My skin burns
The beverage condensates
I am awaiting nothing
Wishing for no one

The grass stands tall
I no longer bow my head
To the sky above
I followed nature and was left
With purposelessness

The joints in my body
Feel young and light
The blood in my veins
Pump through the chambers
In my chest
Over and over and over

I am alive
I sit under the sun
And remember the universe
Inside me
I forget my small existence
I don't care about my small existence
In this galaxy

I experience purposelessness
And become one with nature

Beautiful summer day. You know you're gonna die
that's why you know no joy.
Obsessed with self, there is no answer
unless religion, tv, stories, sports matter.
So what if nothing rhymes and I don't
bring my life into an expressible state
or fight purposelessness, anomie. No one writes.
Running the gauntlet alone. A good day to die, the Apaches say.

For men like us dying's easy, it's living that's hard.
And since dying's much like living, that's hard too.
There's some contentment in letting community decide
your place in it. We're not talking to you.
Really, it's a perfect day. Every leaf is out
that's coming out. The grass is high
and unidentified yet another year. Being knowledgeable
is the best defense against your insignificance.

Can't stop the quince from blossoming
or my sons from smoking, speeding.
The best that can be done or said's a blessing.
Less tv, less guessing
about the effects of your anger unless
you want to be an angry man forever.
Coming from the funeral with friends,
talking on the telephone. OK about being alone.

Alive, almost sure of it. Whether I'm a visitor
to my life or the actual owner.
Mature poets steal, most are masturbators.
This house could use a good cleaning,
dusting for ghosts. I should subscribe
to the local newspaper, do my job well,
do less until one thing's done well.
What would that be? Old, and yet so young.

There are a million poets, I'm poet #500K.
Plenty of mysteries, infinite philosophies,
prayers, laws and unwritten rules.
That's why we go to school, life's complicated.
All I do not know: ATP, probabilities,
the glorious revolution, meiosis and mitosis
and all I'll never see, the bottom of the ocean,
the palm at the end of the mind, a wolverine.

There are certain indicators, undeniable,
inexorable. Forget-me-not, is that all I want?
To get lucky, you gotta be careful first.
To be great, you gotta be willing to sound BAD.
Although we cannot make the sun stand still
yet will we make him run. Brave revelers.
Signed engagement letter attached.
Attachment to self and to things to do.

Science can't save you, neither can religion,
at least Popper and Niebuhr, philosophers and poets,
are entertainers, which is why actors and athletes
are paid so much. Thanks for the summaries.
I was teaching Shakespeare's 92nd ridiculous sonnet
to my student who lays blacktop in the off season
Shakespeare bellyaching about dying without her love
a feeling foreign to a modern adolescent sensibility
although many teens are pretty far gone searching
for their mothers or fathers in their dazed lovers' eyes.
Which is why we call it "the wound that never heals."
Or the lesion that's always lengthening. And bleeding.

Muslim fundamentalists and their Christian counterparts
are a mystery to me. Pews and prayer rugs, the airless
indoor environment of religious worship, reading
scriptures, hypnotized by hymns and fainting from staring
at candles through stained glass windows, almost certain
the preacher is faking his certainty about the afterlife.
It's not my problem. A more immediate concern:
receding gums and tooth extractions, swollen joints,
poor lubrication and circulation, wave after wave
of viral infection, the occasional antibiotic-resistant
bacterial attack, usually urinary, and who knows
what internal organs are dividing and conquering
without mercy or cease, i.e. the wound that never heals.

It is wise not to overvalue your continued existence,
good not to be innumerate, unable to compare
a mere 80 years with say 6.0 x 109 or all of time
(to date) times the multiverse. Conversely,
it is interesting all of space and most of history is contained
in your mind (realizing of course it's just a map
of the cosmos not the cosmos itself, or is it?). I'm
unable to wrestle free, tongue in that cavity
and locked in my memories, so separate and disparate
from the biomass in the crosswalks, even my spouse.
Alone, so alone, even your doctor can only devote
limited thought to your situational mortality through
the redress of poetry - also a wound that never heals.

Snow for eternity, that's what this February's been.
All to the good, for someone it's the final February
so enjoy it to the extent you can. By that I mean joy.
Joy at birth. Joy at death. All joy. All times. Anyway,
that was Shakespeare's message: even tragedies are comedies.
May, a Buddhist, chants each morning.
Her husband, Marc, who's Jewish, plays league tennis.
Their son, Aaron, will soon make Eagle scout.
How does that relate to your wound that never heals?
Luck runs out. For D.H. Lawrence in New Mexico
or Ulysses S. Grant in Ohio or Yasujiro Ozu in
Tokyo or Satyajit Ray in Bombay or Rabindranath
Tagore in Bangalore or at the Battle of the Atlantic in the Azores.

The night is a poultice, winter or summer solstice.
My anonymity will not affect the anomie ghettoside
seeing for myself how season by season
vacations and accomplishments accumulate, late in life
and early on, sunrise over mountains or moonrise over Bronx.
Masturbator, prisoner of war. Hospice of the Holy Roman Empire.
Numerous blue notes: the 3 flat, 7 flat, 5 flat,
the 6 flat and the 2 flat too. I don't get
what Wallace Stevens means by imagination.
When groundhog shows up as a totem, there is opportunity
to explore the mystery of death without dying.
This then is the purpose of purposelessness (and of eating less)!
Now what about that wound that never heals.

The Skeptical Observer column in Scientific American
was somewhat alarming when he accepted a paranormal
explanation for how his wife's grandfather's inoperable
transistor radio played music from its hiding spot
in his sock drawer on, and only on, their wedding day.
Now I'll have to believe my father (or mother!) is watching me
perform private ****** acts with (or without) partners
or that they could even know my thoughts. Or aliens
are attending our committee meetings and making
perfectly reasonable decisions given the available information
and the world is rotating just fine without humans.
These possibilities - angels, ghosts, aliens - are better
than holocaust and genocide. In this way,
and only in this way, does doom become endurable.
The wound that never heals in the end is all you'll feel.

Out of emptiness comes this:
Purposes as incomprehensible and wonderful as these purposes
Either you had no purpose or the purpose is beyond the end

Because the timepiece not only serves a purpose, it is adapted to that
      purpose
Except it was a secret purpose
The world is a mental activity, a dream of souls, without foundation,
      purpose, weight or shape

People in collective idleness are even more repellent than when
      purpose motivates them
God, glass, my townspeople! For what purpose?
His purpose and mine is to catch photons and store them in our
      bones

Lately I have thought about our war and its purpose
To have a season for every purpose, Ecclesiastes was right about
      that
Languages of mammals, purposes of insects, placement of rocks

They purpose nothing but to multiply and die urgently beating east to
      sunrise and the sea
Having died, as such, I find I do not mind quiet living with the
      purpose of a cell
Stately purposes, valor in battle, glorious annals of army and fleet,
      death for the right cause

My friend who is counselor to kings and presidents doesn't lack purpose
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Not to say there is no purpose necessarily, just I don't immediately
      get it

The purpose of sitting is not to be satisfied or satiated
Use of violence by the local militia for a limited purpose, protect the
      young from the janjaweed, the crop from the ****
The knight, the penitent misses last assessment of life's purpose,
      babbling for God to appear

I mean your entire purpose should be living, you must take living
      seriously
Sleep with a purpose
Or lose all purpose beyond ******, child *** and food hoarding

Proof that there's a purpose set before the secret working mind
Having purposefully expunged from it every trace of emotion
What is relevant for our present purpose is counting is associated
      with primitive forms of writing

That is the purpose of poetry
The purpose of school is to introduce us to the world’s innumerable       wonders
Their corners sharp, their lines exact, as if their purpose was to show       the plane geometry of snow

That’s when everything becomes clear, purpose v. purposelessness       matters less
Lonely physics, national purpose
This then is the purpose of purposelessness (and of eating less)!

Desperate for new fetuses to teach purposeful workmanlike killing, we       will live with the question What was our purpose?
If we are not at home in the world, contributing purpose, we lose our       desire to stay here—and we die
The men who left the machine have started their own business, a new       endeavor by which they will keep warm and purposeful

You go the way of an unknown soldier, unable to assess the purpose of       the battle
Let Greece then know my purpose I retain, nor vex with new treaties
      my peace in vain
And shake the purpose of my soul no more

simultaneously i am
my own deity and enemy
at once a cancer and its cure
the sheep and the wolf
a king and a fool
subservient to none
yet obligated to all
a series of contradictions
and oxymorons played out
to define complexity in simplicity
purposelessness in post-modern artistry

a cornerstone on dry land but
sinking down in life's quicksand i
am defined in tandem with my
community but i also stand apart
independently spouting a philosophy
of non-violent civil disobedience
predicated on the heart informing and
the mind responding in kind
and my rebellion may or
may not be limited to
peaceful protest and direct action
it might also include
burning flags and bombing buildings
symbols of oligarchy come crashing down

i see utopic potential in the dystopian
narratives on Barnes & Noble's bookshelves
carry the fires of Prometheus to shake the
apathy of false hopes and leave desiccated
idolatry in the shallow graves that serve
as mouths spewing hatred and homophobia

i am an anarchist with Messianic tendencies
the infamous Nazarene
died defying Rome's empire and
i'll decry American chauvinism on my death-bed
born and bred in the home of
two happily-married conservative Christians
emerged a nonbeliever
i'll resist until the end

earning my master's in literary cultural
and textual studies and i've been told that
i'm prone to sophisticated soliloquies and
that i have a robust vocabulary yet
people always ask me why
my favorite word is ****
and i suppose it has something to do with
its versatility vibrancy and vivacious vicissitudes

i am in love with a girl with
forest-fire hair follicles that burn
almost as bright as the compassion she
nurtures in her chest a rebel girl
in a patriarchal world wielding middle-
fingers as easily as warm hugs
i adore that she is polyamorous
even if i have eyes for only her

i lead a democratic classroom
by modeling leaderlessness
a professor and a student
fellow learners use
my first name 'cause
we're one and the same
i'd be ashamed if i adopted
the illusion of authority and
tried in vain to tame the virtue of
liberty latent in every one of my students

i am my own damnation
an island unto myself
beset with the black plague of  
self-doubt drowning in the ocean of
delusion bereft of self-determination
betrayed the man in the mirror
i am my own adversary and accuser
judge jury and executioner
i signed my own death warrant

and i am my own redemption
i am the savior nailed to the cross  
nothing and no one
can stand in my path
i am the arbiter of free-will
the harbinger of hope and i
will vanquish the lies that
choke my throat like nooses of rope
and tie myself a lasso to pull down
the moon and sun and travel
aimlessly throughout the galaxy
as i did once
from star-dust i was
born and to dust i shall
inexorably return

simultaneously i am
my own deity and enemy
at once a cancer and its cure
the sheep and the wolf
a king and a fool
subservient to none
yet obligated to all
a series of contradictions
and oxymorons played out
to define complexity in simplicity
purposelessness in post-modern artistry

Some get that way by playing it safe,
memorizing mantras, righteously abiding by rules,
some get there by cutting seams,
lost in purposelessness, partaking of
ether, marijuana, alcohol, or anything
that's buzzy enough,
some find their sweepstakes in curls,
in fantasies, on the internet, or in the aftermath,
some claim the spoils, some gracefully accept
determination, some divorce their wives,
some happily raise their pulse to the heavy metals,
some review albums and cut down the *******,
some write love stories for our grandmas,
our moms,
our ex-girlfriends,
some find it in politics, right winging, left winging, chicken winging,
some in bomb threats,
some find it in supremacy,
others in melting pots,
some cheer up over breakroom chitty-chats,
some in **** ***,
some in sympathizing with pedophiles trapped in iron lungs,
some when they have hit the bottom rung,
some by rationalizing,
boosting themselves above half-wrongs,
to coast on the half-rights,
some by breaking up,
some by declaring war,
only to get discouraged, yet proud of the scars,
some kids dance to experimental music,
some write blogs about capitalism,
some find it kicking it with bitter vegans,
others while murdering their parents,
but everyone is a winner,
everyone is right,
everyone has earned the paycheck,
the vacation,
the **** wife,
and the key to eternal life.

I. Éclaboussure

I drew a handful from my bag of words and splashed them across the canvas of life painted dark, dark, dark. (oil colour: shades of pain, and purposelessness).

I saw stars splattered across the night sky. And misty spiral halos.

How do I know this light is for real? This bright star here, might long be gone - ancient light.

All events are done before we are aware.

Who is the witness? Is there a canvas?  

II. Montage

How do I know. Splattered across. Misty spiral halos. Dark dark dark. I drew a handful. I saw stars.

Gone - ancient light. Who is the witness? Canvas of life painted. Before we are aware.

(Oil colour: shades of pain. Is there a canvas? This bright star here.  All events are done.

And pain and purposelessness. And splashed them across. The night sky.)

Might long be. And. From my bag of words. This light is for real.

Do you ever feel as though you’ve fallen asleep for days at a time? Where you methodically move through life without any feeling but that forlorn sense of purposelessness you get while grasping for the details of the dream that made you throw your naked body out of bed freezing cold and dripping sweat that tastes like an awful lot like tears? Where it feels like you really should be able to coil further into yourself than your ******* knees will bend just so you could be away for a while? But then a breeze shifts and with it carries the smell of the sea or the sun shines through leaves leaving trees casting shadows over the sidewalk and wakes you stop in your tracks and look up and remember the sky is blue and that time when you were young and your parents let you think you got away with it? You start to sing as you sit in commuter traffic to drown out car horns and you forget that you’re bad at it? Between songs grinning because there’s one last bag of rice in the kitchen for one more meal before you go to bed and hope you're still awake when you get up again?

What is the meaning of Life?

Does that not state there is in fact a meaning to our lives? Are we not conceived with a blank slate and let our actions be guided by the environment we have become accustomed to or is there a true predestined meaning to our lives? Is it neither?  We are nothing more than what we are and nothing less than what we are not.

What is my purpose?

Purposelessness.

What is God?

God is what leads me in the direction that I am heading and keeps me away from where I have not gone. God is not in the endless skies watching my every action. God does not know me. I don’t know God. God is not a being. God is not energy. God is not matter; God is not made of protons, neutrons, electrons or photons. God exists. We made God exist. We also made God disappear.
What is reality?

The tangible and physical perceptions that we have keep in our memories. As soon as we forget, reality disintegrates. When we remember, reality regenerates. Reality is not constant.

Why am I here?

Spontaneity

How did I get here?

I managed to avoid every other place than where I am. If I averted where I am now I would be someplace else. I would be any place else. Am I happy? Yes. Am I upset? Yes. This experience is beautiful yet full of dismay and I experience comfort but sorrow for only being able to experience a small sliver of the universe. But this is my sliver of the universe. I love this sliver of the universe and I would fight to the death to save this tiny space for anybody else to experience existence the way I do.

Who and What am I?

I am human, **** sapient, ****, hominine, hominid, primate, Mammalia, Chordate, and Animal. I am an Earthling from the Milky Way. I am what I am labeled, by others and by myself. I am defined by everything I am not and I change every day. I am not constant.

What will happen when I die?

Transcendence from existence; Appearance into eternal rest. My body will provide nutrients to the world, my memories will be lost. I will no longer be, except in the minds of those who knew me and in the evidence I leave behind. I’ll be lost forever, the evidence will soon disappear. I will be over, the universe will go on. That’s all I could ever ask for.

there are vanilla scented candles
and plaid scarves,
acrylic paints of every ******* colour
and wool socks,
a closet full of pretty dresses
and a bookshelf full of good reads
but I’m not happy

there is laughing
there is smiling
there is feeling good
sometimes
but I’m so unsatisfied
with what I’ve got
though I seem to have just about
everything

I have a good mother
I have friends that care
I have blankets
I have good teeth
I have rubber boots
some people say I have nice legs
I have compassion
I have the drive to create
I have trees
I have long hair
some people say I have kindness
I have a bus pass
I have a new job
I have flexibility
I have enough money
some people say I have talent
but I’m unappreciative
and ******* myself  
still

there are booked gigs
and improv shows,
interesting conversations
and instruments,
trees and leaves and twigs
and pinecones,
the sky,
the zoo,
the cafes
but I get insecure most of the time

there are long hot baths
and biting nails,
then painting nails,
then repainting nails
and biding time,
then hating time,
then being okay with time,
there are long stares in the mirror
sometimes glares
sometimes there are puffy eyes
there is frustration
in my fingers
in my head
in my voice
at the piano
on stage
being vulnerable in a crowd of cool actors and musicians
fear of being seen
fear of being unseen
fear of doing it WRONG
fear of looking stupid
looking ugly
looking pathetic
sounding stupid
sounding ugly
sounding pathetic

there are dreams of leaving
this city
this head
these people I have known
for what seems like forever
there are dreams of healing
and loving my skin
and the natural amount of fat
that is underneath it
there are dreams out there
there are so many of them
that I’m afraid to wish
that I’m afraid to think of
from caution of them not happening
from caution of disappointment
and loneliness
and neediness,
then purposelessness

there is wanting
and wanting
and wanting
something better
I don’t know what
just something better
but waiting
and waiting
and waiting
for it to come to me
instead of
trying
and going
and getting
it myself

The debate between free will and fate has taken a hard right
turn to neuroscience, Brodmann area 4 the primary motor
cortex of the brain located in the posterior frontal lobe
(the one cut out of the one who once flew over the cuckoo's nest).
This area of the cortex has the pattern of an homunculus!
a little man, a troll, the all-wise, mandragon, the golem of Jewish
      folklore.

This little man has a ***** that, when fully engorged, is
equal in size to his entire body. However, diseases
such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Huntington's, Lou Gehrig's and
      Creutzfeldt-Jakob
are gunning for him. His basal ganglia are garbled
and he ends up giving poor advice and making bad decisions.
Who can say what happens to his soul or cells or if all will be given
      or well?

I was listening to the famous astronomer on public radio
who expressed the certainty there is no death, your soul
is immortal, it exists outside of time (but not space?). That's because
time exists only in the human mind (as does the universe
including the professional baseball season which is canceled when
      you're dead).
By Spring, my problems will be solved or ignored, either way is
      good.

"Imagine if we taught baseball the way we teach science. Until they
      were twelve children would
read about baseball technique and occasionally hear inspirational
      stories of the great baseball
players. They would answer quizzes about baseball rules. They
      would practice fundamental
baseball skills, throwing the ball to second base twenty times in a
      row. Undergraduates might
be allowed under strict supervision to reproduce historic baseball
      plays. But only in graduate school
would they, at last, actually get to play a game." --Alison Gopnik

Groundhog holds the knowledge of death without dying
for man needs help from every creature born.
Will the holocaust wipe the smile off the face of our romantic comedy
or will laughter outlast the outburst?
About the dark times will there be singing?
Yes, there will be singing and some of the songs will be sidesplitting.

Solving the ****** reveals the city. Nature of kinships and economic
      sustenance,
who loves whom and why, when things happened and how they lost
      and found themselves
in what happened. Because a meter-making argument cannot appear
from nothingness, purposelessness, just cold.
He does not go where he was supposed to go. He is in the desert,
      Sonoran desert, counting cactus buds and ocotillo blooms.
This is the afterlife for which he has always longed.

Appointment to have ***** removed by robot-assisted surgeon.
Air-conditioned, no mosquitoes in the OR. When you arrive
You'll remove all your clothes. Naked before the ladies, nurses
Who have seen it all before. Mainly remember you're not unique.
Think about the government while they're mixing up the medicine.
There's always governance even if there's little or no government.
Back to counting backwards. Inside out, if I die, will I know it?

At 70, Jack's running the gauntlet with some skill!
Benny Golson wonders aloud what might have been
Had Clifford Brown not been killed in that auto accident.
Jack's girlfriend once said he was the reincarnation of Clifford
But he doesn't believe in ghosts, karma or an afterlife.
Benny's old girlfriend Betty inspired the tune Along Came Betty
And that's the most afterlife Benny or Betty's gonna get.

The Trojan bench being not as deep as the Greek
Once Sarpedon and Hector go down even the lucky shot
To Achilles' feet is not enough to save the town.
Aeneas is no match for wily Odysseus
Although unbeknownst to all he has the last laugh when Rome
Conquers Athens, the Myrmidons, what's left of Ilion
And the whole known world from India to Britain.

It's not bad to acknowledge death's primacy
Although after a while you stop remembering
To fear. That's when everything becomes clear
Purpose v. purposelessness matters less,
Anomie v. rule of law, that's a preference
Love v. loneliness, worth about 25 cents
Or a million bucks in the light of the holocaust.

Nothing but light, love and the majesty of death in the room.
Machines stand ready like marines, their beauty is in the motion
That overcomes inertia. The food supply is deeply compromised
So eat whatever you want. Mourning the dead is part of the business
Of healing and staying alive. When you get to the afterlife, walk with
      eyes open,
Ocotillo and cactus may be in flower. The robot does the work,
      imposes
Its own small order, like a ******* a bicycle with disorder in her hair.

It's blinding
how many stars there are.
Not just millions,
but trillions of blazing specks
that are just floating,
burning in absolute nothing.  
And they do it for no reason,
there's no goal that unites them,
no yoking drive or resolution
other than the pure instinct to just do,
to just be.
And despite all this
purposelessness
they still burn with the hottest of fire,
unfathomable fire.
Kinda makes me jealous.
But somehow
people only wonder how.
In fact, they dedicate their short lives
just to answering that one tiny question
about these things we see at night.
But what I'm wondering is why.
Why so many?
Why trillions of these things just there burning?

You'd think we ought to have figured it out by now.

How do you describe it? The feeling you get deep down inside yourself when your looking down at her? When you hold her frail hand in yours and grasp it as if you could lend some stability to her fragile mortality. When you see her and see everything that escapes those around you.
You see yourself in her, in her dimming eyes because when she is gone she takes a part of you with her. You feel responsible for the wrinkles around that shade of somber blue because you know the exact way she squints a little when she’s laughing; when she smiles. You know the way she gathers her anxious feelings in the crease between her brows. You see all your childhood, all your life and love and existence mapped out on her aged skin like a map to the parts of yourself you could never quite find, never quite understand. You see the scar on the tip of her index finger where she prodded herself on the tip of a seam ripper while mending your torn heart. You are perceptive to the way she has shrunk under the weight of all of her disappointments and hopelessness’ in equal parts with your own and you wonder how, in the perfect silence interrupted only by her shallow breaths, you will ever see anything else. You begin to wonder how you will ever find yourself. And you shudder when her stare focuses in and out like her consciousness, like her memories giving you glimpses of the things being torn from you. Like a phantom limb a place in your chest aches where things once were only to discover empty space a lack of movement when you try to use it. I see anger at her life, at her death, I see loneliness and hopelessness, I see laughter and tears, confusion and purposelessness, I see abandonment and acceptance, I see vulgarity and patience,
I blink
And see only the greatest of absence I have ever known,
And I remain where I am with my eyes clinched closed
Afraid  only to see what I can’t.

which breaks the faceless crowd
a gush of blissful warmth
soothing as autumn sun
fiery as raging storm

the earthiness of fields
and scent of blooming slopes
the wilderness of sky
a bustling city's soul

she is the riddling key
hint of a dreamy life
window which breathes the sun
blesses my being with shine

a nebula of birth
crucible of synthesis
my sermon on the mount
my fall into abyss

complexity of life
simplicity of smile
the fleetingness of wind
purposelessness of time

a father's solemn wish
a mother's selfless prayer
immortal as the sea
lover's listless despair

patience of dormant seeds
the certainty of death
innocence of a child
preciousness of breath

vapors of firmament
helplessness of loss
a tease of sun and clouds
the curiousness of God

she is the judgment day
a dream of languor warmth
the solace of my pain
cast in a fervid form

for she is all there is
and all there'll ever be
an era of romance
the reason for my being

as tranquil rainbows dim
and stars bestow a treat
my muse forever sought
i yearn the day we'll meet

Writing is not only an inspection of the world, it is the inspection of the self-contained world. The self realizing it's own purposelessness, and the seeming fruitlessness of the fight against the battering ram of its conclusions; so the self fights for freedom against this self-oppression, fights for a galvanizing truth with its self-contained ball of fire that burns weakly inside of it as the world outside goes bumping in the night blindly. Writing forces you more inward than outward. It is the inner world that re-lights the outer world; against all the blighting anvils in this tiny green universe.

I stare into the abyss of a cracked mirror
Into the gateway to my soul
I find only ashes
Not a single ember remains
No hope of rekindling those flames
Just a barren field, cold and dark

I stumble through days now
Weeks pass each time I glance
From this stack of paper I bury myself in
Exhaustion bleeds through the creases
In the corners of my empty eyes
Tired, this domicile is already vacant

The owner packed up one day
Never saying where he was going
And just left
No bills were payed
So the lights just went out
Left collecting dust

Past hoping the tenant returns
Waiting patiently for condemnation
For the wrecking ball to swing
To and fro
Eagerly and Anxiously awaiting
The first strike

Walls crash down
Boards crack and give way
Bricks soar through the air
As shingles fall in slow motion
The type of chaos
That is pure freedom


Freedom from keeping these walls up
For so long with nothing to keep them up for
That type of empty purposelessness
Destroys and rots the insides
Leaves you so tired
Just so **** tired

All Understanding uncovers
ugliness, usury.
Unifying utopians
uncorruptable,
unmoveable.

Dashing Prophets promoted
promiscuous personalities.
Promethus’s powers
persisted
purposelessness.

Do Postmodern proletariats
protest phantoms?
Puckering proudly,
pondering
paraphrases?

If Egyptians engineered
excessive egoists,
Englishmen evolved
ethical
endgames.

Tradition Rules reformed
rednecks, remobilizing,
romanticizing, recursions
rose
remarkably.

If Caesar costumed
cabals crafted carefully,
Christianity calibrated
circumferential
conflicts.

Vigilantism Unveils unlucky
usurper, undoes underachieving,
unemotional, unconsciousness
unlearning
unhumanness.
  
Every Tadpole’s talents
triumphs titan’s tricks
tip toeing
towards
truth.

Inside, I ache, I hurt, I am hallow.
I want my heart beat back.
But in order to get it back,
I have to surrender to you.

Part of me loves you.
Part of me hates you.
I am fighting against you.

Do I keep on with the dreams that you gave me?
Or do I **** them so that I can move on...

If I move on, I have to **** you in my heart.
I don't want to.
I want to feel your presents when I am scared.
I want to feel you holding me when I am about to fall.

But I am not beautiful.
I am not successful.
I have not achieved anything.
I must do this without you.
I must become successful on my own.

I feel like I am dying.
The most intense pain consumes me.
It is the pain of loneliness,
of purposelessness,
of the deepest sorrow that can't be put into words.

I want to be naked before you.
I want you to see my sin,
my pain,
my hurt.
I want you to tell me that you love me,
that you are the only thing that I need,
the only one that I need to keep me alive.

BREATHE SOME LIFE INTO ME!
STRIP AWAY MY STUBBORN SOUL!
SO THAT I CAN COME HOME TO YOU!

No more telling people of my sin.
No more telling people of the ache within me.
It is my secret.
It is my slave, or I guess I am its.

GOD! I have taken away the life that you have given me.
But how can I let you back in.
I can't. I can't. I can't.

I have tried for too long
to fit into your various segments
I have played the roles of
Christian
Passionate lover
Rebellious son
The perfect one-night stand
Intelligent workplace hero
Humble soccer talent
Competitive PC gamer
College graduate, master's holder
Friend with benefits
Big earner
*** addict in recovery
Devoted husband
Home updater
Fun party guy
Deep-thinking poet
Music-lover, dancer

I fit into none of the roles you have to offer.

I am a primate with a more sophisticated brain and a cleaner body. I declare this with reluctant disappointment.

An observer would see our race developing, bodies and populations increasing in complexity and order; patterns like cities, data flowing through fiber cables, and social constructs aligning like carbon atoms becoming a diamond.

But we will not reach the perfection of a lab-created stone.

We have significant inclusions,
The most glaring of which is purposelessness.

Is there anyone watching?

Life, a spark in the black of Aeon and All.
Consciousness defining purposelessness
Before wisping insensately for an infinity.

I want a more vast definition
To halt Aeons call of vanishment and dissipation,
To bask in frivolity.
Making meaning for amusement,
Amusement for meaning.
Luminescence
Among fading stars.

All sparks must fade though.
So when that day comes,
I'll see you on the other side of infinity.

Cooped within ancient bodies,
this inhabitant dwells amongst an elder net
of crabby, crotchety, curmudgeonly claque
of old folks, only a portion of population I met
which achey, flaky, kooky motley crue
disgruntlement fed as peevish pet
aye be earnest asper my assessment,
but some (quite frankly) getting ready and set
to lay down their limb mitt less lives,
even those who survived harrowing encounters as a vet.
-----------------------------------------------------------
­quotidian gossipers punctuate air waves while:
sitting, riding, quartering, puttering, operating, navigating,
motoring around on scooters (the sole means of locomotion

for many elderly residents),
whose sole occupation incorporates:
zapping, yelping, yakking, whining,
weeping, verbalizing, venting,
uttering, undulating, thundering,
squawking, squabbling, screeching,
rumbling, rattling, quibbling, quarreling,
prattling, pestering, okaying,
offending, needling, nagging, mumbling,
maligning, leering, lampooning,
kvetching, kibitzing, jesting, jabbering,
irritating, insinuating, heckling,
harping, glomming, gabbing, fulminating,
fretting, exclaiming, emoting,
denigrating, damning, carping, cackling,
bragging, begging, agitating, acting  
analogous to bad *** kids itching
for playground foo fight during recess,  

which comparison might be apropos
since majority of energy and time expended
complaining about nobody's business
concerning this, that, or another tenant...
thee management not exempt from
badmouth outbursts), where nondenominational
AARP qualified members congregate
within what constituted former auditorium
of repurposed elementary school,

hence quite some years ago (an honorable
NON GMO gluten free cheerful toast made,
instituting batter use then building standing vacant)
a bona fide unanimous dogmatic, heroic,
linguistic welcome sans titular viz zit head
where alumni of alluded alma mater, ivory fiery,
classy academic solvent atomic structure
became amalgamated, appropriated,
assigned a new life, whereat fob dost
electronically activate innermost recessed sliding doors,
principally, quintessentially, resoundingly availing maw
formerly entrancing students into
Schwenksville Elementary School,
though some years ago repurposed
with barely a trace constituting current subsidized
how zing facility re: Highland Manor,

the residence of thyself and missus
(approaching third month anniversary),
whereat I dune hot give a rats *** if aimless
airless baseless banter, ceaseless chatter,
dubious dabbling, et cetera if this solitary
ruminate thinker the subject de jure
of parlayed people portraying
penultimate purposelessness.

“how would a man live
if he neither
fully
believes in rationality,
nor in God?

how would a man resolve
the paradox of
meaningful existence
and yet, the
purposelessness it brings?

how would a man find
comfort in
fellow men who are
as equally as you,
mortal?

how would a man understand
Creation when he is
the Created,
and part of
the Plan?”

the blind one asked.

“how is it man’s obligation
to answer these doubts?

how could man not see,
that his duty is to
live,
not question,
not answer?”

the wise one reveals.

It's not in loneliness.
There are many like him

It's not in not having
for whatever he has
means nothing.

It's not in despair
for it is pain
that means he's living.

It's not in facing
his utter purposelessness
and cherishing it,
because that's all he has.

It's not in recognising
his own meaninglessness
and finding meaning,
because that's all he knows.

It's in moments of brief escape,
in tiny deaths
in dreams
and waking dreams,
where he is awake.

It's in seeing
the others
and knowing they weren't made the same.
They were made perfect,
unable to question their existence:
to not know such pain.

It's in his utter contempt
for his fellow man;
His blind hatred
for all living beings.

It's in a world
in flames
and falling apart
where he finds peace.

Prowling the earth
sparing nothing.
Only a cruel God
could've made
such a sorry beast.

And the beast stares into himself
and coldly confronts his own emptiness
He does not know why.
Agony to be awake.
To live is to die.

That's the pain of being human.
Cast down into the chaos of history.
To be born and to die, for nothing
it seems.
And to go on, without question;
without knowing
what it means.

suppressed sloshes slurp and squeeze though the gaps
in the oppressive thickness of forced silence.
patchy grass islands emerge eerily still
from the murk and muck of standing water

a land blanketed in purposelessness,
like an old man whose life is all spent in negotiations with time,
who sits in a chair and waits
for death to whisper in his half-deaf ears.

the land sits and waits and knows the inevitability of death.
slurp and slush,
the heavy boots feign stealth

silence amplifies subtle metallic clicks,
small metal masses jostle in a tunnel slung across a back.

the grass leans in to hear
the stifled breaths hiding in suspense,
betraying an inner working of fear.

sift and shush,
the soft brush of camouflage clothing against blistered skin.
there is no coldness in the air but the body shakes,
there is no heat in the air but the body sweats.

the air holds nothing but weight
and the body’s shoulders bend under it.
a weak wind carries whispers to paranoid ears,
and the metal mass meets fire and propels to an end

the air is unbearably thick to be pierced by such a sharp noise

it lays heavy on the crushed tufts of grass
that now hold the bones of a young body
that housed a mind old with terror.
beads of sweat still on a motionless corpse.

I've walked many late night walks.
I've talked many late night talks.
I've watched the sun drop,
and the people fall.
Their struggle like mine.
Their monotony refreshingly tired.
Their chaos a sign --
entropy is alive and well.

Their pain is salve to blisters,
cracking and dry.
Their frustration, a relief.
Their stumbling words --
a little too deep.

Their patience enfolds.
Their perspiration consoles.
Their broken pieces pump a heart.
Their meandering is a straight shot.
Their ***** cleans shoes
Their malice graces you
Their cringe softens faces.
Their flooding tears wash it.
Their pride, a humility.
Their turbulence, a gliding
Their purposelessness, a divine right.
Their flounder, a vibe.
Their past, a present.
Their fans, a famous.
Their selfish, a gracious.
Their falling, a falling up.
Their pretend, a realization
Their sadness, a joy.
Their stumble, a freeform.
Their tired energy.
Their weakness, a strength.
Their plain, an eclectic.
Their dull, an electric.
Their screen, a seeing.
Their absorption, a being.
Their terror, a bravery.
Their whining, a safety.
Their fear, a fearlessness.
Their rock bottom, a peak.
Their peasant, a princess.
Their settle, a refusal.
Their stiff, a flexability.
Their tough, an ingenuity.
Their pale, an ivory.
Their hail, a haloing.
Their *****, a clean.
Their fortune, a fiend.
Their silver, a gold.
Their waste, a sold.
Their clutter, a space.
Their trouble keeping pace.

quiet music, pale stress
old records and books you've read
diminishing returns to keep you at the edge
your head has a room with an art exhibit to which only you have access
to invent new ways to say i love you without a face attached, that become less about the statement and more how to perform it
till you become so obsessed over the finer details that used to have infinite value in their purposelessness
till that aforementioned room becomes your place of rest
And to replace a sense of touch you become those pieces of art you present inside your head, as they manifest into a separate identity
And with your armor that persists with this chemical entity's presence you buy some time to get to your feet to run again
To find a friend
To find an audience to show this mess of a poem while there is still time left and then
you feel the knife push deep into your abdomen and