nobody gets the cancer twice.  
(a blues guitar riff)

blood in the stool
ain’t nobody’s fool,
whent to high school
did not graduate,
but know it wasn’t no thing I ate

scale greets me friendly like,
long lost buddy from yesterday morn,
‘let get right down to it,
let’s see how much less of you borne
leftover alive from the prior day’

spirit spit blood from my gums,
got me a woman, she’s way over town,
woman said I’m brushing with
too hard a brush, alright, alright,
make no fuss, she’s good to me

nobody’s fool whent to school,
though I did not graduate,
a mean riff is better than a
slow moving woman blues cry,
got the strings to do my screaming

doctor is a fan, name is Jimmy,
played music like last time round,
Jimmy-jamming, dancing in the waiting room,
“that cancer got kick, it’s gonna get ya,
think I told ya that about hunner times before”

‘nobody gets the cancer twice,’
an old wives tale for unlucky po’ somofabitches,
do you some tests, tell ya the specifics,
right now, lay, lay down them new tracks,
no quitting time less the good lord comes a-calling’

blues guitar makes a man
cry shiver scream and shake,
progressions licks and tricks,
so you can’t tell what’s making
a grownup man cry and laugh louder

bring me my medicine
bring me my guitar
all I know is how it makes me feel,
oh baby once a night it’s true,
nobody gets the cancer twice

It's been a year since my suicide attempt. Right now, I'd be in the ER waiting to find out which inpatient clinic I'd go to. One year. Since, I have escaped from toxic people and shifted from an old self. One year. What do I have to show for it? Emotional outbursts? A nicotine addiction? Abandoning my creativity? A battle with a psychological addiction to psychedelic drugs? What does progress look like? What does it mean to reconstruct yourself? A building torn - that's what I am. A prairie, a forest, which has experienced a wild fire. Beyond recognition, I deface myself - as if to erase myself and destroy the things I like. What does progress look like? Am I getting there? In my view, progress is not always seen by you directly. It is not our job to determine if we make progress, but, by the value of people and situations in our lives, we will have it be seen. To do things for ourselves is wonderful. But, what does progress look like? It looks like making giant leaps forward - and then three steps back. It looks like dipping our toe in the water, and then wanting to dry off. It looks like it's perfect, but actually not. It looks like a broken toy fixed with expired super glue. Who are we to determine progression? It's an obsession of the mind for us to think that progress means we must always be fine - that we must be perfect. If I have a million irrational thoughts in a day, does that make my one totally rational thought insignificant? I think not. If I spend one day totally upbeat, productive, and happy - are my sad feelings any less valid? No. So, progress looks like this: admitting to yourself that sometimes we won't have things together completely. We acknowledge it, think rationally, and move to the next focus. Progress is not total immunization of our quirks, but it is less demonization for how we work. Our brains - they want to help us survive. The brain gets confused among irrational thoughts and can jump and put us in an emotional turmoil jeopardy. But, be kind to yourself. Be kind to the "miswires" in your brain - because it cares for you and wants you to survive. Strive. What does progress look like? I'm not sure if I can see mine - I'm not sure what it totally looks like. But, maybe, look in a mirror. See yourself - the reflection of desire. Aspire to be who you are, judgement free. In a sort of clarity, you can see. Ask yourself:
"What does progress look like?"
It looks a bit like you.

This is who I am and it will always be ILLOGICAL, IRRATIONAL and above all, STUPID.

I miss you.

You don't understand me. Its not feasible. Everything won't work. You won't work. I won't work. We won't work. You can't reason your way out of this. Not enough time. Not enough time for me. Not enough time for us. It would've ended anyways he tells me. I tell myself this over and over. Convince yourself, I AM INDEPENDENT. I will vitalize and intoxicate myself by myself. Thats what people do everyday. The issue being, I am not a genuine person. I persuade and assure myself I can handle this role and it satisfies my craving for normalcy. I'm not a gifted actress. I lose more and more social contacts due to this complication. I must learn from the independent ones so I can stop breaking apart these silly boys limb by limb.

You must stop making them care for you. You are not a whole person and therefore cannot be an authentic concern of others. You are imaginary. You are empty. Two opposite minds, insanity and sanity, fighting over the same body is an immense misadventure. Insanity wants to ******* boys, intently watching the peculiar escape routes they design. She sneers as they try and try, withered by a constant sense of defeat, each of them exhibiting exciting, unique and new qualities. She forces the body's muscles into a terrifying object. Then she denies his superiority complex of its primary function as he realizes that this damsel is in a permanent brand of distress. Sanity, however, is fleeting. Sometimes, she truly gives a **** about others. She is the pure example of meek, anemic and decrepit aftermath. She is selfless for selfish reasons. She wants them to adore her. She will exceed expectations, impresses and astonishes them. The product of this relished humanistic quality, acceptance, nourishes her. She savors boys who tell her she is strong and capable. Lies lies lies lies lies is all they speak. Its been too many years. She's forsaken by insanity.

Never enough time for this. Nobody has enough time. Who will give me the time? These days the clock shows seamless progressions to worse and worse. Sleepless nights remind me of night after night after night of our restless, unsetting and ineffective dialogues. Lets just go in circles for a little longer. Why not a little longer? Where do I find someone willing to linger with insanity? Just give me more time. I need a few more moments with real people to feel okay. Let me practice my part with you. Coach me. Tell me what to do next. I'm craving a sense of reality. I trusted you with it. Give it back. Give it to me. Let me have it. Feed it to me. Now.

I kid myself. If you get to know me a bit further I might let you peer at my Dali-esque picture of the present. Wonderland has me descending head first down the rabbit hole. Alice found herself stationary, bruised and filthy with temporary madness years ago. I've kept plunging for decades after and suddenly I'm gaining speed. Momentum, its all about physics. They throw ropes, then yarn, then thread to me. Once again the thread brushed my skin and I found possibility. The sensation of active nerve endings engaged my curiosity. I search for the sort of matter that could interrupt this regression. One faint wonder to what could have been is met by pathetic and pointless conclusions.

You are so associated. Everything and everyone is marked by inclinations. What affects you is the fact that you are now aware of it. You recognize that I see something different in you. I see something unusual. I see a habit. Nouns are consistently becoming verbs. You are not beneficial to this at all. I allowed you to be my unhealthy. I linked you to infection. Is that why I need you so badly? Is that why I want you back? You gave me composure from your expectations.You raised questions and I gave you the appropriate answers conjured from my ideals. I store a list of rules that are rarely followed. I let you in on every ***** secret so I had to abide by constructs of sickness. I had no other choice.

Will I ever be able to do this? If this is me and I am me forever who will swallow it? Who will take responsibility for my downfalls? Faults that are too confusing for explanation are menacingly sweet if you hold inquisitiveness, in place of a heart, on your sleeve. I can't understand. You can't understand. There is no more on and off switch somewhere in a dark basement. I'm not twelve anymore. I can't blame mommy and daddy. Its all my fault. I got myself here. It's my transgression. Don't you dare blame them. Recognize my liability. I ****** up this time but I found an oddity; I found perfection in this imperfection. It's something of a conundrum.

Computer science is fruitless thinking. I AM NOT A MACHINE. I am not a computer, not a mechanism, not a problem. I am not a riddle to solve. I am contradiction in every sense of the term. Its broken, shattered and pieces have gone missing. They were outdated and oppressive. They were thrown out, burned, buried, and forgotten. Once treasured, they became cumbersome and then dropped along the way. With them, logic vanished beneath my feet. Its gone now. I'm gone now.

Weightlessness necessitates a higher being than the imperfect human. It requires me to remain underwater, letting go of the compulsion to meet the surface for air. These ancient seas compel me and draw me further down with their loveliness and passion. I am mesmerized by the mania involved. You won't spot me in the engrossing waters. The black surface holds many afflictions.

RUN. FAST.

carry me through lands of dreams
sleepy shamans oaths perceived
the new humans rewrite their creed
to reconstruct the codes beneath.
as sands of time brush through my lungs,
beneath where silver moons once hung,
the catalyst for earths progressions,
tantric winds of gods procession
are pulled to fuel the fires in our chest.
to fuel the fires in us.

ride the colors of the wind, my friend;
dance with death until your end.
the serpentine son rises to speak eternal truths
and soon his weary eyes will rest upon you.

the deepest shades of blue green hue
from the swoon of palaces
dreamt of once, so long ago
where trees from ancient soils will grow
and we, collect their morning dew.

The needle falls down on the record, a thump deep in the bass, the speaker cone shakes and the sound ocean floods from my Serwin-Vegas...That alien who stepped out of the saucer in Close Encounters of the Third Kind decides to speak to Dreyfuss, and this is what it sounds like. This is the language of his planet, on the other side of a black hole in the Gamma region.

A ****** of crows, cold in the snow, muttering low, squeaking and squealing. Love taking on flesh and blood, suffocated by skin, now let's let the service begin. They sing their gut-hungry praises then flitter away.

Signifying nothing.

The priest places the wafer on the infidel's tongue. He lifts the cup to the liar's lips. A subtle glow emitted from a place slightly behind his head. He intones the Mass and tries to empty himself to allow the Holy Spirit to work through him as he ministers in the name of Jesus Christ to his congregation. The Spirit lifts up his voice to the sky and intercedes for my weak soul.

These chants are ancient, as old as the book of Genesis. These are the languages of the Mishraites or the Zareathites or the Eshtaulites. These are the tongues spoken by Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. A language taught to them by their slave ancestors, excommunicated from the clans of Sarah, mother of the promised. A language used by Abraham himself, when he beckoned Isaac to the land of Moriah, making him carry the sacrificial knife soon held to his throat.

The procession moves forward, each recieving the body and blood in turn, enriched and better for recieving it. They walk like slaves submitting to a kind master they love to serve back to their seats in the cathedral, to wait, to get lost in the sacred relics and the sacred art scattered throughout this beautiful sanctuary.

And surely the Lord is in this place, for all that is good is from the Lord and this music is exceptionally good.

The chanting continues, now sung in the language of Baal-Zephon, where the king went after the Israelites, translated: "Wasn't there enough room in Egypt to bury us? Is that why you brought us out here to die in the desert? Why did you bring us out of Egypt, anyway? While we were there didn't we tell you to leave us alone? We had rather be slaves in Egypt than die in this desert!..."

These tone poems, written in the days of the Exodus, have a modern sound to them that is uncanny. Aliens who landed on earth in 897 BC bestowed gifts of prophecy and tongues to the individual members of the head's charge, and they are merely tools at the disposal of the leader of the aliens in their attempts to express themselves to the earthlings. No, there's no way any of us not from their planet could ever understand their language, borrowed as it was from the priests, Zadok and Abiathar in a meeting held on Mount Calvary the last time they landed on earth. The chord progressions are subliminally tainted with commands to relax, encourage a sense of floating, drift off with the thoughts that interest you most.

A looping tribal dance, recorded on site at a Buddhist monastary where the monks would mumble polyphonic OMs and the tourists would catapult their spirits through a needle's eye just to show that it can be done... Are they praying for rain? Or is it a rich harvest they petition the Great Spirit for today, their knees to the ground? The dance turns into an ****, bodies tangled up misplaced pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

They **** the whale, and so we mourn.

They fester hate like a sore that won't go away, so we sing this lamentation. Translation: "The Son wants you...Hear things in the music that aren't there, only in your hammer struck head. Ring the living bell, ring the living bell, shine the living light, shine the living light...

They incite aggression, so we back off.

They treat the blind man with scorn and contempt, so we judge them.

They are good for nothing but fighting your wars, their stone hardened hearts too far gone to notice each life snuffed out under orders from ground patrol. So we pray for conflict. We petition the Lord for strife and dischord. Exterminate these burned-out husks of men before their 4 years are up.

They lay hands upon the genius and lock him in institutions with people who pull steak knives on strangers. They are afraid of him, so they put him away, in sweat-stinking padded cells or wrapped up nice and tight in a straight, mornings woke and hustled to the breakfast line. They extricate his confidence, thought pattern by thought pattern, and curb the flow of his intellect. They leave us to sing a funeral song for the postmodern society on the day when common sense is evenly distributed amongst individuals and Moral Law is accepted as fact by each and all. A dirge for each time you've ever been hurt by someone's words or actions. Our common denominator of heartache and sorrow. Divided about all other things, by necessity united by tears, wailing, howling at the moon, primal scream therapy and insomnia.

And now the church is empty. Angels lingering to usher the Spirit from the echoing halls. Silence and stillness brutal proof of God. Music from the other side of this life. Welcoming songs played at St. Peter's Gate. Stubborn prayers from those passed over, coaxing us through, waiting with scissors at the ready to slice the mortal coil. Believers bellys full of the body and blood of the Lord, digesting it at this very moment, letting the body do it's digestive work, preparing it for re-birth.

undress the frets and peel the strings, pulled as oxymoron through chord progressions
hermetic code and the 8-fold path swim indefinitely within concept of illusion
concept
of
illusion

trick question.

universal ****!
**** me so I can give birth to your beautiful slumdog millionare
you know what I mean?
the man wearing pants so tattered it doesn't matter why he's dancing?
I meant that when I said it and I said it when it meant so much to the
king of all castles running in circles around melancholy as if it were
a dog to be chased so catch your own tail, too big to fail, too big to
fail, ah, cleanliness has its way of speech and I will never be rid of
it's cancellation fees, but does that matter oh so much if clouds
understand me better than sand sees chord progressions in winter hymnals
sung by early risen bird from dust and snow?
I didn't think so either.

Starring up in the sky as the sun set sets into darkness.
You ever wonder to yourself, why is life sometimes lifeless.
Regrets of the past, on experiences you can’t change.
Yet those mere memories in your head cease to fade.

Until you come across someone in your life you can’t live without.
That person who makes you better, loves you for you, and makes you shout.
Trials and progressions, but not every relationship is built to last.
Those insecurities maybe trust issues from the past.

To my lady of love, please do not hurt me.
I only wish to give you pleasure, love and security.
I may be young, scared, but I’m ready.
To open my mind, my body, my heart yet take it steady.
Don’t rush, no need to.
My only wish is to please you…
With time and patience and (maybe R. Kelly playing in the basement)
But that’s another story for later.

What I mean to say is baby is you’re my kryptonite.
My nature’s nectar, so sweet and so ripe.
I need you; I want you to continue to be in my life.
For I am your man and this time is right.

After cocktails at Luigi's Bar, and then The Golden Bowl,
I proposed we play a gig of jazz-inspired rock and roll.
We all thought we'd make the fans cry out for encores every night.
But our schemes were dreams that faded in the morning's ruthless light.

My blue guitar should captivate the people every night.
But the dream crumbled, the dream tumbled.
My dream faded out of sight.

Playing keyboards was Patricia. (Never 'Trisha', never 'Pat'.)
She'd a taste for gracious living in her small art deco flat.
She would practice chord progressions, sipping lapsang souchong tea.
Then she played away at weekends with her special friend, Marie.

She trained her dainty fingers to explore new grooves each night.
But the dream crumbled, the dream tumbled.
Her dream faded out of sight.

We had Ritchie on electric bass, with tap-and-pull technique.
Such a clever devil — Ritchie almost taught the bass to speak.
Ralph the drummer's backbeat cymbal crashes measured out the bars.
We agreed the speed — then found we could not play like superstars.

Would the crowd be wowed by passion from my lovely blue guitar?
No, the dream crumbled, as the band stumbled.
Our dream faded overnight.

The Blue Guitar Quartet
was as close as we could get
to our vision for the music of today.
But we bumbled and we fumbled,
our aspirations humbled.
So we slowly put our instruments away.

"The Blue Guitar Quartet
is down, but not out yet.
With practice you will crack it," said Marie.
"Let Patricia be your singer;
she's a musical humdinger,
and as soulful as a solo girl can be".

"She can improvise a blues
based on any riff you choose.
Let's have handshakes and embraces —
this quartet is going places!
Here's to jazz-rock, and The Blue Guitar Quartet!"

Emergent and forming I feel a storm is imploring that soon without any warning you beg to cross a line

Every time, nothing is sacred but sacramental complacence is marked as roles of the shameless

Mean to skip a line another time? Is this too rough and obtuse for a cutie like you to boost the power line?

Number 9, completion is power and stricken chords every hour proceed to timeline devour those daily entities

I do decree that opposition to me is free and withered beatings to meetings, detours and dealings

understanding demands of variable plans is held by the hand that feeds the depleted need

I see it from every angle, the tangle, the multishifted frame though it dangles, I can't be stuck in my own head when

I see the reflections of me in the treasure it jangles, brings into focus where my head fell to float in the

moments set to wrangle, pull it in, dwell upon the good and discard where it hampers new fangled notions like

truth effusions of love and devotion are swallowed up in the daily ocean of noise traffic, the more verbose,

Graphic dispatches matches blasted disasters dashed and rash past distractions amass magic attacks balanced

Secular motion entwined with metaphysical potions, divided what is your quotient? It doesn't add up in this

moment.

Interpersonal, intergalactic, universal assertions disturbed by verbage of outrance

Message mismanaged mischief mallaeble mayhem managed maganamously mallicous mannered when I

would proclaim them. Members materialized meriting masturbatory movements and monetized

malappropriation I have no patience nor pathos for indiscriminant egos demonstrating a tangent as canon and

paralyzing progressions toward psychic visions of heaven, eyes as the cosmos, and pressures upended.

I'll cope with associations disastrous and tainted, but keep in my visage all that scratches my lenses

I know far too much to be content with the situation, but far too little to shatter falsehood's intitiation

A Minor mistake, on my part, was forgetting the next step in my "surely will never fail" process. I told myself that if I kept making a big deal out of this, it was likely I was going to royally

F up my chances of success. I was nearly there. I had attempted a head start at the beginning of the process, but soon realized that it was quickly catching up to me. I could

C the finish, the release, the end of my long and ever weakening battle. So I did what any lunatic would do, and I sprinted for my life.

I lost consciousness.
Right at the end.
I never made it.
I'm still running.

(start with a bow and a swish)
we are a thousand beating symphonies
variations of a familiar theme
treble clefs and four/four rhythms
chord progressions up to E
(sorrow and anger and love and hate)
arpeggios and interludes
minuets quadrilles and waltzes
the refrains, the fermatas, the reprises
we are a thousand sweeping overtures
(the last note rings through an empty auditorium)

The darkened corners of forgotten yesterdays clouded the view as the gaping maw of need stared across the chasm at necessity .  Almost as if there was a reason for it’s contiguous constituency it reflected the myriad animations of it’s creator .  Crystalline forms in infinite diversity beyond the subjective sublimations of mass crowded the integral forms of it’s subjugated spontaneities perversions as the well of it’s unity sang of the cause for it’s being .

The single-mindedness of it’s recumbent beginnings were all but lost to the ramifications of itself as the children of it’s repulsion waxed and waned .  

The twinkling of an eye , the integration of ages , countless extrapolations of it’s ******* vanished into the nature of their being as the tainted refuse of their wanton progressions began their mutual processions back to the source , or wandered through the surrealistic ethereum of their eternally predestined nothingness .

Causalities purity reigned as all became the reason for it’s own creation , and vanished into the implosion of it’s own *******

Caress my neck softly
Hold my body close to yours
Tempt these sweet chord progressions
Acoustic affection’d freestyle
Finger my frets with delicate touches
Mother of pearl inlays sweat
Bending vibrating strings
Crank my volume **** high
Sliding capos moan
Play lead in poetic rifts
Soundhole oozes sensual melodies
Gouging pickguard’s scars
Tune me in the key of your love
Strum me hard…

Let’s make beautiful music together

It may be sunny
but I'm drowsy in ecstasy
with my brown bear sittin next to me
perplexed with he
she texted the
but after regrets the deed
remembering to hed
her heart
put that too good love back in the cart
and switch to art
cuz passionate progressions always
fall apart
Press restart.

I’m high and low pressure systems
forming a cyclone over still water.
I’m an alternation, a series of changes,
A nomad with sand on my heels from
every corner of this nation.
I’m green, magenta, sunny yellow,
cerulean, and turquoise;
but most of all—I am Black.
So don’t look at me, then attempt to
test that.
I’m a child in constant wonder.
I’m the pilgrim and the chief,
the tree and every one of its leaves,
the occasional low, thick cloud
or a forgotten rain puddle, filling
the ground.

A lover, because I’ve fought;
a winner, because I’ve lost.
I am different, in that I am everyone;
I am the difference, in being the sum.

I’m the fruit of ripe relationships,
the mulch of those that have soured,
the taste to make your lips pucker,
the voice to uplift you, to empower.
That song with a melody easy to forget,
but with words that penetrate—
That dream you can’t quite remember,
but with sensations you can’t escape—
I’m a string of ideas, of art,
of symphony. Minor chord progressions
of the highest order,
a dissonant masterpiece.

i see Charles Mingus crying like cool jazz.
i see Lauren's head in my lap.
i see The Stranger spin on the turntable.
i see a broken night.
i see haze high near the ceiling.
i see headphone cords, whose ends hurt my ears.
i see the same chord progressions driving me mad.
i see love fading in a passerby's eyes.
i see chapped lips.
i see my debit card, i run it as credit.
i see the 10 foot tall stack of paperwork on my desk.
i see my know-it-all confidence.
I see my god complex.
I see your god complex, and know mine is greater.
i see ***, smell it, hear it, taste it, feel it, want it.
i see cars stampeding towards me down the hill.
i see neon signs for strip clubs.
i see prophetic signs, i ignore them.
i see my professor's approval.
i see computer screens.
i see my finger reject the call from a former fling.
i see ****** music.
i see sad faces, day after day.
i see my mind disconnected from my body.
i see boys in fraternities.
i see girls in barely anything at all.
i see my roommates and i yell for no reason--- we laugh.
i see society coming to eat me alive.
i see when i trip.
i see when i get up.
i see when i don't.
i see when i let my friends down.
i see when i pick them up.
i see my eyes closed.
i don't see what they want from me.

what we want / to eat / we stuff / into an opened

goat, bury the goat

on a hot day
in sand.

in my father’s body
what  
will burst, will burst
when I
swallow.

the devil has a hand in so many things

god
peeks into its mouth
for fun.

I fashion my sickness after the mother

of all dreams / dreaming / of the same

invasive
procedure.

my own mother

tries to leave
but the bomb
is all
shadow.

I am the part of you
the mother’s pill
reached.

it is why I confess to praying.

you are all infinite
you, my children of the night
pagan wanderers on destinies lips
patrons of the streets, lonely, empty, wanting
I seen a generation fall
I seen a generation crumble
and be reborn.
You my midnight sorcerers on deaths hitlist
listless and searching
I seen the dance of a power divide
Ego denied, angry id, broken steps
steps
steps
steps
we walk steps in the open,
we talked talks of confession to the night
it held us, comforted us
We the unwanted zombies
of unheard promises and dysfunctional rational
you are all beautiful
undaunted by the lines
the crooked lines, cut mishapen, disater mishappen
Cheers to my world, my surrounding reality
scared and scarred by tomorrow
tomorrow
tomorrow
tomorrow
My vagabond lies, my homeless truths
You, my enormous, analytical algorythms of disobedience
of disorder, of chaos
Musicians playing perpetual reqiuems
Jazz of the dead, jazz of the wanderer, jazz of the beautiful
Show your hand, yell your claim
stake your play.
concrete mazes, blinding buildings, urban solitute
I have found you, I have seen you,
you poets of denial, poets of disaster
Prose of temptation
Words of lament
Speak to me my children of the perpetual night
My children of music, of poetry, of paintings telling me the broken down minds, the sacrificed
economy of love
I am lost in these streets
I am at home in the unknown
I am nothing but a dream, denied
We are together
all together, here, here and now
Lost together
Crowded solitude
Lets be solidified as one
You, my children are emptied of being full
full of unknown, full of yourselves and filled with *****
Drunken stories of lullabies lost
Pour me another, make it a double. doubled down truth
hit me
Cigarette stained finger tips
Plucked tense strings,
Strings so tense you could feel their vibration
We sit, listening, ears pointed at God,
Waiting to be lulled into compliance
I have seen your cigarette stained
Finger tips
Pluck strings of lament and prophecy
Sing me into your future
Oh beautiful melody
Oh wandering progressions
Telling tales of my transgressions
Oh trusty chords
Lovers speak only lies,
With cigarette gently sleeping between exhausted lips
Let us lie here
Here in this desolate desert moonscape
Forlorn homeless shelter
New antiqued flashood of home
I have seen us staring
Staring into the void,
Into the fullness of emptiness
These are not just dreams
Fevered and sweating out the ingested fungus
They are the dystopian dreams of
Every young adult novel
Of every science fiction, battered, back pocket edition
Dog eared, notes in the margins, yellowed with love, book.
They are the lost bibles of us,
Of our current histories and our future stories.
My friends
Gathered, exuberant, broken and shattered
Passing time on the the stools of inebriation
Come forth and be counted
The artist hang burnt offering from crimson skies
Sacrifices of the soul
Sacrifices of humanity
Exercises of humility
Stand here before me and and be chastised
A public flogging, a private shaming
A social satired informal gathering
Gaining peer reviewed synthetically blended praise
The dab hazed hipsters
Losing time,
faking time,
Cutting lines, sparking fires inside
Burn
Burn
Burn
Lose me in the iridescent, fill me in with acrylic
Wash me out with acid and cry-
Cry over me, cry with me
I am nothing, and we are everything.

Deep in the heart of trying times;
weighty presence of the end announced
comfort and confusion begging guidance
carried out only in subtle progressions of ideas; the formation of new worlds

wayfaring watchmen of all tomorrows!

bring me to the security of nascent breath!

render me helpless before, finally, I rest and invite nothing further!
that which might delay subconscious affirmation
-of deeply hewn desire
to accept in burning glory the self-searching odyssey within

parallel returns to unmanifest self
in this world of sight and senses

I have seen it too!
-as if to climb the pyramids like slow-growing ivy
choking sunlight
and in it's figure
obscuring all beyond it

sometimes i wonder
is this all we could have been?
this mundane little bubble
and all that lies therein?

all there is to do,
all the places we are needed
all the problems we have caused
and the progressions we've impeded

soothed by the exchange of a small piece of paper
for useless items we're told we need
to fit into an image of a generic person
complicit in a culture we immortalize and breed

or others by their own conviction
in a set of rules older than this
to tell them how to make decisions
and promise them eternal bliss

each taught not to question preachings
or face some form of indefinite sanction
to remain obedient to a master
legitimizing the subsequent action

i don't understand.

how can this be the epitome of civilisation
so full of ignorance and hatred
we fail to see the beauty that surrounds?

how can this be the epitome of human intelligence
that we need glass screens for communication
and lenses to record our every movement?

how can this be the epitome of the human existence
that inequality is perpetuated
and poverty ignored?

one day you will realise what it is you have done
in your desperate bid for power.
you doomed the endurance of your kind
for the sake of one, tall tower.

With memories rapidly fleeting, I find it hard to pinpoint what lead me into the eyes of the dying man. I recall a day just the same as many in following, the cold breeze felt nice on my skin and a brisk sensation overwhelmed me. I felt the air filling my lungs and I'd like to think I appreciated it fully.

As temptation fled me, I felt calm. No longer a slave to a cigarette pressed between my lips, I felt pitiful in my nostalgia and felt wrong inside of myself. Oh how must I have felt? I can't even grasp my mind in that of which is my younger eyes. I feel wise honestly, almost as much so as the oak tree that keeps reoccurring in my thoughts.

It's been almost a hundred years in my mind but time does not flatter such unconventional wisdom. I lay alone, as alone as one can ever feel. Who would have thought my death bed would be that of an asphalt street lay? The cold air that I allowed to fill my lungs just prior in the day, now has forsaken me so. I feel the air I breathe tearing softly into my lungs, I feel the cold embrace of death.

I thought my time would never come, but I guess I was wrong.
In recollection, I always thought I would die on a day where clouds filled the sky. That somehow with my departure came down rain so hard, so powerful and filled with fury. As if the pounding roar of thunder is that of only God cursing himself for allowing me to slip through the cracks of existence. I guess I'm not all that important after all, stained in the blood of youth. My dying hour is here far too soon. but I was never good at keeping time myself, so this can not be sure.

Dying such a strange thought, there's an art in dying really, I now see this to be true.
Death: a concept in which the mind can't comprehend, we often like to not to think of such terrible things, really the point in it seems all too pointless.

The thought crosses the measure of relevance in what deems to be relevant. Just the day prior I laid in my bed filled with appreciation for all that is mine and all I had worked for, to be laying lost in my sheets... I would give anything to feel said sheets once again. Little did I know.

Don't men only die when they don't appreciate life? Why must I be shown all that I am losing, when I already increasingly know to the deepest foundation of that of which is my existence, that I have already lost?

...

With my overwhelming sense of self-importance on the line, I face mortality in it's true form, how fragile I really am I now see. In a world separate from the pain I feel, I am fleeting out of existence trying to forget. I searched for calm in a hopeless place. sorrow moans, bitter, desolated, with a ruthless sensation of despair filling my existence. Oh the despair, it is a pit with immense depth. I would like to tell you how I have explored such depth but I honestly rather not...

For I am the one who can take it, all of it I swear, throw the knife in my back and I will pull it out, clean and polish the blade and return it as I apologize for ever getting in your way. I really never meant to get in your way. This depth I do not wish to explore will reflect in this piece I am presenting, between the lines, the presence is so clear in between the lines, screaming out to be heard, I can barely contain it within myself, so therefor it bleeds out from in between the lines. My suffering, my agony, every face I was forced to find peace with in my fleeting moments! I could not find said peace. It was nowhere to be found.

The darkness fills me and the plagues of my dreams and ambitions brought vengeance upon my waking and quaking mind. Suddenly an empty figure stands in my reality brought nightmare and I observe it and ask why something so dark lives in the depths of my subconscious? I am tortured and beaten and broken, I have taken the world and more, why me? I ask for my own amusement.

I often ask myself what lead me to that of merciful that day, the day time stopped and I reached a new plane of existence, what lead me to be so merciful? The question rings and I stand firm in my footing, as my head turned so swiftly, I locked eyes with God, he took the shape of a moving vehicle. Terminal and homicidal, I measured the weight of guilt and worth and felt bitter in my disdain.

My disdain did not know the smiles of my family's faces, my sister with eyes not yet recording, she would not even know who I truly was, the question sank and I asked "Who am I?" but I could not remember, the dying man had consumed me, everything I am was being ripped apart by the dying man, I felt engulfed in these feelings...

And in my departure I felt so very alive, more alive then I had ever felt. My heart was crying in it's inadequacy, never knowing the touch of true love, I fell short yet again! I have failed... For all their is worth dying for, I had so much more worth living for.  God and his oh so strange faces, he chose to represent himself as my bane of existence this time.

I thought about it but I never no matter the time given could have really considered everything before I pushed that man out of the way, fully and truly I could have never known the weight of my actions. Some see me as a hero for pushing him out of the way, but I see a deep sadness inside myself in the decisions I had made in that of a split second. Almost as if I chose my demise simply to let go, I wanted to let go deep down, and what better way to let go then in an acts of hopeless heroism. I felt pure, almost as if I was absolved of all my prior sin. I thought of God and his true face, the emptiness in the absence of light in his eyes, I felt alone, no comfort, as alone as I felt the day I was born....

And as I embark, so must I someday depart.. I imagined my departure to be a day of overcast and shade, but on the contrary it was a bright day. I felt the Arizona heat masked by a winter breeze and I felt alive, in that of which is my fleeting moments I felt alive. In my suffering, my great suffering! Given the choice to let go, I saw the sky open up, and their was angels standing on the street lights ready to guide my soul in it's leaving.. but I was not yet ready! as I lived this pain, I slowly forgot what it felt to be free of suffering, I became my pain and the only sounds I heard were that of sorrows moans. I felt filthy and impure, moments earlier I saw myself as selfless in acts of heroism but to no prevail were my acts recognized, I somewhat expected the scenery drop to be lifted and to find myself in a dream I simply fell too hard into. But no, no, no, NO! reality is unmerciful and cruel and potent and sure, it is sure as day is bright and night is dim!

I often refer to who I was as characters who shifted in time to become new. I dream to be The Wise Man but I am only The Discoverer as of now, but before that I was The Dying Man(who I am allowing you to know) and before that I was The Ego and Fury and before I was The Hopelessly Hopeless, when funeral progressions play I was The Boy who Throws Dirt, just as I was once The Young and Yearning, and same as I was once The Sunflower Boy who ran amongst the flower fields. These characters are all equally apart of myself, as who I am today is apart of me.

Really we are all one in the eyes of the dying man, you become everything you ever were or will be, the dying man is clairvoyant but hopelessly disconnected and could never really make any sense of it. And by the one in million chance, if he ever were to flood back in to the eyes of the living, it would be like a dream that fades as you desperately cling to the story as the day progresses. I don't know why I fail to forget the eyes of the dying man, I wish I could, it isn't natural, a spoiler if you will, but the eyes of the dying man holds great wisdoms and sorrows, far too great for the eyes of the living man. So you can imagine my return, my great bamboozle of death itself, it was surreal and I questioned the fabric of existence in it's entirety. Where I thought I was surely pushing daisies, rose a pulse and life breathed into me yet again.

See this is not my first run in with the reapers scythe, it is my third but I do admit, I was far more conscious the third time around. My first encounter was my very first breath, my lungs failed me with the tight restraint of the umbilical cord fastened in a noose fashion around my neck three times. I was born blue and it leads me to ask myself how could I ever feel alive after something like that? It's like waking up to falling out of your bed and the day is casted in negative light but so is my life. The second encounter was in the eyes of my former self, I like to call the hopelessly hopeless. My first conscious run in with the reapers untimely swings, I felt disdain, and impurity becoming of me. my head clenched with strain as everything I had ever witnessed or heard. I was forsaking myself as I cried out to forget what was playing before my eyes in two manners, one the life how I desired it to be and the other playing the cold setting of what actually happened...

So I am here the dying man yet again, not because I asked to be but because it simply can be. For I can take the weight of the world and arguably more. I stand a man sovereign in my rights for existence, valiant if not simply in no better words a brave man beaten and broken, always ready for the next lashing. I decide to fight the becoming of the dying man. Will to live! it's really a funny thing, something of such great importance, that no one really ever thinks about, something so overlooked but still so important.

I lay the man aged a hundred years inside his head, moments reflected hours and hours were becoming years, I slowly forgot who I was, and the slate became cleansed. I felt pure with triumph, I felt undyingly pure, my sins were washed from me and I awoke. I felt brand new, I felt as if I were reborn, the dying man was casted into the past and I became the discoverer I am today, and one day I dream of being the wise man but one day is too far to become hung up on anything. I shall appreciate another year in full this time, and for many years following. I am now, what I was not before. I am truly awake and appreciative for if death comes for a fourth blow I want to have new stories to tell my old friend, as the fireworks in my brain go off yet again.

The nights have
always been the worst.
Sitting alone
with a drink
and some drugs.

Close to the
open window,
listening to
the sounds of
the night.

Passing cars and sirens,
a couple arguing
somewhere down the alley,
a whistle set loose
by one of the young
whose turn it
is now to
own the same
night that I
once did.

That slow and
lonely fog horn
sounding it's
warning every 45
seconds a quarter
mile out.

The mind filing through
the days events.
The failures
and the progressions
that weren't really
any type of
real progress at all.

Flipping through it all
in search of a reason.
Images flashing,
the infants smile
or that girls manicured
fingertips gently
along your face.
Magicly guiding
you into a kiss that you
knew meant nothing
to her at all.

Still drinking,
still using,
still counting the
seconds between the fog horns
sounds of the night.

Still trying to keep it all intact.
Mind,
Heart,
Body,
and Muse.

Waiting on a word,
a line.
Something to put
down and save
for the ages.

The nights are
the hardest,
that they've
always been.
But the night
is usually when
this magic
appears.

Fixed on repeat with stagnation as aural salvation
they dance to the archaic discord
entombed in relics from 1973
rooted in pensivity behind the repetition of each melody
they've heard this one before
used it to pick themselves up from the floor
an effigy to lost lovers
who used to sit beside them
smoking on the balcony
paying duty to a capitalist society
taxing themselves with each breath.

They never hear the strings breaking in silence
dancing through progressions
which paint plaintive signs of the times
disparity haunts the rhymes
but nostalgia stole the show
apathy drives ignorance
to the songs, they don't know.

Artists gorge on the decline
too many pills to swallow
so instead, they'll do another line.

Self-Promotion
Shamefully accents each line
of scattered HelloPoetry

Follow me
Like my words
give me significance

We are all children
ignoring ourselves enough
to hide the smiles we form
from the positive-reinforcement
of another desperately embelished
first-world sob story

kicking and screaming
flourishing melodies of sameness
over commonplace chord progressions

**** me for humming along
******* for harmonizing

holy cow, words my god they can be arranged in ways that are musical and metaphorical and melodic yet menacing or mechanical, mean and maniacal.

WORDS GAH! Letters can be like musical notes and different arrangements are different chords, CHORDS CAN BE WORDS! chord progressions=sentences! There's common ones. Like C G Am F. Translated. You are so beautiful. wow so inspired. HOWEVER! one can use the same chords in different fashions to create different songs with totally different meanings LADLKJNF!
you are beautiful, so
are you so beautiful
so you are beautiful
beautiful, so are you
so beautiful, are you?
you beautiful? so are...
I believe this is clear, cleave me if mistaken but please if anything departure is unreason able would you? don't ever, you are beautiful, so beautiful.

WORDS HolY FARCE! not fake or an art satirical to the smart can you please stop shopping at wal mart?

HOLY ENGLISH! so many words i do not know how will I learn to cope with potential nope unavailable but I know I'm granted unalienable rights in my sights if I might just quote the constitution and relieve my blank poor brain of all destitution so I can keep my head high and wear a grin with pride if you wish to die i'll have to pry into your soul and save you, gotta keep you whole because without you there's one less that one may bless and all the folks will miss you oh what a mess so please I confess I need people here to read these rants and turn them into chants to sway some opinion to create a bunch of minions necessary for a change I can believe in but for that to happen i'll have to go to bed and learn to sleep in.

WOW WORD LOVE WORLD OF WORDS!

I wrapped my lips
around your neck

Drank you down
kept palates wet

You left marks
I know just what
you meant

Bottoms up
     choke the message down
Little girl
     Do you wanna tear each other apart?
****** set
     fire to my *****

Heart shaped x-ray glasses
Now reality is the new *** tape
We're all framed in

Oh,
The transgressions you keep rewinding
Because fantasies just slow you down
Oh,
When you wanna keep moving
find grace in what you're doing
Oh,
The progressions the soul makes
when it follows the
heart beaten
path
Oh,
Can you even last?
I know
sometimes
I can't

I just wanna get off one time
     and not apologize
For spilling my guts
     trying to center
Your settled half-emptied glass
When all you needed was a refill.

Pay phone change
48 hour flights
waiting up to hear your voice
monastery bells tolling at dusk
words that are crisp upon the air
war stories told many times over
the blur of life on the other side of the window
my cold hands
kohl rimmed eyes
light through blue stained glass
lazy lovers
nostalgic chord progressions
that dress that you never wore
watery footprints on the pavement
the abandoned shoes on the telephone wire
the marquees we'll never remember
rose-tipped clouds
the way he looked at her, as if it were the first time
silhouetted palm trees
and thoughts
too small to be voiced

Who on earth would stack books like sticks?

Who would sit turning white-paper-pages
With blackened fingertips?

You should know that awaiting fire is nothing of a joke
Have you not heard of witches
on fiery trial, spitting curses
That just tightened the rope

And did you know
That the pages
Of every history book ever written
Once went up
In ancient whispers of smoke?

Every manuscript
Chronicling man’s unscripted
Fighting progression
It was
reduced to ash?

So we wrote it all again…
The Romans, messy, careless
And surely barbarians
We’ll adopt them as our
Ancient parents
Invaders of course,
Progressions must not
Be stifled by sentiment or remorse
The druids and their hoods
They left them among the leaves
In the woods
Before that
Well
No one can prove us wrong
We’ll say that humans
Hunted similar races
That were
Uglier but strong
Defeat, even eating them
Of course
That which stands before you
In physical form
Surely it cannot be wrong
Our history,
As far as we know
Is a tale of endless glory,
Since they tell of victory
In every song

So we’d made a start
The scholars are desperate
To start memorising the dates
Of all the events
That we are still
Required to create
Keep the candles burning
This could go on rather late

The bridges of London
We’ll say were built by English men
And when some malevolent
Invaders burnt them down
We built them up again
We’re resolute by nature
Bordered on two sides
Our land it does not shrink
We have intimidation in our eyes

Well we have all these haunted castles
Shakespeare used them in his plays
Let’s say we were conquered
By Normans
Hand-fought battles went on for days

We should be modest and believable
So let’s say they conquered us, so what?
If our past shapes our future let’s show
The things we are and what we’re not

We’re are a thing that empires covet
Some have tried many times
Our ships with crews that never sleep
Their cannonball
trajectory does not fall
They fly in a straight line

A book that chronicled a fire great
Reducing our capital to a raven’s nest
Sadly it was lost, Pepys wrote so well,
So we’ve told Dickens to try his best

We recreate from memories of books
The pictures help as well
Medieval times were all heads on sticks
It resembled what we’ll call hell

Heaven, that’s where the noble live
Those that were so gallant and brave
falling in their tons on the battlefield
Winged skeletons rising from their remains

The bible, as you know, survived the fire
It continues to teach us and guide
Reminds us of the elasticity of time
And encourages a most conscientious mind

We made adjustments, here and there,
Lazarus rising for example, readers in mind
We couldn’t let that tragic scene end
Without him delivering his warning on time

We think of the greater good you see
For the good of you, and the good of me

The plague, bubonic, spreading like fire
Is a fiction covering something dark and twisted
I can’t begin to describe how as the death toll rose
Our king fled for Belgium as the demons persisted

The history of London is actually unknown!
Well you would moan, but what did you think?
The Thames is a man-made canal they froze themselves
when ice skate sales were on the brink

And bodies that fall in, still alive or dead
They scoop them up, make wigs and cut textiles
The ones still breathing are given the job of
Gathering the bones of the executed neatly arranging them in piles

Jack the Ripper, Member of Parliament I should say
Was in charge of cleaning up east London crime
His method was questionable, objections from
Speakers in parliament, but murders in a year went from 38 to 9

Henry, yes he was large, rotund, had his fun with women,
But each of his wives was ensnared by courtiers in cloaks
They were promised recompense, rewards that never materialised
When they killed him, each time, they picked a lookalike from the village folk

And I’m no historian, but why assume
That soldiers marched all the way from Rome
To what was of little value,
Cold, wet, a far cry from home

No evidence of course,
They just put themselves about
And there’s a good chance,
The Vikings came, you could see bridges,
Burning in their eyes, they arm-wrestled
Journeying on longboats of considerable size

King Charles II had an imagination alright,
Kept the wine flowing alright,
Enquiring minds and lips
Were busied gulping it all down
And kissing women who span madly around
Their cheeks
The colour of rose hips...

Who are these men that hold books under their arm
In such a way as a woman clutches a purse?

They arrive in endless streams conversing in their
Small groups, absent mindedly
Opening and closing books that are in
Different languages,

My turn to take five, look after this place,
I’ll be just out back, chewing my wife’s sandwiches.

I eavesdrop a little, a vice of mine,
Hear them talking about their jobs
On the factory line
Men and machines, men as machines
Or machines made by men, machines
That dream in factory nights,
Locked away and out of sight,
Quietest place you’ll find

But they’re restless,
I’ve seen the machines sigh
I’ve seen the steam that shoots out
As the whistle blows calling time,
They are restless machines and

—The whistle blows and
The machines are wandering home after
Getting blind drunk,
Dreaming…

In a few hours they will be woken
By a jangling set of keys that
Starts them up an hour or two early
So that they are fully operational
When the hungover workers arrive
Beating their chests and
Stretching their lever-pulling arms,
The machines grind their gears in protest,
Become confrontational,
Grinding the axe for a while now,
They’re all worked up, high pressure,
And yet no one takes notice
The steam flowing as promised
The men are ready in wait
A little release of steam
Machine’s are functioning well today


Factories like these run themselves
With their routine set in stone,
you can whine and moan and they will,
Mostly to their wives on the phone
During their allotted break,
You can come back early, but never late,

Echoing a cuckoo-clock world
Of perpetual motion, the machines
Dream of a life outside, they have heard
So much about irons and their boards,
And baths with plugs on a chain,
Manhole covers, oven doors and drains,

The machines do what they were made to do,
Workers too, this job chose them
For their durability, stocky build, the confusion and
absence of revolution in their eyes,
Life’s lustre hides in Friday’s pies,
Yawning men find it in the coffee
*** as it boils on Monday morning,
On Tuesday it will taste like soil again,

And on rare occasions, you’ll see it
When the sun comes through the
Highest window, and eventually,
On the right day, the right time,
it reflects and refracts,
The whole factory is scattered
With light artefacts, as if glass was
Raining down from the sky,
They take five, in celebration of
Their planet’s undiminished charms,
And though a bit longer to enjoy them
Wouldn’t do any harm
They are ordered to resume order
Belts and levers and rivets and arms
Must pull, a few more hours of life
Set to whistles and alarms

Creak! *There’s another dodgy floorboard!
How quaint, we’ve gone back in time,
I can’t reach the books...
*Shall we walk past the pond
On our way to the tailors?
A fine suit, perhaps we’ll
Also need a coat and a pair of shoes

After drinking a glass of bourbon, Calvin popped a videotape into his VCR and lounging back on his pull-out futon couch, he watched the large television screen crackle, then cleanse, and then brighten with a clear image of his dead wife Marcy playing Mozart's Symphony No. 40 on a baby grand piano. She was sitting straight and tall on a plush leather bench, spreading out her delicate hands in an effortless and graceful motion. Marcy smiled and fluttering her fingers, she pressed down the black and white keys with a deft, light touch; a powerful and full sound burgeoning from the instrument. Her cheeks were sunken like capsized buoys and her lips were pursed together tight. She wore a dark red dress and ballet shoes. Marcy played many chord progressions, swaying left to right, synchronizing her body to the rhythm. Her curly locks of brown hair tumbled down her bare shoulders, and her green eyes were trained intently on the sheet music, as though the notation possessed a hidden map that held clues leading to nirvana. She released her fingers from the keyboard and turning around, she said in a smoky voice, "Baby I'm getting pretty thirsty. Aren't you thirsty? Let's drink some water and I'll play more later, okay?"

Calvin reached over and lifted up the bottle of bourbon from the tabletop and poured more bourbon into his glass. He watched Marcy get up from the bench. Calvin’s arm shook as he drank the bourbon. Marcy stared right into the camera and winked. Calvin cleared his throat and heard a cheerful voice leak out the television speakers, and on cue he synced up his tone and inflection with the voice and said, "Honey you play like an angel, a beautiful angel. You’re so talented and you’re right water sounds great right now. I'll put some ice in your water, would you like that?" Marcy beaming a smile, nodded. She walked towards the camera and closed her palm over the lens.

The television screen blurred with gray pixels and white dots, and then faded into black. Calvin turned off the television with the remote, walked over to the VCR, and popped out the videotape. He stared at the tape and cried in silence, wishing that the video was longer than five minutes, so that he could hold on to a stronger memory of his wife. The tape was a worn plastic rectangle with black spools of footage that were frayed from repeated viewings; 462 times, equating to one year, three months, and five days.

Calvin remembered recording the tape on June 8th 2013, which was the same day that Marcy took her own life with a gun. He felt that the videotape preserved Marcy’s voice, her appearance, her piano playing, but what it didn’t do was reveal her motivation for killing herself. Calvin had searched through his entire apartment and he had not been able to find a suicide letter, which was frustrating and confusing. A letter could have provided him with answers. He wanted to know why she ended her life. Didn’t she care about him? Weren’t they happy together? How was she feeling at the time? These questions couldn’t be answered, but when Calvin watched the videotape, sometimes he felt like Marcy was speaking to him through her piano playing and giving him insight to her thought process. And sometimes he felt that she wasn’t speaking to him at all, and that if he kept watching the videotape, the reason behind Marcy’s suicide would haunt him for the rest of his existence. Calvin put the videotape back into the VCR, turned on the television again, and watched Marcy play the piano.

Don't get it confused
Or be disabused/
Thinking I have a death wish Cause I'm willing to lose/
Die for life's dreams/
One of a kind Im mean/
I mean I say what I think convene/
Aspirations and such/
can't always get want you want But I want what I need/
So it seems/
I'm the object of your affection
Or the subject of your obsession/
nothing in between/
Either way you ignore me with
So much attention/
Noting on My progressions
about some/
Like a new ton
of weight lifted/
Broke the laws
Of newton to be specific/
Upheld the fall toward prolific/
Incline above the mind prison/
distorted visions
through the prism/
listen to see the message
close your eyes
you can see perfection/
look in the mirror
see that your not/
who are you to judge me
I forgot /
contemporary onslaught
and want not/
I can't even blame you
being who I am
I've done the same too/
what I would've
and wouldn't do/
in retrospect
finding your way
through the maze circumvent/
Ain't that the point I profess/
no points trying to settle the score
it's pointless/