Find the lighter, use it as a lighthouse on a walk below the wall you watch along the wave-formations. Who Wants a Cold One? a Coors Light ad corrects.. When it comes to your home, the little things matter.. an insurance ad blares.. my computer is infected with 3rd party applications unremovable to my meagre tech-ability.. there is a hero as Joseph Campbell once theorized.. in myself like a sick bastardly virus waiting for moments to prove to me "I AM THE SAVIOR, I AM THE CHRIST, I AM THE WARLORD, MICE, MAN, AND VICE".. the windows of opportunity close, I am left waiting the door

& the elevator.

Thirty-thousand years ago, there was nothing but a breeze.. a viscous breeze across chill-spined pterodactyls.. warm-under-the-jungle-brush tyrannosaurus rex, and to think one day I will be just a legend in bone..
Charlotte said she thinks of death and so did Jen. They sat next to the all-you-can-eat and discussed the inevitable. I was sour and playful with no-will-to-understand, just reminding my hair of breezy summer days of 10, thinking of strangeness, of place I was in.

When it's quiet sometimes, I think of old dreams.. dreams I sunk below drown-level as a child in bed and belief. Both mommy and daddy were arguing in the kitchen, this was 7 or 8.. they argued so often one could hear mom begin to cry sometimes, and dad I could see in minds-eye with a grimace so closed and so creased he was hurt and yet honest.. I did not understand so I hid under-stood-silhouettes, oh adulthood..

once in dream I was in pulsing green graveyard like crayon realism strobe lights, tombstones all-round and faint-buzz of outside and one of those strange balded henchmen of badguy Jafar from Disney's Aladdin came peaking outta nowhere with curled eyebrow and baggy one-thousand-one Arabian nightlives parachute pants, curled toes brown-beige moccasins to.. he let out conniving 'HEUHEE!' and slapped me right-side cheek and I JOLTED up bedwise in real time to feel actual physical sting for a few lingered seconds then the sobs of poor mother outside.. I never remembered a dream so clearly again.. they all come, Pro-Found, and dizzy away after hour or two for rest of eternity or perhaps to Place I Can Visit at Death to Review Every Vision and I wonder... when your life flashes before your eyes and the light is encroaching, scenes of mother, brother, father, son, daughter, best-friend, party, break-up, heartbreak, slip-fall, first-sip, first-drag, last-leg, first-kiss, first-hit, first-game, fear, love,  HATE, wait.. do the Dreams come to? Are they all flesh-ed before your eyes as you pass into Light? Are they brought to direct remembrance as you cross the border with Passport of Gods and a Goddess (and which Picture appears on the Page)..?

I remember the old eczema taking bits of skin to carpets round-town and round-lower-mainland to disgust of friends old and new-- this was era where confidence ate itself in mirrors, the sober reality of ugly-ness chiseling away at my Goodness Attempts.. All That Pointless Pain was no Exception nor a Rule, it just **** Happens every once-and-again to the sound of life farting. I used to miss school for feet so impossible to walk on, pussing and bleeding and staining the sheets, shoe soles, carpets, and soul.. limp thru the hallways of Brooks Secondary feeling like bad flavor additive to multicultural Planet Earth-- sleeping 'til the bell rang drinking coffee singing songs I said '**** the ******* educational system and **** me I'm so flatlined..' someday I felt things would really get better and lucky young me I was right.

A half-decade later, I am 21 and hoping, floating, free in the breeze as the wings I have grown keep on wishing the subsistence down. The girl, whoever-she-might-as-well-be, sits immediately vertical chatting frantically to boy with a bit of a cowlick slouching on-up over a bundle of colored paperwork. It seems late in the season for homework, and assume they may have some affiliation with a crazy-hep computer design group in the tradition of Nouevau Silicon Valley.... I sit at my laptop, inching a word a million cubic millimeters closer to God or Divinity or Crescendo or A Bunch More ******* You'll End Up Ignoring---

It's a sunny day, the rain having slathered-off into obscurity somewhere with the Monsoons when the Sun gave the Moon a Soft Slap and the poor purity white-kid went off whimpering, bleeding nose-- I sat, the other night, playing another Grand Strategy game as Tom divided his time between a vaulted and damaged lover, his labor, and his life (friends, food, video-games, vice)... Chai, old Chai the Thai Guy mentioned past his nose in previous iterations of Depictions sat and described his pins-and-needles upset at his bosses at one his three many jobs.. desperately firing text-messages into receiving-space-panel and reflect and back unto Tom's smartphone dash asking him to order a six-pack from a local delivery service cuz his adrenal was giving him heartpain with hurt, and Tom being Busy as All-Ways Tom Is wasn't able to decipher the scramble in-time to make contact before closure of the liquor stores.. poor not-so-poor Chai at first felt castrated at realization he would miss the 11 PM dot-time, but didn't mind as he rendezvoused with Tom and I at Willows Beach where Tom reminded him of a whiskey he'd bought sitting counter-wise at his place.. we kissed a few Mary Janes rightsideup, dragging our butts in the sand to discuss what was wrong (each of us had a problem that night, save for perhaps a less-vocal Tom, I describing my annoyance that a lazy consensus had erupted in my sorry-hometown between my sorta-friends and friends-of-friends that my writing and sharing my writing was arrogant and I an arrogant *** for sharing and I just confounded that they would find my passions so trivial-- perhaps jealousy, perhaps complacency and judgement-for-lack-of-anything-better-to-do and ah **** em all if they think like that, I'll write and be the arrogant me they think I am and share 'til I'm blue in the face and dead perhaps for outspoken intellectualism in their autocratic pointless-waste worldviews.. sad that I dislike them only on the basis they disliked me first..)

I had planned to stay late and leave early-morn (5 or 6 AM) to catch a first-off morning bus back home and sleep, hoping for most part to avoid the shattered-***-mess of a home I was living in.
About 2 days ago, give or take, a water-line for the laundry machine had erupted to soak our entirely-carpeted basement suite, forcing the poor new landlord (a sweetheart of a man named Ron having just taken possession of the house from previous owner on May 1st and, it seems, left 'holding the bag' as they'd call it in day-trading-investment-lingo) to tear out the entirely-soaked carpet and replace it with sensible laminate flooring and rendering the entire suite virtually unlivable for indefinite-few-days and so for me work and friends and especially writing become a welcome reprieve to I, a first world Refu-Jeez.. us, so terribly-off I sip a latte near sunny panorama windows-so-clear-they're-not-there overlooking the crosses of Yates and Blanshard with European church of Gothic architectural style poking heedlessly into empty-open blue.. ironically and strangely there is a liquor store quite literally right next door, and's one I shop at often for its decent prices (God is Dead or Just Drinking to Cope with Sartre and Kierkegaard's Ultimate Thesis) (Kierkegaard especially '*** Kierkegaard seems a good and long friend of God the Almighty) (...I talk with such Judaeo-Christian Catholic rhetoric it never ceases to amaze myself as it bleeds to page..) (stranger thing is, tho, there is no beginning, no middle, no end.. you read or you are bored and either/or is just fine..)

There is some hypothesized crescendo-bliss Tech Singularity on the way in the try-dition of Ray Kurzweil and William Burroughs.. Oscar Wilde to.. (see The Soul of Man Under Socialism in essay-collect book De Profundis).. one day we will all be eternal happiness expressed in song and dance and LED erected-projections of Imperfect Universe (Our Imperfect Earth) with lives stuck on infinite repeat.. our idea of Paradise.. and for those with ability to remain rushed to cortisol (stress-the-best hormone) it will be Hell on Earth, so DRAB and THE SAME all the TIME and it's READ and it's WRITE and it's RIGHT.. the world runs faster with every passing day so desperate to discover the Globe is Flat so we can Hop Off the Other Side into what one might assume to be The Better Place.. elusively picking-up speed thinking 'closer now definitely closer now' unaware (or, secretly aware and unwilling to admit for what will one do when one cannot run?) they are Running in Circles Over and Over and Over and Over and Over Again... cannot take the hint in the fact the Pacific (same Pacific) has been crossed a hugeillion times, nor the same McDonald's in the Azores of Atlantic Portugal is the Same ******* McDonald's stopped-thru on the then-trillionth time last year... and all whilst the International Space Station remains muted up-above crossing 'round and 'round 'til the Jehovah'n Day of Judgement (Chris Hadfield now below with advice for how to run a little faster even blinded in one eye..) then there are the dying Prophets Predicting Industrial Collapse who preach upon the Mount of Internet Sinai Eternal and state "the world is now unsalvageable and we are all about to die.. if ever you wished to find Buddhistic Nirvanic Peace, now is the time so start meditating and imagine Death as New Life and Geopolitics as Game".. forever and ever and ever and ever.

It is only natural to find existence to be 'weird..' layered with Who's That's and giant What The ***** everywhichway you turn.. did it start in a Big Bang, will it end in a Big Crunch, Big Freeze, Big Bang.. ? all questions once ignored for certain ignorance and resurrected as questions concerning the Nature of the What The ***** (also known as 'Science').. and if it did start in a Big Bang, did I start in a Big Bang..? and if it does end in a Big Crunch, will I end in a Big Crunch..? am I a sudden flash of REAL in a Universe that isn't me..? or am I an entire Universe.. perhaps even more than that...? the questions pulse in youth like bad words or bullets. I once stayed up all-night thinking of infinity with my head soaring space-wise forever and ever and ever and I stopped in sudden panic thinking: I could lie here up all night and all day 'til the towered age of 37 (I was 14 at the time) and still be no further on the Universal Map than from thumb-tip-middle to thumb-nail so I wrapped up the attempt with a mix of fear and incredulity, went to school next-day exhausted and tried to explain it all to friends.. they got it, I suppose, but we were all 14 and played basketball instead (I imagined infinite-spinning-basketball on thumb of Michael Jordan).

It's always best describing life in form of Disembodied Poetics.. sure some Philistines won't understand '*** their minds are made of Clockwork, Digits, and Blockthought.. but the general psychic underly implied in all with human faculty will ring-a-ding-ding! and remember all such ancient thoughts and feels as forgotten as a child, locked away until the Spirit rose-up from a rosey thorn prickle to flower straight-up into a Rose! or so I hope as a one-of-many writers-- all of which will write so-as to speak on your behalf.. all floaty and marking a purpose.

I. Neptune’s Theater


A rock spins through the universal tumbler

and its warm blue pools calcify

as turquoise Neptune in his cloudy blue bath bath

builds a lace castle with his fingertips


Sculpts a submerged eden of crimson and emerald

where painted parrots chat up cardinals

butterfly and angel fry sway with wave pulse

and foliated coral fingers beckon from arched windows.


Neptune’s children are flat and bright, spined and notched

free yet entangled in lace mesh ecosystem

beneath an array of bioluminescent stars

as a gangly pretender watches and blows bubbles.




II. Sapien Siege


The hot acidic hand of death grasps

the mesh rends and tangles

the ecosystem shattered

reef’s loosed children scream beneath planet’s stars.


Butterflies impaled

cyanide-swooning damsels

mesh-tangled angels hauled heavenward

coral to potash, corpses to coal.


The pretender to the throne blinks

rubs blurry lenses,

kicks plastic fins

and moves on to the next show


Unseeing and unaware

of the luminous filament in his wake.

Self-appointed divinity,

deus ex machina.

*****************­************

Ann says: All of the animal and human characters in this poem (except Neptune and The Pretender) are named after coral reef fish. Coral reefs, one of the most diverse ecosystems, are expected to be largely extinct within one human generation. Deus ex machina is Latin for “God from the machine.”

Copyright 2013 by Ann Marcaida.

I have faith in medical science
But little in practice.
Straight spined doctors
Racing stopwatches against
Their appointment books.
Extolling the virtues of thousands of years of medical research
But unable to consider anyone's opinion other than their own.
Kindly, soft-voiced nurses shuffling from
Room to room
Doling out condolences and reassurances
Paired with regimens
Of drugs and IVs.
While Old Time in the ticking clock
Slows
To a dead crawl.
And the noise of heartbeats on machines
And discussions out in the hall
And loved ones distracting and pacifying patients in beds
Layer on top of one another to form a firm blanket of
Crushing. Boredom.
And the antiseptic smell does nothing to ease
The passing of time spent waiting
While the medical machine spins its wheels
To the chime of slot machines.
And the bustling rush outside a curtain
On hard white floors,
Does less than lend a sense a peace
But more of frantic urgency.
Minute long - task oriented visits
Where they know names, numbers, and insurance coverage
And they know how many steps it takes for them
To lend more of their valuable time
In that modern balance of cost and care.
Leaving me wondering,
Where did the connection go?
I wonder where peoples' trust went
And when it was replaced with,
"How much will this cost me?"

Just the other day,
someone asked me,
which day is
the other day.
One day of the other days
of the week,
I said.
Monday to Friday is
five days away,
while Friday to Monday
is just three days.
Really funny, isn't it.
Is this a mathematical error
and miscalculation or
just another maths equation.
Why is this so.
Is the algebraic algorithms wrong
or it is just configured to just fix
a mathematical problem.
Xy plus Y and you subtract
the y in Xy then multiply it by 10,
your head spined
and finally they asked you
to solve the problem.
They didn't know that
the problem of the problem
is the problem.
And they wish you a
very merry Xmas
but completely forgot that,
there's absolutely no
X in Christmas.
And someone the other day was,
trying so hard to convince me
that the symbol sign of fish inside
the book I'm reading means
Jesus and a symbol of
a dove especially the white one
represent the Holy Spirit.
Confusion within confusion
is very confusing.
What can we say.
What can we speak.
How can we justify ourselves.
If you ask me,
who will I ask.
So don't ask me because,
I really don't know the answer.
©2018,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.

I am going to promise you nothing
I can't promise to walk with you forever, everyday
because life's too short, can't be certain I'll always be there
I won't promise you paradise when
I don't even know how that place looks like
I won't promise you comfort, it's not something we often find
It can't be all smiles,no, there'll be a tear
I won't promise to always face the monsters,sometimes I will fear
I can't promise I will never let go of us
even if you are in too deep and too dear
I can't promise I'll always hold you tight
Before I retire,how can I be so sure that I won't lose a fight
I won't promise you an umbrella each time it'll rain
some things we can't predict, they happen time and again
I can't promise I won't drive you crazy
there's a **** along the road I will be too distracted to see
and hit the breaks too late and you'll madly scream
"OMFG we could have died", you'll hate the bumpy ride
I can't promise I'll never break your Heart
what the Hell would I be thinking while promising you that
where would I find the guts to think you'll never get hurt?
I can't promise the road will always be straight
even rivers bend and you're not some fish I'm trying to bait
I can't promise it will always feel this awesome and perfect
we won't forever be together from Sunrise to Sunset
things will change, time is a continuum
I'm just stating facts,stuff that happens, don't be upset
Romance is a trip,we won't always have the money
that makes beginnings entertaining
we're now focused and looking forward to the adventure
imagining how colourful the ends of the promising rainbow are
wondering what awaits at every stop on our map
we've spined the globe, made up our minds and changed them
at the moment we're flexible, life's just a game
we can kick the ball this way and that way, we can afford to kiss all day
we're having a good time and it's tempting us to think we have control
I'm on the driving seat and I guide the wheels as you laugh
the car is filled with gasoline of faith and amour
crazy but I think you could kick Angels out of a beauty contest,
your heartbeat is loud enough, especially since I'm listening
and my ears are still vibrant because the centrepiece is still in place
they haven't been deafened by the many love songs we're going to play
and the wax of doubt that will collect in them overtime
the centrepiece will be eaten by termites of familiarity
and guess what, things will start falling apart
our feet are still clean,we cannot predict the dust they shall gather
the perfumes are still fresh on our Suits like the antiperspirants.
the elevators will always work, we think,
not knowing someday we will even fail to find a ladder,how sad
the wings of now, the hot *** that sends us sky high
comes with the chains of tomorrow,the responsibilities
the kids who'll make us careful while rolling in the hay and exasperated
and we'll forget the pleasures, thinking romance is exaggerated
when our minds are blocked by their wrangles and cry
that's the perspiration, that's when the muscles will start aching
that's when our freshness will be lost and we'll stink
the adventure will **** and the love left will all be but faking
Love is just a song, yes let's enjoy it while it's still hitting the waves
time comes when it'll be like the desolate Dead in their cracking graves
I'm not saying we shouldn't enjoy the moment, no
all I'm saying is we shouldn't count on the moment lasting forever
and forget the challenges awaiting at the end of the honeymoon
the burning sun at noon, the dark side of the moon
I'm not saying we shouldn't kiss violently till our young lips bleed
we should,we should feast on the moment with greed
after all nothing can stop karma from taking the lead
let's fulfill all our youthful adventurous need
let's smell the flowers before they wilt and lose their scent
explore the jungles and know how it feels like spending a night in a tent
Let's dangerously walk along the edge of the world, on the fringes
let's vigorously open new doors whilst many still bear rustless hinges
let's drink till we can not remember our names
wines and even the millet brew while our youth carries its fatal flames
for a time will come when these smooth skins shall be tucked
and these two magnetic Hearts will be ******
I just can't promise simply because now feels worth forever
happily ever after is a sugar coated and tasking endeavour
I am going to promise nothing, nothing is enough
nothing will ever be,my dear, nothing lasts forever
But I Love you forever,in case forever's a metaphor for now

I. You are an angel,
a beautiful crystal-clear wet tongued straight-spined haloed human,
bringing that peace,
bring that piece of you that everybody needs. You hand it out like sin at a confessional, like blue jeans in Texas. They all need you. They all want to be saved.
You have something that everybody wants. They want that silver aura, that mist that hangs off your hips, a cloud that only God could have sent down with you. It is a stench.

II. You did not shiver when he touched you. You did not bark, did not swing your fists, did not pray, did not scalp him. You only asked to go in a different room, so your sister wouldn't have to witness
your ******* and the hollow of your collarbones not holding tears you held in. This one is not a lie. When he poked you in the morning, toe hanging out of his sock, you stared at him, weak smile. Smile keep smiling keep smiling walk out the door. Never feel shame, never wash your hands seventy-three times, never wake up four years later that same month and unconsciously decide to have *** with one person who looks like him and another who shares his name.

III. You wanted help. You
wanted attention, wanted somebody to pick up the phone, the line dead, you screaming you blaring you walking mindfully stepping over cracks you spitting out condolences and quotes like a book on grief. You want help.

IV. When you called the girl's father to tell him she had five new razor blades baptizing her back pocket, you did not lie to her when she asked if it was you.

V. If she had died, you would have lost more.

VI. You have an addiction to being ****** up. Not on anything, not on the pills you stole from your father, not on the mushrooms you gave to your mother, not on the bottles that sit in your kitchen like gravestones, scattered, weeping. No, this is on being
****** up.
Ask me how long I've been in therapy. Ask me if I can get enough.

VII. I can't. There will never be enough time for me to fill up "process group" with a voice that tells everyone that I am more damaged than them, that I've got more past, that I binge and starve and take pills that make me suicidal, that I've cut and have blurred the lines between ***, love, and intimacy, that my father was absent. That my father could hold a place in my life and still be
absent. That my father is a functioning alcoholic, that at least he didn't beat me, as far as I remember. That my mother carries her sorrow in boxes, carries her untold stories in the back of her throat, in the pit of her stomach, in her sweat. She compartmentalizes, you were a room she filled up with ****. That I am borderline, that I am bipolar, that I am **** spun into a web and called a patient, called smart and shy but I've got a need that will never run dry and it's for ears, it's for noses that can't smell out the lies, though I don't know if I have any.

VIII. I just have a need. My mother says that you can get addicted to therapy. My mother has never been a ******, doesn't know addiction. Doesn't know anorexia, only knows dinner with her daughter. Doesn't know depression, only knows a daughter who gets sad. Doesn't know borderline, says it's too severe. Says I could never be crazy enough for that.

IX. The woman I had *** with that shared his name called me crazy. I'm sure she went to sleep soft and angelic that night. I'm sure she has no baggage. She asked if she can visit me at the hospital. I asked her if she planned on bringing her suitcase too.

X. They want me and I let them. I want friend, I want family, I want a dinner that isn't me eating slivers and then shaking it off, I want -

XI. I wonder if it's an act. I feel myself talking. I am digging myself a hole. I am digging myself whole but at the risk of raw soul and flashing teeth and bleeding makeup, tissues in the middle of the circle I have too much pride to walk up to. This is my confessional. I pick a problem and never let it go, turn it into hospitalization, turn it into inhumanity, turn it into I Could Have Been More Than What's Happened To Me. Never take responsibility, never ask yourself why you are so happy to be on meds when the meds make you want to die. Never learn faith. Never learn patience. Learn mental tantrums. Learn how to take it like a woman. Learn how it feels when your therapist calls you seductive, calls you intentional. Learn how it feels to have your psychiatrist call you hot.

XII. Never trust yourself, not ever. Not your opinions, not your ink blots, not your journal entries. Question everything, all the time, in therapy. See a personality disorder online and decide you have it. See an addiction, have it verified. See your vulnerability on display, call it therapy. You beg for this. They call you strong and you question that too. You think you haven't been through that much, but you sure act like you have.

“Since pain is a totally subjective mental experience"
"we do not have direct access"
"to anyone or anything’s pain"

"but our own;"
"and even just the principles"
"by which we can infer"

"that others experience pain"
"and have a legitimate interest in not feeling pain"
"involve hard-core philosophy—"

"metaphysics, epistemology, value theory, ethics.”*

- From Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

David I've considered it and
I think she might laugh if she read
that a version of her
briny and spined
pint sized
now resides in the depths of my mind,
She might laugh
at my comparison of her
to a hideous sea spider

but it’s because, as you say,
one can neither comprehend the pain
of an exquisitely tactile lobster in a *** of boiling water,
nor walk a mile in it's eight lilliputian shoes

So I am left to wonder
what it might mean or not mean to her
in her armoured yet acute exoskeleton
to have quit school and
be back to her fathers house
on Prince Edward Island.
and what I'd want to tell her is:

They might try to butter you up,
bridle your anger with blue rubber bands,
Use their wooden spoons
to nudge your thrashing, clinging arms
back into the ***,

but as we know,
lobsters can live to be over one hundred years old
and grow to be over twenty pounds in size
which is very large for an aquatic insect
and they are marine crustaceans of the family Homaridae,
characterized by five pairs of jointed legs,
the first pair terminating in large pincerish claws

I know she knows how to use them.
Which reminds me of something else you said:
"Everything I've ever let go of has claw marks on it."
A feeling I can understand
Though I'm no more lobster
than she

The shale abounds
above the pounding waves
with perfect snapshots
of a lost, impossible world

Images beyond the skill of sculptors,
ridged, spined and rippled
frozen in rock, of rock -
who could have guessed
how long the armour would protect?

And yet -
trilobites
who ruled the shallows
when dinosaurs were but a glint
in Pachamama's eye,
are dead, gone, passed over
in the battle for existence.

While in the boiling surf below,
the jellyfish
who still blithely ride the tides
insolently call:
"Good luck wi thae shells, boys -
"Bet yis'll be safe wi thaim!"
and disappear
in a bubble of translucent laughter.

My brother,
unravel your fist.
Part your lips and taste
bittersweet oxygen;
Breathe in sin
and lust and sore eyes
and Lover’s skin
and the crushed aspirin on
Her bedside
one-night
stand.
Taste the sharp-edged thrill of
Medicine,
let it make your head spin
like when children wove
Wind and Sky with cobalt
threads of moonlight
and hummingbird hands.
I can see it in your eyes,
they pray like the curling fingertips
of tidal waves, and I am
here to tell you,
You
are not alone.

I’ve seen men with canyons
cut across their face;
deep and sad and dirtied
with their grandfather’s gunpowder.

I’ve seen men who’ve blacked-out
their irises with full-feathered crows
whose toes curl from the corners
to catch drops of their
Oceans
and hide them where ‘real men’
stow theirs:
In the bottom of a bottle,
“Boy” they say,
“drink every **** drop
‘till that pain goes away.”
These are the same men who
read ghost hieroglyphics
and practice bed-sheet rhetoric
that lingers longer than
certain cases of Cancer.

My brother,
you’ve lived too many starless nights
in this era of broken jaws
and bitten lips.
I am a twenty-year-old,
sleep-deprived daylight dreamer,
naïve enough to still
believe in true love, but
even I’ve really lived life
at least once,
or twice.
I’ve learned that the purest gold,
pink and orange burn
in Mountain West sunsets.
I’ve learned that it takes a long time
to find your way home
when all you keep
wrapped beneath this skin is bone.
So turn to the sky.
Constellations pedal everything from
Prophesies to pipedreams
and the only thing that’s constant
is the direction
North.

Today, I plan on catching hummingbirds.
I kissed open the face
of a dusty, old pocket watch
which I adopted from
a bent-spined,
curbside Saint
on the corner of First and Main
in exchange of the cure
for cracked vertebrae
and an honest conversation.
I clogged its clicking gears
with precious stones
to induce a temporary comatose,
so we’ve got until the
backwards time it takes
to grind diamonds into coal dust
to string those beating wings,
feathers and fluttering heartbeats
to the weathered backside
of our palms.
Brother, I want you to come with me.
Bring your chipped,
white porcelain bathtub
We’ll drag it to the coast.
Forget about that diamond powder,
there’s plenty laced in the sea.
We’ll spell out our goodbyes
in the lines our feet leave in the sand;
messages that will only be
read by free hands,
who find the courage to cross them.
By the tail-end of dusk,
We’ll tear clouds from this overhead
Mosaic,
and moonbeam-stitch them
to head winds and comet tails.
Together
we’ll sail this makeshift porcelain vessel
to the Eighth Sea.

I’ve heard,
from folklore and
childhood bedtime stories,
that long ago
Wise men with bare toes,
grass-stained knees
and arthritic elbows
mapped out the sky
on the ocean floor there.
It’s said,
they whispered the secret
to the man in the moon
before he was silenced
by mathematics and meteorites.
a secret that
only the guy with a
three-point belt overheard,
so scour the sharp bedrock with me
because I can see the need
to feel the crunch of autumn
alpine leaves
beneath your feet.
Read the contour lines of the sky
magnified by ripples and
a pulsing tide that sings hymns
about desert winds and cactus thorns.
take a deep breath
once more
before we begin;
fill your lungs with all the beauties
of Human Pollution.
Let your dizzy vision
spin with the pale-blue winds,
which will blow us to
a decrepit island,
that once was a burning star.

Because I need you to navigate.

I’ve been there once before,
but I can’t remember the way.
All I recall was
hitch-hiking with the ghost greens
of Aurora’s borealis,
and an ancient Man
with marked knees,
calloused toes
and cracking elbows
who, with frail voice, told me:
“From the curve of the moon
sewn to the tune of hummingbird wings,
you’ll find what you’re looking for.
But when you’ve discovered it, come back to this
canyoned skin and brittle bone.
Because Orion and I are trying to find
a reason to follow the North Star back
Home."

Stiff-spined pigs clawing at shins,
thighs, torso; arms and head.
Effervescent atoms spit
from pressurised cans
to clouded, burning eyes.
Batons drop, judging
my ever rolling sins;
breaking bland sheet
of skin into blue, black,
red, swelling  purple canvas:
mounds of flesh,
batted time and time again.
Arm twisted, mud faced being, sinking.
Face first dirt. Cuffed, bony wrists
annoy broken-back shoulders:
unforeseen angles.
Frustrated muscles stretch
bemused tendons.
Freedom demolished,
kicking screams provoke
further chest knocks,
ambushed four to one
your body flops;
sagging over tight-gripped,
blue and black jackets,
helmets, batons, badges.
Tossed to the backseat;
prisoner of the siren.

I never knew or thought or felt like
my body was eternal like a cloud
I held my hand in my hand and waved sloppily

I am beating a drum hard as a heart
or like soft tissue perhaps that you
wrap around a vein or something
I am skinborn and boneborn and hairborn

Just water and air I guess
lined up so I can look at  the
sky and wish it was below me
or within me

Kite-tongued or painted-lipped I thought
maybe my face my head was above my body
against ice or seafoam like a pulse
but I held onto my teeth and nose and eyes for so long

Dagger-ribbed or bullet-spined
moving on a field of nothing
like a field of something while
while my matter is so simple and nothing

.
..
...

With Crappó hated by the throng
young York decided to be strong
and told the Log 'you don't  belong'
and silenced him neigh three months long.

The corpse of Crappó lay unsung
amidst the muck of maggot mung.
Adoring words that Crappó flung
brings forth Thee Artiste from the dung.

This ballad now recalls to mind
Log's crummy comments, dull or spined,
a dilettante now much maligned,
the holey scourge of all mankind…

The only question left to face
'ts whether Thee will share Log's place
within the ashes of disgrace
adorning demons' fireplace.

*******

THEE BALLAD of LOGBRAIN CRAPPó
      
Prelude
The lord above returns to earth
descending as an afterbirth
and prattles of his paltry worth
in sluggish lines devoid of mirth.

In tedium the angels sighed
and cast his sorry soul aside,
commanding world and he collide
by grace… and gravity complied.

The earth is now a poorer place
defiled with icons of his face
adorning doggerel disgrace.
With character? No, not a trace.


LOGBRAIN CRAPPó'S TALE

His day of birth! A cat meowed?
With nary but a fig endowed
his mama gasped, then laughed aloud
and cast her sin upon a cloud.

Rejected at his mama's gate
he felt his ego desiccate,
wax paranoid and fill  with hate,
his self-esteem disintegrate.

At last the cloud came floating by
and caught an ancient angel's eye.
With pity for the puny guy
she boosted him beyond the sky.

Denied the milk at mama's ****
his nourishment was incomplete
except for jam on Golden street
where angels scrape their moldy feet.

Beholding mortals down below
he ventured into vertigo
and felt his feeble ego grow
beneath a chocolate cheerio.

With halo (brown although it be)
he rose above the holey sea.
"The ruler of the angels, me!"
became his favorite fantasy.

While looking down his nose at them
(upon his head a diadem)
he framed his face in foggy phlegm
and claimed he came from Bethlehem.

He then could hear the angels trill
"Just stop, because you're mortal still,
and even then you're lacking skill
except to serve the swine their swill" .

While scribbling lines in lethargy,
he foamed and drooled "supremacy,
preeminence" delusively…
unbearable monotony .

And with a visage woebegone
he scribbled trash till well past dawn
not worth the paper written on
and thus he made the angels yawn.

At last the angels felt dismay
and chose to act without delay…
with nothing but a negligee
he landed in an alleyway .

Since then he's never ceased to whine
"Please worship I, I am divine,
the lord of those who worship swine".
He's pricky as a porcupine.

Well, back on earth since Saturday,
he daubs his face in disarray
with soul patch stripe and black beret
and prances like a popinjay.

His mental age stays stuck at three.
And never reaching puberty
he scrawls some **** poetry
which seems to be his destiny.



LOGBRAIN CRAPPó'S EPITAPH

Log Crappó… well, he died in shame
cascading crap, his sole acclaim
accented ó, his only fame
with no one but himself to blame.

He finally made his last descent
inside the pit of punishment.
Now Satan's feeling discontent,
replaced as Prince of hell's torment.

On looking back, one must admit
he suffered from a lack of wit,
could never quite  get over it
so wrote his Masterpiece-of-****.


        CrE  aka  Trollminator

She has thin lips that rarely touch—painted Merlot

and sheltering teeth—those perfectly aligned, white-spined novellas.

And when she speaks, her satin tongue presses out sweet breath

that hangs on your head like a daisy halo.

Broken spined books
Lay atop him so casually
No man like he
Could feign such reality
Living in pages
Dancing with pictures
Reading his home
Always quoting scripture
Living in shelter
Of other men’s words
Out in the cold
Drifting off on the curb

Once he had chased
A whale great and white
Then followed the river
On a raft all night
He awoke, the next morning
On the beaches of Troy
Then sailed off to meet
An old man and a boy
“What are you two doing,
So far out at sea?”
“We’re catching our fish,
The old man and me.”
The next thing you know,
He was forced into war
And Scarlet O’Hara
Waved so long at the door.
Then he sought a crazed man
Down the African river
Who’s dark disposition
Made the strongest man shiver
He then met a ****** angel
Who’d fallen from high,
With paradise lost
And hate in his eyes
Then he met a rich man
Who said, “Good fortune has found me”
And spoke of his father’s wise words
So profoundly
Then the reader met
A bearded man on the grass
Who spoke of his captain
To all who would pass
While in the Utopia
He spoke unto Pip
Who warned him of dangers
He’d find on his trip
In king Arthur’s court
A knight did he arise
And the next day they named him
Lord of the flies
At a party with Ghatsby
His charm was a pleaser
And with noble Antony
He cried out “Hail Ceaser!”
He marched with Italians
From the first Great War
He heard from a bird
Who cried “Nevermore”
And with great Ulysses
He blinded a brute
And helped forty thieves
Carry their loot
Then he and Sun Tzu
With a blade in each hand
Led the Hollow Man
Into the Waste Land
A fearsome beast
Made of lightening and bone
Cried “Beware,
The life you save may be your own.”

And just as the Reader
Traveled in deep
The book fell to his side
He’d fallen asleep.

They were not blind
They just lacked eyes
Never knew a single ray of light
Worked a full clock, until they dropped breathless

And they were not deaf
They just lacked ears
Never heard a single wave of sound
Listened to their own thoughts scream

Yet, each had a mouth
An unquenchable hunger
Driving their minds,
To whatever it is that they could eat

And while at that,
Some mumbled,
Others screamed
To themselves and others

It was a disturbing imagery,
And many indistinctive voices
That my head spined endlessly
Swimming through countless thoughts

May be,
humanity was lost,
To the long structures touching the sky,
Beautiful vessels floating on water,
Amazing crafts flying in the air
And the astonishing world of tech

May be,
while trying to be better,
We fell deep down an abyss
That now we need implements of war
To guard our own interests,
From a brother next door

Skies spread wide with dark smoke
Land eroded to the bottom seas
lakes filled with oil spills
And bodies lay within ruins,
Soaking the ground in child blood

yet, we look into each other's eyes,
A firm handshake, beautiful smile,
Talking about the future,
The one we've strangled with our hands
And leaving our filthy prints on everything

Should say, we can clean our mess,
But yet, time itself offers not enough to correct our ways

But pass down the responsibility,
To a boy in blue boots,
And a girl in pink shoes,
To clean the remains of a generational mess

Her face was covered by many old masks of a thousand plays
Her head fell down
Shenaaya was her name
The laces of her boots were long and exhausted
In some minutes
She felt the ground on her shoulders
Her face saw the dark blue
There was a circle of light that got its tail in mouth
spined
Then got speed and like a comet fell on the ground
Shenaaya  woke up and said to herself
A new play is calling me
She searched around her lap
And found a new mask
She got the mask and put it on her face
Her hair then turned black just like old days
And said
I'll make the tail golden this time

What.

He ate out my heart and threw it up.
Poison lungs, poison veins-
****.

Viscera numbed, spined eels wriggle,
I am ******.

****** as in : a shut-in, swain of Gehenna, rocked, rolled.
He needed more rope for his net and so cut out my tendons.

What skies to worship now? What skins?

Thee songbirds fly straight t'wards her hand
- an', to be honest, I completely understand
- why they, all, make their way into her palms;
- she catches ones eye like ancient artifacts o' bronze,
- or shining, gem-crested rings made o' silver or gold,
- or leather, hard spined books that're, ever so, old!
Yay- she shone like a quartz crystal in the sunlight
- an' caused all the bandits to pause their gunfight
- as they admired her crossing the street
- with big, ole' fairy boots on her feet!

You have very well tailored flesh
Cultivating your features
These flesh mirrors,
reflecting the enlightening distortion
The illusions of the red
An ostentatious color
Your staggering amount of obligation
Strenuous on your fitted eyes
Perceiving so efficiently,
that your multi-spined flesh suit is wet

The week old beard and the pavement look
Earned from sleeping in doorways
In his hands
Soft spined
Well thumbed
A copy of the good book
He shouts to me about Jesus
Tells me it’s not too late
But I’m already several steps
And twice as many thoughts away

Numbers played
Lost and have none
Tears falls into the lake and becomes one
Thunder strikes
Lessons learned
The well of intentions of none
Souls and dreams harvested into the tent of the one
Spined into gold balanced as one
The sliver lining with the wheel from everyone
Activated Authenticated And Run
Manifestation squared of the 3 numbers from the intention of one.
The man teashirt saying like father like son
Lost objects found with the woman like a nun
The message that follows the "home run"  
This read backwards
The sun with eye that brings fortune with the page you have won!

that once was soft. But now
is spined. Her back is lined
with spiky quills. Every barb that
jabs her is a place a man has

stabbed her. A living pincushion
that when rolled over holds herself up
by the skewers. Now water passes
through her. She doesn't get wet. But she’ll

stick to you if you touch her. And you'll
bleed a gusher for the softness. From the thorns
she's built a fortress.