Crouched below the elevated rail –

stoned, shaking, questioning God.

The rain came down... hard and steady

as a father’s fist; (his eyes looming – 

dark as onyx stone);

He tried to drown 

out the clutter of sound;

(metal on metal; tracks, scraping).

His body ached for

the double-fisted silence of his basement bedroom 

(the cool darkness, shrouded in loneliness,

was certainly a less bitter flavor

than rage).

The rain wouldn’t let up,

and it beat down, beat down, beat down 

against the concrete pavement, soaking 

into the City’s membranes and arteries – wet streets

turned small rivers; winds whipping trash

along the sidewalk in a rush; people like cockroaches

scattering in the downpour (faces twisted 

and sour beneath useless umbrellas – black and blue;

dark circles beneath eyes the color of bruises).

I, he, they, we – all waiting

for the absence of rain.

The clock struck midnight when his voice broke, "my baby don't love me no more."

It hummed with heartbreak,

wrapped in blues,

& rubbed out

between guitar strings. "I ain't got nobody,"

he rasped, "I ain't got nobody,"

he said

to nobody

with his fingertips

on strings;

head bent, slightly;

a single palm on forehead;

a thick sigh between heavy breathing...

"Real, real gone," he breathed,

"gone since day one." Gone

before the pull of pain (which came later.

much later). The pills were gone, the booze'd run dry...

He was a guitar lovin' man, stroking strings with a touch somewhere between

a gentle caress

& a violent thrust. It was violent intimacy;

lust in the dark... dark as a blackberry,

I can still remember

the scent

the texture

the taste

He rasped on; breathing;

each word salt on a sad wound;

each word dragging the past in weights;

chains - rattle; the ghost of history.

Time moving - backwards; thicker

than mud,

than tears,

than blood.

"Detox, cold sweats, the body - seething... first three days are hell," he said, his breathing broken

into a rhythm

of sighs & swallows.

I. Angst

A cacophony of shadows, and all I feel is fear;

bricklayers of history... we 

stretch beneath the stale breath of catacombs, thick with

chipped skulls, the musky odor of a thousand deaths;

I spy the stare of eternity in empty sockets, which speak to us

in the language of silence; the gaps between words.

And like you, I wait, beneath the rubble of time, holding my breath (in a way)

for the terrified last… We, careful to sidestep the blood-soaked potholes of history – bent, broken, plastered and re-broken. 

On each side, the boiling cauldrons of martyred flesh.

There is a dawn breaking on the blood horizon, just past the smoke and stench of burnt bodies, offered up – awful spice offerings to nameless gods with no faces.

You, Humanity, an ideology gone sour; you, Humanity, the seed of contradiction in “hopeful existentialism”; you, Humanity, a disease with no beginning, and one, 

without end.

II. Sorrow

I play with words like pebbles; skip them down streams endlessly, unsuccessfully.

Out further, where lake meets sky, I aim my frustrations when impatience choke-holds, boxes my ears, tells sad stories that hit in places unexpected. “An Ode to Melancholy”,* he said, “An Ode to Rage and Sorrow”, I replied.

Swamp deep in a dream I can’t remember; the mud, a poison that chars my skin.

III. Hope

As death in dreams, so in life – rebirth. A reward for the pangs of burnt flesh, crispy endings in the fire of rage; a burned down Babylon of the self, you are. But you

keep breathing through the thickness, the flames, the fire, looking for hope in the eyes of a bird that escapes you. You awake, step barefoot through ash, let flesh fall from bone where new skin – smooth as a frog’s belly – emerges.

* Keats “An Ode to Melancholy”

Night is a shadow, and in its abyss, a devil-eyed glow burns

from the tip of a cigarette.

We meet

in secret shadows

to the scent of cigarette puffs; secrets stuffed in

silver lockets...

The hand of night is heavy, oppressive; as demanding as the city

that surrounds us – a burnt Babylon.

You are Sodom to my Gomorrah.

We are still; backs pressed against the cool brick wall as we

inhale,  exhale…

The smoke flumes up into tiny puffs; ghosts, trailing the darkness before

converging with the stars.

(Inhale, exhale… It is almost time).

The shadows spread, and the secrets lie

between us – [a catacomb of wounds].

Over the buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge;

Prospect Park and cemetery gates - and you are gone. 

A cultural cremation of the mind – c-cracking,

crushing, shoveling the billion-dollar industry down your gullet, up your nostril, swallowed whole

to cover the hole of anxiety - a patch-up job over the heart (don’t think – work, do, be, live, love, you

are a BEAST, my friend!); an endless, steady stream of white noise that permeates you daily; seeps into the constant

rotation in the background of your mind; you are saturated by a steady supply of ADVERTISEMENTS!

 BILLBOARDS!                                    SALES!                                  PROMOS!                            ADS!

HERE!                                                                                    HERE!                                    NO,

                                OVER HERE!!!

You are the accumulation of absorbed messages; you think in terms of (you + (experiences + genetics) x culture divided by media & rounded up to the nearest dollar, dollar bill sign

(see also: euro/pound/peso/yen).

You are not what you want to think you are, you are what they say you are – YOU ARE AN INDIVIDUAL!                YOU ARE SPECIAL!! – YOU ARE UNIQUE!! AWESOME! TALENTED!! (Like, you are soooooo

everythinggggg…) - it grates your fuckin’ nerves like a piece of ginger soaked in lemon and rubbed all over your burn victim body (metaphorically, of course - bc, shout-out to my burn victims bc that shit is painful, yo!)). It stings you painfully in your nether regions (metaphorically or figuratively – your choice, I fuckin’ guesssss);

down to the very fiber of “your being”, whatever the fuck that is…  “you’re better than this,” you say, but you cannot escape the encapsulated market of out-of-control capitalism and consumerism that [surrounds you] , so you

thumb through an AdBusters mag and think, “yes, that’s it!” but then a day goes by, and then another, and you’re in a daze and that magazine is beginning to pick up goo and dust and god-knows-what else

as it lies

under

-          other magazines

-          books

-          shoes

-          to-do lists (like the one you made of the things you did already)

-          jeans

-          a thousand million cords that you lose, replace, find; repeat

-          and, and, and, and,

you wanna make the noise STOP for just A LITTLE FUCKIN’ BIT! so you hunker down, say: “Time the fuck out WURLLLD”  &

bite/chew/swallow/crush that tiny pill (that is, by the way, way more powerful than it looks)

& wait…                                                                wait…                                                    wait….

                                                In fact,

time       has         seemed                                                               to                            sloooooooooooooooooooooooooow

                                                                                                                                down,

but then, that’s when it hits you. I mean,                                             really fuckin’ hits you.

And you feel AMAZING!! MAGICAL! MAGIC FUCKING PILLS! THESE are those beeeans, man, those beans

they were talking about

in-in Jack and the fuckin BEANSTALK, BRO!                                                          And now you’re just

talking a bunch of crazy/batshit nonsense, but you feel ALIVE! SPECIAL! UNIQUE!!!

YOU CAN DO ANYTHING!! EVERYTHING !!!! YOU ARE A KILLING MACHINE!!!      

But thennnnn. Uh-oh. Wait a fuckin miiiiinute. Shit!

Noo no no no noo…

Not NOW dammit!! NOOOOOOOoooooooo!!!

Now….                                                                  things are starting to go

back

to normal. (Insert sad face emoji).

and you cycle down, aimlessly wander over to your phone-computer-gamer machine

and thumb through 30,325,207 apps and feel (only a shade) guilty,

(but not to worry, homie, you NEED those apps so fuck that)…

and time passes and you realize that you’re no longer high and your phone dies and you think:

AHHHHHHHHHHHH GTFO FML Why me??!! Why Lord, WHYYYYYY??!!! (even though you

don’t’ believe in “God” per se, but y’know, as a figure of speech or whatever)…

and

yeah,

nothing left but,

well,

blank space;

silence

and,

oh yeah –

what feels like

E

T

E

R

N

I

T

Y

.

.

.

I.                    We scoop our judgement into sundae bowls;

spoon feed one another

to make the lies go down;

award one another with trivialities;

(forget to breath) speak in clicked tongues. We

place offerings at the feet of Sanctimony; enshrine

our haughty humble deeds in clever partitions.

II.                   She held her head in her hands and waited

for the procession to pass; burning

coals wafting incense cones – a ritual smothering

of the dead.

III.                We are but a mote amongst universes; dust-mites

in the rug of chaos theory.

IV.                She dreams in parallel –

carries

conflicting ideas in the womb;

our lips, tiny wounds of the flesh,

betray us; tear roughly at the silk of Empathy. 

I.  With grains of good intention they feed us

hysterics through flat screens; force worship Big Brother – the all-seeing eye;

                  take Somas; repeat.

II.                Repetition –

Bernays’ democratic persuasion to

concoct a potion – panic-propaganda,

& streamline it straight into the bloodstream

of Industrial America.

III.             "A toast,” they say, “to the frenzy… Freedom!”

clink with blood cocktails; (there’s an America, dying

to be reborn – yes we can –  diluted ideologies

that still surge in the veins of its people).

IV.              Whitewashed bones cracking

on the periphery of a new day;

Pearl Harbor,

                  9/11,

      the Invasion of Normandy;

      pump terror into America’s heartland; placate the masses

      with violent distraction. We are tired

      of death; of funneling humans through the war grinder

V.                 Unknowing last notes from 19 year old soldiers

to mothers scattered across suburbs. Memorials –

an open wound; fathers ruminating services

for the mangled limbs of sons & daughters.  

VI.              So, crouching low on building’s rooftops, interspersed

throughout the cities of this blood-soaked land, we lie in wait,

to cut through the wire of coded phrases; political

trickery; the two party system of one scam; pay attention

to PTSD; the limbless veterans who

hang dollar signs

on subway stoops;

VII.           (High above the Metropolis, they nod in towers, palming medals;

eyes averted to man-made constructions –  tattered maps of territories,

religious artifacts, the stain of morality).

VIII.        But we, fidgeting,

pick at our lip’s dried stitches

– our generation, a trembling chrysalis;

and wait for the sound when

the  gestation period

(two hundred and fifty-two)

closes, and a new day

stirs. 

Rage girl, rage! Howl at the moon like a desecrated lunatic!

Insist each day wrap its knuckles on your heart.

Jump into the void of chance; change

directions; use the map of intuition.

Don’t mourn the lost loves, they are your own book of private poems, meters that

stay in the body long after the stain of memory is gone.

Swallow a galaxy of stars, lick stardust from your palms, bite the apple with gregarious pride.

History treated you like absinthe – half poison, half god. They tried to sweeten you, burn you, water you down. And for centuries, wracked with shame, you bought the distortion; lay shackled to men in pious robes because your power to create life – the god in you – made them fear. Afraid, they kidnapped your soul, raped your mind, and washed their hands of you once the power was siphoned.  

But one day, dear girl, you will stumble on a potion – a self-love elixir; a concoction of your own creation from centuries past, buried deep inside your bones. 

Sit up, crack the bone and drink its marrow, lick your wounds and shut the door behind you.

You are strong, you are brave, you are, my girl, your very own prince charming. 

Dying for... Freedom? War as profit. 

(The ultimate paradoxes).

We live in a feeding frenzy 

of constant fear.

Canceled flights, burning bodies, scattered remains

in the rubble. 

The dead are living; the alive, dying...

How do you kill an ideology? Symbology?

The horrors of the world ajar; they shake around you, 

shake through you; chisel away at the bone 

structure of humanity. 

All words are wounds to someone.

It was the hairline fracture in our way of thinking... We

plucked our eyes out in quiet desperation to SEE. 

Murder for freedom; chaos for peace.

We are losing a game we began playing

in giggles; now we're left in hysterics, racing 

towards a finish where there is NO ONE LEFT.

Bloodshot eyes of weary terrorists 

come in all colors - blue, brown, hazel, green. 

Tripping over one another in the game of 

"who's right?"

9 million I's; 9 million egos. Who, oh who, is the rightest of all?

Cognitive dissonance descends upon us; we are all mad - down the rabbit hole - no going back. Love, the white rabbit, always 

just out of reach. 

Truth buried deep within the bone of madness.

A final farewell - a poisoned tea party. 

Teeter on a revolution; topple an existing one,

Spill blood in the name of (fill in the blank)... Are we so different?

Ideologies and Egos - the massacre of mankind. 

A race to the finish line where there is no one left 

to gain the glory. Testosterone and emptiness - We are the very death of us. 

While in self-exile,

they pretended they were

something else -

elk in the wild perhaps,

or junkyard dogs - anything

just to get the taste of

shame,

hardship,

and ignorance

off their clothes.

~ ~ ~ ~

Father Elk

clutches his young -

a shivering, doe-eyed

bundle that bobs

along in the night.

~ ~ ~ ~

They clung to cliffs; crossed

vast divides of wealth

and poverty; [herded

through languages they

couldn't understand];

In past the peace

impasse; past leaders

like giggling bullies.

~ ~ ~ ~

The sky deepens

to an inky midnight;

hooves throw up mud

clods to the sky;

their bodies

dot the countryside;

little swarms beneath

a swollen moon.