Beloved,
In what other lives or lands
Have I known your lips
Your Hands
Your Laughter brave
Irreverent.
Those sweet excesses that
I do adore.
What surety is there
That we will meet again,
On other worlds some
Future time undated.
I defy my body's haste.
Without the promise
Of one more sweet encounter
I will not deign to die.

Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They would no guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-littered ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,

Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigures them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

My mirror is covered in cracks and flaws, and some parts that make you look fatter, like a funhouse mirror, and it clings to dust and dirt and fingerprint smudges of oil.
But I don't replace it.
Because sometimes it's easier to spot the flaws in the mirror than to fixate on my flaw riddled body,
Flaws that aren't just skin deep,
The night is beautiful but deadly.
When you can't see, you have to find new flaws to detest,
It's addictive to beat yourself,
I'm in an abusive relationship where I don't mean to hurt me and I can't leave myself-
And there's some macabre satisfaction in the dependable breaking,
Like I know every night I will go to sleep hating the fact that I am still breathing,
There are memories haunting me from as young as ten,
Things that shouldn't still be repeating,
I can't work out how it just keeps accumulating,
Words spoken
And thoughts
And I don't know if anyone else feels sentences as deeply as I do,
And I'm running out of personality to stick pins into,
Trying to fix myself with voodoo
They say negative reinforcement is the quickest way to correct behaviour but I make the same mistakes
it's not okay that I constantly feel like I'm failing,
But life is more than a high-stakes game
And everyone's saying that all teenagers feel this way
But it's not reassuring to know that my generation is one of lost souls and hate.
And we're all really angry,
Whether it's because we'll be working till we're 90 or conflict left undated
Racism still exists and the Chancellor of Germany is getting called a ****
While anyone Asian is labelled Indian or ****
And eating disorders run rampant through the territory where anorexic girls get priority while the boy who binge eats is just called fatty.
And this is where I insert a statistic to convince you that we're unhappy but I refuse to be quantified just so I can mean something.
And it doesn't let up,
Compliments are uncomfortable and seeing good in yourself is arrogance, criticisms self pity
And you never know if they want to help you or just ensure that you understand the importance of conformity
It doesn't take much to convince someone you're okay.
There's not much you need to say
And if you can laugh then you're fine and we know no one checks the closets for skeletons because they're filled with people too afraid to come out of them
People accept 'fine' because they just need to know that they asked the question,
And besides, deeper questions get stuck beneath my skin.
And even when someone else compliments me I don't believe them,
Pushing away others cause I need distance,
Sometimes I feel sick from the level of enforced interaction but people only see the side they want to see.
When I told my friends about the time I struggled with suicidal thoughts they expressed their sympathies and it hasn't come up since.
Romanticising illnesses leaves me unsure if I am suffering or if I just want to be,
And part of me has to agree that diagnosis and its certainty would be better than the admission that life is just like this
You can't get better if it's something you can't fix
I don't think I'm broken but maybe I was made to the wrong specifications cause it feels like I am missing something but at the same time there is too much of me and not just physically
I am choking on the sheer volume of my past, present and impeding future
Trying to get it together
Told that it's okay if I don't know where I want to go
But in year 9 we picked our gcses which determined our a levels which determined our university courses which determine our career, if we even get there.
I keep finding new problems
I am still haunted by the old ones.
But I'll be okay,
Cause today
Someone told me to love myself.

It is tonight
That I realize
For the first time
I am starting to forget you

I am beginning to mix up pieces of the past
Like undated polaroids
In a box that is too big-
I am not quite sure
Where exactly they fit in

I don't remember
Your laugh very well
I can only vaguely recall your smile
I see it in updated pictures
But it is not the same one I knew
It is not the one that spent hours
Folding into the crook of my neck
Or humming against the curve of my spine
The smile I see in pictures
Is different
The lips belong to someone
I am unfamiliar with
Someone I have never kissed
And the once clear snapshots
Of our moments
Are now shaded over and blurry

My biggest fear
Used to be losing you
My biggest fear now
Is being unable to
Remember you
To have you stripped
From my consciousness
It is the reaccuring nightmare
That wakes me suddenly
In the midst of comfort
I fall asleep to the same songs
You used to sing to me
But I don't even know the words anymore

There is nothing more terrifying
Than realizing
You are moving on
Nothing more frightening
Than realizing you have to
Eventually
But I don't want to forget you
I don't want to embrace
Your disappearance from my thoughts
I don't want you to evaporate
Like the rain we used to sit under
With our hands open
To catch the remnants of summer heat
I can still smell the air
And feel your warmth breath on my cheek
But the reality is
I am starting to forget
And I have never been more scared in my life

This is not about
Letting go
This is about how memory
Has the ability to shed its skin
It has been so long
That I am starting to forget how yours felt
Against my own
Your marks and your scars
Your freckles
Used to be my territory
I knew exactly where they stood
But now your body is a map
I no longer know the coordinates to
I used to take that path home
Every single night
But now I cannot even remember
The route to get to your house
You are slipping through the cracks
Of my fingers
And there is nothing
That can be done to prevent it
I super glued them together
As tightly as I could
But closed hands aren't good for much

I wonder if the people
I pursue can taste you
On my tongue when I kiss them
I keep you in my mouth
Even if the sweetness is gone

I don't want to erase you
Completely
You are fading like the end credits of a movie
I have watched too many times
I am trying to change the plot
But I know that it cannot be done
And realistically
You have been away
For quite a while now
I would ask you to stay
But my mind has already shown you the exit
Most of you
Has already left me
And tonight I am wondering
If someday the rest
Will leave too
Tonight I am hoping
That if it does,
It won't be anytime soon.

The scratch of pencil to paper takes over my senses,
And I'm completely immersed in what my brain dispenses:

A turn of phrase.

I'm feeling poetic
And a bit chaotic;
Kinda frantic,
Somewhat hypnotic,

Paralyzed by this single thought:

Oh heavens what to do?

My tears have been cried,
My cheeks have dried,
Oh how I've tried,
But my hands are tied.

Paralyzed by this single thought:

What if I did the wrong thing?

The day
undated,
The moment
unannounced,
The experience
unexpected.

Helplessness.

His eyes squinted
carefully scanning
three hazy photos
taken in black and white
undated of two mountains
rising behind a bridge
crossing a river

Was it France?
Arizona, Dakota
Probably not Dakota
Few hills there
Maybe along the Danube
Yet no signs of vineyards
along the river banks

Travel broadens one
with indistinct memories
Places that inspired
yesterday and today
remain as slight fabrics
and experiences
absorbed and fuzzy
resting in a corner
of his mind

those of us in the middle muddle,

do not know from sides, boundary lines,
drawn by others, right-sided, left-leaning,
mean nothing to us, who seek something solid
upon to rest, when the clarity others profess,
more than evades us, even escapes us, and
the muddles of life seem to require simplest,
middling answers that are unacceptably refused
by grail seekers whose cause for cause, means
cause to cost others regardless, for regard for
the middle is disdained, by two-sided posts,
the know nothings, and the know betters

irony of irony, the rigidity of imposition makes
me more adrift, more aimless, and the task of
meandering through seems almost holy, for the
obstacles of society, requirements of modern life,
are so damning, wild expectations superimposed,
truths not just hard to find, almost indiscernible,
so I lay my pen down hard, awaiting for the
whatever-while, for to return, to go walking with
only the simplest grids to guide, meanderings in
general directions, ahead, always ahead, keep moving,
keep touching and when optimism returns,

I shall be relieved
once more,
I shall be released
once again,

good words will be caught,
released, returned back
into the atmosphere so
they will grow in size by
the very act of sharing



undated
————————————————-


Everyone must leave something behind
when he dies, my grandfather said.
A child or a book or a painting or a house or
a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.
It doesn't matter what you do, he said,  so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.  The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime. ~Ray Bradbury

(Book: Fahrenheit 451)

Green tufts of grass always return in
the spring, right?
ave maria through the open window and a lost notebook
Lots of little breaths here n there
   hair flip. Things seem to be dull
sedation in dogwoods and the blossoms I wonder if I'm already wasted.
I was given youth at my dawning

I can't compete with others and I've no desire to.  I have to admit to myself that there are only a few things that, with hard work and patience, I could do with some degree of comfort and satisfaction.
On this alone  I'll focus, minding my own business, and as I move along, I hope to learn more of my limitations. Only through such self-searching, would I be able to make something out of my life. Without such, all my other efforts would be futile.

Nothing could be more deleterious than to pit oneself against others for to do so is an admission of one's inferiority and lack of self-insight.

In the beginning I was alone and it shall be so as long as I live. I have to look inwards to make sense of what is outside of me. This to me is a sensible way to live life.

“but you are too old for apprehension.” her
voice had sounded so, and of this one’s voice,
‘you are never too old for wariness of
an unknown.’ responded astute, drunk
on logic. returned was breathless thought
to the void, filling emptiness with irony.
(oxymoron) and weened the way thru,
concision turned derision with repetitious
definitions that found no actual meaning.
all thought without justification and no
thought with classification. words,
actions, wailing:
          empty, empty, empty
then existed less and less from want
of purpose. less and less from interest of
the known; this once forged fear of life. and
with impressive derangement, grabbing at the
only sober keychain. they, with twitching vesper eyes,
their hands jit’ for a false-meeting fix. to nix
the nihilism. and:
      ‘People can go **** themselves.’
words of this one’s voice. of her’s, “thank
god you’re alive.” from those days, when rains
ranted down, and the trains tripped us out.
those days of our wood’s reclaimed trailer. and
each syllable was never thought to be anything
until aged eyes ached for review those epochs
of breath. but:
      ‘People can go **** themselves.’
voiced in response to a romanticized thought. and
all epochs lingered upon are no more than a
journal of the winds that blew while we were present.
some diary of listless lust left undated. of the woods, of
a reiterate span in once anonymized transience. and falling
back, thumbing pages for proof of experiences passed into
skewered memory. left are three lines, ill-verbed, to represent
an entirety of past lives. of time once present in yellow-lit
motel room, of apocalyphic musings, and veering prophets
of doom. they, turned sincere apocalyphites. their prayers
writ boldfaced, platitudinous, in concern of endless words
restating – in constant rephrasing:
      ‘People can go **** themselves.’
but they just kept goin’ on without concern for the dawn.

It's not what life could do
for me that matters
but what I could do
with my life. This stand
I've made and will not waver
or myself I'd have betrayed
and die with dreams unfulfilled--

life will be my tool
and not my master.

Unfurl origami entries dated
March 8, June 2, countless undated of an
amygdala hijacked
that pitted Moira against Peirce,
rejecting my name of Kismet,
to watch Forer take his effect
(who now has spread his contagion),
babysitting Little Albert while
Watson scribbled notes in the lecture hall;
witness sagacity smeared all over skull walls,
spackled on cranial ceilings
as I stuck my head out onto subway platforms and
displayed out onto train tracks in my
mind's eye in favour of recalling
Christmas festivities with sisters dolled up in
grandeur hospital ball gowns as
subjects were consoled in camps and
I slept in fields
screaming anything audible to
no one,
listening to track 2 on a
continuous loop,
sitting on flagpoles and lamp posts
as vandals smashed and grabbed,
cackles echoing in alleyways...

now before I vanish right before
your very eyes
tell me,
why
am
I
here
*?

the history and indoctrination of infantry

infant re
cruits

de rim u derimu, I count (old high irish)

gityeirishup, er shut yer leprechaun trap,

clap three times, spit wit the wind.

reason countable

you are trained to focus, aim,

miss, aim, miss, aim miss, come let's
cipher this thang out,
raison d'etre,
and all...
aims,
though misses all
count for nothing,
valenced by
one heartfelt hit t' knock the lie right.

old man re
crew recurrent reason to let this be re
al, always, already re
pulsing
pulsing
pulsing

aim, loose... spit wit'thwind...

---- war seen from after his jet died--
---- vicarious warriors can't match
---- the missing memories.

Prisoners enobled warriors endurent
indoctrined to prevail

"did I train well enough to do my job?"

Win the war. Right, that was your job,
all along.

What?...

no will to win a war without a reason
not willing to question
reason

authority doctrines in undated
rulebooks only lawyers
can read, that's a rule.

sacrifice and suffering un
common valor *** common
virtue

how do you win?

-- my guess, really

love my enemies. As good a way to die
as any I've tried.

-----
war stories on youtube. imagine that and
sure as hellen highwater was easy

I gotta call armchair-back o' the arm
bullshistory,
as I wipe a smeared memory

bullsss'it... RTOs don't walk point,
not back when you had
the radio, or said y'did,
nor did ye rereguard, when you
have the radio, Pr'ck 25
(like a cell phone
weighing 25 pounds, with a 5 mile range,
and no data. One to a team, as we

squellch squellch out) Nah, the guy's

lying, but it will hurt his kid's feelings,
if I say so,

or
he could believe his own hero myth,

I do.

---- nah, war stories are all we remember
ever after, happy as helen highwater was
to find you after fifty years
on facebook.
***
FTA, it don't mean nuthin'

it was so
silly, this is not the way it's supposed
to be, we

were the redcoats.
We were hanging Johnny Tremain Ngyuen,

wasting the last crawling,

man,

the first starlight scope flash
bright green white

FNG popped a flare.

--- when do we call ******* ---

For the price of a baseball cap, a fool
can claim honor other fools died for.

Silly little war. Eighteen thousand
eleven bravos of aver
age age
Twenty-two.

Ooh ooh, like Pappa Doc 22 voodoo
doopy doo doopy doo
Duvalier, Ton Ton M'coo

hey. okeh

we got you. You thought crazy,
now you can stop.

--- there was a war and nobody won.
--- safe. passed madness has passed on.
--- see what good you may imagine done.
--- work that out, without making enemies.

April Fool. Why has this day always been about me?
Ask yourself. There exist

degrees of foolishness, none fashionable beyond
twenty-two.

footnote: https://www.uswings.com/about-us-wings/vietnam-war-facts/
Who has a guess why facebook would refuse a link to this page. ***** about it.

Census Stats and “I Served in Vietnam” Wanabees
1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August, 1995 (census figures).
During that same Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served was: 9,492,958.
As of the current Census taken during August, 2000, the surviving U.S. Vietnam Veteran population estimate is: 1,002,511. This is hard to believe, losing nearly 711,000 between ’95 and ’00. That’s 390 per day. During this Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country is: 13,853,027. By this census, FOUR OUT OF FIVE WHO CLAIM TO BE VIETNAM VETS ARE NOT. This makes calculations of those alive, even in 2017, difficult to maintain.

Those who are seen in and out of banks are people not likely to have peace of mind.

They worry when they have too much money while others worry about settling their debts.

Banks are not cheerful places to be.

You would never see me in any bank as I have no money to deposit nor debts to meet.

I miss

all my youthful avarice;
all the hushed proverbial bliss
promised in a lover's kiss;
and this
is the truest exorcist:

Time, undated.

undated

Autumnal leaf air,
with the historical cut of princetonian guile
I walk toward the dull exonerated street
she looks heavenward; asks for a cigarillo
   tahiti bean
we never questioned our being,
        we just floated and
the capsicum katana slicing our
      corneas into julienne,
I tell her I can't, I quit,
never knowing quite what to do
smoking in june outside a wedding with the boys
she cuts me off, fast it's back to
thinking of  melting flower pots and broiled
   confectioner's sugar in my tiptoe mind-
   my toes are flat on the ground I walk with a gait,
          lifting my heels as if i myself seemed an aristocratic soul
                                                             I look up
                                                                  she has walked away
                                                                                              toward the
                                                                                                          candy store
to buy licorice

Since it's so hard
to please other people
I decided to be kinder to myself
this caused me much less trouble.

i want to sit amongst the stars
silent, dissolving into space, a
still nothingness, a pair of eyes
and no more.

i want LA to absorb me like a sponge,
soaking my essence, throwing it
into the sink with all the other lost
young souls: we’re soapy watercolor
film.

i want to be an extra on a movie set,
watching in wonder as personality
after personality passes me by,
perfect and poised.

i want to dissipate into the foam
of johnny depp’s coffee, or drift
like the smoke from uma thurman’s
cigarette against her lips.

i want to be a fleeting ghost, a jane
doe in an undated photo by the
paparazzi, nameless and noir
in the grainy polaroid.

i want to be a shadow, the fragments
cast off of a shooting star - i want to
trail along until i fade.

Know how
NOT to define yourself.

Be thankful that you are imperfect
as perfection would spell your very doom.

The perfected self has nothing else to look forward to
and perishes in its isolation,  monotony and boredom.

I must learn not to hate myself
for what I have or have not done
as every single such act would reduce my worth
as a human being.

I am what others are not
they are not what I am--

there shall never be any convergence
between me and them.

A single word can save a life
a phrase can empower society
a sentence can revive a nation
a poem can change the world's entire history.

Love is strengthened
more by tears
than happy years

My aim in life is simple-- do the doable to the best of my ability--not to measure myself against others,  for life is not about competing with or outdoing others but self-becoming.  

I can't lead nor change the world and should only be concerned with creating meaning for myself - it's in the humble pursuit of ordinary daily things that I can find my worth, self-respect and, none the least, my limitations.  

Let me remain an ordinary person, live an ordinary life and die happy and content as the world goes by without me being noticed or known for I would have deemed this life of mine to been lived in the way I most value and cherish.  Death is the ultimate humility and has to be embraced and accepted -- it is not a blemish nor a killjoy but rather the summary and sublimation of a life that has been lived in fulness and  gratitude.

Some day, somehow, comes the inevitable--- power
shall fall from grace and be crushed into powder.

You might be rejected by the whole world
but you would still survive
if you are strong enough
not to reject yourself.

I don't have much love left to give away--
I have to keep some as reserve to survive.

Life is mainly

about the in-between

the past is history

the future is unseen

Why do we frown on our self-pity?
Is this wrong?
Perhaps this is the purest pity.

A good poem is also a fine painting
and has the ring of a beautiful song.  It gives me three types of joy all at once.

What more need I ask?

When suffering becomes acute and seems too much to bear,
all that should be done is not to battle with it
but to strip it off bit by bit like peeling a large onion.

Writing is the flowering of our most intimate self--
every word brings us closer to our self-discovery.

We die but not what we have written.

I have often felt that we are born not to understand but to doubt--
an error of nature?

When I sense that the idea which is hatching in my mind

seems a carbon-copy of someone else's,

I realise I am on the wrong track and immediately abandon it-

not to do this is dishonesty and hypocrisy which I can't live with.

I do not have to be a fighter to be a survivor---
all I need is detachment, acceptance and patience.

So many blamed the first kiss
for the troubles that beset them later on.
Moral?  Think before you kiss.

I am a mere spectator of the wisdom and debauchery of the world and lives around me.
Lost in speculation, my field notes are scattered and undated.
My prerogative and destination remain unknown,
I remain lost in the research.
I am still searching for some sort of certainty
in surroundings and a mindset so fickle.