1.
From my
uneasy bed
at the L’Enfant,
a train's pensive
horn breaks the
sullen lullaby of
an HVAC’s hum;
interrupting the
mechanical
reverie of its
steadfast
night watch,
allowing my ear
to discern
the stampede
of marauding
corporate Visigoths
sacking the city.

The cacophony
of sloven gluttony,
the ***** songs of
unrequited privilege
and the unencumbered
clatter of radical
entitlement echoes
off the city’s cold
crumbling stones.

The unctuous
bellows of the
victorious pillagers
profanely feasting
pierces the
hanging chill
of the nations
black night.

Their hoots
deride the train
transporting
the defeated
ghosts of
Lincoln’s last
doomed regiments
dispatched in vain
to preserve a
peoples republic
in a futile last stand.

The rebels have
finally turned the tide,
T Boone Pickett’s
Charge succeeds,
sending the ravaged
Grand Army of the
Republic sliding
back to the Capitol,
in savage servility,
gliding on squeaky
ungreased wheels
ferrying the
Union’s dead
vanquished
defenders to
unmarked graves
on Potters Field.

The Rebels
joyous yell
bounces off
the inert granite
stones of the
soulless city.

The spittle
of salivating
vandals drips
over the
spoils of war
as they initiate the
disassemblage,
the leveling and
reapportionment
of the grand prize.

The clever
oligarchs
have laid claim
to a righteous
reparation
of the peoples
assets for
pennies on the
dollar.

Their wholly
bought politicos
move to transfer
distressed assets
into their just
stewardship
through the
holy justice
of privatization
and the sound
rationale of
free market
solutions.

In the land of the
pursuit of property,
nimble wolf PACs
of swift 527, LLCs
have fully
metastasized
into personhood;
ascending to
the top of the
food chain in
America’s
voracious
political culture;
bestriding
the nation to
compel the
national will
to genuflect
to the cool facility
of corporate
dominion.

As the
inertial ******
of the plaintive
locomotive
fades into
another old
morning of
recalcitrant
Reaganism,
it lugs its
ambivalent
middle class
baggage toward
it’s fast expiring
future.

I follow
the dirge
down to
the street
as the ebbing
sound fades
into the gloom
of the
burgeoning
morning,
slowly
replacing the
purple twilight
with a breaking
day of cold gray
clouds framing
silhouettes of
cranes busily
constructing
a new city.

The personhood of
corporations need
homes in our new
republic; carving
out new
neighborhoods
suitable for the
monied citizens
of our nation.

First amongst
equals, the best
corporate governance
charters form
the foundation of
the republic’s
new constitution.
Civil rights
are secondary
to the freedom
of markets; the
Bill of Rights
are economically
replaced by the
cool manifests
of Bills of Lading.

The agents of
laissez faire
capitalism
nibble away
at the city’s
neighborhoods
one block at a time;
while steady winds
blows dust off
the National Mall.

Layers of the
peoples plaza are
plained away with
each rising gust.  

History repeats
itself as the Joad’s
are routed from their
land once again.

A clever
mixed use
plan of
condos and
strip malls
is proposed
to finally help the
National Mall
unlock its true
profit potential.

As America’s
affection for
federalism fades
the water in
the reflection pool
is gracefully drained.

We the people
can no longer
see ourselves.

The profit
potential of
industry is
preferred over
the specious
metaphysical
benefits
of reflection.

The grand image,
the rich pastiche,
the quixotic aroma
of the national
melting ***
is reduced to the
sameness of the
black tar that lines
the pool and the
swirling eddies of
brown dust circling
the cracked indenture.

From his not so
distant vantage point,
Abe ponders the
empty pool wondering
if the cost of lives
paid was a worthy
endeavor of preserving
the ****** union?  
Has the dear prize
won perished from
this earth?

Was the illusive
article of liberty  
worth its weight in
the blood expended?

Did the people ever
fully realize the value
of government
by the people,
for the people?

Did citizens of
the republic
assume the
responsibilities to
protect and honor
the rights and privileges
of a representative
government?

Now our idea
and practice of
civil rights is measured
and promoted as far as
it can be justified by
a corporate ROI, a
shareholder dividend,
an earmark or a political
donation to a senators
unconnected PAC.

The divine celestial
ledgers balancing
the rights and
privilege of free people
drips with red ink.  

Liberty, equality
fraternity are bankrupt
secular notions
condemned as
expensive
liberal seditions;
hatched by
UnHoly Jacobins,
the atheist skeptics
during the dark times
of the Age of Enlightenment.

Abe ponders
the restoration
of Washington’s
obelisk, to
repair the cracks
suffered  from
last summer’s
freak earthquake.

I believe I detect
a tear in Abe’s
granite eye
saddened by the
corporate temblors
shaking the
foundations
of the city.

2.

The WWII Memorial
is America’s Parthenon
for a country's love
affair with the valor
and sacrifice of warfare.

WWII forms the
cornerstone of
understanding the
pathos of the
American Century.

During WWII
our greatest generation
rose as a nation to
defeat the menace of
global fascism and
indelibly mark the
power and virtue of
American democracy.

As Lincoln’s Army
saved federalism, FDR’s
Army kept the world safe
for democracy.

Both armies served
a nation that shared
the sacrifice and
burden of war to
preserve the grace of
a republican democracy.

Today federalism
crumbles as our
democracy withers.

The burden
of war is reserved
for a precious few
individuals while
its benefits
remain confined to
the corporate elite.

Our monuments
to war have become
commercial backdrops
for the hollow patriotism
of war profiteers.

We have mortgaged
our future to pay
for two criminal wars.

The spoils of
war flow into the
pockets of
corporate
shareholders
deeply invested
in the continuation
of pointless,
destructive
hostilities.

Our service
members who
selflessly served
their country come
home to a less free,
fear struck nation;
where economic
security and political
liberty erodes
each day while the
monied interests
continue to bless
the abundance
of freedom and riches
purchased with the
blood and sweat
of others.

America desperately
needs a new narrative.

The spirit of the
Greatest Generation
who sacrificed and met
the challenge of the 20th
Century must become
this generations spiritual
forebears.

The war on terror
neatly fits the
the corporate
pathos of
militarism,
surveillance
and the sacrifice
of civil liberties
to purchase
a daily measure
of fear and
economic
enslavement.

It must be rejected
by a people committed
to building secular
temples to pursue
peace, democracy,
economic empowerment,
civil liberties and tolerance
for all.

Yet this old city
and the democratic
temples it built
exulting a free people
anointed with the
grace of liberty
is being consumed
in a morass of
commercial
polyglot.

3.

During the
War of 1812
the British Army
burned the
Capitol Building
and the White House
to the ground.

Thank goodness
Dolly Madison saved
what she could.

The new marauders
are not subject to the
pull of nostalgia.  

They value nothing
save their
self enrichment.

They will spare nothing.

Our besieged Capitol
requires Lincoln’s troops
to be stationed along the
National Mall to defend
the republic.

The greatest peril
to our nation
is being directed
by well placed
Fifth Columnists.

From the safety
of underground bunkers,
in secure undisclosed
locations within the city’s
parameters, a well financed
confederacy employing  
K Street shenanigans
are busy selling off
the American Dream
one ear mark
at a time, one
huge corporate
welfare allotment
at a time.

The biggest prize
is looting the real
property of the people;
selling Utah,
auctioning off
the public schools,
water systems, post offices
and mineral rights
on the cheap
at an Uncle Sam
garage sale.  

The capitol is
indeed burning
again.

Looters are
running riot.

The flailing arms
of a dying empire
fire off cruise
missiles and drone
strikes; hitting the
target of habeas
corpus as it
shakes in its
final death rattle.
I make a pilgrimage
to the MLK Jr.
Monument.

Our cultural identity
is outsourced to
foreign contractors
paid to reinterpret
the American Dream
through the eyes
of a lowest bidder.

MLK has lost
his humanity.

He has been
reduced to a
a Chinese
superhuman
Mao like anime
busting loose from
a granite mountain while
geopolitical irony
compels him to watch
Tommy Jefferson
**** Sally Hemings
from across the tidal
basin for all eternity.  

MLK’s eyes fixed in
stern fascination,
forever enthralled
by the contradictions
of liberty and its
democratic excesses
of love in the willows
on golden pond.

Circling back to
Father Abraham’s
Monument,  I huddle
with a group of global
citizens listening
to an NPS Ranger
spinning four score
tales with the last full
measure of her devotion.

I look up into Abe’s
stone eyes as he
surveys platoons
of gray suited
Chinese Communist
envoys engaged
in Long Marches
through the National Mall;
dutifully encircling cabinet
buildings and recruiting
Tea Party congressmen
into their open party cells.

This confederacy
is ready to torch
the White House
again.

Congressmen and
the perfect patriots
from K Street slavishly
pull their paymasters
in gilded rickshaws to
golf outings at the Pentagon
and park at the preferred
spots reserved for
the luxury box holders
at Redskin Games.

They vow not to rest
until the house of the people
is fully mortgaged to the
People’s Republic of China’s
Sovereign Wealth Fund.

4.

A great
Son of Liberty like
Alan Greenspan
roundly rings
the bells of
free markets
as he inches
T Bill rates
forward a few
basis points
at a time; while
his dead mentor
Ayn Rand
lifts Paul Ryan
to her
Fountainhead teet.
He takes a long
draw as she
coos songs
from her primer
of Atlas Shrugged
Mother Goose tales
into his silky ears.

The construction
cranes swing
to the music
building new private
sector space with
the largess of
US taxpayers
money; or
more rightly
future generations
taxpayer debt.

Libertarians,
Tea Baggers, Blue Dogs
and GOP waterboys
eagerly light a
match to the
the crucifixes
bearing federal
social safety
net programs
to the delight
of NASDAQ
listed capitalists
on the come,
licking their chops
to land contracts
to administer
these programs
at a negotiated
cost plus
profit margin.

Citizens
dependent
on programs
are leery
shareholders
are ecstatic.

To be sure
our free
market rebels
don disguises
of red, white
and blue robes
but their objectives
fail to distinguish
their motives and
methods with
some of the finest
Klansman this
country has
ever produced.

5.

DC is a city
of joggers
and choppers.

Corporate
helicopters
wizz by the
Washington
Monument,
popping erections
for the erectors
inspecting the progress
of the cranes
commanding the
city skyline.

USMC drill team
out for a morning
run circles the Mall.

The commanding
cadence of the
DI keeps us
mindful of the
deepening
militarization of
our society.

A crowd  
rushes
to position
themselves,
genuflecting
to photograph
a platoon on
the move.

I try to consider
the defining
characteristics of
Washington DC.

DC is all surface.

It is full of walls
and mirrors.

Its primary hue
is obfuscation.

Open
communication
scripted from well
considered talking points
informs all dialog.

The city is thoroughly
enraptured in narcissism.

Thankfully, one can
always capture the
reflection of oneself in
the ubiquitous presence of
mirrors.  

Vanity imprisons
the city inhabitants.

Young joggers circle the
Mall and gerrymander
down every pathway
of the city.  

They are the clerks,
interns and staffers of
the judicial, executive
and legislative branches.

They are the children
of privilege.

They will never
alter their path.

You must cede the walk
to their entitlement
of a swift comportment
or risk injury of a
violent collision.

These young ones
portray a countenance  
of benevolent rulers.  

They seem to be learning
their trade craft well from
the senators and judges
whom they serve.

They appear confident
they know what's best
for the country and after
their one term of tireless
service to the republic
they look forward to
positions in the private
sector where they will
assist corporations
to extend their reach
into the pant pockets
worn by the body politic.

6.

Our nations mythic story
lies hidden deep in the
closed rooms of the
museums lining the
Mall.

I pause to consider
what a great nation
and its great people
once aspired to.

I spy the a
suspended
Space Shuttle
hanging in dry dock
at the air and
space museum.

Today America’s
astronauts hitch
rides on Russian
rockets.

America rents a
timeshare from
the European
space agency to
lift communication
satellites into orbit.

Across the Mall
I photograph
John Smithson’s
ashes in its columbarium.  

I fear it has become a
metaphor for America’s
future commitment
to scientific inquiry
and rational secular
thinking.

I am relieved to
discover a Smithsonian
exhibit that asks
“what does it mean
to be human?”

The Origins of Humans
exhibit carries a disclaimer
to satisfy creationists.

The exhibit timidly states
that science can coexist
with religious beliefs and
that the point of the exhibit is
not to inflame inflame religious
passions but to shed light on
scientific inquiry.

I imagine these exhibits
will inflame the passion of
the fundamentalist
American Taliban and
provide yet another
reason to dismantle
the Moloch of Federalism.

The pursuit of science
remains safe at the
Smithsonian for now.

7.

Near K Street at
McPherson Park
a posse of
well dressed
lobbyists, the
self anointed
uber patriots
doing the work
of the people
stroll through
the park
boasting a
healthy population
of bedraggled
homeless.

The homeless
occupy the benches
that have been
transformed into
pup tents.

Perhaps some of
the residents of this
mean estate were
made homeless by a
foreclosed mortgage.  

The K Street warriors
can be proud that their
work on behalf of the
banking industry has
forestalled financial market
reform.  

Through it exacerbates
the homeless problem it has
allowed these K Street titans to
profit from the distress of others.

Earlier in the day
I photographed
a homeless man
planted in front of
the Washington
Monument.

I wonder
if my political
voyeurism is
an exploitation of
this man’s condition?

I have more in common
then I probably wish to
admit with my K Street
antagonists.  

In another section
of the park the
remnants of a
distressed OWS
bivouac remain.

The legions of sunshine
patriots have melted away
as the interest of the
blogosphere has waned.

As the weather
improves Moveon.org
and democratic
party operatives
pitch tents in an
effort to resuscitate
the moribund
movement.

They hope
to coop any
remaining energy
to support their
stale deception,
a neoliberal vision
based solely on the
total capitulation
to the bankrupt
corporatocracy.

I heard someone say
a campaign lasts a
season; while a
movement for social
change takes decades.

If that metric proves
correct, and if the
powers don’t succeed
in compromising the
people’s movement
I’ll be three quarters
of a century old
before I see
justice flowing like
a river once again.

8.

I circle back to
the L’Enfant and
find myself
tramping amidst
the lost platoon
of Korean War
soldiers.

My feet drag
in the quagmire
of grass covering
the feet of this
ghostly troop.

My namesake
uncle was a
decorated
veteran of this
conflict and Im
sure I detect
his likeness
in one of the
statues.

The bleak call
of a distant train
sounds a revelry
and I imagine this
patrol springing
to life to answer
the call of their
beloved country
once again.

Yet they remain
inert.  

Stuck in a
place that the
nation finds
impossible to
leave.

The eyes of the
men stare into
an incomprehensible
fate.  

They see the swarms
of Red Army infantrymen
crossing the Yellow River
streaming toward
them in massive
human waves,
the tips of
sparkling bayonets
threatening to slash
the outmanned
contingent fighting
to bits.

They are the
first detachment
to bravely confront
the rising power
of China many
thousands of
miles away
from their homes.

America like
this lone company
is overwhelmed
and lost in the
confusion
that confronts
them.

Looking up
I perceive the
bewilderment
of my muddled image
reflected on the
marble walls
surrounding
the memorial.

I am a comrade-in-arms,
a fellow wanderer sojourning
with th

In a wayward adventure in curiosity —
lured away from savvy of cooler judgment,  
he oversteps the bounds of reality 
into a state of altered awareness.

Overwhelmed by a rapid beginning
of a buzzing sensation — The Rush;
emanating from deep inside him, 
surging along the veins streaming 

euphoria through cells of his entire body:  
inside the body, with warm pleasure waves
flushing over the by now tingling skin
soughing off all unpleasant feelings.

Mouth numbed, limbs heavy, and eyeballs 
rolling back from hitherto an unimaginable
state of bliss, he savours the calm explosions
of the pulsating bubbles in his head.

A magical moment of sheer ******* 
rapture—that ends in a lasting sedation—
during which he's dazed with wonderment
while covered by a cozy blanket of content.

He falls in love with the insidious drug.
And he begins to relish its sweet fruition
in a seemly pattern of use that is put
in the shade to protect his best interests.

A stake in normalcy that seeks to confine
his usage of the opioid to a social occasion.
But soon enough he drifts towards a regular
recreational use; indulging on weekends,

floating, flying, and soaring in wonderful
ripples of pure delight, feeling very mellow
and satisfied, in an illusionary paradise of
forgetfulness where nothing hurts any more.

Bit by bit as time goes by his body builds up
a tolerance for the sedative, prompting his
intake of higher and more frequent doses
to feel as well as to sustain the desired effect.

This occurs because his body attempts to
adapt to the presence of the drug by quickly
breaking it up and purging it out of the system,
thus making it less potent as it was before.

At this stage of his drug abuse he's still able to
control whether to use the stuff or not, where
and when to use it, without stress. He could
also abstain from the opioid fairly responsibly.

But at the limits of his body's flexible response
to the dangerous substance, he begins to suffer
from its unpleasant side-effects that show up
a short period of time following his last use.

The pleasurable, but short-term, therapeutic
effects of the hard drug are now being
overshadowed by several of its undesirable
withdrawal symptoms that manifest as:

fatigue, irritability, cold chills/sweat, itchy skin,
muscle spasms and tremors, body ache, and
stomach cramps among others, with an
increase in his body's cravings for the opioid.

The onset of these torturous side-effects of
the stimulant marks the beginning of his body's
physical dependence on it, as he now relies
on the drug to fend off the terrible affliction.

He has bitten at the bait of pleasure oblivious
of the hook beneath it. The once casual user,
who had thought he could quit the habit at will
without stress, has advanced to problematic use.

The drug has become an integral part of a daily
routine that is gradually heading towards chaos.
Regardless, he's still able to go to work and
take care of his day to day responsibilities.

In time, a new sickness begins to fester inside
him: the opioid is tightening its grip on him,
as his body's physical dependence on it
is now generating his addiction to the drug.

This psychological dependence on the drug
has set in with anxiety disorder accompanied
by emotional and behavioural problems:
the duo classic signs of a progressive disorder.

The drug has become something he needs
to sleep or to fully wake up. His sleeping
pattern has also been altered; up at night
and intermittently dozing off during the day.

As dosage of the narcotic rises, so does
the torture of the painful lows and other
symptoms of addiction, making his cravings
for the sedative increasely more intense.

As it is, he's needs several hits of the drug to
make it through the day. All at once he wants
to use! He begins to look forward to using.
He would ingest the drug in risky situations

such as, while at the wheels of his car or
working at his job; always desperate to avoid
withdrawal symptoms as well as to revel in
the bliss of the drug's comforting warmth.

At times he'd skip work 'chasing the dragon':
pursuing the out-of-reach elation levels of
his initial euphoric high, swinging between
feelings of mediocrity and that of ecstasy.

Always, his body would afterwards crash
below baseline, barely able to cater for his
daily needs. The habit has long ceased
to be the fun that it was intended to be.

Like a vicious cycle the relief from the opioid,
which is not justified by external reality,
is being obtained at the cost of the
worsening addiction and a spike in distress

whenever his body is low on the drug.
The more he indulges on the sedative
to calm his racing mind, the more
its comfort zone seems to be desired.

Disoriented in the rigours of his vice,
he strays in the abyss of drug addiction:
a dark, weary place where priority disorder 
is dictated by events outside of his control.

It is this corrupted impulse control that
causes his sick obsession with the narcotic,
rendering him unfit to articulate rational
thoughts: a chronic brain disorder.

In this harmful shift away from reality,  
utmost in his mind is the insidious drug:
over and above his job, his goals, family,
love, friends, hobbies and personal hygiene.

Oddly enough the foremost essentials of life
like water, food, and sleep are also not spared.
He could be ill and he won't care.
No other thoughts can cohabit in his world.

Emotionally invested in his fantasy world,
the toxic substance has kindled in him
an inner turmoil — setting off an overriding
feeling of emptiness that aches in his heart.

The habit much harder to lose than it was
to find: an ongoing effort to wean himself off
the drug is being crushed by a dysphoric mood
and a sickly feeling that intensify in severity.

These horrifying withdrawal symptoms
are a result of the sedative's induced
alterations in the biochemistry of his
brain's system of reward and punishment.

Instead of a mild, blissful flow of the brain's
happy hormones, as is experienced while
one is indulging in a tasty food, on receiving
a great news, or while engaged in any other

kinds of novelty that fill us with a delicious
pleasure, the opioid whose chemical structure
is similar to that of the natural chemical
messengers of the brain, Happy Hormones,

by mimicking these primary drivers of the
brain's reward system the psychoactive 
drug sends a false signal of euphoria to
the complex *****, triggering an instant

and fast secretion of an abnormally large
amount of the 'feel-good hormones', that
begin to surge along its pleasure pathways
overwhelming the reward centre of the brain.

It is this huge outpouring of happy hormones
in the region that elicites in him a sudden
burst of energy, a pleasant state of mild
drowsiness, mental alertness, relaxation, ...

This already intense, euphoric effect of the
opioid is further amplified by the drug's
blocking of the pain partways of the reward
system, thus dulling his emotions and worries

by eliminating any feeling of sorrow, regret,
guilt, fear, or loneliness. Upon intake of the
mood-altering drug, he would feel warm when
cold, calm when angry, bright when grumpy,

filled when hungry and happy when irritable,
with almost a total refrain from the tendency
to view anything in bad light. This dramatic
result makes every normal thing look better

and brings forth a deep sense of satisfaction
as though all his needs have been met.
However, this almost perfectly desirable 
body and mind experience is an artificial

feeling that only lasts a few hours at most.
When the drug's effects wear off, because
the brain, which has come to rely on the steady
supply of happy hormones, cannot adjust

all at once, it gets stuck in overdrive which
results in the withdrawal symptoms. It is so
because his brain, whose system of reward
and punishment has been tampered with,

seeks to counteract and accomodate for
the sweet thrills of the drug's euphoric high,
by secreting much less happy hormones while
the foodgate of pain hormones is thrown open.

Just like a huge surge of happy hormones
elicits unnatural levels of euphorical pleasure,
a spike in flow of pain hormones produce
in him the torturous withdrawal symptoms.

These unwanted side-effects whose rise and
fall are subject to drug levels in the system,
is the debt he has to pay for the supreme
bliss that is relished during his opioid highs.

It is all about his brain seeking to maintain
Homeostasis: a normal, healthy body function.
Once he's able to amerce with penance due,
he'll feel good again with no need for the drug.

Another flip side of the illicit habit is that over
time, the regular surge in happy hormones
disrupts the resilience of the reward region
of the brain, causing physical changes that

have drastically reduced his brain's ability
to produce the 'pleasure juices', or respond
to any stimulus other than the one being
triggered by the psychoactive substance.

This is clearly seen in his lost of interest in
activities that he once enjoyed, since his brain
suffers from lack of happy hormones which
influence one's capacity to be in a good mood.

Because the narcotic has also disrupted
activities in the control region of the brain,
his whole thought pattern, perspective and
behaviour, all radically change along with it.

It is this reprogramming of his brain that has
altered the interior reality of his mind, in ways
that result in him going into 'survival mode'
in the absence of the drug during a withdrawal.

While in this irritable, aggressive and erratic
state, he would forego anything and everything
to obtain the narcotic because he's thinking
of his drug use the same way an individual 

who is parched with thirst thinks of water.
This desperation in seeking out the drug as
a vital lifeline is due to his compromised brain
'thinking' it needs it as a matter of survival.

A habit he had maintained at the outset
because it made him feel extremely good
has tuned against him, quite often, coercing
him to use for the avoidance of pain.

The sedative as dear and painful to him
as an imbecilic child is to its mother,  
he continues on the foreboding route 
for which he has no power of deviation.

Despairing in the clutches of addiction,
the drugs traumatize him, they infuse
toxins into his spine, and he wouldn't
know whether he's coming or going.

He's kept on saying to himself, 'I'm going
to quit for good after using one last time.'
But that remains to be seen as the drug
goes on dulling his inner light day by day.

In a downward spiral that stuns those 
acquainted with him, he loses his job,
his car is repoed, and he's evicted from
a nice home that had been stripped bare.

Drowning in unpaid bills and desperately
in debt having blown an entire life-savings
on the drug, the loss of everything and a few
remaining friends leaves him fatally devastated.

The dangerous drug has evoked a negative
ripple that is felt throughout all that he's
part of. An awful realization that settles in
with cold clarity, eliciting a lurch of dismay

over his dire ignorance about the drug
which has led to the ugly entrapment.
In deep, sorrowful thoughts consumed
with self-loathing he puts a curse upon

the day he first laid eyes on the hard drug.
With the best resolve he's able to muster,
driven by exasperation to kick the habit,
he strives to make his will like stone —

a facade that is soon razed by his urgent need
for the ****** to stave off withdrawal. With a
burden of guilt and shame that can't be faced
he retreats into the haze of his own misery.

With more problems and stresses than ever
he plunges from troubled life to no life,
completely losing touch with reality as the
disorder assumes a more dangerous form.

His fixation on the ****** has taken a turn for
the worst. Besides his strong cravings for it
to ward off withdrawal as well as to experience
its euphoric high again, it has become more

crucial than ever for him to keep his emotions
constantly desensitised to life, by numbing
the agony of living to ease the passage of
day with purchased relief from the sedative.

Locked in this highly destructive pattern
of drug use, he would stop at nothing
to feed the habit: he would cheat, steal,
lie or betray no matter who to get his 'fix'.

Like the spreading of cancer in the body,  
his affliction has metastasized way 
beyond him, chipping away at the sense
of wellbeing of everyone around him.

As frequent and ready targets for theft
his family have to always watch out for him,
in a resentful relations in which they never
could feel at easy with him around their home.

Wallets, jewellery, gadgets, or any other
easy to carry household valuables, that are
not safely locked away, will go missing.
For days at a time he, too, will vanish.

He'd eventually return like the 'prodigal son'.
Always, he's found the door open after
prolonged periods of avoiding home, even
on occasions when he'd been kicked out.

In the many months gone since losing his
source of livelihood, he's been pushed
into a number of rehabilitation facilities,
but as yet has failed to clean up his act.

He's also been in and out of rehab thrice
following hospital discharges for drug
overdose. On the last occasion, he was
found passed out in the family's bathtub.

Timely arrival of the paramedics had saved
his life. Notwithstanding, a nagging urge
to 'use' continues to feed and reinforce
the habit after each discharge from rehab.

It's been most upsetting to the parents
who have had to watch him visibly change
before their eyes: from a good, healthy
son, who had always had his act together,

to as it is, a thin, patchy-skinned loner with
a baffled demeanour — who buries his head
in low self-esteem to conceal the frequent
dilated and glassy pupils from mutual gaze.

Nothing points more to the helplessness 
of the family's plight than having to finally
admit to their little, or no influence, over
the ravages of the stigmatized disorder.

A harrowing experience for a household
whose life-savings, along with compassion
for him, have completely been exhausted
with no more tears remaining to shed.

The hurting family at the end of its tether
confronts him with an ultimatum:
to get his life in order or face the music.
Coldly, they all watch him leave home.

His descent into the final stages of rock-
bottom has been swift. He starts by crashing
on fellow addicts' couches and floors,
but soon his welcome quickly wears out.

Now among the ranks of the homeless the
hobo would wake up feeling sick, and his day
would consist of shoplifting, petty thefts,
begging, and struggling to find others ways

to obtain money in order to feed the habit.
At nights, even on stormy ones, the rough
sleeper would crash wherever there's shelter,
never worrying about waking up the next day.

A hellish existence on the street that has
provoked a string of run-ins with the law. 
Nabbed stealing on ill-fated occasions,
he's manhandled in a most indecent way.

Tired, hungry and sick, the erstwhile ray of
hope, who once had a strong sense of self,
is currently a nervous wreck who envisages
life through the lens of opioid stupor.

Much beyond his ability to ask for help, 
his hurting family proceed to rescue him.
Under the humbling load of drug addiction
he staggers into another rehab facility.

But the often slippery climb to recovery
is never easy. It's yet another chance for him
to submit to a slow and delicate therapy on
his brain, whose structure and functions are

badly impacted by years-long use of the drug.
The healing process is a labour of discipline
and commitment, coupled with patience
in order to allow the brain to adapt back

toward normalcy by gradually regenerating
and rebalancing itself. In a gruelling task he's
expected to learn to care for a body that
now must struggle to work in a different way.

Desiring to put their lives back together many
druggies have been able to crawl their way out
of the murky shadow — a big chunk of them
through the guiding light of structured help.

Amongst them were 'walking corpses' whom
possessed by their 'enough is enough', were
enabled to find the inner fire vitally needed
to rekindle the cold embers of self-image.

There's the fella cast adrift feeling wholly
disconnected from self and the world.
He's mourning the loss of a vital lifeline
that has always helped him cope with life.

He had been through it many times before,
the fatigue, stomach cramps, aches, itchy skin, ...
But, he's in the early stages of withdrawal when
cravings for the narcotic are at their worst.

This initial withdrawal agony is the biggest
hurdle any addict has to overcome in the often
stop-start journey to recovery. If he could
somehow find the courage to suffer through it,

the fierce and ceaseless cravings for the drug
would be considerably reduced, making
them easier for him to deal with. Eventually,
they will dissipate the longer he stays sober.

He's being offered a way out of his captivity,
but he's unable to embrace the opportunity
with open arms because the addiction,
which convinces him the only option available

is to indulge on the drug, is blocking him from
seeing the available escape route. It has shut
off his ability to get up on the inside to face
the seeming overwhelming barriers to sobriety.

Like one in the grip of Stockholm Syndrome,
he has developed a type of trauma bonding
with the treacherous drug: the more it hurts
him, the more his irrational affection for it.

With his consciousness constantly revolving
around the insidious substance, he just
can't imagine a chronic user like him
being sober and happy again without it.

That being the case, he fails to see any point
in struggling to remain sober when in such
times he's beset by an awful illness attended
by a serious depression that is no help.

Regardless of the wreckage of his past,
everything that is dear to him plus the very
essence of life on the line, he's left convinced
that giving up the destructive habit would

mean endless suffering and feeling deprived
for the rest of his already sad existence.
More than any other reasons, he just
won't quit because he's powerless to resist.

In default of any dreams of ever recouping
losses that are manifestly out of reach,
the drug with a firm grip on him serves 
as a buffer to keep his ugly reality at bay.

All that he wants is to return to the 'loving
arms' of the opioid, very much aware that
the feeling of the drug's high now that he's
in pain can be one of the best things ever.

But even so, as tempting as the desire to jump
the healing process may be, he's bitterly
mindful of the horrors of street life that
loom upon him with such frightening aspect.

Savagely trapped with no good choices he
slips into a real fear of relapse. In anguish
withdrawal and cravings plague him daily,
and they won't allow him a moment's peace.

Utterly incapable of rising from the ashes 
to hold it all together—no hope—
nothing to hope for—everything out 
of focus—mind spiraling out of control.

In a fit of extreme anxiety the now rampaging
urge to 'use' prods him, closer and closer,
to the brink of a nervous breakdown. Suddenly,
his need for a 'hit' becomes most vital as.

Sweating profusely and trembling all over
with fear clutching a pilfered smartphone,
forgetful of future suffering the rehab
jumper hurries along the forbidden path.

All alone with the merciless companion: 
nowhere to go and no one to turn to. 
Wretchedly wretched in additive agony
the ****** fades away into nothingness.








AUTHOR'S NOTE


The Abyss Of Drug Addiction is written in 112 non-rhyming quatrains.

The rendition is a poignant story depicting the sad existence of many drug users. The verse uncovers and illuminates, step by step, the different stages of drug addiction and the mental processes of the unable to function drug users.

The paramount aim of the work is to shed some light on the sinister shadow of drug addiction: to unveil to all and sundry, especially teenagers and the youths, the hazards of drug abuse and the vicious downward spiral that can be caused by it. 

Just as the euphoric experience of all kinds of hard drugs differ significantly, so are their withdrawal symptoms. Despite their seeming surface unrelatedness, whichever hard drug it may be, the creation of an illegal and dangerous dependency in users is a common denominator.

[The Rush is described as a feeling very much like a heightened and prolonged ****** ******. A great relieve of tension. It is mostly felt when ****** or any of it's derivatives opioids/opiates is administered intravenously].

In quite a disturbing hyperbole a ****** addict described the drug's EUPHORIC RUSH as follows:
"Take the best (******) ****** you've ever had, multipy it a billion and you're still no where near it... "

In the linoleum dungeon
Sparkling swiffer creature
Squirts the floor
Calls polyphemic odors
Opening

And the crazy stench of allspice
Biting lime and draconian breath
Burning the nostril coins
Copper shield bending the cilia
Oven mitts plastered with narcotic grease and decomposing meals
Of yesteryear
Unclear
She speaks between steaming inspirations

Hoo-huh

Exhale the fire

It's'a hotta pasta lasagna
As the helicopters flap their handy rotories
Fast fractal birds
In circumfereferential motion
Cool down our mouths
Ice cubes in the juice
Plop a shot of gin
With that silly child's grin

And the room slowly cants
Begins to spin
As we laugh at the spots we cannot
Pin

Staring at the stellar mountain chains
Thrusted stone
Busted metal
Stabbing up into the sky
Competition

Where is the home beyond the horizon
Where we ate good meals
Not made alone
With parental guidance
As the days were stolen
By the erosive time
That spinning wheel

Well,

It's deep in us now
And the cells metastasized
Realized
That heaven is hell.

This is neither history nor theology;
this is Romance:

                                       A Liturgy for the Emperor

In memory of
Patrick Joseph Donovan,
Stratiotis

Processional

How, then, will we find death?  With rifle in hand,
Perhaps, or flowing with the warm, worn prayers
That slip with beads through one's fingers and soul.
Rifle or Rosary, either will do.
One's death might rise in the boldness of youth,
Or in the wearied wisdom of old age,
In wild combat against ancient evils,
Or softly, while planting a red-apple tree
For grandchildren to summer-celebrate,
In wild red martyrdom, or obscure white.

The nights still whisper how the Emperor fell,
Fell with a faithful few upon the walls,
The old land walls of Constantinople.
But we are not to speak of martyrs whose
Transcendent beauty reproaches our times,
Our drifting dark age, drab, dreary, and dim
Our tomb-like lives cluttered with small darkness,
Our talk all common, colourless, and cold:
The thoughts assigned programmed into our souls,
Daymares programmed into us for our good,
Pitiful, pattering, prosthetic prose,
Cacophonies of casual cruelties --
No brave iambic lines for golden dreams.

But dare we also whisper truths, and speak
Of what a wind-wild people once we were,
And we will want our syllables to sing
In honour of the Martyr-Emperor
And those who followed him into his death,
And in this knowing of him we can live
Among those souls who are forever young.

Introit

In Nomine Partis, et Filli, et Spiritus Sancti

We will go to the Altar of God
To God, Who gives joy to our youth
We will go to the Altar of God
We will go to Byzantium

Kyrie

Lord have mercy -- when the shadows surround us
Christ have mercy -- when we forget the Three Romes
Lord have mercy -- when we forget You

Gloria

Glory to God in the highest
And peace to His Byzantine people
And all His peoples
Lord God, Heavenly King
who once blessed us with Emperors
Send us another
Send Your waiting people their Emperor

The First Reading

As Constantine his walls he watched, he wept,
Lost in the Gethsemane of his soul
His tears they fell upon the ancient bricks
Warm with centuries of sun, saintliness,
And the passions of a glorious race

The City!  Long reigning on the Golden Horn
The Summer Country of our childhood dreams
There playing, praying, working, selling, and,
Yes, sinning too.  Passionate *Romanoi --
What a magnificent people we were.

(fast)

When armies marched to the Byzantine beat
Sophia ruled from her Byzantine seat  
When Byzantine sails sheltered Odysseus' sea
The wave-roads of trade were open and free  
When Romanoi feasted, blood mixed with wine
Daggers drawn over a dancing concubine
A newer Helen who provoked desire,
She seared men's eyes with her own Greek Fire
When Blues and Greens howled in the Hippodrome --
Such rowdy citizens in Second Rome! --
Then even Emperors in purple shoes
Feared stoning by Greens or hanging by Blues
The rough, loud democracy of the street --
Mobs also marched to the Byzantine beat

The Second Reading

(slowly)

But –

Above all rose Justinian's gem
The holy place where God called us to Him
The Mother Church of dawn-lit Christendom
Sophia -- the Queen of Byzantium
Where Patriarch, patrician, people, and priest
Gave worship.  Then the greatest and the least
Abandoned sin to hear the sweet bells ring,
Stood penitent before our God, our King:
In consecrated hands, through wine and bread

Christos Pantocrater fed us Himself

And then all hearts were cleansed, all souls were fed

(Very slowly)

But centuries passed, and this City of God
Heart of the Empire, became the Empire,
As lands and peoples were lost forever
to the creeping new age.  When Constantine,
The last Constantine, was called to the Throne,
All that was left was The City herself,
The Morea, and islands, and memories.
The fleet whose sails had shaded the Inner Sea
Was but a few hopeless hulks in the Horn

From the dust, dark shadows metastasized,
Shadows who stole and slew their way to power
And swept the land bare of free folk and fields
And more and more the shadows grasped and held,
A dead world of slaves whose backs were bloodied
Beneath the whips of masters, slaves whose eyes
Were cast carefully, cautiously to the ground
Lest demeanour manly and bearing proud
Attract the executioners' busy blades.

Finally, after devouring lands and souls,
The shadows coveted Constantinople,
The Red-Apple Tree where continents meet,
The City they could never build for themselves
And nothing stood between them and their lust
But one bold man: Constantine Dragases.
The faithful few who stood the walls with him,
Gathered around proud, stubborn Constantine:
Workers and monks and nuns, beggars, merchants,
Proud, arrogant Byzantines, and the few
Wild Latins From the barbarian West
Whose Greek was in their hearts, not on their lips,
Who gave their loyalty late to their liege lord,
The Emperor, who could have safely lain
A shadow's golden-caged slave, obedient,
Well-fed, well-bedded from the shadows'
Catalogues of pretty girls and prettier boys,
A memory of what had been a man.

But Constantine stood proudly on his walls,
Defiantly, bravely, sadly there on
His crumbling ancient walls, and gave his faith
To God and the City, to his people,
Even to the faithless ones, even to his death.

And others came, From Rome and Spain and France,
From Germany, and even from the Turks,
Brave, lonely men with reasons of their own
For ending their lives there on the Land Walls.

But they were not enough.  And late that night,
After the last Mass in Hagia Sophia,
The Emperor knew that his was the blood,
The blood of sacrifice that would be shed
In remembrance of ****** Golgotha,
For the people he was given to rule,
For the people for whom he chose to die,
Sheltering, protecting, until his end.


A Gospel

No angel appeared to the Emperor,
No voice of God from a burning bush
He parted himself from his followers
And for a few minutes grieved alone

And this was given Constantine to know:

The eternal Constantinople is
Never to be lost, never defeated --
In every Christian flows Dragases' blood
Every village is the Holy City
Every church is Hagia Sophia
Every prayer is a Mass for the Emperor
Every children's foot-race the Hippodrome
Every poor family's poor supper
A banquet under the Red-Apple Tree.
Constantinople will live forever.
Know that, and, laughing, give your last earth-hour,
And your joyful eternity, to God.

Credo

We believe in God's holy empire too,
Byzantium, eternally golden
The Red-Apple Tree in the eastern sun
The City that echoes with laughing light
Through memory and history and beyond.
We believe in God and His Emperor,
And we believe that in the absence of
The Emperor, even then we must be
The Emperor's subjects, stubborn and true,
Wherever God has chosen to send us.
We then must rule our passions and our hearts,
Tend our gardens as if they were Eden --
Because they are -- and care for our children
As if angels were visiting tonight,
Until our God restores our Emperor,
Restores His City where the Earth-halves meet,
And finally, some day, some happy day,
Returns Himself to sit and rule enthroned
In His Three Romes, and in Jerusalem.


Communion

Constantine shook himself, and gave commands,
Commending all to duty and to God.
Above him the dome of Hagia Sophia
Glowed eerily on that last, wild night
While lightning slashed among the sliding clouds
Byzantium rose again for one glorious hour
And the world marveled that such things could be,
That Christ and Rome and Constantinople
Could be found in one man at the end of an age.

Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, death
Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, screams
Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, death
Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, screams
The glory is that there is no glory.
Chaos.  Horror.  Stench.  Sweat.  Pain.  *****.  Death.
Hi­s -- His -- body broken again for us.

On that dark morning of a dark new age,
Constantine turned and faced its slithering shadows
With a Byzantine end to his ruler's art,
With the peace of Christ and a hero's heart.

DISMISSAL

The Mass is ended.  Byzantium is ended.  
Escape, if you can -- make Byzantium live.
Escape to live in some peace, if you can.
Escape in peace to love and serve in exile.
Escape in peace to love and serve the Lord.

"O Lord save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance;
And to Thy Faithful king grant victory over the barbarians.
And by the power of Thy Cross, protect all those who follow  
          Thee"1

Not an End at All

1Troparion for the Sunday of the Elevation of the Cross, Divine Prayers and Serves of the Catholic Orthodox Church of Christ, copyright 1938.

Many thanks to Mr. Tod Mixson and others of St. Michael's Orthodox Church for assistance at many points, both liturgical and artistic, to Dr. Dan Bailey, of happy memory, and Dr. John Dahmus of Stephen F. Austin State University.

skirting the rusty rose of a brooch
dangling on canvas bodice as she leans
tightly over me; the waves of wrinkles
on her be-bangled red hands pointing to the
wrong punctuation; this is dream-building
in the fifth grade; don't end the dream
too soon, she gruffs sing-song like
a prize-winning racoon; and still applauds
the bricklaying we so clumsily feign
for our castles in the sky; tho she, too,
dies of cancer in the last year; the tubes at the
very last weaving through the canvas;
something of a final stitch to the making
of a dream; and so i think all dreams in me
they die in darkness and still i wonder
what happens to the crenellated castle
walls i abandoned scores of years and
many As ago; and still we pat our doeeyes
on their infinitile heads and **** our
cynical shacks-by-the-forest-fires back
into our heads, begging beneath the
damp light of early-onset reverie: save
us, won't you, from the stiff stillborn of
dreams our generation lost to the fantasy
of getting what the saddest, dreamless
dollared dupes decree; oh be better yet for me,
my naive sums, and take your brick-laying;
your canvas sheen; your impossible, doubtless
dreams with broach and gnarl; with gruff and
soundless trill; your soulful self metastasized  
with every beat
to the happy grave.

His observant mind held
      Strands of coded bonds
      Fond of expressions for
      Incisive presentations
      Of what could be foretold.

      He metastasized thought
      And tempted his youth,
      unraveling behavior
      favoring adult endeavors
      And here I permit my fist
      Beneath my chin in complacency

      Statuesque, pondering whether
      My decisions are remnants of bloodlines,
      Coupled complexes attractive to be subtractive
      To my true desires

      Whether his dismays maybe in part
      To inquiries of adolescent angst
      The repetitive cycle remains with
      Finding one’s embodiment of identity

It seems a scant few weeks ago,
as the leaves turned red and gold,
You left us for retirement;
at the Jersey shore I'm told.

Envious co-workers wished you well,
with cards and gifts besides.
We did not know, nor did you know
that a tumor lured inside.

Inoperable, the Doctors say,
radiation will be tried.
When cancer has metastasized
time isn't on your side.

I'm grateful that you had the chance
to see your girl a bride.
Your doting husband doubtless hoped
to spend years by your side.

We're still hoping for some miracle;
some treatment yet untried-
To counter a prognosis grim
so Death may be denied.

When golden years are leaden days,
where morphine spells relief
The game of Life in Sudden Death
will likely come to grief.

I stood at her bedside quietly.
She looked peaceful.
She looked happy.
I held my siblings' shoulder as they cried.
I knew it would be hard for them.
I would be there for them.

It was just twenty minutes ago.
I had looked over, her oxygen tube was no longer moving.
Not in the rhythmic way it does when she breathes.
It was still, still as stone.
I swallowed thickly before speaking aloud.
My mom was quick to get up to make sure.
I hesitated before following her over.

I now waited for my little sister to take a breath.
Her sobs racked her body and I rubbed her shoulder.
They'd never lost someone before.
It wouldn't be goodbye forever,
but for a while.

They both said goodbye with sobs.
I stayed there quietly.
She looked tranquil.
No pain.
No worry.

~

I was the only child to attend the viewing.
She looked cold this time.
Pale, a little blue.
And yet still so beautiful.
She was only in a cardboard box.
I'd wished we brought nail polish.
I believe my my mom said goodbye there.
I stayed quiet.
I never said goodbye.

I wish I would have just said goodbye.
I wish she would've taken more pictures.
I wish I knew more about her.
I wish she never got cancer.
I wish I would have just said goodbye.
I wish she never smoked.
I wish the cancer never metastasized.
I wish she was here.
I wish I would have just said goodbye.
I wish I didn't have to take care of her with my mom at 15.
I wish she never became weak.
I wish she stayed healthy.
I wish I would have just said goodbye.
I wish I would have cried.
I wish I would have felt.
I wish I would have just said goodbye.

Goodbye grandma.
I love you.
But it isn't goodbye forever.....
Right?

to cut. to open up veins and let the reddened river rush, releasing me. to have the sobering throb of sliced skin dull the agonizing ache from within. it was my little secret. self-harming is a taboo subject. viewed as having no control over emotions or thoughts...well, i guess they weren't wrong. in the davis household, we do no have room for feelings. we were trained not to bring unpleasantries to the table because heaven forbid someone became uncomfortable. heaven forbid if someone caught a glimpse of the tiresome face behind the painted porcelain.
in middle school, the sickness started. the tumor grew inside my chest, making the task unbearably difficult to just simply live. impossible to drag myself out of bed because i couldn't find one ******* reason to pick myself up and face the day. it metastasized to consume my body. everywhere the darkness touched. blinded my eyes and deafened my ears to where i was left alone with it.
i became bitter due to the obvious state i was in. scars and fresh gashes striped my wrists and legs, razorblades and knifes left on the nightstand. few would ask and fewer i would tell, offering half-assed coverups. but they bought the weak stories because if they didn't, they would become involved. heaven forbid. and my parents didn't notice a single thing as i was destroying myself before their eyes. all i needed was for someone to reach out. someone to care enough to tell me to stop. to grab the blade from my hand, look into my swollen eyes, and tell me that i deserved better. that i was worth more. to say that they loved me. they took me to therapy because i needed to talk when i have been screaming this whole time, they just never listened.
so uncomfortable in my sobriety, i searched for any escape. anything to distract me from myself. and i sought for love, because i thought that was what was going to save me. but all paths, rocky and disastrous, led to dead ends and i found myself more alone than ever. i needed love. but i looked for it in all the wrong places. i would not find love in the stranger laying next to me. i would not find love in the meaningless touch of another. i couldn't. i had to find it in myself.because the love of yourself offers the sturdy foundation on which others can build. without that, the wall that they had constructed would be in vain, collapsing with the slightest gust of wind.
we were taught that to be alone is a failure when in fact, the real failure is being unable to be alone.

I am a refugee from the City upon a Hill.

My homeland once a resounding light to the nations; has become a convulsing black hole, threatening to devour any semblance of civility.

My City, once a radiant promontory of enlightenment, its illumination of liberty’s searing torch revered, it’s practical striving for democratic wisdom shaping the long arc of the moral universe emulated by people of good will across the globe; now lies in state as a mordant corpse, serenaded by a funereal chorus of laughing griffins, a dead patriarch surrounded by the ruins of a once opulent now sacked city, a bygone home to the scattered disassemblage of a once noble people.

I recoil from the rancor of extreme partisanship, the gerrymandered apportionment of citizenship rights, the buoyant vindictiveness celebrated by small minded ignorance.

The blind allegiance to jingoistic nationalism, the adulation of Blueline authoritarianism, the fealty to imperial militarism and the dangerous trajectory of it’s awful consequence yet to come, enthralls me with dread.

Compelled patriotism enforced by threats of faux patriots, amoral ammosexuals, their small hands stroking quick triggers of long guns, genuflecting in mastabutory glee to the preeminence of 2nd Amendment atrocities, angling crosshairs of resentments to firmly fix a promise of ghoulish body counts, a rationalized apocalypse a captive people must suffer to underwrite profiteering gunrunners who blindly defile the constitutional tenets of life, liberty and happiness, the blood splattered keystones of our true exceptionalism.

Xenophobia and racialism, are stoked and celebrated by the City’s chief executive, his impish smile mouths Blood and Soil sloganeering, he solemnly salutes the Confederate flag while cheering torchlight processions of enraged White Nationalists marching to the drum of the Grand Republic’s midnight dirge along the once hallowed trail of Jeffersonian Democracy and a sacred place of secular enlightenment and higher learning. His gleeful decrees tweet the destruction of families and his police agents mouth holy scriptures to justify the imprisonment of children.  These vandals rhapsodically paint images of phantasmagoric nightmares trampling and mocking democratic ideals, resurrecting long settled conflicts, terrible tests a once great City rose to extinguish, now swelling numbers of craven citizens ardently embrace Klansmen, insurrectionists and ****’s as righteous brethren.

The madness of chauvinism and racial supremacy has fully metastasized within the body politic, polluting the mind, infecting the bloodline with a virulent strain of a white blood cell disease coursing through the veins of republican citizenship.

A City stolen from the Native inhabitants, ethnically cleansed and its former inhabitants remanded to the prisons of reservations, a City constructed on the backs of chattel slaves, erected on the graves of exploited wage laborers, provisioned by the ruthless denigration of the earth’s bounty, law and order mandated by criminalizing the marginalized, repressing the civil liberties of outliers and subjecting women to a perpetual status as the second *** underclass; has failed to repent and steadfastly refuses to make reparations for its sinful past has made the City uninhabitable.

The embrace of tolerance and diversity is the balm, the curate that can salve the oozing sores crippling the City. Nativist prejudice is a long protracted path that City citizen’s find impossible to exit. The malevolence that consumes the mind and moves the soul of a desperately spiteful people, who take delight and find it necessary to dehumanize and imprison alien races and creeds to maintain vapid notions of superiority, profane the ideals of a republican calling. They ruefully ignore the beacon of light warning of the dangerous shoals that lay ahead. The ideals of the great democratic experiment on course to be dashed on the jagged rocks of ignorance, fear, and anger. The doomed City has set a course that endangers its embargoed citizens. Travelling in steerage, a captive body, believing they are on a course for the rebirth of the City’s greatness are emboldened and chained by the delusions of their self destructive steadfast resentments.

My home City has become unknown to me.  I have become a stranger in this strange land. What was once beloved has become insufferable. What was once treasured has become burdensome. The familiar has become fully alien. A terrible avenging apparition haunts and mocks people of good will. My heart is disheveled. My spirit bruised. My body literally aches from the wounds exacted from the deconstruction of my beloved metropolis.

I stand stranded at the border of incivility. Bewildered I peer through a protective wall of concertina wire, eyeing the imprisoned haughty souls of fully enfranchised citizens, bellowing self righteous psalms, singing interminable lamentations of terminal ignorance.

Condemned by their belief in the salvation of violence and recrimination, secure in their faith that their moat of self righteousness shelters them from the gulags of perdition they eagerly proclaim for others, feeling recused from the bane of sinfulness by meager tithes, tumidity and scriptural specificity and the sweet delusional conviction they are the chosen tribe of God’s favor; their aspirations viscerally dashed in blizzards of metaphysical illusion strewn like meaningless confetti onto a passing parade of barbarians who have taken the City as its grandest prize.

Sadly I must withdraw from my beloved City. I retreat to a refuge where the barbarians dare not enter. Their ignorance and stasis weds them to a place far from my sanctuary of choice. May my sanctuary restoreth my soul!

I find refuge in the temples of jazz. I sing arias of lucent improvisation. The freedom of unbridled expression reinvigorates the mind, alighting the emanation of our better angels. The music calibrates my soul with the syncopated beat of an irrepressible life force, the humanity of my welling heart swells on the sonorous oxygen of a lyrical free spirit.

I take refuge in our vanishing mountain wilderness. The natural world offers a solace of solitude, a unrequited impression of scale and a transcendent communion immune from the trampling cacophony of gleeful vandals running rampant through the streets of the City. In winter the summits are capped in crowns of viginal snow, spring awakens a dormant flora, autumn leaves shout the chorus of a seasons glory and summer flowers bloom in multitudes of brilliant colors marking a startling contrast to the fifty shades of gray tattooed onto the City’s restive souls by the purveyors of power.

I find respite on the friendly banks of rivers and breeze swept ocean shores. The perfume wafting along a rivers streaming eddies or a briney snort gulped from the foam of a cresting wave invigorates the lungs, strengthens the heart and clears the mind. The flow of living water heals lifes wounded spirit. It quenches a thirst for justice and nourishes the hope of freedom for all incarcerated souls. The ceaseless roll of the ocean waves prove the enduring power and inevitability of liberty.

I find a good refuge in books. Here I discover a fleeting glimpse of our forgotten love of knowledge and pursuit of truth and rational thought. Enlightenment is the plot of every storyline.

I take refuge in art. I escape into the multiple dimensions of aesthetic beauty trouncing the twittering banality of fad, pornographic affectations and consumer fethishism. Glimpsing beauty while beauty is there to behold and the diligent practice of its creation is an answer to a higher calling.

I take refuge in my dog. Unconditional love and trusted friendship are values at peril in a transactional world; virtues nobily demonstrated and freely given by our canine and feline friends.

I take refuge in late night comedy. Working the midnight shift, whistling past the graveyard with a hearty laugh helps to while away the desperate hours. The rancid fruits of our labor leave a bitter taste in our mouths, humor is the bread of life that clears the palate and makes the terrible sufferable.

My lasting sanctuary is the stronghold of faith, forbearance and tolerance. I trust the long arc of justice will bend toward the righteous and offer a pathway of redemption for all desecrated souls.

I take refuge in the Blues. Let my lamentations turn to songs of joy and deliverance.

I take refuge in prayer. May my places of exile restore and heal my denigration. May God deliver us to a good destination. May our generational wanderings in the desert of desolation end in the discovery of a good place of habitation.

In the solitude of prayer may I experience catharsis, may my petitions find an open ear, may I achieve clarification, may my pious supplication be genuine , my conviction firm, a direction found, a decision made, a call to action clear.  May I become a healer of the breach.

May Your grace be sufficient for me.

I declare my exile over. I will return to my City. I will attempt to rekindle the extinguished flame of liberty to dispel the darkness enveloping my City.

Selah.

Mark Almond: The City

Puyallup
6/30/18
jbm

"when was the last time you were truly happy?" she asked, finally looking up from her notebook. making eye contact, i discovered i much preferred her nose buried in whatever she's writing.
i looked away to break the tension, but that only did so much. her beady eyes bored into my soul, trying to pick apart the girl that sat before her.
it would be an exaggeration to say that i never felt true happiness. i'm sure when i was young, naïve, and unscathed by the world, that i was a happy child. however, to be perfectly honest, i could not remember a specific instance.
in middle school the sickness started and grew inside my chest. concreting my heart in its paralyzing notions. it metastasized to consume my body, everywhere the darkness touched. blinded my eyes and deafened my ears to where i was left alone with it. and it owned my life.
granted, there were days where the sun had managed to peak through the thick blanket of clouds. and there were times where i would smile, i would laugh, i would forget about life for a while. but its presence was constant, following me wherever i went. when i would get lost in daydreams, it was always there to tug me back to reality.
when was the last time i was truly happy?
"i honestly don't know."

I read your obit yesterday,
The Wake, the Church ,
the whole nine yards.
I never got to say goodbye
before you ventured off to God.
Strange to see your name in print.
In black and white,it seemed so odd.
a casualty of carcinoma
metastasized from a black mole.
Are you a star within the night
looking down from high above?
or are you hiding in the ground
awaiting the last trumpet's sound.
Was your life all that you'd hoped
while, like a snowflake,
you fluttered down.
through time to eternity
to briefly linger
then be gone.

love is a cancer
love is a cancer because
even though you feel optimistic about your prognosis
even though you still have delusions about your (im)mortality
cancer is cancer
and with cancer, there is only one way this can end

love is a cancer
because you hear the stories
you see the victims
but you always roll your eyes and say
"that'll never be me"
but it will be you
love is a cancer
and i am the patient

love is a cancer
and i met you in a support group
we commiserated over our shared illness
then overcame it together
hand in hand, we thought we were safe
but love is a cancer
and you will never be safe

love is a cancer
and cancer is cruel
as you regained your strength, i lost mine
your love is a tumor
at first it was so small
i didn't notice a difference
but with each new time you let me down
that tumor inside me grew and grew
until one day it overtook me
there was nothing we could do

love is a cancer
like all illnesses
you think it can be treated
i sat through long hours of radiation
i sat soggy from the chemo
my lips, chapped and faded
longed for your sweet kiss
even thought i felt it once-
but alas, your touch was only a dream
a side effect from my killing savior
love is a cancer
and my love, my darling-
it has metastasized

love is a cancer
and i was the patient
in just five months, i have grown
jealous, rail-thin, and prone to paranoia
a shell of who i am
who i used to be
now i am stuck here, useless and helpless
i lack the weakness to hand over my life
i lack the strength to say goodbye
five months ago, i was optimistic
since of course i am invincible
but i am not invincible
because cancer is cancer
and with cancer, there is only one way this will end

Today I sat down to write a note
That turned into a novel
That morphed into a saga
That grew into a multi volume series,
And I finally lifted my pen mid word,
Done with it but
Not done.

Today I sat down to pen a single feeling,
But it metastasized into
A whirling, swirling ball of
Confused and jumbled emotions,
And I stopped mid metaphor,
Done with it but
Not done.

Today I sat down to be simple,
But I soon realized
Nothing is ever simple
Or easy,
Or single faceted,
Or straightforward,
And I halted mid thought,
Done with it but
Not done.

Today I think I'm going to step away,
And not put pen to paper for another day.
For I think, for now, I am done.

In the bowels of a prison, in a tomb of concrete, for twenty three hours a day-
The “Teflon Don” was alone all that time, free only to scream, curse, or pray.
To seek refuge in madness most men would resort, but that was not John Gotti’s way.
He was chained when he showered; by the guards he called cowards,
he saw the Sun seldom these days.

His mind oft would drift back to better days at the Bergin hunt and fish-
Playing cards with friends and cronies who indulged his every wish..
He recalled how he rose to be Don; it was a blood drenched throne,
but, unlike his predecessor, he would die slowly and alone

Cancer took his lower jaw; he gummed what food he ate.
Four grey walls surrounded him, the door an iron gate.
His tumor soon metastasized; that death was imminent was plain.
Although John Gotti was in agony he took nothing for the pain.

He would not chance a mental lapse, a confession overheard.
He would not give the ******* that; he would not say a word.
He died choking on his own blood, his corpse lay still and cold.
It was then, and only then, the Feds released their hold

They say
That no two loves are the same
That is probably the truest statement I have ever heard
I loved you so hard I gave you all of my pieces and left none for myself
You are a cancer that I wanted
A cancer that started in my mind and metastasized to my heart
I told you that I could read you like an open book
then I told you I didn't know why
That was a lie
It's because you're an open book and I've read and re-read all of your pages and I've memorized every single syllable of every word up to the pages we started to write together
I don't need to memorize those pages
Those are the pages that are so ingrained that no amount of alcohol, no amount of drugs, no amount of time could ever hope to wear away the carving of our pages on the walls of my heart
Now all I want to do is feel numb to this pain
Like you have felt for so long
Because of someone else
I use old coping mechanisms for today's hurt
They don't work
this pain is too new
I want to get so unbelievably drunk that I forget what your name tastes like
It's funny because
You're mother was always right
She knew we weren't ready
Why the **** does your mother always have to be right
Now
I'll forever see you in the face of every girl I meet
And I don't want to see any face other than yours

I've got a problem that no words can fix.
It’s a crucifix, wear it every day around my neck.
The childhood trauma of a disease ridden drama;
A youth wasted in worry and torture and sadness;
No gladness but anger at things uncontrollable.
Resentment, attachment, love's crazed half madness;
The terror of time waiting at a doorstep.
And touch of death that I never wanted.
I didn’t ask for the future, the one that I got,
But I paid for it anyways, at the price it was bought.
Two prices in shambles, yeah me and my ma.
Our middle names signal to valuables lost.
It was slow, it was painful;
I was mad, now I'm shameful.
To not have given all of my love to mother so deserving;
Who served me and loved me and put me above her.
And it breaks me at night, my will and my heart.
We’re apart and I get that, so I guess that's a start.
But it’s a tragedy happened and they'll never understand;
How hard it is to get out of the bed, clear my head,
Shake of the sadness and instead focus, get through each tiny moment,
And let go of the pain, ‘cause you can't ever show it.
Even harder, on edge, with reminders during the day;
Even when I relax, it seems to get me anyways:
In movies and shows and television and songs.
She appears in places where she doesn’t belong,
In symbols and characters and phrases and themes.
But she used to belong, and she used to be here;
And after school, ask me, “How was your day, Al-pal, dear?”
“Good, the norm.” Then I go to my room.
I left a mother, why wonder, I didn’t love her.
One occasion, my grandma spoke:
"This might be the last Christmas you have with your mother."
Trying to chide a family and remind them to fix their blunders.
And I was so mad, nah you're wrong, she won't be gone.
She’ll keep around for the next one, no doubt in my mind.
And I kept those thoughts in my mind, stupid mistake,
Such denial at the finality of my reality and the harsh truth of my life and hers.
So I let my ma go, ‘cause we argued, and I was tired
Of being tried and not being admired,
Being faulted and criticized.
…Then her cancer metastasized.
At a point where no one noticed,
And she got diagnosed with
Leptomeningeal carcinomatosis.
My mind slightly paralyzed,
Quite surprised, hypnotized, waited for it to stabilize.
Then I became demoralized and desensitized.
So I stopped staying home much, because I felt pressurized.
And, no, I never apologized.
Because I never believed my mom would be left behind.
Strongest woman I ever met, didn’t believe death could touch her.
'Til he knocked on our door and said Debbie comere.
Yeah well ******* death, you can’t have my ma.
But her breath slowed, and she whispered “No, I'll go.
The ol' reaper, he seems kind of nice,
What could go wrong? I'll be back, don’t you think twice.”
And since then the moments have turned to seconds and ticks on the clock.
Days and months later, I'm still waiting for another knock.
Waiting to give her a hug, cry a thousand and one tears,
Ask her for forgiveness for all of the years.
Take her in my arms, and let all of her faults go,
Cause bless my mom,
She was important.
But I never really seemed to know.
And I spend more time thinking about her now,
After the fact;
Wasted tears towards a face that's never coming back.

CANCER IS A VITAMIN-DEFICIENCY DISEASE: HOW TO CURE IT: DO NOT SUBMIT TO RADIO- & CRYO-ABLATIVE & CHEMO- “THERAPIES” — TAKE PANCREATIC ENZYMES — AVOID CERTAIN FOODS & HABITS — TAKE VITAMIN B17 (1 to 6 grams daily on a full stomach) AND THE VITAMINS LISTED BELOW — EAT THE CARCINOLYTIC FOODS LISTED BELOW — “Therapeutic” radiation, in any amount, harms living tissue. (Röntgen rays, electromagnetic radiation, x-rays, x-radiation, ionizing radiation, corpuscular radiation can be implemented for diagnostic purposes, but never for therapeutic benefit.) Chemo- “therapy” poisons healthy tissue [necrocytotoxin – a toxin that produces death of cells]. Of the 4 protocols in traditional (allopathic) cancer “therapy”: surgery (cutting), radiation (burning), cryo-ablation/cryosurgery (hypothermia) & chemo/chemical/chemicocautery (poisoning/toxifying), only manual surgery possesses some legitimacy when malignant (cancerous) growth has reached a certain stage. It is far better to avoid cancer than to treat it. Cancer is the body's inability to stop the process of healing, the same natural process in producing a placenta (that one pound ***** attached to the uterine membrane which serves to nourish a developing baby). The essential anti-cancer (tumoricidal) vitamin is VITAMIN B17 (known as Amygdalin, and as Laetrile when synthesized from apricot pips). If you have cancer you must greatly reduce, or avoid: caffeine, tobacco, red meat, alcohol, corn syrup, cane sugar, tomato products. [U.S. cancer affliction rates: the year 1900 : 3%; 1950 : 20%; 1972 : 27%; 1999 : 39%; 2020 : 50%]

VITAMIN B17 is abundant in these foods: the seeds of apples, loquats, pears, pumpkins, watermelons; as well as in apricot kernels, bamboo shoots, barley grass (research: Dr. Yoshihide Hagiwara) & wheat grass, beet tops, bitter almond, blackberries, boysenberries, brewers yeast, brown rice, buckwheat, cashews, cassava root, cassava manioc, cherry kernels, cranberries, currants, eucalyptus leaves, fava beans, flax seeds, garbanzo beans, gooseberries, guyabano, huckleberries, lentils, lima beans, linseed meat, loganberries, macadamia nuts, millet, millet seed, peach kernels, pecans, plum kernels, pokeberries, prickly ash bark, quince, raspberries, sorghum cane syrup, spinach, sprouts, tapioca (manioc), vetches and watercress. A person whose diet is deficient in these nitrilosidic foods (those foods rich in Amygdalin, the substance of which the molecularity is 1 part: the natural analgesic benzaldehyde, 1 part: hydrogen cyanide, 2 parts: glucose) is incapable of stopping the over-production of healing cells thus this person has cancer. To aid the pancreas a patient should take pancreatic enzymes & eat fresh pineapple and papaya. Supplement your diet with the nutrients (of which 95% of Americans are chronically deficient) that compliment Laetrile (vitamin B17): zinc (which is the transport mechanism for Laetrile/vitamin B17) ~ vitamin C (build up to 6 grams a day) ~ manganese ~ magnesium ~ selenium ~ vitamins B6, B9 & B12 ~ vitamin A ~ vitamin E (at least 2,000 I.U.) A cheap, over-the-counter, *****-analysis pregnancy test is accurate in 92% of cases at detecting cancerous cell activity in the body. Men & women can test for cancer upon rising with a pregnancy test as cancer and pre-embryonic cells are virtually indistinguishable (in functionality) from cells designated as: adenocarcinomal, adenocarcinomic, adenocarcinomical, ameboid, amnic, amnional, amnionic, amniotic, amniotical, anaplastic, anaplastical, angiogenetic, angiogenetical, angiogenic, angiogenical, angiosarcomal, astrocytomal, astrocytomic, atypical, basal, basaltic, blastocystic, blastomal, cacoethic, canceral, cancerial, cancerian, cancerigenic, cancerigenical, cancerillic, canceritic, cancerogenic, cancerogenical, cancroidal, cancerophilic, cancerus (archaic), cankerous, carcinoembryonic, carcinoembryonical, carcinogenic, carcinogenical, carcinoidal, carcinomal, carcinomatoid, carcinomatosic, carcinomatous, carcinomic, carcinosarcomal, cholangiocarcinomal, chondrosarcomal, chordomal, dedifferentiated, desmoistic, desmoplastic, desmoplastical, dyscrasial, dysgerminomal, dysgerminomic, dysplastic, dysplastical, embryonal, embryonic, embryonical, endometrial, endophytic, epithelial, epitheliomatous, endophytic, exophytic, extra-embryonic, fetational, fetoplacental, fetoplacentic, foetational, fibroblastic, germinogenic, gestational, glioblastomal, hemangiosarcomal, histometaplastic, Hürthle, hypermutable, hypermutagenic, Kaposian, leiomyosarcomal, leukemiac, leukaemial, leukemial, leucaemicus, leukaemic, leukaemical, leukemic, leukemical,  leukocythemic, leukocytomic, liposarcomal, lymphomal, lymphomatous, lymphomic, macroglobulinemiac, malignal, malignant, malignantal, malignantic, malignus, medulloblastomal, melanocytic, melanomatous, melanotic, metastatic, metastatical, metrial, Müllerian, mutagenic, mutagenical, mutated, mutational, mycoplasmal, mycoplasmic, mycoplasmical, myelodysplastic, myelodysplastical, myelomal, myelomatoid, myelomonocytic, myelomonocytical, myeloproliferative, myxoid, myxoidic, necrogenic, necrogenous, neo-blastic, neo-embryonic, neo-fetal, neo-formative, neo-genetic, neo-genetical, neo-plasiac, neo-plasmatic, neo-plasmatical, neo-plasmical, neo-plasmic, neo-plastic, neo-plastigenic, nephroblastomal, neurofibrosarcomal, odontogenic, oncogenic, oncogenical, oncogenetic, oncogenetical, oncologic, oncological, osteosarcomal, paramalignant, paraneoplasmic, paraneoplastic, paraneoplastical, pathogenetic, pathogenetical, pathogenic, pathogenical, placental, placentational, pleiomorphic, pleomorphic, polycythemial, polymorphic, polymorphical, polypoidal, pluripotent, pre-cancerous, pre-embryonal, pre-leukemic, promyelocytic, promyelocytical, proto-embryonic, proto-leukemic, pre-squamous, pre-tumorous, proto-oncogenetic (gene), proto-tumorous, pseudocystical, quasi-neoplastic, sarcoidal, sarcomal, sarcomatous, seminomal, teratomal, teratomatous, theliomal, toxicogenic, toxicogenomic, trophic, trophical, trophoblastic, trophoblastical, trophoplasmatic, trophoplasmic, tumefactive, tumefied, tumid, tumidus, tumoral, tumorigenic, tumorigenical, tumorlike, tumorous, tumoural,
Watch: G. Edward Griffin's "World Without Cancer." https://youtu.be/tPADSv3XAv0
Amygdalin is a natural anti-cancer agent : PMID: 31958042
IN BRIEF Concerning Cancer: 1. Take a pregnancy test just after waking up. For men a positive result means either cancer or a false positive. Take another test the next day. If a man gets 3 positive results then likely he has cancer somewhere. For women a positive result means (if she's able to become pregnant) she's pregnant or she has cancer, or she's pregnant and she has cancer, or a false positive (the test result is wrong). 2. Several positive pregnancy test results = cancer. What next? STOP eating red meat, sugar, corn syrup. STOP drinking *****. STOP (or at least cut back on) smoking. 3. Eat fresh pineapple & papaya. Take vitamin B17 (at least 1 gram daily) and wheat grass and/or barley grass liquid or capsules (they're rich in vitamin B17), on a full stomach daily (you can't overdose on them ~ they're not poisonous). Take a zinc supplement. Take pancreatic enzymes. REVIEW: TAKE pregnancy tests to detect cancer. TAKE vitamin B17 (and as many of the listed vitamins as you can, especially zinc). Eat fresh pineapple & papaya. STOP eating red meat & cane sugar. It will take several weeks on B17 therapy to turn out negative pregnancy test results. The tumor WILL NOT shrink much even after the cancer is gone because only 10% of the tumor was cancer. The tumor MAY swell temporarily as the vitamin B17 kills malignant cells. NOTE: Vitamin B17 therapy WILL NOT destroy the tumor! Vitamin B17 therapy will destroy the malignant cells (cancerous cells) of the tumor and within the tumor. Only 5% to 10% of the cells comprising a tumor are cancerous cells. In time the tumorous growth will be absorbed, in whole or in part. Unless the tumor is cosmetically displeasing, impinging nerves or blood vessels or hampering normal ****** function then let it be.

The life expectancy for American medical doctors is 58 years.
The life expectancy for Haitian voodoo witch doctors is 62.7 years.

WEB: Dr. Dean Burk (March 21, 1904 – October 6, 1988), head of the cytochemistry section of the National Cancer Institute has reported that in a series of tests on animal tissue, the B17 had no effect, but released so much cyanide and benzaldehyde when it came in contact with cancer cells that not one of them could survive. He said, “When we add Laetrile to a cancer culture under the microscope, we see the cancer cells dying off like flies.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Web : In 1972, Dr. Dale Danner, a podiatrist from Santa Paula, Ca., developed a pain in the right leg and a severe cough. X-rays revealed carcinoma of both lungs and what appeared to be massive secondary tumors in the leg. The cancer was inoperable and resistant to radio therapy. The prognosis was: incurable and fatal. At the insistence of his mother, Dr. Danner agreed to try Laetrile, although he had no faith in its effectiveness. Primarily, just to please her, he obtained a large supply in Mexico. But he was convinced from what he had read in medical journals that it was nothing but quackery and a fraud. "Perhaps it was even dangerous," he thought, for he noticed from the literature that it contained cyanide. Within a few weeks the pain and the coughing had progressed to the point where no amount of medication could hold it back. Forced to crawl on his hands and knees, and unable to sleep for three days and nights, he became despondent and desperate. Groggy from the lack of sleep, from the drugs, and from the pain, finally he turned to his supply of Laetrile. Giving himself one more massive dose of medication, hoping to bring on sleep, he proceeded to administer the Laetrile into an artery. Before losing consciousness, Dr. Danner had succeeded in taking at least an entire ten-day supply -- and possibly as high as a twenty day supply -- all at once. When he awoke thirty six hours later, much to his amazement, not only was he still alive, but also the cough and pain were greatly reduced. His appetite had returned, and he was feeling better than he had in months. Reluctantly he had to admit that Laetrile was working. So he obtained an additional supply and began routine treatment with smaller doses. Three months later he was back at work.

   Mr. David Edmunds of Pinole, California, was operated on in June of 1971 for cancer of the colon, which also had metastasized or spread to the bladder. When the surgeon opened him up, he found that the malignant tissue was so widespread it was almost impossible to remove it all. The blockage of the intestines was relieved by severing the colon and bringing the open end to the outside of his abdomen -- a procedure known as colonostomy. Five months later, the cancer had worsened, and Mr. Edmunds was told that he had only a few more months to live.
   Mr. Edmunds, who is a nurse, had heard about Laetrile and decided to give it a try. Six months later, instead of lying on his deathbed, Mr. Edmunds surprised his doctors by feeling well enough to resume an almost normal routine. An exploratory cystoscopy of the bladder revealed that the cancer had disappeared. At his own insistence, he was admitted to the hospital to see if his colon could be put back together again. In surgery, they found nothing even resembling cancer tissue. So they reconnected the colon and sent him home to recuperate. It was the first time in the history of the hospital that a reverse colostomy for this condition had been performed. At the time of the author's last contact three years later, Mr. Edmunds was living a normal life of health and vigor.

For me we it
comes realizing later
that Chris Cornell is gone
same as Dad but different still
we have our Garden
of Sound with weeds sprouting against
the grim Cutter hoping
for a missed experienced

Maybe the refugee's trauma
have dried all the tears on
lonely crowded airfields
of a long ago Vietnam seeding
salt from a Grandmother, mother,
father, aunts and uncles,
paladins in our child eye dry
because of the stampeding Thestrals
we shouldn't see

And now almost 50 we know
better the slings and arrowheads
of fortune the calcifying currency
souls make by roughing the round edges
of damning tears scattered like petals
over littered cigarettes killing
us softly because they've metastasized
from intellectualized Lung ****
to a flowering carcinoma

I wonder if he knew I was there.
My father, that is.
We were not very close at that time.
Typical things
Hair too long
Wasting energy on foolish things
And on foolish friends.
He worked too hard for nothing I wanted
And I worked too hard at nothing.
Words grew sparse with increasing distance.
When the time came that I was not quite a man
And he dwindling away.
I would go to the hospital on my lunch break,
Creep into his room.
At first he put on the brave face
"Gonna fight this bear"
But the bear was tireless and metastasized.
Often when I arrived, ***** and sweat stained
He would be asleep
And so I would sit nearby
And if he woke we would talk.
I would encourage him to eat
And he'd say "I'll try".
But often my time would pass
His eyes still closed.
And I would creep back out.
Decades later, I wonder
Did he know how many hours I spent
Wordless and waiting.
Unaware of what I needed to say
And believing there was nothing worth hearing.

Dear Dear:

I heard you're not well, and I'm sorry as hell. Nobody, not me, not anyone we know, could see it coming. Was it metastasized kindness with a primary worry; some say eroded patience and promises, a tightening of throat, are systemic symptoms of a body of hope.  I can send you the quote:

                               Drs. say excessive and extensive heart
                               failure is brought on by an over-exposure
                               to caring, and hence, is co-existent with
                               the rapacious spread of the disease.
                               Fortunately we've isolated the hosts.

I was sorry as hell to hear you're not well, and I asked,
Why you, not another?
But your immune to such an infectious question.
And Dear, I'm sad to say,  there's no remedy. You're  stricken with being a mother.

My yard was always filled with roots
knotted in unconceivable ways,
always stemming back to the pines
from which they came.

The grandest gripping roots
lead to a twenty-five foot red pine
which stood directly next to the
smaller of its kind.

Its arms, always protected
the younger from snow, sleet
and the blistering sun
during the summer months.

But on a distinct fall day,
the pine’s roots began to retreat
back to its feet, slowly slithering away
from where the others lay.

It's branches did the same,
descending down to the trunk,
rapidly wilting, it's caressing hands
no longer kept the promise once took.

That eve, in the bend of a bare branch lean,
necrosis from outside influence,
festering fungi and insects,
bubbled an unexpected illness.

Creeping, crawling, parasitic pressure
cracked bark and tore ramus connections.
Giving way, its once mighty arms,
crashed and smashed falling apart.

No one knew of the metastasized wound,
only that their protector was there
in decent health, in loom of
the discovery of the crude truth.

The passage of time
consumed the pine,
it's contents returned to the ground,
absorbed by its younger kind.

My yard is still tangled in roots,
not a change since the fall day of decay.
The pines continue to grow,
with lessons taught from their mother's bones.

He’d been away for any number of years,
Days cascading over the spillway of time
Into pools of weeks, oxbows of months,
And though the town was much as he remembered it
(Though a little more tattered and careworn:
Another broken windowpane here,
A wall in grave need of paint there,
One or two more storefronts gone to plywood)
The cemetery was all but labyrinth to him,
A corn maze of granite and narrow drives,
The plots having metastasized, the stones having spread
Like so much crownvetch overpowering the simple grass,
But he’d been able, after any number of false-starts,
Uncounted instances of double-backs and do-overs
To locate his father’s marker
(The man gone some forty years now,
Taken by…well, who knows what
His mother, stunned by the prospect
Of having to step into the dual role
As nurturer and breadwinner,
Too stunned to even think of requesting an autopsy.)
He’d come, ostensibly, to make his peace
(Whatever that hackneyed phrase entailed)
But he’d ended up, if not as mute as the stone he faced,
No more than a cow-country Caliban,
Haltingly sputtering bits and bobs of half-phrases
Concerning the implacability of accidents, the vagaries of chance
The coffin-lid limits on mere men and women.
He’d given up the ghost, finally,
And as the daylight slipped away on the bumpy old horizon
He’d simply brushed some dried bird guano from the gravestone,
Then picked the dead bits from the flowers
Doing their level best to hold on
In the urn he’d wrestled from his mother’s ancient station wagon
Two, perhaps  three, days ago
Before settling back into the car to try to divine the way
Back to the main road
(He’d found it in surprisingly short order,
And perhaps a quarter-mile or so down the road,
He’d come upon a small rabbit,
Frozen mid-lane by his headlights,
Finding himself in a world not of his making
Not knowing whether to flip or fly;
He’d missed it by mere chance, nothing more,
And he wondered if the poor thing
Would be so lucky with the cars behind him.)

An onomatopoeia
From another time,
And yet metastasized into this age
Of silent computation—
Faster than thought.
Seamless auditory stimulation
Permeates;
Many cannot go without a soundtrack
In which to willfully drown.

Click...whirrr...
Another ubiquitous day dawns;
The moon falls and the sun rises
And the bright little creature
Emerges from the darkness
To end the oblivion,
To replace,
To put an end to the silent pain.

Flashing grasp of an idea
Before our youths were ever cashed in.
Held onto our chips, played close to the vest
                    in snow.
You were never enough sleeping,
And I guess I was just dreaming
                    of passing
                        ships
                    in the night
            and your signal lights
                        aglow.

                  ...in the foam...

Adventure was calling a heart slow to age,
the same as it had back in our young Old Days.
               So, some things don't change.

I remember, in the Winter,
Trudging quick to campus coffee shop.
Your wet hair frozen, and my breath in that
                    moment...

Springtime flash of our confessions
Just as our youths were getting cashed in.
Released all our chips we'd held close to our chests.
                    Let go.
We were lovers for a season
'til a sudden Summer leaving
                    a passing
                     of boats
                      in heat
             put our oars down
                and we rowed.

That feeling was calling my heart--"Time to age!"
Still falling, like it had in our young Old Days.
                         I guess some things don't change.

Along the way,
You must have fossilized inside me.
Lightning on waves--
Metastasized my bad dreams.
And, over time, see that I was a distraction
                                   No traction,
                                   No chance,
and no time for empty grief...
                         ...it's only brief, love,
                                still I did sink.

Happy 83rd birthday to thy cremated mom

Harriet Harris fought tooth and nail
Mother succumbed
to terminal illness without fail
Ovarian/ Uterine Cancer to no avail
hosted by death feasted fancy
at Oyster Bay metastasized inducing this male
the sol son to grapple as psyche didst ail.
***********
Major organs compromized grim reaper and
carried corpse into dead zone as a keeper brand
donned as one Canarsie flashy dame grand
ball room dancer didst skittered in right hand
side o' me noggin, the idea flit ta left land
of gray matter thru me mined task didst ex panned

foregoing bidding on e-bay, ruminate how trite
online shenanagins, never asking nor knowing spite
most likely raged within yar being,
which lack of filial duty haint right
to be near where psyche flails quite
understandably, but no matter matthew scott

never did ask, how emotions most clear aflame
with anger writhing asper your terminal plight
vis a vis injustice to ****** desire with shroud of night
arising each morning to brilliant light

ye, thy lover of life becoming ashen gray
with recurring incomplete bucket list that may
already, a dozen plus years ago - neigh
aye methinks, so much deprived of grandchildren ply
their oars thru the time stream, how **** sigh
to partake whence thee drew final breath thy
avoid seeing thee stiffen with rigor mortis, why...

did unlucky dice throw of fate
rob and steal unattained goals ye strove with grate
fully before out bidden by dead souls, who hate
mortals to complete, thus truncate a lifelong mate
to papa, whom recouped severe loss, though his pate

undoubtedly flits with remembrance
of thee one he did highly rate
despite occasions, where spats hood did vitiate

this son feels he did not booster morale at all
with Huzzah, but stood mute in proximity
when ye didst call
in kitchen of century old stone
mansion built and hall

ways echo wing the absence sans pall
in droning sounds of silence, a squall
vacuumed a key per, a gal fairly tall
whose son now reflects how many a wall
he figuratively erected shuttered from y'all

that home razed, yet memory of complex edifice
still intact, averse to let eyes sweep, the home I miss
analogous to house at Pooh’s Corner
viz shared with a younger and older loving sis

both edging into their twilight zoned time on earth
re: the outer limits of expected longevity, yet stoking
the coals essence of each their respective hearth
324 Level Road Collegeville above recaptured
with recollections of merriment and mirth
oft occasions this sol heir withholding telling worth

thee ness, and must therefore purge such grief
considerably less than when pages
of me life seemed like a shuffled sheaf
or soon after yar demise, a sense of drowning
without recourse to being rescued,
nor near enough to grasp hold of any reef

that home stead, blessedly played important role
constituent key residence like quasar pole
sated light years removed from civilization, when goal
acquisition February 28th 1968 won land slide cole

essence tract of idyllic radiance upon open space
already slated tubby outfitted, transformed for race
sing urbanity asper mobile Americans at a pace
greater than mother nature shows amazing grace
as commercialization takes charge and doth efface,

the once bucolic, ecologic, and idyllic
forces this sentimental sir
to latch upon steady brace
bemoaning and tempted to take ace

hip of hemlock to forego discontent with bing hue
man, who cherished tender mother-son glue
and wondrous tribulation, 
I harbored enshrined and unwittingly flew
from pristine sanctuary secured
deeply in consciousness,

which access to retrieve circumstances
of myself as a boy still dwells in this man shun - clew
less nothing can recreate, nor reconstruct boyhood,
teenage and adult hood pangs
scare me wide-awake
whar frightful dreams serve as boo

stirring of dormant sentiment,
especially thee 13th day n 11th month
of each year
the aura, charisma, and persona, veer
dims sum milk of human kindness bequeathed tear
ring inner sanctum, where
this offspring doth miss his mum, he doth rare
lee shed light, only when faux pause (all faux)
aye scrawl a mini opus knowing you will

never be cognizant, extant, for me to grant mere
cathartic expunging in situ flowing emotions hear
able only to live kith and kin or
akin to Rapunzel unfurling tress buffeted hair

inside my being for love unspoken dare
ring father hood got taught true value, sans two beautiful
grand daughters ye would marvel
poignant traits, and disbelief that this bare
wren wove within DNA lasses who usher an air.