There is a certain moment
in a man’s life
when the *****
of ladies
around him suddenly
and irrevocably
evoke the image of
a stray feline
from his childhood.
Rigid, near the bushes
with a sharply arching back,
engorged ****
and ***** tail.

Their watchful eyes, playfully intent,
reflect
the drops of rain
falling from the naive face
of an eager boy approaching
too close.
Paws haltingly skitter-gone.

Since this observation,
the hallways of our campus
tend to sway,
like the leaves beside
my grandma’s house
with the plastic window-well covers
not yet shattered by the hail
on that spring evening
after the little league
when I nearly had one.

The windsock next door
on my father’s farm
let each subsequent summer pass,
undetected on the heals
of a breezy, desert thunderstorm.
Before it was so tattered by time
unreplaced and frayed
next to the yellow, coregated shed
where you can still see the dent
from my sister crashing that old golf cart.

Years from then, she did her small, black
Honda in Colorado
with a T-Bone
on a U-Turn.

And my dad was in the hospital that winter
but all I remember is a pointless half-time
football toss sponsored by a cola-
company during a Nebraska game.
The people, trained like chimpanzees,
to test their skill one time
and get that life-sized check.
I remember thinking
"What sunken imprint on a folding bed
does it refill?"
After Dr. Pepper's rotation had
ended.

And these books I read
are shaken branches
behind the fleeting beauty.
Their words, silent admonitions for
desire.
The invitations
from those inky bodies,
their full form and sharp curves,
are not meant for my eye.
Momentarily,
their presence ***** my head and purses
my lips,
beckoning
another species--
a life-form
less aware.

I am glad each cat slipped past that
unread sign-post
and made it to the horse pasture.
Unlike those three moldered fur puffs
each bunny became
beneath my bed.

I hope they had their litters--
and their offspring had their litters.
And the nation of cats had its litters.
And the world of cats had its litters.
And the universe of cats had its litters.

But it must stop somewhere,
with cats.

Tantalized by the fractious limerence of a vestigial habiliment of the old order, we conclude that hypertrophy leads to a limbo where random permutations alloyed by the rickety limits of concatenation subsume concepts that are equivocal but populate the imaginations of newfangled art forms that jostle the midwives of rumination to lead to unique pastures that are intuitively calibrated to correspond to definitive unitary events in conceptual space that sprawl unexpectedly towards the desultory but determinative conclusion of a meandering ludic sphere of rambunctious sentiments cobbled together to either rivet the captive audience or annoy the peevish criticaster when they dare to inseminate the canvassed and corrugated tract of intellectual territory created ad hoc to swelter the imagination with audacious ingenuity that is an inevitable byproduct of lexical hypertrophy. In this séance with the immaterial realm of concept rather than the predictable clockwork reductivism of a perceptual welter that is limited by the concretism circumscribed by spatiotemporal stricture we find that an extravagant twinge of even the smallest tocsin in the interstitial carousel of conscientious subroutines compounding recursively to pinprick the cossetted smolder of potentiality rather than extravagate into the vacancy of untenanted nullibiety can spawn a progeny of utilities and vehicles for dexterous abstraction that poach the exotic concepts we fathom by degrees of sapience malingering in lifeless bricolages of erratic abstraction in manners useful to transcend the repose of abeyance and heave awakening into the slumberous caverns of still-life to make them dynamically animated to capture ephemeral events that defy the demarcations of wistful indelicacy of the encumbered bulk of insufficient precision.

Today we embark on a quest to defile the anoegenetic recapitulation of canon that litters the dilapidated avenues of miserly contemplation that has a histeriological certainty and feeds the engines that enable novelty but ultimately remain rancid with the stench of the idiosyncratic shibboleths of synoptic alloyed impoverishment that leads to the vast wasteland of cremated entropy that is a stained foible of misappropriated context interpolated usefully as botched triage for daunting problems that require a nimble legerdemain of facile versatility that we easily adduce to conquer the present with the botched memorial of a defunct salience. Despite the travail of scholars to retreat from the frontier into the hypostatized hegemony of recycled credentialed information, we often are ensnared by the solemn attrition of decay as we traverse the conceptual underpinnings of all bedrock thought only to dangle precariously near the void of lapsed sentience because of transitory incontinence that is contiguous to the doldrums of crudity but nevertheless with mustered mettle we purport that the very self-serious awakening to our hobbling limitations is akin to a prosthetic enhancement of ratiocination capable of feats that stagger beneath the lowest level of subtext to elevate the highest superordinate categorization into heightened scrutiny that burgeons metacognitive limber. Marooned in the equipoise of specifiable enlightenment countermanded by the strictures of working memory we can orchestrate transverse pathways between the elemental quiddity of impetuous meaning and the dignified tropes of transitivity that bequeaths entire universes with feral progeny that modulate their ecosystems with both a taste of approximated symmetry and a cohesive enterprise for productivity that rests on the granular concordance of the highest plane to the indivisible parcels of atomic meaning that solder together to exist as intelligible if strained by the primordial frictions guaranteed by the brunt of motion incipient because of the metaphorical inertia created within insular universes to inform sprawling conurbations of mobilized thoughts designed to reckon with the breakneck pace of the corresponding reality to which they explicitly and precisely refer to.

We must singe surgically the filigrees that amount to the perceptible realities that transmute temperaments into the liturgy of routine conflated with the rigmarole of neural dragnets of reiterative quips in an elegant game of raillery with our supernal contumacy against the rigid authority of aleatory vagaries mandated by a dually arbitrary universe in a probabilistic terpsichorean dance with the depth of our dredge for subliminal acuity or the shallow bellicosity of common modes of glib contemplation characteristic of the basic nobility of improvisation. This basic interface with the world can either be mercurial or tranquil based on the interactionism of the enfeebled trudge of surface senses or blunt intuitions and the smoldering impact of the vestigial cloaks that deal gingerly with the poignant subtext evoked in the cauldron of immediacy rather than pondered with the portentous weight of imperative singularities of uniqueness derived from the plunge into the arcane citadel of microscopic introspection so refined that the ineffable drives we seek to fathom become amenable to the traipse of transcendental time that rarefies itself by defying the brunt of compartmentalized bureaucracies administered by the fulcrum of stereotypical notions of acquired gravitas imputed to mundane pedestrian quidnunc concerns that defile humanity rather than embolden the subaudition of gritty punctilios that show the supernal powers of the axiomatic divinity of sharpened sentience to reign with supremacy over the baser ignoble components of bletcherous nescience that leads to knee-**** platitudes that provoke folksy peevish divisions. We should rather orchestrate our activity by heeding the admonishment about the primogeniture of poignant sabotage buffered by the remonstration of innate tranquility and finding a whipsawed compromise of rationalization with true visceral encounters with the fulgurant quips of brisk emotions that grind industriously into amorphous retinues of the trenchant human imagination to either equip or hobble the leapfrogged interrogation of veracity and more consequently our notions of truth and fact.

When we see the hackneyed results of default ecological dynamics, we find ourselves aloof from purported transcendence because the whimpered bleats and cavils of the importunate masses result in a deafening din of cacophony because we strive throbbing with sprightliness towards the galloped chase of tantalization without the luxury of a terminus for satiation. Obviously a growth mindset is the galvanic ****** that spawns the imaginative swank of the pliable modulations of our perceived reality that, when protean, showcase the limitless verve of our primordial cacoethes for epigenetic evolution rather than the stolid and staid foreclosure of impervious sloth that memorializes the gluttony of speculation about fixed entities rather than imperative jostling urbanity that dignifies the brackish dance with dearth and the exuberant savory taste of momentary excess because it engages the animated pursuit of limerence rather than the exhumed corpse of wistful regret. Nature is a cyclical clockwork system of predatory instinct met with the clemency of the prosperous providence enacted by the travailing ingenuity of successive cumulative generativities that compounded unevenly and unpredictably to predicate a fundamental zeitgeist calculated to engorge the fattened resources of the resourceful and temper the etiolated dreams of the fringed acquiescence of a hulking prejudiced population of dutiful servants that balk at the diminutive prospects of a lopsided distribution of talent and means but slumber in irenic resolve created by the merciful hands of defensive designs that configure consciousness to relish comparative touchstones rather than absolute outcomes that straggle beyond a point of enviable reference to shield the world of the barbarism of botched laments clamoring for an uncertain grave from the gravity of the orbiting satellites of apportioned wealth both sunblind and boorish but simultaneously inextricable from the acclimated fortune of heaped nepotism and herculean opportunism. The intransigence of the weighted destiny of inequity is a squalid enterprise of primeval abrasive and combative tendencies within the bailiwick of the indignant compass inherent to the system that fathoms its deficiencies with crabwise and gingerly pause but airs a sheepish grievance like a bleat of self-exculpation but simultaneously an arraignment of fundamental attribution erroneously indicted without the selfsame reflexiveness characteristic of a transcendent being with other recourses to clamber an avenue to Broadway without malingering in the slums of opprobrious ineffectual remonstration against the arrangement of a blinkered metropolis of uneven gentrification.

We flicker sometimes between the strategic drivel of appeasement and the candor of audacious imprecation of the culprits of indignity or considerate nutritive encomium of the beacons of ameliorated enlightenment because we often masquerade a half-witted glib consciousness lazily sketched by the welters of verve alloyed with the rancid distaste of squalor and slumber on the faculty of conscientious swivels of prudential expeditions with an avarice for bountiful considered thought and wily contortions of demeanor that issue the affirmative traction of adaptive endeavor to cheat a warped system for a reconciled peace and a refined self-mastery. We need to traduce the urchins that sting the system with pangs of opprobrious ballyhoo and the effluvia of foofaraw that contaminate with pettifoggery and small-minded blather the arenas better suited for the gladiatorial combat of cockalorums tinged with a dose of intellectual effrontery beyond the span of dogmatism rather than the hackneyed platitudes that infest the news cycle with folksy backwardation catered to the fascism of a checkered established press that urges insurrection while tranquilizing dissent against the furtive actions of consequence hidden behind the draped verdure of pretense whose byproduct is only a self-referential sophistry that swarms like an intractable itch to devolve the spectator into a pasquinaded spectacle of profound human obtuseness that pervades malignantly the system of debate until the reductionists outwit themselves with the empty prevarication of circular logic that deliberately misfires to miss the target of true importance because of the pandered black hole easily evaded by creatures of high sentience but inevitably ensnaring the special kind of dupe into a cycle of bellicose ferocity of internecine balkanization. The vainglory of the omphalos of entertainment is also another reckoning because it festers a cultural mythos of glorified crapulence parading a philandered promiscuity with half-baked antics that gravitate attention and the lecheries of gaudy tenses of recycled tinsel alloyed by debased aberrations of seedy grapholagnia that magnetize as they percolate because of the insidious catchphrases embedded in pedestrian syncopation that ignite retention and acclimate to mediocrity the sounds of generations discolored by faint pasty rainbows rather than ennobled by majestic landscapes of ignipotent mellifluous sound that stands a supernal amusement still for the resourceful trainspotter.

Despite the contumely aimed in the direction of contrarians for deviating from the lockstep clockwork hustle of stooped pandered manipulation that peddles the wares of an entirely counterfeit reality, I stand obstinately against the melliferous stupefaction of entire genres of myth and subcultures huddled around the sentimental tug of factitious sophistries regaled by thick amorphous apostates that cherish the vacuous sidetracked spotlight with fervor rather than pausing on the enigmatic querulous inquisition about the penumbras that lurk with strained effort beneath or above the categorical nescience of the shadowy unknown that often coruscates with elegance even in obscurity. I fight with labored words to spawn a psychological discipline that invokes the incisive subaudition of the pluckily pricked exorcism of true insight from the husk of buzzwords that constellate auxiliary tangential distractions from the art form of psychological discernment that predicates itself on the concept that the rarefaction of rumination by degrees of microscopic precision enables the introspective hindsight of conscious events that can be parsed without the acrimony of cluttered conflations of the granular prowess of triumphant ratiocination that earns a panoramic perch with the added luxury of perspicacious insight into the atomic structure of the rudiments of our phenomenological field and the abstractions that linger beyond perceptual categorization. When we analyze the gradients of anger, for example, we can either be ****** into a brooded twinge of wistful resentment or we can decipher that through heuristics designed to cloister the provenance of subconscious repose with ignorance there exists a regimented array of tangential accessories embedded deep within the cavernous repository of memory that designates a cumulative trace of compounded symmetries of concordant experience immediately perceptible because of the tangible provocateur of our gripes and the largely subliminal tusk that protrudes because of primal instinct that squirms with peevishness because of the momentary context preceded by the desultory churn of smoldering associations swimming with either complete intangible sputtered mobility through the tract of subconscious hyperspace or rigidly fixated by an arraignment of circumstances with propinquity to the deep unfathomed flicker of bygones receding or protruding because of the warped and largely unpredictable rigmarole of constellated spreading activation.  
When we examine the largesse of the swift recourse of convenience we forget by degrees the travail that once bridged the span of experience from patient abeyance in provident pursuit to now the importunate glare of inflated expectations for immediacy that stings the whole enterprise of societal dynamics because it vitiates us with a complacency for the filigrees of momentary tinsel of a virtualized reality divorced from the concretism that used to undergird interaction and now stands outmoded as a wisp beyond outstretched hands straggling beyond the black mirror of a newfangled narcissistic clannishness that shepherds the ostentation of conceit to a predominant position that swaddles us with fretful diversion that operates on a warped logic of lurid squalor and pasty trends becoming the mainstays of a hypercritical linguistic system of entrapment based on the apostasy of candor for the propitiation of fringed aberration because of the majoritarian uproar about touchy butthurt pedantic criticasters with a penchant for persnickety structuralism. With the infestation of entertainment with the ubiquitous political cavils engineered by the ruling class to have a common arena of waggish irreverence we forget that sometimes the impetuous ****** of propaganda is cloaked by the fashionable implements of a rootless time writhing in a purported identity crisis only to gawk at the ungainly reflection of modernity in the mirror and remain blissfully unaware about the transmogrified cultural psyche that feeds the lunacy of endless spectacle based on the premise that one singular whipping post can unite an entire generation of miscegenated misfits looking for commonality to team up against the aging generations that cling to the sanctity of cherished jingoism against the intentionality of a revamped system that malingers with empty promises using exigency and legerdemain to obscure the mooncalves among their ranks that march on with quixotic dreams that tolerate only the idea of absolute tolerance and moderate only when feasibly permitted by the anchored negotiation of the fulcrum of totemic governmental responsibility between factions that wage volleys of invective at each other to promote a binary choice of vitiated compromises of mendaciloquence that ultimately endanger the republic with either the perils of hidebound conventionalism and nativist fervor or the boondoggles of fiscally irresponsible insanity cloaked with rainbows and participation trophies. Reproach can be distributed to both sides of the aisle because ironically in a world where gender is non-binary the most important reproductive ***** in the free world is a binary-by-default despotism that polarizes extremely ludic fantasies on the left met with the acrimony of the traditionalisms on the right that staunchly resist the fatuous confusions of delegated order only to the sharp rebuke of the revamped political vogue that owes its sustenance to a manufactured diplomacy of saccharine lies and ubiquitous lampoons that are lopsided in the direction of a globalist neoliberal bricolage of moderately popular buzzwords and the trojan horse of insubordinate flippant feminism that seeks to subvert through backhanded manipulation the patriarchy so many resent using lowbrow tactics and poignant case studies rather than legislating the egalitarian system into law using the proper channels. I myself am a political independent who sides with fiscal conservatism but libertarianism in most other affairs because the pettifoggery of law-and-order politics is a diatribe overused by sheltered suburbanites and red meat is often just as fatuous as blue tinsel and sadly in a majoritarian society the ushers of conformity demand corporate divestiture in favor of an ecological system of predictability rather than an opinionated welter of legitimate challenges to a broken system of backwards partisanship and wangled consent. Ultimately, I remain mostly apolitical, but I am a fervent champion of the mobilization of education to a statelier standard that demands rigor and responsibility rather than the chafe of rigmarole that understates the common objectives of humanity and rewards conventional thinking and nominal participation to earn credentialed pedigree when the bulk of talent resides elsewhere.

evidence of my passing through
each room litters every surface
time worn skin points to decades
living contact with the elements
tongue and lips pronouncing
thousand thousand words each
requiring breath ****** in lungs
clotted breathlessness spent health
eyes worn out of looking so much
seen before and counting once more
the tiredness haunting my very essence

20 years old
lost 1 and a half litters
and her mate five years ago
in a flood
vet says she’s super healthy
and she’s a furball of love
wisdom and mischief
in her catty eyeballs

and here i sit thinking about
a cat that’s lived more life than
i have in my entire life

Apart, our Souls, they linger lost. My hearts demise, is what you cost. No sunshine, no colour, only lonely frost. That litters this Soul... aside Ive been tossed.

#TwinFlame

Roaches litter my ashtray
and empty bottles litter my room
and burnt out incense litters my nightstand
and hollow memories litter my barren landscape of a mind.

soaring
oh ****
crashing
tumbling
speckled glass litters my hair
life flashes before me
blinking yellow and red
roaring
screaming
blood drips to the ground
help
Help
HELP

"Not too short on the sides,
not too long on the top."
I've prepared my little speech,
dreading the inevitable small talk
as the hairdresser's fingers fly
across the jungle of my dome,
her scissors like mini machetes
cutting down the foliage to see
what is hiding in plain sight.

I love the Bob Marley shirt I'm
wearing, so it's bittersweet it'll
immediately be taken off when I
get up from the chair. "One love,
one heart, give thanks and praise
to The Lord," laughing as I type this,
autocorrect shows Siri's faith in
human invented religion and God.

Hair litters the floor, and I know my
turn is next. The beginning of the end
starts

now.

Coffee house
windows drape
litters of faces
like teabags
milk white but
feature black yolks
in sunken pits--
sinking pits, dip
under the morning
embers. Sunny side
where? A day begins
though you lot, out
to dry, waiver it off;
It's not ours, you say,
It's yours and you's
filling the streets below.
We's wait for the sunny,
we's wait for the up.

When the pages of life
Get worn, burnt and torn
When your eyes are red
And you can't remember what was said
Call me once or twice baby
I promise to never say maybe

When haste drips like paste
Like paint from a babies fingers
Don't sit down and linger
For the smoke in your mind is for real
Just call on me once or twice baby
And I won't tell you maybe

Make your way to my place
I'll shout out "This is what it's all about!"
And the grey clouds will turn white
No longer having to put up a fight
Call on me once or twice baby
You won't ever be hearing maybe

If you start to believe our worries
And dogs no longer bark but growl
You say hello to strangers
And they won't even hand you a towel
Just call on me once or twice baby,
You won't ever hear a maybe

After the sun has set
And the fishermen have reeled in their nets
Your stomach is done n' empty
And death starts to look temping
Call on me once or twice,
Cause you'll never be hearing maybe

I am back where I started
Like time stopped and im back in it
The lonesome whisper
Those lonesome sisters
They make you cry and they
Make your heart sigh

Pass the sergeant whose *** knee
Is broken and is about to sneeze
All this repetition is bringing to fruition
A new kind of terror that
This mind can't handle and the
Body melts like a candle

The bed is burning as I'm yearning
For another shot of the hard stuff and
A kiss from a lover that seems to hover
Across the floorboards of my flat as she
Wears an old worn coonskin cap

Repeated love affairs that bare
A resemblance to the rear of a steer
Cause' that is the way time works on us
Forcing us to remember though
All we want is to forget an' disregard

And in the heart of the black night
That dances with no shame only ******
Her finger is naked where the gold used to be
Pale in the sunlight that strikes her stony bones
Hearts hear the beating of their own and
Love is alone sitting atop its private throne

Coursing where the blunt fact of our age
Shakes trembles crumbles in the hands
Of the judges whose chocolate smudges
Remind me of their nubile weak baby bodies
Protruding their souls out from their mothers womb
Cracking their lips and knuckles from the
Chill wind now alone with tasks and obligation
Falling to the way side

Former ways of living are now taken aback
They are heated in the sun across the lake of tons
Misunderstood medallions with princes and their wives
Dancing to the music they will hear when they die
No note knows no length or death
For in that final step to rest be not afraid
Friends will guide your hand like the wind
Does the sane

I scratch my eyes as I think of Alice
Alone in the far away from me
Her sight vanishing like our love just the same
The smoke still resting on the waves
The bears still resting inside their caves
Ice on the horizon where inside is the stink
Tell me what I am as my speech turns to a drawl
Out of the states so far away
Inside I know these words will make it all O.K.

But now with the droopy piano man
And whispers that aren't mine but his
I recall a guy I used to stare at and know
He mentioned his name before he had to go
Cause' now I am a new man
With nothing and everything left to give
Attention to the pain of the people around me
Save the love for the one that deserves it
She was the one and I let her slip away
And for that I pay and pay
Every single day

Let me let you in a little secret
Hot like an iron and sweet like a rose
An alley where no one ventures or goes
A tune that is quiet but you try and deny it
Let me let you where I have been
In between living and the fall of the dice
Where time has no face and
The joker's are always present
Where money moves through your sheets
Like your long cheating husband or
The smell of cheap bourbon

In this hour years turn to sand and
The thought of yourself turns blue
Out of breathe the sirens of the sea call
And misery makes its final chess move
They is a maddening presence where
Every pain in the world is true
You cannot escape from the maze like labyrinth
It tells you it loves you so
You have nowhere to go and nothing else
To do

Dream through the mist where clouds are the mountains
And rivers are painted with flecks of metallic gold
Candy cane tongues with a chocolate kiss eyes
Her way was forbidden but never in the sky
A shout from the corridor a murmur from the hall
Tell the tale loudly or the pail of life will seem pale

There is nowhere to go from here
You are here with me
We are here together
And there is no where new to go from here
Do not fret, no
Do not whimper and please
Do not be scared
We are meant to be here together
You are forever here with me
We will learn how to love
How to live and
Learn to see
All over again

And the ways that were have now changed
"Culture will turn into steam"
"Hearts will turn to stone"
"Minds to mush and computers to man"
Forgetting the way the wind blows through the thicket
The moon casting its white hate on the lovely night
Creaking boards as crippling rivers
Collect their wares and head down the road
Strangers to a home they have always known
Gibberish in the eyes of God and his counterparts
Confusion: the only comfort in a world of immediacy
The only sanity in a world of the opposite

There must be a way out of this way
There must be another bay
It is on the horizon or this is a lie
Entranced by the entrance
Not myself, no not this time
A shake and a cry never mentioning the whistling lie
Forbearance here weighs out its own death
Too much here rather too much then there

Poor joe that tells himself he stills sane
That music is the only way out
The only price that one can pay
The crouched hidden gem that litters his ears
Standing on the street corner florescent and majestic
Glitter in his eyes and fire in his soul
Not a thought in his mind only the notes in his hand
Telling the bar man just him and her on the next one
That this is the place where they place his favorite song
And the haste at which his fire was made
God's hands were blistered for he didn't have a plan
Knocking around the **** like he whipped out at the john
And the ball is outta' the park and the girls are all screaming
A leaning beaming loud crack of all reasons
Mentioning professionalism at a bar filled with shining stars
The bathroom is broken so shake on out and grab your sandals
Oh yeh oh yeh oh yeh oh oh yeh
They tell me I belong here but most days I just don't see it

Ashley,

     Your blues inspire me, insipid triangles, walking cold, sweating more and wetting the bed your lips the sizes of gods that I married through hidden video cameras, I caught bias in bliss, racism in slow disasters, tornado sirens and just sirens, and justice on the horizon. My eyelids the sizes of your little *******, the party of tomorrow, the starting sounds of scarred and stripped *** sounds. Caught in a drift, my bottom lip stuffed with lift-lust and jolting up and down your porcelain rift. Messed up and round the back to the buttons, the clasp too heavy to drop your ego down, the cold too swift to catch me as I fell. The heavens too burdened to beat me with your god. I just wanted to me smacked in the face with your flaws. Hips the sizes of doorknobs, hurdles that I caught one weekend sipping slow gin with granddad and papa and Tootsie, your evils carnivorous, your mess much more than your message. Your koo-koo voodoo and big bad red frock. Tuesday's made me the man I am today. The Slayer made me the hate I stuffed into my **** ****-strap to puff out my chest and make prisms in kitten litters and furrow the night clauses to match stick the pumped-up bypass of hazmat and heroism, I was won and didn't know it, you were one and now you're all one.
She,
     came to me in French class holding straws. I picked swiftly and came, all staled and stiff, lock-jaw and threesomes one moonlit night the fourth of July.

The little black book I keep next to my journals sits on a bookshelf I made from recycled wood. A fresh coat of paint may hide a splintered past unknown to me, but that is of zero importance when refurbished trees that died for a purpose hold books containing paper collected from a different tree that is now dignified in service.

One that expands as more hot air is blown, and shrinks when cold shouldered. The little black book holds numbers without faces, but the pocket in the back holds a face that could never be confused as paint by number.
It maps out the girl I've been searching for that never deserved a page in this book of lust, only the pocket in the back that will one day accept my trust.

And the reason this little black book is kept on the recycled bookcase is because the paper is also recycled, the same as the trash that litters the pages.

Mopeds, Mercedes
Dandelions and daisies
Churches
Mosques
Women masked
Exposed eyes
Revealing
More than the body
Ever could.
Lingerie
Sold openly on the street
Olives
By the kilogram
To fast-talking
Fast-walking
Men and women
Young and old.
Ancient ruins,
Ruined
The fall of one civilization
Destroyed
Merely to give rise
To one that will
Only hope to make men
Worth remembering.
Mystery lies
In the lives of artifacts
Bare finger tips
Graze over frescoes
Religion
Art
Expression
Litters every corner
Accompanied by waste
And poppies
Blood red
Amidst the gray haze
Of cigarette smoke
And pollution
Clouding the view
Of snowcapped mountains
Diamond lakes
Undisturbed
Surrounded by
Mopeds, Mercedes
Dandelions and Daisies

today i awoke
knowing the danger
that awaited me
as the dust settles
the litters came
one at a time

weapon in hand
locked and loaded
pointed at a bus
the litter hits the ground
dazed and confused
tears in their eyes

i rush over to carry the wounded
underneath the rotorblades to safety
not knowing til its too late
they're already dead
the clock is clicking
upon highway one

weapon in hand
pulling sercuity
as the buses rush around us
today i woke up
knowing the danger
of going unarmed and unafraid

the lifeless eyes staring at me
as i lowered them to the floor
as the tears stained my cheeks
as the anger gathered inside me
angry my brothers just died
but i can't show any emotion

standing at attention
as the rotors turn
awaiting my brothers in arms
as the flag covered brothers
inch closer to me
my final salute rendered to their memories

The fireside retreats
into the wall
as another TV Christmas special repeats,
with its sound echoing in the hall.

Tangerine,
Satsuma,
Clementine-Orange
peel litters the tabletop;
orange runway for the action figures,
plastic arms, moulded hairs.

Nina Simone plays loud,
'Nobody Knows When You're Down And Out',
Christmas is over,
and now there's nowt to do.

I am the coy smiling handsome man
and my feet beat the darkness away when I rush.
And I rush, in the alleys, sightless,
an actor led by lines of wilting dialogue.
And jasmine litters the gutters, fit to be dredged, the
aroma and the petals streaked with reminiscence.
I rush. I am the man toward an apogee,
a scalpel, with tastes as keen as winter lavender,
and eyes that feel the weight of tastes behind them.
As I dredge the depths for rarer tastes
I rush toward the gutter.
And like the gutters I thirst, in the levees and fen-
In the fen the rush of prey caught
Idling fills the space inside my eyes like oil,
and I dredge the lake for traces.
I am the actor, the dredge, my wit rehearsed
and I am acquainted with the lady of the night.
I smile as she caresses my oily deluged eyes-
And her eyes are filled with bile,
accented by jasmine, even
in the dimmest light of
gutters are rushing to an
apogee, fiercer than I'd like them to
appear, but I am the scalpel, to incise the insincere-
I am the prince, an heir to exacting the coerced-
I watch her eyes like windows from the gutter like a vigil
and hold tight to her breath.
I pour her blood in paper cups
until her breath is weightless-
And I rush, an actor, in the scene that we portray-
I am the giver, the oily deluged eyes that close around the flesh
and rend the fruit from the rind.

even if what I do is not okay
I am not alone
I have my songs to sing
when I sit
and breathe in some sorrow
that passes on an awkward wind
I am okay
I have my songs to sing
and I always remember
that I am never alone
there is always someone
so close not far away
-
don't get sad about it
in the scrawl
that litters my floor
there is no scrawl
there is an eternity
of thousands of lives;
the common sentience
of planets
and stars:
I look up
and I am home

I had a friend visit from out of town
he was a good guy
and what's best:
he got home alright;
he's still alive

I miss our nights,
Bad nights,
Before
Good nights,
Good times,
After the bad ones,
Good ****,
Before...
After...
The worst ones.

You found me,
Tought me,
Showed me,
How to roll it.

You were a good teacher,
You made me listen,
You were a good listener,
You made me talk.

You jocked,
I laughed,
You complained,
I cried.

You missef,
You loved,
You cared,
So did and do I.

Can't imagine my life with out you, am sitting here at the lake, staring at you face reflection on the water. Your face is everywhere, the happy, smiley, sad, mad and the happy face again face.

You helped me explore my self, you changed me a lot, i met myself right after i met you, no one ever told me how smart i am, even if am not very smart, but at least you said it, and i felt it for the first time.

You tought me how to fight, how to go through **** by my self, you didn't say that, but i learned it from your actions and your view of life.

You always smiled, even when you get really mad, you started the fight and ended, you started the conversation and kept it, you started me and you killed me.

Its been three days, two nights, 72 hours is the total. I'M still awake, didn't blink, am not tired tho, just enjoying the time while am watching a tape of you with all the moments crossing in front of my eyes.

Thank you for everything you'd done,
Thank you for all the encouragement words,
Thank you for finding my real personality,
Thank you for giving me the best moments,
Thank you for all the info. Doses you put in me,
Thank you for being there when no one was,
Thank you for listening to my boredom talks,
Thank you for making me feel like human,
Thank you for EVERYTHING, yes everything.

I have a lot to say, from the deepest part of my heart, but my i can't see nothing, my tears are covering the view. I was thankful for having you, waking up on your texts, maybe calls, but the most feeling your love while your sleeping on my shoulder.

Don't know what else to say, I'M IN LOVE WITH EVERY litters in your name, with every moment i hear your voice, whit every time i see your texts or emails, with every sec I have you in mind.

I don't care what you'd done, its all good, i already forget about it, you do whatever you want, its all good, fight and yell at me, its all good, HATE me, its all good, **** me, hurt me, insult me, **** me, do whatever you want, its all good. They all were like the heaven, i just knew that.

Ok, am done, words are killing me.
Ok, am done, you're too amazing to be written about.
Ok, am done,  I'm serious this time.

I just realized that i had the world between my hands, you loved me like no one else did, you really cared about me.
Excuse my JEALOUSY, it covered most of the view.
Excuse my EARS, i couldn't hear you talking to another guy.
Excuse my heart, made me too stupid to understand.

I just couldn't believe that am having a life after all these years. I thought it's a dream, but i was okay with that, i didn't want to wake up, and i lost you after the pomp that woke me up.

I just understood what you were saying,,,,,,
"Too good too bad" she says.

I LOVE YOU Melanie,
I LOVE YOU,
I ADORE YOU,Melanie
I ADORE YOU
YOU STILL MY EVERYTHING, and the only thing that i prayed every time to keep, but to bad, i didn't get that.


Diab,,,,,,,,,,,

Fine porcelain litters the cloth,
yet a quick pull leaves it still.
An exchange of tails both
holding, careful to not spill.

Our plates remain intact,
despite accidents of gravity.
Clearing the surface momentarily
within arrangements of integrity.

Utensils quickly turning
our tensile accent; I uttered
Vowels to what was heard
repeatedly signed our yearning.

Around the christmas tree the family gathers.
Wrapping paper litters the floor
and giggles trickle through the air.
Pause.
Everyone has wishes for christmas.
Marie wishes for her boyfriend
to leave her alone so she won't lose her baby.
Anne wishes for forgiveness
from her husband because she has suspicions
about how her lovers left.
Marcus wishes he  knew
just where his wife's last affair had run off to.
Jason wishes for acceptance
from his parents for him and his boyfriend.
And little Katie wishes she had someone
to talk to when she thinks about ending it all.

Eyes that stare at me with such depth that I shudder when I look directly
Hair which curls around my finger and bounces simply perfectly
Giving me a preview of a sunrise that hasn't yet been seen
Gazing at darling Jenny and knowing only she does this to me

Watching the heavens with such wonder as she litters them with stars
Hoping that she sees me from palaces in clouds from afar
Yet holding her with such unwavering dedication and never letting go
Seeing my dear Jenny and feeling her love's glow

Hearing every whisper, every hark, and every secret breath
Binding a love that I know will not be abolished by this thing called death
Shining in a world where humdrum people flock in by the many
Loving her for all she's worth, wanting my dear Jenny

Jenny's hands are the only ones which soften my rugged fingers
Before and after she leaves the room I find her scent does linger
Her silouette is one I look for each time I enter the door
Hearing her soft footstepstouch the cool, wooden floor

I will keep my dearest Jenny for as long as long can last
Seeing the timeline in her eyes of both our future and our past
Knowing that we will be in a love with no questioning or regret
And lying with her as her eyes close in and under her eyelids are sunsets

Had my foot resting on the pig pen,
watching my sows bringing new litters in,
wondering if these would help ends meet.
The crops all dried in that Texas heat,
we had to find work in the city so we could eat.
That was 35 summers ago.
Stood in line with all my gear on,
about two hours before dawn,
worried if I was going to qualify.
They dropped us, rolled us
and pretty much as they pleased,
got rid of a lot of boys except me,
told me to get back in line.
That was 35 summers ago.
  Thirty five summers of doing it all,
sometimes knocked on my *** and **** near crawl,
made a life out of what I have.
Seen things I did'nt want to see,
did things that would normally not be me,
made it through most of the tough times.
That was 35 summers ago.
Hope I got 35 more summers to go.

For Fear of Returning Home

I curl my hands up into little *****,
small concentrations of the frustration I'm boiling in.

I fold in on myself like a sheet of paper
I crumple and wrinkle
and I haven't spoken to you in a while, now.

I am a sad excuse
for a great many things.
But he loves me anyway:
saying those things are just things,
just that,

even if I have been through
"more than most people should."

And he still tries to talk to me
He still feels the need to tell me
things I would be better off not knowing.

"I liked cuddling with you,"
he tells me.
I collapse in on myself and forget how to exist.

We are traveling at 70 down I-55
tire treads and wooden crosses forgotten on the shoulder
and I think of the monks in Vietnam who
walk two thousand miles around a lake
falling prostrate at every third step.

And I think of how much easier that would be
than to pray at the side of the interstate
falling prostrate every third step
onto broken glass and all that litters
and glitters in the headlights--
and catches your tires as you slip into the shoulder

late at night when the moon is new and absent
and you are tired.

I think of how much easier it would be
falling prostrate every third step
down the fifty miles to my bed

than to promise myself that I will
wake up tomorrow at all.

I slept all day today, my love
and I know you are disappointed--

but sometimes, most times,
it doesn't really seem worth the effort.
I wonder what motivates a seedling to keep striving
for the surface at the promise of sunlight
after spending so long in the dark.

Is the sun even shining, my love?
Can you promise me that one thing,
that pushing through whatever
hell this is

that there will be sunlight when I break through?

I don't want to tell you--
your love scars the side of my leg worse than
his **** ever did--

but he haunts me worse than
anything before him

and I am afraid of going back home to look at
the God-fearing family that sleeps
ignorant.

For the longest time, words were like bricks in the mouth. Weighing down, suffocating and harmful.
For the shortest time, words flowed like so many rivers headed home through drying basins, rising rivers, past gargantuan sheets of ice and through the town one may call home.
                                                                ­                   Sealed shut.
                                                           ­                The words build again.
Thoughts, memories, ideas, the resentful wave of hiemal turquoise waters crashing upon the furrowed brow of inconsequence. To tell truths would be dignified, one isn't always able to choose such an ideology. Often an ideology is ****** upon the undeserved. Perhaps through social conditioning or other such time honoured institutions. History should not and yet does often repeat itself.

Although each generation is different,
as is every single person that,
does walk this planet,
has walked this planet,
and ever will walk this fine planet.  
                                                       ­                Cosmos over Chaos
For those that choose to read, the world is yours, the plants, the animals, every Microorganism, each and every grain of sand that litters the shorelines like a googolplex of fine jewels for an undecided amount of monarchs, rulers of lands and emperors of distant planets that in no way resemble our own. For you are such people.
For those that choose to love, amour you shall receive, every kiss that screams of desire, every touch of heavenly organs, every man woman and child that has ever felt the imperious desire to hold another body closer than is physically possible.  In this dimension at least. Every time one embraces another you shall feel love. You shall experience me as I experience you. Worlds apart, countries apart, towns, villages, houses apart, metres apart... atoms apart.
                                                       You will be of one ever tender consciousness.
                                                  ­                  The truest of all consciousness.
                                                  ­                                         One.

This woman I know had a fox that lived in her root cellar. She'd knock on the door to let it know she was going to enter, and the fox would vacate temporarily to allow her time to store or remove canning jars. She ceased to leave her root vegetables down there, as they would nearly always become part the fox's nesting material. The fox had raised several litters in that cellar and my friend was always certain never to bother her distinguished guest while she had pups. The root cellar was under the house which was built half off a cliff and was cattywampus. It had lots of cracks in the siding and in places was missing planks altogether. This allowed mice easy access, and since my lady friend was such a fine cook, there were hoards. This served the fox well, who would keep at least the underside of the rickety cabin free of vermin. My friend could never keep a cat because of the fox naturally, though she did try to employ several. They would never stay. I had always tried to make repairs on the cabin, much to my friend's chagrin. Seemed she had an aversion to any change she didn't instigate herself, and was quite particular about not having any modern materials come her way. Any suggestion of modern convenience and you'd be read the riot act. She liked things, "organic," and her whole lifestyle, with the exception cheap cigarettes and tequila, exuded such.

One day, county officials came and put a red tag on her house. This meant the home was not in accordance with sanitation laws, on account there was no septic, just an old outhouse down the hill past the garden. Being that my friend had little to no income really, her "lifestyle," was in sudden jeopardy of being uprooted. Some kindly folks pulled together to be certain our friend did not lose her home. She got a new indoor toilet, a septic tank, and some siding to keep the mice out. Never once did she use that toilet, always kept the outhouse. The fox left on account the mice population dwindled. My friend keeps her root cellar well stocked now and whenever I visit, we laugh about that fox and enjoy some fine pickled snap beans. Change isn't always easy, but living easy is sometimes worth a few changes.

Ragged clothes on the sidewalk, toddlers murmur and cry
cold morning air where abandoned row houses
smell of whiskey, sage, and molded cotton

diesel exhaust belches into light breezes
forests of burning coffee beans mingle
into their hearth, the children, this is their nostalgia

everywhere leavings of life scatter driven by wind
cover unhoused, distressed, makeshift families
they stand shoeless as fortunate people drive past

Glut of humanity smells of wet newspaper
grey gulls picking at grimy cellophane
cardboard litters muddy sidewalks
above the billboard the wealthy jeer at them

sitting by a liquor store with bars on the windows
shut out of row houses with black wrought iron gates
basement stairwells filled with trash

men in alligator boots ready to lunge
into the lives of slick, bright, vacant women
this is the fate of feminine mother love

Thriving in dead landscapes
growing lost opportunity
under skyscrapers where it is always
almost dusk

Before you can feel the soft touch of poetry
and it can play a song for you,
look for the positive aspect in moonlit shadows.  
Stop and wonder
how a heart breaks then makes friends
who give of themselves
until they bleed out on the cold floors
of the world.

Do you find that time lays heavy on you
within dreams
where snow melts in pictures
of piercing eyes
that mail letters to the moon.
Or are you afraid to look out the window
and stop pretending
you are falling in love with being all alone
with just your heart and a slingshot?

What litters the path where your feet move
calling out to the sky
that there is no magic wish
staring at you
waiting for you to finish.
Does your breath catch in conversations
held with snowflakes
that spin and bow then fade away
leaving you to wonder
where you go
from here.

Has it come to the point
where you walk in the places
where white lies run through the stream of life?  
Does innocence struggle with colors
that make our eyes believe nothing is true
when something new becomes old
inside of winds that creep
and freeze like icicles.

Before you can feel the soft touch of poetry
and it can play a song for you,
you must have walked this path
I have described.  
Do not stand up and leave with your
thoughts racing,
climbing higher and higher,
lest you become one of those hearts
that bleed.

I'm terrified that you
Are falling in love
With the idea of me,
That the masterpiece
Your mind has painted
Far surpasses the reality
Of its subject.

When you see each
Glaring imperfection,
The incongruent lines
That shape my body,
The speckled skin
That litters my frame,
Perhaps you'll realize that
This canvas was flawed all along.

Past the impressionist blur of color
So thickly laced with
Your dreams,
There am I,
A harsh form
Captured in still life.
An incomplete charcoal sketch.

It could be that
You've simply
Never been one for realism
And I'm just
"The Girl with a Pearl Earring"
When you always wanted
"Starry Night"