What is to come? 

From a world where our children are given guns to play with, 

It’s not the squirting of water,or release of plastic bullets, it’s the message we shoot into their heads .

Triggering violence from adolescence.
Planting seeds of hate,
And watering them with spilled blood .

Waiting for the fruit to ripen, but it never does,

Now we have the taste of bitterness lingering on our mouths.

That bitterness stays on our tongues ,
So that when we speak, that’s all that comes out.

You see Somehow the fruit is never as sweet as when it’s forbidden.

Sugared by sin,

Borrowed from thy neighbor, because when it’s sin there’s always enough to go around.

What is to come?

From a world where we are told to express ourselves , but within the guidelines.

Told that the world is your canvas , but restricted to only the color white.

It isn’t as pure as it seems.

Underneath the white paint lies splashes of read , gushing from a black body.

There is no canvas, all we are given is a painted picture, of what perfect looks like.

So that we Erase anything that doesn’t fit the image. 

The slightest difference is reason for war.

Be it the quantity of melanin

Be it religion

Be it Gender.

What is to come?

Of a world that is only tolerable through the shade of intoxication .
Where pills serve as capsules of happiness 

We are our biggest enemy,

Our pain is self inflected.
If this is what it is ,to be human 

What is the cure?

He was a young lad and in the fourth grade
Struggling hard for the grades he made.
Everything he tried seemed to vanish in the air
For he could not read and there was no one to care.

The teacher made fun of the young boy’s plight
No compassion, understanding, was ever in sight.
The days were filled with doubt and fear
He was told to repeat grade four next year.

Starting the fourth the second time around
A new school, a new teacher, made his heart pound.
For the world to see, on the card it came
The very first day he had to spell his name.

J - E - E - R - Y came out of the pen
The letters did appear to be correct just then.
The teacher bent close and whispered in his ear
“One E and two R’s, I think you meant dear.”

He fell in love with the teacher that day
She knew his heart and just what to say.
She knew the pain that the young boy felt
And all the embarrassment the past year dealt.

Miss Hagness, the angel, had come to his aid
He sensed her love and was no longer afraid.
Like the gentle Shepherd, reaching down from above
She taught him to read by her affection and love.

He went on to college to prepare for a life
Giving to help others with trouble and strife.
Pastor Jerry’s the Shepherd of many a heart
With love and compassion from the fourth grade did start.



===============================================
Teacher­ Part II
The story told in verse is about my pastor. It is about the struggles of a lad who was ridiculed in school because of a reading disorder called dyslexia. It is about how the system would have let him sink into oblivion but for the personal interest of a young teacher who came into his life the second time he went through the fourth grade. A teacher who had compassion in her heart for the boy and helped him discover the talents that lay hidden deeply within him. The talents that allowed God to develop within him, developed a compassion for others and a giving of himself first as a youth pastor for many years and then for the first time as a senior pastor.

It is also a story of how indifference toward others can lead to destruction of a young mind to the point of total loss of self worth. It is about the deep wounds that can be inflected by the harsh words we speak. Such words can never be retrieved from the abyss of time. How many times do we fail to see or ignore what we see because it does not conveniently fit into our schedule and in the process, contribute in the destruction of a life?

If we are teachers, mentors, leaders, or just breathing, we can share the pain of others to ease their burdens and encourage them in the difficult times. As we share the pain of others, we gain the right to share the joy in their triumphs and successes.

The story came from a message delivered on Sunday morning May 1, 1999. The poem wrote itself from the words spoken in that message. Can we do anything less than what the young teacher did for the boy? As God leads us, let us listen to the still small voice. The voice may be the voice of a child pleading for help, the voice of our Father directing each of us in the path we must travel. Be ever aware of the opportunities that God lays in our path. Maybe just doing only what is required and not seeing beyond ourselves we miss seeing the potential of a young mind. Could this be the greatest disservice we could do to our Father?

Oh God, give me the wisdom to see the promise and potential in others and be led by Your hand in molding the young mind.

It is written, “Though you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.”

I’m reading my dictionary with the pages missing
Of all the words that I’d much rather be dismissing
It’s much easier to ignore what’s been written
To stop the queue of a page that’s already printing
Listen
Cause we live where we can rip anything out that we don’t like
Take out words like bomb raids and hunger strike
My dictionary might be a little lifelike
It’s saying what I can and can’t do for a klondike
unlike
Sitting down and facing brown reality
Taking very simple things making hyperbole
To realize you might be a nobody
Cause there’s nothing that life can guarantee
Do you agree
To be afraid of a word in a book is nonsense
Maybe I don’t understand the context
But is there really that much weighing on your conscious
That reading is like consuming tons of toxins
Word

Everyone likes to tell me what I can and can’t say
But I like to disobey and I say it anyway
Any way that I can
To get my point across
Any way that I play
with word play
and words say
how much you can weigh
and can you be gay
or can you horseplay
on the Lord’s day
and hey
I take the highway
As my getaway
But the signs are on display
on where I can turn
and when should I yield
And still the words reflect
on my windshield
but what’s in a word

bird
I hear bird’s the word
But let me reword my password
Cause it’s too simple
To unlock the emotions of other people
When they wear their heart on their sleeve
Strung together with staples
And it is a staple
That I should be graceful
And tasteful
Not be wasteful of my words
Cause that’s all I got
and it seems I forgot
to boycott the
thought talk
and just keep it to myself

Because words are powerful
And I am not
And too often I hide behind them
And finally I’m giving it a second thought

I sit outside the jail house, this Sunday afternoon.
I watch the parade of people, going in and out so soon.
The visits here, come and gone. Time swiftly passes on.
The sadness shows on each face for the one which they belong.

The mother walks with their child, quietly through the door
To see a father not coming home, for many days or more.
They sit and wait so patiently for their short time to be
For twenty minutes on the phone, their “daddy” they will see.

So close are they but yet so far, no touching through the pane.
Fingers spread, hearts are breaking, their future down the drain.
The question on the little lips, will daddy come home now?
Soon, we hope, my dear child, maybe next week, somehow.

The parents come to visit him, with thoughts of shattered dreams.
The hopes they had for many years, are gone, so it seems.
They put on a smile, push back fears, to keep alive some hope.
They wonder “why, what went wrong, how will we ever cope?”

The pain inflected, bad decisions, when drugs have taken hold.
Ruined lives of those around them, the broken promise told.
His family grieves the senselessness, of life’s potential lost.
Hope now seems a fleeting dream, the family pays the cost.

Then comes a chance from the judge, “six months” he did say.
“To turn your life around for those who care for you, today.
A broken promise turns months to years, so get it right this time.
Don’t let them down, keep hope alive, as from this hole you climb.”

A broken life, a shattered dream, seems lost in the eyes of man.
When darkness falls, and hope is gone, when all has hit the fan.
God can mend the broken life, He turns darkness into light.
Forgiveness comes to those who ask, through grace and mercy’s might.

For those who choose to dream a dream of a better life to see.
Those who choose to change their hearts, the chains fall off, they’re free.
They turn their back and walk away from the old life to sever.
Redemption is a choice away, where lives are changed forever.

I don't feel it, You say. And, pray tell her
name, my sir, that i may find she thee and prithee

Bear me off to southern sounds, fallow fields,
an altar ground, a garland rope of singing springtime snows.

this may be more than i can--;;
                        YOU
                        ARE
 ­                       NOT
                        WOR
          ­              THW
                        HILE

and i had such an awful dream last night--

you said, Bronwen, my love;
and i could not sweep her hair from the floorboards
beneath which you hid your ***** mags from mice.

because you tell me about it.

                                                            ­              WHOAM?
you speak of gOd like dOgs & i am worthless coinage
in the sewers. the sewers find my dress still hanging from your bones.
your bones your bones your piano finger bones
kiss me again

until my lips swell my throat bleeds i do not want you to know how much i crawl spiderlike through the trails of hair in the drain as the autumn leaves the summer leaves the spring buds freeze over hell i am not i am not listening pan-drum please let me say this one last thing:;

he is your accordion player the ***** player man who speaks fluent french and inflected english he is your accordion player on the pipes-----

and you say i do not feel and i reply,

this is too bad too late, chuckle replay as your fantasy walks through the door my team my team she is porcelain lovely see the perfume in your synesthesia colorblind goat footed grandiose Cesar with epilepsy she is your dream she is she is she is!

&meanwhile; the trumpet in soul still plays solfeggio---

1 2 le 3 4 1 2 le 3---1 2 le 3 4 1 3--le 1 le 3 le 1
she is the discord of the seventh in the tenor line
she is membranes she is rain she is towels

                      LEIGH **** IT

if only if only you weren't so lonely i might call you mine and bring you back homely.
IF ONLY-----Charles weren't so busy while you

stare at silver spoons and cherub smiles

and cupid calls you home again.

the heroes of
those action movies
from the 80s and 90s
always looked
so much cooler
with their split lips
and bloodied noses
than i ever could
as they faced off
against the villain
   of the piece
bruised and aching
they would struggle on
regardless of pain
their success set back
but inevitable nonetheless

to be honest
i would love to see
one of those heroes
try to overcome
the villain
   of my peace
i've had plenty
of nose bleeds
through the years
but most of them
self-inflected

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." - 1 John 4:18

a maladjusted little minstrel, rage focused in the pinnacle
least invincible principle of my environment, so biblical
i'm ti-red of the rituals habitual to assimilating individuals
like our voices and choices and self-importance, all cyclical

does your infallible tongue feel hungry and porous
like your horrid torpid fond memory abhorrence
the grossly ****** and unnatural discordance
the inorganic and unfactual that came before us
the dissident power of your bodies' diction in a chorus

swear i'm fine, it's just your eyes, inflected with disinfected distance
a forest of imbellished distrust, derealized with disinterest
making me feel like my lungs are full of fumigated insects
and that's fine, i swear, trust me,
i don't need to convince you of this
i don't want to climb into your mouth and wrestle the truth out
i want to go home smelling of wine and pass out on the couch
and your actions are latent, this is stupidly freudian
stop treating me like a ******* patient,
you're supposed to be my friend

coughing up horrible insincerities meant to be favoring
stop and listen to yourself giving your secrets away, wavering
like a white bible page ripped from the spine of glue on your mouth,
you gave in, balancing on the edge of a risky display
disobeying social conventions and being made prey again today

you’ve got dictionaries of fiction fidgeting with the infectious insecurity ignition
stop and listen
and a thesaurus that can’t arm you with the proper vowel consonant friction
to out-enamor their derision when you pout as you fit the description
never feeling completely comfortable in someone else's kitchen
i wish you would scream and shout but you just keep playing cards now
wish you’d unlock but it stops between your lips slow scowl
swallowing your tongue, the key, he cut out when you kissed
not hateful but afraid
afraid to let it out, ‘kid’
afraid the words would fit too much like a slit smile on a spit
afraid they would just flow like this

an unspoken conviction for viscious fulfillments
and dereliction of indiscriminate sauve depictions of riches
of addictions to princesses and affinity for infinitely angering insistence
of what she represses
expected on the table in an instant

the constriction of the snake in her belly
makes ******* and planning things
seem insanely oppressive
she was getting too old for things to be like this
but they all like it that way
this is why she hates yelling and kissing
always the same old
merry go round

you say poet as if it means perfect
when i know enough people with the bruises to show it
to realize it really means nervous
and i have nothing to show see
except the mosquitoes who ****** my blood
and would be delighted to tell you
what ugly things they know about me

You ever think about how shallow some people are?
So shallow that if you stepped in a puddle of them your feet would still be dry
The people who aim to do things, maybe even great things just to impress or gratify someone
To put someone down
To make up for some kind of weakness
To prove others wrong

Those who create this image of themselves that appeases others perception of them

Money
Material things
Cars
Planes
Designer clothes
Gizmos and gadgets

Things that don't mean anything more than a look see to anyone of real depth

You know depth?

To appreciate everything you're lucky enough to have or gain
To understand the little things and the bigger picture
To have been through hardships and learned from them

Empathy
Patience
Passion
Creativity
Selflessness
Respect

Depth

But then, there is something worse than being shallow

Hollow

To be empty of anything

No desires
No pleasure

Just numb hopelessness

The ones who have been hurt and just couldn't get back up
And fill the void with either drugs, things of only monetary value or self-inflected lashings of pity, loathing and mistrust

They look at the ones with depth and see them as idiotic idealists with no direction or any idea what it means to be part of a normal society

They look at the shallow ones and see great figures of wealthy stature
Exciting lives being lead by beautiful elitists

They say,
that nothing you do is of much significance,
there's nothing you'll do that is of much importance,
but the small impact you make,
you have to do.

They say,
That your finger prints are permanent,
on someones life when you grab hold.
no matter how meek,
you leave your mark on their crime scene.

They say,
that love conquers all.
Your knight in shining armor will save you.
A young little pretty woman will love you for you and nurture  you,
until together you die,
on a warm day in bed together,
to continue your lives in eternity, in blissful peace.

They never say the truth.
The story of how we just so happen to be here.
How the only difference betwixt us and an animal is that we escaped natures food chain,
and have made our own controlled by pieces of paper and fat pigs congratulating eachother over brandy and illegal drugs on wall street feeding on our developed Darwinist society.

They never say
How no matter what you'll do your efforts are deleted months after your enviable death.
Self inflected or other wise.
So why do we value our fingerprint lives so dearly?

There Are So Many Things I Can Say To You,
To Try To Make It Right,
But Nothing Really Can,
I'm Sorry I Hurt You,
But I Can't Erase The Past,
I'm Sorry You Didn't Hear It From Me,
But This Wound Was Made,
Long Before I Was In Love With You,
It Was A Mistake,
It Really Was,
I Believed A Lie,
And The Outcome Still Haunts Me Today...

I'm Sorry That You Are Mad At Me,
I'll Try To Give You Some Space,
I'm Sorry That I Cant Take Away,
The Heartbreak Which I Gave To You,
If I Could I Would,
Because I Have Never Loved Anyone More,
I Am So So Sorry I Let You Down...

I'm Sorry Because I Saw Those Tears In Your Eyes,
I Knew You Didn't Want To Believe,
I Know,
I'm So Sorry I Let Your Hope Down,
I'm So Sorry,
I Crushed Your Loyal Heart....

I Have Never Been Unfaithful To You,
Please Believe That,
I Never Intended To Hurt You,
I Didnt Try To Keep It A Secret,
Because I Was A Liar,
I Kept It From You Because I Didn't Want,
To Talk About It,
I Didn't Want To Feel That Pain Again,
To See The Hurt I Have Inflected On You,
I Wanted To Move On,
Because He Was My Yesterday,
And You Are My Today,
And I Really Hope,
With All My Heart,
You Will Choose To Be My Tomorrow....

Sometime, I'll have a dream
A dream in which I'll be engaging in ***
With the loose folds of skin and cellulite
Around Maya Angelou's neck
I use the word engage b/c I don't think
It'll be  my idea or if I would even want to be a completely willing
Participant
You know how dreams go:
You're able to detach
So anyway, all the while she'll be reciting her verse
In that overly inflected, pretentious and annoying grandmotherly Huxtable
Tone she uses and
Right as the nauseousness becomes unbearable
And I fear I won't be able to keep the contents of my
Stomach from forcing itself out and onto her face
She starts to devour the entirety of my lower abdomen
The sickness I was feeling quickly dissipating and the
Realization that she's no longer speaking and merely
Gnashing, ripping and eating my viscera
I return to an almost homeostasis
A comfortableness



Copyright © 2009-Present

Everyone has their daily struggles
But with depression it's more than doubled
I rise each day to face the sun
But a part of me just wants to run
To hide away and lock the door
Or **** someone and settle the score

The wounds inflected on me I can not hide
You can see them all plainly on every side
They are apart of me, inside and out
I've been prey to many, and my trophy head they mount
In their memory of victims, I'm another count

They did it slow, they took their time, in no hurry
Then sent me off to the f**king taxidermy

They cleaned me up and stuff in the saw dust
But all you see standing before you, is just my crust.

A dream in which I'll be engaging in ***
With the loose folds of skin and cellulite
around Maya Angelou's neck
I use the word engage b/c I don't think
It'll be  my idea or if I would even want to be a completely willing
Participant
You know how dreams go: you're able to detach
So anyway, all the while she'll be reciting her verse
In that overly inflected, pretentious and annoying grandmotherly Huxtable
Tone she uses and
Right as the nauseousness becomes unbearable
And I fear I won't be able to keep the contents of my
Stomach from forcing itself out and onto her face
She starts to devour the entirety of my lower abdomen
The sickness I was feeling quickly dissipating and the
Realization that she's no longer speaking and merely
Gnashing, ripping and eating my viscera
I return to an almost homeostasis
A comfortableness




Damon Michael Garrett
Copyright © 1972-Present

Everyone has there daily struggles
But with depression it's more than doubled
I rise each day to face the sun
But a part of me just wants to run
To hide away and lock the door
Or **** someone and settle the score

The wounds inflected on me I can not hide
You can see them all plainly on every side
They are apart of me, inside and out
I've been prey to many, and my trophy head they mount
In their memory of victims, I'm another count

They did it slow, they took their time, in no hurry
Then sent me off to the ******* taxidermy

They cleaned me up and stuff in the saw dust
But all you see standing before you, is just my crust.

Our interpretation of time
is only backed
by the ego of our arrogance
as if we alone could master
the infinite mysteries of the stars
and chain them to the definition
of the dot to dot constellations
of our limited imaginations

then trap the sands of time
to gears and springs
and strap it to our brittle wrists
as we crown ourselves
the children of a grand designer
who sculpted our flesh alone
in “HIS” most holly image

we know nothing of the things
we pretend to know
as the flaw of our intelligence
is that it is self designed

we are non the better
than the creatures
we share this planet with

other than we deny ourselves
the simple pleasures
of howling at the moon
or singing with the sunrise
or laying on the surface
and in the silence
of the moonlight shimmering
over the still waters of a pond

we make noise
when it is unnecessary
and keep silent
when we should speak out
as the devil in our deeds
is in every detail
of the cruelty
we have spread out through history

sometimes in the name of god
and sometimes in the name of country
and in the times
of our most overindulgent hypocrisy
in the name of both

as we have dived ourselves
by imaginary lines
drawn in the sand
we believe we have trapped
and strapped to our brittle wrists

as if time is only on our side
moving in one direction
playing by our rules
shaped by the god
we created to bless us
for our self inflected
and self indulgent sins

because it is easier
to blame the devil
for the all fruit we steal and horde

but the devil is only real
in the crimes committed
by the blood we have
running in our veins
and the blood we spill
to feed the fear and hatred
of fables and myths too old
for anyone to remember
written in languages
no one has ever spoken or heard

all the while we ignore
the simplest of facts
that when we have gone too far
dropped one too many bombs
let one too many bullets soar
that when fear and hate swallows
the last of us whole

that time will march on without us
and that all in all
all we have strapped to our brittle wrists
is nothing more
than our meaningless egos

I didn't know I'd end up here again, especially so quickly after crashing.

But yet again, my heart is an unexpected, fickle thing.

My hair is *****, just like my hands, for I have as much pain and blood on my fingertips as has been inflected upon my heart. Funny how a small little girl from Wonderland can cause so much pain. Innocence was once on my lips, but then the world killed my brother, and then the Jabberwocky came to play.

But where are my manners? Let me invite you to tea, buy you your last meal before I ravage your body with my teeth and claws and words and terrify you when my green eyes before blood-red with the splattering of you. I hate to make people forgettable, so trust me, it'll be a night to remember.

The demons inside come out to play at night, when my defenses are weak, talking of death so easily, when I know I don't have a heart for killing. I only have a heart for destruction and dismemberment of hearts and minds, not lives.

Grace was once so little and pure and kind, but the second blood red graced her sibling's lips, it was over. The monster had come to reside in her.

Red, green, the colors of my heart. Funnily enough, also the colors of Christmas. Didn't know generosity would share the same colors as my envious, greedy, ****** heart.

I am not a fan of myself in the darkness. Perhaps because I see in the nothing a reflection of my own shadows.

Go to bed, dear Grace, before the monster inside eats you. **** you, Jabberwocky, and all your tricks. No one comes back from Wonderland without a tad bit of baggage.

Don't beware the darkness, beware thyself.

Goodnight.

Seemingly precise yet akimbo
Inflected glares bend windows
Directly begin kin in skin
We sin again.

Yours is mine redefined
More blessed so unaligned.

Sight delight our kindled spite
Adjourn loops and dash hopes

Love longs its wrong devotes.

A myriad making way
Unelectric secrete display
Rolling sheets tumbling say
Let fluid fly demon's prey.

Loping along
Coping strong
Moaning songs

Rejoicing our way

The way to Much.

Somehow, I need to learn to strangle the insomniac,
self-inflected, narcissistic monster.
I feel you every ******* day in my fingers, in my bones,
under my skin, thudding hard against my veins.
You pour out so smooth in my words,
and through any **** pen in my shaking hand.

Do you think there’s any hope left in me?
Any innocence spared?
I’d count for the first, but the second’s a toughie.
I’m sick of seeing the same thing when I close my eyes,
and craving the same thing
between my sheets.

This train better stop soon,
or if it’s crashed somewhere-
somewhere deep,
deep down in a place we’d both dare not visit again-
do you wonder if the passengers survived,
and who will appear when the smoke clears?

VII

This is my end
surely this is
the end of it all
all I know is here
and though I am
young this is the end
of life as I know it
now and soon I will
see my home no more
for this is my end
here where I shelter
from all I cannot
think beyond this ending
surely the end of all
I know is here
and will be gone

(after a cine still from 1930 of a St Kllda woman)

XVIIIa

house above the hut
of shadows holds itself
against the relentless wind
on so open a shore
islands and inlets beyond
reasonable number stand
before its policies
its promontory land
Up on the third floor
light fills every corner
expelling its shadows
to the hut held
within its sight

XVIIIb

slowly the darkness
reveals less than
a shadow thrown
against a plastered wall
inside silenced from the wind
an image grows as the eyes
succumb to less than light
used to looking Suggestion
and the memory of outside
supply the rest

(two poems connected by Chris Drury’s Hut of Shadows on North Uist)


XIX

following footsteps
crisp in the sand
hour-fresh from tide-fall
now the shadows form
in the weight of press
the imprint mark
different with every
fall of limb and claw
the 3-pronged bird-foot
the sandaled human
step singular one
before another after
another until perspective
conceals and merges
into distant sand

**

silence suddenly
the ringed plovers
hold their breath
then chorus
a chirping as they wade
together in their own
reflections
the water like glass
at their feet
mirroring
movement that light
hop for a few steps onto
a slight but sturdy island

tweet then terweet
inflected upwards
a questioning call
terweet?

XX1

the taste of salt sea
in the mouth
the touch of water
thick sea-water
on the legs between toes
the sharp cold plunge
immersion envelopment

sunlight throws a cascade
of bright steps across the sea
gradually merging into a band of light
ablaze on the horizon
at the base of distant Monarchs
a silhouette of massed rock
rises from the sea crowned
by static clouds decorating the sky
gentle white ermine-soft

trying  bad  knew  day  think  fight  feeling  know  annoying  ly­ing  time  months  tell  like  sure  observe  afternoon  particip­ant  folds  pass  iron  ask  realization  neck  conversation  pai­n  poetaster  tuesdays  busy  night  lung  sake  sickness  movies­  gets  body  reason  turns  incessantly  awakens  doesnt  ones  ­lifes  gnashing  try  despondency 
 way  pretentious  idea  cellu­lite  strewn  years  fallen  finally  given  stomach  qualify  sp­ectacle  necessary  watching  christ  harbinger  unconsciously  t­hing  girl  loose  walls  unbearable  start  reach  smile  needin­g  violent  mean  slowly  engage  engaging  cell  face  sung  str­uggle  tone  shes  song  cheaply  correct  contents  normally  qu­ickly  asleep  close  plea  dark  personality  overly  devour  ac­tions  viscera  completely  eating  list  attractive  liar  power­  does  figured  use  morning  suffer

  saving  shadowscasting  ­abdomen  leave  verse  sun  comfort  screaming  stay  lift  forci­ng  worthwhile  sleep  reciting  sets  written  broken  semismile­d  dysthmically  movingriding  supp  uses  help  pieces  poorly  ­lied  reading  blunt  fine  returned  groups  refractory  fiber  ­eyes  read  word  puts  say  absorb  force  detach  message  unno­ticed  died  block  clock  wish  possibly  late  aghast  fear  re­turn  chum  caused  daily  involve  thanks  grandmotherly  hope  ­unheeded  twice  starve  maya  enthusiasm  heard  hunger  comfort­ableness  homeostasis

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I speak to you in riddles
A mismatch of half formed inflections and watered down complimentary words
I constantly tailor my speech to try and fix the places you need patched
Attempting stitches to fix the pools of pain lingering in the spaces between the freckles spanning your back,
My fingers try to touch them away but my hands cant block the bruising spread beneath the plane of your skin.

You’ve become one of those heartbeats I have to keep my eye on for fear it will scatter down the screen and never return,
Your clothes are brightly colored, meant to weather the wind, but on your thin frame they trap you like wetted wool
Making it impossible for you to leave the form you possessed in the past.


I try different types of talking these days
Leaving maps for you to find the thinly veiled meaning behind the paper kisses
And the gold-leafed print floating inside the swirls of my lips
The pads of my fingers try to score your jaw with reminders
That the only thing hollow is the space between your neck and your chest
And the words I whisper into your void is heavy with inflected subtext.

I want to place your quilting back around your heart,
Make your veins more insular to keep the warmth inside that instead trickles out through your hands and feet that never feel the sun,
Your body temperature is constant and chills my intonations,
I can’t give what you won’t take and every day its 20 degrees.

I hope that in your desperation to forget the words you will better remember their meanings.

Stop please youre scaring me
The ***** in my arm wasnt self inflected
I dont know who did it
But i watch it run i feel the pain
Wait is that my arm?

These voices in my head
Ive heard them but buried them
Did i bury myself instead?

Just let me scream
I AM SCREAMING
but yOU ARENT HEARING
Im so cold
Or?
Is it hot. Its to dark to tell
Because is the you in the mirror
Or is you, me?
What the hell
WHO the hell am i suppose to be

It is just when you have been sad for too long, you, at some point, make a home out of it. It is not intentional. It is that sometimes familiarity is as close as you get to calling something home. Like imagine it has been raining for months and You have learnt to sleep to the clatter of rains and to wake up to your window glasses being stained and one day you wake up and there is an icy sun In its full glory up in the sky. And you suddenly don't know how to react. But that is what you wanted once, right?  And now the brightness is just too cheery. Too much for you. And darkened clouds that followed you ever where and it seemed to you then that they were doing it out of pure spite,  were gone and You realise at that moment how much you miss them and how you wanted them to stay. And you try to write about it 'cause that is how you operate. Don't know what to make out of the mess? Just put it out on the page but lately you have realised that no matter what,  your pen won't move and when they do the words that come out are so blunt, so meaningless and devoid of emotions, you wonder if that is how your brain feels. Cause your writings were always a reflection of what you felt and could it be that without all those sadness to fill the empty spaces you're just hollow. Who said that numbness was a relief? for this numbness is driving you crazy and ******* you just need to feel.
When was the last time someone attempted to talk to you or vice versa? How did you start to feel so distant and how all of them have lost their distinct faces and blend into one another till you can't sense a difference. A various combination of expressions that showed concern but never understood. And it is funny how you were dying and they asked you which color of dress would look good on them and you said red. You hate red. And that is how it became too much. You grew exhausted. That is what small talks do to you. So you stopped. Then you stopped seeing point in any kind of talk. Cause they exhausted you. Pointless talk about things you don't care about. You stopped talking. Then you stopped caring. You still loved them but it did not matter. Very few thing did. That is when sadness found its root and spread its wings. You are not going to glorify it. It was bad. The crying into pillows for no reason , sitting still for minutes not doing anything, not thinking anything and then at the end of the night regretting it all over cause it was self inflected. Or so you felt. But then it got better. Less bothersome. It was always there draining your energy but at least you were not crying. You should have known then. It was a sign. That how it,  like a parasite, was draining your energy and once it was done it would leave you paralysed. And it did. And now you feel so lost and dumb. Is not it sad when you want to be sad just to feel something? You realise this. It almost makes you feel something. Almost.

A.


  drone this    day empirical
  from where we were once  the we
  rained from,    a high excursion
   which savvy the drop, weighing in, a fault

  trying to convince   the day when Sun
  embellished from the   ravine  of your hand,
  a catacomb   secured   by the  rolling
     of your  body like   a boulder   keeping
  a minute   sacred, christened an evinced noon

   that    was  your  repetitive finding.   onto
  
    a netted    frame   caught,  dripping out of
   a felt   space in    need   for graphs  to measure
        from,   a well unnamed  which  presence
          resembling  your body,  resounding
   the     fluency of    what  the  physical  ascribes    
        an   iamb    of    a crowd  inverted,  diminishing
                 and inflected in   a day's livid sigh

     housed        in  a  jar that   is  a mouth
        words   assemble    an  ikebana willing
    a     delayed     color  that  was   a   lack.
                  held   a  device  that   was    a  sky
        or   a  gleaming  face with   a high price
    claiming       a  solstitial  --  when    I  went
                   to your   home  it was   Saturday all
   week   inside  my   ribcage  chiming  worship.

   plastered   to   a  sheen all is  equal  underneath
           equatorial   tracing    a   sphere    when
     I    found  stroking   the   innards   of   a calendar
               it   is   November.     it  is   Saturday.

B.

   he   comes  from
   low  wattage this  night's  post
   a wonderful polyp
   to   begin  a
   blight
   apparently  so from a cut blackest gutter
         carrying an ample   water  virulent
             when  taken  in  and   again   in

    a  savingslight  of     metamorphosis
       climbs   vertical   so  the winged moon
              
              is    a  black  bird   in   the   blackest
       cage /  baltic  a different  fraternity
       of    land    with   the    same   pictorial

     this   lovely  stillness   calling   it  work
   a  flood   could  mean pernicious   is  blood
              brewed   from  this climate
          it   is   here  past Mandaue hillsides   dreaming
                 if place were  rumored  as  same-silent.

A hammer is useless
without a hand full of nails
except for some kind of ******

speaking of which
isn’t your ego overdue
for its crucification
to absolve you
of all your flagrant
self inflected sins

and not to bash on your intellect
because I know
there isn’t much of it left
as almost all of it
has been spent
on the overindulgence
of your self gratification  

you can pound it out
night after night
pretending that you love
everything there is about Jesus
with your hands
clasped in prayers
while making fists full of hate
believing you got a key
to the golden gates

while all you do
with your hammer
is **** any idea
that doesn’t align with your own
your heart is beating
for the only love you know
and that is your love for hate

believe what you want to believe
but even with  a hand full of nails
all you can do is ****** yourself
as some kind of idiot martyr

Can I be cavalier with a heart
That doesn’t belong to me
Can I afford the same careless
Actions to be inflicted onto someone else
As I have inflected them onto my own heart
Will I not feel knots in my stomach
And pains in my chest if I allow
The dread in my heart
To stain another’s who
I promised to keep untainted
Promised to hold with gentle hands
And look at with kind eyes
To blow off the dust that settles
On it after too much time
Without enough use
I said I would love your heart for
As long as mine would pump
But is that promise broken
If the beating slows so severely
It severs the sound of the second hand
Tick of a tenuous time keeper
My heart as always been my keeper
And it’s working at a slower rate
Than is needed for oxygen
To run through my veins
And into to my muscles
Making my mouth lethargic
And unable to not be cavalier
With the words I love you
And to shy away from someone else’s heart
I promised to love till mine stopped beating.

obsequious bitterness
cawed of your hallowed mask
take 5 steps and
disappear

cakes in the oven, save
for the life after next, save,

footsteps, tinnitus ring,
records and mulch


everyone cowers
  at the wasp on the bus
that's passed unnoticed on the open street

uneasy

orbits of flight
  inchoate rage
bashing its head against the windows
radicalization of blind corners
spectacle of death
coil and frisk


how miserable how unfortunate how tragic how mindless how unthinkable how predictable how impossible how  urgent how hopeless how uncomfortable how


tongue severed tie

the centre expands, ossifies,
swallows and dissolves

best leave the dead to speak for themselves, they've
history on their side
  after all


inflected bias
in silent tears


if only  i could drown the whole world in melancholy


siren wail
   nervous tinder and pike
buzz and clutter


everyone
  waves their arms in discomfort, but
otherwise sits still


the irrefutable materiality of inertia




the bus drives on

Space.
That's what everyone wants.  
They think it'll fix everything
Just like the words "I'm sorry"
Are supposed to heal wounds inflected.
But you see.
This isn't the case sometimes
The clock keeps ticking
Time keeps moving forward
And while one of us moves away
The other stays put, stuck.
This is you and me.
While you've been getting better
I've been kidding myself, lying.
Thoughts run rampart
Yelling and screaming about how I'm dumb
To think that everything would be okay after a while.
I just want it to be okay again.
They weren't kidding when they told me
It's worse than a relationship breakup.
Space.
That's what everyone wants.
They think it'll fix everything
When really it makes it worse.

The past can tear at you
It can cut you open
Leave you with inflected rotting wounds
It can twist the blade deeper
Until you're begging to die
And worst of all
It can take you back
Make you feel like you did then
Rip your heart from your chest
And leave you without
Thank god it can't make you that person again

In my isolation

my self inflected exile

I did take loneliness  in my stride

holding back tears from my eyes


My sweet isolation

has been my total conviction

now I come back from the world of dreams

primed and ready to now to real life convene


In the glowing embers of the fire I see you face

that wonderful lighting spark so full of grace

oh beautiful has been loneliness

but now again I give love the test


Soon will come the silver moon of our communion

complete all our wizardry computation

then together we will be

for all of eternity


Here my love I give you the ladder to the stars

the gateway to realms unknown to mankind

I will break all the laws of physics

and on the way explode a few stars


Stars are what we are

and to the stars we will return

I think of all the times alone

oh beautiful has been loneliness



By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

You’re a figment of the flavors in my imagination
Poems used to flow from me
like pitchers on filthy Friday
When I could taste your fruity orange
So I canned you cleverly to keep
My own jarred jam
growing richer with time
You’re mixed with coriander and cardamom
Rich and bitter
Complex and aromatic like an after dinner liquor

You were not so complicated
Fresh and shockingly sweet
ripe juicy laughter
But I can't taste your **** tangerine anymore
Just aged jelly
Tainted by my sugared imagination
Salted by hallucinogenic memories

You never tasted like a jar of jam
I ******* own bitterness
My own fear inflected upon your sunny orange smile
You aren’t old and canned
You’re dynamic and quick
A marathon sprinter
A warm melting winter