If you are uncomfortable when you look in the mirror,
keep in mind:
We spent thousands of years
trying to convince the earth
she was flat.

We wrote her maps as evidence of the things we saw;
and she believed them.
She cried tsunamis, and had earthquake breakdowns.

Keep in mind: the Sun never gave up hope.
The earth will keep spinning and breathing
the star-dusty space void of encouragement.

Next time you look in the mirror
and second-guess your potential divinity,
remember you will keep shining and living.

Because the Sun is out there
believing in you,
compensating for lack of the human capacity
to treat each other empathically.

You don’t need proof or approval
to be exactly what you are;
Eventually everyone will see
your infinite beauty.

My autism's a part of me,

But it is apart, you see.

...

Who are you?

With your ‘normal’ view.

Are you just one thing, or are you a person

With thoughts & feelings, that are your own unique version.

Preferences, ideas, talents, and dreams?

That are bound by senses that meet at their seams.

Are you fat, short sighted or visually impaired?

Are you ever wondering why I just stood and stared.

Those may be the things that I saw the first time I meet you,

But you’re more than just your ‘normal’ diagnosis…. True?

As an adult, you have control over how you’re defined.

Your normality means your perceptions are refined.

So why would you single out one characteristic of mine that you can make known.

As a child, I am still unfolding, I’m not fully grown.

Neither you nor I yet know of what I am capable.

If you think of me as just one thing, then one thing’s inescapable.

You run the danger of assuming I have no chance of achieving.

And my heightened senses know this, it’s only you you’re deceiving

For I am not endowed with any ordinary sense.

You need to know this before I commence.

You take for granted sight, sound, taste, touch and smell.

Never once realising that these things can be as painful as hell

For me.

You see.

My world often feels hostile, and makes me so fearful.

I may appear withdrawn or belligerent, whilst others are cheerful.

Or mean to you, or antagonistic,

Defending myself, then going ballistic.

You tell me we’re going on a trip to the shops

And out of the world my safety net instantly drops.

My hearing, you see, is hyper acute.

But I’m put in the car, though I loudly refute.

At the shops, walls of people jabber and whoop.

The loudspeaker booms and adds to the soup.

Music blares and lashes and whooshes.

Tills beep and cough, a coffee grinder swooshes.

The meat cutter screeches, a baby starts wailing,

I’m starting to malfunction and am rapidly flailing

As trolleys pass creaking, and fluorescent lights hum.

I’m starting to panic, but also turn numb.

My brain can’t filter the input, the voltage is massive

I’m in overload with no chance of staying passive.

My sense of smell is stratospheric.

That fish on the counter is NOT atmospheric.

The man in front hasn’t showered today,

That Stilton cheese – someone take it away!

A baby goes past, it’s ***** needs changing.

Things are going faster and turning deranging

They’re mopping up pickles on aisle two with some bleach and a rag.

My stomach is churning, and I’m starting to gag..

And there’s so much hitting my eyes!

This trip has turned into the world's worst surprise.

The fluorescent light

Is not only too bright,

it’s that flicker.

The space seems to be moving, getting quicker and quicker.

The pulsating light bounces off everything and distorts what I am seeing.

I don’t know what I’m doing, or saying, or being.

There are too many items for me to be able to focus.

The world starts to drain me of my internal locus.

My eyes try to compensate by tunnelling my vision

Fans on the ceiling, twist my senses into nuclear fission.

All this affects how I feel just standing there,

and I can’t even tell where my body is in space, do I care?

You’re yelling at me now, and shaking my shoulder

But the fiery fog is down and is starting to smoulder

It isn’t that I don’t want to hear your instruction.

I just can’t understand, due to mass self-destruction.

You're shouting now, but what does "£$%^&&% NOW! !£$%^&*" mean?

My senses will **** me in a collusion so obscene.

Once we’re back at the kids home, it all feels less absurd.

And now when you speak, I can hear every word.

Simple instructions, that I know off by heart.

And I cling onto these so I won’t fall apart.

You tell me what you want me to do next and I’m able to reply.

Now I’m happy and it’s easy for me to comply.

Now I’m OK and I’m running about

And performing my ritualised songs, which I shout.

Then a visitor grabs me saying, “Hold your horses, cowboy!” – This means danger!

I can’t stop the horses, I’m me, not the Lone Ranger!

And I’m thrown into panic when what you mean is, “Stop running.”

But I don’t know that! Those stampeding horses are coming!!

That’s my life, you see, it’s not “a piece of cake”

When there’s no dessert in sight and you’ve made a mistake.

When you say, “its pouring cats and dogs,” I see pets flooding from the sky.

Tell me, “It’s raining hard,” so I won’t fear the animals will die.

Puns, sarcasm and allusion

Simply generate confusion.

Tell me facts and keep things clear

So I can live, yet not in fear.

It’s hard for me to tell you what I need when my senses are reeling

When I don’t have a way to describe what I’m feeling.

I may be hungry, frustrated, frightened, or perplexed.

But I can’t find the words, and lash out, angry and vexed.

Be alert for my body language, or my gestures and obsessions

Then you’ll handle my feelings like your own treasured possessions.

Watch out for me compensating for not knowing the right word

By mimicking my favourite film star, or something just as absurd.

Rattling off words or whole scripts, which will leave you confounded

That I’ve memorised from Disney, because they make me feel grounded.

They may come from the TV, or speeches, or a book

And though they make people give a funny look

I just know that saying them gets me off the hook.

Show me, show me! I’m visual, you see.

And I’ll understand rather than you just telling me.

And be prepared to show countless times.

I’m listening, despite my ritualised rhymes.

Visual supports help me move through my day.

They relieve me of the stress and I feel OK.

I don’t have to remember what’s happening next

For I operate on a visual text.

This makes for smooth transitions in my life

And we’ll finally progress without anger or strife.

I need to see something to learn it, because spoken words are like steam to me;

They evaporate before my mind's eye, and are gone instantly,

Before I even have a chance to make sense of them,

They've died in the ether, leaving me in mayhem.

I don’t have instant-processing skills.

Instructions and information are my life giving pills

Images can stay in front of me for as long as I need,

and will be just the same in years, for they'll never recede.

Without visual help, I live the constant frustration

of knowing that I’m missing big blocks of information,

Not to mention falling short, by being a misfit

And I'm helpless to do anything about it.

Unlike other people, I'm unable to learn

If it's normal interaction for which you do yearn.

I’m constantly made to feel that I’m not good enough

And people are stern and people are tough.

They think I need taking in hand and need fixing.

Never knowing the world and my brain are tranfixing

I avoid trying any new things, for I'm sure I'll get 'dissed'

And another grown up will be angry and get 'real ******'.

But no matter how “constructive” you think you’re being.

Look for my strengths, though they're hard for the seeing.

There is more than one right way to do most things.

It may look like I don’t want to play with the other kids on the swings

But it may be that I simply do not know how to start

They just think I'm weird, and set me apart.

Teach me how to play with others.

Remove my autistic shrouded covers.

Encourage other children to invite me along.

They might learn something of value from my life's different song.

And rather than spend my day as separate, secluded.

I might show an ethereal delight at being included.

I do best in games that have a clear beginning and end.

Random play is something my fears won't transcend.

And just one other thing, a sort of confession

I cannot interpret a ****** expression

Or body language, or other peoples' emotion

So in group situations I'm resigned to demotion.

I want to learn, I want you to teach me.

Reach into my mind and help me to see.

If I laugh when Tommy falls off the climbing frame,

It’s that I don’t know what to say, nastiness isn't to blame

Talk to me about Tommy’s feelings and teach me to say,

“Are you hurt, Tommy, I'll get teacher, then you'll be okay?”

If you don't I'll meltdown or blow-up, and get in a stew

And this is a thousand times worse for me than for you.

For my mind will go into overload

My sense of equilibrium will start to off-road.

For I'm well past the limit of my social ability.

As those off road lights glare at my own disability.

If you can figure out why my meltdowns occur, they can be prevented

And my behaviours will abate, less frequently lamented.

Keep notes about me and a pattern may emerge.

As your understanding of me will gradually converge.

Remember that everything I do is a form of communication.

It tells you, when my words cannot, how I’m reacting to each situation.

My behavior may have a physical cause.

Think for a moment, just have a pause.

Food allergies and sleep problems can affect my behaviour.

Just look for signs, for you might be my Saviour.

Because I may not be able to tell you about these things.

That blunt my affect and cause my mood swings.

Throw away thoughts like, “If you would just—” and “Why can’t you—?”

You didn’t fulfill every expectation your parents had either, that's true.

And would you like to witness a constant rewind.

Of the traumatic deficits by which you're defined?

I didn’t choose to have autism.

Or to live with this division

Remember that it’s happening to me, not to you.

But without understanding, my chances remain few.

With love and support, my horizons are broader

But I can't live my life by other peoples order.

Patience. Patience. Patience, are the three words we need to live by

For my dreams to be reached, and my confidence fly.

View my autism as a different ability

Rather than as a freak show disability.

Look past what you may see as limitations and feel for my strength

I may not be good at eye contact or conversations of length

But have you noticed that I don’t lie, or cheat at a game

Or pass judgment on people, and make them to blame?

I rely on you, if you can make me your personal vocation

All that I might become won’t happen without you as my foundation.

Be my advocate, be my guide

Be my strength, stand at my side.

Love me for who I am, and not what you know

And we’ll see just how far I can go.

Matt Revans 2014
©Copyright

When I was a child, I thought,
Casually, that solitude
Never needed to be sought.
Something everybody had,
Like nakedness, it lay at hand,
Not specially right or specially wrong,
A plentiful and obvious thing
Not at all hard to understand.

Then, after twenty, it became
At once more difficult to get
And more desired - though all the same
More undesirable; for what
You are alone has, to achieve
The rank of fact, to be expressed
In terms of others, or it's just
A compensating make-believe.

Much better stay in company!
To love you must have someone else,
Giving requires a legatee,
Good neighbours need whole parishfuls
Of folk to do it on - in short,
Our virtues are all social; if,
Deprived of solitude, you chafe,
It's clear you're not the virtuous sort.

Viciously, then, I lock my door.
The gas-fire breathes. The wind outside
Ushers in evening rain. Once more
Uncontradicting solitude
Supports me on its giant palm;
And like a sea-anemone
Or simple snail, there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am.

"The question should not be in what ways writing and utterance trope each other, but how both are involved with number. Without relating the technology of writing to number (as opposed to sound or drawing), it is impossible to discuss it meaningfully as an aspect of versecraft."

          Courage to write and courage to not write. Read
          The great poets and highly accomplished letters
          Of leaders. Yet the war and the book have lives
          Of their own. Vacuum house, analyze mankind.
          His idea of himself. Ideas subsumed by
          Better ones unite people in melting pots.
          I watch from my little bowl of nuts. Watch
          The one red squirrel and the many gray.
          Watch the nuthatch pair, platoon of chickadees.
          Here is what I say: When we can go
          From planet to planet on nothing but air,
          Leaving behind a drop of water,
          No burger bags blowin’ in the sun,
          I’ll love my sons, and my dogs will be happy.

"What is needed is a way to pry apart the polar, mimetic fiction that undergirds discussions (even sympathetic ones) of writing and versification, and see how we can relate writing to measure. Roy Harris’ investigations into the origin of writing make this connection possible."

          Electronic millennium. A long silence
          Wouldn’t hurt. Not that the national debate
          Should cease, it should proceed, passionate
          And furious. Those who have studied the matter
          And have something to say should write cogent
          Opinion pieces on the totalitarian
          Tendencies of minaret Islamists,
          The terminal contradiction of advancing
          Democracy with the unitary military.
          George Washington would not have approved
          And even Lincoln vacillated between
          The practicalities of preserving union
          And the ideal of freeing slaves. The president
          Carries his burden of matter, the physics
          Of existence cannot change our aloneness
          Or the butterfly’s importance, the very
          Last insects at the screens of August.
          It is life we face and death we meet.

"He argues that the origin of writing did not lie in the drawing of figures, or attempts to imitate speech, but in the recording of number. According to Harris, the oldest ‘writing’ that we have, like that on the 11, 000-year-old Ishango bone, is in ‘lines.’ The surface is scored with rows of short, parallel strokes, which probably served a numerical function. We still use such scoring systems today on occasion."

          OK, different strokes. But reading North’s poems
          And his predecessors’ in which noun and verb
          Are so far separated by modifiers,
          Post-positioned prepositions, diversions
          Into ditches, gardens, heavens, I don’t know
          What to do laugh or put the book down and eat
          Several cookies. In other words, anything goes,
          There truth resides. 1/3 life in suburbs,
          1/3 on the subway, and the last third
          On the mountain. A fourth hallucinating
          In heaven. That’s how it goes. You get what you believe.
          Bones in mud. It’s always possible I suppose
          That for nine months analogous or symmetrical
          With gestation our souls wander call it limbo,
          Doing the limbo and harassing the living
          With unanswerable questions, finally accepting
          Free molecular rent in a cubic meter
          Of interstellar space, a rose hip.
         
"Harris speculates about counting by scoring:"
'What is relevant for our present purposes is the fact that counting is associated in many cultures with primitive forms of recording which have a graphically isomorphic basis... The iconic origin of such recording systems is hardly open to doubt: the notch or stroke corresponds to the human finger...'

          Partridgeberry, mugwort, mats of raspberry,
          Cranberry, bearberry, autumn eleagnus,
          Autumn Nocturne, Autumn Leaves, the changes
          To the tunes and the scientific names.
          When it doesn’t matter what you do
          You’re probably doing something new.
          That’s a woodpecker. That’s a moth. I’m bounded
          By my surroundings, I feel at home.
          Could be Schenectady. Could be Troy.
          One of many small cities in which to
          Await my anonymity. Be specific.
          Not asphalt but impermeable surface.
          Not trees but mature stems. Quercus rubrus—
          Quality veneer. Into such a garden
          Have a victor and a fool penetrated.

'In short, the rows of strokes are graphically isomorphic with just that subpart of the recorder’s oral language which comprises the corresponding words used for counting. It makes no difference whether we ‘read’ the sign pictorially as standing for so many fingers held up, or scriptorially as standing for a certain numeral.'

          In a crowded world every action results
          In an equal and overwrought reaction.
          Yet, all the energy recycles
          And there is not one thermal unit more or less
          When all is said and won. Even when the tribes
          Were isolated behind mountain ranges
          And rushing rivers, they sought each other out
          For trading and for taking. Humanity
          Is lonely. Humor is the only remedy
          And going to your daily discipline
          The only way past Monday. Join the torrential
          Flow of words, emotion, wit and erudition.
          It is embarrassing to see a good writer
          Work himself into a lather, having
          Something to say. A system of beliefs
          To illustrate, characters dressed accordingly.
          Gardens and wilderness in which to wander.
          A cave with a view. The plumbing problem never
          Resolves. But we will do what we can and
          Some things we shouldn't because that is human.

"Along with other evidence, this leads him to argue that the invention of writing–or the division of writing and drawing into separate functions–occurred when the graphic representation of number shifted from the token-iterative system that appears on the Ishango bone, to type-slotting."

          Electricity is occult enough for me.
          Excessive classifying could be fascist!
          Yet how else can one organize people
          Into contexts. By their associations.
          Family, work, habits, each assigned
          A day of the week, moon of the month.
          Poets rhyme, jazz musicians count time.
          There is more than one way to make war. By
          Declaration, by punishing offenses
          Against the law of nations, by granting letters
          Of mark and reprisal, by making rules
          Concerning captures on land and water, by
          Suppressing insurrections and repelling invasions,
          Erecting forts, magazines, arsenals,
          Dock yards and other needful buildings. Today
          I face the blank page between the finished pages.

"Harris gives the following example of what he means:"
'The progression from recording sixty sheep by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by sixty strokes to recording the same information by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by a second sign indicating ‘sixty’ is a progression which has already crossed the boundary between pictorial and scriptorial signs.'

          When my grandmother considered it favorable
          That I would be a writer, she had in mind
          Clear commentary from which many people
          Would derive meaning. No such luck. My writings
          Are like the flicking tail of that flycatcher,
          And I am the flycatcher, weighing but an ounce.
          My grandfather’s rough-hewn peasant chairs
          Are well known by my sons though they never knew him
          And the chairs were not hewn, just owned by him.
          One is in a corner of the room and two
          Are scrimmaged around a computer screen.
          Computers post-date him and cars post-date
          His father and so on. If the grid collapses,
          The crops fail and the roads close, some will be forced
          Across boundaries among boulders, naming snakes
          And stars according to memory.
          They will be hungry, mortal and strong.

'A token-iterative sign-system is in effect equivalent to a verbal sublanguage which is restricted to messages of the form ‘sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep...’, or ‘sheep, another, another, another...’, whereas an emblem-slotting system is equivalent to a sublanguage which can handle messages of the form ‘sheep, sixty’.Token-iterative lists are, in principle, lists as long as the number of individual items recorded. With a slot list, on the other hand, we get no information simply by counting the number of marks it contains.'
"When this change occurred it opened ‘a gap between the pictorial and scriptorial function of the emblematic sign’, which had been previously inseparable in the counting represented by rows of slashes."

          No book I know tells if blue cohosh
          Caulophyllum thalictroides—a barberry—
          Is edible. Other barberries are
          But that blue berry looks risky to me.
          And May-apple—Podophyllum—other
          Than the fruit itself which is definitely
          Sweet. So I read, not sure of myself.
          There is a patience with which to wait out anger,
          And a patience with which to endure ignorance.
          The job is everything. It is freedom
          And purpose and religion. It is acceptance
          And shelter and sustenance. Last night
          We were watching Tweet’s show: groveling before
          The rich pharisee’s judgements. I said no
          Amount of money could make me grovel
          Before that guy. His toupe’s gayer than his lisp.
          But who am I? You think bullets won’t ****?
          I’m the guy they put before a wall and shoot
          Then eat lunch. But that feeling passed quickly.

"This semiological gap, made writing possible because it meant that signs could be manipulated to ‘slot’, or identify, anything whatsoever. The open-ended quality of the scriptorial sign was a necessary precondition for the development of writing systems."

          Lately I’ve been copying wholesale
          From the great poems, lines and ideas not my own
          Or owned by all? It’s ok, I can be ignored
          Or appreciated in a future city,
          By a future shore. The honest man can
          Only recognize what he loves and point to it.
          That Borges poem called In Praise of Darkness.
          Emerson and snow. A meditation
          That bumps serenely, with acceptance,
          Between things and thoughts. It is said one should
          Know for whom, to whom one is writing.
          These are letters to those who love letter writing.

"As Harris points out, no writing system is accurately phonetic. Even the alphabet only highlights certain phenomena in the speech stream. The reason for this is that alphabetic writing did not begin as a simpler or more accurate way to record speech than other writing systems, but as an easier way to write."

          A possible cancer had taken me
          To the edge of my endurance. Pokeweed,
          Poisonous, became attractive. Red stems
          And juicy black berries. I had packed warm clothes
          And pain killers. Why the warm clothes if this
          Was to be my last walk? To die in comfort
          Without a fly’s buzz. Overlooking a ravine,
          Sea of mountains, dawn. But it proved a false alarm.
          Now Sunday will be a holy day of plant
          Identification. Nothing better
          Than lying in leaf litter, skin drying
          To a taut drum. Ravens stay away!
          Until cougar’s had his fill! Instead
          I showed the boys pokeweed growing among blackberries
          And taught them the differences and uses.

"Through a radical reduction in the number of signs, the alphabet simplified the scriptorial system in and of itself. The evolution of writing therefore may look like this: simple forms of counting preceded the complications of pictorial representation, which in turn led to simplification of the writing system in cultures that adopted the alphabet."

          I was running uphill, parallel to
          The Taconics extending northward into
          Vermont (I find Vermonters in their jalopies
          Annoying but admire them for planning
          To arrest the president for war crimes) when
          I happened upon a flock of cedar waxwings—
          Said to be a gentle and politic bird—
          Sharing—very orderly—dried frozen grapes
          On the vine. (Rose hips, buckthorn, ash, pokeweed.)
          I tried one, too, the two seeds in my mouth
          Keeping me company down the mountain.
          I see no downside whatsoever
          To compensating for global warming,
          Constructing the green energy economy.
          New inventions may facilitate
          Our transportation to other planets.
          Yesterday a young man, Barack Obama,
          Won Iowa. I’m hopeful he will
          Articulate an international vision,
          A world order in which each neighborhood’s
          Good as another. I have no particular
          Love for writers; they’re a dime a dozen.
          But so are chickadees and I love them!

"Discussing the power of inscriptions of number, Harris points out:"
'Counting is in its very essence magical, if any human practice at all is. For numbers are things no one has ever seen or heard or touched. Yet somehow they exist, and their existence can be confirmed in quite everyday terms by all kinds of humdrum procedures which allow mere mortals to agree beyond any shadow of a doubt as to ‘how many’ eggs there are in a basket or ‘how many’ loaves of bread on the table.'

          True, nature would be a stern, unforgiving
          Mistress too, and man is but her right hand
          Acting on her command. How cold! How hot!
          The individual doing what he loves or not.
          Trees and cities. Herons, hawks. What we fail
          To govern in ourselves, nature will.
          We caught the killer and his gorillas,
          Now let’s go home, let the “innocent” choose
          Up sides. A good thing was done but the tyrant
          Should’ve been undone through global governance.
          Writing is divination using rhymes
          And estimations. Words like mammals
          Come near your sleeping head. Last night I emerged
          From the hum of our refrigerator
          Under a hazy, phaseless moon. The peepers
          Were an exact expression of my happiness.

"Or, one might add, for how many stanzas there are in a poem, or lines in a stanza, or stresses, feet, or syllables in a line, or occurrences of particular syntactical or grammatical patterns, and so on. As every serious student of versification has always understood, versification is about counting language."

          5:30-6 write poetry,
          6-7 ****, shave and shower, stretch
          Then get dressed, 7-7:30
          Clean house, 7:30-8 drive to work
          8-6 work (except Monday and Friday
          Work 8-4, basketball 4-6)
          6-7 drive home, shop, help make dinner
          7-8 eat dinner, read paper,
          Watch McNeil-Lehrer News Hour,
          8-9 play trumpet, study plants, type poems
          9-10 watch TV Mon: Murphy, Cybil,
          Tues: Frazier, Grace, Wed: Roseanne, Ellen,
          Thurs: Seinfeld, Friends, Fri: go out to dinner,
          10-11 read, except Tues watch
          NYPD Blue, Fri: Friday Night Lights,
          11 sleep. I could send this to the networks,
          Get a gizmo in my box. I hope my
          Schedule won't be interrupted for war.
          My dentist asked had I seen this morning’s
          Press conference, didn’t it just scare the ****
          Out of you. I said your bill is what scares
          The **** out of me. But here I am, writing
          And the sphere’s still turning. Or should I say
          Burning. As long as you write one poem per day
          You’ve left a little litter in the world.

"The reason to write verse is less to score the voice than to imbue words with the magical quality of counting. That is why meter, or measure, is at the heart of debates over all verse forms, including free verse."

          Vigorous wind, voracious ocean,
          Many merciless hard frosts, hurricanes.
          The bed of a human, its smell and warmth
          36 teeth, 46 chromosomes, 2 feet, a loose dime,
          61 summers, some soot, some sand,
          Thunderstorms. I wake up to a lightning strike
          And my dream incinerates. When they say
          Life is but a dream, that’s what they mean.
          The writer working hard, telling the story
          Of what happened yesterday or yesteryear,
          A man’s born to a country not his choosing,
          Let labor flow like capital, of mere being!
          Pomegranate juice, broccoli, arugula,
          Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower,
          Collard greens, kale, radishes, turnips,
          Garlic, leeks, scallions, onions, 2 lbs
          Swordfish, tomatoes (8 medium),
          3 cups almonds, carrots, a sweet potato,
          Winter squash, cantaloupe, mangoes, watermelon.
          2 daily writing exercises,
          50 words on any subject: complaint, headache.
          The imagination applies a
          Countervailing pressure to reality.
          Writing badly is the best revenge.

"Number is one of the creative grounds of poetry, and the idea that writing grew out of counting is the missing link in studies of the graphic in versification. It is almost uncanny that lines of verse look exactly like the most primitive ways of counting–parallel scorings that can be numbered."

          What you do to one side of the equation
          You gotta do to the other. Isolate
          The variable. Combine like terms. Metaphors
          And analogs are reduced to least common
          Denominators. Multiply through (parentheses).
          Write a new equation after each operation.
          Inscribe neatly. Check your work. Imagine
          That if you’re wrong, the astronauts burn.
          Change the signs which will avoid going
          The wrong way down the number line. Zero
          Is the middle of your universe.
          There it is, calm, comfortable as an egg
          On a spoon. That is, before possibilities
          Become probabilities. This is just
          Another equation manipulated
          With opposable digits. For at the ends
          Of your guns is the earliest calculator
          A magical machine which converts
          Numbers to words and words to numbers,
          Measures the mists, frequency and wavelength,
          Of the material penumbra.

"Verses are countable in exactly the way that token-iterative digits are countable, from either end of the sequence. Each one indicates only its singularity, not a number. Every poem in lines effaces, or predates, the distinction between writing and drawing in the same way as the lines on the Ishango bone."

I kiss you and it seems like the stars shine for us and waves crash along the musky shores for us
But then I realize, the us that once sent my stomach in a frenzy of butterflies
is not the same.
And I find my self holding on to something that does not exist.
And I cry.
My tears are an ode to a person who I've loved so long but with every fiber of my being I know,no longer exists.
People change.
Your smile has changed.

We met at the wrong time,
at least that's what I keep telling myself.

Maybe,
Years from now,
We'll meet again, in some extraordinary way.
And love with be rekindled.
And your smile will be the same.
And I won't spend time wondering if you are my way of compensating with a love deficit.

                               ER.

To be poured like a drink.
The bubbles fizz.
Gathered around, enriched in desire.
To quench the pursuit of pleasure.
Snapping the top proceeding to pour.
Cold to taste.
This was the comfort I felt surrounded
in her arms.
A glass seen half full continuing to pour.
Filling the space around.
Drowning just beneath the rim of glass.
An extension of myself caught in great advantage.
The settlement before the first sip.
Compensating the thrill of being swallowed whole.
In terms of affection.
It was a hug I'd never forget.
A thought that leads into physical manifestation.
The bliss of the moment,
The moment her lips pop at the taste.
Bubbles fizz crackling in the midst of excitement.
Tickling her nose.
The memory of how things were.
Drunk until nothing is left
The reality of how things really are

Kissing me
Vicious was my scheme
I made a story of tainted glory
Anticipating his biding sincerity
Craving the touch of my hips
Misplacing perseverance
Delaying conscience
Losing rationality
Watching his admiration
Over compensating captivation
Realizing his conspiracy

"Being Processed Overload", doesn't come with many benefits, when your already tolerant of one thing, and one single thing...ONLY...!
By any chance, what do you think that one single ONLY thing is...?
Well, it's nothing more than what's come beforehand, or afterwards...
After all, what becomes fully "silence" at the end of the day, is nothing more than what is generally written, or seen, or even displayed (fully), "between the lines".... And it won't make a single slither of sense, unless your willing (to give yourself that one single "affordable" chance), to not be in a state of "Processed Overload", anymore!
Implying, that the most obvious results ("had"), and ("will"), always hide from deep within the states in-between the things that "can be seen", and the parts (of those very "things", that for some strange reason haven't fully yet been discovered), had remained entirely significant in part towards those very things that..."can't be seen"). Hiding, (when you least expect them to do so).
So, the whole point of being processed overload, is the very claim, that you are witnessed to something that can't be entirely seen... Or else, you'd become entirely "Overloaded" with too many processes!
When you’re already dealing with enough as it is... Especially when those very states in-between are hard enough as it is to see ("from within"), to begin with.
It's a full contact sport (when life get's significantly rough for your own eyes to become terribly outwitted by all that processed overload)!
It's when a totally realistic testament for truth (in itself), when being faced with so much, (without enough benefits to help you grab hold onto what's entirely tolerant that comes and goes either beforehand, or even afterwards...) Eventually speaking, it is the very basic lesson of things being entirely...ruled out.
So, it doesn't keep sticking too you, like a VERY BAD THORN IN YOUR SIDE! Forevermore telling what you should and should not do. And lastly, forcing you to see reason, as nothing more then for "control" to be seen as a pure...illusion.
While being so discouraged of (once being able to see from within, "at one moment" beforehand, then entirely fully dropping afterwards, when met with yet another, "specific moment", that most important...)
This most potential realization, (if at all you have caught onto it by now, of simply being so, where you'd learn from it, as who knows...you haven't particularly been doing it to begin with, as of yet...) Then, it's safe to say, that (while you try and try some more, eventually coming around to some type of partially known/partially unknown progress being involved...), doesn't exactly mean there's a type of significant progress in your failures, (for simply being able to understand).
You understand because you think you've made progress with the main issue, which is now clear for...ALL TO SEE!
Then suddenly out of the blue, (and as if it hadn't already been obvious enough...) Things start eventually becoming baseless. Coming to a very abrupt "fixated" halt!
But that doesn't actually mean you have seen (and then most prominently, "recognize") "why you do it!" Which forces you to start believing that everything is truthfully..."unclassified." Enabling everything (you once held dear).
Typical beliefs (within your own once secured belief system), now suddenly become...flawed!
Since the only expectation, was other's approval (apart from your own). And if you’re not able to see what is obviously in the states from in-between, then you’re literally going to see a one-sided viewpoint of everything for the remainder of your life. Controlling you in a pure illusion... From never explicitly being able to see (the other half of that entire viewpoint), with a straight open-mind.
Meaning, lifestyles will remain forever warped!
And your own lifecycle will continue to both shift drastically. Which in tune will remain as the very same dramatic "repeat", forevermore!
For the lack of reason that slowly but surely keeps both flowing inward, and outward... But not in the right type of recognition for your very self to both handle with careful consideration towards that very recognition, or for that very basic of acknowledgements just so you can handle yourself as you make your way through the different "fields full of clutter" (that seem to forevermore block your sights from simply being able to see clearly), with careful consideration...for your own identity to bear!
Because at the end of the day, identity (especially one that is trying to ALWAYS find different ways to sense, then fail here and there...)
Is nothing more than a tired effort...full of such actions...that keeps significantly turning into consequences...full of doubt.
(However, it may never be real doubt happening, when the consequences are just blaming you for your past, AND present faults of a tired effort that can't use their own actions very well anymore, when you’re also not seeing clearly again, anymore, either). Except, when your own presently perfect and overused (always in the limelight) doubt that of course, starts "sugar-coating" the very truthful actions (when you know you obviously already did something wrong), with nothing more than a good old dose of...guilt! Your regular and normal perception of things becomes utterly...twisted! Mangled! Bent out of shape! Stringing you up and wrapping you ever so tightly! Abruptly popping out a random pitiful bow (like on a present) full of both negativity and unprecedented bad luck on top of an entirely disfigured and misshapen present! (Not to mention the very wrapping paper that had become this HUGELY distorted pattern, that influences you in such a wrong sort of way, because again... So, you won't see clearly!) Until there was nothing left but...silence!
Silence at the end of the day, is seeking pleasure (in the moment of doubt, which significantly amplifies guilt), without taking the necessary time to fruitfully take noteworthy details into account...), that you truly have been "duped" this entire time...by your already currently corrupted self...who had been entirely "compromised"...long ago!
(And here's the very sad, and worst part... You didn't even see it happen....) Totally not your fault. It's just lives very bad tempos full of those constant rhythmic beats (that turn entirely into HUGE gimmicks that detests the very pattern...), which doesn't become soiled...when it's (even worse then EVER before), where the very beats have been already weeping alongside your own strides full of hesitant footprints that don't relate to the same old size shoe of the many lookalikes of footprints that followed after the other.... Almost as if everything then started with a beat full of such a rhythm (that came and went, as it naturally would). Then become suddenly confused when it's nothing more than for the sensation/feeling to become abruptly filled...as an everyday common joke. Then...for a pattern literally too weep alongside moving forward ever so gently, (by gently striding with the slightest of common footsteps you could literally muster, where there's no such accumulation where everyday common footsteps could be seen...) But here's the catch (which comes with a GREAT kicker involved...), where you can seriously see it from within, (and not entirely from the outside of yourself). Which entirely distorts this very meaning to begin with.
Even if you had... It had already been too late! When you were truthfully blinded from the very...START!
If only whatever comes (beforehand), or fully starts tolerating the (state that comes beforehand), where the (state of coming afterwards), then of course comes...after, (that which "what is beforehand"), is then helpful enough in being simply portrayed as nothing more...than what you could have already fully expected.
Except, when you anticipate something even more wrong...because your very own expectations (about the very main situation at large/involved), had become unsteadily stranded for dear life. Drifted away, since the very compatibilities didn't match up correctly. (And while being potentially forevermore left adrift without so much as a single change of scenery, (since you'll always stay the same...) Because you simply didn't know how too! Or even worse, being so processed overload, that you have let everything grow around you like this constant "Underbrush"!
An Underbrush seems to always be full of such twists and turns! Overly protruding vines that both poke and ****, according to your very own limitations wasting away the only strength that you held bear for so long... You are just lucky enough...you had lasted this long...! A truest claim among such miracles, that can only tolerate itself long enough...before it truly realizes what's been in front of it's very self (this entire time). And at which time...forces you to again, realize (and then sadly force you to then in its entirety, to acknowledge...), at just how much you've been in the "wrong"...this entire time....
Which in doing so, HEAVILY influences the very reasoning right out from under your own logic, which makes your own reason EXPEL that very logic, and just...throws it directly straight out the window like it's some yesterdays unimportant choice of reasoning! (Even going as far as to then look at it like it's pure...trash!)
(When today, it isn't truly looked at as the very center of one's own ordeal!)
I mean, of course it is...but your now stuck in that very illusion, (where now thinking control is this very illogical, negative, immoral, etc.), piece of obstructed, and nonsensical piece of doo-doo! ...And that isn't right about ANYTHING! Except, for what you have yet to ("properly see").
Guilt then (forevermore) forms into doubt...and the same lifecycle repeats, repeats, repeats...REPEATS! Until it had ****** YOU DRY! Of every type of energy reserve, you had (within yourself), in order to now begin compensating the very same structure of energy again, (in your very self, by simply using back-up energy reserves, or whatever "juice" was left from those previously already still presently being ****** dry/infected energy reserves that had already been literally either fully, or at the very least, nearly ****** DRY in itself!), of everything it held within it's personal possessions from both ends of the same spectrum.
Just so you can then simply "use" in order to clear away the many obstructions that have spread FAR AND WIDE...!!!
But word of both warning, and that of course of...caution.... Is that it's not going to be some easy and sane type of task, where you are able to just miraculously cleanse...EVERYTHING!
Just so you can then become (even more) an inner victim of your own already corrupted self.
"Being Processed Overload", is a state of INTENSE "ramifications"...of being filled with an already unrecognizable consciousness!

if a sound could be grainy
like a photo with the ISO too high
over-compensating for the light that shone too dim
through the patterned curtains in your bedroom
in your mother’s old house
where the peaches tasted better in water than in sugar and that had never
ever happened
not since you were three years old when your grandmother
who was not yet too old to do much besides eat TV dinners
and watch ‘the price is right’
before your grandfather’s funeral
where you ruined your velvet dress
spilling cheap coffee all over the bodice
(if it had been good coffee the situation would be
entirely different)
the sound of you
exhaling like a train rolling right past the house
shaking the walls and the floor and the sofa
less and less as it gets farther away
you sound
grainy
like a photocopy
and i can’t find
the original

i'd avoid the sunrise,
it reminds me of you
turn off my eyes around two
stay closed, stay closed
stitched them shut with regret
(out of Elmer's, out of gas money)
did spend his twenty dollars-
compensating for more
than a broken ******
forgot about the plan b
and stuck with plan a
high alone off cheap ****
bought from a kid who's got
a house in the hamptons
i guess we're all
living less than what
the college brochure says
or maybe more,
flip the campus map over
find us alone in our beds
fitting one, two on the mattress
not two, not both
one, two
find us alone
find us alone together
stay closed, stay closed
in the morning sink to the floor
up, shower, socialize, shrivel
to the friends who promised you an in
when you only wanted an out

(history)

Quell the bard was silken-clad and ever young.
her flute connected earth and sky,
tamed lightning in the higher notes..
her ancient horse would winnie to her song
of endless breath she blew her story even into stone.
having borne the stigmas of a *****
her martial prowess struck,
trampled disrespect to cacophonic dust
while over hills and vales he carried her--
a love-sick equine heart at peace at last upon the road
between her thighs, commanded loyalty of beasts and men.
none claimed her for their own,
though some risked instant death to try

..stirge beaks tap on bones and rock
to seek corrupted blood of elven kings,
who having reigned and fallen
to a royal troglodyte of dragon times,
paint each eon with ambivalence...
i conjure what my heritage beholds
--reclusive double-tongue to hoard all words,
reinvent religions for a lark

what legend am i privy to the making of
that hasn't had its underwires stripped,
hung about a square in lewd display of Fact
to purge a sense of mystery awry?

i am alone within my fantasy.
its symbols still mythologize my i.
i will not bare it here, or anywhere--
concealment is its freedom, and its boon--
in which a frame of tenuous material appears

where antidote addictions cycle musically,
the timeline's summoning
a game of recompense, compensating wanderlust
won by whim and licorice for thought;
it finds familiarity untamed--
adolescent anchorage aweigh--
adventures into wildernesses lost




.

Somewhere there exists a girl.
She is kind, and soft, and sweet,
And a reader, a lover of books.
She would read every one if she could
People say she looks just like her mother.
She doesn't know what to think.

Some place in the world there is a boy.
He is shy, and peaceful, and small,
He is adventurous, dreaming of planets unknown.
He would wander the galaxy forever,
Trailing after him stardust and clouds.
Nobody notices him.

Connecting them is one person.
They are creative, and caring, and bright.
Protective of the people they love,
Even if those people overlook them.
They feel too small to make a difference.
They want to find a purpose.


Three people, so very much alike.
Simalar in so many ways, yet still different,
Each unique in their own right.
All existing on the same Earth.
Seperate, but never apart.
They like being themselves and each other.

The only downside to their lives,
Is that that have to exist together,
Stuck in the same body, unable to change.
Each wishing to fit their own mold.
But they can't leave each other.

Sometimes the Girl in control.
She is the happiest of them,
She loves her body, which amazingly
Fits her, like the perfect glove.
She wished to make the others just as happy.

The In Between doesn't hate their body.
They like how soft they look some days
Like when they can look in between.
But they still feel wrong sometimes.
They don't feel like they can complain.


The Boy has it much worse than them.
When he has control his body is wrong,
The opposite of what he need to exist.
He deals with his problem though.
He binds his chest and wears button ups.
But that doesnt make it right.

Nobody knows that they share.
Most people are content being one thing.
With having a solid identity.
But it wasn't their fault, it is how they are made.
They didn't ask to be a river.
But they still follow the tides.

They wouldn't change who they are.
They get along fine with each aspect of themself
Compensating, trying to feel whole.
They have tricks to help them feel right.
But perfection doesn't exist.

Dysphoria comes as a storm.
Turing the river into a rushing waterfall,
Full of doubt and self-loathing.
Certain things help calm the storm,
But sometimes it just keeps raining.

They push through the floods
Of anxiety and doubt and fear.
Giving themself a bowtie for the Boy,
A beanie for the In Between,
A skirt for the Girl.
They persist.
And they live.

Hark! 'tis the twanging horn! O'er yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright,
He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks;
News from all nations lumb'ring at his back.
True to his charge, the close-pack'd load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destin'd inn:
And, having dropp'd th' expected bag, pass on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,
Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some;
To him indiff'rent whether grief or joy.
Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet
With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,
Or charg'd with am'rous sighs of absent swains,
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect
His horse and him, unconscious of them all.
But oh th' important budget! usher'd in
With such heart-shaking music, who can say
What are its tidings? have our troops awak'd?
Or do they still, as if with ***** drugg'd,
Snore to the murmurs of th' Atlantic wave?
Is India free? and does she wear her plum'd
And jewell'd turban with a smile of peace,
Or do we grind her still? The grand debate,
The popular harangue, the **** reply,
The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit,
And the loud laugh--I long to know them all;
I burn to set th' imprison'd wranglers free,
And give them voice and utt'rance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful ev'ning in.
Not such his ev'ning, who with shining face
Sweats in the crowded theatre, and, squeez'd
And bor'd with elbow-points through both his sides,
Out-scolds the ranting actor on the stage:
Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb,
And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath
Of patriots, bursting with heroic rage,
Or placemen, all tranquility and smiles.
This folio of four pages, happy work!
Which not ev'n critics criticise; that holds
Inquisitive attention, while I read,
Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair,
Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break;
What is it, but a map of busy life,
Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?...


Oh winter, ruler of th' inverted year,
Thy scatter'd hair with sleet like ashes fill'd,
Thy breath congeal'd upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Fring'd with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapp'd in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne
A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,
But urg'd by storms along its slipp'ry way,
I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st,
And dreaded as thou art! Thou hold'st the sun
A pris'ner in the yet undawning east,
Short'ning his journey between morn and noon,
And hurrying him, impatient of his stay,
Down to the rosy west; but kindly still
Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse and instructive ease,
And gath'ring, at short notice, in one group
The family dispers'd, and fixing thought,
Not less dispers'd by day-light and its cares.
I crown thee king of intimate delights,
Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturb'd retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted ev'ning, know.
No rattling wheels stop short before these gates;
No powder'd pert proficient in the art
Of sounding an alarm, assaults these doors
Till the street rings; no stationary steeds
Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound,
The silent circle fan themselves, and quake:
But here the needle plies its busy task,
The pattern grows, the well-depicted flow'r,
Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn,
Unfolds its *****; buds, and leaves, and sprigs,
And curling tendrils, gracefully dispos'd,
Follow the nimble finger of the fair;
A wreath that cannot fade, or flow'rs that blow
With most success when all besides decay.
The poet's or historian's page, by one
Made vocal for th' amusement of the rest;
The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds
The touch from many a trembling chord shakes out;
And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct,
And in the charming strife triumphant still;
Beguile the night, and set a keener edge
On female industry: the threaded steel
Flies swiftly, and, unfelt, the task proceeds.
The volume clos'd, the customary rites
Of the last meal commence. A Roman meal;
Such as the mistress of the world once found
Delicious, when her patriots of high note,
Perhaps by moonlight, at their humble doors,
And under an old oak's domestic shade,
Enjoy'd--spare feast!--a radish and an egg!
Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull,
Nor such as with a frown forbids the play
Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth:
Nor do we madly, like an impious world,
Who deem religion frenzy, and the God
That made them an intruder on their joys,
Start at his awful name, or deem his praise
A jarring note. Themes of a graver tone,
Exciting oft our gratitude and love,
While we retrace with mem'ry's pointing wand,
That calls the past to our exact review,
The dangers we have 'scaped, the broken snare,
The disappointed foe, deliv'rance found
Unlook'd for, life preserv'd and peace restor'd--
Fruits of omnipotent eternal love.
Oh ev'nings worthy of the gods! exclaim'd
The Sabine bard. Oh ev'nings, I reply,
More to be priz'd and coveted than yours,
As more illumin'd, and with nobler truths.
That I, and mine, and those we love, enjoy....

another construction friday:
                                                 smash, lift, grunt, clean, sweep, collect, empty . . . (grind)
lift up (hup!) doors, hang 'em, nail 'em in.
rap up the stairs, feet heavy in big old boots
                                                           ­                   thighs aflame --- heavy--****
           clomp
    clomp--stomp. swish.
stop for lunch: sandwich/grapes/arizona
sandwich only cheese so not satisfied full..
dusts in the mouth
                                  (and nostrils) so i sneeze & sneeze
raw-nosed in the attic cleaning
---brooms and dust dust dust.

good view to the bay up second level tho:
autumn vistas and panoramas and waves on white shorelines
giant's tomb in the deep, breast heaving

big wide windows w/wasps buzzing eternal
buzz
whack each with rolled window installation guide
grind with the heel
                                  grsch
each one dead is replaced with one more
crawling from odd upstairs nest
---from rest.
feel guilty & awful killing them but
so aggressive in their slowness (compensating) this time of year that
moving material presents good risk of sting.
                                                                ­              ---zing.
      hope they will forgive me.

She is stunning.
Wavy hair, the color of sand
on a calm California beach.
With wide, naïve green eyes.
Her lips,
the color of cupid pink,
slightly parted with confusion and distress.

Where is she?
She surrounds herself
In a field
of black roses
and tainted carnations.
Her mind is blurred,
Her movements are shaky.
She looks around,
Where can she go?
She wants to go back home,
Where the hopeful daises
and the white lilies lie.

She wants to look at the world,
and see the protective, green trees as she tilts her head up.
She wants to see
the bright, yellow sun staring at her,
with welcoming eyes.

She is tired of seeing
Air filled with smoke and despair and sadness.
She hates seeing the
grass on her lawn,
that used to be so clear and vibrant,
turn to utter decay and an anguish color of
Lost hope and defeat.

She wants it back, she wants it all back.

Little does she know, that no matter how long
she spends contemplating and compensating
in that repulsive field of black roses and tainted carnations,
She will always turn back to those
lovely,
hopeful daises
and white lilies.

*-andrea

Are you a pro at processing?
Digesting information

If so the brainwashing station
    **Might just be for you!

I remember when you asked me if I had ever wanted to be someone else and all I could think about was wanting to be the person you thought about when you fall asleep,
I'm *****, a greedy, selfish, fool,
To think that I was everything you ever wanted out of anybody, I kissed you softly, and I could tell no one ever treated you, that nicely

You flinched at the sight of my hands and you never finished your dinners,
You're gone now and I'd like to think I'm still bitter, just to prove to everyone around me that you didn't mean a single thing, but honestly, as much as I want to call you a nobody, a nothing, you taught me absolutely everything

You always slept with a night light on because you were afraid of the dark and what it had to offer,
I was never scared of anything, maybe that was my problem,
We never worked things out and I was just angry that when it came to yours, I could never solve them,
I was under the impression that in time it would get easier but all it got was harder

Your father was an honest man, and maybe that's why he left your mother,
Maybe you can't sleep at night because the ones who are after you, just want another, like you do,
I see you're badly broken, me too,
Let me be your caretaker, I can fix you, I've done a lot to the world and I owe everyone in her a favor or two

I guess I'm just over compensating for something you made me feel like I was always missing,
And now it's all in my head,
I can't think of anything else besides you when it's raining,
I remember you grabbed me and pulled me into it, but you made me think we were just playing,
We let it go further than either of us wanted but I guess that's just what we get for thinking it would stop the hurting,
Over everything else I just wish you would've listened to a single word I was saying

We used to load our bodies up like guns and unload our clips into each other, using our bodies for target practice every night, but we never seemed to hit each other's mark,
The sparks fly and the room catches fire, but we stay where we are

I tried to dip the world in gold but it was still so ugly and valueless to me, I should've never let you make me think you were the only thing my eyes could see,
Maybe I should just walk around naked, finally feel vulnerable in front of someone else besides just you and me

I didn't mean to ruin this,
I never really mean to ruin anything,
But I guess everyone has their hobbies

My life constitutes of
a dichotic shift as I
drift
between
a state of self-assuredness
and self loathing.

When I am assured
I am sure
that my eyes are a
golden brown,
my smile whitened and straightened
with perfectly painted lips.
My eyelashes curl upward
as I give you my most intriguing smirk,
inducing you into giving me
those copies for free
and saying "Ay girl"
as I cross the street.
My jeans hug my hourglass figure
like a girl from a video,
and the compliments find themselves
going my way.
My brain swells with
knowledge and an almost-eery insight
as I predict your admiration
and find myself compensating as to
not appear
ostentatious.
I hold myself with the highest regard and
refuse to let a man
make me feel inferior,
to judge me by my exterior because
I am superior to that
treatment.
My wit is quick and
you can bet I'll put a
Slick Rick in his
place if he is even fit to
keep up with my pace.

But then again
I look at him and see
him frowning at my
symmetrical, but overly round
face,
thinking that there might
be other ladies in this place
with a smaller frame,
with a flat stomach and
a tame sense of style,
not a fedora or Timberland boots or a beanie,
not someone who cackles when
she laughs
and talks even more loudly and
obnoxiously than she chuckles.
I'm not smooth enough to
keep your attention as
my obsession with Harry Potter accidentally
gets disclosed,
as I feel my skin-diseased cheeks
bleeding through their concealer and bronzer mask.
A law school degree sounds boring and
braggy as I grasp
at straws, at my only backup source of comfort,
as I attempt to woo you with my brain because
you clearly aren't into a size ten.
You glance out of the sides
of your eyes as you buy me a drink,
or you tell me you aren't
ready for a relationship
even though we've been
sleeping together for a year;
"it's just not you, it's me"
is what I finagle
as a girl named Hailey
posts a picture of you with
your arm around her size two
waist and top-heavey Double D's.
I let down all of my walls and
you forget my birthday,
and I stay devastated over you long
enough for you to
forget my name.

I'm two-in-one;
I'm confidently lacking in confidence and
disapprovingly disapprove of
anyone's opinion of me
but my
own.

Love is a game between two
A game for the sick who are through
Blind from the maddening truth
That were all just little dancing fools

But we keep replaying our parts
Every verse spun from the start
Trapped in the fear of falling apart
were all just immature hearts

What are we to make of one lifetime? Any given lifetime? Is there a goal for everyone? If there is, clearly each goal is not necessarily the same as all the others, though it might be the same, or at least similar to, one or more than one. If there is no goal to any of them, then what is the reason we live? That would be nihilism. Why, in fact, has the human race propagated for untold millennia? In some respects, human life has evolved progressively positively, but in many other respects, it has devolved disastrously. The way each one of us has lived our lives is a function, I believe, of whether we were loved enough, if at all. If we live a loveless life from conception onward, we wind up unconsciously compensating for the emotional dearth we have suffered by accruing wealth, achieving fame, aggrandizing power. If we look at the 3,400 years of recorded history, there have been exponential advances in warfare, but humanistically relatively few by comparison. As of 2023, there are 10,000 diseases that can and do afflict us, but only 500 cures for the ones to which we fall victim. We have been fighting countless wars against our fellow man and killing millions and millions and millions of them, but discovering an exiguous number of cures for illnesses that often **** us. Why this gross, this grotesque, disparity? And we now find ourselves on the cusp of extinction from catastrophic climate change and the existential threat of nuclear holocaust. So, are we here on Earth simply and inexorably to destroy it and all its living creations? Or are we going to have soon enough a worldwide epiphany:  to begin and never stop realizing that first we all need to be loved to love others;  that there is but one land, one sea, one sky, one people;  that the boundaries that now divides us are not on maps, but in out minds and hearts;  that while we live on a small planet, it is big enough for all of us if only we are first loved so we can then love all others.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

I know you're bad for me
no, scratch that
I know you're killing me

Each time I breathe you in
I exhale as violently as I can
desperately compensating for my shame
But your dark fingerprints linger

I know that if I drink too much,
I will find you between my dry lips,
their cracks, formed by the action of spitting you out
providing inroads for your thick, stifling presence

Someone keeps writing about you in my notebook
but whoever it is seems scared to pen your name

Vernarth says: "ideal of our consciences, we will open the channels in Kímolos, before our subtle bodies, in which they will be opened to us, and how we parabolize, before this pretense of Saint John the Apostle, in the head of mediumship to reach the longitude wave to Hellenika. The interactive vibrational ones will go with the expression of deep reasoning, to pontificate the Mandylion with the Vas Auric, for the effect of the iconification of the idiomatic monologues, for such edges of  Saint Jude Thaddeus and Veronica, and for such an event facing alien forces before the Messiah, that they are like a coherent gadget before the intermittence variants. Channeling to the Cyclades, they will go from east to west wading the waters of the Aegean and Mediterranean, through the channel of the Universe-Duoverse, for inter-consciousness between the Hexagonal Primogeniture in Tsambika, and the triad of Etréstles, Kanti and the Archpriest in Hellenika , with high degrees of awareness of light and the conclaves between both homilies synchronous. Of great drowsiness before the Anemoi winds, they will go through near the voyages of the Trojan chthonic ships, and before the ominous chthonic divinities, for such deities in the Mediterranean substrate, identifying themselves more obviously with Anatolia, which from prehistory has continued to the site of Troy, in a cheesy plan to unite loyalists of Agamemnon, to defeat Hector, between farmland and agricultural revolutions and Akkadian worlds BC, in peripheral outposts, to influence the central regions of Greece and its maritime trade. Hydros influences, for the cycles of the solstice and nature, with those of life and survival after death that is at the center of the concerns that are not translated. In Crete, the supposed cult of great Gods was transformed during the II millennium BC. C. as new actors appear: various animals, plants, etcetera. Given consciousness, the light will be channeled, in the three courtyards of alabaster and between the cinnabar by bending the re-fertilization of the retro channels of the Cyclades, which go from Rhodes and Kímolos, for the discernment. Sometimes it is more gratifying to listen to what you want to hear and not to the real message, the egoic mind that does not come from serials of daunted egos ..., prays with signs of technological shamanism, intervening artificial intelligences, from egomaniacal administered consciences, being strident and iconoclastic for worlds of appearances and illusions. I Vernarth with our own Khaire…, in my mind I go towards the vessels that navigate the andurriales of the elusive identity, trapping it in the totemic animal stratum, in its tracking psychology, but seer of its present ego. Today I will use my Leonatus cap, to separate the anger from the large shadow that clouds my sadness, and from my own victimhood of reduced meekness, which spews violence, blaming it for a ruthless sort of depressive shame and exclusive of everyone's own fear for everything . I will blindfold my eyes against illnesses that will heal in three days, to straighten the ecstasy that grows thicker towards the guillotine, staying on Golgotha without Golgotha, I will create the framework of cinnabar for the pain of the skull, which trembles in my hands, until the Dream becomes vaporous with anger and harmless destruction before your egos, which throb rozagant towards the host entity and the scarified madness. Awakening my nuanced, subtle and anthropomorphic subconscious dreams, with sorrows that hurt my worst self-destructive amorousities before the new memorial, on the veil of Theoskepasti, with his science sheltering itself when yielding over the defeated springs and inaugurating new miraculous courses where I will surrender, full of sorry and more distant from the veil that does not act as a viewer.

Duo time, Duo space, in one I get excited, in the other I retro project, in unreal worlds of epistemic and channeled images ignoring them, in free astrolabe when decrypting my Duoverse, between the Tsambika templets, with the decoded and mutated annelids in trisomy , in ancient trees of plain doors of the Bern Olive Trees. We look at what gratifies and weaves together what weaves the positioning of the approaching stars of the universe, like leaves in psalms, worthy of all-powerful serials, in redoubled humors on the encompassing intraterrestrial chthonic tridents, in tricks of intuition, before skewing my sword Xifos, as an original replica of a night's dream in Tel Gomel, full of alerts that make me laugh chew it in the middle of my mouth on the jerky and the strains of the bear, towards the counterweight of the message of light and lag of the high astral as a bear less. Bustard and angelic breath in withdrawal and in dissolution ... unfinished planet ..., now if I see you channeled and incarnate! Diva emotion, here I analyze my audacity and courage towards being fed up with my omniscient prosopon, such an omniscient telepathic. My soul lies, and my emotion also, because in this way I will treasure the courage of panic, by surrounding myself with the fears of carrying the universe that is resting on the underside of my back at a cost "
Harassment of psychological channeling, against the horns and sights of a peaceful energy confrontation, will make them in Rhodes and Kimolos channel with the stark human finitude of life and finite and non-eternal existence, ad portal with their Aspis Koilé. Unconscious they will continue halfway with their bouquets of flowers for Walekiria, without ever really taking the time to tell her, what time of eternity will make them more crowded for her and her reliquary poem, from deflagration in flame, to insidious break of commitment of fear by telling him that if they revive, they will be others, but if Hetairoi extra Hellenic towards the light of the incarnate vermilion ..., and in a state of loop as "Being of Light". Oh phantom phenomenon that does not scare me ..., rather it disenchants, clinging to my skins that die in the unexpected female muses in Gaia, with my burning and hypertensive ballast, still frequent in me ... As conjecture and presence of Greca life ..., having to promote the matter and atmosphere involved where the valuations, should be tempered in the pressure regulators and the contribution of biodiversity, of the species for the insular life and its chemical balance in the Aegean. The theorem will state in the image of Vas Auric, as sounds of homeostasis, in classrooms, properties of the intervened annelids are consistent, capable of keeping them in a certain internal and stable condition, compensating for the changes in the noise of the intervened patios, towards an environment through the regulated exchange of matter and energy with the outside towards your (metabolism), trying a form of dynamic balance with the sparkling properties of Cinnabar. As a self-regulating biosphere in the conditions of the planet to make its environment of physicality (especially temperature and atmospheric chemistry) more noble with the species that make up life in the compass of two islands unmanned by beings from Gaia, rather as an entropy in magnitude physics for a thermodynamic system in equilibrium, inhabited by intra-dynamic beings that nobly associate, for adaptations of worlds that are not born. It segregates them towards a departure, measuring them in numbers with Gold in their population, from high numbers in states of zero, compatible with the laws of external physicality, for the purposes of watchful guardians, if Gaia's engine is turned on, before this psychic and spiritual combustion?

The laws of this system of closed circuits and channeling will tend to maximize entropy, expiring inhibitory reactions, for the traces of oxygen and nitrogen from the worms, making an express signal of the levitant carbon dioxide, to carry it from Tsambika, in a sigh of two converged energies of Leviathan and Saint John the Apostle, for the clouds in mole of carbonate dioxide, battling over the surviving necromancers and their conditions of activity and reproduction, maintaining these habitable conditions for many and many, in classes that did not enjoy of the life-death-life cycle. Greece, as it will now look like a turbo generator and appropriate laws underlining the extensive fibers concerned, a mole of molecules, in said of equality, of said hypothesis of Vernarth as sub-mythology, rather resting on the growing ivy  to its setbacks, and strangling the signs of satiety of life with properties of open skylights, and properties in tune, with the severe penalties that hurt, even the tolling of the bells and their pain as the millennia pass! Fear, insecurity and frustration will not fit because in the cavity with them, they will cut the abenuz Diospyros, with its stamens usually in sixteen plus its hypogines or inserts at the base of the corolla; like those of female flowers, being greenish or being converted into staminodia. Diospyros with ovaries generally tetralocular, or with eight locules due to false divisions, will make us channel inseminating demigods, under the staff of sub-mythology with Zephian of Horcondising, before the vibrational migrations begin in Hellenika. Just as in this pact with silence and meditation and burning toxic flames, under vulnerable high frequency insolation ..., waking up in Gaia like a sleeping fairy, and invested with extra light shaman, with degrees of synergy and with the simple science of blizzard ... , with low puffs of air of bread and cinnabar burning in the first hosts of hummus, as the homily began.

I have been on the road for so long, what's it been,
"Weeks,
"Months,
"Moments?
Who knew,since magi had birthed on to the world chaos
Had ensued on a global playground. I remember an old movie

"God I miss the movies,  
"With power there is responsibility of will,

Will power was the key, if you were ill of conviction
It consumed you, each burnt different. I remember
Seeing some gathered when it took upon them.

It was like a rainbow, like spirits ignited. momentary
Beauty in all aspects. Then the screams, like they were
Aware that it wasn't just their bodies but that they were
Burning soul, flesh all was consumed in magi flame.

I don't know if you could call it good or evil but it was
Survival, the old ways were obsolete. There we norms,
And enlightened? if you could call us that, words even
Simple ones were amazing, imbued with essence power.

Some only had to think and auras of essence flickered
On steady hands, it was amazing, with movements
That flowed weaving intricate designs synergies were
Compelled and movement and words became as one.

"Jesus I hate walking though the old city streets,
"I can sense their essence,
"Enlightened can sense each other in some degree,

The decay in these majestic building so many vacant
White tombs, they fed of the residual aura of what happened
That day, many were set ablaze mass funeral pyres.

"The skies glowed red for days,
"Flames touching the heavens themselves,

There is much anger in these places mortal, and enlightened
Steer clear, in the night as auras permeate the surrounding

"I hear something?
"Hello who goes there,

Words I hear even though not spoken. These are dark
Even more than the midnight sky I walk under.

"I hear you, show yourself,

"Aren't we a powerful little one not many can hear unspoken,
"These places are a playground of rage and anger,

He had such a arrogant tone, I have seen others like him.
Thinking they have a right to taunt the dead with promises
Of life, but it is unfounded. They are just puppets on entrains
Strings bonded with words. Sealing them, suffocating within.

"I have no fear of your creation,
"You have twisted a gift, made it unclean,
"The dead should serve no one let them rest,

My words go unheeded, I know this will be a fight to the
End, only one will make the journey onward on this path.
I scrunch my fingers, each cracking, ready in anticipation,
In knowing what is to come. I sense the fluctuation around.

From beneath the ruins of what looked like a heavens building
(Skyscraper) it bellowed forth eyes aglow. I sensed its
Consumed resentment of slumbers awaking, it grabbed
What was twisted beams of rusted metal and rock.

"Be gone slumber once again in ethers sleep,

I tried a banishment spell as the words first too weak
For the anger that breathed.

"The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came light
And chains Mixed with purity , and it was hurled down onto
The earth a prison of release is cursed!"

" Your in over your head little girl.

But I noticed upon its brow glyphs of resistant's, this arrogant
One, not so as I had thought. I noticed from where it clambered
The fallen of before, I was not its first battle. Maybe I would
Not be its last, calm thoughts as it swung nearly taking me apart.

"I will dethatch this creation from this realm,
"It will slumber in eternality's evermore,

Spells I eased on thought and hand,

"Flames entwined on wicks birth, feel rages creation  
From earth, burn in silence burn in air, enlightened in
A suns extinguished birth,

The air crackled as earth turned red, molten rock,
Erupted and white bone crackled under the heats
Relentless grip, now for the opposite to shatter its curse.

"Winters howl beckon my call, A single snow flake shall fa,

I do so hate being interrupted I heard his words spoken,
In silence. A blinding glyph summoned forth. I had moments
To defend, or unseen was my fate and then deaths hand would
Grant what this thing was unwittingly birthed to heed.

"Let light blaze the mists of unseen thoughts, let there be
Sight be seen no darkness's curse,  

Now I'm angry, what kind of arrogant, egotistical **** hole
Thinks that they can do that to me. Time to finish this, I
Use what I have learnt mastered well, I was one of those
In womb when magi birthed. We are only few but we are
As part imbued not only in word but bloods life essence.

"Winters howl beckon my call, A single snow flake shall fall,
Shatter on earth like glass you will keep,

It was a hard thing to do but to meld two thoughts as one,
I worded it in strength first freeze them then eternities tomb.
"Only to be used on undead,
Never the living as it would fold back and dam the herald that
Spoke the words to a fate worse than death.

"Winters howl beckon my call, A single snow flake shall fall,
Shatter on earth like glass you will keep,
"Let that which was twisted now be granted eternities tomb,
"Earth calls upon your slumber now be granted,
Rest in the toils of soils keep,

And with that moment it shattered as earth creaked and took
What was taken now in its tomb of slumbers keep.
Where darkness was birthed souls rested and bones neat.
We took our paces drained where both as such focus needed.

"Your abomination conceded to a fate worth its keep,
"Now its only us do you concede to fates wish,

It was a long shot but you never know, maybe he would of
Conceded in graceful defeat. "So going to fight dam,
His muttering edged forth a spirit blade, we all have an
Aura and our physical presence births the colour of
Physical forces we bring into our world,

"What a big sword you have, compensating for much,
(I giggled loudly, he asked for that)

"Magi filth, I will end you as my pet failed my will,
"I have taken many and will take many more,

Flames of onyx and luminosity bathed the surroundings
As each of us gauged each others strengths, his blade
Glanced on my arm , searing pain greeted as veins
turned black. We fought I glanced upon his self, but he
Just looked smiled and ****** time after time at myself.

But he was weakening to much had he relied on spirit
And not himself. I ****** upon his being in one last fatless
Blow, His sword shattered in shards of spirit he was cut.
He bleed slowly not blood but essence of himself.

"This cant be your but a girl,
"I will beckon my spirit to the fallen I will live on,

"Can you hear my thoughts?

"No why would I need to heed your contemplation,

"I just sealed your thoughts none shall escape,
"You will pass into the ether there to stay,

"I will not go like this, do you realize who I am,

"A dead man,

And with that I walked off no longer a threat, just a
Dying magi, with moment left to contemplate what
Was done. A noise heard as I walked off, I thought
Of not turning, of not giving satisfaction on a fallen.

"What do you wither about, in dignity fade out,

But my eyes did see what ailed him so, for where his
Essence did bleed upon the patch his creation fell in
Earth it rested but it wanted one more to join its kin.
Swallowed up then silence and gone. He joined those
That had heeded his worded will.

"Daylight beckoned as I walked on the city even though
In ruin had a certain beauty in its collapse,

I walked onwards nursing wounds with word, healed
But still hurt. That was a battle I wish not to repeat. I just
Want to wonder and meet those of norms and magi and
Live in harmony and peace. But remember all, there is
Much power in the world with word and thought.