Nirvana - a transcendent state in which there is neither
suffering, desire, nor sense of self, and the subject
is released from the effects of karma and the cycle of
death and rebirth. It represents the final goal of Buddhism.

My Buddhist Queen,
Will you take me to Nirvana?
Will you take me to that place?
That place where we’re unshackled from suffering?
Because right now, this is intolerable.

My Buddhist Queen,
If we’re in Nirvana
why does my heart feel so aloof
and its beats, spectral?
Why does my body suffer from rigamortis?
Why am i teary-eyed
and why did you nominate my pillows to do the ALS challenge?
Why is my room a catastrophy?
Why do my walls succumb to the savagery of my fists?
Why am I suffering?
Why do I desire?
Why is karma still existant?


My Buddhist Queen,
If we’re in Nirvana,
why do you occassionally take strolls down to hell holding my hand?
- d.b.d.

THE ADVENURES OF GEORGE BURNINGTOM




YOU SEE IN THE DARK CORNERS OF A COUNTRY TOWN NAMED DUBBO, IN NEW SOUTH WALES

LIVED A GANG OF 13 YEAR OLD BOYS, WHO WERE ADRENALINE JUNKIES, YOU SEE TAKING RISKS

WERE THE MAIN PARTS OF THEIR LIFE, ONE OF THE BOYS GEORGE BURNINGTOM, WHO LIVED IN

A REALLY RICH HOUSE, IN THE RICH CORNER OF DUBBO, HATED HIS FAMILY SO MUCH, THESE

MATES OF HIS WERE MUCH BETTER, YA SEE, THE RING LEADER OF THE GANG WHO WAS HARRY SMITH

WHO WAS IN A VERY POOR FAMILY, YOU SEE HIS FATHER WORKED AS A CLEANER AT DUBBO ZOO

AND HARRY, HAD ALL THESE GET RICH SCHEMES, WHICH INVOLVED TAKING HEAPS  OF BREATHTAKING RISKS,

ONE THING THE BOYS WILL DO IS HEAD TO THE SKATE PARK TO RIDE UP ONE WALL AND OCCASSIONALLY WOULD SKATE DOWN

THE STAIRS, SOMETIMES SCARING THE OLD PEOPLE AS THEY PASSED BY THE STAIRS, GEORGE, WHO WAS INTO

SOAKING IN A BIT OF ADRENALINE, BUT JUMPING HIS SKATEBOARD, FROM THE FOOTPATH TO THE MIDDLE ISLAND

IN THE SWAMPY WATERS, MIND YOU, GEORGE FELL IN A FEW TIMES, AS HE TRIED THIS, AND SKINNED HIS LEGS

WHICH MADE GEORGE WANNA CRY, BUT HE WAS THINKING, BOYS DON’T CRY, BOYS DON’T CRY, AND THEN THE

OTHER KIDS RAN UP TO HIM AND SAID, YOU LOOK VERY HURT, BUT YOU ARE NOT A DISGRACE TO OUR GANG, IN FACT

YOUR PRETTY COOL.

THE BOYS WENT BACK TO THE SKATE PARK, AND DID A FEW TRICKS AND JUMPED UP ON THEIR BOARD A FEW TIMES

AND GEORGE FELL, HEAD OVER TURKEY, BUT LANDED ON HIS FEET, AND THEN THE BOYS SAW A SEMI TRAILER, AND GEORGE

SAID, LET’S RACE THISB TRUCK, AND THE OTHER BOYS SAID WE COULD DIE, IT’LL BE A TAD RISKY, AND GEORGE, OUR LIVES ARE

RISKY, YOU COULD SAY WE HAVE A RISKY LIFE, AND AFTER SAYING THAT, THE BOYS FOUGHT THEIR DELLUSIONAL THOUGHTS OF DANGER

AND RACED THIS TRUCK, AND THEY WERE ENJOYING RACING THE TRUCK, THE TRUCK DRIVER LOOKED THROUGH HIS WINDSHIELD

AND SAID, THESE KIDS ARE TOO CLOSE, AND THEN SAID, I HAVE TO TAKE AN EMERGENCY STOP, TO LET THESE KIDS PAST, SO HE DID

AND FOUND OUT WHAT THE KIDS WERE DOING SAYING, YOU KIDS DON’T UNDERSTAND THE ROAD RULES, AND THEN YELLED OUT

YEAH GO, YEAH GO, LIKE THE COWARDS THAT YOU ARE, AND THE KIDS RODE BACK, AND SAW THE DRAINS AND HARRY SAID LET’S RIDE

IN THESE DRAINS, AQND THEY WERE ENJOYING PLAYING IN THESE DRAINS, AND THEN THE PASSER BY, CAME UP AND SAID, LISTEN YOU KIDS

THESE DRAINS ARE VERY DANGEROUS, GEORGE SAID, WE ARE RISK TAKERS AND ADRENALINE JUNKIES SO TO SPEAK, AND THE MAN SAID

WHY DON’T YOU BOYS  GO ON HELICOPTER RIDES LIKE THE OTHER KIDS OF DUBBO, LIKE MY SON AND THEN GEORGE SAID, YEAH YOUR SON

WHO IS THE BIGGEST GEEK OF THIS COUNTRY TOWN, WHO CAN’T STAND ADRENALINE, IF HIS LIFE DEPENDED ON IT.

THEN AFTER THE MAN LEFT, THE GANG KEPT PLAYING IN THE DRAINS AND DESPITE ALL THE ***** LOOKS  THE PASSERBYS HAVE BEEN GIVING TO THEM

THE BOYS STILL PLAYED IN THE DRAINS WITH THEIR BOARDS, AND THEN AFTER THE BOYS WERE SICK OF THE DRAINS, THEY RODE THEIR SKATEBOARDS

OVER TO THE CORNER STORE, SO THEY CAN PLAY THE PINBALL MACHINE, BUT THE BIG BULLY MARKO BRIDGETOWN WAS THERE, AND THE ONLY WAY

TO HAVE A TURN ON THE PINBALL MACHINE, THE KIDS HAD TO BUY THE BULLY SOME GRUB, LIKE FISH AND CHIPS OR SUMMIT, BUT GEORGE SAID

WE HAVE BEEN TAKING RISKS ALL DAY, HOW ABOUT WE TAKE ANOTHER RISK AND STAND UP TO THIS BULLY, BUT THE OTHER KIDS INCLUDING HARRY SAID

THIS DUDE IS GOING TO BE ANGRY WITH US, BUT GEORGE SAID NO, WE DON’T HAVE TO BUY THIS BLOKE A MEAL, AND THEN SAID, I AM NOT GETTING BULLIED

BY SOME LOSER ON THE STREET, AND THEN GEORGE TOOK A RISK, BY KARATE KICKING THE BULLY, AND MIND YOU, GEORGE REALLY PUT THE BULLY IN HIS PLACE,

MIND YOU HE GOT A BIT TATTERED, BUT THIS WAS A RISK GEORGE IS WILLING TO TAKE, YOU SEE NOBODY IS MAKING FUN OF GEORGE BURNINGTOM AND GETS AWAY WITH IT.

DESPITE ALL THE KIDS THINKING IT WAS A RISK, THEY ADMIRED GEORGE’S BRAVERY, AND RODE THEIR SKATE BOARDS DOWN THE ROAD OF DUBBO, AND AFTER A

ADRENALINE DAY OF TAKING RISKS, EACH KID WENT HOME, TO WATCH A BIT OF TELEVISION AND THEN GO TO BED, AND TOMORROW, WELL, ARE THERE MORE RISKS

TOMORROW, I DON’T KNOW, TODAY WAS A RISKY PART OF THEIR LIFE.

Look,
I would literally give anything to forget you
The mind spasms,
The eerie loneliness mocking at me,
Every time someone takes your name.

But i don't just sit wallop, date, flirt, random kiss and push people away.

I cry and miss you.

Not always.

Occasionally?

yes.

Sorrow blooms on our cheeks
From time to time
In a cloud of damp surrender
And whilst ever present
Is quickly devoured by a whale
Of necessary denial

Yet let us not think
That life is but a dark night
And rather the brightest day
Of carefree sunshine
Occassionally dimmed
By the bleak, fleeting shadows
Cast by that breath-taking creature
Merciful in its elusive nature

My roadkilled cat friend occassionally comes back to me in my sleep complaining about being sick after ingesting gasoline from the guts of the car that beheaded him. You ain't seen **** until you've waded through a marsh of blood in escape of the suburb that just blew up 11 miles away from the woods THEY kidnapped you in, New Orleans Jazz songs on repeat during the storm drain drug deal. Don't forget throwing up all over that expensive platter of rotting meat, while getting bent over and ****** in both your holes by some tall intersex sociopath. Maybe I shouldn't have let those harpies follow me through the maze, all the way home. I'm a waste of human flesh.

You were a poem from the beginning

Something in your boyish features and shining blonde hair, shabbily cut across those blue eyes
You were a marvel to me simply in the way you walked, floating on knobby knees and slouching socks
In your blackline tattoos, the silver hoop in your left ear, your skin Moroccan gold
And you had that one darkened tooth of a crooked smile lover

In the afternoon, I watched the sun cut through the holes in the space above us
In shy glances, I watched whole worlds of your boyish beauty as you slept in the sun
Occassionally waking for sips of warming beer from green glass bottles
Your warm honey belly balancing a clever man's novel

And later, in the dark, empty palace of a room, between those ancient stained glass windows and those eternal flowing fabrics,
The boy I knew as endless whispered so softly,
"I think I must be boring"
But I could swear you are a poem breathing life
You are sweet cadence come alive

I can still taste chocolate and wine on your lips
And I feel the laughs from deep in my belly as you crossed your legs and told me stories
I still feel the softness of your hair, the sweat from the tip of your nose
I still see you smiling at me from the far end of the pool
That one dark tooth of yours the only imperfection in sight

kinda cool,
everything
not too shabby at all
maybe it's perfect
this whole whatever we all are
and nothing is truly awful
but unfortunate, at times
and pretty **** alright the rest
oh yeah
not horrible
simple really, if one can breathe
occassionally sleep
or not
too much greatness to observe
swerve the baysides
collect some efforts and shears
become air statues and memorials of testimonials of primative genius
mmhmm
downright loverly
splendid shining on
cathartic rhythms

You are no longer a hurricane wild and free- at least not to me.

I am no longer in the eye of a storm

and I now smile each time the wind blows,
a light breeze on the rare occasions I clamp eyes on you,
the hair of my memory ruffled, tenderly,
I recount how I used to gasp for air in your presence,
how the storm that was you snatched all the air from my lungs
and
oh
the unnatrual silence that would fall upon me in your presence,
unable to articulate the intensity of my desire to love you,
unaware of the fact that a birds song would never be able to hold a candle against the broken howling of the wind that was you.

I don't think that a bird whose wings almost tore at the ligaments, fighting so hard to keep up,
can claim that a storm of that magnitude was of any good to their ability to believe that they were capable of flight-
so I cannot say I miss you.

But I will say this,
there is no part of me that
will ever forget the violence of the storm that was you.
There is no part of me that now takes the gentle breeze for granted
and there is no part of me that doubts my ability to heal, fully, because a restoration has taken place in the parts of me that were left destroyed in your wake.

So I will say that there are very rare and fleeting moments in which the wind picks up unexpectedly,
and I run into you old friend,
you absent hurricane you
and I hope that the winds of your soul have settled into a song that heals your brokenness,
and I smile with an unshaken joy in my heart
now knowing that there is nothing romantic about a hurricane
but my soul smiles still
and occassionally when the winds blow
fiercely in the depths of your soul
re-read the songs of a little bird that loved a hurricane
and know that the songs are no longer sung
but the words have not been forgotten.

Oh when the winds pick up,
there is a bird who remembers the natural disaster of that human hurricane,
Oh when the winds pick up,
that same bird may sing a song of what was,
Oh when the winds pick up,
I pray that a song of joy and restoration reaches your ears.

Oh when the winds pick up,
know I am no longer afraid of hurricanes at all
because after you, I realized that I was never a bird to begin with,
I was never a natural disaster,
but instead
I was mother nature herself-
entertaining a love of a different humor
for but a season.

Some days I'm emotionally unstable
Occassionally putting my problems on the table
Needing a friend to see how I'm treated
In my lonesomeness and depression I feel so defeated
Once having brilliant brown eyes
Now turning red as they dry
Risking my own feelings to the dangers
A pain filled and broken heart is no stranger
In my silence I will cry
Never wanting to hurt you or say goodbye...

it's a Feeling
that feels like
perching delicately
on the bold curve
of a soft edged rock
in the midst of the Ocean
watching waiting
listening with the beating of your heart
waves
that only so occassionally
splash playfully
a cricket's-song undertone
of a vagueness
that makes you Feel
lost beyond rationalisations

I waited for you -
down by the Woodbine
house on Kendrick Avenue.
I must've told myself 
a thousand times
that, when you arrive,
I'd be just fine -
sitting on the stoop
collecting thoughts
like puddles of rain.

Occassionally, a car
would pass, thrashing
through the puddles
slashed interrupting my
hopeful mind with violent
doubt...

I waited for you -
denying every reasonable
thought and holding on
to my childish dreams.

I'm still waiting for you -
Though hope has long
become desperate denial.

I'll wait for you..

Love and Hate, involved in an Eternal War since the beginning of times.
Love and Hate, constantly fighting to gain control over the heart.
Love and Hate, always on the battlefield as foes, but sometimes they laid down their weapons for a while and fought together as allies.
Love would be in control for a while and then Love would casually step aside so Hate could take its place and make the heart crumble a bit, more and more with every type of foul play by the two.
Love and hate, Right and Wrong, Light and Darkness, normally each other's foes, but occassionally each other's allies.

Boredom exceeding the limit, I reached out
To the shelf full of cassettes and
Sliding my fingers down the names
Stumbled upon one, dustier than the rest
That one, obviously older, bore the name
'Du Dlux Dlan' (Which you may say rhymes with Ku Klux ****)
Something he'd bought feeling a liking for its name
Its quirkiness, as was his wont
I played the cassette, anticipating a flurry of blows and kicks
A curio. to unravel the mystery of its name
The movie , as it turned out, was not a movie
But what I think they call a footage,
On the screen three crosses erected in a desert land, with a man hanging on each.
The three men were bearded, the one in the middle
Looked calm and serene ( as if he'd been tranquilized)in spite of his ****** body, all battered and beyond recovery
The other two, I found , were kicking and whining (in their constrained state, of course.
Kicking with their nails, that is)
Hanging men get their peckers stiff and up, I knew it
There were soldiers around them, occassionally raising their spears and with its tip, tickling the men on the crosses out of their wits.
And then...there was a gunshot
And the clatter of horseshoes
Holding their guns aloft, rode in a pack of three cowboys
Then pointing their guns at the hanging men, they exclaimed:
'What the....., they are nailed to the crosses!"
Wasting no time, they swerved their horses around and rode away, leaving the men on the crosses for dead and me, gazing at the blank screen of the TV and asking:
'Who could the Du Dlux Dlan be?
The three men on the crosses or the three wranglers?'

My brain doesn't work right.

Most of the time,
I feel like I'm not real.
Like I don't exist.
But more like I don't consciously exist.
It's a very faded feeling.
It's, I guess, like being a ghost.

It's like everyone else is alive.
Like they're real.
They have real live bodies.
But, in comparison, it's like I'm not physically real.
I'm just a dull flicker of consciousness that occassionally flares into a full word.

I'm sorry, but I don't know what that word is, yet.

My brain doesn't work right.

Sometimes,
I feel too much.
Even though I might only be feeling one emotion or I might only be having one thought,
I feel all of it.
I feel everything.

I've been told that it's part of my illness.

That when people have the same chemical imbalances I have,
We feel things fifty times stronger than most people's.
Our emotions cut deeper.
Things mean more to us.

I guess that's why pretty much every great sentimental artist in history was thought to have some sort of Bipolar Disorder.

I guess, people become great and wise when they have Manic Depression Disorder.

But, I guess, only after they die.

Right now, though,
I can't bring myself to feel anything at all.

I suppose it's because some intuitive, subconscious part of myself knows that I'll be feeling much more than my fair share later.

My wrist hurts
Occasionally
From where he pushed me
And i tried to catch myself.
It has ached on and off
For three years.

My ankle twists
Occassionally
If i step on it wrong
From where he grabbed me and pulled
When i tried to run
The fourth time.

My shoulders still hunch
Into a flinching form
From people whose quick and too close movements
Were intended to hurt.

And I'm ashamed
And embarassed
But i know you get it,
But there's more that's left me
Less than before,
Than what i've told you.

waking up slowly
fabricating an illusive meloncholy,
then dancing with different partners in my memory
until I'm lighting a cigarette
and watching it all bleed out
I wanted you all to need me
way more than you did
perhaps I never opened myself up to being needed
and only thought I did...
seems like I was just a kid.
sometimes it still feels like I am.
occassionally naive,
but doing the best I ******* can...
I barely remember what it was like loving you then
I must be like a shadow in your memory...
or maybe like a ghost with a heavy burden
longing to be freed.
do you wonder what I'm up to?
does it even matter to you?
I'm not sure it even should
I can't give you what you need  
I'm not able
though I used to wish I could...
but
I don't quite think that I'm missing out
you've got vinegar where you think there's honey in your mouth
and a sore
where you think there's pores
to absorb
what you think is a greater knowledge of me
of men
of women
of pleasure and pain
you observe and dismiss,
leaving with nothing gained.
sunday mornings always smell the same
but still different in their own way...
I've taken so many contemplative rides home
in that sunday morning glow
eyelids barely clinging to saturday night's eyeshadow...
so thirsty for an answer to fill me
grinding up some C+ ****
reaching my own bed
and going back to sleep.
I still wonder what you're up to