death:
an abnormality—
deep prints left by
heavy boots filled with water
and washed away by
summer’s end.

grief:
a metal
sensation denude of
coldness—swelled up again
and again from life’s ***** driving
deeply.

I suppose you couldn’t
help but steal away.
you (now endangered
ghost) left your
trace fossils moted,
gray and cold.
our memories of you
divorced from the
mountain’s path—
a wound raised
higher and higher
to a crystal peak
where your soul
was plucked cleanly out.

we built cairns to
mark your going
and stories to signal your
inevitable re-arrival.
we welcomed the heavy contact
of fire felt in the
middle of the chest
and watered
arches cut beneath
the eyelids.
we felt the frigidness of
lit feet gliding
above mountain frost
and set forth your
eternal journey
to the solar eclipse.
but somehow
we lost your trace fossils
frozen in the rock.

where did you go?
who found you?
why?

these are the questions
of extinction of the
physical body
but the soul is
unmatched in
its uncertainty.
if it exists, it leaves
upon time of death
and reenters when looked
at through shielded glass.

soul:
a mountain
view, black and polished
by an unfurled moon. its
brother sun not far
behind.

Treasury Casino, 3:03 am. Monday morning.

Casino bars shut at  3:00 am in QLD.


I missed a place to sleep by 9 minutes.
My timing is impeccable.

2 hours to **** until the last train home.

An older man in a slate suit enters stage right.
Crosses.
Disappears.
Reenters stage left with  brass buttons
lit up like embers.

The 9 network wants me to buy
stonedine frying pans.
And warns me about harmful gasses that have killed household budgies.

I wish I was more interesting.

You havent lived
until you've seen a man blow a pancake
off a frying pan.
Onto a plate.

----

3:12 am.

Late night bar personnel work in silence
cleaning beer nozzles and coffee machines.
They wander in and out of the scene under sophisticated lighting.

I wonder what to do about you, and what I'm feeling.
What our  hold on each other is and when (if) the sword of Damocles will fall.
Is this truly tragedy to which we are destined?
I shudder to think.
And for this am I classed by the title
"coward"
or
"lover"?

----

3:20 am - Existentialism strikes a vicious blow. No coup de grace.

The blackjack dealer on the $15  table has a gorgeous face that makes me wonder how her body feels on a post ****** morning. Satisfied and relaxed, taut through anticipation of further pleasure?
Straight raven tresses frame a heart shaped face that peers over the ridge of a white collared shirt, sprouting from beneath a black vest, tight at the elbows.
She deals with deft machine-gun efficiency. Not all bullets hit their mark here.

Her back curves with natural elegance down to a tight, young ***. The shape of  it magnified by the black business pants writes itself as a factory on my mind. Light hands would fit well there, one on each cheek, her mouth open seductively, trading  tastes and sensations.

There is a dying rose in my lapel.
It's sad.
I contemplate leaving it somewhere poetic but  cant think of a place.
The thorns are still sharp.

----

3:45 am

The only place where time is invincible
is a place  where it is hidden.
Casino's are such a place.
Here time cannot be killed.
Yet I have smuggled it in.

A tiger just walked into my room
I stop breathing
It walks casually around the perimeter, investigating, unfazed by my presence
I don’t think its noticed me
I’m motionless, silent but the fear inside me is deafening
I hope the tiger can’t hear my fear
It’s purrs sound safe but they are interrupted by an occasional low lazy growl of undecided and perhaps ill intent
My mouth is so dry it burns but the drink on the table before me seems a million miles away right now
I watch the tiger intently as it passes me on its way to survey the bedroom
The tiger does not acknowledge me as it passes, perhaps it hasn’t seen me
I hope it has eaten
It brushes past my arm as it reenters the room and my muscles lock in tension,
The tigers body felt warm
I notice how beautiful, how majestic, its head suddenly turns to me as if to acknowledge the compliment of my thought
Don’t think! Idiot! it can hear your thoughts
I gulp…. it’s staring right at me now

The tiger has seen me, that’s it… I’m done for
It looks at me, into me, deep down inside, tasting my soul to see if its something that may suffice as a snack until dinner
I hope my soul tastes bitter
The tiger slowly approaches, its eyes fixed to mine
I can’t run, even if I could I’d never make it to the door
Please let my soul taste bitter
So this is how it ends, I end
In these closing seconds I try to make my peace with the world, myself
I surrender to my fate of teeth and claws
I surrender
Hmmm, surrender feels ok actually
I let go, my muscles let go, the deafening tension dissolves and calm fills me
I hope my soul tastes sweet
Please let my soul taste sweet, at least that, let my last achievement be a decent meal
The tigers face touches mine, it sniffs me and exhales, breath humid and warm like the jungle
I say goodbye to myself
I close my eyes and welcome its teeth to take me
I’m at peace, I am peace

But moments pass
And moments more
Yet I’m not eaten
My eyes open to see the tiger laying down by my feet
I’m perplexed
I finally exhale
I am saved! I am safe! shhhhh! Stop thinking so loudly
This tiger has mercy for me
Perhaps it likes me, perhaps we could be friends
Pretty cool to roll up somewhere with a tiger in tow
The tiger reaches out and places a very heavy paw on top of my foot, pinning me effortlessly to the floor
Looks like I’m going nowhere

I hope my soul tastes bitter
Please let my soul taste bitter

Manila    is  fray

Tough enough to die,
    Brave enough to see ****** against
        the billboards

   ***** on the marketplace
   ***** men haggling for prices
   the corners are squalid -- rats with ambitions   of men take  their places    in
    the esteros

   a car-horn blares, wanes old moon music.
      I sing songs of malversation. Trains all graffiti.

     My heart like a jailbird freed somewhere
         in the big sur; love assuages nothing,
    comes with a cheap price
          a freak December night in Roxas blvd.
     i sit on marble benches and dream
        of artilleries, garlands on *****-nosed
            barrels, nuns   grieving  dust
     in    the ground.    communal bathrooms
         drunk in foolish caricatures,
   the tabloids     displaying  flowerheads --
        the democracy in the streets a ****
    for      kings,  no    love to   lull
        me    to infantile    sleep

         tortured are   the   bulls 
   matadors    hiding  behind    faces red   like
       faces    of    statesmen   flushed with
          the   spirit   of   bourbon
   whereas we are    here   river-facing
       northern tip of its  undying source
  like    wives    on  balustrades   waiting
      to catch   the fragrance   of   inamoratas,
   light  reenters
          interstice   of   chary webs of  dull heads   hemmed in like   canopies   in the throat      of     overthrown ponds,   scraps
     of metal    sold    for a  night's  worth
        of    gin   and   Sinatra,

  Deep within   the   grave, the dead   laughing
       at the dead living. Atop   waters,
   yachts peering   into   drowning  fish,
       in   the middle, a   jam   of buses
         belching    lassitudes that    strangle
    the console,    the man    in all  of us
       the same,   cursing behind   the wheel
   and everybody    else    different
              dancing    at   the   top   of our   heads.

She walked across the room,
Blinding all around as she went by,
Too beautiful and too stunning to hold,
Too lovely to have amity with.
Good only for dreaming about,
And falling in love with once,
Till she exits the room,
And gravity reenters behind her.

I hate results,
Consequences are better...
Studies are fun,
When the findings don't matter...

For consequences postpone finalization,
And keep the story unfolding...
When research continues,
Things to be learned become never-ending...

Progress is birthed by process,
That's why it's the journey that counts...
Rigid conclusions are dead ends,
Cages which nothing new surmounts...

The happenings on the way,
Outweigh the destination...
Everybody remembers what took place during the holiday,
But not the moment one reenters their houses after a vacation...

When one disregards the ways things come to be,
It's frighteningly easy to become careless...
One might stop fighting for what's right,
And doing things properly becomes meaningless...

It also keeps (s)he who overlooks from enjoying the little things,
From appreciating dainty flowers and enjoying the fiery waves...
It makes one numb, and that is the worst of all,
For nothing alse matters but the moments and companions before we reach our graves...

When we die, then we die,
Nothing more is to come...
Death is the most empty part of our lives (if it is indeed a part of it)
So really it is none of our concern to consider life's outcome...

We should try to live for the moment and the moments after,
Just make sure it's not death for which we strive...
So let us not live for death,
But rather for life...

As sunshine reenters into my heart,
and love warms my soul,
my mind fills with the thoughts of you.
Forgotten times of love and triumph,
I kind of forget how to feel,
Been numb for so long that the happiness must break down the thick walls I have built up.
But the pieces of the wall will not be crushed to rubble,
as they might be needed again.
They will be placed in a pile if things need to go back to the way they've been.
As the wall gets taken down slowly,
and the sun graces the unseen ground for the first time in a long time,
the ground begs for the sun to stay,
as it feels so good to be so warm.
For once.

LET'S FACE FACTS

The mind is like a sponge
absorbing the spilt ketchup

of the moment gone
horribly wrong.

Or if one were
to rub two atoms together

they would burst
instantly into a poem.

Or
not.

Words go to jail if
they fail to capture

the state of mind
of the person who

believed writing was merely
putting pen to paper.

The writing untangles itself
and word for word reenters

the tip of
the pen.

The brain is made from
papier mache

but can be cast in bronze
or set in stone.

Some people don't even know
they are host to a brain.

A man whose name escapes
me now

but was an anagram
for toilets

cried that he could connect
"nothing with nothing."

I envied him and
was jealous of his seeing.

**** my doppelgänger who
autocorrects everything I

(dognapper leg
engorged palp
glopped anger
"Grapple Ogden!")

have strived to
manifest here.

I am an atom short
of a universe.

LET'S FACE FACTS

The mind is like a sponge
absorbing the spilt ketchup

of the moment gone
horribly wrong.

Or if one were
to rub two atoms together

they would burst
instantly into a poem.

Or
not.

Words go to jail if
they fail to capture

the state of mind
of the person who

believed writing was merely
putting pen to paper.

The writing untangles itself
and word for word reenters

the tip of
the pen.

The brain is made from
papier mache

but can be cast in bronze
or set in stone.

Some people don't even know
they are host to a brain.

A man whose name escapes
me now

but was an anagram
for toilets

cried that he could connect
"nothing with nothing."

I envied him and
was jealous of his seeing.

**** my doppelgänger who
autocorrects everything I

(dognapper leg
engorged palp
glopped anger
"Grapple Ogden!")

have strived to
manifest here.

I am an atom short
of a universe.

**

Yet another "thing" brought forth from me by or rather cast out of me by the wonderful Kim Moore at her Cheltenham Poetry Festival writing workshop. Don't even ask! It was to get us to write and write I did and this...is...eh...what came up! Jaysus!

It was a 7min. exercise...just write with no taking the pen off the paper hence when I stalled I started anagraming the word doppelgänger in order to keep the words coming. And as it was my doppelgänger who was shapeshifting all I was saying I thought it was only poetic justice that doppelgänger itself should be the word to get anagramed...serve it ****** well right.