yesterday i saw dolphins
i swam with dolphins
their black knife jackknife dorsal-whatevers
slicing the water, scalpels into flesh,
disappearing, reappearing, disappearing,
reappearing
a herd of silent Lamborghini cracking jokes at my expense
(looks plural to me)

yesterday i saw dolphins
i chatted with an old man
who said they're laughing all the time, diving for *******
"Oh yeah, we get dolphins here,"
he might as well tell me Jesus lives there, too
or some kind of black magic came through
making these creatures appear
his nonchalance is weird

yesterday i swam with dolphins
well, saw, not swam, viewed, not caressed
but
all i want to do is see them
all i want to do is breathe with them
all i want to do is float in the same sea with them


my heart ripped to pieces in appreciation

they're spotless, no room for human flaws here.
with faultless sense of selves and fragile attributes
are silver stars, whose homes are cold glittered spotlights
pressured, battered and bruised. look away dear, they're "fine"

they're fine, scared and composed until the next plot twist
rarely, ever so rarely - a perfect one slips
a miscalculation on a regular day
phenomena, wasn't supposed to be that way

perfectionism drove them faultlessly insane
when the known consistent road, shatters to eggshells
"ever so rarely", they reason to the mirrors
with guilt mixing in the blood of walking in fear

inner madness unleashing, black swans reappearing
the wrongs, how cruel that it doesn't let them go on
"this is only once in a blue moon", they echo
deep breathes, clutching close, the past's panic they can't let go

this is the problem, you see. i hate orange flavoured things, but don't mind the fruit or the colour itself. i despise chocolate flavoured items as well, but will never complain if a whole bar fell into my lap. i cannot decide if it is the simple idea of disliking the watered down version of the original thing that irks me the most, or if it is something more. perhaps it is the very thought of a half truth - an illusion, if you may - that disgusts me, because these things will never be as good as the real, original item to me. you are the same, i have realised; years of sporadic vanishing and reappearing have not wavered my feelings for you, and all the people i have tried to replace you with pale in comparison.

i might be capable of lying to everyone around me, but i cannot do it to myself or you. the funny thing is that you know this, as much as i know it too. for we are vulnerable as we are broken, and somehow deep down in the darkness where we sink we are guided by the same light, which always brings me back to you, and you to me.

-

"how have you been?"

i miss you in ways i cannot even begin to describe. i miss you the way sleep lingers in our eyes as the dawn breaks, and i miss you when our song comes on. i miss you the most when the storms arrive or when a joke is made and i turn around expecting to see your accompanying smile, but meet empty air.

the truth is, i'm lost. i miss you completely, terribly, unbelievably so, and it eats at me every single day.

"just fine."

i put on the biggest smile i can muster and walk away.

(A.H.Z)

I.
in his dreams he saw her
in his dreams he wove a tapestry of hope
a phantasmagoria of love's plenitude
but that was only in his dreams

II.
when Fall came
he figured
a deciduous alternative
to pining for the impossible
and succumbed slightly
to the mad sensation
of his fervent passion

instead of leaves
he shed
tears

III.
one day
sunlight streamed down
and he found himself bathed
in warmth
suddenly alive with energy
suddenly vital
suddenly
at long last

himself.

IV.
yes it was penumbra
outside  just outside
but within his citadel
his castle a light shone
pure
impervious
elegant
such light as arrives after
a great storm

he thought
the storm had lasted
sixty years
or more

V.

it was hard to define
infinity as a daily companion
but there it was again
sitting on the sofa
staring him down
from its perspective of ever

he had
he thought
to change
into something else
something else
something else

again

a circle mudra

no beginning
no end

infinity at his

fingertips


VI.

in his dream
he was at the shore
of the Prospect Park Lake

dogs were loose and running on the shore

suddenly the dogs began to run into the thin ice of the lake
crash through
start swimming

he saw a couple of german shepherds
three golden doodles
one of whom was his new dog Lola

he watched them swim out
then begin to return by diving
and reappearing closer and closer to the shore

he kept on looking for Lola
but he did not see her

increasingly agitated he asked
where is my dog
repeatedly

then he was in an ambulance
because he had had a stroke

as the ambulance backed up
he saw a golden doodle on his or her back
surely dead

he asked the driver
is that my dog

and the driver did not answer

infinity again appeared
unassuming
and near

VII
in-fin-ity
he pronounced
savory syllables
in inside or of
belonging to
fin end terminus
limit
ity in-the-year
quality of
right-nowness
images without
concrete impact
because after all,
he could only hope
to understand
a vestige
as it appeared
between
the moments when
he looked at his watch


VIII.
his most concrete recall
of infinity manifested
here and now
was:
his older son (at four years old)
had just heard a description of the cosmos
astronomy being one of his (father) interests
as he (father) looked at the sky
in moments of wonder in his (father) life
and what may or not come after
so when it was time for him (son)
to be taken to school in the old VW bug
he (son) sat with a distant look in his(son) eyes
while he (father) tried to start the engine
and suddenly he(son) burst
out crying and he(father) concerned
startled said what's the matter
and he(son) said whimpering
despairing at the immensity of it all

infinity!


IX

he was four years old
on a trip with his father
they stopped at a hill
near railroad tracks
a train came by
the engineer waved
he said "he waved at me"
his father said "no, he waved at me"
then started to climb the hill
he followed
they came to what he thought
was the summit
and he asked when does it end
his father said
this climb is infinite

so they both turned back
you can't start on infinity too soon.

X.

he found a map
city of ny 1930
complete with subways
ferries and the like
he stared at it
for a long time
checking out
so many familiar names
so many half remembered sites
suddenly come alive
from so many years ago
and realized
it could have been yesterday

and maybe it was.

XI.

standing at the very top of Vargas Street
in Quito, he yelled her name,
called her as one calls for a miracle

true to form

nothing happened
except
the street
and his life
spread out before him
and he knew not why

XII

he dreamed three signs:
life
death
infinity

and they were all one and the same

XIII

in the airplane
flying high above
destitute crowds
teeming multitudes
lost continents of grief
he thought he glimpsed
a truth so vast
it stunned him
as he sat
watching
fluffy clouds
reach out

then it was time to land
and he forgot about it.

XIV.

infinity,
companion supreme
and inexpressible
fount
foundation
and relief
of all we are

within thy
subtle
concatenations
(subsuming all
in patient minutes
that escape uncounted)
gather this thy humble
servant
in your mantle of hours
and grant
by thy unknowable presence
that I too
your meaning

(extant
in a universe so vast
only the most minimalist structures
understand)

be revealed

ah, this coffee tastes great!

Thanks!

Sheers of shimmering gloss grace her torso.
And I have broken her bones,
imploring that I love her so.
Blueberry lips belly the cold;
hold her too deep, hold her I'm told.

I.

He says Call me Mr. G.
G for Gore, Greed, that Green.
An atypical stoner
with hair wetter than his mouth.
With more ******* than a pound,
he says, With an understanding of
all the suffering in the global delusion
that is the Earth. Mr. G, his name.

Oily brunette, Mr. G., would smoke
Marlboro Green Blend -- menthol --
and spit shot out between stained lips
after each extracurricular exhale.
The saliva would land, tremendously,
and puddles of Rasta shooting stars
would lay, stretching across concrete galaxy.

Hazel eyes invaded and shamed him,
for he wished to be green, like life,
but only envisioned a contradiction:
death (see nature),
for which he learned to embrace, stoically,
like a shepherd of an endangered breed
meant to die among skewed perspective.

II.

This house could be mistaken
for a cinderblock purgatory;
between color and absence of,
eternal and temporary.

A raptor laughter purged the tension --
he abided by no accommodation of civility.
As smoke followed his hyena howl,
the landline lay suddenly of purpose.

Resin raided the clunky, black buttons;
a voice was whispered like a blue phantom:
*******' cheese, pineapple, pepperoni
-- no, extra ******' cheese, extra pep --
Sure, add some more pep with your driver:
he, she -- honestly, man -- they better have
pep-in-their-******-step-you-feel?

Minutes passed like sentient matchbooks
dropping towards a skeletal fire.
G threw the phone across the room
and, like a disenchanted drunk dance,
his words wobbled over each other,
I ordered a 'za, a pizza for the layman.
About thirty, probably thirty-one
minutes, that is.

Passing me the flower-stitched ****,
I ****** in one, maybe two, three,
blasts that I swore
had some sort of nano-insects
bite and burrow into the holes
of my sponge for a throat.

Wringing my rubbery neck,
watching my words leave my toothy cave,
I found out that G doesn't believe in beer.
Believes in souls but not beer,
believes in green men, not beer.

Alcoholic splash is what we all need,
at times. So I told him the obvious,
I'm going to get a case of
(Insert your ****** choice)
and I'll be back as soon as possible.

G stared at me and made a guttural noise,
Do whatcha please, I'll stay here and
protect us from vampires.
You know, blood-suckas.

Pale stoner vampires.


III.

The leather painted door was wide open
like the legs of ominous spider cave,
but the doors of a car
I had never seen before
were as closed as the lips of a VCR.
There's nothing but silence in these situations --
is this one of those situations? Grassy knoll?

Approaching the mouth of purgatory,
I entered with the hesitancy of a lost dog.
On the plastic covered couch,
two people sat atop the invisible cloud
above the patterned fabric
and above the fingers of time.

Blonde hair sprouted from her scalp,
raining down upon vanilla shoulder blades,
her chest a harbor for two pale, freshly mounds,
with crooked, beige diamonds in the center.

She trembled when G said, Meet Steph
-- can I call you Steph, Steph? --
Meet Steph, the artist formerly known as
Stephanie, holding up her licence,
Vanmeter, of 441 1/2 Locust Ave.

That's creepy, huh, Steph? Locust Ave?
Are you something that lives in the ground,
comes up every several years, making noise?
Has this been years in the making?
Are you bound to make noise in my house?

You know this is a house, right?
Whatsa matter, unfamiliar due to ya
living-in-the-*******-ground
or is it because you share a house,
an apartment, Steph? Is it one of those?
Pizza deliveries ain't paying the bills?

G gets up, I, a coward, approaching him
about to say -- Hold up, brother, he says.
Not another move, pulling his hand from
behind her shaking, confused head,
a silver cannon an extension of his arm.

She's here to **** our blood,
She's here to ****. our. blood.
Whether she means to or not,
I know you don't think you want to, Steph,
I know you don't mean to,
But you're here to
drain-us-like-the-Red-Cross.

I tell G that she isn't,
What have you done, G,
You need to let her go
before this gets worse.
That cliche dialogue.
Because these things always do,
cliche or not.

Brother, you don't understand these things
-- It's impossible for a godless man
to understand the mechanisms
of something bigger, something holy --
but you need to listen, G said, You need to --
she tried to move, quickly,
but G grabbed her by her blonde strands,
pulled her back towards the couch,
She swiped at his eye, drawing blood.

There was a pause, a deathly silence,
by the hair, she was rendered motionless,
Oh, no, he echoed, Love, you shouldn't,
You ought not do those things.
Looking at me, he asked me to listen,
Always remember this wasn't your fault.
Sometimes, you can't be in control

Holstering her neck with his gun hand,
G picked her up, slamming her,
head first,
into the drug covered,
resin sprinkled
coffee table.

He dropped on top of her,
Looked at me, Remember, okay?
and beat her head with the **** of the gun,
until the cracking of a larger M&M; shell
muffled towards all eardrums,
maybe even hers.

With blood,
that could be mistaken as war paint,
swimming across his jaw and neck,
and sprinkled on his forehead,
G whispered, You are free,
and I was never sure
who he was talking about.

My feet left before I did,
I was suddenly in my car
with only the ignition
and G's voice registering.
I passed car after car,
pastel metal wagon after
metallic matte creation,
not sure if I ever saw him,
not sure if he ever existed,
if I ever existed.

IV.

Sheers of shimmering gloss grace her torso.
And I have broken her bones,
imploring that I love her so.
Blueberry lips belly the cold;
hold her too deep, hold her I'm told.

Waking up in a cavern darkness,
my dreams disintegrate from my eyes,
swirl in my headspace, evaporating to
heaven knows where.

Scattered pitter-patter
drowns midnight Seattle,
killing and washing away
cluttered, modern filth,
******* carnivorous minds
into hungrier gutters.

This is the part
where the screen of my life reveals:
SIX MONTHS LATER,
in yellow, stenciled letters.
But what it wouldn't say is
how I still feel like I'm dipped
in the ink of Ithaca, NY.

If this were the indulgent
autobiography of my life
it wouldn't say that
the distance doesn't matter,
because that'd be a lie;
I feel like I have only escaped myself.

The rain swells, sounding as
thick as blood, swishing around
the veins of the city.

Stephanie dies every night,
disappearing and reappearing
behind secret doors only she can open.

When she comes to me in sleep,
she is baptized in green, head caved,
Forget-Me-Nots sprouting
between fragmented skull
and select spots of brain soil,
the flowers singing jazz
with a different voice, every time.

One time she spoke.
With blueberry lips that belly cold,
she sounds like my mother:
I am so proud of you, she statically says.
You saved me. Remember.

V.

To be continued.

It was a suicide.
He had gotten drunk,
too drunk.
He tried going to the bar he worked at,
it was his night off,
but they turned him away.
“You’ve already had too much to drink. Go sleep it off, pal.”
Instead he went home,
put a glock 9mm to his head
And blew his brains out
on his back porch.
His roommate found him.
There was no note,
no answers,
just questions left behind.
A week later was the memorial service.
He was an atheist,
a vocal one at that.
Had a tattoo of a rotting zombie Christ
on his arm.
But his family was devout Lutherans,
so that was the send off he got.
Standing against the wall,
in the small chapel,
the lines were clearly divided.

Seated in the pews were people
dressed in bright, happy colors.
Pastels.
Blues, greens, pinks, yellows, and lavenders.
Those were his blood relatives
and Lutheran members of the family’s church.

Then on the edges and in the back
Stood and sat his other family,
the metal heads, the punks, the ******* kids, and subculture misfits,
Dressed in black,
arms & legs tattoed with ink.

The pastels
spoke in unison, reciting prayers and scripture,
While the kids in black, stood silent
Unmoved by the minister’s words about Christ.
The pastels bowed their heads in prayer, for the poor boy’s soul.

We in black looked around the room,
studying their pinched faces
while they remained blind.
One woman apparently could feel my stare
cause she opened her eyes, and looked right into mine.
Never will forget that look she had,
like she knew something I didn’t.

The minister in the white and green robe kept talking,
saying my friend was in the loving arms of Jesus.
Guess he forgot that suicides got
a one-way ticket straight to hell.
It was typical.
A spiritual buffet,
take what you like,
ignore what you don’t.
But I don’t blame them, not one bit.
What parent wants to imagine
their child burning in that lake of fire,
never to be held in their arms again?
No one.

His mother went up and said a few words,
Some stories,
funny ones from his childhood.
Then his neighbor went up and spoke,
then an old girlfriend from high school.
And then a great silence.
The podium stood empty.
Before I knew it,
my hands were gripping the wooden podium
and my mouth was talking.
Telling the pastels & black shirts kids
about the first time I saw him.
He was in the mosh pit doing spin kicks and backflips
like a five-foot-six, blonde, ninja in Saucony jazz shoes.
And how I never saw him be unkind or mean to anyone,
that he was a GOOD boy.
My eyes began to burn,
I felt my throat tightening.
“Really gonna miss him,” I managed to choke out.
I took my place back against the wall
as the slideshow & music started up.
They were playing The Beatles.
My friend was a Black Sabbath kind of guy.

Outside I saw faces not seen in years,
not since I was a 17-year-old kid.
I saw Matty standing there.
We had just buried another one
of the boys from the crew,
Munster
less that six months earlier.
Poor Munsey.
Now Matty and I were the only ones left.
Went straight up to him and we both latched on,
sobbing & shaking
hugging each other as tight as we could.
“It’s too much, man. It’s too soon. They’re both ******* GONE.”
He was broken and I was worried about him.
Very much so.

Then we all met at a bar,
his bar.
The one he worked at and got turned away from that night.
We told stories
like when everyone was trying to **** this girl
and he wasn’t, but she pulled him into a room
at the end of the night …
picking him over us all.
Or how he could make his ***** do all kinds of tricks,
disappearing and reappearing in his red *******.
“The popper” he called it.
We slammed down shots & brews
burying our little buddy, one glass at a time.
And the last thing …
His parents showed up at the bar
cradling T-shirts on hangars, his clothes.
I saw someone pick up his Blood For Blood shirt.
It had been OUR shirt, we shared it back and forth.
We both loved that band, they sang about “living in exile” like we both did.
“****, that was our shirt,” I said to the table of drunk and grieving friends.
“Well, go get it, man. Go on.”
I went up to the guy holding it.
“Hey man, that shirt means a lot to me, can I …”
Before I could finish, it was in my hands.
The guy gave a generous smile,
“Then you should have it.”
I sat back down at the table of friends,
holding the shirt up to my face.
He lingered in my nose, one last time.
But my little buddy was gone,
a faded T-shirt and a few funny stories
were all that remained.
We all toasted one last shot.
I said,
“to the lost …”
and the table of old friends all repeated,
“To the lost.”
Rest well in your dreamless sleep, pal.
Down the hatch.
Watch it go
With a black tooth grin.

When past comes knocking
I am most aware
to decision taking
and ghosts reappearing
past is always
pink and gold glitter powder
best untouched and
messy in open envelopes

Opening my heart,
opening my mind;
I inhaled
without regret
and watched
the world
unwind.

Comfortable
in my
non-proverbial
sling-shot,
I was catapulted
from this Earth,
out of my body
and into
Hyperspace:
a sight
of radiant
splendor.

Streams
of bright,
neon color
soaked through
my vision,
illuminating
the blanketed
brilliance
of
the experience.

This eternal
round-about
spun
in wide circles
around my being,
rapidly
gaining speed,
taking flight.

Time
broke apart;
it's pieces:
fractured,
severed
and split
into
the expanse
that lay
all around me.

The walls
glistened;
scintillating
with fervent
sparkle,
a shimmering
twinkle
of prismatic
grandeur.

Breathing deep,
I felt my spirit
begin to return.

With limbs
outstretched
I grasped for
the reality
I had
just barley
touched
with
****** fingertips.

Eyes opening
back to the
shadowbox
of this
existence,
a singular
tear
escaped.

Reappearing,
I wept.

With a sunset stormed in all the evils
A creeping temptation to abomination
A swirling appeal to haphazardness

Then came a wild night when i let things go
An ordinary aberration from a chaotic junction
An occasional stray from a lost path
An intentional overlook of unscrupulous mischief
A through misjudgment under ruthless predicaments

With a sobering dawn i found myself
A delusional justification for foreseen consequences
An unconscientious injection of fleeting remedies
A deliberate neglect for recurring failures
A self-inflicted blindness to vindicate oneself from misery

Then it is a calm morning
Though i know that it is all in the history
I cannot avoid the reappearing of the serene night
Whose other side awaits the furious storm to shatter me down yet again

You say something to a person
thinking that it won't hurt.
But one single word
can keep reappearing in a person's mind
way longer than a bruise or a scar.
One word can follow a peson
until the day they die.
One word can push a person to the edge.
One word can steal one's confidence.
One word can destroy a life.
So think before you speak.

There she was
lying still on the couch
posing the best she could
with her gaze transfixed
deep into his eyes
basking in the thick silence
that surronded them
the only sound of his charcoal lead
stroking the paper could be heard
His every stroke defined her curve
a little better
His rough hands blending the lines
staining her soul a beautiful shade of charcoal
She could feel him
making sure strokes
thus bringing the woman on paper
to life
she felt her heart slipping ...
slipping from her hand
and on to the paper
the color of her skin fading
and reappearing on his masterpiece
the fullness of her lips
was nothing
as the beauty on his canvas
now owned it
the last thing she felt
was the twinkle of her eyes leaving
adding the final touch
to his creation
and it was when
he broke the eye contact
taking with him
the beauty he sketched  
he left ...
not knowing that
He left the masterpiece behind
on the couch .... !!

at a young age, my father taught me to love
insects.
instead of killing, my father would capture spiders,
centipedes, beetles in empty pickle jars.
he would show me the anatomy, let me admire
the different colors, the shape of the pinchers,
how each one moved.
we had a praying mantis hung up on the wall,
it scared my girlfriends.
we had a hairy tarantula encased in a glass orb,
guests could never stare at it for too long.

i compare these insects to my father.
elegiac, with pinchers hidden but
present.
like the insects, i could never understand my father.
when he disappeared for days, reappearing with nothing
but a frown and the scent of beer,
i imagined him with the wings of a beetle, and he had
to fly off to a faraway kingdom.

i compare these insects to my father,
beautiful, but threatening.
his scorpion’s tail was his hand with a bottle,
his poison was the amber liquid squishing
his blood.

i compare these insects to my father,
fragile, unwieldy.
as a butterfly glides through spring, it is similar
to my father discussing his favorite things,
or deep in thought in a novel, or how his eyes
glint when he sees me after a long
absence.
but my father is far more exquisite than
any butterfly.

i still am intrigued by insects, yet i do not
admire them in empty jars.
i set them free, imagining if my father ever longed
to escape his own
jar.

I keep on crawling
Bashing, walking, disappearing
Reappearing in your nightmares
I have not done anything but you distance yourself
Back out, Abort, Fight back, and ****
Inevitable.
My poison is pain
My poison is harm
My poison is death
It will do us apart

My insides break
You stepped on me
Crushed my soul
Yet I armed myself
Of pride, strength and independence
I am broken,
Arms shattered
Heart battered
Poisoned by my own toxins,
I altered myself

I hide in the dark
To be unknown
Leave reality
And weave my thoughts into a house
Then you break it,
Breaking, into useless strings
Spinning into infinity
Breaking from reality
Settling for disparity
I crash, unbridled

I sit between the lines
Keeping myself
From the light
The harm of the its shine
Triggering, Stunning my arms
As I embark life;
Discovering,
Living,
Dying.
Learning that everything will end.

Recovering,  from the glass,
That demolished itself
Corrupted itself
And breaking into pieces
Stabbing me, bits by bits
Analyzing the blood
Flowing down my arms
Streaming down my cheeks
Setting up a castle
Lies and Lies and all those cries

I am mistaken
A behemoth,
Out of your fallen minds
Revealing darkness
Unveiling the pain
From life;
Tortured souls
Self harm
Suicidal tendencies
How we are today

The castle of fears and pains
Build, standing steadily
Yet at one angle
Breaking
Tears streamed
Will anyone see
Will anyone feel
Will anyone weave my house, my castle
Back to place
Let all the darkness disappear
And crush my pride then Call for;
H     E     L    P.



-jnldm

In second grade, we did an experiment with static electricity
We rubbed balloons on our heads,
& stuck them to walls
& kissing you is kinda like that
My hair stands on end,
I get shocked when I touch things
& I want to tell you stupid stuff like,
kissing you is a bundle of kittens
colliding with my face at .5 miles an hour
It's like being shot with a dart gun
made of hummingbirds
that shoots darts made of hummingbirds

& your lips are so soft,
I can't actually tell when we are touching,
like braiding hair underwater,
like napping under a blanket filled with rainbows & clouds,
& your favorite books

When you kiss me,
the cartoon devil & angel on my shoulder
climb into my ears,
like all of my neurons,
& start ******* on my brainsteam
If you were a 300 pound professional weight lifter
& if I were a Kia Sorento,
you could drag me anywhere

Kissing you is patient & impossibly slow,
like peeling paint off the wall with glittery stickers,
or cooking a turkey with a lighter
You remind me of the time in second grade
when Bethany Hopkirk
called me a freak face & stabbed me in the arm with a pencil
Cause kissing you is kinda like that,
unhealthy & will probably result in disfigurement
But baby, bring on the ****** scars & lead poisoning
Cause when you kiss me,
you are dangling me off a bridge by a belt
You are the screen door of my childhood,
all taste & swinging
So full of holes you could never keep anything in

You are every black eye,
you're a semitruck & I'm a turtle with two broken legs,
& a broken heart
You are illegal fireworks falling down stairs together,
driving on four flat tires,
playing frisbee at night with a saw blade
Kissing you is like falling out of a 37 story window,
exploding into a cloud of robins
& reappearing on the ground with my mouth full of feathers

& when I can't kiss you,
I try to find the static electricity in my apartment
I dig around in light sockets,
change lightbulbs with my teeth,
& make out with the toaster
& I know we've only been seeing eachother
for a couple of weeks,

But baby, when you kiss me,
I can't remember my middle name,
or which one is my left foot
So come over tonight
We'll shuffle around the apartment in our socks,
& we'll let our lips drift toward each other,
like tectonic plates made...

out of kittens

April 24th around 5:50 pm a group of boys took it upon themselves to laugh.
I proceeded to look around to see if someone had fallen, to see if someone was wearing, or not wearing, something they shouldn’t,
I waited.
I began to walk faster.
“But It’s Better if you Do” by Panic at the Disco was blaring in my ears so whatever they were saying was blocked out by the blare of Brendon Urie’s voice…
I still don’t get what was so funny—but I have an idea.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been subject to jokes about how I look.
I am the **** of everyone’s fat joke,
My comedy is a product of every snicker, every cackle, every time I’ve been called Big Momma or Rasputia.
My pearly white smile is painted by the white lies I tell myself and everyone else to get through the day.
I wonder if people ever stop to think if there is a person, suffocating, lonely in the center of this big, fat meat suit.
I wonder if people ever think before they speak or laughing at me when I eat.
I wonder if people know that I was raised by the strongest single mother in the world, so I have skin tougher than steel so their words can’t hurt me,
A mother who raised 3 children on her own.
A mother of an 8 year old
Whose father died in Honduras 2 years ago after being deported back 2 years before that—she told us it was a car accident,
but my mother taught me was to be nosey and to always search for the truth, especially when it’s being hidden from you.
My little brother’s father, the love of my mother’s life, was gunned down murdered in cold blood.
She is a mother of a 23 year old
Who has had Asperger’s his entire life, has dealt with being shipped from school to school because it’s so hard to find a special education program for him.
My mother taught me patience is the biggest virtue, and that my anger with his repetitive questions and running around is nothing compared to the anger he feels with himself every day for being a “burden” on those around him.
A mother who
Beats herself up over the fact my brother my father’s side is addicted to drugs,
My brother’s mother was a drug addict and so was my father at the time,
And even though my father was able to clean himself up, he had so many warrants out for his arrest it forced him to play hide and seek with the police and his own children
So for months at a time my mom would take care of my brother, thought about adopting him, but of course that didn’t happen—
His mom got clean.
My dad was finally caught, things were looking up
Until his mother got ***** again, rolling with dogs, her arms look like she was eaten up by fleas
My father was never a father,
Disappearing for weeks without so much as even a breath and reappearing as if he never left
No wonder my brother can never stay clean.
My mother taught me to love my brother unconditionally, that no matter what I have to laugh with him when he needs a laugh
Because my brother doesn’t know what stability is, he doesn’t know what standing on his own two feet feels like because he is always high.
She taught me to always laugh with him because I don’t know if he’ll come down the next time he gets high.
A mother of
An 18 year old girl who suffers from clinical depression and anxiety, but has to keep it swept under the rug because the public school system failed in teaching her about mental illness.
However, my mother taught me that as much as I depend on her she depends on me, that I am her backbone and she believes that even if I sink I will learn how to swim before the tide engulfs me and I’m taken too far from the shore.
I’m ripping off this big, fat meat suit because I’m tired of suffocating,
I’m learning how to swim.
I can feel the sun now.

Did you ever, as a child, chase a butterfly,
A tiny Golden Birdwing, perhaps
Or a Bronze Roadside-Skipper?

Flitting, faster than an arrow,
Over a rusting wheelbarrow fortress,
Under an electrified washing line,
Dive-bombing plastic remnants
Of the light infantry,

Before spinning away,

Courting the breeze in a whirling dance,
Winged-eyes blazing bright as childrens' buttons,
Vanishing in a cluster of gold chrysanthemums,
Reappearing, fluttering freely,
From a sea of bronze fennel.

Did you dash dash dash,
Arms flailing madly,
Mouth locked in a giggling grin?

And did you ****** ****** ******,
Tiny hands grasping, clutching at air,
Desperate to hold natures princess?

Do you remember?

            Dashing,  Snatching,  Grasping,

And suddenly,

                          She      Was      Gone?

And­ did you dare peep, clumsily,
Into your tiny hands,
Between your fragile fingers,

Half afraid you missed her,
Half again, you may find her,

            Crushed  In  Your  Hands?

The quest for desire is a chase,
So demanding,
So determined,
So distracting,

Attainment without consequence
Is your end game,
And is all that matters

Until you face the consequence
Of your end game,
When all that matters

            Is  What  Remains  In  Your  Hands?

The real you comes on the
tip toe. It blows the mind. What was that?
A thought? Things are happening.

The fog is rising. You
didn't warn me. I was standing
a candle in the wind.

It would happen. I will
ask you to do makeup. We are
talking of the integrity of dying.

Mary, Oh Mary!
I wish you would have seen it Mary!
They were floating at such slow pace,
As if they were oozing from one another
And then slowly seeping back together,
Telling complete stories without words,
Never stopping,
Disappearing and reappearing out of the Blue.
Humans were once peaceful like these clouds, Mary,
Although only for a while.
They still try to mimick one another,
To complete eachother,
But now there's all this sin.
It feeds off us,
Stops us from respecting and sharing.
It enjoys the chaos so effortlessly created by the easiness of indifference.
Help me make it stop, Mary.
I want to care again.
And maybe, just maybe,
We'll open the others' eyes, too,
Before we lose all hope.

there is absolutely no hippocratic jurisdiction in psychiatry, i sometimes walked into the psychiatric offices, poked fun at psychiatrists for being callous sadistic *******, as one suggested: thinking out-loud in reverse: oh, he must have been abused as a child... psychiatry has strayed away from making a hippocratic oath... it actually doesn't have an oath to make: it has persisted with more harm than good, clinging to the notion that there is no summa totalis of the body, and medical psychiatry is to blame for this persistent infiltration of psychiatric lingo... you can't even begin to imagine how much it pissess of people who live in a secular society, to be strapped under an umbrella of "mental illness", while the jihadis are celebrated as completely "sane", psychiatry is the one branch of medicine that's persistently being undermined by the general public, for me, psychiatric materials are too readily available, is psychiatrists are the new priests of the secular age, i demand! i demand that psychiatry does what the church did once before, return to it being solely written in latin! too many ******* retards are abusing this branch of medicine, suddenly everyone is a ******* psychologists amateur, the jack-of-all-trades know how! ******* know ****! i'm this close | | to boiling point with respect to the degradation of psychiatry... reverse everything! start writing psychiatric works, solely in latin! give psychiatry some hippocratic credibility, sure, it's a hit & miss with the pharma side of things, but come on, give these people some ******* empathy, do what the churches undid, and write all psychiatric material in latin! the public doesn't have to know the complexities of this branch of medicine, because, clearly... it doesn't!

we live in an age where dialecticas is
not engaged with,
not even to the point where you can self-realize:
oh, right, i know absolutely nothing!
you can't do that these days,
you can't have that self-realisation -
that "demand" for a "consciousness" -
100 years ago people spoke of a *soul -
that summa totalis of ****** mechanisations,
that eating some food and then
falling to sleep, and yet the organs working
their magic digesting the food...
yet people have replaced the soul
with a reinvented concept of
"consciousness"... the **** does that
even mean? a second awakening within
the first wake?
the brain is the only ***** that can't
truly experience itself unconsciously...
even when it is "unconscious" it still
poses the threat of dream theatre...
   i find that the summa totalis is
bordering on an a "soul" within this
membrane, in that:
  at least one aspect of our body can't
exactly become part of the summa totalis,
and become enclaved akin to
the heart during sleep...
or the stomach prior to falling asleep
while still managing to digest,
the brain can't be deemed completely
unconscious, otherwise how else would
you mind to state why light is trapped
and then projected, and we dream?
           dreaming, that "consciousness"
of the unconscious brain, and somehow
pulverised by the truth-bidding inflection
of the pentagram...
       god, i hate these sorts of poems,
i read a bit of heidegger and suddenly spiral
into this jargon...
  i abhor it...
           literally, it's about as enlightening
as turning on a lightbulb, minus the stereotypical
imagery surrounding an einstein moment...
more like that loony tunes moment when
the head turns into a donkey's head,
   or we see the dunce's hat appear...
elsewhere the capirotes march...
                     but then i think of mental illness
and the stories of the young,
and i'm genuinely worried -
   i was one of the first kids to own a nintendo
NES...
  yes, from the ages of 4 to 8,
my father was just a voice on the phone,
and the odd package of gifts from her majesty's
fair green land, notably the nintendo NES...
but being one of the kids, we still preferred
warm summer nights, hide & seek,
playing with marbles, walks into the woods,
picking strawberries coloured pale yellow
before being ripe, throwing potatoes into
fires, eating gooseberries, eating whole plates
of sunflower seeds,
                  i remember days when we had
neighbours, neighbourly women playing cards,
sitting till 11 talking outside the communist
concrete blocks...
that transition period, i.e. my childhood
has a knack of almost always reappearing...
   so i must be "mentally ill" for reading heidegger,
not many people do,
maybe i suggest something?
  learn biology / chemistry or physics to a degree
level before reading books like that...
it softens the blow of reading puritanical
humanism of, say, a novel...
        or poetry...
             and some people take holidays
to the caribbean, or take a cruise around
the norwegian fjords...
   or walk the great wall of ching ching...
   or ride a horse on the mongolian steppes into
the sunset, or ride the trans-siberian railway...
me? i take a "slingshot" back "home"...
get immersed in the native tongue,
  and finally! oh finally! manage to read a book
in the native tongue...
  i found that i'm a slow reader if i have
a book in polish, but can still hear english
on the television...
   back "home"? what a surprise it was for
my grandfather: he just threw bolesław prus'
book lalka into my lap one summer and said:
lap it up.
      and i lapped it up...
  point being, all these sights and sounds,
scents and exciting stories people have from abroad...
well... when i was in kenya,
i lounged, drank enough to fall asleep in
a hammock overnight and was not stolen by
the somali pirates, but someone did steal
my glass of cognac when i woke up the next morning,
then drank some more, and stayed in the shade,
played some ping-pong with a german,
chatted up these gorgeous ivory beauties of
the night, and chilled with macaque monkeys
on the balcony giving them nuts and sachets of
sugar, again, in the shade...
   i took one dip in the indian ocean and became
bored from the beach vendors pushing
****, drank some more, wrote a short story
for my grandfather about an elephant
           dunking its trunk into a bottle of whiskey...
drank some more, lazed in the shade,
read c. g. jung's western man in search
of a soul - dedicated it, and gave it to one
of the german beauties, drank some more,
         laughed at a baboon with hemorrhoids
trying to sit on a roof once it raided the kitchen...
point being: what sightseeing i have when
i go back "home" is the language -
sometimes i read it, sometimes i might write,
but i definitely speak it,
  but reading it is like the tower of pisa
for me...
           this complete re-immersion of the 8 year
old kid that left kicks in...
        ooh, ant that -18ºC temp. of winters in poland...
to be honest, i never know why people
decide to go to tropical places on earth,
sunniest and what, in the middle of the winter
months, why?
      coming back must be a double ******...
why not go to somewhere where the winter
months are worse than from where you came from?

you are the echo in places after everyone's sound has gone.

you are the reluctant resonance in air between breaths.

you are the leaving that's overstayed its welcome.

you are the racket in deprivation of company.

you are the uproar after music has ceased.

you are the chord eternally reappearing.

you are reverberations of want, of lack.

you are sweet tinnitus in every hush.

you are every absent reoccurrence.

you are epitomes of entirety.

your gale still lingers.

but you do not.

you do not.

you do.

not.

born of insects and grass
in deep hue -- as purple as the gin blossom
climbing for new altitudes
the wall breaks inside of me
I fall through the forest floor
and into the ocean of sky
all the places I go are in freefall
but there's a reappearing rhythm

heart is a drum
heart is a drum
and it will join the dots of
a prayer remembered
(the fierce words of a holy sonnet)
consoling me in its shadow
when the turbulent, inverted plane
could no longer hold itself together

He’s probably not everything I’ve ever wanted
Pompous and overbold, he shines too bright,
Like he’s some star that refuses to die,
An insignificant blinking wanting to conquer the universe.
It hurts to watch him,
a fragile twinkle who’s so desperate to encompass his
Struggles, to survive, to not fall apart to his weaknesses.
He believes “talent is something you make bloom”
Obsessive, compulsive, the only things he makes bloom are
The tired lavenders under his eyes
and angry blues on his knees, the colors fading and reappearing
Remind me of when days turn into nights, nights into days.
Reckless and confident, he makes me want to punch him
He’s a train wreck happening, a shooting star hurling through space,
When I find him, he’ll be in pieces, and I’ll have to hold him together
He’s a constant motion, an existence that weighs like the whole world when he leans his forehead onto mine, and I tremble in his arms because I can’t stop him
He hides his daily torture through high-pitched whines and flashy smiles,
As if he’s the center of the universe, when all he is
is matter being absorbed into a black hole.
Pretentious and annoying and troublesome and stupid and dumb and
more than enough
I gravitate to him, he keeps me afloat
When I stare into his eyes
I see galaxies
When I hold his hands
Supernovas form
When he wraps me in his chest of insecurities,
I feel the planets align
When he kisses me,
I know a stellar collision has happened.
If that isn’t enough proof,
My heart, in all its stardust, a living form of space,
Pulses and radiates, in sync with the universe’s heartbeat,
A steady affirmation that yes,
He’s not everything I want
But he’s everything I need

As we kissed
the constellations in the skies,
started disappearing one by one
and reappearing in his eyes.

I stumbled back
and looked with wonder,
an entire galaxy twinkled in his iris
but I spared myself from the inhuman lure.

Maybe he was a galaxy,
he was still not my world.

The empty space that sits and waits
Spaces sit so bored and cold
We left and locked up the house today
Left one way I've never known, without you.
The empty spaces on the walls
Grow more useless every day
Calenders have lost their date
The numbers are growing old (like you did).
The empty beds are in the rooms
And there's a perfectly good one
But nobody has the nerve to sleep there
So the mattress cries, and weeps- it dies (kind of like him).
The empty closets once filled with doodles
With hearts and names and numbers
The numbers from my mothers childhood
That are probably disconnected (like yours).
The empty fridge that held our meals
Endless containers of coffee creamer
And seemingly reappearing bologna
Contains just a solemn old fruit cup (kind of like us).
The empty chair that was your space
I sat in about three times today
Where you sat and we did crossword puzzles
Quiet yet interesting puzzle books (just like you).
The empty house that sits and waits
Watches the garbage bags being taken away
Watching us discuss prices and family problems
Watching us secretly mourn in our own silent way
Of cleaning out your already empty house.

I recently read that in order to flourish,
    one must build a proper foundation.
So, I painted my bathroom...
    and I'm still not peaceful.

I buy things, and arrange them in a certain way.
I work for six days, and sleep on the seventh,
  and since I can't bring these things into heaven,
  I should just burn it all down and face the elements.
Know what I'm sayin'?

I don't see much of a point to any of this.
  Buying **** and keeping it.
  Dusting it, adjusting it.
  Fixing it, fussing it.
          **** it.

I'd be far more productive if I were free of these luxuries
  that we all hold so dearly.
I'd see more clearly with nothing interfering.
          Severe healing.
Myself, reappearing.

Past,
i saw you crossing  roaring rivers and
climbing snow clad mountains,
taking long walks through prestine landscapes,
or loosing completely in  ecstatic rain dances,

But,
when i sought you,
and after long last,
found you there,
where you were hiding in disguise,
like a refugee, whose passport was lost--

you were,
mostly eliminated,
like a map, eaten by hungry moths ,
vastly altered
by time, the great forger
hiding in my own attic,

drastically cut,
particularly at corners,
like a cake eaten by greedy cats,
totally sanitised,
clumsily cleaned,
shades of dark completely erased,
unknowing it's value, to create contrast
foolishly whitened,
throwing  sense of aesthetics,
on the way side.

I can see frills attached without any rhyme or reason,
specifics, misinerpreted in many unwanted places,
dark lines of interference, criss crossed,
killing the  pleasure of recollection.

And,  what is  the precious left over?
do i see anything significant at all?
your this avatar, i would have gladly
submitted to  Herr Alzeimer's

what i see before mind's eye is delicately positioned,
ambiguity has taken active control, effectively of  all details,
i stand aghast,
close my eyes
and try to answer
the question that arises:
"who exactly is this?
the memories reappearing as a ghost
to bring me  back to senses,
and make me come in  terms,
with what has passed for ever?"
                                       #

We counted seventeen that morning,
driving in circles around Greenbelt Park.
Biding time before preschool drop-off,
we moved in measured paces beneath
a verdant canopy of oak and Virginia pine,
crossing diminutive rivulets repeatedly,
revisiting the same downed tree limbs
and tired park signs, disappearing and
reappearing in mist, our languorous
revolutions seemingly interminable,
each lap lost behind our slipstream.

It was a game we played together,
my daughter and I, circumnavigating
that slight road and counting the deer.
We tallied the bucks, does, and fawns
in plain sight, either ignorant or bold.
Vigilant, we watched for minuscule
movements beyond the windshield,
subtle stirrings in the understory:
a foreleg caught in a confusion of ferns;
a white tail, brazen, above the blueberries
or hovering, a clump of cotton atop holly;
caramel eyes cupped in mountain laurel—
ephemeral proof, woodland intimations.

Most days, we saw nothing
but familiar creatures as we
circled, spinning our wheels.
If we parked on the shoulder,
the black ribbon of bitumen
seemed to move beneath us still,
a vinyl track playing under tires,
daughter and I locked in place—
two diamonds at the tip of a needle,
skipping across prosaic grooves.

But the morning of the seventeen!
The moon hung dilatory in the sky,
a winking crescent eye, opaline.
And with each loop, the number grew.

-------------------------------------

Two years later, I circle back,
my daughter and I walking
toward a black fishing pier,
gulls etching invisible lines
into an aquamarine sky.

I ask her if she remembers
those rides before preschool,
if she remembers the morning
we saw those seventeen deer.
We pause, waves washing
white sea foam over our feet.  
She looks beyond the breakers,
taking in the horizon’s hard line,
a crisp indigo seam that appears
to stitch the round world straight.
One hand rests on her bony hip;
the other grips a shell-filled pail.
She turns, sizing me up with the
cold skepticism of a six year old,
and shakes her head in disbelief.
She tells me I’ve got it all wrong:
It couldn’t have been that many.

I’m tempted to argue. Instead,
I ask her, why does that number
(seventeen!) seem too high.

She looks at me, incredulous.
What am I trying to prove?
She speaks in small measures,
makes herself perfectly clear:

We were driving
in circles, Daddy,
and the deer,
the deer,
they move.

At once the horizon bends,
azure arc in space and time;
gulls stall in midair, snapshots
above suspended breakers. Silence.
Suddenly I’m back in Greenbelt Park,
treading nimbly, veiled by ivy screens,
leaping broken dogwoods cantilevered
over precious shallow streams,
muscles, ears, and eyes electrified.
I see as the unseen eighteenth deer
would have seen us—two creatures
harnessed in a restless death machine,
recumbent gods marking territory.

Around again. Wait.
Another close orbit.
Scrutinize red taillights
fading to distance and
then explode, vaulting
across alien asphalt,
hard halo of misery:
unnumbered,
exalted,
infinite.

She's lying on an old gray rug beside the kitchen table
Head gently resting on her paws,
Eyes watching me by the kitchen door.

"No tail wag this morning?"
I ask, and move to kneel beside my Callie,
Lay a gentle hand on her curly brow,
A pat for my old friend,
Who lifts her head and sets her quiet jaw upon my arm.

Standard poodles seldom sit for long,
But Callie's been here all night now for near a month...
Stays motionless, except her eyes and lifted head.
This morning my old friend attempts to rise...
She shakes a little and I see the sadness in her eyes.

A thousand times we've left together,
Headed to the barn in any weather;
She's ridden shotgun on the pickup seat,
And shared the ride and anything I had to eat.

The suture's long and tight along the leg.
The tumor's gone, but cancer has a way
Of reappearing in another place
In old dogs and old men tiring in their race
Against the gods of time and space.

"I'll be back soon, old girl," I say
And rise to start the choring day,
And Callie, good girl that she is,
Attempts to follow to the door,
Until my wife arrives to lead her
Back to her warm spot beside the table.

Mortality and love are on my mind
As the bitter January wind hits hard.
The cows are bawling at the barn,
And I have tanks of ice to break,
And buckets full of feed to haul...
Must be the dust that hurts me after all these years,
Or else I can't account for all these tears.

​where the hell did you come from?

my callow frame in younger days
was cause for derision and nick names
i was “will o the wisp”
who disappeared when side-ways
magically reappearing when front on

i was lean and keen
a blonde-haired light surfing machine
now when side-ways there is a bump
a belly **** that wasn’t there before

was it habitually too much lunch
that steadily grew the paunch?
was it all those beers and cheers
over the years and years?
was it the invisible slide to a life sedentary
that expanded organs alimentary?
or is it a denial of my peter pan myth
that with age i just have to put up with?

anyway suddenly it seems to have come
but where the hell did it come from?

Iridescent wind sailors , bursting Silver Maples  
Wild Daises caressing red clay trails
Yellow Locust are submariners diving then reappearing  in freebooter informality
Dragonflies are strafing the Crimson valley
I find precious fuchsia bearers in sunlit strained vision
Wren song to nurture my condition
Rainwater clinging to Sycamore Trees
Musicality ... Connection .. Solidarity

Reappearing the white dots on my fingernail
I’m growing a child again I yell
She smiles having by now known it well
It’s where I dwell.

Her mocking smile is an annoyance
Still louder I yell
White dots come on a child’s finger and toenail.

My lady ever practical says *how do I gain
If ever you really become a child again
It would be a tall demand and I’m afraid
The first thing you would ask for is to be breastfed!

it’s the time of the season
i’m in full bloom
i have purpose, i have reason
i can bring light to a room
with my passion and smile
conversations worth the while
time spent recovering
from the sad thoughts hovering
rejections and pains reappearing
i stand without fear or feeling
brave and nonchalant
people aren’t too fond
of my actions, decisions
i am still aiming for my goals
with precision
judgement does not phase me
they don’t know what i’m facing
my petals had been withering
but with the time God has given me
i have grown
discovered the unknown
i had stored inside myself
roots watered without help
available all year round
a rare blossom ultimately found