Within the four walls of this library
sit three walls packed into the corner;
shelves, stuffed full of books with dog-eared pages
and slip-disc’d spines and fraying edges,
and a big white sign, which dangles from the ceiling
like a megabat hung on a cave mouth, sleeping and dreaming,
the word “NONFICTION” is inscribed on its countenance,
adjacent to signs shouting “MYSTERY” and “SCIENCE
FICTION” and “FANTASY” and “ROMANCE”
and a thousand other sorts of words
for myth and fabrication. But in this corner
live the rest, the et ceteras, the miscellaneous,
the kingdom of protists; for instance, care for some ethics?
Marx’s manifesto is stacked lazily beside a heap of essays by Rand;
you can practically see the two of them, shaking hands
uneasily, the will to never understand already forming
in their brains, and others yet remain;
Capote and the Clutters share shelf space
with the Mansons, hiding helter skelter behind
gnostic gospels and silent springs and a thousand
dreams for Freud to interpret (translated
from German for your convenience); nearby,
Orwell sings war songs in Catalan, accompanied
by the universe’s most elegant superstrings,
and the caged birds, singing of freedom,
harmonizing a melodious cacophony with the song
of the executioner. Butler criticizes his performance,
and she probably would have anyway, but Friedan thinks
he has a certain sort of mystique and Dawkins offers his own critique,
going on about genes and memes, extinction and delusion, but
not hallucinations—Sacks makes the distinction; let us continue
to praise famous men, and their children after them,
these naked apes, with minds so ***** that
they’re riddled with the emperors of all maladies; oh, Morris
Kinsey and Mukherjee could tell you all about these things,
maybe over lunch with Schlosser or dinner with Pollan,
minglings with Machiavelli over affairs of the state,
or affairs of space and a brief history of time; but,
if you're feeling too full to eat, or to pray, or to love,
ask Frankl what to do, let him change your life
with words from decades yore as he keeps on
his search for meaning just like every man before, at least
that's the case when these boys’ lives weren’t preoccupied
by artful war or bright and shining lies. And here,
by the holy bookend, lies some old and antiquated glossary
which lost most of its “glossy” many years ago,
for one flip through the pages will catalogue the changes
between what we thought we knew about the stars
and our bodies and doomsday as recently
as your last birthday, and all the things that everyone says
we now know that we know; speak,
memory, remember all you can
about this endless, sundry cosmos, and
the microcosms that it boasts; bury my heart,
if not at Wounded Knee, then maybe at this
library, where comprehension and speculation
find themselves in coexistence, packed into a single
point resembling the genesis, and fear and hope
take dueling forms, those of fact and mystery;
and now all that’s left to do is read,
until the end of history.

Your eyes are so ******* captivating
and every time you blink,
it’s like a kaleidoscope
of the sweetest colors
and all our memories together.
My, oh, my,
I see microcosms of cosmos in those eyes.
Stop looking at everyone else.
Those galaxies
are
mine.

Summer.

Summer of losing control. Summer of giving up words because my foggy despair has been too much for thinking or writing about the bursting maple leaves or flush of clouds overhead or the thunder of loving and being loved. Summer of hunger. Summer of scrutiny in front of every mirror, deadened while simultaneously feeling like a stripped nerve held to flame. Summer of running from. Summer of going in circles and circles, looking for the unlocked door and finding none, just stoic plaster and echoing vibrations of sadness. Summer of playing both puppet master and marionette, dominating my own strings with an unforgiving hand [we control microcosms when we cannot control larger things; we count and obsess and ritualize because the reality we can't face will devour us if we don’t, and this reality is that life can be as unexpected and gut-wrenching as a small child stepping innocently onto a minefield while We the spectators look on, aghast]. Summer of doubt. Summer of wondering whether or not anyone has any love left for me, and if so, why? Why such an infinite reserve for my struggling tangle of inelegance and repeated failure? Summer of breaking the surface not for myself but for anybody who has ever felt like this, for anyone who has woken up with a hook through their gills and a throat twisted airless by invisible fists, for anybody who’s flexed their jaws in spite of it and let their tongues dance, for anyone brave. Summer of tremendous beauty witnessed from the wrong side of the glass. Summer of sunset and moonrise and daisies, daisies, daisies, so exquisite yet so far away from where I’ve been living; this morgue of nuclear silence and absent pulse. Summer of polarity. Summer of numbness swooping into ecstasy then dipping into bottomless rage with no middle ground, just explosions of zeal and explosions of ache, but always, always explosions. Summer of lightning. Summer of determination. Summer of humidity between two hands holding. Summer of finality and chin lift and aftermath, of rubble as my foundation and destruction as my momentum, and I, rising like a balloon, unstoppable. Summer of transformation. Summer of trying on selves like vintage gowns, rejecting one after the next with the growing panic that accompanies the fact that this is who I am—endlessly, inexorably, relentlessly—that I can try to run from her or shape her into someone else, but she will always return, this girl of hardness and softness, this woman of perseverant fire, this funny little garden of mishap and epiphany, that there is nowhere left to hide, just this room where I stand cornered, forced finally to turn and embrace myself with a fury of welcome.

Last night the moon
Wept her warm tears
For me, and they burned
Dime-sized holes in my
Coverlets. This did not
Concern me, as I knew
That the laborious breaths
Creaking through my
Ivory-wrought sternum
Will soon overturn
In substance.

Strip mines line my
Stomach, and the little
Traffic director inside
Me has declared that
No substance should fill
The hole that should
Hold, wishing to gnaw

The profound depths
That paralyze have
Tunneled to my core again
I was never ready to go
Spelunking, but then
Again, no one is ever ready
For the darker side of the light.

Three striped cats daily demonstrate awakening:

a) BijaChen: startles by pounce onto bed or banging of sunlit window blinds;
b) BlueMonsoon: prefers annoying whining coordinated with scratching at blankets;
c) LadyFiona: chooses a prickly psychic stare into my sleeping consciousness to disrupt dreams. (she must have been a witch's cat).

Sleep you say?

Mr. Rooster, lover of Flathead Lake cherries,
rehearses a  solo operetta while strutting sharp grey claws inches from the screen door.

Doze off?

Thirty small brown-red-yellow-speckled birds usurp seeds at the swinging feeders in frenzied unharmonious clatter,

While the low moan of iron hinged gate closes pale hay and tall horses into the corral.

Rest?

Urgently a  growling lawn mower slashes green strands of life and delicate insects from their microcosms of Little Earth,

And calico barn cats dive from rafters onto feed sacks to devour the crunch of breakfast.

Lao Tzu speaks no sound, eyes watch

Two butterflies sweep though moist morning monsoon air.

When my body turns to dust,
I want the earth to know it.

My knees will filter sunlight,
sparkling shards of broken glass
to feed the turned, fallen leaves.

From my hands will rise a steam,
lost from ghosts of wilted dahlias
and pulling beads from snail shells.

Softening footsteps in numbing silence,
my scalp will take root in boulders:
a lichen stretched anew.

The crunch of my nails will lilt,
a filling sound which bleeds the heart.

My heart, itself, a rotten composition
(spoiled as tender and cloying fruits)
will slip through Her fingers,
drench Her purpose in richness,
and swallow my searing in depth.

My skin, taken first as appetizer,
breeds microcosms of tiny dancers
and will never forget that feeling.

Collapsed and empty, one lung and the other
will cease to feed themselves,
twisting from entrepreneur to altruist.

Other sundry organs, bones, hair and ligaments:
a donation of retribution,
payment for what was stolen,
recompense for an unforgivable abuse.
It is all I have, and it will be everything.

House plants are hostages
we take while we rob  
the bank of life for
all the experience notes we
can carry safely away.

We are using the funds
to build our vivarium
homes, microcosms of
the world beyond our walls
where we first glimpsed
the scheme.

The machinery of the world,
greased by blood and sweat,
remains beyond our control
while at large, yet
under our close supervision
we coax submission
out of our captives for
our own enjoyment:

selfish, ambivalently cruel
benefactors, dispensers of
our plants' waters of life.

I find comfort in the bottom of a swimming pool,
the streams of light overhead
quietly drinking in the water,
lapping at this microcosms feet.  
The familiar weight
in my ears drowns out the noise,
The coolness against my soft skin
feels weightless and beautiful
the eventuality of breaking the surface
is almost sorrowful
No one can touch you here,
like a stone you sink slowly,
you are cut free from the ties
that have held you for so long
and just like the tiny bubbles
you'll race towards the curving surface
and into the light
and realise you were never meant to breathe here.
Not long is left and you break through,
only wanting to escape
back to where everything
was so clear, and so simple.
But, although out of the water,
and into the hands of a new morning
the fingers still curl around your neck,
and you realise
you’ve been holding your breath for a long time
and you're still holding it
And you wonder
if you’ll ever breath again.

alone, there are worse things,
like being an artist
trapped between microcosms,
unable to make eye contact,
or wasting away in suburbia,
stuck on photographs
of Venus and Cetacea,
or reading Bukowski to
a room full of preachers and
PTA goddesses,
or mourning the specimens
spread and pinned to a board.

yes, there are worse things
than alone; did I mention
slithering black nights
and the touch of bare skin
when you've forgotten
how to love?

it's too late to realize
such small truths,
we simply adjust.

Pointless nostalgic,
my only talent is echoing
onto amniotic microcosms,
where singing is the abortion,
of any cerebral commotion.
No courage in my veins
to float on the vibes
of a carcass that remains of me.
licked clean with the searing cure
of a lion, by then confused
with the dense effect
of another space, burned to the ground.
These new sunsets cry raw drops of clay,
still hanging by the thread of these horizons,
while balance bet everything,
on the frustrated sound
of unspoken words.

we were in mutual coordinate
in natural synchrony of our own microcosms.
we were bathed in showers
of the starlit cloak that greets us before the morn.

we were slowly revolving
around our own mutual center of gravity.
we were slowly spiraling
as we near each other's force of attraction.

we saw each other spiraling toward
an event horizon, of which escapes are to no avail.
we were hurtling towards each other,
bracing no impact, but with arms wide open.

we danced 'til the night has passed,
and slowly have i realized the truth of it all.
we danced a moonlight dance,
but it was i, alone in my mind's delusional figment!

In the heart of the cavern, light
that stands ancient behind time, beyond
phenomena, the observer of melodies;
This is where it all began,
those aeons lost when the mollusc
heeded the call to man.

Inward, stalked by worry and loss,
an inversion of the lines of time:
beyond the zero point of recollection,
where zoom microcosms of possibilities
a realm not realm, but like that
an existence beyond existence.

Here, arose an affliction, in
curled expanses that exist as some among
an infinitude of potentials,
worldlines, some dark and featureless,
others growing and meaningless
and some like here where sentient,

observatory, a shadow grows around
the probing ray of infant awareness.

and so the ascent, from light to light
through alleys of darkness. Vast,
the beginnings and interludes
between phantasmagoria; What
accedes of in slumber, the knowledge
of things and nothings.

And up even until the day when
the babe says 'mine'.

Of the two lamps in the room,
my glassy eyes can only tolerate the dimmed glow
of the lower light from the right,
my face basking in the slowly rotating,
barely blowing air from the fan above me.
My face feels flushed,
but not from the semi-sticky early summer heat,
but from the fact that
every time I come back to this room,
I'm reminded of why I left.

The lawyer in me could generate a list,
pros longer than any construction of cons,
yet your name will always reverberate
in the unforgotten corners of my subconscious.

You never loved me like I did you,
and even my romanticized version of you never
saw me the way I
still feel the ghost of you.

I can still feel the crisp fall air from your balcony
and recall the albums and conversations that
complete the track list
of my unrequited love story.

Sometimes it was real,
sometimes it's real,
sometimes it's a dream,
sometimes it's a memory.

And this is the essence of you and me;
it's more questions than answers,
smoke and mirrors and
smoking to make things clearer.

I've never been the same
since you,
but I also don't know how I can ever
get over someone I never really had.

You were mine in microcosms
that were macro extraterrestrial galactic;

was it real?
were we real or
was it all [science] fiction?

Men with rambling fever
Are born not bred
Their diagnoses are terminal
No cure but to go
And they sell their souls to the devil
For a train to hitch a ride on
And they'll die along the highway
While their women stay home
Remaking beds
That have never been slept in

I slept in this morning
Even though I didn't need to
I stretched my limbs
Out into the ocean
Trying to stay afloat alone in my bed
And through my spyglass
I still couldn't find the edge of it
No body of land to stand solidly on
I concluded that beds must be round
Orbiting microcosms floating through apartments
I got up and didn't tuck the sheets in
I got up and didn't make it

I didn't make it through college
Because as soon as I got settled
Into my air mattress
I un-made it
Everything called my name
I tried to ignore the voices
I tried to avoid them
But the mattress deflated quickly
The sails inflated cleaner than a cloudy day
The maps on my wall needed navigating
I had too much exploring to do

I've read about explorers
Men who made their fortunes
Hunting gold and looting temples
Never returning home
Because the beds they left, they had already met
Men who mapped the oceans
And gave their names to continents
Practically for free

I will freely admit that I'm like them
Unable to stop myself
From risking it all
For a chance at nothing at all
Unable to stay in one place
For long enough
To make my bed and lie in it
I will freely admit that rambling fever
is not ladylike
I will freely admit I'm an
Unsettled woman
I will freely admit
I shed lives and beds with purpose
I shed lives and beds like skin

So I watched the dolphins jumping in the bow wave..
And there was no other way to say at it, they were playing
There is no reason to spend the energy needed to swim faster than our boat, or jump above the waves
But they do it
Creatures of the surf and current, but they must feel the same joy
What else could inspire them so? We're not so different.
Our brains have similar structures
All of us are ghosts in our shells, or are our shells what gave rise to the ghosts?
Are we even that much?
Mechanisms driven by chemical, physical, and electrical reactions
Life as an equation, playing out its course on a vast scale
Cells multiply and divide according to fluid mechanics at the earliest stages in development
They arrange themselves as dictated by protein sequences forming
Bodies which are microcosms, ecosystems within ecosystems
See the tortoise with the world atop its back
We are wind dancers on the beach  
Wave swimmers of the sea
Sun takers of the earth
See the earth as a cell
Alive and pulsing at the fringes and from within
Time unfurls before us as the night sky
And we are driven by the forces around us to exist
to fall, break, feel, let go, run through the rain and... be
Laughter, art, math, music, dance, and everything else are ways of making life more bearable
Ways of playing with the world, arranging shapes and sounds and ideas into interesting new patterns
Dancing in the bow wave
But what are we really playing at, and why?
I think we play at being infinite
and infinity plays at being us

Our preconceived notions
can’t seem to be left at the door
as we all seem to meet each other
for the first time, hand shake in check
psychiatrist inspecting psychologist
who to take, what to take, can we partake
in this guessing game of assumptions;
all because we are deeply insecure.

Yes, perhaps the writer even the reader
can take heed even implore the words
from abstracts, to ideas set forth to type
font, confront abound the reflective recollections,
as I form sentences and you figure the syntax.

Seeping through the membranes that we have solely
constructed from the libations and gluttony from opposite
heads to tails; phobic forming channels flipping
ratios of eyes on you, and yourself so to be social
concentrates every weekend, only to dissipate.

What has been lacking is simple genuine
conversation of good morning, how are you ?
exchanging information so to know
one another - that is being social.

The microcosms we place ourselves into are nothing more
than are fathom facades we trace as perimeters so to measure
how much we can let people into our already egocentric lives.

Don’t contest that statement, to some level we all have absolved
in our own thoughts everyday, that we lose sight perhaps
what we see with our eyes should be understood logically
with conscious from the back of our minds.

Tip this scale for which we wait, taking to memory
that we heal as we initiate, and take ourselves
into each others weight, so we can carry on.

I nod pleasantly,
Not absorbing anything -
The wash of pub chat.

Hard tales from hard lives,
Flowing freely; dredged up
As the beers sink down.

I am an island,
Sinking beneath a haze of
Alcohol - lost; alone.

So many pretty things -
So few opportunities
To consolidate!

An alcoholic
Re:lives his past endlessly,
But forgets the now.

Those maudlin souls weep
Into their beers and berate
Lives they have wasted.

In isolation
I observe; ignored, immune;
Free to contemplate.

Pub microcosms
Reflect society's woes
Better than the news.

Friends and foes alike
Are welcome at my table -
But they must behave!

The cute barmaids laugh
At my idiotic quips -
But none take me home!

****-jockey's posing
And idiots simpering -
Lonely souls fishing.

The popular seek
Fawns to flame their ego and cry
When bucks out grow them.

My own company
Can become stale, but at least
I'm not one of them!

Their contempt washes
Over me, but I'll survive -
Laughing all the way!

Do I appear as
These Others? Reliant on
Mates to make me cool?

I see the Cougar -
Self-proclaimed, but warranted -
Prowling for fresh meat.

The sounds of the World
Can break asunder against
My protective walls.

Much information,
Absorbed inadvertently
At the pub - Useless!

I am young,
but I must move slowly.
Wind rushes through me, stirs up
my little cells like waking monsters.
They crank and churn like broken clockwork.
Buried somewhere is the infinite teenager, floating in ecstasy.
She is God.
She is omnipresent and whole.
She is endless abundance.

Walls in my body burst forth
with life and movement:
Vibrating atoms and sprawling bacteria.
I am human.
Thick like sludge, I wade through the day.

I mine for gold in a swamp,
Microcosms and meta-cosmos
spinning frantically in static.  
Under microscopes, life moves still
but here, everything dances.

Microcosms
of one day ventured
2 days gained
the scientific leap of faith
involved in the test tube generation
distills any desire
certain people have
for a little spirituality
in their life.
Although science's progress marches on.
The thirst for something intangible
become more intense in some of us
and more ignored by certain slightly plastic academicians.
Let's don't dehumanize ourselves anymore
by things a frying ourselves though as I call it
****-lysis, (at the ***-sembly hall, for example)
and making a mockery of mankind.
Otherwise another Christ will emerge
There'll be another ***** and Gomorrah
and the hands of time will
be set back 2000 years

*Charles Sturies

Some people make me feel heavy...
They carry their woes chained to the past --
Eyes low, downcast.
Stressing each breath as though it were their last.
And I wonder how long it takes to be comfortable with the weight of dead dreams.
How do they walk around
With the burden of unburied bones on their backs?
Held by conditions of the mind.
Burdened by the size of their gravitas
And they’re falling...
Into themselves crushed by the weight of their own contentment.
That fatal attraction to complacency --
A gravity to destruction --
A psyche made of black holes.
Their thoughts are collapsing
When their microcosms meet reality
Imploding delusions radiating that hopeless flare.
A signal for help.
The meltdown, a mental Chernobyl.
I’m just waiting to for them to blow up praying there won’t be any casualties.
Blow up
Inflated egos with hot air
And dead works
As they babble on in Babylon
Spoon fed trash.
Faith has no room to operate in a mind of science.
What is hope when proof dictates belief?
So they have erected Babel’s Tower in their hearts
And loan themselves to a system of debt.
Invest their golden years as sacrificial time
Traded for the wisdom that opened the door to death.
If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
Then knowledge without fear is the beginning of pride.
That monster...
Shadow of “I am...
That stands in the light of the court proclaiming his dominance as the reigning king.
Adamant to follow in the footsteps Adam went.
The way they lean to their own understanding
Until their spines break under the weight of their egos
Teetering over the tightrope’s edge.
The fall of the fallen is written in their genes
Ironed by the conditioned mind.
The crease, a solid line between right and wrong
They attempt to re-appropriate with the folds of personal truths.
Dry cleaned to a false sense of purity
Marks that won’t quite come out
Stain the fabrics of time.
Their morality is a matter of opinion.
The cross they bare crushes with neglected facts hidden in plain sight.
They embrace fantasies like pillows of bubbles
Alarmed when their resting place pops under uncertainty.
And they’re falling...
In the depths of a dream scared to wake
Drowning in their subconscious.
So heavy are the lungs
With the labor of life.
So heavy are their eyes
With the labor of attention.
Though winged like eagles
They have traded flight for earthly pleasures.
Lowered their sights from heavenly castles
To these fleeting natural treasures.
Regal royalty out of place from their thrones
Bowing prostrate before rulers with no measure.
Give them an inch
Now they must slave on their feet
To the yard they ***** pyramids for miles and miles and miles.
Standard measures for standard living
When they choose to cover their world
In darkness' cold blanket
And invite the warmth of temptation into their beds
Sleeping with the enemy unable to satiate
The Deadly Seven.
Carnal lusts mixed with greed
It’s in gluttony they trust
Envy to spurn ambitions
Too slothful to accept the mission
So they whisper a prayer full of doubt hoping he’ll listen
Ignited by wrath at the answers condition.
They point a finger up at He
Puffed up pride with the audacity
To curse His name - ****** bitter blasphemy.
It’s on his children they blame
The disposition of their fortune
Not realizing those without these familial ties
Are all out cutting deals with lady luck.
Many are bound to get stuck.
Meanwhile I sit on Cloud 9
Tracing silver linings in dark skies
Wishing I could rend the firmament to show them heaven is but a thought away.
To believe is the only way
I know to escape this purgatory
Called life.
One must learn to flow with the wind like a leaf
To move with His perfect will guided by invisible hands.
If these heavy souls could but release the reigns
And give him a little control.
Remember the authority placed in them…
Let Him shoulder their burdens.
Their steps will no longer carry the weight of oppression.
They would remember their wings to fly.
They would remember just how light it feels to be
Alive.

A fairyland of undergrowth, with a damp musky air,
St Lawrence has a faithful oath, to cultivate and share.
A thrive of all alive, in lush green leaves of old,
The trees in mists sublime, inside a micro climate wold.

A secret world of organisms, multiplying million fold,
Where delicate microcosms, dare to be so bold.
This natural habitat, from seedlings very small,
Quenched by a water vat, chalk streams a waterfall.

Waterlogged muddy bramble slips away at will,
Fertilised to nourish, it's hard to keep it still.
Thatched cottages blend, among the evergreens,
Flowers wildly transcend, into unexpected scenes.

A house made of glass or stone, brick or thatched,
An array of different homes, wholly mismatched.
An under cliff protected, from wind and heavy rain,
Where settlers have constructed dwellings on delicate terrain.

Red rocky backdrops, contrasting in the light,
Emerald carpet covered tops, against a cliff of white.
A multitude of Cretaceous hidden footprint tracks,
Of pre-historic fossils providing us with facts.

Alum bay provides the candour, steep hill cove, the English day,
Black gang chine, the entertainment, screams above a silent bay.
The noise of nature's habits, where a gentle hush is heard,
Of scurrying little rabbits, or a cheerful songful bird

Home to Dickens and to Darwin, Carl Marx to name a few,
Alfred Lord Tennyson inspired by the picturesquely view.
The Osbournes, Alan Titchmarch, are living here today,
To escape from commerciality, and keep all fame at bay.

Well-trodden shutes take a stranger to the sea,
Along a Pirate's secret route to claim his offshore ******,
Time has not dissolved these perfect pretty scenes,
Well used in the past and still there to be seen.

A quiet friendly cloak, behind a rich and wealthy hive,
This isle of natural opulence, where many past events survived,
Ancient stone church steeples, where priests left their gold,
Built for religious peoples, as a refuge from the cold.

Take a step back in time, to unspoilt and unruly soil,
Where the elderly recline, in this haven for the Royal.
The Victorian architecture, preserved in perfect light,
An outlook of conjecture, is called the Isle of Wight.

A temporary wealth
is all that I am ever allotted.
A brief understanding,
as well as an ability to be understood.

We entertain ourselves
with coarse language,
crude humor,
a commitment to behave
as we know we should,
for a while anyway.

Even now,
our respective grasps
on whatever it is
that we are allowed to share
during this day’s task is tenuous,
at it’s very best.

There are count times,
microcosms of malcontentedness
that lead to slight infractions
here and there.

We,
I learn daily,
are in passing.
Always, in flux.
We are not pals
and
never shall we abide one another
as more than men,
in conflict
and resolution
at the same time.

It is not a death,
their exit,
usually anyhow.
There is no pall that befalls us.

Each of us is birthed
into the life of the other;
in an effort to facilitate
a change in each other,
I believe.  

An impact,
like an iceberg shipwreck,
rescuing and rewarding the passengers,
most of whom would rather drown themselves outright.  

None of us can swim.
We don’t know how.

We barely know what it means
to live as society says we should.
The rules change more often
than we can keep up.

Yet, we grasp
and
cling to basic, vague understandings
in hopes of surviving
despite our best efforts otherwise.  

We work together,
tumultuous,
listening fecklessly,
recklessly hoping for
the best possible outcome.

It is quite the undertaking.  
This,
this performance,
this penance,
the doing of this
is how we invest,
how we spend our temporary windfall.

We learn,
together,
to be human.

Not that we ever actually were not so.
We learn,
however,
to be ourselves,
incandescent inside of our own skins.

Together, but with lives outside of mine,
for the betterment of all of us.
I learn to be a better humanist
than perhaps I would’ve
if I’d never been endowed
with
this temporary wealth.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

Phenomena that can stare
into the eyes of humanity
through any blindfold.
Uncertainty.
A realm of questions
with no answers.
What is the color of a mirror?
In a perfect world
it would be a smart shade of white.
In a perfect world.
That doesn't exist.
Why is darkness correlated with evil?
When children blow out birthday candles
with a promise of another 365 days
and the hope of each day
being better than the last.
Does infinity have a limit?
Or does it simply meander
through an endless void
of universe?
Never striving to reach on point.
One goal.
One moment.
Are we really in control?
Living for a reason?
Or are we simply microcosms of infinity?

Sunshine

Rainbows

Unicorns

Copulating

Microcosms of childhood fear

Wonder

Wonder about sunshine and rainbows
Wonder about whether or not mythical beasts procreate
Wonder about your childhood fears
Wonder why I would be telling you to wonder

We can be wonderful together

Storms of blackened sky and dampened earth. Thunderous silence. Aggressive solitude. Rot; erode, my afflicted qualia. Decompose, my ignorant regalia. Again, to grow, from blackened sky? Arise; from soot and silt, a sprout, amongst the flowing dirt.

Return to your mother, and be exhaled as color, anew, your own.
This heavy chested, poignant, indescribable emotion of chaos amongst emptiness; I suppose I will forever fail to describe it.
Who are you? Who am I? How can we be empty, or full, if we are not even shells?
Cyclical life, extant but fleeting, yet never without itself, throughout, without, inside, and beyond time.
We are the ocean as well as the drops, the sand, the shells, the air above, the sky beyond, the space and time and energy. Microcosms.
I don't understand.

Southampton vs Leeds
today at Wembley

yesterday the whole of
Manchester came
to London (also Wembley):

there's something infuriating
about the spirit of the north
especially in England
some old tale of Vikings

because the north like
the north Norway and Finland
is: well
the Polacks had a long ago
allegiance with the Norsemen

but the spirit of the north
in England
that land between London
and Scotland
because i don't think
i can relate to the spirit of the dragon
of the west of Bristol

no: much different
but in the same vein:
i think i should travel for a weekend
trip to Manchester
or Newcastle
or even perhaps Leeds

but i'd need to own a car for that
and not use trains
get out
experience a driving holiday
across England
and write...
i think i need a writer's holiday
unlike what could never
have been promised on Kauai
in terms of writing
and growing:

i think i need to grow intellectually
and for that i need alone time
perhaps i will not philosophy
maxims or aphorisms because
i find that when writing
wisdom is cheap because not actually lived
counter to the wisdom invoked
none of it is ascribed to a life

only from word of mouth
sorry therefore
but from word of mouth i find the accounts
of Socrates more involving, inviting,
sensibly middle Buddhist path...

but i don't even have a driving license...
that's plan B
so plan A is to travel to Poland
and get a driving license
and from there look in on Martin
in the care home now
walking
but obviously the mind regardless: fried
scrambled or i best
like to think an omelette...

there's this favorite Indian place of mine
just in the shadow of Wembley
with great great Samosa
vegetarian
something i see too much meat
i want to try some ape-thinking
or rather

     koala in an eucalyptus tree
like some birch standing upside down
but no
the forest shifts to bamboos
and a panda
this forest this river this sea of people:
the people: regardless of the social
construct of sobering democracy
rather than the drunken ripple into time
en masse
like circling around the Kaaba
in Mecca
or circling around the Pitch (Pi)
or Wembley in London...

sporting events replaced the failed
christianity in Europe
the failed christianity in Europe:
which is not to say that
Christianity isn't thriving in Africa
Asia
South America is the New Europe
of Christianity
and pockets of insanity in the North
of the Americas...

but Europe isn't dead: it simply turned
covert...
there is a narrative i need to be part of
and this cannot invite an Edie
and a Reyla when i am of the "class" of people
that need to hear people
speak
and i need to listen and watch and record
but unlike journalism
poetry is a question to the butcher:
would you butcher a meat twice
by overcooking it?
beef is safe
but dare to under-cook chicken? no...
would rather eat raw fish
than under-cooked chicken...
TEXTURE...
a problem with texture regardless of those
allergic to peanuts
and all the microcosms of what if Darwinian
laws were in place
not nature's as ontological specific to man
but rather as Darwinian laws
of appropriating the stasis ontologies
of animals
to the singleton humanoid-hood of mankind

Darwinism is an Ontological Disney-Magic-Place
then some recoil back
to basics of: morality as prejudice...
not as something crippling
but as a prejudice of character...

one shift we were singing Champagne Supernova
then i got high
when i was alone at home
and listening to headphones
i'll still drink in public
but alone
at Marleboune...

a new lease on life...
took a different route than my usual
using the stop ahead
of the crowd
going back to Preston Road
on the Metropolitan Line
then ahead to Liverpool St
and perhaps chance the express Greater Anglia
two stops to Romford
otherwise speeding to Shenfield
and then onto Southend

Diamond Boy Diamond Boy said this one
Leeds fan...
another promised me to jug jug down a pint
of beer
before me and then kissed my clenched
fist with a wet kiss of charcoal ego of the sun

now  i feel the love of humanity
like it's a welcome burden
it truly can be i can allow myself to differentiate
the good from the bad
only today i passed a man
lying with head exposed on the pavement
outside Romford station
to later come home
and find him sitting in decent clothing
and temporarily homeless
because clearly he broke someone's heart
and not all rough sleeping
is a horror but the same sun and same
moon in the sky
and by so transient and glass like
to the everyday mirror be behold
those homeless men peering at themselves
in glass
to those homed and baron with silver spoon born
looking at themselves
in mirror
and even in the future now of the photograph
and movie and what used to be the arena
of the artist's self-portrait...

                   more in the idea of riding
my first worm of steel
if any myth the metal worms of the geology
of a planet equivalent to a desert sea...
yet in the ultra cold
less the fiction of Dune and more the Reality-Mars...

but the original plan is to travel
to Poland to get a driving license...
then probably buying a cheap car
and travelling alone across Europe...
that's more realistic
than anything concerning Edie as far as i am concerned
that is finished...

i saw Warren send heartheartheartheart
emojis...
out *** has returned to quick(s) and quirps
and talking points
we still have talking points of wonder
and bewilderment
but i know: those several days have been long
and thorough on the observant i

Mary Le Bon! that's it!
i found her...
                 she was hiding in my favorite places
of London
less a trainspotter but but but
more an aesthetic appreciator
notably when it comes to the London Underground
but more so
i wondered there are poems plastered across
the worms
and people get bored and sometimes even read
or rather start to write not having
read enough to bury gems among rocks...
better still
the aesthetic of the Bakerloo Line
a living museum in transit...
please do not update the Bakerloo Line
petition.... 1st signature: X
please do not update the Barkerloo Line
the Jeckyll and Hyde Station that is Baker Street
while sorry:
Sherlock Holmes will have to move
in with Shakespeare's Shylock somewhere
on Bond Street...
to give us James, King and Country...

                         but Mary Le Bon station is just
another weird ******* beautiful
ginger cat story
especially after having your hands kissed

but a holiday like that
to live a life my uncle should have lived
but instead didn't
probably he didn't love just yet
a woman who could perform both
******* and absolute freedom all at once
by every ounce of one more once
and how this memory and her as memory
will mold me i don't know
but if i'm not seeing women differently
then i don't understand why women are
looking at me differently...

i do wonder: the CCTV rat network
and couple in the cult of the soap opera...
well: mismatched with a football sulk hug-out
of a ghoul: pelican -
if i can't solve be-done crossword
puzzle i think i just wrote
a question:

football sulk hug-out
of a ghoul: pelican -

          i.e. a hooligan:

   ave maria ave maria
now i want to understand christianity but only via christ
or perhaps
socrates' life through his ****** sons?
and the younger argumentative seller of **** potions
of a wife?
well:
perhaps islam can be understood through Maria...
just saying:
lost - no annals of children of christ
although i'll admit: i'd like to see a book made up
of little words and little nouns
with no names of people and no history...

              for the aesthetic...

but a holiday for myself...
getting a license and exploring further further
that only oar and boat could
but couldn't solve on Kauai
and no Polynesian dream then
but such good ****... it wasn't about the ****
although that was a learning curve
away from the brothel...
a ******* was nothing like having ***
with this woman,
this fruit of carnage from apple juice
to cider of 55 springs moisturized...
into a glowing Aladdin's rub rub rub rub rub
*** up blind
hurt
definitely hurt

definitely a life ahead of me
still talking to parents
about relationships
and opera
and they seemingly know i'm planning
a solo trip and
this trip alone
no i'm not going back to Ilona
come on
some new treaty of not from Versailles
but adventures with cats
the two gingers will gang up
on that brutal thung
who is ****** himself into a spirit
of the culled pets
who have not been given the snip
yes
pets
pets can be given special treatment
as pets
as petted-animals
only if there is the imposed cruelty
of castration
leaving the best genes in a harem pool
which doesn't translate into humanity
employing this already human maniability
of: cats and dogs replaced
angels and demons
because they could become more real

i have a life here too
i don't mean
a girl wants to live in London type of life
whereby i meet my dad for
a football match and we patch up
on our commute but ****'s going
wrong and the conversation drops off
as: we can't relate
by the glass wall of people gorging
on burgers at the Five Guy's of Baker Street:
genius marketing think-tank of solo-tank
periodical that ought to be
written about:
because saved up so much on adverts....
just glass and people eating
best "anti-AI" advert
because it's also a real place... ha ha...

                   yes....
on Kauai i'd experience true schizophrenia:
premature dementia...
what i experienced as god
in my 20s early beginning at 21
was probably me readying myself to the future
that would encompass me aged
38
her being 56
me fulfilling all my wanking
******* watching fancies and fetishes
oh god this was anti-Oedipal
seriously she looks nothing like my mother
oh my god
she was like
a breach of justice for me being attracted
to black and asian girls...
Sudanese though... now you have me curious...

concerning Ilona but there was
not real breakdown because of her
no... even when i remember it now
she was a ghost
i was 21 and my peers were seriously afraid:
this has nothing to do with Edie
we live several lives apart
i mean she throws away Depeche Mode vinyls
while i collect them
and now
i think i'm so calm and the breakup was
so amicable in my mind
that i know that i want something more
and this argument is not based on who used who
or who gained what
we gained and lost some time...
that's it...
we gained and lost some time...
could i would i should i...
first two yes
but on count of three?         no... *****: me just a man-child:
no sorry mate...

       ha ha: sorry mate...
middle aged women still desperate
are only allowed Harry Styles...
last time i heard the butch-*****-slap was single:
a name a persona
i know his tenderness does not speak
FREAK PR HERNANDEZ gaPPa...

i experienced something with Promis...
of the three names:
Promis, Ilona, Edie..
these are my free...
what? how many i ****** like the ****
actually meant a hug?
do i want, to?
don't think so...
but if i'm 3D and i'm currently 38
and i have no ring on my finger
and i'm still to have a driving license
because i preferred
horses and bicycles
to traffic jams and M25 songs by Chris Rea
and Grandma
and the sexuality of pedophiles as
as i die he will **** you
and **** Reylah
then yeah
you have, dear Edie... dementia on your side
and brain-freeze on my side:
oh so Martin my mother's brother
is ******* "JARGON" TO YOU?!
EDIE! *******!
******* EDIE!
FOR TREATING MY MOTHER'S BROTHER
AS SIMPLY MY UNCLE!
******* EDIE!
*******!

f.y.f.r:n.t.y.

for your future reference: no thank you.
you ******* north americans
and your shenanigans of acronyms...
******* too! you Ginsbergs and Olsons...
you shoved Ezra into a mental
asylum...
he's the only sane America left...
and the joke being:
he's the DEAD, SANE, AMERICAN...

******* America...
i think i retain my Europe...
well 2000 years of yids...
tickled by Mongols and Turks
who aren't Arabs...
so it's not we didn't like in Serbia
side by side
i don't understand this awe-shocker
who's who and who done what?

it's a... LIFE PROJECT
or a life projection
me?
i've been readying myself for this
break-up
since i was 21
i didn't experience god
i experienced this break-up
in advance:
and no i was not out on a look-out
for a replacement model
this was my epitome
my va va voom
my all **** and all thigh
girl
this was my girl we're talking
about
i mean my EX
like something out of her
sprouted in me...

like i was never a guy for dating apps
but poetry website ruined that
avenue for me
never a poetry website
relationship
not come to think of it
i can replace the bicycle and the horse
for the car

standing on my feet for 12h
it feels comforting
to kneel and "break the shins"
because sitting down
is a fake comfort
to be honest,
kneeling best
after 12h of standing...
this dodge-god giddy style
like i envy the possessors
of both wings and tails,
regardless of halos and horns...
regardless...

wish you were here
with a question, an exclamation mark,
colon, full-stop:
pinkish piglets in a yellow ring of fire
so so
calm
i managed to speak human with the crowd
from Leeds
i think i need to head outside of London
maybe even move to these lands
and accept: goosebumps 2nd or 3rd spring
chicken...
or see an opera or a musical
with me and
at the same time take off all that make-up,
or are you too afraid?
i can understand fear:
but there's a you in between
that conjures the fear of you
and the horror that's you...
how far part
in geo-psychology
is woring: OF from THAT'S...

i ask out of sincerity but no sicerity
here if there's talk of sardines
and the itchy train
and Dover my point of entry
and not Southampton...
because Devon, Heavenport,
some made-up thingy-madzit...
Sir Majid
like aging guitarists
a Layla on the ukulele...
   **** tested sweaty *******...
salt to sprinkle salt to sprinkle...
like goosebumps with an itch:
hard to thrill the... breeze...

                 all these hazards of trees
in the stretching cats before snooze
squeeze: extending by parameter
and parameter and no excuses
for a bad hair day...
all the fringe and paws
like i some vague hello and a vogue of
goodbyes
in the grey and silence...

what bothered me was her reaction
to my mother's brother
and that's what ended it for me,
like my mother could never possibly
have a brother...
like it would forever be
her and her daughter and her mother....
and some future nuisance of
inheritance tax of a sister
from the same mother but a different father.