Kathy Charmaz suggests that if
Grounded Theory leaves me stuck,
I ought to add an "ing" to all the memos
Of all the field notes of the scratch notes of the observations,
and the transcribed notes of the interviews
That I took a half a year ago,
And so....

I'm creating a list,
Starting with A
Accepting (criticism)
Adapting (to change)
Attending (to lessons)
Attributing (blame)
Attributing (success)

Skipping B
Which seems all alone,
I move to the Cs,
With a heart of cold stone....

Caring (from teacher)
Changing (to learn)
Collaborating (in learning)
Comparing (with others)
Connecting (key concepts, and ideas to life)
Correcting (one's errors in deeds or in thoughts)
Conferencing (to see what the good doctor thinks)
(Guess the Cs are nice to look at in my despair),

And on toward Ds,
Those diffident dogs,
Dialoguing (in classrooms, in memos and calls)
Differentiating (myself from the pack)
Disrespecting (my feet up on somebody's desk)
Dominating....(discussion in class or the hall)
(Careful, Ds, talk it out or you're gonna fall).

Es are Encouraging (the work can be done),
Enjoying (the tasks, alone or with you)
Engaging the students, (not too much to ask)
Excelling (the sense of, and actually, too)
(My sense is that E is a place to be dwelling)

F is still Focusing (on the specifics)
Then jumping to G,
Goal-setting (so needed, and powerful, too)
Graduating (the goal, so I've heard, how 'bout you?)

Then H is for Humor,
Amusing for sure,

And on to the I
Interacting (dialogue is our guide)
Identifying (the needs and the shame and the pride)

J stands with K,
Both empty and alone,

L is for Learning (adjusting in change)

M is for Modeling (Bandura's so proud)

N stands for "none" at the moment,
But O is for Organizing, (homework and my thoughts)
And P is Participating, (profs like this a lot)
Paying forward, (so noble, and so seldom done)
Persisting, (not quitting, as losers have done)
And Plagiarizing (May God help us all)
Praying, (we live through the work set before us)
Prioritizing, and
Finally, Progressing (Can we sing all in chorus?)

Q's pretty quiet just now,
But R is for Reading, and
Reflecting, (like mirrors or a pond)
Resigning, (accepting) or consider this,
Risking (daring to risk)

While S, Lovely S is all about Self,
Self-advocating (students)
Self-assessing, (too)
Self-deprecating, (but not much)
Self disciplining, (cool)
Self-motivating, (how often?)
Self-regulating, (we all should do this)
And last, some Struggling proceeds
Before we find ourselves Succeeding.

T is Threatening, (a sense of foreboding)
Teaching, (is harder under a threat)
Transitioning, (moving on, before we all rust)
Trying, (not tempting, but taking a try)
Tutoring, (If you need it, don't cry)

And U
Is alone with the flu.

So is V (guess it's viral),
But W's Writing, (the goal in this study, of course)

And so far,
X, Y, and Z
Are still hiding, no Ings in their view,
And it's back to my coding,
After I get back from the loo.

I once saw my Brother in a Mirror
Begged half-score on a Verse; Now it came True
And so it did with my Attitude falter
Neglected the Duty I had for you
This I wanted Gold. God was indeed Frustrate
For the Trailing Ignorance I commit
My "I" the Traitour; In me such self-hate
For Pop's Face-Memos I saw in Good Bid
I was wrong. If the Clock-Father can reverse
And mend my Riches to renourish you
The Ethyl on your Hair; The Lamp on your Nurse
And all Bumps mended on your Friendship true.
You are the Technocrat sworn to a Vow
That you Love me Un-Conditioned somehow.

I don’t freestyle. 
I write my things down. 
Though I wish that I could spit when I talk **** and pitch in metaphors so quick they zip right past you with a swing and a miss. 

That’s why I pick up my pen and pad, or my phone if it has a charge, 
Go to the memos app and find a knife that is sharp. 
Crack open my rib cage and pull out my beating heart. 
Squeeze that ***** dry till it bleeds the right part. 

But this prune has no juice now.
This prune has no use now.
Its beats have no sync it looks gray, old, and used out.
It burned out its pacer, and its fuse just fused out,

It’s excuses? 
That I used it when I couldn’t use it.
I abused and confused it.
It gave me all that I wanted but its plasma was useless.

So much material came night after night.
Every time it gave more. I just brushed it aside.
My table was covered with all my insides,
But none of it perfect. None of it right.

I squeezed and I squeezed till my fingers went numb.
The nail on my index was cutting into my thumb.
Desperate for a punch line to make the crowds go dumb.
Screaming and owing these ******* gonna come.

Too caught up on what they wanted I let my heart dry.
Too caught up living their life I let my heart die.
It turned out that turned up turned into a lie.
I turned into some one torn from their real life.

Now I’m resting my heart for a while. 
It’s in the hands of a misses that cares for it now.
That’s why I don’t freestyle.
I write my **** down.

-J.Cruz Hernandez

Get me a dictionary.
Poetry
     Is sorcery to me
          Sometimes.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

I wish you lower your Glasses a bit
Then try to witness what you have Ignored
For Praises Sundry are much apt to meet
Though such Configuration keeps you bored
That you, a Technocrat I'm not surprised
Such Mages and Bards you kindly eschew
For whatever Purpose which you advise
I'll take as the Brother I always knew
And I'll LOVE you still; No Set Values bake
Since your Blessed Genesis I do voice
This is not a Tomb; Nor white-painted make
But another Graced Name I will rejoice.
Now it's up to you, which you interpret
On Pop's Face-Memos the Meaning you get.

potion lost by unknown souls
effervescent masturbatory master debater
creationism is masochism told from the horses ***
past blast take my soul
make me whole and complete
separation anxiety is ***** envy
memories of mental memos crash past rushing fools
used and abused on cruise control
I misjudged your guided thistle
because missiles are meant for drones not home-oh
listen to the seedless man cry for his dead *****
tediously miserable always unforgiven
what lies hidden within the door
could be a deserted desert dessert
like an after dinner breath mint
or a succinct lunatic on the brink of such destruction
may be distraction fight or flight action reaction
marilyn charles though more bronson than you
Aren’t thou marked for death
broken gasp choked sob
undergod slaughtered in an abandoned euthanasia clinic
euphimistic innuendo more like in your endo
indoor marijuana smoke makes the colors run
my american flag has flown and fled
please jesus save our country bumpkins
napkins go in the lap not as hat

i) do you remember? that night in the abandoned theatre; we were two bodies in the dark, tugging and pulling at each other; at all our rough edges, hoping to smooth them out, so we wouldn’t cut ourselves with the jagged bits.

ii) when the stars came out, we sipped on lime soda by the lake and I asked if you would love me; all ripped jeans, and messy hair. You laughed, and planted a hickey on my chest; I left it at that.

iii) why didn’t you tell me you preferred soft and meek; not loud and roaring, the way my voice filled up the empty rooms in your house. You could’ve told me you wanted peony pink not plum; that you wanted the moon, not the sun.

iv) but darling, I wasn’t meant to cave, to shrink, to make myself small.

v) so no, I’m not sorry, that my opinions occupy most of the space in bed, or that sometimes, I like kissing with my lips tinted cherry red. I will not apologize for my reluctance to get down on my knees for you; the last time I checked, you were not a ******* pew.

vi) and each time you kiss her neck now, I hope you remember what it was like to kiss mine, I hope you remember each and every groove that lies along the edges of my spine.

Race fast, safe car.
A Toyota's a Toyota
Racecar
stolen one lots

Was it a car or a cat I saw?
Was it a bar or a bat I saw?
A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.
A dog, a plan, a canal: Pagoda
A car, a man, a maraca.
Oh, cameras are macho.
So many dynamos!

Desserts, I stressed
No lemons, no melon.
No sir! Away! A papaya war is on.

Dr. Awkward!
No Madam, I'm Adam
Sir, I’m Iris.
Sir, I demand, I am a maid named Iris.
Ned, I am a maiden.
Bob Bob Bob

"Not New York" Roy went on.
Not so, Boston
A **** nixes *** in Tulsa.
Avid Diva
Party boobytrap.
Solo gigolos.
As I ***, sir, I see Pisa!
Amore, Roma.
Yawn a more Roman way.

Amy, must I jujitsu my ma?

Some men interpret nine memos.
"Do nine men interpret?" "Nine men," I nod.
*** aware era waxes
a **** tuba
test tube **** set
He did, eh?
I did, did I?
doom mood
rise to vote, sir
Art, name no tub time. Emit but one mantra.
Cigar? Toss it in a can. It is so tragic.
******, I’m mad!
Lager, sir, is regal.

mom
Ma is a madam, as I am.
dad
Pa's a sap.
hannah
Anna
Neil, an alien.
Oh no! Don **!
A lad named E. Mandala
Kay, a red ****, peeped under a yak.
La, Mr. O'Neill, lie normal.
Otto made Ned a motto.
Poor Dan is in a droop.

deified
reviver
radar
stats
redivider
testset
solos


Drab as a fool, aloof as a bard
Live not on Evil
Cain: a maniac
Live on evasions? No, I save no evil.
Eve, mad Adam, Eve!
Dennis, Eve saw Eden if as a fine dew, as Eve sinned.
Devil never even lived.
Do, O God, no evil deed! Live on! Do good!
Live, O Devil, revel ever! Live! Do evil!
Evil, a sin, is alive.
Evil did I dwell, lewd I did live.
Ma is as selfless as I am.
Name not one man.
O, stone, be not so.
Rot a renegade, wed a generator.

stack cats
taco cat
Senile felines.
So, cat tacos!
step on no pets
ten animals I slam into a net

Egad! An adage!
A relic, Odin. I'm a mini, docile Ra.
A peg at lovely Tsar - a style voltage, pa.
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
Bombard a drab mob.
Borrow or Rob?
No, it never propagates if I set a gap or prevention
We few,
We panic in a pew,
We sew,
Ye boil! I obey!

In words, drown I.Revered now, I live on. O did I do no evil, I wonder, ever?
Is it I? It is I!
I'm am a fool; aloof am I.
Now I won.
“***… ***…” I murmur.

My dear, it rained last night
And I remember
The alleviated rise into
Lush sobs and lavish emotions
The way your dilatation relieves
Every worry and anxiety
But sometimes when we speak
A violent lie radiates
And last night you were naught
But an alienated virile sot
A view unholy I omit
I remember the tin roses on the tiles
Devastated, shattered.

Sometimes you hum
Your hands delicately miming secret memos
And I can see it in your eyes
Irises shining like teal devils
And the music carries you
White with adrenaline, pupils likes violists
Headwaiters lie, strumming tin violins
Their  alienated visions wilted with passion

I see the way she cleverly conceals
Lies as vows to you
A veil called "us" she puts on "me"
And I call for mutiny
But youth is vim, vim is now, and now is lies
Every hug from you is just a violet whim
In noisy rooms
My vision is misty
My aura dies little,

Oh if only you could realize your reign
You’re the master, the ringleader
But you’re lazy; you work without zeal, you’re idle and lazy
Eyes glazed, agile hands getting greedier

Have you ever seen
A dearer lion?
He roared, the lonesome rider
Alone, an alien.
Well sometimes you lie
And I dare to become
An oral denier
My radar detects one lie,
Then two...
You become red
Redder than a ****** lion's ear

Adieu, you say, with a gently undefined lilt
My tears speak more reality than your words

I want to tell this to you now. But I could never find the words to tell you. I wrote hieroglyphics across your eyelids, stapled memos to your chest, and flew banners in the scenery while you dreamt.

Translations of these words alone will not be sufficient enough to tell you what I want to share.  I... Miss you. I miss you like a front tooth on picture day.

Hello morning, I have anticipated you since
I awoke to the small barking dog's tailored speak for food.

I want that Eddie should start preparing her own meals. I know that while I smoke this morning's cigarette, that French Bulldog inside contemplates the fifty dollar bag of high-grade kibble she has pushed me to buy her or instead enjoying her own ****. And all of my wives friends call her a lady.

I want to ride alone in our FJ Cruiser through Yellowstone at dawn, before the predators have gone to bed and the tourists make their queues, I want to beat morning until I have found the wolves, and the sun rise mocks me as I sit four hours in traffic for a cup of coffee as I round the shivering peaks of our Rocky Mountain backyard landscape, and the Tetons swell with last nights snow-fall and the warm autumn air sends plumes of frigid mist above the valley floor and into the skies above Jackson.

And I wish I could stand once more on the balcony of the 777 building and smoke the finest sativas with my friend Turtle while our significant others drink coffees and watch reruns of American Gladiators on a $14,000 couch waiting for us to come back inside.

I wish I could wait on the benches outside baggage claim at San Francisco International Airport smoking inside the white lines, waiting for a girl in a red sports car to pick me up and my friend Guy's absurd faces there to greet me amidst the fog and the out of place palm trees Inevwr expected to see so far North.

And it would be great to hear my grandfather play the ukulele once more while I excitedly fished off of my grandparents dock somewhere in New Jersey where my mother's accent insists she grew up. And my grandfather sings horrifically demeaning songs written in 1924 that offer little respect to women, but much adventure to young men.

I want to play tag with the neighborhood children again in the Summer of 1995. Even though I had come to find all of those playing tag had absconded to a game entitled The 'A' Game, which its only rules were to exclude me from joining. I want to throw scalding hot water once more into Simon Berman's face. Though I do not wish for him to block the water with a basketball and turn my face into Jack Nicholson's Joker.

In Chicago as an eighteen year old, I could count the chalk outlines of bodies as I drove down Fullerton Avenue through the Logan Square neighborhood. I wish I could remember those sounds the boricua made. I wish I could forget the burning runs I received from Lazo's burritos at some time 'o clock in the morning.

I've never been one for finding edible late-night eats. I only want the memory of being able to do so. I do wish that my wife's ex-best friend's boyfriend realizes that he's less the great Emeril of his kitchen and more or less is just an unemployed sous chef with a laundry list of felonies, rather than a wish list of awful entrees. At least in that memory, he's neither a chef nor my wife's ex-friend's boyfriend and instead he's just another hideous orcish ****** ringing the doorbells in some suburb of Seattle, announcing to each and every one of his neighbors that he's obligated to notify the community of his ****** offenses.

I just wish I was there to witness his humiliation, and enjoy the total collapse of ego amidst the long list of those decent people he has surely offended.

Perhaps in some future life I can enjoy watching as jungle rot solves my hatred, disposing of his evilness in small skin ***** of flesh that dot the sidewalk while his disease evolves.

I want more vegan eating options across the food desert we call America. I want to arrive home one evening and find my wife ancy to share a new study that American Journal of Medixibe has found on the benefits of providing non-reciprocated ******* to your partners. And I want to be the first to enjoy the benefits of such a study, that I'm encouraged by her to publish my findings while I attend a prestigious university I once wasn't allowed to attend because of my religious background.

I want to live in a world where violence is no longer a viable solution to resolving the in differences we as humans confuse each other trying to make sense of between ourselves.

I want to visit our local grocery store and find that my favorite $8 a pint vegan ice cream has been marked down to a more reasonable number and that there is still an abundance of flavors left for me to choose from.

I don't wish for much: to not have people ask me to speak louder, full-frontal ****** in made for television movies, and a decent blonde IPA for under $10 in glass bottles. Where in this world can a poet go and still receive the respect that was once given by the royal monarchy of The British Empire.

Now it seems those with the fine knowledge of words are cast into a class with less regard than street-drifters and the homeless.

When did our world lose major respect for the artisans of fine art, or the ability to render an opus?

28-integer news memos and 15-second clips of our cute dog eating its own **** attract more attention than a fine explanation of the human condition or the sultry and sophisticated sounds of my Argentinian friend Anna recite Garcia Lorca in her native Spanish tongue.

I just want to be gone before there is a consequence for finding joy in the human condition, and honesty and integrity are known as the recividism that takes down our nation.

We were once the leaders of a great country. We were compelled by our history to create and indoctrinate one another to achieve, conceive, and amend ourselves to thrive amidst the uncertainty of a mischievous and disgraceful society. Now I just wish to be in bed with my wife when this storm of stupidity comes. I wish I never had to be on the receiving end of a sermon set forth by business leaders instead of political achievers.

I want Eddie to make herself some breakfast so I can lay here in bed a few more moments. I want pancakes and fresh fruit juice for breakfast, a quiet room and a hard-covered notebook. I want to believe a great pen and a good friend could lead me through the exciting and anxiety-writhing times in this life, but I to know too sadly that we live in a world where we don't view it as a weakness as those around us may not be able to read or may not be able to write.

Moby ****, geometry, physics.
Study every subject everyday.
Homework is an indicator of future success.
Success is not necessarily happiness but it helps.
Freedom is to formulate your own definition of success.
Happiness is an imaginary tree, its own reward, and a fact.
Facts and fiction may be memorialized in memos or found in dreams.
The story starts thus: Each summer the honeysuckles and the
      huckleberries . . .
The web is that extra brain we've all been dreaming of having.
Like jumping 4 meters or flying without a plane.
To fly like that must one first have homework?
Some say yes, some say don't. It depends on how you vote.
Happiness is what happens when everything that happens
Fits the time perfectly and it's all out of your hands.
Not exactly. You don't let go of the steering wheel while driving fast in
      the passing lane.
You look left and right and check your blind spots.
Homework is an introduction to everything you're not
And all you do not know. It's supposed to help you learn to know where
      you want to go before going where you have to go.
Otherwise you end up on Ulzana's raid
Bleeding, without a bandaid.
All the achievement in the world won't relieve your loneliness
Or satisfy your ****** longing. What girls are like behind their eyes.
Survival, procreation. That's all there is to love.
But the loved one is the one who can be trusted with your life.
Whether Christ or your wife. The Muslim moms.
On my walk in the woods I come to a sitting spot
Above a small gorge cut by a stream through hemlocks.
Here someone has left a statuette of the Buddha and the flags you see
Flapping in the wind at sky funerals.
This is a pretty good place to sit quietly and think about homework.

I see thoughts scattered on my desk,
By the window on the crest.
I see memories pasted on the wall,
Along with memos and notices from them all.
I see colors making their way,
To the papers crumbling away.
I see the black ink blotted today,
From last years accident, but the scars remain.
I see my desk will its way,
To beckon me to come,
and write my way.

before going to bed it is to be checked thoroughly
if there lays any carbon-paper under the bed-cover

now-a-days some upstart pelicans become so
disobedient it can not be assured if they come
to know the whereabouts of the blood easily
from the copy of the heart

then they distribute the delirium of the high-heel moon
by writing cash-memos at the gate of the locked-out plant

the hundreds of thousands of white clouds
also drink the whirl-water of love

they touch to feel the freshness of the habitat
they touch to feel the can full of smiles

after the explosion they touch to feel
the bier of the deodar-birds
covered with tamarisk plants

my only dream now
to return to the old preppy garments
and the boisterous hallway
with friendly arms around my neck
breathing the whiff of boisterous energy
to feel the brotherly armor
the friendly kiss of peace
the high jinks

the giggling and throaty beats of husky youths
the naive maturity of free thinkers
filled with optimistic hopes...

Save! what a misery it is to know
to know that my juvenile years
can never return to me.
I pity thyself.
Oh how  quickly time fades!
but memos forever remain.

I was only an invisible spectator.

He was the type of boy who wrote memos on his hand because his skin absorbed the words better than paper but they soon came off when he scrubbed her of his skin and from under his finger nails.

Nights are getting heavier and the sky is darker and it feels like the stars could swallow you whole but you have to keep moving.

Memories are long and painful and shots of your image like knives are imprinted on my skull and i can't seem to shift what appears to be your apparent state of mind. Oh what a funny way to live, not knowing if the leaves are turning brown or if our veins run blue but we can't see it.

It's not about me, you see, i can't control my mind it's not full of fields where daisies grow no more. It's full of the thoughts you should run from and people whose hearts should not beat but we must ignore these factors for i am still human. And my blood is warm and my skin is warm and so is the sun. Please love me and show warmth to me too.

So where does she go when
she's been fingered and drugged,
abused and sexed up?
That's right, the end of the bar
where they'll never find her,
let alone kiss her.*

Tucked behind her right ear,
blonde hair fell as if a tear
from cheek to chin,
bowling ball to bowling pin;
stacked at the other end.

This poem is for you long-blonde-hair-behind-the-bar-girl, written down by paper and pen.

Your quilted jacket,
leather in material,
won't keep the cold out;
only a white-stick-arm
will warm, guide and
ignite you home.

Fill the wardrobes back up again        
with hangers plucked and picked from the
carpeted floor.
                        Lay the lover down amongst the sheets
                        only the whisper sweet thoughts and memos and
                        kind words in low tones
                        into her ear.
                                           Kiss her neck and grace the thigh,
                                           build
                                           up
                                           the
                                           courage
                                           to
                                           last
                                                 all
                                                    night.

A heart waits

While sifting through the questions
piled high in a mountain of doubt,
reaching heights beyond belief
and scraping ceilings of torment

A heart waits…

Now tiring quickly, loosing strength,
finding the walk longer than you expected
Closing one eye to find the other does not see
and falling to dark corners of fear

A heart waits…

As volume amasses upon weakened shoulders,
and pain breaches the avenue
of store front sale signs
on locked door close outs

A heart waits…

When it all seems too much,
memos become lists of forever paper,
words scratched in blood ink
of empty pens spilling

A heart waits…

If you have found that point
where your mind says no more
and you feel that nothing will ever be enough,
please remember…

A heart waits…and that heart is mine

It's being told to go to bed at three in the morning.
It's a stained mug of coffee,
refilled again as you wonder,
"When did I last eat?"
and then carried into your room,
sat next to a bag of chips and a used-up pen.
It's walking into school the week before and slipping into a haze of equations and dates.
It's a binder full of papers that you swear you just cleaned out,
notes on topics you've forgotten,
memos from the principal about events long gone
which you read because they're a distraction.
It's sprinting home because a second spent away from your books is a second wasted.
It's finally getting home and crying out,
"Who gives a ****!"
as you stare at an equation
for the flight path of a spherical chicken,
for the synthesis of some chemical from some other chemicals.
It's missed club meetings and missed socialization.
It's misery in it's purest form.
It *****.

As I reflect on my experience of you
I remember the first time we met.
You were placed in my arms.
As I unwrapped you, you opened one eye,
Sized me up and went to sleep.
In that moment I got to see
The being you truly are – PERFECT.

Unfortunately it was not long until I got caught up in the role
of what I thought a parent ought to be –
Which was not to become like my parents.
I started working on the long list stored in my mind.
The memos that began with "a parent should not"
Somehow were the easiest ones for me to repeat.

Luckily in time, with your help,
I realized I was reflecting myself on to you.
With the result that I was behaving in an inappropriate manner.
I'm  now sorry for the pain my ignorance caused you.
Me reflecting my inadequacies on to you,
was my attempt to teach me what I had forgotten,
And that was just how perfect you are.

I also had forgotten how perfect
I was when I too arrived on this planet.
So the game of parenting had begun.
Your training began with me teaching you my faults
which of course I was reflecting on to you.
You in your quiet way stood your ground
and showed me what I wanted to see.
                            

What I admire you so much for,
is that  you remembered who you are,
you began teaching me life as you saw it.
I was a puppet in your hands.
With each lesson you taught me,
I landed up richer in experience
And my mind was stretched
into seeing a different aspect of truth.

Today I am able to ask "What is truth?
What you taught me? is that truth is what it is.
And when it comes from an open mind
and a loving heart it is always kind and supportive
and that there always is room in it for growth.
  I think that  I known that when you were younger
you would have had an easier time.

You gave me so many wonderful opportunities
of seeing life through your innocent eyes.
The games we played together
and the stories we read enabled me to see
many other aspects of life,

As you sponged up experience and knowledge
I little realized that I was absorbing things anew.
The person you are has made me a better person
than I could ever have been without you.

i cant read
so i just write
i quickly become tired
with your work
i would much rather pace
wear down the blades of grass
in the familiar place

i cant read
because while the graces of poets
philosophers
and scholars
make pretty the page
syllables dancing
atop meticulously pressed parchment
while this happens
through their beauty
i only think of you

toss the tome aside
and imagine all the ways
i can express
the things that capture and drag
the fingertips to their home
back to the place where i feel full
loved and laughed at
where i carouse and cherish

this was never about the "reads"
never about the ratio
of lit to likes
it was only ever about me writing
you love letters every day
ten max though

fact is, half of these *******
scrawlings these
are returned to sender
but crying alone
is far better than pretending
pretending you were never upset
and begging for something you need
begging doesnt only work if there is a listener

i cant read
i cant read our future
i cant give you house keys
a front or back yard
a cat box
a leash

i cant read
i write.
all 106 of them
garbage some think
but its garbage
i sealed with tears
and stamped with a kiss
spritzed with cologne
(if i wore it)

i cant read
star charts
memos
concert bills
calendars
no parking signs
or the expressions of cats

but i can write
pour out every guttural spasm
scribble every inspiration
leer and laugh toward
a glowing screen
mute and accepting
of the drivel banged out below it

i cant read
i can write things though
some things
good things
things

see what i mean??
i cant even write.
"things
good
things"
hay-seuss x-mas!

this space this place
a shelter from the weather
wind the rain unclothed
the deer would huddle
in habitual restlessness alert
except when in the forests’ deepest
dark their great pale eyes would close

today this sheltering of souls
does not escape the weather
but life’s maltreated pattern
its daily flux and disarray
to sit in this observatory
of evening sky’s condition
seeking only quiet and rapture

on high-backed benches
settled as giants enthroned
pale orange light above our heads
glows within an architrave
to reach across the funnelled
ceilinged surface to the aperture  -
a heightened vision of the sky

we close our eyes prayer-like
to meet our solitary self
where teeming thoughts begin
mind images stream
discarding all intent and reason
until we raise our lidded sight
to this single square of sky

travelling the past and triggered
by undetermined thoughts
speech ringing in the ears
words flood and spawn
so intense this skied perfection
we are drugged towards
a kind of sleep: time waits

then a wakefulness resumes
and all is sound spun turbulence
from trees above that calm and fill
replacing or confusing thought
inside the noise of rising wind: a single
oaken leaf is tossed within the chamber
where it skids and quivers at our feet

unlike the deer who lack imagination’s marvel
we take our thoughts outside this present space
this containment empty of distraction save ourselves
our so-slightly shifting hands buttocks heads limbs eyes
towards a nether world we have no words to share
the salient features of this dreamscape we might glimpse
that is ourselves: distinct alone apart beyond

slowly shifting colour from grey of day to blue of night
the small square accumulates ephemeral
memos sent from our seated selves perhaps
to fly with the wind-tossed crows to roost
somewhere in nearby trees we cannot see -
with the handshake of Friends the meeting ends
and out of silence shyly we reconnect with speech

This brick.
This bulging pocket of blue jean.
This song player, noise maker, memory saver.
Eternal space.
Secret keeper.
It's my life, this brick.
You think you can touch it? have it? hold it?
Let my secrets run along your nerves and scurry in between your brain cells?
No.
I would rather die an ignominious death and
rot a thousand years in the sea than
watch your eyes scan my life.
Search the deep caverns of my soul.
Watch your heart scream and hear the echoes of blood curdling madness.
Your fingers would burn as
you caress the suggestive sentences.
back and forth and
it comes naturally.
Sad truths.
Depressing facts.
You'd rather pour acid on your
eyes
and have them turn to
dust
than read the conversations,
I swear.
The ability to chirp
and make it appear as if it came from my own mouth?
Ridiculous.
I do not believe in ventriloquism.
Weak images
your eyes cannot behold.
I would feel exposed.
Like "The Woman" bathed
in wool and cloth and silk.
And under memos?
The secret to how my brain works.
Why would I desire you to know the short cut
to my vulnerability?
The grey box to my wiring and the scalpel to my heart.
It's the way my soul thinks.
And you can't know that.
This brick, bulge, memory saver,
it's my secret keeper.
The fidelius charm cast over my own self.
The secret is kept within
the very soul of my secret keeper.
Giving the password up is worthy of death.
You will never hold its life on your hands.
You will never see my
soul.
You will never know my
heart.

Tonight,
I am posting memos on the dark side of the moon,
where words spewed in wrong states of mind
can be swallowed up
spit up
into black holes
*******
expressions tasting of bile
and last night's ***** twist.
Tonight,
I'm shooting up
on spite and resentment.
Getting blazed,
blitzed,
baked.
Getting blasted off
to outer space.
And no one
can hear me
scream
Tonight,
I'm scribing prayers
and miracles
that would never be worked
if God is the god
that I believe God is.
Lists of hopes penned in anger
and hedonistic impulse
carved over
the memories
of my deep,
penetrating love.
A love that was like
the sword
that Judas fell on
because he had too much
faith
because he had too much
love
to see Love
(that's the god I believe God is).
But tonight,
there is no grace
And God
I am not.

you have to remind yourself that it won't always be like this. that someday approaches (probably faster than you think) and when it arrives, it will wake you up at 6:00 a.m for work you could do better at 9. hopefully, you'll enjoy it. someday will keep you fastened to a desk and cramped in a cubicle, your fingers typing out memos and emails and spreadsheets quicker than your legs ever carried you during your middle school mile. someday might chase away the little things that nudge you in the back of your brain when you remember that there is a world outside your window. someday will make you wish you had the luxury of being nineteen on summer break and calling yourself bored. and someday will come. maybe tomorrow or maybe a few years from now, when you trade in your textbooks for road maps and your goals for yesterdays.

but right now, here you are, calling yourself bored. you are not bored. how can you be, when you are nineteen on summer break with cinnamon hair that has just been kissed lighter by the sun? when you still have fictional characters to cry over or philosophical paradoxes to ponder or world hunger to solve or even just a heart that is still in need of breaking by a boy across the sea. you can't stop someday from stealing peter pan away from your bedroom window and diminishing neverland into a castle of ashes, but you can remind yourself that it's just some day. and right now, you have an infinite number of them in front of you, just waiting to be seized.

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

PAPERS! PAPERS EVERYWHERE...
AND NOT A* THING TO READ!

The thing I remember most about being in the Sea Organization at the Hollywood Org were all the PAPERS! Directives as I was to find. That's what they called memos. We were in a branch of L Ron Hubbard's private little army don'tcha know. Everything, therefore, had a military bent. More specifically we were in the navy. There were personnel who were labeled "bosons". And there were people with the rank of "Supercargo". And Commanding Officers. Actually, LRH would have liked us to be thought of as MARINES. Navy Seals!
He was really THAT egotistical. HIS title was COMMODORE. Yep. His overweening pride took him THAT FAR.
ANYWAY. So there was a storm of paper. Directives EVERYWHERE! Piled on desks. In inbaskets. In boxes. On filing cabinets, which were woefully insufficient for the veritable blizzard of PAPERS! I was forced to read these. DULL AS DITCHWATER. But I was given my own little pile, and a dictionary. Any words I didn't understand could be found in there. I was to look them up. And an extensive memo about the meaning of the Scientogeese which I was to learn. There was an entire LEXICON of THAT, let me tell you! More on that later on. AND we we didn't have TIME to read anything ELSE! Our day was filled with CHORES.... or reading of said PAPERS.

Then I began to notice the other "personnel" around me. NONE of whom appeared to be HAPPY. They were a grayish sort. Looked like the sun very seldom glanced their skin. Glum, yet (for all appearances), VERY dedicated. Then there were folk who seemed to be separate from the other workers. They wore filthy dark blue or black clothing, appeared to run everywhere, and address everyone as "Sir". They were called the RPF. Rehabilitation Project Force. Remember that unit and its abbreviation. For they are to loom large later in my narrative.

But there WAS one person who brought sunshine into my otherwise dreary world...

MARILYN.