It's just how life goes,
tip-toeing about.

A friend here, a friend there.
In my heart they've not gone anywhere.

I may see them next Tuesday,
or perhaps, never again,

but in my heart
I always call them friend.

I was hoping to meet an artist—
instead, I met an aesthetic,
head buried under platitudes,
vapidly shaped
and formed
to fit that mold.

Parceled, packaged,
and cleanly sold
for easy access.

Defined by lack of contrast,
and saccharine yearning
for the past.

There’s no going back.

Take off your mask, fascist
You don't need it anymore
We all see what you are.
We guessed the intention
of yer dog-whistling gesture.
giggling behind your
festering red-tie vestiture.

What a joy to be
in the land of the free
With you and your
little boy cronies
playing make-believe
wannabe king.

Play soldier next.
Step up strong.
Wear that uniform.
Dye it black, and tacticool.
Dripped in silver skulls.

Grow a little mustache.
Ride that edge.
Put that X
on a red field,
in a white disk.

now
my eye sees with
distorted myopia,
misanthropic dystopia
where I carried on
wandering
in this egregious
hope for utopia.

absurdity.
my mind reels.
hope no longer appeals
wondering
where i go from here

impulse
impulse
impossibility
ha
ha
ha
ha
"upward mobility?"

I'll take a train
I'll leave the car
"far" is not far anymore

Hello.
I am another man
screaming "oppression".

My outrage is clearly justified,
because they don't make movies
about my fantasies anymore.

Where all God's
good little boys
and girls knew
their place in
the great society.

Where living meant
dying for the cause
of people who looked
and thought like me.

Where evil was black
and good wore white hats.

Where glory
and moral certainty
protected me
from the bad guys,
and the bad thoughts.

Filthy C---sucker *****—
Oh, excuse me.
I'm so sorry.
(No I'm not.)

You should have known...

It's for your own good
when I take this throne.

I shall cast my moral
judgement down upon
thine aesthetic value!

I shall condemn any
who deny that which
I know to be true!

Let renewed doctrine shine,
an effervescent, blinding light
of right and wrong,
and leave my enemies BURNING!


But, take heart, soft thing.


Within my
glorious wisdom
there is no
hypocrisy.

Take my
firm and gentle
hand
to guide
thee...

Let's go to the movies!

—

Prepare your ***** for the rise of Fundamentalist Christian Cinema.
Coming Soon to Theaters Near You!
Written by Men Who Hate Women and Jews.

On the way back from the abyss,
the dramatist starts and fits,
"Put me back in the black again,"
with squeezed fists and limp wrists.

The darling's staple diet of bad news,
black coffee and sweet candy
kept their spirit sickly.
Obviously.

Exposed to blaring overcast,
the dramatist retracts,
surprisingly intact.
In fact stronger than before
now in their validation.

Returned to comfy pit,
went the dramatist.
For the pit inhibits
in consistency.

No new delights,
or flights of fancy.
Not to be caught
between what's seen
with eyes shut,
or what they see.

The dramatist,
in the blackened emptiness,
will never notice
when they've passed
the horizon.

Hello, Depression!
It sure is a fine day we're having.
You look good.
Is that a new shirt?
(Don't worry...
I won't ask you
that question.)

But I was wondering...
Do you still have
that book I lent?
or that dance step
and that drum set
and that pile of projects,
or that relationship
and that tiny pit of—
-not despair-
we used to sit with?

And what about that
career path,
or that time we had
or that moment of belief,
where sorrow was reprieved,
and we knew—
we knew
that love was something real?

I know you're very sensitive, Depression,
but if you don't give them back—
I'm going to have to ask you...
That question.

I can only walk like I'm dancing
I can only speak in poetry

otherwise
My body is rigid

otherwise
My tongue is frozen

maybe
Truth has never been my destination

maybe
Truth is just a flourish in my journey

Either way I'm dancing
and I'm talkin like I got somewhere to be.

Why aren't you as scared as me?

Many things unseen are lurking in my periphery.

Your absence of belief does not reprieve of this insistency.

Whistling in the night, I walk toward the face I see

In shadows cast by flames so bright that darkness undertakes the

Harrowed, narrowed journey through esophagus and kidney.

A poison quaff of mother's liquor tastes, absorbed, incendiary

Avails but mine eyes to see that superfluous villainy

And its cutting undercurrent of all things heavenly

With flames engulfing peeling back my superstitious fantasy

I'll wrap myself in fear again to mask my shunned reality

A movie became manifest
I left with an axe
Awkwardness
I ran
And thorns caught me in the ***

It just wanted to exist,
beyond the desire,
but it's tired now.
Sighing.
Quieter.

"Do it again."
"Stand in the rain."
"Nothing ever changes."
"They always look the same."

You want it to scream,
         "SURVIVE, YOU *******!"
                 like it used to do.
(When it made decisions for you.)

But what wakes you now
is only the resounding
echo.

A well and boiled frog, I am.
My sticky tongue ate up that scam.
Webbed toes can't swim away
The lid is closed for holiday.
Don't know what I coulda done
Nobody coulda saw that'd come.
My frog anatomy succumbed
to temperatures about a ***-
dred and seventy-three,
and for the perfect duration
to cook me.

I try to believe in nothing.
My teeny toe is dipped in nihilism.
But nothing, I struggle to attain.

To be a sponge, a vessel of
absorption
An empty state of being,  but still
grasping at the feeling

That someone will fill me with desire.

-----

Am I nihilistic, or just burnt out?
Neural pathways terminate in "X".
Do not pass. All roads lead to pain.
Oh, you've let me down again.

Pain isn't nothing.
I should heed its alarm.
But believing is something
I fear more than ego-death.

I lost my work ethic
(if I ever really had it).
No more drive in me
to be a cog in society—
Builder, maker, creator.
Business owner, slaver.
Delusional entrepreneur
(You know who you are).

Burnout, failure, disgrace—
Never show my face again.
The career path ends.
Let’s just call it what it is-is:
mid-life-crisis-es.
I’ll pick up the pieces-es
and find...
ellipses.

A fissure in the ice kneading.
The land mass receding.
The creaking floorboard.

No longer in my conscious register,
the sound becomes a rhythm to which
I live.

In rending,
splitting,
click-ticking,
gradual,
infinitesimal
increments-

In cartilaginous pops I dance
along to the sound that I ignore...
The creaking floorboard.

Hello.
I am ready.
(Teach me a new delusion.)
The mind is so full,
but the heart is so empty.

Now must be
the time to accept,
any old myth
that I used to reject.

Fill my emptiness
with delusional bliss.
Give me an enemy
for my bullets to miss.

I'll fire my gun,
rife with belief.
And drift upon
pillows of doubtless sleep.

Knowing that I,
for once, am right.
Having chosen to follow
that arbitrary light.

Your perception of resistance is your obsession with the other. Let it go.

You cry, "I don't care about what other people think," but you know—

Those thoughts that you resist are the ones you struggle with. So you see.

That foe you're aiming toward is not outside of you. It's in thee.

I used to paint.
I used to leave the house.
When the vision stops,
that's when the words come out.

So much to say,
So much to doubt.
What is a craftsman without—?

He knows your desires.
He know your hopes and dreams.
He knows that you know
He is not what he seems.

Your hope is so great,
you will not see his smirk.
When he winks at your faith,
you will take him at his word.

When reality serves
his unsavory dish,
Know you have been
as deceived as you wish.

It's good to have an adversary.
Just make it someone else.
Someone to be better than,
while measuring yourself.

Rise to meet their challenge,
measure-up, and balance-to.
The comparison may reveal
your intrinsic inner value.

But when the numbers fail to balance,
and the weight is never fair,
and no matter what you sacrifice,
they'll never meet you there...

Know you've always walked
along a path of your own glory.
Your struggle is but yours alone,
and only you know the story.

Self-endure your mindful yearning.
Strive relentlessly.
Rigorously self-critique
your deepest ideology.

Come to know your inner-most,
as you tackle loss within.
But remember who you were
before comparing Self to Them.

Now that cruelty owns the day and night
my shame is for my petty plights.
This life I spent
belaboring,
and savoring
my own productivity.
Creatively struggling
just to be
a member
of society.
Why didn't they tell me it was just a joke?
Those who have will have some more,  
and the rest of the poor folk...

I forage the grove,
or grave
of tangled thought.

Like a wild wood
what grows there,
was not planted.

Seeds are scattered,
thriving, but entwined
along the animal path.

The birdsong carries
a distant echo...

     memory...

       ...the detritus
          of what I know.

I can't stand that man's face
or ruined words of hate
but I'm really stupid now
he's all anyone talks about
I'm really really stupid now
my reaction is automatic
a dumb-en-ing numb-en-ing
strangling in my frontal lobe
his pursed words
******* rancid
into heaving, swarming,
zealous crowds
of barely individuals
who sup upon the fear
they self-righteously accuse
the other of.

I'm so stupid now.
I can't see.
I can't breathe.
but what I can do is
BLEEEEP
_ %&;! you  $#*!!!
$#%$ *&'
%$##*! I'll 5*@##$
**$%*# *
_
(continues...)

I'll admit that rhyme and meter don't mean too much to me
I like the flow of words without structural integrity
If it rolls off my tongue but lands on deaf ears
Blibbity dibbity doo da dib da diminy
who cares...

What about Him is in
he who is without sin?

In the begin they bit in.
Into the human within.

If the soul isn't split
between
Me, you, and them.

Then,
Who is this "they"
in your whataboutism?

Name yourself "Truth"
to mask your lies.
Claiming none can see
without your eyes.
You fear to face inward,
so in words you hide.
But blatant analogy
reveals your disguise.

Don't follow me.
Don't like me.
I'm not going anywhere nicely.
I've walked all my darkest paths,
and I did not tread them lightly.
I'd say "look before you leap,"
but more than likely,

I'd obscure
            the destination.

Say, Have you seen
my latest painting?
It's a dog. Isn't it cute?
I could paint one of you.
I'd capture all your beauty.
Or perhaps your heart too.

You could give it to me

I would craft my worship
to suit everything you need.
Your vessel would be holy,
while enshrined in my belief.
Wait.
Don't look.
Don't turn on that light.
When the brightness shines
upon my path,
All my darkest nights...

would only make you laugh.

I am frivolous.
Pain equivalence.
What I feel,
is it real,
or is it just perception?
That's the question
I'm begging you
for answers to.

Reaction
guides my action.

Chemical and automatic,
Stagnant and static

These thoughts of me..
frozen in immobility.

...another ideal to be fulfilled.
There is no vessel without intent.
I'm pretty sure a lake holds water.

Hey!
I did not mean to startle
       you so clearly armed.

I only wished to say,
“Hey! Hello. Don’t shoot me.
                Do you think it will rain today?"

Trumpets blare triumphantly
for a rising, sadistic hierarchy.
(A not-so-subtle loss of dignity.)

Tragic wailing in major key.
A shrieking anthem of humanity.
(With catharsis ringing hollow, and empty.)

A spinning head chants endlessly,
insisting upon divinity,
while heralding apocalyptic certainty
with glee.

The choir sings in unity
exalting this reality:
A savage world of property,
and greed induced asymmetry.

The crescendo peaks to poverty,
to impossible depths of cruelty,
and banal acceptance of brutality.

Attuned to this society
the choir submits consensually.
(There is no escape for me.)

Yet I hear a counter-melody,
trilling away in minor key.
Time dissolves belief.
Ellipses march on to eternity.

Sad notes in the song of humanity...

I have figured it out.

The alchemical formula for love.

- 1 parts pain
- 2 parts fear
- And a whole lotta dopamine (to taste)

I'm trying,
as fast
as I can
to run out
of things
to say
so I can
go back
to being
a productive
American,
but that's
not likely
to happen.

an absence of your presence
is another neural taboo
a place i won't go
i won't wonder where
arcs that electricity
i cut it at the nerve
ending in the place i don't look
but each thought dismissed
is not transcendent
it adds to the heap
i'm not prepared for
grief.

I unravel the mythology.
The narrative laid bare
as crude, exposed anatomy.

A relentless disavowal
of essence.

But discarded truths
Are pages torn
From something incomplete.

What I need
May be among
that parchment
I sent flying.

I remember them standing there,
watching me try to reel it in—
their sardonic expressions
as I complain.

I'm six years old.
The pole bends hard.
I feel like I'll be pulled in.

A rust-red shape arcs in the water.
The line snaps.
Their eyes widen in surprise,

but they say nothing.
They quietly hold their shame,
and take the rod from me.

I began,
petty, indulgent,
with a dream to fulfil.
Building places to hide,
to protect my child mind.
The wish, instilled
longing
with no plan.
"**** the boy,
become a man."
bound in duty
twisting enjoyment
to what task
he is unsuited.

Don't let the ones in power
claim that they've allowed you
to be the one you are.

Permission came from existing,
so keep on resisting
the power.

Why give away your only chance?
The emperor's in his underpants.
Destroyed by father's impotence.
I should not be the one shouting.

Another news agency
Is reporting only "controversy."
Do you have no faith in democracy?
What are these words I'm shouting?

What is this compulsion,
toward what fills me with revulsion?
Should I find a new emulsion?
Or just carry on my shouting?

Humanity and democracy,
was that all just a dream to me?
I can't unsee what I have seen.
I'll—shout about it or something.

I'll probably go away now.
Head buried high up in a cloud,
No more room, or time for doubt,
but maybe just a little— shouting...

May the edges of my intellect only be eroded by the efforts of oceans. A fortress of stone enduring endless waves but never breaking. Only successive shedding so imperceptible that time before forgets its form.

It's always angry little boys
who make the choices
in Turnip Town.
Focusing on what they're not,
fear and hate's all they got.
So, burn it all down?

The Flaming Phoenix Rises from the Ashes Once Again My Word!
What did they do to that poor bird?
Its distended neck throbs, sickly and withered.
Congested Heart beating an arrhythmic dirge.

"FREEEDOMMMM" it ekes out,
but the cry is pinched at the end,
squealing like a sad balloon.

"GLOOORRRRYYY" it begs,
like a whining siren,
but no one can look it in the eye anymore.

Say, phoenix, maybe you should take a break.
Maybe this cry for glory is why you keep bursting into flames.

And each time you burn,
you do not return
stronger.

Everything you take
with you
stays dead.

Why'd you say those words to me?
               "You'll never be h__*y."
I believe that it's true,
but I wouldn't say those words to you.

I've fixed on fixation fulfilling your divination
well!
Happy is as happy do
now i have some words for you!

When you look you never find.
Love is fleeting, never blind.
All good things come to an end.
Have a taste of your own medicine!

I shut myself away again
Enrapt in the trapping of
whats, forgots and don't have.
The emergence is anticipated.
Soon a butterfly. Or pupated nymph.
The new me!
Emergent emergency!
Trapped in the smoke
with nowhere to go.
No one to be.
Don't read
Kafka Nietzsche or Dostoyevsky

Did you know how much of everything you lack?

Did you know that lonely people are more likely to die?

Did you know that context is entirely subjective?

Did you know that suffering on an innumerable scale is happening, at this very moment, on this very planet, right under our very noses?

Did you know that it's all your fault?

Did you know that no man is an island?

Did you know that family is everything?

Did you know.

Did you know that every joy you feel is a reaction against a cloying despair?

...

Yes  I did but do I?  No.

I am that black hole.

For others,
I wore that mask.
For you,
I thought could
shed for but a moment.


Then the door flung wide.
You fled,
and the void inside
became my whole
Instead

This dream's been over for a long time and I can see why.
There's no more waiting for the dark clouds to clear the sky.

(The place I need to be is in your eyes.)

Remember when my life was in your hands?
Leave my name, abandoned forever in the aftermath.

(Dust the trail behind to hide my path.)

(No light is guiding me)
(No foundation underneath)
(Following no compass)
(I found you in the wilderness)

I can see clearly in the void of materiality.
There's always been that form I was supposed to be.

(But faith is lost without the fantasy.)

Bring me to the place where I can be the one for you.
If you can see through me, then I can see it through.

(I'll dream again, just like I said I'd do.)

Toss me another fishy, human!
I'll do a trick for you!

But in those fishy depths
I've got some work to do.

Survival Thriving Dolphin Time
but some day I will meet you

'tween the mystic barrier
of H2O and O2.

(actually it's N2, O2, Ar, CO2)

...and as the dolphin descended
i could sense his withering glance...

Wait come back,
my dolphin friend!
I didn't mean to offend
my knowledge is at ocean level
whose makeup; chemical
is as foreign to me
as you are slip-per-y!
Ack...

I'm never gonna see that dolphin again...

I will dance in brightness.
Though diffused and overcast,
With scattered rays I fight this
Shadow from my past.