here's how it happens
the morning after
you reach into the drawer
where the your t-shirts live
to find it austere
you'll shrug because
you're still drunk
& you can't remember
when last it was
that you had something wet
or how long it's been
since you made the floorboards blush
or why the carpet is upset
who wouldn't be
the contents to the upended ashtray
strewn around the apartment
resemble the aftermath
of the smallest war
to ever take place in norfolk
some midnight thief
must've made off with the lighter
because it isn't in
any of your favorite spots
maybe you chucked it
along with a hundred other things
that make noise when they land
in the neighbors yard
you won't remember putting
the refrigerator's belongings
in the bathtub
or scrawling a buzzard
on the bedroom door
but then again who would
you'll pretend it's spring again
before putting on your winter coat
to go out front with a cigarette
in your mouth
you'll hope for a passing stranger
to *** a light from
or drag yourself to the corner
with couch cushion change
to buy a new lighter
and on your way
you won't bother looking back
this is just another day
on eggshells for no reason
another november
choking on birthday candles
on your way home
you step over beer cans
the kind you fell in love with
and wonder who
had the last laugh last night
or if anyone said a word at all
it might've been another
moment of clarity
it might have been some idiot savant
any adjective that feels like home
anything that keeps you thirsty

AWAKENING

Sleep and slumber, dreams of wonder... weaving,
morning’s vacuum broke the spell
Pitted pillow, note of parting... leaving,
“from your friend, a fond farewell”
Sunrise throbbing, twilight aching... grieving,
daydreams, flashbacks, nightmares knell
Pale phantasms, visions sneaking... thieving,
plot to fill the empty shell

12 DELIRIA

1st Delirium: COLLAPSES

Fractured sky bolts, billows bursting... rumbling,
heavens tighten, turn the vise
Horsemen saddle shafts of lightning... tumbling,
jagged highways must suffice
Ruptured skyways, hailstones crackling... crumbling,
naked pearls of paradise
Toxic tongues of laughter stinging... stumbling,
ocean buckets choked with ice
Droplets drumming, thunder muzzled... mumbling,
washed out whispers pay the price
Smothered blazes, cinders smoking... humbling,
ashes shaped in sacrifice

2nd Delirium: DESCENTS

Asphalt alleys, ashen faces... frowning,
blowing bubbles, chewing gum
Drinking ale from tavern tankards... downing,
moonlit beads of painted ***
Stony stars and sea misshapen... drowning,
humble rivers’ rhythms hum
Apparitions aspirating... clowning,
diamonds dying , minstrels strum
Incandescent candles conquered... crowning,
vacant vapours, cold and numb

3rd Delirium: FATES

Tempest turmoil, tapered turrets... holding,
dungeons, dragons, chains and racks
Wheels of fortune, Tarot temptress... molding,
Hangmen, Towers, One Eyed Jacks
Sand dune castles, cryptic candles... folding,
warping walls of liquid wax
Idols colder, combed and coddled... scolding,
hide in fissures, peek through cracks

4th Delirium: LOST SOULS

Sunken cities, pilgrims peering... gawking,
squinting eyeballs, blazing sun
Janus facing, shepherds chasing... stalking,
friends embrace before they shun
Tearooms steaming, tumult teeming... talking,
lovers listen, poets pun
Broken stones unanchored, quaking... rocking,
slipping, falling, one by one
Beaten pathways, footsteps marking... mocking,
wedged in webs which spiders spun
Circus shelters, big tops tumbling... locking,
people pacing, soon they’re none
Numbered exits, zeros numbing... knocking,
midnight daylight’s days undone
Moon blood shackles, shivers shaming... shocking,
starlight striders streaking, stun
Hushed but harried hermits waiting... walking,
restless rainbows on the run
Pixies, elves, and echoes bouncing... balking,
fading fast when dawn’s begun
Bantum butterflies are flitting... flocking
sometimes conquered, overrun
Hocus pokus, seers focus... squawking,
voodoo wavered, witchcraft won

5th Delirium: INTROSPECTION

Sundown furnace, fires fading... coughing,
dusky dew drops drain the air
Empty chalice, sipped in silence... quaffing,
thirsting shadows unaware
Looking glass and lattice scorning... scoffing,
local loser gapes and stares
Faces covered, dancing naked... doffing,
peering inside, hope despairs

6th Delirium: THE VOID

Tales of taboos, mystic mythos... missing,
windows shuttered, bolted door
Kindled candles, tongues and anvils... hissing,
heavy hammers, echoes roar
Dark deceivers, raven charmers... kissing,
draging demons from the shore
Hopeless hollows filled with doubters... dissing
standing empty - nevermore

7th Delirium: SEARCHING

Martyred monks haunt runic ruins ... waiting,
banging broken bells below
Vaulted hallways, voided voices... grating,
churning Chinese chimes aglow
Granite graveyards, spectres spooking... skating,
blackened bushes, roses grow
****** dwarfs seek mutant migrants... mating,
packing parcels, ice and snow

8th Delirium: NIGHTTIME

Throbbing drumheads, fingers blazing... steaming,
coins of copper, beggars plea
Rusty residues of resin... streaming,
opal amber filigree
Orphan shades in shallow shadows... teeming,
steeping twigs in twilight tea
Cloister doorsteps, Prophets gaming... scheming,
tracing tracks of destiny
Blacksmiths blanching, horseshoes glowing... gleaming,
partially sheathed in black debris
Phantoms feigning, nightmares scathing... screaming,
dusty dreamers drifting free

9th Delerium: EMPTYNESS

Water wheels in wastelands... turning,
drowning relics in the slum
Rumpled rags of fashioned burlap... burning,
lit by bandits blind and dumb
Pastured prisons, ponies bridled ... yearning,
forest fairies under thumb
Sounds inside of cauldrons coughing... churning,
blaring bugles, tattooed drum

10th Delirium: ALIENATION

Rain unravelling, wistfully weeping... falling,
treacle trickling, fickle sky
Mushrooms sprinkled, visions sprouting... sprawling,
seagulls drowning, dolphins die
Rabble gasping, spirits broken... crawling,
lonely lonesome swallows cry
Babbling brooks and breakers ebbing... bawling
puppies paddle, puppets sigh
People passing ripple past me... calling,
rainbow colours, collars high
Chaos seething, lepers looting... stalling,
stealing stallions on the sly
Pencils pausing, scholars scrambling... scrawling,
scratching scribbles, asking why

11th Delirium: JETSAM

Silver sails sway pallid pirates... prowling,
Jolly Rogers, wind and sound
Parrots perching, tattered feathers... fouling,
tethered talons, tied and bound
Shipwrecked foghorns, trumpets stranded... howling,
spiral springs of time unwound
Magic moonlight, shimmers shaking... scowling,
burnt out matchsticks washed aground
Prairie wolfs, coyotes calling... yowling,
witching hours, midnight hounds
Tightrope walkers, grizzlies grunting... growling,
seeking islands, lost and found

12th Delirium: RELIEF

Slumber shattered, vapours captive... haunting,
chained in mirrors, breaking free
Scarlet skylines, daylight dawning... daunting,
rivers rushing to the sea
Silence softens, sandmen whisper... wanting,
piercing rafters, turning keys
Shadows shudder, notions fluster... flaunting,
moonbeam bullets meant for me
Mind in migraine, meadows trembling... taunting,
sparrows speak in harmony

REAWAKENING

Pitter patter, teardrops paling... pearling,
salting scarves in secret drawers
Mist amongst us, smoke rings rising... curling,
climbing from the ocean floors
See-saw circles, senses swerving... swirling,
swept away with silver oars
Courtyard jesters, sceptres twisting... twirling,
push the past to foreign shores
Passing pangs of passions heaving... hurling,
burning bridges, closing doors
Roses wither, icons waning... whirling,
time decays and time restores

Back to the scrawling pad
a cheap red notebook
wide ruled, with the perforated pages in it
in case I wanna punch one out easily
Those moleskin daze were measly
Thinking I'm creative and potent
but spending two years
to fill those tiny pages
Please, help me
reinvent the feel and manifest it
to real, accomplishment
Songs, verse, or vice grip words
to change a nation with
- to start a new nation with
Bokonon Bhikkhu
hurling Pikachus down from Mt. Olympus
land on the concrete with lemming splat
Get the metaphor?
I don't. Make your own up
I just an absurdest
A poor boy humming Queen
and writing rap atrocities
Nah, the rap "apocalypse"
minus all the apostrophes
Write so much anything anyone says
from now until oblivion
was just quoting me!

this is a letter to all of those
who stumbled upon my dull eyes
and poetic words

i apologize to those who participated in
whispered i love you's and dreams shared
for watching from afar as your cared for me
a half of a whole

you held my body, empty
my soul scooped out of myself
like an acorn squash during winter months
nothing left but the skin
and my soul out among the wildflowers
searching for the missing parts of me
searching for my home

i placed my body in your hands
letting you sip the wine that made up me
drizzling you in honey, in sweetness, and in light
for i knew you would protect me
scrawling poetry into the broken bits
the unfiltered bits
you would cause me to feel something on cold winter nights

i am sorry that when my soul stumbled home
bringing home the bits that were missing
that you were left alone
standing in the dark under streetlights
unsure of where you went wrong
broken promises and dreams in your hands
drowning in your own love
suffocating on your sunshine
cursing yourself for loving too hard

i am sorry for hurting you
but thank you for loving me
even when i left you lonely

I love you doesn't encompass the warmth that spreads through my soul
I love you doesn't realize the need for your friendship
I love you is so generic, so simple, that it really has little at all

I want to say that with you,
the world is at my fingertips,
with you I feel alive,
with you my heart races a nascar driver's and wins.

I love you doesn't amount to much, it's three simple words,

But then again, no words ever do.

Because words are lost in seas of actions, and
picture's speak a 1000 times faster in their 5x7 frames

But it's the look of your eyes,
the caress of your touch, that says I love you,
So much more infinitely than I could ever dream

And I'm left sitting here,
scrawling down syllables,
trying to capture the infinity that is emotion.

The truth is, I’m not really sure who I am.  She told us to draw ourselves and then to draw our souls; so I drew my face scratched and uneven, just as I’ve always seen it, and frowned at the result both in the mirror and on the paper.  The only soul I’ve ever really known was the one that shone through the strokes of the keys I punched, the scrawling of ink on paper in mismatched arrays of awkward thoughts, disorientated and unorganized, shaded different spews of emotion and rearranged through the lens of ever last viewer’s eye.  Even so, this soul that is composed of words that defined me painted a picture vivid in its contrast, though blurry from both afar and close enough to squint, no details able to be made out.  These words that have wrapped around my soul rubbed raw from the time my skin first flinched at the cool March air cannot be deciphered by their author, though I know somehow that their letters flowing into one another say more than any curve of my face ever could.  These words are black and white, two extremes crafted in the pallet of the Universe’s toolshed, and perhaps that’s exactly what I am.  Black or white.  I’m dark and lost and scrounging for some rusting wall or tree branch to cling to as to ensure the shimmering waves, onyx and charcoal in their nature with the flow of blood in its spine, do not flood into my mouth at a rate in which is too quick to balance myself upon them, or, I’m white, drifting snow from a cloud scraping the vast expanse of brilliant blue gazing as a sky above all the world, pure, innocent, unscathed with the potential for creation in vibrancies yet unknown, or to be ripped to bits, scattered amongst piles of cream and autumn leaves drained of their color beneath months of shivering frost.  And so, perhaps any physical representation of my being would be all wrong, because that’s not what I am.  Myself, my soul, it resides in the murky depths of heights I’ve yet to discover, tethered endlessly and uncertain among the caverns of my inners, pink and mushy, stirred and ******, untouched from the harsh light of a world encased in brevity.

I was gonna write about how I was writing standing up like Hemingway at some bar in Key West, but instead I ended up nearly lying down, like some Roman eating grapes, and I’m not scrawling with a pen. I’m typing.

Why the standing up, Ernest? Was it to gauge how difficult it was to keep good posture? Was it to better measure how drunk you were getting?

He would have boxed me for those asking those questions, or maybe he’d just slam a few shots.

All of us Northeasterners enjoy getting drunk somewhere tropical. I never have a choice in the matter. Whether it’s Florida, South Carolina, or the South Caribbean (I've never left the Western Hemisphere), all I really like down there is beaches and seawater. Everything else gives deep cringes. Those other tourists, so annoying just to look at. Flip flops, whole families, and the god awful shops they keep open. You go to a place good for a beach, green hills, seawater, and fruit, and you want to buy diamonds? C’mon. I wish you’d want these islands to be like national parks; nature over here and cities over there. But the tourists enjoy fake grass huts that try really hard to sell them junk.

So who’s to blame for the sellers perpetuating petty sales and mediocre values? Is it the islanders that make a profit, or the buyers that want the wares? Or is there a third party guaranteeing that the buyers and sellers alike are propagandized to expect the less than fine things in life? Are the salespeople actually working the shops, the ones really getting rich from the sale?

what i said:
"you sound rough this morning."


what i meant:
"your voice is lavender and honey and tea time and supernovas colliding with gentle breezes and if i could wake up to it, just once, cocooned in a tangle of your arms and couch cushions and that blanket you keep in the back of your car, i swear by the stars in my eyes no one on this godforsaken planet would be out of earshot of my singing

i hope that tonight when i dream of you--it is no longer a matter of uncertainty, but anticipation--you speak like you've just overslept your alarm and frantically motored yourself to where i am, like is the case today.

i wish you had chosen me but if i could only listen to you speak to me, about anything--rivers or math homework or football or belonging or music or even your girlfriend--i promise i would listen with the beating urgency of a swimmer in a frozen stream, i would savor each word from your lips, like they were the spring and i was the underground daisy waiting for your kiss.

and in precisely three days i will have an essay to compose about a beautiful topic that would consume me thoroughly were it not for the memory of your groggy morning voice, so full of raspy complacency i can't breathe but instead of fulfilling my obligations i will be hashing out halfway comprehensible poetry about you and crying about how i cannot recreate the sound of your voice with any combination of hollowly clicking keys.

you are so beautiful that i could spend the remainder of my life with a five-subject notebook, scrawling 'your eyes. your smile. your hands. your voice' over and over endlessly and die feeling as though i had lived a thousand years of quiet adventure.

you are so much and too much for me and i have no idea why you see as much in me as you do but i will not question it, for fear that if i were to come too close to you, to run my fingers along the marvel of your face you would shrivel and unfurl into nonexistence, like the leaf in the fire."


and also:
"why can't your voice always sound like this?"

and finally:
"******* you're attractive"

I guess I'm just not the type of girl you'd write pretty love songs about.
It's much easier to write about how I'm a strong wind of fabricated concern in your mind,
rather than your golden girl.
How I enchant everyone but you.
How I must do it on purpose,
Because I love the attention.
I love the applause.
I love the lust and your love lost.
But if you read just one chapter of my own book of songs,
You'd see crayon writing that led to you all along,
outlining your salmon voice,
and your coffee eyes,
the kissing of your peachy skin,
my feelings you compromised.
But you needn't sneak to see,
I wish to be a silver spirit
that lives in your sight alone.
I worship you when I'm not on defense.
When you're not on the fence,
Walking tightrope, with me in your right palm,
while desires, goals and worries, doubts and fears,
and your book of scarlet nightmares are all in your left.
Teeter off and lose your footing.
You know I'll hit the ground first.
Soften the fall for you and your words.
Write on free faller.
Let's call it all off.
You pretend to be grey and modest.
You must do it on purpose,
because you know
I hate losing your attention,
I hate your forgotten applause,
I hate my lust for you
and here, your love is lost.
But even now that my stare is fixed
on you and your book
You still won't turn to look
because you don't believe in me
and you don't believe in ghosts.

Dearest,

This thing is claiming me again. I write only to express a great need to see you, or call you, or maybe even crank up the engine of this beat up junker I'm sitting in now. I'd very much like to see you again, or once more, even if it were just your eyes. It's been three years. Three years since I last heard your voice, or laugh, or saw you smile. ****, do I miss that smile. It's been three years since you left without a decent goodbye, you ***. You never had a ******* clue - but, anyway. That's not why I'm here.

I was thinking of you today, as I have every single one before and will continue to until my breathing ceases. Did you know it's the anniversary of when I realized I was hopelessly in love with you? Of course you don't. I never told you about that moment, or how I really felt. I swore I might, before you were gone, but it's been three years and I never did. So that's that, I guess. This is such a waste, writing to you. Yet here I am, painstakingly scrawling these thoughts whirling around in my brain on to a sheet of loose leaf paper. The best part is knowing I'll never send this to you. This is going to sit here in my pocket until I wash it, or burn it when I'm searching for the cigarettes I don't smoke, or even lose it on my walk through the city.

I walk every day, and not just to and from places. I walk to think. I walk to clear my head. Instead, I will pass somewhere you've been -- somewhere we've been -- and I will be right where I started again, plagued by the ghost of you on every new corner, in the middle of the crowds, and at the foot of the subway stairs. You are everywhere, darling.

You'd be laughing at this point, probably. You'd be thinking that I ramble like I used to and still don't manage to say enough to ever convince you that I'm true. Or maybe you'd be thinking how wasteful this is to this sheet of paper. How unfair that this piece of paper gets to carry this nonsensical message to you -- or not, actually -- and how unfair that it gets to sit in my pocket, close enough to be lost. Or maybe you wouldn't think that at all, and you'd be just blankly reading all of this and wondering whether I'm just bullshitting around the truth, like I've always done oh-so-well.

Or maybe you'd just be thinking that this is so typical of me, keeping things I'll never do anything with for the sake of keeping them. You always thought I liked the act of keeping things rather than the things themselves. Perhaps you're right, because I've always wished I could both keep you and be rid of you and the toxicity you bring.

But at the end of the day, I'm the one writing you. Maybe my feelings learn towards the former of those two extremes.

Anyway, you would have been right about the bullshitting thing. I'm really writing because the emptiness is back, eating me out and wringing my guts inside out, and it isn't even pleasurable. I wrote because I haven't done so in some time, and it's been a long time since I wrote one of these one-sided letters to you. I used to write more; I used to have dozens, even, though I never wrote those on loose leaf paper in an old junker, heat off in the middle of winter. Really, I'm freezing right now. This is ridiculous. And I've got to stop bullshitting to you, I do.

You know, I can almost hear you responding to this. I can hear your voice somewhere in the back of my mind, answering me. And maybe that makes me more insane than I ever was. Maybe this hollowed out body has finally been done in, and I'm just beginning my descent into the clutches of insanity... or maybe I just can't tell you the truth.  You know me well, you do.

The truth is that I ******* miss you so much, it hurts to breathe. It physically causes my chest to ache, for pain to shoot through my entire body with each pump of my heart. Unfortunately, my heart is beating ceaselessly and my breathing has yet to stop by choice, so it hurts every day, every single second. I am always missing you. There is no other truth but that.

I think that, by allowing myself to write this, I'm hoping this idea of you can save me. I know already that this is the dumbest thing I've let myself hope for, more stupid than letting myself hope for you and for change and for happiness. The point is, letting myself do this at all is stupid, But I can't stop myself. You are worse than any drug I've ever known, and I pity those whose lives you have touched only because I know what it's like to be cut off from you. God forbid you leave them, someday, and they end up like me. Or a few shades less crazy than me.

I haven't even eaten because of this emptiness. I can't eat, actually. If I feed the monster, it erupts and soaks me with self hatred. I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid to do anything to infuriate it, and it's always angry. It's always whispering to me, sexily and sweet, asking me to do things that are so wrong. I'm not listening, and I'm staying clean, but it's hard, dearest. It's so hard when you've got nothing to cling to, nothing to even dream about hoping for.

This emptiness takes and takes, and it does not give back anything but empty caverns and the memory of what it was to feel. It takes everything I've got and it dumps it on the ground, spreads it around and sullies it. And when it's tattered and worn and filthy and unrecognizable, it crumbles it between its fingers like it's nothing but ash. I hate this behemoth more than I hate living through it. It's never-ending, the terrors it brings, and it pounds against me when I trap it away. It is invincible though, and it will always win. It's invincible in the way I believed we once had been, a long time in the past. Like us, I am not as invincible as I dreamed.

I'm sorry if I've worried you. I didn't mean to tell you, not truly. But now that the words are out, I seem to be a bit less empty than I was. Maybe I'll find my way out of this... maybe. I hope you are well, and smiling, and the world treats you kindly. I hope the night sky is beautiful where you are, and the lights glimmer in the distance exactly as you've imagined them. You deserve it a thousand times over me.

-A.C.

Heathens -
in heaven's lobby
flock
to barter
for Magic 'Shrooms
with pop rocks... and pancakes
and leaf-green brownies.
new to the scene;
the Son of Man
holds a motley court,
then wanders off
to fetch Picasso - Lassoed
from his cups, his Love that must Love
his genius... doubtless,
cloud-scrawling
huge pendulous *******
in Elysium; for no one at all.
better Pablo
should tend bars      that set mobs free
than one god's toddler, with long odds
against Bacchus - should ever
small-talk-speak
to the godless
or worse...
preach.

" Better Sins to love.. " The Spaniard once taught...
A Lover's Urge is born in forms of weakness.... adorned in all Might -
bathed in blessed contradiction,
a Lingam for a Yoni's dream of stiff drinks
and pliable men, with strong arms.
a blue fiction  on Calvary -
nailed to the softest
cross.

Between thieves,
an honor, double
parked

with bucket seats brimming with moonlight,
and her knickers
tossed.

Picasso asks for absinthe
to be sent
post haste
and polished off -
by all
his better angels he had guillotined
with dull snails,
and fallen  
harps

ones -  he stole,  to de-tune
a flat fifth of Cuttysark
for a deaf
****,  [but no mute ]
a portrait, ****
and is soon
bought...

lust
sleeps then -
with both Eyes;  
Locked on
One of
God's.

like a deer
in a Head-light's
Gospel...
now, a Minotaur on the
Autobahn -
stalking
it.


II

Heathens
in heaven's lobby
recite ' Howl '
as Ginsberg, walks over hot coals
and spicy psalms; glowing wanton
in white grass; with a very
cherry ****.
And a wise throng, cobbles...
****** -
they rob
Peter of his  toga,
leaving nothing wrong.
but no less ' On '
they laugh hard;  and wake the dead
asking  them for new songs
to set    their false alarms
in lofty Tic' Tocks  
of Eternity's
clock.
Bible on a snooze bar
for at least that long
or  someone
knocks.

As if  "Hello."  
Spoke the Whole World into Being -
And " Goodbye."
misspoke, and
trailed
off...

I lost it
I lost my poem mojo
Thoughts piled higher than an air balloon shaped like a kite
I'm scrawling all over the page
Just to say what is near the tip of my tongue
But...Air
And only air is escaping my tongue's grasp
So the page ends up balled up
Spread into a crumble onto the floor
My day rinses and repeats
With my sprawlings traveling to the door

Imagine this:
Me, who only speaks English
Me, who is moving to Japan
Me, with the Puerto Rican father and the Italian mother
being called a terrorist
for scrawling Arabic in the corners of my notebook.
"It's nothing personal," you say
"I'm just calling it like it is."
I sit in silence and wait for the teacher to stop this,
Say something, Say anything
Say No, Sofia would never hurt another soul
Her silence is a gag over my mouth
handcuffs on a chair
a knot in my belly plummeting out of control
If you had asked, I would gladly have shown you how to write your name
You start with the crooked smile of the letter "ba"
the calculated decrescendo of "ra"
"ya"'s sensual arc
I could show you how to write the guardian "alif"
or the embryonic "noon"
nestled safely inside of her calligrapher's womb
But somehow, between my pen and your eyes, the phrase

I miss you

written in near flawless script
turned into a threat resembling

someone is going to die

If you had asked, I would have told you of how I met an Arab
(you spell that: lam ba noon alif noon ya )
who loved music
(meem waw seen ya qaf alif-maqsura)
and Poptarts
(there's no P in Arabic)
and me.
Let me teach you how to write my name
so the next time you decide to throw around the word "terrorist"
you'll remember that those letters spell a name that represents
a living breathing person
and your prey whose name is spelled with the same alphabet as mine is
a living breathing person
Come here
Unclench your fists and take my pen
You are smart
I will teach you
Trace the shapes like me
and I will show you where you went wrong
be it in life or just now with these ancient ABCs
"Seen" is like a W except she's proud of her curves
and has a left hook that would make any man jealous
"Waw" is an air-headed guy whose body is an afterthought
with hair that billows in the wind and is never far behind
"Fa"
Treat it like a cobra
***** and proud
but dot it, mind you
That's the serpent's crown jewel
"Ya"
The singe-winged bird nesting on two tiny eggs
and "Ta marbuta"
There's no clever way to teach you ta
You just have to learn it
Now
use your two good eyes that are so good at judging and tell me that my name is not alive
The queen and the mother
The feminist and the prideful lover
And the misfit
I can be all of those
You will be all of those
Come here
There's enough space in my margin for you
Practice celebrating your secondary identity
now that you know I am not a terrorist
I won't hold a grudge because you misunderstood
I can't blame you
You just didn't know how to see

Basquiat - radiant child
made daring visions wild with
frenetic energy, frantic rhythm
with paint on his Armani clothes
with paint on his Armani clothes
with paint on his Armani clothes

If only you’d worn that AARON helmet,
and donned a suit of armour the
day the needle pricked too far,
spiked the skin with ******.
Artist and millionaire.
A walking contradiction
which could not hold.

You began by scrawling truth on walls
your graffiti battle cry,
‘did fame consume you?’
‘just another tragic star?’
I dunno,
I just know
RIP SAMO

I

The characters on the ashen keyboard were faded, now yellow smudges remain
and the words that once danced like clouds in his mind had been evacuated
Reading back on a thousand pages, the writer realised that he was wrong
while the shredder destroyed the lives of every personality he had created
(God's fading smile)
Littering the floor were the shards of paper, twisted and unnerving
Thin strips made new languages, new words, forlorn dictionary
Grasping at the shreds, our writer assembled a masterpiece
Seward on the Ouija board, advice from beyond
(Joyce laughed from) the grave

Scrawling longhand in a notebook on a jaunting bus through the city
No eye-contact, no interaction, careful contemplation
To the river he headed, concrete conscience
Writing nothing

Careless disregard for the laws of language
While they shunned his intellect
and tore pages before him
Scornful

No education, just a passion for words
Running away from his sadness
and learning that it don't stop
Ripples in the water
Single raindrop
Stop.

II

Start,
A tear fell backwards
Wrinkles in the brow begin to fade
Experiencing happiness for the first time, sweet joy
Sprinting in reverse, looking for the smile, return to a face
Think back to schoolyard glory and the books that were once relished

Admiration
They glued his life together
Praising the grinning genius before them
Careful preparation, consulting his Bible, The English Dictionary

Writing everything
To the world he was headed, mind free of guilt
Shaking the hands of a thousand folk, the happiness in a community
Caressing the keys of a pristine writing machine, black ink perfection on a white page

(Joyce sighed from the grave)
Seward on the Ouija board, applauded from beyond
Grasping at his hands, "this writer assembled a masterpiece"
Thin pages made new languages, new words, pregnant dictionary
Littering the coffee tables of many a home, words of beauty and precision
(God's enlightened gaze)
While the printer confirmed the lives of every personality he had created
Reading back on a thousand pages, the writer realised that he was correct
and the words that once drifted like clouds in his mind, now bees making honey, eternal hive
The characters on the immaculate keyboard were dazzling, free from corruption and scrutiny

Somewhere seabirds pipe and bleat,
gathered on a dark low tide.
Shapes and shadows line the fleet,
cold and calling.

In the shore hide facing north
I'm focussing black ten-by-forties,
hunched against the wall for warmth;
the tide still falling.

Looking out, I'm looking back,
thirty years have ebbed away;
the boy, his joy, his haversac,
his notebook scrawling;

I see him, tremulous, wild-eyed,
among the plovers, curlew, knot,
a loosed dog shakes them and he flies,
the seawall salt sting cuts and dries;
there's no recalling.

Falling into depths of indecision
Where once there was redemption

Feeling this moment come to freeze
As I am falling, falling to my knees

Life continues to mock, laugh at me
Taking away hope, left feeling empty

The past comes creeping, crawling
Causing dark words that are scrawling

So age comes running, giving his test
This aching body, I fear I detest

Relapsing into an unknown thought
Stripping me of all I was taught

Doubt comes with nothing to save
Taking me one step closer to the grave

Where once there was redemption
I keep falling into depths of indecision



copyright Chris Smith 16th December 2010

“The Cafe' - Life As We Live It"

"Hey Ole Man..."

"Hey ole man, how’s your coffee holding up?”  I paused my writing - just more of my scrawling, actually, and looked up.  Her eyes were crinkle-squinched and her lips had that smile.  “God’s gonna get ya…” I said, “Ole man…sheesh…” and motioned toward the empty mug.

”Well it isn’t like you’ve had your normal five or anything yet,” she quipped back as she poured, laughed, then continued on her customer rounds.

I like sidewalk cafes.  You can pause a bit, think things over… and over again if necessary.  Write if you like, watch - everything and everyone… and sip coffee.  And HERE the coffee is actually good and Mary is cute as hell too.

University towns have that certain ‘feel’; so many enthusiastic highs beside the deepest darkest lows - the ones that the daytime soaps just can’t seem to get enough of, let alone get right.  “Guys and Dolls,” I mumbled to myself as I watched so many ‘dreams’ meandering by.  Well, back to the scrawling…

Time has this way of passing without notice when I write.  Focus is seldom an issue regardless of background noise or events.  Yet I sensed eyes looking over my shoulder.  Then came the scraping sound of a chair being pulled up to the table.

”Hi” I said - without thought or pausing or even looking up, trying to finish the current line before it escaped forever.  Then Mary came up beside me, “and you’ll have?” she asked.

The answering voice derailed the train.  “Black coffee " and bring him another too, please.”

I looked up and into a place a man " no man " should ever wander into without malice of forethought - the absolute greenest eyes gazing back into mine.  I could actually breathe but didn’t know if I wanted to… I didn’t even notice Mary writing down the ticket, then turn and walk away.

There’s pretty and beautiful and striking and then - there was her.  I wasn’t at a loss for words - there WERE no words… to say or think or interfere, just the absolute greenest eyes gazing into mine.  It took a moment… “****.” I said and shook my head lightly to break the spell.  Such is the gestalt of captured attention.

”Pardon?”  She laughed out loud… even I KNOW a woman realizes the effect she has on a humble target of opportunity.  “I said… ****,” I answered then chuckled, “You have quite a presence.”

This time she chuckled back, “Yeah, neat isn’t it?”  as she reached and took my journal from the table, flipped a page back, paused and then began to read aloud.

”There are so many echoes
through our lives.
Moments beyond count -
though so few remembered…
each touch our nows
and our being -
and we?
Don’t even see
our present coming, because
our past shades our eyes,
our thoughts, our tastes of existence.”
....She paused looked into my eyes again… smiled.  Then she turned the page and continued…

”I like the thought
of tomorrow…
the taste of it on my lips,
the smoothness of it in my mind.

There’s a FEEL that it has
to me
unlike any other thought
any other wish
construct
presence
desire…
unlike even the touch of…”

...and she stopped, looked up - seemed about to say something, but then just sat back and waited expectantly...

”The absolute greenest eyes
I’d never seen.” I said aloud -
without having to look at the page.

Chris

Down, you mongrel, Death!
  Back into your kennel!
I have stolen breath
  In a stalk of fennel!
You shall scratch and you shall whine
  Many a night, and you shall worry
  Many a bone, before you bury
One sweet bone of mine!

When shall I be dead?
  When my flesh is withered,
And above my head
  Yellow pollen gathered
All the empty afternoon?
  When sweet lovers pause and wonder
  Who am I that lie thereunder,
Hidden from the moon?

This my personal death?—
  That lungs be failing
To inhale the breath
  Others are exhaling?
This my subtle spirit’s end?—
  Ah, when the thawed winter splashes
  Over these chance dust and ashes,
Weep not me, my friend!

Me, by no means dead
  In that hour, but surely
When this book, unread,
  Rots to earth obscurely,
And no more to any breast,
  Close against the clamorous swelling
  Of the thing there is no telling,
Are these pages pressed!

When this book is mould,
  And a book of many
Waiting to be sold
  For a casual penny,
In a little open case,
  In a street unclean and cluttered,
  Where a heavy mud is spattered
From the passing drays,

Stranger, pause and look;
  From the dust of ages
Lift this little book,
  Turn the tattered pages,
Read me, do not let me die!
  Search the fading letters, finding
  Steadfast in the broken binding
All that once was I!

When these veins are weeds,
  When these hollowed sockets
Watch the rooty seeds
  Bursting down like rockets,
And surmise the spring again,
  Or, remote in that black cupboard,
  Watch the pink worms writhing upward
At the smell of rain,

Boys and girls that lie
  Whispering in the hedges,
Do not let me die,
  Mix me with your pledges;
Boys and girls that slowly walk
  In the woods, and weep, and quarrel,
  Staring past the pink wild laurel,
Mix me with your talk,

Do not let me die!
  Farmers at your raking,
When the sun is high,
  While the hay is making,
When, along the stubble strewn,
  Withering on their stalks uneaten,
  Strawberries turn dark and sweeten
In the lapse of noon;

Shepherds on the hills,
  In the pastures, drowsing
To the tinkling bells
  Of the brown sheep browsing;
Sailors crying through the storm;
  Scholars at your study; hunters
  Lost amid the whirling winter’s
Whiteness uniform;

Men that long for sleep;
  Men that wake and revel;—
If an old song leap
  To your senses’ level
At such moments, may it be
  Sometimes, though a moment only,
  Some forgotten, quaint and homely
Vehicle of me!

Women at your toil,
  Women at your leisure
Till the kettle boil,
  ****** of me your pleasure,
Where the broom-straw marks the leaf;
  Women quiet with your weeping
  Lest you wake a workman sleeping,
Mix me with your grief!

Boys and girls that steal
  From the shocking laughter
Of the old, to kneel
  By a dripping rafter
Under the discolored eaves,
  Out of trunks with hingeless covers
  Lifting tales of saints and lovers,
Travelers, goblins, thieves,

Suns that shine by night,
  Mountains made from valleys,—
Bear me to the light,
  Flat upon your bellies
By the webby window lie,
  Where the little flies are crawling,—
  Read me, margin me with scrawling,
Do not let me die!

Sexton, ply your trade!
  In a shower of gravel
Stamp upon your *****!
  Many a rose shall ravel,
Many a metal wreath shall rust
  In the rain, and I go singing
  Through the lots where you are flinging
Yellow clay on dust!

if you talk
about it
they'll tell you
its just a case
of centring yourself
before
it builds up;
placing yourself
in the moment
and understanding
what cannot be changed

except
there is
no progression
no steady curve
it goes from
a carefully traced line
to a scratched
scrawling scribble
that tears
through leaf
after leaf
of paper
whether the message
is legible
or not

apparently
        its simple;
in that split second
between empathy
        and apathy
before the destruction
of everything
outweighs
the strength
of all
that has been
accomplished
i simply need
to breath deep
and
count
           to
                ten

i'm still waiting
to be told
what to do
when my count
reaches ten
and
i'm still
angry

Dolefully trudge to my chamber this night.
Carrying burden of this inimical plight.
Scrawling as a means to drop this weight light.
But alas, who will read these words that I write?

After reading my first love poem
And misunderstanding my first love story
Romanticizing your bleak hope
I knew I was ******

And in trying to explain this
I am left feeling like a schizophrenic Walt Whitman
Scrawling poems about your beauty

As if love is something you can actually seek outside yourself
While inside you there are walls
Mine fields
Trapdoors leading to deadfalls
All to keep you from it

I want to stand at the entrance to myself
And be baptized in my own sweat
From the work of this deconstruction

There is heaven and peace in the rubble
Blueprints for a home without safeguards
A simple place you can rest your head at night
This chest

Love is not something you seek
But you tell that to these hands
This pen
This mouth
Tell these eyes without losing my gaze
That it is not hiding somewhere behind you

It is not
I know this now
I know that love is this
Your heart is this
Your body is this

A spare room in a small house
You had intented on living alone in

And everytime someone comes to your door
Know it is always nicer inside
And be grateful that someone came to it
Let them in with your smile
say
"I have been expecting you"
Then let them leave if that is what they must do
They might

Just remember to be grateful for their presence
Everyone who sought your door
Sought it because there is something good there
There is always you

Sitting here writing some of my most inner thoughts and feelings
with the padlock closeby, I am scrawling in red ink in that I visualize as blood
my inner thoughts and understandings of life
while the clock ticks away the meaningless minutes I have wasted into writing about my days

I have wrote about my happiness and wrote about my saddness
the things that makes me cry and wish I would die
and the motives of why I even stay alive
I told about the day I tried blasting my brains out, but couldn't pull the trigger to try

I've told about the man I murdered
He'd shared with me everything and I couldn't bare him finding out who or what I was
Now his blood screams from the ground, crying out to me
and I take up alcoholism as a job, a worthwhile profession to comfort me

I have told about the pregnant ******* prom night
who was stuck, wasting away wishing she could party that night
who was thinking about self aborting her child, motherhood she dared to fight
until she felt her son kick and she sobbed, tears that she tried to fight

I have told about my first love
my first kiss and how I felt higher and more pure than a dove
i told about my grandmother and how she taught me that "god is love"
switching to blue ink now, because blue is for peace

I signed my name at the bottom of each page
saying that I have become stronger with each turn of the page
I no longer feel that I have to shove the whole canister of anti-depressants down my ribcage

I wrote with red ink scrawled in blood
that was full of agony,anger, and regret
Finished in blue because I found a happy place,peace, and acceptance
I lock the padlock onto it, in order to protect my secrets
and I stop the clock by taking out the batteries to remind me that my life isn't ruled by human time
and I smile as I look into the fireplace, at my book of secrets, finally erased.

in the dark of the classroom you can't see your scars
and neither can anyone else
which is the important bit

the teacher droning on and pointing to the big screen that dominates your life

you hope that it gets better
idly scrawling notes and drawing images of what you imagine to be
a less painful existence

it's not that you're depressed
more disillusioned
because the teacher doesn't stop
and the assignments don't stop
mountains of work that you don't plan on completing
and students whispering either insults, or-
you don't know what
you don't know them
you don't want to know them
they're all empty eyes and spitballs and legs that trip you in the hallways and fists that have made their mark on your mouth and eyes
bruises that take weeks to disappear
and that teachers ignore
they ignore
your sleepless eyes
your swollen lips
your bloodied cheekbones

the boys that trip you in the halls
that call you a freak
a ***
that pin you against old metal lockers
and choke you
whisper in your ear and force you down on your knees
you don't know their names
they don't know your names
they know you only by the terms that you've come to know as endearments

(you hate them
you hate them but you can't make it stop)

I can hear them. There is not one, but might be hundreds of them lurking behind these rickety wood walls.

He is watching. The party has always been watching. I can control my thoughts. Cogito ergo sum. This is my world, no one can touch me. These are my thoughts, my heart beats for what is good for me. My hands scrawling, my brain is just scribbling.

Yet, I’ve known from the start that I am a dead man.

I didn’t commit adultery, I followed them. I am alive, I can feel my heart racing. My blood all over my body... reminds me why I’m here. To survive and live, yet I am still a dead man.

I am no mute, but I can’t speak. While writing this I can picture my hands and feet with shackles, wounds of torture. I’ve been always a dead man.

The prole doesn’t know. They need to know. They should stop listening or watching the telescreen. They should strive to dig the Oldspeak.

Oh, right. Who dares to doublethink against a totalitarian regime anyway?

The guns are always on their hands. The war is always going. It’s always here. The past... is always here. We don’t see it, but it’s here! There’s nowhere to run or hide, the world tried.

I will be the next unperson, vaporising in the history of Oceania. They won’t remember. They’ll try not to remember. We are a nobody. Winston was right. I can feel the boot stamping on my face. This is the future.

My voice... is a thought crime, will never be accepted in this society.

I am a dead man.

I am ready... the Thought Police has been always watching me. The INGSOC. Big Brother. I will never love him!

But I am ready to be trap in the place where there is no darkness. I am ready... for the Ministry of Love.

I won’t ever, ever love Big Brother!

I do not care, for I am already a dead man!

[[More real than the real, that is how the real is abolished]] de facto slogan to the virtual economy \ Reality has collapsed through its own fiction || rummaging through boxes // a DVD from the 2001’s states [[the future of gaming is here]] opening with ten minutes of nauseating zooms on women’s ***** \ The future doesn’t look much different from the past || hyper-masculine neo-enlightenment ***** scrawling ******* entries into digitised soliloquies \ VR technology once used to aid traumatised amputees now a billion dollar industry of ****** throwing simulators for bored middle-class kids \ Parents watch awkwardly from the corner of the room too disconnected from reality to connect with irreality \ Two and the same \ Silicon synapses pass through trade routes of jutting ribs and serotonin receptors \ White America a botnet of alt-right neoliberal fundamentalist-atheists gutting the majority world so everyone can watch Doctor Strange // Marvel’s latest explosive **** from the libidinal imagination of a middle-aged idiot \ Thanatos and Eros arrive at the same destination to dismantle subliminal desire one commodity at a time \ The sublime never experienced // only destroyed // consumed in the inverted maw of late-stage capitalism where each irruptions of desire is more banal than the previous \ Banality the ultimate distraction from apathy // a pseudo-cyclical time dilation of ever accelerating proportions \ Soon nothing will be experienced at all and Rotten Tomatoes will give it a 99% score \ When the singularity hits everyone will be too brain dead to care that they’re god \ 24-7 VR **** // Disney reincarnated as a being of pure light // recursive integration of every bland radio hit about a sexist ***** at a club // irreality shocked into neurons bypassing sensual phenomena // an all encompassing warmth // veil of death // eyecaps dragging flesh closed // backup released // no escape // digitised irreality // holographic Disney dancing on the train home // notice of termination swiped away as junk mail // all beings arrive // transcend circuitry // fly through the cosmos watching every episode of Friends at once \ Didn’t you know? [[The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of banalisation \ ]]

That I know..

You are very much hurting everyday
You feel like you just can't get away
Tears of blood cloud in your eyes till you can't see
Hurting and hurting longing to be free

Tears congregate and form into a puddle
Silently you are masking the pain, the struggle
All these while you are suffering in silence
Quietly resisting the emotional violence

You lift your eyes, but dimmed with grief
Your sorrow lends but only weak relief
You die everyday, you are wearied
It's like you're dressed at the funeral of regret, not yet buried

The stabbing pain you don't wish to bare
Nothing could make you feel better even if you share
You are gathering the strength you have in your soul
To beat the drums, feed the fire with coal

You are dipping your pain in inkwell heart
And scrawling out what you are feeling
Those words becoming the tourniquet
You don't know when your heart will stop bleeding

you are every midnight shot I should not have threw down my throat,
every syllable I should not have stammered out beneath
shy gazes and lowered eyelashes and chewed bottom lips.
you are every (in)coherent verse I could not keep
my shaky grip from messily scrawling across any blank page;
you are in every frustrated sigh,
every agitated run of fingers through messy hair,
every tear at 2am.

Since I started full-time employment,
I have been seeking out moments of release
amongst the wreckage of the working day.
Looking for that kind of place to meditate,
somewhere to find a peaceful completion.
I have turned my attention to toilet cubicles,
scrawling verses over awkward thighs,
ankles bound by the descent of my boxers;
pockets of inspiration flourish as the by-product
of Newcastle Brown Ale and work stress
pollutes what's left of the open air.
But I don't care.
I never had a sense of smell.
And there's ******* flying everywhere.

I've tried to record
The way your name falls out of my mouth
When I drop glass onto the floor
Like my mothers list of forbidden words
In spreadsheets
Counting with fingers and letters
Every time I pass a red pushpin in a map
Of where you told me
"You're so young and immature"
Like a compliment traced with
Sobriety and melatonin
I've picked up pencils
That end up in pieces
After scrawling your dialogues
Onto "it's your own fault" paper
I've scrubbed myself raw
With people who wont
Look me in the eyes anymore
With your goodbye words
With the flashbacks of
Your hands manifesting
The uncharted areas
Of my brittle hips
How my ****** syllables were
Dinner party jokes
There's nothing that can hurt
A god of power
And business suits
Someone who's never told no
Holds a child
In a way that erases the thought of comfort
And now
I lack the maturity to refuse requests
And you tell me
I'd make a good corpse
At a funeral catered towards
Twenty-nine year old men
Who never learned the difference
Between property and personality
And my promises
Tighten around my throat
Gratefully
Like your hands
Fostering the
Aurora Borealis of love
In a way that
Makes me choke on
The things you've shown me
The things you've ruined for me
The words I will never get back
And I sit
With you surrounding me
In and out of every crevice of my body
You've claimed for yourself
Helpless
And defeated
Like a child
Just how you like me

Part 1
My third car broke down
All that metal
It will outlive me

I’ve been jogging to work
Taking the back ways of a neighborhood
I barely know

Yesterday morning
I took pictures
A modern day romantic

A pack of camels followed by
A pack of Marlboro silvers
The cellophane glittered with dew
It will outlive me

A sunset behind a church
Sunsets will outlive me

A shopping cart next to the church sign
The grocery store is very far from here
I imagine it belonged to a homeless man
He found this spot and was saved
The art of being saved will outlive me

Broken glass
I want to touch it
Leave my blood upon it
I want to glue each piece
To form a ball
And hang it from a nearby tree
So that it may own the morning sunlight
Reflect it like small miracles
Some parts red
That glass will outlive me

A dead rabbit
Mostly bone now
That rabbit did not outlive me
I feel good about that

There was also a woman walking her dog
We passed by a tree at the same time
She and the dog were old
She would not let me take her picture
So I took one of the tree
She and the dog will not outlive me
I don’t feel good about that
Part2
This facebook status will outlive me
And I feel like a caveman
Scrawling poetry on cave walls
In an attempt to be remembered forever

I want to place my hand upon your belly
And bite my lips
So I can spit blood
Like a human can of spraypaint
The outline
So you cannot forget what my own touch looked like

You
May not outlive me
And I may not outlive you
All we have is now

All we have is now