Flicker Shimmer Glow

The brightest star can shine even with thick black velvet draped over it.  
Quartz, lime and salt crystals formed a glass ball.
The dark womb held me, warm and soft.  
My mom called my cries when I was born the most sorrowful sound she had ever heard.  
She said she’d never heard a baby make a sound like that.    
I’d open my eyes in low light until the world’s light healed rather than hurt.  
The summer before eighth grade, July 1992,
I watched a shooting star burn by at 100,000 miles per hour as I stood on the balcony  
while my family celebrated my birthday inside.  
It made it into the earth’s atmosphere
but it didn’t look like it was coming down;
I know it didn’t hit the ground but it burned something in the time it was here.  
The glass ball of my life cracked inside.  
Light reflected off the salt crystal cracks.  
I saw the beauty of the light within.  
Nacre from my shell kept those cracks from getting worse,
a wild pearl as defense mechanism.  
In 2001, I quit my job after they melted and poured tar all over my life.  
All summer literature class bathtubs filled with rose hip oil cleaned the tar.  
That fall logic and epistemology classes spewed black ink all over my philosophy
written over ten years then.  
Tar turned to asphalt when I met someone from my old job for a drink in November
and it paved a road for my life that went to the hospital I was in that December
where it sealed the roof on my life
when I was almost murdered there
and in February after meeting her for another drink.  
They lit a fire at the top of the glacier and pushed the burning pile of black coal off the edge,
burnt red, looking like flames falling into the valley.  
While that blazed the side of the cliff something lit an incandescent light.  
The electricity from the metal lightbulb ***** went through wires and heated the filament between until it glowed.  
I began putting more work into emotional balance from things I learned at AA meetings.  
In Spring 2003, the damage that the doctors at the hospital in 2001 had done
made it harder for light to reflect from the cracks in the glass ball.
I’d been eating healthy and trying to get regular exercises since 1994
but in Spring 2003 I began swimming for an hour every morning .  
The water washed the pollution from the burning coals off
And then I escaped in July.  
I moved to London to study English Language and Linguistics.  
I would’ve studied English Language and Literature.  
I did well until Spring 2004 when I thought I was being stalked.  
I thought I was manic.  
I thought I was being stalked.  
I went home and didn’t go back for my exams after spring holiday.  
Because I felt traumatized and couldn’t write poetry anymore,
I used black ink to write my notes for my book on trauma and the Russian Revolution.
I started teaching myself German.  
I stayed healthy.  
In 2005, my parents went to visit my mom’s family in Malaysia for two weeks.
I thought I was being stalked.  
I knew I wasn’t manic.  
I thought I was being stalked.  
I told my parents when they came home.  
They thought I was manic.  
I showed them the shoe prints in the snow of different sizes from the woods to the windows.  
They thought I was manic.  
I was outside of my comfort zone.  
I moved to California. I found light.  
I made light,
the light reflected off the salt crystals I used to heal the violence inflicted on me from then on.  
The light turned the traffic lights to not just green from red
but amber and blue.  
The light turned the car signals left and right.  
The light reflected off of salt crystals, light emitting diodes,
electrical energy turned directly to light,
electroluminescence.  
The electrical currents flowed through,
illuminating.  
Alone in the world, I moved to California in July 2005
but in August  I called the person I escaped in 2003,
the sulfur and nitrogen that I hated.  
He didn’t think I was manic but I never said anything.
I never told him why I asked him to move out to California.  
When his coal seemed like only pollution,
I asked him to leave.  
He threatened me.  
I called the authorities.  
They left me there.
He laughed.  
Then the violence came.  
****:  stabbed and punched, my ****** bruised, purple and swollen.  
The light barely reflected from the glass ball wIth cracks through all the acid rain, smoke and haze.
It would take me half an hour to get my body to do what my mind told it to after.  
My dad told me my mom had her cancer removed.
The next day, the coal said if I wanted him to leave he’d leave.  
I booked his ticket.
I drove him to the airport.  
Black clouds gushed the night before for the first time in months,
the sky clear after the rain.  
He was gone and I was free,
melted glass, heated up and poured—
looked like fire,
looked like the Snow Moon in February
with Mercury in the morning sky.  
I worked through ****.  
I worked to overcome trauma.  
Electricity between touch and love caused acid rain, smoke, haze, and mercury
to light the discharge lamps, streetlights and parking lot lights.
Then I changed the direction of the light waves.  
Like lead glass breaks up the light,
lead from the coal, cleaned and replaced by potassium,
glass cut clearly, refracting the light,
electrolytes,
electrical signals lit through my body,
thick black velvet drapes gone.  





















Lava

I think that someone wrote into some palm leaf a manuscript, a gift, a contract.  
After my parents wedding, while they were still in India,
they found out that my dad’s father and my mom’s grandfather worked for kings administering temples and collecting money for their king from the farmers that worked the rice paddies each king owned.  They both left their homes before they left for college.  
My dad, a son of a brahmin’s son,
grew up in his grandmother’s house.  
His mother was not a Brahmin.  
My mother grew up in Malaysia where she saw the children from the rubber plantation
when she walked to school.  
She doesn’t say what caste she is.  
He went to his father’s house, then college.  
He worked, then went to England, then Canada.  
She went to India then Canada.  
They moved to the United States around Christmas 1978
with my brother while she was pregnant with me.  
My father signed a contract with my mother.  
My parents took ashes and formed rock,
the residue left in brass pots in India,
the rocks, so hot, they turned back to lava miles away before turning back to ash again,
then back to rock,
the lava from a super volcano,
the ash purple and red.  


















Circles on a Moss Covered Volcano

The eruption beatifies the magma.  
It becomes obsidian,
only breaks with a fracture,
smooth circles where it breaks.  

My mom was born on the grass
on a lawn
in a moss covered canyon at the top of a volcanic island.  
My grandfather lived in Malaysia before the Japanese occupied.  
When the volcano erupted,
the lava dried at the ocean into black sand.  
The British allied with the Communist Party of Malaysia—
after they organized.  
After the Americans defeated the Japanese at Pearl Harbor,
the British took over Malaysia again.  
They kept different groups apart claiming they were helping them.  
The black sand had smooth pebbles and sharp rocks.  
Ethnic Malay farmers lived in Kampongs, villages.  
Indians lived on plantations.  
The Chinese lived in towns and urban areas.  
Ethnic Malays wanted independence.
In 1946, after strikes, demonstrations, and boycotts
the British agreed to work with them.  
The predominantly Chinese Communist Party of Malaysia went underground,
guerrilla warfare against the British,
claiming their fight was for independence.  
For the British, that emergency required vast powers
of arrest, detention without trial and deportation to defeat terrorism.  
The Emergency became less unpopular as the terrorism became worse.  
The British were the iron that brought oxygen through my mom’s body.  
She loved riding on her father’s motorcycle with him
by the plantations,
through the Kampongs
and to the city, half an hour away.  
The British left Malaysia independent in 1957
with Malaysian nationalists holding most state and federal government offices.  
As the black sand stretches towards the ocean,
it becomes big stones of dried lava, flat and smooth.  

My mom thought her father and her uncle were subservient to the British.  
She thought all things, all people were equal.  
When her father died when she was 16, 1965,
they moved to India,
my mother,
a foreigner in India, though she’s Indian.  
She loved rock and roll and mini skirts
and didn’t speak the local language.  
On the dried black lava,
it can be hard to know the molten lava flickers underneath there.  
Before the Korean War,
though Britain and the United States wanted
an aggressive resolution
condemning North Korea,
they were happy
that India supported a draft resolution
condemning North Korea
for breach of the peace.  
During the Korean War,
India, supported by Third World and other Commonwealth nations,
opposed United States’ proposals.
They were able to change the U.S. resolution
to include the proposals they wanted
and helped end the war.  
China wanted the respect of Third World nations
and saw the United States as imperialist.  
China thought India was a threat to the Third World
by taking aid from the United States and the Soviets.  
Pakistan could help with that and a seat at the United Nations.  
China wanted Taiwan’s seat at the UN.
My mother went to live with her uncle,
a communist negotiator for a corporation,
in India.  
A poet,
he threw parties and invited other artists, musicians and writers.  
I have the same brown hyperpigmentation at my joints that he had.  
During the day, only the steam from the hot lava can be seen.  
In 1965, Pakistani forces went into Jammu and Kashmir with China’s support.  
China threatened India after India sent its troops in.  
Then they threatened again before sending their troops to the Indian border.  
The United States stopped aid to Pakistan and India.
Pakistan agreed to the UN ceasefire agreement.  
Pakistan helped China get a seat at the UN
and tried to keep the west from escalating in Vietnam.  
The smoldering sound of the lava sizzles underneath the dried lava.  
When West Pakistan refused to allow East Pakistan independence,
violence between Bengalis and Biharis developed into upheaval.  
Bengalis moved to India
and India went into East Pakistan.  
Pakistan surrendered in December 1971.  
East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh

The warm light of the melted lava radiates underneath but burns.  
In 1974, India tested the Smiling Buddha,
a nuclear bomb.  
After Indira Gandhi’s conviction for election fraud in 1973,
Marxist Professor Narayan called for total revolution
and students protested all over India.  
With food shortages, inflation and regional disputes
like Sikh separatists training in Pakistan for an independent Punjab,
peasants and laborers joined the protests.  
Railway strikes stopped the economy.  
In 1975, Indira Gandhi, the Iron Lady,
declared an Emergency,
imprisoning political opponents, restricting freedoms and restricting the press,
claiming threats to national security
because the war with Pakistan had just ended.  
The federal government took over Kerala’s communist dominated government and others.  

My mom could’ve been a dandelion, but she’s more like thistle.  
She has the center that dries and flutters in the wind,
beautiful and silky,
spiny and prickly,
but still fluffy, downy,
A daisy.
They say thistle saved Scotland from the Norse.  
Magma from the volcano explodes
and the streams of magma fly into the air.  
In the late 60s,
the civil rights movement rose
against the state in Northern Ireland
for depriving Catholics
of influence and opportunity.
The Northern Irish police,
Protestant and unionist, anti-catholic,
responded violently to the protests and it got worse.  
In 1969, the British placed Arthur Young,
who had worked at the Federation of Malaya
at the time of their Emergency
at the head of the British military in Northern Ireland.
The British military took control over the police,
a counter insurgency rather than a police force,
crowd control, house searches, interrogation, and street patrols,
use of force against suspects and uncooperative citizens.  
Political crimes were tolerated by Protestants but not Catholics.  
The lava burns the rock off the edge of the volcano.  

On January 30, 1972, ****** Sunday,  
British Army policing killed 13 unarmed protesters
fighting for their rights over their neighborhood,
protesting the internment of suspected nationalists.
That led to protests across Ireland.  
When banana leaves are warmed,
oil from the banana leaves flavors the food.  
My dad flew from Canada to India in February 1972.  
On February 4, my dad met my mom.  
On February 11, 1972,
my dad married my mom.  
They went to Canada,
a quartz singing bowl and a wooden mallet wrapped in suede.  
The rock goes down with the lava, breaking through the rocks as it goes down.  
In March 1972, the British government took over
because they considered the Royal Ulster Police and the Ulster Special Constabulary
to be causing most of the violence.  
The lava blocks and reroutes streams,
melts snow and ice,
flooding.  
Days later, there’s still smoke, red.  
My mom could wear the clothes she liked
without being judged
with my dad in Canada.  
She didn’t like asking my dad for money.
My dad, the copper helping my mother use that iron,
wanted her to go to college and finish her bachelors degree.
She got a job.  
In 1976, the police took over again in Northern Ireland
but they were a paramilitary force—
armored SUVs, bullet proof jackets, combat ready
with the largest computerized surveillance system in the UK,
high powered weapons,
trained in counter insurgency.  
Many people were murdered by the police
and few were held accountable.  
Most of the murdered people were not involved in violence or crime.  
People were arrested under special emergency powers
for interrogation and intelligence gathering.  
People tried were tried in non-jury courts.  
My mom learned Malayalam in India
but didn’t speak well until living with my dad.  
She also learned to cook after getting married.  
Her mother sent her recipes; my dad cooked for her—
turmeric, cumin, coriander, cayenne and green chiles.  
Having lived in different countries,
my mom’s food was exposed to many cultures,
Chinese and French.
Ground rock, minerals and glass
covered the ground
from the ash plume.  
She liked working.  

A volcano erupted for 192 years,
an ice age,
disordered ices, deformed under pressure
and ordered ice crystals, brittle in the ice core records.  
My mother liked working.  
Though Khomeini was in exile by the 1970s in Iran,
more people, working and poor,
turned to him and the ****-i-Ulama for help.
My mom didn’t want kids though my dad did.
She agreed and in 1978 my brother was born.
Iran modernized but agriculture and industry changed so quickly.  
In January 1978, students protested—
censorship, surveillance, harassment, illegal detention and torture.  
Young people and the unemployed joined.  
My parents moved to the United States in December 1978.  
The regime used a lot of violence against the protesters,
and in September 1978 declared martial law in Iran.  
Troops were shooting demonstrators.
In January 1979, the Shah and his family fled.  
On February 11, 1979, my parents’ anniversary,
the Iranian army declared neutrality.  
I was born in July 1979.
The chromium in emeralds and rubies colors them.
My brother was born in May and I was born in July.

Obsidian—
iron, copper and chromium—
isn’t a gas
but it isn’t a crystal;
it’s between the two,
the ordered crystal and the disordered gas.  
They made swords out of obsidian.  





Warm Light Shatters

The eruption beatifies the magma.  
It becomes obsidian,
only breaks with a fracture,
smooth circles where it breaks.  

My dad was born on a large flat rock on the edge of the top
of a hill,
Molasses, sweet and dark, the potent flavor dominates,
His father, the son of a Brahmin,
His mother from a lower caste.
His father’s family wouldn’t touch him,
He grew up in his mother’s mother’s house on a farm.  
I have the same brown hyperpigmentation spot on my right hand that he has.

In 1901, D’Arcy bought a 60 year concession for oil exploration In Iran.
The Iranian government extended it for another 32 years in 1933.
At that time oil was Iran’s “main source of income.”
In 1917’s Balfour Declaration, the British government proclaimed that they favored a national home for the Jews in Palestine and their “best endeavors to facilitate the achievement” of that.

The British police were in charge of policing in the mandate of Palestine.  A lot of the policemen they hired were people who had served in the British army before, during the Irish War for Independence.  
The army tried to stop how violent the police were, police used torture and brutality, some that had been used during the Irish War for Independence, like having prisoners tied to armored cars and locomotives and razing the homes of people in prison or people they thought were related to people thought to be rebels.
The police hired Arab police and Jewish police for lower level policing,
Making local people part of the management.
“Let Arab police beat up Arabs and Jewish police beat up Jews.”

The lava blocks and reroutes streams, melts snow and ice, flooding.
In 1922, there were 83,000 Jews, 71,000 Christians, and 589,000 Muslims.
The League If Nations endorsed the British Mandate.
During an emergency, in the 1930s, British regulations allowed collective punishment, punishing villages for incidents.
Local officers in riots often deserted and also shared intelligence with their own people.
The police often stole, destroyed property, tortured and killed people.  
Arab revolts sapped the police power over Palestinians by 1939.

My father’s mother was from a matrilineal family.
My dad remembers tall men lining up on pay day to respectfully wait for her, 5 feet tall.  
She married again after her husband died.
A manager from a tile factory,
He spoke English so he supervised finances and correspondence.
My dad, a sunflower, loved her: she scared all the workers but exuded warmth to the people she loved.

Obsidian shields people from negative energy.
David Cargill founded the Burmah Oil Co. in 1886.
If there were problems with oil exploration in Burma and Indian government licenses, Persian oil would protect the company.  
In July 1906, many European oil companies, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others, allied to protect against the American oil company, Standard Oil.
D’Arcy needed money because “Persian oil took three times as long to come on stream as anticipated.”
Burmah Oil Co. began the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. as a subsidiary.
Ninety-seven percent of British Petroleum was owned by Burmah Oil Co.
By 1914, the British government owned 51% of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co.  
Anglo-Persian acquired independence from Burmah Oil and Royal Dutch Shell with two million pounds from the British government.

The lava burns the rock off the edge of the volcano.
In 1942, after the Japanese took Burma,
the British destroyed their refineries before leaving.
The United Nations had to find other sources of oil.
In 1943, Japan built the Burma-Thailand Railroad with forced labor from the Malay peninsula who were mostly from the rubber plantations.

The rock goes down with the lava, breaking through the rocks as it goes down.
In 1945. Japan destroyed their refineries before leaving Burma.
Cargill, Watson and Whigham were on the Burmah Oil Co. Board and then the Anglo Iranian Oil Co. Board.  

In 1936 Palestine, boycotts, work stoppages, and violence against British police officials and soldiers compelled the government to appoint an investigatory commission.  
Leaders of Egypt, Trans Jordan, Syria and Iraq helped end the work stoppages.
The British government had the Peel Commission read letters, memoranda, and petitions and speak with British officials, Jews and Arabs.  
The Commission didn’t believe that Arabs and Jews could live together in a single Jewish state.
Because of administrative and financial difficulties the Colonial Secretary stated that to split Palestine into Arab and Jewish states was impracticable.  
The Commission recommended transitioning 250,000 Arabs and 1500 Jews with British control over their oil pipeline, their naval base and Jerusalem.  
The League of Nations approved.
“It will not remove the grievance nor prevent the recurrence,” Lord Peel stated after.
The Arab uprising was much more militant after Peel.  Thousands of Arabs were wounded, ten thousand were detained.  
In Sykes-Picot and the Husain McMahon agreements, the British promised the Arabs an independent state but they did not keep that promise.  
Representatives from the Arab states rejected the Peel recommendations.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution181 partitioned Palestine into Arab and Jewish states with an international regime for the city of Jerusalem backed by the United States and the Soviet Union.  

The Israeli Yishuv had strong military and intelligence organization —-  
the British recognized that their interest was with the Arabs and abstained from the vote.  
In 1948, Israel declared the establishment of its state.  
Ground rock, minerals, and gas covered the ground from the ash plume.
The Palestinian police force was disbanded and the British gave officers the option of serving in Malaya.

Though Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy supported snd tried to get Israel to offer the Arabs concessions, it wasn’t a major priority and didn’t always approve of Israel’s plans.
Arabs that had supported the British to end Turkish rule stopped supporting the West.  
Many Palestinians joined left wing groups and violent third world movements.  
Seventy-eight percent of the territory of former Palestine was under Israel’s control.  

My dad left for college in 1957 and lived in an apartment above the United States Information services office.
Because he graduated at the top of his class, he was given a job with the public works department of the government on the electricity board.  
“Once in, you’ll never leave.”
When he wanted a job where he could do real work, his father was upset.
He broke the chains with bells for vespers.
He got a job in Calcutta at Kusum Products and left the government, though it was prestigious to work there.
In the chemical engineering division, one of the projects he worked on was to design a *** distillery, bells controlled by hammers, hammers controlled by a keyboard.
His boss worked in the United Kingdom for. 20 years before the company he worked at, part of Power Gas Corporation, asked him to open a branch in Calcutta.
He opened the branch and convinced an Industrialist to open a company doing the same work with him.  The branch he opened closed after that.  
My dad applied for labor certification to work abroad and was selected.  
His boss wrote a reference letter for my him to the company he left in the UK.  My dad sent it telling the company when he was leaving for the UK.  
The day he left for London, he got the letter they sent in the mail telling him to take the train to Sheffield the next day and someone from the firm would meet him at the station.  
His dad didn’t know he left, he didn’t tell him.
He broke the chains with chimes for schisms.


Anglo-Persian Oil became Anglo-Iranian Oil in 1935.
The British government used oil and Anglo-Persian oil to fight communism, have a stronger relationship with the United States and make the United Kingdom more powerful.  
The National Secularists, the Tudeh, and the Communists wanted to nationalize Iran’s oil and mobilized the Iranian people.
The British feared nationalization in Iran would incite political parties like the Secular Nationalists all over the world.  
In 1947, the Iranian government passed the Single Article Law that “[increased] investment In welfare benefits, health, housing, education, and implementation of Iranianization through substitution of foreigners” at Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.
“Anglo-Iranian Oil Company made more profit in 1950 than it paid to the Iranian government in royalties over the previous half century.”
The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company tried to negotiate a new concession and claimed they’d hire more Iranian people into jobs held by British and people from other nationalities at the company.
Their hospitals had segregated wards.  
On May 1, 1951, the Iranian government passed a bill that nationalized Anglo- Iranian Oil Co.’s holdings.  
During the day, only the steam from the hot lava can be seen.
In August 1953, the Iranian people elected Mossadegh from the Secular Nationalist Party as prime minister.
The British government with the CIA overthrew Mossadegh using the Iranian military after inducing protests and violent demonstrations.  
Anglo-Iranian Oil changed its name to British Petroleum in 1954.
Iranians believe that America destroyed Iran’s “last chance for democracy” and blamed America for Iran’s autocracy, its human rights abuses, and secret police.

The smoldering sound of the lava sizzles underneath the dried lava.  
In 1946, Executive Yuan wanted control over 4 groups of Islands in the South China Sea to have a stronger presence there:  the Paracels, the Spratlys, Macclesfield Bank, and the Pratas.
The French forces in the South China Sea would have been stronger than the Chinese Navy then.
French Naval forces were in the Gulf of Tonkin, U.S. forces were in the Taiwan Strait, the British were in Hong Kong, and the Portuguese were in Macao.
In the 1950s, British snd U.S. oil companies thought there might be oil in the Spratlys.  
By 1957, French presence in the South China Sea was hardly there.  

When the volcano erupted, the lava dried at the ocean into black sand.
By 1954, the Tudeh Party’s communist movement and  intelligence organization had been destroyed.  
Because of the Shah and his government’s westernization policies and disrespectful treatment of the Ulama, Iranians began identifying with the Ulama and Khomeini rather than their government.  
Those people joined with secular movements to overthrow the Shah.  

In 1966, Ne Win seized power from U Nu in Burma.
“Soldiers ruled Burma as soldiers.”
Ne Win thought that western political
Institutions “encouraged divisions.”
Minority groups found foreign support for their separatist goals.
The Karens and the Mons supported U Nu in Bangkok.  


Rare copper, a heavy metal, no alloys,
a rock in groundwater,
conducts electricity and heat.
In 1965, my Dad’s cousin met him at Heathrow, gave him a coat and £10 and brought him to a bed and breakfast across from Charing Cross Station where he’d get the train to Sheffield the next morning.
He took the train and someone met him at the train station.  
At the interview they asked him to design a grandry girder, the main weight bearing steel girder as a test.
Iron in the inner and outer core of the earth,
He’d designed many of those.  
He was hired and lived at the YMCA for 2 1/2 years.  
He took his mother’s family name, Menon, instead of his father’s, Varma.
In 1967, he left for Canada and interviewed at Bechtel before getting hired at Seagrams.  
Iron enables blood to carry oxygen.
His boss recommended him for Dale Carnegie’s leadership training classes and my dad joined the National Instrument Society and became President.
He designed a still In Jamaica,
Ordered all the parts, nuts and bolts,
Had all the parts shipped to Jamaica and made sure they got there.
His boss supervised the construction, installation and commission in Jamaica.
Quartz, heat and fade resistant, though he was an engineer and did the work of an engineer, my dad only had the title, technician so my dad’s boss thought he wasn’t getting paid enough but couldn’t get his boss to offer more than an extra $100/week or the title of engineer; he told my dad he thought he should leave.
In 1969, he got a job at Celanese, which made rayon.
He quit Celanese to work at McGill University and they allowed him to take classes to earn his MBA while working.  

The United States and Israel’s alliance was strong by 1967.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 at the end of the Third Arab Israeli War didn’t mention the Palestinians but mentioned the refugee problem.
After 1967, the Palestinians weren’t often mentioned and when mentioned only as terrorists.  
Palestinians’ faith in the “American sponsored peace process” diminished, they felt the world community ignored and neglected them also.
Groups like MAN that stopped expecting anything from Arab regimes began hijacking airplanes.
By 1972, the Palestine Liberation Organization had enough international support to get by the United States’ veto in the United Nations Security Council and Arab League recognition as representative of the Palestinian people.
The Palestinians knew the United States stated its support, as the British had, but they weren’t able to accomplish anything.  
The force Israel exerted in Johnson’s United States policy delivered no equilibrium for the Palestinians.  

In 1969, all political parties submitted to the BSPP, Burma Socialist Programme Party.
Ne Win nationalized banks and oil and deprived minorities of opportunities.
Ne Win became U Nu Win, civilian leader of Burma in 1972 and stopped the active role that U Nu defined for Burma internationally
He put military people in power even when they didn’t have experience which triggered “maldistribution of goods and chronic shortages.”  
Resources were located in areas where separatist minorities had control.

The British presence in the South China Sea ended in 1968.  
The United States left Vietnam in 1974 and China went into the Western Paracels.
The U.S. didn’t intervene and Vietnam took the Spratlys.
China wanted to claim the continental shelf In the central part of the South China Sea and needed the Spratlys.
The United States mostly disregarded the Ulama In Iran and bewildered the Iranian people by not supporting their revolution.

Obsidian—
iron, copper and chromium—
isn’t a gas
but it isn’t a crystal;
it’s between the two,
the ordered crystal and the disordered gas.  
They made swords out of obsidian.


Edelweiss

I laid out in my backyard in my bikini.  
I love the feeling of my body in the sun.  
I’d be dark from the end of spring until winter.
The snow froze my bare feet through winter ,
my skin pale.
American towns in 1984,
Free, below glaciers the sunlight melted the snow,
a sea of green and the edelweiss on the edge of the  limestone,
frosted but still strong.    
When the spring warmed the grass,
the grass warmed my feet. 
The whole field looked cold and white from the glacier but in the meadow,
the bright yellow centers of those flowers float free in the center of the white petals.
The bright yellow center of those edelweiss scared the people my parents ran to America from India to get away from.  
On a sidewalk in Queens, New York in 1991, the men stared and yelled comments at me in short shorts and a fitted top in the summer.  
I grabbed my dad’s arm.

























The Bread and Coconut Butter of Aparigraha

Twelve year old flowerhead,
Marigold, yarrow and nettle,
I’d be all emotion
If not for all my work
From the time I was a teenager.
I got depressed a lot.
I related to people I read about
In my weather balloon,
Grasping, ignorant, and desperate,
But couldn’t relate to other twelve year olds.
After school I read Dali’s autobiography,
Young ****** Autosodomized by Her Own Chastity.
Fresh, green nettle with fresh and dried yarrow for purity.
Dead souls enticed to the altar by orange marigolds,
passion and creativity,
Coax sleep and rouse dreams.
Satellites measure indirectly with wave lengths of light.
My weather balloon measures the lower and middle levels of the atmosphere directly,
Fifty thousand feet high,
Metal rod thermometer,
Slide humidity sensor,
Canister for air pressure.

I enjoy rye bread and cold coconut butter in my weather balloon,
But I want Dali, and all the artists and writers.
Rye grows at high altitudes
But papyrus grows in soil and shallow water,
Strips of papyrus pith shucked from their stems.
When an anchor’s weighed, a ship sails,
But when grounded we sail.
Marigolds, yarrow and nettle,
Flowerhead,
I use the marigold for sleep,
The yarrow for endurance and intensity,
toiling for love and truth,
And the nettle for healing.
Strong rye bread needs equally strong flavors.
By the beginning of high school,
I read a lot of Beat literature
And found Buddhism.
I loved what I read
But I didn’t like some things.
I liked attachment.  
I got to the ground.
Mushrooms grow in dry soil.
Attachment to beauty is Buddha activity.
Not being attached to things I don’t find beautiful is Buddha activity.  
I fried mushrooms in a single layer in oil, fleshy.
I roasted mushrooms at high temperatures in the oven, crisp.
I simmered mushrooms in stock with kombu.
Rye bread with cold coconut butter and cremini mushrooms,
raw, soft and firm.  
Life continues, life changes,
Attachments, losses, mourning and suffering,
But change lures growth.
I find stream beds and wet soil.
I lay the strips of papyrus next to each other.
I cross papyrus strips over the first,
Then wet the crossed papyrus strips,
Press and cement them into a sheet.
I hammer it and dry it in the sun,
With no thought of achievement or self,
Flowerhead,
Hands filled with my past,
Head filled with the future,
Dali, artists poets,
Wishes and desires aligned with nature,
Abundance,
Cocoa, caraway, and molasses.

If I ever really like someone,
I’ll be wearing the dress he chooses,
Fresh green nettle and yarrow, the seeds take two years to grow strong,
Lasting love.
Marigolds steer dead souls from the altar to the afterlife,
Antiseptic, healing wounds,
Soothing sore throats and headaches.
Imperturbable, stable flowerhead,
I empty my mind.
When desires are aligned with nature, desire flows.
Papyrus makes paper and cloth.
Papyrus makes sails.
Charcoal from the ash of pulverized papyrus heals wounds.
Without attachment to the fruit of action
There is continuation of life,
Rye bread and melted coconut butter,
The coconut tree in the coconut butter,
The seed comes from the ground out of nothing,
Naturalness.
It has form.
As the seed grows the seed expresses the tree,
The seed expresses the coconut,
The seed expresses the coconut butter.
Rye bread, large open hollows, chambers,
Immersed in melted coconut butter,
Desire for expansion and creation,
No grasping, not desperate.
When the mind is compassion, the mind is boundless.
Every moment,
only that,
Every moment,
a scythe to the papyrus in the stream bed of the past.  

































Sound on Powdery Blue

Potter’s clay, nymph, plum unplumbed, 1993.
Dahlia, ice, powder, musk and rose,
my source of life emerged in darkness, blackness.
Seashell fragments in the sand,
The glass ball of my life cracked inside,
Light reflected off the salt crystal cracks,
Nacre kept those cracks from getting worse.
Young ****** Autosodomized By Her Own Chastity,
Nymph, I didn’t want to give my body,
Torn, *****, ballgown,
To people who wouldn’t understand me,
Piquant.

Outside on the salt flats,
Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, pleasure and fertility and
Asexual Artemis, goddess of animals, and the hunt,
Mistress of nymphs,
Punish with ruthless savagery.

In my bedroom, blue caribou moss covered rocks, pine, and yew trees,
The heartwood writhes as hurricane gales, twisters and whirlwinds
Contort their bark,
Roots strong in the soil.
Orris root dried in the sun, bulbs like wood.
Dahlia runs to baritone soundbath radio waves.
Light has frequencies,
Violet between blue and invisible ultraviolet,
Flame, slate and flint.
Every night is cold.

Torii gates, pain secured as sacred.
An assignation, frost hardy dahlia and a plangent resonant echo.
High frequency sound waves convert to electrical signals,
Breathe from someone I want,
Silt.
Beam, radiate, ensorcel.
I break the bark,
Sap flows and dries,
Resin seals over the tear.
I distill pine,
Resin and oil for turpentine, a solvent.
Quiver, bemired,
I lead sound into my darkness,
Orris butter resin, sweet and warm,
Hot jam drops on snow drops,
Orange ash on smoke,
Balm on lava,
The problem with cotton candy.

Electrical signals give off radiation or light waves,
The narrow frequency range where
The crest of a radio wave and the crest of a light wave overlap,
Infrared.
Glaciers flow, sunlight melts the upper layers of the snow when strong,
A wet snow avalanche,
A torrent, healing.
Brown sugar and whiskey,
Undulant, lavender.
Pine pitch, crystalline, sticky, rich and golden,
And dried pine rosin polishes glass smooth
Like the smell of powdery orris after years.
Softness, flush, worthy/not worthy,
Rich rays thunder,
Intensify my pulse,
Frenzied red,
Violet between blue and invisible ultraviolet.
Babylon—flutter, glow.
Unquenchable cathartic orris.  

















Pink Graphite

Camellias, winter shrubs,
Their shallow roots grow beneath the spongy caribou moss,
Robins egg blue.
After writing a play with my gifted students program in 1991,
I stopped spending all my free time writing short stories,
But the caribou moss was still soft.

In the cold Arctic of that town,
The evergreen protected the camellias from the afternoon sun and storms.
They branded hardy camellias with a brass molded embossing iron;
I had paper and graphite for my pencils.

After my ninth grade honors English teacher asked us to write poems in 1994,
It began raining.
We lived on an overhang.
A vertical rise to the top of the rock.
The rainstorm caused a metamorphic change in the snowpack,
A wet snow avalanche drifted slowly down the moss covered rock,
The snow already destabilized by exposure to the sunlight.

The avalanche formed lakes,
rock basins washed away with rainwater and melted snow,
Streams dammed by the rocks.  
My pencils washed away in the avalanche,
My clothes heavy and cold.
I wove one side of each warp fiber through the eye of the needle and one side through each slot,
Salves, ointments, serums and tinctures.
I was mining for graphite.
They were mining me,
The only winch, the sound through the water.

A steep staircase to the red Torii gates,
I broke the chains with bells for vespers
And chimes for schisms,
And wove the weft across at right angles to the warp.  

On a rocky ledge at the end of winter,
The pink moon, bitters and body butter,
They tried to get  me to want absinthe,
Wormwood for bitterness and regret.
Heat and pressure formed carbon for flakes of graphite.
Heat and pressure,
I made bitters,
Brandy, grapefruit, chocolate, mandarin rind, tamarind and sugar.
I grounded my feet in the pink moss,
paper dried in one hand,
and graphite for my pencils in the other.  



































Flakes

I don’t let people that put me down be part of my life.  
Gardens and trees,
My shadow sunk in the grass in my yard
As I ate bread, turmeric and lemon.
Carbon crystallizes into graphite flakes.
I write to see well,
Graphite on paper.  
A shadow on rock tiles with a shield, a diamond and a bell
Had me ***** to humiliate me.
Though I don’t let people that put me down near me,
A lot of people putting me down seemed like they were following me,
A platform to jump from
While she had her temple.  

There was a pink door to the platform.
I ate bread with caramelized crusts and
Drank turmeric lemonade
Before I opened that door,
Jumped and
Descended into blankets and feathers.
I found matches and rosin
For turpentine to clean,
Dried plums and licorice.  

In the temple,
In diamonds, leather, wool and silk,
She had her shield and bells,
Drugs and technology,
Thermovision 210 and Minox,
And an offering box where people believed
That if their coins went in
Their wishes would come true.

Hollyhock and smudging charcoal for work,  
Belled,
I ground grain in the mill for the bread I baked for breakfast.
The bells are now communal bells
With a watchtower and a prison,
Her shield, a blowtorch and flux,
Her ex rays, my makeshift records
Because Stalin didn’t like people dancing,
He liked them divebombing.
Impurities in the carbon prevent diamonds from forming,
Measured,
The most hard, the most expensive,
But graphite’s soft delocalized electrons move.  






































OCEAN BED

The loneliness of going to sleep by myself.  
I want a bed that’s high off the ground,
a mattress, an ocean.
I want a crush and that  person in my bed.  
Only that,
a crush in my bed,
an ocean in my bed.  
Just love.  
But I sleep with my thumbs sealed.  
I sleep with my hands, palms up.  
I sleep with my hands at my heart.  
They sear my compassion with their noise.  
They hold their iron over their fire and try to carve their noise into my love,
scored by the violence of voices, dark and lurid,  
but not burned.  
I want a man in my bed.  
When I wake up in an earthquake
I want to be held through the aftershocks.  
I like men,
the waves come in and go out
but the ocean was part of my every day.  
I don’t mind being fetishized in the ocean.  
I ran by the ocean every morning.  
I surfed in the ocean.  
I should’ve gone into the ocean that afternoon at Trestles,
holding my water jugs, kneeling at the edge.  














Morning

I want to fall asleep in the warm arms of a fireman.  
I want to wake up to the smell of coffee in my kitchen.  

Morning—the molten lava in the outer core of the earth embeds the iron from the inner core into the earth’s magnetic field.  
The magnetic field flips.  
The sun, so strong, where it gets through the trees it burns everything but the pine.  
The winds change direction.  
Storms cast lightening and rain.  
Iron conducts solar flares and the heavy wind.  
In that pine forest, I shudder every time I see a speck of light for fear of neon and fluorescents.  The eucalyptus cleanses congestion.  
And Kerouac’s stream ululates, crystal bowl sound baths.  
I follow the sound to the water.  
The stream ends at a bluff with a thin rocky beach below.  
The green water turns black not far from the shore.  
Before diving into the ocean, I eat globe mallow from the trees, stems and leaves, the viscous flesh, red, soft and nutty.  
I distill the pine from one of the tree’s bark and smudge the charcoal over my skin.  

Death, the palo santo’s lit, cleansing negative energy.  
It’s been so long since I’ve smelled a man, woodsmoke, citrus and tobacco.  
Jasmine, plum, lime and tuberose oil on the base of my neck comforts.  
Parabolic chambers heal, sound waves through water travel four times faster.  
The sound of the open sea recalibrates.  
I dissolve into the midnight blue of the ocean.  

I want to fall asleep in the warm arms of a fireman.  
I want to wake up to the smell of coffee in my kitchen.  
I want hot water with coconut oil when I get up.  
We’d lay out on the lawn, surrounded by high trees that block the wind.  
Embers flying through the air won’t land in my yard, on my grass, or near my trees.  





Blue Paper

Haze scatters blue light on a planet.  
Frought women, livid, made into peonies by Aphrodites that caught their men flirting and blamed the women, flushed red.
and blamed the women, flushed red.
Frought women, livid, chrysanthemums, dimmed until the end of the season, exchanged and retained like property.  
Blue women enter along the sides of her red Torii gates, belayed, branded and belled, a plangent sound.  
By candles, colored lights and dried flowers she’s sitting inside on a concrete floor, punctures and ruin burnished with paper, making burnt lime from lime mortar.  
Glass ***** on the ceiling, she moves the beads of a Palestinian glass bead bracelet she holds in her hands.  
She bends light to make shadows against  thin wooden slats curbed along the wall, and straight across the ceiling.
A metier, she makes tinctures, juniper berries and cotton *****.
Loamy soil in the center of the room,
A hawthorn tree stands alone,
A gateway for fairies.
large stones at the base protecting,
It’s branches a barrier.  
It’s leaves and shoots make bread and cheese.
It’s berries, red skin and yellow flesh, make jam.
Green bamboo stakes for the peonies when they whither from the weight of their petals.
And lime in the soil.  
She adds wood chips to the burnt lime in the kiln,
Unrolled paper, spools, and wire hanging.
Wood prayer beads connect her to the earth,
The tassels on the end of the beads connect her to spirit, to higher truth.
Minerals, marine mud and warm basins of seawater on a flower covered desk.  
She adds slaked lime to the burnt lime and wood chips.  
The lime converts to paper,
Trauma victims speak,
Light through butterfly wings.  
She’s plumeria with curved petals, thick, holding water

Scrounging local garage sales... near ten years past... I had found a flat, welded iron, rusty seahorse... 3 feet high... with a good seahorse shape and poise... edges welded and cut... after the haggle... twenty-five dollars..... perfectly added to my estate... covered rust in gold sheen... mounted upon a tree... to greet all comers... with a seahorse kiss!    
     Seller said it was made by the same artist... of the turtle lady statue... to be found in Corpus Christi!  Asked if I had seen it... my reply... No, but I liked the seahorse piece! He expounded... the artist... only had one leg... but was a surfer... well known for this trait... in Corpus Christi!  
     After I had mounted the seahorse... upon it's tree...I did an internet search... looking for anything about the one-legged surfer artist of Corpus Christi!  Found... nothing!  
     End of May, 2019... visiting my sister, Donna... we were wandering Corpus Christi!  She guided us to the surf museum... not knowing the story... of the one-legged surfer artist... creator of my mounted seahorse!  
     Girl at the front desk... Kyla... real nice and friendly... told her about the seahorse and questioned her... she didn’t know... she never heard of a surfer with one leg or the turtle lady statue!  Looking at us just a bit strangely... one legged surfer???
      Donna and I... started our stroll through the small museum!  Along the right side... stood a long row of surfboards... I’ve never surfed... but I was imagining trying it with just one leg!  
      Anyhow... I didn’t really stop to read or look in any detail at any of the exhibits until I reached the back... there was a glass case... which had a piece of simple letter paper...  8.5x11... taped to the front of the glass cabinet!  I started in reading the last paragraph...

     “Welch, 53, and his wife, Chelsea Louise, 23, died September 15, 2001, when their car plunged off the edge of South Padre Island’s Queen Isabella Causeway, which partially collapsed after a string of barges crashed into the bridge’s support pilings!

     Thought to myself... Wow... Who is this guy???  I jumped up to the middle paragraph...

     “Welch lost one of his lower legs in an auto accident in the 1970s, but he kept surfing with a prosthesis.  He wore a peg-like prosthesis at first, then got one with a foot.  He won the prosthesis division of the United States Surfing Championships on South Padre Island in 1998.”

     In the glass case was a welded metal sculpture of a beach scene... with waves, palm trees, and all!  The piece did have some resemblance in style to my seahorse sculpture!  Also, there was a picture on top of the case... of Harpoon Barry... striking a muscular, no shirt pose... in his tattoo shop... his torso covered in tattoos!  
    
     “It is said... he was on the verge of suicide after losing his leg. In one interview with the San Antonio Express News in 1992 he said;  "I may not make it to heaven, but you can be sure I made no deals with the devil to get where I'm at now, "  Looking down at his false leg stretched out in front of him, Welch said quietly: "It is a real empty feeling when you put one of these on for the first time, especially if you are an adult on your own. And your mama'a not there and your daddy's not there, and the people in the hospital tell you, 'This is the best it's going to get.  I made my first leg myself, out of Hi-C cans. I couldn't wait for my leg to get finished. I wanted to walk. I guess I got the idea from the Tin Woodsman in 'The Wizard of Oz.' That leg actually worked pretty well!”

     I had found my one-legged surfer artist!  I walked towards Donna... who was already half-way leaving the museum...  I hollered to her... she just had to come see this ... “I think I found the one-legged surfer!”  She had recently had partial knee replacement... and was hobbling!  She said if I was fooling her... she better not walk back all that way for nothing!! She came back to the glass case... we read through the letter in it’s entirety!  
     Then we went... and told Kyla at the front desk... she again looked at us again a bit strange... but then reluctantly left her post to go with us to take a look... she was then astounded!  Said she never knew about the one-legged surfer... although she had worked at the museum for several years!  Said there were also a couple metal sculptures... at the front of the museum... she thought were also done... by Harpoon Barry!  We took pictures of those also!  

In the letter we also read...

     “Welch had numerous tattoos and body piercings.  He wore a tiny 14 carrot gold harpoon through one ******.  That is how he got his nick name according to a friend, Scott Gangel.”  

     "I am a unique, self-made sensation!” he said matter-of-factly... in the interview with the Express News!  
    
     It's been 18 years since eight people died when South Padre Island's Queen Isabella Memorial Causeway collapsed... sending 11 people into the water below... four days after the 9/11 attacks!  A string of tow barges had struck the supporting pilings!  A section of the roadway had collapsed...
     I promised Kyla... I would donate my seahorse piece to the museum upon my death!  I only hope my death... is as grand as Harpoon Barry’s plunge into the Gulf of Mexico with his young wife!  Wonder what they were doing during the plunge... what was Barry doing... yelling Yippee Ki Yay... or Surf’s up... Dude!!!... maybe???  
    
Surfed waves on one leg
Young wife... crazy life... grand death
Harpooned by Barry

©  2019 Jim Davis

Awhile ago, I had been at a party. I’d listened to someone talk about Kate Moss for ten minutes straight. I left the room, found my flatmate and asked why anyone was interested in anything at all. We’d come up with no answers.

All this started a month ago, and all that started long before. I will not bore you with trite aphorisms about how I survived, or how wondrous life has become since. At some point my mind broke. This is a collection of memories about my attempted suicide and the absurdity of the entire experience.

Wednesday, 26th of April, 2017, midnight.

Couldn’t sleep. Surfed the internet. Fell into ASMR sub-culture.[1] Meta-satire, transitioning to post-irony, before pseudo-spiritual out-of-body transcendence. I thought, *this is the most ****** experience I’ve had in half a decade, while a woman spun spheres of blobby jelly around my head and whispered elephant mourning rituals into my ears.

Tuesday, 27th of April, 2017, afternoon.

Woke up mid-day. Looked at all the objects in my room, unable to understand why any of them mattered. Milled around the flat. Went online to order helium so I could make an exit bag.[2] Cheapest source was The Warehouse, though the helium came with thirty bright multi-coloured party balloons. I kept imagining one of my flatmates walking in later that day, seeing my crumpled body surrounded by these floppy bits of rubber and a note saying this life is absurd and I want out of it. There was no online purchasing option, however, and I couldn’t be bothered walking into town. I began reading suicide notes. One was from a kid who’d slowly taken pills as he watched TV, culminating in a coma. That sounds pleasant, I thought, whilst at the same time knowing that it takes up to three days to die from painkillers and that the process is anything but painless or final. I opened my drawer, found a bunch of paracetamol and began washing them down with water, whilst listening to the soundtrack of End of Evangelion.[3]

I’m not sure why, but I began crying violently. I knew I’d have to leave the flat before my flatmates came home. I hastily scrawled a note that said, donate my body, give my money to senpai, give my possessions to someone I don’t know, it smells like burning, it was good knowing you all, before walking out the door with Komm Süsser Tod playing in the background.[4, 5] I’d already written my personal and political reasons for suicide in the pieces méconnaissance[6] and **** Yourself,[7] so felt there was no reason for anything more substantial.

I wandered the back roads of my neighbourhood. My body shook. I felt somnolent, half-dazed. I wanted a quiet place to sit, sleep and writhe in agony while my organs slowly failed. My legs kept stumbling, however, and my head was beginning to feel funny. I found a dead-end street and sat on one of those artificially maintained rectangles of grass. There was a black cat lying in the middle of the road, just bobbing its head at me. I zoned out for a bit and when I came to a giant orange cat was to my left, gazing intently into my teary face. I tried to refocus on my crotch. I couldn’t help but notice a white cat across the road, pretending not to be seen. It had a dubious look on its face, a countenance of guilt. What the hell was going on? A delivery person looped round the street. People returned home from work. Garage doors opened, cars drove down driveways. Here I was, slowly dying, surrounded by spooky ******* cats and the bustle of ordinary existence.

“Uh, hey. You look, uh, like something isn’t . . . do you need, uh, help?” a woman asked, crossing the street with a pram to reach me. I groaned.

“It’s just that, you know, ordinarily, um, I mean normally, people don’t sit on the sidewalk,” she continued, glancing down with the half-confused look of a concerned citizen who is trying to enter a situation outside of their usual experience. I mumbled something indistinct and went back to staring at my crotch.

“You know, I can, er . . . I can . . . I can’t really help,” she ended, awkwardly. “I have a daughter to look after, but . . . if you’re still here when she’s asleep . . . I’m the red fence.” She darted off without another word.

Had she wanted me off the sidewalk because it was abnormal to sit there, or had she seen the abnormality as a sign of something deeper? Either way, she’d used abnormality as a signifier of negative change. Deviancy as something to be corrected, realigned with some norm that co-exists with happiness and citizenship. I was being a bad citizen.

I thought, I miss those cats. At least they had judged me in silence. Wait, what the hell am I thinking? This is clearly a case of deviancy associated with negative feelings. Well, negative feelings, but not necessarily negative change. Suicide is only negative if one views life as intrinsically worthwhile—

I could hear pram lady in the distance. She was talking to someone who’d just come back from work. They thanked pram lady and began moving towards me. Arghggh, just let me die, I thought.

She introduced herself as a nurse. From her tone and approach, it was clear she’d handled many cases like me. I’ve never hated counselling techniques. They seemed to at least trouble neoliberal rhetoric. There is little mention of overcoming, or striving, or perfecting oneself into a being of pure success. Rather, counselling seemed to be about listening and piercing together the other’s perspective. Counsellors tended not to interject words of comfort. They’d tell you mental illness was lifelong and couldn’t be fixed. They’re the closest society has to positive pessimists. Of course, they’d still want you to get better. Better, as in, not attempting suicide.

I talked with nurse lady for an hour about how life is simply passing. Passing through oneself, passing through others, passing through spaces, thoughts and emotions. About how the majority of life seems to be lived in a beyond we’ll never reach. Potential futures, moments of relief, phantasies we create to escape the dull present. About how I’d been finding my media and politics degree really rewarding, but some part of my head broke and I lost all ability to focus and care. About how the more I learnt about the world, the less capable I felt of changing it, and that change was a narcissistic day dream, anyway.

She replied “We’re all cogs. But what’s wrong with being a cog? Even a cog can make changes,” and I thought, but never one’s own.

She gave me a ride to the emergency clinic because I was too apathetic and guilt-ridden to decline. Why are people so nice over things that don’t matter? Chicks are ground into chicken nuggets alive.[8] The meat-industry produces 50% of the world’s carbon emissions.[9] But someone sits on the side of the road in a bourgeois neighbourhood and suddenly you have cats and nurses worried sick over your ****** up head. I should have worn a hobo coat and sat in town.

Tuesday, 27th of April, 2017, evening.

I had forgotten how painful waiting rooms were. It was stupidly ironic. I’d entered this apathetic suicidal stupor because I’d wanted to escape the monotony of existence, yet here I was, sitting in a waiting room, counting the stains on the ceiling, while the reception TV streamed a hospital drama.

“Get his *** in there!”

“Time is the real killer.”

“It wasn’t the cancer that was terminal, it was you.”

Zoom in on doctor face man.

Everybody hugging.

Emergency waiting rooms are a lot like life. You don’t choose to be there. An accident simply occurs and then you’re stuck, watching a show about *** cancer and family bonding. Sometimes someone coughs and you become aware of your own body again. You remember that you exist outside of media, waiting in this sterile space on a painfully too small plastic chair. You deliberately avoid the glances of everyone else in the room because you don’t want to reduce their existence to an injury, a pulsing wound, a lack, nor let them reduce you the same. The accident that got you here left you with a blank spot in your head, but the nurses reassure you that you’ll be up soon, to whatever it is you’re here for. And so, with nothing else to do, you turn back to the TV and forget you exist.

I thought, I should have taken more pills and gone into the woods.

The ER was a Kafkaeque realm of piercing lights, sleepy interns and too narrow privacy curtains.[10] Every time a nurse would try to close one, they’d pull it too far to one side, opening the other side up. Like the self, no bed was fully enclosed. There were always gaps, spaces of viewing, windows into trauma, and like the objet petit a, there was always the potential of meeting another’s gaze, one just like yours, only, out of your control.

I lay amidst a drone of machinery, footsteps and chatter. I stared at ceiling stains. Every hour or so a different nurse would approach me, repeat the same ten questions as the one before, then end commenting awkwardly on my tattoos. I kept thinking, what is going on? Have I finally died and become integrated into some eternally recurring limbo hell where, in a state of complete apathy and deterioration, some devil approaches me every hour to ask, why did you take those pills?

Do I have to repeat my answer for the rest of my life?

I gazed at the stain to my right. That was back in ‘92 when the piping above burst on a particularly wintry day. I shifted my gaze. And that happened in ‘99 when an intern tripped holding a giant cup of coffee. Afterwards, everyone began calling her Trippy. She eventually became a surgeon and had four adorable bourgeois kids. Tippy Tip Tap Toop.

The nurses began covering my body with little pieces of paper and plastic, to which only one third were connected to an ECG monitor.[11] Every ten minutes or so the monitor would begin honking violently, to which (initially) no one would respond to. After an hour or so a nurse wandered over with a worried expression, poked the machine a little, then asked if I was experiencing any chest pains. Before I could answer, he was intercepted by another nurse and told not to worry. His expression never cleared up, but he went back to staring blankly into a computer terminal on the other end of the room.

There were two security guards awkwardly trying not to meet anyone’s gazes. They were out of place and they knew it. No matter what space they occupied, a nurse would have to move past them to reach some medical doodle or document. One nurse jokingly said, “It’s ER. If you’re not moving you’re in the way,” to which the guards chortled, shuffled a metre or so sideways, before returning to standing still.

I checked my phone.

“Got veges.”

“If you successfully **** yourself, you’ll officially be the biggest right-wing neoliberal piece of ****.”[12]

“Your Text Unlimited Combo renewed on 28 Apr at 10:41. Nice!”

I went back to staring at the ceiling.

Six hours later, one of the nurses came over and said “Huh, turns out there’s nothing in your blood. Nothing . . . at all.” Another pulled out my drip and disconnected me from the ECG monitor. “Well, you’re free to leave.”

Tuesday, 27th of April, 2017, midnight.

I wandered over to the Emergency Psychiatric Services. The doctor there was interested in setting up future supports for my ****** up mind. He mentioned anti-depressants and I told him that in the past they hadn’t really worked, that it seemed more related to my general political outlook, that this purposeless restlessness has been with me most of my life, and that no drug or counselling could cure the lack innate to existence which is exacerbated by our current political and cultural institutions.

He replied “Are you one of those anti-druggers? You know there’s been a lot of backlash against psychiatry, it’s really the cultural Zeitgeist of our times, but it’s all led by misinformation, scaremongering.”

I hesitated, before replying “I’m not anti-drugs, I just don’t think you can change my general hatred of existence.”

“Okay, okay, I’m not trying to argue with your outlook, but you’re simply stuck in this doom and gloom phase—”

Whoa, wait a ******* minute. You’re not trying to argue with my outlook, while completely discounting my outlook as simply a passing emotional state? This guy is a ******* *******, I thought, ragging on about anti-druggers while pretending not to undermine a political and social position I’d spent years researching and building up. I stopped paying attention to him. Yes, a lot of my problems are internal, but I’m more than a disembodied brain, biologically computing chemical data.

At the end of his rant, he said something like “You’re a good kid,” and I thought, ******* too.

Friday, 28th of April, 2017, morning.

The next day I met a different doctor. I gave him a brief summary of my privileged life culminating in a ****** metaphor about three metaphysical pillars which lift me into the tempestuous winds of existential dread and nihilistic apathy. One, my social anxiety. Two, my absurd existence. Three, my political outlook. One, anxiety: I cannot relate to small talk. The gaze of the other is a gaze of expectations. Because I cannot know these expectations, I will never live up to them. Communication is by nature, lacking. Two, absurdity: Existence is a meaningless repetition of arbitrary structures we ourselves construct, then forget. Reflexivity is about uncovering this so that we may escape structures we do not like. We inevitably fall into new structures, prejudices and artifices. Nothing is authentic, nothing is innocent and nothing is your self. Three, politics: I am trapped in a neoliberal capitalist monstrosity that creates enough produce to feed the entire world, but does not do so due to the market’s instrumental need for profit. The system, in other words, rewards capitalists who are ruthless. Any capitalist trying to bring about change, will necessarily have to become ruthless to reach a position of power, and therefore will fail to bring about change.

The doctor nodded. He thought deeply, tried to piece it all together, then finally said “Yes, society is quite terrifying. This is something we cannot control. There are things out there that will harm you and the political situation of our time is troubling.”

I was astounded. This was one of the first doctors who’d actually taken what I’d said and given it consideration. Sure we hadn’t gotten into a length discussion of socialism, feminism or veganism, but they also hadn’t simply collapsed my political thoughts into my depressive state.

“But you know, there are still niches of meaning in this world. Though the greater structures are overbearing, people can still find purpose enacting smaller changes, connecting in ephemeral ways.”

What was I hearing? Was this a postmodern doctor?[13] Was science reconnecting with the humanities?

“We may even connect your third pillar, that of the political, with your second pillar and see that the political situation of our time is absurd. This is unfortunate, but as for your first pillar, this is definitely something we can help you with. In fact, it’s quite a simple process, helping one deal with social anxiety, and to me, it sounds like this anxiety has greatly affected your life for the past few years.”

The doctor then asked for my gender and sexuality, to which after I hesitated a little, he said, it didn’t really matter seeing as it was all constructed, anyway. For being unable to feel much at all, I was ecstatic. I thought, how could this doctor be working in the same building as the previous one I’d met? We went into anti-depressant plans. He told me that their effects were unpredictable. They may lift my mood, they may do nothing at all, they may even make me feel worse. Nobody really knew what molecular pathways serotonin activated, but it sometimes pulled people out of circular ways of thinking. And dopamine, well, taken in too high a dose, could make you psychotic.

Sign me the **** up, I thought, gazing at my new medical hero. These are the kinds of non-assurances that match my experience of life. Trust and expectations lead only to disappointment. Give me pure insurmountable doubt.

Friday, 28th of April, 2017, afternoon.

“The drugs won’t be too long,” the pharmacist said before disappearing into the back room. I milled around th

I mashup me, myself, and thee: Part II

Excerpts from my poems about poets, poetry and the process of composition. In chronological order, from the earliest to the most recent.
---------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­----


The three poems went about their business,
Bringing heaven to earth,
FYI, even Angels can't be everywhere, so,
God invented poems to do his ***** work,
Cleansing souls.

They rode in~out of town on a prankster wave,
A cheering throng was not around,
But a singular poet saw, recorded the vision,
And thus, this nameless poet,
Below unmasked, unsealed,
Cleansed one more soul,
And that soul, this soul, as required,
Paid it forward.
~
Nothing produced from this place
where routine means the gorge tastes bile,
When surcease is welcome relief,
Where dancing on ice in bare feet
Is step one to ripping your chest open by your own hands,
The toxins thus released rejuvenated by salted air,
Can be finally be transcribed onto paper
And realized.

Warn them once and then begin, you,
Get serious, delve, with hurricane unambiguity,
to torrential words upon the unsuspecting,
let them taste the rawness, only the truth provides,
let them know salt tears so briney,
They will flee this place, n'er to return.
~
One day she intro'd me as her fav poet,
To which I acknowledged by addressing her as
My number one fan,
Which seems to have stuck,
so I acknowledge her as such,
And always add a polite, respectful, winking,
Yes ma'am!
~
Like this new day,
there are always
new poems

Like last night's sunset,
day's efforts reviewed,
a special light,
a yellowed marker,
highlighting a few deserving

Take them home,
kiss them goodnight,
rest them in the poetry file
that is no file,
but a large fabric box where
sewing tools once stored

How appropriate and
how happy that makes me.
~
Yo! Yo!
Remember your first real high,
That moment
No absolution, no return.
That moment
When you admitted, confessed,
to yourself:

I am
Forever forward,
A home-grown poet.
I am
Soul enslaved to words.
The alphabet - My oxygen molecules,
I am both,
Addict and dealer
A ****** poet

Yo! Yo!
So you do recall,
The exact moment,
God-spark-within, ascendancy gained
You lost control,
Wept words instead of tears!
A ****** poet ******!

Yo! Yo!

Sophie's Choice.
You chose writing over breathing,
Worshiper of the purest pleaure,
******* in deep the smoke-high of
Head-nodding discontented contentment
Stealing anything you saw
For to satisfy the need, the craven
Craving.
****** poets!

Yo! Yo!

Don't you're ever sleep?
Hear that the city, the state,
Gonna methadone your kind
In a special program
Teach you only language to sign.
**** poets!

I am a ****** poet.

The first step taken.
Admission.
Poetry is my default rest position,

My drug of choice.
~
Have you noticed here

Each poet declaims his fellow
The better one, his teacher,
From whom they shall learn and gather up
Inspiration

Gonna run for Congress,
My first bill, Poetry-care,
Will make it a requirement that
All citizens must contribute,
Exchange once a day
To this peaceful place,
Even just a syllable, a single letter,

K?
~
Literally my eyes see words awaiting coordinating,
Poems flying by, needing plucking,
How a child eats his morning cereal,
His rituals informing, of the man yet to be,
How our bodies lay, hair unbrushed,
Tying us into a conjoined knot...

No matter that plain words are my ordinary tools,
With them I shall scribe the small,
Cherish the little, grab the middle,
Simplicity my golden rule,
Write they say, about what you know best,
Surely in the diurnal motions,
The arc of daily commotion,
Do we not all excel?
~
The ice of poetry,
glassine smooth
but
charged hardness,
hits you, ****** you,
unexpected snowball in the face,

the fire of poetry,
cherished phrase, a patois,
comfort food when
whole winter skies
swallow you bleak

mutual contradictions of poetry
savaging the soothed ego,
revealing the raging id

what's in a word anyway?
~
Please Pop, pick wise,
the life and lies, the faces and disguises,
I will need employ to achieve success
in the eyes of my reading beholders,
who own the liens on my soul
because of the promises I believed,
when you sang me
glowing lullabies of my future days,
how everyone would love my stories,
my poems, someday...
~
Place your ****** hands upon thy chest.
Let them melt thru and come to rest,
Inside, the battle ongoing, under thy breast.
Watch, eyes open, knowing, fearful.
Swiftly, with no hesitation, from within,
Rip open your body, exhaling the best,
And the worst of what you got.

The cool air rushes in,
Stirring the inside stew of:
Infected grime, shameful desires,
Secrets that should not have been exposed,
The ***** stuff that you alone know exists.

Contact with the atmosphere makes
Self-pity dies, blue blood turn red,
The TNT tightness explodes,
Ashamed, you have only one escape hatch.

Now, you are ready to write.
~
My life is on the boring side,
So welcome gents to look inside,
The surfed sites, the emails, hardly slimy,
But stay the fk away from my poetry!

Tis obvious from your midnight editing,
That my wordily, working body has been discretely
Simonized,
My data,
Googlized,
My poems,
Scrutinized,
A comma, a colon, a verb, out of place, capsized,
Little threads kept in door jambs, their alteration,
Your snooping presence, a confirming revelation
~
Where I write, here, all comes so easy,
Every glance a poem formed,
Every phrase a title to a poem served,
Every conversation overheard and those wind-lifted brought,
A seed, a germ, a word~worm hooked to the pole crook of
My finger saying, see man, time to get more ink and paper,
Go and catch us a few poems for dinner

The snapper weakfish word colors are
Running past my-by the thousands,
We will need a basket to catch but a fraction
Of what you see, more than more enough to share,
Only Happy Poems for all

It is this rhyming way I view the wold,
That is my freedom, is my-present essence,
How the poems come, how thy flow,
Peaking, I cannot berate, rarely eat,
Sleep a thing of the past (as you be aware, beware)
There is poetry in simply everything.
~
But if my aura be a comfort insufficient,
Let this surprise poetic gift awaiting your arrival,
Give you rest, from crying surcease!

For when the who, the why of me interrogatory posed,
Describe me in a brevity I ne'er possessed, say:
He was just a poet, and I,
Just, his lover, number one fan.

This truth eternal, never to change.
~
But I am open to learning, the arduous task
Of raising a teenage daughter,
After I have my head examined

Though I am just a bunch of eclectic electrons,
I got powers a few, like making life's happiness
Hearted happier, encouraging your forays into
You-know-what,
And when tables turn, a hasty retreat you beat,
For imaginary cappuccinos and poems we will meet,
Comparing notes on who felt lousier when...

But what I can do 100% is assure you
There is no lone nor lonely daughter extant,
Your voice not just clear but soft-edged,
For I have poetically adopted you,
Here and now, assuming you sign on the
.............................................................­line
~
Take these words at plain face,
and look not askance
at this fair warning,
for I am but a tragic,
empty vessel for you to fill,
you are the raconteur,
me, just a  
poet poseur extraordinaire,
street urchin, word merchant,
all my verbally, wordly goods expropriated
from the wind,  where your scattered thoughts
lie about, carelessly,
unattended
~
Guiltless in life, we but survived,
Hurting no one, no thing,
Yet, here we lie, ignored, unattended,
Yet, you fail again to see our connection?
You do not recognize us?

We are the shells, the husks of you,
Your poems unread, you labors unpreserved,
All wasted, for unless they are read, they die,
As you will too.
Some fast, by water, some slower, time-eroded,
All, ended, by drowning in the Sea of Who Cares!
~
What sourced this elegiac distich,
Too many poets, fully disclosing their downbeat, aroma of defeat?

The world is in a **** mood, not one of us, got nothing
Good to say, seems that love storms ripping hearts
With no trace of mercy, the radio has elected nonstop
Taylor Swift and Jonas Bro's
Just to make the point!

It is so easy to feel ******,
When the sun is unshining, elegant distich, **** me.

Thinking back, getting a good idea,
Found some long necked Corona overlooked,
Turn on the tv, pretend I'm a real cowboy,
And for god's sake, shut down poetry,
Good Bye Poetry, for the rest of the day.
~
once upon a time,
a traffic light rainbow,
stopped n' go, was a word design,
demarcated visions of spun sugar,
bodegas sold me
magic beans by the pound,
masterminded into cups of delight,
treasury's bounty overflowed,
now, dregs drain, sink stained,
as are my writing utensils,
my ink stained, us-less, fingers

come visit me, unknown stranger,
let us exchange fluidity, barbs,
a contest of kissing, eye lashing
wit ands shared vision stashing,
and together, once more,
write with our feet,
while holding hands,
becoming once more
poets of the street.

Only, come quickly.
~

But reading thy cries, an exercise,
Teeth-gnashing frustration.
It brings no relief.

So sad girl,
Write till you are righted,
May be it will snow on July 4th,
And tho unnatural,
So is thy grief.

Nonetheless, write me write me all about it,
Right us,
For tho snow falls, its loveliness,
Makes the heart rise up in gladness!
~
She brings me coffee in bed.
I propose a violin accompaniment.
Some babka, with nice-crumbly-in-bed
Streusel topping,
A concerto we could make!

Her derision snorted so loud,
The mollusks on the beach
From their shells come out.

"Good luck with that,
Put that fantasy on
Your **** poetry site,
Cause that is the closest you will ever get!"
~
For she will be my heroine for all time,

These words to expand with rhyme and verse,
T'is a welcome task, one familiar, but anew,
Each dawn each dusk, a daily trust, a love poem diurnal-birthed,
As if god created the world, but left upon completion,
With a grievous thirst, a new notion, he did burst.

He created the Eighth Day, for celebration of his
Most cherished invention, the idea of love.
This is where, the secret writ Eleventh Commandment occurs,
Love thy Poetry Gods, Honor them with daily verbs.
~
Officer...you should see me gut a

Poem,

Slice its belly open,
Sometimes straight, sometimes Askew,
Feed the gulls them
****** insides on the dock, by-moonlight,
Can ya cut me some slack?

Mmm, I see here in your license,
You are a disabled guy,
A **** poet ******,
Who often does his best work
Legally all alone in the HOV lane,
So I'm gonna let you off this time
Just with a warning!
~
We can share words, we can grant tiny easements,
We can weep with you unseen tears,
We can etsy you little homemade gifts
Like this.

That you can take and keep, and break out in time of need knowing full well that these words will not spoil nor rancid turn, cannot be out grown,, or torn, or rent asunder in anyway for once they are shared
They are irrevocable.
~
When you write,
It as if you write upon our
One skin,
For I am your tablet,
Your sole/sol/soul composition.

So stop kissing me
and
Write upon us.
~
This will not be the hardest poem I e're wrote,
But if there is no inspiration
For you to smote,
And armpits refuse to provide perspiration,
To source juices for a new creation,
Try this trick,
I promise you
No one will lick your ice cream cone,
Nor mistake you for Leonard Cohen,
But when you are done,
You will be High Priest of
Hello Poetry for the rest of the day!
~
You think you can write?
Then employ  a word outside your comfort zone,
Go it alone,
And write four sentences that will make
The hopeful reader stand up and
you twice as much, and shout

Hallelujah
*******.

Work. Poetry is work. Hard work.
Don't fret. But, think on it. Have the sweetest dreams.
In the morning, when you but awake,
A poem will be aborning in thy mind,
And dare I say it, you will find a new freedom
In free verse.
(I know you will slip in a rhyme or two,
I can't help but do it too)
~
Had myself forgot,
That a poem needs a
Frame of jungle gym sounds,
An aural aura resonance unbound.
Purposed to make the heart lift
Your ears say:

Say what!

It needs a tune,
An internal music,
It needs a lilt!
A cadence, that both
Marches and swings,
Even when'd urgent dirge
grief pours forth.
~
This Sabbath day you fog-hide
Your gift of bay and beach
So quiet implore, beseech,
Keep the sailors safe,
And your poets saved.

I ask much.
But I ask for all of us,
There are so many such
That are booster-chair needy
That I am succumbed, overwhelmed,
Enormity fearsome needs help even from a deity.

Small words, big hopes.

If you cannot grant it,
Won't wait for intervention,
Do it myself, answer prayers one and all,
Best I can, starting now with this
Po-hymn.
~
I used to sleep
With pen and paper on my nighttime table.
Nowadays, my iPad tablet rests upon my chest,
Not only does it keep me warn,
It takes my poems from within, Fresh Direct,^
Edits, credits, and delivers them to your door,
While I'm still sleeping.

Which is why they come at all hours.
It is also why they call them,
Love's Labour's Lost saving devices.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**So I spend my cold, hard time
laying down cold hard verse,
Can't stop, cause it's my daddy's dying curse.

I am both: Addict and dealer, a ****** poet ******.

Dark clouds loomed over the horizon
They broke loose in unprecedented force
Nature’s wrath, sudden violence acquired
It rained down as if unleashing all her fury
It was a downpour without one equal

The heavens let down dark misery for days on end,
Water bodies swelled and hollows filled,
Land mass slipped and trees fell,
Rivers were in spate and dams were full
Waves surfed and waters roared,

Like mountains they rose over the land,
Men in throngs were evicted from their homes,
Hundreds died and livestock perished
Such violence, never ever imagined
Helter-skelter, people fled for life.

Lands inundated and folks marooned,
Homes washed away with all belongings
Power failed and life has come to a halt
Rescue operations go on in full swing
Still many, stranded and crying for help

“Water, water everywhere, nor even a drop to drink”
As Nature thus plays her perfidious trick,
We shall stay united and pool all our might,
To regain for our land what we have lost
When the Deluge chants the dirge of dying souls!

Earlier today, painting was the activity that we had planned
I have a support teacher who would always lend a hand
She had left the class to get the paint all mixed
While I stayed behind to get the toys and props all fixed
She came back and bore bowls of red, white and blue
Made me think of...well, made me think of you.

Lunchtime I visited a store and neatly displayed on low shelves
Arranged so immaculately as if magically done by elves
Were cases upon cases stitched together with only zips
They almost instantly bent a smile to my lips
Their colours shone brilliant red, white and blue
Made me think of...well, made me think of you.

Passed by a shop selling accessories and apparel
Merchandise dangled on wall hooks and some in a jumble
On the adjacent wall something caught my eye
Carried all the neat little tote bags one could ever buy
One peeking from a corner was red, white and blue
Made me think of...well, made me think of you.

Walked by a building, so modern-looking and new
Down on one side almost obscured from view
Were these horizontal rows of dancing neon lights
Stopped for a minute just to soak in the sights
Then I realised that they flickered red, white and blue
Made me think of...well, made me think of you.

Waited for the bus to get home at my usual bus stop
Whilst waiting, I shifted and from my bag something did drop
Bent over and picked my coin pouch that had fallen out
Looked up only to see another commuter lingering about
On his pack was a sticker which boasted red, white and blue
Made me think of...well, made me think of you.

Bus was packed, found a seat in the back row
Sat myself down, I peered briefly out the window
Engine under me, I scanned around to those who were seated
Observed the floor beneath my shoes as it vibrated
My pair of Adidas, oh my, they're red, white and blue
Made me think of...well, made me think of you.

Got home, put my bag down and sank into the sofa
Switched on the telly, on was the Food Network's "Barefoot Contessa"
Surfed through the channels, caught a real estate commercial
Promoting prime land in a country not anywhere regional
Splashed on the screen, a flag - red, white and blue
Made me think of...well, made me think of you.

End of the day, it is best that I hit the sack
Allow some rest for my poor aggravated back
But not till I complete the words you're currently reading
I'm thinking, dreaming and furiously typing
How do I end this? Hmm...red, white and blue?
I'm thinking and dreaming...and wishing I'm with you.

It's not all been bad.
I have had some fun
I started to surf
when I was young

If ever I was lost
And out of reach
I'd often be found
Down at the beach

My own little sanctuary
Where I could be free
Either sat on the sand
Or out in the sea

I love the ocean
It blows my mind
It's Calming yet dangerous
Misterious yet kind

The energy's magestic
The feeling of joy
Has captured my attention
Since I was a boy.

It's led me to travel
To far distant shores
I've met so many people
Opened so many doors

I've surfed with monkeys in trees
And elephants on the beach
Surrounded by dolphins
And turtles within reach

I've surfed during sunsets
And sun rises as well
Trippy seas and Trippy skies
As if under a spell

I've almost **** myself sometimes
When caught in a gnarly rip
Being dragged out to the big stuff
That aint no ego trip

When you can't see beneath
The deep grey sharky water
And the fish race away
Is it me for the slaughter?

But hang on, there it is
Thank you neptune and peseidon
Look out to the distance
there on the horizon

A little bump
It's coming near
A pulse of swell
It's almost here

I turn around
My stick I straddle
I face the land
And start my paddle

Then suddenly
It lifts me up
Propels me forward
Fills my cup

It makes me feel
so very awake
I jump to my feet
For goodness sake

I'm 100%
Right there in the now
Conjoined with nature
No interest in how

Just doing it because
I'm it's biggest fan
Loving it loving it
because It's there and I can

Already a treat
This gift keeps on giving
I put in a few turns
Life is so worth living

Then the wall gets top heavy,
It's the best feeling ever
Everything goes quiet
It's a sublime endeavour

I'm inside the wave
for a second or two
The green room, The barrel.
Deep in the blue

There's no feeling like it
I can't even explain
Wonderous, breathtaking
It's ******* insane

I pull out of the journey
Can't get any higher
Full of adrenaline
My brain is on fire

Riding those waves
Gives me so much pleasure
I guess like the pirate
Finding the treasure

The greatest way
To improve my emotion
Is to float about
In that big old ocean.

At the beginning of the date he wanted sushi,
I wanted a large pizza with extra cheese that sounded like, "No thanks, not hungry."
It was cold outside and it was raining
So naturally we opened up the window as far as it would go -
He quickly lit the panda candle near the window
as if the spark came straight from his fingers
And all I could think was, "****. Even with the wind the candle is still lit. This is my guy."
It was romantic and slow and I was a **** fool,
****** in
Feeling like I'm falling after four days.
A little conversation and some food later, I could suddenly make out the width and length of his eyelashes -
"Oh ****. He's leaning in."
His hand surfed the curves and waves of my hip,
My entire body felt like a magnet towards his and
Having felt it all
I chalked it up to friendship
While thinking and dreaming of my "friend" wondering how
How could I have been such a fool?
I broke his heart and mine too.

Warning: the government is reading your poetry!
(Metadata Mining This Site)


If to the world about, you are attentive,
You have imbibed the news that our governmental,
is exercising its parental abusive in-discretionary powers,
Purviewing and purloining our electronic communications,
Causing some to have worrisome palpitations

My life is on the boring side,
So welcome gents to look inside,
The surfed sites, the emails, hardly slimy,
But stay the fk away from my poetry!

Tis obvious from your midnight editing,
That my wordily, working body has been discretely
Simonized,
My data,
Googlized,
My poems,
Scrutinized,
A comma, a colon, a verb, out of place, capsized,
Little threads kept in door jambs, their alteration,
Your snooping presence, a confirming revelation

Will the words Rye Catcher be caught by a filter,
My mocking of Obamacare, be the transmitter,
That becomes a curiosity inflictor, a predictor,
Of your requited, on-this-sited, attentions?

Meta dating women, once a goal, worthy of attaining,
Meta dating mining of poetic alliterations, pertaining
To me and mine, a serious no-no, causing consternation,
Heavy percussing, voters, party swinging in self-flagellation

The information unwittingly provided on HP
Will be used to modulate the time and temperature,
Add certain chemicals in the liquids we drink
Like testosterone in erogenous zones,
Xanax in the air vents in the high schools and colleges,
Hell, they may even put fluoride in the water

Control the atmosphere, fashion styles, population size,
Disclose location to my enemies and my illicit affairs,
(Exposed, leaked to the NY Post's Page Six, to my better halving),
Keep the emotions checked,
Within acceptable parameters,
Especially of those *****, love sick
Senior Citizens, always ready to get down
When poetry-aroused

This narration of condemnation for espying
Will YouTube spread like a new flu virus,
Cause I know where you live and Iam,
Cell phone camera armed and dangerous
On  the Internet, your faces, posted

They riot-for-rights in Cairo and Istanbul,
President Obama, we have on good authority,
Your daughters support our rhetoric, no bullsht,
Watch your step, or on you, we'll sic the IRS,
Cause in the end, they work for *us,
Hold on, who's that knocking at my door?

Marveled over threads
Liked and posted
And even shared

Always controlling
The musty button that says
'Another tab, please!'

But then....
Your eyes wandered
Back to the task assigned

'Tic, tac' says the clock
Oh, now, you're in shock!
No more hitting the sack

Christmas for the buddhists


one day there was a young computer **** kid named Johnny Brown
who was only 13 years old, but he had these visions from one visit to a
department store sitting on Santa's lap, you see he wanted to start up
a site on the internet which was www.theredsantadepartmentstore.com
and he told all his friends and everybody laughed at him saying there is
no such thing as Santa and Johnny cried for days and that made his parents
worry and after several attempts they eventually came into his room, to see
what was the matter, and Johnny said, all the kids are laughing at me, just because i
believed in a web site to bring the magic of santa into the real worldy, and hid parents said
ok if you really think that it is the right idea, go for it, but we want to be in the loop, cause it
is dangerous for a 13 year old boy surfing the web without supervision, and Johnny went
about trying to get this website started, and he started with trying a few christmas carols
and not just kids either, he chose rudolph the red nosed reindeer and jingle bells and
silent night and mary's boy child and hark the herald angels sing and joy to the world and
christmas by the pool and when a child is born and he went into finding a way to get it all
together and then take videos of stuff relating to christmas like the local parade where he
took the photo and then did his commentary over the top of the camera, and after the
parade he took it home and did some editing and posted it on his website, and you know
he had about 5,000,000 hits and this made Johnny very happy as he decided to go to the
annual lighting of the christmas tree and he took some great videos of different singers
performing like the great galah and moby ****, and there was some great carols by the
choir, and then a great shot of the tree, yeah Johnny was having a ball and after thar he went home
to do some editing and then a nice man named Robert O'Callaghan who was 67 years old
who said he was the original Santa and it was a buddhist belief and Johnny really liked this guy,
despite his folks saying he is an evil buddhist cause he believed in enlightment, but Johnny
refused to listen and went to the Buddhist centre to meditate and Robert said to Johnny that it is ok
to have a website where you can put the magic into christmas rather than the ****** thing if Jesus
being born, and Johnny went home and posted that on his website and it caused an uproar with
a lot of churchgoers, this made Johnny's parents very angry with him, and they tried so hard to
close down his website but Robert got on the net to tease the parents to let him express himself
and they said he is our son and they said he is our son and he shouldn't suffer like that and Robert said sometimes it is good to suffer to prove a point in this world, but Johnny's parents said he is only 13,
he shouldn't suffer like that, so Robert went into Johnny's school and took Johnny out to say you
must fight for what you believe in and he told him the story of how his parents thought he was the
devil because he believes in buddhism but if you really want to keep this website happening you must
work on a speech explaining how this cansave the world, so he went into his room and surfed the web
looking for the right things to say for his speech and he first of all learnt about buddhism and he learnt they respect everyone loud and quiet, and there are some people who are Buddhists who love christmas for the peace idea, so he started to write his speech of what he learnt and he learnt that
buddhists believe in staying on earth and mending each blade of grass, which helps healing everyone,
you know christians just believe in jesus saves but what the real story is that story is that knowing there
is a chance that you can live forever will save the world cause Christians hate when people do evil things saying once a crim always a crim, and Johnny explains that Robert posts all his info on his
buddhism website and he saves more people than Jesus ever could, cause buddhists respect you
if you are consertavative or very loud, as long as you don't fight that is ok, and yes Robert says that
Buddhists think Christmas brings peace and it is handy to know Santa brings the spirit than Jesus does,
cause Robert was the original Santa Claus and he can bring peace on earth quicker than quicker than christians because knowing you will never leave this earth is good enough like if it is too late for them but if you can live forever you should try because it will be fun to beat death once and for all and i believe to start this website to one day bring the magic of Santa into the real world and really say that
buddhism is the devil, and the only devil is the phedaphiles who do harm to kids of this land, we need
the kids to be happy, christmas is about peace on earth and good will to everyone and staying on earth believing you were born before this life is sign enough to go on living life like it's a big adventure cause
you will never know what the future has in store, so just live and forget about what others are doing, after getting his speech written he brought it Robert who proof read and did a few changes and then said to Johnny yourself out, you can do anything if you put your mind to it, so Johnny went around from
department store to department store trying to get approval to set up a table to show people the buddhist belief of christmas and every department store knocked him back it ruins people's Christmas
spirit despite Johnny saying hundreds and hundreds of times that this could help the future but still christians were getting upset and were rioting for days saying evil is in the Browns house, they believe in buddhism and buddhists are evil and this got mr and mrs Brown very angry with Johnny but Johnny said, this is piece have a read, it is fun but the parents said no you should learn that you are disobeying
the christian code and Johnny said no my way is more peaceful cause Santa brings happiness to christmas and Jesus brings suffering, and the parents left thinking their son is disappearing and losing touch on reality, saying you are going to die one day and we have a place for you in heaven and Johnny being young and not knowing the buddhist code about peace said, **** heaven, even though Robert liked it when Johnny said that Robert said they sound like the devil preachers, and you need
to understand they are doing it for your own benefit but if you want to believe that, by all means spread
the word but remember buddhists aren't preachers, no it's not a religion either, it's a way of life, and those crazy christians need to understand that they are not forming the work of the devil, but you must understand your parents though they are just protecting you buddy, and on that Johnny went into his room staying there for days and was thinking of a speech to read at the carols by candlelight with everything he has learnt by Robert, and he threw out so many pieces of paper one by one, till he found out what to say and then he ran down to the buddhist centre and told Robert, and Johnny and Robert went on the net via email to get himself a 15 minute spot on carols by candlelight in there local district and  they eventually got an appointment to have an interview at 2.30 two days before to see whether
it is worthy or not and they weren't very friendly implying that they are big christian ******* who don't deserve any credit and they said leave it with us and we'll let you know and Robert and Johnny left the
office very nervous about it all and Robert went back to the buddhist centre and Johnny went back to his room to write a new buddhist Christmas carol which went like this
A ray of a candle which is lighting up the sky
on the people walking down on earth
and a silver tongue was placed
on the devil's spear like this
is the day when buddha is born
and then some monks come
glittering through the sky
and the buddhist chant is at a
volume all so high
and everyone come along
and cheer with us
this is the day that buddha was actually was born
so this is the time we celebrate this fantastic day,
you know Buddha respects Aussie American
british, africa, and the middle east and south america too
and also they help tonga, isreal, and taibet and
the great oceans of the world
and yes after many attempts to get that right, Johnny ran down to the buddhist centre and showed Robert the song and Robert said this is great, and i have some good news Johnny, we are going
to have you read your speech at the christmas carols by candlelight at 6-45, and bring this song with us, and we can see if you can sing this too, and when the day of the christmas carols by candlelight
approached Robert and Johnny right before gearing up for the events and Johnny's parents went as
well because if they think buddhists are evil, they decided to support their son in his beliefs and at 6-45
Johnny came out to read his speech and also sing his song and everyone in the crowd clapped Johnny
like he had just won an Emmy because really he really got his message across and everyone was happy from that point on, Robert felt good about being a buddhist and Johnny helped there once a week getting help understanding buddhist philosophies and learning new things as normal kids do, and
johnny's parents tried to understand more about buddhism to get on board themselves and after 3 years they helped at the buddhist centre too and everyone had a great Christmas, buddhist style.
the end

I fell from the bottle, landed at your door
unraveled before you I can't do this no more
Blindsided, triggered you lay me to waste
How am I gonna to get out of this place?

I scream at the wind my suffragettes prayer
For redemption, deliverance from despair
I run with the river, dive into the storm
Chasing transformation, to be reborn

I question your motive, do you understand?
Dry land falls, I'm washed up on the sand
Craving and clinging, gasping for air
You sit mostly in silence, do you really care?

Sweating the seas, aching for more
Resisting and wanting, fearing the fall
Grace is a mountain, life is a tree
I sit in nature, it breathes life into me

I'm ragged, exposed, I am here, I am now
I look for repose, it finds me somehow
The winds sweep the streets, storms overtake pain
I am searching for me, only I remain

I run with the river, I dive into the storm
Chasing transformation, to be reborn
Words tumble freely into your lap, onto the page
I cry, full of tears and anger, sadness and rage

But play me a soul song, sing me to spring
The rhythms of life let the insights in
You broke the tide, I surfed the wave
Daylight comes slowly, my dance is remade

Hi, my name is briansies the older sibling, oh yeah



You see I am a bit different to the rest of the world
They like drinking themselves silly, and I simply don't
I want to sleep while others are still out
I never took off to another city at the heat of the moment
Because I worry about what could happen
Instead of actually playing proper sport
I will just settle for backyard sports
And I will enjoy that a lot, oh yeah
My highest score in a single cricket innings is 846 n.o
And I try to keep my score above my younger sibling
And he will say Briansies, what are you doing
And I would say, I just want to be more popular than you
And he would hit me with his rhythm fist, hit me oh yeah hit me
Hit me slowly, man and hit me quick, oh hit me hit me hit me
I would say, do you like hitting me
And he will say, I hit you all night long
I hit you baby, all night long, and if you can't take it, man
You are a baby, waaaa waaaaa waaaaaa
Then I said to him, hi, my name is Briansies, the older sibling, oh yeah
Then me and my sibling, and my father went for an early morning swim
And we body-surfed and splashed each other, yeah we had fun
My sibling would say, this is unfair, and dad would say
Oh, poor little baby, our splashing is making you very tender and weak
Ooh we had better stop, don't you reckon
And I wanted to be a friend to my sibling, so I said
Hi, I am bop, Briansies and I am ready to bop with you, oh baby ooh ooh
I want you to be happy, because I like boppin' around going bop bop bop
And I go right to the shop, yeah, I am bop, the guy down the shop
My sibling will call me a ****, but it doesn't bother be, cause my name is
Briansies, the older sibling, oh yeah, and I am so cool, dudes
And that is what we want, just Briansies,

She accidentally looked back into eternity and it is telling her things. Constantly questioning whether it could have been on purpose. She wishes it had told her about the day that she went missing for too long. She is still missing. Missing so many things that happen and those as close as possible. She is missing them too.

She existed to be this close to missing everyone forever. Everyone missing her forever. Missing her orange kisses and purple thoughts. He left messages in blue in her thoughts. To see if it could make a shady spot in the bright yellow sun.  This is where they would sit and possibly lay down. There were so many shimmering waves in the grass that loose clothing rippled. Her dress was waving to clouds being emptied by the sunshine.

If they were to lay in bent grass blades could it be the last time. The last time the blades bent back and the feeling of beauty penetrating hearts couldn’t let go. The last thing they could ever want. No turning back. Time is bending the blanket.

Time decided to take some space to itself. To get back to nature and living with things we cannot stop. Life kept being left in the street with holes made in it by fear and hatred that is white. Life kept being told by whiteness that is was not real.

In this space that time took to itself the institution of white needed to become colorful like rainbows and hadn’t documented in its constitution that it needs to become different shapes and sounds that may be hard for it to resonate with while investing in such militant social systems of oppression overflowed from slavery in order to become a space other than time allows for a short duration yet brutally eternal and ending now as today unfolds and life proves it is real as time rips it apart openly and its institution of white judges itself into the panic of being so insensitive that vengeance has no other shapes, colors or sounds to choose other than violet revolt.

Violet made handprints in clay as a small child while reserving words for family that were taken from her. She smiled into the abyss of pleading that is too late for forgiveness. A silence of the white institution that could no longer be a burden in space for time to want anything to do with it ever again. Violet was intimate with the space that time took to itself. She nourished it with colors, intelligence, senses, shapes, love, merciless unforgiving power and purple thoughts were always encouraged.

Violet’s orange kisses burned into the early morning making the institution of whiteness a kind of blue. All that was left of it was confused and squinting at the colors of its new shape. It was demanding to know how long the spell had been on them and what to do now. Violent explained in senses and climate changing shapes of darkness and bright red lava and flashing pink clouds that there is no now.

part 2

I hope you like my shape of communication. I hope you can appreciate the brutality of the beauty in decomposing the unnecessary manifestation of apocalypse. The writer wants you to know its him. The narrator wants you to know its her. The sentence is time taking space to itself. Grammar is more of a blue than purple. The shape is the sense of confusion which is also the ****** of realizing eternity. The details are up to your imagination not mine or the author or writer or {[(black/white)[(black women/white women) + during slavery and after] + (Americans) (to make the *** trade of slavery possible) (political intellectually engineered institution)] [(mixed race) (native)(black African) (the rest of the world not isolating themselves in the social construction of whiteness)]} = having to create my own language because I don’t exist like I need to in the institution of whiteness (I have to feel it more than it feels me) that has a completely different meaning and purpose of imagined structure or patterns or symbols that outnumbers mathematics that are statistical boundaries invested in with the language that power is behind it somewhere that can only be found by using it.

Its uncomfortable for me to write the things I feel without feeling the need to prove their value to you. To build a relationship and undo it before we get to comfortable with each other. I know that you will never forget this during all your desperate imagination of reading and life. A thread that is undeniable through shapes colors and sounds but grammarless rhythm with more sensual texture than colonial organization and its friend decolonization making love instead of war most of the time.

So this again is why time has taken space to itself. The shapes of objectification in our solar system layering our consciousness with objectifying existence in space unimaginably vast and then gone all of the sudden. Actually assumptions are our specialty so we are intimate with them and emotive beyond anything real.

Vibrations sound like waves and look like shapes. She surfed on the shape of waves. She lives on the shape of waves balancing them with focus and intent. Of course she is going to use the most obscene language of the oppressor to react and demand the same brutal trauma is being redirected by her with exponential adaptivity as aggressively as colonialism on the institution of whiteness that changes little details of its shape to suit its foundation as the need for free labor based on her skin color and also the genes of her skin color to by association allow enslavement of light skin hims.  

Section 3

The flowers sat at the drum set to communicate spring. Some felt uncomfortable and decided to advocate for the drums.

“The drums are symbolic not just the symbols. Why should the symbols get the credit as being symbolic?”

As a gesture of listening, acceptance, and understanding. Guns turned to hyacinth flowers with jasmine bullets. The fragrance took violence over with a brutal ferociousness no one knew flowers had.

That same sunny day I became 6 shades darker in the growing power of the sun. That morning the same perspectives of my identity changed twice. In the morning the institution of whiteness (IOW) declared a false sense of solidarity with how I looked to them. That evening they ignored me like that never happened. They were squinting with confusion and nodding at each other.

The IOW was making a habit out of black identity. Settling with the concept that being black is having holes from their police and being silenced on streets or in the passenger seats of cars with their families. The IOW was making it a custom to advertise being black as dying.

A Rwandan orchid blossomed right at that moment. The IOW abruptly spit out their coffee and stood up together in disbelief. The sheer unexpected beauty became an unbearable pressure on their hearts.

The heart? Since this Orchid blossomed the shape of the IOS did not allow anyone but themselves to have a heart. This realization that the others had hearts was a serious need for a group huddle.

“These others with hearts we must assimilate with them as soon as possible!”

It might have been the deep fragrance of hyacinth and Jasmine, she thought aloud, or maybe the purple thoughts, but then again Violet played a huge part in paving the way for the blossoming Orchid. Cushioned by bent grass blades and a timeless blanket they intertwined in the shade of the bright yellow sun.

When the first sweet scent of summertime,
sifted through the sea-salt scented air,
so many things and everything
were bright, light and happy-go-fair,
the Summer Life with you was finally here.

As soon as our bare feet hit the wood bridge,
running from the road up over the dunes,
great grey seagulls squawked, dove and swoon,
we held hands together, one and one
made two,
dash-dancing across the shiny sand with you,
dressed and undressed in our Summer Life moods.

Colours like pinwheels spun like yarn,
flashed and clashed bright orange to blue,
you danced and giggled like a loon,
pulled me up and so close, so close
to you,
that I had to dance, I had to dance like a loon,
I just had to laugh and dance and laugh along with you.

How we played, we frolicked beneath the beachy sun,
belly-surfed upon the waves just for funny fun,
flicked flecks of sand from our sticky picnic lunch,
shared swigs from a big blue thermos jug
of fruity-fruit yummy punch,
sharing and caring beneath the Summer Life's sun.

By evening-tide the air grew cool,
you called me 'lover,' I called you 'fool'
-with a big ol' blanket draped over our shoulders,
we kissed and cuddled, growing much bolder,
falling flat back
upon the mighty mattress of sand,
feeling the mists of the waves licking our hands,
as the Man-In-The-Moon arose and shone,
to dance and laugh with us on the Summer Life's throne.

Generous coasting of the west coast
leaves me tangled in roots from roads
intersecting with waves surfed by
long blond-haired beach bums and
babes who pant at a muscular man
that pushups on the boardwalk
next to towels drying on the
handlebars of my bicycle.

I ride and ride and ride
through weather thought to be
unrideable by most cyclists
even if million-dollar-prize
tempted them at the finish line
and a set-for-life sponsorship
was promised to any and all
who could fight through the storms
of what I stoically battle.

No gear or goggles,
just legs of toned steel from
nights spent heating them over
a log-lit fireplace on spit
while keeping intense conversation
with lover across my gaze
until she escapes unexpectedly
into dreams, unaccompanied by me.

My legs are on fire,
no rain can extinguish them
and no slick roads
will stop my going.

Upon the waves there's being surfed,
And at cafes delights are served,
While the orange sun shares a ray,
At the end of the glowing day.

A summertime sadness and glee,
Is played alongside of the sea,
Who is rosy, pink as the sky,
As the beautiful waves pass by.

What is it about **** that attract men and women.

Is it the *******, the sights, the sounds or is it their fantasy.

Is it their neurotic or ****** styles of motion that leaves them at awww,
or the sizes of disbelief.

What is it that attracts men and women. Is it lonlyness, cellabsy or the lack of.

Is it ok to watch **** during a bachlor or bachloret party. With your partner for ****** arousment, a boring day, or because your parter no longer particapates, or just because.

Yes some hate it, yet most love it.

****, ****, ****, ****, ****, ****

Even the word **** sounds ***** yet ****.

Why is it hard for people to pull their eye's away even though they say it's disgusting.

****,
From the funny mustaches and the funny beats in the 70's. To the ****** implacations, to live websites.

There's teasing ****, soft ****, ******* ****, group **** (******), hurting ****, painful ****, **** beyond belief.

Me, yes I have watched **** but never paid for it.  Yes, I've surfed the sights. But why, curiosity ? Who's to say.

So there she was I
knew I saw Jennifer the
fairy in the sky

O she twinkled bright
left happy zig zags flowers
floating so freely

Anyway as I
sunbathed whilst dean fished ,I saw
a big willow tree

Oh my he looked like
had the **** , Jennifer made
his eyes go bosseyed!

She was trying to
round up the dragonflies but
they kept flying off

I was observing
as usual eating a cheese
and tomoto roll

Jennifer was bored
again so she surfed across
the pond racing the

mallards and swans , her
tiny wings tried to keep up
but she had slowed down

But Jennifer was
not going to lose , she loved
to win always..it

was a problem she
had since she was born , her best
friend Peter the Snail

told her on many
occasions to lose is not
a bad thing it can

be a good thing as
well , but she'd much to learn
For now she wanted

to win, she fired
her bow and arrow and hit
a passing carp fish

All of a sudden
The carp turned into a
dragon , she jumped on

his back and both raced
through the sky towards Mr
Willow who was still

in a grumpy mood
but I could actually see
a twinkle in his

eye , he waved his long
arms in the air , Jennifer
and the dragon

had won the race , the
swans and mallards huffed and puffed
not happy with her

winning , I looked at
her and smiled , by now my big
toe was hurting me

And Deans fishing rod
was bleeping , he had caught a
carp, but oh no it

wasn't a carp it
was a dragon,  Jennifer
had forget to turn

him back into a
carp , wooo me and dean run as
fast as we could back

to van where he drove
like a maniac to dodge
the dragon who once

was a carp , as I
looked out the rear window I
could see Jennifer

giggling , she was
riding the dragon with her
bow and arrow , I

thought to myself she's
a mischievous fairy
And I just smiled wide

I got home quickly
and me and dean had salad
and a nice cold drink

Dean still can't believe
we got chased by a dragon
Maybe one day I

shall tell him about
Jennifer the fairy and
I bet he'd smile too

:)

this girl I know
who always wears summer dresses
and a smile
lent me a book on awareness
but wants it back before
she goes to work in a conflict zone
for the red cross in september

she travelled in a big red bus
to a surfers festival in donegal
where she worked
in the big red bus café
on her breaks she surfed
smoked loads of ****
listened to reggae and ate falafel

last Wednesday she received a
back payment from the social welfare
and felt guilty about it
so she donated half of it to charity
bought donkeys for three Ethiopian families
spent a small fortune on ingredients for a friends dinner
and paid for my vegetable soup

she stopped at a chocolatier
to buy one solitary chocolate
and then ate it hurriedly
while she chatted to
a circus guy she knew
about a party she had missed when she
was on the big red bus

while skimming through books
in the spirituality section
wearing her summer dress and a smile
she said she felt sick
from having eaten the chocolate too
quickly and was sad that she hadn’t
taken the time to enjoy it

today the red cross sent her for
a chest x-ray

Morning pallor on a grey day
not a five cent shine
to the sun.

Bitumen hissed all night
trees tossed and tangoed
shuddered and split.

Navy clouds, blue with rain
surfed in from the ocean
racing on the wild wind
learning to scream.

The stones listened
moon listed and tried to find
a space in the cloud-tide rush
to quiet-light the gloom.

Morning Armistice on a pale grey day
of debris and displacement
refugees and leaf litter
surrender and detachment
silent and still
only a five cent shine to the sun

© M.L.Emmett

with a shrill cry we entered here,
we pitter-pattered on broken concrete,
we channel surfed the static,
charged with disdain and an
affinity for quickly dismissing
hopes for change,

with a shrill cry we entered here,
diploma in hand,
vocabulary expansive--
we tabbed the browsers,
waited for the buffer,
thought silent prayers,

with a shrill cry we entered here,
a jungle of shouts, busted fenders,
AA meetings, and white male kings,
waiting to mean anything more than seem,
and while we wait they talk polite-
ask us to line up against a newly white-washed wall,
the sunlight gleams over barrel, over trigger,

with a shrill cry we exit here.

I was 15 years old with trails
of white powder dripping from my nose.
I was 16 and never saw a sober day of my life,
I hid behind bottles of whiskey and ***,
bags of molly, and vials of kitty.
I was 17 and growing tired
of this life.
I was 17 and knew this
wasn’t who I was meant to be.
I was 17 with friends and
a pact to move to California and make
something of ourselves. I was 18
and kicked out of my mothers house.
I was 18 and living with a best friend.
I was 18 and found out they
were doing ****** and ****.
I was 18 and sick of
all the lies so I left.
I moved to Socal where
I surfed couch to couch till I
climbed my way to the Bay area.
I was 19 and lost.
I was 19 and went on a 2 month
road trip with my best friend and a guy who tried to ****** me.
I was 19 and
looking for myself. I made it
to New Orleans and back with only losing myself
more. I was 19 and fell in love
for the first time. I was
20 and met a boy whom I never
sought out to show me how to change myself until he broke my heart for
the very first time. I was
20 years old and let him enter my
tunnel heart   like the yellowbird  he is.
He made it out alive but for a second I didn’t think I would.
I did. I was 20 and
finding myself. I was 20 and getting myself
together after a broken heart.  
I was 20 and I found myself for the first time.
I was 20 and no longer wanted death for my birthday
I am now 21 and fearless.

Scene I


Rodolfo Graizani is seen sat in his new office in Addis Ababa .
A messenger salutes and hands him over a telegraph  letter saying " it is from Benito Mussolini."
Graizani reads the message loud

Dude,
We have done
Things good!
Hurrah at long last,
Using banned
Poisonous gas,
Ancient Ethiopia
We have subdued.

For our damaged moral,
We nurse after
The battle of Adwa,
The aforementioned news
Will be a nourishing food.
Slavish obedience
To fascism
In Ethiopia
We shall advance
Be firm
In our iron grip stance.

Hurrah, Ethiopia
Will be Italian
Infuse that
We can
With the dictates
Of  the gun.

(Graiziani stands up and walks in the room with a jubilant mood while the messenger watches him wide-eyed.)

Yes our subjects,
Ethiopians, serfdom
We shall teach
Hence summoning
Addis’ residents
Tomorrow
I have to make
A grand speech.
And also
I will
Coax priests
Slavish obedience to us
To subtly preach.

When our subjects lose
Their identity
We shall
Enjoy liberty
To siphon their wealth
Or property,
Also as a tactic,
Among citizens,
We should promote disparity.


Messenger what can you say?
Tomorrow will be my day!

(Messenger putting both hands on his head)

Good God
But I’m afraid
You may not do that
Unless every nation-loving
Ethiopian
You behead.

Be it luring them with a gold
Or threatening them with a sword
Unflinchingly, religious leaders
Will prefer to be a sod.
They will call down
On you a curse
If you try
To desecrate
Their abode,(Pope Petros)
You see
Preachers and the laity
Have a genuine faith
In God.
Also to
Fight back
They are bold.

(Graiziani pointing his finger towards the messenger)

Get out
Me don’t try
To flout!

Rather, let me practice presentation
To grab the audience’s attention.

Tomorrow putting on my uniform,
Bedecked with medals,
This message
I will drive home
Also the video footage
I will send to
Musoloni in Rome!

 Scene II
(Grizani dances into a podium. A messenger asks congregants to stand up for a tumultuous applause)

On nationalistic bombast
We have set a ban
Like it or not
Ethiopia is Italian
By the virtue of the gun.

(Among the congregants stands up a hoary-headed man)

We are citizens
Born free
Yield shall not we
To your crazy decree
Haven’t you read
How Emperor Twedros II
Lodged a bullet
Into his head?
Not to surrender!
Why don’t you look
After he fought hard
Why his life into his hand
He took.

How do you try
To subjugate
A nation,
With freedom that surfed
The tide of time to date?

(Angry Graziani answers)

How do you fail to realize
In the meantime Italy
Will help you
To civilize?

(Two two young adults(Moges Asgedom/Abrham Deboche) threw bombs )

Swish blast
Swish blast

Graiziani realized
How the breath
That could be his last,
Drew close fast.

To Graiziani
After it became stark
He narrowly escaped
A bomb attack
And his speech of
Subjugation
In Ethiopia is
An empty talk,
Still on the floor
He ordered attack.

 Scen III
(In front of the Yekatit 12 Martyr’s monument a small kid asks his father how Ethiopians regained their independence after the massacre ordered by  Griziani, who  soon after surviving the bomb attack, gave instruction for a cold blood retaliation.

The father dressing the hair of his child and looking him said patriots that  ambushed at the valleys and mountains of Ethiopia vowed to fight out invaders. They succeeded in doing so after a five year occupation of Ethiopia)

Waging a Guerilla fight
Shortly we shall gain our right
"Aiming from a tree high
We have patriots
That hit fighters’ jets on a dark sky!"(Patriot Belaye Zeleke)

“ As hitting a nail on the head
We have fighters
That pierces through
A tight tread.”           (Patroit HaileMariam Mamo)

“In the nook and cranny
And every gorge
We will wage
Many heroic fight
Enemies from
Our soil to dislodge”(Geresu Dukie/Jagama Kelo/Abbebe W/Aregai/Omer Semeter/Balcha Abanefeso...)

“We have heroes smart
With an artillery missile
That pierces artillery apart!” (Patroit Bekle Weya)///

I met a man.. that I believe..I have dreamt into existence.
He spoke life into my dreams, dried my tears, when I cried from my ever healing soul, planted lavender below my window sills, surfed the ups and downs of my complicated moods and patiently waits..

He's the constant, I never knew was real, the strength that keeps my back from bowing, the gentle...that soothes every doubt.

He's the description of what Love..is truly meant to be.

You may believe home to be an address,
You are wrong.
The co-ordinates I list as my place of residence,
Are subject to change.
As do the seasons,
As my health waxes and wanes,
As my job becomes a harrowing echo,

My home will remain,
Incorrupt,
Unblemished.

As the night-sky,
Glistens and reminisces.
Its nostalgic ribbon intertwines with my soul -
My heart,
Recognises its home.

The waves,
That serenely lap against the shore,
Leaving, once elapsed,
A maze of its belongings,
Like a Nomad on his journey.
Demonstrative tides of exposure,
Against our profane human culture,
To jumble together
In definition,
Our home and our belongings.

Does this translate,
That home is sovereign
Of worldly corruption,
And is therefore
Safe from life’s unpredictability?

Home,
It is a state of mind.

Home is the essence which coats your soul.
Home is the promise of peace.
Home could never be my place of residence,
For between hospitals and the couches I have surfed,
Void of worldly possessions,
I have never once been homeless.
I possess more than the man who cannot see
That a fixed abode in this world is not the true interpretation,
Of a phrase so bespoke.

As I look into the night-sky,
And reminisce;
As the waves serenely lap
Against the borders of land and sea,
I accept that no matter where in the world I may find myself,
The moon will still shine,

The waves will still sing soft melodies to the sand,
And my home,
I forever hold in my hand.

The song on the radio when you took
Your last suitcase out of my life
Was not poetically fitting
But still hurts all the same
You didn't give one last look back
But that doesn't mean I forgot your eyes
The last conversation didn't end well
But I remember your smile
You didn't leave on Valentine's Day
Your birthday, my birthday,
Or our anniversary
But that doesn't mean I won't cry next year
We never said forever
But I didn't mean so soon
I didn't change the locks
When I gave you space
I still draw your scars in my sleep
And wipe your tears from your cheeks during day dreams
But don't come back
I couldn't handle that
Don't text me at three in the morning
With whatever he won't do for you
I don't care how much tequila you've had
My heart is off limits
Your self esteem
Is no longer my responsibility
Civility not obligatory
I don't have quarters for your meter
And I am not happy for you
So don't come back
I couldn't handle disappointing you twice
We never had a song to dance to
Never lit a candle during ***
You weren't a long walks kind of girl
I'm not a mosh pit kind of guy
Poetry did not float your boat
And sailing is most definitely not the motion in my ocean
But none of that made sense until just now
We were a twister through a trailer park
A fire in the City of Bridges
Bullets in a slaughter house
Made lovers jealous
And parents regret
Built our foundation on sand
And said ******* to the ocean
Surfed tsunamis
And skied avalanches
And none of that seemed dangerous
Until just now
We complimented each other with insults
Threw stones in glass houses
Sang praises off key
Called it love
Smiled through an earthquake
Called it an ******
Talked through the silence
And called it fate
Which made sense until just now
When I said 'us' out loud
Held 'we' in my hands
And made what we were out of clay
Fired it in the kiln and had nothing come out
Which all makes sense, now

"It comes in waves"
More like it resurfaces
You know, because depression is always with me,
Just not always where you can see.
It is the angsty teen hiding in his room until the guests leave.
It is the bad poetry he keeps in a notebook under the bed.
It is the pack of cigarettes he buries in his underwear drawer;
Someone must search to find it.
Depression cannot come in waves.
If it could, wouldn't I be able to ride it out -
Or is drowning my punishment for not learning how to surf?
You see, because I have never surfed in my life.
Everything must wash over me.
I bathe in the ocean instead of the bathtub,
I scrub saltwater into my paper cuts until they are more painful than an open wound in an attempt to validate the sadness that stays with me.
Because even though it is nameless, it is as daunting as the dinner guest,
Hidden, yet embarrassing letters on paper forming words resembling a poem,
Intangible, but quickly filling my lungs and spreading into my bloodstream
Imitating pleasure and escape while slowly releasing dangerous chemicals
While exuding toxins that ****** my relationships and self-worth.
If depression were waves, I could find beauty in them.
Instead, my perception views dismemberments of values,
Shattered pieces of what "before" looked like:
Before the anxiety.
Before the embarrassment.
Before the shame.
If depression truly comes in waves, give me time between to learn to ride them to shore.

In summer, water is used
For many purposes.
It is swam in, played in
And jumped in.
It is also used to
Tube on, ski on
And surfed on.
Water is a necessity for summer to occur.
In winter, water is used
For many purposes.
It is played on, skated on,
And hopefully not fallen on.
Water is a necessity for winter to occur.