Please do not Leave Facebook, my friend,
These storms will soon subside.
ReMOANERS will get used to “Britain Out”.
They’ll grow tired of making you feel
A *****
For voting to jump the sinking Euro ship.

Don’t leave Facebook
For Google will crash,
Bebo and Myspace will return
And the BitPound will plummet.
Latin will become the default internet language
As hackers rule the web.

Be afraid, very afraid.
The consequences of Leaving would be dire.
But if you Stay here
In the ***** of the Facebook Family
You will be safe and secure
And eligible to claim
Your complimentary cuddly toy.

Paul Butters

© PB 25\6\2016.

A day consists of 24 hours
1,440 minutes
86,400 seconds
That average person takes about 20,000 breaths a day
Every second of every day is based around my recovery
Mind games
Distractions
How many times I can look in the mirror and tell myself no
At least 4
Maybe 5
3 on a good day
A person blinks almost 28,800 times in 24 hours
But sometimes I just stare
So I can focus on something other than my recovery
My addiction
My need for something other than what I can't have
I can hear my thought process
Sometimes it's quiet
Like when I'm asleep
Other times it's the only thing I hear
So I call her because she knows how to turn down the volume
She is my recovery
Because even for a split second everything is perfect when I see her
The amount of breaths I take double
The number of times I blink goes down rapidly
My need for recovery increases exponentially
She is the calm that flows over my body
The rush of oxygen to my brain
When she talks to me my number of bad days plummet
Because she loves me and I love her
So by hurting me I hurt her
My recovery is an ongoing process
That consists of 24 hours
1,440 minutes
86,400 seconds
Of me trying not to hurt myself
1 day turns into 1 victory
And when I tell her that over the phone I can sense that she is smiling
So 1 day really turns into 2 victories

Everybody in Russia loves Vladimir Putin.
In the years since he muscled his way to the top of the tree, he has established himself as the Champion of all Russia!

In the degradation following the collapse of the USSR, national pride in Russia spiralled down to an all-time low, there was little to be proud of. The satellite nations fled to independence abandoning the Rodina,  Agricultural and industrial production fell dramatically, law and order diminished dangerously. The economy shrank and the order of success in business depended largely on connection with Government and/or the Mafia. The Oligarchs became monstrously rich, the average Ivan monstrously poor. Life savings were rendered worthless overnight by the plummet of the value of the rouble. Russian society polarised from the ecstatically happy, filthy rich to the chronically unhappy, beggared poor.

Russian leadership staggered from Gorbechev’s democratisation through Yeltsin’s alcoholism to Andropov’s sudden death…. enter the fray Vladimir Putin.

Putin tightened the reins.
He organised regular payment of wages and salaries to the movers and shakers, the police and the military.
He changed the rules of doing business within the nation and made investment opportunities within Russia available to outside interests.
He took charge and commandeered discipline within the ranks of central Government.
He set about correctional treatment for the terrorists/freedom fighters in the Chechen Republic and elsewhere.
He raised the expectations of the common man and gave the people an element of promise for Russia’s tomorrow.
He invaded and took back the Crimea as legitimate Russian sovereignty.
He garnered the roaring support of the six million ethnic Russians domiciled in the Eastern region of the Ukraine.

Putin now stands, bare chested, astride Russia. He faces a hostile but cowed West with pale, blazing eyes and a ******* bulge in his trousers.
He is widely idolised by Russian women and admired by Russian men. He is their champion; he is believed to be their key to the future.
His nation is currently under severe trade embargo and economic sanction by Europe and the West which is hurting the strained economy right across the board.
The declining price of oil is adversely affecting Siberian oil profits and making further shale oil exploration uneconomic.
He enjoys hugely profitable Siberian natural gas pipeline sales to the Southern neighbour, China, but they watch the unfolding political landscape with careful, calculating tiger eyes.
Putin is regarded by Europe and the West as an unpredictable, serious threat who should not be unduly provoked.
Undeniably, the West, in their sour lipped manner, would be happy to see him and his Russian bear, fade quietly and permanently into the obscurity of the frozen wilds of the far Siberian tundra.

But if Vladimir Putin plays his cards well, he could actually bring the Rodina all of the benefits, glory and rewards that it seeks.
However, should he overplay his hand here, he may well crash and burn….and in doing so, could bring Russia’s dreams and aspirations crashing down with him.

Marshalg
Auckland
15 November 2014

Just turned sixteen
a rage of hormones
erogenous zones
no more sexting
or wet dreams
your sixteen
you have our permission
to give in to your impulses
full submission
your pulse races
no more wishing
release your inhibitions
but before you do hold up and listen.

You can't drink and drive
yet you can think of life
for now any thought you conceive
can legally achieve
a new life you can breed
Should anyone so young have this much power?
to class it as fun and be deflowered
just because you can attain an *******
stand to attention
gives you the right to create perfection?
- when love isn't even mentioned.

Should we raise the age limit?
Would teenage pregnancies plummet?
but you say
they will still do it anyway
regardless
they couldn't care less
do you blame parents?
- or carers?
Maybe we need
a better educational system
to teach them.

It’s the media that feeds
into the body image
a consistent mirage
a constant barrage
of so called celebrities
having *** on TV
With the skinny waist
fake *****
and high heels
what a waste,
you choose
how you feel.

Take time to pause
and hold onto what’s yours
for once lost
you will pay its cost
your virginity
is its own currency
people will value you more
or label you a *****
a ****, a slapper
a used ****** wrapper
go ahead tap her
she doesn't care
what you wear
or if you marry
take her cherry.

Just because it has a secondary function
doesn't mean you have to use your junk son.
the next time you get an *******
steer your mind in another direction
or at least use protection
so you don't spread STD's by infection
having *** so young can be tragic
take the time to think
or you may later regret it.

Don't give into peer pressure
Don’t use others as your measure
have *** at your leisure
when its your pleasure
when you're ready
not just because you've been going steady
protect your innocence
remain a princess
pretty in pink
abhor red
so think first
before bed.

My father taught me to swim
by holding my small body
tightly  
and stepping off
the highest ledge
at Horses' Heaven,

indifferent to my pleas 
for release, to play safely
with my sisters
on the ******* below.

I had time to notice gravity
before the cold river 
swallowed us 

and as I fought
to keep him from slipping
through my stinging hands

he let go.

It was a long, dark panic.
I'm still afraid of the deep.

I wonder what learning to love 
might have been like
had I learned to swim 
in a shallow pool,

with a patient teacher.

College: the four year roller coaster ride,
Ridden by purchasing a one-way ticket to adulthood.
Blink, and it will pass before the very eyes
That take in media-based images,
Depicting college as no work and all play.

Click,   Click,    Click,    Click,

Leaving proud and teary-eyed parents behind,
We enter *******-box bedrooms
Filling them with unbridled enthusiasm, unadulterated optimism, and a hint of unidentified angst.
Even menial tasks like eating at the cafeteria or watching television
Are made enjoyable with new friends and a sense of independence.

Click,   Click,    Click,    Click,

We are filled with energy like hot-air in balloons,
Rising in the coaster as we ascend upward.
However, we ignore an important lesson
We have learned from any ride we been on or story we've read:
Nothing stays positive forever.

Click,   Click,    Click,    Click,

They say that ACT scores are designed
To determine your success in the first year of college.
But few of us take these tests while coping with things like:
Depression, suicide, bad grades, fear of independence,
Loss of identity, or unprecedented amounts of drinking.

Click,   Click.

These factors inevitably come into play
And collapse the kickstand of optimism holding our chins up.
We find ourselves hurling toward the ground;
And as if gravity has pulled them harder,
We reach to the seat in front of us,
To retrieve our hope, our control, our breath.
As we fall, we feel hopeless, helpless, speechless,
And wonder if we will make impact.

It is perhaps at this time more than any other,
We realize the importance of friends and family.
They reach their branches out
And root us in the soil of understanding and openness.
Like the front car of the coaster,
They pull us out of the plummet.
After experiencing the highs and lows of the ride,
The rest seems a manageable imbalance of work and play.

We spend time in libraries, cataloging our actions and emotions
Into a book, self-titled but preceded by "face."
Such internet activity is the placebo
We self-prescribe for procrastination, an epidemic among our people.

Drinking from Solo cups half-full with liquids as impure as our intentions,
We end our weeks hungover from mental exertion and social immersion.
But the optimist in me sees that these cups are half empty,
Ready to be filled with future plans and dreams.
Dreams of being teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers;
Having houses with three-car garages, guest rooms, and foyers.

You see, this is a ride where no one judges you
If your hands or feet are outside the ride,
If you scream when you're excited, cry when you're scared,
Or puke at the end.
So remove your blinders and beer goggles,
And enjoy this while it lasts,
Because it is the final ride in the amusement park of youth.

I am a miner. The light burns blue.
Waxy stalactites
Drip and thicken, tears

The earthen womb

Exudes from its dead boredom.
Black bat airs

Wrap me, raggy shawls,
Cold homicides.
They weld to me like plums.

Old cave of calcium
Icicles, old echoer.
Even the newts are white,

Those holy Joes.
And the fish, the fish----
Christ! They are panes of ice,

A vice of knives,
A piranha
Religion, drinking

Its first communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,

Its yellows hearten.
O love, how did you get here?
O embryo

Remembering, even in sleep,
Your crossed position.
The blood blooms clean

In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to is not yours.

Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses.
With soft rugs----

The last of Victoriana.
Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address,

Let the mercuric
Atoms that ******* drip
Into the terrible well,

You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.

When the end of eternity arrives, you shall be by my side awaiting the dawn.
The Sun rises bringing newfound hope to the denizens of a light and airy realm,
Our spirits reanimate, rejuvenate, resurrect; intercept weariness of heart.
Doves above the high plains carry our love across the infinite sea of the Universe.

Stars and twinkling celestial bodies swirl around the center of all creation.
Pianos, my threnody has become a source of lament and bemoaning but in time a love song will revitalize a deadened soul with a deprivation of cosmic oxygen.
I want you to breathe newfound air into my nostrils, fill me to the brim with your breath of life, toxicity to the bones.
Being able to stand in your midst will be an impossibility.

My knees will give out and as I fall to ground you will tightly grasp my hand and pull my body into yours.
“Amplify my heartbeat with the sound waves of your voice.”
“Ensconce within the warmth of my body, feel the heat rise when we begin to caress each other softly.”
My blood becomes frigid smoke when I’m in your midst.

Nothing but cold heat courses through my body.
I’m frozen, stuck in a cube of time and space where you and I reside in comfort and abysmal enamorment.
-Ardent passion-
This is where my heat lies.

The inferno that burns beneath my wary skin is a tempest of sequestered affection.
“I’m afraid to be touched.”
You are the element of freedom.
You are the most sought after and desired material in all creation.

The materialistic nature of this world has accosted me with a cannonade of ****** bullets, pleasing in a forbidden way…
Gazing upon you with my eyes is a sin.
A transgression.
But the platinum heart in your possession is my desire.

Daffodils and roses surround us in a floral sphere; a yellow tinged bubble..
We transcend gravity and float above the ground.
-Fragrance-
An aromatic barrage of iridescent fumes intoxicates us as we rise past the stratosphere, mesosphere, troposphere, and conscious- sphere.

Being with you is a higher plane of existence where your every breath is vital to my survival.
Magic courses through my veins when I hold your arms around me.
Aqueous bombs descend from my eyelashes when you depart.
A deluge of tears has accosted me.

My body contorts and I crawl into a corner; this is my cloister of trials.

Those seemingly eternal eons during which I endure the withdrawal symptoms of your narcotic love…
Maybe you’re a hallucinogenic?
Lying on the cold and sobering concrete floor beneath me, I **** my thumbs in the fetal position.
I’m an infant after you vanish in the thick and noxious puff of smoke that lingers long after you are gone.

You are a master of the arcane.
You are nothing short of extraordinary.
Even when you disappear it is nothing short of awe-inspiring.
I feel the love spells from your tome of seduction blast my fragile spirit till’ I begin to lose my sight.

I clench my forehead with the back of my skull pressed against, being caressed by these sanguine reds walls that seem to cave in.
I can’t hold my head up any longer.
I lie in darkness as chaos consumes my soul.
The murky and dank ambushes me from the corners of an unknown dimension.

I’ve slipped into an unknown land.
A myriad of ravens with ebony wings surround me until I am no longer visible to another human soul.
They latch onto my skin, grapple onto my thighs, weigh me down with despair and push me six feet under.
When all is dim and lost?

I realize this is figment of the imagination, a fabrication…
I realize this is all a dream.
A dream of what could be.
A dream of a narcotic love.

I have yet to jostle that unknown creature who lurks at the threshold of the limitless skies.
When I reach the stars in my spaceship of galactic love then I will find you.
Obscurity runs amuck in the dimension that I now reside in.
Dark clouds loom above the skies…

The sun is nowhere in sight.
A storm is brewing as lightning begins to crash.
In those brief seconds of illumination I am bombarded with visions of your face.
The complexion of your skin, the feel of your flesh beneath my fingertips.

I hope that your touch will unbind me, loose me from the disillusionment that I’ve been threatened by all my life.
I beseech the heavens to shackle me with iridescent chains to the stars so that gravity will never pull me away from my dreams.
I will hang above the terrene never plummeting down the sea of the skies, never being incinerated by the blaze of freefalling down the atmosphere.
You will be my reward.

That glowing gift box with a celestial wrapping.
A diadem with the most extravagant gems and diamonds shall be waiting for me beneath the cosmic plastic wrapping and the golden ivory box that surround this gift.
When I open it, this crown shall begin to levitate and a human silhouette made of light shall begin to transfigure itself from naught beneath it.
Skin will slowly attach to your luminescent body.

Your metacarpals and phalanges will appear.
Your ribcage will expand and a platinum heart will begin beating within it’s confines.
-The heart that I’ve always wished for-
I will finally be able to gaze upon your face.

I will hold onto and never let you go.
We will grow old together and when we near the end of our lifetime, we shall become nebular gases.
We will then become one with the Universe.
The remnants of our love will last everlastingly even after the spark of passion is long gone, when our corporeal vessels no longer exist in a physical form.

“I don’t…I have nothing else to say but that I will be waiting.”
“I will wait for you to materialize in my midst.”
“My heart ails for you but my malady will dissipate once you arrive.”
“Every heartbeat leads you and I one step closer to one another.”

“You will be my remedy, my panacea of love.”
“I love you but I don’t even know who you are!”
“The reason why is unknown to me.”
“I will be waiting darling.”

“I will be waiting for your earth-shattering kiss.”
When the ground beneath us begins to crumble, we shall plummet beneath the lithosphere and asthenosphere till’ we reach the core of the planet.
We shall become the inferno beneath the ground.
Our passion will burn so brightly, so fervently, that an eruption will take place above the surface of the ground.

The world will know that when we make love, the air will be ignited.
Our passion shall heat up the Universe.
You will be in my Universe  and you will be my Universe…
Maybe then?

-I’ll become yours-

To my Future Lover, to my moon, sun, and stars, to my Universe,
By, Iridescently Efflorescent

In the forever winter landscape
Live gentle waddling penguins
While fierce forces conspire
All life brushed away
By unforgiving weather
But with an icy resolve
They all push back
Not with a Roar
But a little pitta patta
Of jolly dancing feet
As they happily bubble along  
With defiant hearts whispering
To the weather
With a nonchalance  
Disarming the Gods
   "we don't care"
With a silky soft defiant Roar
They potter on with their day
In a light hearted way  

Traveling through their life
They feel bound by limitation
Limbs retreating,, wings shrinking
Escaping from the weather
As the world places them
In a straight jacket
But they fluff out their
Love filled chests
A dash of yellow
On their cheek
Proclaiming I love who I am
As they slowly press into snow
Heart blazing with white fires
Busily they chatter
Nodding and bowing
To each other

Life pushes newly weds apart
As her ladyship is forced to abandon
Her man to the long winter's night
Left holding the egg
She looks back with a longing glance
Her heart torn
But in the blistering chill winds
And freezing cold air
A cool clarity is born
Where all passions are left
Under sheets of steely ice
And soft blankets of snow
Her task very clear
She pushes on

A trust between partners feels itself called on
Now fierce winds blow through
And into her face
As they now feel so far apart
She stops to take one last look back
And feels an impenetrable bond
Forged in their hearts
As her beak circles the sky
It is as though an arc
Of light is made
A silver connection
Binding them together
As they feel somewhere
In the eternal they remain holding hands

The aspiring father left
Holding precious egg tenderly
Left standing on cold ice
In blistering winds
Four months there left balancing
Treasure softly on his feet
Through the winter's night
Angry winds betrayed by the sun
Sting with a viper's vengeance
As temperatures plummet
-70 and dropping  
Cooperating together they huddle
For their very survival
Perfectly dressed in Tuxedos
Black like death standing on their back
White in front for the devotion
They show us in life
Reliant on each other
They spiral around together
And say
   "together, together we can do it"
As they silently sit through
The long winter's night
Letting go of their resistance
They release a godlike persistence

Over the horizon mothers appear bobbing
Like bubbles of thought bursting
From the flat transcendence
Fulfilled wishes appearing
New mothers pulled forward
By tickles of joy in their hearts
Leaping forward on their bellies
As they collapse in
Boundless devotion
Their hearts drawn forward
Skating along on their Love
They glide.................................
           and slides..................................
On their own pouring devotion...................
Effortless devotion..................................................
They almost fly on their
Unlimited Love

Effortless embracing tasks
Supporting new life
They are filled with the
Ecstasy of fruitful service
Later adults return to water
Float with a grace
Of a dancing ballerina  
As though fuelled by rocket fuel
They leave bubbles like smoke

As we delve into these
Vast fields of devotion
And see these jolly beings
Successfully spilling through
The dark winter's night
As they spread new life
I feel like the great God above
Totally humbled And can only
Kneel and Bow
To the beautiful penguin

your heart pumps kerosene
to your matchstick veins,
& maybe i imagined things,
but i remember your eyes as ember rings
& i can't wipe my memory clean
of the dingy debris--
the delicacies of your legs & knees--
this fire's not extinguishing!!
those ashes you disguise as eyelids
won't keep me from the iris
i know i'll find inside them

& i'll skim past your skin grafts
to your smoke-smothered stomach
then plummet to your flame-engraved pancreas
((scarred from swallowed promises)).
these propane x-rays
can't scan the barcodes
on the charcoals
that the holes in your heart hold

Packing my childish thoughts, storing my dreams
Stabbed by reality and distant ambitions bleed out of me
Rainy is due for sun's shined in my head
Now comes for the part that I find I dread

Treading, no trudging down a word so detached
Imagination in the grey I find I lack
Here all is nothing and I want it all
In the end result of the fall

Raindrops forget to
drop
a drop
dropping slowly
the rain forgets to stop
stop
plop
a plop of blood in the ocean of firestorm
now death opened
like an unturned boat in the
middle of the world
to receive the last plummet of hope,
last blessing
in a humane drop from above
above
the above has
no rain for the next season
the winds are afraid to return.

Started off in the [clouds]
and after falling and crashing down,
touched the roots of a redwood.

Now with the help of giraffes
I scale it's back as I'm looking
to climb my way up the trunk.

Branch after branch,
contact causing
****, hoping no one
stops my conquest
and burns this tree to ash.

Talking to fauna,
birds chirp, to attempt
continuing this saga,
after she left I reduced to
nothing but a larva, as I now
undergo the metamorphosis,
similar to that of Kafka's.

Trauma induces this  
determination, of being reunited
in clouds with her creation,
and if up there nothing for me
is waiting, then abort mission,
swing towards a new notion,
and from the the clouds
I'm perched upon, jump
and plummet into the [ocean].

25 hours pass before
the tip of the tree is reached
and as the sun rises, I realize
I'm above the horizon and
on clouds perched I instantly
recognize the eyes hidden
under eyelids.

Finally we've met again,
tragic ending as I reach for
her to grab my hand.
Unstably standing on this branch
and as she hands me hers, she
retreats and pulls back.

Slipping, she let me fall
and midair I hear my heart
crack, falling thousands of feet,
I'm thinking of the love she couldn't
keep, and before the impact a thought passes my head; so honest.
Humans like myself, too ambitious in their conquest,
meant to stay at trunk of trees, and clouds, strictly homes for a goddess.

These waves of emotions have taken me by storm
These waves of emotions have made me forlorn
I am at times riding the waves higher than the trees
Then I plummet lower than I seemingly can be
I am drowning in the ocean, can someone rescue me
from these waves of emotion

There's something haunting about you
I could watch you all day
And never get sick of it
Like staring at such an intricate piece of art
Finding new details with time and memorizing all of mixed colors that were used to create something so beautiful
Each of your breaths are fistfuls of stones dropped in my throat and anchored in my chest
The way you smile with such sincerity and light-heartedness like an innocent child
I know that you are no good for me
I know there is more to you than the precision that I see
I know that you will only hurt me
And I know that I should walk away before the ground crumbles beneath me
But there is a hope that you will be the one to catch me
Before I plummet
A hope I will hold onto until I fall

Last night, I couldn’t sleep because
the dark and the blankets felt like guilt
and I couldn’t live as myself anymore.
I woke up in the morning anyway
and took a boat into the fog and found myself
on the island, walking across a cliff top into cloud -
walking into the unseeable, feeling alive.

-

So here I am on the island,
the fog – the symbol for that murky future –
is rolling in across the hills, across the cliff top
in one straight barrier.

I feel alive as I face the fog
and I stomp right through it.
One day, I tell myself,
I’m going to make it.
One day, things will be
different.
I just can’t see it yet.

I smile in the fog. I love the fog.

It clears and there’s the monument
that I’ve seen so many times before.

There’s the familiar at the end of the tunnel
it would seem
and I'm going to make it.

-

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here though.
It’s always going to be easier to face the symbol
as the I in the poem than as the I in the real,
facing the actual.

-

Back in the now, the fog has gone
and everything is blue and green.
I’m sitting on a bench below the monument,
remembering how a poet once walked here
and I really do feel alive today.

I stay on the bench in the blue and green,
quoting other people’s poetry to myself:

See, I’m sad because I’m sad. It’s psychic, it’s chemical.
I should hug my sadness like an eyeless doll
or just go back to sleep.
And I know there are promises I really ought to keep,
and miles to go before I get that sleep,
but aren’t the woods so lovely dark and deep?
And they are, but when it comes right down to it,
and the fog fails and the light rolls in
and I’m trapped in my overturned body
with fears that I may cease to be,
before I’ve had chance to write or love,
I must go to the shore of the wide world and stand alone and think –
and let there be no moaning there, when I look out to sea.
Let it just be sunset and evening star and one clear call for me.

-

I’m still sat on the bench, enjoying the sun
and suddenly I think

one day i’ll bring my girlfriend here
she’ll probably know of more exciting places
but i’ll bring her to the island
and we’ll sit by the monument
looking at this very same view

I find myself thinking in the future tense and it’s strange because
I don’t have any hope for beyond the now.
I’m still thinking I’ll probably be dead
and yet out of nowhere,
here’s the shift into a different tense
and the view of the end of the island
where it looks like it should plummet straight down
into the sea, but it doesn’t.

There’s more island beyond the end.

I sit on the bench, shocked at myself,
but I keep trying to believe that one day it will be different
and one day I will come here again,
with my girlfriend, whoever she maybe,
if she may be, maybe, please?

-

I come down from the cliffs and go to the shore,
to walk alone and think.

The sea casts gold and silver on the sand,
the sunlight gives puddles lilac halos
and I think maybe, just maybe.
Maybe, just maybe,
because today I feel alive.

-

The beach is a beautiful blue winter.
Winter, being the time of death,
blue being the colour of the endless sky and sea,
the colour of sadness and the colour of calm.
Beautiful, there because it is beautiful
and to nuance it further

The sea has left traces of itself
on the beach and I concentrate on those.
I look at the smaller elements
and try to forget the wide ocean.

The cliffs are crumbling and eroding.
The beach is rocky and ragged.
They are symbols for my own erosion
and my own weakness against the sea.

-

The beach is also real
and I walk on the sand,
feeling separate from everything,
feeling the possibility of everything,
feeling that maybe, just maybe.

I feel like something could go right
in this beautiful blue winter.

-

But this is also a liminal moment and while
I feel at home in the liminal      in the space inbetween,
you cannot build your home there.
The future needs a more solid base
and the liminal will eventually rip you apart.

-

I feel like a child here, but not quite.
I feel like an overgrown child
or a child in a too big body
or a child who knows too much about this world,
or an adult, who still feels inadequate.

I balance across stones, I jump puddles.
I don’t care anymore.
I’ll be the child or the adult.
I’ll be the I.

-

There is hope here, hope in feeling alive,
in curling my hand and imagining someone
will one day hold it.

For now, I walk across the sand and
look at the cliffs, the gold,
the lilac, the blue, the shipwreck,
the deposits of the ocean
and I write them down
into the notes on my phone
so I can turn them into poetry later.

I want to capture these precise scenes,
these precise feelings of being so alive
for the first time in forever,
of seeing the end of the beach and thinking,
maybe, maybe, some part of this will turn out okay.

-

The problem is,
I want it, this future, this something else,
and I think maybe it’s possible,
but I’m not sure I can get back on the boat
and carry this belief home safely.

Here on the island,
sipping at the brimming nostalgia,
breathing the blue winter,
living on the shore,
camping in the liminal,
it is all maybe, just maybe,
but maybe is a fragile word
and could easily get lost in the ocean.

-

I’m so caught between
wanting to end it all and wanting to survive it
and maybe it’s just the liminal moments
that make me want to live.

I pick maybe up off the shore
and tuck it into the pocket.

I have no idea if it will survive the journey back
but maybe, just maybe, it will.

Seven years I lived my life, fading from reality. Crossing into machinery. Robotics with which I am so unfamiliar. Machined, greased, lubricated parts. Built with a purpose. A meaningless purpose. Destined for failure.

A broken down machine I stand. Sit. Lay. Run. Work. Play. Slide. Cursed and wretched as the demons which haunt the dreams of the fallen. I rise above. Skyrocketing through reason. Through the seventh layer of Heaven and Hell. On a false sense of cloud nine I currently float…awaiting the plummet.

Its falling away from me. I sail through a shattered sea of broken glass. I closed my eyes and the tears could not flow. Blocked by my eyelids, restricting emotion. After all of this, I am amazed. The wall could be broken. Forgotten faded memories of which I have no say.

Of past. Of present. Of gifts. Of futures. Of lists. Lists of black. Hit lists in my head. I live in my head. I am not what I wish. I am what I’m not. I am what I dream. A scream. A cry. Laying here, blank as the page on which I cannot create a scene. A scene behind my eyes, yet I cannot attain it on paper. These words flow meaninglessly, but not slow.

Daedalus, Icarus, Thrice. Three times I roam. Randomized plains of thought, laid out on a digital page. Keys, not a pen. Ones and Zeros, not ink. Screens, not pages. Neat, not sloppy…yet my words do not understand one another… nor do I….

If we make the mainland, this song would not be made. Epic beauty, formed through misfortune and tragedy. Oh son…I beg you…keep a steady wing. For you are the only one who means anything to me. My wings are made of melting, shredding, fading elements. The sun, heating, lighting, someday dying. I understand that nothing is as it may seem. Nor is any seam as true as the seamstress believed. The Gods did not take the only thing which meant anything to you, father of legend. Your son is not dead…only afire. Acquired by the forces you believed to be merciful.

Feel the entropy heating up your gears
With meshing poetic rhetoric flowing through your ears

Pistons pinions piercing pulsing
Calculating creates cruelty convulsing
Which confuses itself as a new form of dance
But it’s actually mating while still wearing pants

There’s mercury around your hat’s brim
As you look up to your cherubim
They’re not good MCs you’re suffering from delirium
We’re not an ocean we’re a city: Pandæmonium
Whether stage, stereo, or behind a podium
My flow so addictive you need rehab to quit this *****

Undercutting uppercuts straight to the jaw
Dangling there mangled but you’ll never lose the awe
I can talk sunlight into becoming my shade
Stand up to me? Step down before you fade

I am the Clockwork Seraph
Each word must be cherished
Because words hold more power than any man
So I’ll trick the legless to take a stand

We’ll walk miles for this vile style
Bloodied grin? Show us your smile
All is well? Or all is in denial?
Who cares? Let it rest for a while

Throat grabbing metaphors
Chokes gabbing sell-out ******
Garrote grappling violent scores
Rogues glancing harlot stores

Cut to the point or cut to source
Cue the anointment meant for the Force
Wrong religion but ***** it any myth will do
My words are Set to Isis like Osiris rose for you

Scheherazade’s in her padded cell full of fright
Shouting frantic nonsense for 1,001 Asylum Nights

Love is a chemical that seems too harsh
It comes from the brain, we call it the heart
Anger is an arrangement that can tear you apart
Here’s an outlet try again end at the start

Pause
Think
Take a breather now
While sixty feet under water
As you drown

Yesterday’s miracle is today’s explained fact
Truthful anomalies become outliers for the mass

If a beat drops does it plummet to its death?
Was it suicidal it could be anybody’s guess?
It tried to forget so it kept all repressed
Tongue play twisted by the embittered press

Oh yes! Says the ******* moaning ghost
Raise your glass take a sip prepare for the toast
Overdosed on rufilin for the life/death duality
The party forgot to plan this half-hearted tragedy

Fires burn like thunders boast
Of the speed the hot flash was provoked

I don’t do battle raps I just humiliate my foes
There reputation lying in graves row by row
Blank stares earned as they feel the throes
More white towels thrown in as their hope corrodes

My left hand spits for the pages thrones
My tongue tests it to see how it flows

Shoot for the moon and if you miss
You’ll be surrounded by infinite emptiness
Obviously I’m different so I won’t waste your time
Every rapper claims their special somewhere down the line

Are you lost? here’s a map: blank canvas
Crumble it up to see it form a crevice
A Knight of Bedlam here for your service
Rising with the lunar crescent for their hubris

Blood stained White Knight
A hero’s antithesis done right
Funeral garbs for this sable raft
Beating hearts for disabled craft

Buried in deep and now I’ll rise
To the occasion to claim this prize
The only thing we all have in common
Is the differences in our perception

I am the Bayssic scion
Hold on tight if you plan on riding
On my dark white lyrics
Beautiful insanity with spirit

Each and every person you meet
Is as real as you imagined them to be
From my mind un-vaulted in hopes it’ll last
Join us now, through the looking glass

Plastic plates bowls and cups
loaded on recycling trucks.
You've had your party thrown it away,
Less to wash up at the end of the day.
But few fall out they blow in winds,
Escape the grasp of the recycling bin.
Not all bags are renewable plastic,
Less strong now not so fantastic.
So write a note for a new tote,
Handles far stronger less likely broke.

It's not our problem it's goods we buy,
There wrapped and packaged to the shoppers eye.
But when the seas are less serene
Choked on plastics and polystyrene.
Death tolls rise numbers of sea life plummet,
Dont ya think its time we do summit?
To a turtle or whale a tasty dish,
To dine upon the jellyfish.
Not a bag for life that passes by,
That binds them to starvation before they die.

So the seas bob in colour of plastic pollution.
Times running out what to be a solution?
Its high time we started a clean up revolution!
To use less packaging to educate all.
Before the tides continue to rise and we loose them all.

The ice caps are melting at an alarming rate,
How long before for all it's too late.
Eco systems absorb UV,
cool the world for nature to be.
Polar life need ice to remain,
In cooler climates to sustain.
But as they melt and tides continue to rise,
Am losing hope for their demise.

Leave the jungles and forrests for self restoration,
Less fossil fuels and deforestation.
The trees keep falling from constant felling,
With palm oil growing; plantations swelling.
Our orange ancestors the orangutan,
Has been their homes since the jungles began.
To break life cycles whole eco systems,
It's time to change the world with our wit and wisdom.

Else what do we leave to the future generations,
Man on earth just viral abominations.

It was that 1st touch... skin met skin, chemistry burst into the atmosphere and love rained down on end!
Oh how good it felt, feeling that strong connection, it was magnetic how it happened, all that passion and affection.
Never before have i felt such a love so strong, when we bonded with our souls, we were one for but so long, and still, i feel you as a whole, my hearts song .
Swarming inside my inner being, floating with me into serenity, seeing all that i am seeing, friends and lovers for infinity.
Your hands gave me bliss, crafted from some type of magic, every time i felt your touch, my heart began to panic!
Please don't stop! I need it, i crave it, i want it, i yearn it, i feel it before it happens, then chills and thrills go up my spine and juices run straight down my sultry vine.
Ahh so divine, your lips so soft and full, light sweet kisses i cant escape from, forced by a gravitational pull.

Our lips fit perfectly together, from every single angle we tried, and when our mouths were open, i felt as if i could fly.... or fall!
You made me melt, to much pleasure to contain myself, tongues intertwining, warmth constantly rising, butterflies and anxious cries were things i failed at hiding.
You rubbed away my tension, from head to toe and reverse, back tracking all my inches, constantly being rehearsed.
Your best performance was yet to come, yet everything you did amazed me, i kept on thinking where did you come from?! Thoughts were scrabbled, vision was hazy.
What was i thinking? where am i? ****** i just kept sinking, deeper and deeper into your love, till i felt lifted into ******, top of the mountain way up above...
That tongue...*** just thinking about it makes me moan, licks and ***** and nibbles broke me down and put me in a zone.
Upon my throne, i was your queen, and you showed me why you are my king. Gently you held me and caressed my body, firmly you ****** me , inside i screamed.
Ooo your strength turns me on in more ways than one, your dominance simply enticing, inviting me to play on and on, calling me, so exciting!
Constantly making me wet, dripping with juices of pleasure, heated and throbbing and set, bliss beyond knowable measures.
Tension rose, you lost control and took advantage of my body, and when you did, lord have mercy, I've never felt so **** ******!
Breath was shortened, grips got tighter, sweat was beading from combined desire, it felt so good, you deep inside me, taking me higher and higher.  
Massaging me from the inside, oh my goodness what a beautiful pleasurable ride,.. i still sigh.... i couldn't bear it, seeing the passion in your eyes.
Your girth placing pressure on my spot, felt so good that it hurt, made me hot, i was left staring, almost speechless, while you savored all my sweetness, i forgot.
All my troubles faded away, all my worries began to plummet, nothing else mattered but what you were doing, as you sent me in route to my summit. They way you touched me, gave me tranquility,  made me want you to touch no one else, to yern for no one but me, to not even pleasure yourself.
What kind of foolishness?! laughing out loud at my own  unexplainable stupid-ness, i had to taste you i wanted all that i could define, what was your flavor, mmm i savor  the memories in my mind., i can still taste your sweet creamy goodness, seventh heaven, you put me on cloud nine!
What a ride! So much more we did together i cant cover it all, everyday I'm loving you stronger and deeper, i know you'll be there to break my fall, a ride like this deserves applause, a man like you that has no flaws, is to be cherished and loved forever without a purpose or a cause.
When we made love i saw your light, when we made love i met your heart, when we made love we became each other, from that 1st touch... we made a spark.

For knowing we must suffer

How ironic that our knowledge is the source of our struggle

Ignorance is bliss

Knowledge is suffering

The more I know, the blacker the void becomes

The more I know the more inevitable that end seems

Certain apocalypse closing in...Life’s flame flickers, sputters, fights to burn...then dies

For the oxygen is thicker than the cadence that the flame is accustomed to

And the wrath of god is our own sick self-torture

Encasing our minds in a torrent of glass and nails

Nihilism scorches what faith once warmed

Blackened, numb, dead, bleeding no more

Leaving nothing but the simple signs of lost hope

And broken dreams

Which ride on a cavalry of lame horses, clutching swords long broken

Dead eyes stare from cracked helmets, bones rise from sunken skin

They have become nothing more than a shadow of their own misfortune

A sick punchline to a humorless joke

Aimless they stumble to our side but at the snarls of hell's misery they recoil

Broken by adversity, their will as dead as ours, they are not our allies

They are a greater enemy then either heaven or hell can create

For they are our own brokenness, we gaze into their eyes and see what we have lost

We see doors long shut, dreams long shredded by ****** razors of truth

For they are our past.

Our past with no future.

For what future do these dead things hold

The promise of decay, of despair, of a fight long ago lost

Marching in to save us these soldiers tie our noose

And suspend us from the bridge of tyranny that our minds have created, using ropes long since broken by the strain of living

Hope, not what we cling to, but nostalgia for as our eyes glaze over, as lips turn blue, we see a faint light of what once was

We see before the knowing, before the insidious whispers of torture began

We see and desire, but may not have

For desire is the truest form of torture

Also the most sinister

For we are in hell and we hunger, hunger and thirst

With cracked lips and swollen tongues, the water slips from us before we drink

With contempt we struggle on with no hope for our lives, only for the pain to end soon

Death, in its comforting embrace, for no longer shall our eyes open to see the fading colors of life

No longer shall we know sin and desire

Nor the cruel touch of a scornful lover or the heart ache of regret

For through death, all life has purpose

No longer shall we know broken, twisted parodies of heroes nor love

We look to the black abyss, not the void of hopelessness, and we leap

And like the dream we fall but never land, in the arms of flight, of ethereal endings

The darkness collides with the light of knowledge leaving the black an even paler gray then that even of a cadaver's skin

The gray of apathy, of nothingness, of a vacuum that draws from our mouths the very souls we were foolish enough to try to save

Bleaching all hope of dying till there is not left but a sliver of an arrogant belief that our suffering would end so easily.

Lifeless yet feeling, blind yet seeing we plummet till there is no time left to fall.

What we know, all knowledge was our own ignorance of eternity, our fight for it, our fight against it

As death consumes, as the final suffering begins, we are drawn to the things we never knew, the things we could not know, things that draw us to heaven and yet drag us to hell

The very existence of our soul creates a greater torture than any we have ever encountered, creating bile in our mouths thicker than the blood pouring from our hearts

It separates from our lifeless bodies, from our twisted minds, and it is as though we are ***** and robbed of the thing that tethered us to any possibility of hope

Like a silver bullet it flies from us but we are helpless to catch it as crushing agony fills our lungs with black, clotted blood

Creating a sad excuse of a person out of our flesh and sending it wallowing in our midst

Flashing our memories and hopes into the mind’s eye of something that can only be compared to blackest of dreamers

The very discontent of hope

And the believer of agony

This monster, this twisted parody of ourselves, this demon of the shadow

We shudder and recoil, for the sight burns our newly closed eyes

Its venom poisons our veins and we lay writhing on the floor, vomiting black bile of revulsion

Finally we look up to see that these monsters are who we really are

They are our truest form, our twisted belief in humanity laid out to mock us in the cruelest of ways, with the truth

Shivers fill our bodies as we realize that this is the hell we have feared, a never ending satire of our very existence

This, this and not fire, this and not brimstone

This is hell, the purest form of knowledge of the ugliness of what we are

This understanding creates an unbearable agony far beyond any imagined by the creators of the underworld

Tearing at out minds like a thousand hooks, glowing red hot with the heat of burning souls, twisted to form the torture of millions

Sending pain through every channel imaginable in the human form including those that are yet to exist

So this is the truth, to be sent to hell before we even know of life

For life is just a parody of hell, a weak heaven to prepare us for the ****** chaos to follow

The irony of living is nothing compared to the irony dying

We seek heaven in life, we seek a soul that never existed, that humanity with its gleaming metal scythe ripped from us before we even knew it existed

Creating a maelstrom of regret and hollow pain unfathomable by human minds until the cold hands of death close around their existence

And they lay there, as all must in time, choking on their own blood, tears welling up as they realize what their life has come to

The pleasures they once sought are no more, the rosy cheeks are now a skeletal pallor

Their hands are broken and their shoulders hunched as the weight of the black closes around them

This is death, an end to all means, an end to mortality

Yet the beginning of pain and suffering

Nothing in life means anything and the knowledge imbues us with inexorable despair

Unable to breathe for our metal chains of torture

Which drag us down into the marshes of chaos

Their locks are made so not even the strongest of steel can rupture them, leaving us hopeless and stranded on an island of our own thoughts as the black water closes around us

Filling our mouths with the taste of sickness and the feel of slime running down our throats

Glacial hands tear at us, leaving ice where our hearts once were, where our skin once was, the cold a fiery burn upon our flesh

We cry out for love, our last hope, our last ray of light remembered

To realize that we are alone

Love is no more than hedonistic vice and no soul but our own is here in this ****** place

Sending us reeling into madness, spiraling ever deeper into the realm of insanity

Our hearts are gone; our minds left with not but their own company, starving for more than one thought...a thought other than escape

Yet it cannot come

For we have brought this on ourselves

There pass the careless people
That call their souls their own:
Here by the road I loiter,
How idle and alone.

Ah, past the plunge of plummet,
In seas I cannot sound,
My heart and soul and senses,
World without end, are drowned.

His folly has not fellow
Beneath the blue of day
That gives to man or woman
His heart and soul away.

There flowers no balm to sain him
From east of earth to west
That's lost for everlasting
The heart out of his breast.

Here by the labouring highway
With empty hands I stroll:
Sea-deep, till doomsday morning,
Lie lost my heart and soul.

The shapeless void beckons me
I take a step forward
Unsure of what is to be
My footing fails me
I plummet.
Or do I rise?

A Monday morning in Richmond
     is like waking up with your head
   shaking with commotion.

You pray while you take a dump.
       You end up going across the street to Starbucks,
    with three-sixty left on your credit card.

For some reason unbeknownst to you,
you feel that you're a Renaissance artist,
brought to earth to perform studies on human beings.

Little by little you realize that you're the son of God.
There's a moldy tennis ball in
your pocket labeled: God.

Rap, or is it, Rock music that pumps through your ears?
And you're not afraid anymore.
You start to notice the handwritten facade built around your surroundings.

The State Farm billboards
perched above the scaffolding.
Your nose drizzles with crimson.

Memories of the Christopher Walken Impersonator stains the keyboard.
There is no real difference between the garbage man
and your best friend, the one who supplies you with mescaline.

And the comedown feels like a Indian Monsoon.
Electrocute your senses
until you've turned numb to your baby sister Victoria.

The Toyota Avalon cruising up
the street corner with the yellow high beams
is not the white witch from The Wizard of Oz.

Trip falls.
Inhale smoke.
Speculate more.

Dirigibles in the clear, blue sky plummet down.
You listen to your parents while you're high on *****,
wondering why mom dukes looks like Johnny Depp.

Fingers tremble as you try to type out
a handwritten letter from prison.
You meant to text message your mom, "Happy Mother's Day."

And instead
you typed out to her,
"Happy Birthday Mother!"

Lows and highs permeate through your heart.
Caving in, the walls crush into each other.
That girl was married and you gave her a head start on life.

You stole your best friend's birthday money to buy M. You tell yourself everything
is going to be okay as you swivel in your leather recliner,
A ****** dollar bill jammed up your left nostril.

Long, blue rails dotting the wrinkled notebook paper,
used up from the last owner. You
can't stop coughing.

You throw up on your clothes.
And you start to think that
maybe you are ******* up and you can't stop without an intervention.

Then
you start to think,
maybe this is all in my head.

The cold wind nips at your exposed ankles.
Red sores develop on the back of your elbows.
Local pariah is far away from his hometown.

Your favorite Uncle has stage 4 lung cancer,
and you're chain smoking menthols
to ease the edge that splits your brain in half each morning.

What is struggle without the lost—
without the success on the other side of sanity?
You pop prescriptions to ward off the insects gnawing away at your eyeballs.

Gouge your intestines with a straight edged blade bought
from the dollar store.
Ode to Keroauc.

The unholy manuscript written with pen and needle.
Cool story bro.
But you have nothing, but mistakes to offer to this unjust world.

And earth continues to spin on an uneven axis.
When it comes to a point where fiction and nonfiction
        are void of speculation.

           When it comes to the point where reality and dreams coincide
and you begin to stumble
over your shoelaces that are tied.

When it comes to a point where
               your enemies and friends seem the same that is the point
when you attempt to sleep.

But sleep will always allude you, you Danny Art
          So read your poetry aloud to the unsung.
To the sleepless.

The Walkers dressed in rags approach you,
smoking on black and milds, dark rings
circling their eyelids.  

And the time of night which you so longingly search for
in the face of listening to The Dark Knight soundtrack, gives you a pulse, a sudden click that boosts you into peril.

That bloodstain drenching
the corner of your eye sweats profusely. And that's when you start to wonder:
is everything that I'm doing baked in fallacy and witchcraft?

The comedown.
The comedown.
The comedown.

You are the burden of my fellow constituents, lost in reverie,
gone in madness, forlorn from deeds,
that are too great to imagine.

Your tears mean nothing
in comparison
to the world at large.

And that's okay.
And that's okay.
And that's okay.


You begin to discover,
that you do not write poetry,
but you write greeting cards in a journal.

Or a pen and pad,
ink
and blood.

i've always loved adventure, so i tried falling in love
i wouldn't call it falling, really
more of a plummet
into an abyss i can't get out of
yeah, love is an adventure
but i'm lost
and you won't give me the ******* map

perhaps
my spine
is misshapen
like
the shady smile
of
the moon

and my pigeon toes
make my walk
look awkward
as i stumble through my life

i am not
one of those women
who has a graceful
step

i don't
float
like a feather

i plummet
like an anvil

i'm clunky

i'm awkward
and uncoordinated

short-legged
and
short-tempered

i am the little salty one

that stumpy
grumpy
gal
with the posture
of a woman
three times
my age

i hunch
and i crunch
because i am always
trying to hide my stomach
even when i'm paper thin

which just makes
my back look arched
and curved
but doesn't tuck
my chubby parts in

strangers often
assume i'm much younger
than i am

but my mirror cracks
when i look at it
and i can only
seem to see
the parts
of
myself
that i hate

Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age,
Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgramage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth;
Engine against th’Almightie, sinners towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-daies world-transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear;
Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bels beyond the starres heard, the souls bloud,
The land of spices; something understood.

I sit down in front of this piece of paper, pen in hand, the wind through my hair and a single dim light’s reflection in my glasses. I close my eyes, tired of repeatedly trying and failing to write an article. I wearily rub my eyelids and sit still for a while.
And that’s when I see him.

He stands against the backdrop of a waterfall, the green grass gently caressing his bare feet as he walks slowly towards the calm, turquoise lake. A sudden whiff of tulips assails my sense of smell as he walks into the water, his composed steps mirroring the complacence of the cool blue he walks into. He wades in till he is waist deep; birds chirp in the distance, trees sway in the wind and everything the sunlight touches melts into a golden brilliance.

As he walks in, ripples branch out from his torso, tattooing themselves upon the surface of the water. They move forward with him, each with a colour that merges into a thousand new hues as two of them meet. I stand there watching in stupefaction; he does not acknowledge my presence as he continues to walk forward, his eyes fixed upon the blue-gold sky over us.

All of a sudden, he climbs out of the lake and begins to hurriedly hunt around, muttering to himself
‘It has to be here somewhere.’ He darts off between the trees, with the raw agility of a young impala. As he continues to fly over the many shrubs and roots in his way, I chase behind him panting and puffing as the entire forest falls behind in a blur of green and brown. And then we hear it, the scream tears through the woods and the sky explodes into a whirlpool of colour; he turns back and looks at me, his eyes wide with horror and disbelief. I skid to a halt before him and I realize that we had reached the outcrop of a cliff. I turn to him, my back to the massive drop from the bluff, a quizzical look in my eyes as I find myself unable to articulate the words in my mind. He puts his hands on my shoulders, the fear etched deep in his wide eyes. And he pushes me off the cliff.

The air whistles past my ears as I fall to the ground; it seems like an eternity has passed before I finally rest my head on the hard ground beneath me. Every bone in my body feels like I have walked headfirst into a moving train, I gingerly raise myself off the cold floor to see him standing over me. He raises a finger to his lips, signalling me to follow him. We walk forward cautiously, the fear of an unknown disturbance still hanging heavy over us. We walk through an open field of wild grass, the pale silver stalks dancing in the breeze as the moonlight lit up our path. He doesn’t say anything to me; I walk alongside his shadow as his shadow. We come to a clearing with a single tree standing proud in the middle of a vast expanse of nothing. He gestures to the tree, we make our way there with haste. I walk into the cool shade of a massive oak and collapse under its mighty protection. He walks around the tree and returns with a figure in his arms. Next to my tired form he lays her down, a look of gentle calm upon his hard features. The moonlight dances upon her face and her shallow breath rattles through the night. Her stormy grey eyes lie wide open as she continues to struggle against an unknown force so as to keep breathing. He stands at a distance, silently watching the two of us on the ground; one battling for her life and the other silent and still like the great oak tree above us. Her lips part slightly, a single droplet of light rises upwards into his palm and she falls into a silent stupor. He gazes at the pinpoint of white in his hand, bringing it slowly to his mouth. I watch on as he proceeds to swallow it, confused about the events transpiring before my eyes. He throws his head back and looks up to the pitch black sky and a million tiny lights wink back at him in response. His eyes open wide, his jaw falls low and a burst of brilliant white light breaks through his tall, proud form. I see the mouth move, I hear him speak a few moments later. The voice rings loud in my ears, resonating from everywhere and nowhere and he says to me, “The path you seek is straight ahead. Do not deviate from the road and you should be fine.”

My head falls back against the firm bark of the oak as I witness my guide disappear into thin air with no evidence of him ever having existed. My eyes close of their own will and I embrace the comforting darkness of slumber enveloping my mind.

My eyes fly awake as a sharp ray of light dispels my drowsiness. I wake up to find myself looking towards a convoluted, winding path leading into the woods. Against my will, I find myself rising and walking down the dusty road. I try to hum to myself, no sound greets me. I try to dart into the woods, but something brings me back to the same path no matter which direction I turn. The sun beats down hard upon my head, and in the distance I hear the faraway call of an eagle. Resigned to my current fate, I walk forward taking in all that I see around me. The sunlight dances between the shadows of the twisted trees, the brown floor beneath my feet gradually begins to evolve into a lush green lawn and the air I take deep, calm breaths of is painted with the scent of rain. I brush aside a shrub and stop in my tracks as I take in the view before me.

I stand before an ocean. The sand twinkles against my eyes, giving me a psychedelic glimpse of a million pinpoints of colour every time I blink. The tide rolls against the shore lazily as the sunlight bounces off the surface of the water. The sky lies mirrored before my feet and my toes play with the fine grains as I walk onto the beach. I sit against the onslaught of the slow tide and feel the refreshing spray of water upon my tired form. The sun begins to drop gently from the sky, retiring to his home beneath the vast expanse of water. I watch the sunset, I watch as the sky is painted by the whims and fancies of the final rays of sunlight as they herald the appearance of a single crescent sliver of silver hanging delicately in the sky, casting a dim white light on me. An ethereal breeze gushes past me, and I find myself obsessed by an urge to enter the water. I stand up, the waves breaking around my ankles as I walk into the water with an oddly familiar slow, composed gait. I walk forward calmly, the waves breaking against my torso as I begin to feel the ground sink below me. I let the ocean cradle me; I surrender myself to the mercy of the sea as she carries me in her lap. All emotion begins to wash away from me; I do not feel the familiar wave of fear as wave after wave crashes over my head, pushing me down beneath the surface of the water. I feel no panic as I take in the water in deep gulps, I feel nothing but a calm of certainty as I feel the ocean filling up my lungs. I smile and close my eyes as I begin to plummet down under depths. I embrace the vast nothingness that spreads out before me and fall unconscious.

A blinding pain flashes behind my eyes, as I gasp and sputter to find myself on a jet black rock, sprawled out like an empty carcass. I look around, unable to find my bearings, and my eyes fall upon a massive, emerald green pillar. It stands on the shore, firm and unmoving even as the ocean tries desperately to push it off its pedestal. I lift myself off the rock with difficulty and force my sore feet to stumble towards the pillar. I fall at its base, every bone in my body feeling like a deadweight. I rest my head against my arm, panting and coughing when I feel a hand upon my shoulder. I look up to see a small boy smiling down at me with an odd benevolence, the light of ages of wisdom alive in his eyes. He puts his hand to the pillar, and I watch in awe as it begins to crumble to a vibrant green ash. I look at him in plain bewilderment, and though he chuckles silently, I hear his deep, rumbling voice in my head. “You have nothing to fear from me, I am merely here to deliver to you what you have been looking for all this time.” I hear his voice tell me. He walks over to the shimmering green pile of dust and pulls out a piece of paper. He places his hand on my head, clasps the paper in my hand and smiles. I see his small head throw my face into shadow as he blocks the sunlight falling on my face, and I sit still, relishing the cool shade.

I open my eyes in front of this piece of paper, pen in hand, the wind through my hair and a single dim light’s reflection in my glasses. And on the paper, I see this article.

rolling drop of sweat
slowly slowly drops.
From the bottom of your breast
aiming straight it falls
On your thigh it tries to rest - but ah
--- it's a sticky plummet.

663

Again—his voice is at the door—
I feel the old Degree—
I hear him ask the servant
For such an one—as me—

I take a flower—as I go—
My face to justify—
He never saw me—in this life—
I might surprise his eye!

I cross the Hall with mingled steps—
I—silent—pass the door—
I look on all this world contains—
Just his face—nothing more!

We talk in careless—and it toss—
A kind of plummet strain—
Each—sounding—shyly—
Just—how—deep—
The other’s one—had been—

We walk—I leave my Dog—at home—
A tender—thoughtful Moon—
Goes with us—just a little way—
And—then—we are alone—

Alone—if Angels are “alone”—
First time they try the sky!
Alone—if those “veiled faces”—be—
We cannot count—on High!

I’d give—to live that hour—again—
The purple—in my Vein—
But He must count the drops—himself—
My price for every stain!

Toes dip into the smoggy air
Count them down
10, 9, 8
Leaning forward
Diving into the city below

He ran as fast as he could
Tears streaming down his face
Reading that letter, flabbergasted
Every second mattered
As these stairs pulled him down

Deep breath in, exhale
Thoughts run rampant
A single tear falls down
She leans further ready to follow

She was about to plummet
As the sun rises, casting her shadow
Her shadow crying
Telling her not to go
His hand clenched tightly on her wrist
Trying his best pulling her back in

His tears form the stars
Their shadows cast upon the moon
She screams 'let me go'
Tears, drip drip drip

He took a deep breath
Exhaling, screaming his heart's out
"I've always loved you!!!
He doesn't love you!! But I do!!
And always will be!!!
So please don't leave me!!!"

She stepped back
Tears streaked her face
If he love her
The end could wait

The mine shaft’s gaping mouth
yawns like the throat of an old, useless god.
Gnats hover by the scattered rocks.
This is real not a set, or a scene,
a spit of dirt shot through the sluice, all things like
a picture cut to kiss my America expectation.

In the surrounding bush, tamaracks curve towards the clouds.
The clouds where, above the furry tips of conifers, cataracts
plummet down mountainwalls, and ask:
“afraid?” And I am, I am.  I fear the sheer
slopes of tough granite slashing the giant sky
in two; the hard-edged mountain face.  The expansive air.

And this split is brooding old and unknowable
tunneling briskly into the unfamiliar, bruising
Montana a grisly purple-red
when the sun swings underground
and shades the hot **** by the mine with cool night as
behind it, the mine appears to growl.

Flesh, flesh, flesh, there’s too much everywhere!
No, I can't be seen like this
There’s too much flesh here
And here as well
I can’t weigh this much at fifteen!
Flesh on my thighs, flesh on my arms
I’ll never fit on the cover of a magazine!
flesh, flesh, FLESH!
I better use a razor, use a knife, use broken glass
Maybe the flesh will leak out, maybe I’ll be flatter
FLESH FLESH FLESH EVERYWHERE
How am I gonna be liked by the boys in class????
No no momma, don’t lie to me, I just know it matters
Flesh FLESH FLESH
ON MY STOMACH
THE ROLLS WHEN I SIT DOWN AND PLUMMET
Do you see it shake when I laugh too much?
No no no I can’t laugh too much
I can’t be happy now, do you see
I heard cigarettes make you skinny and poetic, momma
now don't you lie to me, momma, I'm going outside
I'll go have a smoke, with my FLESH on my sides
THE FLESH FLESH FLESH
It’s like acid, it burns like heartache
FLESH FLESH FLESH
I’m gonna make my scale break
No no momma, I’m not a pretty girl
No momma, this flesh belongs to the monsters under my bed
Who are turning into provoking voices in my head
Screaming FLESH FLESH FLESH
You disgusting little thing
You hog all the food, you hog all the space
You think you’d ever look good in underwear or in lace?
Disgusting little thing,
I can see through you dress
You are no-good-to-love case
I can’t love all of you
All that FLESH FLESH FLESH
My heart is not big enough to love you, girl
And all your FLESH FLESH FLESH.  
                                                              *p.t.

If only my dreams
About dreaming
Could instruct
My seemingly green
Concept
Of luck
I could
Interrupt
My seemingly just
Cycle of lust
Say
-Giddy-up,
Buttercup
You want to
Get *****?
-**** Mike,
It's only
5:30.
That's ok,
Just tryin to
Be flirty,
To make ok
The fact that
You'll hurt me,
To make passe
The fact that
My birdy
Flew away
And tried to
Lure me
To fly beside her
But that's behind me
Besides,
She tried
To cure me
But my wings
Were paper,
They broke
Prematurely
So I fell
Like disorderly
Swells
Of frequencies
I yelled pink noise
I could barely
See,
Passing for
Currency
Passing in
Front of me
Passing for
Apathy;
Apathetic empathy
Or sympathetic
Tragedy
For such pathetic
Entities
Who knows?
Who wants to be
One who knows,
To know
Eventually
We all fall,
Plummet
Suddenly
Into
Black holes
Of imperfect
Symmetry,
We will enter
Simultaneously
So I'll see you
Instantly
On the other
End of this
Wormhole's
Energy,
Baby b,
So until then
Plant a
Tree all
Gold and
Green
And name
It 3
Then climb
That ****
And look
For me,
I'll be
Lying
Right where
You *******
Left
Me
Singing
For clarity,
With
Only
Echoes
Returning
Eternally.

With my womanly looks,
I shall ****.
These child bearing hips always
fuel a thrill.


My blood stained lips and
gunmetal eyes will surely
make a man's ego
plummet,

go downhill.


I am a lover, but no,
I do not transform for you.


Do not complain about the ink on my face,
for I am my own writer,
so please give me my space.

Learn to love me coated or not
because I live for me, but also your embrace.