Magic Eye Respawn Noclip

 The ticking of the clock isn't so noticeable anymore...  

It has become a fixture of expectation filtered out of active consciousness...  

I inspect the microfiche line by line, page after page...  

The entirety of the manuscript exists,  

Beginning to end,  

But I behave as if I have free will...  

This illusion of change is a comfort sometimes,  

The apparent incompleteness,  

But the whole picture is there...  

With the proper training,  

The needle can be dropped anywhere on the spiral...  

No matter what note you hear,  

The entire song has already been written...  

The entire symphony...  

The entire anthology of symphonies...  

A series of photographs at 60 frames per second...  

Faster than the perceptive fps of the brain to the eye, 24 to 48...  

A torrent of input processed constantly...  

Filtered aggressively...  

The meditation of mundane things pressing in on all sides...  

You can hear all things anywhere and everywhere...  

You only choose to remember specific notes along the way...  

Perception is a funnel with a wide mouth  

And it narrows to a pinhole after a fashion  

Dropping experience in metered amounts...  

The pressure that builds compresses you into physical matter,  

This fleshy body that can feel the earth beneath its feet...  

Cool grass both soft and alternatingly hard sharp feeling on the soles...  

Wear heavy boots as you sleep if you want clear lucid dreams...  

Sleep on your belly with your feet off of the bed...  

There are always noises in the kitchen late in the evening...  

Ghostly roommates that I never see when the sun is high...  

The rain came this week after an unseasonably hot, dry summer...  

People say they remember hotter,  

But memory isn't as accurate as thermometers...  

We invent a lot of details...  

We see things that weren't there,  

And see spaces where no spaces existed...  

We rewrite history,  

The sights, the sounds, what we were feeling at the time...  

Every moment exists everywhere eternally,  

But only through motion can we feel it...  

Unmoving, it may as well be nothing at all...  

Everything at once is just a striated blur,  

And so we move...  

Trace our finger over the words as we read so we don't lose our place,  

Or re-read the same lines repeatedly...  

Sometimes we still do...  

Bouncing over imperfections in the spiraling grooves of the vinyl...  

Hiss, pop, snap...  

Visual white noise static...  

When we let our eyes cross out of focus,  

We feel truly alive...  

We phase through walls like Montauk...  

We see the hidden picture...  

The holographic image of ourselves that we have created becomes almost clear...  

Real enough to get lost in for a lifetime  

Before we snap back to what we are...  

Observers of the impossible...  

Avatars in a simulation...  

Explorers of raw mathematical code expressed in waves...  

Some mundane illusion that is comfort food for a troubled consciousness forgetting its own divinity...  

Limiting itself in some vain and contradictory attempt to understand itself...  

Reading the microfiche line by line  

As the record crackles and pops...  

West Texas Drawl

I find myself missing her,  

The first wife...  

Smoky West Texas drawl and beautiful brown eyes...  

I chance upon old photos from an old hard drive...  

There she is   

Looking back at me from the backlit LCD...  

In the beginning,  

She had a warmth about her...  

Emotionally...  

Physically...  

Intellectually...  

A chill eventually set in...  

I find myself missing her,  

The woman I first met...  

Kneeling down on the carpet to first kiss her as she was sitting on the couch...  

Her lips so soft and warm and wet...  

Placing my hands on her hips that felt like Heaven distilled into flesh...  

The moment was supposed to last,  

But moments rarely do...  

Some say time is a substance like water...  

Perception flows in its current,  

But past, present, and future all exist in a timeless now...  

I find myself missing that moment...  

15 years we spent together struggling against the stress of survival...  

She fell out of love with me, eventually...  

That chill slowly settled in...  

I grew to miss her touch even when she was sitting right next to me...  

The days of cupping her breast as we spooned to sleep long past...  

One of the pictures a side view of her naked breast, up close,  

A self portrait taken when the warmth was something she felt for me...  

When she could be playful and seductive...  

I remember the taste on my lips...  

The feel of her erectile tissue reacting to oral stimulation...  

She was so perfect sometimes, to me...  

I guess I never really was, for her...  

I was physically frail when she loved me...  

Then I became reborn after a short bout with near death...  

Good as new...  

Physically...  

But not in time to retain her love...  

Not in time to ever feel her warmth again...  

In the holograms film is every moment we shared...  

That first kiss has to be in there somewhere...  

I find myself wishing I could relive it...  

Mere memory doesn't do it justice...  

They simply enhance the absence...  

Digital pictures are just lines of code...  

Cold evidence of distance traveled...  

Even if they sometimes hint at some kind of consciousness behind,   

It's simply artifice and illusion...  

Her breath in my ear as my lips kissed her neck is a million miles away...  

She is just another stranger now...  

Just another encapsulated story in the anthology...  

I think about the timeless now with a longing...  

I find myself missing her sometimes...  

No one that came after feels like this...  

No one that came after lasted more than a moment...  

I understand that there is no going back...  

I hold no hope of reconciliation...  

But she still holds pieces of my attention  

Tangled in her hair...  

Timing

 

When the test subject is released into the wild should be precision clockwork...  

Early morning or late night change from point of origin to distant time zones...  

Where you are is not always when they are consuming content...  

Catch them when they're hungry...  

Starved for contact...  

Mid-day rush hour has too much interaction and stress...  

Bellies full with rushed lunch,  

Convenience store offerings not taken seriously...  

Get them when they crave kobe beef that slides down like butter...  

Be the Croizet Cognac Cuvée Léonie 1858,  

Or at least feel like it to their overburdened taste buds...  

Sensory confusion is about the when rather than the what or the how...  

Blindfold them, strike the match, then hit them with the ice...  

Melting wax from red candles splattering on the skin...  

Touch the audience in places that make them feel on the edge of ashamed,...  

Like they know too much,...  

Like they've been told a secret that no one else can ever know...  

It's just between your art and their perception...  

Offer them physical sensation and visceral emotion...  

Bare the soul as if no one is really listening,  

Embers burning the roots underground,  

Traveling for miles like strands of mycelium communicating with the root systems of groves of trees that keep the soil from washing down into the river and out to the sea...  

There is always a tiny bit of their attention that is listening...   

When the stars are at the proper place in the sky there is always a small piece of soul absently observing,  

Drawing circles in the bathwater with delicate fingers while daydreaming...  

This is where you get in...  

Set the salt in the waves on fire at just the right moment,    

Just as the sun angles over the horizon...  

Just as the moon pulls up the water from the roots to the shore...  

The place where the garter squeezes the thigh is where that magic happens...  

The way flesh feels better than it looks even when it looks as good as it feels...  

It's all about how it makes you feel...  

It's not about logic, mathematics, or grammar consciously practiced...  

These things fall into place all on their own...  

If you time it right...  

If you listen to the whispers and the music in the fan blades turning...  

Know without knowing...  

Sleepless nights from some unknown contraction of purpose,  

Something is moving below the surface...  

A world always on edge,  

This is how it has always been...  

The tragedy and the triumphs are always the same in a historically cycling pulse...  

Evolution has no direction or ultimate goal,  

It's just life constantly running over obstacles and allowing the changing environment to shape them from asexual single cell division to multicellular copulation through sensual friction... 

Every day brings a series of moments that touch you in places you might not want to admit...  

If the timing is right,  

Finish the thought and then broadcast it on public access like pirate radio...  

Raising Welts

I still have to remind myself...  

Songs play on random...  

Moments in time marked by notes...  

Raising welts in memory...  

Emotions partially left behind,  

They never fully vacate the premises...  

Regret, I try not to participate in that...  

Things happen...  

Experiences get catalogued for future use...  

A box of a/v and pc peripheral connectors and cables collected in a box for years...  

You never know when a lesson will become useful again...  

Dozens of journals on a bookshelf...  

Documentation of ephemera and random occurrences since memory isn't always accurate...  

Chronology isn't always the way it dances...  

I remember every touch,  

But they tend to glow together...  

Mix and match...  

Garanimals is a childhood memory before Toughskins Husky jeans...  

Some of the musical artists from back then have since changed their names...  

Many have aged out of this world...  

Morning Has Broken...  

Ride on the Peace Train...  

More recent moments from the last decade are colored by corporate music...  

Things were out of sync...  

Overprocessed...  

I couldn't master autotune so a few relationships went all off-key and sour...  

The sex was always good, then the little blue pills made it amazing...  

They never did help with shared emotional dysfunction overlapping though...  

What we individually brought with us,  

And what arose from our admixture...  

People sometimes run together...  

Ink hitting a wet spot and accelerating through the fibers of the pulp...  

Bloom...  

Sometimes I have to remind myself  

That I'm not like her...  

The reason for the split...  

There's a tendency to be engulfed by another personality...  

Enmeshed...  

"I think I'm like you because I think I need you..."  

But it's more  

"I think I have to be 'not me'  

For you to stay..."  

We mimic those we desire without even thinking about it...  

We play the part because the lead got lost on the way to the show...  

Unless you're high school sweethearts,  

You're both just understudies...  

Time clicks by with a steady frame rate...  

Perception, however, does not...  

Perception of time is based on re-created memories...  

The smell of old Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys hardcovers from the used book store...  

Wandering the isles...  

Snapping turtles at the frog pond...  

Duck weed and bullfrogs...  

Subconsciously avoiding things about who I was that offer clues as to who I am...  

I only have suspicions...  

We never make it easy...  

Reinventing ourselves with every new trauma,  

With every new victory,  

Every time the Viewmaster's lever clicks...  

Different windows on the same paper disc...  

Songs play on random...  

They remind me of my ex-wives before and after things went out of tune...  

I know there is judgement...  

The music reminds me,  

Subtle moments...  

And the not so subtle...  

I even go back to high-school,   

Spinning around and around on a wet road just to see what it's like to lock the brakes...  

It must have scared her to death...  

Promise and Opportunity

The seed, once exposed, falls to the earth...  

Lost in the the leaf litter...  

Contemplating...  

Waiting for a change in the weather...  

The proper moisture content in the atmosphere...  

The right place and the right time...  

Years can pass, under the right conditions...  

Dormant...  

The potential for life is whispered in it's ears...  

A promise...  

*  

The flesh has long ago fallen away,  

Decayed or otherwise consumed,  

Exposing this potential for new beginnings...  

This promise...  

The seed coat can be a prison...  

Sometimes fires have to rage outside  

Before the skin can be broken...  

Time served...  

Exoneration...  

A promise of freedom...  

*

Sometimes passage through the digestive system of a field beast or migratory bird

Carries it to a distant place...  

Softens the seed coat...  

Prepares the way...  

Enzymes and fertilizer...  

Even shit has it's place...  

Even shit can produce beautiful things...  

Life is ever changing and opportunistic...  

Not always picky about where it chooses to flourish...  

Not always pretty, the backstory about how a thing came to be...  

Struggle is essential to the show...  

The classic literary conflicts are there in every mundane moment...  

From cataclysm to quiet afternoon...  

*

Nothing is as it seems  

As the the void is constantly changing...  

The dream is a churning machine  

Always looking for new ways to express what it wants to be...  

One plus one is always two...  

Two plus two is always four...  

No matter what the one is...  

No matter what it thinks it's made of...  

From one end of the Universe to the end of another...  

The seed always wants to eventually grow as long as it retains the potential...  

There is promise unless the seed forgets...  

If it is crushed or destroyed...  

A promise broken...  

These things happen...  

They make room for alternate possibilities...  

New promises to be made...   

*

There's always another player waiting for room on the server...  

Waiting for someone else to get booted off...  

There's always something else waiting for it's chance to grow into the now...  

Opportunistic and hungry to express...  

The imagination of the void is vast...  

Limitless...  

An infinity of promises stretching to the end of time from the beginning of time...  

And time is just a promise that orients expectation within consciousness...  

A placeholder that whispers to the seed pod that it is time...  

It wordlessly pronounces its name...  

Chilled Glass on a Hot Day

 I bleed words to no one in particular...  

I bleed words for no one in particular...  

They show up like condensation on a cold surface...  

The chilled glass of an iced drink on a hot day...  

Things just happen...  

The physics of prose...  

Just reporting the facts...  

Descriptive observations...  

Maybe a half dozen regular patrons stop by for a drink from the well...  

Hit or miss beyond this...  

Sometimes there's a concert nearby, and I benefit from the tourist overflow...  

I'm just a foreigner with local flavor...  

An unpretentiously homebrewed IPA...  

Droplets gleaming, forming on my surface,  

Sliding down like emotionless tears...  

These are not tears...  

Humidity sweat...  

Words like teardrops sounds clichéd and trite...  

I don't sling for pity's sake,  

I just do what I do the way the scorpion stings the fox after crossing the river on it's back...  

It's just nature...  

A compulsion...  

God knows it's not for payment, or even recognition...  

Precious little coin in the larder...  

The bottom of the wishing well is just sand and smooth pebbles...

There are tens of thousands like me washed back and forth over the ocean floor through deep sea internet cables...  

Electronically screaming into the void because sometimes it just feels good to scream...  

Why hold it in?  

The cows in the field barely lift their heads, tails flicking flies from their thighs...  

I have no expectations despite sometimes imaginings casting sparks in the night...  

Popcorn ceiling casting popcorn shadows from the light that I often forget to turn off,  

Just below the ever turning ceiling fan that makes those shadows dance and tremble...  

New Book (that I wrote) on Amazon

Originally from Bristol, Connecticut, I followed my heart to Lubbock, Texas, in 2002. Wound up in Austin, TX, three divorces later. In my late teens to early twenties, I was into making photocopied chapbooks of my poetry that I sold at a handful of local shops. I was in the Air Force then, stateside, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Once I got to the University of Connecticut in the ‘90s, I frequented coffee houses, open mics, and poetry slams. Scribbled in my journals every day filling up 66 120-page blank books over a little more than a decade, … until 2003. For some reason, being a husband and struggling to support a readymade family sucked the poetry bug right out of me. It came back in 2017, just after the first divorce.  This time, instead of physical journals, I posted my thoughts online in a blog.  Haven’t attempted publishing my work in book form since I penned a novel in college over twenty years ago. It’s time.

Softcover and Kindle eBook of my prose poetry collection, Flytrap & Honeydew, is now live on Amazon. Hardcover should be live on Monday or Tuesday. Check it out if you like. (And maybe share this post for me to get the word out.)

This is a collection of stream of consciousness prose poetry. All pieces are written in response to living everyday life. Topics ranging from dealing with depression and anxiety to relationships and divorce to general musing about why this reality is what it is. It's real, it's heartfelt, and it's relatable. If you've ever been in a dark place, maybe this will help you know that you're not alone.

https://www.amazon.com/Flytrap-Honeydew-Jesse-Stuart-Yandow/dp/B0CK3VSRZD/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=