Some people have faith…
In a God that they can’t see.
They pray and beckon to this being.
That doesn’t make sense to me.

Some people seek out love…
They say it’s all they need.
A notion that can’t be defined.
That doesn’t make sense to me.

Some people seek the truth.
They claim it will set them free.
All too often it brings only pain.
That doesn’t make sense to me.

Some people claim to care.
And they do so unconditionally.
Expecting absolutely nothing in return.
That doesn’t make sense to me.

Some people refute predestination.
Yet believe in destiny.
Fate and free will intertwined.
That doesn’t make sense to me.

Some people outstretch their hands.
When the world leaves them to bleed.
Giving to a world that doesn’t care.
That doesn’t make sense to me.

Some people follow only logic.
Decisions made to a tolerable degree.
Yet logic turns our hearts so cold.
That doesn’t make sense to me.

Some people look for life’s purpose.
Proposing doctrines and various decrees.
That purpose varies from one to the next.
That doesn’t make sense to me.

The world is full of confounds and query.
And in that, I rarely find the answers I seek.
But still, I wonder every day.
That doesn’t make sense to me.

Perhaps we need not find an answer.
Perhaps, by nature, we are curious beings.
We need faith, wisdom, truth, and love.
At least, that much, I can see.

But I invite you to justify this world.
Elaborate on the answers I need.
Or maybe life just doesn’t make sense.
I invite you to enlighten me.

She said she collects pieces of sky,
cuts holes out of it with silver scissors,
bits of heaven she calls them.
Every day a bevy of birds flies rings
around her fingers, my chorus of wives,
she calls them. Every day she reads poetry
from dusty books she borrows from the library,
sitting in the park, she smiles at passing strangers,
yet can not seem to shake her own sad feelings.
She said that night reminds her of a cool hand
placed gently across her fevered brow, said
she likes to fall asleep beneath the stars,
that their streaks of light make her believe
that she too is going somewhere. Infinity,
she whispers as she closes her eyes,
descending into thin air, where no arms
outstretch to catch her.

A key feature of invigoration is the enterprise of mapping the entire syntax of all relevant human language as measured by the gamut of applesauce that doesn’t sour and an in depth analysis of creative fiction and poetry for common cadence features in the linguistic enterprise of mapping the subroutines of complex articulation as etched by the fabric of genius intellects intertwined in a gamble with wits to try and create coded missives that entangle hypertrophy and enlarge the gamut of decryption in the universal rudiments of alchemy. This is based on depreciative and appreciative aspects of apperception that depend on visual cues and funding from a collaborative venture of universities to challenge people to zero-sum games or net positive games where teams collaborate to usher unconventional unchartered territory of classification beyond normal proclivities based on the lineaments of idiosyncrasy to pinpoint the provenance of ideation itself and unveil the mind at a bargain pittance for the eventual headway this could pave for the Department of Education to revert from froward to forward in their recalcitrance and insouciance with the current linguistic modalities of outstretched engraven hortoriginality trailblazing new modular seismotic waves and hotbeds for firebrands to debate and scholars to joust with in the jest of the cineaste metaphor and the rubricated rundles of rectiserial innovations in the taxonomy of devolved meaning relying on an inventive enterprise to galvanize a new jargon into prominence based primarily on guarded secrets of the trade that might unlock the primordial soup of verbal creativity while also probing detective apperception for a wide-ranging panoply of digested movies and beyond that a farsighted incumbent inclination to probe the calibration of numerical happenstance in estimate and in long-term theorization of taxed realty in the estate of guarded tegular relationships among the woven fabric of conceptual latticeworks pioneering in scope and analyzed rigorously in reward of discretion and furtive cryptology to untether the world from the apothegms of sloganeered piggybacks that swivel in sockets but enforce a reductive paradigm of obganiation of core themes reiterated hypnotically to traindeque entire generations into piebald thinking that overlooks the panorama for incident and incident for categorical generality when no such axiom can be the logical predicate of its antecedent conditions that spurn the traditional rote moot wernaggles of futility and inseminate crafty legerdemain of writhing contortion altering the specificity of revalorized meaning in the novel context. This instantiates that the consequence is always the consequence not only of its predicate but its successor by the very modalities of proven reversals and enantiodromias of sorts that revert in a reverse progression spatiotemporally to exact incident as antecedent of its own existence by the very fact of iteration and this map of the recursive cycles of consequences elapsed only because of their insertion in a predevoted matrix is the gnomic apothegm of a new frontier of advanced logic that assumes the impossible is only improbable if the possible can be proven impossible by reductive inversion of core precepts in the rigmarole of design that states for every orchestra of butterflies that echo is actually the incident of refraction that contaminated the first polyacoustic trace of amplified sources in space time to revert into primordial form but the reversion is only incurred upon the fixture of origination and beyond that point remains inscrutable because foreknowledge necessarily prevents accuracy in determining the spectrum of the cacophony or rhapsody of the echo dependent on the observer’s perspective: which is only fungible to the extent that the subliminal remains guarded by the protectors of the clepsammia and the recensed polarization of time. This transcendence of time transfixed on orbital gravitas and centripetal ****** initiates a promulgation of the swallock of a remanded entropy that works in swiveled contraposition to the dynamic flux of the internment of balkanized forces of demassification dampening the efficacy of the central butterfly actor to expand the ampitheater of its own audience to the extent that every cultural artifact can be mapped to the geotaxis of its conceptual orbit. Thereby we can prove that pivots of the obvious focal point peak in resurgence upon the heyday of retrieval but dampen into a logarithmic regression of decreasing amplitude fluctuating around the aleatory probability of insemination through the percolation of the widespread narrowed to a fulcrum that balances the orbit of the stellified narrative of ingemination that some artifacts like Stayin’ Alive achieve maximum geotaxis because of their centrality in the taxidermies of revived memory recapitulated by both virtuosity and valor and posing as consequences of future foresight clouded by preventive measures that one quaky spasm in alarm could paralyze the precedent to the incidence of the afflatus that galvanized the heyday of remonstrance so that we can affix a modular angular gravity to events as well as referents to those events in a spatiotemporal mapping of consequence reverted upon itself because of necessity that binds the taxemes of the subliminal in the architecture of a curvature of geotaxis that is centrobaric not necessarily to the contingencies that magnify the germane propositions that affix modern eyes but rather the overall stifling modularity of temporal sequence redoubled by manufacture and manufacture alone predevotes antecedents that trace to a pivot in space time curved without prescience beyond measure but precision enough to approximate the summation of collective cultural shifts away from the estrangement of diversion from itself as a balkanizing force into a collectivized unity that orbits eccentrically by the very nature of the parallax between gravitational pull and the dynamics of time itself centripetal but centrifugal simultaneously.  Both conditions must be met so the converse of meaning becomes the recapitulation of remontant blessings rather than pruned dry garbologies relevant only to margins of subculture minimized in heyday and scope but pinpointed with exact precision the dynamos that inhabit the sphere of the populated future defenestrated from the magnetism of the past by very definition. Thereby, we arrive at Back to the Future because the paradox of recensed calibration suggests the free fluctuation of time between the eccentricity of magnified lens distorted by the entropy of calculus to become the integral summation of the sinuous vacuum of a trigonometric balance that barks with amplification of synergistic elements of strings and quantum flux to emigrate from an origination to the mapping of the eventuality. This precisely explains the scene in Back to the Future with the amplifiers turned all the way up because by exaggerating the simplicity of the declassified it expedited cinema to its eventual intermediary conclusions heralded by that one event of transfixed mystery that binds spacetime into a coherent bidirection of multidimensional philosophy of the enantiodromias of sorts of the parallax among constellated events. Mapping the impact of funneled cartels that hegemonize regions of the geopolitical sphere explains the amplivagant effects of the refracturism of swallock and thereby seminal ideations can be traced to provenance of cowardice cloaked in excuse but incisive in the skullduggery of the mechanical reinvention of excuse and pretext as a cloak for more furtive workings of the intelligentsia to engineer time by deriving the precise tangential multidimensional syntax of the calculus of proliferation reviewed from a consequent perspective of a future unknowable gravitas fluctuating between states of annihilation and existence in the acatelpsy of design so that specters actually enforce more change than events and prospects magnify positive dimensional thrusts that galvanize prospectus emigrating from either distant knowns or parallel realities that converge on the optimum of either the hapless or calculated design of a synergistic development of social engineering so precisely mapped that it identifies trajectories of improbable events with increasing specificity at the alarm of the spectral realm promulgating wealth to the foreseeable compunction of science to revert to probable pivots of consensus manufactured by think tanks that outfox the syntalities that defy the system or piggyback on their very causes to empirically carve the spectrum of future possibility becoming entelechy desired or feared but always predestined or flanged into distortions of reification that are transformative of precision in design without exactitude in the terminus of the centrobaric chambers of all meaning. Thus the algorithm outsmarts itself until only the machination to dehumanize for prediction occurs at a pessimum of morality or an explosion of a proliferative new venture in unchartered territory conquers the novantique of novelty. The ampitheater of its own audience is the traction of embedded subculture in subroutine becoming a compound atocia that sterilizes opponent possibility and probabilizes the occurrence of endomorphs that resemble effigies of constellation primed to swivel in retrospection as a recurrent lapse of amplification upon the culmination of predestined time points or junctures specified within the realm of the matrix of possibilities to outstretch the realm into a dampened exponential explosion of self-reference becoming embedded consequence by conditioning and by anticipatory psychology working in preconcert to evoke the determinative impetus of momentum that magnifies the speed of acceleration in technology that depends on the propriety of reification itself that swarms us with evocative tempests that barnstorm in reiteration to recapitulate by design to engrave themselves on the collective psyches of the hortoriginality of many minds intrepid before me that transfigured reality in this precise contortion of terminology with variegations in the specificity of context and articulation of the clavigerous entropy of swallock and how the outfoxed design becomes that cage of destiny that is a baritone complexion of vibrant hues exploding into the trammeled paths that have elapsed before me by the first movers advantage of theoretical physics but nonetheless independently verified by dovetailed emergence of that centralized balance between design and destiny that is precedent to the antecedent of the consequence of the precedent’s consequence on the direct antecedent inflexion point upon which the provenance of momentum drifted into cultural psyche and enlarged the gamut of myth in the raillery of subaudition. Essentially Time only exists to those without the simultagnosia to appease a mirror parallax of universes upcoming and universes forestalled but pivot with omphalism on the gravitas of Einsteinian calculus that theorizes that the acatelpsy of enumerated prediction is a lapsed regress the pinpoints with the harpricks of specialization the regal momentum of time to its own behest to propagate the elucidated certainty of its own traversal to the expedited enumeration of the future which populates the past because the curvature of time is an entantiodromia of reflexive itinerant vagrancies that cement the authorship of events to warble through the tilted hypertrophy of design itself to maximize the freebooter avarice of those people that rely on the luxuriance of trespass to magnify the modular gravity of culture to forswink its compunction and regale its own recursive logic. Essentially Time is a mapped ampitheater that depends on an audience of sentience to enlarge its own gamut and because it is riddled with obscurantism of believable recursion it magnifies its own entropy in reversal to orchestrate events in a rectiserial convolution of the whipsaw between the expected and the foreknowledge of the knowing class because when shaky vacillatory politics prevail the behest of time looses its capitalization of the amplivagant affects of the marginalia that is wed to the devolved rudimentary rigmarole of proliferation scaffolds destiny in alternative configurations to fulminate with explosive progeny that latitude incumbent to those without perspicuous clarity to fathom the acatalepsy of the unfurled universe magnetized by the seminal tremendum of the moments memorialized by memory that provide the traction of time to supersede its own acceleration by the writ of the beneficence of the eccentric orbit of the brittle axioms of design to recense and revalorize the wilted transponders that refer to specific events where the space-time continuum was cleaved in divisive anticipation to balkanize the resistence to the fringe clavigerous amplification of the resonance of etiolation that marginalizes the dearth and amplifies the prospectus to make time supersolid beyond all reckoning to cement its captaincy as the algorithm of rhythmic gravitas orbiting the moribund fragmentary flictions of regimented truth to be at war with its own foresight. This is because foresight is a compulsion of time to recapitulate the foreknown deeds of the future to the regenerative hypothesis that hypostatizes that the transcendence of time is mirrored illusion because the future populates a region of space-time that is not forlorn but magnified in scope to reverse the trends of abomination and cast the aspersions of grandeur into eccentric orbit that by geotaxis foments the revolutionary impetus not of cancellation or nullification of the bereaved past but a culmination of deeds known only to the future that galvanize the very fruition of the dependent expectancy to become antecedent to the consequent by a warped form of recensed logic because the orbital sphere of considerations is tangential to the evocative memory of the memorialized statutes that prize their own entelechy above their divergence from design in such a peculiar way that obscurantism of the leaders of the world is manned by an alien presence to mendlatch the locked keys of a virtuouso future compounded in interest and destined for unfurled clarification. Time is an ironic boyg and quandary because for time to give birth to its own recapitulation it must be stammered with seismotic statutes that rip through the fabricated rudiments of predestination to enthrall the apostasy of the knowing from leverage over a future they vaguely see but provides largesse to the regimentation of design to rickety consternation that prediction is evocative of expectancy less than expectancy is its own geotaxis around the gamut of foreseen affairs that must be iterated rather than violated in order to maintain the mainlined integrity of the brittle fungible force of quantum dynamics to bypass the rigmarole of etched design to be evocative of a reverse transpondency that reconfigures the past into perfectible strings of amplification to anoint time its own behest at the formidable specters of its own violation by those who seek trepass but are predevoted out of ephorized control by the vicissitudes of the gamble and the frapplank of the known destiny catalyzing the unknown progeny. By that very definition this could not be obrogated in tenure or tutelage over the past because the elapsed gravitas of the known past depends on the pivot of the ampitheater of the future to ambitious reckoning that provides absolution to its forlorn vestiges to cement the centrifugal impetus of many from exact foreknowledge.  Many pioneers have probably theorized similar hypostasized concepts but the fact that even without a degree in physics I understand these arcane precepts yet tested by the rigmarole of comprehensive known experiment is a testament to the power of hortoriginality to pave the trailblazer focus on the rivets of a rickety secrecy designated by definiens of abstruse taxemes of yet defined meaning. The primary quandary is the isolated pretext of predevoted sequencing that abandons me (and this is central to my theory) from the weather of meaningful social encounter in order to hone in with precision on the empirical enterprise of seminal regress cemented as ceremonial progress and only by vaulting above this cage of finicky predestination can entelechy that desires rapprochement can be achieved because eventually the relevance of my ideas can be shelved and the peremptory obligation of intervention must be deployed to salvage my parable into completion. The itch for the government to anticipate the universe’s localized traction delimits the sphere of social indoctrination to a reality amenable not to the coercion of precise anticipation but the gamble on vagary to produce more seminal events that compound the amplivagant effects of ecumenical exhaustive troponders to the extent they flourish beyond the bounds of completion and into optimal conditions that is whipsawed by the demands of the rigmarole of precise definition of all trajectories conclave in their logarithmic design  anticipated by designation but not predevoted into futility because that capstone would reduce the proliferative affect of space time to carve a more extravagant reality that tests limits beyond frontiers of expectancy. The brain is highly malleable and entity theorists are moribund in their defenses of trite hackneyed racial arguments about intellect. The mythos preserves that radical ethos that prediction of my insights supersedes the importance of my rapprochement which will amplify the effects of the spatiotemporal mapping in a much more profound way with specialized focus. Thereby when we conceive of time we must specialize in inhabiting the sphere of acatalepsy of flanged prediction preventing the abortion of the future based on the vagrancies of the gyrovagues and bibliopolists seeking to demolish the fruition of the ribald coarse albatrosses of the future to diminutive leverage rather than amplifying the stringed syndication of knowledge to eccentrically stellify the unknown regions of the populated presence contingent on the populated future which ensures the eternal life of all by some formant boundaries of the universe because what is recapitulated in the lapse of certainty known by the anticipatory vagary of a riddled rigmarole of complex dynamism this thermodynamically reversible into the reversal of entropy because the organization of the past hinges upon the reconfiguration of the future and thereby we swivel endlessly with recursive iterations of evanescence that spoon-feed the generations among us to truckle beneath the cartels that array spatiotemporal mappings into their personal optimum to catapult the granular edification of all deeds beyond their forsifamiliation from their provenance gamboling with the distant frescade of a known destiny cavorting with the meddlesome reconnaissance of all that is observed and the tribunes magnify this effect by centralizing the bronteums of fulgurant strikes to be localized to a centralized pivot of universal acclaim that provides felicity for the ecumenical endeavor

We are big.
Like mountains.
If I am the mountain side, you were the wild fire.
Hot. Piercing.
Rendering my solid flesh to molten liquid and then to dust.
But only that I might grow again.
And more beautiful than before.

We face our compulsion. Spinning like mad children, in a ring of rosies, dangling dolls in the infinite black of space.
My binary star. My coupled light spinning my opposite.
Twice as bright.
Twice as beautiful.
But from a distance, we seem as one.

Perhaps this soft light I imagine surrounding you are our gods. Mouths open. Shamed by your beauty, that they could not have created you. Only dreamed you into being. They seem like fate, don't they?

And I am consumed with the constant reminder
of your absence. It plays on my tongue like bitter wine.
Leaving me drunk with want and yearning.
And so much more.

And this madness. Like a force undefined. Hurling our bodies. Like freight trains destined to collide. We can be bigger than mountains. We can be the trees and the sky and the pulse and the moon. All lit by twin stars spinning.

Your lack of light is desperate. A quiet void.
If I were a black-hole. You would be the event horizon
of my unmaking.
A voiceless abyss.
Incomplete.
And slowly growing.


If my eyes were moons. You would be my eclipse.

And this pulse. This landscape caught by rhythm. This thump. Like beating bodies. In carnal rhythm. Remembering each caress like history.

You are my legend. Your touch has written confession on my body, that I read like litany. Cuneiform.
Your fingerprint, an ancient code, written on my eyelids. Spoken on the tip of my tongue that I eat like Eucharist. That I drink like communion.

And my morning prayer is a mourning dirge.
Sung like a sailor for your return.
That you might find the wind of my breathlessness
And return to me
once more.
For I am motionless without you.

Yet.
I am mighty. Like wild beasts. I am stronger then before. I grow wise. I expand my eyes to encompass the horizon, that I may see every curve of your landscape. That I may feel every burn of your wild fire.

My longing is armor, that I wear. To conceal my beast. Like desire. Hungry. Waiting.

Tame me.

I miss your mane.
I miss your smell.
I miss your pulse, beating opposite mine.
I miss your light.

My shadow was massive. Stretching to the corner of maps.
My arms, a wingspan, that crossed time. Waiting to encircle you to me.

I have no light to cast a shadow.
I have no reason to fly.
My heart is barren.
Kept vacant for your return.
If not for you then always.
A singular place that once held your step.
A precious palace that you once danced in.

Spin.
Spin, Wildfire.
Devour my skin again with your hungry touch with your wanting kiss.
I wish to be reborn as yours.
Again.

Circle me that we may light the sky again.
And grow our horizons to outstretch the corner of our eyes.
Until we are blind.

Give me sight.
Let me see.
Let me see you.

That we might see our own light.

As one.

As yours.

Burn brighter than before.

I.  
A rumble of a failing engine and an abandoned heart does not always make for the best mixed drink you’d typically order at the bar
The gasoline fumes rising towards my nostrils, the taste replicated on the taste buds, not exactly the main course you’d hope to appear on the main entrée menu
The shrinking world swallows my perception, and all I can see are endless forests with an unending road, not exactly the picturesque view you’d pick from the 5-star hotel you presumed to stay in comfortably

II.
Recurring whiplash carries me deep within the foliage of the woods, where the bristles from the furious trees feel like spikes brushing across my fragile skin
My thoughts are encompassed by my wildest fears, intensifying the pitter patter in my chest, nearing a detonation, but no witnesses to confirm or deny it
The limbs outstretch themselves and enfold me inside a hallowing clasp, resemblance of an agonizing chokehold
The fires begin slowly, but hurriedly strengthen into a sore, sweltering sensation that hastily seizes control over my nervous system, rendering me helpless with no one to soothe me from it, for isolation is the true affliction of it all

III.
And suddenly I am traveling through a dark neighborhood, the ones we were all warned about as adolescents, as the lamp posts house stood-up lovers and lost souls who are trying to catch a fresh thought aside from the filthy repetition we are provided with
The light bulbs flicker and the yellow paint dividing the two paths incases my thoughts, stimulating every sensory input to intake the detection of safety between the two opposite directions, because once a path is chosen, returning is forbidden
This social deprivation surely beholds my salient inner pain, as I cannot confide in anyone on this lonely road except for the shining Milky Way and smiling crescent moon, eons away from my reach

IV.
Foaming salt water crashes over me, encumbering my lungs from performing their simple task successfully, caught in a riptide sensing my discomfort with reality and self-hatred brought upon by the overriding waves that deteriorate my sanguinity
I cannot control anything in my life and the sea acknowledges this weakness, What a real favor it is! Killing me, for me, subduing the airflow right out of me but also purifying my corrupted being, freeing my aggressions, letting go of faulty hearts, and ensuring arcadia by ripping away a future I could not survive in
The sunken sailors in their sinking ships do not drown by choice, like I, but they may not be as grateful for the gift of release as I am
I realize I may have a shot at social encounters, until I gather that the glass wall that separates me from the world is unbreakable, and the water pressure is much too great to fight through, so I must die alone

V.
As my vision fades to black, I am awakened once again, stranded on this Earth, this place where life exists but living does not
And I feel like ever since the door slammed shut as I collapsed in cascading tears on the floor in your favorite white button down, I’ve been a bit lonesome and defunct, my mood has a constant sullen adjective attached to it
Adventure and spontaneity meant everything to you, and I took on the same attitude, breaking out of my comfort zone and implementing yours instead
What once was now lingers as a painful memory and acts as a narcotic because I am experiencing a difficult withdrawal of your voice, and I cannot last much longer before the insanity devours me from the inside out

VI.
As the hourglass passed all of the time, your personality withered as each interest you held dear to your heat contracted into an abhorrent piece of art, dedicated to miserableness
And as your presence no longer fills up my time, maybe I too am disappearing, or so I wish
Because losing you to yourself felt like being stranded in the middle of nowhere with an unceasing life of despondency and unanswered questions
It felt like being burned alive to ashes from a forest fire, so deep in that not a single person would notice its evanescence
And worst of all it felt like drowning, as my control slipped away from the tight grip I once had, like nobody could resuscitate me from
I play over every doting moment with you over in my head as my mind slowly fades to darkness, a blank state of depression

VII.
So tell me from the heavens once more that I do not need you, because you see what I am experiencing in your absence
Maybe I need you as a constant in my life and not a fleeting breeze in the persistently bipolar wind movements
But you bolted the moment the poisoned fog touched your fingertips and your fear took you away from me
So how can I possibly hold on, when I am clearly alone and depressed?
I know death is merciful compared to losing my one true love
Tell me you’re listening, I need someone to talk to
I cannot leave all these words left unspoken

Distant voices carried in the veins
Millions of miles of wire
Tightly woven
Outstretch your optic arms
From fibre to empty space
And back again
And all to say
The caller with held their number

Damp footprints
And a displaced splash back
Are all that remains
Steam escapes
Cold drapes itself
Like an unwelcome shawl
Over a naked body

Distant voices mingle
And some, I guess,
Mathematically -
Get the wrong number.

Walking in America
Walking underwater from the waist-down
With a head full of quicksand
I’m among the few remaining souls
Left to burst and burn in this wasteland, purgatorial
As newspaper editorials camouflage me in a whirlwind
And the remains of everyone I’ve ever known and loved sting my eyeballs
What will be my grand undoing?
Talking to thineself
As I embark on a quest where free will is His divine’s bile duct
Was all of this at His behest?
And all of the survivors now share a common theory:
Hell is outer space where nothing happens
Heaven is this dreary place- Heaven is chaos
I need some sea and sand and land to curl up and protect myself in
But even if I outstretch with no bullets flying at me
The bugs and weird fishes will probably kick me off their property

My mother cannot find her camera,
and I wondered if I'd left it with you.

My stomach churns like the deck of a ship
amid a raging mid-Atlantic tempest,
its bowels tender and full of friction,
a morose resentment of an azure message sent.

The Dungan name supports its own;
the pain of one is felt by the majority,
an empathetic woe of a blessing understated,
our emotional reason ranging far and true.

One text sent and the world turns dim;
I've tried to manage the mania and valleys
of the experiences endemic to our core,
but the truth remains that I've not healed at all.

I can envision the late New York nights,
our Hoboken studio glimmering in the sunset,
the white walls imprinted with our fingertips;
open bottles of wine half-drank scattered around
while the subway roars underneath the Hudson
as it zips to a jolting halt.

Meanwhile, the scars embedding my skin
have healed themselves through and clear,
yet the bruises around the perimeter remain,
their coarse outlines distant reminders
of the pitfalls of the love we once shared.

Fire and ice juxtapose into a glass of lager,
a cool glide down the warm embrace of my throat;
nightly cocktails of Lexapro, Lamictal, and Hydroxyzine
haven't succeeded in easing the terrors
plaguing my core in the brightest of nights --
it is surmisable that these wounds are lethal,
but I refuse to succumb once more to your flaws.

My mother cannot find her camera,
and I wondered if I'd left it with you.

Whether it lay with your father and his bourbon
or your mother and her manipulating lies
or your brother and his ignorant resolutions
or your friends and their misogynistic gazes,
I cannot say,
yet I felt compelled to outstretch my fingertips
as a solemn branch of the willow tree
waving in the wind, scattering in the breeze,
an innocent attempt to brush aside the despondency,
a sprout into maturity to digress from the winds
raging between us while residing so far apart.

Never truly have I possessed a hatred so seething
than the alps of brimstone in the frame of you.

My mother cannot find her camera,
and I wondered if I'd left it with you.

Perhaps I should have remained in oblivion,
restrained myself from the shackles of your presence.
Still, I refuse to conform to the demands of those
unaware of the true nature of my nightmares,
their benevolent intentions disregarding my truth,
white wisps of flowers stained with brutal crimson,
inching its way down the crevices of my mouth
while I reel away and encapsulate the open flesh
I'd just bitten through with this impulsive decision.  

But still...
my mother could not find her camera,
and I'd only wondered
if I'd left it with you.

I might get caught up in your mind
I might unwind my string
and outstretch my being
to float with you, to let you fill up
my paper wings, my origami heart
I might take flight and let you
fly this kite, if only
you pull me in easy, keep me steady
I might follow where you lead
if you give me the freedom I need
to be colored beautiful
against a high, blue sky
to be me, shaped perfectly for you to see

To lands unimagined we must make our course,
For a tale beyond compare awaits thee there,
Of a hero this world has long forgotten.
Petrarchus was his name, warrior of renown,
Son of the king, and heir to the crown,
A warrior hailed by all the grateful land,
For great was his skill, and powerful his hand.
A legend there was in the empire of old,
Of a realm far beyond the sands of Morthros,
The Land of Paradise, full of palaces and gardens
Beyond imagination of mortal man.
The Gods of heaven in that land resided,
And wide and lofty were it's spires and towers;
That sacred home to the immortal powers
Lay across the yawning Chasm of Death.
To reach this land was Petrarchus' desire,
And fierce was his will, unquenchable his fire;
And it passed that unaided by kinsman or friend,
He travell'd forth to attain his journey's end.
A ship he made of timber strong,
And all it's cords and sails he tied;
Out into the Seas of Gloom he sail'd,
Dauntless into the jaws of the unknown.
But fate! merciless judge, had destin'd him sorrow,
And threw great hurdles along his darksome way;
Through storm and calm he sail'd into the morrow,
Meeting each trial with intrepid face.
Then before the vessel  vile Luxuria rose,
The oldest Titan, in form a Gorgon,
That mock'd at the hero and his worthless errand.
Undeterr'd, to Luxuria Petrarchus cried;
"Why com'st thou here, O fiend of the sea?
Forsake not thy lair to thus hinder me;
Learn, foul monster, my blade to fear,
For this mortal steel may end thy life so dear."
At this the Titan laugh'd, and changed her shape
Into the form of a voluptuous dame.
To the hero she spread her welcoming arms,
And he falter'd against her alluring charms.
There on the seas his mighty mind was sway'd,
And by tide of Desire a man was unmade.
O, most inglorious sight! The master turn'd to slave,
On the edge of the vessel, his hand outstretch'd,
All hold of reason relinquish'd like shackles.
That day had disslov'd Petrarchus' name
Among the thousands that fell to Lust's great spell,
And a hero's glory reduced to poor shame,
No deeds then done that this tale should tell.
But heaven beheld, and a peal of lightning
Shot forth like an unearthly ray o'er the foam,
The seething waves turn'd pallid white
In dread of the wrath of Heaven's sire.
And by the booming sound that echoed in the skies,
Petrarchus awaken'd, and casting off his spell,
He drew his blade, and Luxuria fell.
Alas! that the pestilence of her wickedness
Had ended there in that fateful hour!
But  her body's blood, as black as night,
Issuing from the **** of her bleeding neck,
Swept forth like an all-consuming cloud,
Enveloping the seas in a shadowed shroud.
'Twas the very essence of Sin, that worked in the blood,
The defilement that envenom'd the warrior's heart,
As he drew in the blackness with his heaving breath.
As the spider's venom with cunning doth pierce,
So she made frail who had been so fierce.
Like a phantom in a dream he sail'd now ahead,
Barely alive, and more than half dead,
Across the arid isles of nighted Invidius;
And came at last, a batter'd man
To the endless waste of horrid Morthros;
The first of mortal line those seas to cross,
The Chasm of Death to obtain.
And sudden in the grime a Chalice appeared,
The Goblet of Gula, whose heady draught
Makes thirst so great that pain seems naught.
Like lowly beast the warrior had become,
And casting off his sword and shining shield,
The mail that was a burden on his sweating breast,
Naked and horrible, he clawed to the Cup
And raised his thirsty lips to drink of the draught.
And suddenly a terrible tremor moved the earth,
And lo! 'twas earth no more, but abyss profound,
Black and gaping, the Chasm of Death.
For eternity of time he fell through the blackness,
Crying in craven fear, lost in nameless dread,
And came at last to the Bottom, hard and lifeless.
Ah most terrible fate, to have one's tomb
In the lightless reaches of the mouth of the earth.
And had Petrarchus ended? Had the terrible fall
Through leagues of despair destroyed him?
Nay, for this was the greatest atonement,
To be alive without purpose, to decay in darkness,
To live alone, far from life and love;
Eternally scalded by the unending coldness,
Cowering 'neath the mocking leer of Fate.
Then came a greater, more terrible awakening,
For 'twas now he saw the Legion of Undead
Glowering in the filth, a horde of blood-red eyes,
Unblinking, that knew only to fear and despise.
In that Inferno of eyes ever staring in the gloam,
The hero languish'd for what seem'd an age.
But then, heaven! thy aid was sent,
And by divine power the blackness was rent
By light, and the voice of Providence spake:
"Be bold, brave knight, for thy own sake,
Heaven did not decree the path that thou hast chosen;
Thou shalt rise where none before have risen;
Re-arm thy heart, stand up on thy feet,
Cowards are they that submit to defeat.
Turn thy eyes above! Dost thou not see?
The void thou hast created had never been!
The Chasm is only for the weak of heart,
A prison of minds that by minds was made.
Wake up thy blood, braveheart! Thou art not lost,
The prize shall be thine, though great the cost.
Pierce with sword of will the veil of night,
And behold! The world is blinded with light!"
Thus spake the Voice, and the world was restor'd,
The sands of Morthros as barren as before.
But where he had seen darkness, the hero now saw hope,
For the flame of the Gods was raging in his heart,
Relentless he walk'd through the swathe of gloom,
Petrarchus who was saved from eternal doom.
The mortal came at last to Paradise sublime,
Abode of grandeur and all things divine!
As a man whelm'd by wonder he trod
Through it's rich marble halls and ethereal gardens,
Drinking in the balmy scent of blooms
Not found in any land but where the immortals reside.
And then the mighty hall of Helios was there!
Firm as a mountain, and alight with wondrous flare!
High on the throne, above all the stately gods,
Repos'd Helios, monarch of immortals.
Emitting rays and beams of blinding power,
The refulgent king rose from his sacred seat,
And rais'd his golden sceptre, in cordial greeting
To the first wayfarer from the mortal world.
"Noble Petrarchus," said he, "across the Seas of Gloom
and the Chasm of Death thou hast made thy way
To this Hesperius, Garden of Gods.
To thee this honour eternal was given,
Thou alone by Destiny's call wert driven,
For man like to thee on this globe there is none,
Nor worthier soul to brave what thou hast done.
To wander in our blessed halls and glory at our pride,
Shall be thy just reward, if thou shalt decide.
What say'st thou, O matchless of mortals?"
But the man to whom he spoke was not the hero of old,
For He had been destroyed in the Chasm of Death;
Unfetter'd by desire, like a God in form he stood,
With wisdom beyond measure of living mortal man.
And there in the halls of Hesperius was born
Petrarchus the Prophet, Star of the Pole.
With humble grace the sage then spoke,
"Gracious is thy will, O eternal king,
Whose praises no song of man can sing;
But if thou shalt grant, benevolent sire,
One, and one only, is my chief desire.
To be given endless life, and freedom to walk
The pleasant arbours and vales of Earth,
And preach to all men the greatness of the Gods;
This indeed I deem a task of worth.
If such be thy will, the very Seas of Gloom
Shall be new-forg'd into the Seas of Glory,
And the rays of Helios shall shine out afar,
Awaking a new morn and age of Reason.
But mine is the suit; 'tis thine to fulfil."
At this the God of Day let out a booming laugh,
The first heavenly display of Mirth ever seen;
The skies were new-brighten'd by a light of joy.
"So shall it be," to the Prophet said he,
and bade him wander whither he would,
Immortal emissary, scion of righteousness,
Harbinger of the dawn and new age of Man.
His task is done. And now he reposes, ever serene,
In the heart of Night's silken shades, a luminous star
Bright and wondrous above the Pole.

The world burns mild while we burn wild rampant in love and static electric apathy. Tearing pages full of old words to right our own. The world is tired and the young are frustrated. Bombing streets fighting fascist old and fascist youths in teary longing for  compassion  for understanding that we are all one race. Furrowed brows over three longing eyes that cry we don't want to lose. Our future ******* in boxes and cubes. Trying to find the string to make the knot come loose. Revolting realities deem the devil true. Playing within vulnerable minds soaked in sand that won't sow a seed of love or truth. Awareness wasted on screens and glossy papers stomping pavement to fill our pockets with colored paper. Famished souls haunt spirits depressed without an inkling of insight as to why. The resolution is in love and in light. The love and enlightenment you share in your ever precious care. It spreads like a fever, grows like mold in hearts and the hands start to outstretch. Reaching in glory and happiness in an unseperate solitude. No one is stranger. No one is dead. Only confused and placid waiting for revival. Blind to what lingers behind the moon. The sun has already come and it thrives inside of
you

https://soundcloud.com/spiritbarehear/fever-famine-and-a-lust-for

When my mind is at rest I think of peace and blissful things
I see the unfettered and innocent smile of a new babe in arms
Or the Omnipotence gilded arms outstretch showering blessings
The shores of a pristine beach with blue waves marking times
Silver sunset sprinkling magic across quiet waters with no stressing
Or me sat at my fathers feet as he reads engrossed in his charmes
My mind rests easy in places of warmth and enriching lovings


My mind has no space to linger in the murkiness of failings
I do not plunge dark dept to court the uninspiring s in terms
To share company with wretches with wasted mental ecthings
Eyes that see dew in darkness and acrimony in fruitless farms
Voices made for howling dirges and apostles of negative cravings
Demented downers who drink from the fountains of fallen vamps
Satiated miserably they seek to retch their stench on followings


My mind finds the luminous stars and praise their spark-lings
It atunes to the silent melodies of sages who now sleep uncramp
It relishes the delights of the million trillion wonders tinklings
Its marvels the joys of the thousand mothers holding new champs
Can share the lifting dreams of hopes for happy new beginnings
Living is never about waste for the Creator avails no dumps
For a mind that lives and grows in the Light is forever inspired and inspiring



Copyright LaurencA.1stAugust2018.All rights reserved

Our nights of assessing God,
With our heads conjoined to the windowpanes,
Our thoughts permeating throughout the glass.
Two lukewarm coffees embellished the windowsill,
The synthesis of our cognition and entwined fingers,
The soft touch of shoulders leaning upon each other,
Brought forth beatific vision, we saw God;
His blemished flesh, the formation of his bones.

It began,
His vertebral column, intangible lights, the Aurora Borealis.
His archaic vertebrae, stained in ethereal fluorescence;
The curvature, swirling, as the Deity writhes in euphoria,
A childish game,
Our God, content in the night.

His hands, formed from the dust of Bethlehem,
Grains of sand corralling to form flesh upon the detritus of Rome.
His Holy land, The Vatican; Structures of marble and stone,
Merely his cupped hands,
As his disciples' feet caress his palms.

His organs; The planets in orbit;
His heart, our sun.
The rays of light that adorn our skin,
Merely the palpitations of a hidden pulsating heart.
his divinity,  subject of uncertainty in the petulant eyes of his children
walking in Terra Incognita.

His skin, Lo, to the stars;
Our hands yearned to touch the celestial freckles,
outstretched to feel the fibres of God;
And like our limbs, so did God outstretch,
his flesh, but space; suffusing within the translucent contours of the cosmos.

To be told we were made in the image of God, is to be deceived;
Our childish conjecturing, truly a theorem to be displaced,
Our augmented minds, illuminated;
An aureole behind our heads,
We became biblical as we touched lips by the mantelpiece.

There is a new roof fitting itself to the sky,
sea-roughened and grey as the vast paving
I dropped teeth on as a child, lightheaded

and living faster. Outside, a steep hill drops sweet
like the dip of a spoon, and in this life I see
my own reflection. It may come from narcissism.

It may come from gut. But its momentum is trapped,
a statue on one foot, it asks to be uprooted. How can I
carve this future into something soft and creaseless?

If I was an artist, I could catch its outstretch—
I would pull the army by the hand, out from the dark
intrusive damp, and ask it to stay.

On the line, a white sheet takes hard gulps of air.
I'm quick to learn its rhythm.
But in the morning it has lost its breath;
in the morning there is a small damp circle
under my cheek.

She doesn't need me anymore,
so she casts my words aside.
She doesn't need me anymore,
her head filled with pride.

She aims to cause me pain,
and that's okay with me.
I'll accept her vengeful words,
if it brings her peace.

She doesn't love me anymore,
I've caused her too much grief.
She doesn't love me anymore,
because I hindered her beliefs.

She says she'll never forgive me,
but it's not forgiveness that I seek.
I pray only that she finds happiness,
so that the tears dry from her cheeks.

I only sought to protect her future,
but she can't see that now.
I pushed her to make the right decisions,
I did not aim to disavow.

I tried to make her see the truth,
that her choices would bring her misery.
Instead she's pushed me away,
and chose to embrace her pipe dreams.

I'll always be there waiting,
for her to outstretch her fragile hands.
For her to see I only wanted what's best,
and to accept me into her life again.

But she doesn't need me anymore.
She says she'll make her own way.
And she doesn't love me anymore,
instead she harbors only hate.

But I will stand beside her,
and I will never let her fall.
My niece, I hold you so dearly.
Your uncle loves you most of all.

The darkness we share is not in the details of how we each turned off the lights
Nor the names we call our shadows
Nor the time we spent amongst them
It is that as we slipped into the absolute of despair we each took something with us
Call it hope
Call it memories
Call it armor
Call it weapons
It is that as we slipped into the absolute of despair we each flailed our arms for anything
That we each sought a way to hold on to anything
And while we both found ourselves here in this blackness anyway
The darkness we share is that you hold in your hand steel
And that I in my hand hold a flint stone
Our shared darkness is that we each stumbled around the dark
Until happenstance lit us a spark
And while we each adjust our eyes to light
Our minds come back from the maddening black
Thank you love for your outstretch hand
We know too well how heavy the dark weighs upon us to ever forget the strength of our happenstance
We may now use a spark to guide us
And later the stars
And later still the moon
And maybe then the sun
And if we are ever to count ourselves among the lucky
Perhaps then we will use each other to guide us to the light-of-still-here-tomorrow
Better-than-it-was-yesterday

Pin my arms to their furthest range,
so they’ll forever outstretch to everyone else.
Strum me unendingly. Listen to the hum.
I always do what’s asked.
I can’t wait for the day my insides tear
to the point of steady separation.
Then maybe they’ll stop pulling at me,
and I can tug at my own heart strings.

I am a master of the universe

I outstretch my fingers and the stars outstretch themselves
I reach for their tender glow,
catching them in my hands,
and I take deep whiffs of their eternal scents,
feeling their magic flow through me,
into me, through my mind
and my body,
down into my muscles,
my heart, stomach,
and then into my
fingers

the feeling of energy,
pulsating, strong, steady,
a heart-beat of the ethereal,
an existence thriving on
the non-existent

I am a master of the universe,
I move the stars and sway the moon,
I eat the darkness and make art out of light,
I sing songs of a thousand implosions,
I dance with the expansion of the void

let me into you
let me into your life

I am happiness, I am joy,
I am the want for better,
I am obtaining it, I am achieving it,
I am doing things right, doing things well,

I am the universe itself

all enveloping, all encompassing,
all loving

do not fear me,
for I do not fear ever

love for love’s sake,
love for the purpose of
love

never hide
never wear a mask

be yourself,
flaunt yourself,
look at yourself,
let others look at
you

and if they frown,
let them frown

assess their complaints and internalize them
take them for what they are,
for what they mean
and use them if you wish,
or if you do not wish

I will tell you this
and tell you this again

we are not apart
we are together
we are one
one thing
and that one thing
is all of us
not just you and I
but he and she
and they

they too are us
we too are them

do not fear that
do not feat that

for you cannot fear what
is true

only what may be
or what is not

oh well oh well oh well

we **** up and that is ok
that is ok,
that is ok

take another try
do not not try again
for that is death
even in life
so many die
and I weep for them
I cry at night
I cry in the day
inside my heart
in my mind

I weep

for the dead living lives of death

I weep

oh yes

I weep

but then I smile at them, take them in my arms,
let them struggle, let them be alerted, let them
try to escape and when they cannot, I let them
rest, I let them accept it, accept me, accept us,
accept you and I, he, she, and I, and when they
do we all feel better, we all feel better don’t we?

don’t fear don’t fear don’t fear don’t fear don’t
love love love love love love love love love love

(is the only way)

know this
and know this
well

we are not apart we are one
we are one

we and the stars
and the earth and the oceans
and the trees and birds
and rats and mooses
and guitars and waves
and pens and desks
and digital viruses
and corpses

we once all were the same
we are still the same
still matter
still energy

connected, if invisibly,
by our common past

once we were all each other
and that is how it is

ok?

ok

the masters of the universe know what I say

they do not fear, they love
and love again, they love,
and love again, even when
love is gone

they do not fear, they love

so those masters of the universe, like me,
like me, they reach their hands out into
the blackness, reaching out for little lights
to brighten their lives, but when they have
them, they do want them (for themselves)
they seek to share them, give them away,
take what they need and remove all the
rest

this, this is the way of the universe

one big exchange, constantly shifting,
moving, changing hands, coming under
new management, forgetting yesterday
in search of tomorrow, this universe
swirls with activity and that is beauty

read fast for time is fast

it slips away between the cracks into the realm of nothing,
like death with life of living death, it disappears in plane
sight

this, alone, is the biggest shame of all

embrace this,
remember this,
forgo this,

do as you think is best,
whether you were taught or you thought for yourself,
do it, for it is the best way,
the best life for you,
that,
that is true

let me list some true things:

I am not me,
I am not myself,
I am not just myself,
I am more
I desire to be more

everything I do is meant to extend beyond myself
into you I say, I throw my love, and though it may
bounce off, falling flat, floppy, on the floor, for my
effort I will be rewarded (you will be rewarded)
once my trials come to conclusion

this master of the universe offers you this as one last offering
a token of my life to keep with you forever

but paper burns,
inks fades,
ice melts,
and planets explode

the sun will die and us maybe
too

so do not take this for its worth
take it for its meaning

I am a master of the universe
finally curling up,
and taking my rest

Ancient leviathan,
City in sands
Razed in a roar.
Now silence stands

Taller than your
Pillars did before
As the world looks on
It can’t but abhor

Let sleep find your
Great arches now
Though brought down
They did not bow

For their shadows
Outstretch the hand of man
And the rote of
All religion’s plans.

They did not destroy!
They have not won!
And in undoing
Become
undone.

i’m 19 years old
and i’ve never written a love poem that didn’t taste like loneliness or regret
i was born with a sad mouth
the kind that holds nothing but tempesteous storms of gray
the kind that curses god, doesn’t believe in fate, and kisses lips more crooked than my own
you see
it took me 21 days to squeeze the ink for this poem out of my pen for you
because i’ve never written a love poem for someone
and because i can’t put you into words
but i’m going to try

1. you are the run on sentence that leaves me nothing but breathless
when you speak, i see colors i never even knew existed
i would lift my head to you if you said my name even with a broken neck
i couldn’t sleep the first week we met
because i knew the empty space in my bed was meant to be filled with the curve of your back
and that your smile was the only sunrise i’d be able to wake up to
i spend all my spare time collecting the different ways you’ve called me beautiful to wear as a golden chain around my neck, close to the pulse in my throat, and thump in my heart
as a reminder of how you’ve made me feel alive again

2. when we first kissed
i couldn’t even find the right words to string together to describe how i discovered home on your lips
i love you speechless and i am terrified for just that reason
and i don’t know if i will ever be able to forklift the reasons why out of my chest
but here’s a start
you want to know why i’m scared? i’m scared because for me
love was always a lot like throwing yourself off the edge of a building
and i had a nasty habit of falling for ghosts who couldn’t catch me
but your hands,
your hands weren’t callused, they were soft
they gave me amensia of all the times i shattered against the pavement
the first time i held them they gave me so much reckless abandon that i knew
if i took my heart and catapulted it to atlanta, new york, london, or cuba
you’d be able to catch it blindly
so please just outstretch your arms and do it

3. i know i said earlier that i didn’t believe in fate
but that was before i started writing this
and because you exist
i believe in fate now
because someone, somewhere
made you carefully, painfully, slowly, and deliberately just for me
because there is no other explanation
for the way my bones ticked like the angry hands of a clock,
counting down the seconds until you found me
i believe in fate now because
the moment we met
the possibility of you and i even breathing the same air
and the number of hellos and goodbyes we will exchange
must have been thought about for centuries
when we were nothing but dust

4. if i could take a minute
somehow place all the galaxies into the palms of my hand and rename every star, every constellation after each moment we’ve had and the little things no one notices about you
like how when you blush, you say “oh gawsh” and it reminds me of a bad western movie and my childhood innocence all wrapped up in one
or how you hate being interrupted
how you have a scar on your abdomen from that surgery you had when you were little
or how you wear bruises and bloodied knuckles from all the times you’ve hated yourself
i would do it
i would make this universe into a story only the two of us could understand
a story that says,
i love you…
for as long as you want me to (k.w)

you’re stuck inside the web;
theres too much tangled in my head.
im wrapped up in my thoughts again,
left dusting all the old cobwebs
from every subtle angle that
i hadn’t noticed you leave your caress;
you left your fingerprints in black
and pressed all up and down my chest,
where they might fill the empty space
and replace all that i had left,
but that’d been carved of replete stone
and so it can’t ever come back.

but somehow still my arms outstretch,
just waiting for your blood red hands
to come devour the last of it,
to sink your teeth
because you can.

my feet dangle by the edge of the rooftop
and i am terrified that i have every ounce of courage slowly building up inside of me
my soles still sting from the glass shards that sliced my knuckles open
and it was odd how my mind exclusively focused on my feet and not the hands that engaged into combat with my reflection
my hair is in the way, quickly growing into the nuisance it will always be
it tastes of cheap shampoo, cigarettes, fumes and yesterday's drug abuse
but let me tell you this, i do not do drugs
but the cuts on my fingers, and the dirt under my nails, will tell you that i do
it was just a misunderstanding, a punch to the face, a jaw i thought would dislocate, and tears swelling up, obstructed by a lip bite away
i am not clean, i can show you my wrists as proof and more on my arms to gain your sorry's and mercy
but i do not want attention
it's funny since i'm the one seated at the edge of the rooftop, the top floor, the 22nd
and i am trying to capture the entire city by a single look, including my peripheral vision
trying to picture, the edges of the photograph it will be
but my hair is in the way, and i can barely see
so i pretend to perceive the scenery yet attempt to not disregard the words i think they speak
their sounds start to appear as turbid as a puddle of mud
and yet everyone looks happy enough from up here

i grow eager by the second
thoughts do not outstretch and remain abrupt as my legs suspend high up from the ground
and i hope to stay irrelevant
as my fingers slip from the concrete and my wrists twist toward the wind

i will not think of my last words until i am close enough to outline the features on their faces, and trace the roads that are lining up with vehicles, boarded with individuals who will not see me until i am scattered on the pavement

n.j.