With an essence of a  sultry indulgence that will entice
as often as it excites;
       my words seek passage --
                       penetrating your psyche,
                       as they crawl across your thoughts.
                       serenading your mind with
                       lustful passages;
                       littering your innocence
                       with filth --
                       saturated in honesty
                       dripping with vivid insight;
                       conceived through insanity.
                       raging with passion.

The ******* of embezzled glory staunchly defend their counterfeit stature by defalcating the public trust of industrious societies governed internally by compunction and sabotaged externally by the tempests of acerbic fate met with inclement aleatory convergence. To supply a society with ingenuity without being complaisant or officious with unctuous pleas to the overlords we must fashion a new vogue that taps the bustle of giants and aggrandizes the margins to oversee their own creative destinies with scaffolded arrangements of titanic promise and justifiable fluidity to conquer the blinkered dogmatism of a dissolute chastity to inveterate apocryphal tenets of factitious but unmerited perspectives. Democracy crumbles when the convenience of sensationalism supplants the resolve of those that fossick hidden wealth and promulgate validity instead of undergirding pomp with precarious prevarications of duplicitous omission guarded gingerly by the gatekeepers of a ****** sanity that whitewashes the discussion with invented hobgoblins and purblind catharsis. To defeat simplicity and enshrine byzantine elegance as the paragon for voguish commentary rather than abide by a bowdlerized decorum for appeasing simpletons with divisive balkanization through identity politics we can overcome the impediments to human progress that are engineered to persist because of the inertia of the listless and the stubbornness of doctrinaire politicization and invent vivacity and festivity anew. We need to divorce ourselves from pedestrian quibbles of hero-worship that endanger the vitality of the common discourse because of fastidious pedantic disempowerment that ravages us with debased dreams by underscoring nuisances and tolerable nightmares that emasculate the virulence of the liberated individual and subvert his ambitions to contend with a picaresque world of limitless promise and self-motivated internal wealth.
      The bane of modernity is how chary the world becomes because of fractured histories intersecting with controversial destinies and the antidote to that poisonous self-defeating self-censorship is the audacity of brazen challenges to expurgation through assiduous resourcefulness and delicate diplomacy in wrangling controversies with outspoken courage rather than whispered resentment. Temerity waged in inclement circumstance is justified and curiosity stoked by lambent flames of fulgurant individualism should be fortified to the extent necessary to conquer the feckless spoilsports of unctuous puritanism and institutional obedience. The quacksalvers that blather about inconsequence strand the imagination in a desiccated desert that is ostracized from the palettes of the artistic whim to wield efflorescence rather than squander life in pursuit of perfunctory lucre or tenuous solidarity around banal idealism promised by social justice warriors that forget the biggest war being waged on humanity is on the ingenuity of the common discourse and the liberty to opine about real issues rather than saccharine conventions of emasculation through linguistic imprisonment and epicurean slavery to fashimites who relish the buzzword but never the enlightened audience that scoffs at feeble attempts at cultural commentary like Childish Gambino’s “This is America” music video. This particular artifact is a demonstration of how childishly fickle the plebeian mentality really is, stitching together a bricolage of violence to engineer controversy and serenading it with the most banal music imaginable and exhorting people to herald it as a high artform while inundating the world with unimaginative comic book movies and Star Wars rip-offs because of the lucrative business of formulaic replication. “This is America” should be regarded as a parody of itself because of how hackneyed its design is and how cacophonous it sounds and mocks its audience with lowbrow tactics of adding tinsel to trash and marketing it as the glory of tatterdemalions rather than the refinement of true cinematic achievements that have been relegated because Warhol’s Campbells-Soup-consumerism trumps true belletrist in the public view.
        Cultural watersheds punctuate our history with salient achievements in experimentation, but the formulaic profiteering of buzzword sensationalism and yellow journalism and the ostentatious glorification of promiscuous boasting and fancy cars tantalize the mice to continue playing slot machines rather than penning a novel or doing something promethean. The world scoffs at Trump but ignores the bigger institutional caveats that endanger us much more than a pragmatic albeit unconventional pontificator who is complicit in constructing a false narrative to enslave mindless people to fret about eminence rather than delight themselves in the consequential nuances of established refinement that used to serenade the world with flourish and spectacle. The world kowtows to the crusade against flavor-of-the-week enemies of the liberal-conservative syncretism because it has been conditioned to believe that synthesis is the only logical solution for the polarized worldviews of churlish people that become parvenus not on their merits but on their marketable pitfalls and their public foibles. Peccadillos are more important to people than virtues and this makes society morally bankrupt if we loiter around Astroturf causes that have been infiltrated by corporatism and venal debauchery and acquiesce as disempowered gossip hounds that hunt in packs to find jest in aberration rather than achievement in self-created narratives that defy the stupid purblind boorishness of the mainstream media and its haughty liberalism or the persnickety condemnation of priggish conservative moralities that had an expiration date 50 years ago. Who the **** cares about transgender-touting-gender-fluidity quidnuncs and the snooty obsession with lurid personal endeavors of reputable people that made minor ****** transgressions in a world policed by wide-eyed feminazis that seek to ransack men of their vital virulence to spotlight their unjustifiable oppression. Women are oppressed but the carnal nature of their calumniation and their vindictive powers of persuasion are deployed with such vehement vigilance and such distaste for the majority that the world relegates itself to quibbles of celebrities rather than substantive issues. There is a systemic feminization of society occurring that seeks to demarcate despotic uxorious pleasantries as an incarceration of vocal dissent against supercilious women and their tamed men that slavishly grovel in repudiation of anything prickly.  Men historically have oppressed women but the solution to this quandary isn’t a reverse discrimination where the minority concern is spotlighted as a majoritarian issue that overshadows the disproportionate nature of our society where nominal accreditation is afforded in a non-meritocratic way to absolve people of their carnality and demote the vigorous defense of human liberty as secondary to compromise solutions that appease more people than they offend but simultaneously result in suboptimal conditions that reward arbitrarily coachable people while jettisoning anyone witty enough to be capable of insubordination of a hedonistic epicurean world obsessed with appearance and ravaged by the decadence of formulaic profiteering at the expense of originality and true promethean art that is herculean enough to defy hackneyed tropes and siphon the best elements from a piecemeal world variegated with complexity but stifled by fomented hatred.
The solutions to these problems is to create a watchdog group of artistic critics who become eminent and ubiquitously heard enough to offer creative consultation to the artistic endeavors that we consume and the music that is curated for fastidious ears that crave euphonic originality rather than the banality of easily dovetailed bass-heavy cookie-cutter garbage and the gaudy tactics of talentless rappers whose swagger derives from  the intersection of opportunism and the divestiture of an industry that rewards gloated supercilious epicureanism and meretricious marketability. Am I the only one jaded by second-rate superhero movies that infest the cinemas that borrow from Michael Bay while thrusting pulse-pounding but narratively bankrupt movies down the throats of consumers that might prize the cinematic originality of the heyday of filmmaking? Is it always high art to invent controversy that is witless or half-witted just because it will create buzz? Shouldn’t we condemn the laziness of society in acquiescing to the penury of the modern cultural narrative which belabors the dead horses of racism and sexism ad nauseum? Shouldn’t we fight the war of against inequity through legislation rather than hibernating about scandalous eminence and testy malfeasance?
          Liberty should be championed above all else and we are turning our backs on the future unless we muster the resolve to diminish the sway of the common narrative and aim our spotlight at consequential endeavors rather than the tropes of prosaic and pedestrian bastardization of art and culture. We need to fight artistic laziness which has ravaged our culture and castigate the tactics of wannabee celebrities that use lurid tactics to attract an audience by bedizening themselves with Pyrrhic ostentations and rampant fakery to create more melodrama in a world that needs to be less histrionic. YouTube celebrities swarm us as they get high on ******* and lean-- at our expense-- and vandalize property and convincing nine-year-old’s like Lil Tay to flex her money like it is infinitely renewable in a finite world where all our attention is wasted on artless artifice of less talented people that know how to engineer a ruckus by strutting themselves beyond all decency and selling out to a corporatist nightmare of enslaved convenience. We need to be more vocal about the dissolution of artistic merit and the formulaic repetition of successful formulas that jade us and make us yawn about another retread of a previously successful idea that is milked to the point of cruelty.                                                         ­                       
       Let’s change the narrative and focus on creating true art rather than reacting to the meretricious tinsel of the vogue consensus which is so impotent in its ability to rivet audiences because it has become so notoriously lazy. Fight laziness in art, dismiss your news feeds, be resourceful, seek true happiness rather than find yourself hoodwinked and duped by the idea that Trump is the most important issue or getting caught in thought loops and brooding about sexism and inequality. Let us strive to be egalitarian but within limits that would also appease hominists rather than just the hypertrophy of the leftist narrative that seeks to cage us with the doublespeak of complaisant conformity.  Reject the unctuous charlatans that pretend priggishness when their banausic purpose is barbaric but beguiling to be a lullaby for laggards. We need to fight for the future of civilization rather than hobnob with convenience and loiter around decrying false perpetrators rather than systemic injustices that could otherwise be rectified if enough people fought for it. We can invent a future that is a great festivity serenaded by cultivated artistic refinement and forget about the trifles that divide us. United in ambition and fueled by ingenuity we can defeat artistic laziness and be resourceful with how we decide what is newsworthy. Spurred by the argosy of proactive motivation we can change the world in a substantial way by deciphering the subtext that governs the world. The subtext is everything!

You are a perfect branch
descending
from yourself.
I have been waiting
at your roots,
trying to find myself.  

Which part of your trunk
do I stem from,
I cry out to the moon.
Am I not a part of you
whose flowers
are in tune?

I am sharing needful moments
full of sensations anew;
becoming naked
with each breath I take,
singing a song
of truth.

Staring into forever
my heart pounds
with hopes and dreams.
I am waiting at your roots,
with beauty bursting
at my seams.

You are a perfect branch,
no need to conform.
I am here
serenading your roots
to become your flowers that adorn.

They say, in the wheel of life, you'll spend half your years rising to the top and the other half tumbling to the bottom. I guess they got it all wrong. I believe life is a crooked tire that can never roll up and down. Pretty sure, it is nailed to the ground where weeds could grow to entangle it forever. Until now, what they keep trying to say remains a puzzle to me. Perhaps I can never understand what they mean. Or maybe I just won’t. Why? Because from the moment our eyes opened for the world, we’re already stuck down below and I’m afraid we’re trapped here in this limbo for all eternity.

We’re just simple people living an ordinary life. Like every family who seeks refuge from the storm, we do have a place we call home although it’s not much of an architectural delight. However, for some reasons, I find our roof appealing like a real work of art. Patches of cardboard embellish the underside while a combination of tarpaulin and ad posters works in harmony to provide an extended shelter. On bright mornings, we’ll wake from the sunbeams piercing through its many gaps. On rainy days, however, the sound of raindrops falling from the gaps down to our water containers serves as our wake up call.

To jumpstart ourselves for another day’s challenge, we could either eat breakfast (if there were any), or just sing our skipping meals away and spend the rest of the day with sacks of scraps and rubbishes on our back hoping to make a good deal with Mr. Gomez, the junk shop proprietor. He reminded me so much of my father but without the alcohol problem and violence, though. During nighttime, we bring with us our drum to sing carols on the lonely streets. If our feet become too weary to walk, that’s the time we head home. We rush all together, eager to count the coins we’ve collected that night. We make sure to put a plastic cap underneath two of our table’s feet so that it won’t lean uncontrollably and spill the tiers of ten, five and one peso coins we’ve dedicatedly piled over. Then the next part does the trick. A portion of our collection for the night goes straight down a big jar and joins in the many others which fill more than half of the container. The remaining part is used to buy supper to save our hungry tummies from
shrinking again. However, during slack nights when drivers and busy people decided to become miserly, we’re fortunate enough to have a pack of noodles for supper. But if we ran out of luck, we just set our untidy beds ready and drown our raging stomachs to sleep. I know there’s not pretty much but this is where our lives revolve. And as they say, life must go on no matter what.

Together with the three most important persons of my life, I continue the journey for a better living. Along the way, we try to search for the good things out of life’s bitter truths. We never let misery **** our hopes and dreams. Instead, we work harder and tougher. Take Islay, for example. She’s cheerful,
clever, aggressive, talented, a model of hard work. She’s got most of everything. Well, except for height, probably. I wanted to be a doctor so I could help the needy. Islay dreams of becoming an elementary teacher. She said she really likes kids and teaching them would surely be a more exciting thing to do.

Then there’s Nova. Her looks may require you a little more time to think and consider, but she has a good heart. However, she gets a little, uhhm, what term do we use for an unsociable person? That’s it! She’s a bit of a Killjoy!

Islay and Nova caroled a store swarmed with drunkards. It was always Islay who’ll find every creative idea and propose it convincingly to Nova, who in turn hesitates and rejects it but then ultimately respects it in the end. Islay always has the winning edge. Maybe that’s one of her abilities. Her convincing power deserves a credit to the list.

The two didn’t mind the ***** that welcomed them. Inside her mind, Nova asked herself how many people could waste their money on a doze of liquid or spirit that can poison their mind and bring them to imminent danger. If only they have given it to the poor and needy, they could have saved a lot of lives instead of ruining their own.

But Aling Nena, the wicked storeowner, unleashed her witchy wrath to the two. She looked at them with eyes of contempt, of prejudice and disgust. She accused the two as jinxes and blamed them for the
store’s unprofitable end. If only she could look at herself and discover a chest of shimmering blame, she might shrink into shame. Islay and Nova ran off not because they were afraid of Aling Nena or the drunken men but because of what Aling Nena said to them. They cannot defend themselves from such
an attack. How could they when they were surrounded with eyes of ridicule?

And of course, there’s my dearest sister, Juaning. We’ve only got each other since our mother’s death. It has been months already. Juaning was still 15 when mama left us. She’s 16 now. It’s been quite a while and I know she misses mama a lot like I do.

And so they fought life’s bitter realities. They begged and implored to the unconcerned passers-by, almost falling to their weak knees for one very important thing - to live. But even if the three of them were sitting, lying, and rolling down the cold pavement, these people with more graces just pass by without even sparing a glance of concern. Wouldn’t it be happier if they shared their God-given blessings? But as the day continues, they have to endure the hunger, the contempt. Because other than filling their
hungry stomach, they have a sibling, a friend to support.

That’s my part of the story. It has been months now since I caught a serious illness which bound me
to this bed, flat on one’s back, weak, inutile, and useless. Every time they come home, I wish I was with them to taste the sweet and feel the pain, not just a good listener to their stories of survival and moments of friendship. Someday, I’ll become strong again, and this curse of a disease shall be gone.

I woke up to the longing for water. I’ve never been this thirsty before. I called out their names but my voice just echoed deep in the four dark walls of our crooked house. With no one to help me, I summoned my strength and decided to get a glass of water by myself. But my legs aren’t as strong as my will. And as I attempted to stand, they betrayed me. I collapsed and plodded down the floor. Luckily Islay came and helped me get back to bed. She scolded me for being careless. I cried. I can’t help it. I pitied myself all
over again.

The cold evening wasn’t a problem for Islay. Seeing me cry like that crushes her heart. I know, as a friend and a part of our family, she wishes the best for me. And that’s why she’s still out there in the middle of the night, working late to earn more for our better future. She ignored the chills and the exasperation. She knows she has to work harder and she’s more than determined for it.

But something happened to me while she’s away from home. I cannot move my body, not even my mouth. Tears just fell from my weary eyes. And before it’s too late, Juaning caught me unresponsive and paralyzed. My sister cried for help. Nova sprinted to get the jar. Juaning told her what to do. And wasting no time, Nova rushed to the nearby pharmacy to get me some medicine, and most probably to save my life.

But Nova’s effort was in vain. Prescription drugs cannot be bought that easily. The pharmacist closed down the only lining of hope for me. The security guard felt pity on Nova and he suggested her an alternative decision that will change our lives forever.

Islay was still busy serenading the busy streets with her chants of joy and sweet hums. But the clouds become unwelcoming. And by the sound of the thunder, big droplets of rain started pouring down the highway. She ran as fast as she could and sat on a corner where she thought of something deeply. She hugged the drum that she was carrying for five hours or so and tried to remain calm in the presence of the bad weather.

After half an hour, Nova came back with a pouch of medicine on her shaking hand. She handed it carefully to Juaning whose faith and hope were hanging to the tiny bottle of miracle.

Days gone by and my condition wasn’t going any better. It turned out that my medicine was consumed to the last drop. Still I remained immobile and my hands are going number by the days. Slowly I was losing hope. I wish they weren’t mad at me. I’m trying my best to live on. That’s why I’m still here. But Nova shared something worth listening to. She revealed how and where she got the medicine.

It was from a quack doctor on a stall put up on the corner of Rizal Avenue. She said he was well versed and very convincing. And that she spent all of our savings for a bottle of deception. But we can do nothing about it. We did not have formal education. We were fortunate enough to meet kind children on
the streets who would try to teach us something they have learned from school. We would attempt to read newspapers and the description in the carton boxes we spread beneath the Badelles overpass.

Nova cried in guilt and shame. Islay was still angry at her, and it can be understood. My sister, Juaning, comforted Nova with a promise that everything will get better in time.

December 27. It was my birthday. And more than anything else, what I wish is for the four of us to be happy. Nothing in this life is more important than seeing everyone you love smile with absolute
happiness. Juaning never forgot her job and that’s to buy me a cake. Every year, they will try to surprise me with every creative possible way. But that’s how their surprises become predictable with my age.

They sang me a birthday song. But this time, they were the ones waiting for a surprise. As my sister was about to hand me the cake waiting for me to blow the candle, she noticed something she was least expecting for. My lips are pale and my eyes are shut from the light of the world. I caught my last breath and before I gave it away, I left a smile on my face that can never be changed forever. That is how I want them to remember me. Not that heck of a frown clown whose audiences are stricken with sadness.

They say, in the wheel of life, sometimes, you'll spend half of your years rising to the top and the other half tumbling to the
bottom. Maybe they were right. It was then that I’ve come to understand what they were trying to say.

Our life’s wheel revolves around things way beyond just money, food, and shelter. It is about the moments you spend with your loved ones, friends and family that will be forever carved in your heart. We can never know when our life here on earth will be over. So let us cherish every bit of it. And for me, even if we skip breakfasts and eat only noodles for supper, I have realized in these last fleeting moments that my life has always
been on the top of the wheel after all.

Bright windy November
with the slap of cold sun sending frowns
and the absent rain not beating down
choleric substitutes of alcohol withdrawal
and spatial omissions of home fires stoking
empty remembrances of faded potential and
misplaced amorous regret
Haunted by the lingering smell of the souls of
last night's GUINNESS intake staying swell in
the nostrils which is in reality the gulf breeze blowing
gullshit down the river Liffey giver of life.

...And here I am Dublin pillaged and funded
en route to the hour-rate slog
shiny white commerce bleaching out of
windowsills distracting from rooftop
Chiaroscuro  serenading a sky
which old ****** forgotten Sons and Daughters
will die under.

Boots tapping mock-goosestep to the ground
past a girl who speaks on her IPHONE to someone
who presumably not only wants to be seen speaking
to someone on their IPHONE but who also cares enough
to listen as the girl announces to all-and-sundry
human dodging on Bachelors Walk this fateful morn
that "I realised what my problem is Now! People
think i'm saying N when I'm really saying M!"

.....quite an existential crisis you got there, EH DOC?

("This girl's SITUATION belongs in a scenario in the TV show GIRLS which young
Woman Europe-wide have embraced as their spiritual saviour in an era of Consumer
impulse control. By placing the mundane generalities and perceived social failings
interpreted by young American female comediennes as instead representing a means of
self-forgiveness and attempted new-wave soft-core feminist self-celebration young American
actresses are inspiring a new generation of young woman to speak openly in a more in-depth level about everything that usually happens to themselves or some girl they know"-From "The Post-New Male Gaze: Interpreting Critiques of Stereotypically Feminized Pop Culture in Westley Barnes's "Notes on a Rant: The "Took Me Up To Dublin Where It's Famous" Notebook
:2013)

This is the new white noise.

White Irish Male Critiques perceived socially-announced problems of White Irish Female over White Technology on a white morning in a grey city.

A grey city which subliminally stinks of shame and left-over guilt and of spending too much money on tecno-toys and new-improved nullifying debauchery and even rent during a significantly rough stretch of fiscal years. After a lot of years of white nonsense, really.

But this is where I took myself, and this is what happens once you take yourself here and this is where its famous for it.
Dublin,
Once Monto-based FUNDERLAND for the rich and royal turned over-waxie infested tenement slum district and second city of an industrialised economy waiting for the rest of the world to pay its way.
Dublin,
capital of green and squeaky saviours of the third-world who made some money and forgot about everyone else they used to know back home. Mr Poverty, Mr Humbleness, Mr Sense of Catholic Shame.
Until the rents got too high and they had to move home again.
Dublin,
no matters what it achieves, always putting itself down.

But I can adapt.
I've lived in Rathmines and Portobello before living in either was a
really hip decision to make.
I can find somewhere else before its gets gentrified
(after I find some job that's not worth complaining about
or I eventually leap into becoming to middle-class
to complain about it.)
enough that its a headache living there, too many men wearing the same winter
jackets. Too many packed restaurants and your local actually preparing the tables
in the run-up to the Rugby game on Saturday.
The less of all that, the better for me.

I used to day dream about all of the above, honestly, but I
somehow managed to regain my innocence by living through it.

As for the girl who discovered self-realisation on her (through her?) IPHONE?
She'll be alright. If that's how she starts wading through the floodwaters of relating
herself to the world, misunderstood syllables, name-fails and all, this time in twenty
years, she'll be laughing. Don't worry yourselves, she'll adapt with the times.
Sure, Dublin's famous for it.

Prophesies of impending fall
     creep stealthily over the Great Divide.
Gold-green Aspens shiver in the breeze
     like leagues of fibrous wind chimes
serenading the mountain slopes
     with aires of shimmering gold.

A few distant bugle calls echo
     across the Big Thompson valley
as bull elks warm up for the autumn rut.
     Sudden early gusts of frigid wind
bring waves of sleet and snow -
     in tune with the turning polar axis.

The greater chill is soon to come.
     The animals know it as do we.
Bears bulk up on grasses, roots and berries.
     Elk and deer drift down from the heights
To show their young the ways
      of the plains and river valleys.

We pull our sweaters on
     and toss another log on the flames
and greet the harbingers of approaching fall
    creeping stealthily over the Great Divide.

September, 2018

Beneath the gulmohar tree
In flamboyant love
A tale of our desires
Coloring each other
A bright vermillion
Under his crimson spread
Shaded in blissful haven.

Reaching for his branches
Clasping, holding
Climbing, swinging
Chasing, laughing
Under a bright shower of scarlet petals
Of hearts and heat, of love and life
Blooms of a scorching Indian summer.

In flames, his vibrant burning crown
His canopy, flaunting festive tangerine blossoms
Crinkled teasing petals
One upright
Of quaint innocence in white
Splashed with  feisty passion's red
Celebrating and anticipating
In celebration of us, our love
Anticipating rain..
As his branches reach high for promising dark clouds.

Serenading with the music of the monsoons
Moist leaves of the gulmohar glisten
With wind and water, in gentle rhythm
Raindrops nestle for a moment
Before sliding, slipping
On damp, satiated earth
Strewn bright with scattered orange petals
Of the gulmohar
Drenched and soaked like us.

Can I write you a love song
I’ll sing it softy in your ear all night long
Blow gently without words on my saxophone
Diamond and Pearls behind the throne
A beautiful ensemble meant for only you
As I give credence too
Take my hand
Cross this journey with me as I sing about faraway lands
Past Egypt pyramids shifting Morocco sands
Lay back my love, allow your mind to silently drift
Feel the enchantment of my piano keys as it spiritual uplifts

I’ll sing love songs of old
A cappella chorus echoed from deep within my enlighten soul
I’ll sing to you about the blues, society’s injustice, and elements of darken storms
Keep your heart warm, while playing my French Horn
Enrapture foretold from this dedicated symphonic poem
A music sheet of percussion, woodwind, brass, keyboard, and strings
Harmony carrying the mind away as the joy of coming spring
I’ll hum your favorite beats, can you feel the crescendo now
Fiddle from the heart by the sweat of one’s brow

Submerge your cerebral cortex, lose yourself in the sultry tunes
Harp sounds bathe of light kissed from the illuminating moon
Destiny overcasts in the lyrics
Fate floating stratospheric
Karma of others handled in the eyes of satiric
Opera, I give you so grand in its grace
French Creole dialect murmured among silk and lace
Sounds of my flute resonant to face
Allowing my Cello sounds to thoroughly embrace

Can I write you a love song
Body and soul serenading soprano to keep you standing strong
My guitar stringing your philosophies along
An equal equation, one plus one equals two
Emotions, feelings, sentiments, its tenor expressed only for you
No compass to my heart, my seasonal love found in hidden melodies
Trombone guiding back and forth breathless as it please

Orchestra sounds
Ascending minds, bodies, souls, pass the opening clouds, divine and profound
The last note sung by me as we gradually come down
Beautiful music embraced, needs never to make a sound
Shh, close your eyes
Meditate on the music for a little while

Hush sweet baby don’t say a word
My heart softly tweets to a mockingbird
If that mockingbird don’t sing
Can I write you a love song created only for your being
As minds are sightseeing
Hearts fleeing
Timpani drums guaranteeing
Entwined of our divine wellbeing
Emotions freeing
Crooning of bodies heard as the day is long
Can I write you a love song

I'd befriend the obsidian sky...
   I'd shower it with a bounty of praises.
  So that it'll welcome my nightly gaze,
     without threats from overbearing clouds.

     I'd impress the twinkling stars
       by serenading them with songs unheard by most.
     So that when the time comes,
  they'd cast their votes in my favour.

I'd whisper to the nighttime breeze.
   I'd cavort and giggle at its slightest touch.
      So that when I fly my flag,
   it'll catch it in full billows for her to see.

Then finally...
  I'd woo the twilight moon...
     For she is the prize
   my heart had sought to pursue.
    I'd court her
      with the fiercest blaze that burns within...
     In hopes that she'd forever
   remember me as the suitor that had
fallen helplessly.

Forensics couldn't figure out what happened to our bodies because they never looked closely enough into their own eyes.

When we walked out across those wild flower grass plains,
moving
our bare feet meandering , twirling, toes earthy, past the goddess river, bowing our eyes and laying sweet blessings of hopeful poetry at her edges with the mountains ahead of us going on and on and on.

Our heartbeats sinking into the smell of summers afternoons.
We
two beings
stand and watch as the water shows us the way across
her gentle back cool and singing.

We keep on laughing to the forests edge and settle by the Elder Trees to pray for the way ahead and the way already gone, we pray to the sentinel trees for their gracious beauty and we leave a small offering of a song.  

We
two beings

I'm all over Hummingbird
She's all over Dragonfly

Listen to the forest for the sign we can move on,

We
two beings

listen with our eyes and our hearts, ears and noses.
We wait, long moments sensing,
attuning ourselves to the rich forest song.
Later, we see the flash of Owl sister and know it is time to move along

in silence, we listen as we walk and let the sounds we hear guide us.

She's all over Wolf Teacher
I'm all over Lynx Secret Keeper

We're both keeping time alive with our actions.

Way in deep, where the floor is soft decomposition-in-motion and the sky is hardly seen, little tickling breezes stir us, we walk along in silence, side by side, always listening

until our feet meet the edge of a clearing and we whisper our offering:
the story of who we are, why we are here, how beautiful this place is and how it came to be that,

I'm all over Calendula
She's all over Nettle.

Here the sun lays upon us once more and we sit , facing each other

We breathe ourselves into mediation.
We breathe ourselves into silence.
We look at each other
past our skins and through to the light emanating from our DNA

and we start to hum.

We hum our spirit song and begin to unravel so slowly the ways of this world,

we begin to unravel so gently the bags we carry under our eyes
over our knees

we begin to unravel so softly the song of our hearts.

Flowing through us a motion so suspending we seem to no longer be singing, but the sounds somehow pour out of us
our bodies start to sway, no judgment, our bodies start to relax, no suffering

perhaps her toe taps and my ear wiggles
perhaps it's her nose jiggling
perhaps it's my elbow nodding.

We two beings
pray to each other sweet words of beauty
sweet words of honesty

we let those bodies dance
up on our feet
twirling and leaping around the green grass, wildflower clearing
until we feel a twang of connection,

like curious little deer we follow that cord in our chests , pulling us towards each other.

She's on the other side of the clearing and as we make small steps , I feel the boundaries of her person. Her energetic walls , I feel her enter into mine. And we stop, acknowledge the space we are entering and ask for permission to move on. We move on

layer by layer, always stopping to acknowledge, stopping to ask permission until we stand 4 inches between us, breathing.

By now we are no longer thinking, we only sense.
She moves her hand close to my wrist,  I meet her the rest of the way.

All collapses in on itself and opens back up again at our meeting.
She rides her hand up my arm to hold my face so gently.

I bring my other hand to her wrist and she meets me half way. I ride my hand up her arm to hold her face so gently.

I bring my hand to her waist and she leans in softly, she leans in softly.

She brings her hand to my waist and I lean in softly, I lean in slowly.

We move like this, unwrapping each other of clothes, breathing ourselves in meditation, going as slowly, gently as we possibly can.

When we are in our natural way, we wait a moment to take in the beauty, we **** our heads and as our words no longer matter we both know we hear a sounding stream.

We beings
perplexed and amused, find ourselves next to a small rocky stream, somewhere else in the forest. Dappled light finds it's way onto us , the trees and the water. Everything is orange and brown, mossy green with occasional pinks and purples.

She smiles and I smile , we make a motion of gratitude to our Great Water Mother and ask to wash.
When a small fish appears and jumps glistening
we move to scoop up running water in hands, pouring it over each others crowns. Again and again we scoop and we pour, we wash our walking sweat and clear ourselves.

Soon, the stream starts to fade and we are now on flat topped knoll, looking out over shallow banks of a wide flowing river.

The knoll is about the size of a large bed , wintergreen rustles beneath our feet.

We sit together and she brings her face close to mine, I bring my face close to hers and we look into each others eyes until we see.

I bring my lips close to her cheek, she brings her cheek close to my lips. And so we find ourselves tasting each other.
Slowly,
gently,
softly her lips come to my ears and her tongue moves on my lobe. My mouth to her nape and my breath is coming slow. We take as much time as we possibly can.

The Sun has not moved from the afternoon position. We are no longer in a place where time is quite the same.

Soon, I lay on the ground and she comes down beside me. Our dancing hands and tongues never in a rush, at a pace like the tide with movements, repetitive definitive and measured. Washing over our earthen valleys and hills, dipping low to our canyons, serenading our ravines. But never quite touching those extra sacred pleasure places.
She lays on her back and I sit beside her.

I kiss her chest and give thanks to her skin, her blood to milk trees and the crystal caves that lay within. I kiss her belly button and thank her mother for carrying her all this way. Her father for holding her. I move down to her womb and she makes a space for me between her legs, I lay there with my head on her belly listening.

I hear the beating blood and gurgling belly, breath staying slow, I hold her hips. and kiss her womb from the outside. I kiss her womb from the outside. I find I am at the edge of a small curly forest, I pray gently with a song at the borderline and kiss her there too. She tenses just a little and a pause, look to her eyes and see she does not want me further.

I slip out from her legs and lay down by her side.
The wide river is moving and the wintergreen is serenading us with her smell as our bodies movements bruise the small leaves. The sun has moved a little further across the sky, shadows are pulling longer now.

She puts her head to my chest and listens to the heart just below skin , bone and muscle.
She hears my breath and is riding up and down with my diaphragm movements. She slows me down until we are both inside the space between heartbeats. Encompassed in those melodies. We breathe again and see each others eyes. She kisses my heart from the outside and caresses my chest. I open my legs offering her space between them. She moves, lingering, one hand first on my face then on my heart, then on my solar plexus. Then her body is softly laying on mine, her head on my stomach. Listening. She laughs a little because the spaces inside of her don't exist inside of me, she says my secret caves are up in my heart, she heard them. She smiles and sighs a little, resting at the edges of my forest.
We beings
lay here, like this for a long time. Until the Sun is way low.
But we don't move. We just keep right on laying. Our eyes closing.

The wintergreen gives way to a bed of Jasmine vines way up in a tree. When we awake we look at each other and recognize our spirits.
She climbs onto the limb of a tree and sees  way across the forest, to more forest and more forest, to mountains and more mountains.
She begins to transform, her body rippling, scales made of light, emerging from her back, her eyes glistening, her dreams swirling around her, fruits ripe for the picking, some still maturing , her legs start to dance as they form one long tail, four legs with claws follow not long after. She is glowing a vibrant green touched with sparks of grey. A Naga flies out from the trees and is off. Into the night to do what she does.

I lay on the Jasmine, inhale sweet sweet scents and dream my own dreams where I'm an Owl , all my feathers pale pink and deep navy blue. I leap up through the canopy and sweep down into the forest to do what I do.  

Our spirits meet sometime before the Great Grandpa Sun is born again, to greet him with a song, to keep on exploring these earth bodies, to keep on singing to the forests, to keep on smelling and eating and drinking and washing, finding others to play with, to keep on thanking and laughing and moving time along with our movements.

The forensics sent into the forest to look for us didn't find diddlysquat because they hadn't looked deep enough into their own eyes.

I wish I were stranded on a tropical island
A tropical island with you
You could make art from coconuts and starfish
Yeah, coconuts and starfish might be a good place to start

And I could build a crude instrument
Out of a conch shell and driftwood
And tightly roll a papaya leaf to use for a string
Or two
Then I could play and you could sing
We wouldn't want for anything
Serenading each other by the light of the moon...

Every evening we could snuggle underneath the stars
You could be Venus, I could be Mars
We could lay our differences aside (except the good ones)
I'm safe in you, you're safe in me,
No need to hide

I wish I were stranded on a tropical island
A tropical island with you
And we'd bake clams in the hot, hot sand
Under the afternoon Sun
And brew a crazy chowder using sea salt and kelp (help!)
Then we'd make love on the beach as the water nips at our toes
Under the setting sun when the day is done

By a waterfall I'm calling you...

On nights like this
Tired eyes reminisce
Of a former life
Like French doors opening
To familiar gardens
Where prunes grow on fingers
And lavender blooms
In the iridescent luster
Of warm water droplets
Serenading shoulders
Where reason and chaos blend
Into peach white tea
Swallows carry songs
Through their wings
Stirring decadent incense
Of exhaling trees
Sunlight waltzes with
Saturated leaves
Their indelible patterns
Rhythmic marigold sleeves
Carefree meanders along
Luscious promenade, swathed
In pomegranate-stained poppies
Ripe for the picking
In them, a fragrant ecstasy
Alive inside this memory

Our trajectory was so like no other.  
so linear within it's silhouette,

gazing upon the others
                                        gravity.

We had a cycle of moments that
were like
                s
                    t
                    ­   a
                           r
                              s
Weaving between our paths, serenading
our motions entwined within the others
graces. There was nothing between us
but space, a gravity of affections.


But some times a distance can expand
                                                 in time,
Even though we once eclipsing each other.
Gazing at each other as our horizons descended
you were the gravity of my yearning for so long.

I could count the stars that shot upon our forms,
still I feel the effects, but our stars descend less often.
Maybe ours were answered previously but dreams
            
                                                   ­ only come true once.

You'll always be within my orbit, but never as
close as what gravity lingered before.
I see you, but we are just motions no longer
adjacent in the stars of our hearts.

December 25 - 28, 2010


Stuck in Miami, Florida, because of bad weather in NYC.
Composed after reading the poetry of Campbell McGrath, who lives in Miami.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
­
electric pinpricks of
unfamiliar red and green lights,
bedroom traffic guidance
courtesy of a stranger's
tv and cable box,
an emblematic totem tonight,
of my physical dislocation,
reminders that I'm enslaved
by weather machinations.

I lay, resting uneasy,
in a strange bed,
one night too many,
snow storming in my head
snow storming up north aplenty,
a blizzard of ruminations are
my white coverlet,
while stuck in Miami.

faraway drifts have
force fed and freed
an imprisoned restlessness,
a multipurposed, slashing.

Miami midnight incision has
let out the bad humors,
let in an unfamiliar odor -
lechón asado,
which texts my Pharisee nostrils
in Cubano,
words muy ironico,
a single waking thought,
"who ya kidding?"

Everglades rain
imported from California,
recycles on rooftops,
thrumming a heart beating,
syncopated, watery refrain,
a regifted heavenly present.

the sound waves mark
as a barely undulating wave,
inside this super soaked brain,
that transforms wine into water
and scan lines into these letters,
"who ya kidding?"

all this exponential signage
of this NYC boy grousing, are his
defrocked muses annoying,
with a serenading blizzard
of one trick pony repetitions,
coronets trumpet his unmasking,
this essay, a revelation,
a product of their
harmonious discordancy.

a single note crowns his head
as he weeps whole food
organic, non-recyclable tears,
products of his new inquistional,
a self-inflicted interogatorial,
"who ya kidding?"

compiler of an
occasional talented catch phrase,
strung'em together like
cheap pearls,
pretensions of literary acumen
once populated his Id,
articles of spilled word *****,
but Florida rain has cleansed
his Northern haughty pretensions,
with an injection of truth serum,
a pharmaceutical wonder of
a local poison labeled,
"who ya kidding?"

A day laborer, nothing more,
rise up at five, brown bagged,
a client of Mammon's *****,
soul sagged, life hagged,
a sum of cultural cliches,
a cell phoned baby boomer,
a would be millennial,
constructed of paper mache,
who on occasion,
has been known to say,
"Let's play poetry today."

the poseur chokes
on this new poison,
delivered by unhappy stance
by the arrows of his
current misfortune
for he now suffers from
the deadly disease of
"compare and contrast."

a slim book of poems
of Campbell McGrath's
(his phraseology,
a veritable theology)
shoos the blues traveler,
over to a funhouse
where an honest magic mirror
cuts him down to size.

his poetic aspirations,
a residue of self-infatuation,
are summarily dismissed by
the truly gritty, quick justice
of a master poet's
"who ya kidding?"

so watch how a would-be
poet disappears,
in a barrage of bullets marked,
nevermore,
his dignity, more than hobbled,
his cheek, gone, gobbled,
his juice, a currency unaccepted,
his holiday present,
a ceasefire of conjugation,
a cornucopia of declinations

dare I ever write again?
who indeed, am I kidding,
other than myself?
I am an addict, not a poet.

We lie amidst Ripe mountain herbs,
The nightingale has just begun its summer trill,
This hymn for golden vocal cords
Composed no owner of a writing quill

So sweet were melodies produced
That I mistook the front row lady’s cheap perfume
For blossoms, above which haunting hornets mused;
For an aroma of our Shakespeare love in bloom.

The serenading cardboard creatures –
Those thieve their voice from birds with no address.
Meanwhile a glass raised in a playhouse features
But colored water, as red as gipsy’s dress.

When the last spectator goes,
Having not found at least one genuine sun,
As actors, we recede into descending roles;
Electric blood in lamps’ capillaries feels numb.  

A lovely ladybug, I doubt, I will ever catch,
A lifelike flower, dipped in a painting fusion:
All this, fine artists tenderly attach  
To lifeless decorations, for aid they do us in a willful staged illusion.

Three burnt sienna pearls run down your spine
Yet after a big round of applause
These jewels are no longer signs of the divine,
But witches’ marks or, rather, unalluring flaws.

After the play I went to buy a notebook from my shopping list
To store the overgrowing verses, such as these;
A sheet of paper guarantees
To treat them like extinguishing bees

Cashiers ****** the change into my hand,
You purchased hothouse roses with;
And up those pretty useless beauties stand
In someone’s vase, whose name remains a myth.

They give me back those polished dimes
You traded for a pair of shoes.
I’ve seen you marshal through onstage lifetimes,
Yet to disclose personas’ traces the theater walls refuse.

Your chocolate hair has just fallen from the hairdresser’s hand,–
That’s how I know the summer’s coming to a bitter end.

Where is the inspiration that I once possessed?
Where is the love that once sprouted from my fingertips?
Where are all the flowers that once grew around my feet,
with each step I took?

It seems as though
lately I've abandoned my gardens,
and left all the flowers to wilt and turn to dust.
The lives that I once cared for,
are now all scattered around the ground.

My spring light is somewhere lost in this winter cold,
and this winter has been going on for too long.
My body is numb from the breeze the December nights send me.
I once rose with the early sun in the morning,
but now I find my self serenading the moon each night.
Hoping maybe she will understand all my pain and issues.

These nights are graceless.
These nights are long.
These nights have me lost,
walking and searching for the sun.
Always ending up in places
that are just too dark.

Where is the sun that once loved me like a child?
Will I ever end up in a perfect place?
Am I just crying them to the moon?
Will this all be over soon?

Sparkling, silvery, shades of grey.
Skin, shivering, brain of dismay.

Trees, trancing, bare naked sky.
Patiently, pondering, preparing to fly.

Wind, whistling, a dancing swoon.
Sounds, serenading a sparkling moon.  

Secret , system of the seasons.
The rhythm of winter needs no reasons.

Seasonal affective disorder,
Justify this infective inorder.

It's there and I can feel it
I want to reach it but I can't.
I hear it in my speech, I see it in my dreams,
I smell it in the air and I feel it in my veins.
I see it in the eyes of creatures,
I feel it from still and tidal waters,
I even inhale it from all the green that surround us.
I feel it through words that are spoken
And I see it within those that are written,
I hear its melodies, sweet sounds of a silent night
Serenading in a foreign dialect.
It makes me feel whole though it chills me right to the bone
My heart wants to but my mind doesn't,
My mind wants to understand but my heart is too afraid to comprehend
I know what it is yet I can't tell what it is.
Still trying to reach out to it but I seem not to reach it
Part of me wants it while the other doesn't
The me within me wants it
But the me outside of me repels it.

When mine Reyna is down
I serenadeth her;
With freestyle poetry
Singing amour, loud.



©Brandon nagley
©Earl Jane dedication
©Lonesome poet's poetry

How can you bare a broken promise
or loiter after a broken date?
Sad Samantha lost her chance,
no Frank Sinatra vinyl nights
serenading young lovers in,
or walks down moonlit colonnades.
She's just a victim of a steely heart whose
strung himself  around someone else's waist
and  dyed blonde hair

A backdrop of gorgeous hues, tints, and shades peeking in from afar draw near, I on one side, it on the other, the two of us bidding for a glance at two white doves on center stage.  
 
Their eyes converging, their glance coinciding, a replica of the simplicity in which they were brought together, a dual recognition ignited by the burning of hearts and the lumination of souls. 
 
Affectionate hands coupled in an orbit of serenity, her passionately embracing his with a tug of excitement gushing I’m yours, his tenderly and securely supporting hers and in acceptance of gifts of admiration and approval, he is humbled whilst mesmerized by her captivating beauty and elatious smile.  
 
Two distinct bodies standing still between an air of transparency and vulnerability, they occupying an endearing space serenading to sweet melodies reminiscent of one exclusive life. A bit of haze lingers behind her, her ***** drumming to a cheerful step toward his, there she waits in an affirmative reply of what much he has to offer her, what much he has given her. He consumed by her presence, his face speaking something his mouth cannot. A yearning for each other unspoken, the romantic harmony of a moonstruck light and a synchronized kiss. Their bodies held captive by their souls set free. 
 
An impartial unfinished hallow sits as a canopy above, gracing its cascading rays on the couples’ faces creating unique shadows on each, one caressing the other in a playfully warm exchange. Overwhelmed by his serenade, emotions overflow and an innocent blush appears, his heart unburdened, skipping to a resounding beat and the words, I found my soulmate. With a slight rise of her jaw, she’s smitten with this king, the delicate skin of her countenance warmed by the glow of his, a pink dusting of her freshwater pearls.  
 
A love affair unconventional, a duo in adoration, a marriage of crisp airiness and a desire for discovery ringing true, a fondness between man and woman precious like a round cut diamond, weightless as dandelion fuzz blowing in the wind, beaming identical to that of a fluorescent night star, the twosome looking into one soul rejoices intimately at their romantic chemistry and unyielding bond. 
 
A gracious audience of ink, navy, and Prussian blue, antique and porcelain white, emerald green and scarlet pink in a pose of calm celebration, honors the mister and missus with an exuberant ovation. Entangled in a web of love with a sincerity stringing them in unison, the two in a trance cherishes a declaration so glamorous, a devotion so light.

i am the piper
cept my pipes are
a bit rusty

out of tune
melancholy

its too late for monthly checkups


but you never seem to mind

but you see the only reason they are
so worn out
is because i sing my melody
as loud and beautiful as I can
every time we do the dance of passion

no, they can't be rusty
because
i've serenaded so many other women before you
that can't be

you,
your melody is sweet, pure, harmonious
but of course, you've only just started

you make me feel like an old man
whose pipes have seen generations
i almost feel bad serenading such a pure heart

but i know what will happen
you will leave me soon
yes, I know from our passion dances that you
love me
but when you find another whose music is sweeter
more pure than my coarseness
i promise
you will love him more

its only a matter of time...

There is no ****** in relationships these days!
He proclaimed, swinging amble waist in my direction,
Just them public displays of affection Or PDA’s:
To those afflicted with ‘abbreviationithis’ (ABT) for short,
We are in the custody of a soulless generation,
Bathed in apathy, shorthand speaking, glass-tapping,
Pampered glad-hands glad-handing, over-perfumed,
Statements of exaggerations - investigated in toilets,
On lifeless screens, no skill of conversation required.
Larry continued, unabated by the stares an’ giggles.

****** is what counts; it makes up a sizeable portion,
Of love at first sight, not online but in person,
An animal magnetism takes hold an’ before you know..
You’ve ****** yourself and your attraction in the flesh,
The art of being undressed yet still dressed is an art,
Too easy are these poorly constructed witless lines,
Weak almost polite hugs, clearly awkward air-kisses,
Perceived as the innocent dance of modern romance.
How is anyone to know anyone lusts after them?
How is someone to know if not for someone’s ******?

I feared that I had stumbled upon an early night,
I’d been collared by this mongrel of a forgettable time,
His rigorous attention to showing this ******,
Serenading my embarrassment was now a highlight,
His ramblings long ignored, possibly insightful,
Cried out hilariously for proof of his master plan,
So for the devilment – I asked for a demonstration,
To appease my boredom of debating with this fool,
Larry motioned again; his eyes lit as much as his mind,
To a woman stood waiting, her desire for the taking.

I must warn you, ****** is not for the faint-at-heart,
No use shoving hips of wanting into a total stranger,
Catch the eyes first - leave some distance and discretion,
Smile and move silently – prepare to tell a story,
As with any manoeuvre, there must be some grace,
Double-check your manners an’ prepare for a feast,
Straighten your ready stance to deliver the clincher,
Smile again brightly with no hint of danger,  
An’ in a movement pincer-like yet working alone,
On a wing with no prayers – I’ll show you, my friend.

An’ so he did, sweeping toward this unsuspecting patron,
Larry had managed to scare, scatter and surprise,
This woman and many others, the beholder unwelcome,
The moral of this story on hold, he had slipped a hip,
Into her personal space, and nonchalantly she turned away,
He continued with his thrusting, his way of affecting,
The conversation – dead now for shock and unsettling awe,
She had strangled her anger and suspended her belief,
That a man would be so crass as to ****** her in public,
Accosted by her coldness, he returned to proclaim an ending.

I never said that ****** worked on the charmless,
The per-occupied, the rude, the shy or the frail,
I trust my ****** with one hand free for everything,
My other hand grasped on this lover’s Holy Grail.

It does take all walks of life, some stumbling some not,
To lust, to wonder for love, now left forever pursued,
So a question is forever lost – to ****** or not to ******?  
Deluded Larry had diluted - still I’d been left, amused.

Utterly enchanted 'neath
  mesmerizing constellations,
as an entranced blue moon
    swoons over sparkling
           celestial diamonds,
cello's were eloquently playing
  serenading starry stratospheres  
     within an endearing melody
           and milky ways of poetry,
simultaneously syncopating
   strumming pizzicato heartstrings,
tuning our harmonious passages
      of rhythm and rhyme 'pon
apricot mist sunset horizons &
   seraphic skies rendered of
          lapis lazuli sunrise grandeur

Scratching pebbles.
Seeing the dog walkers.
Down by the river.
The stalkers?

Hunting for stars.
While playing guitars.
Presentation on violins.
Serenading his lady.
Using his voice.
Pure perfection.
Not his choice.
He's playing at love.
Puppies are adorable, usually.
This dog.
Well,
Only as adorable as a hound from hell.

Seconds and moments.
Mementos and chocolates.
Him, sleeping beneath the trees.
Brow dripping,
salted perspiration.
Wasting away.
Wasting time.
Love playing games.

That was the summer, that was.
When love chased her.
Chased him too.
It chased him away.

And, you rarely hear birds sing in Venice.
They've flown, off chasing love for somebody else.
Clever birds, gave up on us.
(c)Livvi

Last night the truth was in the bottle. It may be a tad bit cliché, but the stripping away of my cognitive functions was a relaxing endeavor. Okay, there’s nothing cliché about that last sentence. Still, there I was past the crowded living room, cluttered with soda cans and people, past the small kitchen and the three guys playing cards, past the three wine coolers sipped through a straw, and the mixed drinks, pass all that there was the truth.
Dropping the regular essence of me, I slid behind the idiot clown. I tripped and stumbled, babbled and mumbled. My emotions unguarded, I spewed love almost as much as I spewed chunks of a greasy sausage pizza with little chewed up black olives. It was fun. One moment of not thinking. One moment of not dealing with the concrete and the abstract, the struggles and oppressions, my realistic paranoia and dark observations. I plopped limply down on the couch then slid off the side of it jokingly. The ground shuddered with a soft thud.  My friends laughed. I laughed. The truth is I like the sound of innocent laughter. It is a relief. All those synapse spitting out calming fluids. Till, what little stress that was left disappears.

     Before that the truth was in caffeine induced writing frenzies. There were small interludes of creativity swirling around dark depressive moods. I pushed and prodded the black keys as if I was chipping away chunks of stone on a marble sculpture; exposing myself and my truths.

     Someone told me that to be a great writer doesn’t require me to suffer. I thought it’s a good thing they’re not mutually exclusive, because the truth is I was suffering long before I started to write. The doubt which comes from learning more and more bled me to the verge of insanity. Maybe it was vanity that pushed me to seek the truth.

     Before that the truth was in quiet walks. The strolls down old dirt paths and memory lanes, crossing the mental traffic of past and present. I lingered at the jagged grey sparkling stone markers, sitting on newly grass covered plots, just hanging out at the graveyard because it was quiet. I wasn’t some emo kid. The truth was that I just preferred the quiet. It was the same reason I raced through the day to get to the night. Night was as nonjudgmental as the pine infested graveyard. No harsh sun glaring down. No strangers staring at me until I had to turn my head to the ground. The truth was the quiet, and the quiet was liberating.

      Before that the truth was in books. Kernels of wisdom locked in works of fiction. Little leather bound universes creeping in and transforming my mind.  Now, I prefer biographies; back then I loved the fantasies. Though in truth all nonfiction is fiction, because all reality is perceived relatively and written thusly. So, I stashed book in my back pack and back tracked down old alley ways to read away the lonely days. I sat in those dark corners, the dusty gravel biting my big bubble ****, but I was there for the quiet.

      Before that there was science. Beakers and Bunsen burners burning out atoms, and chlorophyll. I never really felt I had a talent for their postulates or formulas. Yet their subtle certainty, mired in uncertainty was appealing. They offered ever evolving truths. The strange transition from one logical position to the next and I was willing to adapt to any new facts.

      Before that there was god. I was his egotistically elevated idiot child. I could converse with adults on their level because in this they were as juvenile as I was; those ancient books that no longer make sense to me. Then it was the emotion of loving unearned certainty. The comfort of cowering beneath the awe and love of an all-powerful and all-knowing father figure, I called it the truth.

      Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep, cause a life’s worth of anxiety was hounding me the truth was in the music. Soft sounding syllables serenading me to sleep, moving to the rhythm of a calmly flowing beat. The music gave me something to focus on. It was a converging point to calm the chaos. Once in a while the music would play out some story or point out some struggle. My Tracy Chapman that was the truth.

       Sleep was preferable to the waking madness of daily living. So, if I was tired I slept. People used to make me feel guilty about it. However, I realized that sleep healed the body and the mind. Sleep let me dream. Dreams let me do things beyond reality. They directed me to grand fantasies, or pointed out painful truths about myself. I could wake up crying, or I could go to bed sad and wake up content. That was the truth.  

       In-between all these things I pondered relative and certain truth. Was it constant or changing based on perception? People passed, none returned. I got older. Now my teeth are starting to rot right out of my face, but I still devour information; listening to the wild tales of strangers. Sometimes, I trust too much, other times I trust no one.

      The truth is I exist, amidst whatever this existence is. Beyond that I cannot clearly define this reality. What is the truth?

I walk around my hundred person hot tub party
and I
cannot feel anything
crawling through my veins alcohol takes over
alone in my yellow living room full of people

\

The girls from the local apartments are here
they arrive in groups of three
five
six
sometimes in long trains of sixteen
I try not to **** my pants with laughter
as I hug and greet each one as they grace my home
I never thought I would be this person
this tongue tied host

\

the felons are here talking about their latest stints in jail
the Olympian is talking about how he walked next to Lebron James at the opening ceremony
the musicians are serenading a girl that does not want to hear it
plastic bags have been placed over the smoke alarms
the marine is talking about killing in the desert
leaning on the northward wall I take a long drag of my blunt trying to look aloofly attractive
, but failing miserably at the act
until she walked up to me
red leather jacket
skin so soft
binding black dress
I liberated her from it and she kissed me
Kissing her back emptied my inhibitions and the morning after: when I found out he was in love with her and I had slept with her; I felt alone all over again
She ran when this was spoken
Me and him fought with our fists
nothing got resolved
all of a sudden
I feel isolation again
just like the party
leaning on the northward wall
having made thirty conversations
none of which compel me
finally leaving me to the world
that exists in my head
THE ONE I CONTROL

\

I have this negative kick back
whenever I feel something going too nice
I just want to be in my room
alone
with a computer
books
marijuana
a chair
pen
paper
precious paradise
I want to run
tear my flesh off my chest
rip into a heavy metal howl
then have blasting music come in
come in from every corner of the room
the bass tones would bounce from the corners
the high tones would bounce of the walls and refract rapidly
and I would be gone
now wondering
what my position is to where they stand

\

What worlds we can mentally create
and which do we want to step into
Sometimes the ability is strong on Tuesdays but not on Thursdays
Why the inconsistency?

The heart yearns to live,
to breathe and drink of love,
to drown in the sea of passion,
to frolic in the fields of lust,
savoring the intoxicating aromas,
of a verdent pasture,
alluring and charming.

As I behold the wondrous plethora,
of vibrantly enchanting flowers,
my body dances in awe,
lost in a tantalizing trance,
viewing  the mundane rudiments of nature,
coalescing with the intricate details,
only the soul of an artist may witness.

Out of the corner of my eye,
a lush bush of roses,
red as my cheeks,
blushing among thoughts,
rushing over my form,
as my fingers caress the elder rose,
speaking to my spirit,
with sweet tenderness,
in comparison to the languid sounds,
of typical boisterous shrieks,
emitting from the urban machines,
lacking the genuine melody,
from my serenading rose.

Temptation promotes the courage,
to cup the flower with the palms,
of my hands,
as delightful smells,
tickle my nostrils,
allowing desire to control,
the reigns of the wild stallion,
raging inside this delicate tulip.

After vast contemplation,
from the internal ticking of my chambers,
I retrieve my dagger,
remaining above my thigh,
bound by the fabric of my garments,
slicing the stem of the elder rose,
away from its origin,
catching this marvelous gift of nature,
before the ground can taint,
the petals,
gorgeous yet precariously fragile.

Fear egenders my grasp,
upon this flower to grow fiercely,
giving the roots opportunity,
to manifest into the soil,
of my compassionate touch.
I close my eyes,
envisioning a young maiden,
pplucking the petals off of a rose,
an oscillation of phrases,
swaying from her lips,
"he loves me;
he loves me not".

My eyes trace the nuances,
of the beautiful maiden,
strangely familiar yet intriguingly exotic,
as her eyes flicker,
opening as realization sweeps,
over my being as an epiphany,
restores the memories,
remembering the maiden,
is actually myself,
awakening from the daydream.

My hands rise to share,
their first encounter with my face,
since reaching this new clarity,
as my mind seems to be in a daze,
noticing the scars oozing with crimson tears,
as ache spreads upon me,
while my reality embraces the pain,
bore as thorns,
***** my soft skin,
as I possess the rose,
in my clutched palms.

The elder rose represents all my desires,
unfortunately a mere illusion,
lovely at first glance,
yet neglect of the inevitable thorns,
shall leave my chambers hollow,
ceasing all the flames,
once burnining with intensity,
a threat to the flower,
unscathed  and full of terror.

Reluctantly, I let go of the rose,
tumbling to the ground,
as it bursts into ashes,
leaving my lens to focus,
on simplicities blinded,
by the yearnings of my hearth,
fueled by hopes of the elder rose,
leaving the glass of my heart,
full of wine; no longer half empty.

Like continents moving the skin off from over me , slowly..
deliberately           with great force on the rest of my being ,
each aspect of myself emerges anew
from the cocoon like first layer of childhood ,

i see myself spiral from the snakeskin left on the floor

a forge is in it’s place

of molten liquid energy running along my meridians.
Serenading every judgement of another character with love shine ,
fresh from the gardens of mine
       that bathe
by the sea air
in my root chakra layer... mingles ,
with the heart echo arrow
i send it with.  

Known; that the judgements of others are a side product of judgement of self.
Be it , through the eyes of a hopeful parent or a tired teacher , a pig or a nit.... an angel or specter himself -
None equal as true, to the eyes i see through
on the matter my being is composed of.

Integrating stillness in my vivacious bones , conscious movements flow , stabilizing the unknown into the known , materializing the un-materialized subconscious realm.

Moving through visible reality shifts and mind rifts , exploring

the astral world around me
whilst moving through physical boundaries of borders
Developing organs in my subtle body .

Manifesting my foundations for stamina.
What a joy it is to live from the heart.