Different People regard Theatrics in different ways.
Theatrics, to me, are a celebration of mere existence, in ways.

Some people never seem to gain an appreciation for Theatrics.
Most save their Theatrics for special occasions, or vicariously bask in those of others.
Few embody their own Theatrics; identify with them, live through them.

The way I see it,
each day can be a reason to celebrate
with nicer than normal attire
for seemingly no good reason
or wearing some theatrical eyeliner
or to move with a bit of a dance from A to B
or to incorporate whatever combination of aspects
of theatrical expression.

You see, Theatrics, to me,
are a means for expression,
and, as an Artist,
nothing else can matter more
on a personal level
than expressing what it is
I have in my Mind.

Theatrics
needn't be restrained
merely to the Stage,
for the World is a Stage
and we're all playing our parts
so we may as well have a little fun
and celebrate each moment
with our own styles
of Theatrics.

But,
that said,
everything in moderation.

my childhood was removed from me
inside of a blue mustang
and what remained after that
I tried to barter off the highest bidder
but I grew,
not up,
but forward
further away
slowly releasing
hands of defiance
fists chock full of hopeless words
like anger, the flavor that aches the bone,
the cold kind,
more barren than the green of Christmas lights
glimmering off the icy veneer of a white picket fence
overeager, in the apathy of theatrics,
to strip off the remainder
because the empty feeling that followed
might one day
make a decent poem

Post-azure, cloud splashed sky,
washes with the suns descent,
breaking into melodies of sunset.
Fracturing into a blush,
the richness of the spectrum
makes itself known.
On a tangent of change,
amorphous clouds bleed
amber glow
and bittersweet combinations
of reds and yellows.
Vermillion streaks through,
and a few cloud folk turn titian,
like sumptuous surreal apricots
rotting in the sky,
that seem to augur
encroaching darkness.
Billows on the horizon
leak crimson,
like spilled wine on table cloth,
and pucker out
like blooms of flaming roses.
Fire refracted
coloured cousins of the sun
are dancing all about.

Here is the anthem
of wild transformation.
Here is cause
for quiet celebration.
Here at this fluent juncture.
Here at the closing of day.

The whole of the ocean below,
is the skies tremendous mirror.
It's reflection is variegated,
into variations a thousandfold.
Multitudinous, and ever differentiated,
distortions of above
ride the crests of waves.
Each apex is a new story.
Each new story,
just as soon as it is told,
comes crashing into trough.
Each finale is the ****** of beginning.
The dynamic roar
of the oceans ever-changing topology
is rife with meaning.

Colossal symphonic wonders,
the primordial song,
releasing upon: the uni-
verse continual,
sending the manifest
to move, with the give and strain
of immaculate design.

Here ensconced
between the safety of light
and the mystery of night.
Here at the oceans edge.

Above, shades of catalina-blue, in conversation
with the outer most cosmic-black
dismiss earlier brighter hues.
Tinged by the infinite nature of space,
the jeweled dome darkens.
Overhead, the first stars appear,
sky transparent to beheld blackness.

Luxuriant, pulling horizon, attracts
violet into it's unfolding theatrics.
Bloodied clouds turn purplish, then black,
a darkening rawness allures,
decaying with vivid beauty,
tragedies of a rouged romance
drug down into shadows play,
searingly alive, extraordinarily actual.

And then, the hush of dusk.
Darkness is felled, like silence.
Scintillating stars
strengthen in the nights
surrounding abyss;
giving radiance definition.

Dynamic Beauty
Lives In Transition,
Oppositions
Compliment.

I am the first born millennial grown in the digital garden from transplantation.

The data stream flows along with my bloodlines,

Divided, interspersed, like a lava lamp of my own identification.

A bloodline that once worked the fields, and now works the fields of existence,

A bloodline that made its pilgrimage to new land in order to satiate the body,

has now grown to satiate inquiries within the self.

I reflect upon those occasions where I have been told:

“why do you care about the state of affairs for them, you are not of them, you do not act like them

so

you can’t be one of them”

and I clench my tongue, forgive them father, they know not of what they speak”

“Perdonalos padre, no saben nada de que dicen”

The climate of academia is both inviting and yet marking, I feel connected to both intertwined

bloodlines, and markedly separate in a way neither will ever know

“mijo, él esta ******, no dice nada que él no entiende”

But I understand, my name, my appearance, my lineage, they all mark a separation of that cultural

heritage, a combination, a divider,

that lava lamp burns hot from the up down theatrics of where identity will lie

I am the new millennial

Expect us.

As an actor on the stage
Of a drama
Of a life
Of a musical
in the daily flux of time,
keep the curtains closed
a fixated audience
on lines withheld secretly backstage.
Continually crossing
frontiers \ feeding them the actions,
the right notes and rhythms
I move from one space to another-
no strings attached.
Today in this dry theatre
(the deserted harbor)
of my mind \the words lie on their sides
incapable of setting
to the sea
endeavoring to fill each one
with some resemblance of
normality

There are no blackouts for us
transitions; seemless
one waking daydreaming monologue to the next
no cut or redo
for me & you.

Deuterogenists.
Astrology and Escapology;
You dream and I disappear.
but it seems that we were casted together
This isn't stage fright- its fear.  

It's rude to say the extra's
weren't needed. But its true.
I guess the light always burned brighter,
when it was just us two.

Act I through to V
lasted our life
encore? no more.
I'll retire a gray fox and you my partner in crime.
Lets see what our final scene
has in store.

in my dreams, I fall upon the altar
time and time again, the dagger
piercing my heart, for you to witness me

One night, after she had one too many whiskey sours,
We sat on her beige couch, her legs sprawled over mine,
Swimming in a world of spins, beady eyes boasting sobriety,
Though her liver lasted five rounds with Boom Boom Mancini.
She pawed at my moustache, lathered thin with pomade,
And as her dainty lady fingers, delicious and thin, stretched outward,
Her nails, painted jack-o-lanterns, elongated into semi-sharp claws,
Her naked digits grew hairy, grey and tabby, somewhat shabby.
The arms stretched around my belly became legs of wobbly nature,
The breast that I had adored before, lost the curves,
Continuing down her back, alas to the ***, causing a prehensile shift,
To an archaic tail, one not nearly as inviting as the prior,
Trailing down her legs that used to be bare, neutered by Nair,
The follicles grew rigid, stagnant towers of black and white,
A coat of alley hardened fur now covered her whole self,
Matted with mud or something more foul, it carried down to her toes,
Now paws, unbeknownst to DNA, Scientists, God or whatever,
She was genetically manifesting her 6 year old, little girl aspirations.

But the face, O! The face, how it nestled deep in my nook,
The crook of my shoulder, burglarizing the warmth from my body for herself,
Swaddling in her makeshift womb, her face peeked up at me,
And like the least likely suspect in a line-up, I could not believe my eyes,
At a sight I did not recognize, one that could not, should not be feasible,
Her nose, once upturned with my drunken blather, was now wet, cold, and
Pink like her ******* scattered on the floor. Her whiskers
Mimicked those of my own, yet longer, stranger, like arithmetic to a baby.
Those supple lips disappeared completely, leaving behind a sand paper,
Rough grained tongue to lap at the bottom of my beard.
Her ears grew larger as if to hear a really big secret, or just
Big enough to hear the subtle purr of my heart.
The eyes, once splashed red with alcohol, now yellowed windows,
And the cries she emitted, from her little lungs bouncing around the box,
Emanated with more intensity than the most passionate bedroom theatrics,
Mewing and cooing her transition from female to feline.

I could do nothing but stare into my beer, for I knew what she was going through,
A twenty something woman, maternal clock ticking, finds refuge in
Little kittens, equating the cat to child, until it finally consumed her.
Her body changed, mind still the same, mouth smelling like Johnny Walker
And Chicken of the Sea.

Can't you feel my screaming heart?
I feel all yours and it's unbearable
To know everyone's intention may seem ineffable
Though my passion is emotion and empathy my art

Dwelling silent in a crowded room
To the right a pursuit of lust
And my left a lack of trust
Empty grins with their facade and doom

Another item has been stolen
My peers in an unknowing uproar
I see the culprits guilt pour
From his weary eye and coven

The ***** swoons the love of an unworthy patron
She gazes at me with a tempting question
Attempting to construct my envy and affection
My will is stronger than that seducing notion

The lonely man makes a joking inquisition
All the rest see it as a laughable gesture
I look with sad eyes to see his slouching posture
He wants to die in his pathetic position

The muscle bound dunce smacks his lips
Glorified as the acrobatic conversationalist
Strapped men in shackles and girls can't resist
His compensated shortage of yays and yips

A quiet smile looks on with a perfect mask
Playing pretend with an inglorious burden
Faking a life inside of her chaotic garden
Of hollow theatrics in which she basks

There goes the lad with his flippy hair
The little ladies want a picture with the fellow
Oh you're so rad the flocking lasses bellow
And, you wonder why I don't seem to care?

(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 25, 2015)

The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions.

The tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.

It's late at night and I'm forty years into a very thorough and consumerist collection of the vast ouvre of Cherilyn Sarkisian, 60s street urchin turned enshrined Hollywood A-lister -- iconic up there with Halston, Bianca, Liz and Jackie.

Paper and vinyl and electromagnetic tape, discs and cassettes and books and blankets and dolls and perfumes and magnets. Words and music and ideas every one purchased from corporations and strangers and seven 7-inch picture discs bartered online from a friend I didn't know I would one day meet.

It's late and I've been the Wrecking Crew premiere, sitting in the middle
of an Albuquerque scene of sorts,  the documentary opening at the local art house with me wedged between California-Sound fanatics. I'm sitting next to an oldies DJ everybody in town seems to knows but me.

The DJ laments how political the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is, (but then aren't they all?), and how Chubby Checker has yet to be inducted. As I see Cher self-depricate through the movie, I know she's an outsider to even this outsider culture. And if we peruse the halls rosters, we can easily make her case. But omissions always mean something. My basement full of memorabilia tells me what ain't right. But that's the bias talking. The same bias that gets The Byrds inducted, those who we've just learned didn't even play on their own records, or the theatrics of Alice Cooper, or the season of Ricky Nelson, or the artifice of KISS, Madonna....I've spent a fortune but just wait until the book comes out.

Post-purchase rationalizations, aren't they all?

Am I but a joke to you?
Am I so funny or rather, Foolish
that you cannot help but laugh at my 'theatrics'?

If I am, am I an inside joke
utterd by those who whisper under their breaths
while huddled in corners giggling?
Or am I the laughing stock of this little world?
The village idiot.
Am I dressed up as a clown behind your eyes
with a big red nose and a plastic smile?
The jester fool who's just a tool
you use to feel better about yourself?
Or am I that thing that makes you laugh when in solitude
or rather, loneliness at the thought of me?

If I am, then at least I can feel content
knowing who or what I am
Knowing I'm fulfilling my purpose
and that I'm doing my job to the best of my ability
for I am willing and able.
I ask of only one answer from you.
You who are quick to point and pass judgment.
You who are like a spinning compass lost without direction.
You who are walking in the abyss of darkness
holding a candle with no flame.
You are the same one who attempts to kindle a flame under water.

Do you know who you are?

He took the stage for a one-man show
A character of a hundred roles
Too many a script but he sure knows
To take a bow when the curtain falls.

A storyteller extraordinaire
In his endless soliloquy
Over a thousand and one affairs
Of all his quixotic reverie.

Two hands he proudly speaks at best
Which work like that of twenty men
From different realms of Sciences
Philosophy and Arts he studied them.

But what wound could cut so deep
That he can fool everyone but himself?
Before he drowns his sorrow to sleep
He hides his monsters behind the shelf.

He took his mask and off a smile
That he wore to get himself a crowd
And asked the mirror for quite a while
Did all the theatrics make him proud?

He was the Jack of all trades
Certainly not an expert in one
And his own game of charades
Made him a master of none.

Carefree gum
Next to the schoolyard children
Who blaze in the mid-afternoon
Summer of dumb love
Sun

In the hour or, is it
The minute
That youth died so fast?
Our hair grays
Our eyes grow dim
Even the light
Cannot bond us closer
To our next of kin

What is in a word?
What is in between sentences
But pleas of insanity,
Pleas of desperate repentance?

Shallow are our
Graves

Dirt is heavier
Than air

The king and the queen
Never match
They will never be
A pair

Tearing through
The theatrics
Of college level actors
Money on the brain
Fame on the skin
Feeling tearing them
Limb from limb

Scene-rated the players
Wave their paychecks in the air,
Tear them to little pieces,
Making confetti out of their
Thought to be
Hard work

I turn the table
See the faces of the former parties
Hear the tirades
Of lost giants shot dead
On forgotten battlefields

And the only thing
That seems to be missing
Is that one and only
Upside right feeling

as with any plaster work, or draping muscles and bones and
organs in skin - i knew i reached a zenith of some sort:
forever introspective, that chance momentum
that never reaches a museum of retrospective
finalised banalities -
and with that's happening in America,
i get a chance glimpse into that part of the world
so bogus, so *****-like, so haphazardly
put together - the chance to see the rats (artists)
jump ship and head to Tangiers, Paris, London
(for the pillars of the movement to come,
London especially, but might i suggest Edinburgh?
the capital of the offshoot that's to come
from Scandinavian novels?) -
i wouldn't suggest heading to Prague -
or Budapest - never to tourist hot-spots, obscurity is
what you need - Edinburgh out of season,
then the theatrical circus isn't there -
***** poetics: poncy monologues and Annabel
art-house flea markets... but that's the beauty,
flea markets in France, charity shops in England...
but i did exhaust this one musical avenue,
i dropped the ᚱᚢᚾᛖᛋ - it got boring after a while:
all that charged up mythological feeling -
the way we always wanted: myths to feel with,
to eat, rather than the sterile scientific facts...
i've learned enough to later ditch them,
even a Professor of Chemistry will have a postcard
of Edward Hopper's painting by his desk,
that window to view the world that doesn't
necessarily encompass sun moon and constellations...
how anyone would be foolish to scrub off
some inspiration from such things bemuses me,
the lowest of the low of poetic expressions is
sung to things that manage too much: the moon
and the sea tides, the sun and the seasons and
phototropism - it's a double edged sword...
only from one art to another do we get to see
our labourers of attention, else the same old deficit:
god... who in his glee took offence at anyone
having more awe-inspiring sense to please such
things... no alone can you master contemplating
both the beauty and the utilisation behind such
objects as a single man... however well...
it's impossible... you're sharing the bronze platform
with those that simply wrote of the shallow
beauty, and those that found these objects
were not simply aesthetic, but meaningful in
the machinery of things... it was never up to
us to find that electric genius of combining the aesthetics
with the machinery as one...
for in that sense god is a form as fraction
of 9/1, 8/1, 7/1, 6/1, 5/1, 4/1...
the fraction of wholeness... a complete set to start with...
man has already proved the limit as a fraction
with the base 3... 9/3, and that didn't really end well...
at best man is composed of a fraction base of 2...
by sharing the world through marriage to a woman,
or through a learned devotion, a crumb of what a woman
is, a philia (love) of his interests, a soloist voyage...
some just say: you will either take to being faithful
to philology and yourself as its devotee,
or you'll take up a wife... oddly enough chemists are
defilers of marriage having any purpose other than
to distract... but as i said: you can rarely write
decent things when trying to admire celestial spheres...
more ambition comes from the distraction of the zodiac
"prophets" and astrologers... a poem about the moon
is just a poem that is levelled with a poem
about a dustbin... but hey... Top Cat lives in the dustbin,
Neil Armstrong bopped along the lessened gravity
surface... but which is easier to acquire for a smile?
Benny... cue the violin theatrics of lamenting to a comic
end.
well... we have to juggle each other's impressions,
taking at hacking the raw meat will not give any of us
medium-rare barbecue steaks marinated...
taking the moon as something else is: nice...
and you know how nice things end up as... as tacky
suburban *******... if you're going to tackle the
thing with all the rawness... i'd first spend looking
looking at that thing of your attention in a graveyard...
just to get the feel to the idea: well... my fellow daisies
sniffed from the roots up would probably have
said something sulky similar.
but it's like that, you get to exhaust certain musical avenues...
i'm currently at a period where i have enough
stash of jazz records to rekindle my interest in it...
on today's menu? the real McCoy (McCoy Tyner,
Joe Henderson, Ron Carter and Elvin Flynn -
Flynn makes his mark, even though not the star
of the album, Art Blakey has a match) -
then onto the tragedy of Sonny Clark with his
cool struttin' alongside Art Farmer, Jackie McLean,
Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones...
i must admit that after watching the film whiplash
my ear-buds staged a coup to move from a certain
type of music into this... and even though
i already said that the climate in America at the moment
is very a second attempt at a Beat movement...
it's very much different... i guess jazz makes all the sense
in a pure urban environment...
jazz and urbanity, the hipster parties where wine flows
like poetry and people get to do their wild marijuana
******... but Bukowski changed everything
by bringing a taste of the classical into the scene...
it feels just like that these days...
there's no jazz on the radio...
going back to watches and radios, mono-utility things
that are the glamours of the inoffensive cluttering of a room...
no digital screen... the radio position at the back
of my head, behind me, the little fly-eye Rubik cube
ahead of me...
that's the odd thing with coming with jazz these days...
it's like Bukowski in the shadows of the beat movement
back when it was the beaten track...
so i said that jazz and urbanity are perfect partners...
well... take jazz from an urban environment and put it
in a outer-suburban environment, in a place
about 30 minute walk from farming fields with bulls
and horses... foxes the thieves rummaging in people's
trash... and... as classical music took to
teaching us the language of celestial bodies,
Holst... in this kind of environment jazz does the same...
jazz becomes equal to classical music with celestial
bodies... i'm just wondering if there are enough
instruments to arrange the solar system...
Mercury the Trumpet...
         Venus the Double Bass
Earth the Piano
                       Mars the Drums
Jupiter the Tenor Sax                                   (comparatively,
                Saturn the Soprano Sax                using a Holst
                                                           ­        schematic, the reverse,
                                             yet citing Jupiter, not as a planet,
                                           well, the bellowing voice of paternal fury)
Uranus the Clarinet
                                           (takes sheer magic to play that thing)
so that just leaves us with an Neptune as either
   Alto Sax or Trombone...
but that's how jazz morphed since it last came across
poetry... someone stole it from its urban environment
of busy streets and ugly manners and quick quick snappy
and the millionth time i could compare it to a spontaneous
encounter with someone in a bar... jazz lost its cool there...
people said the same thing about jazz
as Kaiser Joseph II did of Mozart... "too many notes"...
translate this urbanity into an outer-suburban environment
and put it against that kind of backdrop?
well... personally, there are just enough notes in each piece...
you looked outside the window? you could hear
a **** from a mile away and no tree would even sway
in nodding approval even with a galeforce wind slapping
them... jazz lost its synchronisation with the urban environment
it emerged from... but in so doing, it managed to mature
like good wine on the outskirts of large cities,
where it literally became the only thing that could ably
make a Kandinsky moment from semi-detached houses.
NEWSFLASH... what is this concern about art being
subjective? i don't see where these arguments go...
i thought art was about revealing the intimate,
not revealing the objective shallows of a method...
of limited scope like any philosophical systematisation...
if Christopher Columbus ever did things
objectively he might have discovered Lisbon or the Canary Islands...
art can't be objective... trying to argue that art is
"only a subjective" expression... well, if it was to be
a "greater" expression objectively, an artist would
walk into an art gallery, take all the paintings from
the canvases, and turn to the public and say:
now let's see your subjectivity, otherwise go ponce
off the art critics to take something they said to your
date about how: the light contorts the features of expressions
blah blah blah blah blah... the point of art being
superior as a subjective vehicle is so that i can feel someone
else's feelings... as opposed to thinking someone else's thoughts...
art is the sensual, not the premeditated dogmatic funeral -
which all philosophers attend: they're objective to the
point that they're afraid of having a personal attachment
to their outputs - they will hardly ever want to invite
a criticism of their objectivity, because they're such emotional
paupers - they fear criticism of their subjectivity to such
a point, that you can simply look at their pronoun usage
strategy, they really do use these words like kings -
but when Mozart is criticised by the Kaiser... he thought
nothing of it... he actually thought, nothing of it,
perhaps his vanity was wounded, but his virtue wasn't...
which is why he remains with us...
for the fatal wound incurred is not that of virtue,
but that of vanity... and true virtue is unafraid of criticism,
there's this cognitive blockage that enriches the
heart and leaves the mind blank... the sort of blank
that accommodates the Pyramid of Vanity:
bishops, priests, doctors, kings, queens, portrait artists,
Versailles... such things are so ****** void of anything
but scare-mongers, sycophants, leeches and finally tourists...
for whatever you take from the realm of Hades,
there's a stamp-duty on each precious element from that
realm... each thing is stamped: worthless...
you couldn't extract penicillin from Hades...
changing gold into a ring is worthless if such symbolism
of a union of monogamy end with the ring being
nothing more than a thing disputed over the divorce settlement.

"O!
That the earth
Had to be given to
You
This Way"* - Charles Olson
                
Impermanence is romantic because you
have to make the most of love
while it's still there.

Music doesn't play for birds anymore.

I'm having a conversation with myself
that has never stopped, and honestly, I want him
(the other guy) to shut up!

Recounting recent Vancouver,
humid commercial streets all lit up in midday
cafes cafes cafes
Sweet Cherubim with it's tobacco free cigarettes
and appearance of smallest India!
Traincarts full of familiar faces as time makes these tracks easier to travel.
My shoes are stained with fences, Seagulls do nothing but
complain and **** beautifully!

Here I am now, April 16th, Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal, I can smell the overcast and the expensive perfume behind my seat.
We have the French tourists, Chinese grandmothers,
and millenials wearing thick red lipstick, hair braided back
"What the heck"
to something by the SNB (more coffee)
read Gerry Gilbert's stuff, continuing "MOBY JANE" and it's
refreshing to be engaged with a local poet who makes
direct references to
Nanaimo, Vancouver, Victoria, etc.

Wind is calm today,
I find most poets go into the details of their daily lives and perceptions, while I've made it a habit to try and write about everyone's lives all at once, even when I don't know a **** thing about them (but that's the most interesting part to me)
anybody could by anybody else
who's to say?
I bet I am not as interesting as some may think,
I bet I am not as interesting as I may think,
I can't land a solid date!
aboard the last ferry I saw someone with the face of Andy Warhol and now I see someone with the hair of Andy Warhol.

OK OK
Back to Vancouver,
shorts while it rains outside (not me)
Gastown tangerine reflections off buildings &
my friend points out the non profit office she works in weekly/
10 floors or more of archaic steelwork/heavy foundation/smoothed edges/copper ceiling.
I hardly miss the smell of this place (or rather some areas of it)
the ***** and suited cologne, frequent pizzerias, vintage two-floor aged wood shops, perspiring neon Granville hysteria, Vogue Theater advertising a future appearance by Parov Stelar, I think Robin Pecknold was here recently as well but hell if I can remember the comings & goings of everybody!
Raga band plays beneath the window cleaners one year earlier emitting
audible visions of Calcutta's disorganized theatrics.
Some of these skyscrapers look almost imaginary in their modern sheer.
Glass and more glass with solar panels added in/absorbed heat and people's despondent attention.

Big blow-ups of spectacular strangers, *** is in high demand and marriage has become commodity///

"THE FUTURE IS NOW
COME AND CATCH IT BEFORE IT LEAVES WITHOUT YOU
AS IT WILL APOLOGETICALLY,
INNOVATION/WIRES UPON WIRES/LOSS OF CEMENT/A CEMETERY OF GLASS PANELS AND **** ADVERTISING THAT CUTS OFF TOO QUICKLY TO READ"

"EACH AND EVERY CHILD IS LOOKING UP AT THESE MODELS AND FALLING INTO THE MESH OF SURFACES AND FACELESS BODIES/NICE JAPANESE CARS/THE KIND THAT DON'T NEED GAS OR EVEN DRIVERS"

"WE'RE ALL LIVING LONGER AND DYING EARLIER/WHERE IS IT HAPPENING NOW/WHERE WILL THE RECENTLY WED GO FOR SECLUSION? WHERE WILL THE OLD GO TO RETIRE WITHOUT THE FEAR OF BEING FORGOTTEN AND ABUSED BY THEIR FAMILIES AND CARETAKERS?"

"WHERE IS THE COLOR ON THE CLOCK?
DON'T EVEN GLANCE AT YOUR NEIGHBOR/
WE'RE ALREADY BEHIND BARS \\"

"WHERE IS UNIVERSALLY PREFERABLE BEHAVIOR?
WHERE IS EDUCATION?
WHERE IS MY SELF
AND YOUR SELF?
WHERE'S THE NEXT TRAIN TO MATERIAL RELEVANCY?
CAN I FIND THE ADDRESS IN THE PHONE BOOK?
DO I REALLY HAVE TO WALK THAT FAR?
**** THAT!"

"MY FINGERS ARE WILTING/
FLOWERS ARE DEFENSELESS AGAINST AIRPLANES/
DINERS ARE GOOD FOR REST STOPS AND NOT MUCH ELSE"

"HEY COWBOY
YOU DON'T WANT THOSE FILTERED POISONS
YOU WANT THESE ONES!"

"HEY DARLING DOES THE RING FIT THE EGO?"

"HEY ******* WATCH MY BUMPER!"

"I FORGOT TO FILL IN MY TAX SHEETS ANOTHER MONTH IN A ROW THEY'LL FINE ME AGAIN"

"HOW DO YOU DEFINE "UNIQUE"

"I CAN'T HEAR MY COMMERCIALS OVER THE VACUUM CAN YOU PLEASE KEEP IT DOWN"

"THE BIRDHOUSE FINALLY ROTTED TO THE POINT IT'S FALLEN APART"

"I CAN'T AFFORD MY DAUGHTERS PIANO LESSONS I WISH I WAS A BETTER FATHER"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T TAKE MY CAT HOME WITH ME TILL I PAY UP FRONT?  I DON'T HAVE THE MONEY RIGHT NOW/YOU'RE KEEPING HIM AND CHARGING ME PER NIGHT?
'no sir if the cat is young we usually find a way around euthanasia'
'thank god for that'"

"CAN'T WAIT TO GET TENURE/
ABOUT TIME"

"A SALES MAGAZINE RECOMMENDED TO ME PASTEL LITERATURE IT WAS SENSELESS AND LACKED IN ANY INTELLECTUAL VALUE BUT SHOULD I BE SO SURPRISED?"

"MY HOUSE IS GOING UP IN VALUE! now how can I implement this value to my life?"

"BUY NOW/SAVE MORE/SPEND LESS/
PAY OFF YOUR LOANS EARLIER/
WE ARE NOW /CLOSED/"

An Orca is alongside the ferry,
it's a lovely sunset beyond the series of islands to reach Schwartz Bay
this afternoon. I put the book down, stretch myself out on the seat, arms relaxed to my sides.
I only write the poems I don't need to think about.
Here I am, so distant from shopping carts
or drums or physical isolation, people talk of travelling
to New York and Italy, a group of young girls console their friend who's being bullied (I have a bad habit of eavesdropping)
There's people snapping pictures of the whale, now stopping as it
returns to the blue mirror.
Days never tie up their loose ends, instead it's up to the day after that, and so the next one, yadayada.

Suddenly the weight of this year floods in,
a specter of eager fields, goodbyes,
and leaving myself behind.
Where am I going?

****** soothes the aching,
I learned that trick from you.
Don’t bother with the counting,
that’s all theatrics, what matters is the blow.
You play something loud enough; you screamed
you can’t hear the imperfections.
Throwing my Plath books out the window
you murmured,
Talking about death means you aren’t ready.

Your silver has turned my fingers green,
for the last time. Until the next time.
You bruised my lips with a kiss
Now it will hurt every time you try to forget me.
Walking away, my hand caught in a doorjamb
you slammed it shut.
Broken fingers can’t hold on to anything,
you promised.

The phone call only confirmed what I already suspected, and I didn't have to be told what Cello wanted done. Odd guy that Cello was, all theatrics and shoulders in person, but smooth as the Bird* when it came to business. For all his panache though, we didn't exactly get along personally, but worked well together for some odd reason. I trusted his ability to read a situation and I guess he trusted me to keep my mouth shut. I wasn't quite sure yet why I was watching these two, the woman known by various monickers and nameless fedora guy. Oh well, I'd find out or I wouldn't, either way Cello would have his information to compare with whatever I found out that night. They crossed to the other side of the street, which was empty, so I hung back a bit. It was raining that perfect rain, just hard enough to cover footsteps but not enough to cover voices above a whisper, so I could hear them murmuring to each other. I'm the kinda person given to introspection I guess, so I wondered about them as we paced along, presumably to his apartment (I already knew where Wanda/Countess etc lived). It all seemed out of place, almost staged even, like it was for my benefit and I didn't even know it. Snatches of conversation here and there didn't help at all. Mention of politics, typical though, who wasn't talking about politics in those days? Something about a deposit box somewhere and a key held non situ. That peaked my interest but there was no context, nothing to go on. They turned a corner and out of sight, so I crossed to their side as quick as I could without making too much noise and crept up to the corner. Peaking around I saw them standing under a streetlight in front of a boarded up curry shop. I didn't understand what I was hearing at the time, and to this day dearly wish that I had lost them that night.

"...wondering why you're here is all. Things are fine. I haven't had to use the box in months, the whole thing is paying for itself. Sure there've been hickups, but nothing I couldn't handle." She must've known him, I realized, Wanda was standing too close for them to be strangers. Just one more thing I misread that night. "That's not why he's here," said Fedora. She grabbed his lapel and shook him a bit, not hard though. "Don't **** me around like that Alan! Who'd they send to eyeball me?! I'm not just some stupid little girl ******!" Fedora, Alan apparently, gently took her hands off his coat. "Nobody thinks you can't handle it, and they didn't send anybody. I told you, he's here already, wants to make sure those Rot Kappelle ******* don't start any crap with you and your people. The op is still yours, he's just keeping an eye out." Wanda had stepped back at the mention of whoever "he" was and put a hand to her mouth. "I can't believe Silas came here for me," she said, shaking her head. "Who all did he bring?" Alan looked like he just ate something nasty. "Arthur and his group of misfits, no idea why so don't ask. Can't stand those *******, but they're good to have if it gets nasty." Not a single word of this made any kind of sense to me at all, but that didn't much matter at the time. Something was going on though, this Silas guy I had heard of here and there, but never anything solid. There were so many factions and movements springing up all over the place, it was hard to keep track of them all, especially the coalition people, which these two were I guessed. As for "those Rot Kappelle *******", of course that was Cello and the rest of my bosses, whose names I didn't have any inkling of. This was freelance, contract by contract, so I worked alone except for my connection with Cello and of course my own unaffiliated contacts. Their conversation continued along the same lines for a minute or two until Wanda dropped one more choice line. "What about that crazy hippie chick that's gotten so popular? I'm losing people to her, all that crap about love and positive social change and how we can make headway by disobedience and negotiation." "Pretty sure that's another reason Silas came here in person," responded Alan, "It's a problem we need to handle before things get out of hand. Look, it's starting to rain harder and my room is bugged, so that's out. Silas told me he'd find you once he gets a feel for things here in the city, so don't go looking for him. I'll be seeing you around...." I was already gone by the time Wanda came back around the corner, Cello had to get that information as soon as possible. I was sure I'd be seeing one or the both of Moose and Squirrel again later on that night anyway.

There is no God
If there were, every smell would be sweetgrass
and lemon.

and

If there were not,
we wouldn't have noses.
So there it is.

It must be that
I failed to notice the shrinking days,
the ever smaller liaisons,
the patches of silence.

Then there came the equinox.
Everything was eight hours long,
and you were nowhere in sight.
Who is responsible for that?

If my skin is soft to the touch
and unwrinkled
if my hands work faithfully
and my heart also,
then I must be blessed.

If I have my heirloom ring,
if I have a blightless history,
if our galaxy is still cold in the
right places, and hot in the
right places, then I must be blessed.

And if I remain troubled
with all those gifts -
then I am doubtful, sour, ragged.
Not worth the love I crave.

I am a child at a magic show,
second-guessing the theatrics -
There he is, behind that screen,
with a dove and dowsing rod.
With a tiger, and a cage, and a key.

So I am troubled-
it seems that everything came
in the lapse after a kiss,
where everything which could be touched
could be ignored.
Then the kiss was gone -
and there was the world again
stark and unholy,
bright and blue as a bruise.

How brutal it is to live
on that third planet under the
sun, behaving poorly. How failure
meant nothing, in that orbit.

How brutal it is!
never to face the thing that sustained us
(not even to thank it)

There it was -
Among lost flowers
And drained cups of espresso.
Among corrupt cabinets,
And torrid affairs.
Among the soldiers and the artists,
Among the philosophers,
The drag queens and the disasters,
And T.S. Eliot and his mermaids.

There, in a smoky haze
Of toasts and time,
I found meaning.
Friends, lovers, actors,
Huddled together one cold October,
Not for pay, not for fame.
Drawn together merely to drink our fill
On the intoxicating elixir of humble creation.

It was there,
In those chilly nights
Of backyard theatrics,
In the raw camaraderie
Of presenting art for art's sake,
That I found myself,
Whole and true.

So many plays and shows
I have oft participated in,
And many days have passed
Since that blissful October,
But the vivid memory forever remains
Of the perfect cast of players bound together
In the pure glee of organic imaginings
As we explored the dark against the light.

Did we know?
Did we comprehend, then,
The magnitude of beauty to be found
Within the ties that held us together?
Perhaps the rest never did quite feel the current
Of the electric wonder we evoked beneath the stars;
Not only in our karaoke-laden performance,
But in our offstage whisperings and antics -
Friendships forged in a campfire flame.

I cannot speak for the others,
But as for myself -
A girl now disillusioned
By Louisiana cynics
And toxic hometown politics -
I am nostalgic for those nights
That I spoke of Michelangelo.

Theatrics, that is
all a girl like me
needs. Theatrics.

Come to me,
bright and morning star,
Mother, Venus,
pray for your daughter.

I'm in rhinestones
fixed against my black dress
of whoredom--boredom!

Who do you work for?
The Lord of the Grand Display,
Theater! Baby, blue fire!

Advocate for the world around us,
We are the only things left,
to hear our voices heard,
but the throats of our souls left parched.
I can only sit back and bask in privilege,
while i'm encased in invisible shackles,
and the person to my right, chained to me as well but just blissfully unaware.

We are together in mind
a connection, but it is lost because there is no Wifi.
We are together physically
a presence, that is unseen because the daily zombie grind pushes on.
We are together spiritually,
a thread, that is closed because we don't see a human.

And as the veil stays while we sip our Starbucks latte,
could you imagine if the curtain fell?
The pain rushes forward, and a suffering of another is felt.
The world we have lived in isn't what we are living for,
but designed for us, and it hides the suffering in a department store.

The theatrics is over now,
It's time to close up the play, remove the backdrops and settings,
see each others life in a new way.
Pulling back the curtain to see more is a hard thing to grasp,
because you're pushed from your comfort zone,
to see who we truly are.

I don't wear black clothing (when I do)
because I think it'll make me fit in with 'cool' people,
I wear black because I like it.
I enjoy it. I think it's rad.

I don't wear black nail polish on my fingers and toes
because I think it's 'cool,' or that I want others to think so,
I put it on because I like the way it looks.
I like the chipping that happens;
I feel it's a microcosm of Time, itself.
Nail polish exemplifies Wabi and Sabi.

Besides, I have quite the affinity for black.

I don't wear black eyeliner (when I do)
because I think it makes me so metal,
or because I think I need makeup to look good,
I wear it because I enjoy the theatrics
and I like the way it makes me feel.

I don't have the style I do
because I want to associate with
Goths, Rockers, Steampunks or Metalheads;
I have the style I do
because I genuinely like the way it looks.
It just so happens that I get those labels
because people like to put people in boxes.

I don't do what I do
because I want others to notice and like me for it, if anything,
many others will simply mock and make fun of me for it,
but, ironically, much of that spite and disdain
merely fuels my relished rejection
of modern cultural normality and gender roles.

In times of identity crisis, how weird is it to self-identify?

I do what I do
because I like to do it,
because it makes me happy;
because everything is a way to express yourself,
if you only allow it to be such a medium,
if only you find things to use as such mediums.

I see it as Art for the body,
somewhat poetic and transient;
make of it what you will.

It's truly too bad
everyone misconstrues expression
based on their own psychology,
even me. I do it too, though I try not to:
I am not exempt from my own critiques;
I am, in fact, my closest frame of reference.

At the end of the day, though,
you just have to do what you like,
for people and words shall fade
but it is what you have within that stays.

My ex-girlfriend and I used to play this game, I guess we made it up, called Sing That For Real. So at any time, when one of us said "sing (a song) for real" the other person had to sing it. With sincerity. Whether it was playing or not. Had to put their best effort into it, without any humor or undue theatrics behind it. Any song. You had to just sing the portion of it that you knew to the best of your ability. In public, alone, didn't matter. Over the phone. We would tell each other thru text sometimes. Sure, you could get away with not doing it and the other person would never know. But I never did. I always sang.

Because it wasn't really a game. It was a trick. A ruse to get the other person to open themselves up. To be vulnerable in front of you. Honest with you. To break yourself open--if only slightly, if only for a moment--without fear of judgement or insecurity. Without hiding behind humor or parody, to sing directly into the face of the person you love. Or on their behalf. At their behest. Have a moment of tangible honesty between the two of you. Show that person that you aren't afraid of anything, at any time. Once, at a deli counter on A1A, I sang "Not Fade Away" directly into her eyes. She showed me a secret Beyonce taught her at a pet store in front of the fish tanks. We duetted on “You’re The One That I Want” on the trunk of my civic parked in a starlit cow field. It was a secret promise we made to each other. A private joke, almost.

She hung herself in her apartment 6 years ago today. She was high on *******. She was bi-polar. She was off her meds. She was scared of herself and everyone else. I picked her up. I cut the belt. I puked downstairs in her garden screaming. I loved her so much and I'll never stop singing for her.

There's the pen, the page, an audience, the stage
a play to play for all today.
I am few and far between the footlights and the scene
is changing constantly.

It'll be severance pay one day,
one day we'll all be *******
the pieces will still fit
but we'll all come unglued.


Love the grease and like the paint
you ain't got much to lose
you might bomb
but they must light the fuse.

Hey, wake up to this living dream,
Strangled minds of future hope.
We are all atoms of naive serenity,
Fused with an higher scream.
To explore the theatrics of nature,
To acknowledge the only truth,
As working hands and support shoulders,
The crimes of untutored youth.
We have got to change our road,
Exchange the tires,
We had to hold so long,
Now the pain inspires.
They tell there's millions to touch,
That there's hope in hats.
For craves my heart to ride away to the absolute,
Like the ghosts of a burning cigarette.
Did they tell what was missing?
The eyes to see, peace at our time.
Did the books see fit?
Or they screamed of literal garbage.
For we may be unpolished gold pebbles,
For we may seem to be amateurs,
But once we swim into the seas,
The impurities fades as the gold shades,
And we welcome our hands to the ***** feast.