Next Door Neighbors
Furled waves of my neighbor beckon me,
chatting across the fence of sand grapevine.
I am finite on the shores of Sea’s infinity.
Sun glares down on me and neighbor Sea
as we fold seaweed and hang it to dry,
whispers of pelicans flying by in formation,
gossiping of gulls kissing streaming ribbons,
sharing the rays of ruby blush across cheeks.
Fragments of disparate souls overlap
in waves of foam and furrowed time
My memory fades but the Sea endures, sharing
courage as I reach for Ocean’s liquid friendship,
quivering for the warmth, bathing in swells
leaving footprints, leading back to the Sea.
Enlightenment
Knowledge opens the shards
of frozen ice to reveal reason why
mind is helplessly chained to wall,
unleashes boundaries from pen -
a new awakening of amber glow
as sun filters mind breaking shackles,
opening up knowledge to consume
the ancient stones, infancy of truths.
Abandoned harmony of life threads dance
kneeling in balance of life bursting forth
like ripe, dripping peaches of wisdom,
resonating on night wind – savage possession
kindled with pain and pleasure entwined,
budding wisdom and time-worn realities,
maze of verity cursed by thirst of all-knowing
reaching for promise in distant starlit skies,
yearning to share bounty of far flung vistas.
Knowledge drives wisdom on wings of fancy,
breathing beneath tangled debris of mind
following different roads to same destination,
fulfilling fiery wishes of uncloaked secrets.
Mystery is disguised by masks of seeking
the bruises of battle scars leading the way,
cherished thoughts of enlightenment unlock
puzzles of mind, opening clear view to lost images.
Windows of light glimmer throughout the denseness,
healing begins and filters through opening mind,
a cocoon awakening to that which you seek
in moonlit sonatas sharing what is meant to be.
Knowledge is not about learning alone but sharing
wisdom imparted in simplicity before submitting
to the mindless grave, watching knowledge march on.
Inside Myself
Both lost and found
within yesterday’s
fierce drumming
of my heartbeat,
I reached for your
transparent spirit,
inside, outside,
familiar places
in the echo of
alleys and valleys,
hiss of the night
sinuous wandering
through thorns,
untangling sorrow
of unknown trails.
I hid lost in
primeval forests
waiting for the moon
to find my essence -
a silent movie
with no dialogue.
Exhausted
in my pursuit,
I refused
to give up
and found you
inside myself
in rich, dark earth,
final resting place
for lost souls.
Death Becomes You
"Death becomes you," so she said
While standing at my door.
Covered black, the eerie thread-
"Your soul, I so adore!"
Passed from skeletal design,
A midnight robe ablaze.
Living as its own divine
Encapsulated daze,
There I stood, a drooping heart
Insisting I should live.
Death said, "No, you must depart.
So take the gift I give."
Thinking of the many things
That I had left to do,
Losing life, the feeling stings.
"I will not follow you."
Came from me, each feeble word,
And Death just stared ahead.
"Dear, you must not be absurd.
If I arrive, you're dead.
No goodbyes, no second chance;
Beyond the worldly gate
You and I will pass in glance;
For none escape their fate."
Pausing for a tear to fall,
I pondered o'er my life.
Death consumed me in her call,
She had become my wife.
Nothing left for me to say;
No utterance to pan.
Breathing in, I made my way
And left the age of man.
Gulping down the bittersweet,
Adventure would renew.
Taking hold her hand's entreat,
I heard her ... "Death becomes you."
Naked Emotions
She dipped her brush
into blood of her angst
and painted on canvas
a visual diary of lies.
Bare naked emotions
stripped down
to goosebumps,
breathed through earth
into my gaping mouth.
Empty walls cried out
with no voices,
days lined up
endlessly
to take their turn
in seamless infinity
of no color.
Pores of her skin
opened doors
to minute specks
of ice and dust,
an uplifting loneliness,
an illusion of purity
lost in obscurity.
Heaviness of
fraught mind
ravenous for
multi-color prisms,
awakening blue silence
of unsettled stones,
riding currents of
nightly tides.
I turn away
with backward glance,
enthralled yet repelled,
searching for
hidden simplicity
encasing
the perfect world -
the sunflower touch
imprinting its hands
on our tomorrow
as summer stands still.
Multiply
Today is an ordinary morning in the world. You wake up. Everything seems fine. But suddenly, your loved one is not your loved one. Actually, it's you. You go outside. The people on the street are also you. Everyone on the TV is you. Soon, you realize that you have multiplied. How did it get this way? You think you are asleep but you are very much awake. Were you part of an experiment? Have you gone crazy? Why has everyone become you? You try to get to the source but there's nothing but dead ends. You can't figure it out and no one else can or will help you either.
You try to live with it but it's no use. You want to return to your old life but how? Time travel doesn't exist and you know that if you fall asleep, it will be the same as now. You begin to look for a way out. You search but there's nothing. Soon, you black out from the frustration of a world where everyone is you.
You wake back up and strangely, everyone's faces are flickering. Was it a dream? No way. That's too much. The multiplication of one person can't be real. Or was it all in my mind. Before I can figure it out, I drop dead. Heart attack.
Now I am in another place. I was told there was an afterlife but I always dismissed it. Right away, I know something's not right. That's not St. Peter. And those aren't other souls waiting for redemption.
Oh, damn. They're all me.
He-Him 497.
Dim morning.
Sam Park unwillingly shifts his weight, rises, and walks to the shower. It is a short walk; his is a studio apartment. Sam slips off his sweatpants and turns on the water – 3/4 turn hot, 2/3 turn cold.
Eight taps of the gearshift when exiting the car, three key-twists when leaving home. Good numbers, bad numbers.
The water feels good on his neck. He feels a connection to it. He admires his primate hands, which do so much thankless work. His belly button sits proud and silent. Its work laborious but now long complete, it sits in a content state of early retirement. Raw buttocks and weathered hands.
He knows there will never be men in HAZMAT suits, no more A-bombs, and certainly no asteroids the size of stadiums. He isn’t scared of the end. It’s the “till then” that makes Sam sweat. The boxes and wires that amuse us in our hollowed-out lives.
Bones live on. Uncles' and aunts' and rotten dream-children's. Bounties beneath wet grasses and stone markers. Bones all.
Tom’s driver’s license pegs him at 35, and on a good day he can still pull off 30, but he is, for all intents and purposes, much older than all of that.
He notices a small beetle crawling up his shower door. Slipping, then regaining its grasp. Small body, smaller brain. For a moment, it seems to eye him. Then nothing. Like a snapped twig.
People are dying, being born. Killing and laughing and smoking dope and eating pastrami in the park. Our caves have become houses, our fireplaces moved indoors, but it’s all just wrapping paper for lonely souls lacking answers. Yours. Mine.
The future is robotic and bland and the scariest of those Sam has so far heard predicted. Even among those of government snipers and alien pee-storms and bio-warfare that would make men’s bones melt and their tongues sizzle something wretched.
The damned problem is the inconsistency of it all. On Monday, Sam might be carefree; Tuesday, bleak; Wednesday, uncaring. But the numbers always return. They are his lot: 3, 460, 792, 11. Most people will never see as they chant in the stadium's night air.
(October 16, 2016, was the day he discovered it, the "it" which made all other its irrelevant. Do you hear me?)
3/4 turn, 2/3 turn, water off. Four steps out of the bathroom, always four steps. They are half-steps, really – his bathroom is quite little – but always four.
Sam turns off the TV and rubs his eyes. His purpose is now. The numbers are his friends and will serve him. The trap is set.
Sam’s teachers always praised his coordination, and now it will benefit him in ending the damn thing. People and their hopeless god-hopes. Outside, rain falls. Sam puts the object under his arm and heads out to make fathers weep and mothers wail. Uncaring starlight will press onward, humans at last washed away from a quiet, lonesome universe. Pale, unstoppable starshine.
The P-I-S-S-I-N-G Song
Hilary and Donald streaming in a tree
P-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes aim
Then comes disparage
Then comes Trump in the baby carriage
Sucking his thumb
Wetting his pants
Doing the dance of ants in his pants.
“Trust Me,” Donald yells
as he aims for her head
Hilary wipes pee away
And wishes him dead.
Watery Grave
Crying river weeps
in painful escape,`
heading for
an empty shore.
Ethereal trickles
on faded wilting
flowers barren
and dry on banks,
a waterless upheaval
of damned souls.
Wanton destruction
raining on parade
of human continuity.
Lightning unleashed
pouring out pangs
of guilt as it squeezes
last drop of water
in seeping leaks.
Dry lips of
creek bed beg
to quench
their dying thirst.
Shallow basins
wilt for lack
of drenching aqua,
washed out
by decayed hope -
a watery upheaval
caused by man.
