I need only to smirk and you’re mine
Anytime
If it’s god that you want
I have dozens in mind
Devilishly divine
Bending time like a grandeur delusional
Spine  

In a mad hatter ectoplas-mystical slime
A prismatic drug addict’s first nursery rhyme
Of accursed hearse verses of graphic design
Now to lay to rest intellect spectacles musing
Of selves glorified more than those of my choosing
To deify Destiny’s
Deathly serenity
Plentifully sending me vibrant surprises
And penning my ending in violent demises
Disguises surmised by the climate arises
Girl always there riding my similar waves
As I try to save face digging mechanized graves

But the cloud tentacles
To the depths
Drag me down
To demented ascension
Black holes in the ground
Where disciples of light
And my huntress in white
Vivify me by day
Resurrect me at night
To instruct and deduct
Reasoning in a state
Of a being supreme
Contemplating its fate

These are English translations of poems written in French by Renee Vivien.


Song
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the moon weeps,
illuminating flowers on the graves of the faithful,
my memories creep
back to you, wrapped in flightless wings.

It's getting late; soon we will sleep
(your eyes already half closed)
steeped
in the shimmering air.

O, the agony of burning roses:
your forehead discloses
a heavy despondency,
though your hair floats lightly ...

In the night sky the stars burn whitely
as the Goddess nightly
resurrects flowers that fear the sun
and die before dawn ...



Undine
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your laughter startles, your caresses rake.
Your cold kisses love the evil they do.
Your eyes―blue lotuses drifting on a lake.

Lilies are less pallid than your face.

You move like water parting.
Your hair falls in rootlike tangles.
Your words like treacherous rapids rise.
Your arms, flexible as reeds, strangle,

Choking me like tubular river reeds.
I shiver in their enlacing embrace.
Drowning without an illuminating moon,
I vanish without a trace,

lost in a nightly swoon.



Amazone
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

the Amazon smiles above the ruins
while the sun, wearied by its struggles, droops to sleep.
******’s aroma swells Her nostrils;
She exults in blood, death’s inscrutable lover.

She loves lovers who intoxicate Her
with their wild agonies and proud demises.
She despises the cloying honey of feminine caresses;
cups empty of horror fail to satisfy Her.

Her desire, falling cruelly on some wan mouth
from which she rips out the unrequited kiss,
awaits ardently lust’s supreme spasm,
more beautiful and more terrible than the spasm of love.

NOTE: The French poem has “coups” and I considered various words – “cuts,” “coups,” “coups counted,” etc. – but I thought because of “intoxicate” and “honey” that “cups” worked best in English.



“Nous nous sommes assises” (“We Sat Down”)
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Darling, we were like two exiles
bearing our desolate souls within us.

Dawn broke more revolting than any illness...

Neither of us knew the native language
As we wandered the streets like strangers.
The morning’s stench, so oppressive!

Yet you shone like the sunrise of hope...

                     *

As night fell, we sat down,
Your drab dress grey as any evening,
To feel the friendly freshness of kisses.

No longer alone in the universe,
We exchanged lovely verses with languor.

Darling, we dallied, without quite daring to believe,
And I told you: “The evening is far more beautiful than the dawn.”

You nudged me with your forehead, then gave me your hands,
And I no longer feared uncertain tomorrows.

The sunset sashayed off with its splendid insolence,
But no voice dared disturb our silence...

I forgot the houses and their inhospitality...

The sunset dyed my mourning attire purple.

Then I told you, kissing your half-closed eyelids:
“Violets are more beautiful than roses.”

Darkness overwhelmed the horizon...

Harmonious sobs surrounded us...

A strange languor subdued the strident city.

Thus we savored the enigmatic hour.

Slowly death erased all light and noise,
Then I knew the august face of the night.

You let the last veils slip to your naked feet...
Then your body appeared even nobler to me, dimly lit by the stars.

Finally came the appeasement of rest, of returning to ourselves...
And I told you: “Here is the height of love…”

We who had come carrying our desolate souls within us,
like two exiles, like complete strangers.



Words to My Love
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is Vivien’s “coming out” poem, although the term wasn’t coined until many years after Vivien’s death.

Please understand me: an unusual creature,
not so very good, or bad; perhaps a bit sly.
I hate overheavy perfumes, abrupt outcries.
I prefer grey to crimson, scarlet and ochre.

I love the dusk, when day winds slowly down,
an intimate fire ablaze in the bed-chamber
as the lamps glow wanly, golden-amber,
reddening bronze and blueing the mantle-stone.

My eyes take in the carpet, smooth as sand,
imagining Sappho’s shores of golden peas,
where beyond the bright sun sets on Aegean seas...
And yet, within, I still bear the sinner’s brand.

For I am at that age when virgins yield
in their weakness to the men they want, and dread,
and yet have no companion, here nor ahead,
because you beckoned from a forbidden field.

The hyacinth bled—blood-red—upon the glen
while you imagined Love: pure, innocent, freed.
But women have no right to such Love! ... We’ve
been banished to the brutish rule of men.

And yet I had the impudence, to yearn
for forbidden Love’s immaculate white light,
the gentle voice communing with the night,
the delicate step that doesn’t scar the fern.

They have forbidden me your delicate lips,
because your hair is long and fragrant-odoured,
because your eyes convey the wildest raptures,
as depthless seas toss about small, unmoored ships.

They have wagged their fingers, in their pious manner,
because my gaze entreated your dear gaze...
No one has tried to understand our ways,
or why I was bewitched by your strange glamour.

What of this dreadful law that I transgress?
Nay, judge my love! Pure, unbesmirched by evil,
and honest, though perhaps as lethal, still,
as any man’s desire for his mistress.

They did not understand my heart’s desire,
as I walked the path my destiny transpired;
they asked, “Who is that woman doomed to fire—
the flames of Hell?” Yet I love as required.

Let us leave men to their strange “moralities”
to seek new dawns like honey, golden-bright,
far sunnier days, and ah!, more loving nights!
Our minds will rest at ease, in amities.

Immaculate, the bright stars shine, above...
What do they care how men judge, from afar?
And what have we to fear, because we are
pure in our lives, our thoughts, and in our love.




Renée Vivien (1877-1909) was a British poet who wrote primarily in French. She was one of the last major poets of Symbolism. Her work included sonnets, hendecasyllabic verse and prose poetry. Born Pauline Mary Tarn in London to a British father and American mother, she grew up in Paris and London. Upon inheriting her father's fortune at age 21, she emigrated permanently to France. In Paris, her dress and lifestyle were as notorious as her verse. She lived lavishly as an open lesbian, sometimes dressing in men's clothes, while harboring a lifelong obsession for her closest childhood friend, Violet Shillito (a relationship that apparently remained unconsummated). Her obsession with violets led to Vivien being called the "Muse of the Violets." But in 1900 Vivien abandoned this chaste love to engage in a public affair with the American writer and heiress Natalie Clifford Barney. The following year Shillito died of typhoid fever, a tragedy from which Vivien never fully recovered. Vivien later had a relationship with a baroness to whom she considered herself to be married, even though the baroness had a husband and children. During her adventurous life, Vivien indulged in alcohol, drugs, fetishes and sadomasochism. But she grew increasingly frail and by the time of her death she weighed only 70 pounds, quite possibly dying from the cumulative effects of anorexia, alcoholism and drug abuse.

Keywords/Tags: Renee Vivien, lesbian, gay, LBGT, love, love and art, French, translation, translations, France, cross-dresser, symbolic, symbolist, symbolism, image, images, imagery, metaphor, metamorphose, metaphysical

I
And suddenly it is mid-October,
Everything is ablaze with color, all of the leaves
Are descending, the air is comfortably cool,
The sun reminds me of the approaching equinox,
The earth is standing still, it’s lovely, enchanting,
The scent of fresh apples engulfs me, hello autumn.

II
Gourds grace our front doorstep, autumn,
Don’t you love them, don’t you love October,
The way the leaves crunch, their demises are enchanting,
But did they ever die, I don’t know, they are just leaves,
But they are autumn, they hug the equinox,
Love its embrace, its temperature drop, so cool.

III
Where are my sweaters, it’s getting cool,
But I’m not worried, it’s only autumn,
It’s only a Halloween equinox,
Time is changing, it is still October,
But things are changing, even the leaves,
The fire is fading, but it’s still enchanting.

IV
Hello autumn, have you seen the leaves?
Hello October, are you ready for the equinox?
Prepare for enchanting colors and temperatures cool.

The poor are blessed.
Those that hunger are blessed.
Those that cries are blessed.

Those that feels hated, are blessed.
Those that demises others, are blessed.

Except, it's up to us to mirror an image way above this earth.

One good deed has a mutiple of rewards to  come.
Just one good deed showcases your love.

When you're in high spirit.
You are blessed.
When you feel you undeserving.
You are blessed.

We find many of times that our luck is around the corner.

We must believe, we are blessed.
Just to be loved.

‘The Problem to be explored: The Problem of Abundance:’


Nothing lasts anymore, nothing seems meaningful anymore, nothing feels wanted anymore,

Except for the already lost and gone, and can’t be retrieved.

It seems everything is given without being asked for.

You’ll only notice something when it's not there:


Perhaps:


“My cup must be empty once again in order to receive.”


I have suddenly forgotten where I have just heard

This being said in a prayer but I think it is the key, the answer

To the needless and senseless suffering of our herd

But, its truth stuck with me, and I too wonder


I too think I must be silent again to allow the singing once more

I too think I must become the void to welcome the replenishing wave

Of excitement

Of the need to climb while weighed down by life’s

Various impossibilities, and mystery

And not float thus, away

Fallen to the what Milan Kundera

Described perfectly in his title:

“The Unbearable Lightness of Being”


Our cup runneth over, and we are left to wander

With the grains of time, and consciousness

Escaping through our desperate fingers

As we rush towards a mirage of permanence

While scorching our feet on the sand and deserts  

Burnt by an ever more present sun

And the tedium of golden overabundance


Ancient wisdom dictates that:


“What is useful is not the cup,

But the void that’s ready to receive

The already full need no more

And its further worth deceives”


“Reunion of too long must not last

Separation is inevitable

Separation will always be short-lived

Reunion is unavoidable”


Now, that’s some wisdom to heed

The Union of Lovers will need




‘The Problem of Too Much Goodness’




We are always questioning the Problem of Evil

While too few words lend to the Terror of Good


Everything is living longer and longer

Yet

Everything is dying quicker and quicker


It really is “the best of times”

It really is “the worst of times”

While

Our flesh savours a never before longevity

Our soul is aging rapidly at an alarming rate


This is A Tale of Two Realities:


Where Time is both a child

With an almost non-existent attention span

And the world its vast endless sandbox

A toy is too quickly loved and so immediately

Discarded

Where Time is also senile

With an almost non-existent memory reserve

With the ancient past constantly retold in nostalgia

And the immediate events of rapid currents

Dissipated


There are still so much hunger and terror in

The modern world

Of course, the well-fed, warless, and unmarked

are being overlooked


But there is a hidden, yet imminent gloom

A spectre hanging above the peaceful and full:




‘The Problem of the Need to be Desired’




We are beings made with one innate desire

To climb, to reach a height ever higher

And one day

Above all


Throughout history,

There has always been way too much

Obstacles

For the mass to reach the summit

And now,

It seems that the summit itself is built

By a stack of the masses

So many of us are great

That none of us is great

Therefore, so quickly forgotten

And replaced by others in

Time


Speaking of time,

Or rather, our conscious

Awareness of change

It seems to be overused,

Weary and

DYING

As a dying old man in mind

Resembles a stubborn child

Our Collective Temporal Consciousness

Is thus

So forgetful like a senile being

And

Losing interest so quickly like an infant


Our cup, our mind is so full

That not only our flesh has become

That of gluttons complaining the

Blandness of an abundance of food

Our soul is also yearning for the

Quiet performance and desirability

Only a lack of supply could supply


So, in effect, GOODNESS

Or WELLNESS

Have somehow oversupplied

Itself till

It is almost worthless to

Some



What is there to reach

If so many have already found

The Summit of Everything?

That we are among the masses

Again?

And, what about those that have

Risen above THE MASS

So early in their life

That to them, there is only space

To fall?


In the past,

We were all so close to the pit

The Pit of Darkness

The Pit of Death

In our climb

That we hold on to every branch

For dear life

No matter how many stones

Fall on us

We look down upon the void

And the black

Abyss

And will always

Sink our nails deeper

Into the earth

Just to stay alive

And still,

To no avail

So quickly,

We all fall

To pitied, and

Dearly treasured and mourned

Demise


And,

Now,

For the hurt

And the healed

And the unmarked

Life marches on mercilessly

Indifferent to us

The bodies crawling and crouching

Upon the desert of abundance

Row upon row

Chased by the sandstorm

That will soon catch up to us

And sweep over all


Where will it take us,

And what before then?


What would cure and stop

This perpetual climb that will

Always place those on top

At the bottom of this crushing hill




The Possible Solutions:




‘How will we quench the thirst of Height?’


We did not witness THE BIRTH OF TIME

We cannot halt THE AGING OF TIME

We cannot know what comes after

THE DEATH OF TIME

But we desperately need a constant climb


Here, we see the Gates to Two Routes


One leading towards the Tangible

Garden of Men

One leading towards the Unseeable

Temple of Worship


There is no right or wrong way to either

However, how you spend your time

Within each

Will determine your plight during  

The time before the True Flight


Pace yourself in your walk through

The Garden of Men

Though there is an abundance of fruits

You must calculate and ration

Your own sustainable share of

Good and Evil

Enjoyment and Suffering

So you don’t exhaust the reserve

Or become weary till nausea

Of the sweetness of being


If you must seek to rise up above all

Your climb must be timed till the very end

Where you will never be crushed by the fall

On the Rota Fortunae, before you inevitably land


The Supply and Demand of Good and Evil

Must be balanced even if by the hands of men

Lest the world turn to well-rested upheaval

When even gold is as abundant as sand


Then, there is the Pave to the Promised Land

Where lost souls of ****** hunger find

Their means to an end, their helping hand

Where fulfilled bodies of lost souls and minds

Pleads to have their invisible suffering end


I used to think that Grace lives in humility

But I see even the Truth appeals to the nature,

Foolish frailty and vanity of all women and men

How do you tell the beings of imminent demises

That this earthly supply and demand of status

Is worthless in the end in a paradise without ends

Where there is no fall for a fear to plummet and land

But to say the weakest of earth

Must be the strongest of heavens

The least of the timely and impermanent possessions

Will be the most in the place after the ultimate ascension


Not to imprison our desire for greatness

But to set it free and follow the lofty dove and olive branch

Knowing that the great height is achieved by humility

To take the fall and suffering and rise in the Eternal Land




Conclusion:




The painful truth is,

And truth must hurt through the bones,

And ache seasonally to not be forgotten

There must be a Supply and Demand of Good and Evil

By our humble minds or divine hands

For honesty to be wanted, and prized

And not worthless like the ocean sand

Lest we become weary of virtue and crave for its end


There are solutions for all,

For those who put faith in life

And

For those who put faith in an afterlife


Simply, though,

It is ever difficult

Just to pace your climb

Either to reach the summit at the end of your life

Or just to leave the height to the ever lofty place without time.

Where you’ll never fall to a late demise

And be crushed by the Rota Fortunae

Where even the stars would envy

The brilliance of your

Light

we get high on playground sets
without a scrape or bruise
masters of hiding seek, we got nothin else to lose
shining like gold stars, empty as outer space
too young to tell time, so anywheres the right place
guard up taking shots in the rooms we learned to walk in
glassy eyes on the dresser prayin no ones gonna walk in
grew up without a past, time movin way too fast for us
threw out all our watches close your eyes take a drag with us
down the ***** streets playin hop scotch and jump rope
red rovers long gone like we're too lost to come home
backyards blowin dro, fast cars, slow-motion
no parents no phones light up with no emotions
what happened to sleep overs or long nights alone
without repressed conflicts sparking up a bowl

this neighborhood isnt big enough for adventures

this surburban paradise is slowly wasting away
with our old childhood games
the playground is rusting, our jumpropes are gone
the lady who gave us snickers on halloween has passed on
like the lightning bugs we caught in jars
the only thing that hasnt changed are the perfectly manicured lawns
hiding our demises in a cinderella jewelry box

i could tell you stories that have mystery and ******
the hero solves the crime and gets the girl
he brings order to the world

i could tell you tales of woe with villains of so tragic
you'll watch your back when you think no one's around

stories for you
with a twist of plot and a happy ending too
protagonists and catalysts
and villains who's untimely demises are surely not to be missed
tragedy as shakespeare would have wished

stories for you
with the star-crossed lovers that make you feel brand new
listen to the stories
all for you

observed in
our empty lots,
italicthere's still the timeitalic
to plot
our demises in the eyes
of our own ****** lovers
italicas they slowly beginitalic
in catching
our drifting lies
that we've so carefully hidden
italicthroughoutitalic
our over-planned
and our over-justified
senseless lives.
italicyet, we give themitalic
a purpose
for the time that we fill
with self-dulling
italicideasitalic
and our own
revelations
of this
italicidealistic fantasy.italic
we've fantasized for fun.

Except for family members.
Where most of us just be ourselves?
We actors of the world?
We, who pretends to like our enemies?
Does so to keep them close?

We, who demises liars?
Stay a step ahead to cover us.

We venture through our daily journey
not bent on hurting anyone.
We do have a defense system that on a given moment.
Will come to the defense of us.

Like a comedian seeking laughters.
When the joke doesn't deserve one.
We slightly laugh.
Or question's the ones that does.
We actors of the world.
Not seeking to win any type awards.

We see politicians tear one another down.
Then the losing candidate smile like their was no harm done.
After they have dug up dirt to embarass many innocent ones.

Yes, we of humanity.
Are the true actors of the world

Oh, here they go again.
Debating as enemies then like friends.
Oh, we listen.
We fight for each side.
While surrounding our truth in their lies.

And, we watch one numbers rises in the polls.
While in general even those numbers are planted.
Least in someway slanted.

It's the great debate.
Where candidates works to determine our fate?
Notice those that smart.
Think they know.
When those that demises liars.
Know they right.
When it comes to the great debate.

We vote.
We argue.
And we adjust to the winner.
Even , if we don't see truth in any of them.

O, but the gracious pardons
do give leave for weary sin...
Or do make way for lovers departed,
to solely bare the weight within?!

Strangely thought one man can face a crisis,
but one man does all he can...
Until his foolishness arises;
surely you'd think, one would've had a plan!
O, how folly of me and of my dream...
As it slowly demises!

Beloved oblivion!

A.r. Bazian
*Written in 2010

a scream of soul-
I DARE TO DREAM

encourage
discouraging
COURAGE.

my days gone by you do not know,
you do not know what i have seen!
so when i whisper in your ear
the truth about a moment

"i dare to dream, i dare to dream"-
i scream!
into the starless void.

then out of darkness there arises,
the iris star of past demises-
gone!
gone with the scream,

vibrations scare the dark away
so only real dreamers will stay-
for who are they,

but beacons of vibration,
of hope for realization?

observed in
our empty lots,
there's still the time
to plot
our demises in the eyes
of our own ****** lovers
as they slowly begin
in catching
our drifting lies
that we've so carefully hidden
throughout
our over-planned
and our over-justified
senseless lives.
yet, we give them
a purpose
for the time that we fill
with self-dulling
ideas
and our own
revelations
of this
idealistic fantasy.
we've only fantasized for fun.

Spring Blossoms, Flowers Bloom
It's the start of season's beginnings,
And the end of winter dooms.

The beginnings of life
Terminations of death.
The birth of many loves
As well as its demises
The peace is subsiding
And war is dawning.

For in the fields of nature
Every blade of grass,
Every flower pedal,
Counts for every minuscule effect
That nature has on our mind's eye.
But every ray of light
And all the drops of rain
Mark the rise and fall of life
And the journeys within.

there is something in the daily fluorescence of grocery stores that gets to me like falling apart on bathroom floors and getting screamed at by angry fathers just does not
because they have not witnessed demises like mine but they have witnessed endings of careers
lost children
the breaking of more glasses than i have hearts
and there is something comforting in reveling in the very essence of a place that has witnessed both destruction
and change in a way that results in grocery store labyrinths
being all too similar to the twisting and turning of my head.

Worrier of the world
We reap what we sow
Forget the answers to
questions once asked
Plea for forgiveness
Holding on tightly,
As if it were our last
Clinging to the brink of death
We remember to forget
We remember to forget
You can’t escape the inevitable
It won’t last
We get lost in metaphors
and allegories and rhymes
None of which make any sense
History repeats itself everyday
We remember to forget
We remember to forget
The blinding bridges
The winding pathways
That led us to demises
we never knew existed
Before reality hit us
Like a ton of bricks
hidden in a sock
We’re all lost, lost
In a tangled web of all the lies
we've been told
The eyes we peered into
Weren't the windows to the soul
But an open doorway
To secret realms we had
yet to explore
We raged fires on and on
Into the dead of night
We remember to forget
We remember to forget
What future truly lies ahead
For all of us, we’re borrowers of time
leaking off the mysterious invisible clock
The hands are broken, and we simply forgot
All that ever was, will eventually be lost
Never to be found again, buried so deeply
Bulldozers will be summoned to unearth  
The secrets we shoveled into the ground
Some long lost years ago
We remember to forget
We remember to forget
So we can all rest peacefully
when we finally lose our heads.
© 2014 Christina Jackson

There's a lot of thought that goes into three simple words.
You learn them when you are young but the gravity of using them correctly haunts you into adulthood.
In english these are words that you would use to describe a parent or a tree and the meaning doesn't really change but the weight these words hold are different now than they were when you meant then towards a relative or an inanimate object.

you love her... and the scary thing is this idea that she might love you too. and that scares the hell out of you because you have thought you have loved in the past but those other loves have all proven how shallow they truly were and yet you choose to use those same words again to express these new feelings.

Feelings so profound that you swear that this time this is the real deal that you have never felt to intensely about anything before and you think that you never will feel anything so intense ever again. but somewhere there is just enough room for doubt.

maybe you have flelt this before in a more pure and potent form but you take a leap of faith in hopes that while it may not be today but one day you'll know that this is the genuine article...

But yeah maybe it's not... and that scares you but a holy man once told you that without faith love cannot be known and so you believe as hard as you can that this is love... the same love that drove romeo and juliet to their untimely demises and broke kingdoms long before their times...

You don't want this to be a lie... you want to love her with all of your heart... and yeah it'll be hard to do that... but you can do it... keep trying...

I know what you'r thinking.  Oh, I can't believe that little girl did that; she was so sweet, I wonder what went wrong, blah, blah blah... I can see it in your eyes.  high-pitched laughter.  Yes, I killed those girls.  But they deserved it.  They had gifts.  The actress, the singer, the model, the dancer, the painter, the musician, and the writer.  They were all so talented.  And they didn't appreciate any of it!  They took all of it for granted!!!  Now, now look at me.  I'm nothing compared to them.  A good singer, but never the best.  Pretty, but never the prettiest.  Smart, but never the smartest!  I was doing them a favor.  I was doing everyone a favor!

But by doing this.  I'm finally good at something.  I'm finally known for something.  I won't call this a gift that I take for granted.  I won't be like those girls.  I don't take this granted. pause  But wait, I'm not done yet, I would like to request to go on with my story, and reasons, and I would also request you wipe that look off your face.  I'm not crazy.  I was just jealous, and sad, and angry.

Now, I won't go into details about each of their similar, tragically beautiful demises, I would imagine you already know how that all went.  I just need to know that you know that I was doing something for the good of everyone.  Hell, this was for the good of the world.  It's just like anything anyone else would do.  Just to make a statement.  Isn't that why people do anything anymore?

Hey!  Where are you going?!  You can't walk away just because you're disgusted!  You can't try to make yourself different from me!!!

we belong to the starving places, the broken places,
the screaming, shattered, hallucinated alleys
of blood and smoke and demons of shuddering righteousness.
floating lovers running high and poison-drunk
into doorways and neonic windows crying out
for absinthe and holy, holy benzedrine
in glazed teacups of library cafés.
demonic siren-songs,
shrieking car alarms in afternoon machineries,
when all the righteous are sleeping
and the chosen come out to scream
in front of shutters closed down to the ******.

vibrations from the drilling drilling drilling
into the pavements of greying rain-tears and rainbowed gasoline
spilled carelessly from engines
releasing rotten and evil from the deepness of the earth.
those righteous-shutters blow half open
in the madness of waxing moon-winds.

beautiful, beautiful darkness,
beautiful, beautiful damnation,
golden deception,
golden lucifer,
golden hell,
golden lights straying off pathways of dark-deep forests,
golden souls in eager rivers of underworlds,
golden addiction,
golden smiles of torture,
golden wheels of death and birth
and dying, dying, dying for the darkness,
dying with blood running purple
into the indigo road- drains of night,
reflecting golden constellations and golden lamp-posts
and the golden windows of empire state and the l-train.

scream, scream, scream into your indigo death.
fearful, ground-sleeping, six feet forgotten,
fires below, regret above, redemption and tears from the righteous
with their closed windows far above the bodies now.

those starving places belong to us.
the dumpster-fainted concussions,
the vomited acids of last night’s drunken affairs in amber side-streets,
the hollow-eyed babies born out of terror and war
and atomic demises of love and perforated money,
those flawlessly created youths with their drugged immortality
shining broken-skinned from out of their eyes and mouths
those nothing-brained men of poetry and heavenly visions,
those meilleurs esprits,
those wanton dreamers of scotch and rosé
and pure ethanol gulped from glassware,
burning throats and minds and talent
and running genius into drains
with the purple blood of the dying.
the starving places belong to the starving,
and the starving belong to their indigo deaths.

there is dancing the the downpour,
and sadness in the sun.

there is calmness in the uproar,
and misery in all the fun.

there is black in all the white,
and grays between the colors

there is serenity in each fright,
and betrayal between two brothers.

for life is not two roads diverged,
or false dichotomies.
life will slap you in the face
and bring you to your knees

but life will help you rise again
before your drop back down
and life will bring you endless love,
and force your lips to frown.

life is full of the best of gifts,
and the worst surprises .
the secret is learning all the tricks,
and expecting it's demises.

for life can only cause such pain
to those who will allow.
for those few souls who play the game,
nirvana, you have found.

tonight
i placed the sheets over my head
no light
black
black
but my eyes were open
watching
wide
imagining,
seeing things that i shouldn't
my brain drawing
up
demises for my life that can't be stopped.

songs
do not calm me down.
only the brutality
of screaming into my pillow
and crying so hard
that
my eyes hurt and swell and
ache
when they slowly blink afterwards
calms me down
because after that,
i have nothing else to give.
i have no energy left
no emotions
no more excess feelings
that have built up over the day
or days
or week
that need to be set free.

i would love to die
i would like
to go to the top of a hotel
or an apartment building in the busy city
the lit city
the bustling city that's moving
too fast for me
when it's warm at night and dark
gray
in the sky
stars twinkling
my eyes gazing,
swiping over the constellations i do not know.
i would like to sit there
and listen to a sad, simple song on
repeat for
years.
i would like to sit there
on the ledge
for so long that my fear of heights is no more
so i have time
to reminisce
to think
to
to close my eyes
and remember.

i would want the gray night to last forever
i would want to slip into
a universe
where it's always that way.
listening to my song,
swinging my feet over the ledge
as i remember
my family members' faces
the stupid things i've done
my mistakes
my accomplishments
the good
the bad
the significant
how i was loved

and then try to forget,
but fail.

and then jump

and hear the simple song still playing in my head as i fall
cutting through the atmosphere
hear it through the wind screaming in my ear.

and

over

over

it will be over

and that

is how i'd enjoy dying.


under the weeping stars

and

grimacing moon

on the cracked,

stained,

littered

sidewalk

with a beautiful song in my mind

and

beautiful faces as well.

I hear them come quick
in short little fits.
Tainted bursts lifted out of lungs thick with poison.

Deal with this.
"Yo, pass that ****."
Glide through mists of green grass, red brick, and grey stone.

This is not my backyard.

"Please stay with me so I'm not all alone."
Pale fingers on a quest to make contact with skin.
"I'm so overwhelmed, I don't know where to begin."
I'm never going back home again.
It doesn't even exist.

She says there's a system.
God made all the rules and set it in motion,
then calmly walked away
to leave us to our own devices (enterprises, surprises, demises)
Come what may.

"There's a philosopher who said that some people spend too much time playing with the meaning of objects in their heads. It can get to a point where nothing makes any sense, and they go crazy. Some of these people find a way to describe it, and they're known as poets."

The moon knows better than anyone,
with her sly smile reflected off the lake,
and all that light stolen from the sun.

"Do you know what I wish?"
No, and please, don't finish.
We are far from being done.
Let's not end it before we've begun.

This is my backyard.

If I'm just a zero,
then you are the one.