I scream
"But what about you?"
As if I was holding a mirror in one hand
Directed at your gaze
And revealing something no one else knew
I pointed out your glassy eyes so blank in their stare and
Your thick hands, gripped on a bicycle steering wheel
Angry sweaty blonde hair, pushed back by gusts of wind
I was trying to show you something
Important except not really
I thought then even my shoestrings were important when I had to tie them up and walk out of the door
No one cared about my shoestrings.

pull yourself up
by your shoestrings
lace them
tightly
we're going out
we're going to stomp
on this town
like godzilla
shawty is
a killer
i don't need a gun
to pump you full of lead
you were already dead
before you hit the ground
the sound
of the door
clicking shut
was enough

Reading,
         Reading you,
Reading me:
Symphonic emotional intelligence,
Words like a violinist.
    I carry them with me
Inside my mind applying reality,
       The unreality passsing out of me.
The poems speak like see through natures,
The clarity of my discombobulation.
      You all become real.

   Archives of the souls
    Instantaneous connection
        Closer than
Touch:
Your words resonance with every
Fiber of my being.
    Your words
Invent more words,
    Your emotions tie
The world's shoestrings,
    The experience shared
Is a reality of musical theatre
    And it kills the silence,
The silence of the mind.
     Your words are movement,
Be it from a past,
     The metaphysical dance,
A kiss of gentle air,
    The idea is a life living
Recovering from the enigmatic plague
Of ignorance.
    Though I see the bird sing
My heart stops when it I hear it
Through your words;
    Connectivity.
Reading is not reading,
    It is saying what your silence says,
Art becoming life in an echo of YOU.
       The words that I understand:
Yes, the pain is also a gesture of reality,
     It lets us know it was real,
Your tears,
      Your secrets,
           The murmured past,
And as I read it becomes as the
Sun on morning dew.
   Beginnings,
Endings,
    You become apart of me,
I become part of you,
      Not words
But music in the silence.
And the moment will come
When you hear it too:

The poetry:
Crystalline humanity.

I have this dog, a huge great pooch,
Just like the one, on Turner and *****,
He really is a big orange lump,
Dare I say how much he dumps,
He shreds and ruins my favourite stuff,
Covering the floor, in loads of fluff,
TV remotes, he's chewed them up,
He costs a bomb, my naughty pup,
His snoring rattles the gates of hell,
And when he farts, my gawd, the smell!,
Don't let's forget, he loves his food,
Face in your cup, slurp slurp, how rude,
What's yours is his, he takes the ****,
I dare you say the word, "biscuit"
He slobbers shoestrings, from his chops,
Each room has a rag, for him to mop,
But that aside, he has my heart,
His crinkly face, and stinky farts,
Rolling in fox mess on his daily stroll,
Sniffing crotches, of those who call,
I kiss his face off every day,
I could never love a man this way,
He has a face you want to snog,
I really, really love this dog :)

backpacking in the Jefferson wilderness
eating fresh wild blueberries
warmed by a late spring sun
the crystal blue sky captures me
and I stand, transfixed –
How could we have collectively been so blind?
pumping Co2 into the atmosphere
dropping atomic bombs
and an atoll
named after a bikini…
and the plastic island –
A wispy cirrus cloud
floats gracefully overhead
and takes my thoughts
on a journey
distant smokestacks dot the horizon
and drilling platforms stand menacingly
just beyond the shore,
and inside the bellies of sea creatures …
the plastic –
readjusting my pack
and leaning over to re-tie my shoestrings
the slow crawl of an ant packing lunch
sends me reeling
so many hungry children
just in the state I live
hopeless and *****
in run down or condemned houses
waiting, with tear streaked cheeks
for someone to show up with dinner
as the third foodless day
is always the hardest –

My Face is held on with old shoelaces
loose and sagging at the top
the grease stained hat holds it together
tight and neat till my shift is over.

My leg bones are gone,
transformed into balloon animals.
silly, flimsy things that wouldn't stay inflated
if not for the bicycle pump
I keep in my back pocket.

Every few hours I slip into the bathroom
just to sit and awkwardly fill up my legs,
Tom & Jerry style, through my big toes.

I say I try to live in the moment,
but I don't when I'm here.

Daydreams about suspiciously well prepared hoboes:
"No cash? That's fine. I have a card reader."
Memories of friends and stupid mistakes;
the smile is real, but the eyes...

the eyes are where I fool them
the eyes are where I hide the fact
that my mind is anywhere, everywhere else.
My eyes will never tell you that here,
I wish for summer to be over.
That here, I'm scared to death
that three years from now, I'll still be here,
and summer's end won't mean ****.

The only friend I have here
says I remind him of himself.
He is pushing six years.
I just passed two.

So.

I want you to beat me into unconsciousness
with a giant, squeaky toy hammer.

The kind you can only get at the fair
for fifteen dollars or feats of mild greatness
confiscated within the first ten minutes.
Silliness so intense that our parents
destroyed it as contraband
to protect us from the poison,
our bloodlust of absurdity.

Club me in the head with it.

Please.

I want my legs to deflate.

I want to be a giggling mound of confusion,
rolling around on the floor,
within inches of enlightenment.

I want my hat to fall off,
my shoestrings to come untied,
and this stupid mask to splinter into tiny,
stupid pieces and form onto a real, stupid grin.

But most of all, I want every single note
of your noisy and utterly useless inflatable bludgeon
to be the first thing on my mind
the next time I walk around here
in my slip resistant sneakers
scuffling along the greasy tile floor.

she ties my shoestrings
together. so my feet don't go
independently. while I try to
waltz her musical score
of rests through a series of
misfires from an amygdala,
who thought it knew the
best way to handle
California droughts.
instead, arm hairs burned up
and only a melanoma
of false hope traveled.
skin to heart, to brain but you
nestled in a tender gluteal spot.

I have proverbial boot straps
And I pull them everyday
They bundle tight the kitchen knives
And keep the guns at bay

But there will be a time
I mean there's gonna be a day
Where I let loose these imaginary shoestrings
And take my life away

And you may think don't go
You might even yell please stay
This is not a game of wills
I have no cards left to play

Do not conflate my mental illness
With my willingness to stay
This world and you were beautiful
Come what may

As I tap my fingers against the pinewood table, the strands of my hair droop in front of my face. My eyes start to become blurry of tears, I see nothing but the smudge writings on my paper. The room is cold, I can see my breath, I feel so empty. I can no longer see the sun above the hills. I wipe my eyes and tie my hair in the messiest ponytail. I grab my bag and stuff the unfinished papers in it. I throw on my black leather boots with the worn out shoestrings. The door swings open, all I see is pine trees lost in the musky dark. The stars lead me on. I take steps after steps, the dry twigs and dead leaves crackle beneath my boots. I try not to make a sound. There's a light wind blowing in the air, it tickles my face. My callow green jacket doesn't keep me warm enough. I walk faster and see an opening. Out I come, I see the empty road. From left to right there's not a single vehicle. I raise my arm and throw out my thumb. There's leftover tears still on my face, my hair still in its ponytail. The wind becomes colder, my scrawny legs in my black tights can't keep up with the coldness. My arm starts to weaken and I begin to cry. My face is even colder. I sit on the jagged ground with my legs crossed, weeping quietly. Suddenly there's a vivid light heading my way, I become blinded by its beauty. The light comes closer to me, it makes a complete stop. I see that it's a vehicle. A cobalt pick up truck. I stand up and wipe the dirt off me. The door opens and welcomes me in. I don't hesitate. I hop in and never look back. I sit back and let a smile crawl on my face, I don't care where I'm going, or who I'm with, as long as I'm away from the pain.

yellow light from the coach station
against marble houses-that we wish
we could buy- reminds me of the silver
moon we watch when we’re high.
now I’m crying into the duvet
and feeling far away from whispered
happy compliments I don’t know how
to describe you but you’re mine but
it’s time for a forest fire to still the fire
in my heart. I start to want to hold you
forever though my forever is over
my love, my never again. feeling your body
pulse with each sleeping breath reminding
me of death and I don’t want you to go.
I like being bad when I’m with you, sad
though it might seem when we dream
and you ask me to speak french when I’m
smoking cigarettes, trying to forget the plans
we made. we plan to go to europe because all
our dreams sparkle under the weekend skies,
you sigh, I can’t get back from here, my dear,
I fear I don’t know what’s real anymore,
what to feel anymore. your broad shoulders,
we’re getting older, they wrap around me &
your eye lids flutter, reminding me of a kind of
innocence we have yet to discover, my lover.
now the sun is beating down on london parks
where we sit and talk and dream, it seems
you are so beautiful reading kerouac,
what a cliché but we’ll get away, by megabus,
counting our change, courting our lust,
on 5 hour bus journeys from city to city
ambitions to home, joy to pity.
cuddling to britpop, we keep popping
pills and thrills and whatever is going.
don’t go, I know I’m a romantic
(you have no idea) your passions kills
and your mind excites, I might have to die
tonight, I might. I want you in the kitchen-
I can never untie my shoelaces- living on shoestrings,
tightropes and other things, I think that drinking
in cinemas could be a new favourite pastime,
are you still mine? drowning in wine, I know
I cry too much, but touch me. that night we went
out in your car to the docks, no stars, but you still
shone for me. buckingham palace is against a grey
sky tonight, against us but we still try- england is mine,
england is mine. we don’t usually kiss in public.
I used to spend a lot of time in the cathedral,
scribbling poems in the crypt, hoping something
would stick, but we drift towards a moment now,
my muse. you use me. red flowers in the buckingham
palace breeze, I breathe in daydreams of paris and patti smith
I keep rehearsing my life, it seems.

Replaying what their saying praying they bring light to this white uptight insightful wannabe rapper
Cracking the code attacking the slackers taking wack swings trying to use the Clapper dressed dapper
Like Versace shoestrings singing like ODB making sure my breaths clean, it’s my upbringing two parent
Household got no gold but I make you mind blown rocking rhymes about frog and toad I’m road worn
And born weary love oregon’s rain, dreary love to read Beverly Cleary like Ramona wasn’t cheerleading
A future bare back ******* posing as a children’s reader more like a chicken head feeder yet sweeter
Cold toes in the morning gotta find a slipper pull up my cargo pants, can’t find the zipper feeling like
Jack Tripper …. its slipperier the ***** to attacking Iraq with most black troops a whole new set of roots
The truth is uncouth like jerking off in a telephone booth *** shooting on yellow pages gobs coating
Everyones names strangers in cages with rage faces and misplaced hate…******* ingrates –

i don't love you enough to cup you in my hands and sip you up like a little japanese soup in a sushi restaurant

what do you want, love?
my shoestrings
why, i have no use for them
what is love without sacrifice

i don't love you enough to hold on to you
i am no better than that child who lets go of her balloon and watches it float up, up, up
until it is swallowed like a cherry cough drop
i don't love you enough to give away every inch of my hair to keep you down-to-earth with me
i don't love you enough to strain against the wind and brave the spit of Al Gore
even if it would mean being with you

i don't love you enough to enjoy you while you are here
i don't love you enough to be more careful than the child who drops his ice cream on the ground and then cries when he can't have another one

(i love you more than that)

clad only in flannel sheet
her supple ***** partially exposed
gave me pause
as I gathered gear for the work day at hand
in the delicate pre-dawn glow
her pale skin seems a perfect hue
both enticing and entrancing
my eyes lingered ~

if only to be late
or play sick
options pass through my mind
as her steady breathing
and barely perceptible
falling and return of her chest
invoke a myriad of delights
none of which involve
going to work today ~

pulling shoestrings tight
and buckling a leather belt
I glance, once again, over my shoulder
longingly gazing at a her sleeping body
in the back of my mind I hear
the tell-tale words of strength,
“it is only a few hours…” ~

inaudible sigh slips my lips as I close the door
her slumbering undisturbed
my heart full of love
I am ready for another work day /

Regulated heavy-petting, severed metal jukeboxes of the new platoon. Orations in the streets, on their knees; women hanging from street lamps, their shoestrings dismantled, clothing sifted through for every karat of worth, then the shoes stuffed on- bare naked bodies and tangerine blossoms came through the Eastern air. One of them coughed something, not in English. Each of them riddled through with decade-old grins, as if from a childhood game of cops and bandits.

Every part of my trust in her body, a knot made of plastic in a reel of film strung from her shoulders. A gunshot emptied her stomach, its bang echoed cerise colored paint.

needs to be rearranged
I went to the the strip show
the other day and didn't even get a ******
the same girls and ****
and barely there shoestrings
hiding ******
but, I think I was
more cerebral somehow
thinking how nice it might be
somehow,
if I talked to someone sane and not
tainted by family
like those girls, who almost to a tee
had an uncle or granddad or god forbid
a father's hand down her ******* at ten years old,
and I got shamed, though , I had done none of it,
I got shamed for humanity,
and how
economics
and skin are so related,
how the sins of society
somehow come back to me
and I wonder, then think,
optimistically (with tongue in cheek)about
evolution
so harsh so long  a thing
that it takes
generations
and centuries
to change.

Vestigial limbs of a memory forgotten
itch like bicycle shoestrings tapping every spoke.
One day my brother asked me to visit someone with him
he said the guy was my age and feeling down
because his cat ran away
I said sure, that sounds like a nice thing to do.
After 20 minutes I realized why the cat ran
I was planning my escape route as well
this guy was miserable
completely negative
—it was annoying
and then he said it:
"System of a Down sold out with Toxicity,
which was a garbage album."
the layers of stupidity sent me into a k-hole.
Millions of fans would **** Serj Tankien's ****
if only SOAD would make one more album
but yeah, their sellouts, and your cool.
Clearly, screaming, "banana, banana, terracotta pie" repeatedly
is just telling people what they want to hear.
I tried to change the subject to politics
but he made it clear he had absolutely no interest,
well no **** he doesn't understand SOAD, it's pretty political,
but because art is subjective he thinks his opinion has value
and it does—it lets me know to stay away from his negative idiocy.

Kind of like a car ride I shared
with an older right wing friend of my father.
He scanned the radio like a crackhead
searching for a song in the shallow pool he enjoyed
his lexicon limited, our selection scarce
like a lost cat trapped in a garage
unaware of what is and isn't food.
We came across I Got A Name by Jim Croce
and he said, "Nope. No Jim Croce in this car."
Really? ******* Jim Croce?
I guess I wouldn't like his music either if I voted for Leroy Brown.

It'd be naive of me to think these people
don't work for The New Yorker
calling Ford V Ferrari "empty and hollow".
**** dude, I hate to break it to you
but if you can't find emotion in that movie
that's a flaw in you
and the hordes of imbeciles
approaching art with a "this better ******* impress me" attitude
tearing apart any movie that aims for anything elevated
to be just generally miserable or to show how "smart" they are.
Meanwhile, sniping at an actually empty and hollow movie
is seen as punching down and a waste of time
so a subculture of cynics is developed
infecting others with toxicity
to see art as a challenge to one's intelligence
rather than honest emotional expression
then people miss out on the full capability of art
and consume it improperly
and regurgitate it in front of me like a feeble feral cat.

This town has asthmatic headlights and bottle caps like tiny crowns for giant ants, snatching moonlight from the concrete, hoarding halos in blind alleys; where the homeless groan and dither in shadows like blackstrap molasses. The sign on the backdoor reads “ Exit “ like it was ******* Shakespeare, but across the street where the lamp is having second thoughts… a red brick unicorn is grazing on bottle caps with moonlight icing and a Yellow Cab idles in the Irony of Yellow.

     Parked cars are engaged in their telepathic games. The trench coats are keeping secrets and house keys huddled in a clump of disarray… in every palm. Neon shoestrings in windows, spell words with glass agendas, twinkling conspiracies that trade on your emptiness like a promise on the lips of a snail. You can hear the world spinning a yarn to knit a sweater thick enough to ward off the chill of an existential crisis.
Heard Carl’s Kid, Marty has a habit of catching butterflies and sewing butterflies to them. Carl says “ The Boy's gettin’ purty good.

I hear the announcer’s call
A sea of runners, one and all
Jogging to the starting line
You'll find me in the front line  

I'm getting ready to run my race
My shoestrings did I tightly lace
Jetting off the starting blocks like a piece of hot lead
I sprint to get ahead

I quickly seek to take the lead
I pump my arms like mad
My footprints they can trace
As I set a very fast pace

The meters go flying by
I hear my supporter’s shrill cry
Onward, faster, run, run faster
This race you'll soon master

My quickened breath
The air whistling in and out of my mouth
My legs pound the ground
My lungs are making this horrible sound

Everyone I quickly pass
But I'm almost out of gas
Harder and harder do I run
This race is no longer fun

I see the finish line
The trophy, no my trophy, has such a beautiful shine
I've run my race
Within my fingers that trophy they'll place

I know it'll be mine
Not giving it to me would be such a crime
I chance a glance behind me
Turning back, I run smack dab into a tree

The emergency workers are instantly here
Their diagnosis is, my head, will forever be square
My race, my trophy went to the guy behind me
As I look up at the spinning stars that only I can see

I manage to hobble to my feet
I will never show defeat!!
I thank God for my thickhead
As I cross the finish line with a white bandage round my head

Written by:
Jason Cheney
February 2021

It was in that moment
that I felt the most fervent
feelings for you, your manhood
sifting into me, blossoming
breathtakingly, all over my body,
sending me in and out
of a thousand dimensions
filled with astounding attractions.
You rocked me into a dreamland
of tremendous romance,
our flesh touching, loving,
our vibes intertwined
like shoestrings,
creating the best complex
set of the most exhilarating
emotions as we flowed like
luscious waves in a shimmering
ocean of continuous ecstasy.

Never mind The implosion,
I've got all worked out on paper.
The implosion been delayed
By Person or Persons Unknown. Hop Frog and
Rupunzel were Lost to the wind. I dare not dash
My foot upon the stone,
Lest I end up on an island
Which has no name.
And I see patrons line taverns
At 7 a.m., but it may as well
Be midnight.
I pass them on my way to work,
Country music soured in the stench of beer and peanuts,
While I show all the chinks
In my armor.
I'm not here for semblance or
Plot, I'm here to keep the
Structure from falling in.
Hard to do when you
Willow the Wisp at midnight.
Try it with one hand tied,
Why I bet your old
Aunt Sarsparilla could give
Her a go, though I hear she was trained by the Old Masters, Though I hear they come cheaper on the Internet
I bet it's all jerry-rigged from
The get go. Just some discrepancy in the
Time/ space continuum.
Why I wore my knickers
For such occasions,
They gleam like pearls
In the moonlight,
And you save like 40 cents
In the long run. But added
Over a factor of one, The
Quotient of such division Remains a mystery.
I've consulted Witch Doctors
With the equations, They
Said to factor Venus in retrograde, But left to the
Wily hands of dietians,
It becomes pate in the end.
While you can serve it ala
Carte, it wears well at parties
I've wore it with or without shoestrings, though
It seemed a wash in the end.
I'll admit, it wears well on
My hair shirt, though it
Hangs like a hag after rinsing
And the epilogue been postponed by the latest
Outbreak. Its just hyped up
Measles on steroids, But
Will it sell on Wall Street?
That's why I consulted the
Witch Doctors, Perhaps
Medicine Men can clarify
This hazy recollection.
Well, I've just been Informed
We've been shut down
By corresponding radio waves, I'll bet 3 apples
And one petunia this goes straight to video. It may make
For late night titillation,
At least make you warm all over.
I mixed it in herring and cream sauce, but I bet
It won't sell in Nevada.
But that's a story for
Another day. Until then:
This is C.H. Mackelroy Signing Out.

If I were to tell you a secret what would you do?

Would you keep it close to heart, or tear it apart like paper machet and build a piece of art?

What if that secret meant commitment? Sentiment pouring out of my sinew, a pale blue, like the planet we rest upon within this spiral galaxy... I do.

I do intend to tell... so tell me... if I told this special thing... would you buy a ring?

Would you announce to the world that you are mine and I am yours? Of course, we are not possessions. Obsessions maybe.. you are on my mind from daylight to dusk, and I trust, you like no others before you.

So tell me... if I say I need you, would you need me to? Or undo our connection like shoestrings on your shoe?

If I say that I like you, that I adore you, would you meet me there? Could you match this frequency with the same intensity, propensity as mine, or care?

So come close and lean in... let me whisper softly in your ear...

"I love you."