Blanket city run along soaked in rain. Idiot Boy wastes his time visiting a passing crush at the other end of town. Slips between two houses and a metal sheet, communal refrigerator in the middle of the road filed with half-empty soy bottles.

Dead bell stop, mocking red blink of the operator. Father arrives, a mess of wiry muscles and hair.

“Hey. Is Coffin Cat here?”

“Who?” Father squints at Idiot Boy’s cap. Idiot Boy avoids eye contact.

“Um.”

Recessed in the blackness behind Father, a Figure says, “You looking for Coffin Cat?”

Idiot Boy nods.

The Recessed Figure turns. “I’ll go get her.”

Father returns to his parched body on the couch, content.

Indistinguishable forms move back and forth in the kitchen to the right. They stop their pacing and glance at Idiot Boy as he passes. Idiot Boy avoids eye contact and slips into the left-bound arterial vessel.

“So this is the heart chamber I’ve been living in,” Coffin Cat says as Idiot Boy enters her room. There is music gear. “It’s pretty comfy.”

“Oh, sick mic,” Idiot Boy says, pointing at the mic behind Coffin Cat’s head.

“I feel like a ghost,” Coffin Cat replies, falling on her bed.

Idiot Boy settles next to her. Animal distance. Intensely aware of his rain-soaked right shoe. “Same.”

Nothing comes out right, intersubjectivity a false God to mediate the impossible kernel of being, nobody can find nor express. Idiot Boy searches for connection. He glances around the heart chamber, at the music gear, but nothing grips. Four pears sit on a table by the window, their skins garish green in the harsh grey light.

Coffin Cat moves from the bed to the floor. She opens a virtual aquarium on her computer; fish eat pellets dropped from the sky to **** out coins to buy more fish to **** out coins to buy more fish. Capitalist investment and accumulation. Every few minutes a rocket-spewing robot teleports into the aquarium to attack the fish. Ruthless competition in the global marketplace.

“No! Why would you swim there, you ******* fish?” Coffin Cat yells as one if her fish is eaten by the nomadic war machine. “So dumb. ****. Why did it eat my fish?”

A knock at the door. The Recessed Figure from earlier enters the room. “Hey, mind if I join?” Their arms dangle like fine threads of hair.

“I like your music gear,” Idiot Boy says, pointing at nothing in particular.

“Idiot Boy also makes music,” Coffin Cat adds from the floor.

The Recessed Figure does not respond. They are enthralled by their phone, streak of dead pixels along a digital chessboard, minute reflection of their own gaunt face in the glass. After an extended period, they decide to move none of their pieces. A gaping coffee grinder rises out of the rubble at their feet. They begin filling it with tobacco from broken cigarettes.

“I’m surprised you’re still playing this,” Idiot Boy says to Coffin Cat. “I swear this is one of those games designed to ruin your life. Get addicted, stop going to work, become a hikik weaboo.”

“Already there, man,” Coffin Cat laughs. “Nah, this is my new job. I’m going to be a professional gamer.”

“Stream only PopCap games.”

Another knock at the door. Tired squander in an endless pacing of flesh. Strawman enters and nods at the Recessed Figure. “Hey bro.”

“Good to see you, man.” The Recessed Figure plugs the coffee grinder into the wall. “You got any ciggys?”

Idiot Boy points under the table and says “Ahh” with his mouth.

The Recessed Figure empties it into the coffee grinder. The device whirs into motion, creating a centrifugal blur, a mechanical and headless hypnotic repeat.

Idiot Boy and Coffin Cat look for horror movies to watch. The Recessed Figure empties the contents of the coffee grinder onto a metal tray. Strawman repacks it into a ****. White smoke fills the empty column, moves in slow motion like an oceanic rip a mile off coast, surface seething with quiet, impenetrable violence.

Idiot Boy refuses the first round. It’s never done him any good. Face turned to smoke and the wretched weight of a tongue that refuses to speak. Headless carry-on as time ticks through the clock face.

The door bursts open. Everybody turns as Manic Refusal or the Loud Person saunters in.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. They’re selling me off!” the Loud Person says in exasperation. “First time back in New Zealand in five years and they do this to me!”

“What? What’s happened?” Strawman asks.

“Some rich ****** in Australia has bought me as his wife. I knew it, I knew if I came back, my parents wouldn’t let me leave again. Whole ******* thing arranged!” the Loud Person laughs bitterly, before hitting the ****.

“Oomph, that’s rough,” Coffin Cat quips from the side.

“No, you don’t even understand. This is the first time back, the first time back in five years, and I’m being sold to off some rich ****** who owns all the banks in Australia.”

“But like, who is this guy?” Strawman asks, pointing.

“And he’s been reading all my profiles. He has access to all my information. I don’t even have control over my Facebook profile. Grand Larson’s logged in as me, posting for me,” the Loud Person continues. “I met him once in Australia, clubbing, and now he’s tracked and bought me.”

“That’s creepy as ****,” Idiot Boy says.

“So he’s not a complete stranger?” Strawman asks.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. First time back in five years and I’m being sold off!”

Idiot Boy decides one hit from the **** wouldn’t be so bad. He packs the cone with chop, lights and inhales. Smoke rushes through the glass channel, a swirl of white ether, more than he’d expected. He quickly passes the **** to Coffin Cat, before collapsing onto the bed, eyes closed. A suffocating sensation fills his body. He sinks into the chasm of himself, further and further into an impossible, infinite depth.

“Still working at . . . ?”

“Yeah, yeah. Management. Hospital. You?”

“Like, property. Motions.”

“Subcontracting? Intonements?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Mmm.”

Idiot Boy doesn’t know what’s going on. He feels sick and tries to get Coffin Cat’s attention, but cannot move his body.

“Come on. Sell me drugs, Strawman.”

“Nah. I don’t deal drugs. I don’t deal drugs.”

A strange silence stretches like an artificial dusk, a liminal duration, the hollow click of a tape set back into place in reverse. The Recessed Figure coughs and the Loud Person whirs back into motion.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. They’re selling me off! First time back in New Zealand in five years and they do this to me!”

The Recessed Figure makes a noncommittal noise.

“I knew it, I knew if I came back, my parents wouldn’t let me leave again. Whole ******* thing arranged!”

Coffin Cat laughs quietly.

“No, you don’t even understand. This is the first time back, the first time back in five years, and I’m being sold off to some rich ****** who owns all the banks in Australia.”

“How about this fella? He doing okay?” Strawman asks, pointing. Everyone turns to Idiot Boy and laughs affectionately.

“Still working at . . . ?”

“Yeah, yeah. Management. Hospital. You?”

“Like, property. Motions.”

“Subcontracting? Intonements?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Mmm.”

“Sell me drugs, Strawman.”

“Nah. I don’t deal drugs. I don’t deal drugs.”

Idiot Boy slowly opens his eyes and stares out the window. The same grey light as before. He moves his arm further towards Coffin Cat, but is still too weak to get her attention. The same strange silence stretches. The Recessed Figure coughs and the Loud Person whirs back into motion.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. . . .”

As the conversation repeats over and again, Idiot Boy begins to think he has become psychotic, or perhaps entered into a psychotic space. He thinks of computer algorithms, input-output, loops without variables, endless regurgitations of the same result. Human machines trapped in their own stupid loop. Drug-****** neuronal networks incapable of making new connections, forever traversing old ones. Short-term memory loss, every repeat a new conversation of what has already been. The same grey light painted upon four pears by the window.

He’s not sure if Coffin Cat’s laugh is getting weaker with each repeat.

Signal-response. The exterior world oversaturated with variables: roadways, rivers, forests, wildlife — an ever changing scene to respond to — the illusion of depth. Automatic response mechanisms reorient to new stimuli. The soul rises like surfactant, objectified fractal diffusion. A becoming without end.

But within the border of this interior world, the light stays grey. No input, no change; the same dead repeat, over and over, until sundown triggers a hunger response. Lined all along the street, a black box ceremony of repeating machines, trapped in their idiot cults, walls of clay and blood.

Idiot Boy finally gets Coffin Cat’s attention. She helps him through the house’s arteries to reach rain and wet stone, overcast skies. As he shakes in shock, Coffin Cat mumbles, “It’s cold.”

Idiot Boy sits silent on the ride home. Travels through himself. Tunnel through the body or Mariana Trench. Loses his footing before a traumatic void. Leaves the car and pukes.

PROLOGUE

Umpteen billion years
Big Bang, supernova, gas
Brief eclipse of time

Gases swirling, fall
Sun and planets, water, goo
Brief eclipse of time

Another billion
life, amoeba, fishes swim
Brief eclipse of time

Movement, change and flux
slither, crawl, climb, walk and talk
Brief eclipse of time

Ra, Sol, Helios,
Mithra and the Mighty Eye
Brief eclipse of time

Life begins and ends
birth, joy, laugh, cry, death, and dust
Brief eclipse of time

Waves cleave seas, shores, skies
forever folding, pulsing
Brief eclipse of time


            CHRONICLE

The Mighty Eye begins to slip and slowly sink,
(unfocused, stained, diffuse)
while frizzled waves imbibe her searing tears,
with salted languid lips.

The Mighty Eye, now weary, thin,
is gazing through the frozen cracks,
as sundry straying clouds,
bloated,
sidle feebly by
and wax their billowed tracks
upon the heated sky,
and cool the rush of rolling waves
beneath the blotted sky.

The waves
(impaled on time and space inside me),
gently tumbling aging pebbles
and lifeless shells across the shifting sands,
seem unaware
as they once again arise
to greet the Mighty Eye,
to close the Mighty Eye,
to ***** the Mighty Eye.

But then again,
perhaps the waves are well aware indeed,
yet simply unconcerned
and feel no need to care.

For, as the frazzled froth is rushing forward
madly towards the sandy shores beyond,
before retreating slowly,
then careening brashly forth ahead again,
eternally,
it matters little if the Mighty Eye will cast
her blazing glance from high above,
or else retire for the night,
kissed sweetly by the liquid lips
of distant faithless waves
in a brief eclipse of time.

The trees, they hang in time and space around me –
trees, which in time before had swayed,
so gently tugged by ocean breezes,
trees, which in time before were lightly lit
with emerald tinted leaves,
trees, which in time before had reached to space above
with twisted tangled fingers,
grasping fingers,
fingers drenched with golden tears
shed by the Mighty Eye.

The trees, they hang in space and time,
benumbed and frozen motionless around me
chilled with rooted premonitions of the void,
their branches clutching darkness  
and their leaves foreboding doom.

The muted winds begin to whisper tales
of many frightened things,
which, with mournful apprehension
have hunkered down behind the haze
and ceased their joyful play.

And all the while dank shadows gaily dance
a dismal dance,
for their time is soon to come.

The fitful shore lies suddenly still.

Unfeeling stones and hollow shells,
are paused a little,
stalled,
and dropped haphazardly,
midst their mindless random journey,
now abandoned by the sea,

for fickle waves have slipped away
to greet a falling prey.

And as the Mighty Eye droops lower,
laminated molten lips
are pursed and pucker higher,
******* in the sky.

Within a trice the Mighty Eye
submits and squints, distended red,
perhaps tormented by fantastic thoughts
of imminent demise,
or else of being lashed beneath a lid
of distant faithless waves.

And as her dying flash dissolves,
two lurid lips arise,
three ***** lips -
a thousand parted limpid lips
which asudden,
though with little haste,
consume the Mighty Eye.

                   EPILOGUE**

The trees are now but lurking shades
amongst the murky shadows.

Relentless fog slips slowly by -
her floating tongues drip silence
as they slink like snakes in stealth nearby.

The lacerated faithless lips have once again returned
to kiss the vacant vapid shores
in a brief eclipse of time.

Childhood was the greatest time for Timothy, and he remembers it that way. No disposition on the fact that his parents divorced when he was eight. Just old enough to develop a mental connection with the idea of a union. So when he was ten, his father remarried, moved to a farm in the southeast, and tried living off the land. The topic of an ecological environment had hit the internet heavier than global warming hit the ice caps. And everyone was pursuing happiness with steep drops in city living, and an up swing in rural living.
Timothy's mom refused to believe it though. She wrote about such cultural climates, the invasion of neo-british pop boy bands, the decline of football, and the hippie lifestyle clawing its way back up the columns of big city papers. So when the recession hit, and it suddenly became cool to dress like a homeless person, she saw the disgust, moved overseas and focused on the world-political spectrum.
“Societal fads be ******! I'm going to do something that actually matters.” And she did.
Timothy Glasser, age 82 looks back on that moment with pride.
“There was a sense that she had the ***** to change the world. With Russia building up Imperial popularity, it was cool to be big. America was on the decline by the word of all the heavy-hitter magazines.
“That was when I started to take my life serious. She had shown me all the would-be Bob Dylans, Lennons, Hunter S. Thompsons. She would say, 'These kids have all the brass words of a ****** who can bite down ******* the world, but they don't have the actual brass. Men who are not recognized for what they've done have the brass. Hell, women have ten more pounds of that kind of brass!'
'I would laugh, but she was serious. I think she thought I was too masculine to understand what she was saying.”
When Timothy's father moved him and his little sister, Sunni Glasser out to the backwater community of Oggta-Cornelius, there was a certain relief in his demeanor. In a matter of months the country way of living had worn down his impatience to a sluggish pace.
“Greg was my father's name. He's been raised in a similar place in the Midwest, but the slowness of that life got to him in his teens so he left for the city. I guess when he met my step-mom he found the good ol' girl that he'd been trying to cling to since he left home. And it was Sunni's choice to come with us. She always had the same kind of 'brass' Mom had, but there was a closeness she shared with Dad that adventure couldn't break. It's a **** shame too. But once the slow pace of the backwater hit Sunni, she rebelled. It was a catastrophe to watch her and Dad argue over the most petty things you've ever seen. The way our step-mom, Claire would fold clothes or how early she had to wake up in the morning for school. Five o'clock, five days a week, and sometimes Dad would wake her on Saturday just to punish her for talking back. There was always blood in the water.”
Timothy's face settles, his lower lip curls, and his eyelids clinch for a moment before he changes his position in his chair.
“Is everything okay, Timothy?” I ask.
There is a pause, almost as if he is reliving what he was just describing.
“**** has always been real, you've been fantasizing.” I hear him say. He refuses to look at me, let alone answer my question.
“Mr. Glasser?” I ask again.
He exhales suddenly, eyes watery, and lets out a sigh.
“Let's talk about Sunni. I never really talk about her much, and I think now is a good time. Don't you?”
I nod in agreement and try to give him a smile.
He still refuses to look me in the eye.
“When Sunni was in first grade, she was beginning to prove to be a bit of a handful. There was a small patch of corn out back. Maybe half an acre Dad keep for us to put up for the winter. Sunni was about seven years old around this time and she had the idea to make crop circles. Now I was out with my friends, played football in those days so I didn't have the time to be home all the time. Dad and Claire kept themselves busy with the work about the place, so Sunni got bored real fast. One day during the summer, Dad went to the store to get some groceries. A friend of his came up to him and said, 'I was up in the plane yesterday and I saw something strange in your cornfield. Like some kind of crop circle. Weird ain't it?'
“This rattled my Dad's brain for a few minutes until he got home and saw the two-by-four with rope tied to either end of the thing. Sunni was staring at the clouds and Dad walked over to her, and yanked her up off the grass. 'What are you doing flattening my corn for? Don't you know that's goin' to save us money in the long run?” She just stared at him. Not dumbfounded, just intrigued.
“That was kind of the starting point of their bickering. She had blonde hair running to the base of her skull brushed down neatly. A subtle blush in her cheek from the sun. And she always wore a dress, especially if it had sunflowers on it. She brought life to that house.
“On her tenth birthday, Mom sent her a touch screen phone, an iPhone, I think it was called with a two-year contract. It was so long ago minor facts like that seem to hang on for no reason.”
Timothy shuffles in his chair. Then clears his throat.
“Would you like to take a break, Timothy?” I ask him.
“I ignored most of the arguments Sunni and dad had after I graduated high school. As soon as fall semester started at Cornelius College I fled the backwater and started by life near the OceanFront. Oggta-Cornelius was divided into two sections: the Backwater and OceanFront. And like a sports rivalry there was always trash talk about the tax bracket you were in or how much you worked. After the first few weeks for sneaking into bars and partying on campus, the fun died down because of the arrests. I almost got caught twice, but my sixth sense for trouble tingled at just the right time. When the middle of the semester hit I was over-booked with mid-terms and reading assignments. I actually lived in my dorm then. Never really left the place. And soon fall semester was over. Nothing worth mentioning now. Sunni and I texted often, but she had become a brat and I wanted alone time to learn what I'd read. For everything literary to go beyond just test and quizzes.
“But right towards the end of the semester, one morning I was walking to an early exam and on the ground was a kid, a little older than me lying there looking up at the sky. I had the urge to walk up and ask him what he was doing, but it felt too rude so I left him. I kept walking and heard a voice call back to me, 'Hey, guy.' I turned around, 'Yeah you, come here.'
“I walked up to him, he motioned for me to kneel beside him.
'What day is it?
I told him it was a Monday.
'Really? Wow, must've fell out watching the stars with this gir--'
He reached to his other side, feeling for a body, but no one was there. He never broke eye contact with me.
'Well, with his lovely imaginary girlfriend I have. Her name's Elsie. She's a charm.'
I helped him up and he left without much of a goodbye. A disrespectful mysteriousness. And I didn't see him again till the weather warmed up in the spring semester. Which was a repeat of the fall.”
Timothy asks me for some water. I started to feel like I'm one of his grandkids. How far in the trunk of memories is he going for this information?
“Thank you. Now the next time I saw Alan was in a smoking gazebo along a walking path on campus.
'Hey, guy!” he shouted, getting my attention. I walked back to the gazebo, coughing as the smoke roughhoused it's way into my lungs. He had those circular shades on, like the one John Lennon wore back in the day. A tie around his head, a light blue button up shirt that hung loose off his think frame. His hair was long and parted, and he sported a straggly red and black beard.
'Top of the morning, ta ya.' he said, putting out a cigarette on the tray. I opened my mouth, but all that came out was coughing.
'Course, the Irish don't really say that. It's actually quite racist, but I'm half Irish so no skin of my knuckles. I'm a mutt.'
“He smiled with such pomp. The arrogance was so natural, it fit him like his face. Other people around him were having conversations about Samuel Beckett, John Irving, Stephen King, and Jimmy Hendrix tripping acid together in the great T.A.R.D.I.S. in the sky. I remember laughing at that. They were all smiling at the ludicrous actuality of it happening. And it was late evening.
'Stay! Be silly and merry with us!” he shouted. I held my breath and sat down. I never made it to the rest of my classes that afternoon or for the next week. Alan and I chilled in my dorm, burned incense and plotted a protest. The whole time I was telling him he had to be literal with the cause. It couldn't be just because the college bookstore sold shot glasses, but confiscated any paraphernalia they found in the dorms.
'*******,I say. It's hypocritical and a scam. Like police pulling you over for going two-miles over the limit because they need to feed their kids. It's a Darwin rip-off.'
“Later that week he took my phone while I was sleeping, got my number, and Sunni's too. He never asked if he could come over after that night. He just did.
'I thought it was cool since we had a good time.'
"I didn't know what to say so I let it continue. His reason for stealing Sunni's number still baffles me. He said he thought she was a girl I was into. She was my sister, he was right in his own way. It was a while before he ever texted her.
“The next time I saw him he told me, 'I feel like a clockwork man running on thousands of gallons of caffeine.' I laughed at him and told him to stop reading Burgess.”
I stop Timothy for a moment. “Anthony Burgess? The author of A Clockwork Orange?” He nods and goes back to the story.
“You know, with the Second Cold War flaring up again I don't think it's wise to be worrying about an old man like me. This has been a century of second fillings. There are still Hipsters running about. This makes me feel no better. I want to go home.”
“Alright Mr. Glasser, but can we reschedule? I need to finish this article.” As he rises out of the chair, he agrees and goes for his coat.
“One more question, Mr. Glasser. Can you give me another quote from Alan? A bit of closing for this bit?
He turns around and looks me in the eye for the first time since the beginning of the interview. He squints his eyes at me and says, “When we would hang out at the gazebo where we actually met for the first time, and after that week I got back in the habit of going to class and doing my work. As I would leave I'd say, 'Alright man, I'm off to class, to learn and stuff.' He'd moan about it, and say, 'Look at him now, growing old and dying young.' Behind that same pompous grin."

A REACTIONARY TRACT FOR THE TIMES

(Phi Beta Kappa Poem, Harvard, 1946)

Ares at last has quit the field,
The bloodstains on the bushes yield
To seeping showers,
And in their convalescent state
The fractured towns associate
With summer flowers.

Encamped upon the college plain
Raw veterans already train
As freshman forces;
Instructors with sarcastic tongue
Shepherd the battle-weary young
Through basic courses.

Among bewildering appliances
For mastering the arts and sciences
They stroll or run,
And nerves that steeled themselves to slaughter
Are shot to pieces by the shorter
Poems of Donne.

Professors back from secret missions
Resume their proper eruditions,
Though some regret it;
They liked their dictaphones a lot,
T hey met some big wheels, and do not
Let you forget it.

But Zeus' inscrutable decree
Permits the will-to-disagree
To be pandemic,
Ordains that vaudeville shall preach
And every commencement speech
Be a polemic.

Let Ares doze, that other war
Is instantly declared once more
'Twixt those who follow
Precocious Hermes all the way
And those who without qualms obey
Pompous Apollo.

Brutal like all Olympic games,
Though fought with smiles and Christian names
And less dramatic,
This dialectic strife between
The civil gods is just as mean,
And more fanatic.

What high immortals do in mirth
Is life and death on Middle Earth;
Their a-historic
Antipathy forever gripes
All ages and somatic types,
The sophomoric

Who face the future's darkest hints
With giggles or with prairie squints
As stout as Cortez,
And those who like myself turn pale
As we approach with ragged sail
The fattening forties.

The sons of Hermes love to play
And only do their best when they
Are told they oughtn't;
Apollo's children never shrink
From boring jobs but have to think
Their work important.

Related by antithesis,
A compromise between us is
Impossible;
Respect perhaps but friendship never:
Falstaff the fool confronts forever
The **** Prince Hal.

If he would leave the self alone,
Apollo's welcome to the throne,
Fasces and falcons;
He loves to rule, has always done it;
The earth would soon, did Hermes run it,
Be like the Balkans.

But jealous of our god of dreams,
His common-sense in secret schemes
To rule the heart;
Unable to invent the lyre,
Creates with simulated fire
Official art.

And when he occupies a college,
Truth is replaced by Useful Knowledge;
He pays particular
Attention to Commercial Thought,
Public Relations, Hygiene, Sport,
In his curricula.

Athletic, extrovert and crude,
For him, to work in solitude
Is the offence,
The goal a populous Nirvana:
His shield bears this device: Mens sana
Qui mal y pense.

Today his arms, we must confess,
From Right to Left have met success,
His banners wave
From Yale to Princeton, and the news
From Broadway to the Book Reviews
Is very grave.

His radio Homers all day long
In over-Whitmanated song
That does not scan,
With adjectives laid end to end,
Extol the doughnut and commend
The Common Man.

His, too, each homely lyric thing
On sport or spousal love or spring
Or dogs or dusters,
Invented by some court-house bard
For recitation by the yard
In filibusters.

To him ascend the prize orations
And sets of fugal variations
On some folk-ballad,
While dietitians sacrifice
A glass of prune-juice or a nice
Marsh-mallow salad.

Charged with his compound of sensational
*** plus some undenominational
Religious matter,
Enormous novels by co-eds
Rain down on our defenceless heads
Till our teeth chatter.

In fake Hermetic uniforms
Behind our battle-line, in swarms
That keep alighting,
His existentialists declare
That they are in complete despair,
Yet go on writing.

No matter; He shall be defied;
White Aphrodite is on our side:
What though his threat
To organize us grow more critical?
Zeus willing, we, the unpolitical,
Shall beat him yet.

Lone scholars, sniping from the walls
Of learned periodicals,
Our facts defend,
Our intellectual marines,
Landing in little magazines
Capture a trend.

By night our student Underground
At cocktail parties whisper round
From ear to ear;
Fat figures in the public eye
Collapse next morning, ambushed by
Some witty sneer.

In our morale must lie our strength:
So, that we may behold at length
Routed Apollo's
Battalions melt away like fog,
Keep well the Hermetic Decalogue,
Which runs as follows:--

Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases,
Thou shalt not write thy doctor's thesis
On education,
Thou shalt not worship projects nor
Shalt thou or thine bow down before
Administration.

Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance
Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
A social science.

Thou shalt not be on friendly terms
With guys in advertising firms,
Nor speak with such
As read the Bible for its prose,
Nor, above all, make love to those
Who wash too much.

Thou shalt not live within thy means
Nor on plain water and raw greens.
If thou must choose
Between the chances, choose the odd;
Read The New Yorker, trust in God;
And take short views.

Parallel tremors follow your heavy footsteps through the moss that carpets a maze of tired oak. Solemn warnings calcify soft thoughts and point you at the coal on the horizon. Its splinterglow peeks hot squints through the arboreal tangle. Topaz streams convene and braid themselves around your spine. The stones in the riverbed grow smoother and each becomes a grain of sand. You let the sand console your roots as you curl your toes and fall asleep.

River bamboo arrayed in lace tiers
consoles the birdbath on its loss of robins
Intemperate August staggers in liquored air
of wavery heat and layered sighs

Leaves relinquish their rush
toward this “ripe on time”
Blackberry brambles have ceased to reach
now bow to ponder their plunder
while petunias, those bold delinquents!
bloom as if the frost’s lethal cling
were some myth
the antique roses had made up

Bud, bloom, revive!
See the generation of the bee!
Bud, bloom, survive—
to do it all again
for the single sake...
of treasuring beginning in the end...

Her bicycle, my geranium
have found eternity together
on the sun spattered patio

She—
opens the screen door
as I—
climb the morning stairs
She—
squints smiles amongst sleepy freckles
who has not brushed her hair
in a late August moment of not caring

And I know it will all happen anyway
no matter what I do....

She looks at me
Squints in one eye
Runs her tongue around her lips
From one corner to the other
My heart races, head flutters
I'm just so hot inside
Burning up in fact
Beads of sweat pour from my forehead
Drip down my nose and I realise
She has what I so very badly want
She pulls her hand away from her mouth
"What the **** are you looking at?"
I choke on my words before they come out
I'm so embarrassed
"I'm sorry love, that cornetto looks amazing right now"

For it is a British heatwave
We're strange enough in our usual
Cold and wet weather
We're freaks in the sun

Just squints at the Sun and
Isis,
on her run to the sea
just
squints at
me.

There are diamonds in the cobblestones and
dead shoes walking
dead men's bones.

In the tests that time can throw at you,
just
squints at the Sun,
Isis passing on through until
the day is done.

Sitting outside, she watches the rain fall down.
she closes her eyes and sniffs the air
Wet Cement... yum.
her thoughts bring her back to earth.
Shutting her eyes tightly, she tries to think about something else
anything else.
because mentally saying goodbye to an old lover/friend/partner,  takes a toll.
She looks are her beautiful garden being watered by mother nature.
She squints as she sees one of her beautiful plant begins to wilt.
running towards him, she tries to save the plant.
digging up the root, running home, and putting in in a ***.
Keeping it safe.
but it's already too late.
she was already too late.
too late to save the plant.
too late to realize her true feelings.
too late to save them.
water drips down her face, she doesn't know if its tears or the rain.
She decides to save the other plant from the rain, but this one, she carefully touched it, carefully places it in the ***.
The plant seems strong, healthy, beautiful.
Sitting in her kitchen,  on that beautiful island top, she stares at these two plants.
Its too late to save one of them, but she saved the other one before anything.  
Her heart turns ans twists that she allowed it to happen to this beautiful plant.
To that beautiful plant.
Too late to save them.
too late to save him.
too late to say im sorry.
friendship tainted,
plant dying,
she places the dying plant outside in the rain.
wiping her face she goes back to her kitchen and sees the healthy plant and smiles.  She had plenty of time to save this one. Her favorite.

A warm arm wraps around her waist and fingers caress her sides.
Heat engulfs her and she feels better.
Turning around,
she faces him.
the plant she saved early.
changes will bring them closer.
Save their root so they can grow healthy.
Love. They have love. The plant had plenty of love.
They hug and entwine like vines.  
She stares at the window and watches the rain continue to fall
but this time, with a smile.

Her almond-shaped gaze squints slightly
as if to question “how can this be?”
A wave of solace overtakes her
A sun break streaming through,
dissolving every cloud,
tiny particles of warmth beaming
every last cell of her, radiating

Safe and held in the caress of his softness
Deep desire seeps from her, dripping from each trembling thigh
The same which hold him,
locked in a grip of passion
An unfamiliar yearning
An indescribable pulsation
Each wave overcoming her attention
Each longing so visceral, they leave her
crying out in gasps of predilection

She rests in pleasure of deep golden hazel
Asleep soundly knowing those eyes,
those hands have taken her in completely before finally releasing her to a slumber of immeasurable possibility

She feels awakened
A diverging electricity courses from her
A dichotomy of unknown-mixed-certainty
jolts her palpating heart with exhilaration
Each story from his lips weaves continual mystery,
twinning a heightened awareness;
That pure contentment graces her just at the sight of him

Staring at a pale white canvas, his fingers twitch
Doesn’t see the point or understand it
Fifty shades of the very same color. Artistic?
He squints at the thought, thinks the joke is twisted

A woman walks his direction; this man is wearing a question mark
Seeing her coming, he’s sweating, not knowing where to start
Not being awkward, standing right beside him
He’s had it with the confusion staring at the item

“Do you see the white rabbit?”, she asks him.
The man looks again, takes a much more thorough pass at the image
Focus diminished, he’s staring blindly at it. Like a fool he tells her,
“Point him out to me, would you kindly?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Now she makes him ponder.
But somehow, his frustration has since been turned to wonder
“The rabbit’s not in the art, but within you, so close your eyes
and let your heart tell you a story that you can listen to”

He closes his eyes, then inhales slowly,
While she mutters, “While you’re at it, don’t be afraid to show me.”

He exhales.

A cool snowflake kiss is very innocent
Murderous mind makes you question just who the menace is
7th place in a race, you want to win it
But the mission is holding on to your wits and hope you finish it

Hate to admit we live in a place of affliction
With war, famine and depravity - an endless tragedy
People praising rulers like prophets, men of profit
Looking down at each and every soul like drones for their shady goals

Toy soldiers in toy boxes, a boy in a boycott,
Strapped to a baby stroller, momma broke her shoulder
Screaming for peace and prosperity for her people,
Attacked for her beliefs as a human - thought we were equals

So hop, little bunny! Come and get your carrot
No, thanks! He doesn’t need it or your filthy merits
‘Cause he’s stronger than what you take him for, don’t need to chase him
Leaves your bait right at your f*cking door, and strikes you at your core

The harsh winds of winter are now behind him
Eyes open and happy she keeps him warm
A habit keeping his soul torn, she holds him
As he hops back to life just like a rabbit in a snowstorm.

The eagle searches, circling, senses strum like spider silk.
Sorrow’s scent slides up on a sea breeze.
A solitary slave spits sullenly into the spray.
Silently, suddenly, the sentinel streaks down.

Beak breaks skin, breaches bone, crimson blots the ocean’s foam.
Defenceless, relentless, the bird blurs in a barrage of blood.
Banished, betrayed, the ravaged titan sways -  
between the rocks that form his cage.

His foe retreats; a closing caw as crooked claws cleave meat.
Head bowed in defeat, our hero strains as chains bind
hands and feet.
Enduring bonds cut deep and bleed him bittersweet.

Cast against the crags,
this castaway’s castigated cries call out
to no-one.
Chastised, he squints with hollow eyes
towards a lifetime of the bird’s reprise.
  
Furious. Fists flex,
thrashing against his fortress.
Face furrowed into a frown he flings forward
and for once finds his foot…
unfettered.  

Bindings broken, his bonds bite terra firma,  
as first a foot and then a hand finds favour.
Boundless, he bellows at the sky
as the flotsam of his freedom floats on by.

Reprieved. Aggrieved. He is restless in release.
An errant righteous line repeats.  
Relentless in its beat, it rings out like raw steel on teeth.
A ricochet that disturbs his sleep

“Is this victory, or defeat?”

Racked by reminiscence,
his reality and responsibility remain.
Warped roots rammed down
with rock-filled boots.
Resistance seems obtuse against such reoccuring fruit.

Reluctant, resigned, he rattles out a sigh -  
the last gasp of this transitory high.
Reaching for the rope and tack he re-binds the knots
that hold him back.  
With one last glance towards the past
he hoists his soul upon the mast.

Ceaselessly.
Senselessly.
The
sentinel
streaks
down.

The bookbag leans
on the aluminum column.

The column is blurry,
someone cleans it
only when their are inspections.

The bookbag has been sitting
collecting the sounds
that leave the Staten Island Ferry
by foot,
for God knows how long.

When you get off,
everyone looks ahead,
but out of the corners
an entire black sea of iris'
rotates to the aluminum column.

It might be a bomb.

The girl behind the Ms. Anne's counter
is skinny almost,
but her *** is too big,
almost.

Munching on the semi-soft pretzel,
you think about empty calories
and the corners of your mouth get sticky.

The Ferry won't be back,
for another thirty or so
minutes.

Somebody takes out a guitar,
and starts playing
a little Dylan. People
form a circle around him.
This is the American Pow-wow.

You reach in your breastpocket
for the Marlboros,
but you can't smoke here,
and an official looking person
squints at you,
just to drive the point home.

******* smoking laws,
some places just feel good.

This place with all it's ringy sounds,
like the guitar,
and phones beeping with texts
and babies,
deep fathers,
and high mothers.

Just to puff and puff
and push that sugar down
with nicotine would really
up this feeling of comradery.

A guy with a gold-plated shield
on his breastpocket and a blue-button down.
Walks over to the bag.

The iris' move,
people keep talking but
they're just saying words
to make it look like they're talking.

By the time the ferry
rings in baritone,
the bag is gone;
the column is still blurry;
the man is still playing his guitar,
but there's an emptiness.

She stares at the floor. She has to be dreaming. She can’t believe it actually happened. She’s in shock, a deep shock vibrating her core and numbing her skin.

She shivers, and looks up at the ceiling, where drops of blood fall into a small puddle on the clean linoleum below.
A small trickle of water seeps in from the laundry room to her left, and the clear veins of water glide around her extended foot, attracted to her self-loathing tension. The water knows what she’s done, knows it can’t fix her and wants to be a part of this torture in her soul.

She kicks the water away, futilely and desperately. This is the most movement she’s taken since she came downstairs, and it is the opening of the reservoir of tears within her. She sobs, huge racking sobs that convulse every fiber of her being.

She hates herself. She hates herself. She takes her fist, and she punches. Anywhere and everywhere she can hit. Her legs, her neck, her stomach, her chest. Anything she can do to herself to make herself feel, to make herself hurt. She needs to be punished.

She knows that she deserves to die, but she isn’t sure if she has the guts or selfish selflessness to do it. The gun lays on the tile across the room, it’s barrel turned toward the wall in cowardice. She scoots over to it and picks it up. In her mind it burns her hand, but she holds on strong. This pain is nothing to her.

She slowly finds the strength to stand up, and squints her puffy eyes to hide herself as she walks past the mirror. She has to crawl up the steps. She didn’t realize she was so weak, but she’d looked at the clock on the way up, and she’d been sitting there bawling for over four hours.

At the top of the steps, she loses her breath. Her lithe, agile body isn’t tired, but she sees his foot, carelessly hanging out into the hallway where he fell. She can’t go on yet. She looks at the gun, still in her hand. It’s her light, her only exit sign.

She walks on, into the bedroom, stepping over his foot. She squats down beside his head and looks at his pale, sunken face. His body is already well into the process of rigor mortis, and it flushes her hopes that he’ll sit up and say, “Boo.”

Tears are streaming down her face, a hurt so intense, so overwhelming, that she is not even aware she is crying once more.

Finally, she’s done looking at him. She cannot grasp that she did this to him, and yet her hands apparently can. They put the barrel of the gun to her head, and she inhales sharply without exhaling. The cold barrel feels hot against her temple, and it slides a centimeter from her perspiration and the pressure she’s applying. Maybe if she just pushes it into her temple hard enough, it will take care of itself, and she won’t have to pull the trigger.

She lets go of all pretenses, and time seems to pause as she pulls the trigger. She drops, falling onto his body before her. Her tears roll down his stomach, the force of gravity in action.

She was fifteen and messy haired, a sweet girl you would call "honey" without a tone of patronage, fuzzy pink sweater and braces and eyes that folded when she smiled, so much so we called her Squints McGee.
But what could so easily be hidden behind eyes crinkled with laughter and warm purple slippers were the names others whispered as she walked by, snakes that slithered out of slit lips and silent stealthy glares,
NAMES THEY CALL MY BEST FRIEND
****
*****
*****
Easy
Names that hurt me as I walked beside her, protecting her as a younger sister, my beautiful best friend. Begging others "don't judge her, you don't understand, just get to know her"
Parked outside the football field on January or was it November ish evening- fingers nervously tapping out confessions on the dashboard, honest melting eyes, she told me everything. What he promised her, what he stole from her, unwrapping her like a Christmas present, greedily, gift paper in strips on the living room floor.

I was seventeen and tall, with brown hair and hips that led boys in Whataburger late at night to make sounds as I walked by. I wore combat boots and wrote poetry on my phone and was known as the worst driver in my high school. But what could so easily be masked behind thick glasses lenses and chunky earrings was the ****** war raging in my brain
NAMES HE CALLED ME THAT NIGHT
****
*****
*****
Easy
And laying backstage at theatre rehearsal, I told her. Whispered I loved him and he was the one, he just made a mistake. He would come back, I was sure of it. But at home I dug razors into my thoughts and screamed emptiness into my pillow.

If he loved me, why did he hurt me? Break my body into pieces and choose the parts he wanted, squeeze my trust between his fingers, paint my mind with his anger and his drug addiction.

If he loved her, why did he hurt her? Kidnap her innocence and stamp her with a fragile mark, make her body a punchline to his friends, publish her secrets to the football team.

Because of him the word love will forever be associated with pain, the act of *** tainted with punishment, the idea of a companion smeared with abandonment.

Because of you I had a panic attack in my shower on Christmas Eve, naked and shaking on the cold tile floor, where blood looks oddly orange and my hair swirls into lines that look like a map to my messy mind.

And when my mother found me. And I told her the truth. Two years from the day she picked me up from the park late at night and begged me to tell her if I was hurt and I lied.

She told me the same thing had happened to her once too.

I never thought I could ever feel so nervous,
and so proud looking in the mirror.
Sister, in some ways our resemblance is uncanny
and that never makes me feel terrible.
Even if we both cling to our bottles of perfume,
nailpolish, and beer
to remedy our despairs,
I'm proud of you.
I love how you don't ever leave your effervescence at home.
It's contagious, and everyone eventually wants a sip.
You found your beauty quite recently-
but I want you to know its always been there,
it began when your eyes first became
those thick lashed squints
from smiling too hard.
You admire things, and they admire you back.
I hope you won't forget that
when you chase what seems to be difficult.
Sister, I know there are days where you
don't see what greatness you deserve,
when you believe you have to be sorry for
your *****.
I know it because I've seen you, and I know it
because I do the same.
You always remind me to never apologize.
And now I do you.
Sister, don't let that crown fall over those
smiling eyes.
You are stronger than the chance you might be sad.
You are finer than the fool who won't call back.
You are better than the boy who should be a man.
You carry troubled teenage girls over your shoulders
every single day.
You save them, as much as you can and give them that warmth.
Don't forget to warm yourself.
Because the heat travels, sister.
I feel it too.

A smoke-filled room, a loud gaffaw, the barmaid pours a beer,
the pub is full of country blokes and Aussie atmosphere.
Some 'Chisel' thru the speakers, the racetrack on the telly,
pool table sending iv'ry ***** to its underbelly.
Walls adorned with history, and heads of native birds,
the Nation'l Anthem in a frame, 'cause no-one knows the words.

An ag'ed man sits in the corner, sipping at his ale,
his teeth are stained, his liver's shot, his ragged skin is pale.
Young buck swaggers in and, as the room lets up a shout,
he tips his head in mock salute and takes his earnings out.
Good mates standing at the bar as jugs are passed around,
the yarns are flowing freely to impress the growing crowd.
The old man in the corner holds his voice above the din,
"You boys want a story, eh? Well, buck up and listen in.

Jus' the other day this feller was sat here at the bar,
he held his glass with steel hook, his cheek, it had a scar.
That scar, it ran from ear to chin, ****** it was shockin',
angry, red and all inflamed, he'd taken quite a coppin'.
With legs the size of tree trunks an' a barrel for a chest,
he looked as though, with just one blow, he'd put a man to rest.
I ventured on the happenings, and nodded to his claws,
he turned to me, quite wearily, and spoke, after a pause."

As if to emulate the mood, the old man waits a bit,
he squints his eyes upon the crowd and makes a show of it.
"This bloke is felling up a tree, 'bout fifty foot or so,
a lightning bolt, he gets a jolt, the chainsaw he lets go.
It backs up from the branch and lops off both his paws,
then, before he thinks to catch 'em, they hit the forest floors.
He’s with them soon enough, as the rest of him descended.
I shakes me head, 'Christ!' I says, tryin' to comprehend it."

The crowd is leaning forward and the air is getting tense,
the old man lights a cigarette, just to build suspense.
He slowly sips at his beer, then lifts his head to speak,
"Me eyes then trail from steel claws to mark upon 'is cheek,
'That how you did your face in, the chainsaw misbehavin'?'
He took a pause, held up his claws, and shrugged, "Cut it shavin'.""

In anticipation she grips his hand tighter
In anticipation he leans in toward her
The lights spin before their eyes
the cold air rushes past their faces
'Hold on' she thinks
'Let go' he thinks

Now she realizes she was temporary
a moment in time that had to be filled with passion, a short-lived love

She fell hard
pressing herself to the ground she landed on trying to fall farther
'might as well' she thinks 'I'm never getting up'

Tears, hot and uncontrollable, burn and moisten her cheeks
The sunlight blinds her
she squints into the sky
sees his eyes, his smile
hears his laugh, his voice

"It'll always be you" she whispers to the memory of him

The Passionate Pen
Pulsates with luminescence.
Its source transcendent,
Pages radiate, injected with ink incandescent.

The sun squints when the strokes soak.
The sheets must be sheathed in a quote's cloak.

'Tis no quill
Taken from a bird's nestle.
'Twas a thrill
To concoct the ink, with a firm pestle.

Lava for determination,
Stardust for high hopes,
Starlight for inspiration,
Glacier water for rejuvenation,
A drop of the Savior's blood for salvation
And a speck of His sweat's salt for eternal preservation.

Finally, I siphon a raging scream of emotion
Into the cartridge to keep the mixture in motion.
Swirling like undercurrents of the ocean.
Merlin has never known so potent a potion.

An elixir of passion.
I mix it with passion.

The pen glows
And throbs with a tempo.
It plants seeds,
Watch the stems grow.

The false poets—watching at bay—
Flock, & they say,
"Long live the Passionate Pen!"
As, once again, the Passionate Pen
Conquers the day.

With your satiny hairs,
You amble without a normal foot.
But with a pristine look,
Your big eyes shines luminously.
Dear, Maybe people call you a handicap,
I call those bullocks a madcap.
Interestingly, what, I am a handicap mentally, here I reveal.
Everyday I fight inside the close door when night falls.
A few days ago your eyes have cried a lot,
Let me clear here, you are a daring person.
It gives me a reason to fight with his servants openly.
You are a bizarre, I don't know you Monica Sharma.
Though we did not shook our hands at all,
But whenever these eyes squints you,
A new story creates a History...

Interlude.

What's your favourite colour?"
A question that has lived with me throughout my entire years.
With confidence I said "purple"
They always asked me why. I never really gave them the most appropriate answer. Mainly because when I was young, purple made me feel different. Girls were always expected to love a certain pink, to always follow that order. Purple made me feel superior.
Made me all sorts of different.
Always a good different.

Little did I know.

Purple stains*.

Tomorrow is a day closer to our day.
Everyday is a day closer to ours.

I sit on this wooden chair,
Listening to it creak as my body makes a frontward backward motion.
I stare aimlessly at the road ahead.
Wondering.
Always wondering.

"Annoyed with the World?" she puts her tiny soft hands on my shoulder.
Making me feel the heat radiating from her.
I continue to look forward. Already knowing where she's going at.

"The perks of being an Eccedentist",she whispers.
"The secret of this pain lies deep within but can only be seen by our kind".
I sigh, massaging my temples. Not really feeling the need to hear what more she has to say.
In attempt to run away, I pick my heavy battered body up and start to walk away.
She chuckles light hearted "Running again I guess?"
"How long will you deny these stains? How long will your body handle them? Don't run away. Talk to me"

Her words remind me of a certain everybody. Always telling me that they want to listen.
To comfort me.
But they don't understand, I'm not trying to get pity or supposed heartfelt advice.
I don't want that.

I continue to walk away from her, counting every step that takes me further from her view.

"I am in pain", I whisper to the winds.
"I've got bruises so deep that they have turned into scars. The kind that stains every part of me"
"I want to cry", I slouch my body.
"But what point is it to waste my tears on someone that has put me on hold? Should I really be doing this. Crying so loud for love that existed only for their benefit"
"I'm an instrument of pain", I laugh.
"He is my composer. With each stroke, with each beat. He creates harmonious symphonies that leave the crowd bewildered. He creates a wave of sensual vocals that lead me breathless and in pain"
"People love his work, they love to listen to the beats of my drained heart,  the soft strum of my throaty voice", I sigh.

My body is at halt. I can no longer continue to walk.
With that, I fall heavy on my knees.
Hands on the rough sand.
Head trying to bury itself deeper.
"Everyday is a day closer to ours", I cry.

My body shakes feverishly letting out the pain.
My throat cracks in attempt to let my voice be heard.
My heart shatters even more. My mind flustered and goes black.
My eyes are bloodshot, but no tears.
It's only been a few months but it feels like years.
Holding on to him. To this pain.
I try to get a grip onto the soil but my body fails.
I fall, now laying on the ground.
Whispering, crying to it.
Finally letting someone in.

"I told you, that only I understand you", she crouches and releases a small smile.

She squints her eyes and croaks her head.
"What's your favourite colour? "

I keep quiet. Not from embarrassment but from exhaustion of this cycle. I'm always caught at my worst.
Why must I always be caught.

"No answer", She sighs
"How do you expect to get over this if you don't talk? " she whispers harshly

I sigh, I shut my eyes in hopes for her to disappear.
I can't handle playing to her. For her own comfort that her life is somewhat better than mine.
This instrument, is worn out.

"I'm still here you know. And I'm not trying to save you. I could never do that. I'm not him",I hear
"I just can't watch you break down like this anymore. I don't want you to feel what I felt", she coughs.
"I'm not here for saving. If you refuse to talk of your pain at least let me in on your favourite colour ", she pleads.

"Purple", I murmur

"Just like the colour of your stains",she laughs.

She has a girlfriend.
Deep red hair and soft fingertips and a magnetic gaze like being pierced by a ray of sunlight
And a girlfriend.
Freckles sprinkled like cinnamon over pale cheeks,
Eyelashes that cast soft shadows
Around chocolate eyes
As she looks down in confusion
That I would gaze into them
Like I gaze into a night sky full of diamond constellations.

And. A girlfriend.
Permission aside, and brevity,
The fact remained, and...

God help me, but I never minded.
We were partners, and we danced all night,
Not with steps but with subtle touches and near collisions.
And I tried, I really did,
To bow out.
But sweeping close and stealing away,
Somewhere within the infinite moments when we were a breath apart
I lost my grip on restraint
And tumbled into her thrall.

I don’t understand how someone could want a man.
Men have no power, no magnetism like that.
No force that draws you in like a moth to a flame.
No captivating pull that drags you into their arms.
When I've kissed a man, I've been led.
Hell, when I've kissed most people, I've been led.
But every once in a great while,
I meet a girl and I am drawn,
Enticed, seduced.
And oh,
Does that demolish my self control.

The dizziness of being touched
My skin humming like guitar strings
Strummed
By her casual hands
The little tendrils of her hair that waved in the breeze and twined in my fingers...
I showed her tenderness that I don’t show people
Because I knew she wouldn't see it if I did.

When I hitched my fingers beneath her chin,
I thought of the marble sculptures in the soaring halls of a museum-
Perfect and smooth- that cool, soft texture that begs caresses.
Even as a child,
I always wanted to run my fingertips across their cheeks,
Feel the curve of their lips,
See if soft and unyielding could exist together like kin.

Last night, my restraint frayed like a rope
Sawed down by the blade of her subtle symmetry.

I never had much anyway
And what I had never meant much to me.

We shared a breath a thousand times before we shared a kiss
And it was like dying to be so close every single time.
That was the best part- the sweet, slow torture of being close-
I didn't think I’d feel that way again
After the last time.

Maybe that was why I couldn't stop,
Wouldn't try,
When her hands would flutter around my waist
And land like butterflies on my hips.
I’m not sure it was me,
Leaning in, tugging on the thread of decency I didn't have.

I fell. And I was happy about it.
From grace and from goodness.
All my life I've made my choices to save everyone else
And last night I made my choice to stop for a night
And save myself.
It was the sweetest chance I ever took,
And I don’t know what it means or what it makes me.
Not sure what I've lost,
And if I care to look towards missing it.

I know it was too short a time when I was near her.
I wouldn't call myself caught,
But captivated.
It was like being drugged.
Her hands wove a spell into my skin,
Pressed a longing into my chest
That I haven’t truly felt in too long to remember.

Stupid me, I loved her scars,
Tattooed on her arms like snowflakes that hit her skin
And stuck, lacy, to it.
I tried so hard not to break her vow,
Sat with her and asked her who she was.
I think she thought it was an act
But she doesn't know that that was what I meant by kissing her-
I wanted her soul to come out and play,
And lay lithe in the light of the almost-up sun
So that I could see it and let it transform me.

Can you feel a woman’s soul in her lips?
Only if you look. Only if you beg for it to touch yours.
I did,
Unapologetic,
Full of shudders like a struck chord.

But hours before, I lay beside her as she struggled in her conscience
And told her I didn't mind.
What a story behind those eyes,
And chagrined to tell it, she glanced away.
Her fingers twined with mine and it was my struggle then:
To keep it simple.

But.
See.

The quirks of her lips when she’s tired,
The way she squints her eyes when she realizes she’s done it again
Like you've set the sun on her and not warned her first,
Her steadfast denial when the words of awe would slip from my lips
Showing her the side of me that can write a poem about such a beautiful girl,
They tugged at my heart and I bade it sit quiet.
But it ignored me like it usually does
And seeped tenderness into my veins like wine.

She has a little bit of me, I think.
God help me, I really know how to get myself into these messes.
But she does, she’s got the part of me that hoped
Someone like her would prove me wrong that I’d never feel again
Beyond the confines of my control.
She stole it with her soft lips
Pulled my resistance from me and turned it willing.
And today I woke up
Happy to have lost it.

To accept knowing
Is not knowing
But still knowing some
Is enough

To know life and
Not know life
Seeing the creases
Of the newspaper
The *** rests his weary
Head on
Is enough

To see breath enter
Escape the broken body
Of a young boy
Ignorant to the facts of the world
That surround him
Is enough
At the time

The worried
Worry

The anxious
Toil over things
Within themselves
Outside of themselves
Out of
Their full
Control

The bigots
Picket a cause
They know nothing
About, embracing
Their unity in Hate
But the spellings wrong

The forward thinkers
Caved in with
Paperwork and
Hopes and dreams
Billowing plumes of twisted
Curled, cigarette smoke
Ashen intellectuals caught up
In the overflowing ash trays
Of the overzealous socialite

This is our chance
To Be Someone

The realist
Staring blankly at an
Empty salt shaker sitting
Next to a full
Pepper shaker

The veteran
Wishing there
Was no such thing
As bullets

The president
On a pedestal
Showing how fragile
Man can be

We people enter
Through these doors

Escaped convicts of the eternal
Holding a key of
Impossibilities

There are so many roads
That are open to us

Who sways us to take the
One we tread upon now?

Who has enticed us to the
The path we now walk upon?

I see a glimmer of the horizon

The lights show a blinding
Ancient yellow, the color of my mother's
***** blonde hair;

The clouds
Her laughter
As she squints, hiding
Her joy, keeping it for herself

"Safe keeping"," she always said

For soon
She knew

I would be
An echo

Remembrance of Sound

How lonely infidel
He that passeth I;
in Phlegethon dwells.

Son of the Seas,
seasoned with algae.
Had a plea
about how he happened to be:
"When you threw me to the
depths, into the heart of the open sea,
then a very river encircled me"

Melpomene holds her Mother's dress
while sailing the temptuous tide.
Recalls the sight of hundreds and
hunches over to address.

"Lead by a primitive spirit" she wails
and solemnly stoops to ponder.

Their ship's prow now plunges deep and
through the ripples, Melpomene meets the
seedy yellow iris' of the beast
reflecting the clouds. She squints upwards
and beholds hoofs with Faithful and True.

As the river streams into Tartarus, Mnemosyne's ears
begin to ring with a thousand cries and pleads.
But the whinnies ring out louder to deafen her
while the tail of Leviathan disappears into the blue.

Through the cave and into Lethe, the earthy smell
of the tops remain as the last but dizzy to remember;
of all those who swam lightly past its mist. But to her,
tears to enter the watery abyss:
"Many must have passed through here,
lived long to see,
but not enough to learn--"
But the ship sailed on.

The stream narrows and an opening reveals. They
see melted hail with blood on the only land they recall.
A Tree glowing brightly in front of a black sky; counted many
swords gathered at the foot. Three days they traveled in
their ship, but now their oars were put on land.

Thunder whips and trumpets horn, the fallen fruit
comes ashore.
THEIR voices bellow to ask a question:
"Was it needed for a war?"
An answer, but no pardon:
"Many a pang I have felt, those aches
violently sprung up from the seven lakes,
Is nothing but a genuine mistake.
Those worthy time and day,
Will surely be given a way."

Mother and daughter wiped the tears from their eyes,
while gently lifting them to the skies.
Above them the sun shone on the wet mass,
they see high and colorfully cast:
A reassuring Promise and eternity.

North America: Hornets buzz in a stinky green
         dumpster
Pidgeon's feet clasp the edge of a skyscraper
          rooftop

South America: Moonlight in the jungle ---- rain
          pats a thick, fleshy leaf ---- a yellow eyed
          panther slowly blinks once

Asia: Edge of the desert ---- a boiling mirage
          scorpion skitters across dry, cracking soil

North America: Wyoming high plains ---- cool
          gusts ---- hulking, brown bison chews grass

Africa: Wrinkly old woman in a hospital gown
         squeezes the cot's cold metal bars, then feels
         nothing, squints at the florescent light above,
         then sees nothing, listens to the drone of
         medical machines ---- silence

Europe: A  child is born in the sterile light
        of the delivery room, naked, slimy, sobbing

    
                                    *--- Burlington, VT, 2013

*******
keyboard
hamburger
blue
coffeehouse
smile

the
joy
citizenship
face
she's

Slapped
brightly

a
cold
lot
on
sweat
singing
Dance
merry
stuff
a
canned
about

mayor
of
Cool
macdonald
croudsource

major
was

work
loud
birthday
red
call
measure
workingclass
monogamy
silence
a
his
carnivores

down
street
manly

ordnance
every

happy
steaming
beginning
rattle
place
ukraine
sniff
serial
place
We
testing
laugh
bro
my
worker
of
crap
juice
water
canon
man
shuffling

the
bread
Shaking
fried
peanut
Johnny's
cleaninglady
based
upbringing
hums
flanberg
flames

the
brainface
got
of
before

awkward
flight
foresaw
on
black
She
travels
meaningful

fell
hamster
fighter
lack
correlate
was
day
colony

what
man
She
train
fortify

Guitar
piano

orange
intermezzo
butter
squints
cackling
happy
mate

hot

breadsource
browsers

i.

no more can you see
into another
than at your age
have a stroke
to mirror
my father’s.

ii.

     deep into the assignment of my youth
I was said to be bowing
when in fact
I was dipping
into the thigh
of Jesus

     repeatedly
with a brush.

iii.

we haven’t always been godless.

     how this persists as comfort
is a vision a fox
has

of illness.

iv.

     to fox I apply a certain wakefulness.  

v.

my father admits in his bed that some mice are alive when he bends to the earth a cornstalk and lets fly.
he confides of everything he is the most guilty of hate getting him places.

     I have to find the mouse that means

other mice.  

vi.

     (above this plain a woman’s privates thunder  / below it
      there are those
      whose tears
      are a newborn’s
      thumbs)    

vii.

a mare kneeling  in a bed of maroon straw

intuits doom     as a color     as optic

     Apocrypha  

viii.

subconsciously, I am holy and by holy
I can offer not being seen in the grocery
as my father squints into a handheld
calculator.  

ix.

to fox paw
this thorn

     from my mother’s
apnea

I detest the sugar surprises
found only when swallowed
it tricked my tongue and burned me
whipped fire upon my buds
mislead them
but when swallowed
and the canyon of giant mounds
is scorched
a sweet tsunami arises
squints my eyes
lips aimed south
give me warmth
without the artificial sense
greens and blacks
no more fruits

How do you describe it? The feeling you get deep down inside yourself when your looking down at her? When you hold her frail hand in yours and grasp it as if you could lend some stability to her fragile mortality. When you see her and see everything that escapes those around you.
You see yourself in her, in her dimming eyes because when she is gone she takes a part of you with her. You feel responsible for the wrinkles around that shade of somber blue because you know the exact way she squints a little when she’s laughing; when she smiles. You know the way she gathers her anxious feelings in the crease between her brows. You see all your childhood, all your life and love and existence mapped out on her aged skin like a map to the parts of yourself you could never quite find, never quite understand. You see the scar on the tip of her index finger where she prodded herself on the tip of a seam ripper while mending your torn heart. You are perceptive to the way she has shrunk under the weight of all of her disappointments and hopelessness’ in equal parts with your own and you wonder how, in the perfect silence interrupted only by her shallow breaths, you will ever see anything else. You begin to wonder how you will ever find yourself. And you shudder when her stare focuses in and out like her consciousness, like her memories giving you glimpses of the things being torn from you. Like a phantom limb a place in your chest aches where things once were only to discover empty space a lack of movement when you try to use it. I see anger at her life, at her death, I see loneliness and hopelessness, I see laughter and tears, confusion and purposelessness, I see abandonment and acceptance, I see vulgarity and patience,
I blink
And see only the greatest of absence I have ever known,
And I remain where I am with my eyes clinched closed
Afraid  only to see what I can’t.

Within the window’s green and blue
The flame-tree’s scarlet flares like hate.
Its seed-embedded fruit pods grew
Black bats that were the summer’s bait.

Such neon-spiked display implies
Volcanic urge of savage lies
Just below the safe serene
Of seeming tranquil blue and green.

Upon the sign-post squints a crow
At every lurching butterfly,
His black eye shouts a mortal “no”
And never blinks or winks a why.

Search and seek to find this why
But never will you satisfy
The cat down-hunkered in the grass
For gentle blue birds, should they pass.

The moon is content
to believe without
understanding why
she was placed where she
flies, orbiting space
and looking at time.

But the earth wants to know.

It wants to accuse
whoever carved out
its calderas,
and at every aphelion
the moon finds it harder
to move, like she can’t drag
herself back through the blues
of skies one more time.
The tether that holds
them together tears
her apart.

The moon doesn’t get
dizzy, but earth thinks
it’s spinning too fast,
sketches up the sky,
an engineered map of whys,
of stars connected
by thin pencil lines,
she thinks in miracles while it
thinks in margins of error,
equations, exponents.

On nights when she glows
green, the moon envies those pairs
who favor the power of two

because she squints and sees
the blueshift in earth’s eyes
as it crashes closer,
time spills out behind her,
space suffocates
between them, closer,
perihelion come,
and she blinks and sees
earth’s caldera eyes
raised to nothing.

With silence he is crowned
And eyes which spilt eternities
The future he thinks
To hold the leash
And the past he covets

Beside the fire
It is his desire
To think of it
There is no sleep

And when the sun
Slits the horizon
the wound gushing on pale sky  
He squints bloodshot eyes
And he is alone
There is no sleep