a class of idiot

all our heads are filled with the same words
each as drab and burning as the next
its a miracle that we push forward
each with different colored shoes,
but all still protecting our feet
the thinking man gathers much moss
he slumps down in chairs
consumes the world with sad stares
joins in chorus when one is needed
monsters inside each
feeding
oh well the diatribe of the demented
falls on ignoring ears
the symphony, the melody forgotten
replaced with malady, malignancy
broken bottles and empty cans
litter the streets and invade
on the hoping spirits of weak
Will I wreak havoc on wandering hearts
which slash tires with little thought
a beginning of an ending a miracle
and a loss
spin the wheel ride the ride
shut up and sit down

crying does nothing

It isn't entropy that kills a man, it is thought. Mine come down like a hammer on my spine and store that pain in my back and legs. It's deep inside. A blackened sickness, tiredness from futility. Working for nothing, not being able to be loved or love at all. Losing senses slowly, painfully taking steps toward another fantastic nothing, waiting for the winds of change, but change comes from within and my within in jammed with all that before. One day we all die and fill up those graves, that earth, returned to the stink the stench we trudged through just to get this far. Just to find a wink of compassion from a nurse or a doctor in charge, just to find ourselves but that never happens because we are nothing, everything is nothing and nothing is disgusting.

Birth of Genius

It should be a god damned national holiday. The bureaucrats surely wouldn't understand. 91 years ago today Hank Bukowski was spit into this world, and I am thankful for it. I am drinking cheap beer and day dreaming about my own life as an avant garde crude manipulator of line, verse, idea, philosophy. One thing Bukowski said that will always produce veins in my consciousness was,  " I'm the hero of my own shit" Exactly what I should strive for, because in my mind I am the hero, never the villain. I made mistakes but most heroes do. If I had more money in the wallet or in the bank than negative I would but bottles of cheap red wine and brandy to give to the homeless and down people of my city. I have no place in the world, but that is ok because Hank didn't either. Cheers.

how to dismantle things that are working fine

life is misery
and each time you think
"well there was a small victory"
a thousand other souls
are being tortured
by just being
just thinking
we are taught
to be blind
to the weakness of others
that the unbathed
truly stink
that smell
is
your
guilt
of being human
the odor of mankind
punishing eachother
crammed
into spaces
individuals
seperate
fat
happy
from life
and liberty


wain moon
wain
next revolution
lift me
as you pull
on earths
jagged face

at the moment

curses
run
 deep
I don't know
what
my ancestors
did

luck
sticks
i
must be
teflon

empty
glasses
are
all I
see

strange beings

She turned her back to me and fell asleep after I told her a story that she had already known. Maybe she didn't notice my inaccuracies and fumbling mixes of similar tales. I laid there for an hour and wept some to myself, and as the sadness seeped inside of me. I knew I wouldn't sleep that night. I got up and thought she might notice me stirring, but as I put my clothes on and shoes she didn't move. I got close and kissed her on the cheek. That was the last kiss we had together. I called a cab and it seemed to take hours sitting in the cold on the steps in front of her apartment building. The driver let me be silent as he drove me to the train station. I sat on the L dazed and weary, thinking of what a night it had been. My ears were still ringing from the concert, and although it was amazing there was no excitement left for me. Soon enough I was close to home and departed. I strolled up the street to a worn down tavern where there were a few other night wanderers wallowing and cherishing in their drink. I sat to myself and passed little conversation with the people who knew me. I drank although my stomach was burning. When the last strings of my desperation were vibrating a friend walked into the liquor purchasing window. He grabbed me and we went to the cab outside that was waiting with other drunk and not ready to end things.
We got to his place and we drank more and talked, there was a strange girl dancing and other fellows going on about various things. My friend had recently taken up a young girl in need of a place to stay, she was quiet and unappealing. The apartment was small and messy, I grabbed the computer and started playing music that I had seen earlier in the evening. I was distressed and couldn't go home yet, we got the energy and went for breakfast. I was still sober somehow but my two friends were drunk and disorderly. The man at the counter knew me as a good and regular customer so he was polite and let us roll through with our pancakes and eggs. They told me the female roommate was schizophrenic and would eventually be a problem for him. He was a drunk and fighting his own demons anyway. We said our goodbyes and when I laid down for bed when the sun was coming up, people were working and bustling through the streets. She messaged me angrily, I fought back with tired animosity. I pushed it until it broke. I slept terribly for the next week. I have yet to see her. No longer my lover, and will probably never be. But those mad fellows, the wild, the drunks, they are the ones who went to bed happy, and are probably bedding down for the night as I speak, hazy and used to disappointment, unbothered, unfettered by the sadness of living. Happy with the madness they provide, and in no need of the sort of affection I so desperately seek. Here I am again, weak and awake listening to Brahms notes playing dramatically as the sun rises and the disabled next door are about to wake and open up the doors to live and breathe. I know they are old, or dying, or too insane to care about anything, and it does not feel any better that some may be even more alone than me. I have compassion for them though, and my mad friends. Oh what a strange thing it is to be a human being.

diggital shoestring theory

technology is stripping me of my humanity
I am too bored and entertained
lulled to sleep with music or readings from the greats
i'm struggling with death and life
i'm burdened by being awake
not being able to defend myself against passive aggression
that in so many forms hits my face
and real aggression that is random and commonplace
I should get the muscles working so I no longer atrophy
maybe I should stare at the sun or get struck by lightning
in hopes that blindness or electricity revive me
so that songs will play deep in my brain
so i will have more songs to sing
when they take me to the madhouse, the hospital, the prison
and you will have songs to sing
when the grave digger's machine buries me

just

I am pathetic. I should have died on that fucking mountain. I should have pulled the trigger with that barrel in my mouth. I should have taken that RPG in my god damn chest so I wouldn't have to deal with this world anymore. I should have kissed my family goodbye and died on the fields of war. I should have been a fucking hero so I wouldn't have to think about this shit anymore. I should be the one with cancer, I should be the one old and bitter, torn and full of scorn.I should have been born more handsome with more silver spoons in mouth, I should have worked so much harder and should have been more sickened by being poor. I should have started a bar fight that ended in me getting cut up and bleeding on the floor. I shouldn't be here, there is nothing I add to the world, there is no one I am for. I should fall asleep and not wake up because waking is such a chore. I should shut up because no one listens, because no one is there anymore. I should end this path of sorrow that bleeds from my core. I should look in different places, but those places arent my own, I should just stop breathing and hope there is no more.

today I started to care about privacy

Let me start off by saying that I am just an average computer user. I am a designer and I work with loads of programs, but I am by no means a technology expert or anything. As of late I have been interested in the activity and actions of the group who call themselves "Anonymous". While looking through information around the interwebs I came across this little article on security and remaining anonymous. http://pastehtml.com/view/1dzvxhl.html . Now I highly suggest that you download the firefox apps provided in the report, to stop being tracked by unknown people. It has sped my internet speed up dramatically, and I get to see every little company trying to track my information and it is a little scary.
A few weeks ago my amazon.com account was accessed and some purchases were made, and the only thing amazon had to say was that I must have given my sensitive information out to some 3rd party or something. I have had an account for several years and I don't give out info, and never had this happen before. This made me rethink how I felt about my internet security. I used to feel that maybe it wasn't so bad that people track you, see what interests you, and what you like. Maybe then there would be more things available in the future that were brought to being simply by being me. I'm starting to feel that this is over the top, the amount of information that is unknowingly stored within our own computers. So my suggestion is to fight back a little, against big corporations and agencies by not letting them freely use our own thoughts and feelings against us in advertising, marketing, and messaging.

check please

When I came back home from the Army I was married to a girl that I had known since I was fifteen. We were married before I went to Afghanistan. She was battling a lot of madness. Both of us were traumatic messes, only I believe she had given up on herself. She wasn't a wife or a companion. She took care of her pets, watched television and did a lot of drugs. I wasn't much better but I was trying much harder. I had found a good job running a kitchen downtown, and I made ice sculptures on the side. I would sit in a grimy room in the basement for hours chiseling and creating. She hated it and wouldn't leave me alone for a minute. She became very possessive and I was losing hope for life. She insisted that I had some girl at my job, when in reality I was having such a hard time just coming back to the world that I couldn't even consider adding more complexity to my emotional state. Also being alone in the world for those long months had tempered me, and made me much more used to being by myself. A lot of months not wanting to get killed, and a few nights where I came close to ending myself had changed me. I was becoming repulsed with my wife and my life. One day when I got off of work I knew that she was probably just getting up and I couldn't be a part of her life anymore. I went to a friends house and stayed on the couch. I turned my phone off and thought about the past few years of my life. I had no fear of cutting that connection, or any connection to anyone. I felt as though I may never love anyone ever again. It wasn't painful. It should have been but it wasn't. Almost every relationship I have had since then has been painful.
It is strange in retrospect how I could have been so courageous then, to go into the future with a large degree of uncertainty and face it with confidence in myself and my actions. I wish I could have bottled some of that energy and saved it for days like these. Days where your dreams seem to be all but gone, and the smell of reality is disheartening. Days when no one calls, or writes and your eyes are dry from staring at a screen, when your back hurts from sitting and doing nothing and being fine with it. Days when you want a drink but your stomach might bleed if you do. Days when you wake up to storms and rain, to a life you don't even seem to lead. In the same places doing the same things all over again. Days when your once strong patience is now dwindling. When you are afraid of the world because you owe it so many god damned things. Days when faith never seemed to exist anyway, that so many things are just words and the true meanings were lost when we all stopped thinking so deeply. Now our thoughts are wide and encompass everything, at least mine do. I can't help but contemplate our existence methodically. From quarks and bosons, to the taste of tea. I don't know if its my mind that needs to change, or the world around me.
I feel some nostalgia for America, I love it. I feel like it is being corrupted though. I feel we are all getting weak. What can we do without a phone, or a computer, a link or a tweet, without bicycles, cars, fast food, or tv? I'm too obsessed with information and technology, and I don't even have an i-phone or i-pad. I want to harness the heart of a revolutionary, and change the way we all think and believe. The first step is to make an attempt to be more compassionate, a more difficult thing than I initially believed. It's hard when you are bitter and disappointed with events and situations in your life. When you are unhappy scaling the ladders of social and career success. When all the food tastes bland and all those girls you loved are gone. When the wine tastes heavy and feels like spicy blood in your stomach but you drink your bitter drink to wash down the delights and disasters we each face every day.
Here is to compassion, may I acquire much more someday.

sheridan stop blues

I couldn't take the silence of my trashed room. I bellyached to the others and went out for a drink. My stomach turned and I knew I would be sick anyway. I get to the bar and have a seat with a few of my friends. It's karaoke night and the place looked like it was missing it's life juice. Most of the people there were gay and I knew the girls weren't interested in me. I tied one off and lost count after a few shots. The lady kindly called me up and from my drunken quietness my voice roared and I did some soul man a little justice. There was a beautiful waitress with ripped up stalkings, too beautiful, and too cool to notice my eyes. She got up and sang, her voice was just right and I was jealous, down, because she had a man, and I didn't like my odds.
Pretty soon they rush us out into the streets and like fighting lions we roared into another place.  I sat with a drink as the boys and girls I knew chuckled through the small crowd at a dying hole in the wall. My friend called me over to talk to a few girls, and we started walking them home. The girl I was with kissed me a little but seemed more interested in what the other two were up to. I sat on a curb with a cigarette and let them walk away. I was drunk and lost in the city. The rest of my friends had already taken off and stopped to talk to a girl carrying a lunchbox with a picture of a raw steak on it. She was cute and friendly, I got directions and stumbled off to find a train to send me back to that trashy room by the lake.
Time flies when you are losing yourself. In another week I will likely forget most of this and have more stories to tell. I am a writer. Although it may be only for the few people who actually read what I write. A lot of it is crap and I'm sorry for that, but for every hundred terrible poems or manic expressions of my feelings that my heart and mind vomit out into these keys there is one that might make you happy, even for a second. Or for every thousand stupid lines or rhymes there will be one that gets you. I'm trying to whittle down myself so I can create something unique, that didn't come from being told what I should write, or what is right to write. Huzzah.

open water IV

the beautiful are the lucky ones
sometimes the world will kneel for lovely eyes

the ones that want love go searching around and can't find it, getting burnt up
the ones that don't want it have to sweep it out in the morning, get their coffee and doughnut
the ones who should live get sent to die, and the dead can't speak their wisdom
the oafs, users, masquerade behind the artists renditions making everyone suck our souls through plastic straws
i didn't wake up and dislike the world, it has been against me from the start
I always had love though. A good family, good friends.
I've been upset, crushed, used like a man who had something to begin with.
As soon as I could stand I could dance, and i could joke, and make my family laugh. I used to draw pictures for my grandmother. I made ant people who looked like the crew of the original starship enterprise. I miss a family. I should have my own by now I think. I should have love and happiness. I see people from my past, people who I never had any real respect for, and I see them happy and in love, making babies, building that family up. I feel lost and lonely. I've lost my enthuisiasm. What is life for god? Is it to make art for some corporation that thinks I'm only worth what a budget allows, what a people are happy to consume? Is it to find some niche in hollywood and get stuck in those insufferable circles of social exclusion and polarized egos? I can't waste away, but I'm not sure I can be happy with those things. I'm not sure I can be happy without finding a real reason to live. I like to write, not usually like this, i'm more coded or angry usually but now I'm feeling more contemplative. I made some mistakes, my heart is sore, I maybe made some good choices though. I feel like I've been walked on a lot in my life, and I let it happen, no one else, if anything others warned me. I feel like I'm at a place where I should be demanding, at least changing my passive ways which never work out anyway. I am setting fires all over the place though, my heart is tired and my tongue burns with a thousand unsaid words and I probably hurt someone I really started to love. I gave up, because saying nothing wasn't enough. I value morals, and compassion. I can't help but constantly analyze and imagine myself in the other shoe, but being a man and a man hopefully of virtue, I couldn't see through a closed door. What can we know of the inside of a room we've never been in, except that it could be scary, and maybe we've seen a room like this before, and every room with this style of trim and doorknob reminds you of being held up tight, and abused and then thrown to the sharks.

could you be loathed

she squeezes sheet and likes what he does right
he closes his eyes and still holds her image in mind
she walks fast or rides a bike
he takes his time
she holds an arm, kisses necks or ears
he holds a memory, kisses a dream goodbye
she's got summer in a clutch, short skirt day dream love
he's an enemy to the world, head down curled up
she's armored, holding onto nothing like a diligent off-duty security truck
he's exposed to the elements, susceptible to the little paper cuts that add up
she wants to be open for something
he wants to be closed and sewn shut
she is on the road, on a boat, on a beach in the sun
he is on the low, a no show, burnt up
there is little difference between a bullet and a gun
between the good one and the wrong one
she holds the pillows close as if she weren't alone
he fades away because he knows he is the only one

the sun was on their bodies, fed well and undernourished soul
complex castaways stirring ponds of home making memories
setting a tent and building a fire on the shore
there are others with torches, with fires burning into the night
empty boats where shadows float across the line
they cinder and sink to the bottom where death lies
the dreams that come aren't any good
they are heartache and with them rides anger on a drunken horse
rippled on top, the face of loss and hurt shimmers in moonlight
oh there are places to be and successes to breathe, sadnesses to bleed
hungry sores seeking more and more
this one is the best one, the first one that feels like something, like anything other than all the things it has been being, this one feels like comfort and cool drinks and songs to sing, this one is an easy chair cozy and feeding, this one is a trip across the world seeing high things and low ravines, forests and galleries, this one is so much of everything, and empty and receding, disheartening and collapsing, this one is addressing all the wrong things, remembering the cold and bitter beliefs, embracing the invisible breeze, soul opening, expressing, missing the point of being, paint a painting and build a plaything, ignore, ignorance just don't say anything, young, fun, out to get it, get it baby, bet it lady, pray that all your energy isn't just wasting, pretend that you're reading everything you need
so that these awful words, these truths and feelings can just burn out when I'm done impeding
obstructing, we were just fucking, lucky that it was just that one thing, imagine if you were loving

i am disaster
stumbling down the street
wrapped up in cables and wires
dragging the electronics and broken instruments
still babbling
old bitter heart
seeking torment
pushing out warmth

i am a storm
i change with the tide
moon on my side
raining down on you and trying to catch you right
between enough
beyond too far
as most emergencies are

spoonful of chlorine

i'm not asking for your heart in a paper bag, nor ball and chain for you to wear around like a prisoner. i've spent time on the outskirts of time, where the days go slow and all you can do is watch dust settle on your lonely bones. I've painted pictures, written symphonies, and told stories never heard before inside my head on the borders between nothing and even more. i still remember hanging chemical lights at dusk, to make us see so that when death comes thrashing we were not all blind. now i am a light. i shine bright and stand tall with a damaged backbone. the pain washes in and out. the sadness always leaves eventually. im counting my fingers every day happy they are still there and I can read, ride a bike, or listen to your voice. i've been stepped on and stepped over since, washed and rinsed, hung to dry tear stained and not knowing why i try. i've been fed well and starved, degraded and pried apart, changed and rearranged and I still have empathy, drive and somehow a loving ability. the leaves have gotten green again and we find ourselves at winters end, the world of opportunity for the young and without love, as we stream through the world searching for substance and fun. i can't help but feel not up to par at the moment. I cant help but feel that the world pulls at the strings that it knows will hurt me. bleeding for the god's enjoyment, making me hate the things I cannot change and escaping the grasps of the throes of love because I want what I can't have, and what i do have is breaking me.  i don't need anything, i'm built to last, my line is cast and quickly sinking, always hoping words i'm sending will redeem me for being forward and fleeting. it's so fucking cold here, like most places I have been, like those hearts i have seen and held and tried to warm up to me. can't be happy because I am not worthy. i can't find love because love no longer wants me. i can't change minds because mine is collapsing under pressure, i've got an unbreakable chain between emotion and pleasure that makes me treasure you, makes me want to see something through, for once, for joy, for my own well being. i don't want your ship to just skim by and go missing. i don't want to lose my minds pictures of laughing and kissing, as i move forward you are distancing, and no one is witnessing because no one knows you even mean anything to me, because no one knows we have anything. as you cheers, or kiss, as you drink life from your single serving cup get drunk and live it up, because you know you can find love, will find love, will be something to someone, and god I wish that someone was me.

Everything we say is theoretical and subject to disection

Man was at first trained and conditioned by nature. It was the rise of communication that allowed my species to assimilate the world around and therefore begin to speculate in a verbal way the experience of living. Each of us carries a torch inside of us, our only duty is to keep the fire burning and survive the violent storms that fling our fellow beings into the abyss. We may try and save the ones we can, many are part of that unknown force that helps to send these beings on that journey into the unknown. Speculation surrounding that unknown ranges far and wide, to unseen and unheard beings, forces that guide existence in some way. Without concrete, programmed, or divine guidance it is difficult to find hopes for some similar existence when our matter is returned once again to the cycles of the universe. Or to hear the calls of the gods within ourselves to become what is meant for you. Most fall short in accurately describing the true reason for existence.
As we rose, in recent history, into an age of consumption and assimilation I see no definite or great future for this world. I am sorry for all war waged until now. Every death and moment of solitude, confinement, or second of pain, fear of everything, loss of friends, family, and men and women of inspiration. I am sorry for the pollution, the corruption, and the ability for like minds to be subdued and broken down by the destructive forces that gain in numbers and power everyday. Entropy increases with time, and Klimpt once said "To be truly great you must live outside of time". It is difficult to do so, when you stand back and see the "powerful" (monetarily and politically usually) subject the major population to exclusion through corporatization of resources. Options for living and keeping the torch burning are not designed with the worker in mind but the production and consumption of said resources. When someone spends their entire life building a life and burning a torch through the lavish consumption of goods by their peers and fellow beings, is it possible to maintain a respect for existing, or gain some better insight on existence that is not merely attributed to the decay of the mind (not to say that our minds are always sound). When I thought of this, I thought of the first inhabitants of this country, the men and women who were tangled in wars of ideas and opportunities. If they were here today after giving their lives, and sometimes everything they have, their children, would they look upon us and say "these are my descendants and they fought for a right and just world consistently", will I say that in a hundred years after I had fought in Afghanistan? When I see and hear of the darkest this world has to offer, I have heard the calls of the revolutionaries and none seem in noble positions for an enlightened being, there are few great men and we may never see many because of the exclusion of image and information.
There are no banks in the abyss

what do you go home to

i am a shadow on a cave wall
i am a dog at the door hungry for the bell
i give up and get down
wake in time for nothing
this cold stint I'm doing here is getting inside
the cell is getting smaller every day. i hope. i eat. struggle with fears, doubt, and other peoples emotions. it's a spiral into space where it gets harder to breathe. the gods are closer there
we are turning into something sterile, my heart cant take it anymore
when i grow, i gallop, seeking future events like a lost and lonely lion of the night
when i die the earth sits still as i drift. looking back at the ripples I see the trail i have waded , the carnage i push to radiated shores.
 we are becoming nothing, but lost ones
hold me til the morning at least darling, speak soft and happy into my mourning ear, my sad cut away of everything, tiny bones like machines absorbing your energy, to waves i can believe
my genesis is in the tiny chains that bound our ancestors
not built to survive, just able to live
i am in the burning pit and hope that not all we saved is lost today
stagnantly staggering making haste only losing taste
from black smokey lines grasping me wildly into the night
nothing beats time, it's erosion and decay
the ruler of all i know and say

Devil's Laundry

27 years of solitude

anger cried moving forward into battle, at odds with others and ideals
some lie and lying is done for in a mind hardened by the heat of existence
plates readjusting spewing ash and molten embers
the cold alone is unforgiven and the waves crash upon shores i know no more
i never knew the ones receding, melting down to a core long forgotten
nature chooses who the plague moves to and destruction is evident
in all of those who choose to will these fleeting moments forward
a dollar is only a dollar as a million a million as well
work isn't anything when taxes pay the interest of the greedy the sitting
stagnant leading with gleaming evil eyes
in dark corners there is imbalance where the rest are exposed in full light
and grand tunes play not in the ears of the wicked little ones rolling in
thousand dollar sheets tonight
bank, but don't bank on me, don't pay your organizational fee, flee from something, nothing but smiles, dark hair flowing glowing skin ready for a change
god save the king, that is me, as the circus pulled in years and days stretch and zing

1st Guest Blogger Tim Elliott

Tim Elliot is a dedicated supporter of our troops and advocate of veterans' benefits. He's just starting blogging but look for more of his writings to come.

Asbestos

Have you ever heard of asbestos? It’s deadly. It causes the cancer mesothelioma, and thousands of veterans have it due to exposure while serving.  Before it was known that asbestos was dangerous the military built everything from roof shingles to cloth with it, and millions of soldiers have been exposed to it.  Mesothelioma takes a long time (twenty to fifty years) before it starts to really negatively affect the body, and it is just now that many veterans are beginning to find out that they have it.

Can you imagine the hopelessness, the bitterness, and the biting cruelty that would have to accompany such a diagnosis? To learn that the mesothelioma life expectancy is only a year or two, that you’re not expected to live longer than a year or two? It would be devastating in any circumstance.  To hear that, and then to hear that it’s likely because of the time you spent in the military. The fact that you made it through all the trials and tribulations, and survived only to find out years later that cancer from then is going to take your life anyway is just unbelievable.  Or the helplessness, because the whole time you thought that trouble breathing was nothing serious only to find out it is a mesothelioma symptom ? It’s absolutely unbelievable that some people have to go through this, after they’ve already been through so much. 

If you find out early enough that you have mesothelioma there are options for surgeries that will treat the cancer, but the prognosis is poor. So the best thing to do if you think you’ve been exposed to asbestos is to talk to your doctor and get screened regularly for it.

 

man is monster and innocence is lost in accumulation
woman is a beast and purity is compromised in acquisition
children are sirens, loud and crashing into each other, further from control
mothers are just as lost as the rest of us,
makes me feel wisdom is not age or experience,
but rather something we start with
a certain perception
a stranger on a train recognizing something in you
that you hadn't known in years
wondering if that is a good thing
who am i now that this person saw, maybe a shadow of who i was another time
i want to hide them and talk about them
as my face turns red

get off the train and go to the bar

a girl smiles and laughs gives advice takes a little interest
i shelter heartache with smiles

a blur, a tired tired blur

another reaches out and i retract
in fear in lonely shallow hollow fear
disinterest

bitter mouth fool

i got a chip on my shoulder. can you blame me. i have a sudden fear of growing older. I need something to fill this loss of motivation inside of me. I need sun. I feel like a shipmate on a voyage through winter, getting cabin fever. I'm a natural imaginationist. i pull myself out of the gutter with the leaves and challenge the passers on the street. Pride vs enemies inside, quality of life, live and let die, hello goodbye dramatic change in dialogue eh? i get you got you got you good good going from bad to worse so worst worth work and warm dirt silk shirt shure sure big sur to surf and turf walking on water galloping golliwags giggling and guzzling gobs of golden grapes in juice getting to go through the moves until one day the situation improves but not too loose cuz then u lose lost sense scents scants of selected silly sayings rants alley cats scratching backs wearing slacks smoking cracks in shacks with shaq and whitney u shittin me me me me yes where is this going going going going gone     and gone isn't wrong it just isn't here................or there................ I'm not sold on destruction and cycle. I'm not bought on destruction and cycle. I'm not old on destrctionandcycle. and the chain broke. songs of mad men on mad floors in mad places with bad doors i'm glad i'm not sleeping in my own urine tonight ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad if i listen just right the plastic bag pattering in the breeze sounds like ocean waves on a neon velvet painted night.
jibbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiissssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh
sleepless fool burning lamp oil of life

grimy gus blues

the grime of love built up inside us
our sharp edges were scraped dull
from being together, from the weight of want
you reading this now are as leveled out and desperate for love as each other one.
some hide in the cupboards with shame
others fight all monsters with thoughtless rage
goals keep us from thinking of being
being gets in the way of achieving
sleeping blinking still and moving
imagining thinking seeing
only the holy reach for glory in the face of adversity
mind and brain aligned willing and forcing me
media corporate fast gorging on need
capital gluttony

shutting us out bureaucratic symphony hitting a soliloqy
disparity leads to sarcasm transforms to sadness and aching
hope on a string drifts just outside your window
curtains open letting soft summer sun in
all that dirt grime and dust weighs down your sides, and the window just isn't big enough
sitting in sorrowful stupor look at the lamp spilled in the shuffle shut the window
and the curtains as well
grimy gus shutting out the sun which he has shunned
bearing the burdens of what he has done
from door to dull drab everything seen so much before
home to check check double check check everything once more
kicked out gaslight gone out outside the world lost alone
sleep bench bed time good night walk work reprise
who am i alone in a room full of thoughtful minds and silent souls
this is the end of the line

empty fortune cookie

you should be happy and love
when i was in Afghanistan I was doing something a lot of people would not or could not do.  I was serving, and earned respect from those back home.  Something I never really had before.  Being there I didn't feel like I was worth anything.  I felt like no one or no thing would miss me if I were gone. I felt that a rocket today could be the memorial service of next month, and then anything I had hoped to do would be for naught. I find myself tracing deep routes through memory, pushing the grass down with the hopeless steps into past and regret. I learned to do this sitting on a mountain, running out of books and afghani bootleg dvds, writing and interweaving my experience with some imagined heroic fiction. listening to the fuzzy radio stations through a cheap boombox i picked up from a bazzar outside the gate, listening to the jackals bark into the night as I watched clouds move like white lace through the starry sky. I meant something to my howitzer, to the guys on the op's getting shot at in the distance, tracers shooting out like green and red laser beams.  Days went by like a dream, but each one strong with its moments.  a memorable time indeed.

it's rotten, inside your sad eyes
all the self loss
given up everything for
nothing, and nothing is too fast becoming sacred

when will my bones align so i can sleep at night
where is that little pill that makes my brain work right

the dark hearts and nihilists see stars in their eyes
quick to feed with pride like lions
they are lonely jackals inside

existence FAQ

what do i know of balance?
in the beginning space petrified.  It turned into solid dark blocks.  Gravity warped these blocks, and as they warped energy was generated.  The energy collected and the pressure built, then... BOOM!  fiery bits of energy break apart the still space.  As it cools and slows, somewhere in a medium temperature zone, a medium electromagnetic area, globs of energy solidify.  Stars and black holes spin neighbors through curved space, and in those dying rides life is born. 
but what does it matter?
There is no architecture for existence.  This space and space of being is a physical one that just is, like you wake up in the morning and the floor was always there.  There is no mold, no genius pulling strings, but instead natural laws that limit, not govern, the procession and being of all things.
who am I then?
I am you are we are all together.  As the little pieces, the tiniest particles of matter are slowing they vibrate.   An unimaginable amount of these exist throughout the visible universe, and they smash into each other constantly. With all of these energy waves vibrating another form of matter is created.  Life.
From bacteria to plant to animal to man, our ancestors broke through to form the most complex patterns in the universe. 
does that make life another law of the universe?
which came first: the eye, tongue, ear, or skin?
its hard to say what life is.  Philosophers and scientists have debated throughout written history on what exactly existence is, and how one should react to this sudden existence, but the truth is that very little is known about the meaning of life.  I think that if all the senses were developed simultaneously then the possibility of a god is more likely than i previously determined.  If the senses were developed two at a time or less I believe the possibility of life being a natural law of the universe and our existence and thoughts are all just more ways for it to reach out from the place where it sprouted.
Is there other life in the universe?
If life is a natural law of the universe then the possibility is highly likely that there is other life similar to ours in the universe.

axons of evil

want is my torturer
instinct is my demon
fight and flight mechanisms
turning gears with triggers too sensitive
grinding against oiled parts creaking annoyance
shaky fear turning into avoidance
I want salvation to be woman's beauty
soft things that smell fresh and sweet
when i was young i dreamed success and creation
now i dream of finding a real sure thing
the devil may have the industries
let us have the truly amazing
the golden moments of love and suffering
the highs and lows of happiness and tragedy
without medicating, closing natural synaptic gaps
using artificial means, breaking the system
ending the bad dreams

i remember a dream where i was floating through the house.  It was black and white like an episode of leave it to beaver, or The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis maybe.  Everyone was amazed at my new skill though i found it hard to navigate through the house being pulled up to the ceiling.  I opened the door and started floating up.  I couldn't control my path, acceleration, or speed.  I looked down lazily, dreamily, traveling up.  It grew darker as i pulled away.  Soon I was in the black emptiness of space.  I thought of how lonely i was going to be up there by myself.  I imagine this fear is common.  In the land where people often sacrifice relationships, friend or family, for the ability to rise above, for a chance to breath easy.  Sometimes a little pressure will make the lungs stronger.

insomnia is cliche in the media age
i held her hand and be praised
a real conversation exists in the smokey cracks
down in the dawns of deep valleys
where burning forges strength on heavy anvils of the earth
where i seek in night light serenity and cold thin windows and doors
they let out the heat of my dreaming
send me out to deserts oasises