It knocked
softly
a breath at the door
but I
bolted the windows
and swallowed the key.

It came wearing warmth,
but I mistook it
for fire,
for teeth,
for grief with a new face.

So I fled,
faster than joy
could reach out its hand
afraid it might feel
like home.

silence swings over waters as if...
it rehearses its unseen so...
to fill  in the depth of blanks
a stratified time inhabits the landscape
orphic dreams morph into your flesh
the wind collates its courage and rage
like someone who falls into a self
my words bite the shape of a scream
the hunger of love descends language into crumble
the beauty of lungs full of air is misleasing
when I am waiting for silence to miscarry its void

And
I’ll never be beautiful for anyone,
Not even for you,
I will never hide my chickenpox,
Grind me to sand, and I'll shout to the wind,
Wash me! Wash me away!

I’ll never pretend that I am pretty for anyone,
Not even for you,
I’ll let my skin dry like the Atacama desert,
I’ll let the harsh mountain storm bite my face,
The eagles eat my flesh on the tower of silence, so
There is nothing left to dream about,
Not even bone dust for the rain,

I’ll fight like gladiators, not to be beautiful for anyone,
Not even for you,
I won’t let the clouds overshadow my scalp,
I’ll pull right now, one by one, every hair follicle,

What you ask me to be is not beauty, it is a butterfly
That flies and flies around a light bulb
Until it dies

A shadow that weaves white nights,
I will not invent myself to be pretty for anyone,
Not even for you,

If you wish to enter my blood,
You have to swim in the imperishable waters,

The seasons shift and change,
Flowers wilt and die to bloom,
The stars burn- dim or bright but they do.
And I? I remain the same.

I keep running round in a glass cage,
They all see me but not the weight.
Trapped and tired and all in vain,
And yet when I trip and finally fall,
I ask myself- why can't I change?

the casualties of  war
it shocks me
to the core
the
barbed wire fences
at your door
then
we ask
for peace
once more

They were like cut flowers,
arranged but deranged in some
basic way, which is to say, their
smiles were frozen, never chosen.
They did not cheer;  they mirrored
one another. They did not lead;
they followed. Their laughter was
hollow. Their problems stemmed
from being cut from their emotional
roots:  They'd root for the home
team, but it seemed they'd never
grow, never know the joy of letting
go, only the cant, the chanting
of school yells, a fool's hell
for not feeling. At best, their
beauty was pressed and dried;
Too bad they died, devoid of
themselves. We must put them
on our shelves to gather dust.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

I don't crave your heart,  
I crave the command
In Your silence.
The bruises you leave,
Like scripture on skin.
You tether me
In leather and breath.
Every gasp a confession,
Every strike a deeper vow.
No safe words here
Only surrender,
Only the holy ache,
Of being owned
And utterly seen.

You touched me once
within—
not in this life
but somewhere between
a breath and a prayer
where souls forget
they’ve said goodbye

We never began
We’ll never end

Infinity—
is loving you
in every life
you never lived with me.


Erennwrites

We see
Only
Through our common
Artifices

The actual stuff out there
Remains .

Tired of the way you don't talk
Tired of the way you don't walk
Tired cause you think your lifes hell
Tired cause you're rushing me,ringin the bell
Dead cause you pushed me,but I wish I fell

Hot, humid night
Broken air conditioning
Windows open to the
Sounds of southern summer nights
Humid skin, Humid sheets
Too uncomfortable to sleep

But now,
at least,
I can smell the trees

autumn now cut
and curled away
slips asleep

the fields are afloat
in great white sheets

the trees filled
with drifts and blooms  
in the falling light

a fox
that ancient coil of flame
appears beside the dark river
contemplating codes
hidden in the snow
and the cold

what is it in life
that calls your favor?

why
after every storm

do we immediately
seek stars?

i want to be numb
to all the misery
i want to be numb
to your hypocrisy
i want to be numb
to all the pain
i want to be numb
to the falling rain
i want to be numb
to all your lies
i want to be numb
to the blue skies
i want to be numb
to the whole world
i want to be numb
to the beautiful girl
i want to be numb
to your evil ways
i want to be numb
every moment of today
i want to be numb
to my heart you threw
i want to be numb
especially to you

I will
cultivate the exquisite
portion of my own remarkable
consciousness

I shall
remain untroubled
strew petals and
relish the long,
long solitary days

Decorate my
tortoise with jewels
perhaps

And society, I remain in a
perpetual state of undeclared
war with you
and I owe you nothing

In darkness i search for light,
In light i yearn for darkness.
I solemnly pray for the changing tides.
I unwittingly am blind.

I whisper out to darkness.
“The voice of a succubus”, he responds
I yearn for the light.

I whisper out to light.
“The voice of an angel”, he responds
But i am unwittingly blind.
I yearn for the dark.

In the night i yearn for light,
In the light i search for darkness,
I pray for changing tides.

“The Establishment” has been tarnished by
Entitlement, abuse of power…
Neglect…
Trauma —
Absence of soul;
Values and beliefs have left a vacuum.
Where we need to return to the Ancient of Days for the true source of power,
Beliefs and
Life —

what did i just say?
does she think im weird?
maybe i should stop talking
i'm too awkward
this is awkward

oh
she's laughing
i'm fine

.
.
.

is she laughing at me?

i told my friend,
it wasn’t like that.
we said — agreed —
this still wasn’t a date.

then you sat down
with a coffee,
making me forget
every careful phrase,
every non-confession
i’d whispered to my mind.

we wandered the city
until sundown,
as if we didn’t know
every corner of it.
and when the night
started to settle,
i offered you an out —
you had plans.
you just smiled,
waving them away.

neither of us knew
what we then began.

because i told my friend
it wasn’t like that.
but now i’m not sure
what i was trying to defend.

Does veiled cosmos swathed in cosmic foam dream,
Do galaxies in murmur birth their light,
Do stars in quasar flares and dreams then seem
To long for worlds that thirst for infant light.
In voids hum seeds of Chronos’ woven scheme,
Do clusters spin like gyres to seek a role,
Does spacetime’s fabric fold to weave a theme,
A fractal tapestry devours the whole.

Do barren worlds dream brines where life might grow,
Does life envision choices not yet made,
Does life in dreams contemplate joy and woe,
Does life foresee all paths that fade to shade.
Does life remember flames from which we came,
Does life imagine actions left undone,
Does life feel past and future burn the same,
Does life count stars while choosing only one.

Do all these dreams compress to one small sprawl,
What do they say of him who dreamed us here,
Is there a line between the dream and all,
Or does it vanish when we look more near.
Is all of time a Möbius we trace,
Do endless fractals break before they join,
Does ever rhythm fold back into space,
Do strings of fate converge to point and coin.

Do cells in night consult their core machine,
Do mitochondrial fires desire more sight,
Do atoms dream of wonders yet unseen,
Is this entangled dance our secret rite.
Do quarks in shadows whisper things below,
Do neutrinos in silence come and flee,
Do bosons dance to songs we do not know,
Do wave and particle just try to be.

And still we kneel before new gleaming screens,
Replace the cross with profits’ shameless flow,
We swipe and pray for signal’s blessed beams,
Our offerings to brands we barely know.
We scroll for salvation in our feed,
Our selfie liturgy hides voids below,
We worship updates, join the market’s speed,
Yet still we lack the gifts that faith bestow.

Our science masks its sorcery from sight,
Faith taught us morals, wisdom, guided ways,
Secular sirens coax the self to bite,
To feed consuming hunger night and day,
Belief in profit robs the people’s light,
And makes the marketplace our church of praise.
We sanctify the accident as right,
Though interest and peril write the plays,
We hail it progress, heedless of its price,
Our blindness feeds the system as it stays,
We trade our souls for gilded vice’s hot spice,
And lose the harvest in controlling rays.

After these dreams and altars, what’s remain,
Do we still seek some meaning true and pure,
Or do we circle back to dream again,
A spark endures in slumber ever pure.
Can hope sustain the circle’s endless chain,
Or will it settle in forgotten mist,
May love and wisdom yet again remain,
And may the cosmos whisper we are kissed.

The lights of the Aurora borealis shining bright and free resemble the shining lightAnd so strong brighter than the sun in the sky all day long We will not stop until we are equal on this earth and change this world for the better and we are worth the same as everyone else there's no need for fear we are the same as anyone else and will make it so no one will ever have to be afraid to be there self of you and me, Our inner lights can never be dimmed or tamed, We are who are and we shine loud and proud and no one can dim out light or silence are voice we fight the fight and will never stop until everything is set right, We are equal on this earth and being out true selves feels like a rebirth, we are united we are strong we will never stop until we right all the wrongs,our inner light shines so strong

Rami Malek is radioactively brilliant
as the most alienated soul on earth
in the mindblowing first season--
nostalgia for Occupy Wall Street
when the evil overlords
were under the radar
not flying AirForce One--
and hackers were omnipotent rock stars

that's when I knew you're
good for me — I liked myself
more, for liking you

For a moment I took pleasure
On the fact that you existed
You were there
Silent
Withdrawn
But wise
Oh so wise

I felt I could talk to you
As if I talked to the moon
And God you could understand.

Rain comes with clouds,
with you i feel complete
Isn’t it amazing, what we found?

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

         A Three-Character-Group Code for Advancing Civilization


                                   Learn. To. Dostoyevsky.

Play it slow-
not for romance,
but because the strings are blistered,
and every note splits the sky
with fire.

Stroll through the panic,
it’s routine:
duct tape on the windows,
radio on low,
a list of missing birds
tacked to the wall
like fallen saints.

You said you'd carry me,
but the world’s gone grey,
and the olive tree’s
just smoke now.

There’s no audience left.
Just wind
and its thousand-watt warning.

Still, your spine curves to the rhythm
like a fever dream from Babylon,
hips like warning sirens,
ankles sunk in ash.

I want to understand
what we ruined,
but only at a pace I can stand,
only with eyes closed.

There was a time
we dressed like lovers.
Now it’s mylar blankets
and filtered masks.

We knew the promise;
we broke it anyway,
above it,
beneath it,
inside it.

Someone keeps whispering
about children,
as if hope still blooms
in poisoned soil.

Play it slow,
with bare hands if you must.
But don’t pretend this isn’t a requiem.
Don’t dress it up in velvet or vows.
Just let the music float
and burn,
like everything else.

Sputters in the thick of night
setting the pathway ablaze!  
Flavors of foretimes return
bittersweet as my spirit;
A street lamp pours out sweetly,  
upon my shoulders of bare.
Recalling honey-dew words
I weep, ...bitter tears for you.

your skin
has a seat in
that chair,
in every universe
you belong

Encased in gold resin,
The world we create
Older than you or I could ever say
It knows better than me of sure pain
Demanding your beauty
Still shadow the shame
When I wrote you –
I wrote you a letter today
I was lost in the infinite stretch of your gaze
And I wonder if it ever entered your air
Ever tasted your tongue, ever tousled your hair
Were they were words you would treasure?
Words you would share?
Like a picture, I'm taken
Because I am still there
Encased in your resin,
In the grip of your glare
It is a moment remembered
And I am still there