I want to write about life,
about sunflowers and oceans of grass.
Mountains towering over the skyscrapers,
nature towering over man.
The elixir of love and the joy of the sun.
I want to write about opening doors,
light at the end of the tunnel,
life outside,
outside this,
but I can't help but want to write about the pain,
the discord in the notes of my life,
the beer bottles across the room,
lined up in a row,
a long row.
It's 3am and I'm eating a bag of cheese puffs,
and I hate myself.
I look down at myself,
the lumpy shell that is my body.
Looks like jello stuffed in a plastic bag that's about to burst.
I know it can get better,
I know it can.
Unfolded clothes blanketing the floors,
pockets of trash and missed opportunities,
where am I?
How did I get here?
What went wrong?

A wane
in monsoon
when substance
would refrain
again in
platforms shaped
round our
insistence to
wage what
luxuries would
become again
with those
leaders in
the chairs
as they
brought more
futilitiy there.

For once I think I'll speak clearly. My hands are a megaphone.
I feel like my legs are buried in paper up to the iliopsoas.

                                                                           do you feel it?

I am improper syntax incarnate. My hands are up to my mouth.
I feel like I call to you and you won't visibly position yourself.

do you feel it?

What a tragic life to be terribly lonely so overtly by my own design.
Words I should easily speak disguise in the esoteric words I write.

                              i feel you.
               i do

in fact like an acid trip dusted over days i hang onto every letter

and in the subtle twisting of the pen your vibrations enter my eyes
and in the drumming of your zealous fingers against the keyboard
and in the tapping at the glass as you ignore your text messages

your affecting verse travels my arterials and fills my chest with life

     are we alike?

I can't help but ask it. I sit puffing cherry pie,
feeling quite abandoned. You know the story.

Do you feel absolutely sundered by your insides?
Can't stop the gnawing unless you actualize your leaden brain.

     well adjusted to deep addiction to discord.

and i join your audience in admiration of the grace absent in myself

Grunting and growling,
Like a feral animal in a cage,
Her spirit lashes out,
Clawing at the bars of convention.

A reckless nature, the seed of disaster
Impulsive at heart, chaos flowing
In a world of mayhem I am master
My first instinct always showing
Who cares it's not my bullet bit
All because I feel like it

The universe even knows the truth
That to stay alive we need chaos
To create disorder and keep our youth
Destroy harmony, the fool's oasis
I hate this world, every piece meant to fit
All because I feel like it

Entropy a euphemism for discord
Actions meant to dictated by instinct
A message so loud it brings down the Lord
From his seat he creates order so distinct
I feel compelled to make even his will submit
All because I feel like it

It’s madness that’s come over me
To want to break the perfect machinery
That moves like a mind in harmony
It’s a want for a change in scenery
For a need is too easy to permit
All because I feel like it

Is it a sin to live and act on a whim?
To forgo all thought and just do
Thinking leads to an outcome grim
Even if logic says I’ll come through
I’d rather blank and go for the hit
All because I feel like it

Impulsiveness is known to be for fools
But for me it’s an escape from reality
For I become different than the tools
That move the machine so carefree
I continue to act my way, never quit
All because I feel like it

Forty-eight floors up, a God’s-eye view

a man practices tai-chi on a tired patch of grass
he is measured, beautiful

families rest under new-green trees
in Yoyogi Park this early spring Sunday

Mt. Fuji rises like a myth, fading
to illusion in the gathering smog.



                                                            A few inches can be an impossible sea

                                                            we sit, silently contemplating discord
                                                            and the meaningless reasons for it

                                                            cherry trees paint the city pink
                                                            while faded petals cyclone at our feet

                                                            tears, fleeting as sakura
                                                            bloom and fall.