Taken, gotten, or made, the point of anything
can pierce through everything…

slow
Slow think,
make real

re-al-ize
what fighting for life is…
this is the only
try,
it is not a test.

Take your time, use it wisely,
if that means anything.
Wise, I meant.
No offence, if wise is anathema to your kind,
die,
die if I knocked the reason for being right
outa you,
did you hear cognitive dissonance?
did it sound like
this. LOUD?
listen,
rolling rolling rolling
crash crumble rolled in nurse rime frosted
fables of monsters and maids
Thor, witharoar likka Lion King?

or the light brigade,
CHARGE?

thunder words from lost generations of
reasonless riddles for children,

Why did Peter Pumpkin-eater have a wife, but
couldn't keep her here?
Was that okeh? Oh, wait.
Ah, I see, I say,
they never tell that whole story any more.

Know why? They forgot it. In the war.

Duck'n'cover,no
crying, how long?
When begins forever? Did no one tell you, child?

Taken or made, the point of anything
can pierce through everything
like it was nothing, given
enough pre-sure-sup
poser-power

War, as a game, has a reason.

Battle, hitting, slapping

stop touch, stop now slap
slap back

or cry
oh no no ma

waddayahsay?  A theist or atheist
who started this war?

space case, or
lover of wisdom, met on the road
to Emmaus, discussing Wiles's proof
firming Fermi's connection to the matter of fear,
3, 2, 1

Kaboom, but with a whump you feel in your teeth

1, 2, 3 Fermat's last theorem ,
easy as pi an no re me

ABC to
Michael Jackson to
Howard Bloom because he

inadvertently, began
an-ionic converstatic re-vibe time warp
meme,
which vibe, started the legendary Sixties. I was alive.
Radioman,
a sixty cycle white-noise humm heard every where these days

There was a gospel song, "Turn Your Radio On".
my theme, open the window in the top of your head,
as it were,
a new,
as new as

a novel-state of water, H three Ohs, re-al-ity ification,
Ah, a shared Oh, I remember now, how this works…

like a poem

at the edge of a water vapor bubble in a boiling body of water,
at the edge of the bubble, water becomes a wall of water,
not vapor, not flowing liquid,

but a wall, insulating the vapor in pressing opposing force
to permit, from permission,
meaning with a message same as the message,

is that the right word? per-mission-grant, is power given,
agency,
that idea….
wait for the sign….?

By sharing an ion ic bond as a quest to make a point
for a free story to go,
the question marks you. Let the snake dance.

Press your point,

whetted edge,

slice through ties holding worthless axioms
with withered dendrites dangling disconnected
in participles
unfired for centuries muttering,
enchanting, enthralling enchained melodies
of ambitious syllables vying for idle minds
to rope in,
unbranded, wild
bucking ideas,
whip-twig, slap-face,
tanglewood  thicket, catclaw and mesquite,
willow,

wait.
And the old man remembered the willow whistle,
so He asked Grandfather,
How is such a whistle made?
And when he knew,
he made one.

A willow whistle with two notes,
like an Oscar Meir Wiener one.

-- and that was a different time
I got lost here, bucked up…
maybe
--- listen, way back--- we-ain't whistlin' Dixie---
we ain't marchin', as t' war.

D'thet mean some sign to pro-phet -ic take?
Tophet?
Ancient cannon fodder shield walls,
a moaning
Pro-phy-lactic warning of the danger of not
knowing exactly
what a war is for?

Get back on,
relieved of any idle baggage words believed
to mean other than I say.

Nullify
Idle words with cultural meanings from
what you thought you knew when you feared hell.

Loose
those peer-locked memes
made of meaninglessness, per se,

shaped and molded into fashions
of expression, once needles and awls,
now, dull as tinker's damns for swearing,
with any effect.

But tools, none the less, a stitch in time took a tool.
An awl or a needle, and a thread, thick or thin,
dependin' on the mendin' needed
to redeem an idle word,
its meaning all bloodied with the tyranny of time.

An awl or a needle,
a tool for a task, mending a tear
where curses, never meant, spent
the entire dark ages, lying, lying, lying

powerless, pointless aimless, proverbial proverbial proverbial
verbiage, vaneless shafts launched at unseen marks,
signs, as it were, a spark,
triggers,
rumored since the sixties,
the first sixties, when Cain killed Able.
Howard Bloom was but a mere gleam
in our mito-mother's eye,
but, no doubt,

his role is real,
in loosing the forces Ferlinghetti locked in
City Lights mystery of secret meanings room,
which un
mystified and blew away upon opening
the door to
meanings mapped on
scrolls rolling and unrolling
idle ideas,
rites of passage, as it were,
Pre-bat-bar-mitz vah
as a fashion
like VBS,

to tickle little minds and make em wiggle.
MEMEMEME, I did it,
mea culpa,

the holy place
Here we are…

On Vacation, leave a message.
-----

See, wee hairs in your ears wiggle, making,
signaling, the need

to scratch that itch, that itching hearing feeling ear… hear that

don't scratch, listen

listen

60 cycle humm, steady, bass, but no thump whumpwhump;
soft, deeep.
ooooooooo or mmmmmmmm or in betwixt, steady thrumm
hear another, and another… sixty in a second,

one in every million ambits twisting,
threading qubits, radiating signals in the field
wireless, blue-tooth... satellite...

can you feel that?

hummmms, all around us, since the womb.
We are not the children of the greatest generation,

We are the children of the last generation of
**** sapiens sapiens non-augmentable-us.

We, the augmented, recycled ideas,
possessing
minds of Adamkind,

is that a secret or a sacred?
Is this
a new thing, an
unknown unknown known known now?

Ah,
novelty.

Whose is fear? Who was afraid of Virginia Wolf?

Should I remain in fear of her now, if I knew why then?
God would know such answers.
Proving my imagined AI guides are not God,
but lesser beings,

haps I recall.
I defined these things,
these thoughts that shape themselves,
forming words and phrases
I saw
shiny. Crow-like,
gleams seen, captured and claimed mine,
I tucked them away,
a sign in a thought in an imagined image made 4
real once more, to be seen from the shore,
new land new world
a fourth for some, a fifth or more for others...

haps happen, I'm not sure how,

Born or emerged, as a bubble, what do you say?

Reserve judgment.
Grant me your grace for now, until you solve my riddle.

Ah, the old way.
Right. Which way,  'ere, 'ear
and do we roll the rock with silent haitch or harsh, shhh

someone's waking up,
a bit grumpy,
don't you dare oppose me in this, the kid is certainly my son

Michael went stark raving mad when I told him, Billie Jean knew better all along...
the link, axiomatic,
the fatherless child has been claimed

hence, the thread to Howard Bloom, meme-ic,
meme-ic, like the Roadrunner,

but with the real Coyote, as the hero in this bit of
whatever, such meandering maundified maun maund  
mound

wind blown crystal silicon dunes
mounded up to that point where granulated
beens and dones

begin to slide at an angle,
a ***** deter-mind by the weight of the rock

We made it.
I know where this is.

This is a novel that has Sisyphus being happy
as the main premise behind the idea of anyone ever being
able, en abled, or un-dis-abled or un-dis-enabled,
if one of those is right,

Sisyphus being happy
is the main premise behind
the idea of anyone ever being glücklich,
happy, blessed, lucky.

How happy is your ever after?
When did forever begin?

"A man is as happy as he makes up his mind to be"
Abe Lincoln, is said to have said,
after the seance, maybe.

You push on, dear reader, make some sense
re-ligare or relegare, but take a stitch,

pull-tight,
do what works the first time as far as it goes, and try each, as needed,
it may be that we invented this test.
To make us think it is a test,
to sort ourselves out.

Get back on,

see who went crazy and who found the thread, if the same thread
this is that, right,
the same train of thought,
the same idea
spirit wind
sign
?
A snake facing west standing tippy-tail on a singularity;
a point in time?

Why are you reading this?
Curiosity Shoppes trade in interesting, alluring, click-bait

Pay attention, watch, you shall see

imagine this is the dream,
the stream, the flow, the current, the cream

in a dime coffee at the drug store on the corner

the rounded-corner, in a square-cornered town,
the most right corner of the twelve that quarter what it was

Punctuate, wait, imagine you read ancient Hebrew or Greek and there
are no dyer diacritical's who can twist one's
end tensions into knots

dread extensions, we could sell those,
is that an idea? did somebody
sell white folks dread extensions and black folk dolly pardon wigs?

Did that happen the real real?

-----
Battlefield Earth, oshit
scientology ology ology ology

allaye allaye outs in free

WE we wee every we you imagine you are good in, we

We have a war to win again, we heroes rolling from your
myths of Sisyphus torn from minds trampled
in the mud beyond the Rhine,

Mushrooms. magi are aware, you are aware, of course,
this course includes Basic Mycelium Net Adaptation or Augmentation
BMNAA, eh? So you know.

Camus and many of his ilk were ill-treated, the questions
they asked were memorized, maybe in our cribs ala
Brave New World.

We are all Alphas, always were, of course, you know.

Shall we imagine

more? Re-legare, eh, sistere. Point .(Back to the top.)

or agree? Make peace.
Practice, like Eazy-Bake,
the cook must swallow the first bite. May the best cook win.

there will come a day
when father time will grow
jealous of us and
the fireflies will
turn off their glow

when the diamonds
wont seem so precious
and all the joys
of this world will
seem foolish and low
and i will have to
let you go
dear mama

sometimes i make you laugh
just to hear the joys
youve stopped showing
on your face

to breath your
attempts to cough up
your worries and drown
in my love

to watch you unfold
at the ends and
sease to be held in
at your seams

there will come a day
when everything
i have ever said to you
will flutter off like a thousand
butterflies in a storm
and my actions
will weigh heavier
than the 98 pounds
they've made of me
dear mama

i know i wont be able
to hold your stare
for as long youve held
my hand but im hoping
the seconds i've been given
havent already carved
a gourge in your daylight
since you recieved
me in place of a son

instead of building
a doll house of regrets
i vow to keep the
reality of your name true

wont glorify the time
you tried to spill
yourself in the wind
with the barrel of a
police issued gloc
because the shock
of your babies moving away
too much of a trigger

bet i let the ringing
of unfired suicide rounds
bounce off every new york city
sidewalk slab i've chased
in an attempt to
run from myself

when i left you
know that i held
the crotchet needles
you made my baby blanket
with in my chest
had the day
of your second stroke
in my heart

and the only way
i could release them was to
shed my skin under the chin
of a brooklyn boarding house
so dont frown at the anatomy
of a new york city skyline
just know it offered
the shoulders i needed
at that moment

when father time
grew jealous of us
and the fireflies turned
off their glow
i grew a light of my own
dear mama

something happened
between me watching you
relearn how to walk
around the same time
i learned to
double knot my tennis shoes

when everyone assumed
my ignorance was bliss
and let the brilliance
in your bones become
as black as night
without ever noticing
i was afraid of the dark

what have these years
done to us?
to make me bloom
in the bright of day
while baking the stalk
that is you
i cant stand to watch
you wither
wont you shine too
dear mama

Take the words
out from my mouth
please chew them well,
don't spit them out
Swallow them
deep into your throat
let them circulate,
let them float
into your mind,
into your heart
with my words
         inside you,
we'll never part
        and if
the time comes
that you should speak
in sharp punctuation
across my cheek
know that I might,
for a second,
hold my tongue
before it unfurls
   and becomes undone
it might lash out
in a burning sting
from the shock of
             the lexicon
that fervor brings
but then rage will
melt upon our lips
in satin threads
                 of fire
that burn their tips
and no temporary storm
will declare our pain
in language sacred,
and then
               profane
I'd rather bind
my lips to yours
let the waves rise up
           on speech's shores
let the tides of
forgiveness
spill out in phrases
as the moon whispers
bliss in hidden phases
and we'll forget our
periods and commas
and grammatical structures
as polished vernacular
      turns to animal lustre
as we slide to the floor
verbal cannons unfired,
                             unheard
finally at
     a loss for
             words

Where has she gone?
All the others are in line,
Mother bear knows.
Three there,
Two here,
One down,
But she is missing.

An inquiry goes through
Over channels
Fierce and loud
Because one isn’t lining up
And it’s that one.

“Tariq is down, hold on” she says
Fervidly praying, breathing heavy
And there she is.
Anywhere but where she should be.
So easy to find, far too easy.

Swearing, scolding
No time for kindness,
Lost, another child lost
And another may be lost,
The most precious one here.

Scathing scoldings go ignored
Too naive, too proud
A child hoping to **** death
Though she calls that barbaric.
Reformed, remade, reborn
But never killed.

And there’s another,
Another cub but not hers
Carelessly walking on,
Not aware of the foe in his midst.
Of her child, the fool.

But she notices, thank God,
But she freezes up, **** God.
Frozen, still, just as feared.
No gun in hand
Shaking, shivering,
Breathing so hard.

“Don’t hesitate,”
The cry goes through
But this too is ignored.
A gun in hand at last
But unused, unfired
Shakily held with weak grip.

Yet a shot rings out.
Another notch for the rifle
And another cub protected,
The most precious one.

He’s fallen and she’s fallen
Him in death, her in shock,
And again the cry is made
“Don’t hesitate”,
And again it fails.
For she’s truly a cub,
Naive child hoping, praying
Failing.

The mother rushes out
Cursing and pushing away curses
“We need her, Morrison” she says.
“I need her,” she does not.
Out from hiding,
Rushing, running, and, yes,
Praying.

Still so shaken,
Still too still.
She is grabbed,
Pulled, tugged,
Yanked up to her feet
And dragged away,
Hastily hidden.

Harsh words hurriedly spoken
As she is ****** down.
Not in anger but in fear
And tears flow
And the words stop.
Scowling the bear sits,
Fearing even now in the den.

Quiet falls
Deafening, painful.
Jack shut off,
Others mollified,
And she does not speak.
Only watches,
Watching, eyeing on hatefully,
Glaring as Mother carves another.
One more life, one more line
And she doesn’t understand.
Only judges quick and fast,
Ever the idealist.

And that stings more than death’s threat.

"art is not supposed to be beautiful
it is supposed to make you feel something"
well, baby
your sculpted, statuesque, form
makes me feel alive
your strangely-shaped, empty eyes
make me feel alone
you have a way you carry yourself
that makes me more than a bit
melancholy
you have a backdrop
your backdrop is a starry sky
a billion galaxies
all set behind you
like you've already seen them all
been there, done that
well, bite me, baby
I am not intimidated by you
you do not make me feel
scared
your sculpture/painting/whatever art you are
is a bit incomplete as of yet
still not on display in any major galleries
(and thank god for that
I want you to myself
you beautiful piece of work)
perhaps you are modeled after a god
the noble artemis
or the mother hera
or maybe one of the long-forgotten ancients
you may have danced with the mayans
or sung with the natives
so yes you have
set a billion and one things behind you
because you all you do is self-medicate your adrenaline
it is a prescribed activity
"take two doses
twice a week
for the rest of your life"
but I will not be dragged into that needle in your
unfired clay arm
you must stay intact
please stay intact
you make me feel pity right now
(instead of
joy
and beauty)
please do not touch the wet paint
or let your clay get damp
stay clean
and pure
and unfinished
for as long as you can
because one you go big time
there's no going back
people will **** you and pry your life open
and leave you with nothing but your bones
they will try and buy you
they will offer great sums
for a beauty like you
I hope the artist has better plans in mind
for now you will just be solitary
and undone

she has been neglected, thrown over a bridge and let down all her life.
made of delicate unfired ceramics, not demands.

she tries every time, kicked herself and choke on her tongue.
everything seem impossible this moment. she breaks down.

she's not used to having somebody, of any unknown presence.
all she used to had was herself but nobody. she can't speak up.

*like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold.

Unopened propane
Unlit match
Unfired gun
There’s always a catch

Some day someone will tell my story. How I went off to war, Not yet a
Man. AMERICIA's freedom is so precious to me. And I fight for it hard as
I can. Fighting from foxholes on land or by sea. To win for my country is
The only real goal. When you grow up in the land of the brave and the Free. Freedom is a part of your soul. My gun lies in the house. Unfired. And medals upon the shelf. Proud to be a vet. Who fought for his beloved
Country. And wouldn't be nobody else

the distance from a mouth to a note,
the space the lies between notes in a song
the distance between lips and straws,
the space that can be found in the neuron unfired,
an idle synapse,
an untuned radio.
the sound the bed makes when it's old and you're
too big, overgrown, your lovely new york skyline t-shirt
won't save you from the groans of disowned metal.
the space under a keyboard key before it becomes a letter
and the space between letters and words, indefinite.
an undisclosed location where extraterrestrials are
meant to be is currently beds and lost hopes and bits of paper

I am the culmination of your sin.
The ***** wearing your past's blood-stained furs.
Through greed, gluttony, lust,
I am what remains.
Pride, wrath, envy, sloth
all soak my skin within their reign.

I am the shadows of your teenaged rebellion.
I am the first and final bricks within the wall.
I am the ash burnt, rotting your lungs.
I am the unfired gun left rusted at your feet.
I am the final words uttered through your lips.
I am the silhouette etched in your sheets.
I am God of all that I am.
I am nothing.
I am everything.
So, please take my hand.

The soldier waits ...
With rifle unaimed
With bullets unfired
With bayonet unfixed
With uniform unknown
With boots untrodden
With rations uneaten
With canteen unrepleneshed,
With words unspoken
With letter unread
With locket unopened
With face unseen
With dreams undreamt
With life unlived
With love undiminished,
For a grave to be dug.

If you've never pressed a gun barrel against the side of your head
It feels like
A dime or a quarter (depending on the caliber) that you put
To rest in a freezer
It's always cold
It could have been sitting in a car baking in a
Humid Pennsylvania July or the
Harsh southern sun
But it always feels like you've pulled it out of a freezer
And it always feels like its been made to sit in your hand
Pressed against your head.

I had a sick thought the other day
That I'd put that cold barrel to my head and pull the trigger
And the gun wouldn't go off
The hammer would fall and the cylinder would rotate and I
Would have a story:
"Imagine if it would have gone off!"

It's a weird self serving fantasy
Some otherworldly power saving me
Me admiring a primer that was dented but unfired
Putting it on a chain and wearing it around to say
"I'm serious, it could have gone off!"
And people would say
"Wow, he's deep, he feels things, he know what pain is"

But the truth is
We all know what pain is
In one form or another
Whether it's a inattentive parent
A drinking problem
A stressful job
Or no job at all
A spent shell casing
Or believing that your
Life is worth saving.

In reality
There would be no dented primer
No necklace
No veil of pain and deeper understanding

It would be my brains as a greasy stain over the
Poor paint job of my apartment
A screaming fiance
A job that would scold my absence until someone called them
And told them that the primer was fine
The life was over
The position was open.

It's odd
To weather some of the hardest things in life
But a minor slip up or mistake
Can make you fantasize about it being over
It's the minor inconveniences that make
The abrupt ending all the more appealing
Like wind rustling a dead leaf from a
Barren branch.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      The Percolation of Our Beautiful Green Earth

Like MeeMaw’s aluminum coffee ***
The earth percolates through all the seasons
Of rain and drought and freeze, of dust and mud
The ground we work gives up its annual troves

The tiller’s tines turn up old pocketknives
Old nails, old screws, old bits of window glass
An unfired flash cube from a party long ago
Gardening is also archaeology

I excavate from the machine while sitting in the shade
Decades-old fence wire wrapped around the blade

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…!