It's Hard to Kill a Feeling

She is a porcelain doll, but when dropped she doesn't break. A cold blizzard seeps from her skin. I stare at her freezing face with love in my eyes and desperation in my heart.

The torture of a broken connection is the pain that nags, is the hell that haunts. It is the gremlin that scared away my sleep this awful night and put my health on hold.

It's hard to a kill a feeling after it has taken root. Immune to the hoe, augmented by poison, it is a most persistent weed.

It runs amok in the soul's garden and strangles the roses.

Since it can't be killed it must be fenced in a private corner and guarded by barren rock. There it may stay, waterless and unflourishing, while the other feelings continue their growth.

Only then will the porcelain doll lose its voodoo. Only then will it shatter when dropped upon the pavement of peace.

Why Run, Child?

Why are you running, child? Are you sure of the danger? You are young and naive and so you believe that you can run forever. But the time will pass and then your breath will come short and shallow. And where will you find yourself then?

Forsaken in a hostile land, matured by your fleeing habits, your rash sprint will turn you coward. You'll spring with fear when the gentle wind ruffles the laughing leaves.

You are human, child. Your desperate running will bring you scorn. Few can live peacefully with scorn, especially self-scorn. You will burn with unfulfillment. This is my prophecy to you.

Stop, stand, and stare at your surroundings. You may find them to be friendlier than you thought. You may realize that harmony lies at your feet. You may learn to live with the monster in your closet.

The Razor.

It is a sharp razor,
That cuts the soul,
Cleaving through flesh,
Piercing its jelled shell,
With surgical precision.

The razor,
Is the terror,
Of any thinker's dreams:
The emotional threat,
That promises insanity,
And breakdown.

I see its awful edge,
Glint at the foot of my bed,
And I quaver with fear,
For the blood of innocent souls,
Have stained its steel,
With engrossing permanence.

The Hole In My Head.

There's a hole in my head.
It's red and angry and an inch large.

It bleeds out at uneven intervals,
The words you see inscribed before you.

At present they are ash-black,
But they were once a shocking red.

Let me tell you of the gunmen, for this hole was not self-inflicted. They descended one Irish morning. I had the sadness when they crowded me, so I did not resist. The leader's muzzle was stuck to my temple. It felt such a part of me before it attacked. And then its awesome bite teared through my brain.

In the hospital I learned that medication kills a mind better than hatred, and I sat drooling for days on end. When I finally came to, I was killed again by condescension. The doctors enforced my role, and I lay awake and silent as a good patient does while my money ran into their pockets.

When the greenery was gone, they turned me loose. And so I roam the streets with a hole in my head. The strange looks I get infect my wound. It oozes sickly when their judgment pokes. So on it bleeds, a stream of life down my face. Its hot exodus makes me weary to the end.

As I lay my woozy head down in final resignation,
I feel a giant unfulfillment,
And I chuckle,
Knowingly,
In spite of it all.

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How secure are the self-righteous! I envy their confidence, their unswaggering adherence to opinion. Logic plays no role to the self-righteous. They are above it, beyond it. Freed from the garments of reason, they stand naked in the sunlight. And their imperfections are clear to everyone except them.

A bad sight are the self-righteous! Their dirty wounds invoke the past--a sad reminder of what has been. The used will always envy the past. Mournful and frozen, it is the gargoyle of our dreams. For the past is the winged flesh of the future. Watch it take flight into time's stormy skies.

Invulnerable.

Invulnerable in this mortal moment.

Invulnerable though they laugh.

Invulnerable though I age.

Invulnerable,
In a fit of destruction.

I Was Laughing.

I was laughing,
And then I thought of you.

I was laughing,
And then my arms longed for your embrace.

I was laughing,
And then I wished your face was pressed to me.

I was laughing,
And then I wished your hips were next to mine.

I was laughing,
And then I longed for your vivacious lips.

I was laughing,
And suddenly I became serious.


I was laughing,
And then my face fell,
Because you were away,
Swiftly wounding me with indifference.

Threat to Children

The snake is in the murky water. Its silvery, twisting form juts out of the black. It veers over the rim, searching for prey...any prey.

Your children have run to the riverbank.

Will it pounce,
While your head is turned,
And your lips flap?

Will it pounce,
While your biceps are exposed,
And your eyes wander?

Its neck is craned, and I'd shout in warning.

But my lips are sealed,
With fear.

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As we grow older, the artistic magic becomes a permanent fixture, but its constancy undermines its adrenal value. For experience's fingerprints streak across the chromatic luster of discovery. Once felt, we may never again be engulfed by the initial artistic force which encapsulates and dominates the untried, unbeaten mind. This is because nostalgia is for the old, and innovation is for the young. I understand this, now, at the age of 23.

Begone, Putrefaction!

We have awakened from our dreams,
With the smell of putrefaction,
Knocking at our nostrils.

Unseen is the putrefaction.

Still its proximity may be felt,
But with mixed reception.

The logical respect it,
The emotional deplore it,
The ignorant ignore it,
While the shrewd swear to it.

Today the winds of baptism,
Are choked by strange forces.

Today putrefaction has settled,
Unmoved in the stillness,
Lodged within the jagged cracks.

The winds are limp this helpless day,

Silent fixtures in spite of all,
While their nemesis roams the town,
Infecting the mood,
With its clammy scent.

You've won the day,
Putrefaction,
So enjoy your moment.

But our heroism is at work,
Revving the weather's engines,
And tomorrow the wind will descend,
With the anger of an army,
To drive your corruption to the dirt,
And the shrewd to the hills.

Too Much

The wind cracks dry leaves upon the unsuspecting pavement this hollow evening. I hear their haunting roar in the distance. Ghosts on the prowl. For the leaves were not given absolution. Their bodies roam and rustle until broken, unacknowledged and unblessed, except by jaded preachers like me who have utterly abandoned convention. Their pieces fly helter skelter, and their painful wails disturb my shallow sleep. I toss and turn, but their life stories persistently disturb my limp ears. I listen with resistance and forceful indifference. And I hear too much. And I learn...too much.

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A mind slowly roasts over the open fire. Its smell invades the moonless midnight like a flickering repellent.

To the north the familiar concrete ascends--crafted by man's meticulous hand. The ditch water looks like blood at this hour and reflects the fire's lights without remorse.

So still, so constant, so surreal,
While the freeze settles,
And the graffiti gains life.

The culture of the streets line up at the fire, single file, and individually leap in so that the rotating mind gets cooked evenly.

Little did they know what wonderful ingredients escaped in the heat! How little they knew about cuisine tactics! What tastes were freed this freezing eve!

The mind is finished, the fire burns low. Salivating tongues are ready to caress; rumbling bellies are ready to work.

A vegetable lays buried beneath the clay.
It breathes for a minute,
It sputters out,
And is then forgotten.

All Are Alive

So many dismal distractions,
Hiss in the world.

The blood flows,
And insanity's wings flap.

I feel the polluted air waver my scruffy shadow,
Down to the inelegant pavement.

The stains are stuck,
Petrified by the weather.

A parasite caws,
Camouflaged in the night.

Its sleek form,
Is recognizable,
By the moonlight.

Shoot the bird before its virginal talons function,
And redden the bottom of its nails,
Upon man's most sensitive spots.

Shoot it before its cuticles taste blood,
Though its eyes are not yet predatory.

For the birds have that unkilled youth,
That glints uncertainly,
From the hopeless optimist's,
Watery irises.

All are alive,
And expecting promise.

All are alive,
And aging wrongly.

I wait for the tears to arise,
But the unfeeling,
Are cursed with inhumanity,
And so I toast to the awful future,
With doubtful optimism.

Always Healing.

Always healing is the body. This process is the source of aging; the result of the world’s tempering anvil. The hammer beats us back to shape in the eerie smithy, whose walls are reddened by the smoldering coals. And the settling smoke deafens our confused senses. Once healed, our re-woven forms step out into the slashing chaos daring history to repeat itself: though we internally disbelieve in that possibility until it occurs again.

When the body stops healing, the corpse appears. The corpse lurks at the pit of our worries. Cold and patient, it neither laughs nor frowns. The corpse is certainty embodied--and nothing besides. It holds no emotion but provokes a rainbow of feeling. And this particular rainbow will remain when the foreboding clouds clear.

I Am the Lesser Man.

I am the lesser man. I travel west along the plain, as the great blazing sun whispers its reincarnant death theme in my ear, reddening the cartilage.

I am the lesser man. My legs burn as I run from the clamor. My body will punish me in the morning.

I am the lesser man. The betters use me as an example, disdaining my existence with detached decadence.

I am the lesser man. My clothes show it; my fuzzed cheeks reek it, my baggy eyes reveal it. I sag beneath the tired totem pole.

I am the lesser man. I feel it in my fiber; I tag it in the mirror.

I am the lesser man.

My flaws are displayed upon my face,
They disturb the better man's grace,
It is his peace that they debase,
Forced to consider the lesser man's case,
They kill his quiet, they burn his lace,
And all that's left is an awful disgrace.

Sitting in the Dark.

I'm sitting in the dark waiting for my pupils to adjust, and I feel Alright.

My brain is glowing coals--it is red and distant within the encroaching black. The colors blend to satisfy my mood. In this cave, time is irrelevant. The past's choke-hold is loose, and the future's Full Nelson does not entrap. So I inhale freely and stand upright.

I'm sitting in the dark waiting for my pupils to adjust, and I am Patient.

I see things the normals reject, for the conjurer is in my head this silent eve. The conjurer: the bliss and bane of my body. It animates desire and maximizes the urge of expression. The conjurer's lidless darkness has always suggested...possibility. I eat it for dinner this empty night.

I'm sitting in the dark waiting for my pupils to adjust, and I am Dissatisfied.

The night and I are one, but we now have nothing to say. Mystery has deserted our relationship and all that remains is bleak familiarity. It is a routine that fries our soul in gasoline.

To burn hotly is the aim.

Give Me Fullness

Fullness in the gloom.

The fullness of thought.
The fullness of memory.
The fullness of security.

Locked doors, stable cells, happy logic.

Fullness equals satisfaction,
And it is desire that requires fullness.

Fulfillment chomps at the gut of all humanity.
It is a need that is sated temporarily.
It becomes hungry again in a whirling moment.

The want for fulfillment requires an infinite supply,
And an irrational imagination.

The latter I have in abundance.

I know that,
To attain fulfillment is a dream,
To feel it is a lie,
To do without it is a joke.

I know that,
The unstable do smile,
While the intelligentsia do frown,
While the steady are stoic.

Let's Be Hungry Together

Let's be hungry together,

Out empty bodies in sync.

Let's feel our need press us equally,

Our mind mortared by mutualism.

Let's live with want,

Knowing that hunger is murder.

Leap into the New Year.

Leap into the new year.

Feel its scented robes wrap around your thighs and across your torso--the rouge of royalty. Oh the new year and its possibilities! Youth's complex hope shines a light on the future. The younger the light, the brighter it shines. And how blindingly strong its beam can be!

Leap into the new year.

Where new tests tell of a character's muscle; where new trials tell of a character's resilience; where the written past drives the creator's ambition.

Leap into the new year.

We celebrate to purge ourselves of the previous year: To baptize ourselves in inebriation and awaken the next day with the sludge burned out of our bodies, flushed down all the cold and depressing toilets laying at the quiet corners of every madly euphoric party.

Leap into the new year.

The lines on its face are growing much deeper. I remember when the new year had the unweathered skin of the newborn baby. Yet each wrinkle on father time's face speaks of consternation and woe. I now see the new year's face as I see father time's: a book to be read and then mourned.

Leap into the new year.

Leap like a frog to the pond, ruffling the surface, sending insignificant ripples across the flat establishment. In the quiet morning, the splash of the world's billions may be heard as they fill their lungs with old air and plunge beneath another year's ocean. I wonder how deep they'll dive this time?