the sieve and the sand

pavement underfoot
until sock-sweat induced blisters

my sons are held hostage by spiritual forces
which have been hassling me for some time
but are really starting to piss me off.

it’s been two years and they’re still there
waiting to be James Bonded out, and i’m still
here in my pajamas checking email powerless
to change things because of international laws,
bureaucratic foolishness, and folks with
power-trips.

my boys are held hostage and i’m on my knees
with all the power of the Almighty listening
in to my requests but He’s not answering the
way i’d like Him to.

where there is no air to breathe
or folks with whom i can commiserate
in a tongue i call my own.

a place where the food brings me joy
but makes me dizzy, threatens fainting

a place where the lack of sun and it’s healing warmth remind me that i’m to look to a city that is not seen, which is not here, that is to come.

a place where i go foolishly by any man’s standard, but where i don’t measure by the standard of men. a place which fills me with utter fear but i haven’t any choice if i hope to speak of greater things to my sons. and hope they’ll remember.

cant argue with the future
about the past fore [sick][sic²] they have
hindsight
i have a similarly sounding
but very different skill called
hiney-sight
which i employ relentlessly
on my gorgeously-shaped wife.

which is to say very little
these days but only because
priorities have gotten the best of me
and frankly i have an all virginia
tobacco I’ve been looking forward to
for a few days which i also anticipate
taking precedence over you again tomorrow.

but until then, you’ll be missed and loved and held briefly in my mind in a caring way you’ll probably hold on to for much too long as though being led on, or misled on as the case may more accurately be.

until then….

a message sent from chaos
arrived in my hand around
four in the afternoon on
the day after a sunday
a day before monday.
a time in existence
specifically for
letters sent from chaos.

sometime before five and after three.

sent from my family
with apologies.

seems a while since i’ve graced
these halls and ran my finger
across what was once white and
free from graffiti. art.

seems forever since i paced around
surrounded by friends and enjoying
company in what now seems like visiting
your elementary school at night time
for a play or some other odd event
that was never meant to take up the halls
of an institution so big. so public.

but here i am.

if you’re young and desire
to write beautiful words
for the majority of your life
i strongly encourage you to
seek perfection in a mate.

perfection will never come,
and thus you will never lack a
mythological muse. yes, whatever
you do, if you want to write
beautiful words, do not find
someone who makes you ridiculously
happy and sweep them off their feet.

for you’ll find your poetry
becomes shockingly drab. especially
over time when you realize the imperfect
can be overwhelmingly
beautiful, and overnight you
lack a muse.

you’ll only know contentedness
and being content will nourish
your soul but suck beauty from your pen.
you’ll lose the drive to seek perfection
and the myth itself will die a slow
death until you sit down to write
beautiful words, and find in their
place nothing beautiful; mere
words.

there are some people out there,
the kind of folk who never
complain about the spiciness of
food.

or hershey-squirts their brains
out after mouth-melting burning
caused by peppers of the hot assortment.

and those people are my friends.

i saw my future in a dark pit
of a cesspool and knew i could
not deny it.

thankfully, a few years out
i don’t yet have to face the music.

but when that day comes
(should it come indeed)
i’ll close my eyes and run forward
with all my might into that
life-sucking haze, because
if that’s where i’m supposed
to be, i refuse to be anywhere else.

the maggot is disgusting for it feeds on the dead and turns it to nothing.
as such i can figure no more perfect a representation of our own perceived wisdom. that which is reducing us slowly to nothing, gnawing on us as though already decaying.

i need me a mood to compliment
my choice of words, to give rhythm
to my meter and bring a background
to my poetry. but i lack a mood.
altogether feeling-less perhaps due
to the busy. perhaps due to the
grind, where i’ve grown comfortable
and rather enjoy myself. feeling very
little other than a longing to continue
and perhaps have a few minutes for
a smoke in the process.

you know you’ve got it bad
when you’re standing in a plate
shop imagining yourself smashing
every piece of porcelain in the place
and you’re not a bull so you know you
weren’t born wired this way but you cant
help but identify with said bull and his
love for china.
in small pieces.

the very point of this suggestion
was to relieve the stress I’ve had of late
but the result is not at all what I anticipated.
and now I’m standing in the lobby
of the hospital in my white briefs
staring at the visitors staring at me
wondering why I ran screaming from that room
what could have possibly possessed me to tear the IV from my arm
and sprint
weren’t there folks chasing me or something?

anything?

there are folks here visiting
from france and their accents
sound fake but are decidedly
real despite what you might think.

their opinion of cheese is that
it belongs not on a cracker but
inside a pancake and that’s a real
thing.

until slowly the words i used to express my thoughts lost their poetry
and the things that replaced them weren’t words at all but mere ideas
composted in my head and rotting away in some miserably non-poetic way
and that was just life for a while.

i’m still disappointed the rot wasn’t beautiful.

when conclusions were reached
(of the life-changing variety)
we held our noses and trudged
on through the shit piled around
our feet, ankles, and up to our
knees.

and we sprinted for the door
to escape the disease, smell,
and flammability.

immediately upon making the decision
we wondered how we were previously
so unaware of the smell. and
why no one else was leaving.

pickle – silly/endearing
potato – silly/endearing
monkey – insulting
fat pig – inappropriate
peanut – cute
bowling ball butt – 2nd grade
poodle – loving

the sun is rising in the
east and the clouds
are moving in from the west.
as the rain pours and the
sun still pierces the sky
i’ve a brief glimpse of
the promised-to-come;
that place where the cleansing
rain is paired perfectly
with the revealing and life-giving
sun shine.

You say “Yes”, I say “No”.
You say “Stop” and I say “Go, go, go”.
Oh no.
You say “Goodbye” and I say “Hell no, hell no, hell no”.
I don’t know why you say “Goodbye”, I say “Hell no, hell no, hell no”.
I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hell no.

if i had a paintbrush
i make splotches on your
face and claim i used
a sponge but it wouldn’t
have been a sponge. instead
it would have just been
a paintbrush because thats
how i feel about you.
i feel like defacing you,
defaming you, and then lying
about it.

the calm
before the chaos
settled by
almonds
and eggs
because protein
somehow eases
he nerves
before the
crazy crazy.

sometimes smoke
perfectly thickens
drainage at the back
of my throat to a
pleasing consistency
removable by
cough.

can’t live like
the guy passing
me here on my
left as i give
my all climbing
this mountain at
full speed with
the fanciest gear
and the new app
which tells me my
speed down to the
second because
it may be true
he ain’t dressed
right and he looks
a bit funny
but i cant live
like this guy
who gives his
friggin all
every moment
of every day.

sometimes folks say things
they don’t mean and they can
be hurtful things that those
folks say. sometimes.

but then there are times
people say things they really
do mean and those things can
be hurtful too when people
say things like that and really
mean it.

and lets not forget those
friends who say the things we
know we need to hear but weren’t
able to convince ourselves of
because of our own foolishness
and lack of courage to face what
would have been edifying truth
because those are the kinds of friends
that really edify us when speaking
truth in the midst of our lack
of courage to cut through our foolishness
and convince us of what weren’t
able to convince ourselves. it’s
precisely those friends are
not to be forgotten.

bitter
sour
rotten
like your breath
like your skin
like your attitude
towards your friends
towards your family
towards your partners
in business
in school projects
in crime
against your neighbors
against your enemies
against
humanity
a concept you misunderstood
years ago.

in the midst of the air
being sucked out
of the room, i dropped a pin
just to see if we could hear it.

lain and folded
a plaid without a home
bends in all the wrong places.
and creases. oh how it creases,
though lain, and folded.
a plaid, void of a home.

i’m so vain
i totally wrote this whole
song about me.
i’m so vaaaaiiiiin…..