Photography,
Photo journalistic,
Everyday, realistic.

Commercial, architecture, landscape, artistic,
Industrial, fashion, ethnographic, pornographic.

Big Brother, fallace, stealer of souls, vouyer.
News seller, instant gratifier, man pleaser, woman abuser.

Barthes, Sontag, Cindy Sherman,
Virginia Woolf, Warhol. Weegie, Francesca Woodman,
Leibovitz, Adams, Arbus, Tina Modotti,
Nan, Evans, Hoffer and even the Paparazzi.

Cheap *****, digital manipulator, image poser,
Center fold, coupons, Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe.
Where did they go:

Lifeless paper product, painter's picture mess,
C-type, digital archival,
Sepia, black and white, hard drive retrival.

Image addict,
Image taker,
Image maker,
image seller,
image buyer.

Newspaper, magazine, graphics and ads,
TV, dreams, even the trash.

Billboards, subways, phones and buses:

Utopia:
Surreal, crop, stretched and air brushes.

Modern ideal.
Surface manipulator.
Brain conditioner.
Consent manufacturer.

Oh Photography,
I got you in my eye.
A few thousand dollars,
A BFA, A critical scholar.

Or maybe a nerd,
Just boys with toys.
Telephoto genitals, with motor drive action.
Studio lights, umbrella traction.

Oh Photography,
You proprietor of obscene.
Detailed, de-sensitized.
Court ordered, jury analyzed.

Click, image, copy, edit, paste, print or post.
Myfacespace, twitter, flicker,
An internet media overdose.

Pry, spy, your friend's friend's acquaintances.
Parties, picnics, reunions and shows.
Visits, vacation, style, shoes and clothes.


Pics, photos, images, jpegs and giffs.
Snap shot, portrait, panoramic, Kodak kiss.

Exacerbate:
Divorce, break-ups, jealousy, envy, love and fears.
Devour and captivate society for years.

Slaves to Western and Capitalist desires,
Destruction of Earth with psychological, monetary empires.

Reunions are great.

Catching up with old friends and family.

After months or even years apart, that first meeting is sheer bliss.

But with you, every meeting is a reunion.

Every second air fills the space between our finger tips
Every second our sweaty, caloused hands are apart time slows down.

Slow enough to make seconds feel like days, days feel like weeks, weeks feel like months and years..... I'd rather not think about it.

I just want to tell you that when Im with you, time feels right.

Not too fast. Not too slow.

Just right.

What becomes of these fleeting reunions?
Do they wash away with the sea salted sand
and becomes fragments of a conversation once had
Do they transform into the sugar in your coffee,
or the honey in your tea,
and compel you to never forget about me?
Or do they live in this rustling wind
that picks fights with your consciousness
and leaves you in a state of rumination
between the present and the past?

The first day of school,
We were kids of 5,
A bit excited, a bit scared.
We had our parents seeing us off,
Some of us giggling, some crying.
We only knew what we felt at that moment,
Soon we got introduced to some new kids,
Who turned out to be the people important later.
It was actually fun going to school later,
Non of us came to school to actually study but to meet our crazy people.
As time took a swing,
We now have reached class 12,
Growing all up with the ones we started of with.
Now they are more like a family,
A family where there is more friendship,
A family who relates to you and to your problems,
A family you know would be standing by you for long.
Soon we all are gonna be apart,
But I'm sure, there are gonna be reunions,
Where we gonna come with ours husbands,wives and kids,
We gonna remember,
All the ***** we talked about,
All the bunks we did together,
All the games we played together,
All the pranks we did to a friend,
All the names we gave to our teachers.
For us, we may have been changed in the way we looked,
But what will not change with time,
Would be the unity, love we had then.
And there we would be playing the same old prank on a friend,
And then laughing our heart out.
And soon we would return back to our lives with smiling faces and a few more memories and moments for us to remember them all again…

Grandmother,

           Do not feed me with the scent of tomorrow - it has a certain pungency that I cannot stand. After all, I am still full with the taste of this bitter residue lurching in my stomach left by memory.

Morpheus has never been kind to me
His somniferous ways leave me wanting
Grasping at the cusp of a reality
As evanescent as the morning mist
That greets this reluctant gaze.

He exists to these sheathed
Bourbon eyes
Within the veiled carapace
Of the only form I've ever wanted more
Than necessity and air.
His torment lies
In false reunions, in joining and parting lips
In forest eyes that linger behind in my thoughts
Like the echo of a cannon
Long after it's wrought its own havoc.

Yes, that twisted Lothario
That Grecian sandman
Exists to overcharge the soul with
Hope so poisonous
Bodies and minds are wracked with it
Inspired by it
Haunted on into the waking world
Where he waits on the periphery
Eyes narrowed in the light
Of the waking world that renders him useless.

Spiders.

Snakes.

Late nights, due to the fact that once I saw a possum in our garage when it was dark out.

Good looking people not thinking I'm good looking.

Holding children. I might drop them.

My brothers growing up to be just like me.

Shark attacks.

Jumping off high places.

Headphones that go too deep into my ears.

Going the opposite direction of so many cars. I'm the only one going my way.  They're probably headed the right way. They're probably having more fun.

Realizing that, after being on the road for a while, my high beams have been on the whole time. Sorry.

Cockroaches.

Family reunions where I'm not sure if that really attractive girl is my family or someone's friend.

Climbing up the stairs of the Bombay ride at Wet N' Wild because there just slabs of stone I can see under. I could slip and fall right through.

Enjoying bad bands.

Letting my girlfriend look into my eyes.

Talking on the phone.

Growing up.

Refusing to grow up.

Reading this over if I ever finish it and realizing that I am something less than a regular human being.  Probably an animal of some kind.

Frogs.

Big animals.

Waking up one day as the same person I always have been.

Standing still.

My parents.

Not spending the rest of my life with the girl I swore I would.

Texting people too often.

My parents dying.

Whales.

My teeth being this awful the rest of my life.

Braces.

Making people think they offended me.  People never offend me.

Writing anything that's ever as good as Ernest Hemingway.  How dare I think that I ever could.

Running too hard.  My heart might burst.

Being unreasonable. Am I unreasonable?

Sticking my finger inside an air conditioning vent in a car.  I don't know if there's a fan in there.  I don't know if it'll take my finger off.

Getting people's hopes up.

Letting people down.

Fish.

Bees.

Being a teacher.

My laugh.

Wearing bad clothes.

Holding her hand too hard.  I might cut off circulation.  She might get mad.

My brother disapproving of what I do.

Heaven because it sounds awful doing the same thing for the rest of forever.

Finding out I've been gay this whole time.

Cracking my fingers.

Being a parent.

Whales.

Final exams.

Paranormal Activity 4.

Singing on cue.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Eating insects.

Whales.

Silence.

The open ocean.

Whales.

Whales.

Seconds go by in tender bliss
We smell roses and stain our hands with
crushed petals.
Declarations of life long rumination
live between the distance in our
exchanged affirmations.
Happiness opens its undisguised embrace
As the silence between our spoken words
fills the gaps of our stuttered promises.

My limbs are gushing while I walk
down towards the seaside pier,
these endings and these beginnings
ascending again into mere cycles,
the rising and falling chest,
beating heart,
transcending

I walk
hand in hand with you, restated love,
the new and the old clothes we wear
wrapped around our breathless poses
our heads filled with thoughts
of rose ridden gardens, and of course
children dancing, playing games between
our spacious Pohutakawa branches
where you first taught me about romantics
without that rudimentary triteness
and you sitting, coffee in hand at the picnic table
swearing revolution is never possible
to I dancing, remarking
“you are such the cynic”
before grabbing you and twirling you
faster than the earth rotates

As we drift closer to the sea
the inconstant wind winds the clock to 10pm,
the minutes restoring those now withered days
of woollen coats, new music and Dunedin
I would stand behind you while you played the flute
thinking of that time
where we played in the rhododendrons
till dark; folding time folding into
my arms, the sky white and blue
juxtaposed against the trees
darkened spikes explore the sea
what was it? me, me, me,
of course, I see
and I
remember the melody

(lets go under the covers
we can play games in the dark
we could even try adding to
those stars on your ceiling)

so now, again, for a moment, we reappear
in this hour, this walk, this air
stilted, shaking
we resurface,
and soak in the watery soils of previous deluges
become something overwhelming,
something insoluble

here we are, on the Pier
at noon, dazed, defused
by a familiar grip on the fingers
index snug between the ring

“take me to the end”
“but darling,
we are going further than that”

before we jump
we tie our balloon to the pole

and promise to return, on horses
painted silver and brass

Hey, nice to see you here
come with me
lets watch the sunrise
from the beach,
I think I sense a revolution stirring

I come from innocence:
shared VHS tapes,
Disney movies rewound so many times
they got jammed,
late nights spent searching for a lost Elmo doll,
orange Tic Tacs,
bedtime stories by Dr. Seuss
and later, J. R. R. Tolkien,
when Saturday mornings meant
waking up at 6 to watch cartoons,
and sleepovers involved liters of Mountain Dew
and Godfathers pizza.

I come from a magical world
where number 4 Privet Drive is my second address,
Big Brother is always watching,
and sleeping with windows open are invitations for Peter Pan.
A place where Mr. Darcy is my soul mate,
I have two dogs named Old Dan and Little Ann,
to follow a white rabbit is encouraged behavior,
and if you asked me who my hero is
I’d answer with “Sydney Carton.”

I come from opposite sides of the map:
One half includes
Springfield raised grandparents
giving me 20 first cousins,
29 second cousins,
annual family reunions at the lake,
home grown tomatoes,
and alcoholics.
The other half is four thousand miles away and includes
only two cousins,
phone calls every Sunday before two,
and phrases like “Weltrusten” and “Ik hou van jou”
that sound as English as “Good night” and “I love you.”

I come from transformation:
dance recitals where wearing lipstick and hating it
turned into High School
when we all started wearing eyeliner
because it made us look older,
summers soaked in sunlight
are now dampened with summer jobs,
monsters no longer lived under our beds
but in our heads,
clumsy first kisses went further,
romances disappeared
and were replaced with heartbreak
so agonizing
even chocolate couldn’t help,
funerals became imminent,
trophies won at basketball camp- age 7
mean nothing
when you’re told you’re not good enough- age 17.

I come from friendship:**
stupid fights for no reason
always meant brownies the next day,
five dollar Photobooth pictures at the mall,
scary movies we never finished,
sneaking out at three in the morning to swim in the neighbors pool,
and surprise birthday parties
complete with Silly String.
Learning that it’s okay
to let someone see you cry sometimes.
Dumb ideas like wagon racing,
and glow stick fights
that left welts on our arms and legs.
Lord of the Rings movie marathons,
girls night out at Buffalo Wild Wings,
riding bikes down the middle of the highway,
mix CD’s,
Red Mango runs,
words of comfort,
advice,
love,
and seeing the beauty in each other
even when we can’t see it in our self.

Within those walls were crowded halls
with classmates never met.
Tormented now and evermore
with sorrow and regret.

Passersby we remember well
but really never knew,
A feeling of remorse today
for not befriending you.

Pleasant greetings should not have been
so difficult to say,
Immaturity and shyness
somehow got in the way.

Perhaps we should inspire youth -
It’s not a daunting feat -
To greet others with open arms,
no matter whom we meet.

Within those walls were crowded halls
with classmates never met.
Tormented now and evermore
with sorrow and regret.

Those halls and walls are sure to fall,
ramparts will crumble, too,
But maybe we are bound to rise
as we will follow you.

When the final class has ended,
and bricks are never-more,
Perhaps God’s all-gracious grade book
will balance out the score.

In His luminescent classroom,
with bright and lucid view,
I pray that there’s an empty desk
where I may sit by you.

Within those walls were crowded halls
with classmates never met.
Tormented now and evermore
with sorrow and regret.
The poem above was written for our 45th class reunion, for the 1970 class of Forest Hills High School, Sidman, PA
#classmates #high #school #reunions #regrets #sorrow #passingon

Written by
Dave Potchak  67/M/Central PA
— The End —

To it, I've never been.
but I've dreamed of a place where everything
is coated in corn and comfort.
Wished the past had taken me,
can't help but feel it was about my skin.
Cactus candy and cowboy boots.
Zydeco and haunted hotels.
The voodoo Frank sang about in the end.
The horns sound the streets.
Close curtains, be discreet.
Encircle the barest neck,
with colorful beads.
His family reunions
made me realize I'm on my own.
Until I met a prettier soul.
I don't kiss frogs for love.
I forget the ease in slime.
and let the grease define
an unhealthy outlook.
Sip another lime or a sour.
A ginger begs the hour.
Lonely never leaves,
but warmth is a soco shower.

Forgetting is the only clarity.*

It was a day of forgetting.
No unquiet dreams or
casual reunions with the dead
who wander the halls of sleep,
the bodies of someone else’s loss.
No ghosts in the gazebo.
No echoes in the fading light.

Exiting sleep’s empty waiting room,
She woke. Blue sky blinked into her eyes.  
The room’s climate began to clear.
There was writing on the wall.
Old fragments came to closure.
The windows slowly turned to mirrors.

She fiddled. She soared.  
She played with her ancestors’ building blocks.
She lent a myth to god.
She stood in a garden with five black stones.
She foretold an eclipse,
Burned the witch of winter,
Stepped in the same river twice.

The moment froze.
Then there it was.
The compound inviolate paradox
at the heart of things,
the answer flickering in light and shade,
to the sound of a child’s voice,
then the roaring wind.
She chuckled as it faded to a point of light
then vanished, like the picture on an old TV,
Like the moon shrinking into the alarm clock’s face.

Her breath brewed clouds above her forehead.
She sat aloof in the empty air,
Alone in the immense morning,
At rest in this inviolable disconnection,
the clear cold innocence of now.

[page 1] And it was soon after, that the weekend had ended, and I drove home, only-sort-of-alone. Unclean, happy, not the type-to-convert. I don't mean to end the evening by evening the score. "Better than no one," but beating the billboard, and the broad-side-of-the-barn, and the *****. 

You stole from my sewn lips the secret sentiments, which would scare you. You would have been more than welcome to have just asked. Which is probably why I didn't just ask, after, I mean, [redacted line] I hope someday you see this, hope they read it to you, over me, cold. I want you to know that I am a *******-great-friend. I'm there on those days that you don't 
[page 2] pretend. But I have faith (I have no evidence for faith's power, just a lot-of-it). There'll be space, here, for you, in the end. 

I'll look at you, last night, like I looked to enable. With two-eyes, and no movement, your addiction poking at poisonous salvation. You caught the wordless-stick, so, and subsequently set fire to yourself. This sharing of cigarettes was seen by the Absent-Folk. Jarring, I gathered. "At least," I had thought. 

At least, at that point, he, stood-up, stumbled away. "*******." Am I sure? No? "No." Neither bad blood, nor enough time-spent-forgetting my bleeding, my beaurocracy, or your backpacking abroad. I mumble, and I'm bumbling now, but before... I bet... that boy's been broken. And his riled-up "Ryan!" rang my [page 3] soul. My ever-loving soul! My non-existent, unconvincing, numbed-and-listless, inner-business! And on the porch, in the mourning, I wished him, dishonest, and shaved off his ***** hair. 

And on that porch, 'round 9 A.M., the band was packing up. Personally? "People-watchin'." Probably should check that they're actually... even... there. Probably should hear the percussionist explain rhythm, again. I can't tell if it's in seven-eight or three-four. I'll scoop up all your passion, as it spills out through the doors. Not isolated, all-four! Volume-set. Vicariously, sailing very... south (towards New Orleans, again) leaves in the river, collected for the raft, stacked neatly in the Pile. Vitamins, from the Oldest-Living-star, absorbed through skin, and eardrums.

[page 4] Stuck on the surprise of "****-function?" More surprised the ****-function wasn't ******? "No?" Not-even-sort-of. Not even worth it, with most of my words! "Oh, not including you. You let your ears be lopped-off, by my lamenting. You look like a love I could lose to a friend. I enjoy the loss, for a cause, since, if you're always right, you can never be wrong."

And in my acknowledgement
of my ignorance I become
more powerful than I'd ever 
need be poetic.

Not that my mistress numbered amongst my lamentings. Alas, "merely-explaining." 

"Oi, navigate!" Alas, "it's implicit." Therein's your mistake. [page 5] Implicit implies! I'll sooner strip-search a subject for intentions, ulterior motives remaining unmentioned (inspired, I'd reckon, by the pills I shouldn't chew, and the jokes I should stop making). My unfocused inertia interferes with my ability to infer. 

And if you're still here, you're fantastic. And I find you fascinating. And, I found, you were following. My sorries were useless, imagined-kindred-lies. I'm sorry I had to go and "color it pink." But, I'll copy this page down for you, if you'd save it? The buffer'd seemed beautous up'till I blew it. Shouldn't inquire after you, should I? If I'm still thinking on it, should I ink-it-all out? What was your name, after all? 

[page 6] Was it really an accident, "or'd work seem like hell?" [I've been checking out apartments down there myself.] My shell was left-stinking-up the old Durango. But any newly-blazed-trail leads me "back to the 'co." A larger, sturdy, empty, circle-home, with an unidentifiable paint job, and thrusters that are supposedly-designed to fall back towards earth, and incinerate *(CAUTION: FALLING FIRE). *
"I'm pretty sure that verse is... It's just awesome." One of my best? "It's just awesome!" Okay! I'll remember, to remind you, that I've said the ****-I-say, spent, sped, speeding, smoked-out, and smoking-you-up. Spreading myself thin, like Communion-wafers and sticky, like reunions. 
[page 7] Saying you're glad I came, saying you're glad I came, saying you're glad I came. 

Someone snuck up with a secret. I'd seen nothing-not-standard. Even, in your snatching a spider, from my hands, and moving toward mundane mockeries, meandering, and making-my-year with a yawn. Simultaneously, I heard a sharp hiss, as someone had slowly let the air out of innocence. Somehow, rendering me speechless. Well, without respect to the "Whoa!!!" Spit's still not-red-yet. "Skeletal." Said-right. I suppose if I think hard, you'd screamed adjacently. I suppose I've never suggested a co-operative cackling. You're with it, right? You're with it, you're with me, and "you're my people." You're going to have a good time. You should know, I should've too, but attitude's [page 8] a fiction. An answer-tricked, alive, unknown. 

As a species we suffer, from seeing something done, and wanting nothing else. I'm on page eight, and ready, perenially-crushed into next-generation-dirt, but there, nonetheless. 

Well, "either way," even without you, even with her, even-in-spite-of-her, always because of him. "Always loved him, almost-******-her." Wish: I'd kissed Larry, too. Wish: she'd never married you. Wishing-dry, and diamond-winged, cursed voice, bumped up some orange change to the counter, and then off of it. More expensive than I'd have guessed. Self-consumed and best-dressed. Not rushing in, but wondering, about my-time-left. "And if death squashed potential, was it ******, or theft?" Only [page 9] if---I can look, and---wait, I have enough left, yeah, here. "Thanks, I got you back when I get some-of-my-own." Very sweet-air-tonight. "Mad, I missed the show." All good vibes.

[page 10]
Regal lions, turned house-felines,
in the cave, with so-loved-Dan. 
Thank goodness for the better ones. Thank
goodness for my friends. 

Often, only reasons to stand 
up, withholding coughs and stretching.
Even if you can't interpret all my 
fourth-dimension etchings. 
[page 11]
Sought to state the timeline, as
I'm not strung-on-the-plan. 
And, almost, every human, with
a Facebook, has a band.

There'll always be peripheries 
and, people on the side-
lines, and people craving
air-time, and people, deserving that time. 

All-white eyes, fall back, in 
waste-of-times, and
beer-soaked-pasts. For
the amount they seem to 
smile, you would be 
thinking, "this could last."

[page 12]
"Alas," this feels like the end. I feel like I'm leaving them. Slowly. Silently. The Shadow, to whom Paul'd refer, trying to stitch-himself to my town-skipping, sans-sunlight.

Sewn together out of old
flannel memories and work shirts of the past
a network of  veins
plumping generations of
angry blood
We carry traces of mean,
scared people
Terrible things
not fondly remembered
at reunions
And yet are present in the tapestry

But

There are many
kind
compassionate
beautiful souls as well

They are all on your tapestry
Know it
and display it well

People say I'm obsessive, and I wholeheartedly agree. I'd die for a favorite artist, and I reread stories I like until I hate them. I force myself to love every song performed by "my band" (which, incidentally, is Twenty One Pilots), to a point where I'm not entirely sure which of their tunes actually earned their place in my heart.
It brings to mind a modern-Hebrew term, "protektzia". It can be translated as social leverage, or "pull". Protektzia is when you are related to the administrator of an elite high school, or when you're friendly with the secretary of a sought-after doctor. It's as if songs walk up to me and say, "hey, I know I'm not that great, but I was written by so-and-so!"
All that changes when old Depression drops by. Suddenly, things I cared so much for are meaningless. It's like quarreling with a close friend. Although, I don't hate my former faves so much as scorn them, for being silly enough to exist.
Why does depression do this to me? Because depression is the drainage of passion. As a cow needs to be milked and a dripping air-conditioner needs a bucket, what are obsessions if not an outlet for the passion contained in the heart?
But neither are necessary when the cow is dead and the AC off.
Thankfully, depression to me is a mood rather than a condition, and so I host frequent reunions with my beloved idols.
You are all invited!

Corona my hometown it's where I grew up
Still rocking chucks never too old
Listening to metal and the new stuff that grabs my ear
Wear my hats favorite teams doing my favorite thing
Girls want to deny me but that's fine with me
Hang with my friend tell joke poke fun of one another till the end of the day
Use to drink in a pack no one know how to act dumb drunk new lows sunk
Party together didn't matter it was about us nothing less now its over
I think one more night everyone older and aged everything has changed
New times bad time lets do for old time sakes

subway
ed sheeran, especially give me love, our ******* wedding song
black and white photos
england, you wanted to show me everywhere
6"2'
the fault in our stars
always
italian, why did you even feel the need to say ti amo
*****, you were drunk when you said it the second time
5.30am
scars on people's wrists, don't be silly, you said it was an accident
collar bones
tumblr
dreams, the good ones were mine, the bad ones were yours
voice recordings
11.11 wishes, the ones you promised you'd help make come true
the word ****
succulents, like on your windowsill
bastille and cars, you would always sing along in the passenger seat
postcards
airport and train station reunions
all those songs i played just for you on my guitar
my sister's birthday, why did you have to choose that date
you're perfect for me, you swore you weren't a liar
***
the anne frank house, where you were ******* texting me from
february 26th
melbourne's federation square
your name was in a movie and i started to cry

every life is unique and connected


no one understands
all or even
most of
human existence

sometimes you need
encouragement

sometimes god really
does cut you
a break

sometimes idols crack
asking whom do i serve
when i try to create
a little celebrity
out of a soul which is
too precious
to be reduced to numbers
what is a world
whose creatures
hide inside machines
fear of humans
is enough of
a prison
fear of thoughts
they probably aren't even thinking

but who knows
in this world
at least the brothers tell the truth

whom shall i fear and what

control is an illusion
when the tsunami
almost comes
i see we all
must go to
the calling
only

like you taught me
if you're going to believe something
believe it

everyone has to come out
about something, i had
to come out about cannabis

it's true there's two sides to everything
if i judge you
i condemn myself

i don't know
where those tears
have been

rhino pi and i by the fireplace tonight
rhino gives me his soft stripe sweatshirt
purple black white red i say i'll wear it
and think of you all over the world
and bring it back full of
stories and
mice and
fire

i was writing into the abyss
when i was in the abyss,
when the abyss
was me,
no longer

who jesus bless no man curse

born again
into a rhythm of
waves and reggae

hey hey hey
it's you
i've been waiting for

no one remembers the reunions
of those who came before,
what they did or them at all

except the Creator

who transcends lies and clocks
who creates in wisdom acacias and watermelons and whales
who keeps our tears in his bottles

i bow my head at the door of his hut
i stand by the light of his fire
my bread i accept from his hand

At night I hear them
Tiny footsteps
Sneaky little feet running around my head
The creatures they belong to
Biting on my brain cells and
Rummaging around my memories like
They're trinket hunting in a dusty old attic and
Pulling out the most repulsive, musty things they can find,
The things I hid in boxes, embarrassed about,
Old snapshots of a past I’d rather not remember
But they always creep back out of there come family reunions.
These sneaky little creatures that bite on the back of my brain
Cackle over my most mortifying trinkets,
The kind that I try to give away but the thrift stores won’t take them
And I’d be too humiliated to sell them directly
Because that would mean I’d have to share the fact that I had them
When the fact of the matter is that I’m walking in the snow
And trying to cover up my footprints
With an evergreen branch
That does nothing but leave bigger, clearer marks on
The cold white unforgiving ground
And makes the marks more visible
But less obviously mine.
And the sneaky little creatures don’t like this,
Because it’s taking away from the treasures they keep
Up in my attic with the moth-eaten shawls
And dusty old rocking chair stashed in the corner.
They love the old, repulsive musty things
That I don’t want and cannot give away,
And so they make me look them over and over
And shove the hideous things into my face
Dissolving my sense of self as easily as
Salt into water
And gradually changing my taste buds
From honey to brine
As I wonder
Why, why, why
And the sneaky little feet that run around my head
Turn heavy, as if clad in iron boots
And every little trinket that they share
Makes them less and less easy to ignore.

Teach me
the contours
of your
body
and I shall
memorise
them
and find
you again

Morpheus has never been
A kindly lover, nor precious friend
Yet in this stead, he strives to be
Replacement for reality.

Sominiferous ways that heat my blood;
Make my wilting spirits bud
Leave me wanting, never free
There on the cusp of reality.

Like morning mist, not half so pleasant
His remedies are evanescent
From where he lives behind my eyes
And plagues my shattered paradise.

He wears the exquisite carapace
For whom I yearn upon his face
And therein's where my torment lies
From golden skin and forest eyes-

From false reunions, makeshift bliss
From joining eyes and parting lips
Like cannon fire, the sound's refrain
Draw parallels to this cruel pain.

That Grecian Sandman, Morpheus
Lothario, for whom exists
To overchage the soul with hope
So poisonous, I gasp and choke-

Yet bodies, minds, and souls alike
Find inspiration from the strife
And haunted persons, like myself
Endure his falsehoods where we're held.

He haunts the dreamless, lucid world
Upon the cusp, the conscious swirl
His narrowed eyes, his blunted sight
Despise waking world of light.

I lit the candle
with two hydros,
and burned the house
down with a bottle
of whiskey. The next
morning I wandered
through the ashes
looking for shower
invitations and aspirin.

Back in bars, filled
with screaming amps
and glaring ex lovers
I wove my way
in-between old friends
and mating dances,
losing Hemingway
and storm clouds.

I dropped the anchor
in your apartment,
falling mid sentence
into stain ridden furniture
and empty Budweiser bottles.
The only thing I broke
that night, was my determination
on not being a blow up doll
molded after some girl
I was never going to be.

So I laid there kissing
ghosts and shook
with a fever and chills
vibrating like telephones
on silent. And you wondered
where I went once
the door closed.

You can't define cordial as
branding someone
and mailing them back
to a delusional soul falling
in love with them
after. Hot metal
pokers weren't made
for joyous reunions.
They make sure you
always know where
you leave your scars.

I aimlessly drifted in teenage years,
From subtle scion to zaftig plebe.
Seen phony glory, vanquished fears,
And the stench of a wicked glebe.

From below, saw the stars up high,
Igniting horizons with callow wonder.
Beheld colossal beauty with mine inner eye,
Begged for chained thoughts asunder.

Amidst the serene flock to be slain,
Oft' a titan, seldom a vacant savant.
Known sorrow, elation, gain, vain, pain,
This mortal hour, hear joyful lament.

How quick we are to bid farewell,
How slow for friendship to pierce the cloth.
The rhythmic ache of that darkened knell,
The sobbing whimpers for a lover's warmth.

Nix for reciprocated amity, yet!
My seat of affection thrives in twilight.
Herein discipline is adamantly set,
Whence shall this ****** ire take flight?

Into the night that covers my soul,
Unleash that verdant star I see.
The divine abyss have taken its toll,
I pray the shadow is only me.

Note the ease to neglect one's clan,
Yet savored glee of reunions by blood.
Fury cease my elder ties, an infant plan,
By filial ardor, I still kneel in mud.

Star-shine ablaze onto vivid blooms,
Arise the stench of broiling debris.
Beauteous summer-tide metronomes,
The sinking scythe follow gales of peace.

Labor come sweat yield sweet fruition,
Tis annual come the bronze harvest.
Wrongful vengeance seek humble redemption,
Autumn under siege of well-fed zest.

Stormy vista rime graying meadows,
Entrench the sepsis by the ice age.
Taste weeping woe of guilty widows,
Lest their beloved hunger in cage.

Arise young lilac out of barren frosts,
Touch the vital aura to begin anew.
Altruists gladly pay auric costs,
To stalk vile leviathan into dew.

May stones bear indistinct distinction,
So my stride shall stumble and falter.
Peace paint heroes of sluggish fiction,
Chaos rouse prodigies from quiet slumber.

Chapter XVIII
Parapsychological Plot

They were in the parapsychological hypnosis session all undaunted by everything that could happen. The journey of a life through the hidden spaces of past existence was a reality. It all begins in antiquity where Vernarth was hypno transported to meet his inmates and comrades. He proved to be a great defender of libertarian ideals and above all not to betray his formation of great leadership of the greatest empire, with his immeasurable feats of achievement, of this super experience of reunion for a world past to more reunions for having lived and relive them again.

The master director of this great feat, acknowledged never having attended something that is compared to him, it is an unprecedented fact that would mark a new milestone in his specialty and the study of parasychology. The doctor together with his assistants arranged to reevaluate a new systemic therapy policy, in exchange for their own way of life, generating the largest plan of the episode of intercommunicativeness to planes and dimensions of the ancestral memory of the entire created world and those that its beneficiaries have been able to verify.
In the immediate vicinity of the clinical consultation, hundreds of people, curious, journalists and the media gambled. To which one of them asks the doctor:

Journalist: Dear Sir, I would have a coffee ... just when I heard about this great news. We decided to come to his interview. I consult you. What has been the greatest content that has differentiated this from the rest of the procedures that you have carried out, and how will your future method be to reconvert your specialty?

Parapsychologist says:  there are undoubtedly innumerable connections in our life and beyond ...., But now I have found routes that I did not think I was capable of knowing at this point. And I think that now they will be more than I could count in my entire active professional life.

At that moment, his assistant called him urgently to tell him that an emergency had arisen. They both rush in and enter the cabin. And they manage to perceive that Vernarth was with the clothes on a sofa from the time of the exploits of 331 a. C. requested that they excuse him for his demands and needs, but he had a lot to propose and deliver to his comrades who were in Bumodos. Considering his beloved wife, Walekiria, who was as always preparing elixirs and essences for the restoration of the recipe for his chest and limbs. He had an urge to improve this whole process before the next Ekadashi, to enlist with new stages of his worksheet. Surely he should return to Patmos to take over the pantry and library of Saint John the Evangelist. He had to restore local buildings, house rooms, temples, regional development works, and regional art. Another elementary task was to take care of agriculture, and obey Hera's designs, for the next millennia to re-awaken from the cultures that survive on themselves. “Another of their great passionate obligations was to ride through Macedonia for the sunrises that run through the grasslands of grass and the swarm of hieratic insects, when the Oracle of Dodona made them polish their germinated seeds in the arms of dawn turned into Fireflies. He flew with his horse, appearing to be acclaimed from all over the world for his “Liturgical Conclave”. To surrender in its entirety to the pazos  of time on their Alikanto, beyond all the Eras and Millennia incapable of evading the disgraced ways by consolidating a new firmament. ”
Countless times Vernarth and Alikanto are seen crashing into the gleaming valleys and shores, encapsulated in the fields with the golden hooves of their steed, ushering in a new rebirth of their adventures, which are more than the same as God would entrust to a individual anxious to reissue Genesis or a new collaborative proposal with the Evangelist in Patmos.

Parapsychological Session resumes:
Vernarth, wake up. And she comments to those who accompanied her. ” I thought that as a child playing with weapons was only entertainment. Today I have realized that this never ends. Now I know that they are waiting for me in Patmos”. He quickly says goodbye to everyone and the rest remain undaunted by such a decision. Vernarth continues; I'm leaving with Raeder and his pelican Petrobus. Alikantus is also grazing for this long journey. Even every time he takes me away, he gets an allergy in his nose that makes him lose his nose. But my magic steed laughs at the ridicule and the decline of all doubts imposed on it. From Gaugamela who has had intermittences with his nose, but we will arrive at Patmos. The afternoon is darkening and is tinged with predominant whitish-white colors; Raeder arrived, entering through the large gentle window. They were preparing to begin the journey.

Vernarth greets him with a gesture of courtesy to Raeder, who offered to leave running from the new exile, it would be one more contingency. From that moment, he stood in front of Petrobus. Telling you; The Great Hour is undefeated in the face of the setback, it will be a great amenity to be with it.
Petrobus says: Greetings my lord! With my master Raeder we have been attentive to this moment, to overcome the best wishes of taking him to the Dodecanese and then from there to the Grotto of Patmos.  Where well known will be welcome in the house of the Evangelist. The time has come to leave ...!

“At that moment, Vernarth remembers an animal that was in a forest when he went to collect species as a child. He lunged at the animal; Vernarth looked at him squarely, then left. The animal followed him walking for several hours, until suddenly he looked to the side and was gone. He still misses this entire magical continuous event and with this cycled image of the animal kingdom. When he was preparing to arrive at his palace almost at night, he appears again before him, the animal showing him the desire to accompany him. Vernarth  looks at him and they start running, each time imposing more speed on the go. Vernarth screamed with contagious laughter and happiness. While his companion fired circulating cries that were confused with soft longings to address him by the middle ear and rule him. But beyond there, they both laughed almost turning and merging two into oneself, festively eager to laugh at the secretion that every man fills his soul, have another similar competing in a race without knowing where to go ... or why to leave? . "

React from that moment; Petrobus was blowing the room with strong and swirling winds. Raeder takes Petrobus by his golden feet and prepares for the journey.
Raeder says: Vernarth await us! We have to suspend ourselves at the dawn that glides through the winds of the wheat fields of the Dodecanseso. Petrobus will go near the iris of the great atmospheres, and will be supported by the great masses of winds that will take us to Greece. We intuit that Kanti, will then pass to escort us and join our events beyond the bend where the guidelines collide where the sea and the sky end, where Zeus will give us the good things.
  
Parasicological ellipsis in Piacenza:
Piacenza, Italy in 1887. It was right here where all the parapsychological regression was carried out. In the two-story house, he had two feline pets; Rannura and Catutto and three Tupac dogs, and three Canela and Bianca females, followed by Mara. These mysterious and resilient cats, at night they used to scare their inhabitants changing the tone of their meows by those of large beasts. But generally they were seen sleeping in their bedroom, one of them looked at them from the closet and pondered a compliment. The other was quiet near the feet of some of the two from Vernarth or Walekiria.

Its dwelling It is located in the padana plain at an altitude of 61 meters above sea level, on the south bank of the Po when the bushes change in autumn to the average of adult trees and the Trebia river meets in the west and the Nure torrent in the east from the city. She was always going to trek a few kilometers south, close to the slopes of the Piacenza hills, the first propagations of the Ligurian Apennines. Here they all passed through together, in such a way that there was no time to clean up or calm down in trifles. It was all playful diplomacy. Even when they rested, the pets teased him to continue with the ritual of running and running in circles through the groves, some flowery for ***, yellow lantanas, ornamental citrus etc. And why not name Pyramid Cypress or cemeteries...

Here his brother Etréstles always came in the spring with Drestnia from Messolonghi, Greece. Lía, the Muse who loved them both when they attended the Tuscan festival, usually came to visit him. Where he met Maddalena Tressi,  her greatest fortune teller of her regressive ancestral journeys, great inspirer of her artistic, religious and secular works at a great spring carnival. Whose name derives from the one used by Greeks and Latins to designate the lands occupied by the Etruscans, a territory of fertile plains surrounded by the main mountain ranges. The Tuscan landscape is characterized by the undulations that form the hills invaded by vineyards, olive trees and cypresses, especially in the footsteps of the Troncosada, which were and will be reunions of Italian families, of which there is no support or limestone that remains intact to its omnipresence.

In 790, a capitular of the Carolingian king of Italy, Pipino, in whom he acted on behalf of his father Charlemagne, prohibited the citizens of Piacenza by deliberately granting citizenship to those who depended on the king, thus allowing someone to escape control of this. The prohibition prevented escape from royal power. The city became famous on May 10, 1847 when the annexation to Piedmont took place, which started the long process of the Unification of Italy, which culminated in 1870 with the incorporation of the Papal States. Vernarth undoubtedly before closing the door inside his house opened it for a well-deserved new constitution of the right to acquire.

From here he went on great excursions to the Island of Sardinia in the autumn, where they lived from 1874 to 1877. Sailing trips were true insignia that shone through the waters of the green Celestine Sea. In an emerald sea between large and small coves of white sand ... on the celestial map of Sardinia, great syllogistic light of the Mediterranean for only them, with a territory full of galleries and bookstores, mainly mountainous for their walks and a half barefoot in summer, and with high chamber music peaks. The presence of Vernarth and Etréstles, attracted a lot of attention here, because they were seen every 50 or a hundred years, always seeing that their environment appeared the same, but humanly different. Sometimes in this territory, there are large areas that remain magically intact, inhabited by deer, wild horses and birds of prey, rich in forests with ancient trees, ponds and small desert areas where they both rose, to dissipate the sea that reigns with its colors and it is insinuated in the hidden coves, along the coast and on the beaches in the most frequented towns. The Emerald Coast, on account of impatient dreams in a little gem such as Porto Cervo, Porto Vecchio and Porto Rotondo, the latter facing the Gulf of Cugnana.

Great commotion attributed their curiosity to them as they were older, and where every millennium to be inaugurated they went to the nuragic complexes scattered throughout the territory: Unique monuments in the world that serve as testimony to an ancient and mysterious culture, dating from the fifteenth century to VI BC The nuraga, built with large stone blocks, were developed around a central tower in the shape of a cone trunk, which transmits solidity and power. These are archaeological sites where signs of ancient rituals and domestic life can still be found today.

In this algebraic cradle, it is where his Liturgy will connect linearly with Patmos and evangelization methodologies. All the seasons of travel to this mysterious area, he summoned them to meet and plot the 1,020 km. Where no thread of life is left unpatched without their repeated prayers before each glass of wine served, not even in the darkness of the Mausoleums themselves of the Troncosada, noble family originally from Venezia, in the early middle Ages.


Ellipsis in Tuscany, Villa Gamberaia
Vernarth, and Etréstles and Valekiara, are approaching the coincidence of Tuscany. Once they stayed in Sardinia, a coastal sailboat transported them in the middle of a stormy day. It was a great happy day to arrive in La Spezia.

They arrived, in a bright cart devastated by the olive trees, near the Villa Gamberaia, after eating some bacon and cheese sandwiches. This villa was originally a country house, which was owned by Matteo Gamberelli, a bricklayer, in the early 15th century. His sons Juan and Bernardo became famous architects by the name of Rossellino. After Bernardo's son sold Jacopo Riccialbani in 1597, the house was greatly enlarged, then almost completely rebuilt by the next owner, Zenobi Lapi, documents from the time mention a limonaia and the landscaped bowling alley that is part of the garden in today's design. Here they parked and at night they followed the Liturgy, highlighting those that coincided with Lent of Easter, where one day they were seen talking with Petrarch and Laura de Noves. Here Vernarth with them offering the modest auction that without a doubt would bet one day on this Villa of immemorial centuries with great challenge to its ruse, and of such architecture.

“A little more history…, The flower bed was presented with French-cut broderies in the 18th century, as can be seen in a detailed map of the estate described by Georgina Masson. The olive trees have always occupied the slopes below the garden, It has a distant view of the roofs and towers of Florence. The monumental fountain set on a steep hill on a side flank of the garden terrace has a seated god flanked by lions in stucco relief in a niche decorated with pebble mosaics and padded masonry. ” Here at the Verbena of a long feast day, everyone together with Vernarth got drunk with Corinthian Wine, which they brought and did not stop from the swing of the rhythm of the music that made them foresee their multi existence beyond their limitless sensibilities.

The parapsychological plot took them through multiple spaces of their frantic journey, as if they were being recently procreated by their heavenly and earthly parents, before they resumed the end with Kanti, Reader and their pelican Petrobus. This outcome would mark a new path of valleys on valleys, to shelter and fill their memories, especially their great navigation to the Dodecanese and Patmos, so close and intertwined with Sardinia as two islands united by the same new ocean in which we will have to navigate, and domains to ride shipped around the world.

To be continued , under eition

I know I shouldn’t be
Digging up graves
Unlocking tombs
So I can listen to
Your breath

I know I shouldn’t be
Picturing you
That way that I did
Moonlight pouring through windows
Onto perfect dark skin
One of many reunions
And so many unions between
Timid lips
Our alliance was strong
But never quite steady

Two years later I’ve got that steady
Got that “hey honey you’re home and dinner’s ready”
Two years later I’m a liar
lying in bed
My ****** fan is loud
He is breathing
sleeping
but all I hear are raindrops
from summer afternoons where we collided again
The shhh
Your lips made
Trying to keep quiet in that closet at your dads place
I can’t decide if it’s my youth
Or you that I miss
If it’s
Your smile
When your kid sister beat me at video games
Or the perfect simplicity
Of living like kids

It is as if I thought I knew where this life I've lived was leading to, but though I see I am blind to the things there are that I should find
and each door that I go through leads me to a new tomorrow and I know tomorrow never comes,it's just another day.
There's no way that I could be as calm or raging as the deep blue sea,each tiny breath another death leads me to a place where I'll be free,and the lines wrote on your face, I have read a thousand times or more,another door,another way and we're living for today.
In the compartments of my heart there is one where love has found a part to play, won't you stay,make your home inside of me,each tiny breath another death and one day I know I shall be free,
shall we go
shall we stay
for another day.

We're all dramatic goodbyes and tearful reunions.
It's like something from a movie.
My heart has been broken by the miles between us,
my mind and body abused.

I wish I wasn't the way I am.
I wish I could turn things the right way up.

2 years of separation
leads to reunions & dissections
of the shared heart we once betrayed
split symmetric down the chamber veins
& drained into a vacant maze
of muscle-coated misdirection:
from a gory war of self-destruction
to a boring morning-long discussion
on the proper functions of affection,
a lecture on the subtle pressure
of stitching missing years together.

so we descended through the memories
of manipulation tendencies
& our blended lungs breathed in relief
at our splendid self-discovery:
you're a different you & i'm no longer me;
thick skin grafts & habit transplants
transformed us to an image abstract
from a former siamese attachment,
our blurry split from commitment
carried independence infinite
& we soared more weightless through the clouds
with our orphaned organs on the ground