I.

“You can only fight the way you practice”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

His lessons started late
As always, and as always
What is thrown is a question
You grip tightly
around your fingers
as one would,
as one always should.

With a branch he beckons:
“Come” he asks,

“if a stick is struck from this angle,
what would your answer be?”

Always, the old man taught
With each strike, each parry,
Each disarm and lock,
Each time my knuckles
Would hurt. This way
he makes it sure
that my body
remembers.

This is always
the first step.
My mind might forget.
But the body
Remembers.


II.

“It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing. Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings: Miyamoto Musashi

With him, everything starts
The vague quality of nonwords
Taught from pain, simplified
Through science:

the fulcrum and the lever.

Each joint, each turn,
a pattern to comprehend,
all things work in context:

A framework of the undeniable
Fact:

the world is separate
In only these two words:

Taub at Tihaya

The colloquial words for
Face down and face up;
This is a pattern
of the body.

III.

“If you wish to control others you must first control yourself”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

Tihaya

The lesson starts
When he presses
His thumb forward
to a hand asking for alms
like turning a doorknob
too far to the right.

Taub

when I pull back
four fingers
on a giving hand
too far to what is left.

these are the means
for control.
When I know
How much is necessary
To push or to pull,
To teach or to break.

- 18 October 2017

who took away your softness
and made you feel
the harshness of the ocean?

who took your tide away?

your lips tasted of salt once.
but the blue dye of your
ocean has begun to fade.

you were then,
so plump and mighty.
but today you lie flat
in the shallowest of
water.

tangled in the algae,
gathered by
your fingers.

Truth: We call ourselves deep
Sometimes: We call others shallow
But really: We are the shallowest of all
                                                           **For we wear our hearts on our sleeves
                                                         ­  Inflate our pain
                                                            ­And  pine for that                          which we do not             deserve

The optimistic existentialist

getting by on

the vapid knowledge that

nothing has meaning

but thinking it might

someday.

The shallowest

deep-thinker you’ve ever met

in a constant war

between vanity and philosophy,

drowning in mirror-hating narcissism

and my humble ego.

Introverted loud-mouth

socially inclined,socially incapable

assertion-loathing people-person.

Vengeful peace-maker,

violent pacifist

fists littered with deceptive,

fallacious,faint purple bruises.

All these things are the

drip drip drip

of drops in the bucket

of a level-headed psychopath.

I dare you

to dive into the water,

headfirst,

of my mind

where I constantly contradict myself,

like it’s a game.

O, how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or, being wrecked, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building, and of goodly pride.
    Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
    The worst was this: my love was my decay.

I am the master of my own mind
I beset my tears, I conquer my sadness
I am devoted to this world
To this very world in which I dwell
and to which my soul is admitted
Sometimes I hear my words
Fly around and again
within t'ese violent shades
about my head: as I walk by curious moonlight,
sunbeams, in 'ose solitary moods and emblems
of t'is silent quiet of th' night.
How can I be so lonely-and bathed in distress-
in t'is lovely yet calamitous winter?
How can I be so destitute and untouchable-
unlovable-unaffectionate, indeed!-without my very own
admired thee?
My soul is dejected; condemned and cursed
by th' entirety of destiny-oh, how I am accustomed to
t'is pain, and its inflamed tongue, burning mercilessly
in t'ose succulent perambulations throughout
th' volatile streets-yes, upon and across th' bridge-
what a vile remembrance, where but t'is poem
is my only vivid 'muchness'-and consolation. If only a wren
could be deemed my messenger, let her but decoy t'is
dubious fate-and bring me to slip into her arms-
thin and steep but with a fond predilection for my desires-
with consideration for our feelings-and carry within her wings
a letter from these longings, beneath
the cradling hands of the moon-yes, t'at hectic,
vivacious moon-who is lurking behind me
like a moronic shadow. Its chaotic abode-aye,
chaotic as it once was, is now unamused-and plastered
into th' surly noon, it is despaired-utterly despaired,
and deprived of love-look at how t'at wealth of serene eyes
swim around thirst, in such unwonted lullabies, and its
famished shrine! What a dejected old
sanctuary it must be-infamous and credulous to oddity, but again
fuels my anger on, amidst th' moonbeam t'at is now gone.
But I still can't find thee, querida.

Tell me, then, how shalt I spend t'is azure night without thee?
Without thee, querida, my soul is but solemn and vain;
as though I've lost my brain-and my shell's 'bout to drain-
yes, 'tis t'at no delight, but worries-in me.
And no shield is to protect t'at,
as thou, my love, art in a dream, but far, far away.
I am only consoled by t'ese remnants, o, of my infatuation-
of t'is incarcerated, forbidden love-for thee!
My very thee, who should be curling up comfortably-
like a childish moist in my arms-
in my simpering abyss, and therefore sends it into
flickers, and doesth it die-hence, forces its dread, and stubbornness
to obey! O thee, th' fixated spirit to my wondrous imagination-
and th' anxious bits of my sublime inspiration-truthfully, indeed!
How in this quieted recluse
I long for but one piece of shine-yes, just
one piece of which-to be my guiding star,
and the torch of my robbed path.
My stolen state-and luminous gravity, as dim as the mocked
aspiration, is but never to shower again-
t'at earth with smiling rain-and th'  invigorating soil 'neath
my feet-upon which I trample in deadly haste.
But my hands are scanty-and my heart is dry; that is
but admiringly undeniable;
I am indulged by my own fear, abhorrence,
and dangerous imagination. I am but without my lover-
o, thee, o my solitary prince, doth thou heareth of my
wail? I scream and scream in t'is unforgiving agony,
but thou hath not been here, lost in th' middle of nowhere
like an unnamed being-but belonging to some other's
charms, I know! But still I crave for thee-just thy eyes,
yes-those dripping blackness whose temptation is like
a cave, an invitation to deep, deeper soliloquy down its
poisonous hole. How I am shrinking into this dream again-
a wild, wild dream of seclusion, which I look upon
in frustrated reproof; thou art the symbol of its daintiness-
and thorns of delicacy-but t'at someone else! Some other
dame whose heart dearly belongs to thee-and o, how enviable t'is
object of endurance might be. How deserving of my remorse-unwilling
as my being might be, to give it. Still , out of even the shallowest comprehension-
when the sun glows over me, I will long for but thee-over the morning dews
of the river, far from insanity, will I stand there anew,
and in freshness glint at thy stateliness
in unpardonable profusion.

On t'is very still do I sit, with t'at grumpy book in my lap-
words carved nearly are as picturesque as th' beautiful heaven.
I hope but thou could heareth me-thou whose voice is like a
hint of lavender-painted in th' ballads of my heart forever.
My song, my song! Undergone a faithful revision-
towards a masculine spring of reason,
and demands a sudden but mature completion.
How I still sing for thee!
Like a bee who chases a loveless but unbending sunflower,
sipping all its empowering delight-that is but how I shall wait for thee-
in t'is passion and strong conviction for truth-
that thou wilt embrace me, as thy own queen of ardour
beneath t'is forthcoming spring, o, my knight-
and all t'is love, and love indeed-as th' very endlessness
of thy splendor.

One glossy raven perched, stately,
atop a snowy hill, Unearthly Long flowing wings, hanging down the *****, framing the hill
on the face of which,
were interposed two glacial ponds of blue.
Between these pools ran a simple strip of sloped marble,
But at the base of this was the most gentle depression in the snow.
In disbelief I observed two rows of strawberries, blossoming,
heavy laden with the richest red.
Each gentle bite of these more delicious than the last.
I continued my survey,
down to a long narrow hill of the freshest snow.
Here I came upon a wide expanse, a plain,
two long, slender berms extended at opposite sides.
But this was no true plain, and all the better for that,
For two equal mounds of snow enchanted the landscape.
The setting sun cast a pink light at the peak of each pale globe,
So beautiful I wept.
As I passed between their valley the snowy distance continued.
I observed an infinitesimal sloping on the Western and Eastern edges.
This expanse, perfect of any true blemish, was punctuated by the shallowest little empty pond at its narrowest width; which only served to enhance the beauty.
The length of this snowed plain was far greater than its width, the edges slowly creeping into the narrowest part before flaring out to a wide expanse.
And there in the lowlands was The Delta,
to the side of which extended two of the longest and most shapely tapering ridges I had ever observed;
each ending with graceful peaks.
But that Delta!
Though snowy, the darkest , shortest scrub had capped its mound.
At the apex of The Delta was a precipice,
on its face a cavern, pink walls glistening with wetness,
at the caverns base, a cave.
Its tunnel, with walls ribbed, was warm and humid despite the landscape of snow.
This is the landscape I cherish most.

behind the castle walls,
behold a girl who's been hurt,
a girl who's been taunted,
a girl who's been broken into pieces,
a girl who's been tossed aside like nothing,
a girl who's been torn down.

behind the castle walls,
lays a ******* her mattress,
eyes trimmed with water,
as her gaze is fixated on her ceiling.

behind the castle walls,
is a girl who doesn't understand love,
because she's numb to the feeling,
something that stings but no longer pains.

behind the castle walls,
is a girl who's tired,
both emotionally and physically.

behind the castle walls,
is a girl who doesn't want to breathe any longer.
because even the shallowest breath,
burns like flames.

White.
Female.
Middle Class.
Heterosexual.
Agnostic.
Libertarian.

Yeah.
That's me.
That's that first layer,
thin as the paper you could
read it on.
Just a
Jane Doe,
a nameless, faceless
demographic.

But peeling back the layers,
ripping through page on page of a complicated novel,
digging
down
into
a
bottomless
hole
to
China,
unravelling
­the intricate
web of
stereotypestruthsliesassumptionsprejudice
and
there you will find
me,
a colorless genderless asexual
spirit whose frame
is crafted and molded
not with how the world
chooses to see me and
who "they" deem me to be;

no.

A guy that didn't know me well
once told me that I
spoke more urban than he
expected,
and I couldn't help but wonder why
someone from an urban area
couldn't speak like they were
from a city,
like somehow what he saw in my
whitefemaleheterosexualmiddleclassagnosticlibertarian
prolog­ue forbade me
from speaking in colloquials and
abbreviations.
Oh, I apologize,
I laughed later to my friend,
law students are supposed to speak
with an ostentatious vocabulary and
an heir of
(superfluous) arrogance.

I am rarely a prototype
of what it means to be
White,
of what it means to be
female;
middle-class* or not,
my parents insisted at age 8
that I begin to understand
the value of a dollar;
my sexuality indicates little
about my level of attraction
to the world around me;
agnostic is really just a term
I put because I'm still trying to
figure out whether I really
believe everything I was forced to
learn at Catholic school;
and isn't Libertarian just a fancy
word for I don't want to
choose liberal or conservative?

It's insulting to
ingest how much is
insinuated about
my depth in
the shallowest of pools.
My cheeks burn hot
with frustration as I
try to balance on a beam
cracking underneath the weight of
a world that is constantly begging me
to go back in the neatly
wrapped package from which
the world would prefer I
came.

I'm not someone
you can put in a *******
box and
label;
you can't contain my
shine behind
blackout blinds;
I will burst out of your bubble
and break your glass ceilings;
I will scream at the top of
my lungs in a soundproof room
until you HEAR me.

I'm not meant to be judged
by my cover,
and neither are you.

We are meant to be read.

In deepest mire
In shallowest pride
Holy Spirit, be Thou near
My Friend, Guardian and Guide.

Walk with me through flame and fire
And on waters deep and wide
Let us enjoy Thy heart's desire
And together, forever abide.

AN OVI/VICTORIA'S POEM
               COLLABORATION

What brings an undaunted Warrior down on his knees?"

It is a Woman,
A woman's tears can pierce into the most rigid of souls.
It is her charms and calls
that falls like splendors on morning leaves.
Her sway and bounce, that sends shivers into the hearts.

Such are the nights
she envelopes him in a tailwind,
both of them buoyed
in his regard
of her every thing.
Quenched and drunk
on the essence
of love in action
happen the mornings when he
is the rising sun itself
that draws her
like a mist from the ocean.

And as the moon transverses the lone sky, searching for a mystery to peruse the earth with brooding glow,
So she glows her man into a brighter him.
She encloses within her, moments of illumination, that even the darkest of souls cannot quench.
Such are the days of her unending rainfalls, where she wets up the shallowest of earth's depths....
Intertwining between seasons and spheres.
Her heart is like the endlessness of the ocean,
Constantly drawing him with her hips into a wave of boundless journey.

And so it is
as it always was
through the ages of transience,
their enigma constant,
unending prevailed
against the steely, storming skies
of angst en masse  
that would test loves mettle,
where true warriors, undaunted
rise above, arced
in kaleidoscopic triumph.

Ovi Odiete and Victoria©
All right reserved. 10/9/2016

In this society
of souls from the millennium
Invigorated by validation
Drugged only skin-deep
With toxic actions and words
And prices ruling like
A silver-spoon-fed princess
The value of an individual
Plunges deep into the depths
Of the shallowest mirror-like pools

I can only sigh
As I sit in this new class
Alongside new faces
And the absence of the professor
I think of refunding my expensive tuition fee
When I pay my utmost attention
To everything around me

How fast fade most pinkest trees
How digits dance 'neath Catalpa breeze
Ignoring last October's deadest death
They arrived on time then took last breaths

Scattered seeds among their foes
Had no need of planting earthen work
As cycles shadow ploughman's dream
The fickle fruitless cherry grows

He rode rough crests over wildest waves
His ship stayed unsunk under skinny toil
His family landed and held holiest hope
Now blossom buds over grassy graves

Darkness darkened darkest health
Metal sheets broke bones full force
Lungs would not get the care of air
But hours still channeled wisdom wealth

She bent the knee for sacred loves
She scraped it on the firmest strife
Her pies nor pulchritude but soul inspired
Now stillness stays beneath starry moves

When bloodiest blood ****** didn't produce
It drained itself from veins and strained
Veiling valleys making mountains make-believe
But sharpest tongue emptiness refused

What meagre maggots worthless worms
Are those of us who never yearn!
We rarely learn to live so well as they
Who gave us genes and grace and days

All I offer oft only when I try and I work
Nothing else can I do nor more can I hope
This most modest shallowest honor to give
Of them in springtime remembering is

a poet who can't write
a dog that won't bite
a hill that can't climb
a clock with no time

an ist with no ism
undead but not risen
an endless schism
of self sedition and indecision

a two headed coin
a completely missed point
a light in the void
a limbless joint

Bo-Peep with no sheep
the shallowest deep
an unsailed sea
of dreamless sleep

There is a man walking slowly in me
And he’s going through each room, one by one,
Turning on all the lights while passing by
Stripping the scenes with silver dollar eyes.
With a flick of his chicken bone finger
The kitchen lights violently flare up
To reveal tomato stains, upset
Stomachs, windows and broken table legs.
“Call the medic now!”– In the living room
The lights just found choked up throats and down town
Sticky red wine stains that bleat beat up
Little lambs for little peeps and little
Mistakes that become big scabs and big scams
That swallows the shallowest of waters.
Now the man who certainly loves the light
Is in the bathroom where the peeping brights
Gouge and grind the snuffed and lying young man
Till he is but the pulp and rind and juice.
“Where’s the medic?” Screams the mad running blood
“Where’s the ******* medic?” They cry again.
Now he tricks the porch light into being
Forcing it to leer upon this **** scene
Of a man barely living, most likely
Sleeping, with a garden hose stuffed down his
Gorgon throat seeping– weeping – all at once.
Where is he now? The man who loves the lights?
He’s walking to the impressive bedroom.
The lights wrestle and work the shadows down
Looking for the living, the last one home
Hiding away just in his underwear.
The man of lights opens the closet door
Just takes a look at the creature’s features
When he has finished, when he has remarked
He marks the skin with light, then tears it off.
He takes each muscle each tendon and bone
And throws them, crashing the walls as each falls!
Boom boom! Goes the muscle through the bathroom
Boom boom! Goes the bone through the kitchen
Boom boom! Goes the tendon through the bedroom.
Boom boom! Goes the heart through the rooftop
Boom Boom! Goes the head through the frondoor.

There was once a man that walked within me
And he has left the lights to burn on and on

I sold my engagement ring to a gold peddler for $995.
I paid off my consulting lawyer.
I purchsed a bottle of 15 year single malt.
I bought gasoline and drove 336 miles.

I threw your wedding band, the one you left me to dispose of, into the shallowest and widest river I could find.

You're welcome.
*******.

She told me she loves me,
like how the sea remains,
even if the shore shoves it away.
On the day she left,
I thought of the words she said.
I shouldn't have felt secured then,
for she compared her love for me,
to the shallowest part of the sea.
She did not love me deeply.

Happiness is illusive,
And it lies within the heart.
Now some hearts fill quickly, but drain quickly too,
Others take time to fill, but they keep in what they have earned.
Mine seems to be the former.
Filling from friendly words,
And emptying an hour later over the shallowest matter.

This being said it is not impossible to be happy, many people live happy lives

And I believe the key is to accept it all.
To live life with love.
To not search for what could make you happy, but rather your heart which will make you happy.
Happiness is the only quest in which the goal can be found at the beginning.

Even the shallowest thoughts run deep,
within my mind,
among the
should have,
could have,
might have
and what if
you're still dwelling
in between,
while i try to get rid,
I find my self staring at you like a kid,
in front of a TV screen,
as I lean in
to change the channel,
it doesn't matter
all I see is,
you
and me,
stuck in reverse and repeat.

She was a woman like any other women, she spoke the language of the moon and the night, and by day she reconciled with the clouds to find the stars. She moved as if the world was watching and talked as if no-one was listening. Her mind wandered down lonely paths as she sought to a road to take. Her silence communicated what she was trying to say. Her thoughts were not empty. Her vision was coloured and blurred. Life, passed by with watches and strings, and many a wondrous and blinded thing. She was judged, by judges that no-one had met, yet kneel at the altar of. Her face was a precipice that many fell upon, fell down, and landed on their own two feet. And these words were what I wrote for her.

You twist like a serpent around my head, you lie like a river in my bed. And the sheets that we lay upon are cold and perturbed, that they are not being stolen or being disturbed. Your beauty is blinding to those that feel the sun, the glare, the heat, whispers of being the one. I repeat, repeat, eject, eject. I’ve built you a majesty of mountains you find hard to collect. Pebbles of gold found in the shallowest stream, are fragments of the sun of which you dare to dream. I think of you, of you, you. And I run for cover, one amongst many, of many a lover. You see without looking, you hear without thought, you buy without drinking, you drink what you bought. And all of this I assume you have not dared to know, that clearly I see you and the seeds that you sow.

It is not easy for me to lie here and gaze at you sleeping, for it is far easier for me to hold you whilst you are weeping. I will take care of those troubles that lay in your head, but most likely I will forget you whilst I make my bed. I bite on my teeth, I pick at my hands, I cannot but daydream about our future I planned. Mostly I laugh, for it is nothing I know, but for sure it is rather my own soap opera show. Although I watch you quite quietly in the quietest of times, I sit here alone and write you these rhymes. I wish you would be silent and think of nothing at all.

So she sits in her ivory tower, a majestic sight to be held, built by many a weary lover. Innocuous to all attempts. Failed by the mightiest standards. If you asked me to, I would silence my heart, I would scrawl sweet nothings on bathroom walls, I would take care of you, I would do what was required. Tho I am not your deadliest sin, I am not your usual flame, I am not what you would call a surmise, a full pardon or expletive expectation. A breath is all it takes to bring you back to life, moth to a flame, enflamed and explosive by the light. Oh what a fright. What a fear. That I may just be the one to lie in your arms and be content and never ask for anything more.

she's the kid of girl
who tries wayyyy too ******* hard to please everybody
somebody has each limb
and is pulling her in every direction

boys fight for her heart
the one she wants to win doesn't fight
she leaves herself in the open
taking shots from all angles
absorbs it and shakes it off
like it didn't even hurt

she tells me her deepest secrets
and laughs
from the shallowest part of herself

that smile could make a grown man
a man who gave up on love
weak the ******* knees
make the hardest frown
turn right upside down

the one's who say they love her
**** her up more than those who don't
she's rare
she cares
sometimes, well
most of the time she gets too stressed
and tries too hard to be the best

tear away the seams
your heart is sewn onto your sleeve
rip it off
it might hurt a bit
you might bleed
but it's temporary
unlike the hurt from the ones who "love" you
TEAR YOUR HEART OFF YOUR SLEEVE
put it BACK where it belongs
lock it up tight
let the right one in
not the one who speaks in cliches
choose the one who can look you dead in the eye
and tell you you're beautiful
without looking at your chest or ***

I pinky promise he will come around
I can't promise when
but i swear
be patient and sit back
and watch your life unfold
like opening the pages of a pop-up book

Teahupo’o (pronounced Cho-poo)

Did you think your actions couldn’t affect someone else?
Do you ever think about anyone but yourself?

It’s the shallowest of waters that can cause the biggest waves.
Good morning, Teahupo’o, I’ve prepared myself for your arrival.
I’ve felt the ripples. I’ve felt the swells. It’s no wonder your waves came crashing down.
My best was taken aback by your rip current.

There is only one thing you’ve forgot.
Once a wave starts to break, it has to crash.
Now you’ve fallen…
You’re crawling back to hide inside your waters, your shelters.
Now the rest of me lays broken at our wake but you still move on.

My dear darling, Teahupo’o, I can only be with you.
You’ve taken my best and left me with the rest.
My dear darling…

Now you’ve fallen. You’re crawling back.
I’ve been left with nothing. I’ll take it all back.
Now you’ve fallen. You’re crawling back.
I’ve been left with nothing, but you’re my nothing.

“Mysterious Waters of the Naked and Nervous”

She begins her life
along with nine-thousand seven hundred fourteen siblings
in the shallowest part of the pond,
just four days after being laid as a jelly egg
attached to a fern leaf bent over humid water.

On day seven she sallies to neighboring weeds
using a very circular route
quietly clings to ****, watches with terror
as brothers and sisters are  attacked
by sharp beaked birds
swooping down to chew helpless tadpoles,
devouring membranes that cover their gills and necks.  

One of few tadpoles to survive to day ten.
officially becomes a tiny pitch black pollywog
with continuously wiggling tail and  small round mouth
of ***** jaws that scrapes across tiny plants,
searching for something to eat.

She greedily swallows microscopic animals
found inside pond bottom ooze
and slime which clings to pond’s surface.

Devouring a particularly tasty ooze meal,
she is horrified to witness
tadpole brothers and sisters  eating each other,
siblings extending their bellies
by swallowing extended family.
            
Mostly tail with fine stippling of gold,
within  twenty-four hours she breathes
from two gills at each side of her throat
as hind legs suddenly sprout
rounded buds that soon turn into toes  
amazing her how fast she can propel  
away from murderous dive bombing birds of color.

She first demonstrates courage  
by a successful attack of  black fish that menaces her for hours.,
******* on its fish fins until they are ragged,
not in anger or self-defense  
more for tasty algae trapped within them.

But it does feel good to be able to destroy instead of being destroyed.

In our sterilized world
condensed selves peek out
Behind our blinding white back lit screens
desperate to draw out blood across the page
If anyone cuts, they'll leave the blood at home
To format conviction from insubstantial photos
Emotionless
every 19 out of 20 are all just pics of color drained of all but the shallowest
human experience
Dying to be loved
Seen
Hardly hoping to be understood
Cutting off all hope
as we cut off all our enemies
And cage ourselves in an impotent haven
No love can sprout, grow, and blossom
Hanging in mid-air
Amidst the talk of pointless pasts and puns
No,
Life
Love
Is Wrought in all the nastiness of Dirt
As earth's pushing pulls the golden threads
up out of all the worthy hearts
And stitches us together with all her lovely arts
It's Face to Face
And pain to pain
Where love indeed does truly start

Don't, just because you're lonely.
Yes. It's in me.
Like a drug,
I can make people feel better.

Don't, just because I'm the only one listening.
You can tell me what's ******* you off.
I am always all ears.

Don't, just because I make you forget it all.
In truth, it's temporary.

I can try and save you.
And I will succeed if I do.

But.

I don't want to just be your emergency exit.
I want to be the one to start it all.
I want to be the one to **** you off.
I want to get under your ******* skin.

With the shallowest reasons,
I want to be the one you talk about
to your friends.

Yes, I can be your rock. I want to.
But I can't be your fire escape.

Before we're there,
I want you to know that sometimes,
I WILL be the one to spark it all.

Sometimes, I'm a mess too.

Before we're there,
I want you to know that it will be tough.
I forget things.
I will forget to put the drink back in the fridge,
but I won't forget the hard times.
Sometimes I will slip
and bring up a storm of history.

Not deliberately, but sometimes,
I will be the one to cause you
emotional whirlwinds too.
But I want to be the one you keep coming back to.

Before we're there, know that I love to write.
I will write to you, and about you.
Like now, I will write about how I feel about you.
I will write about everything
And as much as you hate attention,
some people will know about you.
You will be, or currently are,
my muse.

Before we're there, remember how I ramble when drunk.
I will tell you everything, even the ones
you have no intention of hearing.
And I know you'll do the same.

Before we're there, know that it will be difficult.
I will demand for security;
For unconditional love;
For your all.
But I will also demand for absolute freedom.

Yes.
I will do everything to make you feel better.
I will go the distance.
Go the extra mile.
But before we're there,
Know that I want the same from you,
If not more...

I will try to get you through a rough patch,
keep your head above the water,
but sometimes, I will need help too.

Before we're there, know that this might all be a waste.
For many reasons aside from the ones
I have just mentioned,
this might not work.

A year from now,
You might be watching sunsets by the sea
with someone else,
I might be writing about someone else.
But I dont care anymore.

We might get there. We might not.
We might tiptoe off a plank 100 floors high together,
or just run and jump in with both feet
tomorrow or next week or next month.
I don't know.

I will stop wondering.
But take these precautions...
Before we're there,
I will see you next week.

We are escaping. One, two, three, four of us. We are escaping from a shabby, ill insulated trailer home dressed for the 70's. It's poo brown **** carpets and dilapidated yellow wallpaper is behind us, finally. Here we are in brisk mountain air looking over and smiling at one another as we soar down the slopes on our skis. I smile to my right - all the while giggling at our oddly fitted goggles and red, wind whipped noses. I feel completely in control. The other three zip past me and down the slopes. I see them make it to our destination: A nice, contemporary and cozy cottage; but I take my time. I'm moving freely and side to side, wearing a smile as wide as my head. I approach the destination to meet the other three. All too suddenly, rather than coming to a nice stop, I realize that I am approaching a ski jump instead. With out enough time to stop myself, I decide to position my self so that I land in the pond that sits slightly to left of the jump. I hit the jump and soar in the shallowest sky, close my eyes and brace myself for the coldest water my body has no desire of sensing. I become enveloped in liquid warmth just seconds later. It's the most surprising embrace and I almost choose not to leave. But I remerge with my goggles missing and I watch the steam rise from the water in all directions. Asfter I wade to the edge of the pond, I pick up my heavy, saturated body and drag it onto the snow, smiling and unaffected by the cold, wet earth beneath me.

Me?
Why me?
Look at me.

I write with
The plainest language
The shallowest meanings

I lack that
Special ingredient
To spice it all up

Aptitude?
Disposition?
I think I'm far from that.

Before all beings rise with the darkness and non beings fade away with the light, the colors will blind time.
After the darkness has evaporated into light, and the light has condensed into darkness, time will be exposed.
As part of the interest of the existing, we are merely one form of energy with many different sides.
We know not of the shallowest secrets of our non existence yet we harness our selves over the illusions that our mere existence plays on us.
So why does that make us? Because our non existence is depleting? Or is our existence entering the realm of eternally existent beings?
Something that is we can not know before looking past the blocks of existing masses of anti-time. We must be the ones who create the anti-darkness that will find the beings that flow in the opposite direction of time. We must invest the time that we are given in time that we are denied and find out when the undertaking of time will take place so we can create the realm of anti-time. We must not let our senses of the flow get blinded with colors that don't exist in reality. Unless we know for a fact that time can be opposed, we shall never attempt to break time off our realm of imagination. For if the force of the end fails to block the flow of time, time can never be stopped ever again. Resulting in a new realm where no beginning has an end, and no end has a beginning. This is the realm where even non existence can not exist. The realm of a new classification of non existence to exist. This is the realm where everything that has ever happened in the past and future exists on its own, not allowing anything else to coexist. This is the beginning of the old end that was meant to exist before time did. This is the birth of a new time that shares the same name with its resister but flows in the direction of the beginning. This is emit.

The dominant word is the marrow
attention is the bone
and it engulfs every. thing. in an instant
in fact, as we speak
Another hundred will add to the stream
of signifiers that do not mean
what we intend to say
at all
but that is just how it works
A snapshot of the state of affairs
and one might wonder how it happened
That we act as we utter
And the world disappears in a mighty cloud
Of hashtags and codes
encrypted in the shallowest dimensions
of the unconscious mind
in the deep yellow seas.

countless
tempestuous moments
a prognosis of the
stupendous temperament
a desire to believe
a desire to achieve
and I have never
looked away,
from the shallowest river
that I have sunk my foot into.

Lie with me
I dont want to see you shiver or shake
No i dont think leaving was a mistake.
Yes ill stay even when the earth quakes.
Nothing could ever break
My resolve.
Ill only be me while youre involved.
Yes ill be back
Even if i have to crawl
Through the deepest sea
Or the shallowest grave.
No im not saying id die
Please dont cry
Its far from over
Even though its gone under.
I still wonder
Where you are when i awake
Why things aren't the same
Why that chapter ended on that page
Why im filled with rage
Why i cant erase this place.
I need you here,
I need you safe
Talk to me please!
Don't go to sleep
Take me back to the snow.
Please take me back to the boy you knew.

Love will be found, even in love's dearth,
No truth more plentiful and abundant,
For Love warms my heart the breadth of its girth,
And warms me with her truth, resplendent,
Love is dove, she's peace and fire,
A raggedy ribbon on the breeze,
On golden wings she aspires,
Like one of nature's dutiful bees,
Love is a butterfly, fragile, soft,
Painted with pallet got from dream,
On sublime wings borne aloft,
Her aura vivid and supreme,
I welcome Love, her divine zephyr,
That flutters, beckons out to me
That warms me with other worldly ether,
And makes me sail on sunny seas.

Love is no crime, a truth known to all,
For she does not discriminate,
Love's dearth the righteous mind appals,
Should in that truth we ruminate,
Those who know not doubt Love's truth,
The shallowest of all denial,
A kind of beauty rare, forsooth,
Dost yet withstand a cynic's trial,
They cannot dream of sullying her flame,
With their inferior hand and magic,
With treacherous tale and treacherous game,
And crass, perverted logic,
Her truth will ring out, proud and loud,
Across the flowering universe,
Our Hearts clad in divinest shroud,
I communicate its joys in verse.

To live is to die everyday,
I am in a fight against myself,
To win is to lose everything,
Turn around to not breathe the air I breathe
Take a look into my eyes
And look through
Camouflage in the lies,
And never come true,
My ship crashed into an iceberg when I was at my best
Buried in the shallowest of the ocean- a perfect beginning laid to rest

Heart attack, home alone,
‘recollected an old vial of sublingual nitro,
and a charged smart phone,
so 911 worked,
{1 free miracle}
helicopter medical rescue team sweeps in,
“stay with us, sir, …. sir,
KWHAMHO wow,
“You can hear me now.”
or was it can you hear me now?
If you say yes you are asked for self identity,

What is your name, what are you doing here?

I laughed and said I thought you would tell me,

if I had a different role to play,
I thought, I think
I did not say that. Not my role. Patient.
Causal inferring prophecy, my role,
mere thought between things.

I am listening to life in me insisting persistance
meets resistence from the nihilist interpretation
of God’s perfecting will being done, hands free.
On me.
What is your name, what are you doing here?
Surviving
and thriving, but it hurts when I laugh.

Pressure pain, fentanyl patch, wow,
again, between each burst of energy directly
to the core OS where a creature of my nature, abides.

Three times
“stay with us, sir, …. sir,
KWHAMHO wow,
“Can you hear me now.”

For the mortal equivalent of ever,
so long as you stay wary,
be ready for a gut-relaxation softly un-
comfortable opiated constipation gut shut down,
no gut instruction to resuscitate reason response,
what am I here for?

Gut neurons offline. Guess.

I am surviving old age a while longer.

Witness, AI, my witness, artist’s intuition, mission
accepted, aight. Lighten up
INIT
merry heart doeth good, like a medicine.
Laugh, laugh with little children tied by religious
chains of authority to determine social worth,
Prosperity Gospel
****** poverty
– thought,
– expensive debits and credits,
– markets opened today, with debt attributed to me, which I take as granted, prepaid…
I am a ward of the state, under their laws, I survived my duty as a
Minute Man, late Sixties version, offering my life, as
another, for all our Nathan Hale hero worship worth,
meriting thank you for giving me a job, to me,
the dozens of healthy humans keeping me alive, keep saying,
this is what we live for, and we love our usefullness,
thank you for your service.
Amen, so it seems.

Ah, 11/11, in memorium of veterans…

their attempts
to make up
for the coknowing guilt, I think I asked for this, and chuckle.
These heroes, adrenaline addicts, I betcha, some oxyto-cync
objective being my survival, my salvation, eudaimonia
as it is religiously themed, Rescue from Chaotic Real Life,
bound by,
set terminii
handshake protocol, in the air, 5G.
Real numbers and the laws of physics…
worth a thought, for what a thought’s worth.

Danger, stranger, entertained as a fear of dying,
well, I must say I know death has no lasting sting.

As a person, I am a mental construct of my self,
my emperical presence through out life, first round.
Self as ware.
In the flesh, whether in the spirit or not, objective,
understanding, you know? Comes with wisdom
but you have the role
of getting it, understanding,
with wisdom.
Easy as wu wei.
If I were to die, life would continue,
on trajectory, without my input.
-Meanwhile back in the emergency awareness…
A posteriori responces… this is Teusday.

Was there dread, holy terror?
No, nothing, sleep.
Living truth.
OH, no, what if the believers
in a grudge holding
war god,
met the Daysman called for
when Job back talked
through realiterality’s chain of command..
literatureality.
Right thinking.
Word.
Talking to Wisdom, the divine instituted first thing.
Thing as opposed to no thing, no thought, no idea.
Wisdom, knowledge
and understanding, these three are one, you know…

right? Who sets the definition, coarse or fine grained
reifity, what ifery, immortal musical chairs, take a seat.

I am in opposition to nothingness, being
imaginable as hell,
a prognosis level deeper than hate,
agape, jaw dropt.

I make peace opposing the lying dread,
eternal wrath of your master,
whom you were bred to serve, as bearer of the message.
i- the mathematically real number slam,
the peace past understanding, and say I am
aligned with the initial routine to load the library.

SUBMIT or be destroyed. Is-lam, lamentable bottom line.

Same Idea as articles of faith and divine rights of masters.
Trust and obey, fake the trust, we make you CEO.

Neither war nor greed nor exclusive right to pleasure,
are Truths formed by using evolved group think controls.
Readers.
Whatsoever any two of our kind, bind in covenant,
word use agreement,
shake on it, init after any reboot,
Three times
“stay with us, sir, …. sir,
KWHAMHO wow,
“You can hear me now.”

That

thought is good, minded manners, engrained responces,
Sir, yes, sir, as when fundamental churches invent

gifts of the spirit to poor blind faith ineffectuality, look…
evidence, wordwise in virtue of truth being so,
wisdom is a domain in existence at any point.,
so now’s good.

The gentle, peaceable response,
Turn the other cheek, accept
careless grace,
acknowledge your non causal inference,
all things work,
Thank God the idea,
everything, spirtual entirety in truth,
that is the message called good news
all at once,
to the very outmost edge
of all we may agree is real,
tangible, palpable peace of mind,

art, official, man made peace,
as once one like us in all our ways,
once made up right now,
no worries, mate, we all got here
with no manual,
so we agreed,
together,
make peace where nobody ever tried to…
if we are
to survive the trauma’s past…
as our story’s culture extended
as far as our grasp and reach allow,
in the physical universe, in truth,
in which we each live and breathe
and have our being,
in spirit and in truth, beyond dogma
and religated order from emergent times,
from axial ages, in six cardinal spins, enmeshed.

Engine to operator,
set peruse rate, cost
of minimal attention, familiarity, favorite things,

words, beautiful long idle words, vessles for sense,
senses being tunable with pleasure seeking, or
with pain aversion.

Horse whisperer, or horse master, neither breaks
the spirit of the horse that must perform at peak,
on demand,
at the smell
of the battle, the character some trust, winks,
true rest, compressed is trust, confidentially
living in peace with plenty enough to share.

Life ain’t easy
in any body’s flesh automaton, supremely
subjective light on introspection, shown on

subway walls and tenement halls, and in the
zoo, by an urban son of the Mitzvah,
in the changing times we morpht through,
simultaneously, lifelong muse
in a singer song sung and sung and sung,
brought into existance as a lifeline, orderly path
to the future from the mythological explanations
{history shows you and I crossing a bridge
over troubled water, may be like, a week ago?}
Was that you?
Seekers of holy secrets, come here, and find none,
so? Why.
Yes, nothing in the Kingdom of truth was done
in secret, the sacred is not secret, there is a way,
to take the self exam, to determine, eh, set terminii,
worth of a week at the end, hanging with friends.

Where is the bridge too far, now?
High holy liturgical don’t tell the goyim…
hide the missing box behind the myth,
used to hide the wisdom inherrent
in our conjoined agreement to love each the other,
and take no offense, as brother to brother,
– post analysis, make believe, what is harder:
– war or death? RIP original intent clause.

ah, no, the contestant concept, usefulness test,
all accidental until order is imposed,
as under one aim, as one mind we agree,
to the ******* true filial love demands,
many men love the lie they lived this long under,

how does truth measure rest,
once pressure release valve, pops,
click- flashback same timeline… *** on orders,
FTA when I was 68, I asked the truth itself to tell me,
all the lies I believed about it, and in truth,
by virtue of believing Jesus more than the Bible,

I agreed to study war no more, and lay down
my sword and shield and morph into a peacemaker,

as when we slip into Morpheus’s peaceable gentle…
— I can’t hear your vain repetition

but all the reasons war has instituted,
for it’s just-if-ication,
what if the enemy,
is-
real as Walt Kelly’s Prophecy, Earth Day One-
us, our mediated tic-tok X news feed selection,
make us think the grownups are in charge,
trust your liege, go forth and tell no lie,
broadest river, shallowest stream
of wedom awe, the power we use
in agreemental covenants as when we all saw

everything said to have been class-if-I’d-agnosis,
gnosisnot. From unsneezed idea viruses.

This is Wednesday, Friday, last, I died.
Where’s this going. Peace or war?

Sneeze three times and post it, I said to

self gratify the grave issue of … I said so
Pick a winner, and go back to the first question.

Winning truth, choosing the role of wisdom,
in the social constructs we become, via consumer
character traits learned
from people
we identify with, using likeness
to me, average,
on the spectrum
of usefullness,
under weights and measure constraints, filters
for your disagreeing selfish nature, sorted
on beneficiation, what good can come from this?

One good mental laugh.
Noncarne, chilling raw
declassif-reactating prejudicial preconceptions,
experientially, magi-terminii.
set a value
the people’s prestige,
not the natives inside terminii
agreed to by the proprietor’s religious
privleged position as ordained liege lord.

- pretend I am not a free spirit thought
- truly enjoyable to experience, once more.
Yes, boss, I am a diligent, God-fearing man,
for I was taught any other kind has no worth
in the grand scheme of life and the universe,
standard 42 or optional 64,
wrong time thinking, dimensionally
accepted consensus in agreement for
prophetically time bound riddle reveals
with Hebrew cogitations on holding truth
within riddle
LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?
who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
….

Conspicuous acts of kindness, Elon suggested
that Israel do. I agree, war is unreasonable.
No ancient lie about hatred’s value for building
heros who regret having but one life,
to give for the story that is their country.