That unforgiving metal.
Within that unforgiving metal lies all the things you cannot forgive about yourself.
Those freckles on your chin that you wish would expand into a constellation so that you may give them names and so that you may give them meaning,
within that unforgiving metal.

The Greeks threw their hands towards the heavens
and deemed cosmic accidents worthy of the names of gods,
although within them lie no gifts.
Like a bedazzled and jaded Tiresias impostor one stumbles upon
on their way home,
who sees nothing but the tangible
and tells all but the truth.
Still, he is clad in diamonds and gold
and thus has value in trade.
Beauty triumphs over mendacity
and mendacity over reality.

But the freckles that mar your skin,
that you cannot transfigure into the most meaningless of stars or the crudest of answers,
sit there defiantly,
waiting to be acknowledged and waiting to be named.

You lean your forehead forward to rest against the cool smoothness of its idle twin.
You could swear you saw her sneer at you.
The freckles do not budge—they will consume you whole.

Quacking ducks
Dung throwers
Degenerate, opinionate

No plea for serenity
No chance for reverence
Only less politeness

Survival of the fittest
Hegemony of the crudest
Twitter for the *****

Now can you see the monument? It is of wood
built somewhat like a box. No. Built
like several boxes in descending sizes
one above the other.
Each is turned half-way round so that
its corners point toward the sides
of the one below and the angles alternate.
Then on the topmost cube is set
a sort of fleur-de-lys of weathered wood,
long petals of board, pierced with odd holes,
four-sided, stiff, ecclesiastical.
From it four thin, warped poles spring out,
(slanted like fishing-poles or flag-poles)
and from them jig-saw work hangs down,
four lines of vaguely whittled ornament
over the edges of the boxes
to the ground.
The monument is one-third set against
a sea; two-thirds against a sky.
The view is geared
(that is, the view's perspective)
so low there is no "far away,"
and we are far away within the view.
A sea of narrow, horizontal boards
lies out behind our lonely monument,
its long grains alternating right and left
like floor-boards--spotted, swarming-still,
and motionless.  A sky runs parallel,
and it is palings, coarser than the sea's:
splintery sunlight and long-fibred clouds.
"Why does the strange sea make no sound?
Is it because we're far away?
Where are we? Are we in Asia Minor,
or in Mongolia?"
                            An ancient promontory,
an ancient principality whose artist-prince
might have wanted to build a monument
to mark a tomb or boundary, or make
a melancholy or romantic scene of it...
"But that queer sea looks made of wood,
half-shining, like a driftwood, sea.
And the sky looks wooden, grained with cloud.
It's like a stage-set; it is all so flat!
Those clouds are full of glistening splinters!
What is that?"
                        It is the monument.
"It's piled-up boxes,
outlined with shoddy fret-work, half-fallen off,
cracked and unpainted.  It looks old."
--The strong sunlight, the wind from the sea,
all the conditions of its existence,
may have flaked off the paint, if ever it was painted,
and made it homelier than it was.
"Why did you bring me here to see it?
A temple of crates in cramped and crated scenery,
what can it prove?
I am tired of breathing this eroded air,
this dryness in which the monument is cracking."

It is an artifact
of wood.  Wood holds together better
than sea or cloud or and could by itself,
much better than real sea or sand or cloud.
It chose that way to grow and not to move.
The monument's an object, yet those decorations,
carelessly nailed, looking like nothing at all,
give it away as having life, and wishing;
wanting to be a monument, to cherish something.
The crudest scroll-work says "commemorate,"
while once each day the light goes around it
like a prowling animal,
or the rain falls on it, or the wind blows into it.
It may be solid, may be hollow.
The bones of the artist-prince may be inside
or far away on even drier soil.
But roughly but adequately it can shelter
what is within (which after all
cannot have been intended to be seen).
It is the beginning of a painting,
a piece of sculpture, or poem, or monument,
and all of wood.  Watch it closely.

Hay Bale
Hay Bale
What’s a bale worth about thirty dollars a thousand pounds how much if you factor this in an old farmer
Kneels makes a lowly bale of hay his altar this isn’t the breezy free prayer this is a soul brought to this
Place hidden away by burdens that come in waves they find the deepest core of this man’s soul on the
Order of David Brainerd who was said to kneel in the snow and from the throws of Godly sorrow such
Struggle would create enough human exertion to burn at extreme enough level to melt the snow hair
Wet and matted face touched with the incomparable grace bestowed only on those who follow hard
And Close enough to the master to receive the blunt force power the souls of this life buffeted and
Stretchered by all manner of problems the houses you pass without interest or curiosity is of extreme
Concern to the one who stops and dwells when he hears a heart crying in a lonely setting caused by
Disease or unexpected death for this he searches a human agent to rush to the breach stand in the gap
By prayer harness the wind and storm that is breaking over this broken one never believe that this is
Easy you are literally inviting the spiritual equivalent to what they are experiencing naturally the toll will
Wring from you every ounce of your strength and you will give full vent to all the tears you can produce
This is the price the answer demands you of course get the news from the enemy your all alone no one
Cares what a lie three hearts are being pulverized by a hammer of trouble the soul it began with the nail
Scared and he the deep whip marks that will never fade in this ugly descriptive show of purist love he
Still walks bent and bowed from this load and the third knelling just by a lowly bale of hay his inward
Man matching the savoir in all areas suffering physically spiritually and the coldest blow of all you in
Every regard are alone no light no comfort and every accusation the enemy can muster is leveled at you
The battle struck there is no retreat a soul under attack will not survive the onslaught this is heavens
Plan no deviation will be excepted devotion to a cause and a people never knew this quality of glory and
Honor the first indication of how important a son of very God must be brutalized and from unequaled
Innocence be put to death on a cross the price and ransom the debt fully paid but continues through the crudest altars even a hay
Bale.

The first thing that happens
is the world collapses.
That is, it reduces down
but only I seem to notice.
Everything becomes flatter,
the depth stripped away
like rotted lumber,
like when they gut a building
but leave the historic facade,
and I feel like I'm limping
postcard to postcard
until eventually like I'm peering
into a discarded diorama,
where everything is smaller
than it should be,
the crudest copy of itself, and
everything is bounded
by shoebox limits
I can sense them everywhere.

The second thing that happens
is that I avoid everyone.
I avoid my mother on Christmas,
I can't look my therapist in her eye,
I cancel a date because
I can't handle the contact.
I touch my skin and it's like
touching paper that's been creased
hundreds of times -
old pulp that frays and splits.

The third thing that happens
is that I lose interest.
I put in whatever minimums
the day requires
and not a scratch more.
I put my mail aside
and watch crows
gather on the branch,
facing the valley,
black eye to black eye,
base wings folded against
the sleek unbearable body.

The last thing that happens
is that life cheapens.
It's hard not to notice,
since the papers and the news
and everybody's phone
blasts forth the parade of death.
No one is spared, children,
animals, the happy, the hale.
And soon these thoughts -
that life ends without reason,
that God has retreated from the world,
that no step is worthwhile -
begin to bleed in my head.
They lead to the paralysis
of a patient wrapped in gauze,
leaving only the eyes free to move
and notice the great black wing
that scythes into the valley,
feathers dark as stout,
the sun setting in its usual
incompetent way, the wing
so graceful that it might be
the only beautiful thing,
falling out of sight,
into nothingness,
down the *****
into the stale dusk,
into the exact center
of a limitless depression.

I have a schoolboys sense of humour,
Oh yes it's true, it's not just rumour,
I always laugh at bums and willys,
It's immature and very silly,
I cannot help my humours taste,
I try to keep it above the waist,
Yet down the slippery ***** I slide,
This 'Carry-On" sense of humour of mine,
Farts, poos, **** the crudest jokes,
Belong much more to bad *** blokes,
Double meaning things that people say,
Is my specialist subject anyway,
Even though I know it's daft,
I do enjoy a ****** laugh :)

as a filmmaker
I’d bury
the permanence
of my son
the magnifying
glass
in full
dress
of the shadow
lurking behind
the crudest
of surveillance
systems

We are all walking around in each other
(our bodies and breathing and sweat and
sneezes)
walking around in pieces of each other
unescapably we are
in each other
in the crudest way possible we are
in each other
(in Buckingham in front of Michelangelo paintings in Taj Mahal in Los Angeles in Sydney in paradise in your bedroom)
connected in an
(uncomfortable)
way we are all each other we are all one
don’t forget to breathe
we only have this chance once
breathe breathe breathe you are one

“Our characteristics smear through us,
Like colours in a stick of rock.”
He says to the audience of ties and blazers.
“If I cut you open, what shades
Would I find in your cross-sections?”
“If you cut me open,
There’d be a fair amount of red,
I should think.”
I say behind my sharpened teeth.
“And my parents wouldn’t be very pleased.”
Oh how witty I am
With my quick fire of sarcasm,
And petulant spasms of acrimony.
Eight miles away,
Our house is full of September;
Raincoats and Crane flies,
And I water my Guinea Pig’s tumour
With tears I owe elsewhere.
A teacher at my school
Committed suicide, people say,
While we skipped waves
And created poetry from the leaf-light.
They can’t tell us the details,
Of course not – sensitivity is key –
But that tells us all we thirst for.
School clockworks forwards
With a hole in the Geography office
And I forget about remembrance.
He drove a BMW and laughed
Small laughs that coughed with nervousness.
I sit in History, pen-chewing,
Thinking of all these more important deaths.
The school bells don’t hold silences
The year sevens don’t stand
Or bow their heads in room 180
We try making futures for ourselves
And apply ourselves to those things
That still have chances tied to them
Like clover leaves and birthday candles.
We turn on lights in the evenings
And I wake myself from darkness to darkness.
My life consists of the cooling,
Cotton-throated early mornings
And the bike that my brother bought new
Six years ago.
And the drag of my newspaper bag
That claws backwards from my peddling.
The world is blue and grey with rime,
I rip my fingers on letterboxes.
My shoes fall apart from the heels
My ballet shoes fall apart from the toes
My life enjoys unravelling itself
From wherever I’ve chosen to stitch it
And I fray and crimp at the corners.
I prefer to go barefoot
Across the rinsed, diluted garden
That smells of rotting apples.
Ballet tights rolled up my legs
So that my bruised toes get kissed
With grass slobber and the faded zeal of autumn.
Slugs crisscross pavements like surgical tape
Then get stuck and frazzled there
While the sun toasts them.
“Maybe I’d find hopes, dreams,” he says.
“Maybe you’d find organs.”
You’d find me weeping over pirouettes
And geometric lines and extensions.
You’d find a twice-broken arm
And an array of internal fractures.
There’d be shards lodged between each rib.
My parachute lungs, pumping filth,
Would continue to tear and furl
Until they wouldn’t resemble
The things we scalped in biology.
I re-write lists of ‘Things To Do’
In the hope that they’ll seem shorter
But I add all my flaws to them
For amendments and for procrastination.
For some reason people still expect things
From this emptying girl
Who actually thinks
That the one who cut into her
Would be in danger of finding
Nothing but a brittled, bitter hollow.
I highlight my essays
And highlight the cracks
I’m carving in my personality.
I paste impressions of myself
All over my exterior shell
Alongside character traits.
Who knows what lies beneath
The papier-mâché of well-played parts?
My fingers play music on the computer keyboard
More than they practice the piano.
But the songs they make are far from sweet
And rarely beautiful.
My parents think I’m working
On Hume, Bentham and Kant
But really, I write jaded poetry
Which forms its own philosophies.
“Your experiences would be evident,
Spread through your character.”
My brother ate away at his life
Until he starved.
They set him down in a mental unit
For the ‘Screwy’, ‘Freakish’ and ‘Insane.’
So I buried my childhood
In the side ward mazes
Of hand sanitizer and tubes and tombs.
“I’d find what makes you unique –
Your religion, perhaps.”
I laugh away the suggestion
That is actually the truth of how
My Sunday mornings fall under ‘Church’
And the afternoons are ‘Top Forty’ –
I don’t even like chart music.
How can I be ashamed of the faith
I try fervently not to doubt?
The sun drips from the evening sky
Like a squeezed lemon
And Monday cycles round again
I live in a little world of spirals;
Eternally coming back to the same place
Just worn a little further down.
I waste my life on the vanity
Of mirrors and self-deprecation.
Sometimes I think I must be arrogant
To make the pretty little assumption
That I don’t have to wear make-up.
It’s funny that I lay my skin bare –
Always –
But can’t manage to strip myself down
To the crudest, rawest truth.
I can only write for people I don’t know;
I let my parents believe blindly
That I’m a creative prodigy
Instead of human
By refusing them the blessing
Of honest words from ink and paper.
But the truth is;
I am not the faded mystery
That I pose as in my writing,
I’m just someone who sits in school assembly
And tries to make self-portraits from words,
And tries to forge intelligence,
And tries to never grow old,
And tries to be something,
And tries nothing,
And tries –
“But what I’d really want to see
Is compassion,” He says.
I turn my face down to my knee bones
And permit myself to agree.
Compassion, I tell myself
And, just for a minute,
I feel a little less
Superficial.

Cruelest is the man who sits and says nothing
Stand alone stare with a harrowing message
Or maybe it’s the poorest, crudest of man
Who we all brand as vicious, biting off hands
But then what of the angry indignant man
The one who feels drained with no moral compass
Moans and groans develops own brands of justice
Then there’s the soldier in all different shapes
Who plunders and kills or kidnaps and rapes
No words for the actions of each head of state
No words for the actions of the man who wont stand
No words for all those who play life at high stakes

Doesn’t life burn you when spending it thinking
So here we all are; fast living and sinking

We are a white children
of clouds
of sand
of carving words
that shape the sands we walk upon
and cannot judge one slip from another
at times
love is expressed through
the crudest terms
and so we divide,
define
and in each mind
rest the chicken bones of the last meal
press the prickly matter into the damp soil
where it will be forgotten.

look back and you will see a traveller with the crudest of maps
be kind to that person struggling with so much daily detail they have no clue as to how they are going to fulfil their half remembered dream. The dream they keep tucked in the pocket next their heart, the one they take out now and then when alone and have deep intentions to make it all come true. That person is every person and if you look, that person is you.

How do you prove an immunity to
a recurringly exhumed seclusion
when the noise of static, so intrusive when unmuted, easily confuses
and a skewed view produces only illusion's futile ruses?
Can't hands, seamlessly and when misguided, be abusive
from refusing their own bruises and contusions,
manifest and fuse into a multitude of misconstrued, misled misuses?
Yet I will argue choosing to humor the tune communicating through the intuitive music and movement that amuses-
what is heard echoes clues for harmony and hallowed union's
mutual congruence,
even in the crudest beauty and pursuit of human improvement and what we knew, uprooted.
Doubt, when reducing to delusions, always loses when refuted,
and though humility means fragile ****** included,
elusive truths all allude to an absolution through this-
what diffuses, what we keep, and how we do it the conclusion.

Writing poems but who are they for?
Are they secret notes to myself
To read
When I'm old and gray?
Are they
(Perhaps)
Simply lyrics to
Songs I'll never sing?
Are they my
Crudest representation
Of
My soul?
Yes they are.
Maybe.
I'm not ceratin.
To be honest
I have
No clue.

So it was
Once then never was
You left me and it hurt
Why did you choose to change so much?
We were best friends and sisters
You made it all about the misters
Finding time to keep you around
Why were you never around
When we broke bones and banks
I knew you were down hard
Broke down bikes and cars
And I turned scarred.

Seeing you after a year makes me wonder
Do you think of me too and ponder
Why things were left unsaid
Why we drifted away
Tried to forget you and found many other
But no one came to be so picture perfect as each other

You don’t even care you looked away
You ****** me off when things went grey
Contemplated many a times to message you
But remembered how you threw me away.
But pride came to play
And stayed more than half way

When I looked into your eyes
I saw hurt and pain but also crudest acclaim.
Why it never worked out I don’t know
Mistakes were made and both grew up
Careless nights to back road to and fro
Somehow we grew up and grew apart more.

give me a memory,
any memory,
where you are happy,
and it can mask,
the worst thing ever said,
the meanest thing ever done,
the crudest thing you ever saw
and I'll not write anymore.

Fasten your seatbelts
For the ice the heat melts
Will be dealt
We’ll receive welts
From Earth’s belt
Her pain will be felt

Crazy cancer
Lazy dancers
Don’t have answers
But as enchanters
Conjure banter
Of absurd slander
And crowd panders
To darken lanterns

Flooding the gate
Money to make
Muddies the stakes
So they act fake
To catch a break
Becoming snakes
With stunning rakes
For nature’s ****

Carbon emission
Cancer remission
In need of incisions
To heal our decisions
Yet denied permission
By a wealthy commission
Utilizing superstition
And pure fiction
To ensure friction
Fueling oil addiction

The hurricanes
Assuring pain
Are curing stains
Of carbon shame
Until what remains
Stays in nature’s lane

I hide in dreams
From Poseidon’s screams
At polluted streams
From brutish teams
Of the crudest greed

To break our code of mourning
We need the noble forming
A case for global warming
Against the vocal storming
Of the slogan storing
***** adoring
Public scorning

We need Atlas here
To fix the atmosphere
As those here
Impose fear
Against peers

Their success equals destruction
So acting responsibly is obstruction
Pushing the planet to an eruption
Of cataclysmic disruption
Due to cynical dysfunction

A tidal wave
Of vital days
To fix our maze
Sits in a haze
While we’re slaves
Digging graves
For the brave
In their way

If you wish the sympathy
of the broad masses, you
must tell them the crudest
& most stupid things,

& it is quite a special secret
pleasure how the people
around us fail to realize
what is really
happening to them,

& make the lie big,
make it simple,
keep saying it,
and eventually
they will
believe it.

& all propaganda must be
popular and its intellectual
level must be adjusted to
the most limited intelligence
amongst those it is
addressed to,

& history comes around
& many of the tried &
trusted methods for
running things just
keep on making
that eternal return
don't they.

This country is in dire straits
The great unwashed now
Outnumber the intelligencia
And truth and facts
No longer rule the day.
The gates are swinging open
For the Robber Barons to hold sway
As Gaia begs for mercy.
Everything is up for sale
Including honesty and souls.
The sexiest thing obtainable
Is power in it’s crudest form.
No female DNA is safe.
Children learn it all by five
And **** themselves by ten.
The One Percent hold all the cards-
The rest of us use credit
With totals we can never pay.
Everything is Monetized
Except unwanted children-
No one’s solved that problem yet.
Now adults can choose their gender
And switch it any day they choose.
Families are multicolored
And a Peacock is a service bird.
Rainy days do not get saved for,
College loans are never paid.
The Holier-Than-Us are ruling
In their God promoting way
Wearing masks of indignation
To cover their own iniquity.
Even though the sun still shines
The rain pours down, the snow piles up-
It’s one endless epic storm
As Six-pack Joe heads off to work
To earn almost not quite enough.

Will we crumble - will we thrive
Only if the voters rock the boat
And throw the pirates overboard.
ljm