I have always wondered how storytellers live
How they tell tales in a way it seems they've known it before
And how they make the audience feel the emotions of the characters
And imagine them in their own little heads.

They are storytellers, not story makers
They just tell us what they read, not what they are
They shape the way they deliver the story, not the story itself
But how 'bout their own lives is it worth telling!

Is their tale just another story like others
Lost in the maze full of people's thoughts
Left to be unsaid and unheard
And definitely not appreciated by all?

They say you shouldn't narrate your own story to the world
And you should let it be narrated to you
But what if I told you we could be storytellers
And an amazing story maker too?

From Alan Lomax to the commercial art and now the money machine.

At the turn of the century; when sound recording 1st became available to the masses, recording a song was an opportunity for folk to reach out; and tell the world something up front and personal.
It meant that people were able to put themselves on “The record” A way of leaving a permanent audio statement, an epitaph, an audio sound bite immortalising ~ life, mood, emotion captured and bottled for all eternity.
(A medium that conveyed messages from artists and storytellers of all kinds)

A recording was also a great addition to "The family album" something more tangible, a window to a real person, with a real life, a message and a point of view; a legacy, a blast from the past.
Few people expected sound prints to be re-designed, homogenised, formulated, copied, repackaged and that art and the message would be played over and over again by new artists in the form of "cover music" or that the style of the messages would become secularized, seperated into distinctive groups, or constrained by an elite clique or commercial genre.
Labelling and streamlining art & music mostly benefits the commercial art & music industry; and no longer the artists and creators.

I've no problem with good business, or the multi-billion pound industrys that have gained commercial success.

However the process of mass homogenisation, product synthesis, marketing, streamlining and then packaging fashion, sound and synthetic culture to sell a product, leaves very little room for creative people to just be creative.

A medium originally open to many for self expression, a historical record, an archive, a voice, a personal message;
Is now just a vehicle for advertising and perpetuating a genre of nonsense, so much so that there is now more white noise immortalised than messages.

To re-cap ~ I Think that creativity and expressionism; like story telling conveys moods and messages from the present and past!
Artists and musicians should have the opportunity to create and produce more information than they copy; thus creating a richer more colourful tapestry, whilst not devaluing the message of their predecessors!

Purcy Flaherty.

Hailstorms with big winds, trees writhing in breezes
Coyotes howling in moonlight, dogs when they sneezes
Alloys and carved toys, stone gargoyles with wings
These are a few of my favorite things.

Skunk smells carried gently on nocturnal breezes
Sly double entendres and tickley teases
Beautiful salmon colored sunsets that make my jaw drop
Smell of pine 'n cedar in my sauna and wood shop!

Dolphins and doggies and toddlers and mooses
Saunas and cold plunges and honking V-flying gooses
Small mutts and storytellers and Pixar cartoons
Crazy call of the Maine dark of night loons
These are some of my nurturing tunes!

Volcanoes with lava and magma all oozing
Cross country skiing just gliding and cruising
Receiving massages unwinding and unbruising
I love my collections of adhesives and strings
These are a few of my favorite things!

So when the wasps sting
When the bored people whine
Wen I'm feeling dispirited and sad
I just think of a few of my favorite things
And I don't feel…so…bad!

Lost in the lullabies, stories told to sweeten
Life's sour aftertaste from which we all have weakened.
We are the storytellers, weaving webs of lore
Made to be our weight bearers when we can bear no more.
This world is just a story; This life: fictitious folly.
No rights.  No wrongs.  No this or that. Just tales to keep us jolly.

Yesterday is much clearer
As the future is drawing nearer.
The histories we have rehearsed
Over time have become reversed.
It should make us very sad;
What was good has become bad.

The bad guys were the Indians
And the good guys Caucasians
And they were always right
Because they were always white.
The Red Man was a villain
Because he was an Indian;
And that was never corrected.
The name an invader selected.

These were people born here
Defending land they held dear
Because they had hunted
And were never really wanted.
The invaders called them savage
Their women okay to ravage
Because they didn’t have Jehovah
To issue them a binding mitzvah.

There were so few invaders
So at first they were persuaders.
But after putting out some feelers
They chose to become stealers.
They declared the natives sinners
And thus became the winners.
The natives hadn’t learned to read
So the invaders ignored all their needs.

The invaders were prepared to fight
To deny the natives their rights
So, the invaders created paper laws
Thus natives couldn’t tell what they saw.
Suddenly the noble savage was a crook.
The invaders gloated over what they took;
Stole native’s possessions from their hands
And declared it all as the invader’s land.

This is the Danes and Angles back when
And the story happened all over again.
But once the battle victory is scored
The native’s birthright is not restored.
The invaders cover up the tragedies
With inaccurate tales and call them history.

I become more erudite at night.
I feel a sprite within me ignite words,
by candlelight I feel the old masters lift their quills,
place nib in ink and nib to paper.
I invite their words and imagery to suffuse me,
use me in this modern world.
Make new what once was old.

Where nib would glide I touch my screen,
watch avidly as sentences appear,
magic symbols transformed to meaning,
like runic stones of old, or bones thrown for reading.
My words by candlelight enfold and embrace me,
in the knowing language of the poets, bards and storytellers.
Tonight, I delight at my copywrite scribed by candlelight.

The bluebells whisper in the dead of the night
Sweet nothings are all the bindweed hears.
On and on they go till it gets quite light
till the moon disappears and the mist clears
The daffodils stir and join in mid stream
without knowledge of the subject or occasion
A glow casts a shadow from a new sunbeam
allowing the rest of the forest to awaken.
Story tellers, nothing but story tellers
but then there is not much else to do.
Which is fine for most of the forest dwellers
If only the story tellers - the bluebells knew.

Some call me a prophet
Others see me as a derelict
These stories I’ve stored in my head
Can easily be twisted to fantasy

Am I reliable?
You have no choice
But to take what I say and believe
At least for a little while

I believe the listener
Is as naïve as I seem
Sitting on every detail
Every word

While visiting Southwark
I met a variety of characters
From different means of life
With different perspectives on the world

Looking innocent has its advantages
It gives me a leeway
To invade other’s privacy
And extend the truth to the edge of fabrication

Have you ever questioned a storyteller?
We all seem friendly
We talk highly of everyone we meet
Until we dive deeper into their secrets

The Squire
Composing music is his forte
I say it sounds beautiful
And he seems fresh as the month of May

The Friar
A gossiper full of language
I hope to understand
To grasp




A Sailor
Having bad joints
From extensive labor.
He must work substantially to acquire those injuries

The Summoner
Full of white pimples
Yet drinks red wine
As red as blood

I create a story
Yet can end it all the same
I tell you what you want to hear
Not what reality presents in front of me

For life is not exciting
Without a bit of imagination.
And with my mastered poker face
It may be impossible to seek out my lies

The darkness inside us all
Can peek its head at any time
Consuming us into a downward spiral
Of lie after endless lie

So am I reliable?
We’ll just have to see.
So here comes a story
Told by me.

Talk often so that others may find mirth in your stories
and laugh at yourself, help destabilise all ego's.

Start with a word, any word.
And then a year later you might find a hundred pages.
A story just begun, a tale, that, in reality, needs some editing.
But I didn’t find myself in these pages I’d written, like the inspirational quotes say.
I found my characters, I found a few bad habits too,
Like how I bite my fingers as I stare at my computer in frustration,
Or stare at the wall in blank fixation.

Once the word is picked, don’t bleed out onto the screen,
Hold yourself together, else you won't have to lips to pour forth a single key.
Some old dude told you to bleed, didn’t he?
I’ve found, I don’t bleed until page 71,
When I have bonded with Jonathon,
And now I must watch him mourn his fiancee,
Who never got to propose.

Be careful about your planning. Too methodical,
And you’ll lose yourself in the untold parts,
Too spontaneous and you’ll see your story turned from
An epic dragon escape to a horror filled romance.
Find a medium of crazy that suits you, and remember the details
Of the night you tried marijuana and coughed as the smoke hit your throat.

Hug the computer tight, don’t let anyone see
Until you’ve determined the story strong. Some people open up at the blank page,
While others hide it away until it’s a polished four hundred and sixty two, front and back.
Say, here’s an idea—don’t forget to study your grammar too.
Unless, of course, you’re poetry demands to be free,
then flow round the corner and hesitate not with commas
theyll be no use for you.

After all this advice, I’ll tell you one thing.
Forget all of it, it’ll be nothing to you.
We storytellers like to go on and on about how to write,
When we barely ever write a real story of characters in between speeches.
If the only thing I could tell you, the only important fact I can say with utter certainty is,

For god’s sake,
Write.

Every night before bedtime
I read to my son.
Every morning before school
I read to my son.

He loves words, especially
New words and funny words
He can share with his friends
At school.

The stories I read to him
Have good characters
And bad characters,
He lives in a world of
Good and bad.

The world around him
Is a world of storytellers,
Stories of nostalgia,
Stories of love.

But some stories speak
To good people in bad
Ways, these stories teach
Hate and hurt.

Good stories can break
Down walls, singing bold
And powerful songs, sharing
A symphony of empathy,
A lineage of love.

My son is still young,
He needs to fantasize
And imagine what different
Lives are like.

He is learning to be
Kind to everyone, to
Make art from stone,
To touch and smile.
As we read stories, we
Learn about our shared
Humanity, our proud lexicon,
Our identities, our open
Hearts full of love.

Please read me a story.


*© Lewis Bosworth, 12/2016

I once heard this somewhere;
that there are only two stories:
A boy leaves home
and a stranger comes to town.

Sometimes I lie
in my bed and think about the strangers.
I think about how terrifying some strangers are.
How we tell our children to run and hide
from what they don’t know;
to stay where it’s safe
here, at home
with their stories untold.

I think of how lost those strangers must feel
with no one who will talk to them.
I think about the darkest villains of childhood lore.
How they all started out as children
afraid of reaching out and changing anything.

I think of how hard is must have been for them
as young adults, to built up the courage
and tell their parents they were leaving
against their wishes
to explore the world
and find the role they were meant to play.

I think
of the stories
hiding in between the boy
and the stranger.
The conversations they wished they could have
if only time weren’t so stubborn
and bent over backwards sometimes
for special cases,
like true love or some karmic mistake.

I think of all of the heroes and their journeys
and that how inevitably, at some point
they are going to be the stranger coming to town.

I think about where I live.
How many stories I’ve heard and told
that are heavy on one side.
I both envy and pity those who live the stories.
Those little boys leaving home;
they know how strange the world really is
and what it’s like
to strike fear in the townsfolk of some distant village;

Where it’s probably nicer this time of year.

storytellers around the Sun
spoon fed pictures early...on.
A cow MOOS a sheep Baas
and the wolf has BIG TEETH.
What stories do YOU TELL.
Have you a story to tell?
Storytellers sat around the fire.

I read somewhere,
that as adults,
we try growing into
the traits that would've
rescued our parents.
And when my father moved out
I started moving.
The day my his signature
danced across a set
of divorce papers,
my body became boat.
These ankles retracted anchor.
I have been sailor ever since.

2. Mental illness runs
in my mother's family
so leaving was more like
a race for sanity.
There are days when
I wonder if schizophrenia
is what happened
when Liz stopped writing.
When a poet stops being a poet
I guess all of that empty
silence leaves room for
the walls to start speaking.
There are days when I wander
just to see if my feet
are as fast as they
used to be.
I used to leave what I love.

3. I love a lot
so I jog often.
Not for hobby,
but for healing.

4. Survival is a scary thing,
especially when it means
running from what's
already been sewn into
your family genes.

5. If your body ever
feels foreign,
remember home is
where the heart is
so it is no worthless carcass.
Call it Cathedral.
You. Holy congregation
of bones filled to the brim
with sin but blessed
from birth.
Your skin is nothing short
of sacred. Sanctuary.
Your muscles only grow
from being torn and rebuilt
so it makes sense
for your walls
to crumble sometimes.
Destruction is a form
of creation.
And of course,
you will want to dance
amongst that rubble.
Movement is a sign of life.
Let them see
you're still alive.

6. This life is magic
and you come from
a long line of magicians.
We people of Black suits
and bow ties threaded
from braided chains.
We, wands for wrists,
perfect for reaching
for potions and people
and dreams.
We, top hats for teeth,
perfect for abracadabra speaking
things into existence.
We, artists.
We, storytellers.
We, preachers and poets.
We who spit spells
disguised as poems.
Poems that work like
prayers born between pews.
We, walking sanctuaries
with pews for knees.
We who birth life. Love,
you are nothing short
of magic.

7. The day the spine
of my father's signature
tangoed along the rubble
of a broken marriage,
my mother's hips
kissed a beat like
Stevie Wonder
was just invented.
And my God,
is it lovely.
How she wears her lonely
in the sway of her shoulders.
See you come from
a long line of magicians
who don't need to be rescued.
You are not our final flare.
You are not our savior.
Love, you are my plagiarized draft
of a poem called God.

As we gather round
crackling fire
All talk hushes
quietens
And finally dies.
In this world you say as little
as possible
While the doors of perception
are closed
opened wide
and deliberately
left
ajar....

Every night before bedtime
I read to my son.
Every morning before school
I read to my son.

He loves words, especially
New words and funny words
He can share with his friends
At school.

The stories I read to him
Have good characters
And bad characters,
He lives in a world of
Good and bad.

The world around him
Is a world of storytellers,
Stories of nostalgia,
Stories of love.

But some stories speak
To good people in bad
Ways, these stories teach
Hate and hurt.

Good stories can break
Down walls, singing bold
And powerful songs, sharing
A symphony of sympathy,
A lineage of love.

My son is still young,
He needs to fantasize
And imagine what different
Lives are like.

He is learning to be
Kind to everyone, to
Make art from stone,
To touch and smile.
As we read stories, we
Learn about our shared
Humanity, our proud lexicon,
Our identities, our open
Hearts full of love.

Please read me a story.

It cannot put pen to paper
But all a flower has to do
Is open up its delicate petals
Unfolding like a noble lady's fan
Broadening to blossom into a lovely jewel
Poetry without any word

A spider weaves its web
Like an author spins tales
It's intentions upon its survival, but
Its intricate home of threads and strings
Like a gossamer harp
Is enchanting to perceive
A make and design of fragile strength

The oceans and seas
Mighty and commanding
They roar and display their majesty
With crashing waves and splashy bravado
They spare few prisoners
And graveyards of sunken ships
Whisper of stories untold

Birds chirp and warble
With songs that humans long to know
For they travel through the air
In simplistic freedom
Their chorus of communication
Is a poetic symphony just as entertaining
As any band of musicians or artists

The winds blow and whistle
Though they have no mouths
If you listen close enough
You can hear their secrets
Their breath of life in the
Ever flowing
Breezes that enfold us

You'd swear the mountains
Were painted that way
Brawny and broad, peaked high above
Against the grand canvas we call the sky
Yes, paintings are poems, too
For a picture speaks a thousand words
But no mere man can make a mountain

You see
We are merely students
Taught by God's natural, creative genius
We are merely imitators
Of what nature displays
We are not originals
For we are not the first poets
Nor the first storytellers

Specialism, electro mechanical circuits,

moving parts yet move, you see, but when we read we bring our senses
inside
privacy can become a public mind, if one is connected, in a giving way,
taking thought,
as the original medium we found message in,
thought takes form
in words,
words take form in things. Right. Check.

Blake feared the objective world was being walled in,
and all the people screamed, amen.
Again

Build the wall, from icons demoted to mites of no more
weight than a tinker's think,
phe-nomenal noment-ation, if we may

Hot and cool both bubbled up as burps, perhaps from the babes
booming through the lies told before the great war.

No future? You allow that thought in your culture?
And shame and blame?
No wonder you choose to lie.

Bear with me a while, share my load, it's light.
There is a hopeful object,
we can go easy into that good night,
the world is round.

Free from Ra and Isis and all, in one fell sweep of the besom.
Broom, besom, means broom, but the effect of an e,

e-lectrix

you give us the fire we'll give em hell  a game ad in the middle of the massage
Call of duty, black ops.
they
You use you eyes to see, it's a with-spiracy,

a hair of the dog that bit you. Eh?
live in bonanza land, 1965.

and so it goes, Dresden, every minute of every day

the walls of your home are coming down,

unless you were born with a cell phone in your father's pocket.

Privacy is calling for walls from the fenced in time after Bonanza.

Ah, too late, ours is an all new world of all at onceness, a global village, happening simultaneous.
extreme with everybody else's business, huge in
volvement in every body's business

we know too much to be strangers
walls fall down, not go up,
the wallbuilding never workded, did it Grandpa?

Nineteenth century student could believe
the factory system
would use the knowledge, hard-won
from books and chalkboards,
to keep him outa the mine.

Now, the information age,

are we the leisure class? Ever learning,
never knowing everything,

but knowing walls and wars do not perform as advertised.

The safety car, that was one with seat belts, 1965.
Our body percept, it changes,
this image of which you are un
aware.

The disconnected minded man, alienated
artist living edgewise to
cattywompus.

My life is my art, eh, not the other way.
Global village information age McLuhan named these things
from Canada.
More expert than my teacher,
Pop art is not a pun, it was a bubble,
that's a fact. The-joke-with-no-story-line-conundrums,
elephant jokes, blonde jokes

Those tests, Turing would approve,
any old A.I. can play chess,
just remember every response to every move ever made in any game in the system,
like the amygdala, your lizard thought-speed brain,
at the top of your spine.

But humans can make funny seem.

Humor comes from a world of un happiness and gripes,
Jose Jimenez was the example they made. Racist, right?
The guy was a jew.
William Szathmary, Googled it.

From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Dana>

Communicating with the logo-label-designer you wear,
messaging the world what? Exactly,
any un thought thought goes unsaid,

but T-shirts and body art, henna's the best,
those send a message with no thought whatsoever.
Same as Redcoats in bearskin hats, what's being said,
same as the judge with a wig?

What is the role?
Why the ongoing act?
It must have changed into that wigged judge from something.

Theater of everywhere, accept allatonce, or die asking y not.

Inward directed seeking
deep meaning
a role that changes

some outside
the future of the future started, a while back. not too far.

No inevitability.
An act of high poetry

envisioning,
the future was friendly

metaphysical value, brilliant, incomprehensible
a man, a thinker,
storytellers the experts say,
need some mud behind 'em. and some snow.

a mother never satisfied with her life,
brittley self confident,

the whole approach to knowing is old.
Diogenes's search for a good poem, with
shifting levels of imagery,
never shall you know,

they work
the way a word works,
the effect.
effect. fect from Latin facere,
sistere mechanically deus
The oracle of the information age
Ah,whatvoiceisheardaroundtheworld,
oh,mine.2018 Mr. McLuhan,
you'd likely lighten up a little.
Toejammspredder was mcluhan I heard on the grapevine.

Hey, mom, I'm on TV.
Up to doctrine, then destination syndrome a hopebubble

He had brain surgery and returned to Catholicism, a safe place.
But he left his vision to television's offspring.
That's about all I know of his work.

Cicadas do not sing,
they whisper stories.
And if you listen,
if you listen closely,
all the mysteries
are revealed.

you will know she is a poetess
if she likes to wear long-sleeves
long-sleeves that hide the scars
long-sleeves that hold her bruised arms together
long-sleeves with a slit near the shoulder
where she tried to wear her heart
(but poured it out in ink instead)

she will have long hair
or walk like she does
because hair is memory
cutting it is like erasing yesterday's you
restyling it is like recreating you.
her hair will have leaves in it
and leftover twine
from the flower crown she wears
or if she is the daring kind
her hair will have silverdust
(proof of how close her words
got her to the moon)

if she smiles and laughs
and never shows pain
she is a poetess
because a poetess writes her hurt down
in free verses and half-finished sonnets
and she cries not on a boy's shoulder
but on paper where her tears are caught by
the swooping syllables and dauntless denotations
making her words come alive
(because where there is water, there is life)

if you meet a person and assume she is a poetess
check first her palms
(if she will show them to you)
they must show no sign of ink
(for a poetess is sometimes secretive)
no, you must be able to trace the constellations
along the creases of her palm
smell the rocket smoke
and see the nebulae dotting her flesh
where she managed to catch stars.
congratulate her
and maybe, she will lift the hem
of her long pearl blue skirt
and show you the wings on her ankles
and if you're lucky, she will tell you story
upon story
upon story.

if you are able to tell a poetess from a person
and you find her,
keep her.
keep her close to where
the drums of your soul beat from
keep her next to your dreams of sailing and pink seas
keep her in the mental list you keep
of people you will never, ever leave
(and she will keep you, too)

when she dies,
wrap her body in a white Ilocos blanket.
use no coffin.
let the earth swallow her up
(but don't let it swallow her words)
tend to the fire she left you
plan to set out on a quest
to look
for other word-weavers
because it is impossible to live without
these storytellers
then go back to her writing desk
touch the last thing she held
and look for a hole
a false drawer
a hidden key
anything that keeps.
and i promise you,
you will find
more poems.
and if you spread each page out on the floor
its letters will rearrange
and form your name
and point you to a poem hidden
in a pocket she sewed inside her coat
and the first line will read,


"how to tell if she is a poetess"

Honor the sea
for the sailor in your blood.
For the lack of anchor
in my ankles.
I've been drifting sailor
since divorce papers
taught me how to choke
the eternity out of a vow.
I am great at leaving
what I love.

2. Mental illness runs
in my mother's family
so leaving was more
like a race for sanity.
A relay to forget.
I am afraid that Liz
has schizophrenia
because she stopped writing. 
I am afraid that I too
may get caught between
a rock and a hard place
called depression.
When a poet stops
being a poet,
all that silence must leave
room for the walls
to start speaking in tongues.
Love yourself out loud
because when homeless
holy ghosts can't live
in your poems,
they post themselves
in your dreams.

3. On the days
when your body feels
more alley than altar,
and you can't manage
to believe in any God
who could think
you are worth dying for,
go back to bed.
Scatter your sacred congregation
of bones beneath blankets.
Don't come out
til you feel whole again.

4. Love yourself to pieces.
Your muscles only grow
from being torn and rebuilt.
Destruction is a form
of creation.
It is okay to be shattered skin
And flooded eyelids.
It is okay to dance
in the middle of your ruins.
Movement is a sign of life.
Show the world you're
still alive.

5. Love this magic
called life, because you
are the child of magicians. 
We, people of Black suits
and bow ties
of braided chains.
We, wands for wrists,
perfect for reaching
for potions and people
and dreams.
We, top hats for teeth,
perfect for abracadabra speaking
things into existence. 
We, artists. 
We, storytellers. 
We, preachers and poets.
We who spit spells disguised
as spoken word.
Poems that work like prayers
birthed between pews.
We, walking sanctuaries
who birth life. Love, 
you are nothing short
of magic.

6. When my father moved out,
my mother stopped moving.
Became a southern shipwreck
of scriptures and beached
her hands across the crests
of my cheeks.
Looked at me to be
lighthouse during storm.
I read that as adults,
we try growing into the traits
that would've rescued our parents
but I'm hoping you never
feel the need to save me.

7. These days,
my mother's hips
don't miss a chance
to kiss a beat
like Stevie Wonder
was just invented.
And isn't it lovely?
How she finally
learned to wear
her lonely in the sway
of her shoulders to keep
the shame of an empty
ring finger from spilling
over her children.
Love, you come from a long
line of magicians who've
nearly died trying to pull off
a miracle like you,
but I don't need your rescue.
You are not anyone's SOS.
You are the result
of prayers wrapped in
the silk of southern accents.
My plagiarized draft of a poem
called God.
You are the only
graven image our creator
has ever commissioned.
Treat yourself as such.

You, Korts, are linked inexorably to the likes of Wint, (in his ****** odd way), Natto, (in his Hebrew way), Victoria, (in her Liverpudlian way), Joel, (in his essentially cynical way), Terry O’Leary, (in his rhythmic tongue), r, Cyd …..and many others far too numerous to mention….and of course myself…for we are the progeny, the genetic linkage to the fabled and ancient, “Legion of Storytellers”.

In times past our forbearers roamed the globe when very few others chose to or, in fact, could. They found themselves orating nightly at the fireside, surrounded by spellbound, wide eyed listeners intent on hearing every nuance of wondrous tales of elsewhere. Tales of bravery and beauty, tragedy and outrage. Tales which caused the listener to weep, to wonder and to laugh uproariously. Tales which captured the imagination and sent the ordinary soul on his way pondering, expansively, things beyond his ken.

And in the morning, before the fireside ashes turned cold, the Storteller would be on his way to the next village, the next gathering of waiting listeners….for that is the role of the Storyteller in this life and beyond, spinning tales of immaculate colour and endeavor, laying the fabric of dreams and inspiration, painting the fantastical wonder of it all in the minds of the many.

And that, Korts, is what we do, thee and me….The worms which drive us impel the pen to write, impel the mind to create…the elixir of spindrift of that which we must.

Cheers Brother
M.
Planet Earth

I like the words they use to tell what a poem is
better than any poetry I've read.
Like: fragments, ghost, allusion.

I like the way my ribs move
when someone talks about storytellers;
It's a pride I taste more than during a story told.

A review says 'intricate' and 'masterful'
So I put the thing on a pedestal of stolen adjectives.
My crown jewel is 'aesthetic' and I own it, lying.

What is a creator without his critic?
Condemnation and commendation
mean more to me than original construction.

But then--poets are just the translation of Creation.
And never has a word of soaring perfection
surpassed the garden, fallen.

Poetry, the reason we are all here.
Writing words that we hope someone reads and hears
Hears in the sounds of the words, them coming alive
Vocally there is a potency to written words
Say them out loud, hear them, feel them form in your mouth
Soulfully continue this aged tradition of story telling
Poetry, is known globally, it transcends diplomacy,
it reaches souls, hearts and minds.
Like a minority,poetry is seen as weak and bleak,
but then life is not a bed of roses, there are thorns.
Reproachfully it is scorned, 'poet? Try writing a novel'
Wrongfully seen as the poor man to a novelist, poetry
at its best conveys, more in a few verses than a thousand
pages of a novel. Lonesome is the poet, that sees truth.
There is merit in poetry, the continuation of odes told by
the fireside, Viking, Persian, Celt, all historic bardic civilisations.
Purity in poetry leads down a path least travelled these days
but tales of yore still prevail, and Beowulf still roars.
Canterbury tales still elicit smiles, cries and woe.
Shakespeare, Dante, Poe, Neruda, Thomas, Petrarch all Poets with soul.
So, you tell me, and all of us poets are we the novelists poor relation?
Or, just reclaiming our station in life as the purest storytellers?

I like black color and paper boats, elderly people, old homes, month of November, broken dreams, sad stories and deep silence after them...

I like my childhood, honest friends, my bag and old pen, recess at school, old playground and games that time has played with us...

I like the food cooked by my grandmother, cups of tea, pet parrots and the cat, mischievous things which were easy to be forgiven by everyone...

My hometown and its old railway station, the whispered voice, your laughter, storytellers, folklores and true characters hidden in them...

I like these yellow leaves decorating old trees, snowflakes, my old diaries, your old letters, my old scarf, small babies, poetry books and rhymes in them...

The old sky and stars which used to come to see you shining, rainy season, the cold Beijing and its winter nights, Tsinghua Campus... I love them all...

There came a time for time to be,
And for an unknown reason,
Or simply the absence of one,
A lump of hot primordial pudding or something,
jumpstarted the universe into being, for whatever that means.
That's what I was told anyway.
After some time dictionaries came to be on this not so particularly special rock, which were meant to connect words with meaning, or so were they told.
But dictionaries did a poor job there, as the creatures that invented them didn't have a clue what meaning and purpose is in the first place.
Yet they were the ones that invented them too, probably as means of comfort for their existence and survival.
That comfort was almost always fictitious though, as purpose was also.
The Universe, by now, was just spinning lumps of rocks and matter, why would it need something as primal as these creatures' purpose?

They called it time, yes.
Mixing around the universal soup, with a spoon which was nowhere to be found.
Whoever was making this soup was a terrible cook though.
What idiot would want that much rocks in his teeth?

Anyhow, rock after rock,
those dictionary creatures started thinking they they thought, and that's where it all went bottoms up.
They were creating more of them all the time too, or at least that's what they called it, reproduction.
But little did they know, this (re)production of theirs would make no difference whatsoever to the soup's taste.

Their reproduction involved exchanging fluids between two specimens to make a new one out of a countless possible ones.
You see, many factors like time, place, what opposite specimen would one choose out of millions at that particular time and what those specimens have ingested that morning, or did they simply spill their previous load on the floor, played part in this most improbable lottery where a spawn spawned into existence and all other possible ones went down the drain, just like that. The most cruelest of fate did these creatures had with their reproduction, but not any less cruel as the rest of the universe.

On a sweaty midsummer evening, in an insignificant place and in an  insignificant time on the rock these creatures called their own, in a little shack, all was set for the reproduction lottery to happen yet again.
A single protein cell made it to the egg, which whom from now on we will call Billy as that is the name his makers gave him. Most of his Billy-brothers and Billy-sisters never had the chance to even form as protein cells, but most unfortunate were the least in numbers; The ones that were so close, together with Billy in grasping existence, just got spilled around or inside the parents genitals - or just on the ground, never seeing daylight like Billy will. Their existence just ceasing there and then. Not such a happy life story, huh. Some might argue all of them were half-Billies, which really, makes it even worse. You might even argue that Billy becomes Billy at the moment of his first breath, and becomes more Billy as years go by, and memory sticks to his existence in a single thread of time. That is also true, but in that case, do I choose my fate or is it already chosen for me? - asked Billy. From future old dying Billy's perspective, everything is firm and single in his life. Everything is written and done. But was it already like that for Billy's parents? Would Billy be anyway? Is everything we see as random, already done, simply because the path is one? Those were the questions that bothered Billy through his life. One day he would see the world as his own for the taking, sunny and free, a world waiting for Billy, and other days were gloomy and Billy wouldn't think or decide anything, simply because he thought it was already decided.

A mediocre and simple life Billy had, with some ups and downs and a few non-Billy events, with a job he did for the food he ate and the home he had. Billy said that he enjoyed life. There were times when he didn't want his life and wanted to prove to everything that he can do whatever he likes and decides, and take his life, but wouldn't that still be fate? So he thought that life is always worth it, because without it, there is nothing. It's empty. There is no Billy. So multiple times, Billy came to the conclusion that he could just go Billying around until there is Billy.

Billy was a kid, went through school and all that, and Billy asked:
Why am I? Why?
Billy went on to be an adult and had his struggles and fun, and Billy asked:
Why am I? Why?
Billy was 30, met a girl he liked and she got pregnant, and Billy asked:
Why are we? Why?
Billy was 50, with his kid grown now with questions of his own, and they both asked:
Why am I? Why am I? Why?
Billy was 70, with his wife, his kids, and even grandkids now, and he asked again:
Why am I? Why?
Billy was dead, with his legacy ahead, for a few years, yet still there, remembered.
And Billy did not ask again.
His wife held his life to her thoughts most, until she died too.
Their kids mourned them most, and remembered them often, until they died too.
The grandkids knew Billy only when he was aged, kept his memory fond, of their childhood days.
Billy's youth was lost, his adulthood too, and now it's time for his elderhood, as the grandkids die too.
Billy is now a picture in his grandgrandkids' attic, and a name they know, they've sometimes heard, of a time long gone behind them.
Billy is now a story, rarely mentioned, until all the storytellers die too.
Billy is now gone, except for some factual data in an archive somewhere, a number in history, a stack of bones slowly decomposing.
The future becomes history, Earth goes around the Sun still.
Until humans are something else, or simply no more.
And all have left Earth, until the Earth is no more.
Scorched by the Sun, the Sun is gone too.
And the Universe goes on, until it does no more.

Long past, long long past, long after the Universe is dead;
And nothing is all there is;
An echo is there, an echo is heard.
The whole of nothing trembles and as loud as it can in nothing answers:
WHY WHAT?

~for Marion~

all poets are junkyard scavenger connoisseurs

who wear suits to Manhattan faculty afternoon tea parties,

broken-in jeans to Brooklyn midnite poetry slams,

regalers, tall tale storytellers, subway words pickpockets

of the  extra-ordinary,

claiming innovations but from all saints stolen,

insights inside other's waste,

refusing to acknowledge the true owner's title

by fusing other's refuse.

the original recyclers,

junkyard dog liars,

willful sufferers of the plague of overhearing,

exceptional excerpters of the gems of coal dust noise,

"Connoisseur of old thoughts
Bound in new gilt bindings"*


them's me.


~

12:37am may eighth

The deafening sounds of police sirens
Tear through the evening air
Leaving behind an air of indignation
Hoping, out of thin air, to create a nation

The ebb and flow of truth and lies
Turns our interests into a public pastime
And we watch on in abject fascination
As we bring to its knees, this nation

They come and go as plastic figurines
With serpent-like tongues and vice-like grips
As we promote excessive procreation
The wheels must keep turning, to this nation

Progress, Growth, Youth, and Opportunity
Are but some of the buzzwords
Abdication of thought is the foundation,
To the structure of this nation

Power and oppression are but two sides of the same coin
Without one there cannot be the other
Smothering each other with precise calculation
Just to access the throne to the nation

Storytellers stand atop podiums and enchant the masses
While they shower them with praise
Year after year, they stand in the same formation
And salute the flag, the one that makes this nation

last night
while you were preparing your
ammunition, i felt you
tugging at the tips of my hair.
out of all the strings in all
the universes, ours shook with
the same vibration.

last night
while you were preparing your
self for death, i was talking
to eric (with a c) from
the suicide hotline in new
york city. he told me i am
bright and successful, i wish
he had said the same to you.

this morning
while i was swimming in trazedone
dreams of new york city, a
woman, not too far from there,
felt her womb close like a
wing. the energy and matter her
body lent to an extension of
her bloodline was returned into
the universe. it has become the
brightest star, it has bloomed from
a poppy flower bud on a rocky hillside.

this morning,
while i was deep inside the caves of
my soft synaptic clefts, a
woman risked her everything
for the breath of two young children.
somehow, in the deep wood of my
slumber, i finally forgave my vice
principle. i finally forgave the vices
of my father.

this mourning
did not begin at 9:40am, that is just
when it culminated. you cannot tell me that
you don't feel it too. the rocks falling from
the sky yesterday were an omen.
the transgendered youth taking their
own lives are an omen. the carbon becoming
the atmosphere, the oil engulfing
the salted seas, the corals dissolving
in acid baths are all a shouting omen.

when the mayans calculated
the cycle's ending, they gave us
the gift of the wheel. the nature of a
circle requires revolution, the presence of an
ending requires a beginning.

how do we honor the gift of the maya?
how do we create a cycle of light?

that pressure on your chest is a
fear that you cannot do this
alone, and i'm telling you
you can't. how lucky we are
to have each other. how lucky we are
to have a new moon, the universal connection
to all sentient beings, the snakes that
slide slowly down ancient aztec temples,
the star that rises without fail in
promise of new freedom.

how luck we are for the teachers
how lucky we are for the artists
how lucky we are for the martyrs
and murderers and storytellers
and the collective unconscious!

if every single hand picks up an ember
from this wreckage, the power of our muscles
will turn them into diamonds, the sparks
upon our fingertips will turn us into healers.

imagine what seven billion healers can cure.

arts and crafts and kids on drugs
dream catchers and storytellers
in tree-houses and sheds
bare feet and bare legs

magic

let me share
i'll cut you a slice of the skies to keep in your eyes
so you can always see beauty
and learn to accept it when it's lying in front of you
remember how gorgeous life is

sunsets and fire pits and tents pitched in the mountains
solar flares and lunar eclipses
in telescopes lenses and lovers eyes

this IS profound
and we SHOULD take note
the universe bares wonderful gifts
and we are fools to let them slip so quickly through our hands
we've been here before
and we've known each other for eons
don't go forgetting

lava monsters and yellowing pages and smiles recognizable for miles
sage brush and card games
with cowboys and poets
cheap-seat prophets bound by collective conscious and some kind of mysticism

two-track game trails and smoke rings rising from the west
find your way home

i'll hide behind my sunset eyes and river-bed curves until your return