for Those who eat ramen by choice, or not.*

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by disillusionment,
lacking egotistical sold, dragging themselves through the hip streets at dawn
looking for a socially self-aggrandizing fix.
Poets, as they sit in desks and discuss discourse
about discourse about discourse about discourse,
who fear that thinking itself was buried with Vonnegut,
who are lost in forests of brick walls,
inviting, because they block the wind of dying fall,
who swim in cesspools filled with academic sewage, yearning for freedom,
for truth, as they always have,
mining their minds for images, and searching for words to describe
-a reality which is virtual at its core and each act, another chore./
-a scene of life which reflects all that is poignant and sacred.
Poets seek musicians while musicians seek poets.
and the dog chases its tail, endlessly
and the dog chases its tail, endlessly
and the dog chases its tail, endlessly

These poets who search aimlessly for the feeling of feeling,
who are overwhelmed with meaning to the point where meaning
has no meaning in itself.
Who claim this poem as their own and continuously write themselves into it.
It is those who suffer in truth that live the poetic.
Those who sit in front of space heaters eating peanut butter sandwiches in winter,
who sweat unknowingly in summer, comforted in each’s odor.
Those who open Macbooks while squatting in empty flats.
Signing up, logging in and zoning out, forever disengaged.
Those who type prophecy on keypads and let keyboards gather dust-
stratification, signs of long nights spent in century-old homes still not renovated,
ceilings sinking at the sides while those above pogo to punk rock long dead,
or grind genitals to old soul, simulating all that is sensual.
Those who play archaeologist to their own layers of makeup, grimed on the sink.
Those who share their food with the roaches and the mooches who all have keys,
who use the books as shelves to hold ceramic mugs, stained with a single drip-drop,
who, with arms crossed, watch bands in basements play noise.
Those who replaced their nu-metal records with folk but kept the unkempt beards.
Those who drink stale beer on stranger’s rooftops.
Those who live with bags under eyes, themselves asleep, lacking a body,
sleeping naked together to stay warm,
sleeping naked together to stay sane,
sleeping naked together to stay touched.

Those who leave coffee in unplugged automatic pots, decaying rapidly.
Those who eat pizza for breakfast, cold or microwaved, as an act of ultimate indulgence.
Those who prance about in un-matching socks
from hardwood floors to vinyl floors to tile floors, all under the same popcorn ceiling,
dancing to the sound of rhythmic silence.
Those who fight with lovers about acts, but never once mention the act of love itself.
Those who don flannel plaid in springtime color, constructing Williamsburg,
who consider gentrification a new form of landed gentry,
who live in poverty as if it were a novelty,
capitalist martyrs sacrificing employment to hide being non-hirable,
who shop in online surplus department stores for unique vintage.
Those who, who, who hoot like the owls framed on their walls, eyes wide but beaks small.
Those who are oppressed by nonexistent kings ruling in imaginary suits.
Those who crave something new, not tired-as the form of this very poem-
something which is not-yet auto-tuned.
Those who, faux-hawked and shredded, rock and bop to Bowie doing Lou
on Sunday Morning from Station to Station shooting ******,
who walk swiftly with denim skin on their legs and refuse socks.
Those who, in their rightest mind, are the wrongest-minded.
Those who can reject privilege only because they are privileged,
who, in their uniform whiteness, denounce racism,
who, in their uniform straightness, claim immune to homophobia
who, with their ***** ***** in a row, claim to be feminists.

And those who search for revolution in a time when rebellion is conformity.
Listening to the  pounding sound of blog-protesters typing n o w.
who, in claiming to accept, don’t accept the unaccepting,
who got veggies tattooed on their sides while snapping bacon in their teeth,
who ironically infiltrated asylums and performed madness until the shocks came
and they were maddened, for good, eaten alive by volts resounding
ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.
Who sleep naked together to be together but end up being alone,
exchanges from lips that move in pretentious drone,
and the dog chases its tail, endlessly.
When the abnormal is normal and the whole structure is inverted and
heaven is here and flames under the soil are no longer hell burning for soles of the
Converse, Adidas, and Nike sneakers on the bicycle pedals of poets who ride at night,
listening to the sound of owls that question:
who?
whoo?
whooo?

1
she taps he hand, twice.
across the room,
he stares, thinking
into empty air.
others, scattered
tap pencils or fingers
on desktops, booktops
and phone keyboards

the balding man
with black hair:
combed backward
and to differing angles
so that his head is split
vertically-
stands, above the room
his back turned

his words,
meant for the crowd
reverberate only
along classes fringe
but still take precedence
over nothing
even to them-
academics, outcasts


2
back of the room
reveals everything
to the observer
trying to see

blue-eyed brunette
glares vengefully
at no one,
just to glare

he looks up once
to watch
as another
pulls up
drooping jeans.
she laughs
at conversation
unmeant for,
and inaudible
to her


3
today, she smiles
and lets her lip fall
begging, like a puppy
But when they
lose eye contact,
she glares, again

he leaves footprints
on parallel desk
from lounging
then fires himself
to his feet
using stored energy,
and sugar from gum

words bounce along
the walls in the back,
and isolated eyes peer
towards the screen
but hide the fact
that they care


4
two week vacation
has left their minds
full of everything
except math,
so they listen
to him, while he speaks

but travel backward
in time, with
those closest them
while he creeps,
silent, around the room

she concentrates hard,
on her work
glaring at the page.
he sits a desk forward
feet on floor
neighboring desk full
today, but only physically

blue hat rests
on sketchbook,
its border
barely covering
closed eyes

blond head
implants itself
jokingly, into
smooth shining
white wall
with enough force
to collapse
accidental target

a hand raises
attracting gazes,
awestruck,
at her interest
in forgotten
material
of future tests


5
only a few eyes wander
from blue lined notebooks
though the left flank
still chatters, embodying
either a secretive chipmunk
or the breeze which starts the storm

storm clouds appear slowly
in sketchbook, blue hat bobbing
rhythmically in response to active pen

perched above the flock
reminiscent, split headed
papa bird scans the masks
of his shockingly silent chicks

random lecture breaks the silence.
Her eyes aren’t the only ones
Fixed into a steel laden glare
But the chipmunk wind ceases


6
his questioning glance lands
on uninhabited space,
exhibiting a yawn
which traverses through,
and twists, the faces of
those otherwise engaged

lecture ends with a question,
the scent of nuts blows through
mentally empty classroom
turning desks to predetermined
positions and swiftly inhabiting
three-quarters of the physical class

his steel glare has replaced hers
the latter’s eyes now soft as an infants

within five minutes, his voice
undergoes  a brutal, complete cycle
pleading, congratulating, yelling
and as always, lecturing


7
pre-test:

preparations for misery-
mundane chipmunk chattering,
jokes and laughs from random
oddities appearing everywhere

blue hat rests in intervals.
Blue coat rearranges
essay for another class

The girl in the sunny plaid
Rolls an orange along her hand

He points at nothing and asks
Nobody something without answer

The left flank, as always
Is turned away, conversing

A sigh rings outward loudly
Everyone glares, nervously,
Everywhere, reward of concentration


After my test:

First paper in, he scans lightly
Sets it down with a scowl
and yawns, twice, breaking the
silent shroud of heavy fog
which is hanging overhead

wandering free eyes witness
down-turned heads concentrating
as much on tests  as on moving
their hands wildly, excitedly
trying to communicate non-vocally

others have yet to detach themselves
from their seats and stride upward,
hopefully more triumphantly
than their sole predecessor

one shuffles now, slowly toward him
his hand shaking as he releases
that  paper, he turns away as it flutters
onto the desk- he replants himself in his

twelve others walk forward
smiling, shrinking, sometimes speaking
and always he glares, triumphant
knowing his success at our failure


later:

his near-sleeping form            
finds distraction, in waking
dreams, jumping back suddenly
breaking from his plank-like state
without speaking. excitement
for approaching weekend is
communicated in the left flank

two girls break the silence
running in from outside            
he glares at them, but laughs

everyone breaks into groups
after the conversation about
mysteriously nutty discarded sock

he runs to the forefront
forehead folded, finger on mouth
no-one notices, but still he glares

8
he smiles and glares at the floor
his legs swinging back and forth            
tan slacks rustling softly

exaggerated scores bubble in ears            
as they search for their destroyer

in front of forgotten faces falls
the page of a forgotten tome

several yawn, hoping, understandably
that their stretched lips
will pull themselves far enough
to barricade ears from his droning

he kills himself, twice, bumbling
into half-thought chastisements
of the  flittingly flirtatious students
intermingling hoping behind him
causing waves of whispers, laughter
and slightly strengthened chatter

he re-aligns his thoughts quickly
and rambles on again, always

9
he speaks to her softly
from across a sea of desks
she looks up, panicking calmly
distracted from distraction

in silence, blank eyes turn
surprised at the non-withering
state of her barely living corpse

he asks a question, looking up
a single answer is given
unemotional and short, buy ending
heavy hanging awkward silence

how talented the teacher
who gives his lecture while
still addressing unrelated
student self lectures

the still silence given
in his questioning lull
hangs so loudly the whispers
traversing the classroom appear
silent as finger wiggle
and pencils trace zeros

his extrication, caused by
distractingly thunderous voice
is met with a comment
causing a wave of laughter
starting at his mouth
and extending to inhabit everything

10
half the time gives
twice the attention
as they concentrate
on keeping him on
the undying topic
of the work we
have already done

they admit defeat
as dusty tome opens
spreading a nutty cloud
causing heads to turn
and words to leap.

from opens lips,
mischievous gremlins
sprout, dancing on
tables and chuckling
away from the sigh
of his down-turned, split
shining, globular mind

he scratches pink ear
with bone pale finger
reading unrelated words

in the center of the room
both mentally and physically
he sits, momentarily quiet
as dark eyes glare past
rumpled pink nose,
concentrating

blue hat rests on open palms
above dust covered open page
he slips into sleeping state
but picks himself up
and stares though thin borderline
toward shiny rambling forehead

a shutter cord flies forward
the hand at the end pulling hard
but with no affect to the shutters
neither lowering the physical
or raising the mental

the color of non-color pencils
interrupts the class momentarily
as she strides forward to compare
and then criticizes his care

he just sits, smiles and stares

11
eleven desks lie empty
of one form more than usual
amplifying the arm movements
of the ever ticking seconds

his obscured mouth flings seeds
which sprout into words
before even meeting the worn
blood-colored carpet below

in the main room, sixteen
sit silent, sketching, sleeping
or siphoning the last minute

12
those left awake, and alive
have come to understand
the numbers on the screen
this being their specialty
in a nutty shell, of course
splitting, as we are, large
crowds of numbers, and us
being teenagers, isn’t that
how we think, in numbers
and ratings of everything
and, sitting in the central
crowd are the talented
crowd-splitters
flattery-spitters

13
the silence of half absence
is pierced, as always by vocal
anomaly, centered around
rows of shining wood
bookrests, but only one
set of hollow, dark-rimmed
vacant eyeballs watches
well-welcomed interruption

he lets us work, standing.
Someone somewhere opens
A large container of nuts
Entire class starts stuffing
Handfuls into puffy cheeks
Absorbing sensations into
Eternally ravenous minds

The apocalyptic mix of noises
Is split again by central
Nutcracker, and those in corners
Glare, smiling, rubbing shadowed
Acne scarred faces
with raw-bitten nails

14
balding papa bird speaks loudly
transforming his voice, becoming
vocally legendary cartoon duck

the wave of resulting laughter
ends in un-given nut-break
spreading, without speech
the understanding that his
comedic digression will not
meet a quick extinction

we greet the weekend
by rising early
our excuse: competition
to devour the worm

15
three heads are downturned
peering into textbooks
as the tsunami breaks

the days end starts
and beady eyes peer
in the direction of his
moving head, colored
gothic gargoyle in the
dim cloudlight streaming
through dust coated
slit windows

the room transforms
becoming triumphantly,
grumpily, repeatedly
conversational

artificial silence
spreads like a wave
from right back corner
to left front corner
leaving behind
the half of the room
hidden behind the wall
of troublemakers
who will eventually
cause the wall to topple
with the sheer force
of assorted nuts

16
blue hat is scrunched
under the of a fist
pounding on his head,
result of the decibels
consumed, and produced
by the embodiment
of the thoughts around him
which fall from stuffed
cheeks. Bounce off tables
and spread a sickening aroma
as their shells split
exposing, revealing
nothing

17
red face glances upward
as harsh words split
the widening sea of snickers
his words stop, first time today
as whispers spread wildly
of his speed in delivering answers
seconds later, room is silent
as statement ends and lecturer
turns back to him, offering
as always, another wave
of deep felt, anger hardened
quietly whispered, criticisms

thunderous-rush-voice leads
out of habit and necessity
the minutes following
his behavioral digression
each word stabbing split-headed
pointy-nosed papa bird, their
form a walnut-wood spear
crafted from drifted thoughts
of those sitting nearest him

18
on his back lies a pile of nuts
professor’s earthquake
shoulder shaking causes
eyes to open, back to rise
and with a tremendous roar
both physical and meta-physical,
it topples to worn carpet
and the laugh-track plays on

19
silence- pierced into being
by shrill, violent, mountainous
rise, and fall, of thunderous decibels-
hangs, heavier, louder than
the quick gone loudness replaced
or, in all actuality, displaced
mere seconds before being scrawled
into eternal memory
of those whose noses
sniff, daily, nutty clusters
of letters, which exclude
always, the ever-present x
the destructive π
and that y, which of course
flies as high as forgetful
nut-bearers




©Brandon Webb
2012

Raindrops splattered across the squeaky window as Lily slipped into a world entirely her own. She found out that the slightly dilapidated beige sofa can provide an alarmingly pacifying dark fortress.
It was the storm in her living room which led her to this point.

Her mother was a peculiar human in the aspect of coping methods. Most would turn to alcohol, but Lily's mother turned to books.

One would think a child of such age possessed great privilege, having such a mosaic of resources on literature, words, and literacy.

Every morning, Lily's mother would slip into a world entirely her own. Some days, her face would hold the cover of a Patrick O'Brian and other sleepy days would entail a bit of nineteenth-century British novels. Whatever the cover, the woman's disposition was also affected.

"Lily, listen to this- doesn't it sound blue?" The woman hoarded phrases from each book, and soon, Lily's mother was an endless world of words. Her mother's affinity for quotes turned into a tasteful obsession. Lily was naive to the abnormalities in associating words with colors; such as ‘nebulous' with orange, and 'surreptitious' with purple. To her, language was rich in color and feeling.

One might also surmise a girl with such enlightenment would take after her progenitor. Lily did not. Though, she was above her class in reading comprehension and competency, the very thought of books sent flashes of buried grudges.

"Everyone needs a therapist. The poor girl's been through so much," they say. 'They' being the individuals at church. After service, the doors would open. Lily would do everything in her power to weave around the sea of meaty vociferous faces. She didn't need their pity. Nothing happened.

'Nothing' meaning... perhaps a little something. Her father died. This, (Lily suspected) was the cause of her mother's book addiction. It must be peculiar for the spectator witnessing the situation from above. As we've stated before: most turn to alcohol.

Years elapsed in which an occurrence she termed, "The Rebellion," began her mother’s book exodus. She was never truly present and Lily desired for her to see the world as it was now- not in a novel or in the pages of fantasy.

The piano rang throughout the room every morning and every night for about an hour. Lily often turned to classical Vivaldi, Yiruma, or a dash of Paganini piano covers. She drank music like a shriveled sponge. Of course, her hobbies would be as far away from books as possible since she believed them to be an obligatory evil.

Tunes danced across her soul like the ghost of a memory almost arising. The voice of a piano carried bursts of purples, yellows, and reds. White and black keys proved unchanging and reliable. Lily latched to the idea.

"I'm going to play her out." The mourning doves cooed in the almost-vacant neighborhood, while two girls of the same height and age were ensconced under a magnolia tree near the street, their legs crisscrossed on grass.

"Too much piano?" Haley asked, plucking a dandelion from its roots while squeezing milky sap from the stalk with her fingernails.

"No, I want to." Lily answered.

A thought crossed her mind. Each book infested mother with unique feelings. Then, Lily deduced there is no such thing as too much piano.











It was quiet in the house as Lily had no siblings and the book-trace rendered mother speechless. Tape recorder near the piano, and fingers at the keys, she began playing au fait on her version of Vivaldi's Spring Season. She kept the imagery of wedding cake and rings in her mind. She introduced the song to her hands by means of segmented versions, leading towards the final masterpiece. Her aural senses acute, listening for the best complimentary notes. Soon, her fingers had written poetry. She liked to think that her left and right hand owned different stories to perform, yet once they met on-stage, they heightened the essence of each other's tales.

Lily played verses countless times until she was out of breath. If someone told her piano was a sport, Lily would concur.












The final piece was recorded on an 'old-fashioned' tape. Heart pounding, she tiptoed upstairs to her mother's hiding place.

"...a thin place where tissue paper separates the material from the spiritual.." the woman greeted Lily. She never looked up from her book.

"Listen, it's white,” the woman voiced hazily. Lily shoved the tape in her face. The mother’s hand reached out from behind the book, feeling the air before finally resting her hand on the plastic rectangle, sliding it into the player

and the music journeyed to her ears.

"Hmmm..." she said. And then all was quiet.










"I've got her." Lily declared in the convenience store on a rainy day.

"With a cake?"

"It was her wedding song. You know- the one playing while the bride walks in."

"What'd she say?"

"Nothing."

"Why can't you just wake her up with some coffee?" Haley suggested as a golden aurora arose from behind the clouds.

Most of Lily’s playing sessions caused her to neglect her own physical well-being. So she rinsed a dusty plastic cup from the cupboard and filled it with water. M&Ms were food Lily associated with her sessions and she couldn't play without developing that deep-rooted Pavlovian response. Finally, in an attempt to be healthier, a plastic water cup was to her right, and M&Ms in a bag were to her left on the piano seat.

But first, a small kick in her belly drove her to a slight guilt. See, she believed in music the way some do religion, and thus, she did what others do when confronted with a critical moment in life.

"I'll bring her out," she began, "and I'll play for the rest of my life. If I can't, I'll give up music forever." She placed her fingers on the keys, completing the oath. And this occurred only because she was twelve and incredulously naïve in the field of religious traditions, that she didn't know that most oaths offered to a deity of higher power involved some form of great sacrifice for a desired result. This meant that her risk was greater than others, as it meant winning or losing it all.

Lily drew a deep breath, filling her nose with the memories of coffee. She began playing. An odd little tune traveling from her brain to the keys before her.










"Remember me, when we lived far away, down in the lonely lighthouse..." her mother chanted and Lily only half listening as she painted the cover of a CD containing her finished piano piece: Coffee.

"The sea air- spill in that lighthouse. The comfort we felt in that lighthouse." Her mother continued absorbing the ink on the pages, "Remember me, when I flew away with that chilling, cold sea breeze..."

Lily clicked the clear cover shut, handing it to the "Collective Works of Julie G." Once again, a wandering hand shot out from behind the cover, searching for the CD. Her mother did not look up.

"Music or an experiment?" she asked

"We'll see." Lily answered.

Her mother raised the CD to her player and inserted the disk, pressing play. Her wandering hand felt a small cup of coffee and as the music played, she sipped it slowly- quite peculiar. Her eyes looking up from the pages as though she were staring at something far away and her face, rubescent.

"Where did you learn to play that?" she said, leaning back and closing her eyes.








Haley and Lily entered a quintessential music store. Guitars lined the walls and classic vinyls were stacked on shelves. Small sleek keyboards welcomed guests as they stepped inside, synchronous to the resonance of a sharp bell.

Lily sped towards the CD section nestled near the corner in the store, while Haley flipped through the pages of violin classics.

"Lily, you're missing something." Haley noted from across the room, flippantly exasperated.

"Coffee didn't work." Lily replied in despair. "I thought I had her, but I didn’t."

Haley walked back towards her friend, new sheet music in hand, "Everyone's heart breaks a little differently and that means every cure must be unique. But there's something we all need- to feel safe. You did that for her."

"Then why is she still gone?"

"Because In order to return, she needs to remember what she lost and she needs to want it again... hold on." Haley held out a piano book in her hands. It was a neat white book with dark blue ink. Lily furrowed her brows.

"Just read it, Lily." Haley urged in the most loving way possible.









She still refused to use the book, diverging more from Haley’s instruction, cajoling her mother by use of classical music, modern music, and healing music. But nothing resolved and it seemed as though her oath to the Greater Deity would not fall in her favor.


It took a graying day for Lily to dig in her backpack and pull out the vile book. Inside revealed crisp white music sheets.

She itched to throw it away, however, something caught her eyes:

Kiss the Rain.

Lily stopped and stared out the window, inhaling to smell petrichor.

"Well, okay then." she reasoned. She pulled out  the piano bench and began finding the first few notes. The rest fell into sight reading. Just as the rain trickled down the living room window, the music trickled into the home's inhabitants' ears. Rain engulfed her soul.

The piece finished with a light touch on the last note. It resounded through the cozy expanse.









"I have something for you, mom." Lily proclaimed, placing the CD in her mother's hand, which then traveled to the player.

The woman failed to look up from her book, only staring into the distant pages as the notes tapped inside her ears. Ever so slightly, her eyes began to close and Lily could see the notes dancing behind eyelids.

"It feels like... rain." she commented. And as the last tickling touch of the last raindrop echoed through the dark room, her mother looked up, smiling at the sound, and her eyes met her daughter's.

"Why, Lily," she said, her voice laced with surprise, "look how you've grown.”

My technology nightmare
Leaves me euphoric this morning.
Addicted, like drug trials,
I knew the risks going in,
Got hooked in The Cloud &
Now it always seems easier,
With diminished psychic chafing
Whenever I go with the flow, as the
Hipsters are saying again.
Yes, the hipsters:
Finally, some kids I can relate to.
At least on some level, their music e.g.
The first thing I did this morning,
Waiting for my laptop to boot,
Was put a CD on the stereo:
Matrix Reloaded: The Album.
I set the shuffle function,
Looping back between
Linkin Park’s Session &
Team Sleep’s Passportal.
You can tell a lot about
What kind of day it will be
By the soundtrack you choose,
Your infinite play list,
Don’t ever say these kids have no culture,
Or nothing to share with us old farts.
Old Farts: an apt, Baby Boomer term in 2015.
Kids’ music, some of it quite good,
Quite 60s-worthy if you catch my drift,
As we used to say while grazing in the grass with
Hugh Masekela & his Naai Mongoe-Swazi red,
Surfrikan homeboys & band mates, & that
ANC Kwa-Guqa Township posse,
Shadowing him since Sharpeville.
That’s right, Babaloo,
Go with the flow.
Don’t fight it. You’ve been spared the unintended
Consequences of government shenanigans &
Free market meltdowns.
Consider this a CEASE & DESIST NOTICE:
Cease swimming upstream Mr. Phelps.
Desist fighting tide & current, Michael.
A mariner’s distinction, yet serviceable &
Purposed for this narrative.
“And away we go,” croons a Gleason levitation;
Aloft we go into the wild blue yonder.
The Cloud: an exalted playground.
You are atop the slide,
Kindergarten lord of all you survey,
Sultan, Chinese Emperor & Venetian Doge,
A 90-caliber Duke of Earl,
You are euphoric, Mike.

The descent into the humanoid condition
(See Paddy Chayefsky’s Howard Beale),
Is slick and precipitous.
It begins when you first finger ****
A pocket calculator or touchtone phone,
Or use a Xerox machine.
From there it’s a quick slide down
The technology ****-shoot: video games,
Spreadsheets & word processors,
Emails, texts & tweets,
Laser projection keyboards,
Wi-Fi amplifiers,
GPS navigators, &
Apps for No-Strings *** . . .
By “****-shoot” I editorialize, of course,
In a state of future shock,
Resenting planned obsolescence,
Contemptuous of shrewd **** kids,
Wharton School sharpies,
Scoping out price curves & flowcharts,
Colluding at industry trade shows,
Powwows & confabs,
Releasing newer, more versatile
Models & spinoffs, according to a
Scheme planned three years in advance.

I salt the inevitable wounds of technology,
Taking my fight to the streets, realizing too late
My sole means of alerting the flash mob
Is by so-called smart phone,
*******!
Even the revolution has gone digital.
Poor Gil Scott Heron, dead last year at 62,
Poor Scott Heron, channeled into the
Harlem Renaissance by that loyal Chicago Defender,
Subscriber & reader, to wit: his Grandma,
A “Rainbow Conspiracy” co-conspirator,
Cooking ham hocks & collard greens for that
Mythical coalition of Young Lords,
Black Panthers & SDS.
Heron’s prognostication was wrong:
“The Revolution Will (In Fact) Be Televised!”
We’ve witnessed quite a bit of it,
Lately, prime time lately,
Live by satellite from once exotic places,
Places like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria & Ferguson, MO.
I say “once exotic” because it’s hard to be
Visually intoxicated by images of screaming brown men
Sporting New York Yankee ball caps,
“Vote for Pedro” T-shirts and
$200.00 Air Jordan footwear.
Admittedly, the production values of
Revolutionary journalism have improved,
Action reported Hollywood-style,
Narrative arcs, scripted episodes,
Drive-by Potemkin villages & battle scenes,
30 or 60 or 90 day shooting schedules.
Spontaneous proletarian uprisings as Reality TV,
Riveting dramas,
High Nielsen ratings & $500K
Per minute corporate sponsors.
Let’s view the new fall line-up:
(1) “Mustafa Behaving Badly!”
(2) “Tunisian Tear Gas Talent!”
(3) “Gaddafi Gets Sodomized!”

My dearest love,
If I were to explain the music in my ears,
It’d be an algorithm of lovely ardor,
Fervent beats and emotional rhythms,
Pursue a possibly tangible idea,
Shining lights and keyboards,
Coffee colored electric energy,
Pulsing in amber jelly motion,
A metaphorical knife is ****** into the solar plexus,
Stimulating the tear sacs,
Which then open and shed a bassline,
Which repeats in nonexistent space,
Maybe…
Just maybe…
It stretches into eternity.

Beyond your television
Lies vast hills,
along with many jumps and much thrill
Mario jumps
Zelda swings
As Kirby swallows
Donkey kong beats,
Star fox flies ever so high
While niko goes bowling
Roman started to cry
Meta knight stares ominously
As a goomba cautiously walks
A turtle shell turns blue
While the Mario kart racers get mad too....
We all know sleeping dogs don't lie
We joined a guild during an MMO war
Where we smashed every single one of our keyboards

[PART ONE]
xeroxed, RT'd and plagiarized
so many times on so many blogs
tween blogs to republican blogs
to blogs in Russia and
blogs no one ever scrolls though...
original content is prey
but I have a warning for they:

overrated, over-shared
content aggregators beware
the lines you swap can
rot and ware
the World Wide Web
does not care.

[PART TWO]
original content
original contests
original continent
original controversy
original coordination between strangers
original calvary riding their connection into the battlefield of internet memes; creating nothing and sharing everything

[COMMENTARY]
original nothing, nowhere, nobody except facebook "Funny Vidoes!" & "Cool Quotes!". 'Like' pages whose sole originality lies within their own existence but nothing they share. They steal from the rest of the web and re-post what they find for out-of-the-loop troglodytes; often done so in inferior context and with no perspective. The 'refried beans' phenomenon, I call it. I find it fitting because 'refried beans' are a double misnomer. The name comes from 'frijoles refritos' - which means 'well-fried' not 'refried'. They are also never traditionally fried more than once. Yet the name sticks, it gets repeated, it gets re-shared and now that's what they are: refried beans. This phenomenon is why I believe art and all original content eventually become so over-shared and overrated that it's no longer interesting but irritating. These three parts of the poem "Original Content" are separated in abstract authorial presentation. The author has clearly expressed his dislike for the disjunct un-imagination of the internet and presents it as such.

[PART THREE]
original authors losing control of their audiences who believe they are the creators and the artist's art is somewhat shareable
original miscommunication between web 1.0 and web 2.0 reality
original alphabet they use to type on their keyboards
original grammar they learned in school
original money their gov't printed
original content they re-post
original refried beans
original content
orginal contet
ogrinal cotent
ognal ctt
oc
.

its cold here
my heavy eyes droop
the teacher drones on
I blow my nose, so that I can breathe
in, out, in sneeze out in, out, in, out, sneeze
I'm at the back of the room
isolated
java 2, the elite
sitting alone in a java 1 class, so I don't have to pay attention
Mrs. is teaching stuff I already learned
She hands me packets to work on, on my own
the trees look so green, I love the spring
may, almost, summer
summer coming soon, not soon enough
tap tap tap tap the keyboards click click click
ugh my nose is so congested
my eyes are so heavy
sleeeeeep I just need sleep
I have to packets I need to work on, but I can't focus.
can't focus, can't breathe
my hands are tired from typing
I'm too tired to focus on reading
so what to do, what to do.
I'm wasting time, but who actually cares
I'll get the work done, just not today
summer come sooner, I need some warmth
warmth, my bed is so warm
this classroom is cold
i'm cold
bed, bed, sleep warmth
how will I ever get through this day?

The falling stars in this ironic night
make majesties
out of those cubicle-ridden New Yorkers'
routine Tuesday night daydreams,
where they make macabre escape routes
out of every perfectly-placed window
piercing the concrete sentences
that escalate from Ground Zero.

Your law offices,
corporate ******* headquarters,
are all bursting at the seams
with these drones,
the falling stars of the human race,
all composed of 14 different shades
of grayscale;

could've been
should've been
could've been shootin' stars
that year they were promised
lives of upper middle class incomes
and Lexus dealerships
bought to dent their status
on the neighborhood,
but that sparkle's been emaciated
by the truth,
the underwhelming spectacle of realization
accentuated by the clicking
and the clacking of company keyboards,
each little click
gnawing more at their patience
than the next;
the faceless brush strokes
gawk through that window,
their plans less hypothetical
over the calendar years.

"I can hear it calling me
from miles away,"
says Copy #90045280,
"see, they
SPEAK
to me, man,
tell me to transcend
the hurdle of the windowsill
and make my rendezvous
with an asphalt avenue,
to join the other casualties
of this rut-infested nation
in a life with the real stars,
falling and shooting
and jettisoning alike,
throbbing lights through dark sky silk
and into the hearts of even the most
robotic of this catalog culture,
and I frightfully,
excitedly,
must listen."

Fiery light from a dying star
Cools against your mocha thigh.
Desire formed like fingers
Rustles your hair’s dark light.

Body to body and breath to breath,
We are here and nowhere else.
Unposted selves,
Love without likes,
Hands without keyboards,
Voices in air,
The absence of absence.

[PART ONE]
xeroxed, RT'd and plagiarized
so many times on so many blogs
tween blogs to republican blogs
to blogs in Russia and
blogs no one ever scrolls though...
original content is prey
but I have a warning for they:

overrated, over-shared
content aggregators beware
the lines you swap can
rot and ware
the World Wide Web
does not care.

[PART TWO]
original content
original contests
original continent
original controversy
original coordination between strangers
original calvary riding their connection into the battlefield of internet memes; creating nothing and sharing everything

[COMMENTARY]
original nothing, nowhere, nobody except facebook "Funny Vidoes!" & "Cool Quotes!". 'Like' pages whose sole originality lies within their own existence but nothing they share. They steal from the rest of the web and re-post what they find for out-of-the-loop troglodytes; often done so in inferior context and with no perspective. The 'refried beans' phenomenon, I call it. I find it fitting because 'refried beans' are a double misnomer. The name comes from 'frijoles refritos' - which means 'well-fried' not 'refried'. They are also never traditionally fried more than once. Yet the name sticks, it gets repeated, it gets re-shared and now that's what they are: refried beans. This phenomenon is why I believe art and all original content eventually become so over-shared and overrated that it's no longer interesting but irritating. These three parts of the poem "Original Content" are separated in abstract authorial presentation. The author has clearly expressed his dislike for the disjunct un-imagination of the internet and presents it as such.

[PART THREE]
original authors losing control of their audiences who believe they are the creators and the artist's art is somewhat shareable
original miscommunication between web 1.0 and web 2.0 reality
original alphabet they use to type on their keyboards
original grammar they learned in school
original money their gov't printed
original content they re-post
original refried beans
original content
orginal contet
ogrinal cotent
ognal ctt
oc
.

So the keyboard in morose haze is a maze for the poet, blurred mind, slurred lines
How impossible to focus on screen and desk, simultaneously and keeping uniform
He doesn't look anywhere but within himself, the core reliance on life and poetry
A system of chemicals that writhe within him, every second an ordeal and euphoric
How he licks his lips, as they dry so fast, and the throat he clears is rough, how ironic
Since drinking a five ounce bottle of cough suppressant and smoking three joints down
His fingers are numb and act as spoiled children, incapable of civility on worn keyboards
On multitasking he fails, the new joint lays dead 'neath his once deft hands, wringing
Stench of smokey tobacco and ash from the splitting of old cigarettes for rolling tobacco
and roaches, sticky with resin, dripping on cheap wood desktops and staining pajamas
His hands no longer work, as the spirits have taken hold and disassociation is supreme
There's a cam model in the tab by the one he writes, frittering between the two
Inspiration for the loneliest of souls on wistful whistling autumnal nights, and the winds are howling
Everything around him is cold to the touch, the window's been open for hours now
and here is linguistic death upon your eyes and in such beautiful formats
Did Burroughs burrow too with the door-mouse on the first days of fall, when the world did end
and love left for the south and the curtains of Britain were drawn with pretty girls on postcards
This language is too morbid for him, and the land's aghast when tires screech in the night
The itching begins about now, with a furrow of the poets brow, liberation grows sour
The name Alice reminds him of her and the itching remains but a new itch needs scratching
Tired and free, discordant and discarded with the rest when all are in bed and I can attest
Do not re-read for he is ill of nationality and the land falls away each night beside the doorstep
He no longer watches screens or sees in colour, no time is passing but he grows older
Shaking when the westward winds howl in city streets and foxes rummage in overturned bins
It's cold but not too cold; cold enough to need a blanket but not too cold as to need two
He's an ambling rambler when he gambles with the shambles
But when the mind is beaten by the by he sighs and says goodbyes

The wooded lands are a beacon tonight
and life is on the horizon

Every chance we get,
we’ll fail one another.
All of us.

We’ll talk over one person;
ignore all the others.

We complain that no one
ever listens to us.

We rail from our personal
pulpits against the injustices
leveled against the least of us,
doing so behind the comfort
of our keyboards.

Even if we know that we’re
wrong, misaligned, misinformed,
we fight onward anyway.

At this point,
the goal seems
to be that humanity
is choosing to be as
insular, isolationist,
antagonistic as is
possible.

We’ll hate one another
from across the world,
never bothering to cross
the street.

We’ll shoot one another
emails, messages of our
discontent, before we let
the bullets fly.

But, we’ll fire those too.

Each new home sold
will come with it’s own
chain-gun turret.
(Why the hell not?
It’s the American Way,
Isn’t it?)

We’ll climb down from
our turrets each morning,
log onto our computers, tablets, or smartphones;
sending our family, friends, neighbors, and even a few
strangers a fresh round of electronic hate-mail or
a few new anti-social media posts that finally say what
we all think anyway:

“Greetings and salutations!
*******! I’ve always been smarter than you.
I hate you, but I hate myself more and I’ve
never gotten the attention that I think I deserve.
Have a miserable day!
I know I will!”

After that we’ll back our
cars out into the driveway,
We’ll get on all fours;
fellating our exhaust pipes
for about 30 minutes.

After we’re exhausted,
(Get it?! Exhausted!)
We’ll climb back into
the car and pull it back
into the garage.

We’ll punch in the code
to our home security system.

The code will automatically
activate our ambient anti-anxiety
and antidepressant systems

(conveniently included in our home HVAC unit.)

These will fill our homes with enough meds/particles
so that we will be easily sated, manipulated
all day long.

For an extra $200
these systems will also
post positive comments
on all of your social-media
posts so as to maintain
the body’s highest levels
of dopamine.

We want you to end your day
feeling like the center of The
******* Universe.

(Remember when they made posting
vague, attention-seeking updates
On social-media illegal?)

Lights out!
Time to get
the government-sanctioned
2.75 hrs. of  sleep.

Goodnight!
I hate you!
Stay off
of my lawn!

My chain-gun is
set to auto!

Hail Trump!
Hail America!

*
-JBClaywell
©PZPublications 2018

We teach our kids how to use keyboards
But we can’t make them want to write
Anything meaningful or important
Like (love or peace or hurt or hearts or good or bad or taste,sight,touch,smell
FEEL)


We teach them how to use computers
because we know that most of them
will sit behind a desk for the rest of their lives.
trying to pretend that they are satisfied with themselves
trying to ignore the fact that this paycheck is just a SLIP of FANCY PAPER with not enough numbers on it.
trying to forget that grey hair they found on their crown in the bathroom that morning,

They’ll sit at their mahogany desk in their black tassel shoes
and think “at least I got a job that I can use my degree for”

But when they went to college,
they always wanted to major in English

But they knew that they couldn’t get a job
With that degree
So they took the easy way out
And studied technology
And now,

They teach kids how to use keyboards on weekends

we both work in the postal service
but neither one of us
has ever sent a single love letter
maybe it's the drill of the job
maybe its the grind of the machines
or the clack of the keyboards
grind turns to a drone
and i look around to what we thought
were industrialized patents
were actually what we had once considered our friends
was that where they disappeared to?
instead of quitting the dead end
i had assumed too fearful to follow the leap
they hid away in mail bins and P.O. boxes
i thought i was alone
maybe i was
maybe they really did leave
their souls gone
with empty shells of bodies
remnants of what once was
yes
i am still alone
those who i knew have fled the building
in search of a more meaningful existence
winding in up in god knows where
anywhere but here
these gluttonous pantomimes only accept hopefuls
midlife crises who leap
at the opportunity for promotion
like increasing payroll would reduce their age
same as the twenty five year old liberal art grads who need a filler
to help pay rent while they work
on what will collectively become hundreds of thousands of volumes unpublished
here i stand
twenty eight years old
and strip off my badge
as it falls to the floor
i walk out the door
say hello to the next boarding train
(last stop your hometown)
and goodbye to the dead end road.

oh right... i thought i was on a ****** nod for a minute,
what, a, blank...

she thought i looked like Jim Morrison when met,
i worked out, played squash,
a really healthy example of zoology -
is that, the logic of caged animals?
a bit like the logic of soulless animals
with a god, soulless animals without one,
and the other two 90° variations of the square?
they're inspereble (blah) / momentary
dyslexia, naturally with English - inseparable,
pairing, ah! but isn't much of modern
psychology a bit like zoology? i mean the cages,
the untested theories, stemming from
roots of Jungian and Freudian *******?
Edward Hopper sketched himself with the joke
on visual inferences from these two
molesters of fair game - Michael Myers
just walked in and smashed their heads in...
win win scenario... but psychology is very
much like zoology - keeping a caged animal,
reverse baby onomatopoeia from what the adults
equate mama with... ego... that's their childishness,
babies say *mama adults say ego,
as if no dead Latin bureaucrat is listening
with a chisel in hand to double-fold missing
the concept of handwriting - it wasn't alive
back when it was all on papyrus, or stone,
it had a brief existence in aristocratic circles
when we wrote with quills and connected pretty well,
we soared with geese! we soared with swans!
we perched on trees like jerky crows!
god, it was beautiful, but then digital came in,
newspaper print, we felt claustrophobic connecting
letters, like jigsaw puzzles put together
some things didn't connect - unless it was a case
of a familial affair, ******, less game of hide & seek
and more a game of lookalike...
we even had perfumed paper back then...
right now you read a newspaper for too long
and you're ready to stamp your fingerprint in a police
station... and i thought money was *****,
newspapers are second-best... ***** currency of
the omni-literate populace - starving journalists
who parasitically feed of of celeb culture,
provided with excess stimulation by paparazzi
nudes... but zoology and psychology are alike,
cages in both cases, restrictions: either no god
or no soul, either some body or nobody -
trained cognitive monkey... does a fanciful trick
sometimes: yep, gets up onto a table in a nightclub
and does a cancan interpretation of the goose step
(stechschritt - all those in favour of the ministry
of simply silly get drowned in the Thames)
as if jogging on a treadmill, in one place -
the mantis in a game of chess - the mantis in a game of chess -
a game kings believed having the earliest known
satellite image from way way above - the best
way of looking at the abstraction of insects.
still, zoology is very much psychology, or vice versa,
cages and prior theories with their guillotines of
Aztec like sacrifice - i told you! those pyramids were
built for capital punishment, excess on architectural side
of what a scaffold could look like, fear inducers,
deterrents, but at least not Egyptian tombs!
and how many bars in this cage of yours can you can
with psychology: the logic of having soul, in practice
the logic of not having a soul, i.e. treatment of thinking -
the behavioural study of a man sitting in silence -
after an hour he folds a leg over the other and continues
sitting in silence - psst... it's called listening therapy...
or talk... 3 hours pass some rain falls... neither patient
or the psychiatrists is any wiser... but the latter gets paid,
the former just looks like a **** clown without makeup.
so she hooked up and wanted to start a band...
she had keyboards in mind... that was already a bad idea...
she thought i was some sort of version of Jim Morrison...
well, if i was, or if i am... i'm doing this thing solo.

The librarian walks around.
I look to my right and see a classmate watching videos on youtube about boards of canada, if she looks to her right there's a girl looking at her cellphone, the video has bicycles.
The people in the main hall can be heard all the way on the other side of the library.
I took no pictures today even though I brought my analog photocameras, there is no visual recording of this day.
I look to my left and see a large flatbed scanner, it says EPSON in big capitals and in smaller capitals it says "GT-20000".
The artworks behind the window looking into the hallway look partly improvised and partly thought out.
The reflection of a grey sky can be seen when looking up.
I think it should rain but the clouds seem reluctant to do so.
I will try to write a song today.
The brown artwork is a tree with roots.
I think that is a bit much.
The clicking subsides.
The librarian remains silent, with a sporadic amount of mouse-clicks to break up the quiet atmosphere.
I don't know what the song should be about, in fact I would like it to be about nothing which is something not easily done.
The silvery-blue artwork is made of old plastic bottles.
I liked it, it was great though I am not a fan of the cgi blood used in some scenes.
I can forgive them for it.
I am anton, I am a man in my late twenties.
The large television in the library is turned off.
The noise in the background is noticable.
The door of the toilet is opened and a girl with heavy dark make up steps trough and makes her way back to her work.
The scarf is plaid, red.
I rode my bicycle to my university, the road was broken up and I had to be creative in my driving.
I remember that my classmate records the traces of people trough frottage, it's interesting.
The fingers of students on keyboards seem to tickle my eardrums, they are a bit intrusive.
I will stay in school for dinner.
The white artwork is skeletal and weblike at the same time.
The words are on the wall and on the glass window.
I visited my personal coach who helps me in school, we discussed my plans for the weeks.
The amount of sentences should equal 26.
The noise of typing shortly intensifies.
The words released onto youtube spell titles of songs. 14
I am wondering what to do next.
I am wearing Adidas shoes, they were considered cool when my ex's uncle gave them to me as a present; I felt reluctant to take them.
I visit a university where I study arts.
The head of the author is filled with chaotic thoughts.
I think my classmate has a funny way of typing, she seems to be talking to a friend on facebook and I am not creepy at all.
The internet seems slow.
I think about the amount of documents that must have been scanned on the machine, there are scratches on it.
The voices can be recognized.
I saw monkey heads.
The cables of the computer hang against my feet and are slightly irritating.
The girl next to me changed between videos.
I signed up for a few courses, my academy requires it's students to do so.
I eat and drink at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The library is lukewarm.
I notice that my fingers already hurt from typing, or maybe from sending text messages from my phone.
The radiator makes a low rumbling noise.
I record stories and poems on casette tapes, they find their way into simple installations.
The garbage bin is empty.
I watched the first episode of Ash VS Evil this morning.
I am warm, I am wearing a leather jacket and a fleece vest over a brown t-shirt.

A fine mist filled the room
  the moment she began singing

Covering my presence;
concealing  all that is congenital
     in me

--and the years and years and years
of my family-laid, dysfunction..

      Of the harm, inherent  in me

Of the damage to her Beautiful-Everything
      I can do..  
     (Things are not OK
     when my war-torn D N A
     comes into play.) .....


              I open the door and walk into the room.
              Small fingers  slowly sliding off of keys
                   as her  glowing face  falls,
                   now  turns  ashen

An instant,  Ichabod-like undoing
   turning Steam, into stone..

              And  still I reach for her;
              the thin fabric  of her dress
              the only barrier  between us--

             ..keeping the oils  of our skin
              from  blending  together
              (the angel closes her eyes..
              as the Glory  that  was hers
              is now hiding   in the corner
              of the room)

I am weeping  now--
This beautiful Lovedream..
This one  perfect chance  
since the day I was born;
For my deeply-protected  spirit
to intertwine  with that
    of another..


Over the keyboards  I reach
as I press myself  to her..
there is a danger  here..

      --as much  for her
       as there is for me.
       Through the tremble,
        I am so incredibly  
        uncertain

        Yet  still I gaze  at her--
        consumed, by Spirit-crave.....


(Small hands  slowly  
reach around me..
Those beautiful orbs, for eyes
staring,   so intently--

       ..A cherub-like face   
       around me,  peering..
        
 --Those eyes now closing
 As gifted fingers  on keys
  bring forth  the most   perfect

         tune.)


             And suddenly
  a whole world,  treacherous
  becomes  immediately  safe.

Call me naive.
Blinded by a honeymoon phase
and sickly sweet jest

Because I want to keep
this blindfold
pulled down over my eyes.

I don't want to know
what time it is—
day or night, stars and light —
but this comfort
wraps my body and glues me to my bed.

He likes me
He likes me, not
the me I always try and hide behind
but the me that's real.

And he's honey sweet
and golden feat,
how I managed to find him
I'll never know.

He tells me once
twice and again, actually,
that they couldn't have made
a better half for him in a lab
if they had tried.

I'd lift my blindfold to see
you and your gorgeous honey blue eyes
shining through the dark like a moon,
and what we bake together
might just be the most delicious cake maybe ever.

If my words were sugar
I could have told him then
and there, his lips on mine
tasted sweet.
Like everything he says to me.

But I'm bad at baking cakes with no sugar
and all the store had was keyboards and pens
so I wrote him this instead;

To my perfect other half,
Each joke you make resounds
laugh for laugh, I sculpt you a present
epitaph commemorating you... for you
with words, to say

I think...
I might love you?

She is shaking,
fingers on keyboards, trembling

A confined spirit..
               now  untethering

You are absolutely beautiful--
Immersed within  this magical-Unfolding
as music  mates to words
Fingers, strumming now

Now finding their perfect placement

     ..On the keyboards
     of her newfound freedom
     A beautiful spirit   now returning
     to a once-little body,   beaten

     for being her beautiful spirit's  home.
     Now with headphones  on ears
     there is a  restoration

     of years and years and years,  
          locust-eaten

...Of those years, and years, and years.
                   .      .      .

Tell me about pure Joy, churches..
the nice cars in your parkinglot,  
    aint showing

The look on her face, while untethered

     tells me everything
     You can only dream of 
      ever knowing.

This is true Church--
This beautiful  Sunday-mornin' glowing
This spirit-infused flesh

A perfection of music
momentarily, flowing.

From hidden cloud
her flesh-infused  spirit
is my one chance
at pure Joy, knowing..

My love  for her,
continually-growing..

     In heart,
     tarred-n-feathered..


     In Art,  all  hers
     I  am  become

       Untethered.

Miles and borders
wedges

Wanderlust children
locked in the Sun's hula hoop
claim visions of sugarplum prairies

Downplayed mountains
speckle the globe
like tectonic acne
Topography's tease
The paper was so promising

Dimensions spawn
in the tatters of ambition
like fused particles of
colloquial bridges

Keyboards sprout vocal chords
and philosophies huddle under
shy amusement
humming to the hymn of a discovery
wrapped up in the chords
of enraptured choirs of fingertips

SANDMAN
Can you see them?-lookin' for me to be them,
lookin' for my warmth to breath life to them,
the hollow men,yes men,fallow men,come follow men,
no heart no mind-mindsick and eyeblind,
sheep talkin' like wolves that I find,
most despicable-Dis-gusting unpredictable,
following the wind as it blows on their wick they're all
candles in the strong wind gutterin',
snipes from a distance yeah they're all utterin'

Great threats from great hollow chests,
that up close-don't stand inspection,
empty vessels-makin great noise,
hard men behind keyboards hands -poised,
with the poisoned pen ready to dip in the deep well,
of hatred they bring from deep hell's,
inside,a void,avoid if you can please employ-
aversion tactics needed,don't need it,
vampyres that need pyres,yellow they bleed it
Yellow right down to the backbone believe it...

                                 CHORUS

the hollow men,yes men,fallow men,come follow men,
Yes men Hollow men come follow men  
Yes Men-Shallow men come follow men, the hollow men,

The hollow men,yes men,fallow men,come follow men,
Yes men Fallow men come follow men  
Yes Men-Shallow men come follow then
while I tell you bout the Hollow men

                              
                       JAY

Yeah, **** right I can see them.
Trolls in holes. I'm willin' to bleed 'em.
Society's detritis,
..delighted by the slightest sign of weakness.
Bleakness of their lives underlined by the lies they employ..
.. in their contrived..
..cyber sphere.
Scavengin' on carrion.
Peckin' at the carcass. Behind the veil of anonymity.
Sit in darkness as they hammer out calamity.
No nobility or amity. Cyber-highway poison.
I got the remedy.
Hollow husks skulk and lust..
..for coat-tails to ride on. Soon turn to dust.
Rusting hulks their disgusting bulk decaying on the shore.
Soon to be forgotten.
The Yes Men, the Hollow Men, the fallow men.
The everything is borrowed men.
The no tomorrow men.
The follow slowly to the gallows men.

*The Hollow Men, Yes men, fallow men, come follow men.
Yes men, shallow men, come follow men.
Yes men, Hollow Men.
Never follow them. The Hollow Men.
The Hollow Men, Yes men, fallow men, come follow men.
Yes men, shallow men, deal in sorrow men.
Yes men. Don't ever follow them.
A fool strolls to the gallows man.

You are absolutely beautiful--
Immersed within  this magical-Unfolding
as music  mates to words
Fingers, strumming now

Now finding their perfect placement

     ..On the keyboards
     of her newfound freedom
     A beautiful spirit   now returning
     to a once-little body,   beaten

     for being her beautiful spirit's  home.
     Now with headphones  on ears
     there is a  restoration

     of years and years and years,  
          locust-eaten

...Of those years, and years, and years.
                   .      .      .

Tell me about pure Joy, churches..
the nice cars in your parkinglot,  
    aint showing

The look on her face, while untethered

     tells me everything
     You can only dream of
      ever knowing.

This is true Church--
This beautiful  Sunday-mornin' glowing
This spirit-infused flesh

A perfection of music
momentarily, flowing.

From hidden cloud
her flesh-infused  spirit
is my one chance
at pure Joy, knowing..

My love  for her,
continually-growing..

     In heart,
     tarred-n-feathered..


     In Art,  all  hers
     I  am  become

       Untethered.

God dips his head beneath the murky surface of war and blood searching for his children.

His children. They cry out to Him, accuse Him, have forgotten Him, need Him.

They are lost in the muck and the filth and the smog of this nation that throws the first stone; and he weeps as He plucks His children up out of the blood and the dirt and sets them down into the tower of Babel where the people shout “There is no room!” and cry out to Him, accuse Him, have forgotten Him.

This nation that shoots first and asks questions later, the nation of “not my problem,” and moving on.

He touches their heads as they fall asleep, he speaks to them and grants them dreams, and they turn away on their beds of lost memories as they struggle not to hear, not to feel… not to feel even the breathing, the heartbeat, of their lover, their partner, their other half as they reach out in their tossing and turning of nightmares of a nation that does not rest.

The nation who binds their hands in the wires of computers and keyboards, the nation that eats the apple and – in the perceived absence of their Father – raise up false books, sing of false stars, rampage, adulterize and falsify amongst each other always looking for the one, the next one, the next one, is this your card, is this your card, is this your card?

But you’ve had your own card, your own self, in your back pocket, you’ve forgotten what it looks like and now you cannot find the match.

They way worn nation that rests, God bless the rest, by swallowing drug after drug after drink after drink, only to find that rest and that peace just in time to feel the **** of the wires on their bound hands drag them back up again.

So they swallow more drugs, and more drinks, and let their minds wander and wish for their family, but when they go home they think of their labor what’s next for they must prepare, they must keep moving ever forward, never looking back.

And so let the frustration grow.

And the family ever fall.

The family, the nation, that drowns beneath the flood of a weeping God who must break His promise, for His children are lost to Him beneath the feet of so many bearing the mark of Cain.

The feet that do not rest. The feet that keep on walking past the empty forests, the old man on the street, the blind woman crying, the sick starving child sitting next to them.

And these people, these poor people, they sit and they wait and they cry out “why,” they cry out “Help”

…For their Father cannot find them in the murky, ****** water that covers this broken nation.

We used to say " I love you";
Now we just think it.
The people we became
are an odd fit.
I will admit
I am no longer pleasant
to be around.
Constant scowls and frowns
amidst the silence.
The clicks of keyboards
divide us.
Define us.
Align us.
We used be to analogous
like Bubble gum Princess
and Finn.
Just like them we've become unakin.
Padme & Anakin.
My fear of loosing you has caused me to loose you.
Like an episode of That's So Raven;
attempts at the prevention
of the future
ripped open the sutures
in my heart once again.

H aven for those who’s words are never read
E ven though they pour their souls and very
L ives and spirit through their pens or
L et their fingers nurture beautiful tomorrows
O n the keyboards of their creativity.

P oetry is the blood that pumps
O ut wondrous magic from those fertile minds that
E nds up on a glowing screen or printed page, in hopes
T hat it can give birth to a long awaited
R ennaissance in the thinking of the world, and create a
Y earning for a better way to live and love.
ljm

Blake has written it all and written it
in perfect clarity and beauty
and Baudelaire topped it
with decadence and forbidden pleasures
and  Kerouac took it on the road
and gave it a beat
and Bukowski redefined and simplified
and told all its ugly truths
and got it drunk on beer and women

yet still we sit here poor men and women
and boys and girls
scratching away in our journals
and typing at our refurbished vintage typewriters
and cheap plastic keyboards
attached to overpriced laptops
made of fruit and ego

trying to add to the vast pile of treasure
left behind by Coleridge and Thoreau and Whitman
and Mother Maya Angelou
trying to write ourselves in and out
of the corners of solitude and madness
following in the echos of Plath and Dickinson and Poe

we pickpocket dead myths
and dig up their bones
and dance in the fields of their deaths
and claim their prayers as our own
and play the part of god
as we invent new ways to sin
and feel shame for walking naked
in our own bodies
and daring to enjoy lust
and desire and love

it’s all worthless garbage
and it’s all priceless time well spent
shouting into the void of our meaningless existence
and all the vast emptiness of space takes no notice
no matter who loudly we bash our pans
and pound our fists
and ******* our overinflated sense of self worth

we are helplessly alone
stuffed in overcrowded tin containers
packed tightly in our human misery
willing to sleep with one another
but afraid to look each other in the eye
and see who it really is
we’re sharing our beds with
because we would rather
just imagine it really is love
and not find out if its the truth of love
we’re trying to define
within the fragility of our hearts

we wait till our beds are empty
and our hands are cold
and then we pick up our pens
and strike our keyboards
and lay down lies over the truth
we are afraid to uncover
and we treat it poorly
by doing this again and again

yet it defies us still with its volume and weight
and no matter how many times
are how many ways
we re-write the same poem
over and over and over
the heart stays the same
no matter what color we paint it
red or black or bruised sky blue
what tear lost in the ocean
or ocean trapped in a tear
it remains within the grasp
of the same endless heart beat
coming from the same eternal heart

no matter how many times
a new giant or new lord or new king
or new queen or fool are crowned
and wether they type streams of garbage
or write on leafs inlaid with gold
we will always be connected
by the necessity
of the painful beauty of poetry

After cocktails at Luigi's Bar, and then The Golden Bowl,
I proposed we play a gig of jazz-inspired rock and roll.
We all thought we'd make the fans cry out for encores every night.
But our schemes were dreams that faded in the morning's ruthless light.

My blue guitar should captivate the people every night.
But the dream crumbled, the dream tumbled.
My dream faded out of sight.

Playing keyboards was Patricia. (Never 'Trisha', never 'Pat'.)
She'd a taste for gracious living in her small art deco flat.
She would practice chord progressions, sipping lapsang souchong tea.
Then she played away at weekends with her special friend, Marie.

She trained her dainty fingers to explore new grooves each night.
But the dream crumbled, the dream tumbled.
Her dream faded out of sight.

We had Ritchie on electric bass, with tap-and-pull technique.
Such a clever devil — Ritchie almost taught the bass to speak.
Ralph the drummer's backbeat cymbal crashes measured out the bars.
We agreed the speed — then found we could not play like superstars.

Would the crowd be wowed by passion from my lovely blue guitar?
No, the dream crumbled, as the band stumbled.
Our dream faded overnight.

The Blue Guitar Quartet
was as close as we could get
to our vision for the music of today.
But we bumbled and we fumbled,
our aspirations humbled.
So we slowly put our instruments away.

"The Blue Guitar Quartet
is down, but not out yet.
With practice you will crack it," said Marie.
"Let Patricia be your singer;
she's a musical humdinger,
and as soulful as a solo girl can be".

"She can improvise a blues
based on any riff you choose.
Let's have handshakes and embraces —
this quartet is going places!
Here's to jazz-rock, and The Blue Guitar Quartet!"

The world constantly stirs.
Organs pump
blood and oxygen
to and from homes
streets and buildings.
Cars run by on busy roads
Construction crews destroy foundation
The people in this coffee shop
Make noise,
Drink espresso,
And taptaptaptap
On keyboards
And ticktickticktick
On smarter synapses
Than those of brains.
Twitter,
Facebook,
Pinterest,
Instagram
Wake up our phones
Propelling the world forward.
Absorbed in the pixels
Of tiny screens
We live to visit
Our loved ones
Through electronic particles
Floating on air.
The outside air is damp
Clouds dark.
The wind shakes the trees
to their bones.
The foundation of life as is now
Is about to be destroyed,
But no one notices.
Social pandemonium
Silences their voices.

heres to another night spent writhing about in bed
like a serpent in the vast cosmic ocean bearing its fangs at each tiny source of light
a plethora of thoughts come to mind right when the head hits the soft stack of pillows
the trees and the leaves rustle as if sandpaper being scraped against a human face

and it leaves behind a deep unhealing **** that will last till the end of each sleepless night
be healed by the time the head leaves its nightly resting place to go out and take on the world
and the wait for the endless repetitive cycle to begin will begin once again
trudging through miles of globulous bile will again have the same lasting effect

as that of half eaten railway platforms and ground up browser tabs
elongated letters as they appear on the windowed capillaries of one's ignited violin
repossessed keyboards that belonged to aspiring writers who could never fill a page
with words that failed to even capture the imagination of the wittiest troll by the bridge

more words will flow through the sphincters present in half alive lighters
it seems this one needs to rhyme, so raise one to the brave baby fighters
streamlined thoughts finally arise as the mind clears up a little
here's another rhyme, this one might come off as a bit brittle

henceforth thoughts shall be placed with greater precision
there are ants residing in the laptop; sleeping with the laptop, a great decision
back into the depths of insanity shall we delve again
sleeping with a colony of ants equals terrible, piercing pain