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Through the years of transparent existence, a void of illusion becomes apparent and slowly becomes nothing more than a side-show. The dribbling glimpses of truth fade like the bones of old. No man can create such an indentation in the mold of space and time that the observers at the end of eternity will render their imprint upon the infinite gaian consciousness and body of universal proportions of any significance. Even the earth laughs at such ridiculousness. The ego is a strong bind - it can create maya and attachment to such fantasies easier than a bear can find it's ideal location for a winter hibernation. It's a world of craziness, where nobody knows whats going on.
The man woke up from his deep slumber. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Squinting, he looked around, studying his surroundings and taking mental notes. His thoughts are ***** scribblings on a subway wall. His heart is beating, searching for a band to play in rhythm with. His soul is aching from loneliness and desire. His feet lifelessly surrender their position up on the couch and find the floor, shrieking from the cold of the linoleum. His presence is that of a bird with a broken wing still attempting to fly. He stands up and stares at the ceiling.
The room is small. Four walls of white, one window and one door. The window looks out over the grey city. The door leads into another room - the room most would call a kitchen. In the small room before the kitchen, there is only a couch and a blanket. No lamp. No television. No electricity. No electricity in the entire apartment. The kitchen holds no refrigerator, no oven, no toaster, no pantry. It's called a kitchen because that's what it would be if somebody else was living in the apartment. There are two bananas on the floor along with a box of wheat flake cereal. No milk, no bowl, no spoon. The bananas are almost entirely rotten. The box of cereal is on its side, leaking bits of wheat flake, resembling a dying soldier on a battlefield who's losing all his blood through the wound on his neck rather than a box of the West's favorite morning go-to breakfast.
The man is observing the cracks on the ceiling, along with various stains with no known origin to him. His eyes dart from one corner of the room to another to another to another and back to the first. Spiderwebs. Dust. Decay. A perfect example of life's ability to take care of itself. Biodecomposition. When no one is around to look after a house, over time, Nature will take over it. Vines will grow and overcome the walls. Rain will fall and wear away the roof and general structure. Winds will blow, taking blindshots at the weakened building, eventually cause it to fall. Nothing lasts forever. Everything goes back to where it came from.
The man now steps into the "kitchen", where he begins to study the stains on the ceiling in this room as well. His mind is electric, with no thoughts in the usual sense, but rather just a vague presence of void to help the ceiling stains feel important. He is the space through which everything around him can exist to their fullest potential. After a measureless amount of time, the man walks over to the sad bits of food on the far side of the small room. He picks up one of he bananas and studies it. He feels where it came from. The tropical skies and smells and earth of Costa Rica. There's a little sticker on the banana that says so. Each bit of fruit in the markets nowadays are individually stickered...for prosperity, one can only assume. Though it's best to never assume anything, and instead be open to everything - afterall, anything is possible, at any time. Likelihood and probability are also important factors in the universal constitution of existence. What was the likelihood that this man, when he was a little child, figured he'd be holding a rotten banana from Costa Rica in his hand inside of a kitchenless kitchen? Who knows? The man wouldn't be able to recall his thoughts from early childhood - he barely remembers waking up and experiencing the chilling sensation of early morning linoleum. In any case, everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be, for it wouldn't be if it wasn't meant to be.
He slowly peels open the banana peel to reveal this brown, soft mush of tropical fruit. Just the way he likes it - soft enough to chew with his toothless mouth. He takes his time consuming the fruit, savoring every particle. After a good bit of time, the fruit is gone and all the man is left with is the peel. He takes another good look at the peel, once again imagining where this particular banana came from. Then, in two swift bites, he devours the entire peel - sticker included. He figures the sticker came from Costa Rica as well, and thus must carry that Costa Rican tropical vibe of health and longevity. His eyes then focus on the wheat flake cereal lying next to the other rotting banana. He bends down and picks up the box. The box is upside down when he picks it up and so the cereal spills out all over the area of the "kitchen" floor that seems to be dedicated to eating food. The remaining banana is now covered in wheat cereal.
The man drops the box back onto the floor and takes a seat alongside of it. His fingers hold his face from drooping onto his knees. His knees are keeping his torso from melting onto the floor. He screams with no sound. The pains of existence seep through his hollow eyes and into the receptors of his soul. He screams with no sound. He’s as empty as the American Dream.
The cobwebs are spreading from the corners of the room and are aimed for the human form sitting in the “kitchen” screaming silence with all his might. The cobwebs grow. The commuters of the city highway are commuting. A thousand birthday celebrations are being had. A thousand people sexually uninhibited, joyously seizing the moment in disgusting miraculous unity of mortal physical desire. Junkies are roaming the street for their morning fix. Teaching are teaching their students absolute lies. Governments are stealing the lives of billions and counting. And the cobwebs are growing, encompassing entire walls. The the ceiling. Then the floor. Then they crawl up the lifeless legs of the man who sits screaming in silence and the spiders overtake his body. They stitch his mouth shut and close his eyes with their spun proteinaceous spider silk. The man withers into the wind of time and vanishes from the world without a single soul taking notice. Leaving nothing behind except an empty apartment, overdue rent, and a number in the system of Western Society. His spirit cries sorrowfully as it flees the clutches of molecular existence into the realm of eternity and space. Heaven. He made it. He looks down at the people of the world he just left and sings a pitiful song for them. He’ll see them again. Afterall, they are Him. And He is Them. His Heart, the Sun, burns as the world he left turns. The lessons He left are slowly being learned. One by one. But still, there’s a space between the atoms, between the cells. And that space can never disappear. Without it, there would be no point to the story. All would be one, as it is, and there’s be nothing to overcome. No triumph. Just an endless loop of bizarre beautiful experience and pattern.
He is who you want to see at the airport,
half asleep, pastel sweatshirt half zipped.
Half length shorts ending just above the knees.
Eyes matching the green and blue abstract swirls
patterned into the carpet to hide passenger sick-up.

The background to travelling japanese circus photos,
they’ll look back in their scrapbooks,
past the ponies on the baggage carousel,
see him waiting for the delayed international arrival.

Stiff legs tread quietly down grey hallways,
stringing a stickered suitcase along moving walkways,
thoughts caught between continents, in escalator’s teeth.

Tiptoeing over the hot coffee spilled like oil,
the taste of morning breath clinging to the back of the throat,
chalky as chilled ashes, abandoned and unswallowed.

When the taxis are cold and the day’s been worn out,
before it’s even begun; patchy fabric stretched over toes
rubbing thin on the inside of your shoes,
he’ll circle your head like a daisy crown.

To hold the tiny scars on his broad shoulders,
traces blemishes like a mine sweeper,
would be like orange juice at 40 000 ft.
Intimate in a way only TSA agents know how to be,
looking for explosives behind the ribcage, to the left.
Niel Jan 2021
In some sense,
we’re all proportionately configured
if we will grow,
to be with adjustment’s ideation

solidity is not a beautiful thing
when mixed with fearful rigidity
a hex is really just a RUDE blessing

    Till we strut, shan’t we be living
Please Pass the pickled Beets
John F McCullagh Jun 2013
Each day I drive the Belt to work
with a million other slobs.
We pilot cars a decade old.
We're lucky, we have jobs.
Being stuck in traffic is no fun
so my eyes search for distraction.
Your bumper- stickered Civic
offers motorists didaction.
You've no shortage of opinions,
you're a child of hope and change.
gay women for abortion rights?
forgive me, that seems strange.
You're all for education ,
and it seems you're down on God
Your promotion of vasectomy
strikes me as rather odd.
We creep along at walking speed
in the misnamed morning rush
I smile at one old sign that reads:
"Lesbians against Bush"
I change lanes and creep up beside
this most amusing creature.
Shock and awe is what I felt-
She is our children's teacher!
alternate title "A Woman with Much on her Mind"
earlyish
in the mourning
the moon
begins to rise
to the
dirtiest
consorting
in the room
between the thighs
forbidden fruit
from a filthy city
that ruins lives
so the troupe
snipped ribbons
ripped ties
flew the coupe
and found suit
elsewhere

Hell

thought it was provoking

when they
caught em
smoking loosies &
tagging in
elementary school
bathrooms &
peeping ****** movies for free
mercy me, a perturbing
flea ridden circus
ballyhoo at
high noon
just
look between
the alleyways
like pearly gates
adjacent to
& facing toward
the gallow stage
saved for traitors

& may I say

these are unhallowed days

triple x files.
furious grady stiles
walked the
daily eighty miles
to the liquor store for
his quick pick or maybe just
a curious
eye sore for bored out tricks
on the nearest corner &
the queerest gory ***** flicks for
a nickel a dime a quarter
&please;

- mind the camera -

hammer
sickle
sanskrit
star
prison bar
stripe

flock stickered on
the flickering light
mock bicker then its
quiet on the farm tonight
⁢ doesn't seem right  
the sicker sheep seek
sleepless nights
in the street
took Darwinian flight &
a diving leap
to diamond minds
thicker fleece &
meaner teeth
drinking on cheap forties
sneakin up on sweet
***** mother glory

lordy.
A memoir.
undefined Dec 2012
3rd and final day of my sister's garage sale
she asked me to sit and watch it while her and my nephew go to church.
"Any price you think is good for anything will be fine"
I sit and watch people sort through stuff and I want to apologize.
For some reason it's a very odd sort of feeling,
inviting strangers to rifle through your belongings.
Either nothing you've kept hidden is worthy of keep
or they'll make you an offer and show you it's cheap.

I would hate to have those onlookers dumpster-diving for deals within me
[I don't believe that I'd measure up either]
Everything I got I'll just keep

An ugly unwashed stranger's hand holds up my soul, turning it round he sneers his nose
"How much you need for this old thing?"
"I stickered it 10 dollars and it's practically new"
"I'll give you a quarter. It looks broken, it's held together with glue"
"Fine, fine. Whatever is fine."

After two days of this I'd go to church too...
to think I may have some things that I still keep hidden
and there's a god up there some place in the sky
who loves me and may still want to buy
just killin time i suppose
Anna Jordan Mar 2011
the pen would write
in modern light
a scribble of sentimental frippery
and the painters can
in the anarchists hand
makes prose into bold graffiti.

a pencil scribe
or desk-carved diatribe
a bitter note writ angrily
a lovers note, secret passed
prayers and hope encompassed,
words the weapon of beast and beauty.

a tiled wall
in a crowded hall
where quotes can swingvote cities
a stickered note stuck under seat
words of anothers in coda repeat
revolutions begun in paper graffiti
David Noonan Jun 2017
casual conversations
evoked then folded
amongst the personal things
stickered and stored
i've so often asked myself
is it possible to fall in love
with every woman
that you ever meet
and if so
how do you let go
and where can you find
a removal van for the mind
for the memories
of all that's left behind
stepping out to start anew
how can i cleanse
in this irish summer rain
with it's tears of a lost love
permeating through
everything i own
records and books
now boxes on a pavement
left signing an old tune
to these photographs of you
of a time
where a photograph
was so much more
than a nine second delay
but something to own
yet like these memories
time too gets overtaken
with no distance left to run
i try to hold as best i can
from the steely approach
of the oncoming removal van
Lawrence Hall Oct 2018
In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, he could find nothing more interesting to think of than his own prestige.

                        -C. S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost

Just look into the mirror, and there you are
Could lose a little weight, but there you are
You comb your hair, you brush your teeth, and then
You should always remember to make a face

And laugh

For you are not a sloganed comrade-hat
Nor yet a shadow in a marching mob
A noise, a post, a bumper-stickered oaf
An obedient tool being pushed about

Because

You are not a tagged and labeled identity
But a true child of God: brave, loving, and free
Sunny Snow Feb 2013
Floating on cloud 9, I’m feelin good, I’m feelin fine. Reaching out to Orion, drifting to where ever the galaxy might lead, and I’ll follow. Smokey air sets the mood, dim lights and layed back music tune my eyes and ears to harmony. My mind begins to connect all the dots, flipping to words in an open dictionary in my head, causing me to turn to my stickered laptop and rewrite all the thoughts coming from within.

This is how I access my internal self, the me who is never afraid to speak up. The part of me that doesn’t give two *****, but at the same time cares about all of it. I’m resting in a grove, the roads go from bumpy to smooth and all is as it should be.

I’m out of my mind, be back in an hour or so. I’m chillin in my happy place, with uninterrupted cycles of thoughts, keeping my mind in check. Examining all of my internal memories, weather good or bad, we are at peace, coexisting in a space where yin and yang truly are real. A balance amongst me, myself and I, where I can’t shy away from what is unpleasant to think about.

In a moment, where everything begins to make sense and all is beautiful in life.
Lizzie Dec 2017
Betrayal.
Michael.
Archangel.
Abandoning the younger self
Of myself
That I ever held dear.
She's forgetting herself without you.
When you held her close in your mind
all those years
Teaching her who God is.
Well now she forgets.
And she forgets who she really is.
When did you grow away?
Grow outwards or downward from me?
Grow stickered stems and dying of your bloomed petals,
Of all that which oh you were beautiful!
And I loved you for them.
Not noticed from beginning
Parallel parked car
Windshield tinted
Stickered bumper
Wiping tears to collect in a jar
Nails chewed at the ends
Watching through small panes of glass
Fence of fear put between us
Fighting demons that harass
About whether to halt or flee
Butterflies telling lies
Distance will take away secrets
Conscious is cut down to size
Said you couldn't believe luck
Being with a girl like me
Something darkening your pupils
Smelled hint of sour finally
Cheeks flushed crimson with blood and shame
Plans cancelled out of the blue
Sorry said like it was not a big deal
Worked before a time or two
Did you suspect me to be that gullible?
That I would not check your alibi?
You think I'd be easy to forget
With **** of your head said goodbye
Still going through worst every day
Loneliness deeper than the sea
Sensing lost connection dwindling fast
Increasing intake
Caffeine and vitamin c
Maybe were chained to my skeleton
Hanging on because you had no choice
You weren't playing me the whole time
Rendezvous and secrets shared your voice
As I drink insecurities
You in a hurry go out the front door
Follow and find out where you drive
Heart was needing to understand more
It may be too late presently for us
I still hold hope for you and I
If I cross your mind at all please can we just try?
Written 3-3-31
Hannah F Aug 2014
This stop next.
This stop here
is empty,
save for benches stickered with gum
and trash cans bolted to cement.
The sign for this stop,
this stop here,
is bright with paint over its faded letters
This stop is next
to buildings with fences as high as the windows,
buildings with windows as dark as the tracks
of the train that brought me to this stop here.
Here there are no people left.
Left of the tracks the trees are stark and the sun is high but time is stilled and at this stop, here,
I don't know what's next.
Written for the first CAMP session at which I actually read my poetry. Written on a train ride home after having this experience. (Also written for the prompt of "My Life as the Opening Scene of a Movie.")
Donall Dempsey Aug 2019
"ALTHOUGH I FOUND HER THUS, WE DID NOT PART..."

The wind walks
about St. Mark's Square

stooping to ******
this and that man's hat

or slyly lift
a lady's skirt

so that she drops
her purse with a curse

before chasing off
some offensive litter.

A cat watches the evening
getting entangled in the magic

of a hurdy-gurdy man
who appears

to have stepped out of
a century

other than
our own.

Venice and its passing
procession of pedestrians and cats

barely on the cusp
of consciousness.

This table I am
seated at

is an island
of memory

and I am
shipwrecked

somewhere between
the present and a past.

A wave slaps a gondola
as if it had told a ***** joke

about the filthy weather and
what a seagull had said.

I have brought you to Venice
because you have never been.

Your death has seen
to that.

One day as the earth turned
away from the sun

you stepped off
into a greater unknown.

Now, I say: "See, sister
with my eyes

all the future you
have missed.

The moon landing.
Me - grown to be

this man
willing to share the world

with you always
I see the world for two.

You shall exist
in the silence between

note and note
word and word

Puppets dance and laugh
show us ourselves for

whatever we are
all our gaudy follies

or brightly painted
foibles.

A moon sits upon
a bridge as if

it were  Humpty Dumpty
his very self.

The puppets now
half in-half out

of their many stickered
packing cases

look as if they could
run away when

the humans
aren't looking.

|Even the hurdy-gurdy man
has stepped back into

the century he had
come from.

Rain and a star
falling...falling.
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                             You are not a Banana

                                  Sticker Not, Lest Ye be Stickered

A banana bears a sticker to say it is a banana
(The banana, that is, not the paper sticker)
Even though a banana is obviously a banana
(It has a yellow skin and some squashy stuff inside)

If we take the banana sticker from the banana
And stick the ticker to a tomato
The tomato is not then a banana
However much someone claims it so

Sticking sticky stickers to humans is also wrong
A man is himself; a woman is herself
If we stick a sticky sticker to a human
As a joke, well, that’s just a bit of fun

But if as a judgement then we are false witnesses

Stickers, nothing but stickers, excuses
Failures of intellect, truth, and caritas
Stickers are two-dimensional; they have no depth
Stickers are useless even on bananas

We are brothers and sisters, not bananas
T R S Jan 2019
I remember a big lady, in her large house upon a hill
I remember big fat cats up on her window sill
I remember oatmeal with raisins and big spoons
I remember feeling when my parents got off work
I remember that they would be here soon

I remember rusty tractors filled with spider webs
I remember rain barrels were my ocean as it ebbs.
I remember stickered goatheads and splinters in my shoes
I remember squishing bugs and hate how they would ooze.
Donall Dempsey Sep 2020
"ALTHOUGH I FOUND HER THUS, WE DID NOT PART..."

The wind walks
about St. Mark's Square

stooping to ******
this and that man's hat

or slyly lift
a lady's skirt

so that she drops
her purse with a curse

before chasing off
some offensive litter.

A cat watches the evening
getting entangled in the magic

of a hurdy-gurdy man
who appears

to have stepped out of
a century

other than
our own.

Venice and its passing
procession of pedestrians and cats

barely on the cusp
of consciousness.

This table I am
seated at

is an island
of memory

and I am
shipwrecked

somewhere between
the present and a past.

A wave slaps a gondola
as if it had told a ***** joke

about the filthy weather and
what a seagull had said.

I have brought you to Venice
because you have never been.

Your death has seen
to that.

One day as the earth turned
away from the sun

you stepped off
into a greater unknown.

Now, I say: "See, sister
with my eyes

all the future you
have missed.

The moon landing.
Me - grown to be

this man
willing to share the world

with you always
I see the world for two.

You shall exist
in the silence between

note and note
word and word

Puppets dance and laugh
show us ourselves for

whatever we are
all our gaudy follies

or brightly painted
foibles.

A moon sits upon
a bridge as if

it were  Humpty Dumpty
his very self.

The puppets now
half in-half out

of their many stickered
packing cases

look as if they could
run away when

the humans
aren't looking.

Even the hurdy-gurdy man
has stepped back into

the century he had
come from.

Rain and a star
falling...falling.
"ALTHOUGH I FOUND HER THUS, WE DID NOT PART..."

the wind walks
about St. Mark's Square
stooping to ******

this and that man's hat
or slyly lift a lady's skirt
so that she drops

her purse with a curse
before chasing off
some offensive litter

a cat watches the evening
getting entangled in the magic
of a hurdy-gurdy man

who appears
to have stepped out of
a century other than our own

Venice and its passing
procession of pedestrians and cats
barely on the cusp of consciousness

this table I am
seated at is an island
of memory

and I am
shipwrecked
somewhere between

the present and a past
a wave slaps a gondola
as if it had told a ***** joke

about the filthy weather
and what a seagull
had said

I have brought you to Venice
because you have never been
your death has seen to that

one day
as the earth turned
away from the sun

you stepped off
into a greater
unknown

now I say: "See, sister
with my eyes
all the future you have missed

the moon landing
me - grown to be
this man

willing to share the world
with you always
I see the world for two

you shall exist
in the silence between
note and note word and word

puppets dance and laugh
show us ourselves for
whatever we are

all our gaudy follies
or brightly painted
foibles

a moon sits upon
a bridge as if it were
Humpty Dumpty his very self

the puppets now
half in-half out
of their many stickered

packing cases
look as if they
could run away when

the humans
aren't looking or
paying them no mind

even the hurdy-gurdy man
has stepped back into
the century he had come from

rain and a star
falling
falling. . .


*


Although I found her thus, we did not part,
  Perchance even dearer in her day of woe
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.         

  I can repeople with the past,—and of
  The present there is still for eye and thought,
  And meditation chastened down, enough;
  And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;
  And of the happiest moments which were wrought         
  Within the web of my existence, some
  From thee, fair Venice! have their colors caught;
  There are some feelings time cannot benumb,
Nor torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.

The beings of the mind are not of clay;
  Essentially immortal, they create
  And multiply in us a brighter ray
  And more beloved existence: that which Fate         
  Prohibits to dull life, in this our state
  Of mortal *******, by these spirits supplied,
  First exiles, then replaces what we hate;
  Watering the heart whose early flowers have died,
And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.

Lord Byron  - (From Childe Harold’s Pilgr

— The End —