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Akemi Nov 2018
Blanket city run along soaked in rain. Idiot Boy wastes his time visiting a passing crush at the other end of town. Slips between two houses and a metal sheet, communal refrigerator in the middle of the road filed with half-empty soy bottles.

Dead bell stop, mocking red blink of the operator. Father arrives, a mess of wiry muscles and hair.

“Hey. Is Coffin Cat here?”

“Who?” Father squints at Idiot Boy’s cap. Idiot Boy avoids eye contact.

“Um.”

Recessed in the blackness behind Father, a Figure says, “You looking for Coffin Cat?”

Idiot Boy nods.

The Recessed Figure turns. “I’ll go get her.”

Father returns to his parched body on the couch, content.

Indistinguishable forms move back and forth in the kitchen to the right. They stop their pacing and glance at Idiot Boy as he passes. Idiot Boy avoids eye contact and slips into the left-bound arterial vessel.

“So this is the heart chamber I’ve been living in,” Coffin Cat says as Idiot Boy enters her room. There is music gear. “It’s pretty comfy.”

“Oh, sick mic,” Idiot Boy says, pointing at the mic behind Coffin Cat’s head.

“I feel like a ghost,” Coffin Cat replies, falling on her bed.

Idiot Boy settles next to her. Animal distance. Intensely aware of his rain-soaked right shoe. “Same.”

Nothing comes out right, intersubjectivity a false God to mediate the impossible kernel of being, nobody can find nor express. Idiot Boy searches for connection. He glances around the heart chamber, at the music gear, but nothing grips. Four pears sit on a table by the window, their skins garish green in the harsh grey light.

Coffin Cat moves from the bed to the floor. She opens a virtual aquarium on her computer; fish eat pellets dropped from the sky to **** out coins to buy more fish to **** out coins to buy more fish. Capitalist investment and accumulation. Every few minutes a rocket-spewing robot teleports into the aquarium to attack the fish. Ruthless competition in the global marketplace.

“No! Why would you swim there, you ******* fish?” Coffin Cat yells as one if her fish is eaten by the nomadic war machine. “So dumb. ****. Why did it eat my fish?”

A knock at the door. The Recessed Figure from earlier enters the room. “Hey, mind if I join?” Their arms dangle like fine threads of hair.

“I like your music gear,” Idiot Boy says, pointing at nothing in particular.

“Idiot Boy also makes music,” Coffin Cat adds from the floor.

The Recessed Figure does not respond. They are enthralled by their phone, streak of dead pixels along a digital chessboard, minute reflection of their own gaunt face in the glass. After an extended period, they decide to move none of their pieces. A gaping coffee grinder rises out of the rubble at their feet. They begin filling it with tobacco from broken cigarettes.

“I’m surprised you’re still playing this,” Idiot Boy says to Coffin Cat. “I swear this is one of those games designed to ruin your life. Get addicted, stop going to work, become a hikik weaboo.”

“Already there, man,” Coffin Cat laughs. “Nah, this is my new job. I’m going to be a professional gamer.”

“Stream only PopCap games.”

Another knock at the door. Tired squander in an endless pacing of flesh. Strawman enters and nods at the Recessed Figure. “Hey bro.”

“Good to see you, man.” The Recessed Figure plugs the coffee grinder into the wall. “You got any ciggys?”

Idiot Boy points under the table and says “Ahh” with his mouth.

The Recessed Figure empties it into the coffee grinder. The device whirs into motion, creating a centrifugal blur, a mechanical and headless hypnotic repeat.

Idiot Boy and Coffin Cat look for horror movies to watch. The Recessed Figure empties the contents of the coffee grinder onto a metal tray. Strawman repacks it into a ****. White smoke fills the empty column, moves in slow motion like an oceanic rip a mile off coast, surface seething with quiet, impenetrable violence.

Idiot Boy refuses the first round. It’s never done him any good. Face turned to smoke and the wretched weight of a tongue that refuses to speak. Headless carry-on as time ticks through the clock face.

The door bursts open. Everybody turns as Manic Refusal or the Loud Person saunters in.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. They’re selling me off!” the Loud Person says in exasperation. “First time back in New Zealand in five years and they do this to me!”

“What? What’s happened?” Strawman asks.

“Some rich ****** in Australia has bought me as his wife. I knew it, I knew if I came back, my parents wouldn’t let me leave again. Whole ******* thing arranged!” the Loud Person laughs bitterly, before hitting the ****.

“Oomph, that’s rough,” Coffin Cat quips from the side.

“No, you don’t even understand. This is the first time back, the first time back in five years, and I’m being sold to off some rich ****** who owns all the banks in Australia.”

“But like, who is this guy?” Strawman asks, pointing.

“And he’s been reading all my profiles. He has access to all my information. I don’t even have control over my Facebook profile. Grand Larson’s logged in as me, posting for me,” the Loud Person continues. “I met him once in Australia, clubbing, and now he’s tracked and bought me.”

“That’s creepy as ****,” Idiot Boy says.

“So he’s not a complete stranger?” Strawman asks.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. First time back in five years and I’m being sold off!”

Idiot Boy decides one hit from the **** wouldn’t be so bad. He packs the cone with chop, lights and inhales. Smoke rushes through the glass channel, a swirl of white ether, more than he’d expected. He quickly passes the **** to Coffin Cat, before collapsing onto the bed, eyes closed. A suffocating sensation fills his body. He sinks into the chasm of himself, further and further into an impossible, infinite depth.

“Still working at . . . ?”

“Yeah, yeah. Management. Hospital. You?”

“Like, property. Motions.”

“Subcontracting? Intonements?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Mmm.”

Idiot Boy doesn’t know what’s going on. He feels sick and tries to get Coffin Cat’s attention, but cannot move his body.

“Come on. Sell me drugs, Strawman.”

“Nah. I don’t deal drugs. I don’t deal drugs.”

A strange silence stretches like an artificial dusk, a liminal duration, the hollow click of a tape set back into place in reverse. The Recessed Figure coughs and the Loud Person whirs back into motion.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. They’re selling me off! First time back in New Zealand in five years and they do this to me!”

The Recessed Figure makes a noncommittal noise.

“I knew it, I knew if I came back, my parents wouldn’t let me leave again. Whole ******* thing arranged!”

Coffin Cat laughs quietly.

“No, you don’t even understand. This is the first time back, the first time back in five years, and I’m being sold off to some rich ****** who owns all the banks in Australia.”

“How about this fella? He doing okay?” Strawman asks, pointing. Everyone turns to Idiot Boy and laughs affectionately.

“Still working at . . . ?”

“Yeah, yeah. Management. Hospital. You?”

“Like, property. Motions.”

“Subcontracting? Intonements?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Mmm.”

“Sell me drugs, Strawman.”

“Nah. I don’t deal drugs. I don’t deal drugs.”

Idiot Boy slowly opens his eyes and stares out the window. The same grey light as before. He moves his arm further towards Coffin Cat, but is still too weak to get her attention. The same strange silence stretches. The Recessed Figure coughs and the Loud Person whirs back into motion.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. . . .”

As the conversation repeats over and again, Idiot Boy begins to think he has become psychotic, or perhaps entered into a psychotic space. He thinks of computer algorithms, input-output, loops without variables, endless regurgitations of the same result. Human machines trapped in their own stupid loop. Drug-****** neuronal networks incapable of making new connections, forever traversing old ones. Short-term memory loss, every repeat a new conversation of what has already been. The same grey light painted upon four pears by the window.

He’s not sure if Coffin Cat’s laugh is getting weaker with each repeat.

Signal-response. The exterior world oversaturated with variables: roadways, rivers, forests, wildlife — an ever changing scene to respond to — the illusion of depth. Automatic response mechanisms reorient to new stimuli. The soul rises like surfactant, objectified fractal diffusion. A becoming without end.

But within the border of this interior world, the light stays grey. No input, no change; the same dead repeat, over and over, until sundown triggers a hunger response. Lined all along the street, a black box ceremony of repeating machines, trapped in their idiot cults, walls of clay and blood.

Idiot Boy finally gets Coffin Cat’s attention. She helps him through the house’s arteries to reach rain and wet stone, overcast skies. As he shakes in shock, Coffin Cat mumbles, “It’s cold.”

Idiot Boy sits silent on the ride home. Travels through himself. Tunnel through the body or Mariana Trench. Loses his footing before a traumatic void. Leaves the car and pukes.
Ayush Gangwar Oct 2018
When i get totally lost ,
You come and find me …
When every inch of my heart gets broken down,
You collect me out and unite me…
When everything seems to be vanish and life become trouble ,
You hold my hand and strengthen me to a next level…lllll

When my pain cried out loud,
You come to me and distribute it off…
When my shiny side capture by the darkness,
You illuminated me by Brightness of your soul…
When i am alone ,
You give me company…
Everytime when i was in sorrow and pain,
You come to me again and again ,
Rotates your magical wizard and vanishes it ,
just like the fairy do in fairy tales…

You are my strength, you are my weakness too,
I am never be able to live without you…

I am incomplete without you just like a garden without flowers and a glossy green carpet roll,
You fills my empty body with a beautiful soul…

Someone find a friend, Someone find a partner,
But you are more than that for me ,
Who reorient me and make me laugh even in my hard times,
Who celebrates with me just like a joyful fate ,
You are nothing but my beautiful soulmate…
Me without you is just like a body without soul.
Laurel Elizabeth Oct 2013
You change my mind like a massive industrial factory.
Because flowers.
Supposing friendly.
What if therefore.

You crush my forethought in your mandible machinery
For after yellow.
Beside a lake.
Through crimson humility.

I melt under your molten supervision on the grandest scale
Melodic franchise.
Hypothesize sunbeams.
And if replace me.

You reorient my viewpoints on your conveyor belt of
liquidated mellow
jurisdiction.
Kurt Miller Jul 2015
I slipped away the other day and strolled towards the limelight.
To much dismay and most out of the way, this light it shined too bright.
If I could just get closer, by whatever means how,
I could achieve the spoils of success, and revel in the now.

Advance after advance, success after success,
One would think, naturally, to progress was the key to this mess.
Slowly but surely, my goals marked complete,
Yet these checks on a sheet kept bringing me to my knees.

What lay behind the light - a driving attraction,
Kept me bound and confused, a terrifying reaction.
The struggle to succeed, at least in my mind,
Was a self-perpetuating frenzy of competition against a future place in time.

To fail in a contest against another is but a minor setback.
But to lose the race against oneself is a tragic putrid poison, uneasy to extract.

However, by seeing the nature of this self race, and to resolve to love oneself in hate,
Is to admit defeat of one's own fate and accept a self deprecating loss.
Yet as one succeeds in short, they see the nature of their quest.
These goals I take and win today, I strive without a rest.
To reorient with happiness as the goal, is to accept the love within us all.

In constantly improving, your life stays moving,
But beware this pace, as to much disgrace,
This ambitious race may make you lose face.

To seek and to find is to reap and rewind;
When I succeed in my mind, my dreams they do not subside.
Something is burning, deep down inside,
Quietly yearning for a love lost in time.

As Hyacinth passed up on the one he loved, Rosebud cried in toil and crud.
Caught up in the nature of the game, eluded by fame - yet to oneself, he fell insane.
This is a literary allusion to the German fairy tale *Hyacinth and Rosebud* by the Romantic author Novalis.
Softly Spoken May 2017
A haptic response
Lightly tactile
From something as
soft as your breathe
As gentle as your eye
Tracing lines over me
Repainting your memories
With laughter
As I reorient mine
To the curvature of your smile
We lie back to back
Connected
Fingers entwined
But not carnal
unattached
With finality I understand that
I now no longer seek
What you cannot give
My purpose made clear
To care for your heart
From afar
As none but I can
Because I dowse and define
What this means to me
With care for myself
I carve away these old memories
Destroy the internal shrine
Free this heart once entombed
By my loss and my fear
Unbidden, one perfect tear
Traces a salt line to my lips
To rest in my smile
A haptic response
The soft flow of breathe
Gently tactile
Like love undefined
I think I inadvertently freed myself.. not sure at what point this happened, but I'm grateful
Maya Gold Oct 2011
i can lose myself in your eyes—



no, actually, that’s not true.



i have an excellent sense of direction

(up down around the contours of

your spine,

between the frantic pulls of

your breath,

across yet through the rise and fall of

your chest;

always with the certainty of

you)



though i do usually become waylaid by

crossways,

intersections,

and boulevards;

by unspoken daydreams,

unseen words,

and misplaced thoughts;

by the

fragile temerity

of an allusion at midnight,

and the

convenient paradoxes of

endless space

and finite time.



but you;

you, i can find.

because though i will never be quite able

to steer myself by

stars, portents, or street signs,

i can feel the way across your fingertips

as surely as any sailor

and where the

stars, portents, or street signs

direct, but do not guide

it is your warmth

that means that i will

never

get lost in your eyes.

because i’ll always be

found in your voice,

and the taste of

your touch.



and while i’ll always have to

carry a map

and still have to

stop three times to

reorient

redirect

and ask for directions,

i’m not too worried.



because lost

is a frame of mind,

and found

is a destination

that I am constantly

leaving and arriving;

an infinite loop

wrapped around

your little finger.
Akintola kunle Apr 2021
You are the Mecca that honey the bear
The tan that slumber the night
You make the day just a light of thunder
What is your name?

Yank your smile when my bridge comes
You make the heavens weep in glory
Don’t reorient your temerity after all
What is your real name?

I won’t tell them is Ayola
I won’t confide your real love
Not even the night would hear this
What is your name?
Let me invite your soul to dine

Ayola am sorry I never called you back.
True love
Day #4: Cody To Saint Mary’s

After breakfast in the Irma’s great dining hall, I left Cody in the quiet stillness of a Saturday morning. The dream I had last night about Indian summer camps now pointed the way toward things that I could once again understand. If there was another road to rival, or better, the Beartooth Highway, it would be the one that I would ride this morning.

It was 8:45 a.m., and I was headed northwest out of Cody to The Chief Joseph Highway. It is almost impossible to describe this road without having ridden or driven over it at least once. I was the first motorcyclist to ever ride its elevated curves and valleys on its inauguration over ten years ago. It opened that day, also a Saturday, at eight, and I got there two hours early to make sure the flagman would position me at the front of the line. I wanted to be the first to go through while paying homage to the great Nez Perce Chief. I will forever remember the honor of being the first motorist of any kind to have gone up and over this incredible road.

The ascent, over Dead Indian Pass at the summit, reminded me once again that the past is never truly dead if the present is to be alive. The illusion of what was, is, and will be, is captured only in the moment of their present affirmation. The magic is in living within the confirmation of what is.

The Chief Joseph Highway was, and is, the greatest road that I have ever ridden. I have always considered it a great personal gift to me — being the first one to have experienced what cannot fully be described. Ending in either Cooke City or Cody, the choice of direction was yours. The towns were not as different from each other as you would be from your previous self when you arrived at either location at the end of your ride.

It turned severely in both directions, as it rose or descended in elevation, letting you see both ends from almost anywhere you began. It was a road for sure but of all the roads in my history, both present and before, this one was a metaphor to neither the life I had led, nor the life I seek. This road was a metaphor to the life I lead.

A metaphor to the life I lead

It teased you with its false endings, always hiding just one more hairpin as you corrected and violently pulled the bike back to center while leaning as hard as you could to the other side. While footpegs were dragging on both sides of the bike your spirit and vision of yourself had never been so clear. You now realized you were going more than seventy in a turn designed for maximum speeds of forty and below.

To die on this road would make a mockery of life almost anywhere else. To live on this roadcreated a new standard where risk would be essential, and, if you dared, you gambled away all security and previous limits for what it taught.

It was noon as I entered Cooke City again wondering if that same buffalo would be standing at Tower Junction to make sure that I turned right this time, as I headed north toward Glacier National Park. Turning right at Tower Junction would take me past Druid Peak and through the north entrance of Yellowstone at Mammoth Hot Springs and the town of Gardiner Montana. Wyoming and Montana kept trading places as the road would wind and unfold. Neither state wanted to give up to the other the soul of the returning prodigal which in the end neither could win … and neither could ever lose!

From Gardiner, Rt #89 curved and wound its way through the Paradise Valley to Livingston and the great open expanse of Montana beyond. The road, through the lush farmlands of the valley, quieted and settled my spirit, as it allowed me the time to reorient and revalue all the things I had just seen.

I thought about the number of times it almost ended along this road when a deer or elk had crossed my path in either the early morning or evening hours. I continued on both thankful and secure knowing in my heart that when the end finally came, it would not be while riding on two-wheels. It was something that was made known to me in a vision that I had years ago, and an assurance that I took not for granted, as I rode grateful and alone through these magnificent hills.

The ride to Livingston along Montana Rt.# 89 was dotted with rich working farms on both sides of the road. The sun was at its highest as I entered town, and I stopped quickly for gas and some food at the first station I found. There were seven good hours of daylight left, and I still had at least three hundred miles to go.

I was now more than an hour north of Livingston, and the sign that announced White Sulphur Springs brought back memories and a old warning. It flashed my memory back to the doe elk that came up from the creek-bed almost twenty years ago, brushing the rear of the bike and almost causing us to crash. I can still hear my daughter screaming “DAAAD,”as she saw the elk before I did.

I dropped the bike down a gear as I took a long circular look around. As I passed the spot of our near impact on the south side of town, I said a prayer for forgiveness. I asked to be judged kindly by the animals that I loved and to become even more visible to the things I couldn’t see.

The ride through the Lewis and Clark National Forest was beautiful and serene, as two hawks and a lone coyote bade me farewell, and I exited the park through Monarch at its northern end. There were now less than five hours of daylight left, and the East entrance to Glacier National Park at St. Mary’s was still two hundred miles away. An easy ride under most circumstances, but the Northern Rockies were never normal, and their unpredictability was another of the many reasons as to why I loved them so. Cody, and my conflicted feelings while there, seemed only a distant memory. Distant, but connected, like the friends and loved ones I had forgotten to call.

At Dupoyer Montana, I was compelled to stop. Not enticed or persuaded, not called out to or invited — but compelled! A Bar that had existed on the east side of this road, heading north, for as long as anyone could remember, Ranger Jacks, was now closed. I sat for the longest time staring at the weathered and dilapidated board siding and the real estate sign on the old front swinging door that said Commercial Opportunity. My mind harkened back to the first time I stopped into ‘Jacks,’ while heading south from Calgary and Lake Louise. My best friend, Dave Hill, had been with me, and we both sidled up to the bar, which ran down the entire left side of the interior and ordered a beer. Jack just looked at the two of us for the longest time.

It Wasn’t A Look It Was A Stare

Bearded and toothless, he had a stare that encompassed all the hate and vile within it that he held for his customers. His patrons were the locals and also those traveling to and from places unknown to him but never safe from his disgust. He neither liked the place that he was in nor any of those his customers had told him about.

Jack Was An Equal-Opportunity Hater!

He reminded both Dave and I of why we traveled to locations that took us outside and beyond what we already knew. We promised each other, as we walked back to the bike, that no matter how bad life ever got we would never turn out to be like him. Jack was both a repudiation of the past and a denial of the future with the way he constantly refused to live in the moment. He was physically and spiritually everything we were trying to escape. He did however continue to die in the moment, and it was a death he performed in front of his customers … over, and over, and over again.

As I sat on the bike, staring at the closed bar, a woman and her daughter got out of a car with Texas license plates. The mother smiled as she watched me taking one last look and said: “Are you going to buy it, it’s for sale you know?” I said “no, but I had been in it many times when it was still open.” She said: “That must have been a real experience” as she walked back to her car. It was a real experience back then for sure, and one that she, or any other accidental tourist headed north or south on Rt. #89, will never know. I will probably never regret going in there again, but I feel fortunate that I had the chance to do it those many times before.

Who Am I Kidding, I’d Do It Again In A Heartbeat

I would never pass through Dupoyer Montana, the town where Lewis and Clark had their only hostile encounter (Two Medicine Fight) with Indians, without stopping at Ranger Jacksfor a beer. It was one of those windows into the beyond that are found in the most unlikely of places, and I was profoundly changed every time that I walked in, and then out of, his crumbling front door. Jack never said hello or bid you goodbye. He just stared at you as something that offended him, and when you looked back at his dead and bloodshot eyes, and for reasons still unexplained, you felt instantly free.

In The Strangest And Clearest Of Ways … I’ll Miss Him

It was a short ride from Dupoyer to East Glacier, as the sun settled behind the Lewis Rangeshowing everything in its half-light as only twilight can. I once again thought of the Blackfeet and how defiant they remained until the very end. Being this far North, they had the least contact with white men, and were dominant against the other tribes because of their access to Canadian guns. When they learned that the U.S. Government proposed to arm their mortal enemies, the Shoshones and the Nez Perce, their animosity for all white invaders only heightened and strengthened their resolve to fight. I felt the distant heat of their blood as I crossed over Rt. #2 in Browning and said a quick prayer to all that they had seen and to a fury deep within their culture that time could not ****.

It was almost dark, as I rode the extreme curves of Glacier Park Road toward the east entrance from Browning. As I arrived in St Mary’s, I turned left into the Park and found that the gatehouse was still manned. Although being almost 9:00 p.m., the guard was still willing to let me through. She said that the road would remain open all night for its entire fifty-three-mile length, but that there was construction and mud at the very top near Logan Pass.

Construction, no guardrails, the mud and the dark, and over 6600 feet of altitude evoked the Sour Spirit Deity of the Blackfeet to come out of the lake and whisper to me in a voice that the Park guard could not hear “Not tonight Wana Hin Gle. Tonight you must remain with the lesser among us across the lake with the spirit killers — and then tomorrow you may cross.”

Dutifully I listened, because again from inside, I could feel its truth. Wana Hin Gle was the name the Oglala Sioux had given me years before, It means — He Who Happens Now.

In my many years of mountain travel I have crossed both Galena and Beartooth Passes in the dark. Both times, I was lucky to make it through unharmed. I thanked this great and lonesome Spirit who had chosen to protect me tonight and then circled back through the gatehouse and along the east side of the lake to the lodge.

The Desk Clerk Said, NO ROOMS!

As I pulled up in front of the St Mary’s Lodge & Resort, I noticed the parking lot was full. It was not a good sign for one with no reservation and for one who had not planned on staying on this side of the park for the night. The Chinese- American girl behind the desk confirmed what I was fearing most with her words … “Sorry Sir, We’re Full.”

When I asked if she expected any cancellations she emphatically said: “No chance,” and that there were three campers in the parking lot who had inquired before me, all hoping for the same thing. I was now 4th on the priority list for a potential room that might become available. Not likely on this warm summer weekend, and not surprising either, as all around me the tourists scurried in their pursuit of leisure, as tourists normally did.

I looked at the huge lobby with its two TV monitors and oversized leather sofas and chairs. I asked the clerk at the desk if I could spend the night sitting there, reading, and waiting for the sun to come back up. I reminded her that I was on a motorcycle and that it was too dangerous for me to cross Logan Pass in the dark. She said “sure,” and the restaurant stayed open until ten if I had not yet had dinner. “Try the grilled lake trout,” she said, “it’s my favorite for sure. They get them right out of St. Mary’s Lake daily, and you can watch the fishermen pull in their catch from most of our rooms that face the lake.”

I felt obligated to give the hotel some business for allowing me to freeload in their lobby, so off to the restaurant I went. There was a direct access door to the restaurant from the far corner of the main lobby where my gear was, and my waiter (from Detroit) was both terrific and fast. He told me about his depressed flooring business back in Michigan and how, with the economy so weak, he had decided a steady job for the summer was the way to go.

We talked at length about his first impressions of the Northern Rockies and about how much his life had changed since he arrived last month. He had been over the mountain at least seven times and had crossed it in both directions as recently as last night. I asked him, with the road construction, what a night-crossing was currently like? and he responded: “Pretty scary, even in a Jeep.” He then said, “I can’t even imagine crossing over on a motorcycle, in the dark, with no guardrails, and having to navigate through the construction zone for those eight miles just before the top.” I sat for another hour drinking coffee and wondered about what life on top of the Going To The Sun Road must be like at this late hour.

The Lake Trout Had Been More Than Good

After I finished dinner, I walked back into the lobby and found a large comfortable leather chair with a long rustic coffee table in front. Knowing now that I had made the right decision to stay, I pulled the coffee table up close to the chair and stretched my legs out in front. It was now almost midnight, and the only noise that could be heard in the entire hotel was the kitchen staff going home for the night. Within fifteen minutes, I was off to sleep. It had been a long ride from Cody, and I think I was more tired than I wanted to admit. I started these rides in my early twenties. And now forty years later, my memory still tried to accomplish what my body long ago abandoned.

At 2:00 a.m., a security guard came over and nudged my left shoulder. “Mr Behm, we’ve just had a room open up and we could check you in if you’re still interested.” The thought of unpacking the bike in the dark, and for just four hours of sleep in a bed, was of no interest to me at this late hour. I thanked him for his consideration but told him I was fine just where I was. He then said: “Whatever’s best for you sir,” and went on with his rounds.

My dreams that night, were strange, with that almost real quality that happens when the lines between where you have come from and where you are going become blurred. I had visions of Blackfeet women fishing in the lake out back and of their warrior husbands returning with fresh ponies from a raid upon the Nez Perce. The sounds of the conquering braves were so real that they woke me, or was it the early morning kitchen staff beginning their breakfast shift? It was 5:15 a.m., and I knew I would never know for sure — but the difference didn’t matter when the imagery remained the same.

Differences never mattered when the images were the same



Day #5 (A.M.): Glacier To Columbia Falls

As I opened my eyes and looked out from the dark corner of the lobby, I saw CNN on the monitor across the room. The sound had been muted all night, but in the copy running across the bottom of the screen it said: “Less than twenty-four hours until the U.S. defaults.”  For weeks, Congress had been debating on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling and even as remote as it was here in northwestern Montana, I still could not escape the reality of what it meant. I had a quick breakfast of eggs, biscuits, and gravy, before I headed back to the mountain. The guard station at the entrance was unattended, so I vowed to make a twenty-dollar donation to the first charity I came across — I hoped it would be Native American.

I headed west on The Going To The Sun Road and crossed Glacier at dawn. It created a memory on that Sunday morning that will live inside me forever. It was a road that embodied the qualities of all lesser roads, while it stood proudly alone because of where it could take you and the way going there would make you feel. Its standards, in addition to its altitude, were higher than most comfort zones allowed. It wasn’t so much the road itself but where it was. Human belief and ingenuity had built a road over something that before was almost impossible to even walk across. Many times, as you rounded a blind turn on Logan Pass, you experienced the sensation of flying, and you had to look beneath you to make sure that your wheels were still on the ground.

The road climbed into the clouds as I rounded the West side of the lake. It felt more like flying, or being in a jet liner, when combined with the tactile adventure of knowing I was on two-wheels. Being on two-wheels was always my first choice and had been my consummate and life affirming mode of travel since the age of sixteen.

Today would be another one of those ‘it wasn’t possible to happen’ days. But it did, and it happened in a way that even after so many blessed trips like this, I was not ready for. I felt in my soul I would never see a morning like this again, but then I also knew beyond the borders of self-limitation, and from what past experience had taught me, that I absolutely would.

So Many ‘Once In A Lifetime’ Moments Have Been Joyous Repetition

My life has been blessed because I have been given so many of these moments. Unlike anything else that has happened, these life-altering events have spoken to me directly cutting through all learned experience that has tried in vain to keep them out. The beauty of what they have shown is beyond my ability to describe, and the tears running down my face were from knowing that at least during these moments, my vision had been clear.

I knew that times like these were in a very real way a preparation to die. Life’s highest moments often exposed a new awareness for how short life was. Only by looking through these windows, into a world beyond, would we no longer fear death’s approach.

I leaned forward to pat the motorcycle’s tank as we began our ascent. In a strange but no less real way, it was only the bike that truly understood what was about to happen. It had been developed for just this purpose and now would get to perform at its highest level. The fuel Injection, and linked disk brakes, were a real comfort this close to the edge, and I couldn’t have been riding anything better for what I was about to do.

I also couldn’t have been in a better place at this stage of my life in the summer of 2011. Things had been changing very fast during this past year, and I decided to bend to that will rather than to fight what came unwanted and in many ways unknown. I knew that today would provide more answers, highlighting the new questions that I searched for, and the ones on this mountaintop seemed only a promise away.

Glaciers promise!

I thought about the many bear encounters, and attacks, that had happened in both Glacier and Yellowstone during this past summer. As I passed the entry point to Granite Park Chalet, I couldn’t help but think about the tragic deaths of Julie Helgeson and Michelle Koons on that hot August night back in 1967. They both fell prey to the fatality that nature could bring. The vagaries of chance, and a bad camping choice, led to their both being mauled and then killed by the same rogue Grizzly in different sections of the park.

They were warned against camping where they did, but bear attacks had been almost unheard of — so they went ahead. How many times had I decided to risk something, like crossing Beartooth or Galena Pass at night, when I had been warned against it, but still went ahead? How many times had coming so close to the edge brought everything else in my life into clear focus?

1967 Was The Year I Started My Exploration Of The West

The ride down the western side of The Going To the Sun Road was a mystery wrapped inside the eternal magic of this mountain highway in the sky. Even the long line of construction traffic couldn’t dampen my excitement, as I looked off to the South into the great expanse that only the Grand Canyon could rival for sheer majesty. Snow was on the upper half of Mount’s Stimson (10,142 ft.), James (9,575 ft.) and Jackson (10,052), and all progress was slow (20 mph). Out of nowhere, a bicyclist passed me on the extreme outside and exposed edge of the road. I prayed for his safety, as he skirted to within three feet of where the roadended and that other world, that the Blackfeet sing about, began. Its exposed border held no promises and separated all that we knew from what we oftentimes feared the most.

I am sure he understood what crossing Logan Pass meant, no matter the vehicle, and from the look in his eyes I could tell he was in a place that no story of mine would ever tell. He waved quickly as he passed on my left side. I waved back with the universal thumbs-upsign, and in a way that is only understood by those who cross mountains … we were brothers on that day.



Day # 5: (P.M.) Columbia Falls to Salmon Idaho

The turnaround point of the road was always hard. What was all forward and in front of me yesterday was consumed by the thought of returning today. The ride back could take you down the same path, or down a different road, but when your destination was the same place that you started from, your arrival was greeted in some ways with the anti-****** of having been there, and done that, before.

I tried everything I knew to fool my psyche into a renewed phase of discovery. All the while though, there was this knowing that surrounded my thoughts. It contained a reality that was totally hidden within the fantasy of the trip out. It was more honest I reminded myself, and once I made peace with it, the return trip would become even more intriguing than the ride up until now. When you knew you were down to just a few days and counting, each day took on a special reverence that the trip out always seemed to lack.

In truth, the route you planned for your return had more significance than the one before. Where before it was direct and one-dimensional, the return had to cover two destinations — the trip out only had to cover one. The route back also had to match the geography with the timing of what you asked for inside of yourself. The trip out only had to inspire and amuse.

The trip south on Rt.#35 along the east side of Flathead Lake was short but couldn’t be measured by its distance. It was an exquisitely gorgeous stretch of road that took less than an hour to travel but would take more than a lifetime to remember. The ripples that blew eastward across the lake in my direction created the very smallest of whitecaps, as the two cranes that sat in the middle of the lake took off for a destination unknown. I had never seen Flathead Lake from this side before and had always chosen Rt.#93 on the western side for all previous trips South. That trip took you through Elmo and was a ride I thought to be unmatched until I entered Rt.#35 this morning. This truly was the more beautiful ride, and I was thankful for its visual newness. It triggered inside of me my oldest feelings of being so connected, while at the same time, being so alone.

As I connected again with my old friend Rt.# 93, the National Bison Range sat off to my west. The most noble of wild creatures, they were now forced to live in contained wander where before they had covered, by the millions, both our country and our imagination. I thought again about their intrinsic connection to Native America and the perfection that existed within that union.

The path of the Great Bison was also the Indian’s path. The direction they chose was one and the same. It had purpose and reason — as well as the majesty of its promise. It was often unspoken except in the songs before the night of the hunt and in the stories that were told around the fire on the night after. It needed no further explanation. The beauty within its harmony was something that just worked, and words were a poor substitute for a story that only their true connection would tell.

This ‘Road’ Still Contained That Eternal Connection In Now Paved Over Hoofprints Of Dignity Lost

The Bitteroot Range called out to me in my right ear, but there would be no answer today. Today, I would head South through the college town of Missoula toward the Beaverhead Mountains and then Rt.#28 through the Targhee National Forest. I arrived in Missoula in the brightest of sunshine. The temperature was over ninety-degrees as I parked the bike in front of the Missoula Club. A fixture in this college town for many years, the Missoula Club was both a college bar and city landmark. It needed no historic certification to underline its importance. Ask any resident or traveler, past or present, have you been to the Missoula Club? and you’ll viscerally feel their answer. It’s not beloved by everyone … just by those who have always understood that places like this have fallen into the back drawer of America’s history. Often, their memory being all that’s left.

The hamburger was just like I expected, and as I ate at the bar, I limited myself to just one mug of local brew. One beer is all that I allowed myself when riding. I knew that I still had 150 more miles to go, and I was approaching that time of day when the animals came out and crossed the road to drink. In most cases, the roads had been built to follow the rivers, streams, and later railroads, and they acted as an unnatural barrier between the safety of the forest and the water that the animals living there so desperately needed. Their crossing was a nightly ritual and was as certain as the rising of the sun and then the moon. I respected its importance, and I tried to schedule my rides around the danger it often presented — but not today.

After paying the bartender, I took a slow and circuitous ride around town. Missoula was one of those western towns that I could happily live in, and I secretly hoped that before my time ran out that I would. The University of Montana was entrenched solidly and peacefully against the mountain this afternoon as I extended my greeting. It would be on my very short list of schools to teach at if I were ever lucky enough to make choices like that again.

Dying In The Classroom, After Having Lived So Strongly, Had An Appeal Of Transference That I Find Hard To Explain

The historic Wilma Theatre, by the bridge, said adieu as I re-pointed the bike South toward the Idaho border. I thought about the great traveling shows, like Hope and Crosby, that had played here before the Second World War. Embedded in the burgundy fabric of its giant curtain were stories that today few other places could tell. It sat proudly along the banks of the Clark Fork River, its past a time capsule that only the river could tell. Historic theatres have always been a favorite of mine, and like the Missoula Club, the Wilma was another example of past glory that was being replaced by banks, nail salons, and fast-food restaurants almost wherever you looked.

Thankfully, Not In Missoula

Both my spirit and stomach were now full, as I passed through the towns of Hamilton and Darby on my way to Sula at the state line. I was forced to stop at the train crossing in Sulajust past the old and closed Sula High School on the North edge of town. The train was still half a mile away to my East, as I put the kickstand down on the bike and got off for a closer look. The bones of the old school contained stories that had never been told. Over the clanging of the oncoming train, I thought I heard the laughter of teenagers as they rushed through the locked and now darkened halls. Shadowy figures passed by the window over the front door on the second floor, and in the glare of the mid-afternoon sun it appeared that they were waving at me. Was I again the victim of too much anticipation and fresh air or was I just dreaming to myself in broad daylight again?

As I Dreamed In Broad Daylight, I Spat Into The Wind Of Another Time

I waited for twenty-minutes, counting the cars of the mighty Santa Fe Line, as it headed West into the Pacific time zone and the lands where the great Chief Joseph and Nez Perce roamed. The brakeman waved as his car slowly crossed in front of my stopped motorcycle — each of us envying the other for something neither of us truly understood.

The train now gone … a bell signaled it was safe to cross the tracks. I looked to my right one more time and saw the caboose only two hundred yards down the line. Wondering if it was occupied, and if they were looking back at me, I waved one more time. I then flipped my visor down and headed on my way happy for what the train had brought me but sad in what its short presence had taken away.

As I entered the Salmon & Challis National Forest, I was already thinking about Italian food and the great little restaurant within walking distance of my motel. I always spent my nights in Salmon at the Stagecoach Inn. It was on the left side of Rt. #93, just before the bridge, where you made a hard left turn before you entered town. The motel’s main attraction was that it was built right against the Western bank of the Salmon River. I got a room in the back on the ground floor and could see the ducks and ducklings as they walked along the bank. It was only a short walk into town from the front of the motel and less than a half a block going in the other direction for great Italian food.

The motel parking lot was full, with motorcycles, as I arrived, because this was Sturgis Week in South Dakota. As I watched the many groups of clustered riders congregate outside as they cleaned their bikes, I was reminded again of why I rode. I rode to be alone with myself and with the West that had dominated my thoughts and dreams for so many years. I wondered what they saw in their group pilgrimage toward acceptance? I wondered if they ever experienced the feeling of leaving in the morning and truly not knowing where they would end up that night. The Sturgis Rally would attract more than a million riders many of whom hauled their motorcycles thousands of miles behind pickups or in trailers. Most would never experience, because of sheer masquerade and fantasy, what they had originally set out on two-wheels to find.

I Feel Bad For Them As They Wave At Me Through Their Shared Reluctance

They seemed to feel, but not understand, what this one rider alone, and in no hurry to clean his ***** motorcycle, represented. I had always liked the way a touring bike looked when covered with road-dirt. It wore the recognition of its miles like a badge of honor. As it sat faithfully alone in some distant motel parking lot, night after night, it waited in proud silence for its rider to return. I cleaned only the windshield, lights, and turn signals, as I bedded the Goldwing down before I started out for dinner. As I left, I promised her that tomorrow would be even better than today. It was something that I always said to her at night. As she sat there in her glorified patina and watched me walk away, she already knew what tomorrow would bring.

The Veal Marsala was excellent at the tiny restaurant by the motel. It was still not quite seven o’clock, and I decided to take a slow walk through the town. It was summer and the river was quiet, its power deceptive in its passing. I watched three kayakers pass below me as I crossed the bridge and headed East into Salmon. Most everything was closed for the evening except for the few bars and restaurants that lit up the main street of this old river town. It took less than fifteen minutes to complete my visitation, and I found myself re-crossing the bridge and headed back to the motel.

There were now even more motorcycles in the parking lot than before, and I told myself that it had been a stroke of good fortune that I had arrived early. If I had been shut out for a room in Salmon, the chances of getting one in Challis, sixty miles further south, would have been much worse. As small as Salmon was, Challis was much smaller, and in all the years of trying, I had never had much luck there in securing a room.

I knew I would sleep soundly that night, as I listened to the gentle sounds of a now peaceful river running past my open sliding doors. Less than twenty-yards away, I was not at all misled by its tranquility. It cut through the darkness of a Western Idaho Sunday night like Teddy Roosevelt patrolled the great Halls of Congress.

Running Softly, But Carrying Within It A Sleeping Defiance

I had seen its fury in late Spring, as it carried the great waters from on high to the oceans below. I have rafted its white currents in late May and watched a doctor from Kalispell lose his life in its turbulence. In remembrance, I said a short prayer to his departed spirit before drifting off to sleep.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2021
the older i become the more it hinders my output:
volume, quality, whatever you want to call...
perhaps it's censorship (in a way) -
a ****** lenovo keyboard: not wide enough
to properly place my hands to not look down
but ahead at the genius of QWERTY...
since... believe me: the classical order of the alphabet
conjured up by the French (perhaps i'm
remembering incorrectly) is not really important:
what matters is the entire body of the scripted
language... words don't unravel from a prerequisite
of abcdefghijklmnopq...rs...t...u...v...w...x...y...z
is that all the letters?
i actually don't know fingers dart backwards &
forwards... or, not really... when playing this
"piano" anyway: as long as all the required
letters are invoked in the required words:
hey presto! meaning!
                      there ought to be 26... funny...
there are 32 letters in the ****** (western Slavic)
alphabet... the same number as the teeth
in my gob...
but sometimes i "lose" a poem... whether it's censorship
when i make a post: ****! gone...
or whether i'm callous with the ctrl + c / + p / + a
scenario when i drank a little bit too much...
i don't know... perhaps i'm writing for
some elite that doesn't want the public to read
my work... i like to think of it that way...
but losing a poo'em can become so disheartening
that i i sometimes want to forget that i speak:
let alone write... now longer periods when
i can rekindle a makeshift monologue:
but then i have to find something technical in language
to reorient my purpose...
it's becoming less & less easy...
esp. since i'm not writing fiction...
  just... grass is green... butternut squash soup is
more than hearty: but it will never match up
to my better take on the Heinz canned classic... period...
not enough chilly in the Heinz... canned classic...
& never eaten with a slice of bread...
it requires vermicelli... like most soups do...
like a decent ****** chicken broth...
which also requires... well: poaching the carcass
but  base set of vegetable...
a leek... a celeriac root slice...
parsley root... a carrot... garlic... celery stalks...
parsley - the green leaves...
salt, pepper... & vermicelli...
oh... & plenty of time...
i'm disheartened when i lose a piece of script:
it's not Shakespeare (obviously) but so much emotion
can flow into the cascade that:
tabloid newspapers are given bragging rights...
are, ahem... "important"... so... my writing...
whether by censorship or not...
or my clumsy fingers when putting across
a body of text from one canvas to another... goes wrong...
hours become days when i find a new:
desire to write... since... writing is much easier
to thinking...
writing is much easier to thinking...
as thinking is much easier to speaking...
- but all of a sudden my life has changed a little...
writing is so much easier when you're
not "doing" anything...
mein gott... poems flow & flow... snippets
of narrative arrive at your forehead & fingertips like
postcards from your ex-girlfriends missing
you dearly from exotic locations: as if being married
& having children is still not enough because:
they didn't have your children & aren't married to you...
the poo'em i lost was about... two days ago...
travelling to Wembley Park for... an induction...
the role? being a steward...
i figured: enough of youth can be wasted on dreams...
literary dreams...
let's inject some... proper... grass-root ambition
with... RE-AH-LI-TY (****... phonetically that's
REE-AH-LEE-TEA/EE/AE)...
this writing "business" isn't going at the pace
i want... sure... i can brag about...
wow... almost 40 thousand views of one poem...
there are over 6K poems of mine, just here...
Wembley Stadium can host 90,000 spectators...
one poem of mine can muster up... almost half
of the capacity?
not bad... but... not good enough...
lucky for me i can relate for this sort of thirst when
drinking... sometimes i'm content with
a bottle of wine... at other times i need a liter of whiskey...
go figure... but not when so many idiotic pundits...
when there's this media masquerade happening...
i'm in the shadows: i'm listening to what people
are listening to... i never leave traces in the comment
sections: a waste of time...
makes thinking about certain things easier:
when you don't air your opinions...
after all: that's pseudo-rhetorical...
the true art of debate is... withdrawing from:
debating... the dialectical position is:
first mind diacritical marks (sorry... none in English,
& yes... it's still more ugly
when phonetically charged with graffiti "mishaps"...
misnomer: "shortcuts")...
- where was i? oh right... perhaps i "missed" something
in my original lost sample of a narrative:
although (last time i checked)
this website provides automated save as drafts
when you stop typing - after a prolonged period
of typing: my bad...
writing is so much easier when life is uneventful...
i could tease that word: uneventful into
a katakana syllabary: i almost want i almost have
to i therefore (not almost, but) must:
un-eh-vent-ful...
oh look at that: sitting pretty like a toddler
with a drumstick of a chicken (leg)...
**** it: my writing is going nowhere...
i have more ambition to simply let it... sizzle in its own
juices: or whatever better expression is handy...
none come to mind...
i need to look at people: i need to study people...
the internet is an echo-chamber to begin with:
it used to...
a jukebox narrative... such freedoms were
once available... mein gott... what music
i discovered when foraging on youtube...
in two years... gone... the algorithm got ******...
period: bad grammar is an exemplification
of this load of: hot-steaming... mix of **** & *******...
i need a real job... wasting my youth on writing
is not enough: perhaps my writing will catch up:
or my readership will... either way:
i'm not aiming for anything under
the title-weight of a Bukowski:
lucky ******... but i'm also not aiming for
the almost near obscurity of... the Black Mountain poets...
who was their leader... Larry?
Lee-rrr...       eh... it's not like a tarantula didn't
crawl into an English mouth & "somehow"
numbed the tongue for the end result of:
nein zu tremolo! ****'s sake... if i only asked:
why the French Fwench... but they hark so:
never mind...   yes, yes... Larry Eignar...
**** me... that took a while...
but there's another... a "renegade" on the...
ha ha... steppes of "Cambodia"...

          Russell is a likely connotation...
but incorrect... let's see....
     wait... Charles Olson... ol' Ollie...
he? he was a black mountain poet?
you ******* kidding me...
no chance in hell that will pass by me
given.... concerning his Maximus poems...
like: **** no...
i'm a critic i'm a nobody i'm a porveurour...
now i remember the ******'s name:
Robert ******* Kreely...
him! Kreely: Creely... Creeley...
**** it... fling in the vowels...
lets see what sort of a trebuchet **** master
you... ought... might... make.
oh.... wait.... important "news"...
an... apostrophe "missing": plain Jane typo....
where?LET(')S i.e. implying the shortening of:
the inclusivity of the collective... "US"..
      wunderbar!
                 schön!
that's the umlaut O... ergo... shoo... shoon...
great!
                           kaninchen und...
                        rosa ball-ons!  
i know a ******* balloon from a *******
ball-on... it's like telling me...
what's the difference between an omicron
and an omega...
i.e. do you really need to tell me
the difference?
sure... if it was an upsilon: you *******
clueless Greek!
what audacity:
you ******* clueless... Greek...
what... better some Iranian...
arriving from... Belarus?!
oh sure... i really want to live in Kenya...
among the ivory beauties with skins
that hide their bodies...
******* milk on toast... some chocolate:
sprinkled... i see teeth & sclera...
& some mahogany...
  ****? i'd **** anything that moves...
even south Korean girls geared up for a game of....
ping-pong....
my bad... what?
or is that: WAT like... WATT...
the energy unit or the Samuel Beckett novel
that over-competes James Joyce's Ulysses?!

your is the roulette... yours... hmm... your's...
for a while... the latter was underlined...

life used to be so much simpler when...
language could speak for... "itself"...
no one could use it: somehow, "somehow"...

i applied for the role of a Wembley Stadium
steward on a whim...
i thought: **** it... writing is not going toward
a projected: Ginsberg stastus...
i'm not going to compete with the leftoid jargon
of the 1960s... lucky me...

i'm just a terrible "millenial"...
i use an apostrophe like i migh5t secure understand
of the Pythagorean hypotenuse...
some C "squared"...
Wembley Stadium steward...
this... cacophony of hierarchy "suddenly" hits me...

i can understand authority...
tier one, tier two... vampire... zombie...
sure, sorted...

of the supposed 12 rules for life...
one of them reeds... i suppose that's reed: read:
reeds... sorry.. n'est ce pas...
pet a cast on the sreet?
you know, how hard it is... to pet a cat..
on the street?!
if you lived in England...
wolves... what wolves?!
foxes... oh yeah... plenty of those...
but... petting cats?
a bit like explaining...
a jpeg. take up less volume... ha ha: "volume"
than a pdf. file...

why i was mo4e than ready: i'll never known...
perhaps i'm a closeted fan of Ed Sheeran,
perhaps i like children in the role of:
a fathering figure...
perhaps children like to
poke my beard & lips...
perhaps this... perhaps that...
perhaps i'm ******* Santa Claus...
or what's Satan's Claus(e)....
all these freebies... cough up!

or... i just like making people "feel" included:
"feel" is one "thing", REALISED... another...
it might sound like newsspeak...
but... i don't want to ingest another...
Manchester Bomb Arena spectacle...

SAA... a week in Brixton... 7 days...
but they require a cohort of at least 12 applicants...
it elevastes your status as steward to:
someone who can: "juggle"...
be legally obliged to utilised force:
if necessary...
i like... i like... i like...

first ZOOM call in my life... ******* Ludite...
luddite... ugh... that double D kills me...
surd: you don't hear(d) to: begin with...
so... what... spelling "mistake"?

oh sure... the ****** transit & traffic...
train from Romford through to Liverpoool St...
then the Metropolitan Line to Wembley Park...
great... the arch...
a black coffee from McDonald's & two croissants from
Lidl... morning... done...
no more... morning sickness....
come late afternoon Somali girls eyeing me up in a black
tie... o.k. sure... fair game: "gamble"...
hunting what?
i like this understudy of what's man...

i arrived an hour early...
waited the tad bit... of a little... we exchanged formalities... but then i watched as...
two groups formed...
the ****-shock-show of the multi-cultural urban... ahem... "class"... with one rep. & the other... mostly... asian men... with their... asian rep...

12 rules for life... seriously?! do you know how hard it is... to pet a cat? sorry... can i make you reiterate... petting a cat... lucky me... for petting two cats today... "strays"... but... do you know how nearly impossible it is... to pet cats, is?! you don't pet a cat because you can... you pet a cat out of the whims of: the cat willing you to pet it!  just like i like... sitting on my windowsill listening to foxes bemoan their lack of ****** adventures... it's England... foxes... ergo no wolves! d'uh! cull the foxes... you cull the erotica of the nights!

between... sigourney weaver... &...
mmm... winona ryder...
raven 'air...
two winners... how harems work...

Tuba Büyüküstün...

apologies for the phrasing...
if all the supposed gems not donning niqabs
that are western women
are so... *******: NIGGERCOCK mad...
Tuba Büyüküstün... oh... look at me...
you think i want some anemic blonde:
stereotype?!
raven... hair!
sure... the black male specimens are
handsome, attractive: if i were a woman:
i would... ha... "problem"...
why don't i want to...
the ****** antonym... because a white girl
really wants to... do a black guy...
do i... "have" to have the same
compulsions with regards to a black girl?!
Turkic! **** yes!
Mongolian... probably!
Tuba Büyüküstün...
or... swans probably don't have necks...
no... swans probably don't have necks
when you see this:

(although sophie skelton looks
better in the initial photograph...
papa best preached)...
swans don't have necks...
not with her...
around... to... curate... a balett of
nodding  approvals...

Caitríona Mary Balfe... i'm so loved up...
in that i once remarked in private:
bemoaned: that the Scots have forgotten
their native tongue...
swans have no necks...
swans don't need necks...

the neck of Caitríona Mary Balfe
eyes... too...
or the short-styled hair... & eyes
of Tuba Büyüküstün...
don't get me started on the hands...
those petite Antoinetes of joy...
the most ****** aspect of a woman is bound
to her hands... i'm missing a knuckle! or at least
*******!

woo-man!                         woe-is-me!
woe-is-man!             woo-man!
i'll bark i'll gargle... not for the sold-cold "soul & eternity"
of the d.n.a.:
but rather for that Muhammad never achieved when
competing with King Solomon!
then again... King David had the better tale...
the love of music, the writing of the psalms
&... defeating Goliath...
king Solomon was... compensating with
the excessing in the exploitation of women...
eh... Solomon &... proverbs can be tested...
true... or untrue...
but psalms... unconditionally...
sung... or... lost...
no antonym-synonym dynamic...
you either remember or you forget...
you don't merely remember & pseudo-remember
via changing the narrative a little: or a lot...

what a neck... on this Irish beauty...

two frotiers formed.... one side...
the cosmopolitan, readied to talk to women
in possible women in authority, etc.
whatever are the preferenfes....
i really adore the ROYAL: third person:
ONE might...
or the plural WE....
"genger plural pronouns":
not since the existence of the "crown":
i am subject to ol' Lizzies stipends!

i am her mouthpiece wherever she's:
not m'ah ******* grandma!
on zoom calll i was sked....   (scared, for sked)
what were British values....
i was asked....
i replied... universal?!
i passed some mythological...
Kennsington Test...
ooh p'ah! ******* hurah
join the Union Jack brigade!
who's kidding who?

              the red coats are coming!
last time i 'eard?
not enough of 'em are "coming"...
come to "think" of it: beside staring at goats...
"going": where?
do "we" need to "go" to Afghanistan
when... Afghanistan is coming to us?!

sorry... what?

two groups of people at Wembley...
mostly Asian men... an Asian rep...
& a group led by a Jewish girl...
talk of tortoises...
Sikh... Tamil... Sanskrit... men...
& women... ******...
Stalowa Wola: Iron Will... which is
an actual town...
Harry... the guy with tattoed hands...
Ewelina: Evaline...
**** me... another single mother...
how many more single mothers will i have to pass?!
i don't mind it:
ancient Rome replies with:
the surrogate father...
chances are...
i could be a bad genetic partner...
i wouldn't mind... raising children that weren't my own...
i swear to the only god available on such
matters...
he'd just nod approving me as
surrogate father...
to hell with it...
CORALINE - DREAMING...
ancient Rome sends you a postcard...
you'll reply?
        no? fair enough...
i could i wish i could...
a little: BAMBINO of my own...
bit then again...
investing in so much of my own...
what if... they are killed...
hell! ****** is one "thing"...
but what if by some stupid circumstance of
a traffic incident?!
ergo?
i very much like the idea of raising children that
biologically "belong"... ahem...
"elsewhere"...
not their souls, their minds.. though...
n'est ce pas?! VOU... that's not how
ALTHOUGH is assembled?
AUL: ALL.... VOU? it's not VOW...
ate the G... no, kiddy?

i love children... esp. those that are not my own...
i could love them & love them like
an Abraham... nein... i could love them like...
a god... i could love children in a way that...
mirrors.. the moment they arrive at...
exploring the game of:
hide & seek...
there was never any playground invoked
to summon: the game of bulldog...

i'm glad i have no children of my own...
more of my seeing and less of the eyes of my "choosing"...
petty tender heart-felts: demands...
i'd rather father the children of "unavaliable" fathers
than father my own...
ancient Rome is messaging you...
dearest...
   look how much easier it all becomes!
you raise someone else's child... but...
should said child die... become murdered...
erm... what of it?
a statistic... i feel no inclination to give a ****...
i invested in the mind... the soul...
the body can ***** itself to death...
as it does... but it's not my own...
i can be as much detached from its fate as is most purposively
ridden: to riddle me...
i'm glad to not raise my own!
it dies... it's murdered... do i care?
no... life replaces life... here we go: the grand
carousel... it's not like i have name like:
McKenzie or... McDougal...
so... no... no lineage... i'm a baron of the most
atomised of times... the individualistic
sanctity: real or supposed...

ancient Rome replies:
the negativity of single mother households....
compensated with... the freedoms of...
paternal surrogacy... give me a break!
ha! it's Eden! i come with not leverage of....
ownership! i owe nothing due to
the Darwinistic impetus!
i'd be freed from whatever is expected of me...
there are no investments...
in pronouns... might we:
the royal one?

ha!

it's no much easier to have children
that turn out to be girl...
ha!

i'd rather be a surrogate father to a "daughter"...
come to think of it...
i'd only want...
to be a father... to a son... biologically....
a daughter can...
Mayflower herself... or ***** herself all she wants...
from a father: unto a son...
like that "******": Matthew & Son (cat stevens)
or... "dreaming": Coraline...

the inquisitive cat... the teenage girl...
the "felix"... the Urdu... somewhat...
the inquisitive cat... kommen die nacht....
alles ist nacht...

if there's no democracy in poetry:
then there's no democracy at all!
maxim: non-la-rochefoucauld
james conway Jul 2016
what the birds do (ft Sophia J Ashlan and
Nateive Son)

Set your love free; America!, let it fly
Free it from those small cages in your mind; cross your street; America! And visit,
Cross to the side you think as dark
You’re grown up now; let it soar
Let it see a clear scene, from a new neighborhood,
Oh, view the scene angled wide
Face out and reorient;
And take in all the light
Oh, the precious cleansing light

And please America what the birds do through the air
So let your love

Soar love, Let the wings that spread over the nation; America!  (Sophia J Ashlan)
Shelter the ones who have given Everything to you
Like the birds be free; Let your spirit not wither;
Oh America, Do not despair; Perhaps hope is here...
Like a bird song, the song You love more than any other
Like a bird Know that your only limit Is you; America!
And live life like you always have
Free like a bird on the edge of a branch

Let your love rise, America!  And Search!
For its likeness in your darkest view
And where your likeness dwells; oh, embrace it
Cradle it in your *****; hold it there and rock it
Then more than double will your power be;
Seizing all that common
And lighter as it drops that difference
Oh, and lighter as it drops the hate

And America your coffeehouses are bogged down by bandwidth    (Nateive Son)
People addicted to screens cannot know what we mean and it saddens the jaw
So if you must stare into the light, stare into the sun
Be entranced by the holy radiant one

Let your hands reach out, America!  To connect,
As the sky connects with the horizon at sun set
Let that life force worshipers share, that feeling felt in the bones
And in your mind, and in your true heart
That you are webbed to all that breathes
And all that is in the universe, webbed by that beautiful unity
That spirit of the self, that all connected love,
And oh, let it reconnect this nation

And please America, what the birds do through the air
So let your love
              let it fly over America
Devon Leonel Jan 2019
The tempest did not last long
Though while it rampaged it was terrible to behold
Stinging sheets of rain falling nearly sideways
On the fierce breath of the raging wind
A gale force ripping up everything in its path
Sharp stabs of lightning, the only illumination
Across a dark and battered land
And then
The storm blew out
The world dropped away
All that remained
Stillness
Silence
Quiet
Spinning through empty space
Trying to reorient
Moments of feeling grounded again
Like feet finding passing asteroids
Stability for a time
Too soon, the rock floating away in its orbit
Leaving only space
And darkness
Straining to find the next moment of solid footing
Eyes that acclimate to the dark
Learning to navigate the emptiness
Between those moments of steadiness
Then, without warning, a blinding flash
Remnant of the maelstrom
A bolt of lightning searing through space
The afterimage, glimpses of times gone by
Visions of moments that never came to be
Shadows of a future once dreamed of
Eventually fading away to blackness once more
No way to see what lies ahead
Or what direction “ahead” even is
Just drifting
But
Still
Trying
To move forward
Through empty space
The storm isn't raging but the cold emptiness is almost worse
Satsih Verma Oct 2017
Colored truth,
becomes a hot balloon
in denial mode.

For your own―
relevance, negativity will
not accept the defeat.

Between the stars,
anger erupts―
to reorient the gaffe.

Outrage and despair
are writ large
on the face of non-white moon.
Sometimes Starr Dec 2018
How many secrets do we walk past every day?
Sinched off pockets of life,
Their contents affect the cosmos
Like invisible knives.

With just a word or a couple flicks of the finger,
You can reorient the stars
And all the sailors in your tiny sea will start to sail by them...

Ah, but the stars were scattered anyway
And it's good to sail the sea
I never navigated anywhere
'Th no knife turned on my e'e

///

So if only for the thrill
I pull back the skin from my neck
And bear my jugular to the world
Only holding back decisively,
Always wanting to tell you
Everything.
Bourgeoisie donning ersatz
overstuffed ego freezer bewigged pate
"FAKE" grotesque humanitarian
bribed corrupt judges will vindicate
jimmied cracked corn
land of "milk and honey"

red hot button he spoils to activate
countdown to Armageddon
leaving nation prostrate,
all the more reason to axe electoral college,
now holds electorate
hostage to bully tactics grate

for dead souls – zombie thriller, viz
Putin on the ritz,
whereby Pavlov's dog will salivate
on cue and pony show will titillate,
and worse case scenario, a far more terrible fate
than death by a thousand cuts

equals his refusal not to abdicate
presidency, should voters
get smart to administrate
White House with progressive commander
in chief he/she will adjudicate
decency, honesty, integrity... and acclimate

government toward amity, comity, equality...
oh,... and most importantly advocate
salutary measures affecting biosphere,
where industrialization didst devastate
contaminate by bajillion beings birthrate,
every square inch of Earth

**** sapiens succeeded to abominate...,
prima facie global warming doth correlate,
hence primary requisite mandate
to reorient modus operandi no time to wait,
where carbon footprint negligible
still preserving technological paradigm

fixing low cussed electricity to generate
courtesy renewable resources
else man/womankind will become footnote
atrophied trappings agglomerate
twenty first century civilization
******, inundated, ossified bridgegate

checkmated, choked, chucked... wag gone wheels
das spare - tread fully tires fuming primate
jammed fruits of ***** going bananas
infuriating, exhausting accelerating
no exit (sorry Sartre) to circumnavigate
hardy lee any recourse to extricate

oneself from madding crowd
self resignation minimally doth alleviate,
whereby impatient broods frustrate
inaccessible jackknifed mobility,
thence spark ignites spontaneous eruption
impossible mission to plug
crowdsource mob frenzy translate

pent up fury once loosed doth degenerate
into atavistic pandemonium cutthroat rage
snarling human logjam foaming at mouth
poised to strike ready to decapitate
any remaining shred of salvation barren feeble
slow vac hoovering, milking, and *******
every last vestige of ******* peoples extirpate.
Ryan O'Leary Oct 2018
Imagine for a minute which
figure represents nothing.
It is nought, in mathematical
script O.
What does or dare I say, what
can one add to zero that makes
it different?
It, for example could become a
p or a d, in which case a POD.
If one opens the shell we find
Peas, all in a row, all the same
size, all the same colour, so in
effect, nothing changed.

The illusion of change is created
by words, such as, Alter, Differ,
Turn, Amend, Improve, Modify,
Convert, Revise, Recast, Reform,
Reshape, Refashion, Redesign,
Restyle, Revamp, Rework, Remake,
Remodel, Remould, Redo, Reconstruct,
Reorganize, Reorder, Refine, Reorient,
Vary, Transform, Transfigure, Transmute,
Metamorphose, Undergo, Permute, Exchange,
Interchange, Switch, Convert, Replace, Rotate, Substitute,
or Vote.

Antonyms : Stay the same, Keep, Preserve.

Which is why there is no difference between
a Politician and a Magician.

It is always the same, either a Rabbit or a Pigeon.

Democracy gives one two choices.

No different than putting two shovels
against a wall and asking a builders
labourer to take his PICK.
Raindrops percolate Perkiomen Valley watershed
pleasant reprieve versus quite warm temperatures
yesterday found yours truly averse attempting re:
ding outside, the secluded alcove visible looking
thru single bedroom window here, once upon time

former Schwenksville Elementary School, now re:
purposed Highland Manor apartment alphanumeric
unit B44, 2day precipitation lightly palpitating terra
firma quenching thirsty flora and fauna donning viz
age fifty plus shades of lush green meteorological

regular phenomena offsets prospect where drought
would deprive biota requisite liquid nourishment
speculation June, July, and August promise triple
digits essentially forcing creature comfort ala air
conditioning as climate control to weather extreme

hot temperatures linkedin with global warming, a
grim prospect lately tempered courtesy coronavirus
COVID-19 inexplicably temporarily giving respite
the Earth atmosphere purportedly less toxic since
countless manifold modes of industrial production

lockdown subjected since employees in quarantine
to thwart contagion infecting adjacent areas, thus
impacting transportation hub, no substantial traffic
most rerouted thru information superhighway data
bits and bytes sent to and fro, hither and yon, until

"green light" signalled for businesses to reorient
themselves to alternate paradigm, hoop fully more
eco friendly less dependent upon fossil fuels, where
greenhouse gases deplete ozone layer compromising
delicate balance offset severely trending toward by

Yoda - star wars pitched battles witnessing galactic
empires armed 2 teeth with supersonic weapons mass
destruction spelling demise of human civilization
think brinkmanship whereby within eyeblink en-
tire realm encompassing eastern, western, northern

southern, brethren and cistern multifarious legacies
snuffed out without a trace extinguishing gamut of
living things great and small, perchance world wide
web overtaken with radiation resistant critters, an
unrecognizable changing of the guard when no pry

mates abled (Cain not) wrest control against giant
size carnivorous entities deliciously feast carrion
until nothing but lovely bleached (bomb shelled)
bones scattered across the pock marked terrestrial
landscape - mush room 4 opportunistic organisms.
Anvillan May 2020
Meditation is a journey
Myself the goal.
Quiet time
Mind reset
Deep inside
Seeking center
Reorient the heart
Search for the soul
Climb that ladder
Enlightenment shines
Eyes blinded
Back to earth
Mind refreshed
Vision clear.
Cleansing experience...

— The End —