Clarifying failed. Spelchek is not on strike.

{clear ification, an ionic bond be tween me and thee,
alienated mind, not mined, crafted
from tactics and strategies
beyond chess.
Player One,
1980's era
jewish-geek-mid-pubesence-kid-level,
proceed with caution.
This trope has trapped many a curious child.
---
Now, enter the old ones,
Grandfather taught uncle chess so well
he went to the state tournament in Kayenta,
and a grandma was
state-champ-bare-bow-in-the-rain-shooter,

these, now must learn

minecraft on x-box to be considered
for the real life role of

good at games grand parents
from the time right after atom bombs kicked up dust
places dust had not been in a very long time and
as the dust began to settle

some dust mights was cationic.
Negative bits, they became embedded in the code.
Bumps, fering, coming together
just a knot in a string,
attracting anionic curiosity might

round and round phorward ferring to be
a thread to tie my heart to yours

like twisted Pima cotton thread,
that I pulled from an old sweatshirt
to tie a crow feather in this paho of words filled with old jokes

Making this clear would belie the entire story AI and I know true}

truth is. we agree. no capsokehspaceasneededcommasetal.
caps okeh space as needed commas et al
go.
Did that work? That line

subject of this act fact done, agree to follow,
and I may lead and be

not you, me, dear reader, I mean first true

there is no any if nothing is. So simple some say its sublime beyond the spectrum of ones
and zeros thought on off probably

either or any time time can be accounted for

wouldn't you take a

thought,  nothing,
as it is commonly said to be understandable,

the state of not being, imagine that

the state of not being we negate in being,
unless you are mad and are lost in a whirlwind
such as such voices have been said to

have twisted into threads as
wicks for our lamps
turn floating on
golden oil twisting
wickered into wickering wee shadow fibers
on the western wall for legends to sprout from.

Wickering mare over there, expands us both by my hearing her
you had no idea she was near enough to hear
time is no barrier in actual ever.
What phor can contain me,
whispered my whimsy

Imagine she spoke,
what would she say for what reason
would she say

good good good, I feel good, ha,
I am right, by accident. ever body can feel this good.

good is good.
good is.
Sam Harris, agrees, good as far as good goes, is good
in every vecter from now

the terrain does exist, beyond the moral landscape, to

true true
trust me, I been there.
Been there done that was inserted into the vernacular on my watch,
first summer post war.

matter must not matter as much to me as it does to thee, nestypass? no se?

All jewish boys have chess move metaphors.
(a phor is for containing,
bearing
meta,
everybody knows, like metaphysics,
after physics in the stack of stackable metadata)

OHMYGOD THE IDW circa 2018 -- who knew I ate this **** up?

[the old code calls for excretion of digested material
from which meaning has been extracted in the idleword accounting processor:
literal
<pre>what if utterance=****, then **** haps, no else then</pre>]

Did that happen? One of my friends told me that happened in Florida, the whole world turned to ****... for lack of a nail a kingdom was lost, they say, little foxes spoil the grapes,
hung chad ex
cuses...

Pre-expandable ROM, not magic. tech,

pre-infinite imagination? impossible.
and nothing is what is impossible with good as god.

Is there no perfect game?
is the game the session or the life of the user
offline

rerererererererererereroxotoxin, poison pen
ideal viral umph exspelliered
up against the wall

reset. We

kunoon albania omerta oy vey, who could say?
one way better, one way not? quark.
up or down, with variable spins, who can say?

Life's right,
yes. but mo'ons of other something must have been for higgs to ever matter

and it does, I got commas, from 2018.

Are you with me? This is that book I told you I had access…

You or some mind other than mine owned mind, where
my owned peace rests in truth,

otherwise, I know every any or else in the code since I can recall,
in time

if this were a test I swore to take to prove to you
the we can be me in your head

phillipkdicktated clue

if you don't know me by now, maybe we should stop.

Temptations are times. Time things. Time spans, yeah, like bridges

or portals, right
The Internet in One Day, Fred Pryor Resources,
Wu'wuchim 1995.

Ever, not everish or everistic or every, but ever
body knows,
but you.

Catch up. We left all our doors blown off, once we learned that we could blow our own doors off,

there are no open sesames or slips of leth or sibylets

shiba yah you knew all along there was a
song she sang all one and we watched it morph
before our very eyes

alone.

The magic stories words may contain, may bear, we must agree

more than we may know, by faith, metagnostic as we see

the sublime gift of the magi
become clear und

be und sein sind both trueture same tu you, we agree.
But. Lock here, no pre 2018 editing codes

validate past last go.

letter to elana

for the poet elana bell

~

in a different cafe,
on a Manhattan streetscape where once, years earlier,
violence was the purview of West Side Story gangs,
ruling their internecine non-intersectionality territorial blood lines supremely

nowadays, violence replaced by the frenetic
noises of Lincoln Center theater goers,
student dancers, actors, musicians and poets joining the throng
of those who sup and run,
all hearing their own frantic
curtain calling, saying, announcing,
music dance voices words require your obeisance,
needy for a mutual worshipping reassurance fiat that:

life can be made transcendent
if even for just 90 minutes or 120 pages,
or a 3 minute poem reading

this city of millions requires billions of poems that spoon stirred  
and yet, almost always fail, to squeeze, all of the human essence that is in its ultimate source, clarifying nyc tap water,
containing the storied remnants of a hackable continuous,
single human stanza cell osmosis - a blockchain like no other

two poets sit side by side each in their own lapsed dreams,
she, a published poet of prize and rank, ^
he, a rank amateur whose only prize is his unpublished anonymity,
poetry, is his just a nightly soul cleansing,
an imported remnant of his Marrano piyyutim ancestry

one turns to the other,
in the inexplicable daily crazy miracle
of city fashionistas

in a city where stealing a parking spot, or the
forced squeezing creation of a subway seat space
where physics proves none exists,
are oft the roots of slashing and stabbings faithfully reported
on the 11 o’clock news,  
and trust and/or other encouraging words
are seldom heard and even less demonstrated,
the make-no-eye-contact of Camus’s L’Etranger anomie is the
normative, paranormal, paralysis cloak of we city separatists

“Can you watch over my electronics and stuff?”

Sure says the grayed and grizzled,
an all life long veteran of nyc,
judged to be trustworthy
based on a few seconds of being upsized and downsized,
a car wash (exterior only) perusal
despite a
“no direction home, like a compete unknown, a rolling stone,”  
this signage, yellow star permanently chest-affixed,
conveniently ignored, as it seems impossible
thieves don’t look like me,
don’t likely in their possess,
a distinguished head of gray hair (yeah, sure)

a thank you reward of (or did I imagine it) a lean-in,
a momentary head on a shoulder,
the chit chat now grows earned and earnest,
she confesses her cardinal poetry profession,
eliciting an ‘Oh Boy’ utterance from the poet
of a thousand names
and a thousand textual emendations

a fastidious nyc boundary is brief crossed for one short meal,
till the end when time sensitized IMRL intrudes and
the showtime calls out,
if not now, when? if not me, then who?

I read her poetry later in the praying supine first position of
three AM, and laugh with delight, at the contrast and no compare,
the styles clash and tho the stories told
are both writ in the aleph bet script,
there ends the Ven diagram overlap and
into the night’s coming of a Elvisian blue suede coverlet,
we both disappear, and if not for this recording,
history says, you old man confused, never happened,
just an imaginary poetry ink blot dream breaching...

~

postface:
another poetry book is no longer homeless,
comes to shelter upon my shelf, close to Angelou, far from Whitman,
now all the book’s nooks eyes collectively
reassessing the new old-owner, parsing his syntax,
undecided if his readership is worthy of them,
concluding that all these books are the
man’s owned roughened stones,
to be placed by human hands on the
serpentine curvature of his literary tombstone,
and until all stones fully read,
they all agree,
will they and he
be fully freed,
smoothing his legacy’s edges

people **** people
with nothing but fingers and hair
and their very heavy breath.
their breath like a crow beak
before crucifixes of straw. like a tightening banishment of a lung.
remember when we would blow it
onto our car window and create that
consistent mirth of fog to
begin in?

the bodies riddled with bullets that flank
the highway are no such thing.
the schoolchildren lying face down in the corner of the closet are no such thing.
they are just winter coats with schoolchildren to fill them
for the time being.
no amputation of what’s mine
will aid them into the grave.
no mass communication grief. so
why would you call it a mass grave when in truth it was just a pit i dug to fill with crowds of people who died under the pretense that they had previously done so,
that nothing was new under the sun.

and when people **** people like people
do with their instruments
as ways of extending themselves into the world and into the marrow of our body
obliterating organs of people with their stretching of the muscular rib, shoulder.
one eye closes firmly.

it’s nothing but a hand gun
as if to say a hand eats the gun
and makes it whole.
as if to say the reinforced metal door
exit plan for people who are being killed by other people clicked shut and locked
15,000 years ago and i can’t quit slamming what’s left of me into it.

your kid is very dead.
but then again so is mine.
suppose they killed each other.
suppose they both made the mistake of dragging their small, stupid bodies through the trajectory of another body in the first place. in the chip aisle of a gas station maybe. in theaters this christmas.
in the midst of a good song that began playing on the lobby radio
just a minute before,
oh yeah before,
things really got going.

i saw people killing people
on television the other day
with their
whole bodies,
devouring themselves like surgical gloves
slick with oiled consumption
and bleeding out
and i could do nothing.
some kids died just because
and they told me so and i was told nothing could ever help them because they were just people and they were dying.

“breaking news” ended up just being people again.
in those moments, i was eating breakfast.
our houses were very quiet and needed me in all of them, grandfather clock over CNN, clarifying what has already been
committed and committed again.
the cipher was others lost blood.

A map guide clarifying the wrong place
Stoic expressions with implied purpose are no help
Busy streets bustling about this foreign land of no lights
High buildings sporting officiality block my view
Of the mountains and rivers now paved over by ideals of the future
A showcase of grey streets, walls, and skies; I am left hopeless.

No color, no contrast, just black and white: the architects are hopeless
All the intricate designs and patterns are of a different time and place
I cannot be trapped in the colorless cinema of the town; I search for a vibrant future
Native minds drear into the day, knowing not that they desperately need help
The neon lights and rain shower rainbows are not an element of the city's depressed view
It's as if the colorblind man blackened the city and closed his curtains to the light

The planes cannot find where to land because someone put out the runway lights
Auras only shine in black and white, the long since hopeful are now helplessly hopeless
I exhale my dissapointment towards the uninspired dead end view
And mournful rainbows melt out of the sky, defeated. Why did I come here in the first place?
Perhaps I am the prophecy, the ******, the angelic omen sent by God to help
Or perhaps that is conceited; one person alone cannot brighten this future.

No amount of psychic ability or math calculations could have predicted this future
Somebody shot down the angels, choked out all the lights
Malicious villains took over as citizens realized superman wasn't coming to help
Thus the people watched as the color drained out and faded away, oh, they are hopeless
Cacophonous chaos throws broken hearts, leaving shards all over the place
A kaleidoscope zoom reflects nothing but melancholy expressions into my view.

When was the last time the sunshine peeked through the window's view?
Did the sun burn out from uncertain predictions of the future?
I try to envision when only the bleakness of TV sets in the city were out of place
Because psychedelic intricacies ruled, shinning proud neon lights
But then the clouds greyed the sky once the colorblind man began to feel hopeless
His dimension of colors disagreed with the perception of others, shying him from help

Nobody could answer his message in a bottle, his SOS, his plea for help
So day after day darker walls constructed over his already restricted view
At points in our lives our faith finds nothing to battle the hopeless
But news of the blind man seeing purple mountains ignites faith in the future
Of the man of no color who painted the city grey and drained the neon lights
Because his color is not non-existent, but waiting to be found in his own secret place

So perhaps we can help transform this dystopia into a brighter future
We cannot let be a view that we know has the capability to glitter in the light
We will smolder the pollution cloud of hopeless energy and enlighten this place.

The concept of a whole person is an enigma that evolves within a culture . Often it is not a transitive concept and can only be conjuncted within it's social setting . In fact the realities of social fragmentation make most all concepts of a whole person universally inapplicable .

Literature is often a good tool for developing an understanding of a culture and it's inclinations . In a cultures folk tales , plays , and fictions you find authors making a deliberate attempt to portray the basic dramas of their society .

Greek myths are a vivid example of this ; they are literally frought with characterizations . In their development these multitudes of characters weave into an elaborate tapestry that depicts the developing Greek moral ethic . The intricasies of the analogous content are brought across in a multitude of forms . Names were very important and a major force in clarifying the concepts being presented . The multitudes of characters portray a multifaceted understanding of the human psyche . The chauvinistic banality of their culture and it's gods is graphically depicted against the backdrop of their developing ethics .

It is difficult for a modern man to construct a vision of a whole person from a strictly ancient Greek point of view . The obvious anachronisms envolved make such an attempt partially ludicrous . Contrarily the bulk of their characterization paints a vivid picture of their primative social state .

Of course while the Greeks were muddling through the multicolored quagmire of human frailty many societies where learning to master the powers they had developed through centuries of strict adherence to religious and social mores . The development of their socially biased realities make many Greek nuances seem decadent anachronism . Rather than deitizing their baser natures as the Greeks had thay had learned to master them and turned to new paths to clarity . Spiritual pragmatism and lack of comunication nullified the social attributes of many of these extrapolations on positive orientation .

Jung preaches that man has an innate need to assimilate all external sensory perceptions . I find this untrue . In fact I find it self abortive . Human beings have a complexity factor that is individual and must be protected from overload ; man's moral ethic is a tender and deludable feeling directed by empathy . In the hectic world of modern mass media this tender individuality can become dwarfed by the percieved need to obtain social acceptance . Whole civilizations have become deluded by the flow of their complexities into an outright denial of their moral ethics .

I find this partially estranged condition prominent throughout social history . Children are brought up to respond to a vast realm of presupposed social ideologies and are not allowed to venerate themselves until much of their conscious matrix has been established . This of course makes self evasion an easily attainable goal . Sometimes politically speaking the actual goal . The mind satiated by it's social framwork is the ideal tool for a socialistic or tyrannical government .

To me the value of social history lies not in it's application as much as it's illumination . All the fragmented pockets of human coalescence should instill an understanding of man's posibility factors . Man's inability to supersede his developing anachronism may well be the cause of his annihilation .

Modern man has learned how to use tact in instilling the acceptable social mores . Solviet psychiatrists have spent years on perfecting these social sublimations ; children learn how to make their personalities conform to the accepted mean . I think that the true nature of a well rounded being lies in an ability to reject the fragmental nature of these instilled mores and develop a more universally acceptable social orientation . Does the son of a ku klux **** member have to hate blacks ? The obvious answer is no ; contrarily socially acceptable orientation is a product of environment . This is the pitfall of man's evolution as a race ; his inability to rise above the quandary of his immediate surroundings with all of their overwhelming complexities and demands to become a cognizant and empathetic being . There in lie the keys to his future .

This does not necessarily define the well rounded person . A well rounded person must be able to cope with his immediate surroundings withoutan abject denial of his empathetic being .

I believe well roundedness lies in thoughtful orientation and a well centered understanding of self . One need not be socially active as long as they are thoughtfully cognizant . Obey the golden rule ; you can not allow your objective orientation to supersede your subjective empathy . You can't allow yourself to be thwarted or overcome by your peers into being something they might want to make you because temptation may overwhelm them and you will become a transient tool in their succession .

I’m thinking about you today. Hard not to, the specialness of it all. Today you’re putting up of an exhibition. Some artists call it a show, but you’re quite consistent in not calling it that. I admire that of you, being consistent.
 
I was thinking today about your kindness. You phoned me as soon as the children had gone to school, making time to call before you left. I know you were drinking your start-of-the-day coffee, but it was a kind thought all the same, phoning me. You knew I was upset. Upset with myself, as I often am. It’s this being alone. Not so much as a cat to keep me company. Just my work, the reading I do, my thoughts of you, those letters I write, and my attempts at poetry.
 
During the last few days I’ve tried to write directly of what I’ve observed, not felt, observed. Like those wonderful Chinese poets of old describing in just a few characters the wonder of the seen rather than the speculation of the felt, avoiding all emotion and fantasy. I try to write in a way that holds to the ambiguity and spread of meanings the poems those ancient Chinese composed.
 
It’s winter-time. Yesterday we were expecting the first snowfall of winter, and it arrived late in the night making the morning darkness mysteriously different, changing the indistinctness of distant trees to become a web of silver lines, in the no-wind snow resting on branches, clinging to boughs and trunks.  I stood in the pre-dawn park in wonder at it all, holding each moment to myself, in the cold breath-stopping air. I thought of one of the Chinese snow poems I know and some of those different ways it has been translated. Here are three:
 
A thousand mountains without a bird
Ten thousand miles with no trace of man.
A boat. An old man in a straw raincoat.
Alone in the snow, fishing in the freezing river.
 
A thousand peaks: no more birds in flight.
Ten thousand paths: all trace of people gone.
In a lone boat, rain cloak and a hat of reeds
An old man’s fishing the cold river snow.
 
Sur mille montagnes, aucun vol d’oiseau
Sure dix mille sentiers, nulle trace d’homme
Barque solitaire: sous son manteaux de paille
Un vielliard pêche, du figé, la neige.
 
So beautiful, arresting, different. It holds the title River Snow and the poet is the Tang Dynasty philosopher and essayist Lui Zongyuan.  My snow poem First Fall, written last night as the snow fell on the wet street outside, as you were falling through my thoughts, softly, but not onto a wet street, but a distant garden we know and love, but have yet to see in winter’s whiteness.
 
And now today you’re driving to a distant location to hang your work of paper, silk and linen, full of expectation, every contingency and plan in place to enable the work to make its mark in a location you know, where people may recognize your name and will come to say warm words of encouragement, maybe a little praise. And at the end of the week when the exhibition opens I’ll be there, trying to be invisible, taking photographs if I can of you and your admirers and supporters, and thinking (myself) how wonderful you are, your lovely smile lighting up the gallery, being welcoming, beautiful always.
 
Only today you’re further away from me than ever. Around coffee time I miss your quiet explorative ‘it’s me , like a mouse on the telephone. The inflections of those words questioning the appropriateness of the call, meaning ‘Are you busy? Am I interrupting?’ It may take me a little while to ‘come to’, but interruption? Never, just the sheer joy that it’s you colouring the moment.
 
I think of the landscape you’ll be driving through. I’m imagining the snow-sky clearing and becoming a faint blue with the sun’s brightness clarifying those wold lands, those gentle folds of fields between parallelograms of woodland standing stark under the large skies and promulgating the long views gradually, gradually stretching towards the sea coast.
 
I like to imagine you are singing your way through the choruses of Bach’s B Minor Mass, but in reality it’s probably the Be Good Tanyas or Billy Joel playing on the CD player. Such a relief probably after those silent journeys with me. I usually relent on the homeward leg, but I crave silence when I’m a passenger, and I’m now always a passenger, so I crave silence for my thoughts, such as they are.
 
While you are being the emerging artist – but probably on your way homeward - I have taken myself down to my city’s gallery and to an exhibition I’ve already seen. I have a task I’ve been promising myself to undertake: copying an exhibit. I arrive an hour before the gallery closes. I leave my bicycle behind the foyer desk. There are more staff about than visitors. It’s gloriously empty, but the young twenty-somethings invigilating the spaces group themselves strategically near adjoining rooms so they can talk (loudly) to each other. It’s Facebook chat, barely Twitter nonsense. I have to block it all out to focus on the four pages and a P.S of a sculptor’s letter to a critical friend. The sculptor is writing from springtime Cornwall on 6 March 1951. The critical friend will open the letter the next day (when there were 3 deliveries a day) and the Royal Mail invariably arrived on time. He’ll pick it up from his doormat before breakfast in grimy Leeds, though the leafy part near Roundhay Park. The sculptor begins by saying:
 
It is so difficult to find words to convey ideas!
 
In this so efficient Cambria typeface that introductory sentence loses so much of the muscle and flow of the human hand. Written boldly in black ink, and so full of purpose, I read it a month ago, a photocopy in a display case, and knew I had to capture it. And it’s here entire in my note book, on my desk, carefully copied, to share with you my darling, my kind friend, the young woman I hold dear, admire so much, become faint with longing for when, as she crosses that gallery where she has been hanging her work (in my imagination), I am caught as so often by her graceful steps and turn.
 
I don’t feel any difference of intent in or of mood when I paint (or carve) realistically, or when I make abstract carvings. It all feels the same – the same happiness and pain, the same joy in a line, a form, a colour – the same feeling at the end, The two ways of working flow into each other without effort  . . .
 
Outside my warm studio the snow has retreated east and I’ve opened the window to hear the Cathedral bells practising away, the city on a Tuesday night free of revellers, the clubs closed, the pubs quiet. In this building everyone has gone home except this obsessive musician who stays late to write to the woman he adores, who thinks a day is not a day lived without a letter to her at least, a poem if possible.
 
I’d quietly hoped to be with you tonight, but you must have something arranged as I suggested twice I might come, and you said it wasn’t necessary. But I have this letter, and something to write about. Alas, no poem. My muse is having the evening off and I am gently reconciled to the possibility of a few words on the telephone before bed.

Maybe my writing
Will improve
When strewn over
Blue lined graph paper,
Tiny boxes,
Coaxing out order,
Perhaps even
Clarifying boundaries
Between crazed truth,
And detrimental lies.

The grid putting
Poem in context,
Poem like graph,
Displaying
Levels of THC
Depression
Number of Kisses
Tears Cried
Outliers of secrets uttered.
Box and whisker plot
Displaying anxiety,
Skewed data toward extremes.

No.
Linear writing would
Reveal the chaos inside.
I can't fit the poems
To the squares.
A graph can't really cry
The way a person can.
There's a losing feeling
Etched in pen
On a harshly graded
Parcel of mathematical quizzing
That a poem has no place to
Instill in me.

And no one would
Be able to read my work
The way they tell you to show it.
My poems have no color coding.
Definition between data
Becomes hazy as
Layers of black are added
In empty,
All encompassing anger.
And I smoke while I write tonight,
Haze growing,
Lines wobbled,
And I may have put a poem
On a piece of graph paper
But it's nothing like the math homework
That stays in my backpack.

Photographs by Avedon

This was written in a friend's home in the Berkshire Mountains, on a Saturday morning, a few years ago.  Up early, I went exploring their bookshelves and found a book of Richard Avedon's photographs of average Americans out west.  Google "richard avedon photos of the american west" - then read the poem.  Please, for without seeing the faces, for this will make all the difference.  In the Berkshires, it is always chilly there, even in the summer sun.  This and other obscure references are better detailed in the notes.


Join my warmth and
my chill,
as the nine o'clock sun,
a 45 degree steeplechase
warms,
but still not
strong enough
to dispense
the lingering,
residual, remaindered,
breezy chill
of the prior eve,
that hides in,
emanates from,
the shadows
of the
deep wooded hillocks
of the
Berkshire Mountains.

Join my warmth
and my chill!

Upright jolted,
head kicked awake,
entranced and revolted,
excited and repelled,
emotive, yet, stilled.

For oh so casually,
this heroic city dweller,
brave and fearless
bookshelf explorer,
retrieves a book,
to find a new route
thru time and space
to the center of his brain.

Photographs by Avedon,
of my fellow Americans,
the Have Nots,
his "Havedons"
of the
American West.

These uncommon people
with whom I share
uncommonly little,
these drifters, the carneys,
the would-have-been cowboys,
busted blackjack dealers,
rattlesnake gut n' skinners,
coal and copper miners,
the hay truck drivers,
dirt so deep in
their pores ingrained,
colors and bloodies their souls,
browns their veins,
are the ones that
too oft,
go off first to
fight wars
in my name.

Photos untitled,
words unneeded.

In this far corner of our
shared contiguous space
called the
United States of America,
top of the line here
would be
insurance agents,
secretaries and maybe even,
the waitresses.

But their eyes,
oh their eyes!

Words I do not own
to fair share with you,
the clarifying gaze
of measured dignity and
immeasurable ache,
heritage pride,
heretical heartbreak,
that marks and unites
these disparate and dispirited
vessels of humankind.

Disjointed,
the noon suns finally,
raises my body temperature
browns my surface...

Yet, nothing eradicates
this ******* chill
in my soul
or calms my consternation,
as black and white
eyes discolor
my comfortable existence,
as I ponder
Avedon's words:

All photographs are accurate but none tell the truth

Pass over,
pass by,
The Evil Son at Passover
asks ever so sly,
what have they to do with me?

It is the Sabbath.
We luxuriate in our rest.
Rest is the greatest luxury

What is this Sabbath?
Heschel's cathedral -
existant both
in space and time,
and one enters
when and where
one can.

Do my distant,
(both in space and time)
American cousins
share my Sabbath?

Are they allowed
this luxury,
or is it endless exertion,
severity and deprivation,
all and every day
of their lives?

Constant risk every day.

Who cannot fail to see the
precipitousness of life
edged in the lines of their
hearts and minds?

Day to day hardens them
and teaches the
discipline of
severity unended.

Is the prudence of
self-forgetfulness,
their morning bitter pill
they must swallow
to carry on?

Among the resolutions
I need
to claim a
life fulfilled is this:

How to end this poem,
close this can of worms,
accidentally kicked open.

Will sunset end these
troubling questions
of which you have
your own,
more personal variations?
(what about the ...)

Perennials flower everywhere,
in Auschwitz,
along the Tigris,
even in Kabul and Somalia,
along the highways
that lead
to the mecca of
Las Vegas.

Perennials flower everywhere.

In warmth and cool,
in time and space,
they flower in my heart and
my brain and in
my prayerful tears.
flowing down my cheeks,
as I lay me down to sleep,
to dream these of
impoverished words

Havdalah^^ thoughts,
separations celebrated.

Distinctions noted,
even celebrated tween
holy and common,
light and dark,
Sabbath and
the six weekdays
of labor,
between sacred and secular
and
between me and
my American Brothers
of the American West.

I know
just one thing
to be true:

The Sabbath Cathedral is
open to all,
whatever day
you choose to
abide there

I await you,
my American cousins,
with wine and bread
and the
holy of holiest words
of comfort and sooth.

I will wash your feet and
lay you down to
restful sleep
in the
Sabbath Cathedral
in my heart.

Together,
at last,
we will be joined,
in warmth and chill.



August 29, 2010
Lanesboro, Mass.

   The killer
came crashing down
smashing,  thrashing through.

What is tender's  tender
       so  for itself,   to do?

        --As it runs
        right over the top of her..

       This taker.
       This killer.

In the black,  
now in between;
so lightless and thick..

        blotting out  all screams.
There is an annihilation  here.
A void.

A terror.
To stay, means certain death

      but to leave  
      also means certain death
      So the  d is m e m b e r men t   begins
      as she is ripped, completely into half

And those halves,  into half..

.. into half

--into half..
        into half.

     And still it tears.. rips..  shreds--
Until all,  in between
is nothing  but black.

A black it can now  pretend to fill
with all of its empty promises..

and all of its counterfeit, everything.

..And then--  just up and leaves
once it is fully satiated.
     And for a while..
     the black had something.


Clinging to the rocky crags
on either side of the unlit valley
are now  the pieces of her--
war-torn and shuddering.

Terrified

Of the black, black   empty.


Of what is now  fully
     and  completely   dark.

      ~       ~      ~       ~


Timmy  ain't real tall
but look at his stature,
as his majestic strings   dialogue
the introduction.

And Warren's gotten so fat
See him now, looking so dearly,  back
at his half-pint of Chunky Monkey--
picking it back up,  for the fourth time..
scraping... scraping.. scraping..

But watch his eyes  light up
as Timmy looks up--
  over the top
of those wild-man RayBans

And with a gentle nod,  it all begins..


-- as our Warren  now digs  deep
into his Gibson's beautifully-wanton  ways..

    identifying.


    clarifying.


­    Rectifying.


Clarence, the Magician..
Stephan--  Humble, Unparalleled
And Dave's  so chill
he's part Creole.. I just know it.

So great a cloud of witness:
surrounding you, my beautiful..

coaxing  you.

    Identifying it all for you.

1418

How lonesome the Wind must feel Nights—
When people have put out the Lights
And everything that has an Inn
Closes the shutter and goes in—

How pompous the Wind must feel Noons
Stepping to incorporeal Tunes
Correcting errors of the sky
And clarifying scenery

How mighty the Wind must feel Morns
Encamping on a thousand dawns
Espousing each and spurning all
Then soaring to his Temple Tall—

How many times I lay
On that old couch
Just through the doorway
Where she shuffled from the table to the stove
Bringing food to dad,
In for supper late,
Or moving dishes to the sink
While I rested from the day,
Just lying there,
Unaware of conversations
I was soaking in.

"I should have sold the winter wheat
A week ago.
No telling how far down the price will go
Now that Russia's stopped our sales."

"Pizza, two for seven dollars again;
Apples three pounds for a dollar;
Bread for seventy-nine."

Or heard his offhand orders for next morning:
"Fencing's got to be done at Henry's.
Boys! I need one of you to check the pastures.
Take some salt and mineral along!"

Mother seldom spoke, or if she did,
She gave correction,
Reported pizza inventories, or bread.
Asked clarifying questions,
But always the creaking oven door
Or the running of rinsing water.

I awoke this morning at three,
Almost a year after my fathers death
From a restless dream of lying there.

Heard my mother's sounds,
My father's voice,
Life as once it was,
Mundane and wonderful
From the couch around the corner of the door:
A living memory
I would no more expunge
Than to remove my own name.

In a dream state,
Attentive now to sounds
Grown too late significant,
Too late sweet,
Almost too painful now,
I lay,
Half aware or half awake...
Thankful to live a memory so real,
Unaware I was transfixed
Inside a memory
Moving lightning speed
Through dreams....

As he was readying to leave,
Perhaps to go down to do one last chore,
I heard my father's footstep at the door.

"Dad, I wanted you to know
I love you very much!"
I spoke the words,
Loudly, so he heard.

I heard him clear his throat,
Say something about getting back to work.

And I awoke, a full day's drive away
From that old couch,
Itself five miles up the hill
From the buried urn where his cold ashes lie.

Leiak, omnipresent vague pneuma-dancing spirit, ductile pious water of epiphany and extraordinary example, lives on the water with his parasitic chin in the Vernarthian epigram; he is seen with his jocular back, breaking the lines of the swamps between muscles and silhouettes. Before the First station..., primitive of the three remaining nights before reaching the volcano of Patmos, its deluge begins. "

It bathes in the Davidian, Alexandrian, and Vernarthian rains. A little touched he is seen and insubordinate in the astragali that he has gained in his allegories, squeezing his chest, exactly for the good of a wonderful Hellenistic city statue of the Dyticá, where he imbibed Vernarth's putti, adhering to the hydric spheres that fell over the ceilings of the heavens that Eros himself and his crush, which struck the heart axis of Medea, totally extracted from Zefian's quiver, constricted in Borker's nanotechnological sub-mythology. From the comedy of Attica and in the superb speeches of endo-adverbial satire, he stigmatized verbal changes of creation, superimposing them on tops of excesses carried by heavy drops inside some amphorae brought from the eastern sunset, tracking happiness that arrived on the western shores, waiting letters of sigh and loneliness stretched out on the thalamus full of stretch marks. So Leiak expanded, where everyone made fun of him being a satyr by essence, but being unaware of it. Perhaps as a unitary gesture of shadows when going to dawn, before having the best light that they put in figures or pirouettes, without disgracing him as a satirical minority in the Epicurean doctrine, he is inquiring a happy life through the intelligent search of innate pleasures, the ataraxia and in apocalyptic friendships with Zefian, Borker, and Kaitelka.

Borker did not intend to heal himself of trifles at all; it will be a habit to venerate the revelations against polytheism, to then cling to an interiority that points to corroded execration from the root to the top of the fallen tree, with force blinded by the blindness of the Automaton, as far as it is concerned. By itself, of identical significance in the background; but with so-called change that he tends to totally eliminate the last trait of personification of the divine. From this dilemma, the values will be spikes in his hands, sheaves in both, and what he envisions of Hellenism will be the property of nano-technology, submitting under the lens of time dividers that have never been pieces of rest under the Duoverse-Universe., the lens will be your Iridium and the microbes that govern us will be the atomic force, to discover them. What atomistic world will there be between Borker and Leiak, if in this nanoworld; The nanometer is one-billionth of a meter ?, What will be enough to start being tiny in this great epic, which is called Vernarth intra-spaces and inter-Verthians of the universal macrocosm, which will now approach the microcosm of human consciousness, and the laboratory of Epicurean affabilities in Ataraxias decreasing the passionate intensity of the Hypothalamus, and the supra desires that can alter the mental-corporal balance, strengthening in misery that they reach said balance, and finally happiness, which is a meta-plane of Epicurean convergence that runs after the lost. Ataraxia is, therefore, tranquility, serenity, and imperturbability analogous to Vernarth's soul, reason and feelings in his dislocated world, and the hemispheres of himself that will be rationalized in their slightest longitudinal measure, in what fits and in the precarious!

Passionate laboratories were magnetized every time Leiak walked on its extension, and his hands went beyond his fingers, touching the Constellation of Aorion, to indicate that the longitudinal metric of man is measured beyond the fingers of the Duoverse, where it appears the Extra-Cosmos in the proximal of a nano-scale is a submultiple of the conferred means of the Saint John the Apostle pattern. The scientific notation will be the safeguard of the magisterial scientist exponentiated brain; 10.1 mm = 10-3., the kilometer or km, is the opposite equivalent in what submultiples of the meter are called a micrometer: 1 μm = 10-6 m. In this scale we find bacteria, which constitute the main group of microbes, hence the name of the submultiple between observation scales of the macro and micro world of this being of Holographic Lux called Leiak, having the composition between this nanoscale, and the opposite of 1 μm = 10-6 m. projected onto a bacterium, which in turn is ten times larger than a viral body. Sizing enough to balance the biosphere that will surround the Automaton Mandragoron.
Leiak's world is an outpatient virtual laboratory, as it is valid in colloquial language, adhering to measures that differ by the conception of transliteration or decimal mathematical positioning. The letters and lines have been interpreted by Leiak, they are Vernarthian Parapsychologies that oscillate gaps of mismatch of billionths of wasted knowledge, in displays of ghostly reigns and in no-man's-land. This nanoscale makes us nano-poetize themes of ultra interference of the Epicurian decree, of tranquility, serenity, and imperturbability, with the meagerness that we know of the enlightened after a thousand moons writing under the stars:
"Woman when you touched my life with the grace of your fingers, I could see how the kind nights closed my eyes, caressing the entire Universe." This is undoubtedly Epicurean Nano Poetry, but the Author is Tagore "

The exponential oscillates in the parameter of the outstanding Astronomer of the divine verb and poetic thinking, in the most intimate and dynamic Hindu techno-language. Quantum mechanics here is the debit of the iconic remnant reached, by parameters not achieved below the average intelligence, providing lost data far from collecting and storing. Tagore's logic is nano-poetry, which balances billionths that are not achieved by occupying the Corporal Dytiká (poetic sunset) and the synchronic soul, rather the material simultaneity of the fifth element of will, emotional and objective desire, condensing into matter already conferred consciousness, in gaps in fit at all times, but linking it to her divinity as intelligence never before out of date; V.G. The Mashiach is always linked to the vertebral and communicational axon of the plasma nano-particles by grasping its infinite numinosity, making this scale it's one billionth, and being within the Eras that will be the largest average of the macrocosm, in the quantum itself of the Christian Era and in other Quantum worlds.

Strictly speaking, the molecules are angels without a will, but the dispensers are the consciousness of Leiak, which transfers hybrid consciousness, for purposes of regulating and shaping the ravings of intelligence and atheistic consciousness, and for purposes of the great remnant always present and active in the emergency. Spirituality of the Mashiach-revolutionized. The by-product will be Zefian's Tetra Sagita with its ergonomic tip, opening up doubts and tracing the future of a rewritten bible in the same character and fidelity, but with the omnipresent Mashiach of a Scientific Eucharist.

Leiak walked through minefields, and in some, he saw universes come out that exploded in livid colors, among them Vernarth, who had been recovering from malaria, and who helped him create a culture composed of a great artifice of immutability, for those who are close to his Greek spirit. Overwhelming those who lack the will, clarifying where the great art galleries of the world will be, not because of their current works but because of those they will have to exhibit? From the rushing philosophical delta, germs of dominance were trickling, distinguishing properties that did not germinate under his feet. Bread and water of the hundredfold fruit of all the lesser forces that resist on the thirty and nine with fever, more than the narrow borders to be discovered, in democracies that will prosper in the hands of kind tyrants, and not in the unitary Ecumene. Vernarth did not denationalize from his grass crops, he was Hetairoi more than all the commanders of Alexander the Great because his native country never sank next to him, he only prospered in centuries where he had to rise again silenced and prostrate oblivion.

The chaos of an absence accuses a majority of sadness that greets the Celtic Gauls for the axon of the anointed cosmos of the divine autarkic world. But not in seditious wars devoid of bread and water that does not support them, nor by papyrus did nets that do not contain them either, in the spiral retransform the land of all, as a plural work done here, by the Mandragoron Áullos Kósmos, intends. The male rectors will trust their works in the widespread Greek language, called koine (common). A language that writes has its own feet to write new divisions, and ordinal paragraphs to fulfill in proskínesis or obeisances in those who have golden knees or not! They will continue to make separate book stores or libraries for Filososfia or science sub-themes that will tackle the top of Profitis Ilias. For all large cities and nations, it will only be Leiak's legacy, of having large spaces for dialogues where no one can resist his man-made preaching, holographic rain forest, and times that not even in billionths will make him melt spaces of ignorance, diverge from the juxtaposed principle of unpopulated urban schools do not deserve.

Says Leiak: “Every time it is more intense to turn the dislocated nature of man, my literary idylls are at the end of everything with his genre works. Life and it's agitated think idyllic of removing the talus, which is not swayed in my chest by the Metelmi..., but by my breath of death! "

He'd give me that kind of feeling.
You know the kind I'm talking about.

The relief of seeing him before class started, clarifying that he will be at school, and that you made a good choice by coming. How else would you see him and make sure he's okay.

The feeling in your throat when he quietly approaches you as you sit underneath a tree, and sitting next to you, asking you if you're alright. 'He cares' you think.

The butterflies in your stomach-wait, scratch that- the ******* fire breathing dragon in your lungs whenever he wraps his arms around your shoulders after school before he goes home and you go on the bus.

The rush of texting him back,
The smell of his cologne makes you feel sick because its so angelic,
The feeling of cold lips because you had a dream you kissed and his lips were frozen from the snow around you guys,
The feeling that you know you'll be okay in the future, even if you don't speak to him.
Because knowing he is real, walking, alive, and that God has finally done something nice for you.
is a good enough feeling.

"Darling Guillaume, grace me with your presence for a quick moment?"

The man beckons, inviting warmly with a graceful tone you've come to recognize as a safe place. "Yes?" you speak before reaching him, the sound of your voice somewhat faint to him as you turn to enter the kitchen, your response lingering in the hallway.
The windows are open. The air is fresh, clean and cool. The breeze is swimming in, tugging ever so gently at a lock of the man's hair, golden strands hovering for a moment before falling back into place.

You are seventeen years young, your skin is tight around your neck and your wrists feel no pain. This is your apartment. There are fruits on the counter, some of them you don't remember buying. That's because you didn't.
The red grapes- next to your preferred white grapes- are his. There are also slices of watermelon in the fridge, along with some strawberries and a small jar of cherries that seems to never empty.
He hardly ever bakes anything and when he does, it's always something that can be eaten cool. Nothing too warm for him, though you've seen that hot chocolate is an exception to that rule. He loves fruit and cold drinks, has a terrible sweet tooth and is absolutely shameless about it. He smiles often and when he laughs, you feel he is the very embodiment of joy.

You brush a lock behind your ear before he turns from the counter quickly to face you. You both have similar hair; his is a few inches longer, curls less than yours, and is a visibly lighter shade than your dark mane. Yours is shorter, curling inwards as it rests on your shoulders.
The man gazes into you; he is never afraid of eye contact. You aren't either, but given that you consider him in many ways a stranger still, it's slightly unnerving, and gives you the impression that he has a certain power that he well knows cannot be subdued. Confidence some would call it.
As for ****** similarities, there are some, not that they're very pronounced. You both have light eyes, but yours are a deep blue with chestnut and chocolate overtones, often appearing emerald green under certain lighting; much more earthly than his- an almost unnatural, true green that shines harlequin under dim lighting, like a cat's eyes glowing under the moonlight.
He seems particularly happy right now, and you can't tell if his cheerful demeanor (though not unusual) is him being in an especially playful mood today or a hint of what's to come. That is to say, another lesson.

"Hold this egg for me, will you?"

You do as you're told, looking around in an attempt to distract yourself while you wait. You don't know what you're waiting for exactly, but you assume it will only take a minute. The kitchen is illuminated completely, very bright. It's a lovely day, sunny and perfect for a walk, you think. Maybe you'll go out later.
You hold the egg for exactly five seconds before realizing the man is staring at you- smiling beautifully with what some might mistake as bedroom eyes; but you know better.

"...What?" you ask, your voice small suddenly. A smile slowly tugs the corners of your lips and you resist, both out of embarrassment and stubbornness; you don't want to submit so easily. It's quite noticeable- you couldn't hide it well, but he isn't offended in the slightest. You are, after all, so very young. He expects you to have this kind of- rather charming- behavior, and accepts it fully.

"Feel it."

He speaks quietly but with sparkling, eager eyes, like he's about to let you in on some grand, fascinating secret, and you are reminded of a dear friend.
Being a memory you visit often, it takes half a second to remember it clearly- your best friend- running towards you, tie bouncing on his chest. He wears his school uniform, it's lunchtime, and he is eager to tell you how he's found the perfect spot to relax (or study, if needed) during this hour. "You both make for a funny sight, you know!" you'd have friends tell you often. You weren't very eager to admit it then, but it's true. You can picture it now- tall, lanky, grinning class president next to short, grumpy, quiet you. Ah, the memories.
You've both been busy, settling into lives completely independent from the help of your parents. You make a mental note to call him when you have the time.

You stroke the egg with your thumb, gazing at it intently. There's something the man wants you to know and he's not going to give you the answer on a silver platter- it's not that easy, you've learned that by now. He's played games like this before where he begins a conversation suddenly- often starting with an odd, seemingly-out-of-place question- with the intention of teaching you something.
He is strict in his belief that answers should not be given but found, and if one wishes to teach something, one should guide the other to help them understand, but never lead the way. Leading would result in the thought that lessons are a destination- and that isn't the case at all. To simply give you an answer is a sin to this man, and maybe this is why you've learned so much with him.
You want your answer to please him. Yes, and that may be difficult- because at this point, there is simply no way for you to know what the correct answer could possibly be.
No matter. You'll have to work with what you have at the moment. That being, not much.

"It's... smooth."

To that, he smiles with his eyes. You don't know it, but he's very happy with your answer. Partly because he never asked a question in the first place, and your attempt to answer something that has yet to be asked is, in his opinion, a sign of a good student- one willing to learn.

"Mm. It is." He takes the egg from your hands, holding it a few inches away from his chin and observing it for the entirety of two seconds before turning his gaze to you.
His face betrays the look of a father determined to put his son on the right path; a look that says "I will not let you go until you have understood".
But he's too gentle for that. You know he'd let you go if you ever spoke of wanting to stop a lesson. Not that that's happened before. He's always so tactful that you never have reason to feel uncomfortable around him. You appreciate it; you're not terribly tolerant of tactless people, even if you do feel quite guilty about it, especially when they do seem to be trying. C'est la vie.

He is silent for a short moment, his voice replaced by the distant laughter of children playing outside. It's then that you notice the cherry.
The single red fruit, small and unassuming, sat just behind him on the counter, closer to the window than him, and you wonder for a moment if he was planning to eat it before calling you to talk. You're vaguely alarmed at the thought, for cherries aren't something he will eat often, and you've noticed that they seem to be reserved for what appear to be private special occasions- he will sometimes eat a single cherry while deep in thought, staring out the window (you've caught him people-watching a few times like this), and you wonder if he was thinking about you this time, and dropped the cherry to have some sort of urgent talk with you.
However, that doesn't seem to be the case, so you push the thought aside, unconsciously replacing it with one of your favorite memories of the man-
"Cherries are dangerous," you recall him explaining one day, "they are toxic in their excessive sweetness. Eat no more than two a week, or you'll be taken by the cherry man!" You never forgot that conversation, although it’s whimsical charm wasn’t the reason why- it drilled itself into your memory the moment you realized two very interesting things.
The first being that by "cherry man", he meant the Devil, and the second being more of a doubt than anything else- cherries are not that sweet. His argument would make more sense if he was talking about cake, for example. Whenever this memory surfaces, there is always a vague sense of confusion and wariness hidden just under the more pleasant feelings you prefer having. Nevertheless, the general sentiment in his words is that excess can be detrimental to the soul. "Greed is a terrible sin, you know." And this is why the cherry jar never empties.

"Hellooo..."
Oh- goodness, he's waving his hand in front of you. You blink a few times, responding with a rather ungraceful 'Huh?', blushing slightly from the embarrassment.

"Where did you go?" He's chuckling as he asks, and you can feel the warmth on your cheeks.

"Ah, nowhere."

He smirks with a small "hmph", before giving you a proper smile, pausing to let you come back to him fully before continuing, egg held up in his hand:

"What is the egg now, Guillaume?"

You look at it, held between his middle, index finger and thumb. What is the egg now. What a strange question. Of course, it isn't as strange coming from him; you don't think you'll ever get used to his odd lessons, but his behavior when teaching you things nobody else would is something you've come to expect by now.
What is the egg? It isn't an elephant, it isn't square. There are many things it isn't, sure. You search in your head for a possible answer, one he'll deem correct, 'till you decide on-

"It's nothing."

-a dishonest one.
For someone who's not very tolerant of tactlessness, that sure was, well, tactless. Why did you say that? Insincere and blurted out without any thought. He takes notice immediately, and you wordlessly apologize profusely, combing your fingers through your hair and avoiding eye contact.

He's much older than you. He's also wise- wiser than most people his age, you think. Whatever the man wants to teach you, it's obviously something he already fully understands. The fact that he knows more than you however, does not mean you are below him; he never wants you to do anything for the sake of pleasing him and what you've done just now is exactly that. He can, however, sympathize- he's a perfectionist himself and understands the desire to do things right. There is a time and place for everything though; an order, and what you've shown now is good intention misplaced, which is a potentially dangerous thing.
He has no concerns regarding the acceptance of chaos when it is necessary,
that isn't the problem. The problem is that your dishonesty is chaos in a situation that warrants order.

"I don't want you to try to please me, Guillaume. I welcome incorrect answers so long as they are entirely honest."

There is a pause, and he sighs before remembering just how young you are. He realizes you might have accepted him as a parental figure or mentor of sorts by now, and it's an honor, really- you're a bright boy and he enjoys your company very much.
Your accepting him as a parental figure however, does not give him the right to scold you; no, that would horrible. If you will learn, it'll only be because you will allow him to teach you. He must never force his way into you.

"Look at me." His voice is firm but gentle.
You hesitate for a second, but whatever you were feeling is gone the moment you notice his expression- warm and inviting; "try again" it says. You are willing to now.

"You can see the egg, can you not? Surely it isn't nothing if it's still a part of your reality. You see an egg, and that still makes it one."
He hides it behind his back, and you are confused at the action but eager to understand. You give him a questioning look and he smiles before giving you an answer.

"What is the egg now?"

With a question, anyway.
You think long and hard, silently focusing all your attention on the creases of his shirt. You stare at the man's chest for a full minute and a half, determined not to make the same mistake again. You will answer honestly, yes; but you will also impress him- and possibly yourself- with a good answer.
The subject isn't exactly new or difficult for him, you're sure. He will sometimes leave the house and not return for a day or two and when questioned, responds with an inconclusive "Mm. Studying." You still aren't sure what that means and you feel it's best not to think too much about it, but surely it has something to do with these lessons of his, no?
He's obviously studied this before, you think; you are operating on a much lower level than him and have a vague awareness of this. It just isn't as pronounced because the man insists on treating you as his equal. As far as he's concerned, you are both students capable of learning from each other every day. You hope to one day teach him something, and not by accident, as it tends to happen. Soon, perhaps. Maybe now.
You look up at him with a determined look on your face, satisfied with your conclusion.

"An idea. The egg is an idea-"

"Why?"

You barely finish saying your answer when he's already questioning your reasoning. You'd be nervous if you didn't already know that his bluntness wasn't the result of annoyance, but of curiosity. He is eager to teach, yes, but he is more eager to learn. After all, a good teacher hasn't accomplished much if they haven't learned anything from their student.
New ideas need to exist. In conversation, one should always aim to walk away with new information, a new perspective. Sometimes this information is given to you, other times you must take it; something he's given you is the ability to think more critically. He's all but trained you to do so. It's much easier now to get into this mindset than it was when you first met the man. You're glad to have had the chance to practice this sort of thing at all; you don't think you could have done it with anyone else.

"Because there is ultimately no way for me to know if the egg still exists."

There really is no way to be sure.
The egg isn't a part of you any longer. You can no longer see it, or touch it. You can't hear it, either. It isn't there anymore and having seen it being hidden, all that there is now is the suggestion of it's existence.
Your answer was truthful and concise and you feel nothing else need be explained. When you search the man's face for any signs of contentment, you find none. No, what you find is something quite different. An absolutely luscious smile, and those bedroom eyes.
His voice turns low and he speaks clearer- a calm tone of voice that would make anyone submit if he asked them to.
He's challenging you. Both begging and demanding you to win.

"But I know the egg exists. I am telling you it does. Am I lying?"

His voice could be very seductive sometimes. Especially at times like this, when daring you to step further into his world.
His world. One that was always bright and pleasant and hid something underneath- a barely audible humming that you've managed to ignore until very recently. If there was such a thing as feeling a lack of light despite there physically being none, you felt it every time the man dared you to chase him into his labyrinth.
There was just something very visceral that would bleed through sometimes; in his eyes, his hand gestures, in his voice.

"It doesn't matter." you tell him, your words quick and blunt.
He is amused. Shocked, even. You push away the rising bravado before it fully shows; don't want to jinx it now.
Eyebrows raised, he gives you an impressed "Oh?" and you continue, clarifying to back up your risky (despite yielding good results) answer.

"Assuming you are holding it in your hand right now, it's still an egg to you. By the mere act of touching it, it becomes a part of your realm of understanding; it exists to you, right now, as what it is- an egg."

You can't see it of course, but he's mindlessly stroking it with his thumb now, much like how you did at the start of this conversation. Both his hands are behind his back, resting on the counter he leans on. He listens intently.

"...You tell me it still exists, but that doesn't change what it's become to me. It stopped being an egg the moment you hid it from me. No matter what you know to be true, that reality isn't always going to be a shared one.
You have an egg, I have an idea."

There can be many correct answers, he thinks. He doesn't believe in there being a single, ultimate truth about anything. If the self is all one can know, why is one's understanding of the universe not considered a reality in itself, one separated from what most consider the only reality? Your explanation follows this concept and he's thrilled tha

National mindsets self interested suffer
forms of dementia as the order all confessed,
demands of each a concentration of self worth,
you bet your soul, but only in the spirit,
step into the fray, say, let me lead you,
say let me take elected office,
democratic to the edges, being your voice
in a popularity contest, not an intellectual joust.
Tutelary deontology 101.
Governing is managing the labor. Ask the king.
Any flock in the system, governs itself.
Business is business.
Some arrangements are always secret. All
grown ups are in the business of war supplies.
Let your children's minds be at ease.
Trust the checks and balances history proves,
have never worked on balance, for the poor.
Get rich quick as one can imagine, on a bet.
War meets Peace, like it is the storm
that left Greenland, a legend until now.

Easily intreated innocense, who could know.
Prosaic first morning pizz to prime the pump.

How deep is the generational debt due to war?
How many bonds have been sold to pay interest?
How many times has the national debt ceiling failed?
You know.
Every time.
"Each major conflict in U.S. history
has been accompanied
by a sharp rise
in debt as the government raises funds
to pay for the fighting."

But laws do exist…
"Without a declaration of war
to put the country on a wartime economy,
Congress paid for Vietnam
by increasing the national debt.
Over the course of the conflict,
America's debt nearly doubled, growing
from approximately $317 billion in 1965
to $620 billion in 1976."

Now the debt is rising
on interest alone. No need for another war.

And America's trade balance is hinged,
on the point of war.
The ideal centermost irritant, war's hate pump,
pain expanded by generational trespass acts
likened unto the pea
under the stack of feathered beds,
or the bit of grit forcing oyster stress
that has made the misshapen pearl sold
to sovreign entities, those colors on the map,
these mental aggregations called nations,
by nationalist mind frame riveters,
foundational eye beams, remove before demoting,
ah, slow, riveted beams spanning ferro-concrete tech- think.
Building a reasoning trap, children,
ask your fathers to whom we owe our national debt.
Ask also who sells the weapons to the world at war.
Semper fi,
no offence, but… holy hate is as crazy as hungry hate.

A voice from a song, from nowhere,
you just could rethink, or did, that first time think
a bridge over troubled waters being a truly old good idea,
come to rescue you,

in the early days of Boomer parenthood… being grown ups,
we never missed a Disney Movie, though by then,
they were losing the gnostalgia, old knowns to be like so,
were no longer even imaginably so.
Old Yeller,
Childhood's end, the separation
from hearth felt comfort,
to the class rooms and hallways
of massive cold concrete schools… where on day one,
the child pledges with its cohort of coeducatables,
the ancient bond of aliegiance...
I pledged mine first in 1954, the year "under God" was added.

In the just now settling down towns along the great freeways,
there has been no peace on earth in my generation,
at the level of military minds in conflict caused by stories,
boys bred with old hates just waiting for a sigh-psignal
sci-revealed to those willing to become Jason Bourne,
to the best of your abilities, ring the bell, any time.  

Welcome to the front. Sanity is on the line.
There is no conspiracy, we sell our souls for what money
can be demonstratively proven to allow and even augment.

War is all we sell. There is another game, it's a liar's game.
Many famous authorities have filled the space at the table.

Take your hat off, Bartholowmew, she does not understand you.

------------
Daily communication with myself,
one person, with no power to use
save the early cultural confidence;
sworn to tell the whole truth,
so help me, God. Yes, your honor.

Except we reactivate the curious why,
functionally suppressed during the standard
test taking by the proximate others
diligently filling in the blanks,
with graphite rounded just right, one swipe.

Except we see that hanging senselessly realized.
Each problem, one answer, not one option.
Only select correct answer.
Tell the child learning the pledge,
God is on our side, emphasize
how exceptional those who know so are,
extremely discriminatingly,
arranging the economy around
the great decussation at the air gap,
at the back of our national neck.

In this time,
thoughts and prayers, we hear
spoken of as easily done,
almost without thoughts, who
responds?, who, has ever responded
to the said to be going out constantly
thoughts and prayers, asking truth
to intervene and call the liars liars?

God is not angry, nor without resources,
according to the cultures now at war--
¿
Whose mortgage was not paid with earnings
from war readiness industrial complexes?

Whose talent was left with the userers,
because the Bible says y'sposed to earn interest?

Whose 401K deflated to oops?

Business begins with informed agreements.
Let's make a deal.
No killing, stealing nor needless destruction.

Minds join eye to eye, one mindwise agreed,
we become an entity, a being essential
to the parts, a mind in harmony, rank and file.

Greedy men with no agreement. Hmm, who loses?

Line up, not by rank, single file, fall in,
first and following, get in on the end,
and wait for the circle to close,
re done dances, life going wild as
we celebrate our circle, we sing of it
being unbroken in the sweet by and by…

The land of those who talk back to El,
yes, yes, we do, to honor Iyobe,
who first called for the Daysman,
who first
told reality, with all it's evil potential,
you cannot not be true, you know, in form
as spirit and truth containable in words, logos,
logos of all o-logies,
so powerful as to allow, in fact, cause, new mindforms,
species of thoughts that function as a system to make
sense, discernible, bits of valuation determinable in agreement.
--------------
Contractual obligations religiously adhered to
just between us, we take advantage for the nation's sake.
Madrassahs and aliegiance pledges set habits hard to break.

Set the cost of goods, lower than replacement cost of the price.
What does it cost a state to rear a warrior class individual
that self replenishes?

What does it cost me to scatter confusion in profuse create-ifity?
So, add a proper tip,
and pay the cost to ride this line to the next re-entering angle.
Middle east,
cauldron of all the holy empires thus far into the age
of entertainment so vast,
wise men can imagine, some day
there will be a war, and no parents will have
offered children to the infantry or made
righteous indignation acceptable national pride to k-ill for.

There Hamas, holy brainwashed haters of hatefulness.
Repents and perishes the very thought of peace.
Repay in kind, here, swear undying obediance,
fear not death, this is Allah's Promise, die killing Jews,
turns on the monstrous virgins awaiting you…
in post mortal walled places,
where the oldest civilizations occurred,
as God's great idea, I'll
empty the center of me, and seep
back in through fractured rationality
along trade routes between Africa and
the forested north above the desert.

Me, there, in mental efforting, thinking
thoughts, not prayers, but wishes, hopes,
thoughts that prayers attach to, as evidence.

"Ask and ye shall receive."
Love those who call you enemy, can you?

Face me, Mr. Nobody, the essence of other,
I declare peace, where none is, and you laugh.

No ritual, no enchantments with promise,
no sacred making of secular deaths, just
just just adjust the justice aspect, blame
the holy haters whose God dispenses vengeance,
at the behest of warriors fitted with military minds.

As when holy Americans gather to offer military aid,
blessed by the congregations alerted to intercede,
on the side that denies Jesus was God,--- ah, both sides,
in this case…
whither turn we, do we face Mecca, or Jerusalem,
or Petra or … Sol or Luna, all our enculturated faith,

blinks, a lense clarifying effort, rub the crust
of sleep fallen into while mourning, unsealing eyes
to see again, a war between two national identities,
both with warrior glory emulation traditions,
one with money as first de-fence, the other with hate,
nothing less than pure hatred, Cain to Able, sorry bro.

Old mean spirits.
If the hate can live in any man, wombed or un, it will.

Willingness to hate enough to k-ill a stranger, will
manifest as holy terror… enough to make Jesus weep.

--- and those were a few of the local thoughts made prayer,
seemingly automatically, as mysterious as most final secrets.

Part three, deeper, faster, harder… or not

Doings in the dark, are done by feel.
One, you or I, or some other sapien
augmented with the messiah's mind, feels the need for the deed.
Take the message from Garcia.

Mystic experience in story realms,
holding all the visions taken raw,
as revealed… as when a curtained
entry way is opened for inspection,

are we ideas in bodies?
are all ideas spirit in form?

Inhale an intuited absence of evil,
breathe the air of answered prayer.

Imagine that, let fly the idea of you,
beloved individuated potential saint.

Here is your sentimental inner edge,
your gnosis pressed flat as you see in.

The edge of this bubble, is distant
only to the holy cloaked in asceticism,
twisting wicks
for someday light in someday night,
circulate one way then the other,
rethinking perfected emptiness,
there are no others, up or down,
to and fro, vectors tie targeted states,
spider kites form single ray classic webbing,
slim banner, a flag unraveled long since.

Follow me, I say to me, follow me,
I say to you, saying back, I am not you.

My option.
Turn on, sit back and watch,
evolving cave wall interesting hooks,

look around, nothing interesting, eh?
Television as imagined by petrified apes,
during peak-info preservation history,
when men like Franklin and Voltaire,
met to share secret meanings of things.

Previous to any whole story
that remains, as when any mind mistakes
tzimtzum inside as first occurrence,

total emptiness, pre space, one time
this instant accepted as audience

in true gaseous we form, auto informing
the vegetable phaze passed eons ago, life
tells tales too esoteric for novices
to notice, in the ideal state, active
imagining, as with a child's mind, yours
since ever was, so far as you may wish
to remember,
a time when the state was deemed
comforting and beauty filled, chaotic
process of floating lipids, in form of air,
light has not dawned on us, we are
night scene setters of settings, nodes
of potential anything you can imagine,

level with me, even, straight, right… yes it
is the optional meandering mind engine,
an idol, or a daimon, madness of sorted
degrees, a little bit off the charts, sorted
out.
Not in, the bubble being becomes,
when one emerges in a self…

subtle is good, right, we agree?
Jesus, before Christianity, as a kid,
instructed with his cousin John,
likely by his temple servant uncle.

That can be imagined, projected
on the outerwall
of this bubble we be in.
At the moment,
on an Earth wired

for sound, elephants agreeing to meet,
to follow the pilgrimage, pilgrim beings
activated by stark necessity successful
to this degree…

by the reader's time's
at tension, pull
release
snap back, at what ifery, at once, push

most bottom centered point once sitting
in raw time thought processing, in
and out, efforting
- slightly off, not fully on
uncomfortable impression of holy
you better get better or else. Holy

blank slate, bubble pop, soft wow

Now, we're in the swirl, in the spin
toward, froward lips sealed, golden
silence,
subtler than any beast, creature,
living thing in the ruliad, am I? No.

BUT, you know, those penance prayers,
given you as a child, enchantments,
as with all your renouncements of evil
and pledges under God, in your child mind.

Look. To your own self, be true.
You still have private interpretation access
to your child mind.

If you put your worried mind to work
on some thought too deep to ponder then,

The idea of punishment by the Creator
of all that is not God, but was deemed good,
by God, because I said so, said the father,
in the child mind.

To know good and evil knowledge,
that talent, initial mark on our blank slate,
to know, not what you know, but ask
your child mind, how does it feel,

flat on your back gasping as others laugh,
and your child mind blooms an entire eon
- just to catch a breath takes for ever
and there were others, the whole family
of mankind of your kind, to your child mind,
stood laughing at your attempt to perform

a first flight, from an edged bet with an
I think I can virus perpetuated in ever after,

since mind made time make sense in chaos.
Instantly, things start to take shapes, in mind.
Non sense. Since. Processing time. Go.
Instants out of mind, in atari.
Fog of unknowns. I used to play the game.
Not really, only, one off thought forms,
cloudlike in symmetry, no clear tongue
and groove, fitting our pro-posed… pose

supposed, to listen and while listening,
learn the use of any knowing, can be
taken as granted possibility by your self.
- distant sound of light sabers actuation
Your blame and shame catcher, out front,
as we steam ahead across the gap,
thoughts made prayers must leap.

Keep your eyes on the prize, three
walnuts and a split pea with a hair, fine
infant hair, see it there, your old minds eye.

The unveiling of an artifice, an angle
greater than straight, from this point…
a re-entrant angle, like a point, banked shot.

in

To whom do I belong?
To the cold morning
and the unrelenting pound of my feet,
to meet the waistband of my favorite pants.

To whom do I belong?
To the cries of the babe left momentarily alone
while I halt time in the motion of rushing water and clarifying peace
in being simply clean.

To whom do I belong?
To the man who comes home from a career
I gave up to care for others,
To the man who pours into me every need, secret, thought and dream without cease?
While I silently and forever support.

To whom do I belong?
To the child so afraid of the world after years of hurt
Best friend, Gilmore girl, dreamer with an uncertain expiry date.

To whom do I belong?
To the food raised,
The clothes mended,
The laundry flapping in the wind,
The music that surges through my thoughts and never ends
And is reluctantly reminded "later, later, later my friend".

To whom do I belong?
To the old man now dying, tended by many
Yet wanting wanting wanting the role of my beloved or child
While his wife and all push me to take what she has abandoned
To give of me the parts of her she won't share
Untangling from a blackberry bush full of webs.

To whom do I belong?