Biding Time

Watching the wheels slowly turn...
Galaxy sized gears and springs
In a self-winding universe... 
Smoothly scrolling news tickers
Whispering in peripheral view...
Living in the liminal spaces...
Every moment passes through my awareness...
Every second is felt in the bones...
Jarring the teeth
Ever so slightly...
Tick, tock, tick...
Paying attention to its passage
Slows the perception of its passing...
Sometimes there is no time
To reflect on time
Thoughtfully...
It speeds up its passage
When it slips from your mind...
Distracted or entertained...
Loved safely and warm,
Or terrified in cold blood...
When it slips into the background,
It spins by so fast...
But it creeps by on sleepless nights,
Watching the clock,
Or when there seems to be
Nothing else to do
But wait in the shadows...
Crouched on haunches,
Ready to activate...
Ready to move...
Longing to...
Time is a leash
Designed to limit your range of motion...
It is confining and restricting,
Yoked like beasts in the field
Tilling the earth...
Penned in after sunset...
Sheltered from predation
From the beasts of the night,
And waiting for the sun...
Endless, and in limited supply,
We each get a portion of eternity...
One small slice,
One small segment at a time
In the face of its collective immensity...

Sunday Afternoon

 The ceiling fan on high
Sounding like nervously cracking knuckles
Or a wind-up clock with arrhythmia...
The mini-fridge condenser humming
And only very occasionally gurgling...
The refrigerant circulating,
Sounding like slow, steady, deep breathing...
Birdsong outside the bedroom window,
Or, rather, grackles whooping and clicking...
Not exactly songbird lyrics,
But they're birds,
And they sing like no one is listening
Even if they can't carry a tune...
Slight woosh from the air ducts
Vented from the wall
Up near the ceiling...
If you close your eyes and listen
You hear I-35 traffic in front,
And Route 271 behind,
Both being equidistant from the apartment complex...
Barely perceptible traffic
Once you've gotten used to it...
Random mumbled conversations
Pass by under grackle squawks...
Random bass beats
From cars with the volume up and the windows down...
The highs don't travel far,
But the lows carry deeper into the foundation...
Shuffling feet in the kitchen...
Microwave chirps
And then hums...
Someone moving around upstairs...
Thumps and ceiling creak...
A car engine revving on start-up...
Some small plastic wheels
Roll scraping over the sidewalk...

Historically Inaccurate Period Pieces

 When I look back on old love poems,
Re-read snapshots of things I once felt,
The words feel like lies...
Like theater...
Historical fictions...
That former me seemed so satisfied...
So happy and content...
Present me repeats that old phrase,
"Ignorance is Bliss..."
I try to downgrade the former experience
As ignorance of the facts...
"How could I have known?"
Looking back on old emotions,
It's difficult to see what I once saw...
The words were honest at the time,
But time is a measurement of change...
Although they no longer feel honest,
If shared for public consumption,
They also seem almost innocent,
And most definitely naïve...
Foolish...
These snapshots...
I judge myself harshly for my folly,
Sometimes...
And sometimes
I don't regret the experiences at all...
Just exploring the reality construct...
Learning about it is like that...
The ups, the downs, and every other point on the waveform...
How people change!
Almost interesting, from a psychological perspective...
At least mildly tragic, from the standpoint of experienced emotions...
Don't regret past loves,
That binds you to the past with chains
If they are memories of trauma...
Just know that everything is everything else...
You didn't necessarily waste your time...
Things have to be precisely weighed...
Pain vs. pleasure; love vs. lesson...
Reading those old amalgams of words
With different eyes
Are the pen marks on the frame of the door,
Each with date they were recorded
Inked right beside...
It measures change,
Which can, unfortunately, be sideways of growth, at times...
The wheel has to turn...
It's what it does...
That undulating spiral
Twisting in the currents of perceived time...
There is a center point,
And everything spins away from it
Like glossy paint splatter crawling to the edge 
Of a rotating canvas...

Simulation

 Dredging the lake for bodies...
Recalling her amazement
At my ability to create in a vacuum...
To thrive in a desert...
It all came down
To the hidden things...
Those buried emotions and blurred memories...
Things that part of me wanted to recover,
And part of me wanted to destroy...
Even then,
Words came out more easily
In the handwritten or typed word...
Words spoken,
Were awkward, hesitating,
Unless there was a script...
On paper, I could be myself...
Any judgement could be passed off
As judgement of the crafting,
Not a judgement of me...
But I eventually learned how people are,
How they can be...
The greatest source of anxiety
For most primates
Is their own species,
Their own community...
Small towns don't leave room for too many secrets,
But secrets are always there
In every attic, closet, and basement...
Words always trying to get out...
Unspoken things
That silently desire to be heard...
Darkness that wants to be seen by the light
The way a candle wants to be lit...
There is a boundary
From one thing to the next
That can't be bridged by shades of gray...
The clipping between the frames of human perception...
60 frames per second or less is all we can see,
But things move so much faster than that...
Even when they are at rest,
They are constantly spinning...
Just a haze of motion
That is understood as a solid...
We can feel the boundary
As if it were real...
We experience because of limitations...
Differentiation of one moment to the next
Is perceived as movement...
Movement is perceived as time passing...
Time passing is just perception
Playing tricks...
There is only the "now" changing shape...
The present moment
Graphing its equation
In imaginary space,
Dividing the void into a plurality of moments,
Everything we know
Was created from this lack of substance...
All creation is a shaping of the void...
Being arising from non-being as a matter of course...

Broadcasting Every Unseen Thing

 What you say...
How you say it...
It's got a funny way of
Saying more than what you intended...
Body language and inflection...
Sarcasm or projection...
If you say it out loud,
Or post it on a forum,
Or press the letters into an actual book,
Spine and all,...
Hard cover...
You're saying more than you intend...
Displaying parts of your psychology
That you've gotten used to,
Or you've forgotten they exist
Because they have become
You...
Looking in mirrors can be hard...
Most people don't see what is reflected, 
They see what they expect to see...
And what they often expect
Is much worse than what is...
Speaking your emotions out loud
Will get you judged,
Personally, privately, and publicly...
This is not a reason to shrink away from expressing yourself...
Just know that secret insecurities
Can be deduced...
Character flaws can be amplified...
Every comment,
Every reaction,
Is a double-agent 
Cracking your safe...
Mindfulness can be difficult
When one is so exposed...
Often reveling in the attention garnered
By acts of emotional public indecency...
Wagging our feelings about
As if they were trophies,
Tributes to our weakness and fears...
Is it brave to do such things?
Or is it just compulsion?
Should you plunge the sword into that dragon's dark heart,
Pray that you were dreaming...
The nightmares have only just begun...
There's nowhere to hide
Once the words of selfness have been 
Cast into the world of otherness...
Good luck...
Gird yourself with iron,
Sharpen your daggers and swords,
Drop down into the metaphor,
And endure...

Photons Don't Age

 Photons don't age...
Time doesn't exist for them...
They are ageless...
Frozen in time...
Time dilation from electromagnetic 
Packets of quantum energy
Traveling at light speed...
Time doesn't exist
From the perspective of Light...
Photons don't decay...
Pure consciousness may also be eternal,
Potential energy released as light
Once it becomes kinetic...
The big bada-boom...
There is no prime mover
On a moebius strip...
There is no creator
But the creation itself,
Fractals in infinite regression...
Light is always a massless newborn
Unless or until it hits an electron
And gets consumed...
It gets converted to heat and disappears...
Their entire lifespan just a brief moment
That never passes...
No time to think...
From their perspective
Birth and death are simultaneous...
A subjective perception of time,
A multidimensional snapshot...
Three-dimensional space
Growing fast around it...
Time coursing backwards...
In the absence of anything,
Total vacuum/void,
Flashes of light spontaneously occur...
Something from nothing...
Energy from nothing...
Conservation of mass for a massless quantum energy packet kept in mind,
Light is nothing at all...
The void, the face of the deep,
Is nothing at all
Shining brightly into the space it created...
A visible phantom transmitting data
To the human eye
In wavelengths we can see
Before we go about interpreting 
The data with our flawed perception,
Our rudimentary understanding
Of that substance in which we live...
Neutral electromagnetic energy...
Waves...
Motion...
The absence of anything, everything,
Dancing away from a single point
Of contention...
Everything else that we know
Is just energy moving more slowly than light,
Experiencing time to varying degrees,
But never really at the same velocity...
Never really always "there"...
Even electrons only travel
At 1% the speed of light...
The passage of time is subjective...
Pure consciousness is nothing
Until it decides to move...
Ageless, timeless, massless...
When it moves
It first produces light and heat...
Ageless light,
Ephemeral heat...
Potentially eternal light,
If nothing gets in its way...
Then the process that created
First light systematically produces everything else...
It slows and cools as it continues expanding...
Becomes solids, liquids, plasmas, and gases...
Various forces of attraction, repulsion, and neutrality...
Dead the moment they're born...
Doomed to traveling in stasis...
Once you see them,
They're gone...
Consumed by the soup
That they travel through...
Random data bits of original thought
Caught up in the dreamtime...
Every little bit of the now
Was there at the beginning
Inside the singularity...
All of time,
All of space,
All of the light,
And all of the dark...
A photon traveling unimpeded 
For trillions of years
Is headed to its origin
Given the curved nature
Of all imaginable dimensions...
Once it gets there,
Why not keep going?
There being many paths
To the same entanglement...
Everything is connected to everything else...
From the beginning,
Until we circle back around...
Wheels within wheels...
Eyes all around...
Just a day in the life
Before life came to be...

 

Field Dressing

 You did what you had to do to survive...
Inexperience is blameless...
Feeling exposed to the debris
That others cast off
When they emotionally explode...
You weren't prepped for this...
You never learned how to handle this...
When it felt like
Your flesh was being torn from your bones,
You lashed out,
Or you hid...
There was collateral damage, either way...
People got hurt,
As people do...
You allow reflexes to take over
When there is no time to think...
It's natural...
Old habits, 
Withdrawal from the offending situation
To prevent an eye for an eye
From bursting onto the scene...
A little mother of pearl sweetness
To protect your jelly soft skin,
As well as your razor sharp talons...
Diametrically opposed synchronistic quantum entanglement...
Over time
Plaques build like armor...
Scabs to scars to rigid, interlocking plates...
Surgically excise any guilt or regret
With whatever tools you have at hand...
A piece of glass...
A flint arrowhead...
Pine tar and torn fabric...
Distilled spirits...
Field dressing is all you can do...
Stainless steel sporks and stainless steel straws...
Steel wire and household items...
Whatever you scavenge
From bombed out shelters...
A landscape littered 
With landmines and old lovers,
Cast off prosthetic limbs, and detritus...
Bloodied hearts and bleeding spirit...
Memories of pain
Embodied by the lives we lead,
Future actions predicated on past actions
And reactions,
Those things that kept you alive
In the heat of battle...
When the twisters touched down...
When the light was so bright
It burned your skin down to the muscle...
When she said those words
At just the wrong time,
Pulling the pin,
And wishing you dead
While counting out the seconds...
Have no regrets...
Have no shame...
Have no guilt
About having done what you thought
You had to do to keep going...
Have no guilt 
About the things you'll have to do
In the future
To survive...
Suture the wounds, and keep moving...
Set the broken bones, and keep living...
Take cover when you hear the rifle cock...
Throw stones ahead of you
To test the ground...
Open your eyes,
Wide in the dark,
Total dilation,
To capture what light remains...

Blank Invitation

 Decades ago,
Another place,
Another time...
Her, asleep against me...
Lightly snoring,
Breathing sleep
From little spoon...
Me,
Visualizing her dreamscape,
Feeling the brain wave frequency vibration...
Synching like a tuning fork
Shattering a crystal...
Like a cell tower
Triangulating her location...
The simulation of reality
That happens in dreams
Can have soft boundaries, 
One mind to the next...
I felt something slip
In her consciousness...
A soft spot...
Meditating,
I visualized a wooden door...
I turned the knob,
And swung open the door,
Slowly...
She, in her sleep,
"Someone just came in..."

Vivisection (Meat Slicer)

 You may not like what I have to say,
Or how I say it...
I don't really care about the details
Of your reactions to me...
I do what I do,
I say what I say...
Just
Like
You...
*
I can see through your skin
To the delicate organs beneath
When you speak...
I can feel the brain chemical laden blood
Coursing through your words,
Filling the capillaries that feed your eyes...
I can taste the blood in them...
*
Don't speak -
I will crawl into your head,
Analyze your motivations,
Stalk your every thought...
I'll set up camp in your amygdala,
And I won't even have to pay
The rental fee...
Slide into your skin like a leather catsuit...
Predict your next move with
AI machine learning algorithm speed...
*
Don't let me in your head...
Think long and hard
Before you open that door...
Make sure all the locks are locked,
That deadbolt slid into place,
Before you sleep to dream...
Otherwise,
You'll see me there
Turning page after micro-thin page,
Slice after transparent slice,
Like an MRI animation...

The Illusion of Home

 When the universe was formed,
She looked at me
As if I were pure magic...
Saw me as pure original light...
Like staring into the sun...
I basked in that apparent worship...
Let it seduce me...
Let it change me
From pure consciousness 
To solid matter...
From the original chaos of the void
Into stars
And then planets
And then flesh and blood and bone...
I didn't notice 
How the light slowed its vibration
From energy to matter,
It seemed so gradual...
So comforting a thought...
That grain of sand
Painted with layer after layer
Of iridescent mother of pearl...
So common...
So precious...
Like slipping your foot into warm slippers
On a cool morning...
Priceless...
The expansion, however,
Was not so gradual as it seemed...
A billion years was just a moment in time...
My senses were simply affected
By the addicting substance 
Of her apparent need...
Constant acceleration...
Life, death, and explosions...
Roiling turmoil deep inside of her...
I was no longer gazed upon 
As a magical and shining object...
That word bears repeating,
Object...
Eventually, I was seen as the abyss...
A soulless void
Bearing the full weight of her trespasses
Against herself...
A projection of her empty longing...
I thought back to the beginning,
Reminisced, 
And only then realized
That nothing was real...
Seduced by a hologram...
Encoded into it like a virus...
The moon chasing the sun...
Hung by my feet from that tree,
It's branches in my flesh between
Achilles tendon and distal fibula...
Millenia passed in contemplation...
Liquid iron stinging my eyes blind...
She was such a good performer...
Such a convincing actor...
Bear-trap jagged jaws
Hidden beneath the satin slip covers...
How did I find myself here,
Floating in outer space,
A frozen, dense mass,
When before all of this
I was simply consciousness at rest?
Massless potential energy,
Peaceful and formless...
No physics and no rules...
Home...

Patient Transport

 Waiting in the parking lot...
I look at my hands
Like they tell you to do 
When you realize you're dreaming...
Trying to slow my heartbeat
While still smoking the vape
That makes it increase...
Pacifier for the inner infant
With no concept
Of right or wrong...
At least the caffeine intake
Has been cut back...
Minimal headache action...
Fidgeting with an electronic device,
Searching for signs
That someone is listening...
Hits, page views, messages, etc.
Valerian root gel caps 
And kava kava in the backpack...
Long periods of time
With little to do
But observe
Or wait
At an hourly pay rate...
Genetically prone to anxiety
When thoughts have the time to wander...
Have to remember to breathe 
Deeper and slower...
Focus on a fixed point...
Find something to do with my hands...
Stumble drunken words
Unaffected by spirits...
Accidental meditation...
Remember to stay hydrated...
Time crawling should be relaxing,
But it isn't...
Eyes move to access memories,
Focus on that one fixed point...
Waiting for myself in the parking lot...
Windows open to harvest a slight breeze...
I am who I am waiting for, after all...
Waiting for me to catch up with myself...
Biding my time...
Trying not to feel like much of it has been wasted...

Wake Up!

 The world,
It's a big place...
The universe,
A whole lot bigger than that...
Or so it would seem...
It's been recently proven
That, mathematically speaking, 
The Universe is non-local...
Nothing can be measured
Until something measures it...
Everything exists everywhere
All at once 
(Like and unlike that popular movie)
And nowhere at all...
Consciousness arises from the one thing
That must always exist...
That one thing is,
Quite literally,
Nothing...
Pure consciousness...
Zed, zero, the key to it all...
Your gods are nothing...
They are equal to you,
Who are also nothing...
Demons and deities,
You and I...
This thing you call "reality"
Doesn't exist anywhere
But in your mind...
The void, the deep, the Absolute...
Absolute zero...
Pure consciousness is nothing...
"Nothing" is all that is...
It imagines everything...
So your little problems,
Those things that seem like herculean tasks,
The rent, the bills,
The physical problems, 
The everyday,
Ecstasy and trauma,
Are just a part of the dream
Dreaming the dreamer...
Wake up...
Don't pray to some 
Bearded man in the sky...
Don't bow your head to any 
Religious concept of God...
You are all the God you need...
An infinitude of zeroes
Dreaming this "place" into being...
What caused the Big Bang?
You did...
I did...
We all,
Every human, bird, bug, rocks, and stars,
Organic, inorganic, and other,
Did...
Take some personal responsibility 
For everything that you are...
Take charge of your own creation...
Not with your hands,
Start with your mind...
If there is a Hell of any sort,
It is your own guilt
About the things you did,
The opportunities you think you missed,
The people you feel you have wronged...
Let it go...
What's done is done...
I'm not saying don't have a conscience...
Just do better...
Realize where your power lies...
It's not anything outside of you...
It's not even anything inside of you...
What can exist in the mind of the void,
But thought?
All you think is real...
All you touch...
All you taste...
All you feel...
All your hopes and dreams...
All your fears and insecurities...
Just mind games we all play
To distract ourselves
From truly exploring the possibilities
Of consciousness...
If it feels too heavy,
World building,
It's why you forgot your power...
You got caught up in the dream...
Gave over your power
To other nothings...
Is it a frightening thought
To face your eventual end?
Of course it is...
But it's something you chose to experience,
After all...
Somewhere between the resting nothing
And the inception of the dream...
And yet, how can "nothing" ever end?
How can it even begin?
It is the only certainty...
No space, no time, no matter, 
No beginning, no end...
This is not nihilism...
This is the only thing that matters...
You chose this self-limiting container
To challenge your imagination...
A puzzle to be solved...
So solve it...
Wake up...
Dream lucid...
Remember...
You are the sun that rises and sets...
You are the stars you gaze upon
In the night sky...
The birdsong in the morning...
The cicadas buzzing in the summer heat...
Everything is everything...
The most amazing nothingness
You could ever imagine...
Don't waste the experience...

Variations on the Thematic Material

 Some people change over time.
Some people don't. 
Some people think they have,
But they're really just the needle
Skipping on a defect in the spiraling groove.
Reliving their traumas
And re-enacting their original pain.
Stale re-mixes of what they once were.
The beat goes on indefinitely.
The beatings still fresh in their mind.
*
Some people grow past their limitations.
Some people don't.
Living out their entire lives
In the cage that they have created. 
Struggling in the web of misperception
They've woven on their loom.
Intricate interlocking patterns 
On display through a two-way mirror.
They can't see out,
But on-lookers gawk as they pass by
The Spectacle,
Shielding their children's eyes.
*
Some people fight hard
To break free,
Put up a heroic effort
To shed an exoskeleton 
That has been outgrown.
It's a process that will have to be repeated,
Another shell will harden
That needs further struggle to escape.
Another paradigm will form
That will eventually need to be split.
And...
Some people don't.
They suffocate in the beliefs that they hold.
Starve themselves 
So that the shell will still fit.
Resisting out of fear
That the soft new body
Will leave them open to predation.
*
Some people shed their old skin
And leave it hanging in the past.
A memory of old colors 
Now faded and transparent.
Left behind to decompose
As fertilizer for new life.
Some don't.
The old skin making their eyes
Milky opaque.
Refusing to scrape past jagged rocks
That could free them from their bondage
For fear they'll be hurt again.
Sliced and cut,
The memories of distant bleeding
Still fresh in their congestive heart.
*
Some people leave themselves 
Open to change...
Either cautiously venturing out
Into new experiences,
Or diving head first into
New ways of thinking.
Others won't believe you have an open mind
Unless you agree with them,
As if disunity with their worldview
Means you are nothing
But a hallway of locked doors...
Spirited, healthy debate
Seen as an affront to their
Sense of self,
An insult cast at their core identity.
*
Battle scars are a mark of wisdom.
They'll remain even when the old life
Is abandoned,
But they need not be enshrined
On an altar...
Fatted calves need not be sacrificed
In their honor...
Golden idols need not be cast
In their likeness...

Decades of Expression Grinding Down

 Journaling for decades,
I sometimes look back on
Who I used to be...
What I used to feel...
The words I used to write...
It often feels so alien...
Something from another life...
Love poems,
Heart felt at the time,
Now feel like lies...
The subjects of those thoughts
Have long since dissociated 
From those feelings...
Long since frozen in glaciers of time
Compared to the heat once described,
White hot...
"As long as I live"...
"The rest of our lives"...
And the most heinous lie of all,
"Till death do us part"...
Death comes in many forms, I suppose...
I've lived lifetimes
Since the boy who wrote sonnets,
Pined over crushes,
And believed that romantic love
Was a forever thing...
Everything changes...
Love isn't a static installation...
I cringe at my former innocence 
Sometimes...
And sometimes I miss it...
That willingness to risk hurt...
The noble causes...
The saving of damsels in distress...
That naïve literal belief
In the butterfly effect...
That a high school poem
Written in iambic pentameter
Could subtly change the world...
Or make me become
A household name
Because my words had power
Beyond the confines of my own ego...
Sweet, innocent ego...
Just a tender, soft-boiled egg
Waiting to be cracked...
I couldn't see the personal cataclysms
Lurking in the shadows
Just over the horizon...
Couldn't see beyond the mist,
The fog of inexperience...
Ouija boards with co-eds...
The false prophecies of Stygian witches...
Never expected decades
Of non-metaphorical chronic pain...
Couldn't see the reality
Of skipping town
To delay a warrant...
Sleeping in my car,
Cooking breakfast on a propane burner,
Pancakes in a parking lot
On a winter's day
In Portsmouth, NH...
Frosty waves hitting the storm wall
Just beyond an icy boardwalk...
All the tourist attractions 
Boarded up until springtime...
I didn't see multiple divorces
Breaking me down, 
Making me doubt my ability to be loved...
Making me doubt the sincerity
Of my own emotional center...
I write harder things now
When I'm not waxing philosophical cosmology to a high shine...
I never thought I'd get to a point
Where I no longer feared death,
Not out of bravery,
But simple resignation...
An anxiety attack is now no more
Than a deep sigh...
Walk it off...
Walk on...
It feels like eons have passed 
Since I took pleasure in rhythm and rhyme...
Romanticism or innocent righteousness....
Just another bubble in the quantum froth...
Still striving for higher consciousness
While grinding my days for a paycheck...
But those old journal entries,
Those old poems,
Those weathered fictions on yellowing pages...
I can barely feel them anymore...
Like dreams you know you had,
But can't remember
Once you hit the snooze button for the last time and start the slow process of waking up...
Passion turns to stone sometimes...
Loving gazes to thousand yard stares...
Delicacy to sawdust...
Bones to cold steel...

Light

 I am with you, 
Always...
I am estranged...
I am present...
I am an absent friend...
I am everywhere...
I am nowhere...
I am frozen in time...
I dream you,
And you dream me...
Even light years apart,
We create this world
Together,
In unison...
I am harmony...
I am the raised hairs 
On the back of your neck
In the dark of night...
Gooseflesh skin reacting to touch,
Warm under the blankets...
A shimmer in reaction to a memory
That eludes firm grasp in your mind...
A comforting illusion that feels so real...
A focused thought that has no intention...
I am a heretic...
I am a creator god...
I am a barren rock floating in space...
I am no more than an idea,
Unformed and intangible...
I am inspiring...
I am desolation...
I am flesh and blood and bone...
Fire and water, earth and air...
I am energy condensed into matter...
The faster I travel,
The more dense I become...
The further I run from myself,
The closer I get to myself...
When I embrace you,
After years of wandering,
You are embracing yourself...
When I try too hard,
I collapse like a massive sun
Becoming a black hole...
I become a doorway to another place,
Another time...
I cycle like the seasons...
I pulse like a neutron star...
I explode into a glowing nebula...
I am universal...
Overcrowded and alone...
I am thriving communities,
Planets teeming with life...
I am a dying star swallowing the same
As it expands, 
Vomiting forth its outer shell...
I am everywhere you look,
And you are everywhere I go...
I am extraordinary, 
And I am painfully ordinary...
We are the same...
We are light...

Blood Eagle Monarch

 

When she looked into my future,
She said she saw turmoil...
When she looked into my eyes,
She looked into my soul,
My future, 
My life...
And she said one word,
"Turmoil."
Well,
I gotta say,
She wasn't wrong...
Twenty five years later,
And I'm still
Riding the crest of that wave...
Things are a little more calm
These days,
But I've been through the meat grinder
In the in-between times...
Been tossed upon stormy seas
In a leaky boat
For a couple decades...
Harrowing adventures
That, in some ways, I don't regret,
But might have quite literally killed
A weaker man...
Been on deaths door a time or two,
And cheated the reaper every time,
So far, anyways...
Loved and lost more times than I want 
To count,
And with people who've literally
Wished me dead,
To my face,
And I think they actually meant it
With their whole heart...
Can't please them all, I suppose...
I've faced down literal dollar store megalomaniacs...
You can thank me
For not having been turned 
Into nanobot ridden grey goo
At the hands of a scalable AI super computer...
I just may have short-circuited the techno-rapture...
It's a long story,
I'll save you the drawn out details...
But my world saving deeds
Were all behind the scenes,
Under the radar,
And came at no small cost
To my sense of psychological well-being...
My handlers
Never revealed themselves,
But they keep tabs on me,
I'm sure...
Yeah, the flat bottom boat
Has a lot of leaks,
And I bail it out with a tin tea cup...
I've somehow kept this vehicle alive
Despite decades of abuse,
Thinking the herbal supplements I take,
Intuitively chosen the way a shaman
Gathers very specific plant leaves and roots
For very specific purposes
To take or apply
At very specific times,
Have brought me closer to the dreamtime...
It's been quite exciting at times,
Downright terrifying at other times,
And soul emptying at even other times,
But I'm still here
Slaying dragons and exorcising demons...
Wrestling with angels and placing bets 
With the devil...
He hasn't won one yet,
Despite all they say about his prowess 
In that arena...
I've got his golden fiddle,
Even though I don't play the fiddle...
But turmoil, 
Yeah,
She wasn't wrong...
I've lost all my wives,
And all my children are dead,
Good thing I don't believe in the God 
Represented by organized religion, 
Or I would absolutely hate that fucker...
I'd organize my life around finding it,
And murdering it,
But God is nothing like the stories they tell...
It's just what exists
When all movement in the universe stops...
And I don't want to stop the universe
From doing what it do...
It's far too entertaining to watch the show...
Besides, whenever it stops moving,
There's a always a huge explosion
Close behind,
And all the mess just starts moving again...
The gears starts spinning,
Hot gases and plasma...
Quantum madness and 
Spontaneous creation of life...
Microbes, and worms, 
Snips and snails and puppy dog tails...
It's quite the show...
But it hurts like Hell,
Even when it's doing right...
Even when it's doing wrong...
That old snake that swallow its own tail,
Who am I to say what's right or wrong...
It's not like it would listen...
So I party with the divine
Even when I'm doing nothing at all
But simmering in the crucible
Making everyday plans,
Paying the bills,
Recording a daily log of my blood pressure,
Getting all the shots and boosters, 
And sticking to my daily regimen 
Of chaos and mischief...
But, again, she was right,
Looked me straight in the eye
And saw that chaotic future
In the sparkle of my eyes...
Tripping the light fantastic,
Drowning in hallucinogens and psychedelic fungus. .
I've seen it all,
And done it all...
Been whipped for my sins,
And congratulated for my ability
To still walk away
Even though my rib bones have been exposed to open air...
It's late,
And I'm rambling,
Telling too many of my secrets,
Just cryptically enough
That it sounds like schizoid nonsense...
Walter Mitty had a Hell of an imagination,
And this didn't go anywhere near
Where I wanted it to go...
You're none the wiser...
That's a good thing...
My secrets are still safe...
My secret super soldier life
Is still above top secret,
And over the rainbow...
And I have yet to be called 
For the most harrowing mission yet,
Which I won't know
Until that moment arrives...
Sweet dreams, my dearies...
Be safe as you can manage...
The men in black fear me,
And that hurts my feelings,
Because I think I'm a decent fellow...
Sweet and unassuming...
But, for some reason,
The code I unwittingly speak in
Sways the things they do in the shadows...
Restrains their baser desires,
And grounds the mother ship...
It's the Monarch trigger words
to activate their programming...
Yeah,
She was right...
My mind is a dangerous thing...
Especially when I'm dreaming...
Especially when I'm asleep...
Lucid dreams might crack the eggshell 
And let all the monsters escape...
Funny though,
They don't seem to realize
The monsters have already come out to play,
And that turmoil
Is the natural state of the cosmos...
Just stay still,
Don't make a sound,
And that gravity wave might just
Pass right through you
Like the whispering of ghosts...
It will change you, of course,
It will be agonizingly painless
As long as you just surrender
To the chaos...
Give up on the white knuckle grip
On that steering wheel you call fate...
It's not connected to anything anyways...
It's just a pacifying symbol
To make you believe you have any control,
When in reality
None of us really do...
We're just observers watching the spectacle...
Just disembodied souls
Trapped in the simulation...
Dorothy and the Tinman...
I regret nothing...
And neither should you...

Line Break Dancing the Minefield

 The way I write
Is me
Navigating a minefield...
The 
Line
Breaks
Are where I step carefully over
Explosive devices...
It could be said
That they are like
Dance steps,
But it's self-conscious interpretive dance,
Rather than 
Choreographed movements...
It's definitely not ballet...
It's also a fear
Of the margin...
I hate when the lines
Are automatically broken
By the natural confines of the page...
So I wrestle that control
Away from the blank book
Or word processor...
I refuse to be contained or constrained
By "natural" limits...
This gets exaggerated 
Now that I mostly stumble
Through the minefield
On a cellphone
Instead of sprawling my blood
Onto the pages of blank journals...
I hate endings...
I use ellipses instead of periods 
To end a sentence...
There is always more to say
That I have left unsaid
No matter how much
I literally say...
I trail off when I speak 
Rather than come to a full stop...
I mumble a lot,
So I get cut off
In conversation
By people who don't know how to listen...
But I some times
Finish other people's sentences,
Which they hate,
Especially when I say
Exactly what they were going to say...
My impulse to help,
When they seem to be struggling
For the right words to say,
Is seen as impatience,
Which, to tell the truth, I am...
I'll expect you
To put up with my pauses,
While I grit my teeth
Through your own...
Yes,
I can be a hypocrite that way...
A quiet elitist
Mumbling
In a way that appears to be
Under my breath...
But if I were to use my natural voice,
Both deep and loud,
I get accused of
"Raising my voice"...
It's that minefield
I'm always delicately navigating...
I throw rocks
A few yards ahead of me
To see what explodes,
And to see what is a safe place
To place my next step...
I realize
It makes me look like a drunk
Stumbling across a frozen pond...
Charlie Chaplin would be proud...
It's a bit of physical comedy,
Even when I'm trying to be serious...
A touch of the drunken master
Fighting flawlessly 
While under the influence...
If I win,
It was totally accidental...
If I lose,
I planned it that way
So I can accidentally win
From another angle
On another day...
Take you by surprise
In an unsurprising fashion...
Rising from the dead
To feast on those juicy brains...
But the ice is always too thin...
And the margins 
Are always 
Too close together...
My fear of falling
Over the edge of the Earth
Is too great...
That's where the dragons live...
Or, at least, the ones that I imagine...
x

Bloodletting

I often have a hard time
Abridging my thoughts...
Usually
A dozen or so things 
Are bouncing around
In the attic
At any given moment...
Colonies of bats
Infesting the walls...
The words get written
To bleed off the excess
The way leeches
Suck blood
From a bruise...
But here I am,
Giving it a go,
And it doesn't feel like enough...

Mouse Clown Cars and Dung Beetle Sisyphus

 As Jim Morrison sang,
"People are strange..."
However,
The are even strange
When you're not a stranger...
They are always strange...
From the moment of birth,
Strange...
Just a bunch of tiny clown cars
Shaped like the folds
Of a human brain
Packed with tiny mice
Who are arguing amongst themselves,
Fucking and fighting...
Shitting and eating...
And the little brain shaped
Mouse clown cars
Run a whole human being...
They are the ridiculous
And mysterious
Control center...
We all have one...
It's resting comfortably,
Or uncomfortably,
In our skulls...
Buzzing, and squeaking, and rustling...
Reacting, and misunderstanding,
And succumbing to peer pressure...
Assuming, and accusing,
And presupposing...
Creating worlds inside their
Mouse brains,
What we might call "perception,"
That has nothing to do with the world 
That actually surrounds them...
I suppose we all
Live in our own little worlds...
Consensus reality
Has less of an effect on our understanding
Of what actually "is"
Than I would hope to believe...
It's a miracle we can communicate
At all...
Vacuum tubes all in a massive tangle
Sending cylindrical containers
Of information
To and fro
With no particular
Reasoning,
No agreed upon rules of engagement
Other than
Up is down,
And down is up,
Left is right,
And right is left...
Everyone drives on the same side of the road,
And they assume everyone else should go in the same direction
As they are going...
I, myself,
Have begun to stop caring
Whether I'm right or wrong,
Whether up is down,
Or down is up...
I find it scientifically amusing
Watching dungbeetle Sysiphus 
Roll his little ball of feces
Up that hill
With no problems...
(Yeah, yeah-yeah-Yoh...)
And I can observe the absurdities
In myself
With the same scientific amusement...
I roll my own little ball of feces
Up my own little hill...
My decisions made by the clowncar
Full of mice
About the consistency of Jell-O 
Nestled snuggly in my skull...
I'm no better and no worse
Than any other of the giant homunculi
We call humans...
Maybe there's a purpose,
Maybe there is none...
But we will strip each other
Right down to the bone
Like fire ants
Or a lion's scaly tongue 
If we feel threatened...
Even if there is no threat...
We jump like popcorn,
Our conclusions...
We crumble like dancing tube men
When exposed
Like fungus meeting unfiltered sunlight
After the cool, moist night
Enticed us to fruit...
We Crack open
At the slightest touch
Sending our spores out
Into the unsuspecting lungs
Of the forest...
It's all good...
Purposeless and purposeful,
Simultaneously...
As the Absolute 
Laughs in its sleep
At the quivering jelly...

I Won't Catch You When You Fall

 I won't catch you when you fall...
A kindness...
Past experience
Dictates
That you have to catch yourself...
Past experience dictates
That even actions
Can be misconstrued...
Past experience dictates
That blame will be mislaid...
I may be waiting at the bottom...
Might even offer
Words of encouragement
And solace...
Maybe even tend to some wounds...
But what's inside you
Is yours to ultimately mend...
It's your garden to tend...
I know by now
That words are just words,
And words are often
Misunderstood or outright refused,
Solid bone where an external
Acoustic meatus should be... 
Just vibrations
Bouncing off of concrete...
Polished stones
Where eyes should be...
Perception of reality
Is, of course, subjective,
One mind to the next...
We all see what we see
In an infinite number
Of disparate ways...
And perceptions
About others' meanings
Behind their words 
Are generally colored by 
Past experiences
That often muddy
Even crystal clear intentions...
We're not always listening
When we think we're listening...
Not always hearing
What we presuppose we are hearing...
Stories told by firelight...
Urban myths and ghost stories...
Not always seeing
What we assume we are seeing...
I will watch you fall...
I won't add any momentum
To the velocity
Of your descent...
As I said,
It's the kindest thing to do...
Truth to be told,
I'm falling, too...
I can't afford to increase my mass,
Thereby increasing
Gravity's pull...
Neither can you...
The lighter the load,
The more chance that wind resistance
Might slow down
That race to the bottom...
Might even catch an updraft, 
And get buoyed back up
To the edge of that cliff,
And relative safety
Despite crumbling rock
With jagged edges...
No one else is truly safe, though...
There are claws and teeth and thorns
On every angel's underbelly...
Together, we fall faster...
Best you try to fly
On your own...
Best I try
To find my wings alone,
Or brace myself
For impact...
Maybe breaking through
The eggshell...
Maybe starting a new life...
Embryonic and stem cell new...
It's been said that
You can't do it alone,
But you can...
There is no other viable choice...
You can only see
With your own eyes...
Share what notes you have taken
When you can...
Maybe they can be of use to others...
They'll see what they choose to see...
See what they want to see...
Everybody's falling
At some time or another...
Different lines of code
Running programs
Calculating consensus reality...
The communal rules...
The grammar of physical being,
The fruit of the mycelium 
We call the Absolute...
The common ground
That we plummet towards
The way the moon
Constantly falls around Earth
As the Earth
Constantly falls
Around the Sun...
A bottomless pit...
Equilibrium
For a time
Until that time passes...

It's Complicated

 Saw the relationship status
Before the block,
"It's complicated"...
This was a little more
Than half a year ago
Since I went no contact...
She had a few regular fuckboys,
And one she wanted 
To "be the one"
(That was the "complicated" one)...
No surprise though
That she still wanted
To have sex with me,
The ex-husband...
Variety was her thing...
Love was the drug...
And, I suppose,
She thought sex was like
Methadone for love addicts...
I'd fallen for it
When she proposed...
Matching ring finger tattoos
(Bad idea)...
But
The status update 
Wasn't complicated...
It was quite simple...
It was a matter of supply...
Search "narcissistic supply"
And you'll get the idea...
Sex or drama...
Someone to accuse, abuse,
Love-bomb, or ignore...
Depending on the day,
Or the hour,
Or the minute...
Everything was textbook accurate...
If you flipped through the pages,
Everything would fit...
Every action would illustrate
Everyday psychological epiphany...
The obvious heart
That lacks any real heart...
Just an outline 
In white tape
Like a crime scene...
"It's complicated..."
No, no it's not...
Certain patterns of behavior
Like the way a dog walks in circles
Before lying down...
Predictable...
The way a cat
Will press its cheek bones
Against your hand or face...
Marking its territory...
Adding you to its inventory of belongings...
These things that went on
Long before me,
These patterns of behavior,
Will continue
After I'm long since
Gone...
x