in this intangible world
i wander

(wording daringly
a make believe voice
trying the allure of poetry)

and come across
depicted landscapes
heartfulled universes

in this intangible world
i wander

yet
in the ending day
i look for
this velvet red
with a deeply lasting
bouquet of life exhortation

in your poetry

as in the portuguese red wine you like

and i seat back
dreamy
wrapped in this
sense of fulfilment

smiling at a giant
kneeling to a child
with dawn syndrome

a constructeur of love
abdicating judgement and prejudgement

crying alone for anger drainage
finding plenitude in a woman with his height
escalating an iced mountain
travelling ages in the winged tree
that waves by the window
considering far in the height
the ways of the worlderly life

in this intangible world
i wander
with your poetry echoing
and wondered i understand
how a heart grows humanity
and it feels like crying
to believe
in the tangibility of love

In our Universe,
Far, far away,
Once were aliens,
Or were they angels?
When gods were men,
And men were as gods,
Until the last quark
Fades away, like stars,
Ineffable love,
Perpetual cosmos,
Close but far,
Intangible to feel,
Is invisible real?
Impossible dreams,
We are generations
Too young,
Is the Universe
So very far?

that moment when you realize the petals of the flower by your window aren't shaped like petals
they are the pills you plucked
the pills you split to sleep
an eternal dream
where you were intangible to the world

I should have known better...

I should have known better than to think you would be the same girl i fell in love with so long ago...
Some of the most basic texts for an an intro biology class could have told me that each and every one of
the cells that make up the human body die and regenerate...

Most of which do so in less than a year...

So why am i so surprised to find that all that was you died in the years since we last spoke...

Even still you stand and speak with her voice...

You even remember me...

But you are nothing more than a clone of that woman i loved back then...

So here i am a man that firmly believes in the laws and rules that govern the world we live in attacked and brought to his knees by that one little speck of an idealist that lived somewhere in my soul at some point...

All because foolishly i believed that biology was a secondary force when put up against the intangible

things that make this cold and lonely life worth living...

I thought our love could survive...

This time it took for both of us to become entirely different people was too much for out love to bear...

You are not her...

Even if you have her face...even if you have that smile...

Even if you have those eyes that pierce the soul that i didn't even know existed until you showed it to me...

And what's worse is that now you show me that in no way am i the same person i once was either...

I must admit that I am bored.
Utterly bored, actually, with the overly romanticized construct of dominance.
How easily one can claim to be dominant.
Shocking? No.
We as human beings aspire to attain the intangible.
Exponential wealth. Immortality. Fame. Power.
We live in a world of illusion and fallacy.
We drive cars that we can’t afford,
often to jobs that we despise.
We attain validation through the media,
from blasé people that require it in return.
What I have found- and take this for what you will,
is that my longing for external dominance is simply a translation for
“By god please take control, and ground me to something real.”

Serotonin
Oxytocin
mu-2
Kappa
Melatonin
Acetylcholine
Dopamine
Ep­inephrine

Your love is a drug
your touch is an addiction
with pupil dilation
and body feeling free
I really do
even scientifically get high
when you are next to me

The hormones and pheromones
flow in through my nose
sink into my skin
and flow through
then out again
as we lay entwined
smelling
tasting
and touching each other.

To explain love
is both intangible
illogical
and unknown
while at the same time
a scientific
and physiological study
of the way our bodies interact.

True love
versus
lust and arousal
which is more addicting
and which is something worth predicting?

These must be the reasons
why when we are together
we cannot seem to think
we just want to sleep
we laugh about nothing
and smile for miles
we both go limp
and hard at the same time
sending us both on a ride
that leaves us flying high

I must say
that addiction runs in my family
and I am not sure
I will ever be able to give you up.
Worse than nicotine
caffeine
pills
and alcohol
Your love truly is a drug
and I will never leave you under the rug.

It is said that what is between two people,
is something no other will understand
even the most in depth conversation
can never explain
….and yet here I am
writing ten times a day
to try and convey this feeling to others
all in complete
pride and vain.

Hypotonic collusions
Rising in osmotic lesions
An eruptive soul reversion

Emissions of embered logs
Each lightening with a glow
A youthful straw of clemency

Pollinated sandals, handled
Gripping the flesh in vessels
Houses of lost and unreal dreams

Vicarage gardens of suppression
Masticated in delegated abstractions
A surmise of death and redistributions

Each a beat rise, slide on frosty ice
Un-enveloped in seasons of erosion
Delusional commotions sprawled

In the dance of the ecstatic programming
The body waved and led in hypnosis
******* with the intangible essence

To make sense a revised tense,I fence
Straying in lenient lunacy to fields afar
A merry to ferry the phoenix dance

Rattles shaking in transit translations
Drums pause settling in finesse pond
A coitus of dimensional valour and vice

“Follow your dreams!” Said the sage
“But what if you wake and they’re gone?”
“Well maybe you’ll soon come of age?”
“Or maybe I simply have none!”

The years soon past and enlightenment never came
Maybe the wise man was wrong
To rise every morning always the same
No direction for moving along

“Reach for the stars!” said the sage
“But what if I can’t see the sky?”
“Maybe it’s only a stage?”
“Maybe I can, if I try!?”

Well time ticked by but the stars never shone
Maybe the wise man was wrong
Had those pin ****** to heaven faded and gone
Or just never there all along

“What should I do?” said the youth
“Follow your dreams!” I replied
“But for you it was never the truth!”
“Well maybe the old sage had lied?”

the petrichor
penetrating the heart's core
from the earth crust
When quenched, it's thirst
blended in the gust
of the summer breeze
yes! it's summer rain!

the petrichor,
wish I could devour
intangible
invisible
inaccessible
yet i savour!

the petrichor,
released by the nature joyfully
when the rain heals
the burns, soothingly!

the petrichor,
intoxicating
exhilarating
reviving
embracing me, like you???

you float
so lightly
upon the waters
of my soul

and when
in the sun
brightly
iridescent
do you shine

sometimes
you hide
whisper quiet

often
found though
in the strangest
of places
putting smiles
on sad faces

always in reach
for those who
extend their faith

light as feather
able to lift
the heaviest
of weights

like a smile
from a friend
or a sun shower
always welcome
especially  in
the eleventh  hour

intangible, you are
the small flame
that starts big fires....

there’s a lullaby the wind chimes used to hum as i sat outside my house. i observed synodic epiphanies in the sky until all i could do was make a dot-to-dot of your face out of the stars that were almost as intangible as you are and as you always were.

i always found myself searching for traces of you everywhere. the sound of your voice as a symphonic ultrasound echoing from the wind chime to me, just for me. your effervescent hazel eyes (you always insisted they were brown but i’d studied them as a psychologist studies mental health) but you never came.

and trust me, i waited --
i waited for so much as a murmur or a rustled blade of grass when the world stood still and i waited in the morning, the afternoon and i waited all night.

i waited all **** night in nothing but a pair of leggings (you told me i looked “pretty sweet” in them once) and your jumper, the jumper you left at my house on may 16th. hummingbirds were the highlight of your morning and the highlight of my morning was always you.

you made scrambled eggs with milk and only a dash of pepper because too much gave you an itchy throat and then you took my hand and we slow danced along to the sound of the microwave; it was like a heavy duty drill begging to explode but we didn’t care.

i wore your jumper then the way i’m wearing it now, except i’ve tucked my hands into my sleeves because yours aren’t there to hold anymore.

i always found myself not only searching for traces of you everywhere but also searching for you in everybody i've ever met (and probably everybody i ever will meet). where’s that succulent sense of humour? where’s that desirable distaste for all humans besides me? you were intangible but somehow tangible to me and i mused over your ability to turn me from a servant into a queen but my gratitude overwhelmed me too much to question it, or you.

your name is euphonious;
i swirl it around my mouth like expensive champagne.
my stomach can tolerate neither.

If I were a flower

Perhaps if I were a flower, you'd pick me to be yours.
Of course you would pick the flower that was the most exquisite,
Luminous in every spectrum,
But more importantly the most Beautiful blossom,
Therefore plucking me from my survival.

See, the anticipation was your acceptance,
However, your admiration was a free ticket away from my existence
Because I am a flower,
And You removed me from my stem.
Now,
I can't breathe.


But I love you...
And I've always loved you.
And as each day passed you kept me stashed in the darkness
Every heartache, a petal would deteriorate.
Which left me withered and pale as cotton

See, I lost my beauty tangled in your insecurities.
Not to mention my vulnerability,
That created this reality.
Oh but how I wish I could turn back the hands of time,

Perhaps,

Make me intangible,
Invincible from you're grasp.
Cover me in thorns and levitate me to the highest branch,
Away from those resent less eyes.

Perhaps?!?

However, I remained transparent in your world.
No longer the center of your love.

What was once a flower became the remains of a petal-less spud.

Being wounded deep,
it may leave a blemish
that serves as a reminder
for the times of vulnerability.

Have you ever wondered why
there’s hardly any remnant left
to remind you of happiness?

Scars may have been a proof of sadness.
For some, it’s a prompt of pain.

Remember this:
Your happiness does not need any scarring
but it will always be embedded in your memory.

Your happiness is intangible
yet it brings a sensation
that can be felt through the heart.

1.

do Drugs because without Drugs
there is no inspiration
without inspiration
there is no Drugs

this is all said with wide distant looks
with swinging wrists
fingers comb the hair
fingers pick at the skin

without Drugs
there is no poetry

no music
no ambition
no sleep

there is no awkwardly standing there
as he tells you,

little bee, joust teen mean huts

there is no biased observer
watching the Drugged tumble
like laundry
down stairs.

surely this can’t be a good idea

don’t try to leave
don’t be awkward

surely

2.

do Drugs because you will see
finally see!
things no one else could ever see

so swallow that joint
eat that pill
smoke those shrooms,
but for the love of GOD!
not by themselves
place them strategically
in a peanut butter sandwich
like stars in a constellation

you will know better next time
he tells you to smoke shrooms

you will feel your bare feet
but you’re wearing socks!
you will feel like you’re crying
but there aren’t any tears!
you will see your curtains take the shape of your mother
folding her arms
looking down at you
wearing a dress
that isn’t her color
or her size
or her style
or even her at all

finally you will see these things
that you were never able to see before

question the experience
and he will sigh
with sighs of such size
that say you just don’t understand

3.

do Drugs because you will realize

Alex Grey paintings
in that pin-up calendar
will mean so much more

which painting is brightly looming over your birth month?
oh, so, the one that looks quite good
where the subject’s skin is transparent
revealing muscles and veins and organs
a stock buddhist symbol glowing on their forehead
their mouth agape
a misty sort of energy
radiating from their body
swallowed by neon

what a coincidence

mine, too

he’s a Grey-t artist, isn’t he?
don’t say this
despite how clever it sounds

4.

do Drugs because
there will be a moment
when that cartooned weasel
with his too-appropriate leather jacket
and lollipop stick ***** from a snaggled lip
and Nancy Reagan
her wild hair
her eyes that seem to be sinking inward
will seem like the same person

this is just your guilt
your incessant questioning
of what is right
and what is rite

your wanting to just say no
and to just do it
resting in the same swaying sweaty hammock

your waning spirit to overthink

and he will just look at you
as though no one feels
the way you do

you will never understand

5.

do Drugs because you must understand
because you’ve always understood
because you’ve always been understanding

intangible ideas will whisper vaguely at you
that you thought you knew enough about

you just aren’t feeling the love like we are
you just aren’t seeing the universe like we are
you just aren’t feeling the energy like we are
you just aren’t seeing the beauty of things like we are

love universe energy beauty
these things are simple
when gruffly whispered
over a slice of space cake

this space cake is out of this world!
don’t say this
despite how clever it sounds

6.

do Drugs because
you will have the perfect disorder
for your flaws

flaw and disorder

I’m out of it because
I might of inhaled a little
too much

I’m thankless because
of a pill I should not have
taken

I’m jittery because
I swallowed a couple
extra

I’m sleepy because
I would rather feel this way than look
at you

I fell down the stairs
because it’s Cinco de Mayo
and I can’t find my grinder
and I’m surprised that you’re sober
and I can’t feel my shoulder
and I’m surprised you’re not older

I swear I’m not always like this

dissipated and disillusioned worms eating through the last splinters of the rotting universal wood.

the last transmission of regret sent electronically, spluttered,
into a tissue; in a moment of self indulgent *******.

live showings of vicious execution, transmitted directly from the electromagnetic waves into the alpha waves of the young and naive. Desensitization, the last drops of humanity into complete disengagement.

endlessly recycled bohemian ideologies whispered into the ear of the eager idealist. spreading like fire, before burning out into the uncatchable reverie up with the stars, with all the other reveries, shining bright, intangible.

Instant dismissal from the old man, as the big curtain draws. Cynicism and fragmented past, falling on apathetic eyes, a proud man treat with a padded hand. faux sympathetic tones, blushing cheeks on old bones.

Begging with your body crumbling to dust with the disinterested doc, looking at the clock counting the milliseconds to the paycheck. Decomposing until you can be swept under the perpetual rug with the rest, Vacuum.

Images extracted from
the tapestry of my dreams.
Sewn intricate...
Into a patchwork.

A quilt,
embroidered with lavish sequins and ornate beads.
Bringing forth fantastical motifs...
A dazzling display
upon the backdrop of my dreamscape.

Yet...
This mosaic of dreams
does not warm me so.
It never lasts.

They fall away like autumn leaves
come the dawning sun.
They get washed out and pulled into the tide,
as the waves beat upon the shore of wakefulness.
They fade into fragmented memories
that make no sense...
Incoherent and disjointed.

Eventually, they disappear...
For they do not belong
in a world of worldly things
and ticking clocks.
Their intangible and mismatched nature
render them inconsequential...
Naturally...
They get misplaced.

But I am stubborn.

I will fashion such a blanket.
One that skirts the boundary
of this realm and the other.

I will tailor it so...

So that...
I will sleep tonight,
swaddled tight and cocooned within its
glorious seams.
Tucked within the safety and warmth of
this blanket...
Woven immaculate...
Out of
worldly things and breathtaking dreams.

liminality;
barely there
ask if it matters
care if you dare
believe in impossibility

mind framing liminal spaces
places of liminal mind-frames
filaments between contexts
capturing subtleties as moths

liminally reaching inwards
map of a shady threshold
twilight netherworld border
between now & everywhen
cusp of crisp discovery
intangible as of late
  
liminal during daylight;
stars, fireflies, lanterns
night itself being liminal
colors need brightness
shadow for textures  

whispering worlds
peripheral vision
vibes and feltsense
inner underworlds
embracing hell
reversing it

I can't express myself quite right in this endless glaring light
of judgment
stirring sweat beads, clenching to hold my calm, failing?
I am trying to not be afraid of the fingers relentlessly tapping
and all of you with animal faces
we are running backwards in a painting on display
I haven't blinked in so long but I think it's okay
because I'm underwater.

the riptide
crawls up
my spine
just as I begin
to free myself from
its arms of
injustice
and
heart of
deviation


I just
want
a simple moment of
clarity...
a moment where I can
breathe
and
descry
a ceiling imbued with
voluminous clouds
and serene
blue.

The intangible danceable
Felt but not seen
Frolicking on the edge
Of spaces in between

Peek-a-boo shadows
Spider-web touches
Goosebumped skin
Rosy red blushes

Whispers on wind
Soul unconfined
The curve of the smile
Fits the curve of my mind

A half told anecdote
Unnoticed excellence in the mundane
Quiet anticipation
Jolting epiphanies of keyframe

Emotional nutrients of xeno
Ecstatic shock and sonder
Ambedo and nodus tollens
Forever I wonder and wander

The room is full of you!—As I came in
And closed the door behind me, all at once
A something in the air, intangible,
Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!—

Sharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyed
Each other room’s dear personality.
The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers,—
The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death—
Has strangled that habitual breath of home
Whose expiration leaves all houses dead;
And wheresoe’er I look is hideous change.
Save here.  Here ’twas as if a ****-choked gate
Had opened at my touch, and I had stepped
Into some long-forgot, enchanted, strange,
Sweet garden of a thousand years ago
And suddenly thought, “I have been here before!”

You are not here.  I know that you are gone,
And will not ever enter here again.
And yet it seems to me, if I should speak,
Your silent step must wake across the hall;
If I should turn my head, that your sweet eyes
Would kiss me from the door.—So short a time
To teach my life its transposition to
This difficult and unaccustomed key!—
The room is as you left it; your last touch—
A thoughtless pressure, knowing not itself
As saintly—hallows now each simple thing;
Hallows and glorifies, and glows between
The dust’s grey fingers like a shielded light.

There is your book, just as you laid it down,
Face to the table,—I cannot believe
That you are gone!—Just then it seemed to me
You must be here.  I almost laughed to think
How like reality the dream had been;
Yet knew before I laughed, and so was still.
That book, outspread, just as you laid it down!
Perhaps you thought, “I wonder what comes next,
And whether this or this will be the end”;
So rose, and left it, thinking to return.

Perhaps that chair, when you arose and passed
Out of the room, rocked silently a while
Ere it again was still. When you were gone
Forever from the room, perhaps that chair,
Stirred by your movement, rocked a little while,
Silently, to and fro. . .

And here are the last words your fingers wrote,
Scrawled in broad characters across a page
In this brown book I gave you. Here your hand,
Guiding your rapid pen, moved up and down.
Here with a looping knot you crossed a “t”,
And here another like it, just beyond
These two eccentric “e’s”.  You were so small,
And wrote so brave a hand!
                         How strange it seems
That of all words these are the words you chose!
And yet a simple choice; you did not know
You would not write again.  If you had known—
But then, it does not matter,—and indeed
If you had known there was so little time
You would have dropped your pen and come to me
And this page would be empty, and some phrase
Other than this would hold my wonder now.
Yet, since you could not know, and it befell
That these are the last words your fingers wrote,
There is a dignity some might not see
In this, “I picked the first sweet-pea to-day.”
To-day!  Was there an opening bud beside it
You left until to-morrow?—O my love,
The things that withered,—and you came not back!
That day you filled this circle of my arms
That now is empty.  (O my empty life!)
That day—that day you picked the first sweet-pea,—
And brought it in to show me!  I recall
With terrible distinctness how the smell
Of your cool gardens drifted in with you.
I know, you held it up for me to see
And flushed because I looked not at the flower,
But at your face; and when behind my look
You saw such unmistakable intent
You laughed and brushed your flower against my lips.
(You were the fairest thing God ever made,
I think.)  And then your hands above my heart
Drew down its stem into a fastening,
And while your head was bent I kissed your hair.
I wonder if you knew.  (Beloved hands!
Somehow I cannot seem to see them still.
Somehow I cannot seem to see the dust
In your bright hair.)  What is the need of Heaven
When earth can be so sweet?—If only God
Had let us love,—and show the world the way!
Strange cancellings must ink th’ eternal books
When love-crossed-out will bring the answer right!
That first sweet-pea!  I wonder where it is.
It seems to me I laid it down somewhere,
And yet,—I am not sure. I am not sure,
Even, if it was white or pink; for then
’Twas much like any other flower to me,
Save that it was the first.  I did not know,
Then, that it was the last.  If I had known—
But then, it does not matter.  Strange how few,
After all’s said and done, the things that are
Of moment.
     Few indeed!  When I can make
Of ten small words a rope to hang the world!
“I had you and I have you now no more.”
There, there it dangles,—where’s the little truth
That can for long keep footing under that
When its slack syllables tighten to a thought?
Here, let me write it down!  I wish to see
Just how a thing like that will look on paper!

“I had you and I have you now no more.”

O little words, how can you run so straight
Across the page, beneath the weight you bear?
How can you fall apart, whom such a theme
Has bound together, and hereafter aid
In trivial expression, that have been
So hideously dignified?—Would God
That tearing you apart would tear the thread
I strung you on!  Would God—O God, my mind
Stretches asunder on this merciless rack
Of imagery!  O, let me sleep a while!
Would I could sleep, and wake to find me back
In that sweet summer afternoon with you.
Summer?  ’Tis summer still by the calendar!
How easily could God, if He so willed,
Set back the world a little turn or two!
Correct its griefs, and bring its joys again!

We were so wholly one I had not thought
That we could die apart.  I had not thought
That I could move,—and you be stiff and still!
That I could speak,—and you perforce be dumb!
I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woof
In some firm fabric, woven in and out;
Your golden filaments in fair design
Across my duller fibre.  And to-day
The shining strip is rent; the exquisite
Fine pattern is destroyed; part of your heart
Aches in my breast; part of my heart lies chilled
In the damp earth with you.  I have been torn
In two, and suffer for the rest of me.
What is my life to me?  And what am I
To life,—a ship whose star has guttered out?
A Fear that in the deep night starts awake
Perpetually, to find its senses strained
Against the taut strings of the quivering air,
Awaiting the return of some dread chord?

Dark, Dark, is all I find for metaphor;
All else were contrast,—save that contrast’s wall
Is down, and all opposed things flow together
Into a vast monotony, where night
And day, and frost and thaw, and death and life,
Are synonyms.  What now—what now to me
Are all the jabbering birds and foolish flowers
That clutter up the world?  You were my song!
Now, let discord scream!  You were my flower!
Now let the world grow weeds!  For I shall not
Plant things above your grave—(the common balm
Of the conventional woe for its own wound!)
Amid sensations rendered negative
By your elimination stands to-day,
Certain, unmixed, the element of grief;
I sorrow; and I shall not mock my truth
With travesties of suffering, nor seek
To effigy its incorporeal bulk
In little wry-faced images of woe.

I cannot call you back; and I desire
No utterance of my immaterial voice.
I cannot even turn my face this way
Or that, and say, “My face is turned to you”;
I know not where you are, I do not know
If Heaven hold you or if earth transmute,
Body and soul, you into earth again;
But this I know:—not for one second’s space
Shall I insult my sight with visionings
Such as the credulous crowd so eager-eyed
Beholds, self-conjured, in the empty air.
Let the world wail!  Let drip its easy tears!
My sorrow shall be dumb!

—What do I say?
God! God!—God pity me!  Am I gone mad
That I should spit upon a rosary?
Am I become so shrunken?  Would to God
I too might feel that frenzied faith whose touch
Makes temporal the most enduring grief;
Though it must walk a while, as is its wont,
With wild lamenting!  Would I too might weep
Where weeps the world and hangs its piteous wreaths
For its new dead!  Not Truth, but Faith, it is
That keeps the world alive.  If all at once
Faith were to slacken,—that unconscious faith
Which must, I know, yet be the corner-stone
Of all believing,—birds now flying fearless
Across would drop in terror to the earth;
Fishes would drown; and the all-governing reins
Would tangle in the frantic hands of God
And the worlds gallop headlong to destruction!

O God, I see it now, and my sick brain
Staggers and swoons!  How often over me
Flashes this breathlessness of sudden sight
In which I see the universe unrolled
Before me like a scroll and read thereon
Chaos and Doom, where helpless planets whirl
Dizzily round and round and round and round,
Like tops across a table, gathering speed
With every spin, to waver on the edge
One instant—looking over—and the next
To shudder and lurch forward out of sight—

                     *

Ah, I am worn out—I am wearied out—
It is too much—I am but flesh and blood,
And I must sleep.  Though you were dead again,
I am but flesh and blood and I must sleep.

The unseen is so intangible to humanity that it screams Hersey in defense of limited carnal senses. Even if the womb could inhabit scientists in pre-birth form they could merely predict that the umbilical cord was the result of the big bang which was brought on by flatulence before the great earthquake of indigestion. The true miracle of birth is the unseen…how in the darkness of gestation a blind love is reflected through a heartbeat that is perceived only physiologically. They could never fathom the deeper water of love that a man has with a women! Conversely we are not immune to this fallibility within the new embryonic process called mother earth and its new limited senses that perceive love as tangible. Love is not a feeling like an umbilical cord or is it a marriage that brings beauty and personal happiness on earth. Love is bigger than the thick and thin of this imperfect dieing world! Marriage is the umbilical cord to a true love that is again unseen and reflected in the heartbeat of the Cross which eclipses all Physiological and cognitive impulses. Love never fades………………….

We parted ways
it was uncivil , uncaring ,
unclean cuts still linger in my body
the wounds have seared open and snapped shut at the mention of your name .

it frustrates me , still .
how you were ,
how I was ,
and who we are now .
neither of us comprehend the damage done to one another
our mouths open when our backs have turned .

You are still beautiful to me though ,
But I will not admit it .
And I am still your best friend
but you don't hear these words when you read them
to know they are wrote for you .

the words don't come easy
on this head-pounding hungover day
every train of thought trails off
into intangible nonsense.
maybe if i buy a new pen? i think
perhaps then these words won't look so lame?
maybe a carbon steel ballpoint pen
with high-grade stainless steel trimmings.
i could engrave my name on it.
with a pen like that, i think
i could write cryptic poetry
that would bewilder the masses.
then i speculate the possibilities
of stabbing myself in the neck with a pen like that
with my name engraved on it.
possibly if i hit a main artery
in my neck, i think
that could work.
but i can't afford a pen like that.

I walked into a sunset that did not belong to me,
Its vivid colours burning across the Mediterranean Sea.
In a fragile, elusive moment of composure
I gazed at the choppy sea moving closer
To the rugged, pebbly, rocky shore
Where I stood alone against the Rock.
The Rock of Gibraltar watched with a smile
As the turbulent Med pulsating with life
Scattered its waves against the strand,
And the sapphire waters kissed the ancient land.
The stormy sea embraced the coast
With fierceness intangible as a ghost.
The air vibrated with a taste of freedom,
With barely audible words of wisdom
That travelled across the centuries
To fill the tangy air with memories.
The voices from the past enveloped the Rock
In an alluringly mythical, protective cloak.
I gathered the strength I drew from the Rock;
Fears discarded, the resolve growing strong,
I walked the Med Steps to the very top
Against a dazzlingly splendid backdrop
Of the breathtaking views of the bay,
Basking in the aura of fears thrown away.
Intoxicated by the beauty, hungry for more,
I was feeling elated to the very core.
The fear of heights temporarily conquered,
The contentment felt almost awkward.
Suddenly, the world seemed a different place:
Offering the nature's graceful embrace.
As the starry night slowly descended,
In my solitude, I felt protected
By the mighty Rock standing tall and grand
Guarding the ancient, immemorial land.

Copyright: Nara Hodge 2018

Nostalgia
is a poor excuse
for ignorance

yet it pervades
with a tenacity
stemming from fabricated desire
for the smell of ****
we're told
is roses

and it's blasphemous
to question potential "isms"
lurking behind the veil
of Saturday morning cartoons
and black and white family sitcoms.

Yet by the time the sonic *** organs
have lain into us with repressed emotion,
the holy spirit has spilled its ***** in the dirt
to traverse onward floating apparition
out of the room and down the hall
closer towards progress.

and we are left reeling
stumbling into the hallway
buttoning our blouses
and yanking at our zippers

wondering what could cause
such great haste
and we follow blindly
in the wake of the first high

or we turn backwards
and plunge into fading bricolage
as a means to cope
with the rapid and fleeting *******
of the electric eye
in its shape-shifting pylons and appendages
getting smaller in the naked eye
and gargantuan in the mind.

Clutching our *******
in great amorous heaves
of lust
or donning our father's clothes
in a mask of artifice
and enlightened cultural pretension.

Moaning for the days of youth a week ago,
the epoch squeezed in the space between thumbs,
looking for treasures in the trash
craving something tangible
in an increasingly intangible world.

The semblance of touch lost on a generation
who knows only of emotion through hieroglyphics
and never through direct sensation.

So we dig through the toy boxes
and leave Generation X puzzled
as we dig into their records
in Guns n Roses T-shirts
and high waisted jeans.

We're just looking for an immaculate conception of something palpable.

I wonder if there will ever be a day when people will stop treating each other like possessions.
You'd think that in kindergarten we had been taught how to share.
“Everyone gets a turn,” our teacher would say.
"Five seconds at the water fountain after recess.
Pass along the book to the person next to you.
Share your box of crayons with those at the table."
We were taught how to share the tangible
The objects at our feet.
But what my teacher never taught me was how to share the intangible-
Concepts such as time, trust, and love.
Ultimately at the end of the day she never taught me how to share people.
The problem with people is that you want to keep them-
Keep them close
Keep them tight
Keep them safe.
You don't want to take turns because you fear that they will find someone who is better than you.
That one day they will leave because you were not enough.
So to suppress our paranoia we resort to rules and regulations.
We employ the facade that what we are doing is out of love
When in reality we are living in fear.
People are not possessions.
We are human beings
Capable of emotion and free will.
We are granted the ability to choose
For that freedom is what distinguishes ourselves from the rest.
We are not objects upon a shelf
To be taken down when felt like or guarded like a metal safe.
We are not punching bags
To be used at one’s disposable.
We are not mountains
To be climbed and conquered.
We are human beings
Yet humanity continually treats each other as if nothing.

When you come to my thoughts
You are none other than the billowy embodiment of a reminiscent memory
and also a current everlasting longing
You are the memory of a being or idea
one can feel and remember vividly
but can not zero in on,
for you are the intangible
the winding wind
You are those spiraling twines that place intermittent along grapevines
You are the ancient scrolls from wise days before paperback
You are the spin in the reaching center of a handcrafted wreath
And within all these
individualities and collective,
Lies your scent comprised of multiple scents
You are the mighty togetherness
Your arrival to earth escaping from birth  
gave these words to the minds of the kind
You are the winding wind who spins and twines, wreathes and scrolls who lands from time to time and when you do drop for a spell
This location of harboring landfall
is a day of new tradition,
the first step you take on new land on that new day
Becomes the origin of a new holiday
In my thoughts you are the mortar of the earth

Who Am I?

I am a boy and a man.
I am a son, a brother, a cousin, a nephew, and a grand child.
I was a boyfriend, a fiancé, a husband, and an in-law.
I am a bachelor.
I am surrounded and abandoned.
I am a family man and a loner.

I am a homemaker and a handyman.
I wear the apron and the tool belt.
I am a neat freak and a slob.
I am an amateur contractor and a contracted amateur.
I am a dumpster diver, a recycler, and a decadent waste.
I am a glutton, a scavenger, and a scrapper.

I am a friend and an enemy.
I am fun and an annoyance.
I am a lover and a hater.
I am creepy, cruel, and harsh.
I am tender, loving, and inviting.
I have a foul mouth and tender lips,
Drenched in jagged, soft-serve words.

I am a painter, sculptor, draftsman, sketcher, character designer, photographer, graphic designer, fashion designer, kitbasher, customizer, and crafter.
I am a reader, a writer, and a poet.
I am the Jail Baby, Ryan & Lisa, The Phoenix, The AntiFather, and The HEYMAN!
I compose symphonies of visual and intangible imagery.
I bring form to thought.
I destroy,
I create.
I am an artist.

I am a geek, nerd, freak, and otaku.
I have been punk, goth, prep, white trash, and metrosexual.
I wear glasses,
But only as a sick joke.
I am beautiful and ugly,
Clean and *****.
I am unique.
I am predictable.
I have changed, but am still the same.

I am a techie,
An electronic ******.
I am cutting edge and old school.
Digitally signed and sealed.
I am analog and obsolete.

I am an adrenaline addict.
I can chill, maybe slow,
But never relax.

I am blue collar, tradesman, and service industry.
I am peon and ****** on.
Oh, but I have done the ******* too!
I have been hired and fired,
Bought and sold.
I have worn the uniform,
I have said, “**** the man!”
I am the proletariat,
I am in charge.

I am a student, dropout, and teacher.
I am class clown and teacher’s pet.
I have learned, forgotten, and taught,
But never learned my lesson.
I don’t listen to what I’m told,
But always do what I tell.

I am a genius,
I am an idiot.
I have intelligence, but often lack the intel.
I am naïve, but wise.
I am right and wrong.

I have philosophies and ideas,
But no religion.
I have desecrated and blasphemed,
Prayed and praised.
I have lusted, envied, and coveted.
I am guilty and innocent,
Pure and soiled,
Good and bad.

I am a driver and a passenger.
I am an explorer and a shut-in.
I am wild and free,
Caged and stifled.
I was warmly wrapped in my blanket,
But burned through it.

I have rode, climbed, and conquered.
I  stood still.
I jumped in.
I have fallen and been defeated.

I have been abroad,
I have been nowhere.
I have drifted.
I have settled.
I have led and been led.
I have been in and out,
Here and there,
Around and AWOL,
On the run and trapped.
But, not everywhere.

I have applied,
I have procrastinated.
I have worked my fingers to the bone,
I have slept it off.

I have fought and fled.
I have quit.
I have endured.
I am a winner and a loser,
A champ and a chump.

I am fake,
I am real.
I have lied, cheated, and stole.
I have been honest, fair, and generous.

I am selfish and selfless.
I am a gift giver, gift wrapper, and gift taker.
I am a thief and a philanthropist.

I am insecure and confident,
Confused and absolutely sure.
I am proud and ashamed.
I am complicated and convoluted,
But simple to please.

I have blind faith and guarded suspicion
I have secrets,
But lie rarely.
I accept everyone,
I trust nothing.

I have pointed the finger,
Only to turn it on myself.
I have held grudges and forgiven.
I have trusted and misguided.
I have been Judas and Jesus.

I am a maniac,
I am sane.
I have been strong and weak.
I can keep it together,
But prefer to break it apart.

I have bled.
I have healed.
I have been abused and neglected,
Coddled and protected.

I have been kissed and punched;
Hunted, wanted, and arrested,
Ignored, overlooked, and invisible.

I have loved and lost,
Lived and learned.
I am a soldier of misfortune and opportunity.

I have blended in.
I have stood out.
I have stood up.
I have backed down.
I have been backed into a corner.
I have all the space in the world.

I have seen, interpreted, and perceived,
I have ignored, dismissed, and been blind.
I hunger, want, and need…
I am satiated and content,
But never at peace.

I have been misunderstood and underestimated.
I have been put down, put up, pushed away, and let in.
I have been known,
But never entirely.

I have raged, cried, smiled, trembled, and laughed.
I have been depressed.
I have been happy.
I have been suicidal. I have felt death.
I have been lost and found.
I have been broken, then fixed,
Stitched, yet glitched,
Scarred, but whole.
I am alive.


I took the chance,
I let the moment slip.
I walked the straight and narrow,
I ran down the road not taken.
I dream; some whole, some shattered.
I go with the flow, but don’t let the waves take me.

I am shards and reflections,
Machinations and reactions.
I am translucent pieces and parts,
Assembled and disheveled.
I am the big picture still focused on the details.

I am the sum total of heredity and experience.
I am not,
I am more.
I am everything and nothing.
I am a walking contradiction.
I am human.

I tried to be you,
But didn’t know what that meant.
I am me,
It’s all I know.

Who are you?

Heart beating, brain waves erratic
Depending on another to prove you can be loved
Over think like a new theorem
Numbers & symbols & calculations in your head
Try to look back through all the little details you missed
Are you kidding yourself?
Seeking for honesty
Hoping it’s in your favor
Everything seems fine
When you are together
Search for a sign, an inkling
Why do I try to reach out?
Stretching so far just to feel you energy
It’s so strong
Your lips, administer the strongest of narcotics
Paralyzed with your being
When we part, temporarily of course
My vitals change
And my heart & head battle
For reassurance
You make me delusional
The scent of you more powerful than a magnetic field
As you caress my body, stroke my face
I am no longer on this planet
I float with the spirits above
And sadly it cannot be bought
Release me from this paranoia
This addiction
Why so strongly do I fall into your force field?
Is my pull less intense?
Or is it that others just possess an energy more appealing?
You are nothing to be fooled around with
A different kind of beauty not in my realm
But in a parallel
To bring you into my circle would be an extra force in itself
But the lights around you shine so bright
That I’d gladly take the fall
Use my inner being to fight for you
But when it comes back to calculations and figures
One tight hold directly on another cannot compete with various forces in multiple directions
Even superheroes only deal with one villain an episode
Release me from this intangible pull
Because my revolving fire burns too bright
for this ill-distributed chemical bonding

Why’d you get locked up then lad?
Oh. I’m locked up?
I know you. You won’t escape lad
Escape from where?

(Jackie Wilson at her majesties pleasure 1884, West Denton, Newcastle)

The sweat rolled off Dominic’s nose.

Its ‘movement’

movement

movement

Uniting.

Meditation takes a person out
from themselves
so far out, without any need
for any additional charge, toll, or need, that when you come back,
even if it’s within
the same body,
you feel

and the glow comes back
on-coming traffic smiles, dead less grace
the worst, and 7am

chess
without a game.
a drool.
an intricacy within
mirage.
hope in the sorry soft gas explosions
and death was heavy enough to fly and give
But not in the normal way
one second, and even joy spills
and the cabbies have begun to scream and break down at each other
even though it’s not a full moon
too many people squashed on a tight balcony
drinking us all away
too many hands
not dancing
it all away


Slugs emigrate across concrete when the soil is wet.
When you wonder why they’ve left.
Its pouring
and you think you recognise a name scrawled in the wet trail.

Single, intimate, observations.

And reasons for the evening to be near.
It will be worth it! – I’LL SEE YOU! –
And now we are allowed to be glorious without price.
And now it’s sad as hell.
And the trees know that.
But the squirrels never do.
And now those words don’t matter.
And now we are allowed.
And now we go.

And the laminate floor
has the weight of a cross.
And the thing is,
you know

(It’s all softly bombed)
Not in a horrific
or knowable
way.

But in God’s good loving
loving
loving
******* for ya.

We’re finally rubbed out.

Crucifying.
And uncrucifying.

Eyes are useless here.

Blackness first.
THEN that soft
‘soft’

dripping.

easy blackness.

Meditating, sat middle
the pentagram of a small flat.
blue white board marker, on ‘easy wipe’ wood flooring.

And if I wake, I can wipe all the lines out.

SO, it went the same.
blue colour of cityscape coming-black light flashing always
across the distance from balcony
a beautiful stillness.
Waves first. Sea. The complete sea. Swimming.
ego. Ego swimming. Ego going down. Hello! And ha!
And no more jokes.
And isolation.
And no more months.
But there were gushes.
Gushes of experiences in, and outside, with individual breathes
and the proximity of love, coming closer
like a germinating hand
guiding you down
into the oceans private concert

Not too close to the expensive parts, or the bad parts,
or anywhere too pristine.
Christ, that’d be
a joke. It’d be funny
and then the surgeon would come and operate
on you;
lifting you out whilst you’re asleep

And it would go like this:

Cancer: Hey! What’s going on?!
Get off! I’ve paid my
rent and don’t wet the bed
anymore,

Surgeon: Don’t care.
Come here...
Oh for **** sake you’re making my day long.
I don’t get paid
for this.
Cancer: Oh yes you do handsome.
Surgeon: Oh yeah!

rest on the long side of your bed.
‘What’d you do at the weekend?’
Where’d you go?

...

banter broke down into spider web
substance
before fading completely, as thoughts begin
to disappear and fly down
into heavier states
from outside you saw a man still dressed
in formal office attire
tie hanging undone around a white shirt, shoes kicked off
beside strange markings on a polished floor. From in,
the understandings
are quite different
fly gently, like a loved one retiring from life
as the single light bulb watches from your ceiling
tensing one last second time in hesitation
then blowing you out with a blink.  

looked into the well where life is buried
and reached down
arms lengthened like dusty pieces of ham down a hole
touching the foetus as it crawls back up,
and up through the highway lines of his veins,
like a rabbit hunts wolves,
like the peach reacts to your bite.

We smoked and ate apple pie as the autumn tattooed
We snapped small pieces off
then ate the mites.

And then when the well filled we made our arms lassoes;
that churned the grain,
turning the quietness into storm,
and back to parts of spring.

You hesitate, touching the ape
like a clown who’s just tossed his life into the air, and juggles it,
like dead poems and hot boiling yeast.
you looked further into the well and found the figments of the ‘Narwhal’
the sea creature with a prominent horn
that shoots from its head-

Early sea farers
used to think the horned mammal was a type of
magical being
it birthed the idea of unicorns
you let the water well mix and join
as we drink coffee today, and the night is less silent
than that of star of apples and gloom
each tarantula that scatters in the red stars of sand is welcome;
and the honey man and honey woman flicker,
through numberless bank checks and bills as knocks arrive
knock after knock after knock
into long vibrational hum

All that remains
is the bursting punch
near the bottom
of oceanic well

As it tightens your grip into the follicle hibernating bears
that speak eloquent words whilst we eat;
the deep groan of munching hands
in the well helps our arms
pull up the glowing carcass as it turns back
into us within our hands, it speaks easily and slow, telling each
servant surrounding
the hole that they should:

‘Dance casually, dance inside my red eyes’.

Some take advantage of melody, as a trust that funds satellites of globe,
as if no one ever dreamed or broke the yoke of more pleasurable things;
one of your arms
is like the way that a crab crawls past over my nose and into our future home

another asks that you aren’t so violent in February
and that the month is a counting mouth that multiplies zero
beside the arms reaching for a pyramidic beauty
under the ***** shell; aborting its children like blood in the snow,
without humanistic style, more in tune with time
than the army of water lifting your throat up,
spits- that poke at us with antlers, undeterred, no legged, mating in the sand

After a while, otherness takes over, and will comes.
And emotion is long shattered,
easing out,
playing skin game and dissipating need, where all will and human comes back
it takes a while.

And our gender has nothing to do with just lust
We are the almost completely blind, as the cliché remembers
Gender is
the lack of gender and the freedom of paradigm
whilst hands are upon love,
And more night(s) turn within us.
dream like bright black stars.

Weekends. Week. Work. Corporations dancing like butterflies on fire. Gone.
Gone
Gone
Gorgeous

nothingness
apart from its face and voice
speaking

“Heyy, how’s it going?”
Projection
No
“Yes... Lover,
Yes yes yes!”
“No.”
skull now linked to the lips of a home
“Correct, correct, correct...” The intangible
darkness, over and over

a rushing
and uncontrollable
heaviness of fire.

foxes in back alleys salute
the black sky with a mongrel scream
and all the animals of the world are linked for a split minutiae,
recognising and respecting the breach;

“You’re hurting... mmmmuh-” Dominic tried to say
in the onslaught.

Converging planes that came from the lips of the spirit crowning his mind.

“You’re not Juuu, Juh Juah Juh.”

He tried to say for the next few hours, as the sun spread down
on the city
and felt a deep
empathy for another one
of its children
attempting to free
itself.

“No.”

how right you are...” The spirit said
as Dominic’s head slumped from exertion.

“You see...” The spirit said seeping into his bones
and killing him;
paramedics zip
the bag
over his face.

“You see...” The voice says again
knocking the lights off
and flinging you
by your throat

Each one letting you
go

landscape sick in multiple elements of confused colour,
parts of buildings, art: growing up in the horizon, new structures
made by thoughts, old flowers inside limbs,
smoking.

“What...” The spirit
said.

sigh at the strange place,
without looking around.
blossoms of mind and traffic
circulated
characters
on a schizophrenic island

two flies ****** invisibly
and grow from the unseen smallness of their passion
and become an instant world
in the Red Mountains.

“What’s up?” Dominic say gloomily,
laugh a little.

“You’re meant to be screaming...
And yes...
Yet another ******* month
without hitting
target.” The nightmare says,

No incorporeal speech
no anger
anymore.

She might have been about twenty five,
dressed in a shade of grey
change
that covered her genitalia
and ******* from ankle up to neck

get used to it all.
raise your chin to the sky and try to blink away from the constant lick
of the beast growing
from yourself, or lover, or day

And grow the chimera
throughout numberless
stages
like a beautiful clay
that cant decide

Finally the meer-hawk looked like a Dickensian peasant
with an intricate smile, dressed all in jail rags
stinking of sweat, *****, and time.
And then we change
again

And her black hair scooped down
into the blackening sand
where the grains accepted her slim weight
through out itself

She was tired and fed up of the back-world today
She left her contract looking around upstairs
and accepted the hit
on her targets

A transference of types in the quaking room.
A quick drop of laughter flys
into the lil bear or a lot; and a snap and a lot of hunger
for us all...

The master of the basement was mostly machine.

The front of his face that we run towards
is a centred and hovering engine
at the far end of the shadow
room
and the stench
from its thought.

a farce and enough
to turn you away
from a really good
steak.

no walls

no matter

a car mouth approaches naked.

dead cats know this, as they lay purring still, licking their paws still,
misery knows,forgetting, and the coldness of the street gave birth

to numberless seedy neon lights
flickering away from the wall less walls
once more

and you know, we
all
have a prayer
that comes
out
here was
mine:

might as well let you know
whilst we’re at it
that this one comes
out, in some accent~~
but is how it’s meant to go

“...as if to prae
inside the rain
as if to move
the moon with small hands
ah cross the yard
and lucky sky

I live in that playce me lass
with ya quiet weiyht
upon me own
of ya li’l voice
that taeks it away

Ya-renuf ta bring
al me Gods back
an pin ‘em te tha walls

Enough ta mayke
al’ me angels breathe
heavy
for even an ounce
of ya grace

Ave begged at tha hands
of jesus Christ
for that tayste
of yeh
me sweet bonny lass
an ya the only lass
‘ahve evva met
that mayde us feel
like ah cuhd heal
without bein less

An I’m lookin at ya now
with al me luv
an ah divent need
ney where to ruhn
as am ah freed dog

and in ya charms

An ‘av ney-where left to luk
but I’ll kip alreet the neet pet
cos ya by me side

an in me arms.”

But now it is rather late my friend, and
we all know how long old accents last,
mine, I cherish, I will say it when cursing
and gone
when lit among friends and when
impressing
new jobs, that I shall leave, such is
my
way
and
i may
see you
again.