Doing a dance,
to wear a mask,
To play a game that you can’t stomach . . .
Just so that the truth doesn’t have to face you,
The way you recoil from reflections of yourself.

You’d forsake your happiness, your health —
                                                  You would burn it all.

To do a dance,
To wear a mask
To play a game you’ll always lose.
             To look in a mirror . . .
             To tell an image, that it’s anything but you.

And it is in that moment, that you'll find
                           You’ll tell the unfamiliar truth
As you bleed and feed
                           Your own obliterated youth . . .

To feel, and then
                          to lose —
Just like the loss you always knew

                          You would find in disappointment.
Like an unholy anointment
                          of your least desirable possessions
That retire from the heavens
                          Back to you.


To betray, and to amuse
                                                          A­lone.
The ides of irony rejoice!
               For they’ve found their lamb... or
their ever-dying muse.
                 Forsaking life itself, you clamor
To see others just like you.

And maybe, one day, one will choose
           the path that you can’t leave,
As it reciprocates to thee —
            Two partners in misery, fated to excuse
the waste of each other...
            until they find there’s nothing left.

To feel the flame within its breath consumed.

Wearing a mask,
To live a lie,
                And die a death,
                Whose dance you six-times misstep


                              And on the seventh, betrays you.
​

I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and
     sat down under the huge shade of a Southern
     Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the
     box house hills and cry.
Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron
     pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts
     of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed, sur-
     rounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of
     machinery.
The oily water on the river mirrored the red sky, sun
     sank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in that
     stream, no hermit in those mounts, just our-
     selves rheumy-eyed and hungover like old bums
     on the riverbank, tired and wily.
Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray
     shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting
     dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust--
--I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower,
     memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem
and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes
     Greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black
     treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the
     poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel
     knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck
     and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the
     past--
and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset,
     crackly bleak and dusty with the **** and smog
     and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye--
corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like
     a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face,
     soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sun-
     rays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried
     wire spiderweb,
leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures
     from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster
     fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear,
Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O
     my soul, I loved you then!
The grime was no man's grime but death and human
     locomotives,
all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad
     skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black
     mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuber-
     ance of artificial worse-than-dirt--industrial--
     modern--all that civilization spotting your
     crazy golden crown--
and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless
     eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the
     home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar
     bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards
     of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely
     tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what
     more could I name, the smoked ashes of some
     **** cigar, the ***** of wheelbarrows and the
     milky ******* of cars, wornout ***** out of chairs
     & sphincters of dynamos--all these
entangled in your mummied roots--and you there
     standing before me in the sunset, all your glory
     in your form!
A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent
     lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye
     to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited
     grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden
     monthly breeze!
How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your
     grime, while you cursed the heavens of the rail-
     road and your flower soul?
Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a
     flower? when did you look at your skin and
     decide you were an impotent ***** old locomo-
     tive? the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and
     shade of a once powerful mad American locomo-
     tive?
You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a
     sunflower!
And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me
     not!
So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck
     it at my side like a scepter,
and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul
     too, and anyone who'll listen,
--We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread
     bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all
     beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're bles-
     sed by our own seed & golden hairy naked ac-
     complishment-bodies growing into mad black
     formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our
     eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive
     riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sit-
     down vision.

                              Berkeley, 1955

Ah the persimmon, a word from an extinct language of the Powatan people of the tidewater Virginia, spoken until the mid 18th C when its Blackfoot Indian speakers switched to English. It was putchamin, pasiminan, or pessamin, then persimmon, a fruit. Like the tomato, it is a ‘true berry’.
 
Here in this postcard we have a painting of four kaki: the Japanese persimmon. Of these four fruit, one is nearly ripe; three are yet to ripen. They have been picked three days and shelter under crinkled leaves, still stalked. Now, the surface on which these astringent, tangy fruit rest, isn’t it wondrous in its blue and mottled green? It is veined, a ceramic surface perhaps? The blue-green mottled, veined surface catches reflected light; the shadows are delicate but intense.
 
You told me that it troubled you to read my stories because so often they stepped between reality and fantasy, truth and playful invention. When you said this I meant to say (but we changed the subject): I write this way to confront what I know to be true but cannot present verbatim. I have to make into a fiction my remembered observations, those intense emotions of the moment. They are too precious not to save, and like the persimmon benefit from laying out in the sun to dry: to be eaten raw; digested to rightly control my ch’i, and perhaps your ch’i too.
 
So today a story about four kaki, heart-shaped hachiya, and hidden therein those most private feelings, messages of love and passion, what can be seen, what is unseen, thoughts and un-thoughts, mysteries and evasions.
 
                                                                            ----
 
 
Professor Minoru retired last year and now visits his university for the occasional show of his former colleagues and their occasionally-talented students. He spends his days in his suburban house with its tiny non-descript garden: a dog run, a yard no less. No precious garden. It is also somewhere (to his neighbours’ disgust) to hang wet clothes. It is just grass surrounded by a high fence. He walks there briefly in the early morning before making tea and climbing the stairs to his studio.
 
The studio runs the whole length of his house. When his wife Kinako left him he obliterated any presence of her, left his downtown studio, and converted three rooms upstairs into one big space. This is where Mosuku, his beautiful Akita, sleeps, coming downstairs only to eat and defecate in the small garden. Minoru and Mosuku go out twice each day: to midday Mass at the university chaplaincy; to the park in the early evening to meet his few friends walking their dogs. Otherwise he is solitary except for three former students who call ‘to keep an eye on the old man’.
 
He works every day. He has always done this, every day. Even in the busiest times of the academic year, he rose at 5.0am to draw, a new sheet of mitsumatagami placed the night before on his worktable ready. Ready for the first mark.
 
Imagine. He has climbed the stairs, tea in his left hand, sits immediately in front of this ivory-coloured paper, places the steaming cup to his far left, takes a charcoal stick, and  . . . the first mark, the mark from the world of dreams, memories, regrets, anxieties, whatever the night has stored in his right hand appears, progresses, forms an image, a sketch, as minutes pass his movement is always persistence, no reflection or studied consideration, his sketch is purposeful and wholly his own. He has long since learnt to empty his hand of artifice, of all memory.
 
When Kinako left he destroyed every trace of her, and of his past too. So powerful was his intent to forget, he found he had to ask the way to Shinjuko station, to his studio in the university. He called in a cleaning company to remove everything not in two boxes in the kitchen (of new clothes, his essential documents, 5 books, a plant, Mosuko’s feeding bowl). They were told (and paid handsomely) to clean with vigour. Then the builders and decorators moved in. He changed his phone number and let it be known (to his dog walker friends) that he had decided from now on to use an old family name, Sawato. He would be Sawato. And he was.
 
His wife, and she was still that legally, had found a lover. Kinako was a student of Professor Minoru, nearly thirty years younger, and a fragile beauty. She adored ‘her professor’, ‘her distinguished husband’, but one day at an opening (at Kinosho Kikaku – Gallery 156) she met an American artist, Fern Sophie Citron, and that, as they say in Japan, was that. She went back to Fern’s studio, where this rather plump middle-aged woman took photographs of Kinako relentlessly in costume after costume, and then without any costume, on the floor, in the bath, against a wall, never her whole body, and always in complete silence. Two days later she sent a friend to collect her belongings and to deliver a postcard to her husband. It was his painting of four persimmon. Persimmon (1985) 54 by 36 cm, mineral pigment on paper.
 
‘Hiroshi’, she wrote in red biro, ‘I am someone else now it is best you do not know. Please forgive’.
 
Sawato’s bedroom is on the ground floor now. There is a mat that is rolled away each morning. On the floor there are five books leaning against each other in a table-top self-standing shelf. The Rule of St Benedict (in Latin), The I-Ching (in Chinese), The Odes of Confucius, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (10th C folk tale) and a manual of Go, the Shogi Zushiki. Placed on a low table there is a laptop computer connected to the Internet, and beside the computer his father’s Go board (of dark persimmon wood), its counters pebbles from the beach below his family’s home. Each game played on the Internet he transcribes to his physical board.
 
He ascribes his mental agility, his calm and perseverance in his studio practice, to his nightly games of Go in hyperspace. He is an acknowledged master. His games studied assiduously, worldwide.
 
For 8 months in 1989 he studied the persimmon as still-life. He had colleagues send him examples of the fruit from distant lands. The American Persimmon from Virginia, the Black Persimmon or Black Sapote from Mexico (its fruit has green skin and white flesh, which turns black when ripe), the Mabolo or Velvet-apple native to Philippines - a bright red fruit when ripe, sometimes known as the Korean Mango, and more and more. His studio looked like a vegetable store, persimmons everywhere. He studied the way the colours of their skins changed every day. He experimented with different surfaces on which to place these tannin-rich fruits. He loved to touch their skins, and at night he would touch Kinako, his fingers rich from the embrace of fifty persimmon fruits, and she . . . she had never known such gentleness, such strength, such desire. It was as though he painted her with his body, his long fingers tracing the shape of the fruit, his tongue exploring each crevice of her long, slim, fruit-rich body. She had never been loved so passionately, so completely. At her desk in the University library special collection, where she worked as a researcher for a fine art academic journal, she would dream of the night past and anticipate the night to come, when, always on her pillow a different persimmon, she would fall to ****** and beyond.
 
Minoru drew and painted, printed and photographed more persimmons than he could keep track of. After six months he picked seven paintings, and a collection of 12 drawings. The rest he burnt. When he exhibited these treasures, Persimmon (1989) Mineral pigment on paper 54, by 36 cm was immediately acquired by Tokyo National Museum. It became a favourite reproduction, a national treasure. He kept seeing it on the walls of houses in magazines, cheap reproductions in department stores, even on a TV commercial. Eventually he dismissed it, totally, from his ever-observant, ever-scanning eyes. So when Kinako sent him the postcard he looked at it with wonder and later wrote this poem in his flowing hand using the waka style:
 
 
*Ah, the persimmon
Lotus fruit of the Gods
 
Heartwood of a weaver’s shuttle,
The archer’s bow, the timpanist sticks,
 
I take a knife to your ripe skin.
Reveal or not the severity of my winter years.

Evening slipped into the long abyss
So fell the red moon
Malicious shadows forecasting doom
For the cursed animal man
Inhabiting the precious earth

Fearsome rolling rivers ran dry
Black smoke filled the spanning azure skies
The churning murky green oceans gave up the bones of their dead
When the moon turned red

The crust of the hard ground shook
Split and burst into deep fiery crevasses
Dark yellow orange smoldering nooks
Swallowing all of life
So obliterated was mans world as we know it
Destroyed
Barron and dead
When the moon turned red

This poem is copyrighted and stored in author base. All material subject to Copyright Infringement laws
Section 512(c)(3) of the U.S. Copyright
Act, 17 U.S.C. S512(c)(3), Tammy M. Darby Jan.10, 2014

From the BBC today,


Excerpt

Why does Taylor Swift write so many one-note melodies?

"It's easy to get distracted by her celebrity, but Taylor Swift is a once-in-a-generation songwriter. From the very beginning, she's displayed a knack for melody and storytelling that most artists never master.

Take, for example, her first US number one, OUR SONG

Written for a high school talent show, it's a fairly typical tale of teenage romance until the final lines: "I grabbed a pen / And an old napkin / And I wrote down our song."

That's smart, self-assured songwriting for someone who wasn't old enough to vote. Notably, the lyrics insert the musician directly into the narrative - something she developed into a tried and tested trope.

But Our Song also establishes another of Taylor's trademarks: The one-note melody.

Excerpt

Repetitive melodies that centre around a single note are part of that appeal. They emphasise her relatability by mimicking the cadence of speech.

"They emphasise her relatability by mimicking the cadence of speech."

"They emphasise her relatability by mimicking the cadence of speech."

"They emphasise her relatability by mimicking the cadence of speech."

Rebuttal

Rhyme sells because the people you are selling too can remember your lyrics. They can relate to your song but if they cannot sing it themselves putting themselves in the 'first-person perspective narrative' they cannot feel as-if they have BECOME the artist and are living that moment as they remember it. Taylor Swift sings about teenage love and angst something EVERYONE ON EARTH understands.

ALL POETRY BEGAN AS RHYME IN SONG.

Cadences are singing statements that confer a discipline and unity.

Song acts as a catharsis. The artist shares their pain in a way that is universally understood. If you want to sell a rock, literally a pebble, you will not sell it if it doesn't look like a rock. If it doesn't do what rocks do. If it is not what people remember a rock to be like. Nor will it sell if it is just like every other rock they have ever seen. It cannot convey an emotion unless it elicits emotion.

One cannot even begin to feel emotional if one cannot remember easily the past and that includes lyrics one has heard that evoked said emotional state.

It is horrifying to see HOW BADLY EVERYONE INSISTS that rhyme be obliterated in exchange for an intellectual or individual perspective NOT SHARED BY THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE.

If you want to sell and make money you better start thinking about the 99% of people who are not geniuses.

If your sole goal in life is to attract a genius to give you a great job because of how, "smart," they perceive you to be then fine.

You are not an artist.

You are an employee.



"Rhyme sells because the people you are selling too can remember your lyrics."

"Rhyme sells because the people you are selling too can remember your lyrics."

"Rhyme sells because the people you are selling too can remember your lyrics."

Thrice Times Great. ⁻ᴴᵉʳᵐᵉˢ



                                           BECOME
                              EVERYONE ON EARTH
               ALL POETRY BEGAN AS RHYME IN SONG
                      HOW BADLY EVERYONE INSISTS
            NOT SHARED BY THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE
                                         HOW BAD
                    
                 artist?
or employee?

Translated into English in 1859 by Edward FitzGerald

I.
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

II.
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."

III.
And, as the **** crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted -- "Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more."

IV.
Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

V.
Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose,
And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one Knows;
But still the Vine her ancient ruby yields,
And still a Garden by the Water blows.

VI.
And David's Lips are lock't; but in divine
High piping Pehlevi, with "Wine! Wine! Wine!
Red Wine!" -- the Nightingale cries to the Rose
That yellow Cheek of hers to incarnadine.

VII.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly -- and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

VIII.
Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life kep falling one by one.

IX.
Morning a thousand Roses brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.

X.
But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot
Of Kaikobad and Kaikhosru forgot:
Let Rustum lay about him as he will,
Or Hatim Tai cry Supper -- heed them not.

XI.
With me along the strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot --
And Peace is Mahmud on his Golden Throne!

XII.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, -- and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness --
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

XIII.
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Promise go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

XIV.
Were it not Folly, Spider-like to spin
The Thread of present Life away to win --
What? for ourselves, who know not if we shall
Breathe out the very Breath we now breathe in!

XV.
Look to the Rose that blows about us -- "Lo,
Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow:
At once the silken Tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw."

XVI.
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes -- or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two -- is gone.

XVII.
And those who husbanded the Golden Grain,
And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

XVIII.
Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two and went his way.

XIX.
They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:
And Bahram, that great Hunter -- the Wild ***
Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.

**.
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head.

XXI.
And this delightful Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the River's Lip on which we lean --
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

XXII.
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears --
To-morrow? -- Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.

XXIII.
Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and best
That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to Rest.

XXIV.
And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend, ourselves to make a Couch -- for whom?

XXV.
Ah, make the most of what we may yet spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie;
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and -- sans End!

XXVI.
Alike for those who for To-day prepare,
And those that after some To-morrow stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
"Fools! Your Reward is neither Here nor There!"

XXVII.
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are ******
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Works to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

XXVIII.
Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown forever dies.

XXIX.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about; but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.

***.
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd --
"I came like Water and like Wind I go."

XXXI.
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing,
Nor Whence, like Water *****-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, *****-nilly blowing.

XXXII.
Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Master-Knot of Human Fate.

XXXIII.
There was the Door to which I found no Key:
There was the Veil through which I could not see:
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There was -- and then no more of Thee and Me.

XXXIV.
Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried,
Asking, "What Lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?"
And -- "A blind Understanding!" Heav'n replied.

XXXV.
Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn
I lean'd, the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd -- "While you live,
Drink! -- for, once dead, you never shall return."

XXXVI.
I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer'd, once did live,
And merry-make, and the cold Lip I kiss'd,
How many Kisses might it take -- and give!

XXXVII.
For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,
I watch'd the Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all obliterated Tongue
It murmur'd -- "Gently, Brother, gently, pray!"

XXXVIII.
And has not such a Story from of Old
Down Man's successive generations roll'd
Of such a clod of saturated Earth
Cast by the Maker into Human mould?

XXXIX.
Ah, fill the Cup: -- what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet!

XL.
A Moment's Halt -- a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste --
And Lo! the phantom Caravan has reach'd
The Nothing it set out from -- Oh, make haste!

XLI.
Oh, plagued no more with Human or Divine,
To-morrow's tangle to itself resign,
And lose your fingers in the tresses of
The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine.

XLII.
Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit
Of This and That endeavor and dispute;
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, fruit.

XLIII.
You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

XLIV.
And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas -- the Grape!

XLV.
The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The subtle Alchemest that in a Trice
Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute.

XLVI.
Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare
Blaspheme the twisted tendril as Snare?
A Blessing, we should use it, should we not?
And if a Curse -- why, then, Who set it there?

XLVII.
But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub couch'd,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.

XLVIII.
For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

XLIX.
Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through
Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover we must travel too.

L.
The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd
Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn'd,
Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep,
They told their fellows, and to Sleep return'd.

LI.
Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside,
And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,
Is't not a shame -- Is't not a shame for him
So long in this Clay suburb to abide?

LII.
But that is but a Tent wherein may rest
A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;
The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash
Strikes, and prepares it for another guest.

LIII.
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And after many days my Soul return'd
And said, "Behold, Myself am Heav'n and Hell."

LIV.
Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerg'd from, shall so soon expire.

LV.
While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyam and ruby vintage drink:
And when the Angel with his darker Draught
Draws up to Thee -- take that, and do not shrink.

LVI.
And fear not lest Existence closing your
Account, should lose, or know the type no more;
The Eternal Saki from the Bowl has pour'd
Millions of Bubbls like us, and will pour.

LVII.
When You and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh but the long long while the World shall last,
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As much as Ocean of a pebble-cast.

LVIII.
'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

LIX.
The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Right or Left, as strikes the Player goes;
And he that toss'd Thee down into the Field,
He knows about it all -- He knows -- HE knows!

LX.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

LXI.
For let Philosopher and Doctor preach
Of what they will, and what they will not -- each
Is but one Link in an eternal Chain
That none can slip, nor break, nor over-reach.

LXII.
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to it for help -- for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

LXIII.
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

LXIV.
Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

LXV.
I tell You this -- When, starting from the Goal,
Over the shoulders of the flaming Foal
Of Heav'n Parwin and Mushtari they flung,
In my predestin'd Plot of Dust and Soul.

LXVI.
The Vine has struck a fiber: which about
If clings my Being -- let the Dervish flout;
Of my Base metal may be filed a Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.

LXVII.
And this I know: whether the one True Light,
Kindle to Love, or Wrath -- consume me quite,
One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.

LXVIII.
What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke
A conscious Something to resent the yoke
Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain
Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke!

LXIX.
What! from his helpless Creature be repaid
Pure Gold for what he lent us dross-allay'd --
Sue for a Debt we never did contract,
And cannot answer -- Oh the sorry trade!

LXX.
Nay, but for terror of his wrathful Face,
I swear I will not call Injustice Grace;
Not one Good Fellow of the Tavern but
Would kick so poor a Coward from the place.

LXXI.
Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou will not with Predestin'd Evil round
Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?

LXXII.
Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And who with Eden didst devise the Snake;
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness give -- and take!

LXXIII.
Listen again. One Evening at the Close
Of Ramazan, ere the better Moon arose,
In that old Potter's Shop I stood alone
With the clay Population round in Rows.

LXXIV.
And, strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot
Some could articulate, while others not:
And suddenly one more impatient cried --
"Who is the Potter, pray, and who the ***?"

LXXV.
Then said another -- "Surely not in vain
My Substance from the common Earth was ta'en,
That He who subtly wrought me into Shape
Should stamp me back to common Earth again."

LXXVI.
Another said -- "Why, ne'er a peevish Boy,
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy;
Shall He that made the vessel in pure Love
And Fancy, in an after Rage destroy?"

LXXVII.
None answer'd this; but after Silence spake
A Vessel of a more ungainly Make:
"They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"

LXXVIII:
"Why," said another, "Some there are who tell
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell
The luckless Pots he marred in making -- Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well."

LXXIX.
Then said another with a long-drawn Sigh,
"My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry:
But, fill me with the old familiar Juice,
Methinks I might recover by-and-by!"

LXXX.
So while the Vessels one by one were speaking,
The Little Moon look'd in that all were seeking:
And then they jogg'd each other, "Brother! Brother!
Now for the Porter's shoulder-knot a-creaking!"

LXXXI.
Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,
And wash my Body whence the Life has died,
And in a Windingsheet of Vine-leaf wrapt,
So bury me by some sweet Garden-side.

LXXXII.
That ev'n my buried Ashes such a Snare
Of Perfume shall fling up into the Air,
As not a True Believer passing by
But shall be overtaken unaware.

LXXXIII.
Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much wrong:
Have drown'd my Honour in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.

LXXXIV.
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore -- but was I sober when I swore?
And then, and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.

LXXXV.
And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honor -- well,
I often wonder what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the Goods they sell.

LXXXVI.
Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!

LXXXVII.
Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield
One glimpse -- If dimly, yet indeed, reveal'd
To which the fainting Traveller might spring,
As springs the trampled herbage of the field!

LXXXVIII.
Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits -- and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

LXXXIX.
Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me -- in vain!

XC.
And when like her, oh Saki, you shall pass
Among the Guests star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made one -- turn down an empty Glass!

Months of stale, cigarette smoke
and spilt **** water pleasantly
offset the stench of cheap cologne
and ratty, abused furniture.
    
Fictitious stories occupy this tiny, dim
apartment, birthed on the lips of
rebellious juveniles whose tongues
pierce the ears of our elders.

In a forsaken corner, Jeremy lounges
awkwardly on a grubby-plaid sofa that
suitably complements his button-down shirt.  
I join him.

Behind his right ear rests a lonely cigarette, while
another sits snug between his lips, set ablaze
by the 1968 Slim Model Zippo he inherited from
his beloved grandfather.

His transparent sense of self-worth emanates
from his grubby, grease-stained hands, scuffed boots,
blotchy-checkered flannels, and faded blue jeans
that are completely obliterated with holes.

I look into his pale blue eyes, the depth of which
often goes unrecognized.  Jeremy is a soft-hearted,
pudgy youngster with the kind of chunky cheeks
that all grandparents love to torture.  

But his marred, acne-ridden face betrays the transition
that has been forced upon him.  Slowly, his trademark
grin appears across his face – subtle, mischievous, and
typically without reason.  But this time it appears justified.

Jeremy takes a moment’s break from his cigarette to drop two
hits of acid.  A new drug for him, he hopes to find relief from
his seething anxiety, evidenced now by the wide expansion of his
chest as he takes another, more lengthy and powerful pull from his cigarette.

The mundane chatter that fills the room continues, a seeming
necessity to offset any potential awkward silence. I feel as if
this noise is closing in around us.  But just as suddenly as I
feel overwhelmed by this sensation, the noise stops.

I look around, noticing everyone’s eyes staring in my
direction.  Jeremy is still next to me, now giggling
like a little school girl.
I begin to feel sick.

Jeremy swiftly leans forward, giving his
cigarette a premature but honorable
death, eliminating its glow as he smashes
the cherry into tiny bits against the ashtray.

As he sits back against the couch, I can see that
his eyes are now indifferent. Foreign.  With a perplexed
and fascinated stare, he watches the pearly-white smoke
slowly slither upwards towards the ceiling.

There’s no question in my mind that his
soul has fled. Jeremy sinks further into the
couch, turning his vacant eyes in my direction.
I want to *****.

His high-pitched giggle has now subsided into a
low whimper.  Gradually extending his left arm into
the air, he tilts it from side-to-side, examining it as if
an infant discovering his genitals for the first time.  

Bike wheels appear in the corners of the room.
Entertained, his eyes rapidly zigzag from the
corners of the walls to his hands. He asks me
if I can see the wheels. I don’t respond.

Intervals of psychotic emotion begin to cycle. Jeremy’s eyes
fill with tears as he tries to understand the hallucinations
engulfing him.  The expression on his face betrays the reality that
he has stepped onto the never-ending theme-park ride from hell.  

Together we leave and walk to the bus station, Jeremy
walking slowly and whimsically. The bus arrives,
and I hand him a few crumpled, single-dollar
bills as I attempt to instruct him where to get off.  

All I can envision is his mother’s first reaction to her son’s arrival.  
Would she collapse at her son’s knees, crying like a mother whose boy
has come home from war?  Would he forever be an awkward guest
at the dinner table? Would she disown him?  Would he become a feral child?






I no longer know what day it is. I am surrounded by lockers
and students, trapped in a tunnel of shadowy walls.  As I stand
alone, I find myself entranced by the blinding, January sunlight
that floods through the double doors a mile away.

My vision is unexpectedly blocked by a figure
standing in front of me. Clothed in little but jeans
and a bright, white t-shirt, Jeremy stares at me, his eyes
mirroring the emptiness I now feel.  

“Do you have a lighter?”  My hands pointlessly search my pockets for
what I already know is not there. “No, man. Sorry.” A look of confusion
spreads over his face, and I suddenly cannot help but notice the sick irony
of the scene in front of me - Jeremy flooded in light as if born again.  

My thoughts linger here too long, and just as swiftly as Jeremy
appeared, he is a mile away sauntering out through those double
doors. Estranged, I continue to stand here, hoping with
futility that this isn’t the last time I have looked upon him.

"silence is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous.”* ― friedrich nietzsche

like poking the hornet's nest with a stick, you are a rose with stems and thorns so thick,
your skin is protection from oppression, keeping the world out of your private channels
like i'm AM and you're FM all of which are static with distorted voices only science can pry through your enigmatic cacophony on a molecular level, and any evidence of who you are, i couldn't find with years of knowledge, a indestructible ship could speak more evidence about
why it was annihilated, obliterated, disintegrated under the ocean for months at a time without
any current survivors, and the last person i could be described as would be Sherlock Holmes
every detail washes over my head like a flood of details that can't enter because a force field
surround my head like it's a crown being so clueless, but it feels like i'm wearing a dunce hat
and maybe i do realize that there will be a position where you will be put out into light
there is no way out of your mind, like a schizophrenic, if kryptonite killed superman,
can it **** the infectious virus spreading like wildfire through these veins, can you stop
worrying about when you will finally break down and open up to someone?
****

- kra

I remember that day like it was yesterday.
What happened, you claim, was barely horseplay.
Will you ever comprehend,
That what you did, I didn’t “misunderstand”?

Perhaps you’d like to blame it on your upbringing,
Because your dad taught you to control a woman who doesn’t have the “right” thinking.
Mexican patriarchy is ******, but it is you who chose to comply with it.
So don’t claim you aren’t responsible for the sins you commit.

Today I speak,
For I refuse to be weak.
Today I’ll unfold the truth I never wanted to accept,
When I was just a little under 15 and felt completely wrecked.

I stand today to expose you **** as I’ve been,
A monster in full shape and form, guilty of ****** while you grin.
You’ve kept your eyes shut to my dreadful sensations,
But today you will listen to my crude allegations.

We were in your house in Mexico where you locked me in the basement.
You claimed you wanted privacy, but only offered me enslavement.
Maybe it really was my bad luck,
When I believed you when said you loved me, but didn’t realize you only wanted to ****.

A monster, you pinned me against the wall,
I hit my head and cried, beginning to feel like your personal doll.
Touching my head where I discovered that I bled,
I reached for your hand, but you only grabbed mine to throw me onto bed.

When I was five, mother told me monsters don’t exist,
But today I am a witness to the contrary, as I know angels and devils coexist.
You are a monster for what you did to me,
For you pretended not to hear my plea.

A monster, you tied me onto your bed,
And ripped my clothes until I was left with nothing but a thread.
I begged you to stop and pushed you away,
But you slapped me and pressing your body against mine, told me you were here to stay.

A monster, your tongue against my breast,
And I completely undressed,
I watched your face transform,
Like a caterpillar taking its new form.

You, a monster, a demon, and a coward,
Faced a broken soul who had not yet flowered.
You took your hands and forced my flower to bloom,
Though it did not unfold with pleasure, but with fear of ending in a tomb.

And like a painter facing an empty canvas,
You traced me from head to toe as I lay nearly dead on the mattress.
You carved your name onto my body and robbed me of my innocence.
A monster, you obliterated my purity, leaving bruises as evidence.

A monster, you watered my flowers with the filthiest juice,
Not with God’s purest waters, but your own waters of abuse.
I weeped and screamed and in that moment begged for a God to exist,
I even prayed, but found no angels to untie my wrists.

If you really loved me, then you would look past your lust,
But you never did and chose to break me with each and every ******.
Rocking back and forth I was controlled by you, a monstrous puppeteer,
Your *** danced down my legs as I watched you cold and with fear.

A monster, you carefully tamed me to satisfy your *** drive,
Never did I imagine I would go to Hell and come back alive.
Today I stand a witness of your repulsive proclivity,
Penetrated by a monster who awaited for the trophee he believed was my virginity.

It wasn’t just a simple “quickie”,
The way you threw me around and used me.
I may have stood still and allowed you to profanate me,  
But I always threw up once you finished touching me.

People say our dreams are reflections of our memories fused with fantasies,
But there is no magic in the nightmares I regard as tragedies.
I’ve spent four years feeling entitled to nothing but pain,
And stay awake fearing my memories will haunt me, crashing into me like a train.

I wash my body once, twice, and thrice to flush away the picture of your fingers,
Scrubbing and scrubbing to ensure I numb my skin from your smell that lingers.
Your colossal hands a million times larger than the girl they groped,
Remind her of the million times she was choked.

I only wish you could understand what it feels like to be someone’s puppet,
A doll you can pull, stretch, bend over backwards and play like a trumpet.
It’s difficult to accept I’ll always feel possessed,
That the monster who injected me with his poison jerks off to the thought of being caressed.

You are the reason I’ve sought the sharpest blade,
To slash my skin and mark your cannonade.
But I can’t slice you out of my body,
As slicing my skin with glass won’t provide me with an antibody.

A monster, you conquered my body with a single purpose,
You kept me in the darkness to guarantee your coitus.
I’m sorry my ******* wasn’t as **** as your *******,
I blowed as fast as I could to prevent a flatline on my Electrocardiography.

I’m sorry I had to fake an ******,
But I had to escape you once you threw me into a chasm.
Navigating in the maze where I was constantly abused,
Was difficult having no compass to pretend I was being seduced.

I spent years looking for an exit out of your maze,
Taking too long to realize this wasn’t only a phase.
Some blame me for being too oblivious,
For wearing a blindfold and perceiving you as chivalrous.

And perhaps you blame me for being too naive,
Because I wished for you to change on New Year’s Eve.
I sought a fairytale, forgetting Cinderella did not meet her prince,
But a wolf who impaled her with his claws and abandoned her since.

I was your slave for two long years,
And you, a monster, showed me each and every one of my fears.
But I have lived in spite of my trauma,
And today I stand to scold you for this drama.

I no longer fear the monster inside my head,
For I understand many others will dwell ahead.
But my monster will no longer haunt me in my sleep,
For now I sleep knowing I have my body to keep.

I am strong, proud and bold,
And I have found my place in this world.
No longer will I let you win,
For it is you who reeks of sin.

Does it make me sick to empathize with your situation?
To feel for your pain and share your deeply held frustration?
Is it you who is wicked for being a pervert?
Or me for wanting you to hurt?

How can I wish you the greatest agony,
When I would never want anyone, not even my monster to experience my tragedy?
I am being torn in different directions,
But I’m no longer tied down to successful erections.

Monster, I thank you for your rotten kisses,
For the hundred bruises and tight stitches.
I now know my body is a shrine,
And that I am my own lifeline.

No longer will I feel soiled by your hands.
For I have built new dams.  
I now look at my own reflection,  
And see a figure composed of fascinating lines shielding me from your infection.

I am on my way to finding my peace,
But need to put my thoughts together to find my release.
It may be forgiveness, prevention or punishment,
But no longer will I undermine my own torment.

It may sound funny when I say I wish I was a superhero,
So I would know when a girl is in danger of touch and close to Ground Zero.
I’ve lived my years carrying the guilt of watching women fall one by one,
Of never being able to prevent another unwanted son.

I now understand there is only so much I can do,
For I am an ordinary person with a big heart turned blue.
I only wish my words will inspire, the victims of this fire,
To embrace their burns and wear them as an iron attire.

My growth and strength came as a result of patience,
It took years and tears to show me a way out of complacence.
But in an effort to give you a lift,
I have found myself adrift.

I have tried to be a saviour,
Forgetting to save myself before and bring myself to shore.
Today is the day I become my own light,
And fight to stay bright in the night.

Monster, you may now live in paradise,
Walking around as the devil in disguise.
But I believe in divine retribution,
And live in peace knowing you will get your fatal conclusion.

You are a monster, and I was your prey,
But today, I am no longer in decay.
With these words I purge myself of your touch,
For I’ve released my demons back into Hell and no longer seek a crutch.

210,089 views on the internet, you sorta get the picture
as to why there's this need to keep count... esp. given
the video content...
    well... it's not that i live
   in a big brother society,
i can't believe that the concept of
a minority report by philip k. ****
hasn't become mainstream...
   and yes, i have this great distrust of
what was once oath, but now has become
a case of: all things otiose...
concerning Hippocrates...
        people begin to question reality
because: there's no reality beyond touching
a brick, or licking a postage-stamp...
psychiatry is contrary to Hippocrates...
   given that there's this illness
that incorporates the whole world,
and that a god omni-this-that-and-the-other
has created people who seem to want
to establish themselves as: with those
attributes inherent in them...
      all we can say about the god we created
is that: he's unthinkable...
   now come the pronoun assaults...
what if i weren't a man, and merely called
god a she or a gender-neutral it...
        jesus against the slackers...
   i find the second coming that happened
in 1945 with the unearthing of the Egyptian
library so, so so ******* revolting,
that every time i burp up a canape of *****
i only think about swallowing it back down...
   that's how revolting i find the second
coming to be... it happened... hello!
back in 1945... it already happened when
the nag hammadi library was unearthed at
the end of world war ii: "ironically"...
         well, sure: foretell the end of the world
drop an atom bomb on hiroshima and nagasaki...
i still don't see how the professional philosophers
of our age draw the line past the big bang theory
and darwinism and look for "ideas"
or "laws of thought" with a "beginning"
starting from the Greeks... don't know,
it passed me by... i found a new beginning
with the Germans... the so-called titans:
and yes, i: the little man...
    as akin to heidegger: how there is nothing
worth observing and everything must be willed:
the asian maggot-brains would just look
at Everest and not think to climb it...
when thought turns into verb...
you don't see a Vishnu... you see a Shiva...
people can't be trusted with heidegger's concept
of dasein... sure, people need a will,
but when will becomes obliterated
  due to certain nuances that only demand
such a light-stroke of being kept:
you don't get anything profound from
   a physics akin to working from dasein
coordinates (0, 0)...
       well, you do: violence and numbers...
angry ***...
           on an individual basis the dasein doesn't
work... on an individual basis there is no dasein...
it's really about a personal trainer, a newspaper,
a rhetoric manipulator...
   working from heidegger's dasein
   there emerges no concern for a hersein
(a hereness, a being here) -
always that ******* flight toward the stratosphere
of heaven...
         and always that fetish for looking
at the ancient Greek ego like the genital parts
you're about to **** off...
    it's become a case of: i could easily
discard the 20th century advert of what was lived
and return to the late 19th century
   with the genesis of the 21st century:
and i wouldn't even flinch.
   read a book and look at the stillness of it all...
and i did, i then turn onto the internet
and see this ******* pigeon...
   and it really is a pigeon talking really
profound things... i listen to this pigeon from time
to time... and he really is a pigeon:
   paul joseph watson on youtube really
is a pigeon... i hope his neck doesn't break...
a bit like O'Hara's ode to Ginsberg
   and that ref. to adolf deutsche, the composer:
no, not the maniac genocide artist...
   i'm really, only slightly against the concept
of dasein... for me there's no there with me
included... but then again: i might only be
half human when i think it out...
    plus, given the fact that this mass-connectivity
construct exists, i can sorta jump from
one end of the earth to another and feel:
nothing equivalent of sniffing jasmine in Lebanon...
none of the 20th century writers could have
predicted the internet canvas...
  and given that: they're not even out of vogue:
they very much are the vongue:
   but their context, contained within a book
  is dodo.
       so what i find from the concept of dasein:
a need for physics...
******, you ain't moving, i'm not moving!
and as the two tiers of language emerge:
a. noting the langusage sausage as: about to be said
and b. language noted: i can't believe i just thought that up!
funny how bilingualism works...
   deemed by strict authoritarians as worth
the noun schizophrenia... naturally...
   but then shrapnel words do make up the cocktail...
the Greek oν (meaning being) translates into
Polish as merely: he...
    and pronouns can be so much more involved in
kinetics: the pyramid hierarchy of pronoun motivational
tactic: how you can become him... by not listening
to your i... the whole shabang of: me, myself and i...
   let's treat nouns and alzheimer's on a segregational
level... given we have to establish nouns
on a firm basis... so everyone knows what everyone
else it talking about...
    what really ***** the game up to give
pronouns the full categorical impetus for a worth
to change is this (recently unearthed) game
of changing the he to a she...
      not transcendental concerns but transgender
escapes... god is by now unthinkable,
given the prefix omni- there is absolutely no
way to discuss (gender neutral) it... easier said
and done with stephen king's clown...
i swear to oh oh...
    but why is no one catching on why Islam is
so agitated? given the pages were unearthed by
some Egyptian shepherd, and the authority of
the church was bypassed... people started to think
it would be as non-kinetic as donning a pink
scarf when wearing a tuxedo...
       approx. 2000 years, gone, down the drain...
this is what you get when you bypass
established authority, and still keep the said
authority and create this weird quasi-religious
secularism... long gone the church-state divide...
long gone the church... and so too the state...
it really has become a case of money
being akin to water or fire...
  an element, for the most part we can contain it,
but in some cases: it astounds us...
a but like man's second dream contained within
the a.i., sure, pocket-money / wage and we have
ourselves a campfire... inflation and national
expenditures, tax and the likes? well... throw your
marshmellows into that raging forest-fire!
we created the concept of an element in how
we kneel to the dynamic of transcending beyond
the category: animal...
     we drink water so we can rehydrate...
we breathe air so... d'uh...
    we start fires so we can keep warm...
we created money so we can have a plumber
   or an electrician: in order to not have to talk
or eat with the said plumber or electrician...
           i can only see money as i see fire...
but that doesn't mean i equate money with god...
   better still: that word will not disappear or become
devoid... but the fact that the said word is
given the omni prefix: it's become unthinkable to
even begin with entering a narrative or a dialectics
concerning it... but there we were: most of us:
incubating the word, the concept, the whole shabang!
still... i have that pigeon online: paul joseph watson...
   it's really called lazy when you wrote it
and someone else read it and when you reciprocated
something of mutual effort and when you
weren't the really eager speaker and someone else
wasn't but a miser of a listener...
   just the motto of what the Russians call:
keeping it real... and alive, and bothering to read books.
and yes, having settled out differences,
    revised Marxism and did with it as one might
confuse using a hammer to a pencil /
prior to cultural marxisim there was, once upon a time:
an economic premise - we settled our
differences and became whining bull-mawled
ponces that didn't really care to make it to
the zummit (on purpose) of inter-racial marriage...
never mind making dating boring
by de facto disclosure of ourselves in profile:
  tourism really did **** off a sense of adventure
when diving into another person alongside
it being staged in a theatre of uncertainty...
   art is such an autocrat: it wants to make us
believe we can all be artists...
art did that to me: hence i realised i'm merely a drinker;
and sure, i have a riddle for my palette:
     bourbon whiskey is equivalent to rosé wine...
                          (olé emphasis)
scotch whiskey is equivalent to red wine...
  i.e. bitter... for care of a better word -
laphroaig? smoked salmon -
                                       may i say bourbon
really is: ***** liquor? ever time i drink it i get
this nasal infusion of the perfume of
walking into a ******* brothel...
         and all the fine bollocking that is...
but i wanted to avoiding writing this digression and
go back to heidegger and dasein and how
  that german ****** is merely prescribing kinetics...
movement... how being = doing...
             or something like that...
     oh right! the whole: pronouns are the sole
motivational tools in how they behave to make me
'''jealous'' of him having attained his achievements
could make me move toward attaing his stasus
   (italics and ditto marks are the knife and fork
of existentialism) / emphasis and ambiguity respectively...
   but i mean that as " " denotes being passed-on
(or that's how existentialists took to it...
that it was akin to a hereditary concern with
a beginning, and therefore a chinese-whisper
that became mutated across the years -
in a shorter version, any word with the " " membrane    
could also be encapsulated by, e.g. ~red, i.e.
crimson).
aren't we living in times when the mathematical
sprechen is having due ******* with
linguistic sprechen, just like the pronoun debate
akin to an igloo in Hawaii, only because we all gained
access to this digital canvas? where else if
not in the anglophone world would you actually
experience a feast of acronyms?
   n00b... i thought that meant: ****... apparently
it just means colt... or beginner...
   of l8er...           this leads me to only
one conclusion... when the Greeks started to dress up
their language with very complex diacritical
marks (even though they really didn't have to):
English / pseudo-Latin was asleep...
            and it's still sleeping...
            this acronym safe-haven is getting ulgier
and uglier... i feel like i'm 70
even though i'm 30... well... at least i can tune
into the pigeon online and pass the time.

V. Ethereal

Maybe being drunk
is the closest I will
ever get to zero gravity--
to walking on the moon.

My fingers curled
around the neck of a liquor bottle,  
I wander to my bedroom window,
as a tipsy weightlessness settles
amongst my limbs
(and my thoughts).

Swaying slightly,
I part the curtains and,
in my intoxicated stupor,
search for Polaris in the night sky,
point to it,
press a clumsy hand to the glass,
convince myself that
I have captured the star,
and all the omniscient power
it possesses,
beneath my finger tips.

Star light,

{lips pant--
inebriated,
heavy}

star bright,

{my breath appears a catalyst
as the window pane glazes over
in an impenetrable paroxysm of fog}

first star I see tonight,

{I take a swig,
raise the bottle--
a toast
to the cosmos}

I wish I may,

{Lashes meet in
silent matrimony}

I wish I might,

{Behind closed, desperate eyes,
ribbons of colour dance
towards me in a disoriented jig}

have this wish I wish tonight--

to be
obliterated by the very galaxy
that birthed
these grieving bones
and this tumultuous heart.

Because only then--
as the Gods paint the Night
with the innards of my soul,
acrylic purples
churning against the blackness--
will I become what I
have always dreamed
of becoming:

Lovely.

Ethereal.

What joy calls Silent Noise plagues me too

As the new love in young hides behind the sun
The House of Monaco burns
it is a simple matter
and  joy pretends in two and three

She accuses that it is all in the eyes
Loosely veiling self doubt  in the idealism of love
Complexity contradicts and she gives up
Preferring to live inside

It wants what it wants and Joy succumbs
drinking water she knows is poison

You are not  a hopeless romantic Joy
You are a Romantic

You are all Woman
And twice as amazing

-The Zone
Your **** has torn my hinges off..... obliterated my door

an entire day of abstaining from "syringe",
whoever said it was:
the perfect dis-satisfaction -
supposedly it passes as quick as someone
puffing on crack...
                well...
                      the first cigarette...
when "quitting"... after years of 20 a day...
and this quitting: because no cheap
ciagarettes on the horizon from moldova...
or bulgaria...

    the first hit... feels like electricity...
i can feel it from my head...
right down to my toes...
          in my heels...
the tingling at first... then it all subsides...
into a sensation of a thrown stone
into the stomach:
like a nun jumping a bungee...
i feel like a teenager... who first sipped
alcohol...
the carousel of intoxication -
yet: so contained...
        there's the thrill and an
insurmountable number of adjectives
to the sensation:
face like a sponge head like blitzkrieg
theatre...
         i'm "quitting"...
well... 10 years exposed to the numbing...
perfect the ritual:
i guess i must...
    how long will it last... long enough:
to base the drinking on what becomes
the cigarette: on the peripheries:
and closure...

must i take any more revelation drugs...
apart from what's taxed and legal...
a solipsistic cigarette and some
gomme syrope: putting ms. amber
into the refrigerator...
              
i can feel the horde the tsunami from
a fat head through
a whirlwind dropped into my stomach...
and then the magic toes: tingling...
of course: i'm "quitting"...
quitting as much as...
mellow lou reed contra iggy pop
when bowie was with him in berlin...

"quitting"... the initial hit is over...
the first impressions...
the formality is thrilling...
then comes the diffusion:
the informality of fractions and percentages...
from the brain... the nerves...
perhaps the heart...
and the last place to look into:
the liver...

         and other... soft-tissue glue parts...
and the ritual:
a packet of benson & hedges...
wrapped up with about 10 rubber bands...
it has been waiting for me
for the entire day...
and now that the night is here...
a day when an apple tree was planted
along with a cherry tree...

the garden is looking more and more
presentable for sale...
but before the sale: it must be enjoyed...
i never thought that...
a cigarette: after... this short prospect
of abstinance...
is almost like the first...
but when coupled with the whiskey...
hell... i can't remember the last
time i drank and it felt like...
i was a teenager: under-age drinking
in one of those ****** clubs that
high-school girls go to find boys
with cars... out of school without
a-levels...
and boys go... to find... ms. ambers...
and jazzy gits of mr. fuzzy mr. funny...
the bavarian brothers: the weisers...

please! please! more...
these days of "quitting"...
             because what could be fun
about an absolute cold-turkey...
when you have a stash of...
  600 cigarettes... and... if the math is
about right...
and since the free movement of
people is a rapunzel dream off-the-cuff...

600 cigarettes... if i get it right...
move from 2 per ritual of going to bed...
into 1... that's... either a year
with missing 56 days somewhere...
no rolling tobacco though...
look m'ah! no bongs no syringes!
look p'ah! no snorting bleeding nose...
no... plum bruises from...

as long as there's an inhibition period...
a period of: i wish i could send
a postcard from... Basildon, Essex...
to... someone obliterated by a craze-maze
of lights... like... whatever...

i just heard stories...
                  about the effects of other drugs...
but... it's not like they come back...
with straitjackets to rekindle old flames
of "crossing the threshold" within
the confines of tobacco and alcohol...
moderately: well: not to quote the ideal
units consumed...
     i'm pretty sure i read some pickwick papers
today and... dickens "forgot" some...
conjunction words...
unless of course: his style...
                    -open            
                          to question-
                        esp. adjectives that...
or is it... nouns that act like this that and the other:
as if verbs...
            
    roughly half an hour... the full extent of
a cigarette...
the very first is probably the same
as the "very first" when you're "quitting"...
from circa 20 per day...
to 2-a-day...
                      "quitting" and first getting
hooked...
           the whiskers and fire fathers
                                   of the apache
              are a balancing act that follows...
oh sure... i'll quit smoking...
when the ritual is over...
i have left the casual smoker behind...
somewhere... over coffee...
over the tradition of that cigarette after
a meal: the digestifs smoke-up...
i left these smokers behind...
the nervous smokers...
the waiting at a bus-stop smokers...
the after *** smokers...

          the day is coming to an end...
i'm going to enjoy some music...
drink a little... i'll start calling this smoking
cigarette pattern... what? what else?!
my tobacco ramadam!
chances are... i'll still be unable
to appreciate roxy music...
   and the english dandy...
                       the music is here...
the little bit of *****... and the "pipe"!
here comes my face...
here comes the zoo...
            
             but i'm quitting... "quitting"...
the wolf of wall st. -
                      drug addict... that all depends
on how you treat tobacco...
the cigarette... abstaining for a day...
after a "hiatus" from healthy breathing...
viruses and car zinc and lead exhausts...
cow farts...
                  
    a terrible way to treat tobacco...
i find... is the casual... informal way...
a bit like... internet access...
whoever grew up with it being stationary...
like... a telephone... or a phonebox...
it was never carried:
always a returned to:
like a swizz safety-deposit box
in a bank... that could...
bypass tax regulations and subpoenas...

the good old days...
saturdays the park... the high street...
the car park... climbing to the top
and spitting phlegm bombs at people...
peter ******* richardson...
and kieran o'mahoney...
samuel richards...
         a ****** among the irish...
in england...
then again: richardson...
eh...
                                   ascot?
      i.e. a shcoot?!
                    the break between my first
ritual cigarette...
         and my closing affair for the night...
whether i drink less or not...
in the middle of the night
i wake up on the floor...
         i sleep on the floor for about
an hour... two demons want to ****
in my bed... then i'm thrown back into
the bed of cushions and mattress...
  only yesterday i killed someone in my dream...
and i was... like the zodiac killer...
anonymous...
i heard hook & sinker teases of:
the crime scene read like a crime thriller...
to appease the ego...

two days running thrown out of bed...
this is a terribly composed...
it is... "quarantine" poetics...
i'm "quitting" smoking...
                   i'm making tobacco...
i'm giving tobacco ritual rites...
                   no lazy tobacco smoking...
end of the day... ms. amber in hand...
maxing out on 2!
the next two? the next day...
              the same packet of cigarettes...
2 inside with a lighter...
wrapped up using about 10 rubber bands...
a like-for-like replica of
pin-heads "tattoo geography"...

       yes... because... someone's nearing
the snorting olympics?!
           if all you were given...
was tobacco and alcohol...
             the first one... oh! mein! gott!
it feels like being a teenager... once more...
and experiencing the alcohol carousel
for the very first time...
tobacco? that came later...
after the alcohol... after the ****...
the **** came in age 21...
the tobacco came in... age 21.09...
whatever that implies...

                      it's nice... though...
absitance... you wait for the entire day...
by the of it... some variant of... tourette's kicks
in... it's all very nice asking for
cupcakes and bagels...
scones and daffodils:
or... suicide by: lily-of-the-valley...
i.e. room filled with them...
and no ventilation...
talk about... no hanging... projects...
of Seneca cutting wrists in a bath...
just... getting drunk...
and being allowed to fall asleep
in a vacuous room filled with
lily-of-the-valley bouquets...

             we can talk about suicide... no?
when... it's... beautiful? no? ha!
how was the hemlock... prescribed?
as a drink?
             i... it's almost irritating that...
i will not write anything more sensible
after i take the 2 cigarette to the grave of sleep...
no matter...
i wasn't hoping to invest in much:
today gave me enough.

With 8 billion people in the world,
You'd think it would be
Impossible to feel so isolated.
So tough to explain,
I'm frustrated,
This is complicated,
I feel like my soul has been obliterated,
Mutilated, and violated.
I can't think straight,
And no, I'm not gay,
Just a little confused
Feeling battered and abused,
My heart's been misused
And I have been accused
Of using others, when I'm the one being used.

It always intrigued him how a group of people entering a room for the first time made decisions about where to sit. He stood quietly by a window to give the impression that he was looking out on a wilderness of garden that fell steeply away to a barrier of trees. But he was looking at them, all fifteen of them taking in their clothes, their movements, their manners, their voices (and the not-voices of the inevitably silent ones), their bags and computers. One of them approached him and, he smiling broadly and kindly, put his hand up as a signal as if to say ‘not just now, not yet, don’t worry’, or something like that.

This smile seemed to work, and he thought suddenly of the woman he loved saying ‘you have such a lovely smile; the lines around your eyes crinkle sweetly when you smile.’ And he was warmed by the thought of her dear nature and saw, as in a photo playing across his nervous mind, the whole of her lying on the daisied grass when, as ‘just’ lovers, they had visited this place for an opening, when he could hardly stop looking at her, always touching her gently in wonder at her particular beauty. In the garden they had read together from Alice Oswald’s Dart, the river itself just a short walk away . . .

Listen,
a
lark
spinning
around
one
note
splitting
and
mending
­it

As he finally turned towards his class and walked to a table in front of the long chalkboard, half a dozen hands went up. He had to do the smile again and use both hands, a damping down motion, to suggest this what not the time for questions – yet. He gathered his notebook and went to the grand piano. He leafed through his book, thick, blue spiral-bound with squared paper, and, imagining himself as Mitsuko Uchida starting Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto, fingers placed on the keys and then leaning his body forward to play just a single chord. He held the chord down a long time until the resonance had died away.

‘That’s my daily chord’, he said, ‘Now write yours.’

Again, more hands went up. He ignored them. He gave them a few minutes, before gesturing to a young woman at the back to come and play her chord. Beside the piano was a small table with a sheet of manuscript paper and a Post-It sticker that said, ‘Please write your chord and your name here’. And, having played her chord, she wrote out her chord and name – beautifully.

He knelt on the floor beside a young man (they were all young) at the front of the class. He liked to kneel when teaching, so he was the same height, or lower, as the person he as addressing. It was perhaps an affectation, but he did it never the less.

‘Tell me about that chord,’ he said, ‘A description please’.
‘I need to hear it again.’
‘OK’, there was a slight pause, ‘now let’s hear yours.’
‘I haven’t written one’, the reply had a slightly aggressive edge, a ‘why are you embarrassing me?’ edge.
‘OK’, he said gently, and waved an invitation to the girl next to him. She had no trouble in doing what was asked.

Next, he asked a tall, dark young man how many notes he had in his chord, and receiving the answer four, asked if he, the young man, would chose four voices to sing it. This proved rather controversial, but oh so revealing – as he knew it would be. Could these composers sing? It would appear not. There was a lot of uncertainty about how it could be done. Might they sound the notes out at the piano before singing (he had shaken his head vigorously)? But when they did, indeed performed it well and with conviction, he congratulated them warmly.

‘Hand your ‘chord’ to the person next to you on your right. Now add a second chord to the chord you have in front of you please.’

Several minutes later, the task done, he asked them to pass the chords back to their original owners. And so he continued adding fresh requirements and challenges. – score the chords for string quartet, for woodwind quartet (alto-flute, cor anglais, horn, baritone saxophone – ‘transposition hell !’ said one student), write the chords as jazz chord symbols, in tablature for guitar, with the correct pedal positions for harp.

Forty minutes later he felt he was gathering what he needed to know about this very disparate group of people. There were some, just a few, who refused to enter into the exercise. One slight girl with glasses and a blank face attempted to challenge him as to why such a meaningless exercise was being undertaken. She would have no part in it – and left the room. He simply said, ‘May I have your chord please?’ and, to his surprise, she agreed, and with some grace went to the table by the piano and wrote it out.

A blond Norwegian student said ‘May we discuss what we are doing? I am here to learn Advanced Composition. This does not seem to be Advanced Composition.’

‘Gladly’, he said, ‘in ten minutes when this exercise is concluded, and we have taken a short break.’ And so the exercise was concluded, and he said, ‘Let’s take 15 minutes break. Please leave your chords on the desk in front of you.’

With that announcement almost everyone got out their mobile phones, some leaving the room. He opened the windows on what now promised to be a warm, sunny day. He went then to each desk and photographed each chord sheet, to the surprise and amusement of those who had remained in the room. One declined to give him permission to do so. He shrugged his shoulders and went on to the next table. He could imagine something of the conversation outside. He’d been here before. He’d had students make formal complaints about ‘his methods’, how these approaches to ‘self-learning’ were degrading and embarrassing, belittling even. I’m still teaching he thought after 30 years, so there must be something in it. But he had witnessed in those thirty years a significant decline in musical techniques, much of which he laid at the feet of computer technology. He thought of this kind of group as a drawing class, doing something that was once common in art school, facing that empty page every morning, learning to make a mark and stand by it. He had asked for a chord, and as he looked at the results, played them in his head. Some had just written a text-book major chord, others something wildly impossible to hear, but just some revealed themselves as composers writing chords that demonstrated purpose and care. Though he could tell most of them didn’t get it, they would. By the end of the week they’d be writing chords like there was no tomorrow, beautiful, surprising, wholly inspiring, challenging, better chords than he would ever write. Now he had to help them towards that end, to help them understand that to be an  ‘advanced composer’ might be likened to being an ‘advanced motorist’ (he recalled from his childhood the little badges drivers once put proudly on their bumpers – when there were such things – now there’s a windscreen sticker). To become an advanced motorist meant learning to be continually aware of other motorists, the state of the road, what your own vehicle was doing, constantly looking and thinking ahead, refining the way you approached a roundabout, pulled up at a junction. He liked the idea of transferring that to music.

What he found disturbing was that there were a body of students who believed that a learning engagement with a professional composer, someone who made his living, sustained his life with his artistic practice, had to be a confrontation. The why preceded, and almost obliterated, the how.

In the discussion that followed the break this became all too clear. He let them speak, and hardly had to answer or intervene because almost immediately student countered student. There evolved an intriguing analysis of what the class had entered into, which he summarised on a flip chart. He knew he had some supporters, people who clearly realised something of the worth and interest of the exercises. He also had a number of detractors, some holding quasi-political agendas about ‘what composition was’. After 20 minutes or so he intervened and attempted a conclusion.

‘The first rule of teaching is to understand and be sympathetic to a student’s past experience and thus to their learning needs, which in almost every situation will be different and various. This means for a teacher holding to an idea of what might, in this case, constitute ‘an advanced composer’. I hold to such an idea. I’ve thought about this ‘idea’ quite deeply and my aim is to provide learning opportunities to let as many of you as possible be enriched by that idea. You are all composers, but there is no consensus about what being a composer is, what the ‘practice of composition’ is. There used to be, probably until the 1970s, but that is no more. ‘

‘You may think I was disrespectful in not wishing to engage in any debate from the outset. I had to find a way to understand your experience and your learning needs. In 40 minutes I learnt a great deal. My desire is that you all go away from each session knowing you have stretched your practice as composers, through some of the skills and activities that make up such a practice. You all know what they are, but I intend to add to these by taking excursions into other creative practices that I have studied and myself been enriched by. I also want to stretch you intellectually – as some of my teachers stretched me, and whose example still runs through all I do.

Over the next seven days you are to compose music for a remarkable ensemble of professional musicians. I see myself as helping you (if necessary) towards that goal, by setting up situations that may act as a critical net in which to catch any problems and difficulties. I know we are going to fight a little over some of my suggestions, the use of computer notation I’m sure will be one, but I have my reasons, and such reasons contribute towards what I see as you all developing a holistic view of composing music as both a skill and an art form. I also happen to believe, as Imogen Holst once said of Benjamin Britten, that composing music is a way of life . . .

With that he walked to the window and looked out across that wilderness of green now bathed in sunshine. He felt a presence by his shoulder. Turning he suddenly recognised standing before him a young man, bearded now, and yes, he knew who he was. At a symposium in Birmingham the previous summer he had talked warmly and openly to this composer and jazz pianist in a break between sessions, and just a few weeks previously in London after a concert this young man had approached him with a warm greeting. Empathy flowed between them and he was grateful as he shook his hand that this could be. She had been with him at that concert and he remembered afterwards trying to recall his name for her and where they’d met. She was holding his arm as they walked down Exhibition Road to their hotel and he was so full of her presence and her beauty no wonder his memory had failed him.

‘Brilliant,’ the young man said, ‘Thank you. Just so much to think about.’

And he could say nothing, suddenly exhausted by it all.

retrieved from the wreckage / the box reveals the final seconds / descent into panic / end of the line of flight / true disco / the call of the empty air / an unknown diva singing out her heartache / pastoral idylls in smoking ruins / the once-green Sahara / the herdsmen’s piping to the vanished flocks / it’s all there in the black box / the pilot’s final glimpse / earth rising / the ultimate kiss of terra firma / semiotext(e) / disco-bolo / temporary autonomous zones / islands of intensity / siren song of the eternal queen / spades & clubs / vistas of urban sadness seen in passing from  a car window / something lost, found, and lost again forever in the early 1990’s / woe to those who hear too much in a cheap dance tune…

1.
One beat at a time,
Sound
Reaching in, pulling your core out
until you are exposed, open,
expanding.
Your chest flowering into eternity with the vibration
Following a stream of being
Mapped out by chords and rests,
pulses, breaths.
The sound navigates you through the waters
Avoiding obstacles
Demolishing barriers and erecting bridges to shores unknown,
so far from home:
Someone else’s epiphany, piped into your lungs and heart.

2.
You’re being pulled out to the event horizon
Stretching towards a black hole
A place of possibilities, not of endings:
Your own boundaries are blurring, erasing.
You, as you float out in space:
You are only your heartbeat, your blood,
life force being pushed forward in time.

3.
The sound
Dissolves your body, shakes apart molecular bonds,
temporality becoming vibration and simple infinity
You are nothing, obliterated
You are everything, integrated
(Perfectly,
Ultimately)
The sound

4.
You find yourself, alive
There in the deep, bass bones of it
And up in the high treble cry of it
And all the substance/flesh/marrow/meat
in between

that's it! i've had, enough!
english existentialism is crude, too crude
for my liking -
  it's a comic book script -
and a ****** mess -
  it obliterated history, it obliterated
yesterday, and sure as ****:
it will obliterate tomorrow -
my turn: to obliterate today.
the english, i find: really don't like reading -
unlike the russians -
i read it once: the russians read,
as if their life depended on it...
while europe was expressing its fine
details and sorrow:
the english were in a sleepy state
of blakean lullaby...
   yes: but at least the icelandic people:
are not ****** pompous about
their natural borders beginning
with S and ending in E;
   i mean, it's no wonder sometimes -
given the current climate of digested
literature,
       i'm sure there are no mature readers
in england, or at least: i've never met
one! adults reading harry potter without
any sort of shame,
      the lunatics will lead the blind,
and young with old souls will dupe
the young with... young souls...
just like the old play games with the young:
the most unusual perk of being old:
fake it... and then turn into
a eclair surprise of sucker-punching
  a youth, while performing a zui quan
punch...
   absolutely no existentialism,
everything's so ******* egalitarian...
when it's not,
   ants in your pants
        your shoes are on fire...
double-faced liars...
     i mean... the only existential points
of interest in english existentialism are?
somewhere along the line of
evolutionary "chronology" -
   and the big bang...
i still love the interplay of these four
words:
          bang (a) ******* hole...
cat's out of the bag, can't him back in,
ask schrödinger to bring a few boxes
from the store house...
  in the meantime, we'll also build
a cardboard box castle we'll call home,
then put everything on social media
and then you can have what i already
suggested:
  people living in the already present
glass houses, reached a new zenith:
       glass people, living in glass houses.
the english have no existentialism,
  they got the bore-ism,
    much cartoon fakery and all that
techno whizz kid jazz...
    no wait... there's one good example of
"existentialism" -
but it's treated like a footnote...
  even though it's in a collection of works
that also includes camus & marcus aurelius...
william hazlitt's: on the pleasure of hating;
and to be honest? that's about it.
i'm just bored of: this is not objective
enough... what, so detach myself from
subjectivity and argue like a psychopath?
that's what you're implying!
i can say with calm 2 + 2 = 4...
but if i have to say some complex
arithmetic... i will either brood over it,
pensive... but at the same time:
i know i am prone to some sort of frustration!
but at least both can be deemed healthy
reactions...
     now ask for the psychopathic maxim,
yes? what is it?
   apathy breeds no pathology...
see, psychopaths are oblivious to emotions,
they have cool arguments,
  if you mentioned a "necessary"
distinction between subjectivity being
"negative" and objectivity being "positive",
they'd reply: i can't tell the difference:
oh, you mean the thrill of argument / act?
i can't give that away.
the germans had existentialism,
   the norwegians have it, the swedes had it
with ingmar bergman,
the poles had it with krzysztof kieślowski,
the russians had it, heavens!
even the french had it!
esp. given that we're still trapped in
the caveman existentialism extending from
darwinism...
   i'm not a caveman... i go to a cafe and drink
coffee, i'm tired of hearing this biological
history ******* without civilisation...
there's a reasonable cut-off point,
   there are reasons why you cut off pieces
and live in the present...
esp., oh boy... a video like this,
entitled: why women pass up good guys for
players...
honey, that "question" just flew past my head,
can't think why, nor will i,
  i've seen a few prostitutes to wonder
about a "why";
          mind you... upon that fabled plateau
of the ovarian desert: party's up...
guy's - make sure you've seen an
actual ******* first: it'll ease the blow
with regards to what you'll be settling with;
now, that doesn't get plainer english
as that.

Hidden in the darkness, an entity of no real significance,
Cloaked by despair, ruled by regret, acknowledged by few,
The shrouded one lives, misunderstood, banished, forgotten,
But it lives, it lives.

Concealed in the shadows, a being of no hope,
Masked by lies, commanded by sorrow, Befriended by none,
The shrouded one lives, misconstrued, expelled, obliterated,
But it lives, it lives.

Obscured in the black, a presence of no ecstasy,
Veiled by self-hate, ordered by fear, hated by all,
The shrouded one lives, misinterpreted, rejected, meaningless,
But it lives, it lives.

Been dazed and confused for so long it's not true
There were kids
Sitting in the soft night's semicircle
Encased in a haze of smoke
The darkness enfolding them in a cloak
Of all mysterious things nocturnal
Making it all eternal
A superficial feeling of found truth
A white aura of blazing youth
Conquering the darkness with the fiery tips of lit joints
Puffing chimeras and golden illusions
Things left unsaid yet lead not to confusion
The substance and the glowing friends
Seems to fix everything and make ineffable amends
Lends them some heightened receptivity
With some dazzling sensitivity
To the dizzy promises of life
        *Wanted a woman, never bargained for you
There was blue bottles and red cups
Sloshing full of 21st century ambrosia
Every moment of the night
Is doused in glowing star-light
Different rooms, dark places
Different shadows, similar faces
        Lots of people talk and few of them know
There was music softly ebbing and weaving its way to us
      Soul of a woman was created below
Gleaming sequined pillows
Curtains ebbing in delicate billows
That no amount of reality could ever harden
In the black garden
Amidst the tangy, acrid scent
Boys and girls came and went
Among the soughs and the ***** and the gleaming stars
We are young; ***** replaces wine, blunts replace cigars
      You hurt and abuse tellin' all of your lies
An adagio of whispers travels with a florid vibration
Waves of words, swirls of conversation
High kids trying to touch
What has never been tangible
     Run around sweet baby, Lord how they hypnotize
These kids linger on towering stools and lush couches
Leaning back with careless slouches
Or wander back and forth
Breathing dreams like air
     Sweet little baby, I don't know where you've been
An elusive rhythm throbs in the humid atmosphere
Fragments of lost words hover on drunken lips
A stirring warmth flows
From bodies spilled together
Snuggled under a blanket of stars
      Gonna love you baby, here I come again
Hands take hold of hands
And fingers tightly interlace
Throbbing softly with fluctuating warmth
The room is electric, filled with tiny flowing currents
      Try to love you baby, but you push me away
In this wake of boozed up elations
All sorrows are aborted, all conscience is obliterated
Blitzed kisses are exchanged, transitory enchanted moments
Bemused nudges and tender embraces
Arms around shoulders, heads resting drowsily
All of this immediate and forever
        Don't know where you're goin', only know just where you've been
And the tipsy, blissfully mindless joy of youth
Gives them bleary yet satisfactory hints of the unreality of reality
        Sweet little baby, I want you again
The teens are flickering in and out of consciousness like befuddled fireflies
The sober ones roam the rooms, drifting haphazardly about
Simultaneously enchanted, bewildered, and repelled
By the seemingly inexhaustible variety of drunken fun,
The ****, adventurous mood of the night
        Been dazed and confused for so long, it's not true**
We are all so young
So young and dipped in the dust of folly
And our laughs contain a hint of melancholy
The magic of nights like these,
When the spell of mortality is broken,
Eludes us all,
Yet we cling to them
Like moths to a flame.
Nights like these dig deep in the stuff of the soul
But there is still much to be learned

Her lips kissed the air
With the sweet words she whispered
But the broken mummer that caressed the silence
Was her heart and soul.

The world sat on her shoulders
And shifted beneath her worn sneakers
Because what is a vibrant spirit to this place
If it is not masked by a pretty face.

I scare myself with bitterness:
Mersault found within him
an invincible summer in the midst of winter
but I do not want even to pretend
that that is what I am looking for.
I am numb beyond existentialism.
But not numb with cold.

In my youth, my favorite colour was green
because of spring and trees and turtles and frogs
and when the weather turned
and the leaves grew back
I would whittle the time away outside
barefoot, on the grass,
loving the warmth of sun-kissed skin
and the breeze on my dry cheeks.

Today the leaves grow back
and the green resurfaces
and the warmth has the world walking
with an optimistic spring it its step
but today I think that maybe I do not like green
that maybe my favorite colour is orange.
Dark but bright? Or yellow,
because it can be cheer to some
but the moment you place it beside white
suddenly yellow is impurity
and for all the pure innocence of spring,
everything is, is it not, washed over in a
translucent coat of yellow, stifling sunlight.

So I yearn for winter
and for cold
for numb fingers
just before they are thawed by yellow fires
for sweaters and scarves and hot cocoa
for bare trees outlined with snow
and for the world blanketed, from
green grass coated with frost
to yellow sun obliterated by clouds,
by the sparkling snow,
white in all its gloomy glory.

im not going to give you credit
and say that you are the one that
you obliterated my life
because i can do that by myself

im not going to give you fame
by saying you tortured me
because i can do it

i am going to tell you
you made me strong enough to leave
and smart enough to know when to leave

I have eyes
But I don't see what I don't like
I have ears
But I won't hear what I don't want to hear
I have a memory
But only remember what's convenient
I have thoughts
But I keep them in safe cages
I have a mind
But I refuse to change it

And so, you see

Let rhetoric over-rule logic
Let fake news obscure truth
Let corruption replace propriety
Let bluster confound reason
Let nepotism overcome merit
Let democracy be obliterated
As long as I don't have to admit I was wrong

                                              By Phil Roberts

Storm Rider(sample the doors)
start with "Riders on the Storm" softly repeated x4)

Try catch me-leap from ground to sky,
light up the night as I fly,
Tip to tip mischievous-watch me salmon leap-avert your eyes,
The Celtic Dragon Storm Riding tonight,
feel the static on your skin lets take flight…
Vast vista’s fistula’s in the earths core,
fly with me you wanna feel more?,
cut core to core claws - millivolt amped,
up to attack lay down my stamp,
Earth tremblin’ rumblin' humbling when I catch the spark,
revered by Tesla - hear me Arc…
Another mic blown - booth in chaos,
I stand firm - you're reeling as you're reeled in tossed,
like ragdoll physics my rhymes rip timelines,
Faultlines and default rhymes?
Never,I’m too clever,agility reveals your fragility,
Claws rip and drag you down …to a sea of tranquility…
Hush now ,shush now,
hear the susurrus as I leave you nonplussed
phase you back to your body  trans warp jump
tachycardia spasms chasms torn by talons,
pounces crush tons to ounces as I flex my neck…
hasn't changed since Wu told ya’s”Best protect ya neck”

Storm Rider,Glider light up the night yeah,
the Firestorm Lightning Storm inside your minds eye take my hand and we'll both fly
as the ground flashes by...
Storm Rider,Glider light up the night yeah,
the Firestorm Lightning Storm inside your minds eye take my hand and we'll both fly
as the ground flashes by...

Feel me breath blowing like a gale - the Gael without fail,
I inhale and exhale flames of hell,
hellbent- time to repent
you’re scurrying in gullies while I seek your Scent,
SNIFFFF-grrrrrrrr that’s the sound of doom,
from the Emerald shore to the Pharaohs tomb,
No room to escape the breath that melts steel
rabbit in my headlights feel my claws life steal,
oxygen and nitrogen erupt to seal your fate,
debate-berate, get estate in order,
one Molten blast of fast rhyme its over.
scorchmark against a granite wall,
burnt to a crisp by the firestorm from hell,
well welcome to hell do you feel the heat?
Sandman slim dragon never fears defeat,
20 years here  spittin’ in the underground,
Now its time to vacate my space hear my sound
A no go area,gates of Mordor,
dragged by the Dragon to your place of ******,
claws like claymores rake your face,
prepared to ignite,take flight-seal your fate...

Storm Rider,Glider light up the night yeah, the firestorm
Lightning Storm inside your minds eye take my hand and we'll both fly
as the ground flashes by...
Storm Rider,Glider light up the night yeah, the firestorm
Lightning Storm inside your minds eye take my hand and we'll both fly
as the ground flashes by...

Call me Nukker ******, you're due to be Slaine,
one scaldin' verse melts down your brain,
searing breath - death bursts unprepared heads,
Streets run red with the blood of the dead.
Feel the headwind....blowin' as I exhale.
My fetid breath tastes stale as you inhale
lucid juices sluicin in the Wyrms Den,
just One spark you're gonna BURN then!,
wingspan of an Antonov best back off!,
forked lightning blasts ground - as I take off,
fly head on to the heart of the Hurricane,
calescent death as I stake my claim,
rider on the storm,your attempt? - luke warm,
spells incandesce without stress as they take form,
the Serpent serpentine's through the night sky,
take eyes off mine? - your turn to fry.
don't cry it's fate, conserve your hate,
you perspire before your expiry date,
a Deer in the deadlights I'll open the gate,
to the next realm, next challenger calcerated,
another Champion obliterated,
ardent first to set foot on my Isle
now you're here you feel febrile,
feeble feverish attempts cut short clean sliced,
by the Firestorm Dragon with the eyes of Ice.

(Soft-"Riders on the Storm" rpt x2 Chorusx2 end.)

Storm Rider,Glider light up the night yeah,
the Firestorm Lightning Storm inside your minds eye take my hand and we'll both fly
as the ground flashes by...
Storm Rider,Glider light up the night yeah,
the Firestorm Lightning Storm inside your minds eye take my hand and we'll both fly
as the ground flashes by.

Here God,
Everything is for you:

Here are my
Testicles, looking like smashed purple grapes,
Bruised, mashed, and crushed along with what
Is left of my once proud, now exploded, tattered *****;
I have laid before you my
Disemboweled, bloodied and tangled intestines;
Blown into bits and pieces, here lays my torso along with
Shattered ribs, ruptured lungs, exposed internal organs:
Erupted heart; battered, split, spleen; torn, mangled liver;
Next to them, my legs, minus a few toes;
Arms with hands missing thumbs, fingers;
My head,
Less pieces of skull, cheek bones, nose, tongue, and teeth,
Is nearby;
Those puffy messes of glutinous, jellied, deflated ****** orbs are my eyes;
Over here, piles of chunks of obliterated pieces of flesh floating
On a thick soup of congealed blood, mixed and meshed with
Splintered, fractured, cracked bones; everything
Convoluted, disfigured, impossible to identify.

All of this is for you,
I am your martyr,
Your soldier,
Your obedient servant;
I blew myself up,
Along with many infidels including
Men and women,
Unborn babies and children,
Young boys and girls,
I tore their bodies to shreds,
Mangled and mutilated, they
Suffered deaths no nightmare could imagine.

I sacrificed myself for you,
Exemplifying piety and righteousness,
I await my reward,
Wait for you to put my pieces together again;
Been here for what seems an eternity and
You have not come near;
Not made me whole.
Where are you?
Are you not great?
Where are the young, innocent, ****** girls or
The boys with silky, pearl smooth skins;
Will I ever have an ******* again?
Uncomfortable, anxious, concerned I
Lay here on this sacred, hallowed ground,
Like a fleshy puzzle, scattered in jagged pieces,
Waiting to be solved;
Praying to be completed and recomposed.

Where are you God?
A virtuous, faithful, prostrated one waits;
I have much to show you.

i am leather bound
to last night's conversation.

while thumb thick
in good intentions,
i am beginning to think                      
you never knew me
as much as you
think you did.

dear, tell me
what has hooked
your jaws into spouting out
these pig tailed assumptions
of me?

you see, i've never been
quite as crisp tide white
as they made me out to be.
always a little fade to my denim.
didn't you know
some stains
can't be washed off?

some fingerprints
can't be dusted
or steamed out in the dew
of a 4 am shower.
and sunday knows
i've tried.

and still try to make it
plainly clear that i left
my mother's baby
somewhere between the arms
of brooklyn.

left her, all koolaid stained
tongues tied to the push pop
fantasies i'd held until
i was about kush high
to a grasshopper.

abandoned her
pb and j sandwiched in an alley
with a trash bag
criss cross applesauce
knotted around her lovely
to keep her just
as warm and naive
as she never had been.

had you ever noticed
the gauche in her grin
wasn't nearly as golden
as it should've been?
and her paperback bone
seemed to fold
a tad too easily.

of coarse
spines aren't meant to
break like that
but they do.

divorce and dysfunction
has taught us that
it all falls down
someday so don't
weep for the jericho
in my bones
but at least acknowledge
that its there;
that there are bruises
too light to be convincing
but they still ache
when you stroke them right.

that some nights the pains
of resurrection memories
out shine those
of the crucifixion.

certain skins must be shed
when your convictions
leave you broken
and the stars you sin beneath
begin to gossip
about your shadow.

and your shadow
finds its way
onto the floor of living room
while it watches you
let yourself be made
into one of the victims
you write poetry for.

when you're trying to bottle
God and grandeur
into the barrel
of the gloc your mother
grabbed in anticipation
of spilling herself
in the wind
when the wednesday's
got too lonely.

listen
stop trying to card me
before accepting
my truths.
i've traveled too
far for ****** to not
assume i've been
in the dark before.

drop my shell
and see the inside
mash called me
has been spilled
and shattered
and reassembled
and shattered
and scattered
and reassembled
and splattered
and bent
more ways
than i can yoga
position myself in.

when you asked me
how could a 17 year old
know the pain of this world
i wanted to tell you
to roll up you sleeves
and unzip your pride.

yes i am 17
but i know everything happens
for a reason and i know
being broken makes
you grateful of the
pieces that weren't obliterated.

i know you can't be
flexible without stretching
and i know how it
feels to be stretched
between 4 states
two parents
and 1 divorce signee.

i know what a blanket does
for someone afraid
of the shadows
and i know you can't
have shadows without light.

i know that florida fern leaves
are consistently stormed on
and never curse clouds for it.

i know i am beautiful
and i know how many
days it took me to find out.

i know i am made of those days
and those days
were born of a maker.

i know my mine
met and got married
and made me and my sisters
and mistakes and i know
they paid for them
in cash and criticism.

i know my father is a good man
and i know good men
lie awake at 4 in the morning
making plans to fix things.

i know my mother loves to laugh
and i know laughter
is the easiest way for her
to cough up her worries.

i know she almost drowned
on dry land before
and i know she was one of
the best swimmers in my family.

i know i am still learning
but i've learned
we know a lot less                            
than we realize
and feel a lot more
than we recognize.

One day... when the sun rose high in the sky... Gods will was said to have whipped the universe of sin for a single moment in time.
But it was the way that sin had been whipped, that will change everything about this story. This story does not have a happy ending. But This story also does not have a bad one either.

When the world was at it's worst, where rapists, killers, pedophiles and just about the worst of the worst would stroll around, like a fresh Sunday right after church ended and the bells would be a-ringin'...

Dressed in Black with a Red clerical collar, the Devil decided to take a walk on Gods green earth.

A lot of those see Lucifer as the darkest of darkness that dark could ever cast into a shadowy corner in the lowest of low pits in Hell. The King of Rebels. The ultimate Sinner. But on this day, just this once, He didn't seem to appear so dark.

With every step he took you could hear the whaling of a banshies cry in the distance. With a grin that crept on the peak of his filthy stature of a body.

What was it that made this being so Evil? Why was he seen as such a tragic accident? Lucifer is no Demon of any kind, but a fallen Angel. The darkest most hated of Angels to ever be known.

The Devil Walked into a Bar... This bar was called "The Cracked Loon-Addict" (But The Devil knew... he could read the words better than any mortals eyes could ever see. The words read on the Bars title, The Cracked Lunatic) Home and Refuge for the worlds most wanted and every living killer, ******, ******* and monster you could possible think up.

He ordered a shot of whisky and took a sip.

A ****** walked up, weak in her demeanor, She reeked of conviction and any form of self respect.  She spat in his face and laughed.

A man walked up to the Devil soon after the woman staggered off drunk, and said he ***** 4 children, 7 wives, murdered 6 men and tortured 17 families and sent each tape he recorded of the tortures to each families family, right before coming after them and killing them too.

The Devil looked into this mans eyes and saw nothing but the truth.

Soon after the man walked away another man walked up to the Devil. This man was skinny and his eyes peeled of death. The man had claimed he was a deluded psychopath with no reason for killing 117 people in the course of 4 days. He said he was just bored.  

Nearing the end of the day as the sun began setting, more and more people, men and women approached the Devil and confessed their sins. By the time the sun had set the Devil was on his way out the door and before leaving a man sitting at a table at the opposite, farthest end of the bar sat in a Pure White Robe. The Devil Stood at the entrance for a moment and then turned around and saw the man and noticed there was a broken halo above his head. The Devil grinned and walked out. The first step he took outside the bar was the Step of Judgement The Second Step was the Step of Eternal Damnation.

Every living being in the bar weather it's species was human animal or unknown, had obliterated into a dark mist. All accept that one single man in the white Robe. That ****** burned alive and his ashes left the mark of his broken wings into the floor boards as if it was to leave a tattoo.

Lucifer remembers. He remembered what the man in the pure white robe said right before the Devil walked out. He said, "I am an egotistical Homosexual who poses as an innocent white male who rapes the innocent and sheds hatred on those who love the same gender; All so I can get into the Kingdom of Heaven." The Devil laughed as he took his first step outside of the Bar and as he left Gods green earth.

But he did not do this for the faith of good or to help and serve the lives of the innocent. They did not even pose a threat to the Devil nor did they care about him.

The Devil did this because he found that the burning souls in hell didn't seem to burn bright enough. So he found some better ones to burn for the next eternity to come until he needs to refill his eternal Inferno.

A bird glides gracefully whilst the discolored leaves are aflutter
   In the wind that rocks the cold rotted wood of the window's shutter;
   All while the obstructive trees cause the wind’s speech to stutter.
   Yet she still howls with an intense pressure on me chest; I can barely utter
   My feelings toward this heavy air of eeriness about me—
   Nearly as heavy as the insignificance in the noose of the tree—
   A decomposed mutilation of all that is good, hung for all to see—
   A shriveled neck and half-dissolved eyes that still long to be free—
   The blood long lost, the body now pale—why does it stress?
   Why is life in its eyes, why does it shrug off Death’s caress?
   And as the sun is fully blotted by the black clouds, unfatigued,
   A hot stench like the enhancement of rotten fruit—yet I am intrigued—
   Descends upon me with the force of a vise equipped with knives—
   ‘Tis the horror of what only the spirits of the dead can contrive.
  
   And visions—horrible visions!—overwhelm me and present terrors:—!
   Rain steadily falls and patters incessantly upon an accursed Earth;
   Surrounding the hanging man are graves—and so begins the second birth:—!
   The tombstones crack and crumble into hundreds of jagged stones;
   An earthquake manifests quickly, and violently rattled my bones
   And remorselessly disembowels the Earth of the trees’ roots;
   Suddenly far more prominent is the awful stench of the fruits;
   An unsettling revelation is brought to my undivided attention:
   The tombstones’ collapse and the earthquake are not in relation,
   But the earthquake is a result of monsters unleashing their power.
   And the tombstones—but what of the tombstones’ fall?
   Startled, I see that replacing the hanging man is a voodoo doll,
   Dancing with its tiny limbs and smiling nonstop, locking its black eyes
   On my horrified self; I cringe and tremble in this demonic guise.
   A screeching note erupts from its unmoving mouth; it hovers in the air
   While I am frightfully dehumanized by the doll’s inexorable stare.
   While the screech lingers, the wet soil of the graves shifts quietly,
   The noise of splitting, wet dirt drowned out by the screech of cruelty.
   As it becomes clear the voodoo doll’s dance is one of conjuring,
   ’Tis revealed to me that the tombstones fell because of remembering:
   The dead do not believe they should be remembered, reflected upon...
   The second birth’s process is agonizingly long as I become wan.
   But before I nearly faint—and leave the visions—I receive an unwanted help:
   The doll’s gesticulations are directed toward me; even so, she raises Hell.
   My mind is frightfully clear to see all before me, and the dizziness has left.
   Oh, why these visions? Why with this horrible curse I am blessed?
  
   I am met with the most terrifying sight of all; my heart quickens.
   As the rain falls harder and begins to puddle, my blood thickens
   And very nearly ceases to flow as I watch the dead come to life.
   Gnarled fingers, some broken and some missing, ignore Death’s inflicted strife.
   Fingers—disjointed, protruding in random directions, treelike;
   Grime under the fingernails—fingernails, chipped or long spikes;
   Hardly any flesh on the old, ***** bones; muscles dripping off.
   Bodies, mutilated by natural decomposition, burst with raging coughs
   From the eviscerated Earth, black with age, red with dried blood.
   The dead, limping and holding what organs they still have, slip in the mud,
   Fall, fill their empty ribcages with it, and scream as limbs are torn away;
   Scream, as they are free from the grave, the path that led them astray.
  
   Oh, the feelings of dread that are eroding my scarred mind!
   What awful horrors have I stumbled upon, what did I find?
   One undead woman is staring at me with unfortunately soulless eyes;
   A few long hairs messily fall from her shriveled head, infested with flies,
   And her eyes—oh, her eyes!—are as small as raisins, wrinkly and white;
   They hover in her sockets, the skull only half-covered—pure fright!—
   With dead skin. Why is her toothless skull grinning mischievously?
   Is she enjoying my terror that leaves my trembling grievously?
   Abruptly, the still, deformed grotesquerie releases a sickening gurgle
   And violently shakes, as if under some overwhelming mental struggle.
   Her jaw falls open, unattended from the necessary muscles’ absence,
   And screaming laughter flows out of her agape mouth; malevolence
   Seeps from it in the form of pitchy black smoke and tightens the air.
   And all the while is still her unfailing, gut-wrenching stare!
   Her chest, dilapidated from the Earth's engulfment of her, explodes—
   A black skeletal hand, emerging from the body that was its abode—
   A demon, a black skeleton, blood gushing from its mouth, fire in its eyes—
   And tattered wings spread as the screamer takes to the hellish skies.
   It hovers around the dancing voodoo doll, circling her,
   Worshipping the smiling thing that was sewn with maleficence and fear.
  
   “But what are these things?” I ask as the undead congregate.
   “Is this how horrible life will be beyond Hell’s gates?”
   But it is made revealed to me that the people are eternal
   Inhabitants of Hell—Hell inside me; the spiritual realm is internal.
   “Why do they gather around the doll and bow in submission?”
   But, to my dismay, there is no answer to this deathly war of attrition.
  
   “Vultures!” I hear, a thunderous, wicked voice from up above.
   “You do not know what you are to believe, or what to love!”
   The dead dance in slow, uncoordinated movements, circling
   The doll. Even the shadows ominously flicker, no longer lurking.
   The black demon floats and gestures to the moaning dead,
   Beckoning them to rise from their permanent deathbeds
   To chant and flail their measly arms in worship of the voodoo.
   What have I done to be cast into this dangerous world askew?
   “You are a vulture, searching helplessly for something to feast
   “When the desperate hunger is turning you into the demons’ beast.
   “And when the food is gone, you search for your next dying idol.
   “For you, the inevitable conquest for falsities will never be final.”
  
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
  
   The room of a once peaceful dwelling is a victim of an apocalypse:—
   ‘Tis as if it has mutated into the imagery of a drug’s dangerous trip:—
   The walls are bent in, threatening to collapse under the pressure;
   Books are shredded, shelves are upturned, and obliterated is the dresser;
   Blood drips from numerous cracks in the ceiling and paints the walls.
   ‘Tis many moments of being awestruck before I realize the mirror calls.
   Vision is blurry, a hollow ringing sings, and my surroundings fade.
   My legs of jelly drag my heavy body into the dark hall’s shade.
  
   I yell at the sight in the cracked mirror, but my voice is painfully missing.
   It appears as if my entire face is losing its grip and is slowly slipping.
   Gravity’s grappling hooks have taken a strong hold and are pulling.
   The entirety of my eyes is almost visible from the disturbing lack of coverage.
   My jaw refuses to rise back up, as if the muscles have lost their leverage.
   It adds to the terror—how unsightly I am! How revolting!
   I am no longer human but an otherworldly, disgusting being!
   A scream that is not my own bursts from my agape mouth and shatters the mirror.
   It deafens my ears like a knife; I feel the fiery tearing of my vocal cords.
   “Vulture,” I vaguely hear but clearly curl my dry, thin lips to.
   “Go, find your food, find your idol, bathe in what you think is true.”
   Violently, desperately, crashing into walls with wild, uncontrollable limbs,
   I purposelessly search for the spirit that will welcome my immovable sins.

for all its worth, ad inviduum matters,
as any stress imposed
to, "break away from the herd"...
the ever becoming need for
flamboyance and bombast
to not be: the drowning man
in a sea of corpses in the inevitable
inferno...
      as much as the saying goes
about vanity projects,
   hair make-up, or rather:
less extravagence and more on
the lines of: you can walk in *****
and torn clothes...
       but at least you've taken a shower
prior...
             yet there still remains
a stressor on individualism...
    in that...
            as long as individualism
is accepted by a herd of "individuals"...
i remember that outside of school
i knew one black guy,
as the black joke goes: he was a drug
dealer, and a single father...
what the white boy knows a black guy
joke doesn't follow up is that
he was ostricized... a fellow *****...
because they really tell you
about the Bangladeshi workers
    dead beneath the burn khalifa...
even individualism has limits,
with the motto:
   as long as it doesn't mingle with
eccentricity,
    as long as individualism doesn't
mingle with eccentricity...
   because in the latter sense?
that's the individualistic norm shattered...
everyone gets to over-hit the mark...
which shows the cracks in
the so-called notion of individualism...
notably in the west:
        cogitans est cassus primo
                    gratia rideo...
      logos incognito.
                     as such, individualism
as spare, auxiliary / collateral change...
trend setters,
    if famous for 15 minutes,
   pack leaders for 15 seconds,
and then back to the frivolous intrigues
of peacocks on a catwalk...
by individual, i think of the:
                 hersch...
                      a dangerous line between
setting a vogue and a minor
sentiment for the vanguard...
and becoming ostricized as a *****,
humouresly being attached
the term: eccentric...
     or just plain weird in the harsh
tongue of the children's blunt...
phraseology...
                             the world comes
to the boundaries of a small town
exactly 1.5 days later,
  give or take the algorithm
via prior searches...
                                   perhaps how i
understand individualism is
how Narcissus might understand
the vampirism of his brother
     Solipssus...
                  a kind of people who
behave as if without a body,
a type of people who, like vampires,
can't see their reflections...
not that they can't in a literal sense...
      as everything small begs
a curiosity,
   as everything large astounds
with awe...
             paradoxical thus,
the content of a church,
                 and the church itself...
        after all...
     the legionnaires did soak
a sponge with wine and offered it to him
on the end of a spear... which he refused...
   a pale comparison
as blueprint, to what subsequently
came to pass...
              well...
it is pale... considering you'll
never actually know, upon giving
himself up so freely...
  that there wasn't anything,
remotely comparative
with the infamous example
of Albert Fish:
              self-embedded needles
lodged in his pelvis and perineum...
just as the other case in point:
marquis de sade seems more like
a scapegoat than the sadist
his imagination and only his imagination
allowed him to be...
because what,  screaming from
the window of the Bastille, or locked
in an asylum, he could really
compete with the power of the clergy
in the form of his uncle,
the abbé de sade...
                       how can it not be
a fiction, when the power of fiction itself
has become slowly obliterated
wriggling in a cul de sac?
     how could I ever write a work
of fiction, when what was deemed
as truth, credo, is facing up to
non-mainstream footnote reading
and the 1945 archeological findings
that match up to the 2000 or so years
of heretical speculation?
riht now, he can be brown olive
tanned mulatto or whatever Dalton
hue of orange...
              if white is ivory if it is
a scalped cranium a pharmacological
soup woth of brain...
             if white is white and even amrican
south: h'white...
        clingy *******
to the feet of the Urals...
    pardonable warm *****,
only Sveedish, and only at 25ml a pop...
talking to two old people
half-awake, half-asleep...
      buddha-eyed sleepwalking almost...
as i came in contact with
the dark chapter of medicine,
not even past the 1950s America...
                 the infamous tactic
of regression: also known as
    false memory implants...
                    two old people trying
to fall asleep,
   a bottle of *****,
       shy drinking, 10 years of celibacy...
with the odd purely physical encounter
like a rag and a hand and a ***** sink...
my grandfather bemoans that
he never had a chance to say: father...
i could bemoan not having said:
i love you...
                ascribed her an endearing
nick'...
                it seems this world
hides higher pleasures bound
to a rigour so few make eruditions of.

i won't ask for help unless i'm certain i can make it on my own
because if i'm not going to, no help will help

i don't talk about my real feelings
i'd rather to pretend to have the ones i should
so why should anyone trust me?
i'm a liar
i'm a good person, but am i? i say i don't judge
but of course i do; this world is too ******
i'm ****** up from the get go
before my real life started, i was destroyed and just when
i was supposed to find freedom
i had to find survival first
i'll never say what i want; i don't think i deserve it
i will not ask for anyone to understand
i always think i've done something wrong
that's a feeling i am used to

i'm supposed to be most dangerous because i know i can survive?
how about -- i'm your weakest link because i am deathly afraid to go back to where i've been?
i'm supposed to know i have the strength
i'm supposed to use what i've been through to my advantage
how about -- you could knock me out with a good plan and a nice final leaving line?
how about -- you could hit me in the face and i would feel, deeply, that i deserved it?
what if i told you i feel that i am the most vulnerable soul walking the earth, and i can barely stand to type it because, well... who is going to use it against me?
they tried to crush me when they thought i was strong.
they did.

If you look closely

You will see

The cracks and fault lines

That comprise me

From the outside, to the unattuned eye

I look like a normal vase,

For the glue is now dry.

Truth be told

I was smashed

Obliterated

Pieces essential to my core

Strewn haphazardly across the floor.

But thanks to those that saw me,

And a little internal conviction.

My pieces have been collected

My old form resurrected.

Thanks to a little glue

I appear to be almost brand new.

But don't be deceived

For what you perceive

Should not be completely believed.

For the vase is very fragile,

Not to be toyed with.

Not a player's game.

Please don't mishandle me,

And resurface days of misery.

Faded skies of grey and blue
Obliterated memories of me and you
Twenty one days of pain and pleasure
A rewind of the things that we cannot measure

Resisting the affection that you’ve been asking for
Slowly the tears fall down to my cheeks once more
How can you love the monster standing infront of your door
Are you even sure that you are capable of loving, at all?

You can cry but not for too long
Your heart has been broken once more
This is the price that you have to pay
For playing the game, you weren’t suppose to play

I'm in love.
I'm in love with the way grass smells after it's been mowed.
It has a certain smell that reminds me of summer days and childhood memories.

I'm in love with how that rain hits my window during a storm.
It's like it wants to come in so badly that tries to obliterate my window but only to realize that as soon as it hits the glass, the raindrop itself obliterates.

And I guess that's how I feel in love with you. You reminded me of summer nights and some childhood memories and I wanted to get into your heart so badly that I thought if I made myself fall you would catch me.

But, just like the raindrop, I obliterated on contact.