checking potent aftershock
observing seismic anniversary
checking another tremor
resuming constrained writing

annexing hidebound constituents
hugging incoming eschatologies
fighting pervasive insomnia
battling invasive fatigue

damning incompetent fools
awaiting furtive escape
abandoning corporate wasteland
summoning celestial syzygy

detesting spaghetti code
protruding riparian dolphin
establishing unilinear escritoire
glowing cybernetic cynosure

avoiding eternal invisibility
supporting valued customer
performing lexical gymnastics
scrooping notification sounds

restoring usual happiness
glorifying darkwave fanfares
collapsing old relationships
raising ambient awareness

defining wolf people
propagating yesteryear's spectre
achieving hemispheric virality
testing weekend legerity
installing iron curtain

propagating today's spectre

developing niche audiences
transmitting abstract propaganda
disappearing thought experiments
overusing various condiments

double-checking hyper-real emotions
rubbernecking celestial explosions
observing splendid holiday
exploding volcano day

erupting bucolic mountain
disrupting hectic shouting
perfecting suggestive triptychs
checking festive pyrotechnics

drifting across multiverse
regifting glossy paperwork
writing six-lined hexagrams
liking two-toned instagrams

recalling pygmalion sculptures
brawling tatterdemalion cultures
"rambling corporate shill
rattling rapid prosody"
"battling hamburger hill
ambling hundredth library"
"sensing ideological schism
pending guttural neologism"

glowing verdant background
foreshadowing palmyra takedown
developing geopolitical mess
geminating quasi-couplet stress

"hugging cultural diversity
shrugging irrational adversity"

distancing spooky raindrops
avoiding potential burnout
implementing lexical databank
approaching crash-scene sudser

becoming increasingly selective
escaping tyrannical bureaucracy
perpetuating cut-throat capitalism
purchasing contrived happiness
incorporating chance elements
relaxing rigid structures
reheating your retweet

holding theoretical design
smiling beach life
scrutinizing eternal simulation
rushing artificial apothegm
annexing facetious document
freaking creepy centipedes

writing neural structure
congratulating yestreen's warriors
encouraging seatbelt usage
boosting abstract setting
sensing frivolous ochlocracy

keeping hypothetical metropolis
blurring metaphorical æsthetic
scrutinizing computational festival
memorializing towel day

raising six-fingered paw
eternizing fragment schedule
liking subtextual repository
quoting quintessential quidnunc

finding ideological style
disregarding their slovenliness
planning spatial factoid
spinning glacial ellipsoids

enjoying eternal spreadsheet
deleting repetitive tweet
awaiting festival lineup
gainsaying unethical startups

observing turgid experiment
contemplating conniving contrivances
enjoying dynamic project
dropping two-toned simulation
finding harmonic space
finalizing warring cavaliers

detecting enigmatic apathy
retrieving potential exchange
meddling middling muddling
baking hypnagogic pizza

spinning galactic dinosaur
building trans-pacific partnership
finishing theoretical mission
giggling agog googlers

crashing atypical tessellation
cherishing precious hexagons
proliferating western lottery
cretaceousing funkaholic skeletor

blurring turgid gallery
cancelling tsunami warnings
extemporizing incoherent neologisms
transmitting harmonic rave

gliding black hawks
hiding quacked ducks
archiving animated light
googling moonbow imagery

ignoring relatable messages
observing unfinished world
generating optional content
continuing exponential growth

1.

From our
safe windows,
we crane our necks,
rubbernecking
past the slow
motion wreckage
unfolding in Homs.

We remain
perfectly
perched
to marvel at
the elegant arc of
a mortar shell
framing tomorrows
deep horizon,
whistling through
the twilight to
find its fruitful
mark.

In the now
we keep
complicit time,
to the arrest
of beating hearts,
snapping fingers
to the pop
of rifle cracks,
swooning to
the delicious
intoxication of
curling smoke
lofting ever
upward;
yet
thankfully
remain
distant
enough to
recuse any
possibility
of an
intimate
nexus
with the
besieged.

2.

From our
safe windows,
we behold the
urgent arrivals of
The Friends of Syria
demanding
clean sheets
and 4 Star
room service at a
Tunisian Palace
recently cleaned
and under new
management
promising a
much needed
refurbishment.

The gathered,
a clique of
this epochs
movers and shakers,
a veritable
rouges gallery of
ambassadorial
prelates, Emirs and
state department
bureaucrats
summoned
with portfolio
from the
darkest corners
of the globe.

They are
eager to
sanctify
the misery
of Homs,
deflect and
lay blame
with realpolitik
rationalizations,
commencing
official commissions
of inquiry,
deliberating
grave considerations,
issuing indictments
of formal charges for
Crimes Against
Humanity
while
remaining
urgently
engrossed
in the fascination
of interviewing
potential
process servers
to deliver the bad news
to Bashar al-Assad
and his soulless
Baathist
confederates,
if papers
are to be
served.

Yes, the diplomats
are busy meeting
in closed rooms.

In hushed circles
they whisper
into aroused ears,
railing against
Russia’s
gun running
intransigence
and China’s
geopolitical
chess moves.

Statesmen
boast of the
intrepid justice
of tipping points
and the moving poetry
of self serving tales,
weighing the impact
of stern sanctions
amidst the historical
confusion of the
asymmetrical
symmetries
of civil war.

Caravans
of Arab League
envoys roll up
in silver Bentleys,
crossing deserts
of contradictory
obfuscations,
navigating the
endless dunes
with hand held
sextants of
hidden agendas.

The heroic
Bedouins are
eager to offload
their baggage
and share
on the ground
intelligence from
their recent soirées
across Syria.

They beg
a quick fix,
the triage of a
critical catharsis
to bleed their
brains dry
of heinous
recollections,
pleading
release from a
troubled conscience
victimized by
the unnerving paradox
of reconciling
discoveries of
perverse voyeurism
with the sanctioned
explanations
of their respective
ruling elites.

The bellies
of these
scopophiliacs
are distended;
grown queasy
from a steady diet
of malfeasance
an ulcerated
world parades
in continuous loop;
spewing the raw feeds
of real time misery;
forcibly fed
the grim
visions of
frantic
fathers
rushing
the mangled
carcases
of mortally
wounded
children
to crumpled
piles of smashed
concrete that were
once hospitals.

We despondently
ask how
much longer
must we
look into
the eyes
of starving
children
emaciated from
the wanton
indifference
of the world?


3.

From our
safe windows
we wonder
how much
longer can
the urgent
burning
ambivalence
continue
before it
consumes
our common
humanity in
a final
conflagration?

My hair already
singed by the
endless firestorms
sweeping the prairies
of the world.

How can we survive
the trampling hoards,
the marauding
plagues of acrimony
fed by a voracious
blood lust aspiring to
victimize the people
of Homs and a
thousand cities
like it?


4.

From my safe
window I stand in witness
to the state execution of
refugees fleeing the
living nightmare
of Baba Amr.

The ****** of innocents,
today's newly minted martyrs,
women and children
cornered, trapped
on treacherous roads,
mercilessly
slaughtered and
defiled in death
to mark the lesson
of a ruthless master
enthralled with the
power of his
sadistic fascist
lordship.

I cannot avert my eyes
marking sights
of pleading women
begging for the
lives of their children
in exchange for
the gratification
of a sadists
lust.

My heart
is impaled
on the sharp
spear of
outrage
beholding
careening
children mowed
down with the
serrated blades
protruding
from marauding
jeeps of laughing
soldiers.

I drop
to my knees
in lakes of
tears
reflecting
a grotesque
horror stricken
image of myself.

My eyes have
murdered my soul.

The ghastly images
of Homs have chased
away my Holy Ghost
to the safety of a child's
sandbox hidden away
in a long forgotten
revered memory.


5.

From my safe window
I seethe with anger
demanding vengeance,
debating how to rise
to meet the obscenity of
the Butcher of Damascus.

The sword of Damocles
dangles so tantalizingly close
to this tyrants throat.  

The covered women
of Homs scream prayers
“may Allah bring Bashar to ruin”

Dare I pray
that Allah trip the
horsehair trigger
that holds the
sword at bay?

Do I pick up
the sword
a wield it
as an
avenging
angel?

Am I the
John Brown
of our time?

Do I organize
a Lincoln Brigade
and join the growing
leagues of jihadists
amassing at the
Gates of Damascus?

Will my righteous
indignation fit well
in a confederacy
with Hamas and
al-Qaeda as my
comrades in arms?

Do I succumb to
the passion of hate
and become just
another murderous
partisan, or do I
commend the power
of love and marshal
truth to speak with
the force of
satyagraha?

I lift a fervent prayer
to claim the justice
of Allah’s ear,
“may the knowing one
lift the veil of foolishness
that covers my heart in
cloaks of resent, cure
my blindness that ignores
my raging disease of
plausible deniability
ravaging the body politic
of humanity.”

6.

Indeed,
physician heal thyself.

I run to embrace my
illness.

I pine to understand it.

I undertake the
difficult regimen
of a cure to eradicate
the terrible affliction.

This
pernicious
plague,
subverting
the notion
of a shared
humanness
is a cunning
sedition that
undermines
the unity of
the holy spirit.  

The bell from
the toppled steeples
still tolls, echoing
across the space of
continents and eons
of temporal time.

The faithful chimes
gently chides us
to remove the wedge
of perception that
separates, divides
and undermines.

Time has come
to liberally
apply the balm
that salves the
open wounds
so common to
our common
human condition.

The power of prayer
is the joining of hands
with others racked
with the common
affliction of humanness.

Allah,  
My eyes are wide open,
my sacred heart revealed,
my sleeves are rolled up,
my memory is stocked,
my soul filled with resolve,
my hand is lifted
extended to all
brothers and sisters.
Lift us,
gather us
into one
loving embrace.

Selah


7.

From the safe
windows of
our palaces
we live within
earshot of
the trilling
zaghroutas
of exasperation
flowing from
the besieged
city smouldering
under Bashar’s
symphony of terror.

Our nostrils
fill with the
acrid plumes
of unrequited
lamentations
lifting from the
the burning
destruction
of shelled
buildings.

Our eyes spark
from the night
tracers
of sleeking
snipers
flitting along
the city’s
rooftops.

The deadly jinn
indiscriminately
inject the
paralysis of
random fear
into the veins
of the city
with each
skillful
head shot.

These
ghoulish
assassins
lavish in their
macabre work;
like vultures
they eagerly
feast on the
corpses of their ****,
the stench of bloated
bodies drying in the
sun is the perfume
that fills their nostrils.


8.

From our
safe window
we discern the
silhouettes of militants
still boldly standing
amidst the
mounting rubble of an
unbowed Homs
shouting;

Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!

raising pumped fists,
singing songs
of resistance,
dancing to
the revelation of
freedom,
refusing to
be coward by
the slashing
whips of a
butchers
terrible
sword.


9.

From my
safe window
my tongue laps
the pap
of infants
suckling from
the depleted
teats of mothers
who cannot cry
for their dying
children;
tears fail
to well from
the exhaustion
of dehydrated
pools.

10.

From my
safe window
my heart stirs
to the muezzin
calling the
desperate faithful
from the toppled
rubble of dashed
minarets.

We can
no longer
shut our ears
to the adhan
of screams
the silent
voices that echo
the blatant injustice
of a people under siege.


11.

From my
safe window,
I pay
Homage to Homs
and call brothers
and sisters to rise
with vigilant
insistence
that hostilities
cease and
humanity be
upheld,
respected and
protected.


12.

From my safe
window
I perceive
the zagroutas
of sorrow
manifest as a
whiling hum,
a sweeping
blue mist,
levitating
the coffins
from the rubble
of ravaged streets.

The swirling
chorus of
mourning
joins my
desperate
prayers;
rising in
concert
with the
black billows
of smoke
dancing
away
from the
flaming
embers
of scorched
neighborhoods.


13.

From my
safe window
I heed
the fluttering
wings
of avenging
angels
furiously
batting
as they
climb
the black
plumes,
lifting from
the scattered bricks
of the desecrated
city.

It is the
Jacob’s
Ladder
for our
time;
marking
a new
consecrated
place
where
a New Adam
is destined
to be formed
from the
pulverized
stones of
desolation.

14.

From our
safe windows
we peer into
resplendent
mirrors
beholding
the perfect image of
ourselves
eying
falling tears
dripping blood,
coloring death
onto the
blanched sheets
of disheveled beds.


15.

From our
safe windows
our voices are silenced,
our words mock urgency
our thoughts betray comprehension
our senses fail to illicit empathy
our action is the only worthy prayer


16.

From my
safe window
I hear the
mortar shells
walking toward
my little palace,
the crack
of a ******
shot
precedes
the wiz of a
passing bullet
whispering
its presence
into my
waxen
ear.


17.

From my
safe window,
my palms scoop
the rich soil
of the flower boxes
perched on my sill.
I anoint the tender
green shoots of  the
Arab Spring
with an incessant flow
of bittersweet tears.

Music selection:
John Coltrane
A Love Supreme
Acknowledgment

Oakland
2/28/12
jbm

Commuters crane necks to see the car crash
Paying the wrong
Attention

Tighten your braces with yellows,
UV lights in police cars,
your high socks and new crewnecks,
steep all your worries in the cellar air.
The kitchen crew necks you,
steps over your extra vertebrae on the floor.
Exchange Red Sox caps and collaged cards for
iron oxides and spare joints,
an apology gift for the knees of a Titan.

Gilt neckties and stockings
hard hits over first base,
infrared silhouettes waving goodbye
slip on the steep porch stairs.
Your personal marching bands
sleep in shopping carts.
Your postcards lost in the Andes
written in purple pen --
everything’s smells like guilt.

Harts stagger behind
stags that hope to tiptoe around your toes,
scouting the suites in South America.
Back roads hastily swept under dining room chairs.
Necklaces of burned out light bulbs,
players sock the suited callers.
My bird house is empty.
Your world map is crumpled,
stuffed into the left ventricle of my heart.

Knaps of your wrist bones
fill the endnotes of my biography.
Bottlenecked bus loops and
windsocks left deflated in broom closets.
Your left hand in my kitchen sink,
catches my pressed shirts,
your clothesline melts into the sidewalk like lightning.
Bracelets on marble sculptures.
After you, I need a nap.

Littoral instructions spelled out in sand dollars.
Purple sunflower seeds caught in my turtleneck,
ghosts of eyelashes begin
to whisper wishes,
sockets for wrenches and ankles.
Blue hair braces for the midnight smiles,
the low tide of flowers,
the daily newspaper full of ocean currents,
your lips were too literal.

Lumbar dimples and goose bumps,
the rubbernecking waiter waited for the lights
rubbing his eyes.
Your playful dialogue
makes my plate shake.
Your safety is never on,
eyebrows marking my fifth disappointment.
I usually hate piano solos,
your voice is unstable, charred lumber.

Mince the pages of the dictionary
to make kindling for your irises.
Necklines defined as jade stamps
at the bottoms of the Chinese paintings
above last year’s birthday card.
Connect the dots to see the ruins of Rome,
your arms after the final battle,
crude stitches on undone sweaters.
Your pockets still full of dinner mints.

Canvass the imprint on the inside of
your leg from where the stitching folds over,
your jeans, unwashed in my laundry hamper.
Still overflows from knee socks and potted plants.
Microwaves compressed into my glass of water
the high tide seashells in your pantry facing
your ego in mason jars on shelves.
You’re tired of white board marker promises,
your skin a poorly cleaned canvas.

the sky over i-95 is violet, the color of the deepest bruise
like the one you actually remember getting, that eclipsed
all the little gray-green ones from
tripping over belgian blocks, and mismeasuring the distance
to the doorframe.
the sky over i-95 cannot hold water very long
and soon it doesn’t.

you look out the new-car window
silent windshield wipers and you remember
the other times it’s rained on your occasion
(with stinging peroxide sometimes, and
sometimes gasoline, when you had a match
in the glovebox,
but mostly water).

you never stopped liking the way the big trees swayed
in the not-quite-hurricane
or the deafening of the drops on the car’s aluminum backbone.
you used to trust they’d never fall, they’d never flood
the crashes you passed rubbernecking were never fatal
traffic would always clear
you’d never be late.

as you watch the oversized leaves support the waterweight today
you think how every bit of that is gone from you now
siphoned slowly and quietly but
unmistakably gone from you now
you think in matter-of-fact sentences because you are a grown-up:
“I do not trust the trees. I do not trust the raindrops.”

quieter you think
“I do not trust the future. I do not trust an empty building.
I do not trust the movie theater. I do not trust the ocean,
or the river. I do not trust water
when I can’t see the bottom.”

you get a little philosophical as you get hungry and the exit numbers get high
“I do not trust the highway. I do not trust me. I do not trust the curtains
to keep me safe when I sleep, and I do not trust waking to bring me morning.”

you think in matter-of-fact sentences because you are a grown-up,
but also because that’s how the thoughts come.
there’s something that you do trust
that’s enough to warm you as this unseasonable may
comes to a close.
you never stopped liking the way the big trees swayed
and you think how they might fall
but they haven’t yet.
you think how it’s kind of okay not to trust them:
you trust something else.

                                                   (pain is lucrative.
                                                   so is smiling.)

                 a female cardinal perches outside the window of
                 the room, just as you arrive to leave again
                 and you think how she's just as pretty as the
                 candy-apple-red male, though she's dark against the tree trunk

and when you’re back to celebrate the years since leaving
you might even trust that tree trunk
and the girlcardinal you have to squint to see

                                                   you might also trust morning, then,
                                                   and night.

meantime, the sky lightens:
sundrops while the rain comes loudly still.

For more information, including the origin of Honku, please visit the official website:
www.honku.org



Clogging traffic flow
twin, brake riders in the lane,
they're really a pain.



America's love -
Unsupervised car racing
on our new highways.



Rubbernecking state:
Welcome to Connecticut,
spend more time on road.



Suggestion only?
Painted lines are optional
for lane straddlers.



Forget the roadkill!
Rubberneckers demonstrate...
Lust for dead bodies.

I get so lost some days
I feel like I am rubbernecking lightning
Just waiting for the flash

And life is a Nissan brake-checking your awe

People say you can tell how close the storm is
By counting seconds between lightning and thunder
If you can see it
It is always close enough

I don't mean to romanticize everything
But it's what I do

The clouds look like scabs
In front of some bolts
Before they mesh back into the smooth blackness

I wish I healed that fast

I follow the slow funeralistic parade
Too late to escape, warning came
On the radio, way past my last exit
I wonder who has died today?
Cars pass what were once shiny projectiles
Such as they, but are now soulless wrecks
Burnt out, like X-rays.


Who fell asleep at the wheel
Or made that last telephone call
That just couldn’t wait, while
Still chasing time in the fast lane,
To catch up with a schedule that now
Is as redundant as the chunk of metal
He was still trying to pay for.


Flashing lights mark the perimeter
Of some executive’s last stand
An accident? Perhaps, but maybe
Life just became that bit too quick
And caught up with him
An overdose of technology, leading to
A breakdown in human capacity.


We, the survivors, look on with grief
That could’ve been me! But not
Thankfully today, speeding on our way
Soon forgetting the graphic lesson
Someone gave their all to paint
But we have to look, just to see
If anyone has really died today.

My hobbies are stargazing and daydreaming.
I’m nothing but a chirpy, cheerful chum.
At times, you’ll find me – like a preacher – scheming,
Thinking of ways to make my kingdom come.

You’re free to think I’m careless, airheaded.
I’m fine with being called a loafer or a crank.
My one true north – I’ll end up where I’m heading.
Not every verse I write is snowy blank.

I’m all about forgiveness and acceptance.
Live and let live – I swear by these words.
Not looking for your ‘yes’ or your repentance –
I’m here to make a change, a better world.

I’ve taken up crochet and rubbernecking.
There’s little in this life that I won’t do.
In limbo you shall find me trekking.
In vain you’ll try to see my point of view.

I wonder if you’ll ever truly know me.
I ask myself if that is what I want.
For now, just picture I’m your darling homie.
High five, hop in and kindly play along.

the sun is scorching through the parking lot in pillars or light, shivering on the pavement in waves of reality shaken by matter, it reveals the change in matter. so fluid. i see an old man walk up to the gas pumps by the mr. mikes. he walks past the car wash, past the little barrier between the road and the grass on the side. stands there, looks back and forth as if calculating speed and distance of passing vehicles. in shock i see that he is trying to figure when to jump.

he stops, turns, and begins to walk up the busy main street. as he goes, he take slips of paper out of his coat pocket, stares at the receipts and then surreptitiously drops them behind him. instead of children dropping crumbs in the woods, i see an old man shedding silent messages in his wake as he trudges through suburban forests of pavement and condos. how strange i think and pick myself up out of the car, running past the chain link fence rounding the edges of the hardware store parking lot. she won't even miss me i think fleetingly of the person inside who might come out soon.

the old man is walking at a parallel angle to i, as i was too hasty to know his story before changing the outcome of his journey. he sees me, and stops to face me on the opposite side of the street. we make eye contact, a car whips past, then an ambulance flooding the hues of the air red and blue. i remember there is an accident up the street. there were almost eight or ten cars pulled over near walmart. traffic was backed up and the **** in front of me had been rubbernecking like his middle name was bashful. somebody was probably dying a mile from here. he looks at me a second more and i feel the sadness wafting off of him, so strong it crosses air, barriers, vehicles, straight shotgun windshield shattering screeching into my chest. he turns and walks away. continuing to leave his trail even after knowing he had been observed.
i run across and bend down to retrieve the papers casually, clamped lips around the cigarette i had somehow managed to light, my body's natural response to everydamnthing. i do not look at the papers, just stick them in my plaid breast pocket and rush back to the car. a few hours later i am ready to read them, and i unfold the papers.

first
1: PRE COFFEE 2.00 F
2: SCALLOP POTATO .99 F
3: SHAKERS CHICKEN .79 F
4: POULTRY .79 F
5: POULTY .79 F

SUBTOTAL 5.57

CUSTOMER COPY
EBT APPROVED
EBT FOODSTAMPS

and then
DISTRICT COURT
CASE NUMBER 1161CR001443
DESCRIPTION 1161CR001443 Commonweath vs. M*, Michael J
On Behalf Of M*, Michael J
Payment Type                                Amount
CASH                                              130.00
GENERAL REVENUE FUND               80.00
VICTIM WITNESS                             50.00
Change                                              .00
Balance Due                                   20.00

Comments:



this feeling of overwhelming misery comes over me. i allow it to flood in and fill me with images of this man's life. his shame, his despair, his shackles, that cause that feeling of life being a bad migraine that never goes away.
but then i feel sympathy and compassion seep in afterwards, so silent and gentle. i think of how my presence may have changed that man. to see someone run to him, show him he is not invisible, not just another lost soul in the court system, not alone and invalidated by society simply for existing, not all of society is like that. i hoped my awareness would shout to him too, perforating the silent barriers to say "look, you are not unseen, you are not unheard, i know you exist! it's not time to die yet michael."

michaels seem to stick to me. their stories are vast and painful and hard to peel off, like dry glue. their struggles worthy of attention. michael you are real. michael, i see you. michael someone is listening, somebody knows that you exist. i know it is passover and it probably feels like you are dying in your sleep with no blood painting your doors for protection, but you do have that blood. it comes from your body michael. your struggles become your pain become your understandings become your transcendence. michael, you are intelligent, i can see it in your eyes. now do yourself a favor and

don't jump.

define warmth for me, so that I comprehend
because I've been rubbernecking, though I reside here
and your greenhouse effect affects me not

I'm caught in a position of longing, but it is less of a yearning and more of an ambition
because I'd do utterly anything to feel the spark of embers
the sort of glow that old remember and young magnify

too often I'm hearing a climatic affair of the strong brought to knees
before being enveloped by a numbness that eases their burden
more often I am enraged by their weakness: disgusted by their vulnerability
or perhaps it's jealousy
from one who never felt the urge at the starter's pistol
it's hard to pity when the Arctic's all you've known

and maybe it's not fair
but who are you to say so
because I won't undergo your tragedy
and you won't fathom mine...
quit your babbling - it's all a mind game
and your wailing drives me wild
honestly, promise me nothing because keeping oath requires a fervor
which only comes with fire and you've the ability to find it despite your cold
but behold - that smouldering - I've never even felt it

still I can feel a trickle of pride
at your dab of effort when your arms encircled me
but dearest, I shivered
petrified, I sobbed because you were so close and blazing
while I was freezing
and that girl across the road sensed the calidity, unbuttoned her jacket and handed it over
to a man on the sidewalk in snowfall
he felt from her what she felt from you
you put scalding verses my glacial
green eyes were hopeful; my brown, resigned
I was worlds away from neutral

this ice has not enslaved me
make no illusion that there's a stand still
because I've yet to find the frosty pillar that might halt this endeavor for fire
on the streets I see vessels radiating my craving
and I wonder
by what method did they reach their warm condition
but at below 0
I suppose all you see is warms bodies.

On the crest of the wave I decided to sit down at my  14 year old escritoire

On the advent of spring I decided to
Fill up the moats in my backyard  

The quill in between my fingers commemorating the fall of the mighty empires when I was actually rubbernecking the flowers I filled up the ditches with.

Two universes in my mind helpings shape intricate designs and the inkwell acts as a magnet attracting my soul to get lost within these paradoxes

If I walk towards the palaces the kings will ask me to extemporise tricks of which are on my finger tips

If I walk towards the patio I will fall into the area next to it and be buried beneath the flowers

Met with an accident 20 years ago when I was thinking of neologisms
when I was thinking of atypical aphorisms
when I was lost in between the metaphors.

Just once,
I should like to see
a pretty truth.

I am too used to self-curating
— slipping into silken words —
shimmering golds that complement
my skin just right
(not wash it out
upon the threat
of natural light).

Confessions speed to
halts,
flushed-faced;
pause,
dismayed
they cannot catch the sun
from a gentler angle,
to soften, to lovingly blur
and still pass for the same entity.

From the cradle, I've been
my own ******: half-enthusiasm
borne from rubbernecking thrills
— real-time collisions
at the mirror's appraising edge.

Morbid to the core
society had turned
without reservation
Focused on matters
all to surreal & grim
We turn away from
all that is good and
commonly pure of
substance for the
wicked and sinister
Mired in depths of
muck and evil ways
We cannot turn away
from trauma as we
embrace the carnage
rubbernecking our
way through life
Turn from these ways
for they are doomed
to be our downfall
Don't just stop to
smell the flowers...
behold the beauty.

GAYS (acrostic)


Giiirl, nah uh, no you didn't...

Anyways, back to moi, how do I look?

Yesterday his name was Manny, now it's in transition...

Snaps her fingers in circle motion, rubbernecking.


Fruit (senryu)

Youth around the "Loop"
In flaming Hot-Pink boa.
Daisy Duke at Pride.

Urban Dictionary : 1. A snack that one might find "sweet pleasure" in eating.
2. A flaming flamboyant homosexual.
#fruity

Rubbernecking at the mirror
All jazzed up to step out
New clothes in place and sunglasses to add
Trying to look better in my own eyes

Images from my childhood
Emotions sticking and slipping
Like the wheels of a train
Move on their tracks

Squealing past in sequence
Reminded me of the indications
Horns Whistles Bells that were warning signs
Played loud clear i didn't listen

A surface for reflecting
Our images back to us
Owing fealty to me
Loyal in its depiction

Facet i did not know
Into my soul it could go
Cloning it to perfection
All my imperfections

Could see the image
Not the entity
Projecting my likeliness
Shadow cast over my darkness

Images of events
Edited with a beginning middle and end
There was no end
Retrospective introspection waiting for the Curtain

No more about appearances
And all false pretenses
Cleaning process conducted
No lens no filter made it simpler

Broken mirror brings
It seven years of bad luck
It means a broken soul
Reflecting your future told

Mirror intact no bad luck
Soul searching triggered
Coming of age begun
Never too late to begin


The mirror reflects within
Cleansing process to begin
God comes without an invitation
Why did he leave ask him the question

Subject and Object
Mirror as a witness to mirror
Jury convened judgement delivered
Playing all the roles await Gods answer

How do you write like you’ve got a bomb strapped to your chest?
Any breath you take could be your last, this better be a will and testament
these words have to be the ones that defy death, they better be your best
they will outlive you, every moment they give you is a gift and this is a pen-ultimate test
everything I say, every sentence is a commitment, to be knocked out
I give everything to writing, two percent other elements
and I might be lucky to get someone to shout

That the words are too
the paragraphs need to be
much, moved down a touch
you are peeping toms, you see
there’s poetry in motion and trains building a full head of steam before they leave the station
I’m a locomotive about to explode and my brakes are on, we can fight about
what I write and how, the meaninglessness of life until the break of dawn
you’re off the rails with the thoughts you only think I’m on
I’d cut your house in half with a sharp word, watch those cards fall
apologize to your mother’s ghost for the collateral
family matters, I didn’t mean to **** them all

Oh, what the hell
take this all back a spell
I said every key I hit unlocks another moment
this is my torment, I love it, it’s a test
and I am consistent with giving an F; I keep hitting L
for life, for freedom, and the pursuit of madness, call it enlightenment
crumple up the paper, turn the page over,
embrace choking, strangling entanglement, anarcho-consumerism and politics, order and silence are best friends, I like my music loud, box your ears and deliver me an anarchist, the end is nigh and near, summon all your mounted heads and sainted dead, the sacred stand over your banners where you fall from port to land and mouth back to hand, are you boys proud now, forced a topical message like a burn ointment, crammed into something I said like yes doctor, I’ll call back and [forget immediately to] make my next appointment

Stress impacts the mind
it’s like dropping a pebble onto jello
shocking how predisposed to flaws we’re designed
I’m a head chairman when it comes to being stuck in mine
these gurus all come at the tree of life and how you’re living
with reflexive hindsights attached to their asks,
breaking down every aspect, until gelatin, water, and cold is what they’re given
they eat brains and swing axes
they’re choppy already, trying to expose glitches, digging posts ditches  
profiteers off dread that knows there’s no new frontiers, making illusions out of tears and magic happen here, talents and loose morals, heartless deadbeats, that’s what a life hack is

I never met another writer I didn’t root for, even secretly,
with degrees that shield them from criticism, burn up arguments on proximities
“This is my office. It’s a safe space and GET A LOAD OF THEEEEESE!”
I get it, you stormed the kingdom and took the keys
now you get to sit there in the same chair and talk to messy heads like me
but I get to sit here, and I have the same chair, and I don’t owe a college money
I get to be a mess and you get to deal with it, I can’t even befriend that out of somebody
and we get to talk about my writing like it’s the most important thing I do
but we skirt real issues because no one gets paid enough to handle what’s really true
and that’s why if time was a human being, I’d beat them like they owe me money and I’d collect double on behalf of you
and you’d condemn me for it, but I quit therapy and dreaming, locked it up and stored it
long as it’s not me, like dying, I’m all the more for it

I don’t have faith
in you
I see the similarities
in you
I’m not a man for family, I’ve got so little love left I can feel the ticking when a swell of emotion fills up in my chest, counting down like a held breath
I couldn’t express the things that I actually feel with enough clarity to a reader with letters by post anymore
my audience is invisible and blind
I spend so much of myself currently that I have nothing left to give to anyone or anything, my writing is energy and effort over time which amounts to real currency
so, I guess I’m broke, white flags out, if I had any sense, I’d save two cents
but I’m trying to make you feel this one last time, so let’s rewind
it’s okay not to feel this way and this thing I need to say is really only for the blind
⠊ ⠇⠕⠧⠑ ⠍⠽ ⠋⠁⠞⠓⠑⠗ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠊⠄⠍ ⠎⠉⠁⠗⠑⠙ ⠎⠞⠊⠇⠇ ⠁⠞ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠞⠓⠕⠥⠛⠓⠞ ⠕⠋ ⠇⠕⠎⠊⠝⠛ ⠓⠊⠍

How do I write like there’s a bomb strapped to my chest?
I spin a round in my finger-gun, hold it up to my head and make suicidal idle threats
sitting paralyzed from the chest down and running out of breath
public consumption is a game of character portrayal, I rolled poorly on the sheet,
I’m a walking bad decision waiting to happen, and just when you convince me not to take action
I’ll desecrate your throne, passively worse, a lazy heel, sprawled out yawning, just kick up my feet
I can sleep just fine, but I’m never going to be a body at rest
I’m going to do something even if I can’t do my best
every day this bed becomes like Mount Olympus, the air gets thin and it’d be easier to stay down forever
but I’m no god, I don’t belong, I play the odds, we’d never get along, I’m Promethean and seething again, I’ll steal your fire for all mankind so we can compose roasts and songs, light in your shadows, if I stayed silent for twenty four hours, for seven days, for seven weeks, it means I’m going to crack open Hades with a message not safe for the ill and the elderly or the weak next time I slip Zeus’ beak and you see me speak

There’s no excuse, no simulation, no destiny, no red string can be my noose you cannot magic-lasso me, there’s no institution, no holding cell that’s not in my own body and if I detonated it would be with my own bottled up relentless anguish, anger, hatred and messy mania, that’s chaotic energy, I’d rather these messages get bottled and sent out to sea, find your corpses missing from a field of plague-stricken horses, going coastal with a special delivery, drop my friends off in the dead of night, I know the perfect jetty, I want darkness, put curtains up, break the lightbulbs and nail plywood boards in the windows, put bars up, cut off the electricity, smash the breakers and the fuses, blindfold and cut you horizontally across both pupils if anybody refuses, a primordial void doesn’t even reflect this accurately, show some putrid, vile neglect, before the stars dotted the universe, before humanity, before a blackhole even knew what light was, I need this introspection to match the same inflection of my recent constant, nagging, pull in that direction, to match the gravitas, the gravitational pull towards the murderous, malevolent and sharper, more aware and present, side of my personality who values my own life to such an extent that it takes more active engagement from me than I ever get, I’m nothing short of exhausted, knowing I could be a glass great-sword with what meek average I have in intellect, it’s nothing short of invocation, evoking ire and resentment, to go further I have to devolve, to achieve the pinnacle of my words and see my art evolve, I can’t outrun the world, I can’t be happy, and I’m no revolution, but as the world revolves I revolt with no jolt from the state of always being plugged in, there’s mediocrity in settling, I’ve amassed such a depth of debt to the past it’s built up a toxic venom that I’ll never outlast, I’m just trying to cast a bastion to keep my lines cast in and while I’m staying paralytically still I still feel like I’m going so fast I’m strapped in, I just roll with the loss of control because I don’t fight the spiral, I know how this did happen, even though I’m going slow it’s no race; my life is over twice I’ve been lapped in, the change of pace is a joke to the deck with a few cards short, a full house to four aces, I’m a small hand away from a meltdown and a handful of crying faces, just keep changing gears and the cogs will lubricate, replace themselves and appreciate that being spared the machinations of a breaking down is mercy, if no one is close to me when this bomb strapped to me goes off, I hurt no one, and no one in turn hurts me, self-preservation and spared humiliation, that’s one way to eat yourself alive under fire in the situation, inside out, I spill my guts, no ifs ands or buts, nothing’s so dire, I write sometimes like I’m going to fight the monitor when I see it typed, and if the gate for the match is right I’ll believe I can deliver if I feel that hyped, I write like Atheists are right, like I write like God is spellchecking and Satan is rubbernecking, I write like the Grim Reaper is waiting for me to finish, I write like Big Brother has a special interest, I write like the page is endless, I write like I’ll be shot square in the brain and that’ll plain and simply end all surrounding suffering and pain, I write like my words mean everything and nothing, like I can change the world, I write like it’s the first time I held a hundred dollars in cash, I write with my knuckles white while my teeth grind and gnash, and I write like a thousand people are invested, it’s all the same to me if even one person is really interested.

Giiirl, nah uh, no you didn't...

Anyways, back to moi, how do I look?

Yesterday his name was Manny, now it's in transition...

Snaps her fingers in circle motion, rubbernecking.