My heart didn't break
When you texted me "we're through."
It broke too, too terribly long ago.

You'd push away and longingly stare
At those with a nobody
pretending to be someone.

You closed off your life
And blamed me for respecting you
For giving you space.

But now, your grindstone letters
Which have crushed me for so long
Merely ground the flour
That Will, one day, bake a beautiful cake.

I wait for the day,
That may never come,
When I can say

Stronger now
Better now
Repaired now
Myself now.

But like the dust in the mill,
You've stained the flour, tainted the cake.
You got what you wanted, but still you take,
With the impunity of the grindstone, crushing the flour.

And that is why the flour never wears on the grindstone.

Gliding deftly along the city street
rolling quick and constantly
onward to some unknown scene,
some backward park in the nighttime
smoke curling from these
parted lips, moist and inviting
calling me somewhere I've never seen.

New day, new night
new feelings, rage in delight
fill me with your hilarious entropy,
knock my quarks into the next century,
will you please?

Now you're smoking the pipe and all at once you are free
between you and me, this smoke is thicker and sticks
like glue,
wispy and dreamy and the world spins and calls Toltec
telephone company can't pay me for all those calls collected
and rendered obsolete
Sun god dead as that silly calendar meme

Amaterasu,
and Imma tell you
these ladies in the picnic table
buried alive for boxed lunch and god's brunch
Jesus ******* Christ
and a indelible roster of good guys,
to which we all must strive to live and die
behind,
never moving forward
chasing our tails like a sick dog
under the jasmine runner between the decades-old tanbark
imported from overseas
dead trees
dead canine
and oh isn't it just divine?

You see it, pretty lady.
I can see it hiding behind your eyes
the things you don't tell the others because you're afraid
if they found out,
you'd be crucified.

Well honey I hate to inform,
With KGB efficiency that these love-a-dumbs
aint Methuselah,
they'll be dead!
long before your flood of tears tears me from the land
ballistas me across the great expanse to some strange Ararat
of the eastern seaboard,
or maybe wash me deep along the 80
into the desert sands and tiles
on a leaky cell phone screen
desperately trying to dial home on low battery,
realizing all this was one big deferred dream,
baking in the sun and shriveling
oh well, back to the grindstone-- all those lies plucked your nose,
gotta cut it back to size,
'else your soul it'll outgrow

Don't worry honey bee
It hasn't happened to me,
and We know with calcuable mathematical truth
that it'll never happen to you.

Keep your nose to the grindstone
echo and boom.
Tucked in shirt and buttoned blue collars.
Coffee, no milk, no sugar.
Pagans in a pageant
lifting slabs with slack hands.
Old muscles knotted and torn
a drone sound, stillborn as the childless playground.
Mocking and mundane
the bell rings and shatters the silence
leaving tools on the floor and empty parking spaces.
Nothing left but the weep of pigeons in the rafters
and the breeze that arrives
only after the workers departure.

I watch people in the world
Throw away their lives lusting after things,
Never able to satisfy their desires,
Falling into deeper despair
And torturing themselves.
Even if they get what they want
How long will they be able to enjoy it?
For one heavenly pleasure
They suffer ten torments of hell,
Binding themselves more firmly to the grindstone.
Such people are like monkeys
Frantically grasping for the moon in the water
And then falling into a whirlpool.
How endlessly those caught up in the floating world suffer.
Despite myself, I fret over them all night
And cannot staunch my flow of tears.

Hitting the grindstone once again
Aching regretting pounding ringing

Words pages lines and letters
Chewing mashing crunching swallowing

I left you lonely in your bed
Sleeping easing dreaming wheezing

To come home to you later
Driving bussing going speeding

And make love to you
Writhing releasing hearts beating

Only to fall asleep
Slowly softly warmly with me

And rise again to repeat the cycle

An ode seems appropriate
To the classical style
Of the columns and the domes
Above the green court.

Many things have adorned that dome:
Squad car, fire truck, droid, and phone
But today, viewed in a mind's eye—sunlight.

But as were that phone booth still apparent
From afar it now calls, and now I shall answer.
Over the river, and through the urban jungle,
Through the sky, 400 miles, as the airliner flies
But worth every inch, rod, meter or smoot.
It beckons to the mind and to the heart;
It beckons to the soul of a scholar.

Were I less knowing I might think not
That light fell from above onto that dome.
But rather, that the hemisphere
Gave forth the blazing light
ebullience of photons, amidst
Torrents of knowledge.

Its hallowed halls, numbered precisely,
Soon no longer a forbidden temple shall be
Instead, I shall tread there, such as I am
Learn from efforts I effect and others I see

O Halls, I shall greet thee, O Tunnels in winter
Traverse and find warmth to keep body to task
For knowledge, always, comes with a high price
In joules, dollars, cents, days and hours of rest
Long nights turn to dawns, nose to the grindstone
Maybe just one more tool; okay, maybe another.

But brother meets brother, and sister meets sister
On both sides of the river, and the work gets done.
Whether Greek or not, there is community here
A problem, or a set of them, is always seen through.

As the sun now rises, a new day sets in. In a few
hours of my life I will rise to these challenges.

With a chirping, I shall cross the paths that I come to,
Enter the halls .. and my journey shall begin.

~ D. B. Guy

I have to find home
to get back to the grindstone
but the lined clones
are where my mind goes
until wasted time shows
that I'm dying slow
in the blinding snow
of finding glows
whose fleeting blinks
give me clouds of pink
that start to sink
and then disappear
leaving me here
wondering what I did wrong
smoking a ****
and singing songs
to get along
with myself for my health
otherwise I give myself the belt
when there's gold I can smelt
sitting in a laptop or a notebook
I need to hit the blacktop and go cook
instead of waiting by the phone hook
I just hate the way being alone looks
but every time I try I get my dome shook
grinding my soft heart into stone
so I need to get back to where that heart is
before I'm grinded down to bone
on grindstone marches.

i dreamt of holding your hand, i dreamt of hating you; i am hansel & gretel sharing halves of a sexless edgeless soft young body together sitting in your home and waiting with folded hands patiently, quietly, to be devoured. look i am telling you — it's fine. sink in your teeth, i like the feel of them. today in the trees i saw mary magdalene's shawl-framed face written in shadows between the branches, today i saw the ***** of babylon's hands at my window and i wept. today you kissed my barren chest with the mouth of judas, today i am nobody's child. tomorrow i am yours.

i dreamt i poured you wine from my mouth, i made you bread from my flesh. all i ever did was miss you even when you were right here. you cradled my hand like a mother and later the bones of my fingers like a lover; the walls were stainless peach and the sun was setting and filtered through the window the light from behind made your hair glow, your face was so dark i couldn't find the colour in your eyes. i cried now for what you made me feel until you kissed me quiet, your breath so warm and my voice lost within it, lost like a sailor all at sea, and i felt so safe with you then even knowing how this story ended — you drew away and in my mouth from yours had slipped charon's obol, slipped all down my throat with no resistance. through the suffocation i laughed a little and through the laughter i said to you "yes, that's right," only glad that you had remembered.

look i am telling you — i died perfectly happy because i had not died at all. i watched you from the eyes of the wood-pigeons at your window and i know you burned my body and i know you swallowed the ashes and still! still then all you ever did was miss me, even when i was right there, right inside of you. silly boy.

i dreamt of hating you and by the end i only loved you again.

What Dr. Lector devours with fava beans, inside rots. Too much Chianti?
Not likely. Likely, not enough
but there has been much else. Still,
no amounts warranting any shy example of overload. Mild splurges,
done in high style equal
nothing in comparison to toxic
baths taken in industrial grindstone
mortors. And the payback?
Walking papers and abdominal lump.

Poke it and choke on acid reflux. Pop
more pills to keep it down. Downers
prescribed on more downers.
Feeling down? Have another downer.
What else can we do? Your MRI's
and ultrasound, unsound, do not
come with flag from foreign invader,
claiming this new territory for king.

So, blame it on the offal.
Blame it all on the offal for not
having guts and glory
to fight off its own infection.
And eat your chicken livers.

Across the road
A J-K girl,
Skipped and laughed
On her way to school.
She was strapped
To a big back-pack,
Looking like
A pink pack mule.
Behind her strove
Her drover,
Directing her to quarry
All the stones of learning.

By three o'clock
My minature mule,
A little slower
Trudged from school.
The pack was filled
With rules and tools.
She had panned
The ores of knowledge;
She'll assay them
In days to follow.

Each day my mule
Will turn the grindstone,
Crunching numbers,
Sifting fine poems.
She's mining all the hidden gems
To fill her back-pack
Once again.

Ants crawl across this floor we’ve fallen on before
Crawling away from painful light meant for death
It takes time and height to view this bitter facsimile
Of the life that was when our legs shortened and
We carried righteous angst in disaffected thoraxes

We lived such a life chased by light unrepentant.
So it went with soldiers straying and fraying
Under the stress of the chase by cruel illumination
While those on the scent of something sweeter
Managed to stay out of the heat and find salvation

Truly miraculous things are these
that have no future but cocoon just the same
poor souls that should be outshined by time
find reprieve enough to shield timid bodies
long enough to find their own legs stilting

No feat of glory to any still around
But to those scattered by the wayside
These hulking creatures are visions of
Promise, a promise that one’s own feeble feelers
May one day cast out into oblivion and latch onto
The stuff dreams are made of and close their eyes
With open mouths for serums of wonderland

Such a shame then, when the hopeful
Can’t be afforded the lofty visions
Of their grindstone nose counterparts
And the wayside entraps them in whorish
Promises of paid-for pleasure

But life digresses while the underbelly
Digests the stumblers of chance
So we have you and me, and the world
Feeling inadequate legs stripped bare
So superior parts could be strapped on

This machination of imagination
Is how we get by that heat of life
What once incinerated futures
Inflicts faint unseen blisters--
Reminders of humility rising

At long last our earth-drawn eyes
Draw level with this glass half empty
But magnified with the intention of more,
More, more, more, colors filling prisms across the sky
Gaining beauty and color from the heat of long ago

But who would care about the minute minutes
Of suffering felt by those not bold or quick enough
When compared to this veritable Monet
Blessed with the gift of chasing pasts away
To be replaced with this gilded new day.

So it goes and so it must be in the minds
Still intact, kindled not hindered by the heat

                             ...

Towering over this glass of possibility,
Our focus is intent, not missing a thing
You and me, and the world all focus
On this contrived concoction of color
Bewitching that betwixt reason and love

All our eyes and all our thoughts
Gather power by the hour
Drawn from this pool of glory
Not a thought dropped into
This wishing well

While we sate our psyches
From this languishing pool
We forget how the same spark
That defined us, as we grew above the fray
Is now returned earthward

Isn’t it entertaining to contemplate
Life in the context of those wretches
Blessed to have the power of immediacy
While we sit serially still, no purpose
But to make these poor ants run.

Those onion dome cupolas,
Sheer Slavic sublimity,
Instructing us:
Perhaps Peter the Near Great--
Rather than picking a pack of pickled peppers--
Decides to provide us a solid reminder
Of just what Greatness implies.
The near great never so
Great as Greatness requires.
According to a foremost authority
On pre-Mongol Russian architecture:
“Whip me up some beet soup, Bubala.”
Mike Myers, of course,
Doing “Coffee Talk with Linda Richmond!”
Yeah, a bowl of borscht and a plate of pirozhki.
Feed the stereotype: Ivan, Boris & Natasha,
All obviously Down’s-Syndrome-Feeble-Minded,
Pre-Mongolian Idiotic, as we once said.
Our weltanschauung—
Our World View--
As Good Neighbors Reinhard or Wolfgang,
See the business of global politics.
www.wikipedia.com “The framework of ideas and beliefs forming a global description through which an individual, group or culture watches and interprets the world and interacts with it.”
Thank you, Huns--
Wayne Newton singing:
“Danke schön.”
You always,
Always Hungry Huns.
Danke schön, you Campbell Soup
Man-handler-Hungry Huns,
Fueled on Goethe & Nietzsche,
Zoroaster & ***-ner
Germany:  A Nation of Militarists & Conquistadors,
Just when the Cold War could have been over so quickly,
So prudently averted by asking one simple question:
When have the Russians ever been the
Aggressive party in any conflict?
Be they simple border disputes,
Or true malice aforethought.
Some Napoleonic,
Or Hitlerian.
It was a simple case of HUAC histrionics.
No, decidedly not.
The Near-Great Peter’s was--
If anything--
An Open Door Policy,
A diplomatic Welcome Mat,
A soft squeeze of one’s ball sac,
Pleasant & promising,
“Mi casa es su casa,
Try the Chicken Kiev.”
No Iron Curtain,
If I might, coin a phrase.
But a strong shot of Oswald Spengler,
Pessimistic & carnelian,
Jogs us to Stalin & Khrushchev,
Brezhnev & Putin--
Putin--Vladimir, of that surname--
Perhaps the scariest
Bond villain, yet.
Putin makes a historical first:
Invasion of Crimea.
Invasion of Ukraine.
Maybe those Cold Warrior masterminds,
Actually did us a favor.
(Come out of the closet, J. Edgar.
A retrospective tribute is in the making?
Tom Hanks playing a likable you?)
Tom Clancy & Company
Whipping us up like smoothies,
To fight the good fight,
Noses to the capitalist grindstone,
Building for Divine-Right Nabobs.
New shrines & tombs,
New Coliseums
& Amphitheaters.
New terrible fears of Ivan.

The grindstone.

It's the wait on
the station
killing time as
Indeed
time's killing me,
slowly
I am inexorably drawn
like a moth to a flame
by the stations
that make me
wait over and over
again.

Obsessive compulsive
and that might be so,
I still go though.

Catch me on time lapse
as I collapse.

Life is the camera,
the action, a panacea
for the sick.

I never run for the train
it never comes anyway
I wait
and I wait and
this is my life in
a nutshell
cooked up every day.

colours too
wading through this
cross spectrum
at a loss leading section
in
a pound shop near to you,
but
it all sounds phony,
if only I knew.

And I'm back to the question,
what am I doing?

waiting,
that's what I do
every corner I turn
something new and
if not new
then
hardly used.


That's a short skirt
I blurt out
then get out
at the next stop,
a nonevent
never realised
I had spoken aloud.

and I'm here again
waiting
at the station
with a face on,

It's going to be a ******
long day.

We sharpen axes, knives and the occasional wit
and we don't do it lightly because
the grindstone is ****.

It's a job
It's a job
for Tom. **** and Bob
a likely looking trio if ever
a ******* was.

I go it solo
believe in my mojo
the grindstone is too
slow for me.

Spinning down the road, black asphalt
Bubbling in the sun, black tar
Filling up my lungs, North Star
Shining in the night, black sky
Telling of the void, make right
What you know is wrong, no fright
Demons come and go, clean strike
Severs to the bone, white knight
Standing next to God... But not quite though,

Working on and on, clocks ticking
Money on the run, paper burning
Time for me to go, no stopping
Grind my life with stone, mind sharpening
Ill take what's mine when owed.

Sleep when I am old, still counting
The years fly by in droves, doves flocking
Can't keep the dust or gold, worth nothing
Nor blood nor flesh nor bone...
But the spirit keeps walking...
On and on and on and on and on....

My favorite people are women
Right from the very beginning
Let the boss kick your tail
Let the stockmarket fail
In her arms you will know you are winning

Some come with the loveliest chassis
They like to put fog on your glasses
Pursue till you catch one
Persistance will fetch one
Who'll love to receive your cool passes

MY FAVORITE PEOPLE ARE WOMEN
THEY LOVE COWBOYS AND LAWYERS AND ******
THEY GIVE THEIR LAST CRUMB
MY MOTHER WAS ONE
MY FAVORITE PEOPLE ARE WOMEN

She has the same notion as you son
She's not a big teaser to out run
Commit a wee bit of chasing
Then it's time for embracing
Your libido is due for some fun

As you've kept your nose to the grindstone
Receiving great love from a fine one
If you're worn to deep slumber
You can take down her number
There's always another night, Son

CHORUS

Guarantee the valley...
Sweat and simple salt
Shared by constant, and fluent reasons
The tale of taste in a long run, for a hidden fault

Twists of fate, insists of courtesy
The truth be told, I have no problem
With wisdom, the tale of evidentiality
But a wise more, to finish anger, is our whim

Latent, the sobbing of a charisma
Sweet endeavor, do I seem the better of others?
When a promise of significance, is ours for the only dilemma
That will make liberty, a levity in justice, the irony of lovers?

We have the time, to tell you another story...
Through the timid shall, the world has a future to beautify
With all of a sincerity's bloom, a pyre to worry?
And the coming victory of self and same, a lucre we identify

With hatred...
Here to say, in language we see, is an assured privilege
The tows of compelling a home to sing the body lead
To wishes in the name of God, is anywhere here and now, a legend?

Poise of a common nose, to the grindstone
Welcome us to the table of vice, like a halt of decency
Among the clouds or finished with sunshine early, we have sown
The new, with now, the needs of all; any soul to show humanity...

The Hunting

The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
"If only you'd spoken before!
It's excessively awkward to mention it now,
With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!
"We should all of us grieve, as you well may believe,
If you never were met with again--
But surely, my man, when the voyage began,
You might have suggested it then?

"It's excessively awkward to mention it now--
As I think I've already remarked."
And the man they called "Hi!" replied, with a sigh,
"I informed you the day we embarked.

"You may charge me with ******--or want of sense--
(We are all of us weak at times):
But the slightest approach to a false pretence
Was never among my crimes!

"I said it in Hebrew--I said it in Dutch--
I said it in German and Greek:
But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much)
That English is what you speak!"

"'Tis a pitiful tale," said the Bellman, whose face
Had grown longer at every word:
"But, now that you've stated the whole of your case,
More debate would be simply absurd.

"The rest of my speech" (he exclaimed to his men)
"You shall hear when I've leisure to speak it.
But the Snark is at hand, let me tell you again!
'Tis your glorious duty to seek it!

"To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care;
To pursue it with forks and hope;
To threaten its life with a railway-share;
To charm it with smiles and soap!

"For the Snark's a peculiar creature, that wo'n't
Be caught in a commonplace way.
Do all that you know, and try all that you don't:
Not a chance must be wasted to-day!

"For England expects--I forbear to proceed:
'Tis a maxim tremendous, but trite:
And you'd best be unpacking the things that you need
To rig yourselves out for the fight."

Then the Banker endorsed a blank cheque (which he crossed),
And changed his loose silver for notes:
The Baker with care combed his whiskers and hair.
And shook the dust out of his coats:

The Boots and the Broker were sharpening a *****--
Each working the grindstone in turn:
But the ****** went on making lace, and displayed
No interest in the concern:

Though the Barrister tried to appeal to its pride
And vainly proceeded to cite
A number of cases, in which making laces
Had proved an infringement of right.

The maker of Bonnets ferociously planned
A novel arrangement of bows:
While the Billiard-marker with quivering hand
Was chalking the tip of his nose.

But the Butcher turned nervous, and dressed himself fine,
With yellow kid gloves and a ruff--
Said he felt it exactly like going to dine,
Which the Bellman declared was all "stuff".

"Introduce me, now there's a good fellow," he said,
"If we happen to meet it together!"
And the Bellman, sagaciously nodding his head,
Said "That must depend on the weather."

The ****** went simply galumphing about,
At seeing the Butcher so shy:
And even the Baker, though stupid and stout,
Made an effort to wink with one eye.

"Be a man!" said the Bellman in wrath, as he heard
The Butcher beginning to sob.
"Should we meet with a Jubjub, that desperate bird,
We shall need all our strength for the job!"

We are taught to be goal oriented at an early age...

Learn to share and others will share with you
Eat your vegetables and you can have dessert
Finish your homework and you can play outside

Through adolescence and into adulthood, the conditioning occurs unabated...

Practice hard and you will make the team
Score well on tests and you will place into a good university
Keep your nose to the grindstone and success in career will follow

Is it any wonder many religions fit the same mold?

Do onto others as you would have them do onto you,
but, hey, the real payoff will come in the afterlife

Have you ever wondered what would change if the future
was not quite so clear,
perhaps a little fuzzy,
even uncertain?

What if you knew now,
that you would not be given your place above the clouds,
an eternity of bliss,
a value proposition that cannot be surpassed?

What if all there was is what is,
our time together,
our relationships,
our ability to do right on this earth simply
to enable others to grow,
to thrive,
and to be happy?

Would you...change your plans? Change your master scheme?

If and when a judgment day comes,
who will be the more pure of heart....
the one that is once again striving for the goal
or the one that is acting simply for the reason that

it is the right thing to do?

there may be a time when I'm removed far enough

… but no, not today, today, I ask
new mercies, and
I recall, that's on auto. Hapsthappeneverday kinda thing.
Time after time.
That is a miracle, time.

Really smart
people, that class that feels included in the
we, the
people, politico-intellect-ism trend sect,
they think the math is there to prove

time is
what clocks do, (Royal Institute Youtube watch it)
                                                  
that we,
that ain't me, ye see, I got

removed far enough
to see the blurry
next res
bigger picture more pixels than an eye is said able to see

So for everlasting ideas,
like hell and
heaven,  

the re act
to my act is the power
to act. Eternal motion as perpetual
as can be imagined by mortals, for sure.

Get it together or you leave a huge hole in the fabric of reality JBP

play the role your hand finds dealt,
your special way,
words count inbetween the sayer/hearer
the idle wons are wins not worth the weight, don't fight
the value system that makes life spirial,
swirl of a wand, mathematically
bowing to magi
Fibbo, go viral
with my wind.

this is your life role,
the one in eight billion role.
the star of the show as the hero of hormone wars.
it's all in your head,

how did it *** there, howditgit
this way
this is crazy. No, you never saw crazy, old dude.

Ya had yo'own knows sparkin' at the grindstone,

whet the edge,
or put to more labor..

removed
far enough from this world

my bubble
is in it not of it,
… since 1970. No ****. Outathis world…

Crazy was the melding  from the sixties to…

I was thinking, to about the mid-eighties, but
now,
you and I, we travelled to the beat of several
different drums.
Olde dude,

If you put your nose to the grind, ******
you may have missed,
in fifty years,
more
than you imagined, now, is a new day time.

Some seed never sown back when, can be sown and
grown right,
now.
That's good.
I'd say some words I've helped be heard have

made the world some better'nitwas when we stopped.

time to roll.

Sisyphus, right. 'Never missed a trick time
it takes to roll the rock up,
then in between tick time
to roll the rock up,

onus minus the roll down, the unshackled wireless
inbetween shameless blameless
imagine
happy ever after…
How?
Pretend, the end.

Push, happy as hell.
tick, time
to roll the rock up,

Incorrectness of value of value from the gitgo,
like buttoning your shirt wrong from the first button,
as soon as you fix it, it's fixed.

Nothin' you can do?
Do nothin'.

Think, Sisyphus, happy

Happy he's not in that time we are so removed from
now
slow and steady kinda wins the race, she said that,

Ben or me? Where does the thread un-ravel?

Extended time model, Rogan in the back ground,
what myth has the fear factor guy,
a little short power-lifter-kick boxer guy,
some smart, quick of wit, a hunter,

who was asked, in Thailand,
Have you seen the true beauty of the elephant?
I was asked that, in Thailand,
by a saffroned monk at a kickboxing match
in the jungle in 1968.
Synchroni-city or what?

Who could steer it's  hearing
by a clock and fail

to hear the rhythm of the rock rolling down the hill,
inbetween
the tick…

Sisyphus says time is more effective,

if-ity-ish when,
and only then, when ticks hapt to be

at the very point of return
time
the roll back
no rush, no dread no worry, imagine

time ticks at the sharpest point of the story
at the very very very tippy top
point in time

defining you.
Shame, sticks to you like tar.
Marilyn and Monica and Marla and all

Fame to blame, to shame for being  a believer that
there may be a time when I'm removed far enough

to ignor my own ignorance and innocence
of ideas that possessed
fools

A murderous assault on your attention span,
musicals, those people really live near enough my bubble,
that I can find
ripples

from decades I missed, this is 2018, how can it get better?

The grand wizard cat. pop. elephants are so sweet,
dam,
rewound. Really,
cool, I know what he says next, it's funny before it's funny.

Today is a real good day to get away. Binging Rogan,
testing a mystery fruct-ification
of a single seed from
a sack 'shake.

----
As you move forward in time how do you measure

progress
lo-res thinking, 72 dpi 1984 Macintosh. Hello

now there is reality at the speed of thought, imagine

this was once the speed of thought.

===
why are you in pain? Do you know any lies you believe?
Do you
urge others to suspend their un-belief
to hear you think

listen
ridiculously (is that a good word)

listen, people become interesting, from a distance,
thank you,
I'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

What the **** kind of artist am I? I say I'm a poet, but you wouldn't know it if you saw me through my eyes. My whole existence is just a guise. I compromise my way through the day, wasting away what little talent I may possess. I'll confess that I've been impressed with some of the things I've managed to remove from my chest, but it would be in jest for me to suggest that I've ever given anyone or anything anywhere near my best.
I grieve the death of communication, but with each anxious breath my verbal constipation gets gridlocked, words backing up and choking out, leaving me a broken stutterer, muttering to myself that I'm a stupid schmuck, a ******* out of luck, wasting time and getting stuck, with the most frequent word in my vocabulary being ****...
I'd be a sitting duck if it weren't for my sheer stubbornness shoving this struggling mind to rise like a hawk, terrorizing the skies with my fantasized verbiage and tantalizing turbulence. NO one else has a plane of thought that swerves like this, and when I crash land, I trudge across the tumultuous terrain to prove my worth to myself.
I create my own living hell, my own prison cell. My heart knows I excel, but my eyes only open when I fail, which makes it hard to tell if I've gained any traction. My prison bars have cut my vision into fractions, marring my perception and staring the conception of self dissension.
I spelunk through the sunken wonders in my skull, wandering from wreck to wreck, scouring the decks for hidden sets of similes to act as seeds for my flowering dreams. My dreams always seem just out of reach, but comfortably within my sight; and although I yearn to touch, apparently seeing is good enough to keep me sedated.
I'm compensated with overrated praise from those closest to me. I have to hold boulders above my shoulders to keep my nose to the grindstone as I blindly roam through forests of undone poems, revealing themselves to me as blazing trees, jealous of the message held by their burning cousin. Dozens of roots grew though my veins, ingraining my fingers as I walked through the smoke, groping with my broken limbs, hoping for that day to come when tires swing from my bows again!
But I won't settle for being one of them-- a motionless stem, potent with potential that lies latent beneath layers of sentimental protection. I stave off being rooted by stripping my bark bare and shooting my words into the air instead. The leaves bloom and blossom inside my head, allowing me to dream in color, compounding fantasy and reality into the blurring plurality that's governing between my ears.
My horizons delight my eyes with sights of blinding brilliant bouquets of vibrant prisms that could make prisoners cheer.
They give me hope. Hope that one day I can cope with myself, stop blocking my path with felled trees, and just be pleased to have been Me.

I went home today, straight after work
Because your curtains were closed
And although I didn't struggle with the quirk
Of thinking "But maybe..." (not really), hosed
Down with sobriety, I wondered at the darkness,
The loneliness, the determination (nose to grindstone,
Nose to grindstone), and with less than sharpness
I went home, nearly straight after work, and left you alone
And I left memories of another girl somewhere -
Possibly in your curtains - but you wouldn't care
To know that I no longer think, "I couldn't look him in the face" -
I now ask if I will be able to look at myself, in no one's place.

Nose so hard to the grindstone my face is unrecognizable and I seem to have lost my dignity out of my ears I’m not quite sure what to do with the breathing spaces between periods anymore. I lost my art like people lose keys and I’m sure it’s still under the couch but I just don’t see it anywhere.
They should call it a writer’s monolith because of its worshipful insurmountability; I sat there beating on it with my bare hands until they were ****** arm and hammers freshening up my mind and I was free, free from art.
And of course that’s when my life fell apart and my self-harm came from the grindstone, ignorantly pressing inputs for a desirable output I feel like my soul was numbed.  Part of me walked away in outrage at the boldness of this new survival style because there was no life.
As college kids we joke about no-lifing to get work done but what happens when you no-life life? It would explain the singularity roughly two inches under my left lung.
Sleep still comes difficult to me.
Love,
Alex

The minds of man are turning,
always yearning for more.

Heads are always rolling,
demanding perfection or else.

What constitutes that I'm another bill?
I think I mean more than you think I do.

Raise your fist to have it torn back down.
You have to stand your ground.

Put our nose to the grindstone,
only to lose our pay.

Men sit around, don't get their hands *****,
but think they have the right to take it away.

See the dollar signs in their eyes.
Money running through their veins.

We're just slaves for the industry.
We're stuck in the maze.

Everything is made of gold,
all they want is more.

We're just another bill,
they slip in their back pocket.

12/10/2012:
A very mellow day,
A day that makes one’s golden years actually golden.
Happy in retirement?
There’s a joke:
You slave like Spartacus in the Libyan salt mines for 30 or 40 or even 50
years, and now you’re supposed to re-calibrate the machine, re-gauge
one’s anatomy and metabolism for a habitat so far and away grindstone
gone.
The muckrakers Studs Terkel and Barbara Ehrenreich remind us:
Work is the only thing we can do for 8 hours, other than sleep.
Perchance even to dream out that Roman **** or Bacchanal.
No, alas, 4 hours is the legal limit for an ******* lasting that long,
During all our joy-juiced carnal desires,
Be they under the elms or elsewhere.
Cialis! ******!
Names already living it up in infamy.

A simple truth about Retirement:

Stop working and die.
A most intense public service announcement,
A vast digital image out of Yeats,
A very special Spiritus Mundi P-S-A.
Targeting Baby Boomers, especially:
“You better find yourself something,
Or someone to occupy your mind.”
Brought to you by the good people at
OCCUPY BRAIN STREET,
First a national, then a veritable global movement,
However so short-lived;
Like all the others.
Oh, Boomers, your attention span is down to 8 minutes.
Your mnemonic links are frayed and tattered,
Your hard drive noodle fragmented,

Yet still whirring white noise jazz.
A New Orleans Dixieland funeral,
And Al-Zheim trumpet blast to go out on.

Well, I don’t know about the rest of you,
But I am relatively well adjusted in retirement.
And today—previously mentioned as a mellow day--
Today is one reason why.
As is medical marijuana and the sultry voice of Chrissie Hynde,
With or without her band of Pretenders.
And let’s throw in a lovely bottle of Temecula red wine--
Doffo, if you’re going to get fussy on me,
Another blithe distraction cultivated and custom-made for old age.
Indeed, a very mellow day.

Garth lay still in the gilded cage
Unable to move a thing,
The bars were merely spiders’ webs
Of a faery’s magicking.
He’d wandered into the Faery Ring
Where he’d seen the mushrooms spread,
And now was caught in a faery spell
With the rest of the living dead.

With Tom, the Candlestick Maker’s son
And a barrel of candlewax,
He’d dawdled home from the marketplace
And lay in the beckoning grass.
He woke to find he was tightly bound
With a faery up on his chest,
She said, ‘Lock him in the cage as well,
Along with all of the rest.’

And Madge, the maid with a milking pail
Who was sent to milk the cow,
She’d wandered off on her way; she thought,
She needed to feed the sow.
She woke to mushrooms, ten feet tall
All towering over her head,
The stalks were bars, set under the stars
And her limbs, they felt like lead.

While Tim the Tinker was there as well
With his knives and sharpening tools,
His grindstone lay in a pile of hay
And the bonds on him were cruel.
The beggar lay in his filthy rags
While the rich man muttered, ‘Shame!’
He’d soiled his boots and his Regency suit,
Was bound with his watch and chain.

They lie not far from the caravans
Of a gypsy camping ground,
So Faeries say: ‘Let’s take them away
Before they’re seen and found!’
But dancing into the faery ring
Is the Gypsy, Mavourneen,
Who stumbles over the gilded cage
And steps on the Faery Queen.

The top flies off from the gilded cage,
The webs of the bars are torn,
And Garth crawls over the mushroom heads
To swear, ‘I feel reborn!’
The faeries weep as they carry their Queen
In death, to their Faery Dell,
There’s mushrooms still in that Faery Ring,
But now, Toadstools as well!

David Lewis Paget

'Brownleaf Chestnut giants rattle like Spanish dancers , maracas crackle in the changing wind , do perform auburn 'Lover of Autumn' before the plenteous , frosted daughter of Winter , before Sun sprinkled dale , fig , lilac
Atop the red-rock spillway , as the piping martins , the whippoorwill
question , the wild goose direction
Voice of the swallow , of tenderness and regal griffin
Coppering , flint sparked showers upon the grindstone , mesmerizing  
twilight orbs , polished gems , starlight Guatemalan priestess* ....

Time plays games
with me and
          she’s been winning
On an off-kilter axis,
Atlas, the world is spinning
a little too fast

It’s been months
already since I
          shed my masks

still somehow I’m surprised
it doesn’t show
how bright
I am
newborn it’s-a-baby-girl pink
where
                                                       (ar­e you excited?)
smooth skin meets the
grindstone
peeling away scales grown
denying myself

You promised, Momma,
you’d never be embarrassed
how could you be
I mean
I am new-born-baby-girl pink
light and airy          
                
                          not so sure
                          its a sure thing
                          you’ll see

But

the truth is that I
don’t have to
open my mouth
               to be

                            and somehow

that makes it all



              a little



                               slower

You know how you have one of those days at work where time is crawling by and you want nothing more than for the day to be over and it feels excruciating? But then you put your nose to the grindstone and just slug it out. And you do not stop until the end of the day.

That is how I feel today, only I have different work to do. And the work I have to do is like that project you put off because you just do not want to do it. It is that file you put on the bottom of everything and just hope it will resolve itself. But you know it will not. Every day you pick up that file thinking today may be the day you will get started. But you do not. You have questions about some of the material in the file, you are not sure what to do, and you are unable to complete the project because there is nobody around to answer your questions. You have left several messages for her, the woman who was supposed to answer your questions, but she has not called you back. And now you are angry because you need guidance! You need her help you, you cannot do it on your own! But it has been too long now. She is not going to call you back...she is not going to give you the directions you need to complete this project. You know that you are on your own now.

That is how I feel right now. The file before me is filled with my life, my past, and my painful memories. It contains my feelings of shame, sadness, anger…hopelessness and worthlessness. The project is to take each page and fit it together like a puzzle…and once the puzzle is together, the project will be complete and I will be whole.

                                      But I do not know where to start.
                                                           I am lost.
                                     I feel like a ship without a rudder.
                                       A sailboat without a spinnaker.
                                       I am a tourist without a guide.
                  I am a lost child without her mother... alone and frightened.
                            I am crying…but she can no longer hear me.

Han-Shan got it right:

the fewer people,
the fewer distractions;
welcome visitors,
but discourage guests.

Drink to ecstasy,
but not remorse.

Let your children
lead their own lives.

Expect nothing
from anyone;
you will never
be disappointed.

Assume that death
waits outside
right now,
holding your car keys.

Keep your nose
on the cosmic grindstone;

keep you fingers
on the Dharma throttle;

place preparedness
for resurrection
at the top
of your to-do list:

nothing, but this
solitary moment,
is guaranteed.
- mce

do you fear fear

a nail biter? a bedwetter?
or are there other compulsions
you cling to

step out, from the stale shade of the dark
that consumed you
no longer does it
feel the warmth that the sun casts down
sometimes, it's all one can do to beat the blues

this road of life is rocky
and it sees us all stumble
you chart your course

stick to it

as a blade meeting grindstone
water's introduction to limestone