nobody gets the cancer twice.  
(a blues guitar riff)

blood in the stool
ain’t nobody’s fool,
whent to high school
did not graduate,
but know it wasn’t no thing I ate

scale greets me friendly like,
long lost buddy from yesterday morn,
‘let get right down to it,
let’s see how much less of you borne
leftover alive from the prior day’

spirit spit blood from my gums,
got me a woman, she’s way over town,
woman said I’m brushing with
too hard a brush, alright, alright,
make no fuss, she’s good to me

nobody’s fool whent to school,
though I did not graduate,
a mean riff is better than a
slow moving woman blues cry,
got the strings to do my screaming

doctor is a fan, name is Jimmy,
played music like last time round,
Jimmy-jamming, dancing in the waiting room,
“that cancer got kick, it’s gonna get ya,
think I told ya that about hunner times before”

‘nobody gets the cancer twice,’
an old wives tale for unlucky po’ somofabitches,
do you some tests, tell ya the specifics,
right now, lay, lay down them new tracks,
no quitting time less the good lord comes a-calling’

blues guitar makes a man
cry shiver scream and shake,
progressions licks and tricks,
so you can’t tell what’s making
a grownup man cry and laugh louder

bring me my medicine
bring me my guitar
all I know is how it makes me feel,
oh baby once a night it’s true,
nobody gets the cancer twice

This is who I am and it will always be ILLOGICAL, IRRATIONAL and above all, STUPID.

I miss you.

You don't understand me. Its not feasible. Everything won't work. You won't work. I won't work. We won't work. You can't reason your way out of this. Not enough time. Not enough time for me. Not enough time for us. It would've ended anyways he tells me. I tell myself this over and over. Convince yourself, I AM INDEPENDENT. I will vitalize and intoxicate myself by myself. Thats what people do everyday. The issue being, I am not a genuine person. I persuade and assure myself I can handle this role and it satisfies my craving for normalcy. I'm not a gifted actress. I lose more and more social contacts due to this complication. I must learn from the independent ones so I can stop breaking apart these silly boys limb by limb.

You must stop making them care for you. You are not a whole person and therefore cannot be an authentic concern of others. You are imaginary. You are empty. Two opposite minds, insanity and sanity, fighting over the same body is an immense misadventure. Insanity wants to ******* boys, intently watching the peculiar escape routes they design. She sneers as they try and try, withered by a constant sense of defeat, each of them exhibiting exciting, unique and new qualities. She forces the body's muscles into a terrifying object. Then she denies his superiority complex of its primary function as he realizes that this damsel is in a permanent brand of distress. Sanity, however, is fleeting. Sometimes, she truly gives a **** about others. She is the pure example of meek, anemic and decrepit aftermath. She is selfless for selfish reasons. She wants them to adore her. She will exceed expectations, impresses and astonishes them. The product of this relished humanistic quality, acceptance, nourishes her. She savors boys who tell her she is strong and capable. Lies lies lies lies lies is all they speak. Its been too many years. She's forsaken by insanity.

Never enough time for this. Nobody has enough time. Who will give me the time? These days the clock shows seamless progressions to worse and worse. Sleepless nights remind me of night after night after night of our restless, unsetting and ineffective dialogues. Lets just go in circles for a little longer. Why not a little longer? Where do I find someone willing to linger with insanity? Just give me more time. I need a few more moments with real people to feel okay. Let me practice my part with you. Coach me. Tell me what to do next. I'm craving a sense of reality. I trusted you with it. Give it back. Give it to me. Let me have it. Feed it to me. Now.

I kid myself. If you get to know me a bit further I might let you peer at my Dali-esque picture of the present. Wonderland has me descending head first down the rabbit hole. Alice found herself stationary, bruised and filthy with temporary madness years ago. I've kept plunging for decades after and suddenly I'm gaining speed. Momentum, its all about physics. They throw ropes, then yarn, then thread to me. Once again the thread brushed my skin and I found possibility. The sensation of active nerve endings engaged my curiosity. I search for the sort of matter that could interrupt this regression. One faint wonder to what could have been is met by pathetic and pointless conclusions.

You are so associated. Everything and everyone is marked by inclinations. What affects you is the fact that you are now aware of it. You recognize that I see something different in you. I see something unusual. I see a habit. Nouns are consistently becoming verbs. You are not beneficial to this at all. I allowed you to be my unhealthy. I linked you to infection. Is that why I need you so badly? Is that why I want you back? You gave me composure from your expectations.You raised questions and I gave you the appropriate answers conjured from my ideals. I store a list of rules that are rarely followed. I let you in on every ***** secret so I had to abide by constructs of sickness. I had no other choice.

Will I ever be able to do this? If this is me and I am me forever who will swallow it? Who will take responsibility for my downfalls? Faults that are too confusing for explanation are menacingly sweet if you hold inquisitiveness, in place of a heart, on your sleeve. I can't understand. You can't understand. There is no more on and off switch somewhere in a dark basement. I'm not twelve anymore. I can't blame mommy and daddy. Its all my fault. I got myself here. It's my transgression. Don't you dare blame them. Recognize my liability. I ****** up this time but I found an oddity; I found perfection in this imperfection. It's something of a conundrum.

Computer science is fruitless thinking. I AM NOT A MACHINE. I am not a computer, not a mechanism, not a problem. I am not a riddle to solve. I am contradiction in every sense of the term. Its broken, shattered and pieces have gone missing. They were outdated and oppressive. They were thrown out, burned, buried, and forgotten. Once treasured, they became cumbersome and then dropped along the way. With them, logic vanished beneath my feet. Its gone now. I'm gone now.

Weightlessness necessitates a higher being than the imperfect human. It requires me to remain underwater, letting go of the compulsion to meet the surface for air. These ancient seas compel me and draw me further down with their loveliness and passion. I am mesmerized by the mania involved. You won't spot me in the engrossing waters. The black surface holds many afflictions.

RUN. FAST.

carry me through lands of dreams
sleepy shamans oaths perceived
the new humans rewrite their creed
to reconstruct the codes beneath.
as sands of time brush through my lungs,
beneath where silver moons once hung,
the catalyst for earths progressions,
tantric winds of gods procession
are pulled to fuel the fires in our chest.
to fuel the fires in us.

ride the colors of the wind, my friend;
dance with death until your end.
the serpentine son rises to speak eternal truths
and soon his weary eyes will rest upon you.

the deepest shades of blue green hue
from the swoon of palaces
dreamt of once, so long ago
where trees from ancient soils will grow
and we, collect their morning dew.

The needle falls down on the record, a thump deep in the bass, the speaker cone shakes and the sound ocean floods from my Serwin-Vegas...That alien who stepped out of the saucer in Close Encounters of the Third Kind decides to speak to Dreyfuss, and this is what it sounds like. This is the language of his planet, on the other side of a black hole in the Gamma region.

A ****** of crows, cold in the snow, muttering low, squeaking and squealing. Love taking on flesh and blood, suffocated by skin, now let's let the service begin. They sing their gut-hungry praises then flitter away.

Signifying nothing.

The priest places the wafer on the infidel's tongue. He lifts the cup to the liar's lips. A subtle glow emitted from a place slightly behind his head. He intones the Mass and tries to empty himself to allow the Holy Spirit to work through him as he ministers in the name of Jesus Christ to his congregation. The Spirit lifts up his voice to the sky and intercedes for my weak soul.

These chants are ancient, as old as the book of Genesis. These are the languages of the Mishraites or the Zareathites or the Eshtaulites. These are the tongues spoken by Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. A language taught to them by their slave ancestors, excommunicated from the clans of Sarah, mother of the promised. A language used by Abraham himself, when he beckoned Isaac to the land of Moriah, making him carry the sacrificial knife soon held to his throat.

The procession moves forward, each recieving the body and blood in turn, enriched and better for recieving it. They walk like slaves submitting to a kind master they love to serve back to their seats in the cathedral, to wait, to get lost in the sacred relics and the sacred art scattered throughout this beautiful sanctuary.

And surely the Lord is in this place, for all that is good is from the Lord and this music is exceptionally good.

The chanting continues, now sung in the language of Baal-Zephon, where the king went after the Israelites, translated: "Wasn't there enough room in Egypt to bury us? Is that why you brought us out here to die in the desert? Why did you bring us out of Egypt, anyway? While we were there didn't we tell you to leave us alone? We had rather be slaves in Egypt than die in this desert!..."

These tone poems, written in the days of the Exodus, have a modern sound to them that is uncanny. Aliens who landed on earth in 897 BC bestowed gifts of prophecy and tongues to the individual members of the head's charge, and they are merely tools at the disposal of the leader of the aliens in their attempts to express themselves to the earthlings. No, there's no way any of us not from their planet could ever understand their language, borrowed as it was from the priests, Zadok and Abiathar in a meeting held on Mount Calvary the last time they landed on earth. The chord progressions are subliminally tainted with commands to relax, encourage a sense of floating, drift off with the thoughts that interest you most.

A looping tribal dance, recorded on site at a Buddhist monastary where the monks would mumble polyphonic OMs and the tourists would catapult their spirits through a needle's eye just to show that it can be done... Are they praying for rain? Or is it a rich harvest they petition the Great Spirit for today, their knees to the ground? The dance turns into an ****, bodies tangled up misplaced pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

They **** the whale, and so we mourn.

They fester hate like a sore that won't go away, so we sing this lamentation. Translation: "The Son wants you...Hear things in the music that aren't there, only in your hammer struck head. Ring the living bell, ring the living bell, shine the living light, shine the living light...

They incite aggression, so we back off.

They treat the blind man with scorn and contempt, so we judge them.

They are good for nothing but fighting your wars, their stone hardened hearts too far gone to notice each life snuffed out under orders from ground patrol. So we pray for conflict. We petition the Lord for strife and dischord. Exterminate these burned-out husks of men before their 4 years are up.

They lay hands upon the genius and lock him in institutions with people who pull steak knives on strangers. They are afraid of him, so they put him away, in sweat-stinking padded cells or wrapped up nice and tight in a straight, mornings woke and hustled to the breakfast line. They extricate his confidence, thought pattern by thought pattern, and curb the flow of his intellect. They leave us to sing a funeral song for the postmodern society on the day when common sense is evenly distributed amongst individuals and Moral Law is accepted as fact by each and all. A dirge for each time you've ever been hurt by someone's words or actions. Our common denominator of heartache and sorrow. Divided about all other things, by necessity united by tears, wailing, howling at the moon, primal scream therapy and insomnia.

And now the church is empty. Angels lingering to usher the Spirit from the echoing halls. Silence and stillness brutal proof of God. Music from the other side of this life. Welcoming songs played at St. Peter's Gate. Stubborn prayers from those passed over, coaxing us through, waiting with scissors at the ready to slice the mortal coil. Believers bellys full of the body and blood of the Lord, digesting it at this very moment, letting the body do it's digestive work, preparing it for re-birth.

It's been a year since my suicide attempt. Right now, I'd be in the ER waiting to find out which inpatient clinic I'd go to. One year. Since, I have escaped from toxic people and shifted from an old self. One year. What do I have to show for it? Emotional outbursts? A nicotine addiction? Abandoning my creativity? A battle with a psychological addiction to psychedelic drugs? What does progress look like? What does it mean to reconstruct yourself? A building torn - that's what I am. A prairie, a forest, which has experienced a wild fire. Beyond recognition, I deface myself - as if to erase myself and destroy the things I like. What does progress look like? Am I getting there? In my view, progress is not always seen by you directly. It is not our job to determine if we make progress, but, by the value of people and situations in our lives, we will have it be seen. To do things for ourselves is wonderful. But, what does progress look like? It looks like making giant leaps forward - and then three steps back. It looks like dipping our toe in the water, and then wanting to dry off. It looks like it's perfect, but actually not. It looks like a broken toy fixed with expired super glue. Who are we to determine progression? It's an obsession of the mind for us to think that progress means we must always be fine - that we must be perfect. If I have a million irrational thoughts in a day, does that make my one totally rational thought insignificant? I think not. If I spend one day totally upbeat, productive, and happy - are my sad feelings any less valid? No. So, progress looks like this: admitting to yourself that sometimes we won't have things together completely. We acknowledge it, think rationally, and move to the next focus. Progress is not total immunization of our quirks, but it is less demonization for how we work. Our brains - they want to help us survive. The brain gets confused among irrational thoughts and can jump and put us in an emotional turmoil jeopardy. But, be kind to yourself. Be kind to the "miswires" in your brain - because it cares for you and wants you to survive. Strive. What does progress look like? I'm not sure if I can see mine - I'm not sure what it totally looks like. But, maybe, look in a mirror. See yourself - the reflection of desire. Aspire to be who you are, judgement free. In a sort of clarity, you can see. Ask yourself:
"What does progress look like?"
It looks a bit like you.

undress the frets and peel the strings, pulled as oxymoron through chord progressions
hermetic code and the 8-fold path swim indefinitely within concept of illusion
concept
of
illusion

trick question.

universal ****!
**** me so I can give birth to your beautiful slumdog millionare
you know what I mean?
the man wearing pants so tattered it doesn't matter why he's dancing?
I meant that when I said it and I said it when it meant so much to the
king of all castles running in circles around melancholy as if it were
a dog to be chased so catch your own tail, too big to fail, too big to
fail, ah, cleanliness has its way of speech and I will never be rid of
it's cancellation fees, but does that matter oh so much if clouds
understand me better than sand sees chord progressions in winter hymnals
sung by early risen bird from dust and snow?
I didn't think so either.

Starring up in the sky as the sun set sets into darkness.
You ever wonder to yourself, why is life sometimes lifeless.
Regrets of the past, on experiences you can’t change.
Yet those mere memories in your head cease to fade.

Until you come across someone in your life you can’t live without.
That person who makes you better, loves you for you, and makes you shout.
Trials and progressions, but not every relationship is built to last.
Those insecurities maybe trust issues from the past.

To my lady of love, please do not hurt me.
I only wish to give you pleasure, love and security.
I may be young, scared, but I’m ready.
To open my mind, my body, my heart yet take it steady.
Don’t rush, no need to.
My only wish is to please you…
With time and patience and (maybe R. Kelly playing in the basement)
But that’s another story for later.

What I mean to say is baby is you’re my kryptonite.
My nature’s nectar, so sweet and so ripe.
I need you; I want you to continue to be in my life.
For I am your man and this time is right.

After cocktails at Luigi's Bar, and then The Golden Bowl,
I proposed we play a gig of jazz-inspired rock and roll.
We all thought we'd make the fans cry out for encores every night.
But our schemes were dreams that faded in the morning's ruthless light.

My blue guitar should captivate the people every night.
But the dream crumbled, the dream tumbled.
My dream faded out of sight.

Playing keyboards was Patricia. (Never 'Trisha', never 'Pat'.)
She'd a taste for gracious living in her small art deco flat.
She would practice chord progressions, sipping lapsang souchong tea.
Then she played away at weekends with her special friend, Marie.

She trained her dainty fingers to explore new grooves each night.
But the dream crumbled, the dream tumbled.
Her dream faded out of sight.

We had Ritchie on electric bass, with tap-and-pull technique.
Such a clever devil — Ritchie almost taught the bass to speak.
Ralph the drummer's backbeat cymbal crashes measured out the bars.
We agreed the speed — then found we could not play like superstars.

Would the crowd be wowed by passion from my lovely blue guitar?
No, the dream crumbled, as the band stumbled.
Our dream faded overnight.

The Blue Guitar Quartet
was as close as we could get
to our vision for the music of today.
But we bumbled and we fumbled,
our aspirations humbled.
So we slowly put our instruments away.

"The Blue Guitar Quartet
is down, but not out yet.
With practice you will crack it," said Marie.
"Let Patricia be your singer;
she's a musical humdinger,
and as soulful as a solo girl can be".

"She can improvise a blues
based on any riff you choose.
Let's have handshakes and embraces —
this quartet is going places!
Here's to jazz-rock, and The Blue Guitar Quartet!"

With memories rapidly fleeting, I find it hard to pinpoint what lead me into the eyes of the dying man. I recall a day just the same as many in following, the cold breeze felt nice on my skin and a brisk sensation overwhelmed me. I felt the air filling my lungs and I'd like to think I appreciated it fully.

As temptation fled me, I felt calm. No longer a slave to a cigarette pressed between my lips, I felt pitiful in my nostalgia and felt wrong inside of myself. Oh how must I have felt? I can't even grasp my mind in that of which is my younger eyes. I feel wise honestly, almost as much so as the oak tree that keeps reoccurring in my thoughts.

It's been almost a hundred years in my mind but time does not flatter such unconventional wisdom. I lay alone, as alone as one can ever feel. Who would have thought my death bed would be that of an asphalt street lay? The cold air that I allowed to fill my lungs just prior in the day, now has forsaken me so. I feel the air I breathe tearing softly into my lungs, I feel the cold embrace of death.

I thought my time would never come, but I guess I was wrong.
In recollection, I always thought I would die on a day where clouds filled the sky. That somehow with my departure came down rain so hard, so powerful and filled with fury. As if the pounding roar of thunder is that of only God cursing himself for allowing me to slip through the cracks of existence. I guess I'm not all that important after all, stained in the blood of youth. My dying hour is here far too soon. but I was never good at keeping time myself, so this can not be sure.

Dying such a strange thought, there's an art in dying really, I now see this to be true.
Death: a concept in which the mind can't comprehend, we often like to not to think of such terrible things, really the point in it seems all too pointless.

The thought crosses the measure of relevance in what deems to be relevant. Just the day prior I laid in my bed filled with appreciation for all that is mine and all I had worked for, to be laying lost in my sheets... I would give anything to feel said sheets once again. Little did I know.

Don't men only die when they don't appreciate life? Why must I be shown all that I am losing, when I already increasingly know to the deepest foundation of that of which is my existence, that I have already lost?

...

With my overwhelming sense of self-importance on the line, I face mortality in it's true form, how fragile I really am I now see. In a world separate from the pain I feel, I am fleeting out of existence trying to forget. I searched for calm in a hopeless place. sorrow moans, bitter, desolated, with a ruthless sensation of despair filling my existence. Oh the despair, it is a pit with immense depth. I would like to tell you how I have explored such depth but I honestly rather not...

For I am the one who can take it, all of it I swear, throw the knife in my back and I will pull it out, clean and polish the blade and return it as I apologize for ever getting in your way. I really never meant to get in your way. This depth I do not wish to explore will reflect in this piece I am presenting, between the lines, the presence is so clear in between the lines, screaming out to be heard, I can barely contain it within myself, so therefor it bleeds out from in between the lines. My suffering, my agony, every face I was forced to find peace with in my fleeting moments! I could not find said peace. It was nowhere to be found.

The darkness fills me and the plagues of my dreams and ambitions brought vengeance upon my waking and quaking mind. Suddenly an empty figure stands in my reality brought nightmare and I observe it and ask why something so dark lives in the depths of my subconscious? I am tortured and beaten and broken, I have taken the world and more, why me? I ask for my own amusement.

I often ask myself what lead me to that of merciful that day, the day time stopped and I reached a new plane of existence, what lead me to be so merciful? The question rings and I stand firm in my footing, as my head turned so swiftly, I locked eyes with God, he took the shape of a moving vehicle. Terminal and homicidal, I measured the weight of guilt and worth and felt bitter in my disdain.

My disdain did not know the smiles of my family's faces, my sister with eyes not yet recording, she would not even know who I truly was, the question sank and I asked "Who am I?" but I could not remember, the dying man had consumed me, everything I am was being ripped apart by the dying man, I felt engulfed in these feelings...

And in my departure I felt so very alive, more alive then I had ever felt. My heart was crying in it's inadequacy, never knowing the touch of true love, I fell short yet again! I have failed... For all their is worth dying for, I had so much more worth living for.  God and his oh so strange faces, he chose to represent himself as my bane of existence this time.

I thought about it but I never no matter the time given could have really considered everything before I pushed that man out of the way, fully and truly I could have never known the weight of my actions. Some see me as a hero for pushing him out of the way, but I see a deep sadness inside myself in the decisions I had made in that of a split second. Almost as if I chose my demise simply to let go, I wanted to let go deep down, and what better way to let go then in an acts of hopeless heroism. I felt pure, almost as if I was absolved of all my prior sin. I thought of God and his true face, the emptiness in the absence of light in his eyes, I felt alone, no comfort, as alone as I felt the day I was born....

And as I embark, so must I someday depart.. I imagined my departure to be a day of overcast and shade, but on the contrary it was a bright day. I felt the Arizona heat masked by a winter breeze and I felt alive, in that of which is my fleeting moments I felt alive. In my suffering, my great suffering! Given the choice to let go, I saw the sky open up, and their was angels standing on the street lights ready to guide my soul in it's leaving.. but I was not yet ready! as I lived this pain, I slowly forgot what it felt to be free of suffering, I became my pain and the only sounds I heard were that of sorrows moans. I felt filthy and impure, moments earlier I saw myself as selfless in acts of heroism but to no prevail were my acts recognized, I somewhat expected the scenery drop to be lifted and to find myself in a dream I simply fell too hard into. But no, no, no, NO! reality is unmerciful and cruel and potent and sure, it is sure as day is bright and night is dim!

I often refer to who I was as characters who shifted in time to become new. I dream to be The Wise Man but I am only The Discoverer as of now, but before that I was The Dying Man(who I am allowing you to know) and before that I was The Ego and Fury and before I was The Hopelessly Hopeless, when funeral progressions play I was The Boy who Throws Dirt, just as I was once The Young and Yearning, and same as I was once The Sunflower Boy who ran amongst the flower fields. These characters are all equally apart of myself, as who I am today is apart of me.

Really we are all one in the eyes of the dying man, you become everything you ever were or will be, the dying man is clairvoyant but hopelessly disconnected and could never really make any sense of it. And by the one in million chance, if he ever were to flood back in to the eyes of the living, it would be like a dream that fades as you desperately cling to the story as the day progresses. I don't know why I fail to forget the eyes of the dying man, I wish I could, it isn't natural, a spoiler if you will, but the eyes of the dying man holds great wisdoms and sorrows, far too great for the eyes of the living man. So you can imagine my return, my great bamboozle of death itself, it was surreal and I questioned the fabric of existence in it's entirety. Where I thought I was surely pushing daisies, rose a pulse and life breathed into me yet again.

See this is not my first run in with the reapers scythe, it is my third but I do admit, I was far more conscious the third time around. My first encounter was my very first breath, my lungs failed me with the tight restraint of the umbilical cord fastened in a noose fashion around my neck three times. I was born blue and it leads me to ask myself how could I ever feel alive after something like that? It's like waking up to falling out of your bed and the day is casted in negative light but so is my life. The second encounter was in the eyes of my former self, I like to call the hopelessly hopeless. My first conscious run in with the reapers untimely swings, I felt disdain, and impurity becoming of me. my head clenched with strain as everything I had ever witnessed or heard. I was forsaking myself as I cried out to forget what was playing before my eyes in two manners, one the life how I desired it to be and the other playing the cold setting of what actually happened...

So I am here the dying man yet again, not because I asked to be but because it simply can be. For I can take the weight of the world and arguably more. I stand a man sovereign in my rights for existence, valiant if not simply in no better words a brave man beaten and broken, always ready for the next lashing. I decide to fight the becoming of the dying man. Will to live! it's really a funny thing, something of such great importance, that no one really ever thinks about, something so overlooked but still so important.

I lay the man aged a hundred years inside his head, moments reflected hours and hours were becoming years, I slowly forgot who I was, and the slate became cleansed. I felt pure with triumph, I felt undyingly pure, my sins were washed from me and I awoke. I felt brand new, I felt as if I were reborn, the dying man was casted into the past and I became the discoverer I am today, and one day I dream of being the wise man but one day is too far to become hung up on anything. I shall appreciate another year in full this time, and for many years following. I am now, what I was not before. I am truly awake and appreciative for if death comes for a fourth blow I want to have new stories to tell my old friend, as the fireworks in my brain go off yet again.