There's a looking glass
In front of my face
And I'm Dorian Gray
This ersatz me does so deface
My imperfections
The only thing that makes me
Uniquely debased
Not just a notion
Forward in motion
But the corporeality behind
This simulacrum, not mine alone
The property of the hive mind
The collective consensus reality
Because I'm only as fallible
As everyone lets me be
I smashed the charlatan
With my fist and then
Vain as me it no longer was
Cracked and splintered it sat
Upon the linoleum floor
But still it implored
Smiling, smiling like a villain
Its eyes made contact with mine
And that's all that need be said
"If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me"
As it showed me what I'd never be
This simulacrum, all that you see.

They are all drunk, light footed, swank
spunky babes and daring guys once in campus
now yellowing leaves in slanting evening light
their dress, manners and assured pace suggest
"There is no need for any hurry in our lives any more"
all those songs deeply buried quickly surface
after all these years of total separation, can you believe?

They started from where they left, many decades back
memories poured out, collected in pools, happy faces
reflected on that clear surface like before,
and words regained their cadence of those days of yore
meanings deeply buried under the dead leaves of
fallen years surfaced, tickled, they giggled and shared secrets
once more as if still in teens they are
                                                        The last thing one remembers,
before slipping in to stupor is Happiness
a parakeet with colorful wings floating on the air,
lovingly calling each one's pet name in campus then,
magic that went missing from lives, all these years
was brought back by memories, they find what that means
there it was thick in the night air, past , chocking every throat,
a simulacrum of past, white clad ghost embraced them tight.

A landscape devoid of transparent eyeballs.
When did we all become photographers?
Freeze fleeting things,
filter clouds, endless beauty a simple effect.

Funny how enclosures feel obsolete—
the graves, the houses, three-sided mornings—
when I am a share, a like,
self-simulacrum selfie.
I stand on a fascinating algorithm,
Below that it’s reposts all the way down.

Share, share a like,
share a googol of happy lives
better than yours.

Are we saying yes  
to starting off yet again,
absent this time?

You are my
Ensorcelled Elysium,
You are my
Eden Dream.

You cascade
Upon my Dreamscape,
Enshrine my slumber in
A flowered gale of aromatic petals
That envelop me, beckon me
To herald the rebirth
Of Days of Yore.

You vein
The Glistening Glade of Memories
With your
Brooks of Aqueous Emerald.

Tis' the
Phantasmagoric Plane
Where still
My wayworn spirit wanders, wearily
In search of the magic
To enfetter
The Hands of Fate
(For they conspire against us).

Swifter than your descent
Into my soul
(Five seconds still and flat)
By
The nexus of your affections,
You evanesced
Like vapor,
Yet
I shall not concede to
The Malevolent Matriarch of Destiny.

For you
O, Breath of Life,
Forsook me not
So I sublime all stains
Tarnishing my flesh
By cries to The Ethereal.

At midday
Awaiting the Twilight
I long for
The birth of The Womb of Aether’s
Progeny,
Starlit winds.

I muse
Swimmingly in Seas of Reminiscence,
Banished from that Blackened Bastion
Of Shadowed Heavens,
For when darkness shrouds
My dreams can be seen
Draping the skies.

I then fathom,
You must not be far off,
Wishing,
Hoping,
Believing
That perhaps
You too
Wonder upon stars
Longing to find that one
That entwines us anew.

You shall alight,
Upon me once more
As
August Sun’s Nimbus
(If only for a moment)
Is thwarted
By
Ebony Miasma
That drenches Cimmerian skies.

In search
Of Ardor’s Light abiding in
The Sylvan Shrine of Your Numinous Eyes
I plead that
The Crag oppress
The Coals of Tribulation,
Until my anguish is
A Diamond Heart.

The pilgrimage
I must bear,
Must be traveled by
The Adamantine alone.

Where have you gone,
Tree of Life?
Why have you withered,
Yggdrasil?

Do I possess
The Eradia of Souls,
By which you shall
Effloresce?

I would halt the cogs of time,
Relinquish my liberty,
To slumber for eternity
In crystal stasis
By your side.

Even in that crystalline quietude,
I would be eminent,
I would be exalted,
I would be ennobled,
In the knowingness that
Your
Stalwart Heart
Radiates
Just beside me.

I exhale Empyrean Winds
When rapt in reverie,
Yearning to be
Captive to your devotion,
Yours alone.

The Bliss of Your Most Holy Kiss
Would signet me
With the
Bounty of Your Name
Burnishing the skin
On my lips.

Though ephemeral,
Your presence divined,
Your presence
Was my anointing.

To be solaced
By the astral resonance emitted
By your touch
Sent the
Pulse of Nirvana
Surging, rippling,
Like a kaleidoscope tide,
Down my spine

You are
The Waters of Vitality
That floweth from
The Creeks of Eden,

You have been
Poured upon my palate
From the
Goblet of Redemption
That I may drinketh
Of
Supernal immortality.

When once again we meet,
Perhaps the tears you summoned
From my spirit
By your
Stirring caress
Shall have absolved me
Of the pangs
In loving a man
(And man alone).

Perhaps then,
The sentiments
I pine to profess,
Will resound.

A melody
Sung in legato,
A  mellifluous melisma,
Flawlessly delineated
And
Intonation in deiform
Or perhaps,
Flowering fioritura
Lacing airwaves,
By the Empress Coloratura.

Perhaps then, piety
Betwixt you and I,
Will waft the air
And I might then,
Permit my quaking body
To succumb to
You alone.

Until that morn,
I shall be vigilant,
Counting the Dawns,
Counting the Twilights,
Until
I can gaze
Into your forested eyes
If even for but a moment.

For even but a moment
Spent with you,
Will bleed a nostalgia
Across my mind's sky,
Painting clouds crimson with passion,
And
That I shall revere,
And
That shall last
And last
And,
Last… And
Last.

O, it will last,
To Elysian Infinity.

∞
            I am a vestige,
               But I shall live once more,
                  In the light of memories
                       That blossom, are perennial,
                           And imbibe the dazed glory of the past
                       Until the past is vanquished
                 By a future that is fragrant
             With the mist of romance
          And eclipses the simulacrum,
       A fictitious sun of the infernal masquerade,
    The antithesis of the truest holy,
Then, rapture of life shall mystify no longer,
For the Numen of Truth,
  Shall cleanse creation without a drop of façade,
      His Providence shall emancipate the hollow,
             The Death of Dreams shall writhe
               In everlasting abeyance,
                 Absolving our wayward spirits,
                  The Winds of Change,
                  The Scourge of Pain,
               And
          The Loveless Wraiths
        That haunted our husks
      Shall be transcended for aeons,
  And tribulation made distant, made nebulous
As the Genesis of Time and Space itself
  For we embark on an exodus,
     Beseeching salvation to redeem us
        When the Requiem of Iniquity
           Is triumphed by everlasting cadence.

Be Valiant,
                 Be Sapient,
                             Be Love
                                       And
                                          By this
                                                You shall conquer the world
                                                           ∞

Each lover has some theory of his own
About the difference between the ache
Of being with his love, and being alone:

Why what, when dreaming, is dear flesh and bone
That really stirs the senses, when awake,
Appears a simulacrum of his own.

Narcissus disbelieves in the unknown;
He cannot join his image in the lake
So long as he assumes he is alone.

The child, the waterfall, the fire, the stone,
Are always up to mischief, though, and take
The universe for granted as their own.

The elderly, like Proust, are always prone
To think of love as a subjective fake;
The more they love, the more they feel alone.

Whatever view we hold, it must be shown
Why every lover has a wish to make
Some kind of otherness his own:
Perhaps, in fact, we never are alone.

Those poor, misunderstood teachers,
Counting down days till retirement.
Like grunts in The Nam,
Waiting for a reprieve like it was a
Papal dispensation or a Presidential pardon, or
Last minute stay of execution from the Governor.
Teachers: dying a slow death
On the same lame stage day after day,
Performing amateur comedy,
Hosting their very own Karaoke Club;
Filling barely enough seats in the joint
To crack their daily job satisfaction nut.
The kids who do show up for class are too bored,
Or too apathetic to stay awake,
Heckle you or walk out.
Most teachers hate their jobs.
So many teachers, so many miserable mooks
Wishing they had some other job, any other job,
Like plumber or astronaut,
Mortgage broker or CIA assassin,
The last two with similar personality & career profiles
On The Myers Briggs Type Indicator MBTI® Step I Interpretive Report. Anything’s got to be better than being
Trapped in a 40 by 40 foot box all day,
Stuck in some Dungeons & Dragons classroom
All day with 40 chaotic, evil, teenage
Gary Gygax-ed kids, used to entertainment
Of higher quality and sparkle.
The cardinal sin of teaching:  Thou shalt not be boring!

Teachers complain constantly about how bad the money is,
Having to work almost 185 days a year,
Whining about only getting 8 weeks off in the summer &
Every freaking holiday on earth known to man.
Snap out of it: you get paid what may be one of
The last livable, middle class salaries in America,
Not to mention health and defined retirement benefits, &
You’re still kvetching.
Meanwhile, Good Teachers—
Those deliriously happy few,
That small rare band of subversives,
Maybe you can count them on one hand &
Still feel lucky you had that many—
I’m talking about the good teachers,
Who view teaching as an art form,
Atypical teachers with both brains and heart.
These are the teachers that make the difference.
These are the vital early role models we need
To encounter when we first leave home as toddlers.

I can still hear you, Mr. Feeny:
“I want you to go home this afternoon and open a book! I don’t care what you had otherwise planned, I order you, nay, I command you. Go home and open a book.”
Books are sine qua non.
Good teachers start out by reading a lot of books—
That’s the brain stuff.
It is life lessons of the heart, however,
That really counts,
Stuff they’ve learned the hard way,
The pain they’ve felt personally,
Particularly while young themselves.
That’s where the heart comes from.
And for **** sure they never read about it
In whatever passes for textbooks in
Most graduate schools of education,
Largely lame crap masquerading as academic rigor
In the diploma mills serving the education profession these days.
I taught in 15 high schools across the American southwest &
I’ve known some really breathtakingly dumb,
Essentially illiterate teachers.
Even at the highest institutions of higher learning,
The average educator of teachers is
Rarely known for intellectualism.
With the possible exception of Diane Ravitch,
Jonathan Kozol, Paulo “The Brazilian” Freire--&
Maybe that Marxist hold-out, Eric “Rico” Gutstein--
Instructional staff at most university
Graduate Schools of Education are not
Taken seriously by the rest of the academic faculty.
What was your source of heart, Mr.Kotter?
I can assure you, it was not something you
Picked up at a teacher in-service, Gabe, &
Welcome back, by the way.

If you remember one thing about
Teacher licensing, remember this:
Albert Einstein, at the height of his fame &
Intellectual prowess, could not walk in
Off the street from out-of-state, or
Anywhere else in the universe, &
Qualify for a secondary single subject
Preliminary license to teach physics.
Not in any public high school classroom in
California or in the state of New Mexico.
He simply lacked the requisite education,
Hadn’t taken the plenitude of pedagogic courses,
Expensive college credits in such vital subjects as:
Methods of Teaching Science for Dummies;
Educational Technology for Idiots;
Band Aids & First Aid;
Tae Kwan Do for the Inner City;
Teaching & Testing the Test Takers;
Touchy-Feely 101, 201 & 301;
Understanding Special Kids:
Gifted Kids, Not-so Gifted Kids,
Kids with Attitude & Kids with ADD;
Curriculum Simulacrum;
ELL/Cross-Cultural Learning;
Self-Esteem for the Worthless; &
Last but not least, Foundations of Education:
Sarcasm & Humiliation for Fun & Profit.
And I didn’t even mention taking & passing
That sublimely subtle CBEST or NMTA/NES,
Teacher licensure tests,
Essentially 8th Grade literacy exams
Quite a few applicants take 3 or 4 times
Before earning a passing score.

Blame society?
Blame the parents?
Blame the politicians?
No, teachers:
Blame yourselves.

how many tears must be shed
to baptize our parting

do I not cling
tightly enough
while the clock
ticks away life

are the marks left
on your skin
when I cannot release you
gone too soon

must the bruises
in our flesh
be as deep
as those in our hearts

shall I shatter my bones
and yours
in our last embrace

tear at our bodies
till we bleed out

give to the torch
the remains

so the ruin
of our outer selves
will reflect
that which lies hidden
within

I
I am in
sin
in absence
in simile
in a simulacrum
of simulation

In simulation
lies my sin
my string of simulations
of conversations
relations
with a simile
another simulacrum
of him

Vast and grey, the sky
is a simulacrum
to all but him whose days
and vast and grey, and—
In the tall, dried grasses
a goat stirs
with nozzle searching the ground.
—my head is in the air
but who am I . . ?
And amazed my heart leaps
at the thought of love
vast and grey
yearning silently over me.

I can feel it happening
I can feel the winding key
I can feel gears turning
As the wind blows
My heart screams
Soul blown out through my lungs
I sing against the dead breeze

Something has brought me into this place
Washed over memories
Rush through reaching to attach
Do I look like a fool to you?

I do will this blasphemy
I do will this frail mind free
I do will your caress
As the rain falls
A slow freeze
Sets just inside my chest
Is this what salvation means?

Something has brought me into this place
Washed over memories
Rush through reaching to attach
Do I look like a fool to you?

Something has brought me to this place
Washed over me
Run right through and reaching
Do I look like a fool

As I submit?
As I submit,
Attaching

sleepy eyes open glimpse high ceiling red wood beams house built in 1920s glance out window tree tops blue skies mountains in distance flock of birds flying east chirping sounds passing car engine accelerates inhale deep breath through nose stretch legs plantar dorsal flex feet raise arms over head stiffness in shoulder feel strange sensitivity in right pectoral above ****** cautiously examine with hands feel coarse lump growing more like nub smell moss glare down at growth protruding from chest panicky by soreness rise from bed to mirror on closet door tree stem jutting out from chest inspect dark bark like calloused growth little leafs budding this cannot be race in nervous tantrum run to bathroom suffer painful weight pulling me down clutching carrying foliated limb with arms see myself in mirror horrified stagger back to bed lie on right side branch resting on mattress breathe anxious breaths reexamine pectoral area feel sinewy roots spreading under skin across chest up neck down over stomach waist legs forget how to get home disorientated nauseous exhausted what is this flora invading me ******* kafka metamorphosis post-modern hyper-real narration without accountability jorge luis borges metaphor without mindfulness fairytale run wild jean baudrillard simulacrum psychosis room now filling with plant undergrowth stinking of earth dirt gooey slugs worms shells bugs festering climbing towards windows voracious for light warmth moisture blocking out morning sun entire body trapped in tangled twisted leafy twigs excruciating pain fright lungs gasping suffocating encroaching darkness fatigue loss surrender wake up 4 AM from nightmare scared to fall back to sleep

I discovered
as of late, that I
have been arguing
for a reality
that has never really existed.

Passing through mid-century
these jazz oneironauts reached Apollonian heights
while society drifted into Dionysian drunkenness
the merchants caught on too soon
The most beautiful parts of humanity
enamored to serve the ugliest:
The merchant class, the bourgeoisie
Buddha’s undeserving in charge
If only in past centuries
those noble princesses embraced
even more lowly patronages
all this potential today could be staved off
Saved from the drive to be commodified
People stopped buying jazz as it reached its height
No more smiles to appease the whites
Jazz for the few
the noble, the individual in the know

Until this too becomes the simulacrum
The Ornette Coleman on the bookshelf
to signify your snootiness
your refinement from wealth
Aging Dads in thousand dollar sweaters
kicking out their 22 year old kids
for being ****** addled hipsters
meanwhile Bird on Verve is nodding out
and Dad’s girlfriend pops a Percocet
to deal with all the stress

mid-air toward the icy Catskill eddies
frozen once  and once again--
bridge-jump skyward watchers--
plunge of marrow tears.

you are there.  simulacrum ping
-pong pop on carpet rise
another consciousness i've known
the winking soul recognitive
of grin, of inner whispered act
we finish lineless, applause of ancients drone
on trio sum in low man's song,
on kitchen counter edges,
finger tests and tested trusts,
nail clips clipping on dehiscing ****--
the party. the porch. the project truth of beauty's virtue shown--
the drunken blood a lover
swirled on wet on wet undone.

your attic pillow-talk sobriety
of Green Hole fun
to echo four years, six and seventeen
the age unknown, we shared umbrella sanctity of family home:
raindrops trump the timeless wallstreet horns,
a zero sky ungains the settled hue of mind,
each thought the same, copula to void
in mythic forms we metaphor the plenum won

building dwelling-thinking sung,
the cardiac in tones--
lucid union slowing in the swirling sun--
the eddies stop again, sewn in Catskill frost..
the love we felt alive, in mid-air jump,
in Berto's cheer
we match the water's silent thrum

Sister and mother and diviner love,
And of the sisterhood of the living dead
Most near, most clear, and of the clearest bloom,
And of the fragrant mothers the most dear
And queen, and of diviner love the day
And flame and summer and sweet fire, no thread
Of cloudy silver sprinkles in your gown
Its venom of renown, and on your head
No crown is simpler than the simple hair.

Now, of the music summoned by the birth
That separates us from the wind and sea,
Yet leaves us in them, until earth becomes,
By being so much of the things we are,
Gross effigy and simulacrum, none
Gives motion to perfection more serene
Than yours, out of our own imperfections wrought,
Most rare, or ever of more kindred air
In the laborious weaving that you wear.

For so retentive of themselves are men
That music is intensest which proclaims
The near, the clear, and vaunts the clearest bloom,
And of all the vigils musing the obscure,
That apprehends the most which sees and names,
As in your name, an image that is sure,
Among the arrant spices of the sun,
O bough and bush and scented vine, in whom
We give ourselves our likest issuance.

Yet not too like, yet not so like to be
Too near, too clear, saving a little to endow
Our feigning with the strange unlike, whence springs
The difference that heavenly pity brings.
For this, musician, in your girdle fixed
Bear other perfumes. On your pale head wear
A band entwining, set with fatal stones.
Unreal, give back to us what once you gave:
The imagination that we spurned and crave.

We just swallow & stitch on
flimsy pharmaceutical feathers,
with gobs of spit and wax.

We circle the sun
hoping this simulacrum,
weighs more than a hedon

We practice ephemeral mechanics,
only with bridges on the river Styx,
then wonder why winter never seems to end.

Regret.
I drank mine.
Illness.
I smoked it.

Ill conceived &
         imitation.
My mind bent &
         snapped in half.

I can see your eye in every star.
Watching while I enter chrysalis.

         What's it like
         hoping I rot?
         (will do)
         What's it like
         laughing
         looking
         at the past?

Sober, I have to force myself to laugh.

I can see your winking eye in every light.
I can see your winking eye in every star light.

****.

thunder cackles in the morning
a witch is a woman
with any amount of wisdom
your words are as bland as coffee
and the dandelions are talking
for i am permanently amused
by vicissitudes and antelopes
and aggregates of moods
feelings and isotopes
hanging by psychotropic ropes
firmly financed by our fingertips
lifetimes triangulated in transitions
farm the fallow fields
and try to heal the poppies
dropping numbers
and putting aside our copies
a simulacrum of similes and shortages
as field mice and farmhands
dance on saturn’s rings
despite all of jupiter’s complexities
your complexion is never shallow
and i swallow seawater
to embrace the sweet finality of life

Hasina had gums of a prune colored play dough, much like the type which he used to mold and model into similar contraptions and cases. Contrasting with the teeth of a superb suburban plaster, the ***** contusion continued its conversation. Collecting admirers and adolescent adonis’ innocent of their sins. Since the inoculation, passed away, a pretense to nervousness approached the very essence of our chest; the bead of the brooch where we found the philtrum too close to the nose. Curling inside its own bare curves. A bed without sheet, hindered, harnessed, the horse dragged on.

We soon found that the things we feigned to hate would come close to fame, In a magazine cover sheet, handed in late.

Hasina, and her mother, certainly did not suppose that that beneath the floor boards, neither harm nor concern would be discovered. And neither was. With the way their will worked things became distributed. Disturbed guests of unwanted presents and gifts soon re-sent to other more malleable means of hospitality.

Hungered as the hundredth wolf come to late. He too howled, but not at the moon, or rather not its simulacrum of a glowing truth, its silver light, or any movements its clearly showed. Growing loose the tumor slipped out, slowly. And with a plop, pressed against the walls, The jaws dropped and the mason jar closed and posed on exhibition for lessons, and interests, obsessions, dreads, things grotesque pressed against the walls.

To be captured, resting above the skyscrapers. Where in the hours of dawn, space overlaps, a frowned pace of a clock grows fondly of the time that is lost and past.

Who is this impostor,
glimpsed with horror
in the department store window?
He apes my movements
but fails to capture
their athleticism,
spring-loaded inside an easy grace.

Ladies and gentlemen, do not be deceived.
Disregard those who think they know me.
This shambling simulacrum
is not me.

Perhaps my Nobel prize
is just a might-have-been,
my endowments only imagined.
But I am who I want me to be.

All aboard for the unguided tour!
Already begun, pre-planned
by an unknown administrator,
its detailed itinerary remains unpublished.
The last stage is, they say, less delightful than the others.
It passes through the poorer districts;
one sees industrial squalor and boarded-up lives.

I can leave the tour at any time.
I am who I want me to be.

Discomfort and dissolution do not belong in my world.
I am not the kind of person to ever be distraught.
So oblivion shall not swallow my love's soul.
Not all at once,
not piece by piece.
Not even a little.
Her identity must not be corrupted.

We are who I want us to be.

Who is to say,
we cannot break our bond with the earth,
that we are too strongly tethered?
Not I for one.
Nor stone age man who leaps to death in mimicry of the birds,
nor the prisoner who, in confinement,
looks to the sky,
framed with the walls wherein he lies,
and says to himself, or herself, nay, I cannot fly.
And could I fly, I would touch the earth again,
or else burn up in the stratosphere.  
Nay, nor the wild fowl, who may traverse 100 miles at a stretch,
ere they return to the earth.  
Nor ashes carried in the air and bourn away upon the trade winds.  
Who would admit an eternal debt to the earth,
which by every step we repay?  
Least of all them overcome with wonder,
at infinite depth, at scale, at cold beauty,
at the splendid simulacrum of the cosmos.  
Who then would hold me back by a leg or an arm,
who would through envy deny a splendid assimilation with the vasty domains of the other,
for what word, what momentary vocalisation of the earthbound
can in all justice give it name?  
But in good faith, commit my body to it,
and I shall move throughout the eternal regions,
and circle in infinite revelry.
Deny me not this wild vanity,
commit not my body to the earth,
and I shall not call you cur, who walks upon the earth,
and there for evermore is tethered.

A take on violence

The exiling waves of life
Battered a Syrian child
Swept ashore. We scrolled.
We shrugged this violence.

Eyes glued to a simulacrum of love
Expecting the controlled dominance
Of a filthy rich fictional character
We said: “It’s vanilla.”

Violence as an idea is sweetened
You gulp down the pill
But violence as a means is condemned
You still gulp down the pill.

March 6, 2018
Lyon 1 University