You showed me the light
Yet I was taken in by its reflection
And when you told me what is right
I knew you had a point
There's something a little scary about knowing I should feel bad
    And I'm only sorry that I don't
Guilt should be the driving force
Helping me make the U turn
But I made a decision and I'm going to stand by it
I like how I'm rolling
Cruising down the highway
Making my own decisions
Steamrolling all the signs
Sometimes the heart, sometimes the brain is steering
I'm making a pavement where I have never walked before
Uncertain of where it's leading
Intentions have to count for something
And maybe one day it will all come to standstill
It whatever it is
Can crash and burn out
And that day
The rain will dance around me
I'll say that life was in my hands
And I trusted the unspoken promises my eyes showed me
Like the call to prayer
Or the confession of first love
And on these very lashes they'll snap like weak thread strings
Sheer luck, belief and destiny
Will get me far
And that alone will be worth it
Pushing the limits
Testing patience
Testing life and what it had to offer me
I set out seeking an unknown treasure
Hoping I'll never hear
I told you so
You never listen
At least I'll have a rainbow
And you know what they say about rainbows right?
They lead to a *** of gold
I'll never get there if I'm afraid of getting wet

A fat *****
Sitting in the seat, in the row in front of me.
His suitcase takes up another seat, left across from me.
This **** takes up four seats and it’s too much wasted space.

There’s so much space in the classroom,
I made myself quite the spectacle when I walked out
Ran into the teacher right behind the door, waiting
To see if the screening went well.
I’d seen it three weeks ago,
I told him so.

Made myself quite popular in one go.
Seems like it is my ego, (but the truth is, I really don’t know)
That prevents others from sitting close,
It’s fine, I don’t talk to them,
I couldn’t stand to.

Less than thirty minutes till Hoorn
A few more hours until bed,
And then all of the routine can start again,
I dream of a future, but when I’m awake
I’d rather not be a part of it.

Don’t want to participate.
I have nothing useful left in me,
There’s nothing I could say,
That would sway/ persuade the world
To turn the other way.

I’m no earthquake, no rain or thunder
Lightning strikes me, not I the sky,
And it’s in the dark that I cry.

Days have grown shorter,
Nights longer,
And the sun doesn’t set early yet.

There’s ten of me
Sitting down on my chest
Steamrolling down my back
And flattening me into the grains
Of the ordinary, common experience.
(Perhaps I’d like that best)

In the wee hours of the morning
I close my eyes and plan and plot
I stew until I’m blue in the face
And I’m itching to leave this place,
It’s then that the cuts and ropes
The drownings and falling downs
Lull me to sleep, and I breathe out
Sweet death, and when I wake again,
I live and take another breath.

i
From the streets of Dublin
the hordes re-Joyce
as Odysseus waxes lyrical
with colloquial finesse
    his golden tongue spitting fire
steamrolling the jargon wagon
on stairway rails from tube to paper.

Live stream of consciousness
flows from depths below
bellowing out of shadows
an intoxicating wave
breaking the surf on black peaks
of spiked stone keys typed in gonzo.

  ii
Aristotle stood firm
at the pulpit in his symposium
while his quill penned poetics
preaching the genius
of metaphor and metaphysics.

Embryonic parsel-tongue
waving a wand in wizardry
from ink fountains bursting on parchment
delivering the gift
of ribbon wrapped eloquence.

  iii
Unbuttoned rolling flow
in fluid monologue
skipping ropes of jazz speak
unedited
unfiltered rivers
where rough diamonds are crowned king.

Standing on one leg
inspecting the heart
the past fell
growing arachnid telescopes
and digging in every anatomical tract
to extract the distilled essence.

  iv
Musical motif
shining constellation of text tessellation

Lyrical relief
binding formation to flex evocation.

  v
Vineyard winding with jump cut scenes
fermenting fruit
ripe for the picking
inducing intoxication laced reading
    sliced and spliced
a chalice of spice
blinking
weaving
overflowing.

Godard's lens zooms
blooming in district cloud nine
rolling ***** of raw nervous energy
shaking from screen to belly.

  vi
Magician of allusion
pulling Shakespeare out of his hat
peeping from leaves of grass
and Walt's multitude of class.

Join the dots and fill in the blank
to a spectacle
for spectators wearing spectacles
who open their cans of interpretation
worming out and ransacking the sack.

  vii
Unchain the shackles of form
abandoning umbrellas
for free falling
s
n
o
w
f
l
a
k
e
s

  viii
From Greek theater's
staging Freud's favourite play
to a trek with a scarecrow,
a tin man and Dorothy's pet lion
  the hard to swallow
jagged little pill
pulls the wool over hollow eyes.

... the lowest form of wit
... the highest form of intelligence
- the wilde wit-king wrote
wearing a fab fur coat.

  ix
Jigsaw piece of the trivium
with five canons plugged into the auxesis
aimed at the poet
while unfolding inner turmoil
and cleaning out the cobwebs
in the closet of self.

The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself

Glad for birth write to express views
aware cunning linguists
will apply figurative screws  
in an effort at blatant mud slinging ruse
exercised courtesy mail in ballots,
or electorates standing in queues
who the previous Sunday
possibly fervently prayed within pews
a mixture of Republican and Democratic

gentiles (relating to or indicating
a nation or clan, especially a gens)
and orthodox or reformed Jews,
although dissimilar viewpoint you may choose,
perhaps feeling exuberant
crying tears of joy
with red eye to boot
unlike myself (a common Joe)
biden his time until 2028
until then experiencing moody blues.

The following mostly written
November 6th, 2018,
nevertheless, I copy and paste
bulk of previously crafted poem
applicable to 2024 presidential election
nearly six years to date
from forty fifth elected
meddling,  scheming, and yawping
commander in chief.

Das Don Auld (can hardly tank
tucker - son of Carl, and leave
landscape barren) calling out
rigged ken tuckered hoarfrost race,
viz demolition derby presaging
death to White Anglo Saxon
democracy DOMS (delayed
onset muscle soreness)
minions decry diplomacy,
crass denunciation of
Stacey Abrams

liberally Apple eyeing jingoistic rhetoric
declare defamation directly
upon disparate grass roots
hegemony, hectoring, heckling,
and harassing humble hobby (lobby) horse
sense, asper progressive
democrats hurrahing, holstering, hitching
visa vis disc hovering rays in the sky,
no fault in our stars,
harnessing healthy,

honesty, humility plowing,
sowing, and tilling political
terrain at expense tubby
execrably, damnably, cruelly,
brutally, nagged, branded,
and whipped malevolently,
mercilessly, and mischievously
lambasted by fourth grade
vocabulary level former commander
in chief exuding: haughtiness,
doughy bully pronouncing

prescriptions provisioning
one percent pampered
population attending one
born at Jamaica Hospital in Queens,
New York City hobnobbing,
galavanting, fawning...
at ego inflating functions
exploiting downtrodden
under most class "dirt poor"
bilked proletariat segment.

Pinnacle (topping Taj Mahal),
now owns Birds eye
bourgeoisie view, which
informs hawkish word
smiths, onlookers with
powerfully pointed outlook
excellent access, sans zealous,
vociferous, uxorious, and traitorous
tyrannical reigning Rex
less lee pugnacious noxious

loose xenophobic,
jabberwocky, demagoguery
laced jargon surly *******,
quizzically, pugilistic-allied,
outrageously punching
imaginary nemesis, linkedin
with instagram, snapchat
twittering skulking arch
conservative enemies
clandestinely undermining

(bone a fide skulduggery)
ambitions to turn back
figurative clock, applauding,
cobbling, counting crowdsource
to elect forty seventh
commander in chief
to reboot, remake, and retry
to restore American (post
world war II) hit parade
soundtrack resonating

with ardent blatant
bigotry, colored blinders,
devilish foo fighting
patriotism, nepotism, localism,
gerrymandered, jury rigged
Russian hijacked pollster
precincts, nativism milking
titillating conspiracy theorists,
denouncing radical ambidextrous
righteous leftists, silencing

second amendment agent
challenges provocateurs,
lake wobegon raconteurs,
and saboteurs infiltrating
highest echelons with spooky
intelligent poseurs, and green
lighting one man plutocrat
steamrolling aborted blackened
civil disobedience (Thoreau Lee)
walled in reproductive rights.

A slap across the face,
my thoughts' palm imprinted
all over my battered body,
beating me with every
judgement, steamrolling past
any rational compassion,
lashing out at any
dangling fruit, mangling
my esteem on a minute level.
Disheveled, I can see
I'm a mess from my latest
abuse, and I gently put
bandaids on bruises,
take rest, attempting to
set broken bones with time,
unwilling to perform
the work that would truly heal
instead of a quick feel of relief,
because until this belief is gone,
that I'm worth less than
any and everyone else, come
forth all imaginable injury,
all infection and poison,
rejection of self-love,
in favor of sickness and
pain, please someone explain:
is happiness even real?

Joy has become a fairy tale
to me, and as a child I'm
starting to realize the stories
aren't true, they don't
apply to you, this
contentment remains a
concept, illusory, not adept
to application in my
reality, and I'm just
here waiting and reading
the tales of peace
while my mind beats
and breaks, pinches
and punches, brings me to
my knees with a gun
to my heart, always
cocked, safety off,
and at this point
I'm screaming to just
pull the trigger, I
figure being over is
more tolerable, after all,
I can't disappoint
if I'm not here, don't need
to fear falling short,
appalling the masses near
and far, if i've traveled
where I don't feel or know,
If I've gone where
my thoughts can't go.