atonement (or something similar yet less condescending)

Our lives, so filled with stone
built by honor ridden gentle souls
but still on sand

and who'll atone?

ever sinking, always reeking of a history with no mystery.

From where we've come, we're bound to grow

yet we've come home with no gifts for a king with no throne.

And who'll atone?

For a smile like reaching,
a grip like teaching
the sad way the wind learned its name;
blowing down the tree that said it.

and who'll atone?

For the end of the echo that gives sound sight.
when you remember you are forgetting, drink deep of the stillness
and wash your mist away.

and you'll atone.

Living proof (high again)

here I sit, high again.

Letting time float by again.

Saying "this is the last one" and when
did it ever begin?

When did I let the cement pour in?

How did I let it take hold? with what does it fill my mold and why under the sky is there no will that can go boldly where no mind has flown?

No kisses blown in glass could match the shatter of the match that sparks the fire in the chest that seems to beat for nothing less than the best of my being.

Yet for fear of seeing, for fear of becoming fully empowered, i blur my vision.

Is that a field or single flowers?
Is it real or Babyl's towers?
Is this life nothing but a shower in our day to day ritual?

Are even my friends habitual?
If I exposed my truest mouth would their love remain continual?

I see nothing spiritual in a cave on a mountain.
alone and enlightened.
friends only with the fountain of youth.

Without draining my veins of their truth, I'd like to grow branches, I'd like to grow roots!

I'd like to make floors where I once thought were roofs!

I'm done with dead evidence,

Make me living proof!

Change

Change?

Change!
Who fear change?
You fear change?

not my name and its not your game I know!

Into the stream and beyond the dream we're just going with the flow.

See it only takes two pence to pay the rent and still make some cents of it all

I'll be the last one still standing cuz I'm the last one afraid to fall

down
   down

to the ground spin around and start to dig.
it's a lot less easy to greet yourself than it is to take a swig but

STOP.

Drop it and roll with the punches.

I'd like to transport to a time before mommy made packed lunches and blew kisses through kitchen windows.

To a moment, my dear, to make it clear that this is the crescendo!
All of eternity has led into this flow!
yet where did it go?

The peak to this valley?

The mind can remember the mountaintop so it tries to ditch this sudden drop and live in its own reality.

Of what ifs? of shoulds, of shoudln't be's and soon it has taken the reigns from me and steered me to places no eye can see and damnit all!

this isn't me.

So I'll puff it up and try to hide, and toss one back and deep inside
escape
escape
escaping this present moment.

*Please hold for the next available brainwave.

When did this entity become this brain's slave!?

What did I allow to enter me?
What is it that appears to be behind the eyes and between the ears of the body which simply steers it?

And why does it fear the real and near while longing for the far and distant?

Its like:

here it comes!

There it is!




There it goes i just missed it.

Cena

I spoke with Cena today. Though that is not her real name.

her real name is the sunshine and the moon.

She spoke of the war, of the swelling house she and 40 other unwilling inhabitants shared. Body to body and wall to wall they were lined up, sized up, categorized and stripped.

Reduced to a number, typed on a card and filed away to be forgotten.

A hollowed out friend said through empty eyes, " all they want is everything. They will prod your hide and brand you like a sow, but keep your name, somehow. Give them anything but that. tell them you are Singat! yes, a girl from the jungle"

And that she did. Yet no sooner had she hid then did let her light slip, and one officer was hip to her game and accent.

"Get in my office and tell me exactly who you are!"

Red faced and red handed, young Cena was dragged to a cold steel room by the tune of her racing heart.

And she sat and she said.

With eyes like the moon of a brisk winter's night, with her hair as black as the pavement she would be buried under, with her open hands on the cold, chipped desk, she sat and she said.

Under armed escorts, above the fighting and beyond the smoking city.  She sat and she said.

As she said, she thought of every missed opportunity, every lost brother and the charred remains of every dead mother.

Every minute spent powerless watching silhouettes strike silhouettes.
every lead-headed friend,
     every fear and regret coursed through her unfed bones.

She cried out for release, giving it all back to these thieves.

With one final heave her tired soul screamed

MY NAME IS CENA!

though that is not her name.

her real name is the sunshine and the moon.

been becoming

i have been the meanest
i have been too compliant
i have been a genius
      and a far sighted giant.

A drop in the bucket.

i have been a hammer and rusty nail
a deck in the doldrums and a ship in full sail.

author by night and beggar by day.

tired musician and a song overplayed.

Doctor to some, jester to most.

i have been a student, teacher, and bar drunken host.

characters on a page,a  letter never sent.

A ravenous lion lying by a sheep with nothing to repent.

i have been a gluttonous ascetic.

A yolk in its shell and a blind man threatening hell through a cloud of obscenities.

the amusing amenities and tried and true home remedies that soothe you, move in and through you.

i have been my own chains
My weights, measures, gains, fates.
Hope and despair.

I've been the exact point where they meet.

the eternal click of a foot in the street.

I have been a trillion grains of sand,

A broad ideal held in one hand.

the monogamist's plight, the feral fox fitted with a fast flight or fight for your right!

To be

i have been he,
alone in the sea of thoughtless decrees.

Plaques and decrees cant hide shaking knees knocked down to the valley floor beyond small men and their friends who've long since cut off their hair and connection

-i've been the quick interjection- a minor digression and some loaded protection for well worth pleasant affection i've been the present erection in the hands and glands of grandstands of fans over a burger comemrcial - oh.

Too controversial, this is fun for the family!



And now what a calamity i've made of this end.

i've been the bend of the back cover, the grad-lover, the bad brother, the knight and fallen rook.

i've been the end of the rhyme and the last word that it took.

Cattle

Where do you go?

To a wolf's apartment or a sheep's department store?

where is the more hiding in you?

as I aim to push on through

riding rails, unfurling sails to let the wind get to you.

any shiver from a frozen wind, any quiver with an arrow's kin. You're the one who sees with eyes and feels without heart

isn't that a start?

with a locked heart and tied laces.

Covered in soot from climbing down chimneys and drowned in proposals of squeezing through garbage disposals to sneak a glimpse of the fire I let to give away.

Now I just get the spins to forget the grins and regrets of not dancing with the pine. This love like wine needs time to breathe out.

Yet the danger of seeing you turn to a stranger

is worth a hundred goodbyes.

Find me

In the sounds of your fingers rubbing together, I am there.

In the heat of a heart's introduction, I am the stare.

In the first bite of buttered toast, I am the crunch.
In the angst of a first love's kiss, I am the after climax bliss in the drunkenness of breath at the top of a mountain look
for me

In the last eagle's caw, in the lion's gaping maw, if you've eyes to see.

See me.

In the dregs of last night's beer
in the first breath of the morning clear I am there.
stretching in the first light of the sun.

In the eyes of your unrequited love, I am the tear
in the space between the notes of a symphony.

Look for me.

In the dots between the elevens on the clock, in between the heavens and the flock I reside.
nonexistent, yet pulling the tide, I reside.
Between up and down standing still and spinning round in the air and on the ground
I reside.

Find me.

Preydator

I can see through the predators eyes quite easily, though I work to keep this sheep's clothing as tight as possible.

I walk upright, I keep my hair from standing on end. I force these fangs behind my lips and swallow my saliva as a a scent from faraway sent hits me.

I don't let my pupils dilate. I still my heart, put ice in my veins, slow this ever-quickening gait.

I wrap my tail around my waist and keep my growl to a whisper.

I haven't tasted blood in a decade.

I even stopped digging holes and started keeping the fleas at bay.

But alone? I tear my clothes, let loose my fur, stretch my toes, give a gaping yawn. My nails click on the tile, my growl fills the hall.

Sometimes I'll wait until dark, clamber up the stairs and risk a howl at the moon.

Never a response.

Slow fears

Every beard i ever grew to hind behind was just a showy way to let my mind stay childish.
I'd shave them all again to leave myself exposed to no one who is paying attention.
The story of my life will be left on read,

and why wouldn't it?

I've done so little with it that who is to blame? Just another face to be forgotten.
Yet is somehow the biggest fear. That i will become insignificant.
Forgotten.

and why wouldn't i?

Left Right Left

When you're young, and someone wants to "get" you, they come up from behind, tap you on the right shoulder, and hide behind the left one....you turn right. Got you. After so many repetitions of this game, what happens? 

You learn to expect it.

 Someone taps you and you look to the opposite shoulder. Not this time, pal., I know your game. 

So when a socially controversial topic comes up in the forefront of our collective consciousness, a bell is rung in my brain. "Look to the opposite shoulder- is this more of the same?

More of the divide and conquer paradigm, seeking another way to calculate, quantify, and quarantine our minds?

Were we too close to the edge of unity? Maybe we saw the forest from the trees, maybe our toes tasted the water in the breeze, maybe our eyes saw through the disguise of our slice of the pie for a split second too long.

Maybe the ratings were gone, maybe the bottom line bottomed out, maybe the margins for profit were marginalized in our brains, maybe we cared less for more of the same.

Maybe the t.v. was off for too long, maybe the drive thru line was too short, maybe we even talked a little too little about sports. Tomorrow was coming too slow, yesterday was forgotten too fast.

Maybe we were too rapidly inching towards the very presently passed.

Maybe we were too sober, so we legalized being stoned. Or maybe we saw safety in numbers, so it's a shame  to be alone, we want to stay young forever so we criminalize  full grown and mind blown and all known as a sign of weakness.

Meekless features of the preachers facin bleachers teachin teachers how to teach us about jeezus when all you wanna hold is deez nutz and watch D's bust on T's and trust that's a sign of the times, when your taught more how to feel guilty than who taught you that crime, like a pre-teen with a rolex, who bought you that time? If i put a ladder under you who taught you to climb?

 I'm not tryin to drop dimes but you dont squeeze limes if you want lemonade, ice aint water at 100 centigrade and you dont ask questions until all your dues are paid, you keep em guessin until they cant see the masquerade, and you dissuade the renegade by handing him a hand grenade, pull the pin and watch him fade away.

Make your crime bright as day and then keep saying that bad things are done in the dark.

No one notices a lightbulb when their searchin for sparks, or sees electrons when their lookin for quarks, the only dog noticed is the one who barks at the wind for howlin first, so the man who stands proudest is cut short as conceded. Little do we see that confidence is so needed that our fields, if left unseeded, will yield only the idea that we can be defeated and deleted should we dare stand together, and arm in arm decide whether the charms of harming brothers has lost it's shimmer. Like a chain of sparks that would make lightning shiver, in reality, we are no dimmer.

So when it calls you by name, separate and criticized and more of the same. Look to the opposite shoulder.  "not this time, pal I know your game"

10 PST

A call, unanswered. 

15 again. Not the starry eyed lightness, but the pit falling

why?

 never wondered I’d be back here

why?

The same pattern, she is.

And I so hard to make myself stand in place of the mask I used to wear. Here, after all my hairs have grown, she, the same.   

Pathetic, my expectations.

And yet in a way I should have expected more.

Her crawling back to find just another reason to stay subdued. Under his sheets to feel loved.

It reminds me of everything I don’t want to see.

it reminds me of me.

Watching messages left on read. Watching calls never answered and words never said.

I’ll be done. For five minutes.

Until she picks up again with some lame excuse. How it wasn’t him with a noose around her neck it was just lack of sleep, it was just some reason to forget.

A fish who has known only muddy water would choke in the sea. 

#68

  Through the rising steam of her porcelain order, ticket #68 turns away from my wagging tail. Amidst a hail of dank air and dusty wine bottles which line the counter's lonely rack, I scan her scent, huff her impurities,  critical pupils contracting at every uncertainty. Though I read her name as she handed me that plastic-thin idea of self worth, "68" is a much easier concept to grasp. Her fickle eyes darting between gazes; startled at the sound of a distant howl; fluttering at the concept of human interaction, would fit better the impermanence of an order taken during a lunch rush over the stale normality implied by the 6 characters which made up her identity.

  Oh, 68, her frightened lip squirming at the heat of her barbecued sandwich. She shifts in her seat, adding more steam to the white cup of safety and sophistication before her. Somewhere in the bustling distance, her scent lingers for the rest of the bloodhounds, which in her mind surround her, chase her endlessly around every corner, peer from ever parked car, breathe from every window. the unrelenting feeling of almost. Their wet noses sniffing in her unscathed ear. She struggles against her own skin's effort to meet those hunting eyes. To be taken captive.

   Oh, 68, her shaking will erupts in one last stand, erect, holding herself by the hand, she lurches for the door. They'll be on to her by now. bon chance, 68. May you grow old in your bed. May the itch of your skin cease long enough for your resting head to carry you to sterile dreams. May the only howl which shakes your bones be the wind upon your lonely window. May you show with your life that the way to never widow is to never be a wife. May the thoughts of your unknown love never wake you from your slumber. To be sure of this, sweet 68, never give another your number.

teepee.

I need an attempt to draw my self nearer.

naturally, I step to the mirror

only to hear

"Come with me,

where alarms clocks wont go off

where neighbors don't scoff at each self expression.

You could say I've learned my lesson and studied for this test,

Yet the answer thats best

is one grain of sand from the rest.

See, as the hair-based swallows nest 

                                                  gets kicked for a random jest 

we test dogs on their ability to speak.

 The control is weak when

the words that we squeak 

are a dead language.

And fitted with this anguish 

we settle, four lettered love

and gifts from above

that fit like a glove.

So, what are you seeking? 

your tattered ship-a-leaking

 your weak mind-a-meeking

 you've lost the control room.

I remember the day

i couldve sworn i dusted my broom

awaiting this doom

sweating barrels at high noon.

Yet for once,

I saw clearly

as lead missed the real me

that everything i held so dearly

was really

most nearly

a tumbleweed.

Now, too soon to free

readily 

I wait for We

in eternity.

with hopes that you will see 

the end of the apparent mystery

and start something new

old, borrowed, and blue

wed in the light of the sweet morning dew"

(Noting my inability to cope with reality, 

i saw it a mere formality that i yelled back to the personality...)

"Oh, and whats a crush to do as they spot the lush in you?

to walk on through?

how refreshing,

how new!

this...Chivalry!

what a thrill to see

another white knight on a horse

another preacher's voice

coarse,

growling obscenities like a drunken norse"

"What i mean, of course

is after three corks on the championship court

my humble retort

is the size of the fort 

doesn't matter.

What truly arose such a clatter 

were the walls tumbling down

as your gem-studded crown

fell fast and down

to drown

in the hems of your gown.

to shatter the gilded floor

paranoid Emperor, be paranoid no more!"

"Rather me a single thread

on the bed

where a wrinkled old god rests it's head

as leagues of the dead

jam it with unleavened bread?

Is that the destination?

after all this procrastination

and three hail mary's after each masturbation

and taking one to many lacerations

from the organizations

sister corporation,

to end my expensive education

my final fidgeting frustration

is to man my eternal battlestation

and learned when to bow?

if i have missed it somehow

show me now!

for all i see is golden cows,

lifetimes spent in torment 

to help pay the rent of a fat billionaire"

"There!

the glazed-over stare you wear payed your fair.

and now,

behind a veil so thin,

only now gnashing for oxygen

lies an ember.

A gift from the month of your splendor

a spark to remember

the flame you were born from"

"and how my heart beats like a drum

i will not succumb

I am

but a crumb"

"aye, but a crumb to a loaf,

and if i might add,

quite an oaf.

You argue to stall, 

i am but a wake up call

who dares to shake up all your 

crispy leaves.

i challenge you,

dance as the trees do,

hum like the bees do,

that is whats true.

that's the to do.

No witches brew

no incantations

years of vows to renew.

you'll see when you do,

you wait only for you."

and with that,

left i alone

with a mouthful of tongue

to chew.

open-close

Sweep the floor, flip the chairs

A breathing sea of unclaimed stares.

See the last wave crash through the door,

flip the chairs, sweep the floor.

Willy

  There is something deep about that one-millimeter plastic bag. The cracks in his face gripped the eye. His paint-covered pants ask what his mission in life is. William Lee Jr., his silvered hair competing with his head as his feet struggle against the weight of his boots. 

    For 12 years, William has worked as the same man, the same pattern every day. At seven am, he boards the train in South L.A., the train so full of hope and destitution, struggle and ease, production, and at the same time, plight. He and his static bag, full of gas station lunch, reeking of the mediocrity which threatened to engulf him, would travel the 45 shaky, steel minutes to his destination. he worked for eight hours, every day, painting the same wall the very same color. White. As monotony would have it, the company which payed him the same two-hundred dollars per week, Halbert White-Washers, specialized in just that, white washing. 

    Some days, with the sun on his back and sweat crawling for the crevices on his face, he begged for color, daydreamed for hues of pink to grace his pail. Other days, in between the dunk of his bucket and the gleam of the wall, he breathed in the sterile idea the white paint offered. Will the painter reveled in the odd contrast of his dark, callused hands against the snow white walls. he took a special comfort in the idea that his muddy hands would clean anything at all. in a world which screamed out from every living room that he was nothing, in a country which blindly belittled him, telling him melanin was near sin. In a city that shouted from both sides of the line in the sand, here stood Will, foam roller in hand, washing it all away.

     

Days as these, he would whistle a tune, and as it echoed back from whichever empty room he painted, he would swish the melody along its path, letting each stroke and fluttering note carry his cares, his worry, his endless breath along downstream. These days the aging man would skip his lunch, for fear of his shattering plastic bag being reminded of the banality which surrounded him. within these walls, as he breathed in a fresh skin and rolled another brilliant white layer upon his masterpiece, there was no sign of any of it. no need for a far-fledged mission, no end to seek. These days there was nothing else in existence, just a breath, a brush, a bucket. Four relentless, definite hours from now, he would climb aboard the tin train to tackle his own tail, to ride the unwavering rail back to his minuscule cell. But here, in this heartbeat, William Lee Jr. is completely empty, and missing nothing.

le Square.

   What's the next step?

When waking life has turned into a tourist trap,

and your house is filled with plastic-wrapped plastic crap

and even the stairway to heaven seems lined with a

gold covered

high-fructose

polystyrene banister.

Whats the price tag on salvation?

Whats the hash tag on your distraction?

Whats the sound of our demise?

If you despise the enterprise, you'll be left oiling fries for eternity.

yet what i yearn to see

is a shift

in perception

a change

of direction

from peering out from behind movie collections 

to using discretion when choosing at the next election

or, in perfection

beginning to reclaim some of this spiritual power

instead of doling it out

half hour by half hour

from the comfort of a lazy-boy locked in the recline position

and as the misses salts butter in the kitchen 

and i swallow my prescription for higher blood pressure

i understand honesty here is too kind a gesture

i'm sure there's a legal team somewhere to rip me to shreds should i 

DARE insinuate the cure is to get out of bed and stop shoving factory food through our gullets.

there is this thing

called mastication

and though i know it sounds a bit like masturbation 

if i could just pull my hand from my inseam

I'm talking appreciation for more than the t.v. station which shows the most titty.

such as:

Who dimmed the stars in the city?

when did the committee on painting the night fluorescent orange sit in?

did they all maniacally grin 

and say "Let's begin"

to our endless chagrin?

or was it simply

Overlooked?

were we really 

Overtook

by the imported importance of being afraid of the darkness?

Yet,

you cannot know light unless you also know dark

and that said, let my voice be the spark of recollection

I'll remind you of your present perfection until you get the hint.

because i see,

behind the glint in your eye

We don't buy into the lies out of sheer power of our will.

We were all simply caught up in the thrill

of losing a one-dollar bill

to test our skill

at a game of street fighter.

Now let that spark hit the lighter as we engulf you in flame

show me your face before you ever had a name

before the conditioning began to take place

before your parents ever conceived their embrace

what was your game

in the space between the space?

and for that matter,

point to the rat-race

Which part of your luminous soul was served the task

 of serving an economy
that no longer serves you?

not trying to unnerve you here

but we're all going to die.

the sooner we can come to terms with this

the sooner we can stop just getting by

and start demanding a living!

after all, its yours for the giving.

so what do you demand?

Is it really bands of white hands bombing the shit out of brown people?

and where did we get that?

the good book under the steeple?

the signatures below "all men are created equal"?

Drop whats not yours

nature abhors redundancy

don't believe me?

come and see

you show me the duplicate snowflake,

show me the pattern the wind will take

as it dances in the street.

and what of your feet?

do they follow another's print,

stuck in the mud?

do you chew the same cud you did last week?

spit these electronic opinions from your mouth and 

move on, baby get your groove on, maybe even

do this thing together

see, we're birds of a feather,

and that's whether you wanna weather the weather or not.

you've got skills

that I haven't got.

unity only comes through community

yet community only comes through individuality

so that's not me claiming a duality

its more a formality

a way to point to a reality

that's best expressed by saying what beats in your chest

moves the rest of the galaxy

in fact

the universe.

so before they steal your flesh for a hearse

rid your self of the curse of dying along side it.

you're the ocean, baby.

find a wave 

and ride it.