Totality

Drifting in our unusual, elliptical, haphazard orbits

With barely the slightest respect to consistent speeds— favoring abrupt, disrupting change

Hoping, perhaps, that chaos will cause us to collide

Into each other, into the void, into some greater realm or cause

I question all your circumstances

To a cosmos dealing a hand so cruel

Snapping the cords that frame your connection to the here and now

Forcing a fugue of dissociative strength 

that yields the harshest form of lonely

Was that lust for collision or the longing to merge—

such a frowned upon form of destruction?

The urge for a shower of comets to break us

So we could have pieces to glue to the brokenness seen in each other. 

Conductor

"Bolt from the blue"

what an amusing and misguided misnomer

another way to pass the brunt of blame

through poetic convention

a childish and wrongful claim 

by those not paying attention

but pass the buck often enough as your desperate solution

eventually they all catch on that you risked electrocution 

and no amount of stupid stammering in your  faggot elocution

no crying "bully" like such a pathetic bitch will serve as a last-ditch absolution

to the power that compels you now to get a grip and man the fuck up

or sit to face your awaited execution 

Physical Distraction

It's Indian Summer

at last

the tomatoes are prime!

I delicately search 

'round the thorns in my heart 

to allow the poor thing to soak it in

the sublime

already subsiding to, at best, bittersweet

the godforsaken humidity 

this sweltering heat

the pain from rain

licks like lactic acid, saturating every corpuscle

tethers me tight to existence

making the moving of every muscle

into a memorable moment 

so I'm afraid to move again

Sins of the Father

something I have often thought about—

  and now it appears I'm possessed with enough inertia to strive—

to put the credit down in flowing form—

  while we both are still alive

Dad—

we may go at things at different ways—

  in our time spent leaving separate legacies—

  under the same written name—

and our legacy might—

  at first glance be—

  two altogether different books—

   

but putting aside the bullshit details—

      (because we both can be bullshitters if it gives us some control)

you should rest easy knowing that I'm writing your sequel—

    not one of those blaming—

    bitching—

    and moaning—

 

Tell-All Revisions—

        

  ....and each year takes away more of the defensive derisions—

      ....and respect garnered—

        

      Jesus Christ

       

      ....even accepting decisions,

          

   ....there's just too much in common

   ....and too little divisions 

you know I hate to say it—

   but I can't credit lucky chances—

   or fickle fates—

I'm fucking grateful for the power passed down—

    sometimes honed—

   in one of the only things in myself that I unquestionably value—

   these unshaking foundational personality traits—

some of the strongest weapons in my character—

  are the ones I respect in you—

       even if they're not considered that evolved—

           

             by the busybodies—

  

                    the unhelpful piles of trash in our way—

              

             they can talk their shit till the cows come home—

       actions are what matters to doers like us—

             and sayers always have more dumb shit to say—

"Never Say Never" is the truest credo—

     sickened by these milquetoast motherfuckers giving up at the first sign—

     never working with what's on the plate they were given—

    ungratefully tossing out the tray—

    

             tirelessly picking up the slack from these slackers—

                   ....with our rigged-up contraptions and clever solutions—

Where there's a Fucking Will—

 There's A Way

and alright—

    I’ll admit it—

    I get a little indulgent—

  

a bloodlust for vengeance sometimes gets in our way—

     but who—

     do I ask—

     is always going out of the way—

    for anyone in our circles?

         Or anyone on the street for that matter? 

   THAT'S Who We Are—

         don't let them forget—

so if that gracious behavior is misused—

    or plain disrespected?

God Damn Right that my Gods call for Justice Delivered—

God Damn Right it feels right to make someone pay—

being useless is a privilege of the pathetic and privileged—

    and let it never be said that we weren't both brimming bright with use—

    with a more-than-your-average number of skills under our belts—

          varying and broad—

           ...(seldom mastered)—

     and broad capable shoulders that can shoulder abuse 

though I conserve a bit more of that wrath and that anger—

     it's my last-ditch resort— 

     

     ....and I'm starting to think that it used to be yours'—

   

Man-to-Man— 

   let me tell you—

  that you don't need to worry—

  with wondering if you're thought about when you leave this place behind—

My maximum respect and my love is shown—

   when I take one from your chapter—

           a grateful prayer and nod to you when my blood pumps in my ears—

           when my racing thoughts race to intensive focus—

                 the silence deafening like my birth blizzard's snow—

  

                        the Storm of the Century welcoming—

                        Wednesday's Child—

         

                              Full of Woe

   

                                    trained damn well in all those memorable moments in the woods together—

                             "shoot him now"

                        shaking with excitement in those seconds—

                              something you thought that I forgot?

                 a gasp after the rush of exhaled breath—

                in an immaculately controlled whoosh-whisper—

    only released after all of my essence—

         and wrath—

             and willpower—

    

    ....is discharged in the form that most-deeply describes us

   The Surly—

   Sudenten—

       Michael Joseph—

               and Junior—

"Deliverance dealt in a discordant, yet disciplined, death-bringing blow."

Hallelujah

Perhaps thine eyes hath seen the glory of the coming of the lord,

And with the help of fateful Saturn he'll take all that I adored,

He hath draught a fatal liquor brewed from ichor in my heart,

He called Wormwood from the heavens to tear us bitterly apart,

How can I carry on?

Saturn is a stupid bitch

More than halfway through this reckoning return

Anything I've said about the positives I've lied

But then again I lied about the negatives too

And I lied about lessons I did not or did learn

To avoid sharing an inkling of this maelstrom in turn

From the avalanches of empty laughter shuddered to the headwaters of burning tears cried

Phoenix Bartender

This is the first time at least through my own recollection

That my heart burst to pieces despite immense protection

This is the first time that being guarded and unusually forward

That would reveal he held no true intentions untoward

This fact is the one that ravaged my thinking

That I couldn't chalk up to loneliness, jet lags, or drinking

This is another gentle soul whose been shattered

That gave all that he had for how little that mattered

This is what the world does to those who heal and who dream

That the only fitting reward is to have silenced their scream

This wretched fucking curse— "righteous cross to bear"

That cannot ever be justified by his vacant, haunted stare

Film

Passive process

Peculiar sport

"Values are ascribed by the beholder"

Retort

Funny notions

Flimsy whim

The beholder values the ones great as him

Dry ambition

Squadered youth

Does your lens at least garner this simple truth? 

Need producers

Just to get by

Then again sometimes men are not known till they die 

There are Doers and Sayers

When the barn cats stop killing the mice 

You cut back their food to encourage more hunts

Why would one root for the underdog

When being pitied is all the pathetic thing wants?

Squandered away decades of years

With nothing to show for it but crocodile tears

Emotional burden

Sycophant

Surrendered any hope to entice or enchant

Self-respectless

Beta Bitch

Without any helpful solutions to pitch

Solace knowing 

Gods above

That one who is pitied is one who never is loved

The Conqueror Worm, Part II

In time, dear instar, you will learn,

the mistake you make when you relate to the worm,

that useless old thing- leaching out pity

The Conqueror Worm- sad, tired, fifty

For though common ground is found now in your feelings

The worm has nothing to show for its dealings

And you have the chance yet to spin your cocoon

To transform yourself, success and growth yet to boon

The worm will compare you to it, but you'll see

That the worm only holds lovers back from their glee

And it finds an enemy in each comment or stare

Unreciprocated, because none of them care

And if you soon make it and you then spread your wings

The worm will latch on, so pathetic it clings

Exclaiming how happy you've found your success

Juxtaposed with how bitter it finds its duress

For this is the way of the worm, don't you see?

The spineless invertebrate loves misery

It is easier than measuring up like a man

Willing to drag the hell in whatever it can. 

So often he strikes while the iron is hot

And he gets while the getting is good

Unafraid to take the time to stop and smell the roses

Savoring experiences that life offers in the moment

Yet, too often he is not aware

Does not prepare 

Does not care

Resentment of the role of the soul 

Afraid the future will swallow him whole

Cycles

Somehow the years spent licking the wounds 

Are just one away from the entire damaging span

A time highly-internal

Still experience abounds

Even now there's days I need convincing

Fear it's too good to be true

That there's nothing I could stand to offer someone who has grown as much as you 

You don't complete me or make me whole

Instead you embolden my fervorous search for a soul

Learning to build a foundation, not to fill in a hole

Blue eyes run through with such delight

Extremes of wonder in your childish sight

The man I'm sure was not crafted for me 

Not wrapped in vapid rose-toned fantasy

You've consistently been there, 

And I'll do the same

For another four years 

For forever and again 

Texas Florida Jersey Boy

I say it every year and every year it continues to be true

I will never need to check the dates that mark the week that I lost you

I feel it coming every time, sorrow deep in all my bones

As the anniversary grows ever-near of the awful things I said

Of the morning when I got the call and knew what would unfold

As I pulled off of DuPont highway and begged that God take me instead

Approaching ever-faster, a day forever marred by grief

And things neither of us can take back; the price that you and I have paid

A day set in a year that I was so resolved to join you

So now I'm nauseous from embarrassment, survivor's guilt, and shame

There has not been a single day where I haven't said your name

Lockdown

I could give it a value, down to dollars and cents. 

I could define it down to the seconds of time

The precise amount of physical effort

The number of words willingly exchanged 

I could compare the weight it bears with each item and column

Measured against monotonous tasks

It can even be shortened without too much effort

The smallest disruption to precious routines

Or acting in ways outside the confines 

...of the narrow scope of acceptable ways 

I could tell you the number of passing days 

I can spell out quite clearly what will and won't do

And what won't be done for you 

The events that are scheduled excluding the guest

Without the slightest notion that one might protest

The things that are the way they are and if you don't like it you can leave

The number of unscheduled visits admonished

The miles driven unbelieved

Perhaps it stands out, so stark and so rigid 

Because my love knows no borders but can be just as frigid. 

Villanelle in Vertigo

What are the most important thoughts to commit to page if I think I may be dying? 

What sentiments should I deliver to the ones that I hold dear?

Expressing my love as conscious thoughts go dim; you can bet that I'll die trying

There's pain but not as much as I would expect, quite obtunded, and no crying

But I know I'm definitely not myself, and that's filling me with fear,

What are the most important thoughts to commit to page if I think I may be dying?

My mind is fuzzy, I'm weighted down, movement is all--process applying,

It took every ounce of effort to dim sudden tinnitus in each ear,

Expressing my love as conscious thoughts go dim; you can bet that I'll die trying

What does an aneurysm feel like leading up? I feel like all my nerves are frying,

And as if my conscious self is somehow aware that my cognition is soon to veer,

What are the most important thoughts to commit to page if I think I may be dying?

Remember not to bury me, this carnal shell is a cage I'm always prying,

And that the truest self you'd call my soul is a foreign stranger here,

Expressing my love as conscious thoughts go dim;

you can bet that I'll die trying,

Try not to judge too harshly a life that was as serene as terrifying,

And my belief that love is truly Life's great frontier,

What are the most important thoughts to commit to page if I think I may be dying?

Expressing my love as conscious thoughts go dim; you can bet that I'll die trying. 

The Word is Chron

You'll someday die inside the deadlines

With final thoughts of longing for

Those magic unplanned moments 

You cannot accrue or store

Perish in the planning

The time is over, chances gone

Memoirs unwritten– songs unsung

Penciled in for later, with all the dreams undrawn

The Impossible Text

What beautiful and terrible elation it is to remember the birth of the star from which all of your past and future forms through the æons have coalesced. The sorrow of a universe that expands into a great nothingness, spreading itself further and further from anything else and becoming a reluctant defacto God to its constituents. Committing this great and painful act out of the deepest, most beautiful, reverential love for the act of creation and for that which is created. There is no utility in such a revelation, no insight that can be gleaned into a greater good or purpose. No serenity or peace or even fear. It is utterly useless in this superficial prison of existence and yet it is everything I am. To live with a gift that yields neither salvation or destruction. Useless information. 

Paraclete

I can tell you this of God—

It is Old, Old, Old,

Older than the best of us could ever hope to fathom

In no small part due to God's purposeful obfuscation 

That set an arbitrary limit

On the ideas we could conceive 

And let me tell you this of antiquated ancients—

Things so Old, Old, Old,

They skirt by their mistakes, espousing wisdom,

Telling anyone and everyone why things must be this way

To avoid the weight of abject failures

To face themselves and grieve

Jesus wept. 

Of all the fatal frames that haunt me

In my restless dreams

You cut deeper than the sirens 

That hail the shadow king

Ready to receive the wisdom 

Of the birds without a voice

Unloading every precious bullet 

If given no other choice

Taste a bit of death by daylight

A beacon burns the evil within

Umbrellas spin in gyromancy

To the Azoth's gracious sin

Those Phucking Phoenicians

Dancing is a deceptive art

A lie contorted into hypnotic spell

Implying some meaning or hope of controlling 

This haphazard physical shell

Artwork falls somewhere amidst the ground in the middle

Glimmers of truth somewhere deep and gestalt

With eyes that search and scrutinize blindly

The Carpenter's Tools whom the fault is with not

But then there is the written word

The abstraction birthed Gʔd in full form

A selection of symbols relying on context

Eusocial characters sent into swarm