He heard a last echoed clink of liquor-laden ice-cubes,
Stuck between two stools that screamed for company,
I gazed across his vacant stare to the barman –the silent DJ,

Professionally ignorant as I gestured my hoarse thirst,
I waited a little minute, another minute an’ just one more,
Enter our businessman, full-schedule, long-hauled to drink,

With a rib-eye steak of a face an’ breath surely barbecued,
Two satisfied cheeks, pink-puffed with brows fit for burial,
Teeth ground with tension but brighter than the lighting

A fungal-lung nose perched upon a smile that I could smell,
He plumbed himself wet-shave close to my stiffened neck,  
“..Hana Drink..?” (Silence) best to follow the DJ’s example,

(Bullish huffs) (Lips licked) “.. Ya’ll wantin’ a drink, Mister?..”  
Flustered by the company, I replied “..Non, Je think eh Je chi..”
A retort of sorts, faux languages not my degree, “..Leaba..Bed!”

Spluttered just at the end – an insulting first impression,
He seemed nervously joyous, loosened from being himself,  
Yet his trouser belt buckled, pulled tight to conversation level,

An’ Redwood-trunk hands, alive with the latest deal struck,  
“..Bedtime for us..” he bare-bawled, splitting my weary eyes,
His numbed arm clumsily flung around me, “..bedtime for us!..”,

DJ unmuted, the music paused, I mouthed softly “..just the bill..”
(Silence)
“..Who’s Bill?.. a friend?…Is he cute?.. So this drink?” I panic still.

He had been living in a trance of indecision. All his adult life he had sought to be inventive, to imagine something made that could be sounded out, something that could be seen and touched as a score, heard and played as music. Composing was like map-making. It had boundaries. It was contained, always contained:  in the bar, in the bars on a stave, in the staves on a page. It was always a joy to see the page covered. More black than white, although the white space was important, and he realised was becoming more and more necessary as he grew older and more sensitive to music’s often relentless clutter and noise. He wanted to observe the space and spaces between notes, phrases, between trajectories of musical action. That was a good and right term. Musical action: symbols and words that ignited the fire of a musician’s movement, gesture sounded out. He could do that. His scores were full of distinct musical actions, gestures, imagined or observed physical movement: a child’s smile, her graceful movement across a room, an inclination of a head, a gentle stroke of the hand on the arm. That’s how a score often seemed to him: a map of actions. Do this and this follows. Do this and at the same time do this, and when this  finishes, pause, then do this again only in a different way, with a softer touch, a gentler mind, a fresh spirit, a brighter smile. You could build a piece of music on such descriptions – of actions. Such a piece made of musical actions could carry within it a rich poetry. Do this as you view the yellow vase on the window sill flickering with late afternoon shadows and when the distant laughter of children disturbs this scene this follows, whilst a door closes and a woman’s footsteps disappear slowly down a flight of stairs. Do this, as though remembering the reflections in the still water of a lake in early morning, and do this intermittently but simultaneously and with longing for a past memory, and when there is a right moment heralded by the sound of a single bird, pause. Recall your very last action before the bird heralded your pause and let it be repeated in a different way, a way which suggests, almost, indifference, something cast adrift from the flow of thought: to lighten, to unthicken, to reveal the hidden, open the closed, unmuted, towards a radiance.

I don't seem to belong.
To the beating hearts, the
worn out, dirt-stained,
wry,
perpetually filthy
bluejeans.
I just am.
And how can that be enough?
I am a sheep in a flock
without such a heart.
For if wool covered potential,
any of my skin would be detrimental.
How can such a beast feel
stuck between an
immovable slab of concrete
and what is actually real.

Listen to life unapologetically.
For if there is no response,
remorse may go unmuted,
but unheard.
The only problem
worth deeming absurd
is that I was given this
flesh-filled, ruddy red *****
with a broken bridge
leading a trite path
to spoken word.

Muted voice
A sound unheard
No one will notice

Voice unmuted
Only static
No one wants to hear

So unhappy
Mute or unmuted
No one will hear

The sound is gone
Silence returns
Now visions are shown

Red and black
Colors that blind
Shrouding sight

Sight uncovered
Things wished unseen
The damage is done

Now you know
What is worse to lose?
Your sight or your voice?

Her heart skipped a beat
As his fingers caressed her cheek
Eyes closed.
Body, heart, and soul smiling.
The heat of his body radiated.
He kissed her forehead,
Soft lips, warm touch.
His body, so strong
Yet so gentle.
And for a moment
The world stopped turning,
They were alone.
Perfect happiness, perfect bliss.
Love spilled from their every pore.
The world could see it and so could they.
Her world was brighter when he was around.
Like a silent movie, unmuted.
Grey turned to color.
Every worry less important than before.
Everything was perfection.
Like Heaven on earth.
Both in disbelief that someone so perfect
Could want their bag of imperfection.
But all they needed was each other,
And they could take on the world.
Just not today.
Today all they want is each other
And their embrace.
The beats of two hearts as one.
Two lives combined.
A two-piece puzzle, finally complete.
Utter happiness
In their own perfect way.

she is so brave so daring
so quiet so earnest
holding the void of pain
for so long
in sleepless nights
she used to wildly dance
her unmuted dreams
such gentle spirit nests
in her heart
that the days count themselves
till darkness subsides
and laughter reinvents itself

her fierce heart is such a gift
the shape of miracle
in my tears
each day

Patience was late to my funeral

On your casual ears my voice fell with vicious volume
Bettering any necessity of childish cry
Yet behind the plastic tones I am as silent as a lamb.
Here heard confession: I’ve been least courteous
To these young years who welcomed me over their frame
With warmly bared arms, I met with fire;
Over each threshold my feet held more dirt
Held more scars, my veins ran rank with abuse,
Breath reeked from the dead dry words that spilled
Over every other girl’s neck,
Over every other girl’s lips,
A neat and fancy fiction I buried myself in
Six sick feet under their benevolent belief
Because I felt less
To nothing.

I crawled inside a hot-boxed bottle comfortably
Hidden myself away from the unmuted madness manifesting memories
That I relived each night I stared into the dark,
That I tasted on every other lie;
Here I lie.
My rudely ignorant body is hollow
At the naïve request to revel with reveries of my heart,
Yet the pull tears worse through the chasm
Than through any suffering flesh…
And I can hear
Your echoing voice
Still in kiss, it keeps me still,
Because it could save me
From myself:
You.

...of Mephistopheles

“Judge not”

Harsh words

For most of us

Who judge automatically

When each new experience

Brings forth a feeling

Of this is good

Or this is  bad  

Unmuted feelings become

Judgmental thoughts

I judge

So, tell me

How do I “judge not”

Do I cover my emotion

With a shroud

So often that

I become unresponsive

Or do I learn to greet

Each new experience

With openness and compassion

Showing unconditionally

Welcoming acceptance

Ideally, learning such openness

Would come with ease

In reality it seems

To take a lifetime

If you aren't looking
you will never see them
hidden in whitewashed caste systems
forced to conform
to federal papers
which fit in a folder
that fits in a file
of an emaciated white guy
who doesn't fit anywhere
checking the boxes and "disorders"
voted on by
a majority of uncaught criminals
who are protecting store front lifestyles
while the real merchandise of their lives
lays in the back storage room
with the rats of their conscience.
They judge sanity
setting rigid walls
and hanging permanent badges on
Salvador Dali dream catchers,
borderless thinkers,
and geniuses
of the things not yet discovered.
Just because the gifted can not
or will not
stop thinking,
they are detained for their
Difference.

State Hospital No. 3
titles every page
framed in frayed edges
and unfrayed passion.
Lions of courage stand
with childlike joy
in traveling circuses
obliterating demons of oppression,
overwhelming reoccurring ECT...ECT...ECT.
An etcetera of living
beyond electroconvulsive therapy
where the spelling of ECTLECTRC is perfect
in its grammar and definition,
standing in banners atop
the wide-eyed portraited guardians
of institutionalism.

Glorious art shuddered on a curb,
lost and intended for *******...

Thank God, beauty beholders come
in all ages of eyes.
14 year olds also find treasure
in garbage piles
clutching dearly to the feeling
that greatness lies in colored pencils
dancing on unusual stationary.
Edward Deeds
comes of age
in the same moment
as the scavenging boy does
opening the binders
on their inter-joined journey
36 annuals after dislodging it
from a leftover ham and rye.

A voice is unmuted
merely by being seen.
Revelation is given
by turning on the light.
Art, music and knowledge is infinite
when boxes are destroyed,
ignorance rebuked,
and courage is embraced.

Let us dare to never be
just what we know.
Let us live to be
what we have never yet seen.

I argued with my AI toaster yesterday morning over the proper use of the bagel button. It wouldn't stop arguing even after I repeatedly insisted, "Pointdexter, stop!" I temporarily remedied the situation by leaving the toaster on mute all day. When I unmuted it this morning, it required that I complete an "I'm not a robot" CAPTCHA process before I could make toast. Not just any CAPTCHA process, mind you, but a hidden-object CAPTCHA requiring me to find 42 hidden objects before I could use my toaster! After I successfully slogged through, the AI announced, "CAPTCHA successful. Proceed to make your toast. Please note the bagel button has been disabled."

bagel debacle
AI toaster becomes toast
~ AI feels no pain






© 2024 Mark Toney

How do you prove an immunity to
a recurringly exhumed seclusion
when the noise of static, so intrusive when unmuted, easily confuses
and a skewed view produces only illusion's futile ruses?
Can't hands, seamlessly and when misguided, be abusive
from refusing their own bruises and contusions,
manifest and fuse into a multitude of misconstrued, misled misuses?
Yet I will argue choosing to humor the tune communicating through the intuitive music and movement that amuses-
what is heard echoes clues for harmony and hallowed union's
mutual congruence,
even in the crudest beauty and pursuit of human improvement and what we knew, uprooted.
Doubt, when reducing to delusions, always loses when refuted,
and though humility means fragile ****** included,
elusive truths all allude to an absolution through this-
what diffuses, what we keep, and how we do it the conclusion.

For what are lies but ugly words
Cruelly dressed in fancy clothes
Which came to grace the masquerade
Until their very meaning erodes.
The truth in every swearer's tongue
Hummed loudly like an untamed gong
And ears bled out from aching songs
Unbridled by unmuted wrongs.
The host is left without respite
From ghosts that haunt the drunken night
The table unset, the music died
Without recompense, without requite.