You're my storm cloud disguised as sunshine
but your masquerade never stops the rain.
Laughs like lightning flashing across your face
sharp and dangerous, followed by the thunder of
my ignorance, cluing you in on how far your lies
stretch into my desperation to be wanted.

Lightning.
Thunder.
Oh I never thought
I was that funny
Your electric strings
Pull the punch lines out of my mouth.
Thunder.
The lightning's best friend.

Thunder.
You must really like me
You must have told your friends about me too.
Because that cackles coming out of their
throats when I tell a joke sound just like
the storm, the zigzags of fire that tear through the clouds.
telling me how funny I am, how much they love having me around.
How you need me.
Time for my response… its my job right?
Thunder.

Thunder.

Why is it now that the way you curl your lips
when I make my jokes
looking
less
and less
like a smile?
Your friends know that shape
and they know how to make their lips look the same way.
Is it some contagious thing that they all have, and disease
passed around the room every time that lightning escapes.
But they all think I am funny
It must just be a friend thing…
I should learn how to do it too.
Thunder.

Thunder.

Streaming pixels
Blurry faces of “friends”
it must have been a mistake
The love me
next time,
I’ll make sure to clear it up with them
why wouldn't they want me to attend?
Thunder.

Thunder.


Glances like knives
Darting through the air like flies
and infestation of insects that
carry messages that
I don’t understand.
But they do.
Like a major league team
catch after catch
never missing those eyes that
seem a little bit darker
and a little bit colder.
Passing the ball around the bases
returning the favor.
Why can’t I grip ball that seems to bind
them all together
leaving trails of
text messages
and parties
that I was not invited to
this ball that seems to always
keep me on the outfield.
And how come everytime that ball goes
around
and
around….
its feels like
a punch to the stomach
never ceasing to knock me
down
and
leave me
breathless.


This must be what friendship feels like…
Thunder.


Is it?
because I look around
these hallways
where I always walk to fast
trying to keep up
yet I am always
one
step
behind.
I see that
these other girls
walk in straight lines
arms joined so that no one
falls
too
far behind
yet I’m always walking in
dizzy circles
wondering when they will
turn around to see if I am
still following,
still standing,
still funny.

Thunder, the lightning's best friend…
but that is never who I was to you.

She knows it is something to eat
Smells like what she’d fancy
as yummy … but not quite
so She smoothly zigzags along
Forbidden Chords
Smells - Tosses - Hops - delicately Licks
and Jumps at once
back to Shadows wherein she always hides
paints Numerous Cooler Tones with her Yawns
Lest her Glittery Eyes
a Pair that never shuts
despite Days Seasons Nights
I approach silently
beside her
Not to bother
As if Wiser
because I look taller
-I guess-
Stupid! Stupid!
I just realize now...
An elegance of furry highness lying aside
For her ‘of me’ means
Playmateness just
none about silly bossiness among us
With me
She does her pats Gingerly
Not to hurt
As if
as if I could not handle some
Innocuous Spice
But I mind not
if she finds this way alright
because I trust her nature
with all of my broken Hearts
And let go
the all of me
Fully
to the fury of the Furry
come on babe Hit me
Come! Come Now!
arghhh!
Bites She!
swiftly and tenderly brushes afterwards
happens this
All the -outta my sight- Time
but she also
Lets me win sometimes
win ...I guess. ?. Purposefully
Anyway Yeah
Maybe it’s Love
dunno why or how
I wonder and smile then Cry
aiaiaiaiai
until a PATZ Paw
shoots my Pathos
outta Sight
Come on Babe
Hit me!
Come now! Come!
Argghh!
:))))
Bites She!

I'm starting to think that maybe you were just born distant. Your mother held you from the furthest place that is in the hospital. And you move from place to place, but my place. Wellington and London so when you said “Baby, you feel like home to me.” it means 12,990 miles apart from each other. And sometimes you are just a dream away, though I often woke up crying. Or though most of the time i didn't wake up at all, still sleeping.
We used to talk about how lucky humans are, that they have 12,990 plus ways of saying I owe you my eternity. And how I love you is at the very bottom of the list. A ***** disgrace, barely hanging with the hollowness it brings everytime it rings. So you can't really blame me that every single time you spit your ‘I love you’s the only way i ever wanted to reply was with an ‘I hate me too’s.
Babe,
you haven't been saying ‘drive savely’ lately so I've been causing trouble down the road. Drawing zigzags here and there, yelling “At least you don't burn like this” to a carcrash.
Babe, ask me ‘are you home yet?’ because i was never once home since the day you stopped coming home, just 12,990 miles apart from each other. and ask me if i was ever safe and i'll be looking at you with my confused face and say “i'm in a war how can i be safe?”.
And sometimes you are just a dream away, barely hanging with the hollowness it brings everytime you ring.

I've been listening to static for years.
Watching the black-and-white zigzags
Crumple across my screen
Defeated, without knowing the enemy.
Overwhelmed, without taking perspective.

Suddenly pictures are coming through
Sounds that don't just seem to be dying aluminum.
Laughs   smiles   conversations
Touches...
Gasps.
Heartbeats.

Those black and white zigzags are fading
Blurring out until you see the picture
They've been trying to form for too long.
And behold, the picture is clear.
Maybe the repairman upgraded me to hi-def.

But that repairman sure is sneaky.
Apparently the channel is now set on Cinemax
And I have no idea where my remote is.

like the inconstant moon I change,
cyclical about circumstances,
serendipity and fortune exchange
appearances for second chances,

and as we each alter our perception,
we see ourselves as constant,
each and every change in direction
still seems like a straight line

with no more than closer inspection
looking behind to the distant
fading horizon in the failing light
the pattern of circles and spirals

and zigzags, stops and backtracks
a wandering chorus line of fools
all singing things I can’t take back
the realization that I am not an individual
:
but an average of multiple formulas
complex variable algebra and simple subtraction
a vector resulting from many forces
pushing and pulling and thrusts and attractions

the color of the liquid in the test tube
fizzing and changing with every next drop occurring
an organism that adapts to its environment
to thus fill its requirements and its fleeting yearnings

a flock of birds, a can of worms, a herd of cats,
an untamable unit described in terms
of the time it exists in existing- that is
another illustration, another article, at any other time or mood

a crop whose fruitfulness is determined by unusual farmers
one field ploughed, one weeded, one fertilized, one seeded
akin to the Bible, a book of numerous authors that tries to
merge allegories into a useful, enlightening anecdote with which to furnish the brood

flesh, soul, chemical, inspired, mechanical-Angel
a temptable machine whose springs and cogs
could be found to have been hand-wound
at any given time by either His Rival’s or God’s

and if Made in His Image then I must be both
wrathful and loving, vengeful and forgiving,
quick to temper and eternally patient
yet limited in time allowed to be spent living

the difference is- my choiceful subsistence briefly caresses
this quick struggle and my purpose not yet fully defined
would fate’s justice have me on the gallows for my excesses?
or would not passion for the endowment of living grant reprieve?

where is the solace for the incurably ardent?
maniacally spontaneous, courageously aloof
what cheer can be brought to the seers?
dejected clairvoyants, puppets or puppeteers to the truth

however never simultaneously clever are we
always we must be one or the other each seen
though never seemed to be separate things
now see what difficulty wrecks all my dreams
:
catharsis then epiphany then pensive then somber
an artist, a daddy, a mocked captive, an avid doubter
carouse then abolish then regret then absolve
a spouse, a skirmish, an uncommon asset, an outlet resolved

how do I bring about the determination of the jury?
which of the accomplices will abide full recognition
and be he who will stand to read the indistinct verdict
to the culpable crowd assembled in this the trial of alternation

so contempt be then to the court of constancy!
no thing in heaven or earth adheres to its philosophy
render the sentence that I may be found guilty
yet I am consented to return undestroyed, now let the die be cast

these confines beg for stasis I cannot deliver
my cell itself is afloat without a tether
these customs require that I be a quitter
yea though the pendulum returns to the tock once the tic has passed

I.

A louse in a house
or a mouse on a blouse.
A bell that goes ****
or a gong that goes ****.
A gap on a map
or a cap on your lap.
A drink in the sink
or an ink that stinks.
A spleen on a screen
or a queen who is green.
A bow in the snow
or a crow that glows.

II.

A wash or a whip,
a lip or a lop,
a top or a tip,
a car or afar,
a bar or a war,
a door or a snore,
a bore or a nail,
a flail or a whale,
a run or a bun,
a sun or a moon,
a spoon or a bus,
a fuss or a sigh,
a cry or a cheer,
a fear or a smile,
a while or a pen,
a den or a cat,
a mat or a hat,
a bat or a glass,
a vase or a weight,
a mate or a fork,
a cork or a mop,
a cop or a stop.

III.

Apples and artichokes, ants and antelopes,
bees and beers, books and brains,
cucumbers and chimneys, ***** and coats,
dogs and drains, dots and dominoes,
ears and eejits, elephants and exams,
flies and flutes, files and friends,
grasses and guts, giants and gyms,
horrors and hiccups, horses and hills,
igloos and irons, irises and idiots,
jumpers and jackets, jodhpurs and jellies,
kings and kettles, kites and kittens,
lions and lamps, lemons and lunches,
mums and monsters, mosses and moths,
noses and notes, nightmares and needles,
oblongs and orang-utans, organs and oranges,
paintings and pennies, ponds and pants,
quiches and quizzes, questions and queues,
rainbows and rings, rascals and rabbits,
snakes and sprouts, sweets and salts,
trumpets and trains, tables and toasters,
umpires and ukuleles, umbrellas and uniforms,
violets and vests, violins and vials,
wheels and wings, windows and weeds,
xylems and x-rays, xylophones and xysters,
yachts and yoghurts, yards and yaks,
zigzags and zephyrs, ziggurats and zombies.

Last year's version of the mind-body problem:
my mind gives orders that my body won’t obey.
It’s a problem.

The body’s warranty has expired and
spare parts are scarce.  Plastic tubes
To help me drain have become part of my day.
So there’s still a will.  But sometimes no way.

I am now my sister’s age when she died.  
And some nights
as I lie down in darkness
there’s a moment of wondering
could this be the night
of the Great Reckoning
when everything I’ve said and done
goes mute and I am gone.

And crawling over me like a slow stain
is dread that everything important in life
has already happened. I remember some days  
less than my dreams.

But friend, not this tone!
Let us write a history of now.
Body and soul, stand up and shout
“Baseball road trip!”

Car:  check.  Best friend:  check.  Nostalgia for a simpler
time.  We can fake that one.
The red zigzags on our map turn into places:
Six ballparks in a week.
Detroit haze, gasping Chicago wind,
Milwaukee self-serve micro brew
Cincinnati chili and watering eyes,
Cleveland’s defiant self-love,
Pittsburgh’s Primanti brothers monstrosity sandwich—
Burger, coleslaw, and fries on toast.

The American dream tastes like fast food,
But the mystery lives between the lines.
Thwack of fastball into catcher’s glove,
Whock! of line drive into the gap,
Ball rolling free across the green
While the runner speeds for home.
Home.

Let’s keep going, friend.
There’s another bridge up ahead and
a ballpark’s lights shining somewhere in the dusk
of the upper Midwest and the open road
unrolls toward the setting sun.

Roule, roule ton flot indolent, morne Seine. -

Sur tes ponts qu'environne une vapeur malsaine

Bien des corps ont passé, morts, horribles, pourris,

Dont les âmes avaient pour meurtrier Paris.

Mais tu n'en traînes pas, en tes ondes glacées,

Autant que ton aspect m'inspire de pensées !


Le Tibre a sur ses bords des ruines qui font

Monter le voyageur vers un passé profond,

Et qui, de lierre noir et de lichen couvertes,

Apparaissent, tas gris, parmi les herbes vertes.

Le *** Guadalquivir rit aux blonds orangers

Et reflète, les soirs, des boléros légers,

Le Pactole a son or, le Bosphore a sa rive

Où vient faire son kief l'odalisque lascive.

Le Rhin est un burgrave, et c'est un troubadour

Que le Lignon, et c'est un ruffian que l'Adour.

Le Nil, au bruit plaintif de ses eaux endormies,

Berce de rêves doux le sommeil des momies.

Le grand Meschascébé, fier de ses joncs sacrés,

Charrie augustement ses îlots mordorés,

Et soudain, beau d'éclairs, de fracas et de fastes,

Splendidement s'écroule en Niagaras vastes.

L'Eurotas, où l'essaim des cygnes familiers

Mêle sa grâce blanche au vert mat des lauriers,

Sous son ciel clair que raie un vol de gypaète,

Rhythmique et caressant, chante ainsi qu'un poète.

Enfin, Ganga, parmi les hauts palmiers tremblants

Et les rouges padmas, marche à pas fiers et lents

En appareil royal, tandis qu'au **** la foule

Le long des temples va, hurlant, vivante houle,

Au claquement massif des cymbales de bois,

Et qu'accroupi, filant ses notes de hautbois,

Du saut de l'antilope agile attendant l'heure,

Le tigre jaune au dos rayé s'étire et pleure.

- Toi, Seine, tu n'as rien. Deux quais, et voilà tout,

Deux quais crasseux, semés de l'un à l'autre bout

D'affreux bouquins moisis et d'une foule insigne

Qui fait dans l'eau des ronds et qui pêche à la ligne.

Oui, mais quand vient le soir, raréfiant enfin

Les passants alourdis de sommeil ou de faim,

Et que le couchant met au ciel des taches rouges,

Qu'il fait bon aux rêveurs descendre de leurs bouges

Et, s'accoudant au pont de la Cité, devant

Notre-Dame, songer, cœur et cheveux au vent !

Les nuages, chassés par la brise nocturne,

Courent, cuivreux et roux, dans l'azur taciturne.

Sur la tête d'un roi du portail, le soleil,

Au moment de mourir, pose un baiser vermeil.

L'Hirondelle s'enfuit à l'approche de l'ombre.

Et l'on voit voleter la chauve-souris sombre.

Tout bruit s'apaise autour. À peine un vague son

Dit que la ville est là qui chante sa chanson,

Qui lèche ses tyrans et qui mord ses victimes ;

Et c'est l'aube des vols, des amours et des crimes.

- Puis, tout à coup, ainsi qu'un ténor effaré

Lançant dans l'air bruni son cri désespéré,

Son cri qui se lamente, et se prolonge, et crie,

Éclate en quelque coin l'orgue de Barbarie :

Il brame un de ces airs, romances ou polkas,

Qu'enfants nous tapotions sur nos harmonicas

Et qui font, lents ou vifs, réjouissants ou tristes,

Vibrer l'âme aux proscrits, aux femmes, aux artistes.

C'est écorché, c'est faux, c'est horrible, c'est dur,

Et donnerait la fièvre à Rossini, pour sûr ;

Ces rires sont traînés, ces plaintes sont hachées ;

Sur une clef de sol impossible juchées,

Les notes ont un rhume et les do sont des la,

Mais qu'importe ! l'on pleure en entendant cela !

Mais l'esprit, transporté dans le pays des rêves,

Sent à ces vieux accords couler en lui des sèves ;

La pitié monte au cœur et les larmes aux yeux,

Et l'on voudrait pouvoir goûter la paix des cieux,

Et dans une harmonie étrange et fantastique

Qui tient de la musique et tient de la plastique,

L'âme, les inondant de lumière et de chant,

Mêle les sons de l'orgue aux rayons du couchant !


- Et puis l'orgue s'éloigne, et puis c'est le silence,

Et la nuit terne arrive et Vénus se balance

Sur une molle nue au fond des cieux obscurs :

On allume les becs de gaz le long des murs.

Et l'astre et les flambeaux font des zigzags fantasques

Dans le fleuve plus noir que le velours des masques ;

Et le contemplateur sur le haut garde-fou

Par l'air et par les ans rouillé comme un vieux sou

Se penche, en proie aux vents néfastes de l'abîme.

Pensée, espoir serein, ambition sublime,

Tout, jusqu'au souvenir, tout s'envole, tout fuit,

Et l'on est seul avec Paris, l'Onde et la Nuit !


- Sinistre trinité ! De l'ombre dures portes !

Mané-Thécel-Pharès des illusions mortes !

Vous êtes toutes trois, ô Goules de malheur,

Si terribles, que l'Homme, ivre de la douleur

Que lui font en perçant sa chair vos doigts de spectre,

L'Homme, espèce d'Oreste à qui manque une Électre,

Sous la fatalité de votre regard creux

Ne peut rien et va droit au précipice affreux ;

Et vous êtes aussi toutes trois si jalouses

De tuer et d'offrir au grand Ver des épouses

Qu'on ne sait que choisir entre vos trois horreurs,

Et si l'on craindrait moins périr par les terreurs

Des Ténèbres que sous l'Eau sourde, l'Eau profonde,

Ou dans tes bras fardés, Paris, reine du monde !


- Et tu coules toujours, Seine, et, tout en rampant,

Tu traînes dans Paris ton cours de vieux serpent,

De vieux serpent boueux, emportant vers tes havres

Tes cargaisons de bois, de houille et de cadavres !

When tragedy strikes,
what happens to you?

Do you roll yourself up in
bubble wrap,
box yourself in
and pray that no one finds you?

or do you b-R-e-A-K
into a million pieces
and let others pick you up?


Reality feels like cork,
I push, will it to go and
stay                                            T
      d                                       O
        o                                  N
         w                         
           N                    d
                               l
                           u
                        o
but it          W


...I play zigzags
with it in the water,
and it still Refuses to

                           S
                        i
                   n
               k


I am Numb.
And I try so hard to remind myself

This isn't about me,
not at all.

The regrets are still there,
the could'ves of life


You try to make sense of the tragedy
and still feel like floating up there
with the truth

Because even if the truth is dense and heavy,
it can defy gravity,
much like my tears

The colored carousel is coming for me again
The roller coaster zigzags across my vision
My head thumps with it's own band inside
Pounding away on one side, wearing it down to bone
Colorful streamers follow it, but I can’t focus on them
The image shifts with each movement of the eyeballs.

Why do they always have to bang on the same spot?
I knock some holes in the wall with my head
The freakshow’s fat lady is on the other side, taking a bow
But it feels just like looking into a mirror.
In order to feel some control over the pain I'm privy to,
I tighten the vise on my temple a few turns

Then I bang my neck with a tire iron
Just for equal opportunity agony.
The dwarf man stares at that, as if I am the highlight of the show.
I start to do a little tap dance, but my head blasts off on it’s own,
As if out of a cannon, rocketing above the arena
Slowly turning in it’s bug-eyed orbit.
I remember just in time to tighten the noose and step off the chair,
To the excited howls of delight, from the crowd-
But the support gives, every time; it’s all part of the act.

Why do I always have to work so hard performing
To achieve what my body does without thinking?
The clowns are pointing at me and laughing now,
And the children want to know, what is it all for?
But now blood is in my eyes, and the striking of the clock
Makes my vision shake, so I lay down in the cool doom of twilight
And wait for the loud music to slowly dissipate.

The Sacristy

A pastoral palace
A haven for servants of God
A prep room for the clergyman.
A probationary clergyman,
At his knees in prayer before the lord.

Roars of thunder rattle the room,
Clashes of lightening illuminate,
Through a stained-glass window.  
He is alone,
Father Bernard Benedict,
At the mercy of the lord.

Bernard

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned greatly,
Questioning his own fate,
never before today.
I am full of fear, Father.
Terrified of what will become of me,
if my betrayal of you progresses.
I’m scared of what won’t become of me,
if I remain loyal.

Father, all I know for sure,
is that I’m very confused,
And I need guidance.
It is a sin to deny thy lord,
in any circumstance,
but it is my own twisted irony
to have doubts and...
To have doubts,
And yet seek your guidance...

The Voice

And just what kind of doubts are you having,
my son?
What is it that you seek?
Confide in thy father,
As you are my child,
My dearest little one.
Unleash your desires,
Unravel your pain,
Lend me your soul.

Bernard

…Father?

The Voice

Yes, my son?
My son,
I’m here.
Speak to me,
All ears are wide,
Wide and open.

Bernard

It is you, isn’t it?
May I see your face?

The Voice

I’m afraid that is not possible,
I’m afraid it is not so.
I do apologize,
My son.

Bernard

Why?
Is my wish not your command?
Is it not your mission,
To aid in my suffering?
Why is it that I cannot see you?
Why is it that I cannot experience you?

The Voice

Because I don’t exist.

Bernard

Just what kind of a game,
Just what kind of a game are trying to play?
Father?
Manifest yourself!
Allow me to lay my tearful eyes,
Upon your entity.

The Voice

...If you insist...

The Storm
Wooshing,
Roaring,
Angrily little clouds,
Zigzags of electric,
Blowing window shrouds.

Maroon Man

Howdy do,
Father Bernard,
Hiya,
Howdy do?

Bernard

Who…
Who are you?
Who are you,
And how did you…
Do?

Maroon Man

I’m him,
I’m him,
He,
Who is I.

Bernard

Father?
Son?
Holy Ghost?
Of any, all,
And everything at most?
Dressed to the nines,
Maroon and Red shoes,
That shine?

Maroon Man

Him?
Him?
Oh, please,
Heavens, no.
I’m merely that,
Other him,
You know,
He who should not be named.

Bernard

It can’t be,
Possibly,
Can’t be,
He,
The monster in my nightmares,
The monster of my dreams.
You’re not…

Maroon Man

Carrying a pitchfork?
Hovering with horns?
I left such things at home.
Silly little stereotypes,
Little legends in the books.

Bernard

What is it that you want from me?
What is it that you seek?
I’m merely faithful to my lord,
Not you, that man,
So foul,
You reek.

Maroon Man

I want to talk about your plans,
I want to talk your pain,
I want to talk your suffering,
Your losses and your gain.
Unleash your lonely grievances,
Unload your pesky thoughts.

Bernard

I don’t condone your evil,
I don’t condone your sin,
Allow me to my thoughts in peace,
And never tread within.

Maroon Man

No,
No,
Of course, you don’t condone me,
That’s why you’re so conflicted,
Struggling and buckling,
about your future,
spreading the good love of faith,
because you’re dead-set on,
not disobeying the almighty.

Bernard

Why,
Oh why,
Why is it that you’re here?

Maroon Man

I’m here to merely guide you,
I’m here to simply help,
My son you haven’t yet seen,
The things that I can do.


Bernard  

I don’t need your guidance,
Not your friendship,
Or your help,
Banished from this House of God,
Exiled from this home of holy.

Maroon Man

Don’t you?
Do you?
I hear you’re at a crossroad,
You need guidance,
You DO need guidance,
correct?



Bernard

Not from you,
Never from you,
I’d rather convert or follow none,
Than worship the likes of you.

Maroon Man

Why is that?

Bernard

Because you’re wicked.
You’re ghastly,
You are the symbol,
of all evil.
You are the reason why there is suffering,
and death in this sinful world.
You construct hate and pain,
and spread it like a virus.
You are a virus.

Maroon Man

Flattery will get you nowhere,
Father Benedict.
You’re merely reading,
A resume,
An eternity of achievement.

Bernard

I don’t care what you have to say,
I can’t indulge you,
I won’t indulge you,
To indulge you,
Is to lose me,
And to lose him.

Maroon Man

From what I can tell,
you’re uncertain of your faith.
Isn’t that correct?
Isn’t that so?
Tell me I’m wrong.

Bernard

No,
Not at all,
Not entirely so.
I know what I believe in,
I know what is so,
I just don’t...

Maroon Man

Just don’t,
what?
Speak!
Release what it is,
That has you in such shambles.

Bernard

I just don’t know,
I just don’t know,
if I want to devote my life,
to my faith.
My faith,
My faith,
Where’s the faith in me?
To devote this life,
To everything,
In terms of he?
I feel this way,
And ache this way,
Knowing full well,
That I will burn in hell,
For feeling this way.

Maroon Man

What is it that you have to sacrifice,
in order to become a soldier of Christ?
What is it that you give,
What is it that you gift?

Bernard

Time,
Time,
And life after time.

Maroon Man

Time, yes,
But there’s more to it,
than just time,
What else are you risking?
What is that you sacrifice?
We both know the answer to that,
We both know it true,
You’re risking freedom, you see,
if you pursue a life of pure faith,
you will never know what the beauty of…
pleasure is like.
Freedom is pleasurable,
isn’t it?
Pleasure,
Fulfillment,
Taking that first sip of bourbon in the morning-time,
Taking that long drag from a burning cigarette,
Truly knowing what it’s like,
to make love to a woman,
feeling every bit of passion and pleasure that…
comes with it.
You lack character in this world
and that’s because you are
unfulfilled.

Bernard

You...
You see right through me,
You see right through my pain,
Every ounce and every air,
Of all that I fail to obtain.

Maroon Man

Even he can,
He isn’t stupid,
He knows these are things you want,
But is he allowing you to do so?
No,
his words forbid such action.
Why?
Because,
all he really wants is recognition and obedience.

Bernard

You lie,
You lie,
and you lie,
You can’t possibly know,
what the lord truly wants.

Maroon Man

Don’t forget,
Don’t you ever lose sight,
I once fought alongside him,
the same way you are now,
and look where it got me,
once I realized that there is more,
more to it than just spreading peace,
and tranquility through him.
True peace is in pleasure.
He hates pleasure.
He craves order.

Bernard

And what makes you think,
that I want anything more than,
peace and tranquility?

Maroon Man

Because you wouldn’t be doubting,
your path to priesthood,
if you didn’t desire the very things,
He tells you not to desire.
Even desiring is a sin, you see.
To him,
desire is greed.
Take some initiative for yourself,
and humor me.

Bernard

I can’t.

Maroon Man

Why not?
You can,
Don’t you see?
I can show you.
I can show you,
Fruitful things.
I can show you all,
That he forbids.
Remember the girl?

Bernard

What girl?

Maroon Man

You know,
You know what girl,
Don’t tell me that,
You don’t remember,
The girl.

The Photograph

A framed image,
A portrait of beauty,
Her,
Gorgeous blonde locks,
A lovely little maiden,
Her,
God’s crafted angel,
Dearly Departed,
Cecelia.

Maroon Man

Cecilia,
She is why you are doing this,
aren’t you?
She died,
Tragically,
Overdosed, even.
A talented musician,
who got wiped away,
because of her desires.
Like blowing out a candle.
You think it was me?
You think it was me,
who took her away from you?

Bernard

Yes,
Yes,
I blame you,
You,
Foul old you,
You’re the reason why she’s gone,
You are the cause of pain.

Maroon Man

Wrong,
Wrong,
Wrong again, Bernard,
It was him, Bernard.
He who forbade,
Pleasure,
Mortality was her punishment,
for seeking such pleasures.
It was him, Bernard.
It’s much too easy,
Too easy to pin the blame on anyone,
but the true culprit.
It’s no coincidence,
that I’m here this evening,
Bernard.
I’ve been watching you,
I know you inside and out,
Better than you know yourself.
Do you now trust me?
We’re waiting, Father!
(beat)
Just as I thought.
You know that it’s better to have loved,
and lost,
then to never have loved at all.



Bernard

****… you…

Maroon Man

Profanity,
Profanity,
Is profanity not a sin?

Bernard

Why are you doing this to me?
Why are you here?
What is it that you aim to accomplish,
Foul, ghostly beast?

Maroon Man

If you’d just humor me,
If you’d just listen,
If you’d just dip your toes,
Into my point of view,
I can give you it all.

Bernard

What is it,
that you’ll do,
if I indulge you?

Maroon Man

You can have her,
She would be yours
for all eternity,
You can have everything,
you desire.
Only if you come with me.

Bernard

Can I talk to her?
Can I hold her?
Can I smell her scent?
Can I taste her lips?
Can I…

The Action

Maroon Man smiles,
Maroon Man nods,
Maroon Man grants,
And twirls his fingers,
At invisible atmospheric dials.

Outside the window,
Stood Cecelia dressed in black,
Bernard sniffs a soulful tear,
His love and lust had come for her,
It had unapologetically come back.

He raced outside the holy place,
And wandered in the fields,
To find his lovely little,
Cecelia May,
Waiting for his warm embrace.

The stars danced and twirled and streaked and fell and the moon floated low in the sky just an arms reach above the silent horizon.  The mermaid laid halfway out of the cool water in the middle of her favorite lagoon on her favorite rock as she sighed deeply and gazed longingly into the secrets of the night.  She had swam and explored and discovered and unlocked every mystery and treasure the ocean could hold.  Her stomach grumbled and soul yearned to know the untold stories of the infinite sea of stars and moons and celestial orbs beyond the vision of the eyes trapped in her skull.  She lazily rolled onto her back and let her head sway and roll turning the world upside down so that the sky became the sea and the sea became the sky.  Her arm stretched out and she traced an imagineray circle around the moon in the sky and then let her fingers dangle and sink into the water just below the reflection of the smiling crescent moon.  She quickly closed her hand around the water the moon laid in and brought her hand to her lips and whispered,  "Trade places with me or I will swallow you whole...", her voice trailing off into a giggle.  And as the moon gave no reply she sipped the water down and continued to laugh and giggle and she may not want you to know this, but she snorted once or twice as well, and then let out a deep sigh full of dreams and wishes.  She slide back into the lagoon and circled her favorite rock and swam to the bottom and grabbed a handful of starfish and shoot back up and out of the surface of the water and tossed the starfish flying through the air to do their nightly ballet.  She splashed back into the water and swam back to her rock and searched the sky for the moon.  She looked left, she looked right... up... down... she swam on her back in circles and zigzags looking and looking, but the moon had vanished.  

The mermaid pulled herself out of the water and sat curled tightly on her rock wondering and worrying about where the moon had gone.  She quietly whispered to herself, "...no... no... no... I didn't swallow the moon, it was only pretend...".  Her eyes began to swell and her heart trembled and a tear began to swim toward the corner of her eye and as it slowly crawled down her cheek a small white sliver cut open  the dark indigo sky and a star came crashing through and whooooooosshhed over the silent horizon and splashed into the lagoon.  Without thinking she slipped back into water and swam sure and fast to where the star was sinking and glowing brightly.  With her two arms reaching far in front of her she swished her tail and body back and forth faster and faster until she held the star in her two hands.  It was warm and cool and hummed and sang without making a sound and the mermaids lips spread into a wide smile.  The star had been sent by the keepers of the secret of secret keepers to grant her her dreams and her wish and the mermaid instantly knew what to do.  She swam three circles round and round and round her favorite rock and gathered one and two and three of her favorite star shaped fish and glided across the bottom of her favorite lagoon and then darted straight up and out of the water and into the night and arched her back and touched her tail to her nose and made a circle silhouette in the sky and then splashed back down.  Then swam to the bottom and back up into the night higher and higher until she went so high into the sky that she hung there like a dream suspended and glowing and beaming and she became the new moon.  And only the keepers of the secret of secret keepers and you and me know the story of The Mermaid Moon.

Im tired of all these prancing dancing ****
Id rather see them all in bodybags
While i puff zigzags cruisin slow in my jag
Looking for more this ******* ready for war
Look what they doing to kids
******* em up before they learn to walk n talk
But i bat out that *******
Yea i might get haters but i dont give a ****
******* and your agendas
Now every ****** here me i knowya fear me
Cuz im revolutionary i aint scary
To speak my mind **** your pride
Ill slide this chrome upside ya dome
Id rather see yall like orlando in a funeral home
Flag my **** i dont care
Im sick of this madness i got kids
Who gotta deal with this **** on a daily basis
Got me seeing faces of death til my last breath
Imma keep exposing this **** ******* hypocrites
How ya gonna be a gay christian
When it goes against the Most Highs teaching im reaching
Deep into the pits of hell where my soul on earth dwells
They got every nation embracing
Ya **** but africa deny it
Thanks to Obama a hidden ******* ****
Michelle is really man yall know this
So stop acting new to this
***** and Gemorrah aint no ****** fairytale
Though i may be jail but ill still.make bail
All ya see is my enemies in pain as they h
Yell
I got the power of the panther
And the Most Highs army riding with me
Cuz i fear em
But never satan ya only fallin into his death traps
And they laughing at you
While yall fighting to **** each others *****
N chicks so they each others ***** ****
They gone hit ya with a snipers bullet
Know the art of war once the gore comes
Watch how many panic and run
Then theyll claim they have religion to back em.up
But aint nobody gonna hear ya
When ya throwin up
Mad blood i seen many peeps die for a lie
So if you problem with the way i spin
It off my tongue
******* and you ****** loving muthaphukkas
I cant stand yall with a passion
Im blastin
Like a runaway gun yall wont hearme when i come
For death best moments are done in silent violence *****

.pr.s.: well... if i am deluded? can i claim melancholly to be of equal ontological excuse to a flu... and say: i was infected by a mental illness? and there was never some, "mythical" origin of the illness... as you're sure i'm aware, i do not associate mental illness as having origin in a genesis of solipsism... there's nothing Kantian about it... for me... mental illness is very much an extension of virology... but this be the tempus for the crux of the body contra mind dichotomy... which since the 17th century hasn't been resolved... or has been... by the zombie squadron of the pharma-ingesting spooks of: awaiting a phobia of the white-coats urban myths... of course i fall to sleep thinking about killing someone... why wouldn't it? i end up eating a chicken the next day... what's the difference of a "somebody" for the worth of "something"?

whiskey,
           KMFDM...
very much akin
to ready to blow...

   nine inch nails...

the kids and the punk
and what
was industrial rigid...

and "being" white...
well...
if we're all going
to geneology
the whole "concern"
for history:

originating from
a people
with not tabloid
literature
having succumbed
to colonialization...

"save" the white women...
what?!
with not asian fetish?!
who, are, you?
teenage suicides
engaging in social
media...

             well...
Freddy Mercury was
just revived via:
another bites the dust...

what's agitating?
the inactive presence
of a screen,
that, i somehow need
to make tattoo of...

scripted rhapsody of
the believable people...
like:
people who arm their
psychology with
the orientation
of... "petting" tarantulas
or boa snakes...
touch all you want:
but try a second time
to extract character
and behavioural nuance
from these... "things"...

me?
voluntary celibate...
cenobite *** a
lost leash of leather straps...
every time i ****
off: the hand
becomes the ****...
grip and no soft pouch
of a cuddle of
****** in,
either lip, or...
no... i don't know
what a "missing"
******* feels like...

punk bores me...
punk always bored me...
esp.when championed
by commentators
alligned to...

do you know what
the entry criterion
for the proud boys
was?
   being punched...
no... not on the face...
and having to remember
a recital
of the pleb's favorite
cereal brands...

how about a new
limbo for the "worth"
of entry...

punching yourself
in the face
20+ times...
and then remaining silent...
while the history
of your mother's
****** exploits is
revealed to you
by your grandmother...

how's that?
i pet a cat, i *******,
shape of the water
(females *******),
i take a ****,
i take a ****:
yeah... sorry..
no scented candles,
no internet cameras...
did i coincide with
jordan b. peterson:
yes...
i will never **** these
women...
given they're
**** actresses from
the 1970s...

i, like: vintage...
quirky hair
with the...
gob's worth of *******'s
worth of scrap...
and a bullion
of throbbing quirk
looping lips...
  
i have assimilated
over 20 years in england,
3 years in scotland...
being asked: where are you
from?
like some ******* tourist...
****** me off...

was i going anywhere?
or... point being:
am i, "anywhere"?
ah...
so i am nowhere:
so reading Heidegger makes
a lot of sence, then?
given that
                    no
is no sein
          and that...
as much of where
                    is "there"...

but this sort of pedantic
address for the use of language,
does translate into
the habitual, and the "readily" given
use, concerning the "idle"
hands of a plumber...

a lay-job contra
the pedantic interest...
well... sure...
              we can succumb
to investigating contrasts
that are not worth the while
for being 2 x 2 rubric
statements...
having lost purpose
as 2 x 3...

thus, at times...
i almost forget...
      time...
                 that precedence
hierarchy...
  the precedence membrane
of who are allocated
the purpose of being
contemporary...

   i... somehow...
forget to dismember
the cradle mimic sound
of insect
(entombed in the cracking
wood),
with the rattling sound
of a lizard limbo...
to the R of the trill...
like... what gives off the same
found of creaking
footsteps,
or the burning of wood...
close approximate...

yet there are some people
who i know are not
deserving of a precedence
whether in hierarchy or...
but these people will
congest themselves
to a bite-luck quest
of argument in reproductive-recreation...
so?
failure escapes them
now...
   failure?
           will not escape them...

greeks might have
"invented"
1 + 1 = 2...
no argument, loose association...
but the hindu theologial
rubric, stating:

evil deed + apathy = good eventuality
                                       for all...
  is necessarily false,
is worth being negated...
i like the Hindu algebra
of time being both:
expansive, & constrictive...

    "my" world?
has already disappeared...
   by coincidence...
i've watched how...
            
    no... i'm not here to make sense,
to invest in a non-empirican
standard of a (0, 0) vortex
of beginning:
clinging to being perpetually
cleaned...
  amnesia-ridden...

         and even if i let my
ailment be known "to" or
"in", "public"...
                              the life of
a baker, or a butcher...
can't become overtly,
  "complicated"...
unless it's a genetic anomaly...
because a flu...
is a type of virsus...
poly-morph...
that is never...
    translated from person
to person...
mental illnesses are
never deemed worthy
of the strict scrutiny of
virology...
like...
all of thinking is safe...
and is not ridden with
       pathology...
  like... mental illness
is a hubris of medicine...
   like: all of medicine is
only physical,
and no metaphysics is handy...
how...
      
     like... mental illness is
such a pathology,
such a fetish,
that... it cannot be correlated
to something,
aking to the phenomenon
of propaganda...
  sure...
           the common flu...
i know where my mental "illness"
stems from...
a russian girlfriend...
who told me...
she was abducted as a child,
and *****,
and what not...
trying to excavate
an ******* from me...

mental illness?
   well... bilingual is the new ******...
and any personal
interaction is: worthy of
the... very understanding public...
you know what song
i have, to rely to lodged
in my mind?

   rob zombie's - michael...

me?
     yeah, i know:
a beard doesn't make a man...
then again...
i rather be subject to
something being itchy,
than itch for something...

proud boys:
you sure you joined the right club?
what... entry level of:
get punched by the "sharks"
having to cite breakfast cereals?!
wha......?
    it's like i'm tied with
this chick from Siberia...
    and i can't get be rid of her!
it's like:
we married...
   upon the cranium ring
of death being part of
our ceremony of fingers...
she ****** around,
i went to the *******...
   it's like: that ******* giggle of her's?
that **** is haunting...
russian milk skin...
some new variant of aristocracy...

so... proud boys...
get punched giving names of breakfast
cereals?!
right...

ever punch yourself in the face
to the point of giving 'erself
a plum-shadow?
****! better rewrite than in
"english":

          pflaumeschatten;

oh i'm married...
i'm ******* certain of it...
but the priest
wasn't a closet pedohpile...
it was whoever
the it that strangulates
my he to she and
her she to my she
of a St. Mort... or death...
yeah...
i'm married: post-scriptum...

punch yourself in the head
20 times for a black-eye,
and then tell me:
there is not an element
of virology
worth being investigated
in the realm
of mental illness...
common flue...
and...
being a girl who says prior
to wanting to *******:
i was abused as a child,
i was molested...

better death being the *******
priest
than some *******
dog-wishing leash of a:
scuttle for words & worms...

she can be as *******
randy as hell...
while i can have the "pleasure"
of having kissed several
prostitutes...
   marriage, inverted...
because i just can't stop
myself from seeing similarities
in...
   the public realm...
of...

the foul breath of the other's
ego...
  ****** for biling.
   psychotic for by 'er ego
  'ur ego too...
         it's like a marriage
of the anti-materialists,
the wedding ring of paupers...

mentall illness is so funny...
when having to compensate
its difficulty,
with the "difficulty"
of having to attire oneself
with the role of
being a supermarket cashier...

it's like:
this is medicine, yes?
so... what isn't metaphysics,
isn't exactly mental illness,
but a meta-illness...
  so... the orthodoxy of the scalpel...
heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
******* fairground!
let's do circles and zigzags!

and that one *****
that told herself:
                   i have to get away....
my love has a grave
and i ****** well hope
there's only her name
on the crux of the marble...
and her ghost
******* my dead body
to boot.

Together, we springtime saunter through a busy cities with pink dancers and naked cowboys cluttering the street.  The buildings are towering above us, but we don’t bother looking that high; we maintain straight gazes towards ordinary people.  Lady liberty waves to us and expresses fondness towards our interlocked fingers.  He casually wonders how sharp the spokes are on her crown and how tall the real statue stands.
     He learned to love himself through me and someone called that misandry.  It was utterly absurd so I paid her no heed, but it made him realize where he’d go if I broke him.  “I promise I won't break your heart,” I say, but he tells me, “You can’t know that .”  He doesn’t yet know that I always keep my promises.  He doesn’t yet know that if anyone has to fear a broken heart, it’s me.  When he learns to spin in pulsing neutron stars and sees that I am but a sad cloud of collapsing solar dust, he might decide he would prefer to love something a little more radiant than I am.
     “Stars burn out,” I think, “and solar dust can turn into a galaxy one day.”

     Together, we lie on crispy summer grass that brushes our spine as the sun tickles our collarbones.  Our ribs ache from laughter and I know I belong to him as the stars belong to the sky.  “I’m glad we got to spend much of vacation together,” he says.  I mutely agree because I have no cliche metaphor to contribute.  I just try to stare at the sun, convinced that it wouldn’t damage my eyes because I didn’t go blind the last time I tried.  “Youth is invincible,” I finally say and I let him ponder what I mean until he puts it in the back of his mind with a long list of phrases I uttered to him, all of them just short of poetic.  Still, I know he plans to write a song out all the babble he thinks I mean.
     He grabs my hand and traces circles around my knuckles. We’re only sixteen, but he thinks that if people aged backwards, teenagers would realize they were wrong when they were parents, so he doesn’t think high school love is insignificant.  They told us we’re in our prime, but he doesn’t think people in their prime are always staring at sharp objects and read Ecclesiastes for fun.
     “The others are wrong,” I think, “it can only possibly get better from here; it definitely can’t get any worse.”

     Together, we watch as colorful nature is scattered across the sidewalk and piles up in the road in mountains of autumn.  Squirrels gather the acorns that we are trying not to step on since we are barefoot.  You can’t see the mud on his feet because his skin is so dark.
     We discuss how the universe is a place too vast to fit within our logical comprehension, too vast to understand.  We both know that infinity isn’t something to grasp, even if physics said it must exist. Since we’re just a little pinprick in a universe we’ll never draw on a finite piece of paper, we see we’re lonely people staring at lonely stars.  “All we can do is hope that company of others will prevent all this loneliness from consuming us all,” he says and I’m impressed, so I say, “I’ve learned that it is possible to find the right company.”  He smiles because he thinks I mean him, and maybe I do.
     “I love him,” I think, “and I’m lucky that he somehow loves me too, even if we can’t understand love.”

     Together, we jog to the place where the moonlight shimmers in melodic zigzags over the bronzing sea and the night is thinner than it is in the city of a million lights.  Our jaws are clenched because breathing heavily  in the cold is painful to our chins.  He tells me secrets and the words empty from his throat into the atmosphere, where the water in his breath freezes into the night.  “You’re a dragon,” I say, but I mean, “Winter is turning your voice to smoke.”  As always, he doesn’t understand what I mean, but I have learned not to worry about it.  He says, “You’re also a dragon,” and he means, “We have a lot in common.” I’m sorry that he doesn’t understand me the way I’ve learned to understand him.
     He litters the air with secretive water droplets; the night gets thicker with his words.  I want to tell him that I’ve never cared about a person more than I care for him, but I’ve learned to say nothing explicitly, because the art of finding metaphors in the simplicity of meaningless chatter is what convinced me that he cares about me.
     “He can play the same treasure hunt that I played,” I think, “and when he wins, he’ll be the happiest person in the world.”

You might as well have no fence
since you're just going to jump from side to side,
rolling from side to side and in circles and in zigzags,
Throwing your body like a flailing fish,
Bending your pointer and just
Touch
It to the other lawn.
You'll just desecrate one side's bushes
only to give the other your excrement as a
sort of Mad Hatter's pagan offering.
You'll relieve yourself on the lawn,
upset the owner of said lawn,
who complains excessively about how tediously he cared for each blade,
how furious he was at your insensitivity and indecency,
how his heart is now as crinkled and dry as the result of your relief,
who then suddenly realizes yellow is his favorite color
and
pays you
to ***
on the rest of the green.

The temptress zigzags into the barracks
And makes off with the subservient uniform wearing rifleman's milk money
To buy a swimsuit for her ephemeral summer body
That will sag to the floor by the first few days of autumn

She hacks the submarine's sonar system
And lets the current take her to a cedar river bend
Where she sniffles while polishing her handgun
Reserved for all those who lag behind in the arid region
To release them from their contractual servitude

Causing a ripple effect
Of inconclusive prospects
Etcetera , etcetera

The last place for a waterfall, no mountains or valleys,
horizons flat as summer seas, then from thirty miles,
a white tower of spray punctures the blue sky.

Closer, you hear thunder, though there is no storm,
see double rainbows, bright bridges across air,
feel a welcome drizzle in searing, blistering heat.

Closer, you part a bush, stand on the edge of a chasm;
the wide Zambesi glides forward, then plunges deep
into a wound in the earth’s crust, a break in basalt.

The ground trembles with shock, you shout but hear
nothing except a raging roar as solid water
explodes up in your face, blinds you, engulfs you.

Down in the Devil’s Cataract, the river cuts frantic
zigzags through deep gorges until it pours into a pool
where a dead hippo bounces up like a rubber ball.



[Mosi-oa-Tunya: the Victoria Falls, translated as "Smoke that Thunders"]

If there's nothing they can do,
nothing I can be taught
in order to push the cold away,
please tell me at least the food
will be okay.

The last time, sauce dripping
over my teeth like I am supposed
to sink down into it, pour myself over
the meaty softness of someone else's body
and rest, being absorbed
into their consciousness until
I am nothing more than
a weight on their tongue.

Tell me I'll be able to sleep. They were
always leaving the door open,
the lights still on, I can't sleep knowing
that any moment something could happen
and it could come for me.

Tell me the faucets will pour out
cold water so I can wake up. Tell me
there will be a mirror so I can watch
the lessons taking hold
across my jawline.

I need to know they'll let me in
to see the doctor. Not the one
who tells me everything will be
all right, but the one who has
a plan, who lays everything out
in the simplest terms, so I can
understand.

The one whose mouth zigzags
around broken syllables
like a crooked train track, spitting
Lorazepam, Citalopram, Trazodone,
I don't understand the language
but I know, he does this every day,
points nonsense words at shadows
hoping someday we'll understand.

Maybe I could. If I could only
pull the sauce out from my eardrums,
clear the junk from my tongue and
the wreckage from my teeth;

Mother,
if the food is good,
then maybe someday,
I'll be able
to taste it for
myself.

A blank canvas stares right through me
No colors on my palette
None splattered on my apron
What has become of the beautiful brush strokes I once used to draw?
All my eyes gaze upon are smeared zigzags and uneven lines
There were instances where I could sketch every inch of your face and draw every corner of your heart with colors borrowed from a sunset
Now I cannot bring myself to map out the dimples on your cheek nor can I doodle the sparkles in your eyes
Guess what I can do?
Nothing because I am an artist
Lost without her muse

- J.Q

A bright candlelight
dances, enough for
giving heat. It jerks
kaleidoscopically, like
music. Near oblivion,
phantoms quietly rollick.
Shadows trail up
vapid walls. Xylography
yet zigzags.

She lies on a bed
Engulfed in black sheets
With nothing but
Herself, her mind and the music.

She falls into familiar patterns.

Empty thoughts containing
Masses of emotion
Begin to rattle her brain.

Using the beats and melody
To drown out her voice
She knows she needs
To make a choice.

Let the monsters consume her, or
Resume in her happiness.

Each path would be easy to
Take and wander upon.

She’s been down both,
But which appeals to her most?

She stays still, staring at
Her white ceiling and blue walls
Letting the shadows guide her eyes.

Over to the dresses that danced with boys,
Past the medals that still shout out failure,
Mixed in zigzags and colors,
But mostly blacks and blues,
Off to empty bottles filled with roses,
A drawer full of notes containing memories,
Empty drink glasses and wrappers,
Papers and pens mixed in with stickers and beads,
Mounds of sweatshirts that
Hide her insecurities.

Her mind is made up.
Her choice is to sleep.

Paths weave unending,
zigzags, nothing straight,
bordered by questions,
curb lines of indecision...

It all seems too much,
cement sacks pile up,
mountains of concrete doubt
draining strength in poured emotions

Eyes closed to joyful horizons,
painted futures in vibrant choices
beaming a happiness just within your reach
awaiting your touch, your approval

Though weakness holds you back,
chains tighten their grip...as
perhaps they should,  
or perhaps they shouldn't

The desire to help is fruitless,
barren branches of no leaves,
twisted and crooked in the wind,
if the help is not harvested

So I watch from a distance,
gazing on the farthest star,
making a wish in a caring whisper,
sending my thoughts on a moonbeam

Falling to my knees,
feeling the tears flow down my cheeks,
now screaming to the heavens, pleading desperately...
hear me, please hear me...and

Look into your heart, for there
you will find the strength you need,
you will find your happiness,
you will find me

Within the smoking city, soul ridden and draped with strops of gloom like cobwebs
Catching embers like squirming fireflies,
Under a sky dotted with cold white fire,
Indifferent to the net of searing orange flames that climbs the iron steps of every black building, zigzags up,
Escape becomes the hunter.
Stalks you blind in a dusk made of soft sable and thick, hot grey fog.
You ***** in the dark.
It sees without eyes.
You run and it licks at your ankles like flames.
And it will have you.

Doggone poet laureate
wannabe his index finger wags
nonverbally naysaying those,
who doubt mine posthumous
fame and fortune, which snags
eternal renown within pantheon
of storied writers such foolhardiness nags
yours truly keeps bad company with hags
unemployed day after Halloween,
whose outsize egos deflate
analogous to activated airbags.

Apology in order implying
aforementioned slander of witches
despite abandoning (me) mummy for dead
subsequently necessitating zombies
of Sugar Hill rushing to ominous scene
doubled over while laughing in stitches
unwittingly jump/kick starting
slapstick spiel opening up
supporting improvisational pantomime niches
allowing, enabling, and providing opportunities
fostering the ability to ad lib:
abbreviation for Latin "ad libitum"
unexpected theatrical glitches.

Creative wordsmith frequently
replays silent film
constituting mein kampf
taking lock, stock and barrel
of untapped natural resources,
thus he tries to discipline himself
assigning mental, physical
and spiritual tasks
to challenge body, mind,
and spirit respectively
indifferent to superiority
of others similar talents
verily, specifically, and
particularly crafting poems.

I envy those considerably years
née decades younger where
access to sophisticated technology
offers ability to brainstorm with their
multitude of social media platform
nowadays mostly wireless paraphernalia
can launch instant webbed wide world
devout following bearing witness
to hypothetical individual
gratuitously emulating wing and a prayer
lest he/she disappoints,
hence experiencing unwelcome jeer
if not earning bajillion dollars
while still a babe at *****
distraught and filled with despair.

Topsy turvy global times as sons
and daughters rake in predominant wealth
courtesy commodification of their name brand
if necessary utilizing
advertising subliminal stealth
messaging think uber twittering, snapchatting,
to lyft buzzfeeding, et cetera acclaim
documenting fitbit
hulu jimmying livingsocial
thru sickness and/or health.

Peculiarities (mine) hashtagged as weird
cause pecuniary circumstances
find me poor as a Unitarian Church mouse
yet if/when being triangulated by poverty
unexpectedly and suddenly squared
with windfall such as winning
the humongous Powerball
(October thirty first 2022)
strangers claiming kinship neared
brazenly approach unnamed sexagenarian
pencil neck geek long haired
attempting to become best buddies
literary endeavor feeble effort
conclusion blithely aired.

It’s nearly half a month since the equinox
Drenched in the cold among the dead
Anticipatory of any color other than grey
The tree branches disfigured from winter
A lone squirrel zigzags to avoid the quiet killer
The pancake maker
The meandering bruin seeks to devour anything in its path
Leaving a wake of topsy-turvy blue wheeled bins
Spring is that alarm clock with the inviting snooze button
Where is the warmth that was promised?
Where is the rain that is dreaded?

New England’s ravenous ground is ready
For winters waiting cadavers
How long must they wait?
Spring is anticipated with its many preconceptions
It eases in and is hardly noticed
Warm days intermingle with the frigid
Until frost is an intolerable memory
Spring is manic depressive

Tom and Jerry are both hirsute
Both are small and cute
If there is trouble they are at the root
Tom is the real mischievous brute
Who envisions Jerry as food
Jerry steals the cheese and acts cool
But Tom see’s the mouse and starts to drool
Jerry zigzags under the stool
Tom carelessly crashes into the water fondue
Jerry laughs while he chews

Dens, devils dark alleys
Apart from the quiet disco beats
The house-techno-electronics melodic
Or timbres of the naughty riddims rhythmic
And the dim coloured alternating disco-lights
Else, Dens are blurry dark
With all addicts-of ***, narcos or gins

In there no one sees no one
Just the silent talks of sins around
The usual businesses brought them there
In the mixture of multicoloured lights
So no one will talk of anyone once lights returns
Yet they shared something in common
A gal maybe, a cocoa puff or a shisha vapour!
A cigar smoke or a ***** tot and danced it ***** to dawn

In there are naked nudes-
Dames as well as few muscled-dudes
Teasing silent seated decent dressed
Stripping, selling their worth or wealth
To these willingly seriously immerged
In the occults of the immoral ****

Some are seductively rolling with the podium poles
Their greased groins incised on it metallic luster
Grating-grinding-dancing dirtily down
Its silvery smoothness in timed tempting
Slow spicy synchronic, slutty slides  
Watching the salivating seated
Erotically elated shift in their chairs

Some, skimpily skinned are snaking their boneless bodies up-down
In caressing zigzags of mastered dancers ***** arts
Immorally exposing their mostly expensive parts in bits
To tempt and trap these blind corrupted moths in their Lucifer’s lights
Forcing them to dig deeper their posh pockets to pay to be bemused  

Business here is crooked, dark!
Like ***** and her Gomorrah
Or Tyre and her Sidon
It begins with the fall of the night:
The extinguishing of the day's light
And ends with moments to dawn’s bright

In there all night are all dealers of immoralities
Of dark arts, of *** or of drugs  
Goons as well as criminals of government deals
And the corrupt business billionaires sandwiched
Richly enjoying the **** of the sinfulness-
Sharing, wasting, the rapacious richness
Of their easily gained supernormal profits
On these salacious naked nudes, free to feel

In there in the masquerade of these rainbow lights
No one sees no one, no one will say of anyone
Just cash exchanges hands
You got it, you get what you need
All the services you want-its all at your watch
With just a snap of the finger, all easily you acquire
You are the master, everyone else your servant slave-
At your disposal to your utmost attendance

© Kìùra Kabiri. All rights reserved.

poetry as audio - only audio - the tendons: physics between
animate muscles and inanimate bone - poetry as only audio,
poetry to be disguised without the skeletal alphabets -
never seemingly written - bounce drum rhyme -
                   repetition to no flute
or violin sound -
               bouncing, ping-pong
of consonants -
           the usual cliches -
listening to recitation like to classical
music, and felt no emotion,
only the mechanisation with
robotic churns of the body,
a voice above me, clouding me -
with each b and p and d and q -
                               at the new Bermuda -
passing through to either attend
each though and oar past the Stygian
thought - yes,
   this is the city where men are mended,
spaghetti for the cowboy
     and the poet in a western of Minotaur
  vast west: imploring: western.
       there she and he hang on a
scaffold - not a stage -
      among the heads of chauffeurs
and aristocrats - upon the grand scaffold,
with the chandelier guillotine -
where tongues are cut off: as the people
feared: the stealing of truth: similarly an
apple in Arabia - hence the tongues roll
out from the mouth of dutiful thieves -
the grander good of the beheaded caricature:
spineless -
                   and each word with attempt
to be both meaningful
            and knocks - to better resound
with meaning but still the never-to-be
syringe of sound - myriad of knocking,
thumping and whistling,
          never to accept the fakes from the paraphrasing
and ditto:
                  they hunted the stones: alias
for the hearts-
                            so too, the fluctuations
of bemoaned cravings: settling into routine -
    and the grand extreme rainbow of grey -
where truant light en-robes the eye with
shades rather than colours - where white and
black mingle truer, than into what the pristine
Newtonian spectrum arrives at -
        oh or not so dramatic on every turn -
thus the voice, neither trumpet, nor the saxophone -
   or agile hands and violins -
to the palette of niche villages -
         hollowing out the angry mob -
and the secret heart, without an inner -
the voice above me like a halo
                    to suit man's comparison with
angels' wings - thus the halo,
         man's comparative image of bleeding
out to do good and earn flight,
               then the halo and the Berlin wall -
that of the puritan nurture of one's own -
thus too, a poet's recitation,
a claustrophobic immersion in orchestra -
          suddenly a reminder of the conductor's
wand - thus an entire orchestra in
a room the size of a house, or the poet's voice
reciting in the equivalent of a matchbox -
equal measure of the two being comparatively equal.
  so indeed, poetry should only be encoded
purely audio, never in skeletons of
numbing toothpicks scattered - A as three of them
   and Z as three also -
                      but of course, no talk of urban
rivalries - of the softened heart to absorb more,
   and even more - never the stone that's the heart
un-repenting to experience more, as ever the more
needed to claim a knowledge of life...
                        forever trying to make rhyme
the odd chance - to make rhyme the odd chance -
to not succumb to philosophical systematisation -
for poetry faces the fates of shoes boxes and
         cardboard boxes stacked -
                           as they did: to succumb to
philosophy's systematisation, perhaps not rolling
the Sisyphus vocabulary - but conscious of techniques
in variations cannot be mended: why write
  poetry by being conscious of writing a passport?
rhymes ought to be rare, spontaneous -
             chance meetings...
                                                chance kisses...
   chance cheek against cheek -
                              so i too feel a voice of poetry
said: perfectly aligned to my body's movements...
unlike music, extreme in classical: to sway heart and eye -
of the voice: the entire body is aligned to move -
to never sit still... thus: into writing.
                                but poetic scores should never
be written... immediately: said...
                                and they should be marked
by the waking quake of idle fingers and the teleportation
from voice to encode into these zigzags naked for
the eye to see...                       or so it seems,
  upon hearing... even though there is no excess of
narration - where each to his voiced concerns
does not obey to be ushered by dim-wit and the
intelligent narrator, as each narrator makes it clear:
mere puppets where characters should reside -
   in each book... a character a poet...
                       and already that demand to
despise the god - with each narrator overpowering
  weakling characters - impossible poetics -
                         if not merely puppets to coerce
the architect of movement - sodden prose brimming
with clouds, tables, and sunken eyes -
                      charcoal swans and cobweb constellations -
          akin the two: but with each musical note
    i count words equal - and the genesis beyond
  the standard of civilisation, of the desert fathers -
            then into each of the 26 limbs -
                  and the marriages of the 26 cousins -
     the balance of the ratio 26:5 - .2 thus man and woman -
              or in ratio or fraction reverse: until the last penny...
(matthew), or... because abraham obeyed me (genesis) -
                            strength in nothing being comparable -
              and weakness in everything having
                                     anecdote - amalgam - and a
                                                         sweaty amphitheatre;
from applause to organisation by arithmetic -
         as from encore to echo - and the readied to cling
         in the umbilical chord of history's hunger, of mother
earth and the blind eyeing the world through
                                   both telescope and microscope -
           in heart as both reside: with diminishing
                             vibrations - at last, the love least entertained
  and embracing.