I walk through life with open arms,
Catching all the rage, and anger and pain.
I don’t try to block emotions that are true,
It’s just something that I’ve always seemed to do.
I might seem quiet or shy,
Well not shy, but closed.
Shielding my own emotions,
That I don’t want others to know.
I’m a blank book.
I want answers and words
I crave emotions and purpose.
I strive to be heard.
I have so much to say,
But I don’t want to be judged
Because of silly questions,
Seemingly misguided pretensions.
I just want to learn.
I want to know you
How you feel.
How you think.
If as a baby you were washed in the sink.
These things might seem venial to you,
But emotions and experience,
They are what you always know to be true.
Even what’s in books I do not believe.
Yeah, sure I might surfacely perceive.
But knowing and believing are two very different things.
There’s knowledge and information.
Theres feeling and soul.
Theres what you learn in school,
But that kind of knowledge is not my goal.
Temporary fulfillment and satisfaction,
From praise and worldly choice of action.
But that’s not what I want.
Not truly what I crave.
I want something substantial,
Something personal with age.
I might write poems about death and fear
Or love and power, a glistening tear.
And sometimes I admit,
They are just words,
And sometimes my poems are rather absurd,
But for the most part,
I write about how I am feeling,
About life’s complications,
And how I am dealing.
I might come off as gleaming and happy
When inside I’m enraged.
Or insincere,
When my feelings can’t be described by words on a page.
I might seem angry when really I’m scared.
Facadely confident, but really disbelieving and bare.
Embarrassed when inside I’m just shy.
Inspired when I’m really bone dry.
Enthralled when I’m extremely appalled.
To seem so knowing,
When inside I am lost,
Sometimes I can’t even translate my own thoughts.
Awkward because I’m showing you me,
And that’s someone who I’m petrified for you to see.
I’m shaking right now, because I’m so struck with emotion,
I love writing and speaking and poetry in motion.
And I’m honestly sick of superficial devotion.
What does it matter?
All those words written down,
When there’s no feeling inside in which to drown.
I could get up here and speak for hours about whatever you want,
But I’d be empty and you’d be bored with my personally unconnected front.
Okay, fine.
Fake tears.
A sigh inserted.
Personification of... whatever.
It doesn’t matter.
Well written but lacking emotion.
In all sincerity, if this is why you write,
Stop.
In the end It doesn’t matter.
You’ll end up published, maybe,
In some periodicals or maybe even have your own book.
That’s all great.
But where does that leave you?
Empty. Unsatisfied. Void of purpose.
I want to leave my mark on more than just the surface.
I yearn to get inside your head,
Make you think when you can’t sleep,
And tossing in bed.
I’m beginning to see the worthlessness in worldly gratification
And though I might still write for fun and meaningless narration,
Those are not the works I wish to share,
They’re simply just there.
Stolid in meaning and interpretation
Entertainment and trivial exaggeration.
Out of all the poems I have written thru now,
This is most me, still closed, but seemingly loud.
I hope I’ve made you think,
And I hope I’ve made you question,
And if I have not, I’ve hopelessly failed my own pretension.

There are only two ways to truly know someone: sleep with them or take them bowling.
Phoenix Aime was the woman of my dreams. So, I took her bowling.

Paid for a game. Rented shoes. Got the little, sticky bracelet thingy that said Slippery Joe Lanes.
That way if we got in some sort of accident on the way home,
the guy at the morgue could identify us as bowlers. Anyway, here's the bulleted list of what I knew about Phoenix up to that point:

• She looked like Diane Keaton circa 1972
• She talked with great pretension concerning craft beer
• She only patronized two restaurants: Denny's and IHOP
• She was eight years older than me
• She kissed my sister once on a dare
• Her shoe size was 7
• She was perfect or a near synonym

The bowling alley was empty save a World War II vet in a wheelchair and his wife at lane six,
and they were barely there. Country music played over the loud speaker. And I felt cozy. Predictable. Like a payment plan on the QVC.

That was until Phoenix said, "I forgot something. I'm going to go talk to Mack real quick."
Mack worked the front desk, according to his name tag. Talk to Mack. She just talked to Mack. Mack was sleeping with her. I untied my shoelaces. Oh, Mack, love your red polo with blue tiger stripes.
I pulled my sneakers off. Oh, Mack, I love it when you dip your finger in nacho cheese and feed it to me. Slid my right foot into bowling shoe. Halfway in with the left, and my socked foot struck something plastic. A stick of tiny deodorant. Like unsavory truck-stop-to-truck-stop deodorant. Oh, Mack, I love it when you deodorize -- so hard. Pull the strings tight on the left shoe. Oh, Mack, rub the deodorant until your underarms are SO CHALKY AND WHITE.

"You okay?" Phoenix asked.

"Yeah, what do I look like something's wrong?"

She carried a seafoam green bowling ball with a ****** Mary insignia. "It looks like you triple-knotted your shoes there."

And I said something dumb like, better safe than sorry.

"Sorry about leaving you all alone. Mack holds onto my ***** for me," she said.  I bet he does. "I hate talking to that guy." What? "He's a vegan."

Now, at that time in my life, I was a vegan. And had planned some stirring remarks about the processing of sweet little piggies into cancerous hot dog machines on the way to pick her up. Thought she would think me full of passion, "on fire" for a cause, you know? The wise thing would have been to say, oh well, I'm a vegan. But instead I asked, "What do you mean?"

"You know serial killer's get a last meal before they're executed, right?"

"Right." Where the hell is this going?

"Well, have you ever heard of someone on death row requesting a last meal that didn't involve some sort of animal product? Gacy had buckets of chicken, Bundy had a medium rare steak, even uh, ****, what was his name, McVeigh, Timothy McVeigh he had two pints of mint chocolate ice cream. Dairy."

"I'm not sure how this refutes veganism."

"Nobody is a vegan for their last meal. Nobody. I'm not going to subscribe to a diet that I can't follow until the very end. Live every day like your last, that's my motto."

"That's your motto." I said. To be a great listener, just repeat the last three or four things anyone says to you and raise your eyebrows a little bit. (Examples: "My dog died." -- "You're dog died.", "I never ate breakfast burritos again." -- "Never ate it again.", "I love you." -- "You love me.")

Over Phoenix's shoulder, over by lane six, the wife wheeled the World War II vet up to the lane. And he tossed the ball. Good team, I thought. Want to know someone take them to the bowling alley.

Phoenix removed a glove from her pocket. She had her own ball. Brought her own badass, jet black bowling gloves. And if her carnivorous tendencies hadn't already put a ***** in the Golden Days of Josh and Phoenix, that glove did.

She typed her name first on the scoring computer. Didn't ask if I wanted to go first. That's fine. Approached the lane, three fingers inside the ****** Mary. She brought her bony arm back with the grace of a ballerina tucked away stage right in the shadows. Mary cut from grace slid down the lane with a spin.

Strike. I couldn't really see the pins from my angle. But I recieved a transmission via the "yes" and arm pump. That was two marks against her, and I was going to three. I'd call it strikes, but well, the whole bowling skew.

Here's a bulleted list of what a "yes" and arm pump immediately taught me:

• She takes bowling serious.
• If you take bowling serious, when do you relax?
• She'd never relax.
• My life would be tucked shirts, matching belts and shoes.

For six frames, I picked up fours and sevens. Phoenix, though, nothing but strikes. I threw a gutter on frame seven. Like a normal human being, I shrugged. Made a face out the sides of my mouth. Kept it light.

"I thought you were a grown *** man," Phoenix said.

"Me too."

What happened next, I willed. I'm not god or anything like that. At the time, just cosmicly ******.
Her step stuttered. 7-10 split. "Mack!" she screamed. "Floors are slicker than a used car salesman's hair."

From across the alley,
"Sorry, Phoenix, baby. I'll bring you some nachos. That make up for it?"

"Ain't gonna knock down two pins is it?"

"So, uh, no nachos then?"

"Actually, go ahead and bring those."

She lined up. Back straight. Legs together. She rolled her neck. "You're about to see how it's done."

And I didn't. She broke it down the middle. Field goal. In that moment, that holy moment, I was knowledge plateau. Vindicated.

For about 10 seconds.

Mack swaggered over, nachos in hand. "Phoenix, sweetie, you okay?"

"Do I look okay?"

"No, that's why I asked."

"Just give me the nachos."

"Ah crap." Mack had gotten his pointer finger in the nacho cheese.

"Let me see it."

And right there, right in front the ****** Mary seafoam green bowling ball, she slurped the cheese off his finger."

Frame seven, a good as time as any to call it a match. The wife of the World War II vet kissed her husband's forehead. Handed him a ball. As I walked by, hand on shoulder. "Struck gold, dude."

I've sat here for 21 years
Watching all this go by
People say things cliché
With pretension in their eye
I'm tired of hearing, everyday, what life is all about
Reality is getting boring, let's tune in and drop out

Have you heard the one
About the killer and the priest?
One blesses people with less and less
And one is just a thief
In "somewhere else" my mind is broken down
Reality is getting boring yet still its name resounds

There's stories everywhere you go
And all of them the same
Reductive plots and happy endings
Just under another name
I'm quiet as I sit and listen to what they all say
Reality is getting boring, maybe I'll revisit it some other day

It was and is
not easy for me
I beg don’t make it harder  

You will not understand
and I can’t make you to feel  
how it feels
when your body can’t hold your heart

How it feels
when you know in your veins
what you feel
but barricade between your body and mind
will not let you
feel your feelings  

How it feels
when the world address you  
Dude
and you afraid
the girl  you are trying hard
to coffined in your heart
will show up  

I wish I could show you
my pain filled abortive trials
to push hard  
even the tiniest bulging meat on my body
deep inside into my skeleton  

I wish I could show you
Pain of pretension
  
Pretension of walking straight
Pretension of speaking loud
Pretension of being brave
at the time of drooping in fear
that you will be identified
and termed as a queer  

I wish I could make you realize
helplessness of being a public secret
anguish of dying out of respect
and living in agony
because your body  
is not answerable to anatomy  

When you all wanna prove your identity
I am begging you
please let mine go

because
my identity
can not be identified
by the tiny part between my legs  
Please tell me  
how long I need to beg  

to find the place
where my body will not be dissected
to discover
my hearts gender
  
Please tell me
how long......?

I will cultivate thee,
With my Herculean word spree.
Pour my divine rhyme,
Into your truncated mind.
So profound, so intellectual, how can this be?
Revere me! Revere me!

Pretension, oh beloved actor, why do you do?

Conceal, do not reveal, the twisted grimace upon your face

While you smile the smile like a mime, benevolent, kindly, my dear angel

Upon the stage, where the spotlight makes you glow, makes you look pure

You begin to believe that you have a pure heart, and that you can’t do any evil

Even when the curtain closes, and the lights fade out, and you step offstage

You forget that your rosy makeup still remains

When you wipe off the layers caked upon your face

Do you know when to stop, do you know when you’ve reached the real you?

You pretend you don’t care when you actually do, for fear, perhaps?

Or you pretend you actually do care, when you really couldn’t be bothered – why that?

Pretend, deny the real you, ‘tis but the only way to survive, is it not

start
set the scene...
somewhere enclosed, close and closed
like a bed
(tight, restricted like, uh, the world all around me, how fitting
now it’s political)
on a morning
and maybe the sun will be rising,
or setting−yes−to represent the ethereal dusk of my cognition,
Say I’m with someone−don’t identify whom−it’s meant to be a mystery:
unfinished, left.

it could be you

and I’ll search the dictionary
for words to make my pseudo-philosophical, imagist, absurdist poem obfuscated, esoteric,
tanquam yet favillous; beyond recognition
So that it sounds like Dr. Seuss,
that is, a Dr. Seuss that knows Althusser, Derrida and the early writings of Flaubert.
add some random enjamb-
ment.  cut out the capitalizationandspacing. start a sentence;
end it. Section break

Oh, I’ll need more words, you know, to remind my peers of my intellectuality,
-out of place words that don’t actually mean anything:
Specificity or
literati
that’s good. Now, to end-

bring it to a close in one all-encompassing word:
(to be read over-dramatically)
pretension.

Looking upon this tree with its quaint pretension
Of holding the earth, a leveret, in its claws,
Or marking the texture of its living bark,
A grey sea wrinkled by the winds of years,
I understand whence this man's body comes,
In veins and fibres, the bare boughs of bone,
The trellised thicket, where the heart, that robin,
Greets with a song the seasons of the blood.

But where in meadow or mountain shall I match
The individual accent of the speech
That is the ear's familiar?  To what sun attribute
The honeyed warmness of his smile?
To which of the deciduous brood is German
The angel peeping from the latticed eye?

Go, Soul, the body’s guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.

Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What’s good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live
Acting by others’ action;
Not loved unless they give,
Not strong but by a faction.
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition,
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate:
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who, in their greatest cost,
Seek nothing but commending.
And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;
Tell honour how it alters;
Tell beauty how she blasteth;
Tell favour how it falters:
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness;
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in overwiseness:
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;
Tell skill it is pretension;
Tell charity of coldness;
Tell law it is contention:
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay:
And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming:
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it’s fled the city;
Tell how the country erreth;
Tell manhood shakes off pity
And virtue least preferreth:
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing—
Although to give the lie
Deserves no less than stabbing—
Stab at thee he that will,
No stab the soul can ****.

the only lines that are blurred are the ones that you're crossing
close your ***** lips, time for us girls to do the talking
you say you want a good girl
and the alcohol is your weapon
Acting like an animal
but self respect is my blessing
yes I got the power of resistance
as soon as you grab me, I've made my decision
keep ya distance
I've got my own pride
girls by my side
run together like felines
I dont want
and I don't need to be domesticated
if I say no you feel emasculated,
but I'm not your wifey
I'm not your mid life crisis
much more than plastic, my love is priceless

you’re quick to assume my dimensions
but the desire is 1 sided
my potential can’t be contained
by someone so small minded
i’m not going to lie,
there are times i did sing along
but there was always a part of me
that knew that it was wrong
degrading myself through the words in this song
i’m my own savior, dancing on my own
keep your striped pants away from me
and your fancy cologne
never impressed me anyways
cuz who’s gonna want you
when you’re long past your glory days
maybe you’ll actually have to start
remembering her name

if incoherence is a turn on
you can leave with whatever you got from Jamaica
you write a song talkin bout liberating me
read between the lines, verbally date ****** me
talkin bout gettin blasted, blurring judgement slurring words
you've supplied enough nastiness for the night, you don't need help from the girls
this song glamorized by the women it defeats
it doesn't count as seduction when you're invading our sheets
don't belittle me when your restraint is as small as your comprehension
I never said wanted you so drop the pretension
I don't wanna get nasty, I wanna get away
good looks and a catchy chorus doesn't make misogyny okay

I heard this song on the radio about 5 times a day
the world couldn't stay away
never listening to the words
singing along with no shame
maybe it's empowering to the girls that sing along
in the heat of the moment it doesn't feel wrong
but you're 100x classier than words in this song
worth so much more than ***** sheets
you wanna feel loved, so you slip into a dress and he slips into your drink
this is all a release, but you don't have to be the dizzy slam piece
just remember who you are
and what the world is saying
growing up,
they wanna invade your innocence
take your impressionable mind for granted
*** on the radio
violence on the tv
models in the magazine
but you're gonna have to tune it out
live on your own
live for yourself,
remember what your mama told you
keep your chin up because they're gonna try to break you

what rhymes with hug me
babe, you could never love me
cuz first you gotta respect me
accept no because maybe she’s just not ready
i’m not a piece of meat
you get to use, abuse
for your own personal grinder
be the one by her side
not the one lurking behind her
music is power
you’re adding fuel to the fire
women in music nowadays
yeah, we’re the survivors
against the cheaters and the liars
contributing to a mindset holding us back
so we gotta rise up keep
their pants up, and their minds on track
sincerely, every blurred line that never went back

Nostalgia
is a poor excuse
for ignorance

yet it pervades
with a tenacity
stemming from fabricated desire
for the smell of ****
we're told
is roses

and it's blasphemous
to question potential "isms"
lurking behind the veil
of Saturday morning cartoons
and black and white family sitcoms.

Yet by the time the sonic *** organs
have lain into us with repressed emotion,
the holy spirit has spilled its ***** in the dirt
to traverse onward floating apparition
out of the room and down the hall
closer towards progress.

and we are left reeling
stumbling into the hallway
buttoning our blouses
and yanking at our zippers

wondering what could cause
such great haste
and we follow blindly
in the wake of the first high

or we turn backwards
and plunge into fading bricolage
as a means to cope
with the rapid and fleeting *******
of the electric eye
in its shape-shifting pylons and appendages
getting smaller in the naked eye
and gargantuan in the mind.

Clutching our *******
in great amorous heaves
of lust
or donning our father's clothes
in a mask of artifice
and enlightened cultural pretension.

Moaning for the days of youth a week ago,
the epoch squeezed in the space between thumbs,
looking for treasures in the trash
craving something tangible
in an increasingly intangible world.

The semblance of touch lost on a generation
who knows only of emotion through hieroglyphics
and never through direct sensation.

So we dig through the toy boxes
and leave Generation X puzzled
as we dig into their records
in Guns n Roses T-shirts
and high waisted jeans.

We're just looking for an immaculate conception of something palpable.

I’ve ordered and carried my steaming cup of brown to my table to ignore the falling snow beyond the walls of this box.
My clothes are wrong, my hair as well.
I just cut it, and everyone knows which mistakes I made.
A man sneezes and the song changes.
Better not make eye contact with anyone; I am not in their league, here at the muddy spoon cafe.
Chewing so loudly in the de-creeping silence,
these safe, polite, quiet ones.
I am the creep here. I am different.
My thighs are tense.
Hunching over the paper, arms tense and clutching  a gnarled red pen--
It’s probably self-indulgent to even sign my name.
Someone’s shuffling cards.
I almost forgot.
The awkwardness I’m filled with breathes out a short sigh when I realize
--my part’s over.
“Do you know Sanskrit? Do you know what that is?”
A woman asks another.
I want to choke on the pretension
The tenseness, I adjust my leg to relieve pressure on my ankle.
Why can’t I just enjoy the snow? That’s all I really came here for-- well, and the coffee.
I hear a woman cough with an unaffected tenor, which would convey her gender to an interested party but to me carries no intonation.
I wonder if the girl I recognize from class thinks I’m following her.
I came here for coffee, sweetheart!
Is it yet too hot for me to dare a drink?
I can see it, the steam, rising out of the corner of my eye.
I haven’t looked away from my hand in twenty minutes.
“Who am I?” they may be asking myself for me.
I don’t have a clue.
They can think about that problem
for themselves
while they’re lonely
in their forties.
I’m lonely now and I hope not to live
that long.
Here, we pretend not to see each other’s faces
in the gleaming presence of steaming cups.
“I don’t want to wonder about that.”
I realize there’s nothing I even deem worth writing down.

She kept her heart encased in glass
  Or elegantly displayed
     On a moldy old canvass
   For callers by of gilded
      Or passing note

Wrinkled skirt crumpled in the
corner of the hardwood floor
poised to take the stand
and testify about the madness
and the lines of demarcation,
    The hollow harrowing haunting
     harbringer of the haughtiness
     that once served her so well;

I thought I spotted her reflection
in a magazine,
soot stained pages outlining
the continental shifts in her veracity
and the keloid cracks
running along the base of her foundation
a wrinkled old romance novel
in today’s latest fashion,
pretension the wayward child of passion

Hello. So...

I see you're writing - good -
of love and nicotine in ink
and ****** threads, like vapor
swirling down the sink
of dreams and dying hopes
and burning for a drink
aching lust for perfume
that leaves a ling'ring stink
of epic love and romance
chained with iron link
of standing in a storm
or skating thinnest rink
being on a bridge
or breaking on a brink
bemoan that no one listens
but don't say what you think
a soulful galactic pull, or
stars suicid'ing wink -

tell me how you know so much, poet...
      when you've been here but a blink.

Striped carnation (refusal):
     I have long since discovered that the fires
     in me were never going away.
     The heaviness, from refusal
     to spit the ashes.

Queen Anne’s lace (fantasy):
     I thought you put out the fire last night
     but you weren’t there.

Willow herb (pretension):
     How long have you been gone?
     I told myself as many lies as I could handle
     but none of them ever worked.

Scabiosa (unfortunate love):
     We’ve built enough bridges to take us nowhere–
     tell me again what we’ve become:
     trembling hands,
     trying not to spill blood on what was left.

A baby from Burundi sits next to me today.
He coos and drinks and swallows his mother’s milk.
His father speaks Swahili. Smiles, tells me that his last son
Is going to grow old in Rochester, NY,
Where I sit in a white-walled waiting room, watching
Mothers drag their babies by the armpits to be weighed.

A boy with braided beads holds up four fingers and tells me he is five.
He is too skinny. His pants are sagging and his iron is low.
His mother takes his vegetable checks, stuffs them into the back pocket of her jeans.
What the little **** needs is two percent milk, she says,
Her gold hoops fluttering.

Her son struggles with the small wooden chair he is carrying.
It drags along the carpet, hitting the high spots, and his tiny biceps flinch.
He sits, facing me, while a name is called. And another.
Another woman’s son hands me a book and waits.
He is watching my face and I watch his mother kiss her boyfriend in the first row seats.
He tucks his chin to his chest when I ask his name. Whispers, tells me Jayden.

First page. What color is Elmo, Jayden?
Shoulders shrugging. His lower lip, puckered out and innocent.
What color is he, Jayden?

The color of Jayden’s skin slaps me across the heart when he says he doesn’t know.
He was born in Rochester, NY,
With trash bags and Burger King wrappers wrapped around the fence
That separates his house from the street on which he will grow old
Too soon.
He starts kindergarten in the fall and I tell him Elmo is red, like his t-shirt.
Like his mother’s fingernails.
Like the tomatoes and bell peppers and beets he has never seen.

A girl who went to my High School carries in her youngest child
Who is old enough to walk, but wobbles.
She calls her daughter “thunder-thighs” instead of Jazmyne
And strips off her shoes. Her belt. Her gold bracelets.
The scale says Jazmyne is too heavy for food assistance.
The state says her mother isn’t poor enough for welfare.
The girl I used to know leaves without her daughter’s shoes or the food checks she came for.

In conversations of pretension
We talk about first and third world.
Pretend that America is the land of second chances
Where a baby from Burundi can grow old in cashmere sweaters,
Even when his parents couldn’t pay.

The father who speaks Swahili looks at his shiny watch and his family’s vegetable checks.
Smiles. Tells me his last son is going to grow old and full
In Rochester, NY.

a toast to the gods of self preservation
twenty one with plenty coming
allowing to pound sounds within
the crown aroused voided a founders of it’s bruises
spells hold the fold, I’m coasting with the best
resting in the east so I sleep with blinds low
the comfort zone is far from solitude
my molecules have aptitude to channel Jupiter
seatbelts are useless wastes of matter, excuse me
just a minute so you can miss me with that individuality
your calloused grip on reality impairs the singularity
old school, gold noose, silver lined diamonds
Jesus pieces reaped the seeds that teach your blind lids
came back with scabbed knuckled and heart scars
hustled the portal of pretension ever so ethereally
inner synthesis purged the day the plague hit
on the courts or the graves, you name the slaves
the game slayed the day the chains changed hands

insipid, her blue eyes her blue dresses. the only-ness of her. her laugh like oleander.
she was Strong and Independent and she Didn't Need Me, but she had me anyway, for a minute.
i am cross-legged on the ugly wool blanket we made love under first. the first of many but empty.
i am cross-legged and my fingers restless, invisible piano keys trilling to the wee hours. many but empty.
the skin of my index finger bitten raw, the skin of my lower lip bitten raw.
the pretension of her jabs at pretension. her manufactured offbeat passion. her cat, her moleskin notebook.
ordinary, but only. insipid but aquamarine and clear as bells. she Didn't Need Me.
the first of many. and empty.

billboard's calligraph --
past the haze of Manila infested
by car sprawls and belching machines.

magnanimous treatise of tarpaulins,
people chin-up asking God
with askance

something like this
"o god make this bearable
like a mound of fresh fruits
from ****** labour."

maniacal sensurround:
earth-shattering frequency
of footsteps trampling the mouth
of monolith shadows - the peak
of this quake is our complete silence.

rain's catharsis in effect
sousing us in the blood of unreal light.
this diastolic shrinkage
jamming the beat of constricting vessels.
the adrenaline surges
within the dermis of this pretension.

a collective of tired beings heeding
the recherché of voice metamorphosing
into form, a dagger-butterfly
paring us skin to bone, cranial
to visceral, soul to nothing -

catapult of a trajectory spit
plummeting in eased-up pace
from Taft Avenue flyover
to a subjugated wagon of scraps
and empty wine bottles.

today's paper reads:

"Palace hits hiring
   of **** dancers"

fancying to fall right in the
spanked curved of this
insatiate melodrama - something
  prayer could not save from
this land's mutinous ignominy.

   we resume to fulfill our madness,
hundreds of tack-headed people
  rolling down the streets of Makati,
drenched with rain's trilling aftermath.

squinting to look at
  no sun, only the grieving of skyscrape,
thumbing down unidentified objects
  in the depth of loose pockets,
    desperate for home.

In to my eyes she longingly gazes,
for a long moment, disarmingly smiles,
as if I am her first teen age lover
broken in to her room,unawares
and did naughty things,like snatching kisses.
her dad would definitely scold her mother
for permitting such nonsense
without his prior approval,
now that all got wrong, she is perplexed,
what would the people think of her
if they find out all about this?
Her lips I kiss ever so tenderly
to prove that I am still a green horn
in matters of amour, callow and clumsy to boot,
I join in her pretension that we just had
our first vanilla ice cream together,
when we bumped in to each other by chance.

Now the scene changes, she signals
like in one of those school dramas she shone well,
in my ears she whispers, now the coy Indian bride,
who never take liberties without
prior parental approval,
"I just wanted to cheat myself,
for this once, isn't it the last chance
forget for the time being that
we just had an arranged marriage"

He touched our hands
But unconcernedly this famous man
And would not look us in the eye
For fear of contact or what might be worse, connection
And we could hardly blame him, for after all
He had each day been singled out for close inspection
By ones like us, in awe of his celebrity
Circled in the shade of his perfection
Hoping for the star-dust sprinkle of acuity
Or sparkling eyes, admission to his inner cult and clan

He wore blue jeans
And scuffed sneakers as a badge of proof
Of his coolness and unconcern
While we his audience with concealed attention
Enviously eyed his hairy confidence, unconsciously
Imitating in each phrase that low convention
Made small adjustments to our store-bought suits and ties
And nodded several times in bright pretension
Made small amendments to our smiles and lies
Flicked photo-phones in pursuit of custom and routine

He gave a speech
A flippant interview, this famous creature
A well tossed phrase, a rounded cliche
Poured forth like brandy in a glass, convivial
Or apple cider-ed vinegar in pewter mugs
A sardonically French-accented phrase habitual
Well humored, heavy lidded with testosterone
At interlocutor women with the pens and pads
Delivered in a low and purring monotone
For all the world as lovers, each to each

He stretched a smile
A modulated shift of teeth and beard
"Genius? Not I"  with deprecation
"My shallow intellect, so poor and so ephemeral"
Delivered in a tone that mocked inclusion
While we assumed an elegance, unintentional
A nonchalance that shields the wide charades
Unmoving in our breathless, but conventional
Genuflection to the the notion that pervades                                                      
Our addictive appetite now sated. For a while.                              
                                                                ­                                  
He kissed their cheeks
And stroked their arms, with sensuous ambivalence
But absently, as if he cared so little
In his farewell. 'A bientot' he said and 'Au revoir'
And slipped away amongst the moving Milan crowds
Creative and creator, irredeemably a star
With, in his wake the smiling scriveners staring
At his retreating back in Stark excitement
In the middle of the circling and squaring, at
The alpha-wolfic effigy. The Shepherd and his sheep.

cracked out
humble with heaps of pride
braggadocio Pinocchio
I haven’t slept in days
so watch the hours turn into haze
blown out of barely open windows
hide me from the world
I’m making a pristine machine - unbreakable
foreseeable as a weapon of poor taste
chasing wasted with chasers
are you shaking?
only with excitement
rage
hunger
My dad says get a job, get an education
so I chose a dead vocation with no hopes of vacations
and everybody is talking about the future as if it exists
it only exists in clenched fists and endless lists
of all the wrong turns you made on the journey
from then to now
I’m eating sacred cow meat - medium rare please
coming up with ways to scare these dumb ******* kids away from apathy
to put the shield over their hearts and the rifle in their hands
but wah wah nobody understands blah blah blah
shut the **** up for once
act like you actually have a pair of *****
even if you don’t
back in the day when we used to rob neighborhood garages of beer
and played with pills like candy
nobody threw tantrums about how unfair it all is
so you think the world owes you something?
the only thing it owes you is one death
so why are you wasting all of our time with your I could have saved the world
cry baby *******
I’m looking for slutty girls
pearl necklace on her checklist
so I can slam her on page verse
me versus the world, right?
left out by all the cool kids
drinking boohoo flavored kool-aid
so I made myself a parody of pretension
cunning, coming, *******
you are the joke so I guess that makes me a punchline
I’m running sprints from the baseline until I’m throwing up the right choices
so continue with all of that angsty impotent sadness
so long as you stay out of my part of town

writing poems is pretentious they say,
did you know?

apparently I'm stuck up my own ***
if I don't

sorry you act to good to express how
you really feel

you think its 'gay' and 'pathetic'?
well okay

say what you want
I dont care

it makes me feel alive
do you like feeling dead?

it's like your thoughts come to life

and it feels so real

I feel sorry for you,
if you think you're too good to express

or maybe on the other end
you're just too insecure to address?

****** Bag in sunglasses
donned indoors where
fluorescent sunlight cannot justify
the obfuscation of haughty eyes
so the visage is one
of pure pretension
and cockiness,
dichotomized
as self-assuredness
and the colloquial term for the phallus,
a literal ****.

(I see him strongly in the memory of a high school field trip returning home school bus late night he sits sideways back to the window head leaning back sunglasses donned smug grin I rendered him the vessel and the scape goat bearing my burning hatred for the inflated ego wrapped in an undesirable chic I deem deplorable, hate hate hate)

Smug grin,
I wrote this poem from a bean bag
in the corner of the library third floor
whilst wearing sunglasses and
a taste of irony
on callous lips
twisted in an invisible sneer.

The carpenter in one glance
undresses the house
with his eyes.
She, a Victorian dame
of voluptuous frame
in faded, ragged dress
seems to blush
at his appraisal.

He yearns to explore
intimate spaces,
strip her pretension,
commit filthy acts
hammering skillfully
with strange pleasure,
the work of hands,
attention to detail,
rubbing sweet oils
her inner beauty revealed.

It will end in soft strokes
a thoughtful cleanup
leaving an afterglow
of rejuvenation.
Her timbers moan
with anticipation.

We weren't merely talking business;
her eyes said something else,
I strained my ears.Listened.
Soliloquy.Whispers.Fluttering eyes.
("Need to bring her around and sign the contract")

She is silent, eyes on papers
"wind on the waters..................
rustle of the leaves" mind sings,
I got it now, no doubt, we are attracted!
i am now a man with a heart that sizzles,
"she is of course a cut above the rest,
a fine mind, amazing number cruncher,
not to forget that pert posterior,
she makes me melt, I cannot be a hard nut"
my thought train stops to her whistle,
a lovely smile, as if to say
"Things would  start to move
between us, when this is over"

                    A man and a woman,
both,  business intentions, in mind's focus,
when together such a long time could
decide upon a course of action,
but i hear a buzz in my ears--

we  seem to sway in a charged atmosphere
all i could think is this; "our business
doesn't reach anywhere.."

When--
every obstacle fell and crashed,
relaxing ****, sniffing each other, like dogs,
in the cozy confines, of her hotel suite,
she said, the reason for the obstacles,
was pretension-
she had the need to feel in total control,
(till attraction, made the difference)
"Man and woman role reversal"
"I understand" I said.Executive privilege;
she is the senior and she deserved to feel good!
decorum in business deals must be kept.
We reversed roles
and felt more elated (we thought)
too little to do
when you properly decide, to divide responsibilities
(even in bed)
                             The deal was done,
                              she put her seal,
                              and outside the protocol,
                              a parting kiss and an invite:
                                                      Is it to be Venice?
                                                      ( or Brazil?)

Self-cut ginger locks that ooze pretension
pontificating so bluntly about "Cinema"
He buys Sociology textbooks at GoodWill,
TL;DR,
but they look good on a dusty shelf
don't they?

Mocking potential reactions to his
apparent ignorance.

A stoner who has never been high,
An existentialist who has never known what it is to die
A stargazer who has never seen the sky,
Highly expectant yet always refuses to try.

Ridicules what he doesn't understand
Taste so bland,
could swear he was conceived by the
FDA in a public school kitchen.

her strive for attention
deprives her actual intention
and she thrives off tension
but she feels alive with this pretension
and what I've failed to mention
its her contrive for perfection…of love

Written not to thine appraisal accord;
Words that aim to torch the infernal loom,
Seeking the world of sorcery and sword
Unconfined to thine astringent courtroom.

Methinks thy hackles must surely be raised
For hours laboured, tempering such sleight...
Yet adamant this pen, wielder unfazed
Mirrors many thou haplessly indict.

Scholars of insight construed only thee-
So feebly traced was this artistic lie;
A labyrinth from which my muse soars free.
Minoan mentor, dare not I deny:

It may be an Icarian Ascension,
But stands it staunchly, lacking pretension.

Her backbone is a long stretch of American western highway
I trace my fingers eastbound/westbound across the slats of her ribs
pressed against the skin ready to pop
She left southside Midlothian Virginia as soon as she was old enough to make her own bad decisions
sick of being looked at
eyes grading like the big fat red D's stamped on her math homework
She left by foot
bus
plain
train
that grey jetta with the scratch down the passenger side from where she parked too close to that ugly Subaru
she left me
but she needed to breathe some air that wasn't stale with mediocre pretension and the frat house odor of stale beer and sawdust
so run wild
fly free
may your lips utter cliches without fear of derision
go make your life an incredible story
beautiful
ugly
hard to look at
can't look away
make your life a story
and I'll record it

You were like the abnormally warm days of winter that make me wish for spring before its time. Self-assuredly you spoke with a confidence that was beyond your years, yet without an air of pretension. Your words painted dreams of a future just beyond your grasp, while I was still attempting to sketch the bare outlines of mine. You knew what you wanted from life, and you pursued it. For a while I thought that was me, but I was wrong. The way you looked at me seemed completely different. It was as if I was the first sunset or flower or snowflake you had ever seen. I felt intimately precious, and that terrified me. I tried to hide my feelings with a heavy coating of indifference. But you saw right through my façade; you always did. Because you were too old for me, too experienced, too wise. And I was too much for you. Though you were never mine, you will remain my sonnet of mistakes.

Gazing into the abyss 
Of life's immutable Absurdity; 
He feels that emptiness, 
Which taunts all humankind, 
As it immerses, he is smiling 
With a sweet, sickly repose, as 
He is certain of uncertainty. 
He sees the people all around him,
Pining for a sense of purpose, he's 
Freed from their hope, and its duress,
From all their visions of success, 
The kind which taunt so many men, 
Through sleepless nights, as they obsess. 
Now he's laughing to himself, and 
Thinking "who must we impress?" 
"...and for that matter, why?"
It's this pretension he detests,
"Why this needless apprehension,
Living life at the behest, of 
Foolish men, with feeble minds, 
Who vainly strive to be 'the best', and
Only to awaken, a few decades down the line,
To find that life was insubstantial, 
In those years they left behind?"
"I can only search for meaning,
It can't be prescribed to me, and
Perhaps there isn't one, but then
Why does there need to be?"
The corners of his mouth curl upward, as
Dead leaves fall from a tree, and 
Are scattered to the wind, 
"Ah, such is my mortality."