The Same Sun

All that ever was, all that ever will be in this life, is you. Pain and pleasure come and go along with people, passing like the weather: snow, rain....shine. All one can do is clothe oneself. For when the smoke clears, there you are--the same you. A conglomeration of experiences since you passed from the womb, marred but true.

For real change is subtle. Wrinkles manifest in slow increments. Often we are the last to realize how far we've marched, how ravaging our wars were, how torn we have been.

Oh, mutilations are violent, but are merely physical. Their psychological impact takes time to work, to alter the revolutions of thought, to shift the shock. Our elliptical orbits change in small degrees when, some years later, we can map the processes with a compass. Nevertheless, we still turn around the same sun, the same sun.

All that ever was, all that ever will be in this life, is you. You take yourself with you wherever you go--you are cognizant even in oblivion, sensing in sleep. You cannot run from you. You can only slip into gross psychoses.

So look into your mind's mirror, and find a way to like what you see.

The Dawn of Insignificance

Today I stood, and my knees were quaking. The sun looked overfed as it shined across the globe, overrun with our species. An image was in my head, of a world atlas, unrolled and supine: all those tired greens, grays and blues, and spidery little labels frozen horizontally across the brittle page.

I envisioned my hands, placed upon the sheet, gripping it at the center in hard fists, the paper protesting, more alive than any of us. My hands were dictatorial, childish, brandishing disunity, as fear swelled my throat. I tore it all to pieces and blew the debris away.

Today I had trouble meeting the public's eyes. Their animal souls gleamed disturbingly. I hazarded a look, and their faces froze, still as a photograph. I broke away, but the damage was done, the image had burned, the simian features stored, framed and placed upon the pedestals of my memory's museum: an estranged depth of muffled whispers, of coursing griefs, of scattered leaves.

I waited for peace to curl through me, settling the bile, upset even in solitude, rippling my sanity, which is prone to fits. I waited for the bus to arrive, to take me away from this dilapidated building and its dead displays, back into the city of Life, where humanity counts. I waited for a time.

Finally I saw the vehicle lumbering in the distance, though its progress was painfully slow, stopping frequently to pick up others like myself. I heaved a sigh of relief and tightly clutched my ticket as the doors squeaked open to admit me. I pushed my face up against the windowpane, panting hotly against the glass, as we rumbled our way back into civilization.

What I Want

I want us to be an oasis from the grind, a relief from the mundane, a cool drink in the drought, friendly faces amongst antagonists. I hate those who attack the attacked, who oppress the oppressed, who aggravate the aggravated.

We mustn't irritate the wound, but be a soothing balm to its infected anger. I want positivity in place of pain; to exchange relief for desperation, a light-heart for woe. I want them to hold their heads high, to return home smiling, to make intelligent contentment contagious.

This is what I want; this is why I react. Because I believe in community, because I resent the disjointed selfishness pouring into the muddy pool of negative human interaction, the weight of economic transactions, of the egomaniacal self-made man myth.

I'm tired of irrational negativity, tired of pushing blame onto the blameless, sorrow upon the innocent. I demand intelligence; I hate all ignorance: systematized, compartmentalized, unrealized.

The Freeze

Brisk and bracing is the cold, as you gauge its mood in the morning. Your skin responds to its marital caress. Will it bite off chunks of flesh, nipping at your ears and nose? Its frosty fangs still the seeping stumps.

Or perhaps it will encircle you in its beefy arms, frosting your entire body evenly. It often settles deep in your loins, causing uncontrollable little tremors to pulse through your limbs and lungs, and you must will your torso back to equilibrium.

I know the days it invades your head, taking residence in the brain's darkest chasms, when only mental bonfire melts the freeze.

Mother Earth

Her cancerous teat; her putrid milk: hot, polluted, a feverish one-O-three. Suckling away. What the hell else are we supposed to do?

Some spit out the gnarled nipple, and it slumps: sickly and spent, wilted and gray. They did it together, spurting milk from their remorseful mouths, a collective protest.

I stop and watch its trajectory, the white mist falling like powder, heavy droplets raining down like needles onto unresponsive necks. The scornful cloud dews my face and clogs my eyes.

They roam and wail, lids half shut, huddling against the weather, against the extremes at both fronts, proudly starving, yet largely ignored, bony bodies quivering, while the hormonal mother sags beneath our weight: too little, too late.

In the throes of death, her wilted body gives. And the young blood suckles, ignorant, untouched, as the milk begins to cool. In this we recognize her demise, tasting it on our tongues.

And then some of us hesitate, hesitate, puppy faces ruffled, while the alpha males pump away at her slowing body...

The Gig

The sound goes off, the band starts to play, the drumbeat calls. I drift to the stage and stretch my arms over the railing: a sloppy grin steals in, creasing my gritty face. Jostled now, as the tension starts to rise. My mind elevates, my senses fire, my body goes wild, dirty leather flopping. Beads of sweat rush down my face, purging negativity, taming my inflamed nerves.

Behind me the circle pit rages. I keep one eye behind me, one eye on the stage, and my ears are tuned. Lightheaded now, but I push fatigue aside, demanding adrenaline, pushing myself as I've always done, pushing myself to a higher plane that knows no pain.

The night streaks by; the songs blend together. My voice grows hoarse as I scream along, sour breath settling in, and pump my fists in the air. We're all here for the same reasons; we sense it mid-show, gazing sidelong at each other while the communal mood awakens, siblings of the street.

Spirits

We are lucid, we are lightning, consuming the plains, flashing, flashing, and fires abound. We watch your ruby-red fingers blister, and chuckle sympathetically.

We spring from the loaded skies, from the densest clouds, waterlogged. Every so often a member joins our ranks. We watch as the seeds multiply, garbed in dirty animal skins, and romanticize our isolation.

We feel ourselves racing, knuckles electrical, white with speed. We feel endless, provocative, a part of the ubiquitous frontier that defies mortality but defines death. We stand out in the crowd, off-kilter and unsteady, shattering like stained-glass windows, to be pieced together again by the king's concubines while he looks on, burning, burning.

Growing calmer now, the raging waters left behind. The current ebbs, and our standing pools house amphibious lifeforms, while the small percentage longs for risk, for animism, for something to stuff into the drunken holes we've blown through our brains, while our wrinkled faces wane.

Place your ear to the shell and listen to our gushing senses, our spatial cries that bemoan moonless nights and forgotten graveyards. Do you hear the drifting distance? The forgotten sacrifice? The perilous future?

Listen to the sage's whisper that floats between sleep and wakefulness, whose raspiness jolts us upright, who calls for restitution, who reminds us of what might have been.

Brittle by Dawn

The music blared, our emotions flickered, and we moved like magma, gripping each other as only the dying do. We were a viscous sludge, slow and painstaking, that purposefully flows, busting apart American homes. How little we cared amidst the heat, drawing breath and diving in: melting instantly. You must remember.

You cooed and cawed, but our blood began to cool, and our flow began to cease. We sensed an end but pointedly ignored it.

The soaring temperatures plummet, the great passions turn obsidian: shimmering and voluptuous, coldly elegant, a petrified whisper.

And in our deadness, we bitterly clashed, shedding sediment, brittle by dawn.

The Overactive Imagination

The wicked eyes pierce your marrow, and you glance around, hyperactive. You just can't shake that portentous feeling, and your enemies abound, blades athirst. You know their histories; you know their intent; you feel your own shortcomings grind your guts. And when they draw blood, it hurts so good.

Look into your life, confined fiend, and question the way your mind swings. Damned to sway, damned to quest, a wanderer without roots, sorely tolerated but always unwanted. You think of all the places you've slept on this horrid pilgrimage, trudging your way to the final resting place, that leaves this aching life behind, and transports you into harmony's pure embrace.

Your hands shoot out, dying for love, but meet projection's glowing mist, and you feel yourself sinking. Familiar, all too familiar. And though you fall, your legs continue to push your body along the gravelly road while the moon breathes its faithful breath against your bared back, and for a minute, you aren't alone, although your purpose escapes you.

What are you searching for, fallen man? Blow the smoke from your lungs. You can't elude those eyes forever.

Outta Hell, Outta Heaven

The wheel turns as I run, an endless carpet, spinning faster and faster. And the energy I expend exudes from within, evaporating in the skies. Heaven's in the distance; on the horizon I see it, melting my eyes.

Fatigue grips me, but I don't rest. I push myself, though I get nowhere. Because I've always pushed myself where the compass points, rain or shine. Running, running, though the bearings age and immolate.

Suddenly I look behind me, and the rage spreads like cancer, while I smirk and pant a curse. I slow to a snail's pace and reflect, bitterness contorting. The curtains lift, and I step out from beneath the scented veil: the velvet makes me shudder with disgust.

They were holding hands in heaven, carefree, their perfect skin untainted, watching me with comic distaste as I stood by my wheel, eight months outta hell, burned and boiled, scarred so visibly, dirty with darkness.

My vision clears, and I abandon the wheel, to die forever, for I know my home is here, beneath isolation's neglected wing, whose smudged feathers shimmer still, murky and lifeless. I poke around the dank dark, pupils widening, perceiving the rugged landscape stretching out around me.

And again I abandon heaven,
And again I tread the tundra,
And again I tremble before the flame,
That flares and flickers in distress.

And again I huddle here,
While time blows its wrinkly breath,
Until hell is just a memory,
Until heaven is just a myth,
Until my hungry smile,
Returns to me again.

Bludgeoned by his fading hopes, his cold reality, the tired man slumps, shoulders hunching. The straining mind, taut with pressure, yields and begins to buckle. A dam cracks, a flood gallops; drowning memories, waters white and savage. They spit and foam as sanity surrenders, as blindness consumes.

The man trembles, frantic. "Oh, hell," he whispers, and the temperature spurts.

An Attack on Indifference

The internet has got to be the greatest invention of our generation. It offers an unlimited range of information to the average person. PHD quality material is available to anyone who cares to access it. Project Gutenberg(gutenberg.org) is a prime example of this.

Yet intellectual poverty continues to persist in this country on a widespread level, despite this expansive wealth of knowledge, causing rag-tag intellectuals like myself to ponder this issue with anger and indignation.

Is it due to the media's unrelenting barrage, with its showy commercials and cheap stimulations? Do the government and its cohorts actively expend time, money, and energy in suppressing a person's higher impulses? Perhaps, perhaps not.

It is much more likely that an unconscious bureaucratic process is taking place: one that is necessary if the governing institution is to maintain its control(and ultimately its life); a process that is rudely compartmentalized, and thus difficult to upset.

Or perhaps the ruck of men are simply crass and fickle creatures, who willfully persist in an apathetic state until death claims their undeveloped identities. This last is all too easy to embrace with a scholar's arrogance; a favored opinion infesting the intelligentsia, a fatalistic aristocrat's brassy romanticism, and the outlook which every social revolution in history has attempted to combat, but has fallen short of.

I write this because it's been clanking around my foggy brain, clamoring for expression, because progress is perpetually on the horizon, but goes unrealized. Isn't anyone angry? Or are we too distracted by Dexter and reality TV to voice our opinions? It is easy to become distracted. It's only human, and thus forgivable. Unpleasant realities are difficult to digest but must be faced soon, or moderation will simply die out, and socially conscious individuals will be forced to turn militant--a dangerous prospect.

A prominent opinion these days is that voting is useless, that politicians are corrupt, that the system is broken and, as a result, that change is ephemeral. But that is no justification for political indifference. Rather, it is a call to arms, an indication that the traditional channels of change aren't up to snuff and need to be replaced by more meaningful action.

Calamity is in the air, and we have to right to avoid asphyxiation.

-Brian Looney

The Great White Night

Her phosphorescent face, emotive and glowing, breathes out surreal life-rays, the whitish blue irises, the astrological mana. Then, through a breezy smirk, "Let there be night" resounds upon the hardening tundra, equal in all areas, from the deepest cave to the highest tree.

The great white night finds us final in all of our decisions; finds us reserved and implacable; finds us able to withstand its seashore strength. It finds our gaze connected, our knees unshaking, our wills intertwined. It rears in fear, hoofs clashing, jaws gnashing, eyes gushing anger. Now circling and darting, surveying its foe, as we glare back, impregnable.

White. White is its shallow converse, the exchange of the universe, slashing its canvas across the slab that beckons and beckons. White pigment to be seen with rapture, in circular flotation, battered but unmolested.

We float within its fog; we electrify within its cloud, our actions manifest within its dusty sword beams that slash and slay, wavering in the morning.

Treacherous Hearts

A drop of water ripples the screen; her face flutters: a frozen vision, a melancholy freedom. Praising disloyalty, the freedom of choice, the will to desist.

How accusing is her face when one's heart is unclean, when the civil muck clogs and conglomerates in its percolating ventricles. I stare back and quiver, muttering oaths, my knees shaking uncontrollably, bladder pulsing.

A purging pilgrimage, the flame's orange dance, howling faces, sadistic warpaint. Handles wilting, stripped screws, swamp stained steel, appendages whipped and whittled. Viewed, with cocked eyebrows, by ascetic scrutiny.

She's left the gas on, and abandoned the house. Its creaking heat intensifies, and the cabinets sweat, while she occupies her deaf hole in the sky. So senseless is she, staked aboard in the pitch of night, the ship's glue old and rotting as it decrepitly drifts forward, forward, the past smoking in the distance, away from explosions and treacherous hearts.

The Highway

The wind sweeps across the brigand desert and rams us, body and all, sections slicing through our plastic hair, whose greasy arms dramatically flail and flake. Buffeting in the silent night, across illusory lanes, a savage whisper in silky silence, a solemn wail, an ashen gasp, a muffled gurgle.

As the roadside flies, the black tongue lolls, a carpet winding and whirling, gyrating its frazzled dance toward our dreamy destination, whose noise and lights hum specifically for us in this lamplit purgatory. Spirits playfully prance at the edge of vision, their laughing lanterns archedly pouting, pettish from lack of love.

The engine chuckles in its bed, yoked to the frame, guffawing in rotation, gleaming gears grinding, whose intemperate teeth crunch, shimmering heat, fluid swirling. Casting away misuse and the clamors of age, it gains its wind and races from sight.

Quiet Moon

Quiet, quiet moon.

Transported to your ebullient bosom, I inhale the silence, gazing at the unconcerned world from this specious vantage point-- a costly pinprick, the stoic woman. Whose barriers dismay, whose disconnection grieves. Mousy voices undercut the heavy silence, heard at the edge of vision, scrambling like a swarm of insects outside the ear's periphery.

Here I am. Poisoned and cloaked in loneliness, toasting mute grief. I stand, suspended, as the stars unravel, stringing essences trailing, trailing, dissolving, dissolving.

Quiet, quiet moon.

You loom from my scrambled eyes; your grave peace solemnly reflective; acling with devotees. Rebukingly, rebukingly, yet witholding judgment.

We stand entranced, the traffic gushes by, streaming, streaming, fibs of breathing laughter killed in the new, new moon.

The Midnight Lover

Her icy face sparkled palely, the cratered moon. My loving fingers timidly quivered on her sapphire neck, frigid stings in the flashback eve. Sadness fogs her breath as it droops from her mouth in a tired sigh. Her sapped, sea-breeze skin is taut and unreactive, absolutely timeless.

I remember her eyes. She had pools of them swimming and swaying in isolated trenches. All staring out, imperious and impassive, sharply superior. But tonight, tonight they were sheathed and tender, and they were looking at me.

With an impassioned heave she went limp in the sky, my craning body aching with effort. Fading, fading, blink by blink, as the stars winked through her busty bodice, stabbing pinholes at the speed of light. From these beaded blood: black blood that blanketed her without a whisper, spiriting her from my desperate embrace.

My eyes continued to project her image onto the depthless canvass well after her scent had gone, and her blood had caked the sheets.

Dust

Faded and gray speckles a used face. A dull sheen, an aged expanse, are neglect's resentful styles. The particles settle and congeal, stilled in death, shrouding freshness. Withered is the room that houses these.

And yet, and yet.

A solitary streak dispels the stupor. It glares from the scene, parting the deadlands. What a trail it makes amidst the rot. A showy core peeps from beneath. See its youth brazenly shout, "I have beauty still!"

Recapture clarity, idle souls!

As we wipe the dust away and toss our years aside.

Our fears greet us,
Our joys reclaim us,
And the dappled veil,
Slowly shifts.

Shelter the skeletons, their fragile joints. Shelter them whole, their tensile infra. Shelter the cartilage, soft and caustic. Shelter the tendons, uncorrupted by the sun. Shelter the skulls, unbleached and misloved.

Yogurt

This delicious jell is refrigerated and sealed in a plastic cylinder. The foil peels off; the culture spits and burps. You dip your spoon in and pull it out.

On it is a blubbering mass with chunks of fruit encased within. Strawberries stare at you like red eyes as it enters your mouth. It looks like a great chasm when you open it to admit entry. Stalactites and stalagmites hang at the tips of the cave.

The yogurt slops inside. But you don't chew. You just slurp it around for a few seconds, enjoying its chilled refreshment. Then you swallow. And it just slithers down your throat, uncaring.

For it is the most indifferent of all the foods, since its milk body was warped by bacteria. Afflicted with sickness, disfigured beyond recognition, the former milk now wishes for death. You should be only too happy to oblige.

Peeling the Orange

I held the orange in the palm of my hand. It was of a deep, lusty hue. My mouth watered in anticipation of its luscious center. It had something I desperately needed--rejuvenation.

My fingers dug into its crust, prying away the peel like some strange predator unhousing its prey. The orange made sickly squishing sounds as I rent the skin, my nails delving into its marrow. A crisply sweet citrus smell wafted up my nose. I lay the pieces off to one side. The work was slow, but steady. I came to the north and south poles of the sphere and went to work on them.

The stem was unearthed--a limp, stringy tentacle that threatened to encircle my finger and choke it. Fortunately, it remained lifeless, dangling and swaying insipidly.

Eventually the outer layer lay in a jumbled heap on the counter top, looking like a shattered orange-white jigsaw: a grizzly puzzle even for the most gifted surgeon. The skinless body stood, undead. White arteries trailed all over its hulk: veiny, crawling things that pulsed sickeningly.

Still hungry, I brought myself to separate the sections, telling myself that this is the way of things. Slowly, I dug my thumbs into the quavering flesh and ripped the body in twain. It sprayed its viscera helter skelter, droplets rained on my hands and fingers, and the tissue resisted with an awful friction. There is no sound so abnormal, so nauseating, so excruciatingly unbearable as the sound flesh makes when violently rent asunder.

I stood there, quickened in breath and failing in health, staring at the result of my labors. My hands were sticky, stinking, dripping. And the corpse lay there accusingly: tortured, violated, molested beyond recognition.

Slowly I backed away: overcome with revulsion, dazed with misgiving. And, waiting for the sirens to come take me away, I thought about what I had done.

A Brush with Fatigue

I heard an automated audience choke, livid with laughter, as I pushed the stage button in memory lane. And the obscene sea roared in response.

Their insipid waves are necessary to ease my pain while the reaper, Fatigue, licks me dry. How he crowds me; how I wish to slaughter his haunting form.

My fists beat boomingly on his crab shell, which returns unsatisfactory raps to my enraged ears.

How he clings, claws clasping my heart and throat. Shrieking oranges fade to purple and then to red, and the pressure steams upward from my abdomen.

Beady, black, crustacean eyes stare back into mine, black with the sleep I crave, but cannot earn. Its antennae drift, lazily across my skin, slowly as if submerged, drawing shudders from my breast and goosebumps to my suffocating skin.

As I implore my higher powers to brush him off, pleading face teared, the audience just roars dumbly back.

Untitled

I'm tired of the razors that cut my face, causing little beads of blood to pearl and gurgle. Pinpricks of guilt that burn but don't clot. I want safer razors to sweep across my cheeks, clearing them of yesterday's shadows.

But the blame lays in my unsteady hands.

How Tired.

How tired I am,
Of insecure women,
Though society makes them wrong,
Who don't desire our dirty work.

But we throw our dishes,
At their Mexican heads,
And abuse them greenly.

Oh what a graveyard,
Lonely and somnolent,
What a song it rings,
So sleepy.

they never wanted the alarm to ring,
We hated in the darkness,
but darkness grew,
With us.

they held us,
But we bit,
and bloody teeth,
Proved,
they hate theirs.

How easy it is for you to sway within the hammock of health.

You shift and swing with balance and rhythm,
As your god pushes you with imaginary hands,
And you rejoice with zeal,
Afraid while you feel.

But me, I fall because I've lost my balance,
I can't sway like a sealed cocoon, like you,
back and forth.

I fall because I've accidentally rent that cocoon with my freakish toenail. It is overly sharp;

I never trimmed it.
My leg kicked as I slept. It rent the barrier, slim but earnest, the somnolent heart, and the blood, flew into my face.

How I drank it;
Oh...how I drank it.

Can I Snatch a Second

Can I snatch a second of eternity,
To analyze uncertainty,
To grow in comprehension,
And lessen testy tensions?

Eternity is always jealous,
Of the moments humans relish,
Of the instants they hold dear,
Though entrapment loiters near.

I wish to bask within the bubble,
Let the world reduce to rubble,
Drifting without weight,
Upon the palm of fate.

But when I over-linger,
It will clench its hateful fingers,
My tranquility will be burst,
And I will know great thirst.

Letter to a Loved One

Be careful that you don't confuse courage and masochism. The two can sometimes appear as one. The utter disdain of bodily pain, that savage lack of fear in the face of harm, is often attributed to bravery.

But let my laden clouds douse, for a moment, your perspective with mine. Holster your umbrella and bare to me your naked nape. Feel my didactic kiss coldly pepper your skin and summon goosebumps.

Humans are infinitely complex creatures beneath our simple routines. Sometimes we are pushed, but other times we thrust ourselves into the scalding fire. The natural, human reaction is to withdraw, but at times we do not. We like the pain; the stinging tears it brings.

We mutely watch as our flesh boils, like fascinated students of anatomy. We watch the scars form on our bodies from a neighboring perspective, though it is ourselves we mutilate. Pride, abhorrence, self-pity weld together into a high-browed romanticism that is sweetly poisonous to reason. It is a deadly nectar.

Oh, the liberation this nectar brings! What release there is in tragic downfall! How easy it is to shirk responsibility and cloak the soul in ennobled scorn! There lives a fear that causes one to wholeheartedly leap, frantic with adrenaline, into the very maw of despair. Its appetite is insatiable; it rarely frees its prey. Its nectar is its appeal, and death is never enough.

Sensation

Sensation,
Is a wintry whore,
That covers her breasts,
But exposes her core.

I'd stumbled into,
Her lusty den,
She was waiting to cloud,
My mind again.

I wasn't drunk,
Or in between,
Just utterly misled,
By a pensive spleen.

My thoughts were a puzzle,
Broken and scattered,
And morality's picture,
Was confusedly shattered.

My eyes met hers,
And unable to remove,
I stood rooted in place,
When she started to move.

She rose with dignity,
And I stood there mute,
My body responding,
My mind in dispute.

She laid me to rest,
With premeditation,
But my head spinned round,
With mortification.

I swooned in a daze,
Fluid with fright,
Sad recollections,
Did painfully alight.

But Sensation just smiled,
As she pursed her lips,
And her rosebud descended,
And my hands grasped her hips.

When the Lights Stop Flashing

When the lights stop flashing, my countenance sinks. I feel an ebbing life wisp through the air, ruffling my mind. Someone's granddad just died.

When the lights stop flashing, I sigh as I drive. I'm heading somewhere important, but my presence lags behind. Someone's wife just died.

When the lights stop flashing, I hear my mom's voice. Her sensitive lilting irritates my conscience, and I rage it away. Someone's mother just died.

When the lights stop flashing, I think of my youth. I wonder when it left and adulthood came. Someone's child just died.

When the lights stop flashing, a smile tugs at my cheek. A profane contentment warms me within, and I feel gratitude. I am very much alive.

The Iceberg

On the other side of the mirror is an iceberg where backward souls have come to roost. The ocean streaks her fingers across its belly every chance she sees, catching the tireless beneath her fingernails and scraping them down to her palpitating chest.

Resignation is in their stranded hearts as they indifferently loiter, their idle fingers aimlessly doodling in the sun-burnt snows, and no cry of fear or remorse escapes their thickened throats.

It is their accusing eyes that shiver back at you from the icy glass as the freezing waters fill their lungs and stain their onion skins blue. It is their blurry faces that haunt your murky reflections and disturb your jealous admiration.

The iceberg is slowly melting under the sun's reflection. The freezing waters have begun to rise--are now flooding through the mirror, urgent and crystalline. The ocean throws her whole weight behind the supreme flow.

She carries forgotten bodies through with her, littering living rooms, an undignified intrusion. They float on the currents, bleached debris, and are pitched to the floor like frozen lumber where they infect the carpets and stain the furniture.

Gray Skies

I love the gray shroud that buries the head and demands nothing. Sunny days boss one around like a perky supervisor. You can't meet its eye because it blinds. It hands you a schedule with a million tasks on it. And I always forget to clock in.

I love the unappreciated sludge that weighs down the active and buoys up the tentative. Its lethargy compliments me. It doesn't care whether I stand or sit. It doesn't bash its yellow boots through my windows if I choose to stay indoors.

I love the nonchalant vapor that banishes the clear blue with moody gusto. For blue is too innocent a color for me to live under. It smacks of senselessness. Give me the clouds' loaded pollution, and I'll inhale its harmony.

I love the low-lying, slothful miser who is both willful and stubborn. It is like a bruised old man who refuses to die in order to dismay his vulturous offspring. He knows he'll never get a proper funeral, and so he intends to live indefinitely.

Banners

Banners are unfurled,
Marked with hasty ink,
And brandished above the mob.

Banners are unfurled,
That lead the way,
To blood and change.

Banners are unfurled,
Whose meanings are felt,
But rarely understood.

Banners are unfurled,
By thinkers that yelp,
Like hungry dogs.

Rust

A sinister memory,
Wrenched the reins,
From the driver's grasp,
And sent the horses mad,
Foaming and shrieking,
Eyes rolling.

And then I was off,
Lashed by odd feelings,
Menaced and moaning,
Assaulted by the senses,
Whose refined weaponry,
Had hurriedly displaced me.

Old and undone,
I had lost my way,
In a conjurer's fog,
Where the sound clotted,
Where the light bled,
In hazy eddies.

Something,
Was sludging,
Through the murk,
Dreamily detached,
Druggedly vacant.

Something,
Was wandering,
Senseless,
Directionless,
Emotionless.

Something,
Was suckling,
Through the baleful swamp,
Studied in despair,
Steadied in step.

Then the Rust,
Lodged in my nostrils,
Stopped up my ears,
Coated my eyelids,
And coarsened my throat.

The Blessed

The world's face is a strange motley of comely and homely features whose reality betokens barbarism. The blemishes are repugnant and distracting, but the amiable qualities are equally arousing. Here is a face to be loved or hated. None cursed to behold it may feel indifferent or in between for long. The world's face is such.

Those who hate it view it closely--mere inches from its posterior. Their pupils dilate as they register all the grotesque imperfections their detailed inquiry yields. They process data individually, weighing and judging piecemeal using sophisticated instruments, then move on to the next subject with the thorough precision(though not the detachment) of a scientist.

Those who love it view it from afar. They relish the figure as a connoisseur would a work of art. They are able to appreciate the whole because they do not linger on the specific. They use their emotive senses, absorbing the world's face in a breath and letting it fill their bodies with the most sanguine appreciation.

Society requires both haters and lovers in order to maintain balance. For all skewed societies are totalitarian in nature. This is undeniable.

The world shows its face to few. Most people will live out their time compartmentalized, with no inkling that such a thing exists. As a result, the blessed(or cursed) minority face the hardship of isolation. It is the individual's constitution that determines whether (s)he will overcome or be overrun.

Fewer still are those whose nature forces them to transist from love to hate or vise versa. And once set, the transition is by no means permanent. But during the reversal's timespan, the feeling is absolute. These are the most dangerous of the gifted because their temperament is a tempest. They are fiery hosts to absurd bouts of irrational behavior. They shift from each extreme whenever their plagued reason wills it. This is because they have viewed the world's face from both angles, and the knowledge has driven them mad.

Our peace is a whorish mistress. We are ever searching for that gray purgatory that lies between ecstasy and despair. Our exhausted brains are on the verge of fainting.

The fortunate pitch their gypsy tents at the crossroads between both worlds and are swept to each extreme amidst brief periods of meditation. We sell our wares to rash travelers. Yet we see them off with a dark knowledge brooding in our hearts, with our souls imploring them to flee.

We are the ones who will never find comfort in the words, "Thy will be done."

My Negatives

This is a list of imperfections I have found in myself to date. As time marches, the list will be modified as I address my flaws and divine new ones. This list was made for the purposes of self-improvement. I have tried to be as honest as possible with myself and hope to grow accordingly.

1) I am an alcoholic.

2) I set standards for people that no one, including myself, can possibly meet.

3) I push away everyone that loves me, then feel sorry for myself when I am lonely.

4) My sexual experiences have been unsatisfactory because they occur infrequently and because I have been too drunk to cherish any of them.

5) I am an escapist by nature. I throw myself toward anything or anyone that can divert my attentions.

6) Sometimes I am overly confrontational. At other times, I shy away from it.

7) I am often arrogant to the point of intolerance.

8) I play video games too much.

9) I am overly critical of my own as well as others' actions.

10) I find it difficult to apologize, even when the fault is mine.

11) I have dandruff.

12) I am dissatisfied with society but am too jaded to do anything about it.

13) I am one to hold a grudge.

14) I have ascetic tendencies.

15) I take too much pride in my own intelligence.

16) I never read contemporary authors, always sticking to the 'classics.'

17) I let minor things irritate me.

18) I place too much stock in other people's appearance.

The Meaningless

The Meaningless,
Is a culmination,
Of abused privilege,
And fallen ideals.

Its shadow,
Makes one shiver,
As it pricks the pride,
Unnaturally.

It lives above earth,
In our upright institutions,
And in minds that smile,
Pointedly.

The Meaningless,
Is a culmination,
Of abused privilege,
And fallen ideals.

It inhabits,
Drunk bedrooms,
On pale, empty mornings,
Whispering drowning oaths.

Its honeyed despair,
Winks from the eyes
Of The Meaningless brain,
Slumping smiles.

The Meaningless now bang,
Their bloody knuckles,
On the underground's,
Velvet door.

And already a fool,
Has cracked it open.

Stranded Eyes

My hand,
It likes to be forced,
When it hovers,
Indecisively,
In the vacant air.

To reach a dead end,
And backtrack,
To the remaining path,
Is the surety,
That evokes the security,
To press on.

Why look back,
When all paths,
Have been explored?

Forward,
Is where stranded eyes,
Must stay fixed.

Carrots

They lay in the plastic,
Helter skelter,
Destined for consumption,
Blurred in containment.

I open the packet,
It stretches and gives,
A jagged tear gapes at me,
And a baby root beckons me.

Its moist body,
Chills my lips,
As it juts,
From their pursed bouquet,
Like an orange cigarillo.

With a dry crack,
The stem is snapped,
Severed beneath the pressure,
Of my dutiful jaws.

Sweet crunching bits,
Rotate about my mouth,
Rhythmically churning,
Like snowflakes in season.

They disappear en masse,
Sinking into my gullet,
To be melted down,
An automatic reflex.

Such nutritions,
Are released,
Dormant,
In the womb,
When nature's goods are compressed!

My Universe

Why do you sigh, Universe?
Your icy breath scatters my stars,
And upsets my sense of time.

Your motherly chest is hollow,
What once was robust is now concaved,
And I am afraid for the future.

You are standing slumped,
I can feel your dejection,
You look tired, Universe.

But you can't rest yet,
You mustn't collapse now,
I still have many questions.

I hear your sigh, Universe,
Yet you are hardly of age,
And your flesh is ever renewing.



Come and take me by the hand,
And I will stroke your troubled face,
And divine the dire terrors,
That shine from your bottomless eyes.

It is time for me,
To undertake the burdens,
That cause you such distress,
That whip your wounded harmony red.

Now your blood flows coldly,
As you shut the rolling windows,
That shrink from your gaunt face,
While your fainting heart beats less.

My poor, poor Universe,
Your confession has cost you dearly,
But your death smile projects peace,
Onto your frame's beaten brow.

And as you dissipate,
You gracelessly untether,
Those loving knots,
That once bound me to you.

Doctor,

look down my endless throat. It wants light but how unnatural it would be to shine one on it. Deep down dark bile bubbles, threatening to surface.

In my throat there is tension and torture and swollen glands. At the bottom there is a frustrated heart. It is self-aware and stronger now. But it has filled the peaceful void.

My body has experienced life's natural realities and unnatural abuses. I have treated it to smoky extravagances and burning ravages. And I hope that one day it will forgive me for excess.

Already a green moss flourishes on once barren surfaces. Life grows where sterility provoked death. I see new promises sprout anew.

My prognosis is positive; what is yours, doctor?

Heavy Shoes

Heavy shoes make heavy prints,
Weighing down the wearers,
Tiring our legs.

We cannot lift our feet,
To travel the destined path.

We remain rooted,
As the seasons change.

Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter.
Our heavy shoes are holding us in place.

Fragile Melody

It is a fragile melody that walks nervously, barefoot on the loose sand, whose balance is at stake. Fragile is its humanity, fragile is its wit. It is fragile in its authentic composure. The melody must be out-poured or it breaks with purpose and repeats itself.

It is a fragile melody that takes residence in the pit of sensitive stomachs. It gnaws at the liner as anxiety hatches. It is our fragile fingers that twitch unconsciously, tap-tapping on oak tables in faceless libraries. We are melodious in the most silent spots.

It is a fragile melody that smiles sadly on quiet evenings, when the world is at rest and countries' flags lay limp. They are motionless symbols that speak to meditative hearts. For the trained organ can detect fragility's subtle sounds.

It is a fragile melody that increases mysteriously as I yearn toward dizzy heights--toward dizzy heights where concerns are dead, where harmony's wispy deity dances daintily. Intricate designs unravel the louder it grows. I can feel the room sway when my fragile head is given wings.

It is a fragile melody's mystique that fascinates poets. Inspiration's auditory illuminations arise from its genius.

It is a fragile melody that plays for the faithful deceased. It will play for me when I'm rolling toward my grave. It will play for my loved ones when I lay in meaningful silence. But will there be anyone fragile enough to stop and listen; to hear its song in a world that has grown thick?

Untitled

The storm flew through the isolated town. It was shockingly destructive, the more so because it was unexpected. It blasted buildings, uprooted trees, wrecked cars.

Broken glass shattered to the pavement and was camouflaged with the torrents of hail that buffeted the little world.

The victims had never seen such violence. Theirs was a life of dull peace. Routine's colorless comfort had always been king. Entropy was unheard of. Mother nature obviously took offense to this.

The storm was a wild frenzy. It frowned darkly from the heavens with black, glowering brows. One could feel its horrible anguish lift the neck's tiny hairs. An unsettling presence shrouded the town.

God had come home.

Devils Never Die

The aging mist is heavy on my shoulders. How old I feel when I meet my past's ferocious gaze. I see error and loss when I look into its eyes. There are so many strange confusions lurking in fatigue's misleading silence. They crop up at the edge of reason. They lurk with guilt and accusation.

How long does contentment last when it spawns from suffering? Pain's memory fades along with the thankful appreciation that arises from its absence. But an arrogance is often born as a result of time. It then grows and supplants humility. This is unhealthy. I must keep my arrogance in check. I have already fallen from hubris' grace.

Life's pains must be revived each day in order to ensure that mistakes are not relived. I must inject their memories into my heart when I feel invincible. Human weakness must never be forgotten, buried, or ignored. And so I rub my wounds to keep them fresh.

Because life's devils never die. They only wait and slumber. They are cunning, baffling, powerful. And if you turn out the lights they'll stab you in the dark.

The Ill Bliss

The evil thrill fluttered my heart,
And then coursed through my veins,
A demonic happiness inflated my lungs,
And my surprised chest heaved.

The wonderful devil was here,
And in bountiful force,
Forgotten by me,
But now dreadfully found.

He was here to drown the evening,
To black out tomorrow,
To thrust away humanity,
With burning banishment.

It was an ill bliss,
That fettered my head,
That distorted my soul,
That broke me within.

And I lay there,
In shards,

And the tears,

T
h
e
y

J
u
s
t

F
e
l
l

Guard Against the Brick

The collective and desperate desire,
Of the commonwealth.

The symbiotic attachment of the mass,
As it cleaves to an ideal.

They reverberate around the room,
Unseen but felt.

The self-hypnosis of spiritualism,
Is absorbed by our willing minds.

We wish for normality,
But must deal with disease.

I believe in fellowship.
I believe in goodwill.
I believe in faith.

I believe in a stranger's heartbeat,
Felt in the hollows of my palm,
As we clasp hands in union.

They are the products of a shared hope,
And create the magic,
That we need,
To combat a terrible evil.

My power grows,
With each passing day.

My sanity is strengthened,
With each passing day.

But my resolve remains,
A stained window,
That must be guarded,
Against the brick.

It Will Get Better

It will get better,
My heart told my soul,
As it crackled and withered,
And bled salty tears.

It will get better,
The words ruefully rang,
As the ground heaved,
And my knees wilted.

It will get better,
The asphault croaked,
As I saw stars,
And felt poison.

It will get better,
My insane throat screeched,
With a desperate hope.

It will get better,
The words echoed,
In the dark corners,
Of the cliche room.

It will get better,
My organs moaned,
As they blubbered,
And sobbed.

And the slow days passed,
And the dark haze lifted,
And then hell died,
Giving way to peace.