I’m Anxious and Depressed! What about you?

Are you also – Anxious and Depressed – too?

Then we both are!

Don’t text anyone! They won’t believe us – you know that!

How boring – to actually be – Mentally Healthy!

How out there – like a Rat –

That steals his Pizza – dirty Subway Pizza –

To an admiring New York!

(Modern Interpretation of Emily Dickinson's "I'm Nobody! Who are you?")

The apparition of faces in my life;

Unwanted connections coated in honey,

Meeting the standards I did not make.

Petals in a jar I have to fill with smiles,

But I'd rather put wet, black  memories in it,

And then break the jar with a pounding honesty.

(After Ezra Pound's In a Station of the Metro)

Once upon a moonbeam's hazing, as the light in pale streams glazing, bursting through the window's raising as I Facebooked friends of yore- Covered over, rather weepy- I, myself, had gotten sleepy, and the creepy moment hit me with a knocking at my door. "Just a wanderer," I mumbled, "come late, knocking at my door-

Simply this, and nothing more."

Now, exactly, I remember- there were chills of cold December, and the fireplace shared its members as if ghosts strewn on the floor. Desperately in my madness, ever emptied of my gladness from my phone removing sadness- sadness for my dead Lenore- Oh, the pristine, prudent package that the angels called Lenore-

Unnamed here forevermore.

And the dueling, dangling drapes departed as a flitting cape, and I became entangled with such fancies never felt before; so that I began denying; thought my mind, it must be lying, and replying, "Just some wanderer there knocking at my door- Some wanderer come late and simply knocking at my door;

Only this, and nothing more."

When I placed aside my cellphone, suddenly a spooky ringtone rang and sang a tune as I decided I should go explore ... "Madam? Sir? I have grown sleepy, and the moment, rather creepy, has me waning, almost weepy by your knocking at my door. Did I dream you?" I said softly as I opened up the door;

Emptiness, and nothing more.

Forced into the empty viewing, how I stood and tried renewing, in the brewing of my psyche thinking things none thought before; but the hollow void that chose me, swallowed all in shallow poesy, and the wind made my cheeks rosy as I spoke the word, "Lenore?" This I uttered, and it muttered back upon me in "Lenore!"

Simply this, and nothing more.

Running back into the hallway, I grew faint from such a word play, then I heard the knocking rocking louder than it had before. "I will Google late night sounds upon my phone about these grounds," then turned around deciding once again that I should go explore- "Catch my breath and forfeit death in this enigma to explore;

Could be the wind, and nothing more."

To the window I strode, branded, as I looked beyond, remanded, and in landed such a Raven as those Odin did adore. In the opening I gave him flew the fowl fiend in the moon's dim light and made his way upon the board atop my bedroom door- Stretching neck and feathers rudely there atop my bedroom door-  

Stretched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this dark bird gave me reason to believe it born of treason and no season of the holiday could alter or ignore. "Let me get my phone- I'll rave in how this night I've felt a cave-in as you've come to see me, Raven, from some far off distant shore! Speak into my phone and offer where you hail from- yes, what shore!"

Said the Raven, "Nevermore."

I recorded as he flitted, waxing wings so neatly fitted, I acquitted him of any common sense I thought he bore; for with what my eyes were seeing, surely not a human being ever since me, here agreeing this vile thing atop my door- This vile thing, a demon spawning hatred high atop my door

With a name like "Nevermore."

But the Raven sat there only seeming listless, brooding, lonely and again he only spoke one word and mentioned nothing more. I rekindled as time dwindled and my phone, I held and spindled out disgust at what the Raven said to me, and had before. May he leave me at the sunrise as most birds have done before.

And the bird said, "Nevermore."

Not recording, now in hoarding all the dark fiend said while lording, I surmised, "This is the only thing within its spoken store, taught from some dumbfounded owner, sending out this bird, a loner, and the moaner must have gaped and raped the one word that it bore- Nestled deeply in its vocal chord where eerily it bore

Its 'Never- nevermore'."

But the Raven, still in treason, had me frazzled in my reason, so I moved a futon stationed there beyond my bedroom door; then upon my pillow sinking, I then popped a top and drinking beer, resounded that this bird that only Odin did adore- What this mystic, cryptic bird that only Odin did adore

Meant in cawing "Nevermore."

I reclined and went to guessing what the syllables expressing in confessing just one word as beady eyes burned through my core; with my iPhone set for finding information thus reminding that the knowledge sought was binding as I laid back to explore; with that binding, blinding knowledge sought, I laid back to explore- 

Shall she sink, ah, nevermore!

Then the phone fell from my hand, and feeling sick, I tried to stand but thought I saw the Seraphim come trodding o'er my hardwood floor. "Fool," I laughed, "Your God sent you; by this angel, He has lent you, and in my disgust, I meant to take back thoughts of dead Lenore! Caw and caw, but I will take back all these thoughts of dead Lenore!"

Said the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Mystic!" said I, "thing of magic, mystic, or a thing born tragic!- whether teasing me, or teased upon as you have flown ashore- Desolation, as I wanted, all this horror in me haunted, and the isolation daunting as I beg you to implore- is there balm in lavender- oh, tell me, tell me, I implore!"

Said the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Mystic!" said I, "thing of magic, mystic, or a thing born tragic!- by the Universe created by the God that I abhor- Please reveal the hidden measure of the secret, longing treasure, give me pleasure one last time- the maiden angels called Lenore! Will I hold and be held by the maiden angels called Lenore?"

Said the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Say that name as we are finished, and my use for you diminished as I look upon my phone a way to drive you back ashore. Leave no feather to remember that your eyes like blazing embers this December came, now go and leave from off my bedroom door! Get your beak from out my heart and leave from off my bedroom door!"

Said the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, as I'm grieving, never leaving, never leaving, still is perching on the board atop my lonesome bedroom door; and his eyes have all the scheming of a demon in the beaming light that casts his shadow dreaming all across my wooden floor; and my soul from in his shadow floating off my wooden floor 

Shall find freedom- nevermore! 

"I never saw a millennial not sorry for itself. A social media addict will drop frozen dead from a bough before ever forgetting to upload a daily trout-pout image of itself."

This was an early draft of D.H. Lawrence's famous poem, but he thought it was too ahead of its time.

Signal lost, the black drone soars

In widening circles ’midst the electronic roar

Data falls apart; the entry cannot hold

Anarchy splashes the electric shore

Independent targeting’s loose, and everywhere

The innocents’ cries are drowned and thrust aside

Honour and truth left speechless and derided

While warlords and tyrants thrive

In the killing frenzy their passion breeds.

Surely some SigInt is at hand;

Surely a Second Targeting is at hand

SecondaryTargeting! Hardly is the data entered

When satellite mapping pierces night

And shows a desert wasteland

A jackal-painted tank rolls through it

Its gaze pitiless and piercing as a laser sight

Moving its treads, threading the rut

While all about the sand chokes indignant lizards.

The mapping drops offscreen again but now I know

That after twenty-one centuries of stony silence

We’ve breached God’s own lazy sleep

Too late to halt the demon’s reach.

Oh what rough Demon, finds primetime at last

Slouching towards fame and worship?

He walks in beauty, like the day

Of sparkling sun and hella gay;

And all that's best of love and life

Meet in his aspect and his eyes;

Thus strengthened by all the strife

Which heaven to gaudy straight denies.

One glint the more, one jewel the less,

Would half impair his nameless grace

Which shines in every raven tress,

Or softly reflects upon his face;

Where thoughts queerly express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on his cheeks, and over that brow,

So bright, so gay, yet eloquent,

The thighs that win, the legs that go,

And tell of days in clubs spent,

A twink at peace with all below,

A guy who is not so innocent.

I

We, the loud women

We, the sham'd women;

Leaning together

Headpiece dripping it's frown, alas!

His hollow voice, as

We howl in unison, crass-

Frail and meaningless

The wind has gathered amass!

Foot falling over broken glass

Guzzles wine in the cellar

Shape without form, struck without armour,

Unforgiving force, a gesture in commotion;

His eyes have crossed

Our direct eyes bring a dead mans freedom

Remember him—once was tall—now lost

Violent prowling, but only

As him; hollow man

Stuffed belly man

Tall man

II

Tongues I dare not meet in dreams

In sleep's dreaming kingdom

Never to appear:

Her! Her eyes are

Reflected on the broken column

Greek to the man swinging

Our voices are

In the wind, singing

More distant and more solemn

To cradle his fading star.

Let me be no nearer

Death's dream clear

Man tears, will wear

With deliberate guise

Rat's toe, dead-like bird taking place of slave

We women lie in field

Behaving as teal tears behave

She, the wind, the disappearer—

Clandestine meeting

In our, twilight field

III

This is dead land

This is cactus land

Here- shadows of stone images

Raised here we receive

The supplication of created man's hand

Under jaded, faded kingdom.

Like his untimely fall

Into death's bottomless pit

Woke in field

At the hour he looks at sky, we are

Trembling with hopelessness

Fissured tongue grab at his tonsils

Forms broken stonehenge to stones

IV

The mouths are not here

There are no words here

In the valley of dead men and charred kings

In this bottomless chasm

Through this broken jaw of a child

His (and I), the meeting places where

He groped women, us women together

Roped mighty women,

unfinished creations

Immeasurable, on top the kingdom of timid deterioration man

Lipless, unless:

His eyes will repair

As the parable speaks to his charred

Multiplicity; his mush, his self string

he is left for death's twilight field

His hope was only

Of lifeless tendons.

V

Here we go round the hole in ground,

Hole in ground, hole in ground

Here we go round a sulphuric bath

At five o'clock in the morning

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

The cruelty

Falls in the Tallman

For Thine in lone self takes refuge

Between the conception

And the creation

Between his begin, his end

Women respond to Tallman

Trips into sulphuric bath

Life is very long

Between beginnings

Quickening

And spasms, convulsions

Between endings

Between conception to depth

Between the drama of moral history

And the descent

Falling, the Shadow

For Thine in lone self takes refuge

For Thine is the,

For Twitch is the,

For his end is the,

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a he; with that was she, and them; unanimous woman-

Tall man tumbled in formless realm,

Not with a bang, but a whimper

Once upon a midnight dreary, 

I find myself engaged with Siri.

On a frosty football Sunday super, 

she stirs me from my evening stupor.

I haven't asked for her advice,

yet now I hear her voice so nice.

All alone there with my Apple honey,

her heartfelt answers are on the money.

Now quite startled, I'm on my feet,

her compu-voice saying "Send a tweet."

A MySpace man in a Facebook world,

my whole existence comes unfurled.

So lonely as it rains outside,

I know that I've no place to hide.

Lacking friends and without a job,

I'm destined now to sit and sob.

But hearing me whimper, sigh, and bleat,

Siri whispers, "Send a tweet."

Now I'm waiting for a Lyft,

Siri's jealous, her voice quite miffed.

But friend that she is,

she'll still repeat,

to my cold, dark soul "Send a tweet."

I jump in my ride,

leaving phone behind.

I'm not the techno-geeky kind.

But I hear her still,

suggestion sweet,

paramour Siri: "Send a tweet."