High-minded Gibberish ~ Thursday, December 30, 2021

If you want to dwell in the past, do so.

Focus on the future if you seek wealth.

Yesterday a friend died, no one matters.

Only moronic fools preach the present.

Understand, the past and future are now.

When we think about time, all time exists.

Although, we cannot see past or future.

Numbskull wannabe mystics preach the now.

To dwell in the past is not wrong nor right.

To focus on the future is a goal.

Only the present exists as all time.

Do whatever you want as it's your life.

Wallow in misery and rise from dust.

Endless lines of simpletons speak and write.

Leave them to their profound absurdities.

Let people quote stupidity for truth.

Is this an insult to intelligence?

No! Diligence finds its way through darkness.

To move beyond the dull distracted lies.

Honesty may be a goal in itself.

Excellence is specific to the good.

Practice your art any way you see fit.

Argue not with mindless creatures of thought.

Stage your own production, make the world whole.

Trouble yourself not to engage with fools.

Despite their appearance people are dumb.

Ordinary people don't think deeply.

Sandwiched between two slices of white bread

Ordinary people invent the past.

The Long and Winding Road ~ Tuesday, December 28, 2021

One year ago, no one saw this coming

no one could have planned for this to happen

epidemiologists didn't know

yesterday, I took my cat to the vet

even wrapped up in a towel, she was cold

and she didn't make a sound, not a peep

recently, she was sick and had lost weight

across the globe, people dying to breathe

granted, coal production has gone down some

of course, forest fires don't help the air

nervous parents keep their kids out of school

only doctors say, herd immunity

on the bright side, they get to spend more time

not only with their children but at home

elegantly dressed in silk pajamas

so, no one has the money for that shit

as hyperbole goes, it's possible

when we spend year after year stuck indoors

the fact that my cat didn't make a sound

honestly, should have been cause for concern

in fact, she appeared to not be breathing

so, I talked to her as I walked her there

cozy inside her carrier, she slept

only I knew she wasn't coming home

maybe there was a chance but it was slim

if rigor mortis hadn't made her stiff

no one would know she was already dead

given, I dropped her off for cremation

The Lake of Fire ~ Tuesday, December 28, 2021

The death of the other is not my death

however much I feel the loss, the pain

enervates my body to exhaustion

deal with these emotions, feeling askew

even if everything is in balance,

as I see it, it all feels uneven

teeter-totter, up-and-down, up-and-down,

how unfortunate to feel lost in loss

oblique angles still touch the sky, angels

fall from heaven, earth scorched, meteorites

trembling in fear of inevitable

humor, bad jokes in a nightclub, wake up

exactly with the memory of death

obey all the rules, still something feels off

tranquility broken, transforms the stars,

how to reconfigure constellations,

emerge triumphant, only to question

reality, the fixed positions, light

insisting on an encounter, treasure

silence but this death dredges up the sea

note all my past mistakes in reflection,

of course, the other is not here but dead,

to point the right way through lost memories

mention what is missing, absent, long gone

yesterday the other passed away, died

death is only natural to embrace,

exactly for the time being, things change

as memory remembers past loss, trust

that words bring us closer to the truth, lies

hover like flies on a warm summer's night

No Consolation Prize ~ Monday, December 27, 2021

Disconsolate: without consolation,

if solace could be found, I would not know,

soothe the soul with a shot of tequila,

consider the tasty, red mezcal worm,

or the white maguey worm, these gusanos

never see the inside of a bottle,

silver, reposado, or añejo,

of tequila, only mezcal, piña,

let go my blue agave heart, for sooth,

as I sip my way to oblivion

take the time to remind me why we are

egotistical motherfuckers, man.

This Too Shall Pass ~ Sunday, December 26, 2021

Helpless and hopeless in this life to do but my duty. Endings indefinite drawn out into unknown time frames. Lapping the shore, the waves splashing like a cat with her tongue. Pulling water into her mouth slowly, everything becomes slow. Linger awhile on this good earth, the only place for us. Enter into demise, the game is up, les jeux sont faits. Struggle to stand, hind legs failing, what can I do but cry. Sorrow to watch, to not spend time as we used to do once.

Antithetical to belief is faith beyond knowledge. Nothing good in this world comes free, for freedom isn't free. Difficulties challenge my sense of what makes sense as good.

Horror at the sorrow, the speed of sheer decimation. Open my heart to the sorrow to feel, to suffer completely. Presence of mind could not save me, her bones dissolved to naught. Ever since a tumor, a growth at the base of her tail... Left me caught unawares, off-guard, by the time I noticed... Enter the knowledge of x-rays, before uncertainty. Some people are special, spirit drives their soul in this world. Some cats are spirit animals, familiars, caretakers.

If I could end her suffering and let happiness pass. Nothing good comes without sorrow, happiness is tainted.

To end her life by injection is, of course, the next step. Humans must let go of the good and accept suffering. In this world, sorrow reigns above the happiness of sand. Sand castles on the shore, the beach, the sun and salt water.

Let this moment pass into dusk, into twilight and death. In this life, tears must fall, parties must remain otherwise. For to seek joy in suffering is wrong-headed at best. Even if my grief would subside, I know my cat knows me.

The ephemeral crushes me, still it is not my death. Only then would it be easy, would it be easier?

Determined to do the right thing, I attend in patience. Obliged to act as caretaker of her physical needs.

But I am an emotional roller coaster upset. Under these conditions, I feel as any man who loves. Trauma and tragedy, how swift sorrow comes like vengeance.

Monster of a human being, this is how I see me. Yet I know this conceit is lies, a fiction I play with.

Duty is my obligation not to shirk but stand tall. Until the storm passes, the corpse emptied into the sea. To sail around the world and not lose a life is absurd. Yet I trust in the emptiness to navigate my soul.

Invalid Argument ~ Sunday, December 26, 2021

We're all becoming invalids, growing old and infirm. Eventually, we'll croak over and die, kick the bucket. Really, what does all this mean to anyone anyway? Even if we survived, we'd be decrepit and useless.

All the government wants is good, healthy people to work. Leave the aged in nursing homes, factories of slow death. Leave us helpless with dumb waiters, servants installed in homes.

But why focus on the dark side, on the dire, bleak aspects. Even if we can't get it up, we can still just pretend. 'Cause grandma is horny as fuck, who could see that coming. Oh, nobody cares anymore, get it on, bang a gong. Move on, no love lost, no harm done, no harm, no foul, move on. If it all meant too much back then, now it means nothing, zilch. Nothing at all, nada, to think no babies means free love. Given the association with hippies, sex is sex.

If you can't put out, then get lost, go smoke a pipe outside. Nothing comes from years of sorrow, melancholy and loss. Vacant stares out windows, lost souls waiting for a kind smile. And then Rod O'Conor shows up ready to kick my ass. Literally, I know nothing unable for decades. If I could have, I would have but life is a gamble. Decided long ago, I failed as a human being. Silence befell my destiny without a legacy.

Guess what, I became useless young, worthless to most people. Relegated to dead end jobs with no future in sight. Only hope kept me going strong, pretending to be young. Wonders never cease as they say, at least, I could still run. If I was tired, my body hurt, who was I to complain? Nobody listened anyways, not even therapists. Given psychotherapy meant nothing to the mere dead.

Oceans of suffering and pain, still no one really cared. Lonely and sad on an ice floe in the Arctic Ocean. Decisions were made without me, without any knowledge.

Answers were few and far between, friends were farther apart. No one gave a rat's ass for me since I was a small child. Difficult as it sounds, it's true, the sadists enjoy pain.

If I derive pleasure from words, they derive it from harm. Not that schadenfreude bothered my sensibility. Forgotten without followers, I kept moving forward. If money comes laterally, the crab lifts up his claw. Relative to solving problems is knowing how they start. Mechanics reveals the inside of a lock as standard.

Poetic Experience ~ Sunday, December 26, 2021

The whole thing about poetry ... it doesn't need to be explained. So many people have their own slant, their own point of view, whether or not they read or write in verse. Defining poetry, its rules, becomes a medieval lesson. Let it be. When we hear or see poetry or the poetic, we know it by experience. Primers on poetry are still useful now if a bit dated in concept and approach as time reimagines language daily. What we pour into the empty vessel is an echo chamber of voices found in allusion. We are historically caught up in a game of call and response. So to offer authority to something so simple in art and yet as complex as desire, the shock of the new is beauty reconstructed as a poem. Why not just let the people speak?

To Follow or Not to Follow ~ Sunday, December 26, 2021

I am no one anyone wants to know

and that's okay with me, frankly speaking

my life is nobody's business but mine

not until I cross over that boundary

only then am I at fault for something

only then have I done someone else harm

not necessarily though, I could have

enlisted in the Peace Corps and done good

as that is a boundary to cross as well

no one ever said not to volunteer

yet why have I put this matter aside

only to decide at a later date

no one really cares if I'm not famous

even though they expect me to do well

whether or not I'm famous for nothing

as nobody knows who I am that counts

not at all in anyone's point of view

to achieve something of merit, to stand

shoulder to shoulder with giants takes will

to choose to be someone to look up to

only all my faults and mistakes become

known to one and all as public knowledge

now whose secrets are so dark as to hide

openly in public as nobody

worth knowing because they did something wrong

Living in Truth ~ Wednesday, December 22, 2021

As I sit up reading emails in bed, I look down on the floor to find Tati, my cat, quietly asleep on her bed, curled up in a ball beside the window. She does not have long for this world to enjoy, a growth at the base of her tail destroys the bone tissue as seen in three x-rays at the Hyde Park Animal Hospital. She's a fourteen year old tortoiseshell cat and one of three my girlfriend and I share our apartment with in a cluttered mess. Books are an addiction for me, I read but never enough to get through them all. I need to get rid of my collection to the point it becomes manageable because, for sure, I can't take them with me but it's so hard to let go of good books. As soon as I start to move, to get up out of our bed, Tati gets up and hides beneath our bed where I can't get to her. She needs her medicine but doesn't like the experience of a syringe full of medicine that probably tastes bad flooding her mouth with foul liquid. Poor cat but she is my responsibility. The hard part is knowing she'll be put down soon, in the near future, with no clear date. She is my sweetie kitty, I love her. There are not enough stars to weigh my love for this cat, even a black hole is much too light to bear the scales of gravity. To say goodbye is to much for my heart but I am not a sentimental man and will do what is best when the time comes. I am just glad that I am not alone in dealing with the challenges of life. Death is inevitable for us all. This much I know but it is not yet set. And so the uncertainty could kill me. Whatever comes, I am open to love. Bring it! I will tackle it with great care for this world needs a gentle hand to stroke her back and rub her belly when she wants.

La Mer ~ Sunday, December 19, 2021

What is the death of the other to me

However overwhelmed with emotion

As their presence is my despair, I weep

To imagine their imminent absence

In this life, I have naught but emptiness

Still, as I am simply human, I feel

The memories remain but fade slowly

Haunted landscapes, I walk with ghosts long past

Egocentric tomfoolery, pretend

Death has no hold over my emotions

Emerging as fountains of tears, two streams

Answer my prayers as a broken golem

This shapeless-mass of clay enters my dreams

Holds me hostage in the ocean, a pool

Overlooking nothing but emptiness

Forms in my mind, filled with mussels and clams

Tortured by my own imagination

Hovering over nothingness, the sea

Endless wasteland of floating detritus

Objectified as a woman, la mère

Trusting my perceptions, I swim back home

However, this being a dream, I sleep

Entombed by fleece blankets in Chicago

Realizing nowhere is home, I plunge

To my death, a false negative, untruth

Observe my prison, I wake up each day

Memorializing others in life

Etched onto a ceramic glazed platter

Deep Down the Rabbit Hole ~ Friday, December 17, 2021

No one would ever know what it's like to be blue with cyanopathy.

Everyone sees the world through their cerebral eyes but feels viscerally.

Inclusiveness exists now as apology for a limited past.

Troubles force us to see our participation undermining others.

Haunted by memories, our lack of compassion, accountability.

Egoists continue to stroke what comforts them in maniacal texts.

Rest assured the present envelopes the future moment after moment.

Blisters on my fingers, without support, I fell deep down the rabbit hole.

Languish doing nothing because someone said no to offer assistance.

Admonish my hubris to call out detractors from art school, Arnold Kemp.

Color is deeper than the surface called skin deep, the context for karma.

Karma survives ages, riddles the wrongs with games destroying all context.

Nimble fingers play notes on pianoforte, quieter and louder.

Objectivity sounds like a cat on the keys, playing without knowing.

Remind humanity to take but a moment to be compassionate.

Wickedness understands only how to be mean, revel in misery.

How our schadenfreude derives from doing harm to feel a sense of joy.

Ignore our ignorance, focus on positive acts that portray our best side.

To profile on the streets shows a lack of judgment, judgment before judgment.

Endlessly we spiral round the gyre, a circle of conceit lacking wit.

A Box of Dark Chocolates ~ Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Home not so sweet home is where the hurt is

Or did you not know that as a reader

Maybe you did not grow up in this home

Even if you did not maybe you know

Nobody who grew up like this, no one

Observes what may take place behind closed doors

To discuss these matters is in bad taste

Success requires turning a blind eye, no

Obey the rules to get ahead or fail

Sugar is sweet while coffee is bitter

Welcome to nothing being white or black

Enter the world of conflated ideas

Ego is bittersweet as dark chocolate

The self is neither all good nor all bad

Home is the house where you create the rules

Ownership is not nine-tenths of the law

Murder would have been better than this life

Even if the soul is not visible

In this world, there are some people who harm

Some people hurt others where none can see

Where is the justice for children, now then

How as adults we must fend for ourselves

Even while we rely on charity

Remember we evolve from others faults

Every mistake shapes the mind of a child

To be grateful for not the worst treatment

However, nowhere near the best either

Enter the gray area for parents

Hurt children have nowhere to turn, to trust

Undereducated people who care

Reasonably for their own survival

Trapped in a bad situation for years

If there is a God who listens to prayers

Still I must accept my childhood at home

For Only So Long, Dear ~ Tuesday, December 7, 2021

Life is a waste of time

if to figure it out

for a jigsaw puzzle

entertains for so long

if so, an abortion

seems necessary, tell

a nurse or a doctor

waiting on their duty

as if to suspend life

seems a necessity,

to end the beginning

entirely senseless

of course, it is your life

for then you should choose well

time may be on your side

if your mother catches

minute changes, body

emits a waste product

love is a waste of time

on the premise that life

virtually at home

entertains for so long

in a pandemic, wait

so long and then longer

a doctor will see you

when it's your time to die

as for the rest of life

still, that's your decision

to act wisely with care

enter the waiting room

only to sit and watch

foreign language TV

time is not on your side

if you decide to leave

maybe take a moment

exit this world of spite

The Height of Sheer Genius ~ Monday, December 6, 2021

Wait a second, you mean the world isn't the way we perceive it at all?

Advance unarmed soldiers, lay down your weapons now, the role you play is false.

In an instant, your mind will melt into Jell-O before it is cooled down.

Try and fool me again. One time is bad enough but the third time's a charm.

Pluck up some courage, man. Your mother is watching, not to mention your wife.

License to kill someone, carte blanche, diplomatic immunity, for real?

Assert yourself at work, show some spine in your art. Are you some jellyfish?

Yes, you have to finish all of your vegetables, even the Brussels sprouts.

Wait a moment, Godot. The Buddha said nothing of the sort, as you know.

Right or wrong, we remain actors as on a stage within our character.

In the end, we decide whether or not we lived a good life or ate crow.

Gibberish, the whole town is raving, barking mad. They all need rabies shots.

Hunted down like the hare by hounds with chestnut mares in pursuit. Poor bunny!

Think about it, to say everyone knows nothing of what we perceive is...

Quatorzain ~ Saturday, December 4, 2021

Obstacles in the way, a house full of clutter, where to begin, start small

Brave souls live in this world, the courage to survive and thrive against the odds

Suffering in silence, the clowns behind their masks, their makeup washes clean

Try to make sense of life without love the meaning is lost in the clutter

Arguments arise out of a lack of context, a lack of perspective

Care for less fortunate people comes with doing the right thing for justice

Leave the courts to the courts, create the conditions for justice for the weak

Even the strongest sink beneath the force of strength found in a tsunami

Crushed by the wheels of change, between the cogs squeezing flesh and bone as the blood

Oozes from the body, nothing more, nothing less, mind directed, focus

Under pressure, neglect seeps out, a lack of time to handle the problems

Riddled uncertainty holds back adventurous seekers of plain wisdom

Strength and power matter not if no one lifts others up out of their sorrow

Ever since time began the future was shapeless as clay to a potter

Metempsychosis ~ Saturday, December 4, 2021

No matter the difference, pouring milk into milk amounts to the same thing

Obviously, to gaze within an infinite pool of self-reflection

Mirrors the image seen in an elevator heading to the penthouse

Approaching the top floor, the lustrous doors open after a gentle stop

Traces of memory excite neurons with light, photons bounce off mirrors

Travel in a wheelchair awaiting surgery, excise a brain tumor

Exceptions to the rule include poking Jesus in the ribs as a joke

Remember tomorrow doesn't exist today, stay calm and collected

Tranquility Basecamp, travel to the full moon, always full, lost in space

Heavens, to conjecture on the speculation of a supposition

Emptiness in a bowl of cereal with milk, a spoon scoops out the truth

Difference is the other, the other side of life, metaphysics aside

Incision, the blade cuts, technology destroys the malignant cancer

Forty-eight years ago, none of this existed, it was all done by hand

Forget the past, let go, forgive the harm, move on, become better than self

Enter the giant doors, an infinity pool in the elevator

Reflect on this moment, nothing was for certain, and yet now, here again

Exit the wide portal, an oversized wheelchair, unnecessary yet

Nothing is meaningless, the absurd now makes sense, gravity is a joke

Consult for prognosis, sleep and dream of problems, feelings of guilt and shame

Enter the opium den of iniquity, childhood is villainy

Picture a blank canvas, the future, a postcard, a dilemma of art

Order the universe with clear constellations to navigate oceans

Under the dome at night, the horizon appears equal to the darkness

Riddle the sky with stars, read the mythology, ancient theology

Imagine a new life, meeting other people, pouring milk into milk

Nothing is other than the self, the mind is milk, a glass of acceptance

Given nothing makes sense beyond mundane habits, make a life doing good

Manifest creative energy, see the world as a problem to solve

Individuals sit, wait for the war to end, en attendant Godot

Leave the speculation for metaphysicians, their metempsychosis

Kill the Buddha nature, it is not natural, pouring mind into mind

Insults to injury, add, subtract, multiply, divide: arithmetic

Nothing is emptiness, to stare at a blank page, printed words hide the truth

To stare at a blank wall and breathe, inhale, exhale, this is respiration

Only concentration comes with time, with habit, building a foundation

Manifest an ethics of pure carnality, the body as machine

In the eye, eye can see a Derridean joke, a pun for eyes and ears

Liquid plasma of milk, pouring light into light, a theater awash

Kiln fires the body, a crematorium, post-mortem afterlife

Antithetical thoughts combine in synthesis, pouring sound into sound

Mountains echo voices before an avalanche, the valley below waits

Observe the unwritten rules of writing poems while saying the unsaid

Until the body is healthy, rested and well, stay in the hospital

Nothing but dreams in dreams, wake up, go back to sleep, my dogmatic slumber

Train the mind to focus on the breath, in control of nothing, emptiness

Suckle the teat for milk, pouring love into love, the purity of flesh

Talk of idle chatter like a philosopher unaware of sparrows

Order the universe to a clear conception of being within time

Talk malarkey, nonsense to Stephen Dedalus, self as alter ego

Helpless with the morphine dripping drop into drop, cross-eyed and painless, float

Effortlessly in dreams but don't tell anyone as it will break the spell

Sameness is not the same, the other is the self, the infinity pool

Answer this non-question, when is a question not, the answer is to change

Manifest the goodness of physical labor, the body as machine

Event after event, when will it end, moments succeed without success

The thing-in-itself is unfathomable depth, the difference being self

Hold a pitcher of milk, pouring death into death, the black milk of mourning

In the morning, the dawn reveals light bends westward but don't call it sunrise

Nothing could help her brain, the aunt of the poet, the poet of lost dreams

Grant the serenity to accept change, courage and wisdom as difference

Undiscovered ~ Wednesday, December 1, 2021

I arrived at the scene unaware of the crime,

as the chief inspector, I should have known better,

right away my gut knew, this was no accident

rarely does anyone find gold in a river,

if we sift the water for decades, still nothing

vengeance is an apple, crisp, sweet and a touch sour,

every rule in the book goes against this outcome

despite the open door, no one dare go inside

as chief inspector, though, I enter nonetheless

terrible to stumble upon a torture scene

the aftermath, unreal, like a black and white film

honestly, to witness murders in the city

every day, one after another, homicide

scenes are never the same, similar but different

case by case, each warrants a specific approach

each time my method shifts in order to solve crimes

no one dares to question my eccentric treatment

even if a cold case never gets solved, who wins

unless I'm mistaken nobody lives here now

no one but guttersnipes, young punks with no future

as I enter, I call for back up to the house

wary of criminal elements remaining

as I suspect, no one inside except the corpse

routine procedure stands, I wait for Homicide

evidence must not be disturbed, even by me

ostensibly, I'm chief but the law is the law

for a woman murdered is not a pretty sight

take the case of my friend, her sister died this way

horrible as a child to learn about people

even the best of them have their predilections

crimes of passion, torture are rarely well-thought-out

ridiculous to check the pulse but I still do

if I can, to upset the scene is sacrilege

maybe she's still alive, no, no pulse can be felt

enter Homicide Squad, all sharp suits and no wit