glowing waters, tranquil as though the ocean were holding its breath
and yet breathing in and out, in and out
rhythmic, an inexorable drum

an explosion of ripples as I drop the kayak in,
the disturbances swallowed by marsh grass, waving in protest
murmuring to be still, stay still.

I shift in my seat, heartbeat in my ears, loud breathing
scared of being swallowed, lost to depths where darkness clung –
yet hardly imaginable in this world of dripping sunlight.

dip the paddle in, tasting the waters
right, left, right, left
cautious, careful, clumsy at first
splashes of droplets as I pick up the pace,
salt on my tongue, tasting the burn.

the pull and tug of muscle against the world, a silent war
the ocean protesting futilely, but  
surrendering to the kayak with a creaking moan

as I shoot through the water like an arrow, splitting the curling, white-crested sea.

the wind picks at my braid and throws it to the past with a lingering sigh
my paddles cutting through that glossy mirror of cloud and sunshine
shards of brilliantly stained glass.

There's a beautiful gun in my hand.
Flawless.
                     The nightshift sun gleams off the barrel like a swan on a lake
     At home against the humid sweaty dark pressing against everything yet awesomely singular

     The clock stopped a long time ago and gunshots took over in place of the ticks and tocks…

     (I'm chewing on something soft)

                        … and I never noticed.

It seemed natural.
Every bullet chambered was just another hour passing

       And though it feels like forever I know its been half a day
      

        Blood laces the treads of my shoes
     Hugging the rubber and drawing patterns that I'm less aware of than I am of...

     (What is this? It's good.)

... myself

         Everyone I know is sitting in a pile.
        No more alive than the gun itself.
Still they talk. Memories are shared and advice is given. I don't care to know if its real.

        Everyone talks. It makes sense.
   Even the dead.
  
           The ceiling fan noisily labors diligently if not futilely against the unspeakable heat. It's the only sound I can be sure of. The motion helps.

     Nothing else is moving except...

    
(Chewchewchewithinkicanithinkican)
    
        ...My jaw. Steadily gnashing through…

     (Everyone talks)

            My tongue. I don't care about the blood at my feet or the fact that its coming from my mouth.

      *What worries me is that now everyone is staring at me and I dont have any gun at all

Sadness is a curse as well as a benevolent splash of water in the face.
You concentrate on every dark thing in the world,
The grayness of the dew drops, the depressing and cold impersonal face of the rolling smoky cloud overhead.
This pushes you back to a memory: A song, perhaps, a family trip maybe, something that depresses you in a way that makes you smile futilely. Futilely in the sense that, you will never write a song like that, you feel like you will never have enough fun as you did on that trip. With this, you grow hatred towards yourself. With this malevolent tempest inside of you as a muse, you inscribe beautiful things into the notebook. With your own blood. Too far. Sadness is a force to be used by the ones in touch with self-control. Please, throw your ****** notebooks away and write in pen. Your poems will look better.

Sitting in the world’s most uncomfortable chair as I readjust my seat for the sixth time… it seems to be a futile effort.
An overweight man in a grey jogging suit is walking in, his white shoes leave wet foot prints across the faded carpet as he crosses the room and begins taking up the chair opposite me with a heavy sigh as though he has walked a long distance though I can see his car through the half closed blinds.

I think the carpet used to be red, like the long carpets they use in the lineup to see Santa but now it is a muddy color… like the water one might use to rinse paint brushes after it has been used too much.

The woman beside me is wearing a faded floral print dress, she smells like garlic and is snoring softly a rumpled romance novel clutched in one hand as her head nods forward onto her chest.
I watch it rise and fall slowly for a few long moments before finally pulling my eyes away again and look towards the desk where the blonde receptionist is sitting.

Her hair is pulled back into a messy bun and there is a pen stuck in it to keep it in place, the pen is blue… or black I think but there is a red cap on it.
She is wearing those nurses’ scrubs they are a faded purple color with chains of daisies decorating them.  

I look past the blonde receptionist and her messy bun with the blue… or black pen with the red cap sticking out of it to the hallway with its bright lines of light and glossy floors.

Another woman is walking out of one of the doors, I can’t see it but I hear it close loudly in the silence, the woman beside me with the faded floral print dress jumps a little snuffling and grunting her dime store romance novel held up before her like a shield before she realizes it was just a door.

Just like the overweight man in the grey jogging suit as he to tries futilely to get comfortable in one of the world’s most uncomfortable chairs, I don’t think he has ever jogged… maybe he just likes the color.

The woman beside me is slouching a little further down in her chair... in another moment she is snoring again softly, I watch the woman who just came out of the unseen door.

She has a little boy with her, he is wearing black puddle boots and Spiderman pajama pants his coat is blue with black racing stripes down the back… he is tugging at the woman’s hand and saying something in another language.

She hushes him and turns back to the receptionist with the messy blonde bun, I watch as she reaches for the pen that is holding it in place… that one that might be blue or maybe black with the red cap on the end before she stops and picks up a black pen off the desk and writes something on a slip of paper before handing it to the woman.

She looks tired, her black hair is braided loosely and strands are falling into her face.
There are large dark circles under her eyes and she dressed in faded jeans and a grey windbreaker with the crest of a sporting goods store I have never heard of embroidered across the shoulder.

The boy is tugging at her hand again and as she turns to look at him she wearily sweeps her gaze over the rest of the room before she answers him.
Her voice is very soft with a practiced kind of patience most parents have, though I can’t make out her words I am sure they are also in another language that I do not understand.

I watch as they boy runs towards the door and pushes all his weight against it making a great show of his strength as the door slowly swings outwards and he leans back against it digging his boots into the muddy colored carpet as the woman follows him out.

The man in the grey jogging suit that has most likely never jogged before has gotten out of his world’s most uncomfortable chair and is eyeing the other still empty seats around him mentally trying to guess without having to walk over and try them which is the least uncomfortable.

He looks across to the woman beside me in the faded flora dress as she gives another snuffling murmur her fingers slowly letting the rumpled novel slip from them, it slides onto the floor and bounces before landing cover side up. Fields of Passion.

He looks at me and our eyes meet, I roll mine in a dramatic gesture of my opinion of the sleeping woman’s taste in reading... he smiles but says nothing and finally decided on another chair right beside the one he had before and sighs heavily as he settles himself into it.

I hear my name being called by the blonde receptionist with the messy bun held together by her blue or black pen with the red cap.
This time the snoring woman with the bad taste in novels doesn’t stir, the man in the jogging suit smiled a little as I pass him and I smile back before turning and disappearing down the hallway with the glossy floors and bright lines of light.

Your love,
Is sharper than the edge of the crescent moon
that was struck in my heart and i futilely mourn.
Glimpse of angelic dagger was your lies,
and you burried it deep within my eyes,
     and now im blind.

Your love,
Is hypnotizing like the beauty of the moon above,
In the vague sight of my blindness you're a white dove.
Pain chastised me! tears drowned me! but i still love you,
For you're my heavenly poison that i can't resist through,
     and now im weak.

I as your moon wanders beyond lim'tation
just to flicker my lil light even at your reflection.
Go run away from me as far as you desire, leave!
But when you're in need, it'll took only 1 glance above to give,
     and you'll see me waiting for you.

Far above the grey sky i silently watch o'er you,
Tears frozed, blood drowned my crippled heart as i stare at you
With your new found happiness that's far brighter than me,
You have your sun now, so ill just force a painful glee,
    and you'll see tears in me as i smile for you.

Far above the blue sky you look up and found me no more,
But you never care and thought I'm atlast gone for sure.
Your sun just blaze to its peak & covered me from your sight,
Now my love you're so blinded with her spurious light,
    and you never see that i still light for you.

Far above the black sky and now that your world's down,
Now when your life's darker than the darkest night's lawn,
I'm your moon, gladly being a moon rather than your sun,
to give you light in your tragic night when your fake sun sets down,
     and you'll see that I'd never will ever leave you.

Waning  dappled  moonlight mantles
the margin at the wild-wood edge
Stiff tufts of summer dried grass spears
sporadically sway — raking against
the  scarlet  poison  oak  leaves
gently sweeping away the moonlit silence
airing the sounds of velvet antlers rubbing
barkless mountain willow trunks bare

Subtle nuances constantly animate
twilights rhythm;  heaven flickers
upon a dark umbrage of forest pillars
softly as a candlelight’s  fluttering  glow
evanescing  half way  across  the  sky;
the  sparse  illumined  clouds  stream through
the lambent halo around the rutting moon
fleeting in the blink  of  sleepless eyes

and like the silent touch of a talisman,
transfixed eyes are entranced by all
the  restless  night  disrobes,
captured and cocooned by the seeker’s
awakened senses

An erratic,  familiar feral bark peals haughtily;
a pack of maturing spring pups yip, bellow and shriek
in youthful pursuit;  the howling report back,
ignited by the scent of a rabbit's paling squeal,
aroused by the pulse of brother wolf
rippling deeply through their blood

The dried grass game-trail crackles towards the ridge top:
an aging full moon is not enough skylight
to see beyond a seeker’s stirring silent reverie
the coyote choir’s sudden reveling echoes rekindling
an extraordinary sheltering intimacy within;

bending slithers of moonlight into a dull moonlight mantle
but I can feel its weight breaking me ,... forlorn I can't physically
reach out to touch them in an absolving moment  —
understanding love was always the purpose of being ,...

futilely repining — I  can't  face  myself  alone  again


            harlon rivers ... October  2019                                                  

.

She stares at the floor. She has to be dreaming. She can’t believe it actually happened. She’s in shock, a deep shock vibrating her core and numbing her skin.

She shivers, and looks up at the ceiling, where drops of blood fall into a small puddle on the clean linoleum below.
A small trickle of water seeps in from the laundry room to her left, and the clear veins of water glide around her extended foot, attracted to her self-loathing tension. The water knows what she’s done, knows it can’t fix her and wants to be a part of this torture in her soul.

She kicks the water away, futilely and desperately. This is the most movement she’s taken since she came downstairs, and it is the opening of the reservoir of tears within her. She sobs, huge racking sobs that convulse every fiber of her being.

She hates herself. She hates herself. She takes her fist, and she punches. Anywhere and everywhere she can hit. Her legs, her neck, her stomach, her chest. Anything she can do to herself to make herself feel, to make herself hurt. She needs to be punished.

She knows that she deserves to die, but she isn’t sure if she has the guts or selfish selflessness to do it. The gun lays on the tile across the room, it’s barrel turned toward the wall in cowardice. She scoots over to it and picks it up. In her mind it burns her hand, but she holds on strong. This pain is nothing to her.

She slowly finds the strength to stand up, and squints her puffy eyes to hide herself as she walks past the mirror. She has to crawl up the steps. She didn’t realize she was so weak, but she’d looked at the clock on the way up, and she’d been sitting there bawling for over four hours.

At the top of the steps, she loses her breath. Her lithe, agile body isn’t tired, but she sees his foot, carelessly hanging out into the hallway where he fell. She can’t go on yet. She looks at the gun, still in her hand. It’s her light, her only exit sign.

She walks on, into the bedroom, stepping over his foot. She squats down beside his head and looks at his pale, sunken face. His body is already well into the process of rigor mortis, and it flushes her hopes that he’ll sit up and say, “Boo.”

Tears are streaming down her face, a hurt so intense, so overwhelming, that she is not even aware she is crying once more.

Finally, she’s done looking at him. She cannot grasp that she did this to him, and yet her hands apparently can. They put the barrel of the gun to her head, and she inhales sharply without exhaling. The cold barrel feels hot against her temple, and it slides a centimeter from her perspiration and the pressure she’s applying. Maybe if she just pushes it into her temple hard enough, it will take care of itself, and she won’t have to pull the trigger.

She lets go of all pretenses, and time seems to pause as she pulls the trigger. She drops, falling onto his body before her. Her tears roll down his stomach, the force of gravity in action.

It is almost five a.m.
With each thump of the echoing bass,
of the synthetic revenge and heartbreak,
angry percussion wraps me closer than your arms ever could--
tremulous and heavy,
more absolute than the sunset fictions
you contentedly let me cling to.
A venomous chorus drips from my lips,
once-swollen eyes now itchy and dry.

This is the still serenity of the predawn slumber,
the yearning of the yetsummer,
the quiet before the birds begin scavenging
through grass, trash, and recycling.
I protest--
tongue, fingers heels teeth and lungs
restless in spite of themselves.

You have chased me out of bed,
across dew-dampened grass,
over uneven pavement as treacherous as your voice.
You follow me.

Sleep is merely a forlorn memory
peering sadly from a forgotten heap of warm cotton thread,
whimpering futilely against the anxious pulsing
of overworked headphones
and overthought peculiarities.

You introduced me to this time of day.
You summoned it once with impatient chords
and a staccato keystroke melody,
casually ignoring the plaintive honesty
I willingly accompanied you with.

But the sunrise casts a strange glow, I guess--
rosy and well-intentioned,
fickle and fleeting, like your grin
or the capricious depth of the summer sky.

No one remembers that wandering blue
the same color as her eyes;
but it seeps through your pores,
curls into the caverns of your chest,
an aching in azure only because you let it.
You have bathed too long in the sun.
As the scarlet sunrise erupts across your shoulders
the sky settles into your lungs.

But don’t trust that sky,
that constant companion.

That sky is a cannibal
and it will eat you alive.

Your words---love , deserve, forever---
Cling to my skin
Like clothes sopping wet,
******* futilely at my neck,
Impossible to shelter from
The torrential nature
Of your need

Your need,
Like the clamoring cries of an infant,
Screechy, demanding,
Hanging helplessly on my arms,
You pine for affection
From this absentee mother figure;
Futility resurfaces.

I feel the weight of you,
Pressing on my chest:
The crushing force of responsibility,
Of dedication, of obligation eternal.
I have written nothing
Since your frigid winter crept into my home
And ravaged my bed, my body, my dreams.
You created my hollow life.

You carved your name
Into my tender wrists
With teeth honed to knives
And fingernails like acid;
You seared it with a kiss,
Poured your toxin in my veins,
Planted rue in my garden.
Ruined.
Never before have I wished more
For death's swift embrace
Than when I hear
My name in your mouth.

There's a temperamental rainbow
he's seen, peeking out now and again, when
it's not shyly hid in cumulus cubbies.

He might, he can, win its sparkly trust,
luring it to him, between rainy bouts,
with promises of mood-altering

medication. Then, clapped with a lightning
clout, he'll stuff it in ten-gallon tubs
to struggle, bawl, and futilely fill

his deviant's plan. For in that muffle
of tinted pleas, its droppered breath will
condense against lids clamped-down tight,

and bottoms can collect sunny flavors
he needs to slather on the lolling
tongue of his too humdrum day-to-day.

Your hand fits in mine like it's made just for me,
But bear this in mind, it is meant to be
Since you've dreamed a vision of us together
And I'll love us, you and I, always and forever.
Cause when I'm with you, my world is so different from any hell I'm living
And when you're around me, your eyes light up like the stars have been spilled out along with all the suns of heaven into your eyes
You're the one who seems to love this wildflower so she feels as lovely as the sweetest camelias, and strong enough to push the planets out of orbit
As for you, I only know what you've said to me;
     That my kisses are oxygen when you can't breath, and that
     You feel such an intense desire to protect me from any potential harm
     That you plan to marry and live with me for years to come.
But I know with less certainty than you that we'll be together forever to come
All I know is you love me and you make me feel so loved
More loved than the moon is loved by the sun, chased endlessly and almost futilely for a mere glimpse of her silver face
And I know this is a scientifically proven-to-be-incorrect metaphor, but I still love you
And will love you, until the sun falls into the sea of milk, the knees of those arthritic elephants shake and kneel with feebleness, and the great sea turtle turns belly-up, drowning the world in the Milky Way
And even past then
Past the time where men and spirits fade into ghostly memories, forgotten because there's no one to remember them
Past the time that the sun is finally swallowed and held in the sea, past King Arthur's return, and when the giant serpent finally kills Ra
Past the time when the gods grow tired of their human games, and fall asleep at their chessboards, one hand dipped in the Adriatic and a finger spinning the galaxies ever slower as dust and cobwebs of invisible spiders come to blanket the universe
And even past then, past all these mythological improbabilities, past Death's abandonment of his duties and his scythe while sand no longer runs in glasses and he reaps himself
Past then will I love you and think of the spilled out flaming stars in your eyes and the velvety sparks in your fingertips and lips.

One sniff, flying.
With every other dying.
To abstain I am no longer trying.

I am once again a slave.
I have to simple goal, to feed my addiction.
With my family this fact constantly causes friction.
It was never my intention to cave.
And now with each score I'm edging closer to a premature grave.

Have you ever looked through frosted glass,
and tried, with futility, to define
the outlines of a distant subject?

All my life I have done so.

My eyes are the icy glass of isolation:
They awaken me to empty human shells that,
Despite their sharp scents of smiles and summer,
Are uncoloured with a vague sense of fogginess.

For if you thought them geometrically similar,
Outwardly identical and biologically matching as I:
Just as you would not expect one to talk to animals,
I find myself equally inadequate and

isolated.

I yearn to smash: first, this glass I look through.
Then, the shells of the first body I find.
In hope that, the blood of non-isolation,
Of non-emptiness can wash and flood,
Drown and dissolve the despair
Of an inability to reach across,
Of living behind a glass,
Of fading
away.

All your life you have looked through this glass, and
All your life you have lived in this claustrophobia,

Smashing futilely.

Why are we conscious?
Why life?
The universe
infinite flux
Epic Smashing parts together
Brains splattered by speeding bullets
Simple physics
Described in abstract numbers
Sublime
It’s so plain
So regular
How Life is extinguished without emotion
In an instant
Unseen and unremembered
Why did we even bother?
To become conscious at all
To perceive futilely the world
And despair in the flux
Anguish in the face
Of pure entropy
Absurdity is the only legitimate feeling
And yet there are so many more
Why? I want to know!
Why this fait?
Why could I not be a chair?
Simply sitting, never thinking the thoughts
My bane and my bone
My plagued thoughts
In pursuit of clarity
Like a sore that would go away
If you would
Just
Stop
Picking it

Dying is not the real pain.
The real pain is living inconsequentially
futilely, while others forbid you to die,
but forbid you feel earnestly;
seeing a whole unblemished person,
but little do they know
I am already dead.

#

It's not my pain that disgusts them,
it's the cutting
and that's why they treat the symptoms
but neglect the cause
and forbid me to talk about her
because the sound of her name
makes you regret me.

#

I AM MATURE:
I am new and improved and dead.

Their freedom to tell their depths is now confined to a week.
But despite the propaganda, they are still afraid to speak.
On the outside, they are perceived as nothing but freaks.
On the inside, their lives are catastrophic, yet also bleak.

From their mountains of anxiety to their valleys of depression,
Nobody wants to listen to their pleading expressions.
They're forced to hold down their feelings with constant suppression.
So desperate to become invisible, it becomes an obsession.

As if their sickness was not as legitimate as one of the physical kind
Just because it plagues their body on the inside of their mind.
Behind their daily masks, they are continuously confined,
And the rest of their lives will be wrapped in a box and predefined.

They often wish things were how they saw them: nothing being real.
They use third person pronouns to describe how they feel
Because, whether they like it or not, they aren't made of steel,
But continue to futilely dance around the solar system's wheel.

1





My hand was shaking while I stirred my coffee with a fountain pen.    I had not slept in close to three days.
Mourning the death of a slumber,I wore two thick black ribbons of funeral-skin under my eyes and, with hair thinning at the sides,  a tatty old gaberdine suite and, my now unslept, unshaven, pale-sad face: looked even more pathetic than usual. My name is Edward Laine.

Sitting in a corner-booth, alone in a café. Crowded and buzzing with all the usual angelic, well slept faces that usually I didn't mind but, now just made me feel utterly depressed and almost morose with jealousy.

I had left my room upstairs for a break from writing and staring at the the nicotine stained walls and the blank page in my typewriter, with a hope that a change of scenery might ease-up the rusted cogs of creativity which were now running dry and creaked and squealed in my weary temples.

As I sat and stared at the blue lines of my notebook, I began to write my thoughts and description of the woman sitting across the room from me. Writing for the sake of writing. I wrote:

'' She sits and stirs,
much like I and staring
at the reflection of her
eyes in her glasses.
All honey-drip hair & alabaster,
red shoes & sun dress.
Thinking great secret
thoughts of which I can
only assume are much greater
than mine.
For, people of the nameless masses
all have real hopes, dreams, loves,
relationships & genuine worries,
while I only care about myself
and this wretched scripture
I have wasted the last four years of my life writing''

I paused, chewed the lid of my pen and looked up from the page with a sigh and continued to observe my nameless beauty.
She, with the afternoon sun on her face, shining down frown the great orb and through the dusty window pane, let her glasses slide down the bridge of her nose and looked across the room at me and smiled. I attempted to smile back but came off looking false and uncaring. Which usually would be the case but, this time I really did mean to really mean it.
I rubbed my yellow finger tips in to my puffy eyes, slid my hands though my hair and held my head in my hands.  

When I lifted my head up I pulled my hair up at a rakish angle giving the classic Einstein look to my already sorry demeanour. And,when the room had un-blurred and come back in to vision, to my surprise(which showed quite noticeably in my face and even made  me jump back in my seat a little) the woman was  standing in front of my table.

                  


                          2





I was perched on a step, drunk, dizzy & trying futilely to light a cigarette. It was maybe 2am, outside some bar in December.
A girl in heels, tight jeans & stripes sat down next to me.  I barely noticed her presence until she had taken the cigarette out of my mouth & the matches from my quivering, now useless hands. She placed the cigarette at a rakish angle in her teeth, struck a match. Now placing the lighted cigarette in my mouth & blowing a  thin stream of blue smoke in to my face, she brushed her long brown hair behind her right ear & said ''want to get out of here?''

                            …


Kissing & caressing in the taxi, I had no idea where we were going, & did not care. When in the cloud of love or lust & intoxication, nothing else seemed to matter. If the driver decided to drive the black cab off of a cliff with the metre running, neither of us would have cared a ****. Breathlessly heaving, the windows were steaming, her bra was off & my belt was undone.

The taxi stopped, she paid the driver, opened the door & we both tumbled out in to the yellow glow of the suburban street. I was in a place I did not recognise, I was drunk & had no idea who this strange creature was that had brought me to this place was. It was  true, it was love, it was magnificent.

                          3



When I came to, I saw from under the table, her red shoes & stockings walking out the door. My coffee was all over me, the chair was broken. She had beat me over the head with it. We had met before. The only other detail I remember from that night was crawling out of her window once she had fallen asleep.
The love of my night. My nameless, shameless one.
She-wolf, bone-grinder, hip-winder. The one. The none.
Come back, you left your diamond ring in my teeth.

My life is poetry and yours is prose
I can mean things nobody knows
All hidden away in my sweet sharp mind
A thousand guesses are guessed just fine

But they read you better all straight and clear
There's no scheming with rhyme all messy and queer
Though I'm simple enough to decipher and see
For minds majorly lazy nor dullards ain't free

Away, I sit where old red roses bloom
Alone, burning minutes this afternoon
My tears are stuck behind my eyes
This bitter beauty beneath grime disguised

Fumbling around while fair skin bakes
The city is quiet now, make no mistake
I think awhile and then go to wander on
These roses belong to all and so to none

One cool jet of water tries to pass for a fountain
A man in short shorts strides by unaccounted
Laughing at how I’m besotted with my own malaise
I must remind myself that a poet’s task is to praise

But it’s terribly hard to make shields without sarcasm
And loopy concerns will throw wise men toward spasms
It’s almost better to float through hydrocodone dreams wide awake
Than to sing futilely of sand and flights and smiles felt not faked

For this insult to suffering can’t end quickly enough
And the Suessical rhythm leaves much to rebuff
Despite luxurious lucidity the inconsequence falls on
Until next year’s parade and hope of less scorching suns

Because I’m not like the roses I’m not like the water
I’m not like the dude whose shorts won’t go farther
Maybe you’ll realize finally after thrice the **** crows
That my life is poetry but yours is, darling, still prose.

The instructions for handling catastrophe
(earthquake criminal activity
explosion medical emergency)
posted, stately, the know
better -
we aren't able to act so calmly in real
crisis
and fear regret,
but not the mistakes that lead us there,
but, as if from the mind of a bad author
at 2 am
suddenly I am saved.
   YOU can be a teacher!
      YOU can study the Holy Roman Empire!
         YOU can dine with engineers!
            YOU can delve into ancient religion!
Histories and futures juxtaposed
opportunity mingled with memory
the place where
   creators and learners
      engineers and historians
         the inventive and the studious
partner
to dance the dance of
unrepeated history
The amazing thing is that it isn't helpless
like a personal pint of ice cream
before dinner laden with far too many
chocolate chips -
it slips over the spoon that tries
futilely to sift
and mix -
of all creatures,
the dreamer
is the most random eater,
it fears making the wrong decisions
to live with regret... well
This is none of your business,
yet intimate, the way surprise is
open, vulnerable

I can swear it will never happen again,
Although, that is a promise I repeatedly made to myself in the past
And I have found it as empty as the space within my heart,
With not enough “sorry”s to fill the hole,
For darling, it beats, but never for you.

You always have been, always will be, my confidante,
My isle of sanity in the strong tides
Threatening to drown my mind in the sea of blue.
But, the issue at hand is that this feeling is it, and nothing more,
Nothing close to my feelings for another.

Eyes radiating warmth,
Threatening to burn with their fiery gaze -
I have received many a third-degree injury -
For I have done the undoable,
Spoken the unspeakable,
Touched the untouchable.

How could my love extend to another when my duty is to share my heart with only you?
I did share my heart,
and the rest,
with you,
My futile quest for passion as hot as yours.
Alas, that spark could never be alighted,
And it pains me to say that this naïve
Young marriage has been an extended study in unrequited love.

So many years have passed, so many years I have tried, and tried I did.
Not a soul can say I did not try -
By God, if there was an award for trying, this vessel would win first prize -
But I have been anchored down by the weight of your love
Without any of my own to keep me afloat.

Your touch is rough,
And in love it scratches, eroding my skin and revealing an undesirable form.

Hers is soft,
Gently caressing my every nook and cranny,
Taking the bad and making silky-smooth good,
If only for a little while.

Your lips do not fit upon my face.
They are as out of place as a puzzle piece
Chosen with good intentions by a child
But upon examination,
Does not complete the picture,
Being jammed in where it will never belong.

Her kiss locks perfectly upon every piece,
Paralyzing me in a timeless tableau,
Wiping clear, if only for a minute,
How much I abhor every fiber of my sordid being.

For how could I ever be such an abomination in the eyes of our Lord?
To not only be an adulteress, but with her of all people in this immense world?
This is not how I was raised,
This is not how I want anyone to live,
A life as despicable as the worst criminal,
Making me a murderer to my own morals.

The most disgusting part is
How our future children would be reared.
Would I be capable of loving the poor things
Or would my soul reject them such as it has you?
Is there a limit to the hole in my heart?
I am fearful that there is an answer to that,
That I ought to know but have turned a blind eye upon,
Never thinking,
Never thinking.

And that is why I write melancholy papers
With blurry eyes and cheeks as red as the sun that is settling for its nightly rest.
My words spill out, too abrupt for such a note,
But they drop true
Appearing as simple stains I pen them word by cold word.

I should be savouring these final phrases
They will be my last for eternity.
I used to believe we would be together,
Even through the vast expanse of death,
But I will never be allowed through the pearly gates of God's kingdom,
He has long forgotten about me.

For I will not allow to child I carry to enter such a broken world.
You deserve to have a China doll family with a perfectly whole wife,
One that does not have these chips and cracks,
Having to paint a porcelain face on every morning.

I am very sorry for you now,
For this cannot have been an easy read,
Not like your Sunday papers that you voraciously peruse,
Or the novels upon our shelf that you say You will read when you have time -
You never do.

You will have lots of time now,
No longer futilely attempting to please me.
Please, never think you are at fault -
The blame is all mine.

This mess is my tragic legacy that I will not
Allow to be perpetuated.
My final word is this -
Take care,
eat your greens,
Find a woman capable of loving a man as wonderful as you
As she ought to,
My best friend.

There are moments,

Brief instances in time;

Where I convince myself that the feelings will subside.

Fixated on the past,

Perpetuated by fantasy.

Tricks of the mind,

To assassinate the ecstasy.

Any bliss of romance,

Masked as sins of my ignorance.

Live in it.

Fester and brood.

Allowing time to pass,

Expecting duration to change the mood;

Enter you.

Notice how the air has only thickened.

Imprinted on my heart,

The loss has left me sickened.

Distraught,

Futilely taming my thoughts.

Longing to be connected,

But through trial it’s been tested,

I took too long to learn lesson.

The risk of progression.

A universe that breathes its natural joy,
through geysers, and the summer sprinkling
of sugar atop burning crimson oranges.

Which finds necessitude,
in orbits of tender frequency.

Which finds contempt:
in vacuous headlands
and marshes filled with spider's legs.

Which seeks unity:
by golden dusty saturation
and celestial chapels
strewn with haunted bursts
from depressed musical chimneys.

Where I am,
futilely seeking to dethrone myself.

["Your mothers and your fathers,"
said he, at the AA meeting beneath
the musty and deserted Anglican church.
"Where the rooms and the furniture breathes
a sigh of relief as you enter.
Where your bodies succumb
to violent pangs of movement,
movement that is nothing other
than the tides of the ocean
and the tautness of a kite string by the shore.
Where three hundred white silken dancers
trot in flowing garments
Dutch windmills to catch the wind
and flow closer to omnipotence."

Before him, a child sadly sings.]

I swat futilely at the moth
whose larvae happily eat
my bedroom carpet
here for my nightly ritual
antacid
teeth clean
bed
suddenly I wonder
at my own mortality
where is this all going
then I smell it again
odour of rancid sweat
only in one small area
but no mistake
it feels as though the moths
and someone have unfinished
business here
a carpet to eat
a life not long enough
to achieve everything
still hanging on
not quite ready to leave
so maybe we never have enough time
to be satisfied
still, no heartburn tonight
and my breath is minty fresh
(I can almost hear those buggers chewing
as I go to sleep)

he’s got this look like he doesn’t know how much he’s into them for and the kicker is he’s alone. I’d subtitle him as nervous but it wouldn’t be ample. we’re brothers, 4 years between our bleaker anxieties. he talks with his arms and I see my father at age 32 and my father sees me and winks. brother he knocks the table wood that separates us with both knuckles and tells me he’s gonna need luck in both of these and he shows his open palms. he begins to gag and I **** but he shows me again his palms. I lean back in my chair and pretend I am in a very small space and pretend I am cigarette smoke. I see the oval in his throat and then an egg and then the egg broken on the table. my brother he loses his cool and bites his palms and futilely tries to set the table afire with matches, some light some don’t, no matter. he tells me he usually catches the egg and telling me calms him. still, it’s some trick and I say it. not a trick, he says, but magic. he drowses right there in front of me and my subtitle is ‘****’ because I am scared. we go inside to the dog we’re sitting for and I retire to the guestroom where I check the eggs in my bag to make sure they’ve not broken. I go into the bathroom with one of them and say down the hatch. I spend the night on a hard bed and care for my stomach. my stomach and not the egg.

My mind traces your every curve and valley,
yearning for adventure in new lands.
For though unexplored, I can see you fit
me as water in glass.
So why not rush into me, why evade?
Guiding is my specialty, but you writhe
as if in storm, with wind in current as I
grasp futilely at your crashing
waves,
beg for your ordering.
But so it goes,
again,
again,
until I see you have no waves, you weather no storm.
It is merely my eye-shard's trick,
reflected as I lay broken and shattered
about the kitchen floor.

Time alone is the ultimate conqueror.
It wears down great men and empires alike.
So too it withers the wildflower;
all break before Aggressor-Time.

The hot sun burns into my turned back.
I thought I'd taste the asphalt for a while.
A begging thumb moves faster than a running fool,
but the sun has baked the asphalt to my feet.

Every northern town worn down by Aggressor-Time
awaits the final blown of urban renewal;
and pop-art will decorate the city streets,
where Aggressor-Time has chosen to leave a slum.

Still, the taste of asphalt and the smell of gasoline
carry me beyond these thoughts
and I run from Time, that sadist,
a shimmering mirage just down the highway.

Resting at night, there's always a bar
and a girl upon a stool, who'll listen for a drink.
Kiss her, love her, then run with the dawning sun.
Beware!  For Time creeps up on you at night.

Broad expanses are diminished by the asphalt,
so too your memories lurking in the forests.
But that which you left behind awaits you,
Time, like the rings of Saturn, has no end.

Savor your victory Aggressor-Time!
Your pestle has ground down mind and body,
only calcified bone left in the mortar,
that futilely defied your crushing weight.

this watch strap
was meant to be
made of genuine leather
the highest quality
chocolate brown with
a steel pin buckle
alligator patterned
finished in matte
though whether cut
from that soft yet durable
popular reptilian hide
as was "guaranteed"
questions will remain
it was not after all
purchased from one
of the authentic
branded sellers
so would appear that
i may have been
caught out by one of those
virally pervasive
regrettably persuasive
and ever-prevailing
peddlers of ****
once again
instead of the promised
"many years of enjoyment"
that were blindly expected
i am left resenting
those moments between
glances at that glassy face
futilely aware of the seconds
minutes and hours
that each split and crack
grows wider and deepens
beyond repair

she wakes to an empty bed
he's left in the early morning
to work, she shivers with regret
He calls at 9am and they exchange
pleasantries. He sighs as the phone
disconnects while she hangs up
hesitantly. Was there more to be said?
He sits in a morose world on the
internet in the afternoons where
he waits for her to come home from
work. He's all alone with his memories
and he dreams of scenarios that
might possibly become reality
if he can convince her that he's
sincere. But shes not there...
Evening meals are a lesson in silence
in the awkwardness of masticating
images that could be dreams or
nightmares, she doesn't care, he
is there...
******* in the dark, in stealth
making sure the rustle of clothing
leaving the body is no indication
of an invitation they awkwardly
brush against each other, creating
friction, gauging reaction, not really
ever wanting to engage in carnality
just basically giving each other
the time of day and the illusion
of Love and a Yes please but
No thanks, not tonight
just another day...
The coffee is cold as it sits acting
like a looking glass for a stare
deep inside the darkness might
be someone who cares but over
the breakfast table on a weekend
morning, the divide is yawning
and there is a weakness to the
futilely uttered
"Good Morning"

Looking out the window pane
The sky crying, "it's all the same"
Tears of life
Showing you're alive
Tap at the window, the tears of the sky
Crying for you and I
Sky sees all and does not like
The pain and the misery cause by all
It cries and cries hoping to see
Some kind of difference, waiting futilely
Hoping to wash away
The pains of yesterday
The ignorance of today
Instead it seems
Tears are to spread around
What is meant to be gone
"Look up and see my pain for you"
The sky pleads day after day
Left on deaf ears
The sky cries more
The sky sees all
The killing and the pain
The wrongdoings and the cheating
"Look up and see, for killing there is no need"
Blind eyes can't see
Falls on deaf ears, the sky's desperate pleas.

As we approach time moves faster
her late gate pass wasting away
though we're running through the wet
and waltzing through the traffic spray.

Breathing heavily we arrive
weaving through the pairs of leaving
clustered lusting cuddling couples
whose ardour thrives a five to ten.

My girl guides us to the last tree.
We grin and grapple futilely.

Those sentry lamps that guard the path
a checkpoint no charlie shall pass
then knife-faced Nora rings the bell
consigning men to outer hell.

The moon is blind,
scarred by cataracts.
A milky-eye
rolling
in the cloud-spun sky.
Its dark eyelid
blinks futilely,
unable to see
the slow waltz
of the stars.

As subtle as a gentle wind,
It creeps into your mind.
Futilely you resist...

It takes root deep within the recesses of your heart
And most days you don't remember it's invasion;
Lulled into a false sense of security...

By and by you are engulfed.
Twisting
   Jerking
      Thrashing
          Constricting
                
Defeat

Languidly
Mockingly
It fondly caresses you
A sickening farewell...

And here I am

Alone

Left to pick up the pieces


Again

Like a miser I collect words
Some obscure, some rarely heard
A quest with no ending
Both illuminating and mind-bending
A search for the grail
Words that tear apart the veil
Trying to see more than eyes allow
Futilely attempting to define the Tao
For words are really only so useful
Except when they are the most  truthful

I woke
Crouched behind the cozy recliner
Upon which Sherry soundlessly slept--

My arms cradled still my fantasy weapon,
The might of dreams, futilely brought into reality
When a tiny voice raised in fear from the girls' room cried

Daddy No!

And I knew
Once more I would engage my enemy
Sacrificing my body for their innocence.

They came for us today:
A lady dressed in tan
and the police man

Whose black skin insulted my fuming father
More than the smell of *****-tainted children
Offended the Worker whose perfume
Attempted to forcibly overcome us all--

My sisters succumbed quickly, escorted
Hastily from sight, hidden forever
But I was a soldier and so I fought
Until finally the official grip became irresistible

Mommy No!

In shock  she released our shared grip
And I was ripped up and away
Forgiveness lost forever to willful surrender.

The steady irregular beat given by the road
Through the tires resonated above the hum
Of travel with an intermittent

Fwap Fwap Fwap

Called out its message in indecipherable code
While I counted the lines
Drawn in yellow upon the asphalt
Alternating the spasms of my secretly tapping feet--

1 2, 1 2 3 4, always even, but never zero
Striving to force a pattern upon a world
That had none.

I know

The scene through the pane of glass exudes Winter
And should I choose to step into the outside world
To leave the comfort of my temperate prison,
Then cold would soon seep through me

I know

The trees do not bow to the wind;
The snow has not settled upon the ground;
No sign of Jack extends
To this seeming common surround.

Still I know.

I thought it clever to tilt the camera
But if I had it to do again I would take it straight.

Perhaps oblivion waits
At the end of an inward pointed gun
Yet what will the execution
Of the act accomplish once I realize the goal
And find myself still musing on the core
I know.

This doodling Yankee (boot noah dandy)
doth newt lack chutzpah,
tries to finagle Fitbit fitting figurative footwear,
that ideally Fitzhugh
like custom made glove snugly,
terrifically, unequivocally matching,
thence handily solving Finger hut issue,
when or if arctic blasts cold
doggedly enveloped Gaea,
whence  humans analogously held hostage
linkedin among fellow Earthlings freezing,
frost bitten, gangrenous hominids
scurrying haphazardly searching vainly
from shelter ring sky (with mother's little helper)
each primate scrambling

(as unrepentant, recalcitrant outlier)
once (what seems millenniums ago) livingsocial
jackknifed habitat fractured,
essentially damning Crispr bungled ambition
grist for raconteur spewing sought aide
telling tales amidst the mill by  Ponderosa Pine
drawing a crowd of curious onlookers,
who forewent idling away time structured existence,
thus, nary a clock watcher weathering whims
as mother nature doth channel
capriciously, felicitously,

and indubitably stripped away
bow ring pastime asper watching paint dry
now tis each man, woman and child to
(seeketh dale and hill) to duff fend themselves
whereat mortality will steal immoral majority linkedin
encapsulated, housed, kindled
within luxurious faux existence
capitalistic dreams engendered existence fleeced
devoid of featherbed,

indeed mollycoddled memories
yanked wherein current rank and file
endowing superlative creature comforts
reduce wretched survivors
scant band of bare naked ladies
beastie boys, foo fighters espying counting crows
ready to buzzfeed toe kin **** sapiens

bereft, expunged, faux invincibility kickstarting
learning basic survival skills
forced to rescind twenty first century trappings
shifting paradigm sans primacy
pitting dishabille helpless imps against pearl jam killers
who do not shrink from ethically principled,

but give full reign to selfish callous deleterious foibles,
gruesome harmful indiscretions
sprouting with mushroom rhizome rapidity
ousting the  omnipresently
(well nigh since time immemorial
virtues cultivated, futilely integrated, lending oomph
residentially, scientifically tendering ubiquitous DNA
foisting gabled, heralded, instilled,

justified kneaded love thy neighbor motto
lyft ting in one fell swoop delicately
embroidered, finely graven, heavenly ideals
no more patent leather shoes reflecting up
nor doodling Yankee staking claim to fame
via feathered cap made of macaroni
thus such jingoistic, holistic,
fabric ripped retroactively
ramping atavistic simian base,
thus leveling the playing field.