Coddle the Flame

Coddle the flame because the wind is attacking.
Coddle the flame because death blows strongly.
Coddle the flame because it's afraid and quavering.
Coddle the flame, small as it is.
Coddle the flame because it just might go out.

War Against Work

Work is a waste of brain power. Its levels lessen as the mundane saps its strength. One must rage electrically in order to maintain the critical energies. One must toxify in order to recharge. Work lessens the IQ. How can a mind flourish if its attentions are continually tyrannized? Better to be dead than feel the mind implode. It's the vacancy, the volatile vacancy. It's the loss, the lonesome loss. It's the crash, the craftless crash. We must war against their routine. We must war against their money. We must war against their work. It's war that we should feel. Indignant war.

Put your stethoscope to the world's breast and hear its stertorous heart struggle. Our neglect is the viral culprit.

Instant Intellect.

Just add water.

Available at your local Walmart.

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Her flaxen hair silhouettes her face like a golden halo. The tresses drape her Quaker features. Blessed by Mona Lisa's detachment, she is oblivious to my covert eyes. I admire her from afar because she belongs in a live art gallery. Does she have a voice? I have never heard her speak. But her silence intrigues, and I wish it to last so that her mystique maintains its sacred glamor and infuses this dim world with mystery.

The Scank Moon...Again.

Where was the moon tonite? I saw it only briefly on the vulgar double-vision-drive homeward. It looked molested, half eaten, and I wished that I had taken that bitter bite out of its hurtful crescent before gluttonous nature swelled her steel belly. Jealousy inflamed!

I felt betrayed by the moon tonite.

Tonite, I wished the sun had shone fully, if only briefly. I kept looking behind my back expecting its intemperate appearance, but I only met with blackness---and then feminine scorn. I hate its seasonal disturbance, and if I controlled motion I would ensure its oval eternity.

Art and God

Art and God are ancient enemies, crossing swords for the possession of man. Art bestows us with the power of creation; the artist worships himself. God bestows us with the power of anonymity. Worshiping God minimizes the ego. Without identity, peace laces life. I have walked both paths until my legs burned, and my body hurt. In the end I chose the one that hurt me the best. And I will never turn back.

Fire Extinguisher

The old extinguisher is spilling dust onto the living fire. It is finally empty and no replacement is near. And the flame feeds on. The fire slowly drags its eager fingers along my panicked skin as it senses my vulnerability, and I curse the traitorous tool cackling at my feet. No sirens bring hope to the fray, and the temperature steadily rises. My lungs char, and I chant my death poem as my body turns to ash.

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Loving girl: dry your eyes and hand over your grief. I'll lock it away and jailbreak joy. It will give you the buoyant will to fight gravity's lowering tug. May you flash golden smiles that spite your mind's pain.

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Live well.

Age well.

Die well.

Decay well.

Impending Failure

Craft a mold for my impending failure. Fire it until it glosses and the flaming 'F' sears my esteem. Place the inverted trophy on the mantle next to its shimmering brethren. Place it carefully in plain view, and solder a molten piece to my makeshift ego. I want to feel it weigh me down when I abandon ship and swim for shore.

Nest

Where have you chosen to nest, young sparrow? What roost calls your instinct? Or will you remain forever aloft and forever itinerant, guided by the sky? As the winds bear your airy body, the cold will creep into your hollow bones without a sound.

Listen to your instinct. Its gut-wrenching speech fairly drips with common sense. Find a nest and fortify it with the debris of ages. Build a haven inside a life. Safe within its protective circle, you can let the seasons commence.

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When the moon stops shining its loving light on my upturned face. When the moon's acne beauty explodes into a jagged mosaic. When the moon's voluptuous body exposes its mundane entrails to masked, dead men. When the moon's romantic promise fades out with the day. When the moon's white turns permanently to black. When the moon's love stagnantly devolves. When the moon's mystery buckles before humans.

This is the day that I die.

Broken

The deja vu subsided and the pencil lay snapped in half. Its sound still ricocheted in the halls, a portent. There it was on the desk with a broken spine. The tan flesh coated its black marrow, and the graphite wept in derision. The jagged edges of detachment carried in them the premonition of violence. It loomed, gracefully vengeful, like velvet. The antagonist loafed, comfortably unaware. The event made me wish that the inanimate could rise up and punish their smug oppressors.

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When I put the world in cruise control, a rush enters my brain and enervates my sense of life. To take your foot off the accelerator and feel your life's vehicle speed forward of its own accord is a sacred experience. It is a feeling of joyful despair: a smiling hopelessness. You realize that time is a heedless instrument of nature. It ferociously gushes down the ditch of infinity, a stream with no discernible beginning or end.

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Would you recognize me after I smiled at you?

The River of Innocence

Today I waded through a river of children. I was making my way through the swamp of adults when their sound first cascaded across my intrigued ears adding youth to earth's old morning. I heard the pitched current attack the selfish environment as I approached. Then I beheld it. Chaotic as a tempest; wide as the Mississippi. Moving swiftly at points and languidly at others. The river reached waist high. Intimidated, I stood and studied its pouring patterns until I felt secure enough to cross.

Then I began to ford the broiling mass. The first step was the most difficult because the waters felt foreign. But the second and third steps came with increased ease as the river washed the quagmire's mud off of my beaten boots. Now, with half my body submerged, I felt the current's tug threaten my stance. But I resisted its pull and persevered even though my heart almost gave.

When I was finally across I turned and looked back with a feeling of loss. Though I was bodily sound, I could not shake the feeling that something had dislodged from within and been swept away by the cherubic flow. I sighed and continued on through the adultian marsh with the gait and posture of a broken old man. The sounds of the river grew dimmer as the distance increased until they blended completely with those of the pragmatic landscape ahead.

Days

Days,
In isolation.
Sentenced by nature for careless crimes.

Days,
Alone.
Pining for contact and sequestered by illness.

Days,
Of hermitage.
A self analytical loneliness.

Days,
Of delirium.
Boiling in pain.

Days,
Imprisoned.
Keeping an eye on the keys.

Days,
Sunless.
Electronically lit in the the robot emporium.

Days,
Indistinguishable from nights.

Scales

Blue, silver, purple scales are snaking beneath the torpid ocean surface, flickering in the dreary realm of lovelessness. They are here, in this hour of hours, fascinating we who sit alone and stare deeply into the dark depths looking for will and wisdom.

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The ice cubes have melted. They warmed and watered down my drink. The pristine glass now holds liquid unfit for consumption. Proof that I should be drinking it faster.

Election Day.

You can change the smiley mask, but the unreadable face is still concealed. A very few are aware that the unreadable face shades the political mind's sneering grimace. And the political mind's grimace has remain unchanged since the beginning of government. The unreadable face was not always unreadable, however. There came a time when the face became slack and unregistering, and the smiley mask became necessary. There came a time when people began to read shallow deception. The smiley mask was molded then.

There will come a day when the people will be able to read behind all faces straight into the bare brains of the deceivers. There will come a day when the people will stop, listen, and think. There will come a day when bullshit is smelt, seen, and even stepped in. On that day, the powerful will tremble, forever after.

Divine Guitar

The guitar jutted down from the heavens; the head and neck split the highest clouds. And what magnificent music it played for the earth and skies. But the guitarist could not reach the lowest notes and so hell was not appeased. The denizens stood by with their tortures on their shoulders, bent and waiting for the blissful release music renders. They waited eons for their dark, mournful tunes to carry into the underground. But the musician's arms were simply too short, and he could not play their desire. They have since slipped back into the jealous shadows listening unseen. The artist, discontented, disappeared long ago. The divine guitar returned to the skies and has not been heard since. Before his absence the artist prophesied the coming of a great musician who could play equally well for heaven, earth, or hell. And, on his arrival, the guitar will return once more to thrill all three hemispheres with its auditory therapy.

Tribute to Black Hawk

I read the life of a man in the space of two hours. I absorbed the cultural opinions of a dead man in 120 minutes. For one-twelfth of a day, I felt his vibrant life beat against my fingers.

And my ringing ears heard his just pain yell deafeningly in history.

You will live on, Black Hawk, behind my pale face and inside my crinkled brain. You will live on longer than was your destiny. Your dry bones may rest, unmoved, in your grave. But your life is left in a book entitled, The Life of Black Hawk--and in a mind entitled, BCL.

Little Words

Little words in a big city gazing at all the buildings. Little words with necks craned jostled by the locals. Little words, sick and sad, lost in the sweeping traffic. Little words out of place but full of life yet homeless and overlooked. Little words in the overcast world breeded out by screaming polysyllables. Little words, simple and unrefined, now silent, emotional watchers through the child's absorbing eyes. Little words trodden on by muddy adulthood's everlasting boots.

Just Say Yes

Just say yes to every question perched to you. Just say yes when they all shake their heads no. Just say yes when askance nags. Just say yes when the gray tombstone glares. Just say yes as the IV trickles. Say yes for the sake of desire. Say yes for the sake of hypnosis. Say yes for the sake of nothing.