade craft well from
the senators and judges
whom they serve.

They appear confident
they know what's best
for the country and after
their one term of tireless
service to the republic
they look forward to
positions in the private
sector where they will
assist corporations
to extend their reach
into the pant pockets
worn by the body politic.

6.

Our nations mythic story
lies hidden deep in the
closed rooms of the
museums lining the
Mall.

I pause to consider
what a great nation
and its great people
once aspired to.

I spy the a
suspended
Space Shuttle
hanging in dry dock
at the air and
space museum.

Today America’s
astronauts hitch
rides on Russian
rockets.

America rents a
timeshare from
the European
space agency to
lift communication
satellites into orbit.

Across the Mall
I photograph
John Smithson’s
ashes in its columbarium.  

I fear it has become a
metaphor for America’s
future commitment
to scientific inquiry
and rational secular
thinking.

I am relieved to
discover a Smithsonian
exhibit that asks
“what does it mean
to be human?”

The Origins of Humans
exhibit carries a disclaimer
to satisfy creationists.

The exhibit timidly states
that science can coexist
with religious beliefs and
that the point of the exhibit is
not to inflame inflame religious
passions but to shed light on
scientific inquiry.

I imagine these exhibits
will inflame the passion of
the fundamentalist
American Taliban and
provide yet another
reason to dismantle
the Moloch of Federalism.

The pursuit of science
remains safe at the
Smithsonian for now.

7.

Near K Street at
McPherson Park
a posse of
well dressed
lobbyists, the
self anointed
uber patriots
doing the work
of the people
stroll through
the park
boasting a
healthy population
of bedraggled
homeless.

The homeless
occupy the benches
that have been
transformed into
pup tents.

Perhaps some of
the residents of this
mean estate were
made homeless by a
foreclosed mortgage.  

The K Street warriors
can be proud that their
work on behalf of the
banking industry has
forestalled financial market
reform.  

Through it exacerbates
the homeless problem it has
allowed these K Street titans to
profit from the distress of others.

Earlier in the day
I photographed
a homeless man
planted in front of
the Washington
Monument.

I wonder
if my political
voyeurism is
an exploitation of
this man’s condition?

I have more in common
then I probably wish to
admit with my K Street
antagonists.  

In another section
of the park the
remnants of a
distressed OWS
bivouac remain.

The legions of sunshine
patriots have melted away
as the interest of the
blogosphere has waned.

As the weather
improves Moveon.org
and democratic
party operatives
pitch tents in an
effort to resuscitate
the moribund
movement.

They hope
to coop any
remaining energy
to support their
stale deception,
a neoliberal vision
based solely on the
total capitulation
to the bankrupt
corporatocracy.

I heard someone say
a campaign lasts a
season; while a
movement for social
change takes decades.

If that metric proves
correct, and if the
powers don’t succeed
in compromising the
people’s movement
I’ll be three quarters
of a century old
before I see
justice flowing like
a river once again.

8.

I circle back to
the L’Enfant and
find myself
tramping amidst
the lost platoon
of Korean War
soldiers.

My feet drag
in the quagmire
of grass covering
the feet of this
ghostly troop.

My namesake
uncle was a
decorated
veteran of this
conflict and Im
sure I detect
his likeness
in one of the
statues.

The bleak call
of a distant train
sounds a revelry
and I imagine this
patrol springing
to life to answer
the call of their
beloved country
once again.

Yet they remain
inert.  

Stuck in a
place that the
nation finds
impossible to
leave.

The eyes of the
men stare into
an incomprehensible
fate.  

They see the swarms
of Red Army infantrymen
crossing the Yellow River
streaming toward
them in massive
human waves,
the tips of
sparkling bayonets
threatening to slash
the outmanned
contingent fighting
to bits.

They are the
first detachment
to bravely confront
the rising power
of China many
thousands of
miles away
from their homes.

America like
this lone company
is overwhelmed
and lost in the
confusion
that confronts
them.

Looking up
I perceive the
bewilderment
of my muddled image
reflected on the
marble walls
surrounding
the memorial.

I am a comrade-in-arms,
a fellow wanderer sojourning
with th

A little bird tried to fly through the screen door and I thought, 'if only there were more air up here'.

The view from the second story deck encompassed miles of low scrub hills, piñon, and was daily growing less hazy as the fires subsided. The little bird was dead. Was not even twitching or rolling or whatever idiot birds do to fight or hold onto life. Or maybe it was unconscious. If it was a head impact, it could just be out cold. I could take it in for a bit, see if it revives. But the brains of birds are very small... maybe not large enough to switch out of consciousness without damaging the whole system. It could wake up brain damaged: amnesic, whistling gibberish, unable to collaborate or co-worm-locate or sit on eggs or whatever other higher functions birds perform. Angry, all the time. Likely a burden and a danger to the community. Condemned to either death or a life of lonely suffering. I'd rather not be culpable for that.

Prospective buyers are arriving at four, the realtor as well, for a tour, so I grabbed a broom and swept the quiet body into the shaggy juniper that surrounded the house. Swept up with maple leaves that had settled on the porch since this time yesterday, together a mass of decomposing matter, under the railing and into the dark.

I'd spent a lot of time alone in the house on Grand. Watched nature slowly creep through the iron fence and into the faux-pond, up under the patio bricks, purple flowered and needley plants growing taller and more hostile daily. Increasing numbers of little brown birds mistaking the reflected sunset in the plate glass doors for real sky.

"If only there were more air up here." A little joke I repeat out loud while sweeping broken bodies into shrubs. The thickest places, where they wouldn’t be seen when (if) someone ever dropped by to view the house.


I don't live here, the house is soon to be foreclosed. But a friend of mine knew I needed a place to stay and offered this, his third home, empty of everything except a coffee maker, some landscaping tools, a few boxes that had yet to be moved. I have a twin sized mattress in what must have been a child's room: a strip of Denver Broncos wallpaper runs the circumference, every other surface painted complimentary blue.


The couple arrived at five. She wears a salmon coloured shawl over a white blouse. They’re performing the theatric act of young couples in love (with the idea of a larger house): she ecstatic over the seven jets in the master Jacuzzi tub, he hesitant about the people-paths in the wall-to-wall-carpet, the everpresent pastels we know were once in vogue but will take weeks and at least two layers of base to fully eradicate. It’s the realtor’s job to showcase the place but I often stand outside the plate glass windows of the living room, keeping an eye. Playing the role of groundskeeper because hitchhiker is so much less glorious.

So far it’s been the same. Always she with a genuine smile that will be gone forty minutes after she’s left the driveway. He, always in t-shirt and “trying to be casual” jacket calculating the square footage of each room, the viability of the fireplace. Opening cabinets, but not concerned with storage space. He wants to see if the brass hinges really have brass pins. Is it wood, linoleum? Look closely at his eyes and watch them dance across a virtual blackboard, adding up the gallons of primer and paint needed to cover up the colour mistakes of a before-his-decade.

  2

You can almost watch his eyes dart across the blackboard. A house is a house but the home must be shredded, burned, before making it yours.


But they all do this. A dozen or so now, this summer. And I spend a lot of time alone. Injecting my thoughts into people who think they know what they need next, before getting in a small car and checking out a properly closer to town. Making little jokes to myself as I sweep the porch. The isolation even maybe altering small parts of my self. The social parts, perhaps. I feel good, most days, but find myself repeating the same phrases: “****. Shower. Shave”, “If only there were more air up here.”, “I could learn to love a leopard”, even recently a little Old Testament, which like a ******* I’ve been taking to bed with increasing frequency and a growing selfish guilt, repeating,

“As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.”


They won’t be back, but for the first time now there’s a deer in the yard. Meaning there must be a hole in the fence. A doe, and fawn too, and I can sit and stare with my broom in hand because my job is to sweep the deck. Dead birds and maybe rats, leaves of course, but with all the water the bank is wasting on this waste of a lawn, come deer: come all ye deer, come and eat. Maybe you will even eat the frighteningly thistly things. Regardless, in exchange for this room I was given a broom and deer are far too large to sweep.



When my student visa expired in Canada I left the country with no identification, five Canadian dollars, a five litre backpack mostly occupied by a camera, and in my mind some distillation of the romanticism from On The Road that I’d managed to power-read in a Heathrow bookstore four years before (lacking the pounds to actually purchase the book). I crossed the border via ferry, and entered the country without identification. I thought this was impossible but it turns out that when you have no time but your whole future ahead of you, and nowhere to get to anyway, insisting “I am a U.S. citizen and you need to let me into this country” does in fact work, if you repeat it enough, and are willing to wait. In my case border patrol even gave me a twenty note and a pat on the back before sending me on my way.


How I ended up sitting on the floor watching birds die, backlit by a desert sunset, in the mountains of New Mexico, is a long story, and to be honest the details have largely escaped me. I do remember I was reading Hemingway. “The Innocents Abroad”, and trying to find myself in any character I could lay my hand on. The word “Innocent” in the title, I suppose, far moreso any actual character, struck the most.


It’s the middle of The Great Recession. Or The Great Depression. The Great Compression. I can’t remember any longer which economic period this particular episode occupied (why can’t they name them more sensibly, like hurricanes?) Call it, then, The Great Introspection, as I narrated myself through the dozen rooms of a million-dollar house: the material self still alive and thriving inside in a self-congratulatory spiral over the personal ROI that left Canada on five dollars and put me, rent free, in a home worth that multiplied 200,000 times. The home where I first had my own key. The home where I learned to drink a glass of water before my morning coffee.

(Five years and $98,000 in college expenses later that was, easily, the best advice I’ve ever received.)


Eventually the phone was disconnected, the water, the power. The jacuzzi, though dry, was still a good place to lie and read. And the piñon and snakes, cacti and juniper, then inklings of pine trees came in steadily. When you would look at them they would freeze. But every morning something new was growing, some new pink flower popped up promisingly to crack the mortar in front of the door. Sweetly at first, then growing thorns, and I walking the perimeters saying “if only there were more air out here”, saying, “can not feel her anymore”, as if the decadent madness of the lawn could be silenced by speaking out loud. Trying to walk the edge of the fence, increasingly losing it in the encroaching bush, then resigning myself to the living room, the **** carpet flattening into a forest path while I impressed miles into that offensive floor.



words. seeds. thistles. marvin morales.


Sleeping on that filthy mattress, the Denver Broncos looking down, still optimistic about their upcoming trophy, or cup. Whatever it was that a bunch of cartoon horses could win. But the sweeping gave me solace, even though the growing thistles made the bricks uneven and caught in the bristles of the broom, leaving little shards of transplanted pink flowers emedded in the yellow polyethylene. I loathed them, but looking back I can see I played straight into their plan. Transplanting little seeds to new weak places in the cement, where they could grow tall again and **** up what little good was left of the land. Bring deer to eat them. Bring little idiot birds to pick the seeds out of the faeces, recycling with pure intent, and flying off into the bright light of sunset. Then crashing broken to the floor.

And like the lawn, like the porch, like what happens when you read Twain, something in me changed. “If only there were more air”, yes, but there is never enough air. Piling up among the deer, among the doe, among my now all-consuming pacing and talking to ghosts who don’t live here anymore, among the many birds who ate their worms and went on to hatch a dozen more, flew into a plate glass sunset, and were ignored.

Through the fog of disenfranchisement he emerges
Gold watch, Gold rings, Gold hair, Lead heart
He has the resources...
He knows the secret to making money
He must know how I can make that money
So I can finally be happy
As happy as I was before I knew I needed money
Unless the secret of making money is me not having it
He has the influence...
Over those with crumbling foundations of knowledge
And foreclosed homes of empathy
Their situation is dire
They need someone to admire
What channels will this river of adulation lead to, though?
Their minds sneak across the borders of fear
into paranoia
Their hearts scale the walls of love
into hatred
He has the power...
The Botanist tells the customer that the flower is actually a ****
And he must **** it
There are Bedouin villagers who know nothing of the outside world
Except for our bombs
Will the sounds of love be heard over our tanks and guns?
He has no control...
No control of the thoughts of those that live
in the shadows of uncertainty
No control over the brotherhood all men share despite our differences
He is not the sun
And time waits for nobody
And misery finds everyone no matter what
And you can burn the witch at the stake of your fears
But her banshee screams will unleash the titan of retribution
Through all this hatred
Love will save us, right?
Or is love what led us here?

Adam and Eve lived here
before she went vegan
and chomped the wrong apple
dropping them both into deep schtuck
with a difficult learning curve
before they got up to speed
as our progenitors
and began begetting.

With only two to start with
there had to have been a lot of ******
with begats here and begats there
and still, the gene pool stayed clean
without fits and starts
so there must have been a Divine Profiler
in the sky keeping the books straight
with our future at stake.

But there is a question?
In the beginning there were only two
so was Adam the midwife
and if so
where did he learn the skills
the whole midwifery bit
the gentle initial slap
to get the first wail ever on this earth

Interesting theological
and philosophical thoughts
not even thinking
about baby clothes
and the like
I suppose breastfeeding
was a must before Baby Formula

Deep thoughts for Easter

Fewer than none, less than a void
I be seedless as grocery store grapes.
Empty as the grave I have yet to be buried in.
I want
I need
I burn
I am
not done.
Not yet...
I should throw it all away
every scrap that is left
every parcel and shred of evidence
of memory
that is my enemy now.
Too close to call it a tie,
I've been foreclosed upon.
That's it, pack it up.
They're useless now
just let them die.

Motet: an unaccompanied choral composition with sacred lyrics; originated in the 13th century.  Suggestion: look up on YouTube, the Hilliard Ensemble.*  Jewish tradition says that there are 36 righteous souls on Earth, whom for their sake, God preserves the planet and its inhabitants.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Motet II

August 2013

Last night,
I lay with God,
Again.

We made love inimitable,
As if it were the first time.
The music of purity, voices ensemble,
The only commonality.

Afterwards, heaving, sweaty, in bed,
He reminded me that I had already
Written of the motet, long ago,
But permission granted to
Love it, write of it, once more,
As I He, and He, me...

Because after-all, the motet prayers belong to Him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Motet

Nov. 2010

Ce soir, I am prepared, My Love,
hopeful of being worthy,
diminished before all,
rendered and prepared,
transported and train-spotted,
prostrate and yet risen.

The motek-sweet motet wings me
heavenward to more than relief.
Grace, grace, I am both,
becoming and becalmed,
drowned and delighted,
entwined and unwound,
compost but composed,
invaded and imbued.

These voices doth
wrack my fibers,
seethe and contract,
my internal power plant
implodes, heart attack.

Glorious generations of singers,
O woven voices that harmonize,
your motet is
umbilical to my lyrical,  
calming chemical reaction,
I am servant and
you are my server,
uplift, calm and provoke me.

Sing out loud God's
ephemeral, unpronounceable name,
cover me with the fame
of His naturity,
love me with divine kisses,
release unto and within me
the essential oils,
oils by which we breathe,
ancestorally transfused,
oils once called the
blood of the soul.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In my past harmonies of poesy,
you shared, lost or just deleted,
tribute unto tribulations human:

I recorded, ven diagrammed,
sorrowed tales of souls waylaid,
debts foreclosed, dues unpaid,
tales of non-fictional agonistes,
suffering a tutti frutti of sarcastic
Earthly  Delights.

Wrote writs re some poor souls,
Prado preserved,
by threading and dying,
on a cloistered tapestry
woven by Adonai worshipers.

With those selfsame oils,
they painted anticipated memories of
Heaven and Hell,
the ones of which I write,
far too oft.

But this night,
In my customary hour
when inspiration is my only tongue,
in the lean hours after midnight,
afore dawn's orangerie of
morning skyed break fast,
I am risen, nourished and
uplifted by the motet's synthesis,
by what I hope to see,
by what I wish to hear.

For I watch,
porched and perched on rooftop,
in the company of
urban spelunkers and debunkers,
all of us desperados,
differing reasons for despair,
yet together,
a human minion-minyan of ten,
we search Jerusalem,
from the Battery to the Cloisters
for glimpses, hints of human angels,
the thirty six^
ministering to the
homeless and dreamless,
to us all.*

Ce soir, I am prepared,
hopeful of being worthy,
diminished before all,
rendered and prepared,
transported and train-spotted,
prostrate and yet risen,
the motek-sweet motet wings me
heavenward to more than relief.

Grace, grace, I am both,
becoming and becalmed,
drowned and delighted,
entwined and unwound,
compost but composed,
invaded and imbued.

Reveal, reveal to me the identity
of your ministering angels!

As the thirty six preserve me,
motet me on eagle's wings, and
return us to you Lord,
that we may be returned.

Renew our days,
as they were before,
when the motet
was bright, organic,
in each of us.






----------------------------------------
^www.neveh.org­/winston/wonder36/36-08.html

If thine eye offends thee
pluck it out....

War offends
my eye.

All my
senses
defiled
*****
disemboweled
by the
abomination
of war.

My mind
disregards
denigrates
reneges
warps time
destroys values
alters psyches
lays waste
to my
conscience
of hope.

Mine eye offends me
the complicit witness
complacently
ambivalent
turning deaf ears
to groans
of the wounded
wails of the aggrieved
silence of the dead;
shutting doors
to sanctuaries
where refugees
seek safe houses,
locking factories
where men seek work,
level homes
where women nurture,
strafe playgrounds
where children laugh,
raise cities
where people
learn to be human,
immolate mosques
where
God's Children
cry out to the
Beneficent One.

Mine eye offends me,
my gut sickens,
to witness
the slaughter
of innocents
droning on
no angels to save
the million Issac's
savagely smashed to bits
by a Tomahawk's blow.

God's vengeance
escalates
the celestial ledgers
dripping red ink
from excessive
collateral damage,
people reduced
as objects used
to secure a loan
indeed an ARM
on a real time
American nightmare
whose reset rate
is mounting body counts
and massive budget allocations
protecting undisturbed flows
of corporate profits
valued in barrels
of imported blood.

Mine eye offends me
an innocence lost
Veritas vanquished
life is devalued
humanity debased
compassion defunct
empathy a twisted satire
an indelible weakness
incidental hostage
to the torridness
of the lurid play
of savage nations
projecting will,
a devastation
of action.

Mine eye offends me
the message of
sweet Jesus
a way of light
transformed into
biblical justification
agitprop verse
stoking blood lust zeal
for apostate infidels
sons of Abraham's
unworthy spawn,
of Hagar the *****
******* child Ishmael
turned out again
from tribal tents
of an absentee father
from an unfriendly
paternity.

This black *******
an abomination
in the sight of Allah
celebrates
a zeal to ****
unholy disciples
yearning to fill
banana crates
with body parts
draped in
drab Hijabs
decorated with
satanic verses
from a
Holy Quran
carved with
bayonets
of self righteous
Crusaders
armed with rifles
inscribed with
Gospel verses
on deadly gun
barrel stocks
to ramp the passion
of the righteous Crusade
against Godless apostates.

Mine eye offends me
as I witness
the **** of
corporate mercenaries
churning bereaved
Blackwaters
beholden only
to shareholders
gobbling spoils of war
to safely exit
to private vomitoriums
to expunge the excess
of gluttony
only to
quickly return
to engorge themselves
at the public troughs
again.

No constitutional
restraints
save the
strict guidelines
of holy
corporate governance scriptures
ruthlessly enforced with
golden carrots
of multi-million dollar
stock options
and the brutal stick
of shareholders divine right
to quarterly dividends
and above average
equity returns.

Corporate warriors
anointed by
holy oil
proffered
by capitalist shamans
and US Senators
conferring
jurisprudential deferment
on civil law
recusing them from
any behavior
to recognize the humanity
of captive insurgents.

Mine eye offends me,
as the flag
draped coffins
of returning
servicemen
and women
continue to pile
on the boiling tarmac
of Dover Air Force Base.

Tearful salutes,
folded flags
and mournful dirges
of prerecorded Taps
are small compensation for
shattered families,
and a wasted life,
unnecessarily spent,
criminally sacrificed
in a pointless conflict
in service to a lie.

Mine eye offends me
as I watch
my country's soft parade
of growing militarization
xenophobic fear
compelled patriotism
salute and goose step
to the flash of sword
and the sound of guns
and the glittering
medals of valor
adorning the chests
of a nations warriors.

How barbaric
are we?
allocating
overstuffed
apportionment
of weapons
and armories
while
people are
foreclosed
forcing armies
of unemployed
Joads
to ride
en masse on
an Acela Express
to a crowded
poor house
a listless journey
on pock marked
highways
arriving at
dreaded
destinations
to defunct
townships
offering
empty factories
and closed schools.

Screaming in silence
I scratch at my eyes
with numbed fingers.

Matthew 18:9

Music Selection:
The Doors, The Soft Parade

Oakland
3/17/10
jbm

​​     I was ten years old when I wrote it.
One lone sentence. A sentence that would become my mantra; the sentence that defines my existence.

I wish I were dead.

I first wrote it in my journal. Then a couple days later, I wrote it again. Then again. And again and again and again. Until eventually, the pages had all been claimed. Each line on each page reiterated one phrase – I wish I were dead.

Although I was merely a fourth grader, this was no passing phrase (get it?). Ten years separate me from that lone sentence, yet I am ready as ever.

​I wish I were dead. I wish I were dead. I WISH I WERE DEAD.

​This is how I feel six days out of seven.
I can no longer count the number of failed attempts, the static loony-bin trips, the hospital hopping routine – a process I’ve memorized verbatim.

Can’t say how many times I’ve survived these garbage disposals for the insane.

You’d think if I really wanted to die, I’d be dead already. Yet, in a bizarre manner, not even the Grim Reaper wants me. I’ve consumed rat poison and lived, rolled my mom’s car and escaped without a scratch, tumbled from heights so high, yet – here I am.

One night, last summer, I mixed molly with coke with ****** with so much liquor – because liquor is quicker – thinking for certain I’d orchestrated my demise. Some of my friends were squatting in this foreclosed house, so there was no electricity, and I spent hours playing Sims with some girl in the dark.

Eventually, my computer died – but I didn’t.

The list goes on.

On this list, there’s one night I’ll never forget; an attempt that far outweighs the others. A night I’ll forever regret. The night I came face to face with the grim reaper, for the first and only time, and somehow turned away.

This is how it went.



​     The Last Supper was comprised of 150 assorted pills, and some secondhand Jack Daniels.
​
I ate alone. I’d exchanged dining hall for bathroom; chair for bathtub. I held one lone utensil – a razor blade – nestled safely in my hand. Cradling the blade like a child who found the cookie jar – the way my boyfriend worshiped a fresh syringe of ******; I snuggled that sacred utensil.

I failed to savor this Last Supper – for dine and dash would more appropriately summarize my actions. I ravaged the meal as a stray dog would raw meat. Gagging and choking, whilst feeling nothing at all.

All those pills, that jack, I poured into a jar and chugged like a freshman in college. (Get it?) The most unconventional supper you ever did see.

My makeshift chair filled slowly with water like concrete – and soon I’d be buried alive. So I squeezed the razor tight, pretending it was a loved one’s hand instead.

​Yet – nothing happened.

I considered my lone utensil – the blade – then laughed, and threw it aside. How high school of me – a time when I confused my wrist with a cutting-board. Oh, silly me; my insides could do the work without external additions.

​However, the nausea hit before I’d relinquished consciousness. I feared I would toss my cookies – ones stolen from the cookie jar – before they could toss me.

​An important factor to note is this was not my house. It belonged to my boyfriend’s aunt. And although she was not home – he was. Earlier, I’d thrown a knife at his head and told him I was glad Morgan died, to ensure he’d leave me be, but now I was bored and nauseous and so I got up and left the Last Supper to pursue a bad cliché I just died in your arms tonight.
​ What happened next is not important – I’ll fast-forward to what is.

The first to come was a young girl.
​She wore her blonde hair in two braids. Her tiny body, adorned in a loose, blue dress. Her feet were sheathed in neat white socks beneath modest, black slippers; slippers that matched her headband. A headband to cradle her mind.

​Her existence stupefied mine – for I knew at once who she was. And I was terrified.

This girl was coasting her eighth birthday. A birthday she’d never reach.

And yet – she was as wise as I am thin; far wiser than my nineteen-year-old self. She never spoke, but there was no need. Everyone talks, but seldom is speech genuine. Only in actions can we find the truth.

I’d waited my whole life for her. My true, beloved best friend. A girl as imaginary as could be.

Alison Wonderland.

Unfortunately, she had no intention of staying. She had no interest in my world; she’d only come to take me to hers. She’d come to take me away. Far away. Away so far I could never return.

This time – finally – I’d be gone for good.

My whole life I’d waited; now, she’d finally come. Not to join my life. She’d come to watch me die.

We both knew my lifespan would hardly outlast the hour.

Collapsed within a shower, I floundered for words. Separated from her by a mere pane of glass. She was so close. And yet, I was far from happy – I’d nearly surpassed hyperventilation. Literally stunned to death.

This beautiful angel maintained composure, however; unaltered by my frigid welcome. An unwavering smile illustrated her entire physic, whilst she offered her hand to mine – arm outstretched and waiting.

The ultimate invitation.

However, we were not alone. Not two, but three souls occupied this bathroom. The bathroom of my Last Supper.

On my side of the glass was a man. A man I knew. A man I loved. A man whose manhood was verified by little more than age – 25. Whilst numbers generally distinguish between childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, he was much more a boy than a man. His maturity – vastly negated by defining characteristics. You see, this 25-year-old boy was also a pathological liar, a sociopath, and a ****** addict. He was the stranger your mommy warned you not to talk to – and he was my boyfriend.

My boyfriend, our third addition, was christened Daniel no-middle-name Rodden. An alias more accurately spelled Rotten – which I knew, but refused to accept. So instead, he was just Danny.

Anyways.

I surrendered consciousness slowly. I was crumpled, trembling and mumbling, grappling to sit up or speak.

With all my strength I pointed, terrified and confused, at Alison.

“How is she here?” I wanted to scream. “How’d she get in? What’s happening?”

“What are you talking about?” Danny’s voice wondered. “There’s no one out there. I promise I promise.”

He must have been blind. For Alison remained, hand outstretched, waiting and waiting.

However, Danny Rotten and Alison Wonderland could not see each other. Nor could they hear or feel one another. They existed within uncorrelated dimensions. They were, in fact, entirely irrelevant to one another, compromised by one single factor. Me. Because not only was I physically dying – directly between them (monkey in the middle?) – my consciousness floundered amidst their two wonderlands.

But this was temporary, for we all knew I had less than an hour to make a choice; a life with this toxic boy, or a death with this loving girl. Death, which I’d coveted since I was ten. This decision could not be undone; I could not keep them both.

I never took this hand I was offered – Alison Wonderland’s – I clung to Danny instead. A decision I’ll forever regret. But I had yet to meet the Grimm Reaper.

Somehow, I’d been transported back into the bathtub. I sat back at the table of my Last Supper. Only, this time, I was not to dine alone.
I remember Danny’s face – if only for a split second – covering mine. His handsome, Spanish features contorted in fear; even mussed and wet, his dark hair swam across his forehead with graceful finesse.

On his face I’d never seen such emotion, nor will I ever again.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, I lost sight of that face. I knew he was speaking, perhaps even yelling, his physic – inches from my own. But then, the stampede arrived, trampling him whole.

Empty handed, Alison might have left. But this evaded me.

For into the room poured innumerable intruders. My ghostly escort, it would appear. Some spoke to me, some avoided. Some set up a poker game in the corner – waiting on my choice – whilst others conjured chairs like rabbits from a hat. Chairs they set up around this bathtub. Enveloped in bodies, my Final Supper had become a banquet of sorts. Danny tried to hand me a bucket, to throw up my poison, but I was so weak I couldn’t have held it had I wanted to.

Out of all these people – souls I presumed dead – I recognized only two faces.

Preston and Henry. Two boys I knew – and although ****** addicts, they were alive and well. Not ghosts like the rest. However, within the next two weeks those two would both overdose and nearly die.

Coincidence? I think not. Yet, I digress.  

That was when he appeared, for above the bathtub stood a window. Outside that window, I glimpsed a man. A man I’d been chasing since I was ten.

Mister Grimm. I remember not his attire, nor any defining details, only the expression on his face as his eyes singed my own. Complete and utter hatred and malice, with fatal intentions. He looked to me as his arch nemesis – and had I invited him in, he would have given me what I’d always wanted. I knew this to be true.

I knew also that, although Alison had appeared to be the defining choice, she was not. This man was. And in that pivotal moment, I began to scream.

I screamed for Danny – to make this Grimm go away, to tell him to leave.

Danny did. And when I next looked up, the man was no more. Gone, too, was everyone else. I took Danny’s bucket, hurled, and knew no more.

This is one night I’ll never forget; an attempt that far outweighs the others. The night I came face to face with the grim reaper, for the first and only time, and somehow turned away. A night I’ll forever regret. Sometimes, however, I wonder if it was not mister Grim I was looking at, but Danny’s reflection: the monster he soon became.

Or, perhaps, it was not a male I saw in that window.

Perhaps, It was myself.

1148

After the Sun comes out
How it alters the World—
Waggons like messengers hurry about
Yesterday is old—

All men meet as if
Each foreclosed a news—
Fresh as a Cargo from Batize
Nature’s qualities—

I am the messiah of all  the houses that neither you nor I own
In the building behind  your suburban home
Beyond the gates that say
Go away
we are owned by the bank
Secretly drop outs snorting up crank
Holed up in a house that some poor soul could not afford

In my neighborhood
Your hedge presses against my hedge
In my dreams
Your leg presses against my leg
In my neighborhood
People hate me
In your mind
You overrate me
In my neighborhood
****** burns the sorrow
With you
There's always tomorrow

Neighbors are the worst
They unquench
Labors of thirst

They're also the best
When it comes to people
They're the rest

If you could do me a favor
And not be my neighbor
I need you in my house
You're stuck in my head
You're my louse

Then the neighbors foreclosed my home
Morphing me into the roaming gnome
Does a homeless man have neighbors?
Like a wild dog
With no bone to savor?

It just breaks my heart
When people run each other off the road
With their hate filled cart

In my mind the roadblock is your face
Through the window I see the hate
We'll use my roadblock to erase

I see you daily
and I've come to realize
that nothing of you is flawed.

These past years
I have been privileged
to see you:
receive letters from division I athletics
blossom from the flower of puberty
and live in a gorgeous home.

But as I broke through your flawless facade,
I saw hurt and vulnerability,
I no longer saw perfection.

Your mother- lost to cancer,
your father- an angry man,
your siblings- hateful.

I have been puzzled
to see you:
deny admissions to division I schools
let your hair grow scraggly, your face become oily
and your house be foreclosed.

You are not what I thought you were.
You are like me
you are weak
hurt
abandoned.

You, like me, are not perfect.

It’s silly for me to trade
My worth for something made
Up just for a keepsake…

A keepsake paper trade route I adjourned
To pacify a need I had begun to forlorn.
Fashioned by the angst of my discretion.

Lo and behold! Here I stand my heart I made open
Know this, I never put up nor faltered a thought
Then again true colors sprung up revealed a dismay.

What I had longed for, I quivered…
Apparent of what I foreclosed…
For I will not resolve to disclose any matter.

Should I have to, I am welcome.
I am a lion, that’s what I am.
Yes, I may have faltered but never will I am.

I can only take the blame for the actions I had begun
And the hurt, I take it, from which had sprung.
But never will I lift a finger, once I know I am betrayed.

For I know the worth of a friend,
I was blinded by my self-dismay.
Settle your thoughts, my dear, for such resolution;

For I have placed God to be my absolution.
Distance plays disregard to known other virtue.
See me as I am and you’ll see me I’m true.

In this city the bright lights can blind you
let you forget the rustic coins littered around the floor
caught by grimy hands belonging to a woman
she holds her life on a thin piece of cardboard
written in faded Sharpie

If you ever lose your way with the crowd
and stumble upon the empty alleyways
they possess cracked glass from beer bottles,
old shopping advertisements, broken toys
and the stench of trash mixed with lost hope realizing
the pavement isn't always perfect but littered with cracks

Walk further down and you will pass the rejected streets,
houses gone foreclosed and no remorse
all that matters is the country's history,
pressed on notorious green paper belonging to greedy hands
forgetting about the family that lost their house

Wait at the train station,
for the rumble and two yellow lights
The snake of a train claims passengers
trapping them between closed doors,
only allowing them to face their own misery
some escape with headphones
others just stare into the darkness with sunken eyes and drunken sighs

Walking home see the gum wrappers and dead leaves skid around
the soles of your worn shoes
Graffiti garage doors only display discarded art
And when the night is still
you can feel the empty consonants and vowels crawl up your legs
forming the unspoken words from unwanted voices that lay

Hidden under our feet.

lathe and plaster walls
divide a derelict

rooms part at doors,
holes
kicked through
and, unglazed frames.
light lingers on fragments
of lyric and latex.

rats scramble away
from nests;
domesticity.
after
bank's dead hand
slapped us
outta the place.

I don't know what wood
this table is made from
as I bought it from a yard sale,
but to be brash
it seemed the people's home
had been foreclosed.

Knocking on the table's surface
imagine the beating sounds
of drums, a native tribe
secluded from the river of reality
and yokes the essence
of their seclusion to be culture.

Now imagine the opposite
and you'll understand the quality
of the table I just bought--
who has no history
and most likely
rested on IKEA's factory floor,
it's welcoming to the world.

There is no grain to this creature
as the metallic hands that crafted this beast
lacked a soul and its creations lack one too--
fittingly, it's perfection is a symptom  
to the disease that lies in it's faux-wood.

Placing the poor table frame
inside some high rise studio in Manhattan
I can't help, but imagine--
the hands that will enviably gloss over this shell
and preach to their acquaintances
of a life the table never had.

Your children roam the gridlocked streets
hand-in-cardboard, feet firmly on uneven ground,
eyes heavy with the rubble of their foreclosed homes.
They live in grocery carts.

Forget Fifth Avenue, or the Villages,
or the cobblestone streets of young and old,
or the unseen gates of Striver’s Row.
Your heart lies by the subway stations
that ring with the songs of a lonely old man,
his teeth yellowed, but voice golden,
asking not for introductions nor coin,
but for a listener.

New York, they cry for you to hear them.
(Your poor, your tired, and your weary)

Bowery, 6.13.15.

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Today,
Hurricane Joaquin
hammered the central bahamas
with torrents
that flooded foreclosed homes.
The forecasters warned us of this.

Same day,
ten kids get
assassinated by another one
bringing torment
to Oregon, no order found.
The forecasters warned us of this.

On that day,
every monster
forged a face as we all grieved,
as is our nature,
absorbing blows by no one's order.
The forecasters warmed up to this.

~~~


A rich woman
Walked down the street
She met a workman she didn't greet.

But though they didn't
Stop to TALK
They were able
To exchange THOUGHTS...

Hey! Look at me! I'm all that!
Think you're cool with that
baseball hat?

I'm in my designer clothes
I'm Dior from head to toe.

I have snakeskin shoes
And pure silk pants
My perfume comes
From Paris France...

Designer Bags and golden rings
Jeweled tiaras and a
Real mink coat?
What to do with such trivial things?
Except wallow in the
Superficial joy they bring...

Please. Humour me
With stacks of DOUGH
That's street lingo
For cash you know.

I'll sit here and strum my guitar
Whilst I look up
And count the stars...

Please... take your spoils and go...
I don't have time for spoiled souls
I'll enjoy the things that matter most
While you celebrate
charades and toast.

If life's a charade,
At least I'm a player!
You're sure not gonna
Run for Mayor!

C'mon DOUGH BOY
You know that you want
All the goodies that we flaunt!

Yes... I have a real MINK!
And my money has a STINK

But who supports
The people you are?
Why! You're nothing but
Shiftless POOR!

I ain't gotta pay
to play this game
I got a Full Heart I'm all IN!

You can't just buy
Yourself some PEACE
I've learned life lessons
To pay my lease!

Your whole life is inside your wallet
And I'm sorry... but I must call it...

Inside your soul is
bankrupt and foreclosed
It's sad to see happiness is posed

Shiftless, classless and
OUT OF STYLE
But your pretty golden pennies
Ain't worth my while...

You've got cash, but it's just CRASS
Lady. Take your fortunes and

KISS MY BOOTS!!!

WELL! I never!

The last thing she thought
As she hurried away.
She's filthy rich NOW...

... but one day she'll PAY.


(C) SoulSurvivor
(C) Frank Ruland


~~~

Sprinkled 'round is the shade
beneath the dieing tree.
Leaning to the left a bit,
almost upon it's knees.
As if begging for the water,
that from its crown it can see.
The home now vacant, foreclosed,
the landscape left thirsty.
it's not just families that suffer,
in this upside down economy.

if i were president
i would tell my people
and make them
know that
if you have more
give more
and
if you have less
give more
because
it makes you feel better.

if i were president
i would give
all the foreclosed homes
in America
to the homeless.
when people feel safe,
they feel better
they would grow
and participate in society
they would no longer be homeless.

if i were president
i would tell my people
and make them
know that
societies norm
the one that
we are all scared of
but hide it,
the one that makes us feel judged,
and misunderstood,
that society
should not
and will not
define how we think
because we are stronger than that.

if i
were president
i would be a leader
act like
a leader
talk like
a leader
and be an example
for future leaders.

when i become president.

When you think about it:
We spend the majority of our lives
Behind closed doors.
Whether it is in the privacy of our homes,
Or in our offices, schools, or church.
Most of what we do is hidden from the world.
And you never really think about what
Other people might be dealing with,
But a simple word could have them in tears.
We don't take the time to ask about
Their scars or any defining aspects of their life.
We live in a world of small talk,
And artificial friendships.
Talk to a veteran. Understand.
Find people that you have known for years,
But never truly got to know them.
Many of us don't know each other's full name,
Let alone what takes place in their household,
Or what their financial situation is,
Or why they stopped texting you back.
In reality we assume that we grew apart from them,
Or that they are mad at us; melodramatic.
But their phone service got cancelled because they
Couldn't make the payments,
Or their house got foreclosed and they're embarrassed
To talk about it.
If we consider ourselves to be their friend,
Then we should be there for them in every situation.
Be personable with everyone,
Forgive people who do wrong to you,
Love people; not just some people,
Love everyone.
We spend to much time and energy
Hating people and things.
How many times a day do you say,
"I hate"? And how many times a day
Do you say, "I love"?
That is what is wrong with people today.
Don't forget to pray
To keep it away
Keep the hate away,
Love everyone.
Inhale the future,
Exhale the past.
And pray.

And the sound of shattering glass sounds familiar and comforting. It sounds like home, feels like home. But you don't know what home is anymore. Is it the pain you feel when he ignores you? Or is it the bite of the blade you can't see, but can feel. Home is defined as 'the place where one lives permanently.' If that's the case, then home must be loneliness. Home must be your hugs, home must be the needle, home must be the drugs, it must be the ***** that still stains your rug. Because you can somehow feel all of these things at once, and it scares you. It scares you how comfortable you've become in all of this, and you want to get out. But home is permanent. Maybe you can run away. Where would you run to? Would you run to the girl who broke your heart? She's your home too. Would you run to his place and sleep in his bed? He'll use you and be gone the next day. Would you climb a mountain? You'd get discouraged and jump off. Or would you simply disappear? Disappearing has always been easy for you. Would you run through the smoke? Or sit there, breathe it in. Do you really want to run away? Or is that your enigmatic way of saying you want to stay? You want to stay home, stay in this fog because you don't know anything else. It feels like home but something is still missing. Maybe you can't run away, but you sure as hell can move out. So do it, move out. Move into her arms, because she's begging for a roommate, and probably wouldn't even make you pay the rent. Move into his mind, where he says there's not enough space for you, but you brought your boxes anyway. Move into yourself. You're lonely and you're body is calling out. You leave the vacancy sign there. Because you're tired of the familiar, the comforting. You moved out, you're homeless now. So tell me, was it everything you wanted and more? Because you're a nomad now, drifting from one persons arms to another's. Even though she's had her arms open this whole time. But the rent was due and you couldn't pay so you split. You split and you left and you won't come back. So, tell me, what is home? *******, what
Is
Home?
Home is her arms where you're not allowed to spend the night,
Home was his couch where he would **** your neck and not call for three days,
Home is in your bed, where you've staged your death a thousand times.
Home is in these words that you're writing right now, and ******* I wish you would just pay attention,
Home is in her eyes but every time you stare into them she apologizes and moves on,
Home was his arms where he held you too tight and you begged and begged for him just to talk to you, but no he wouldn't talk to you he'll never talk to you because more he wants more it's more he wants and you couldn't ******* give it to him, and
Home is in the sky where every night you tear at your wrists just to get there, and
Home is at the bottom of whatever bottle of ***** you're on now you can't remember because you're drunk you're always drunk and she's always sad and you can't help her and you hate yourself, and home
Home is in her sadness her self hatred,
Home is in the shards of glass behind your dresser that you so desperately reach for and,
Home is in the bar and in the streets and in their beds and you're always moving you're always moving, why can't you stay and,
Home is in her but like I said you can't pay the rent because it's already occupied and,
Home is in the confusion, and you say you want to move out but you don't, you don't want to move out because it adds to your ******* personality, makes you different, makes you mysterious, makes you special and, maybe once you become whole then you can move out. because whoever the **** is out there whether it be god or satan or allah or ******* buddha knows that you've written hundreds of goodbyes, and they're all in the nightstand next to your bed, and you want to move out but not out of the chaos but out of your body, out of your mind, out of your soul because- Every time, every time you called someone, or something home..they moved out. Vacated the premises. Missed the rent. And now your real estate is being foreclosed on and dear god, dear god you just want to move out.

Our story that I tried so hard to write is coming to a close, babe you were my stronghold that my heart has now foreclosed.

I tried so hard to perfect the things we did and what we said, I wrote the letters over and over until I wished I was dead.

Page after page I would erase and rewrite, sentence after sentence my heart had less light.

You walked all over the pages and ripped out your favorite parts, you folded all the edges and broke my helpless heart.

I would come in running after you cleaning your mistakes, accepting your apologies I never realized you were fake.

You blamed me for your madness and said I was no good, but truly it was your fault cause I did all I could.

You broke all my smiles and you turned them to frowns, you took my happy life and turned it upside down.

I can’t take the pain you caused me or the images you left in my head, they all used to be happy until you said you loved her instead.

My fairytale ending wasn’t what I'd expected, I guess our love was never perfected.

I’m okay now we can say goodbye, I’m happy you left me, but the memories will always be mine.

-1928-
There are whispers,
Whispers of something coming.
A time with no money.
Maybe it's just some
Panic.
I wonder what they'll do,
Without money.
It's all they talk about.
What'll they do,
If it's gone?


-1932-
They've gone.
No one has been  here for years.
I guess it was true,
What they said
About the money.
There'd been some talk
For a while.
But this time,
It was
Real.
They ran out of money,
Or, maybe someone took it.
Either way,
They couldn't save me.







*Meaning: This is told from the point of view of a house during the Great Depression. The family he is housing has been hit by the Great Crash, and have been foreclosed out of their house--him. The beginning (1928) starts the year before the stock market crash, and the end takes place a few years into the Depression (1932).

To You;

To you; possessed of such a tempting grace,
moving so sublimely through star-struck space;
Can I ask of you this quiet question-
Why do those sad tears frame that flawless face?

What’s the reason for that careless lesson
that laces your well-controlled complexion?
Have you, through some finally-found fancy
been shown the harsh meaning of rejection?

Maybe, you dreamt of a light romancing
Under the moons bright, fatal faerie-fire
Its sight telling tales of your desire,
Your sad love ethereal- Transient?

No? I didn’t think that the murky mire
That we call “Love” would have you trapped today-
To make such stories of these fallen fae,
As an excuse to perform worn word-play---

Or! Maybe, it’s some other telling tale
That put you into this unjust travail-
And left you with those mislaid streaks
Across a face falling pallid and pale.

Had your plans reached the goal- that high peak,
Then plunged; wasted - leaving you worn and weak
With no way out, no truly clear choices,
No way to gain the happiness you seek?

Did you want a house with joyful voices,
A backyard echoing lilting laughter?
Has some callous event foreclosed that chapter
Filling your soul with some private poison?

No, I don’t think that’s what I‘m after.
You’re not being held by some coarse constraint-
Nor your body filled with some tragic taint
that would leave you so faltering and faint.


Do you long for adventuresome release,
Your daily work having no such surcease-
And staring entranced-so at the stratus,
You dream of those mighty in name and deed?

Those stories, the ones that you always read-
Do they make you long for that single pleasure,
Proof of beauty and things unseen, proof of need-
Proof of some fantasy beyond measure?

The sacrosanct is in those clouds so rare.
Don’t lose faith in finding the forever,
And magic is there, suspended in air
As long as you don’t consider never.

Maybe, I could help in your endeavor,
Together, a meeting of star-bright minds-
Rhyme after rhyme, perhaps we will find
A path that will meld fantasy and time.

So Lady, giving thought where it’s due then,
I can only tell you this plight of Men
And be it my damning declaration,
I will never let you be hurt again!

You will never want for stone or station,
Nor need to seek some other relation.
If the dreary dusk deigned to mar your mood,
To make a Sun, I’d master creation!

To your beauty I would always allude,
(The runic tint to those even-ether eyes)
Only to the lay does the truth not soothe –
No comparison would bespeak of lies;

So Lady, let my love for you give rise,
To the dawning of our sublunary Sun!
For you; My suitors pledge that come what come,
On my honor, my life; Thy will be done!

The days have grown dim
and the nights slumber-less
piles upon piles of papers
clustered against the wall

it's ink rots and whither's
against the strands of time
tormenting me with unpaid bills
and threats of a foreclosed home

The idle threats of separation
have grown familiar, the sparks
of romance no longer seem apparent  
I question our vows....

I question my church and I question my religion
rosaries wrapped around my throat
suffocating the faith that I still have left

These wine bottles have become my god
I drink the blood like it's water
the water cleanses my sins and blind my senses    
it's sweet but bitter

I wonder.... What if.....
but, if I knew the answer
then perhaps this gun
would not be laying upon my nightstand....

What if...... What if......