The Sins That Came Before Us

it's just evidence,
throw it in the case,
it will convince them of the one thing
they never want to say,
i was a child
brought up
in Christ's name.

Sold!!! The Old Road

if this is all I have
at my side,
I still see
one mind
shines
still shows
only the still one knows,
why is nine
the code?

Water

it's a new thing,
this element.

I somewhat see a crocodile
lurking
in the shadows,
in the shallows of my breath,
it's a showdown I knew would come around
eventually,
it always happens
like a snake in the tall grass,
walk on by.

oh, it's nothing,
nothing to go by,
just a barely perceptible light,
the reflection of a reflection,
like men going at it blind,
proper for those who tackle a great dark night.

and duly--
this soul is still tied,
these wings will not fly,
and all that I see,
my feet wrapped in vines.
it's a slippery stair,
one slip and you're there
the darkest of depths
and the crocodile's eyes.

my sister,
what's there?
I hope you brought a light.

To the Top

all these lights
and they're oh so pretty.
there is truth in illusion,
everything is reflected
beyo-o-ond, ayyy, ay,
beyo-o-ond,
all that fuck shit.
lifestyle is art,
art is a lifestyle,
the style is part,
part is experience,
part is innocence,
part is expression,
part is impression,
perfect harmony is the lesson,
what is performance but deception?
all of it is money,
no exception.

delicate, gross

can I show you the world
when all I know are sad songs?
a life I used to love,
a boy I used to know,
delicate and gross,
predispossed to death,
maybe I'm obssessed,
but I have a hunch--
I'm blessed.

New Text Document (2)

endless space
time and blank pages,
yesterday, today, and then

triggering meltdowns
colossal breakdown
callous pen

byou bray one
gl
that's all

new town
no name

now
 trade time

money
 is king

tired all the time
waking

write
time waiting

don't write
wait

pacing
no time is worth this

i'm a patient boy
i wait i wait i wait i wait

and i just went like,
fuck you, you need to get your shit together,

good for you, yeah, blah blah blah whatever
this is all shatter,

nothing really matters,
nothing really matters,

after
all

pop
top dawn

down wind
nip

sip
little bit

bit by bit
tip

pit
top to the

bot, it
get
g
get
it, get

got, or
amore

pizza
poor-ay

meesta
mess

miss
misses

eminate
thrills

still
existence

still point
presence

no
not-it

it-isn't
it's nothing

nothing
is-it

is-not
nothing

i dn't got
git gr8

i'm rye-meme
so dank.

Ten Years

this is a cycle,
the journey of Dante--not a circle,
a spiral!
down and left,
nine reverse,
coffee in the colonnade
with some asshole archduke,
pretentiousness,
slit your wrists,
the poem I write is this,
more or less,
who is it that I am?
the mountains are the best,
after nine is ten,
I only want an exit,
an inscription over a crypt,
cryptic messages from death,
spaceman spiff crossing the Styx,
veiled references:
oil and sweat,
the river's bed,
I'm waiting for your kiss,
O
sweet death,
Burning as a witch,
burning as the pitch,
all black for images
etch a fucking sketch,
and drink from Lethe,
dig the ell-square pitken
as Tiresias said,
offer a promise
and follow through with it,
maybe you can spiral home again,
the rocky bed of Ithika
or
Bethlehem.

(thank me before it's all over,
before the suitors are dead,
and before Beatrice blesses our heads)

so now I wear an olive jacket with patches
like a turtle, or, you know,
like the man I have become.
once I was seven years old,
a child now grown cold,
with a rough exterior and a coat.
I like your face, don't use the cloak.

Dear God

excellence isn't abandoned
it's just postponed,
a roof over my head to lay my weary bones,
is anything less important I know,
I've been in the center,
the one bell tolls,
nearly perfect enunciation,
a wolf in a sheepskin coat,

The stony shoal.


I've been up and around the other mountain,
do you see my face,
dipped in moments of grace,
there's something there that I won't say.

How the West Was Won

daughters and sons,
my bed is dipped in distance,
approximately three,
now look what I have done,
where there was peace and silence,
I brought a gun,
they're all, um, disposed,
upwards, at most, 90%.
this poem was composed
of at least 100% lost souls,
am I full of remorse, or the purest pity we know,
compassion is gold.

August

remember my mind as it is,
as it was, and as it is yet to become,
I will not mince my words for anyone,
let me bleed upon the steps,
the front porch or the back door,
it just is, except
this will pass,
another mass,
a stripe of red paint
and one solid color underneath:
the temptation of the Saint.

Be Careful or Else

am I so frantic,
the depths I've plumed in abandon,
finally cashing in, catching up,
summer of, 'I don't give a fuck.'
midway between the act and suggestion,
halfway between the fall and ascension,
I would confess all but I lack the discretion.
paint me how you want and will,
I've already seen the rose on the hill,
pitching to and fro I'm tossed relentless,
the basement I've come from a dire lesson,
no-ones opinion could lesson the feel, the fall,
the thrill, the kill, that's all.

Mein Irisch Kind

I would say it's a revolution
but nothing will ever change.
You say you want to give chase,
ply the seas as the seasons break
and as even as the wheel stays,
is fortune ever as fair as her name?
I watch as we all trade space,
empty and waste, empty and waste,
and one day I shall be released,
a metamorphosis for me,
a sparrow on the breeze,
an island in the sun,
is it my will to overcome?
repetition and simulacrum,
imitation of the one.

Stein

have I been there,
or, had I been there,
to be direct, another porch
another hello, another goddam
another dingy coat, head for the hills
just to feel, oh, just to feel, I guess,
head for your lives, it's one thing to strive,
another to survive, clingers on, wasting time,
should I have want to illuminate
why would I want to romanticize
a tome of holy lullabies for death,
let daisies circle my halo like a head,
there's nothing like a fall from the last steps,
I'm hanging out with the worst of them,
we're all fucked up,
I'm looking at a simple man
pick the small straw from my hand,
a lot is lesson sent,
for hail and high mercy,
the street lamp flickering sense,
nom: resistance,
what is it I cannot comprehend,
is there any stone in this river still thirsty,
is there any exile still at home with friends?
O cite quasi morte,
how your vines have wrapped around my bones,
I couldn't stop or put it down
and I began to rock and moan,
a dusky sort of pale pillow
if I were to call the kettle
and let you really know
the secret of my black heart
I would be unfit to show.

Sonnet Five

What can one do, if it's the trial of the self,
no, that's not exact-

What can anyone do or say to me
when my spirit is depressed? Is it due,
do my actions create an angry sea?
I understand the choice is not the crew's.
When I lose my ability to speak,
when my heart keeps on graving images,
when I find no comfort and I am weak,
when my presence is full of blemishes.
What is this, is it a transcendent grace?
Is Poetry a sensual pleasure?
If there is suffering what is the base?
Is there more to life than seeking leisure?
Passion dies by reason with love's reform,
but reason dies to passion in my storm.

Kierkegaard too,

and I, an American, too,
you know the sort of thing,
the one question for Camus, 
my raison d'etre is absurd.

Sonnet Four: On Desire, Tradition, and Individualism

If actions betray, what is it you hide,
and why is desire always at the root,
why do the vines for wine bear bitter fruit?
Take what you want and need then throw the rind.
Desire: should you respect it or ignore,
if you start the way will you find the guide,
is there any truth to things of the mind?
Part of my desire is to not conform.

Is there any problem we cannot face,
is there some old way we can't reinvent?
If tradition will always have its place,
this is our individual talent:
poetry is more than gender or race,
let's be inclusive of the whole planet.

Sonnet Three: On Jealousy and Strife, Eris and me.

'There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is, upright.' -Dylan Thomas, "Wales and the Artist," Quite Early One Morning, BBC radio, 1954.

A jealous mind is beset on all sides,
what might seem empty is full of envy
and discord is thrown impetuously,
there is a hidden bitterness I hide.
There is no comfort in a false pretense,
you are not only mental conditions,
it's not all just body and the functions,
sometimes, there is a deep kindness expressed.
Only love in the faces around me,
there is no comfort in a false friendship,
does anyone not know fear's deference,
does one not defer to fear equally?
If there is an open discord expressed,
I try to find my hidden bitterness.

So, this is the shoulder,
so, this is my stone;

my sister,
I should not be alone.

Sonnet Two

Not what he can do, but what he cannot.
Not the possible, but the obstacle.
Not the signified, but the parable.
Not what he's thinking, but what has been thought.
See, always with you what cannot be done.
You offer no resistance to weakness,
half-way welcoming it inside to rest.
The ones who really challenge you, you shun.
It's not love to share, but it's fear embraced.
There are many reasons to retire,
but only one to keep climbing higher.
If it's not greatness, what else can you chase?
I would not wish depression on any,
two perspectives in me, both are ready.

Sonnet One

Could anything I say ever keep me
from you? Violent seeds following through
will crouch at your door in abeyance, soon
you can control this. Looking up I see
two big bright eyes looking right back at us.
All I am is not only in the whirlwind,
there is more on the road than to begin.
Stillness in the center of the red dust,
brazen and warlike, holding victory.
She sits to the right of me on her own,
discipline, the only mother I know.
To the left of her I straddle the scene.
Petra holding the keys of life and death,
the Son of Man was quickly dispossessed.

M A I Y H W

I'm an American,
shirt sleeves, temerity,
I whisper like the man.
Dislike competition,
except when I will win,
I always am the best.
Accept what I'm selling,
rejecting what I hate,
one day I'll make it rain.
I watch T.V. a lot,
the cereal box says
advertising makes sense.
Well, it makes dollars, lots,
it takes intelligence,
let them program the kids,
then see the image change.
Generation herder,
An empire like babes.

Another style
is quietly found,

I'm fond of you--
another fool.

Love is too loud
with the heart beating,

I'm usually too loud, too.
I'm also too quiet to disagree,

but one and one
usually make three.

S A D P O E M

I don't think I will ever tire of the sun rising up everyday,
or how that sun in the afternoon makes you sweat
and wear a brimmed hat,
or that sunset.

my heart follows my eyes
as the dogwoods blur by.

the blackberries grow along the barbed wire fence,
I look up at the night sky while taking a piss
and observe the power lines silhouette
(the trees are taller than them).

the goats rotate around the field regularly,
when I hear the kids bleat and cry I know why they call them kids.

before the steam locomotive
the landscape didn't move so swift.
early critics claimed it took the soul out of traveling,
on a different note we now have time to read.

I'm not gonna make some comment about the kids
and too much screen time,
it's not inherently 'good' or 'bad,'
it's different.

when I have a kid,
and when they are old enough to use technology,
I'm gonna show them uBlock origin
and tell them about the pirate bay during the golden age of torrents.

narcissistic hypocrites post nonstop
images on their facebook feed,
I'm just glad I can unfollow
without unfriending.

I understand that the loudest
and most contradictory voices
are communicating something deep about themselves
if you can peel back the layers of the shell.

vaporwave is a product of our world, our hell,
of a plastic ocean,
of a vapid entertainment industry,
of the bottom line, what sells?
so we (we meaning millennials)
made an aesthetic that is supposed to be worthless to them (capitalists),
it has been described as "a degrading of commercial music"
in an attempt to reveal the "false promises" of capitalism.
do I have to cite wikipedia?
accelerationism=do we even care?
the end is here.

anyway, it's pretty revealing that my observational poem about the farm and nature
turned into a techno-linguistic exposé,
oh well,
what can I tell you
that you won't interpret in someway?

A Thousand Dark Nights and a Thousand Bright Women

There is only One,
eye spy a Son.
above the sun is a black hole,
wash away the wrong,
hide the light from the world.
a dark night,
a malignant curse.
maligned intent through years of...education!
it's not all that hard to see,
the produce in front of us all.
the pretty lights blind the world,
what a shitty show, year after year
the Way is never broke--
protean formula, rubric of old.
come what will, come all may
but what i know, i see today.
it's the most quoted of Yeats
because of what it reveals.
now out of that vast memory,
out of the spiritus mundi
and through my self:

it's already been established,
the beast in Beth.

Haikus

In the early evening
As the sun dies
In the Orchid's arms I lie.

In the early evening
As the sun sets
Under the Magnolia I sit.

This is how you sit:
Asana is free
Whatever it is.

Dharma junkie
Is a contradiction:
Buddhism is moderation.

I don't care about observation
Or a juxtaposition,
Just be clever.

The lion's in the corner,
The witch is a bit better,
But an Elephant is king of the room.

It feels like an ember
Burning.

The fixation
Unrelenting.

And what can anyone do?

What does anyone know?

is this my boulder,
is this my stone,

my brother;
it's good to be alone.

Dérèglement de les Sens et des Mot

Timing is everything.
Little rhymes

remind us,
physicality isn't everything.

Deregulation of the word
or the meaning,

meaning,
meaning isn't all.

Luster of all illusions,
a pauper among the bourgeois,

I'm blatantly disregarding etiquette.

Hero: me

     When the weak and fearful gain power and respect, most usually through politics and false rhetoric, they generally seek to hold offices for their own ends. Threads twined down from the top of the eye and each fancies themselves a pyramid alone. No one is an iland, except all the ones on their iphones. Ilidan knows more than Achilles, it's all good, I know for whom the bell tolls, there is only one enunciation emanating from death's other kingdom. A women with her eyes covered by a white sash walks running her hands on the cold and slightly damp walls of a catacomb, every brush of her hand leaves red paint on the stone, and every step sinks into the mind with lithe plash, soft as a gnome. Catacomb Periculosum.

     While walking back from the forest tonight at sundown I cut through the Kundert's gravel lot. It's nestled against the inside of the bend like a puddle. Five big rigs parked neatly, one engine exposed, the silo closer to the road, and the shed, closed for the evening. Two faded yellow tonka trucks lay haphazard on a drift of smaller rocks and sand, left by a kid playing right next to the real thing. This is farming country and he is a young boy like me, or clearly, I was a young boy like him, I just never learned to work machines--I learned to read. Dr. Seuss and timeless children's books were my tonka trucks next to the silo.

     I found a golden ticket and it reads: the wind in the birch trees realign a chaos breath through me. Intellect is more than one's own design, my father's name is Stephen, call me Icarus in flight, too high, and falling--all in one moment. The only moment, the moment when you die, the dance between existence and what has yet to exist in one fatal flight. Art has a price no amount of credit could ever buy, I remain the same guy, unapologetic and blind, and I've never been so close as I've been tonight. Justice is blind and the deepest places have always been the asylum of liberty.

Arachne mi Porta Fortuna

Superman is in my soul.
I will visit Spiderman when I die
In a city between two pillars in the sky.

Thin Cities 5

If you choose to believe me, good.   Now I will tell how Octavia, the spider-web city, is made. 

There is a precipice between two steep mountains: the city is over the void, bound to the two crests with ropes and chains and catwalks.   You walk on the little wooden ties, careful not to set your foot in the open spaces, or you cling to the hempen strands.   Below there is nothing for hundreds and hundreds of feet: a few clouds glide past; farther down you can glimpse the chasm's bed.

     This is the foundation of the city: a net which serves as passage and as support.   All the rest, instead of rising up, is hung below: rope ladders, hammocks, houses made like sacks, clothes hangers, terraces like gondolas, skins of water, gas jets, spits, baskets on strings, dumb-waiters, showers, trapezes and rings for children's games, cable cars, chandeliers, pots with trailing plants.

     Suspended over the abyss, the life of Octavia's inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities.   They know the net will last only so long. 

-Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Jungions

nātūrāle est magis nova quam magna mīrārī
it is natural to admire new things more than great things

As it is, 
the thing that brings me the most freedom
is not caring what people think when I'm developing. 
Who is the one who can really see the greater piece while looking at the threads?
As it is,
as far as we've walked from both ends of the sand
have we never caught a glimpse?
Perfection exists alone above the abyss,
the ideal we project,
anima and animus.
The reflection of the semiotic archetypal non-verse in the
Universe,
we all turn as one.

Ma Made These Old Boots (a, e, i, o, u)

Waking up, walking in the steps of the sun
Upon the colonnade of existence.
I'm not just a dreamer,
I'm a dunce.
Um, well...
I'm also not lost.
Vulnerability,
The true path to strength,
Is in you,
Why don't you seize it?
Listen to your wisdom
The voice is whispering clear
If you have ears
You can be fearsome.
Something there I won't say
Something near I won't name
Littering plain
Dead leaves in the sea.
Approaching the heartbeat...contemplating...
Delivery complete.
How much do you get of me?
Much obtuse.
Always appreciate authenticity
And honesty above social grace.
Always? Well, usually,
I'm not so much of a fool. Now,
'Wipe your glosses with what you know.'
Cool?
Cool.

☿

Diana is dead,
the sacred grove has been desecrated,
O tempora, O tempora, O mores!
Κόρη, Δελιά δεινά
has it always been,
will it ever be,
when will I be released?
I forget myself, staring
at the wheel, lost to the world,
focused on the axis above conception,
handling the keys of life and death,
another's breath upon my tongue, don't correct it,
contest the One, my eyes have been open,
oh the glory of the word!
Logos

Kethir

*Koré, Delia deina: "Daughter (Persephone), fearsome Delia, to whom passion is unknown. The virgin huntress Artemis/Diana, sister of the Delian Apollo.

         V
Though much is hidden, much is shown,
Foolproof, babes of Balin—empty throne.

Devil's cloven hoof and foal, now
Watch as it all goes crashing,

Watch as it all unfolds.  Golden
Sol, writ of old, 'As above—so below,'

'Or so I am told,' either way,
A lion's come home to teach them.

Neither famine or feast in reaching, this is
No country for the old.  The least of them

Meek and most of them seeking.  Weekends reap in
The mark of the beast—as you reap, so you sow.

Mother Mary rot in pieces, they know not what they know,
Arrow—Percival, The Fool.

Selig  

With a slight flick of the wrist,
Past or present tense—Cerberus,

And a man with three sticks.
Soaring above Art a mirrored Cupidon

Starts a whirring pheasant and slowly
Winds his horn, I lay it down—a ghost is born.

Dart among the deepest thrush, no-name, no-bluff, I AM ABIDING.
I have lost a lot, I have not lost heart, here we ride through dark.

Hell's hound did well to greet you,
Throw some earth into that mouth—insatiable hunger,

Raven's peck and claw at my shroud—no-sound,
One weary scowl to greet them, my heart cries out

Neither Fair nor Foul;
A cripple looks with eyes that linger and lies in every mouth,

Filthy fowl, a mockingbird's proud cowl left as a mark upon the road home,
Brazen, intricate conception.  I've shown and I'm Roland—Child, the Tower, no-less.

Story Time

Does Wing Tsun work against boxing?
*shrugs*
Well, the activity is boxing and
Wing Tsun is a style of boxing so...
*shrugs again*

Things have beginnings and
Things have ends,

To see what precedes and
What follows aids your perception.

We should start with the strings
Between Bruce Lee and Randy Couture

(wake up and praise the sun)

(wake up and work the earth)

Jeet-Kun-Do is Flow:
     t.y. Mr. Mihaly C.
          but we already know
               about evolving self
                    from long ago.

But actually first lets say this:

Alexander the great
     brought Pankration,
As well as philosophy
          (being a student of Aristotle)
       
          through civilization      
     into the Orient
               and up to India

Where it fused with traditional Yoga,
     confused yet?
          good. we're not done
               not even close
                    to finished.

The key point is the spiritual
     and the physical practice
Are not separate;
          (being a student of Aristotle)

          Art, religion, science
     were all one to them,
               the original enlightenment.

Things have beginnings and
Things have ends.

Yoga is the science of all religion
     the rational of all worship,
All prayers, forms,
          ceremonies and miracles.

          So, Pankration and Yoga,
     hidden knowledge in India,
               a rigorous regimen to use.

See now:
     The Bhodi Dharma
          the 27th in direct lineage
               from Siddhartha
                    it is said

He meditated in a cave
     near the Shaolin temple
For nine years,
          the monks learned

          His yogic method
     of perfect physical condition
               (as it was said of the Buddha)

In union with perfect spiritual wisdom.

It was a more direct form of Buddhism,
               (later called Cha'an or Zen)

That combination
     laid the foundation
               for Shaolin Kung-fu to be developed.

Chinese Kung-fu
     "Hard work"

     Gong-fu; skill; art
Kung-fu; labor; effort

Real martial arts.
     It dissipated and dispersed

     Pockets of discipline,
Elements of style

That speak the same language,
     Tai Chi; Baguazhang;

     Wing Tsun; et al.
Chinese Kung-fu:

The internal and external styles,
     they have the same origin

The eye sees it,
But no hands can take hold of it--
The moon in the stream.

Surviving over the ages.
     we go now
          to Hong Kong
               and Yip Man
                    and Bruce Lee

Style:
          Wing Tsun.

Bruce Lee
     was first a Martial Artist
          then an actor.
               at the age of 13
                    he started lessons in

the Wing Tsun style
          of Gung-fu
     for the purpose of self defense.

Bruce Lee
     won the Inter School
          Hong Kong
               amateur boxing tournament
                    with Wing Tsun.

The question
          we should be asking
     is can a boxer beat proper Wing Tsun?

Things have beginnings...

Bruce Lee supposedly beat up
          a gangster's son
     and moved to America

...and things have ends.
     (based on his parents persistence)

Things happened
          and Jeet-Kun-Do
     arrives to the scene.

Bruce Lee
     inspired the public
          already curious in Eastern religion
               and the monks
                    from the Kung-fu movies.

It's a shame that he died
          because imagine if Bruce Lee
     met Royce Gracie and
               Gracie Jiu Jitsu fused with Jeet-Kun-Do

     we would probably have seen real Kung-fu
in the UFC,

(not to undermine Gracie Jiu Jitsu)

instead,
     traditional martial arts get ridiculed in the public eye,

     as well as in the professional.
Matt Thornton

said he's never seen
     a lop sau work in sparing.

     *shrugs*
'I have footage of me using it

successfully while sparing,'
     he says.

The story goes on,
          I sit
     listening.

Dan Innosanto
     was one of three people
          to receive direct permission
               from Bruce Lee
                    to continue teaching Jeet-Kun-Do.

Matt Thornton trained under
           Innosanto
     and brought JKD back

(JKD=Jeet-Kun-Do)

     for his MMA program
          at Straight Blast Gym in Portland, OR.
Randy Coutre was the OSU

(Oregon State University)

Wrestling coach in 1997
     when he made his debut
          in UFC 13
               (on three weeks notice
                    we might add).

Coutre visited Thornton
          at SBGi in Portland
     and talked shit about
               'sticking hands,'
                    part of the JKD training

And Thornton took it out,
          you see in the ads for Thornton's training vids
     'functional JKD'

(as if regular JKD doesn't work)

because in the professional MMA community
          Kung-fu is fairy tale.
     it's not real

     it doesn't exist.
          Shaolin monks are myth,
internal styles aren't actually legit.

(tell that to Wang Shu Jin)

So there you have it,
     the string tied between
          Bruce Lee and Randy Coutre
               through Dan Innosanto and Matt Thornton,
                    now this is history.

(it's the best history I've heard from off the top of someone's head)

Conor McGregor
          trained at SBGi
     since 15.

Mr. 'They should have a new belt
     called the McGregor belt,
          the anytime anywhere belt'
               get's dethroned
                    by a home-grown

California boy.
          Nate Diaz.
     Yes welterweight, but still,

     Conor was talking a lot,
          and I think he's close,
but no cigar.

That's not real Kung-fu,
     because Randy Coutre couldn't see what it was worth,
          and also Innosanto did his own thing from after Lee's death,
               and for McGregor, Bruce Lee was practicing a tradition
                    not praising law of attraction, that's it.

Nothingness cannot be defined;
     the softest thing cannot be snapped.

     If nothing within you stays rigid,
outward things will disclose themselves.

Moving, be like water.
          Still, be like a mirror.
     Respond like an echo.

     The art of Jeet-Kun-Do
          is simply
to simplify.

Bruce Lee
          saw the strings
     between spirituality and

     physical training. Hand
          in hand understanding,
From being into non-being.

Into a soul absolutely free from
thoughts and emotions,
Even the tiger finds no room to insert
its fierce claws.

One and the same breeze passes
Over the pines on the mountain and the oak
tress in the valley;
And why do they give different notes?

No thinking, no reflecting,-
Perfect emptiness:
Yet therein something moves,
Following its own course.

The eye sees it,
But no hands can take hold of it –
The moon in the stream.

Clouds and mists,
they are midair transformations;
Above them eternally shine the sun and the moon.

Victory is for the one,
Even before the combat,
Who has no thought of himself,
Abiding in the no-mind-ness of Great Origins.
                                                
-A Taoist Priest

Rejoice! Bach isn't so drab;
One must have proper perspective
To hear Mozart's laugh.

Outside the Room

Apparitions pass like dew on a glass pane;
The goats shake themselves off
After the rain stops.

Live on a razor--feel the edge
Do not wish--don't pretend
Opening the curtains is closing your eyes and quieting your mind

3 Lines (Not 5-7-5)

A window has been opened,
Sitting like Issa by the sight,
Do you forget how to ride?

Opposites Attract

does any poem ever begin
or do they all wrap around again
it's just another wake
another end game
another _______

a man runs down the street
screaming, 'aaahhh,' holding a sign
above his head with both arms
saying   [WAKE]
             [   UP   ]
ignore it.
Saturn's magnanimous hand
turning wheels
ideograms
idle play
another's face
anoit thee
noir drink
rumination over guitar-airy
very good
a king and a fool
hand in hand
run off the top of a cliff
like lemmings
or a sphinx
X

l'Homme Bon

Dionysus in flesh,
An uphill battle no rest,
Simply the best,
No question.

Who's generation is lost?
Legs that span the breadth of time
But in this one no wine, only sun.
Bask in greatness,

The world is so full of mediocrity and bullshit,
Most just get jealous,
He just wants to find someone
Who can give him a good haircut,
As he put it, it always looks goofy
When it grows out and I might as well shave it
Cause I haven't found a single barber
Who can fix it, maybe someday I'll find one
Who's legit, til then I'll just keep shaving it
(this is coming from a man who is working
on his fourth blackbelt, basically someone who craves only the best.)

Victory is eternal!
I am a ninja turtle.
Who is Leonardo?
The one who can see David
In a rejected block of marble.

Dead Man

Staring into the void,
Last night, Saxon was speaking to himself,
It's the same thing every morning for me,
The routine is unwinding, becoming free,
Sunshine smiling, the pater unending,
Every day is all the same.

Dead man.

He said, 'So this is hell, then.' to me.
He had mushroom tea earlier that eve,
Psilocybe Cubensis. He was lying on his bed watching the T.V.
Repeat the intro to the DVD,
Rinse-re.
How can I tell you,
He said,
'Dead man.' (the name of the DVD)

I just listened for a bit and then started talking.
I said, 'There are two types of dead men.'
He said, 'Please tell me.'
'Well the first type is the dead walking around
Through life waiting to wake up, waiting to feel alive.
The second type,' I continued, 'Is the dead man
At the bottom of the ocean, watching the world
Pass by, he is seated in renunciation, passing
The stages of his age and youth.'
'What is the ocean?'
'Why, the ocean is the soup of existence.'

Le paradis n'est pas artificial, l'enfer non plus.
Psychoactive mushrooms open up the other world there,
Heaven and hell are different states of existence,
Tell me, what is timeless?
Nothing and everything at the same time,
Existence is mirrored by non-existence,
I brought myself as a mirror to gaze into,
He said, 'This never ends, huh?'
I said, 'Um, no, it doesn't'
'Ha!'
'That might not be too comforting of a statement, but it's the truth.'
'Oh, no, it's alright,' and then, 'Who would thought the last two Poets
Would talk like stoners.'

He opened up about his feelings,
He was wondering and asking me how to get free,
How to climb the ladder, become en-light.
I told him I studied Rumi and that helped me find the path
But I don't know what works for you.
He asked me who Rumi was and I read him
A teaching Poem about Joseph and Kings
And always bring a gift of non-existence, google it.

I read aloud,
'Hold up a mirror to your most destructive habits,
The worst thing is thinking you are good enough,
Self-complacency gets in the way of the craftsmanship.'

It's hard to describe and transcribe all that expired
It was sobhet in truth, we were speaking from outside our personalities,
Between us, he was feeling down about a girl who got away,
The mushrooms forced things out, he told me after
Our long back and forth,
Equally as long diatribes,
That he felt better,
What, then, should I resent?
I know tomorrow, though,
Will just be the same routine,
For me,
For Saxon.
I'm doing the real soul-tending,
The carful evaluation and action,
The surrender to better judgment,
Most likely Saxon will continue normally
For a few more years or more
Little by little things will get more
un/comfortable and he will wake up,

Dead man.

Cause you see, people don't change unless
They have too,
Unless it's unbearable--
Why does God make souls if only to suffer?
Like grapes in the wine-press
Or wheat husked and ground and baked and eaten and shat and placed back into the ground
To be reminded from where you came.
Like a chrysalis Kid from Compton into a butterfly King,
You go through a whole lot,
Trials and tribulations
But then you know God,
Satan will try to put you in a bow tie,
The water will never run dry,
That is the fortune for my Generation,
Arachne mi porta fortuna:
They said there wasn't any sun
To dry up all that rain,
So the itsy bitsy spider
Went up the spout again,
Come, if you may
And sit beneath this rock,
Twin veins of gold and carnelian revealed,
And not even once should you believe that you are doing the healing,
You are being healed!
To paraphrase Alan Watts:
When you lie down in your bed and try to fall asleep,
If you try to fall asleep you can't,
You get in the way of a natural process,
You should just focus on breathing and your
Body's intelligence will take care of the rest,
Don't try to do what will naturally happen on it's own,
Let go, be free,
Trust the process to happen, tomorrow will the sun rise?
Listen carefully to spiritual masters
And check the information with your intellect and
With your spiritual intuition,
Never follow blindly,
If something feels wrong
There is a reason for it,
There are more false teachers in this age
Than any before,
Many will have part of the puzzle,
A piece of wisdom here,
A block of knowledge there,
But that softness and self-complacency is dangerous,
Unity with the divine is the one action,
The moment when you die,
And the time of death is every moment!
Do not listen to someone about how to get by,
Listen to the birds in the sky, fly,
Live freely--live to your full potential, thrive!
100% is 100%--no less
The choice is always choosing
Everyone is it--now, just do it,
There is no try.

He said: "It is all useless, if the last landing place can only be the infernal city, and it is there that, in ever-narrowing circles, the current is drawing us. "

And Polo said: "The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, pp. 165



It's in a word,
It's in a smile,
It's the way you love
Through the fire.

Pisan Cantos

There are many tears falling
Though not many tears talk.

Like a fascist by the heels
That history forgot. 

There are many,
Though not many who talk.

There are many stars falling,
Though not many stars fall.

Today is Today

It's only a whisper,
Tentative laughter,

Holding a platter,
Ask for what you want

And have.
There is no failure,

Only exposure,
And after that--fortune,

Look her in the eyes,
Feel the wind,

And know one thing, friend,
I'm a reaper,

Not a weatherman.

Portrait d'une Femme

A folk story    This is hers too, reflect me & you
You hear    Fix her own goddam shoes
This is her.   Save her dog from a pit-bull
Play heart,    Really this isn't the first rodeo
Strings, ooo.    Necessity is the mother of everything
That's rag    A head full of ideas of how things
Time live    Should be, you know this is pure
or Die try    Apathy transformed into empathy
Everything    Her own person, move it's time to go
Don't lie.    Add another town but she stays home
Ex trope    Always, but this is merely a portrait
Of mine.    You have to see her to know it.

She is twenty-two
With a sleeve of tattoos
Imbued with meaning.
No waiting tables
Or pulling/pouring shots,
On the road you don't look back,
Explode like fireworks into the sun,
Ninth grade education
And she holds her own against train-hoppers,
I would say her beauty is
Like a leather hide cured and crafted
A hide that was ingrateful
A deer who gave life painfully
And a leather piece that was the product of the century
The struggle then the understanding
The careful crafting of her soul,
She isn't from your world, you don't know
Or care to know a traveling girl
You must think something when you see her on the street
I can see her singing in the key of free right in front of me,
It's in her living room and I am a guest,
You see appearances often deceive,
Get it?
See?
One more look and you won't believe.

Lore

Tangled dynamics
Don't repeat adages

Live and twist it
That's everything

On tongues so plain
The truest source

The rule is love
Now live with might

Multiple disciplines
Equals

Leaping levels--
Bound

To nothing,
Sound

Another

It's another
Freestyle
Void of form
I was born
With spider's legs
With wicked webs
With worried ways,
Whoa,
It's not mysterious enough, anyways,
It's too confusing
Too musing
No confetti
I've been ready
For another fool
Like you
To dupe,
Oops,
Did I slip?
Do you poop?
Anyways,
It's another day
Another move
It's dangerous
Being cool
Strange days in fascination
Fashion me
New poetic form
Noel's Anthology of Literature That's Dope

Asia Minor

Does it ever really end,
Did it ever really begin?
My sister, she told me,
With a beggar's grin,
A grim recompense
Midst a regalia of death.
The butterfly in the mist
Pressed against the page
Like a window to infinity.
The slow march abreast the waves--
To Carthage then I came.
Catharsis.

Dialect so plain,
The valley of the caterpillar
Between two sheer cliffs.
*Slow clap* pillars of either this or that
Either one.
I say Father dear,
Mother severe,
There is no sight to soothe me,
Everywhere the tide of illusion eschews me from society
As if something guiding,
Vines around my feet
And your shadow at 12:03,
Dust in your face,
Eyes watering on the barren heath
And there is no wedding ring,
And there is no reverberation,
Only prison and pain and malice in station,
The palace of waste and indiscretion.
Nothing on top but a bucket and a mop
And an illustrated book about birds.
Radiant playa of doom,
Who needs actions
When you've got words?
Antithetical

Poetics of grace
Of wax and then wane,
A polish of deepening sickness.
The deepest most blackest home,
Darkness darker and feeling alone,
If you listen to me
I can show you something:
A fallow field all surrounding,
A friend knows no fear,
A friend knows only truth
And an open ocean all around you.

American Poet

So this is style...another rose emerging into the cold, petals wilted, thorns exposed. A complete inner world of contemplation mirrored distinctly in a lucid and supple prose. I'm aware of my heart on my sleeve, it makes it easier to breathe...or was that easier to bleed? By any means, please, marry each idea to it's opposite. More Amarillo rest stop and truth beside your pillow and Joyce, him too, talking of the routine. Maybe to expand upon this notion: The rest stop is in your head and truth is what Sojourner says and Joyce, he's the intellect, the deft hand applying pressure against the wind and the breath. The one who chases the ox...and the hare and you're right there again. Like the lug shaft pressed firmly against a boot, another seed I have lying in root. Oblivion in me. I'm resting in places too calm to disguise.