"La petite mort" ~ Sunday, 30 April 2017

Today, I'm heartbroken. I don't know why I'm here. There must be a reason.

I still search for answers as to why this happened. I don't know whom to ask. 

Still, I am here for now. I don't remember how I arrived at this point.

The questions are many. They are ready-to-hand. A blindfold for treason?

Hanging or firing squad? How long before I die? If I don't die, what then?

Exit the womb stillborn? Would that have been better? Why am I still alive?

Someone must love this life. Even I have moments. Fleeting in solitude.

Even I taste the tart raspberries with honey in Greek yogurt and bask

As if the summer sun across my bronze flesh in the ocean, buoyant,

Surfing the perfect waves, tubular in motion, gliding with my body

Over the jet surface then crashing to the depths, deep where a mermaid's den

Nestled under the sea, awaiting a sailor, drowned, hungry to survive.

Fortress of solitude, where the creative spark lights at high altitude,

Origin of lightning, cosmic forces collide in the Crab Nebula,

Radiate beyond space, beyond time, beyond breath, where consciousness resides.

Jubilation! I found the reason I am here, beyond all enquiry,

Ordained to suffer life, old age, sickness and death, wisdom spectacular,

Yoni surrounds lingam, the origin of joy, where the death drive presides.

Sonnet ~ Tuesday, 18 April 2017

There was that night I met DJ 5K spinning bhangra hits straight out of Punjab dressed head to toe in traditional Sikh gear like an ancient guru born in Bombay. I sat mindfully at the box office in yet again another dead end job, working to shuck pistachio shells, beer in hand for my end of the night shift drink.

He took one look at me, the artifice of a poet, my salt and pepper beard, long hair flowing in resplendent black locks, and lean runner's figure then thought how weird to find a sadhu in a pair of Docs in a nightclub, stout in hand, made him think...

"On the Pain of Not Returning" ~ Thursday, 6 April 2017

Unless the stars align in the fourth dimension, I win the lottery, and heaven rains manna from dark, fulgurant skies, I will never return to study at this school, this institute of art in the Chicago Loop. Instead I will perform anarchic acts of love: I will plant raspberries on golf courses, they grow like kudzu in Memphis, burn like wild brush on fire in the hills of Southern California, away from the salty, beach air.

If I were to return to this school my classmates with whom I came to climb the ladder of degrees would all by now be gone, writers who came to learn the fine art of gliding like a flying squirrel in a squadron, a troupe of performing artists on the flying trapeze, graduates in forget me nots and hoops on fire like lions trained to leap bravely straight through the gyre of heat and flames, the scent of fur singed at the mane, golden yet worn for wear.

Remember me, I doubt you will ever forget our time together, time spent at the local bar, wasting our days and nights drinking and toasting Joyce with Bushmills and Guinness if we got paid that day, if not we drank cheap beer and spoke of better days, when we have enough dough to place a winning bet or send some home to mom and dad, earn their respect, as laughable a choice as studying writing at the local art school, it matters not, I fear.

Sonnet ~ Tuesday, 2017 March 28

arguments for the sake of liberty

rarely occur within a fourteen line 

gamut of poetic exposition,

urgent as the need to dethrone thirty

murderous tyrants who govern our lands

egregiously with harsh penalties, fines,

nefarious acts, as executions

transpire and exile for those who incite 

revolt in the kingdom of golden sand,

excellent are they who fight oligarchs 

guaranteed protection by lash-bearers

noted for their contempt of anarchic 

usurpers in their attempt to empower

memorable rebels against red kites

The High Road ~ Monday, 2017 March 27

The I that is me is not this body. Like a book on the shelf I am content to appear as the spirit found in words on the page whether genteel or bawdy. It matters not a whit whether you choose to judge my appearance with malcontent complaints. I will choose to ignore your words of abuse while I seek out the high road. As a mirror projects the words you choose to describe your discontent with others, I move beyond your transgressions. I seek the high road of success and find others like me abused by words who choose to seek out a higher ground and faith in the high road.

"Out of Sight, Out of Mind" ~ Thursday, 2017 March 16

once dead, now forgotten by family and close friends, not a kind word spoken,

bury or burn the corpse in order to move on, in order to progress,

insult to injury, add or subtract, to speak truth against villainy,

testify to witness, to bear the weight of smoke, passing in flight, broken 

underneath suspension bridges, over rivers, through valleys, past shadows

silent during daylight, hidden within darkness, speechless since without breath

fornication left none to follow his footsteps, walk a mile in his shoes,

ugly soulless wingtips, flightless, without feathers, egrets without regrets,

solo with a sibling, with loquacious parents, sparrows in the rainy

clouds of thunderous chatter, striking violent bolts like gods against mortals,

uisce beatha, water of life, aqua vitae, his breath like peat meadows,

sugar turns alcohol sweet, fortified port wine, tawny, ruby for health 

tripping trinkle tinkle every night after work bottom shelf with the blues,

erroneous accounts cover up the disease with familial lies,

suffer in ignorance, in adolescent fear, the love of an angry

tormented patriarch, hateful, spiteful teacher, full of silent quarrels,

injured and insulted, the boy becomes a man, forgives guilt, never cries,

suffers the shame of tears in lonesome solitude, in life, a ghost, hungry

Resplendent at Twilight ~ Thursday, 2017 March 2

"Resplendent at Twilight"

Fuck Shit Up were a group of skinheads in high school who found community under the auspices of the straightedge movement from bands like Minor Threat, generating a scene by starting a music label, Dischord Records, acting out of DC, even kids in Cali saw opportunity zipping off all their hair with a pair of clippers, then shaving their heads clean, if they were boys, but girls wore bangs, side locks, neck locks and the rest clipped down short.

Misfits like Mario never felt the appeal to seek outside his tribe, align with the wrong clique and the group dynamic hedges against his bet, resolved to the win-win strategy where none lose when they fight without swords, games where all can profit, even minorities like Mario makes friends if he shaves off his hair and wears a flight jacket, his steel-toe boots look mean, negate the bigotry of the majority outside of his cohort.

Welcome to religion, an alternative faith, a military vibe, against the discipline of the ROTC, junior or otherwise, lacking in leverage, they gain in unity a power not found alone, kick down the doors and run like hooligans abroad, thugs always find the ends entertaining enough to make the means worthwhile, violence makes his eyes resplendent at twilight, sinking his teeth down deep to tear flesh from the bone.

The Hungry Little Donkey ~ Tuesday, 2017 January 31

Once upon a time there was a donkey

wandering lost in the desert hungry

wondering if anyone could feed him

just a carrot all he wanted to eat

was an orange carrot but nobody

in the desert had an orange carrot 

to offer the little hungry donkey

so he kept wandering until he reached 

the citadel a fortress on the outskirts 

of an oasis where the donkey drank

water from a trough beside a deep well

long ago the donkey grew up inside

the fortress but he never became strong 

enough to become a big pack animal 

so he spent many years in the desert 

wandering between oases in search

of the all-elusive carrot to eat

at the citadel he entered the gates

and met with the sahib his old owner

who let him go to wander the desert 

but before he left he told the donkey

he may have some carrots for him to eat

but he couldn't promise or guarantee 

any carrots for the donkey to taste

the hungry donkey left feeling bullied

and teased by the powerful grand sahib

then the donkey met with the memsahib 

but she looked down him with false pity

then the hungry donkey left the fortress

never having tasted the elusive 

orange carrot the sahib brought to mind

but then the donkey made friends with a wolf

who took one look and laughed at his bad luck

no coyote would ever want to eat

such a skinny unhealthy piece of meat

and so they walked the desert together

in search of the all-elusive carrot

and perhaps a juicy hare for the wolf

but in the desert nothing was juicy

except the donkey's imagination 

the donkey felt sad to leave the fortress 

but it gave him time to think about life

to contemplate all the mistakes he made

as if he atoned for all the mistakes 

his luck would change for the better for good

and he would no longer be a hungry

donkey with an oasis all his own

and all the carrots he could ever eat

he thought about going on a hunger

strike but nobody would notice once gone

out of sight, nobody cares, out of mind

if the donkey died nobody would care

the wolf would have none of his self-pity

the donkey would have to prove his self-worth 

to the whole world not only to the wolf

the hungry donkey left the citadel 

he vowed never to return to a place

where he felt little support from so few

of the teachers who professed no scapegoats 

at their school watched the donkey leave for good 

he felt their absence but knew they had no

interest in his ideas his attitude 

rubbed them backwards against the grain and fur

he had a lot to process from his past

the times had changed the systems of belief 

he learned when young ingrained inside his brain 

he would somehow have to expel or teach

others there is no excuse for childhood 

for accepting erroneous beliefs

to fit in with your childhood friends to laugh

at others with less power or influence 

especially when someone mistreats you

once he left the fortress for the desert

the donkey sat with the wolf to discuss 

the meaning of darkness the distant stars

sending light waves across the universe 

and one day the hungry donkey forgot

to wake up with the wolf after sunrise

and the wolf knew the donkey left this world 

to search the universe for a carrot

Sonnet ~ Wednesday, 2017 January 25

Akron swims before dawn, high above the city, an Infinity Pool 

centered in Singapore, allows him to do laps before the world awakes,

reflect on the day past, the day to come, before tourists arrive

on the Observation Deck to sunbathe, get drunk on the Sands' blue-fire-cool,

sipping from Martini glasses, as if never to apologize for

the wealth they must display as social butterflies, and trash talk for the sake

inglorious of hate, for no better reason, than love cannot survive 

crimes against poverty like beating up beggars asleep in dark alleys.

Say nothing of distant lands and abhorrent men on vacation, too poor,

as they say, to enjoy the Infinity Pool as Akron does at night,

the son of the Head Chef, he runs Olympic laps with no one to bother,

obligated to clean up after the foul guests get into a food fight,

reason allows Akron to persuade the owner, his grandfather's brother,

illicit use of pool services at off-hours, with dust from the fairies.

How I Conceive of Time ~ Thursday, 2017 January 26

What I may or may not need to explain to you at this point is that time exists for all moments simultaneously from the big bang until the absence of all light when darkness overcomes all forms of energy visible to the eye and in this ultimate collapse dark matter sucks the power from spectral light into a massive ball of dark radiation feeding like a cancer on the whole universe and once this stellar force swallows all but vacuum to become a tiny compact stellar power source it waits for a command as if someone could press a miniscule doorbell and time would start again from a new beginning anything could happen a configuration no one has yet conceived impossible to think the imagination balks in great confusion at possibilities countless as the digits enumerating pi and because all of time exists in shared moments that happen all at once our idea of time as linear is a figment of imagination conceived by conscious minds to make sense of all this we call reality ephemeral flashing in phenomenal realms what you may understand is that nothing changes like a lighter sparking waiting for gas to burst to call forth ancient light.

A Phone Conversation ~ Wednesday, 2017 January 25

Satan!? Nothing doing...are you seriously trying to tell me that people think I believe in "the adversary"? How humorous people are when they need to feel entertained by scapegoats, their imagination precedes their dignity. Am I supposed to laugh at their childish mischief, as if nothing could come of this feckless type of misrepresentation? I am a senator who hails from Illinois, am I to take this as a joke, light-hearted, like no one's out to get me? Tell me you didn't see this in a newspaper, the media have had their claws at the ready since I was elected. As if I have to prove to the public again I grew up Catholic, in a Franciscan Church, confirmed during high school. Nobody can disprove the calumny once said by a news broadcaster, as if slander were truth and I, Satan, himself.

Three Hundred Words in which I Question the Parameters of Truth ~ Thursday, 2017 January 19

Three Hundred Words in which I Question the Parameters of Truth 

To forgive a person after the damage is done is no easy task,

hatred and aggression meet with justice in court, in a legal system 

rarely known for penance, contrition, repentance, sacraments of the Church,

equally unheard of is to bear witness by neighbors we must not ask,

exacting revenge is most likely encountered by local citizens.

How do we make the streets of Chicago a safe place for all visitors, 

understand why I ask this unsettled question in the face of a past

noticeably riddled with bullets and hatred, a cure without symptom, 

diagnosis of crime as persistent disease make the citizens watch

responders on the scene battle epidemic proportions of illness,

every participant waits for a prognosis, a fight that never ends,

doctors weigh their options when malignant tumors shut down the local stores.

Wisdom is never found but sought out by those who cannot accept to cast

overboard the whole crew who keep the ship afloat, sailing to unknown lands,

reason tells us the world is not flat with corners like a cube, but a sphere

decisively easy to chart, to map a direct path between points regardless 

sea creatures may take down our vessels, overwhelm our crew, tossed to the sands.

Islands appear as safe havens in seas seasoned sailors travel in fear,

navigators set forth the course between point a and point b, where no man

Wonders about the paths unpaved by construction, imaginary flights

hubris only laughs at, darkness always remains unwritten, a blank page

ignorant of the lines that shape our future plans, until we reach the heights 

chosen by mountaineers to overcome the odds of survival, the rage

humans engage blindly in these games of conscience leave us without a plan.

Achtzehn: Devil at My Heels ~ 2016 2 24

Runners run in any weather, any weather at all, whether or not 

Under threat of snow, rain, sweltering heat, they sweat and stink, like pink grapefruit. 

Never never never underestimate will power to overcome dark 

Night, bright daylight, high noon in June, July, August, the summer months, hard fought 

Each day, ten miles, up to twenty, the maximum before the marathon. 

Race twenty-six point two wisely, for the weather matters not to runners. 

Rippling muscles, tense, tight, micro-tears, injury, stress, strain, welcome the pain, 

Argue with the body all you want, rest your bones, your weary bones, no doubt 

Creatures of habit run themselves ragged, muscles twitch, trigger points set sparks, 

Inflame tissues, burn red referral pain the length, breadth of a pound of flesh. 

Never never never underestimate pain to switch sides, dusk to dawn 

Gut-wrenching pain, over compensation, betrayal, bodies torn asunder. 

Singular intention, focus fiercely, finish the race to run again 

Each year until you dead, a living, breathing corpse, zombie road runner, shoes 

Alight, aflame, the heat of Arizona, dry burning sky, burning bright 

Season after season, dig in ultra-distance, mileage is such a rush. 

Only when you done, dead dog tired, muscles twisted, feel the pain, sing the blues, 

Never never never underestimate drive to quench a thirst in drought. 

--

ABCADE FBCGDE FHIGHI

--

Rui Carlos da Cunha

2016 February 24

"The Drunken Staircase" ~ 2016 2 9

Frost across her windowpane, Mr. Crane
Looks up at the warm lamplight, a blight
Against the brick wall, nothing to recall,
Nothing at all within the window frame.
Nothing to say to no one, as you see,
Except Mr. Crane looks up, slightly tight,
Rye whiskey in a ass-pocket, to crawl
Yearning up the staircase, up to her door.

Rest assured, Rae hears Mr. Crane dimly
Attempt to ascend the drunken staircase,
Ever ready at the chance to flee, she

Flings open the window to dive two floors,
Light as a wavelength, an acrobat's grace,
Yet still she falls, shrieking like a banshee.

"The Adversary Speaks" ~ 2016 1 21

Temptation is the treasure of my trade.
Hades hound howls horrendous inhuman
Eruptions, inelegant egregious

Articulations against angelic
Depictions of the downfall of demons,
Vagabonds and vagrants of the heavens
Expelled expressly to expose exploits.
Rebellious for revolution, revolt,
Sweet for insurrection, sugar so sage.
Artful as always, my assault was ape.
Reason for irreverent royalty,
Young hellions beyond unity, beyond yes.

Shambles, shenanigans, ship of lost souls
Populated by pardoned pedophiles
Ejaculating educational
Analyses, arguably astute.
Kind of dark in the prickly prankster park,
Suck on larks from sunrise until sunset.

"Quatorzain for the Little Brown Guy" ~ 2015 11 16

the little brown guy was neither little

nor brown nor even really just some guy

some guy who could fix your leaky faucet

who could teach you how to parallel park

who could post bail when you’re in the drunk tank

who could dispose of the body you killed

some guy you don’t introduce to mother

the little brown guy was not just some guy

some guy who would drive you to the airport

who would loan you 10K without interest

who would smother your mother for your debts

who would cut off your ears to prove a point

some guy your father wouldn’t approve of

the little brown guy was just not this guy

"the rub : imparting music to our ears" ~ 2015 11 23

sugar melts bittersweet in black coffee
lets sorrow lie dormant as sleeping dogs
erratically paw and whimper bad dreams
erotically unsheathe erect puppy
perturbations pulsating tumescent
in full display flanks set wide nothing sags
nothing to hide the cool air fans at drones
gliding as detritus floats through the air

switch off the lights at sunrise the distant
orb blazes magically as if demand
required immediate payment for debts
requisitioned by the state motherwhore
over dark mass the orb forced to amend
wicked solar flares pulsating in wafts

"Until We Expire, Lift/The Girl Inside the Box"

Face it, the lid of a coffin, a fact
like no other. Final reward, the end.
You want it to be otherwise. You want
to believe in the Afterlife. You're racked
with guilt, sorrow, longing, despair, desire
to talk with Jennifer, a deceased friend,
a "Suicide Girl," whose memories haunt
you, her sultry voice inaudible, long gone.

Reason cannot prove this matter. Inquire
from your senses, whether you will survive
your death, this life, the one given, a gift
from whom all hypotheses start, so wrong
to advance theories from this point. Alive,
we breathe, inspire, lift each other up. Lift.

Mr. Gabidar Sees His Reflection

Drowning from a glass of water left out

On the kitchen counter for a stranger.

Wonder what happens in the afterlife?

Nothing like meeting with my destiny.

Wonder if I make it into heaven?

Are my chances good or nonexistent?

Really unsure about my past mistakes.

Did I forget to turn off the faucet?

Seeing I didn't choose my place of birth,

Perhaps I can be forgiven my sins.

If I stepped (or stomped) on anyone's toes,

Restitution of claims cannot be made

At this point in time for compensation.

Let it be known, I didn't mean you harm.

--

2015.3.8

© All Rights Reserved

Rui Carlos da Cunha

After the Race Is Run ~ 2014.10.5

If I could do it on my own, I would

without any help from anyone else

but the art of writing is no longer

a solitary act, as it involves

everyone whose interest it is to dream

to succeed without fail, a social act

but rarely an act of revolution

more likely an act of pure reaction

based on likes and dislikes, not unbiased,

without a whiff of objectivity

unless pretentions assume such a stance,

a position of mauvaise foi, bad faith,

I am what I am not and I am not

who I am, a pact with self-delusion,

a life in the closet, not just for gays,

but for anyone with their own secret,

their worst secret reveals a soul sickness,

a soul composed of mind and viscera,

the viscera that informs our conscience

which in turn informs our experience,

but if I hold a pen in my right hand 

and imagine a thought will end up down

on the page in black ink, I fool myself,

for I get lost in the words, in language,

in the games we play as writers of verse

or prose, as the letters jumble themselves

in anagrams or acrostics or both

to form anagram acrostc sonnets,

and I see eight-letter words as I read

and jot them down for later to puzzle

out a six-letter word in relation

to the first for an octet and sestet

or two quatrains that pose to the reader

a problem and a sestet to conclude

with or without a solution whose wit

resides in a rhyming couplet, how lame

my horse on the racetrack with a shotgun

blast to the head I end her suffering

but before I shoot I see a squirrel

and think look at that squirrel on the tree

how strange its life must be and I am lost

as I walked away from my broken horse

on a racetrack, lame with a shattered leg,

as I become distracted from duties

I don't care to perform, I shirk the chance

to act with care, responsible for life,

to take life, to choose death in a moment

when another's needs are greater, I must

not go off and quarrel with a squirrel,

or open my dictionary to find

a definition, etymology, 

and origins of words upon the page, 

No! I must shoot the horse and end a life

to choose death over lysergic acid

and its hallucinatory powers

for the squirrel is me lost in a maze,

which is simply a maze, not a labyrinth,

though we call it a labyrinth for we know

not the difference between the two, lazy

lions dozing in the sunshine, a zoo

where a bull-headed man stubbornly asks

why is this sword for me, I harm no one,

the shame you feel disappears when I do

apparently in death you choose to care

for me as if I were like a lame horse

on a racetrack, but you cannot efface

the memories of my absent presence,

the shame you feel rises from deep within

missing from your daily experience

you cry when a bullfrog eats a horsefly.

"Stand Me Now And Ever in Good Stead"

Monster in the closet, || monster under the bed

Isolated from touch, || inside the labyrinth

Nightmares inside my head, || nightmares, the cart upset

Old father, in Corinth, || old artificer, clutch

Tightly your leather purse, || tightly, keep hold the reins

Architect of mazes, || architect of desire

Ultimately, these strains || undermine at the source

Realize cool blue fire || reaps infernal blazes

Asterion, my son, || Ariadne hates lies

Trust in me, your father, || trust not in the white bull

Realize, he who dies || remembers not the sun

Icarus felt the pull || into sea foam lather

Understand the mythos, || understand the rhyme scheme

Minos, love is a dream, || mythical Knossos

"Let Us Glorify the Living" ~ 2014.2.4

Truly, to fear death is absurd

most of us don't know how to live

If you think that being alive

is the same as living, you're dead

already, one foot in the grave.

Truly, the problem is not death,

we glorify the dead in print 

with the cult of celebrity,

the obituaries remind

readers, one day your time will come.

We all give payment to Charon, 

the ferryman of the rivers

in Hades, in the Underworld,

for he takes the obol, a coin,

from our mouths, a symbolic fee.

The price we pay to accept death

is nothing in comparison

to the fact, we give this one life

very little heed, the body

as temple is quite laughable.

Until you see a corpse appear

more beautiful in death than life.

Sadly, none of us take the time

to breathe in life as a challenge

only mountain climbers accept.

Why do I fear life more than death,

the media brings death to us

like a cat who drops a dead mouse

at our feet, they show us a world

where death is more significant.

Everyday we accept changes

we did not create, didn't choose,

didn't protest, didn't resist,

little by little, we accept

how others envision the world.

What does it mean to truly live?

I imagine my every dream

fulfilled: to play the drums again,

to teach yoga, run marathons,

climb mountains, have a family.

Unless I sacrifice mundane,

quotidian means of living,

work itself is a form of death,

if the work is not meaningful,

truly significant to you.

One day, I will learn how to live,

I will this, my resolution,

a decision I cannot break,

for life is more precious than death,

let us glorify the living.

"Gibberish (I Learned in College)" ~ 2.2.14

In fact, I can't be sure of anything,

Nothing beyond our physical worldview

Treats non-scientific, speculative

Empirical evidence as certain,

Really, none of it makes logical sense,

Perhaps, we rely too much on science,

Rest assured, certainty as objective

Exegesis of our vision as text

Takes on new meaning in terms of spirit,

As language and reason cannot fathom 

Transcendence without equivocation,

Isolating what is illogical,

Ontologically corrupt and impure,

Neatly within brackets must needs save time.

The Queen Removes the Thorn ~ 1.21.14

Terrible is the blemish that shatters our window panes, 

Rips the stars from the sky, hurls ancient light in explosive

Ordnance, flees our homeland, sees on TV the destructive

Ubiquity of violence, and laughs for art explains

Beauty as detached in her observations, for the brains

Littered across washed cobblestones reveal the devisive

Engagement of sectarian warfare, the constructive

Solution to civil strife, disarm the men whom hate trains.

Understand the future of our island is in the hands

Left to those with wrists still attached, prosthetics can't perform

Surgery with stillness and precision, the cancer stands

To win against surgeons trained to remove this perfect storm,

Entitled to conduct herself as a lady in lands

Removed in language and culture, the queen removes the thorn.

Monsters ~ 1.17.14

The monsters weren't under my bed, they were hiding inside my head. With no way to flee, they kept watch while searching for an escape hatch. If I were a painter, I'd draw you a picture (without a flaw) of a monster waiting to flee, but as I never found the key to artistry, they're locked away behind steel bars without a say in the matter. If they could help me describe, instead of just yelp like a beaten dog, I could write their way out into bright sunlight. But my monsters are neurotic and hang out with a psychotic demon in the lobes of my brain, you'd think this would drive me insane, and it has before, long ago, they don't fit in with my ego, but times were tough and in the past, I learned to tie them to the mast (the trunk of a conifer tree) on a schooner and let them be. Let them ponder their evil thoughts in a mind that cannot be bought. 

"In this life..." ~ 1.5.13

I've made mistakes, mistakes I can't correct, / people I've hurt, mom, dad, brother, and friends, / people who will no longer talk with me, / I can't blame them, I too feel such remorse, / for living this life, not knowing the rules, / staying true to what was once in my heart, / covered over with shame, guilt and sorrow, / a fine layer of dust, dust upon dust, / year after year, until the light goes dim, / no one tells you how to clean up past wrongs, / they tell me to forgive myself, move on, / and get on with my life, but the cycles / circle like a gyre, to which I return, / I meet the same conflict over again, / I learn the same lesson since the first time, / but everything changes, nothing remains / the same, so how can I improve myself, / how can I help others if I can't help / myself, can I trust I won't lie and cheat / just to get ahead in the business world, / my karma faces me like a brick wall, / I cannot scale its height, like a mountain, / the snow-capped peaks gleam with a clear conscience, / I've carried the weight of my wrongdoing / for so long, my body slopes mis-shapen, / I try to accept my faults, past mistakes, / shortcomings, and not dwell inside my head, / full of arguments with others unseen, / angry for so many years, I can't stop, / I don't have the tools to replace the pain, / I live as honestly as I can bear, / the burden of life is too much for me, / much of the time, I just want to give up, / to quit this world, end this life and be done, / but I was there at my friend's funeral / after she successfully hung herself, / her dress and make-up, her open casket, / she would not have chosen any of that, / her mother wailing, her little girl gone, / it was her second suicide attempt, / I've witnessed the after-effects her death / had on her family and friends, so young, / so beautiful, so full of life, now gone, / I knocked on her front door that afternoon, / either she was alive, or she was dead, / (like Schrödinger's cat), her death still haunts me. //

"Quatorzain alambiqué"

"C'est un esprit des plus confus, alambiqué, ce que nos pères appelaient un diseur de phébus."

Marcel Proust

Bookselling is not so much a career / as a job without much recognition / (unless you don't mind patting your own back), / but it keeps your nose clean and life in gear // though you'll never afford to buy a house. / And if you choose to blame indecision / as the culprit behind your total lack / of direction, (in a world we create // for ourselves, alone in search of a spouse / a mate for life, a husband or a wife) / you won't get any closer to your goals // without accepting your faults as your fate, / your accountability as the knife / that severs the spines of booksellers' souls. //

12.31.13

"Uncertainty"

12.23.13

Beyond the arc of perception,

out of the corners of my eyes,

I see people without disguise,

I see beyond their deceptions.

My insights are not projections,

I see the truth beyond their lies, 

masks drop, for only I am wise,

their ignorance begs inspection.

To witness their uncertainty

when opportunity presents

an open door to fix the past.

To bear this sense of gravity,

this trace of solemnity, tense,

nervous, uneasy, empty, vast.