Oh, Nine

A year ago I sat in this same crotchety old, worn leather monstrosity of a chair, with petty dilemmas fly-buzzing my innocent self into a cataclysmic oblivion of self-pity and loathing. I was a lost soul. I had just arrived back from a dream’s completion, a goals satiation, and in turn was faced with the reality that it was never enough to quell the wild things within me. Three hundred and sixty five day have passed since then. Most of them were lackluster and monontous; grinding my soul to a fine dust of mundanity, yet I persevered and arrived at the glimmer of glory that wavered within grasp. Education again imbues me with the wonderment of knowledge and challenge; heart remains stoically intact, never allowing a crack in the dam; and finally, the metamorphosis within, that sultry demon of passion and logic at constant eternal war in the purgatory of my soul, ah those incendiary bedfellows still fight for domain, for that is a fight that shall never abate.

The temptation of the 0-9 ends on this night. A child grown up not in the “eighties or nineties”, but rather what? The ten’s? The two-thousands? None of these wonky titles gives proper prominence to the decade of tumultuous living me and my generation have endured. Wreathed in the battle scars of experience, weighing heavy hearts with our penchant for rampant technological abuse, we are a spoiled, gifted, and world-changing group that rings in the “teens” of the two-thousands with an endless potential. We are the gateway to something greater, the conduit for change in this ever-shifting variable of life. As often as we berate ourselves with our beauty(for being great is condemned to vanity), we must not stay stagnant in the ashes of our failures, but rather rise into the inferno of a bleak, yet endlessly rectifiable future. I remain in these pious poet hours; half-dimmed room, and the hospital light screen reflecting my fervent, spectral visage— somewhere a skewed intellect is brewing, and finding an outlet in these words.

A year ago I was a mess of lost expectations, yet I can surmise that ‘10 shall be a more fruitful harvest for this soul. The love game is becoming clearer– illuminating its magnus opus inch by succulent inch in preparation of some ultimate epiphany. These renegade wants and needs shall continue to blur into incoherence, fueling on the manic search for desire's companion– somewhere out there our tune of loneliness is coming to an end... for the river of our dreams leads to the same pulsating pool of Amor. It won’t last forever, these infernal plights of mine, whether it be in ‘10 or ‘21, one of these forsaken years shall deem itself appropriate. I’ll meet you half-way, in this taciturn steadfastness to never relinquish control, you’ll slip in unawares one of these days and unwind it all. Never proclaiming to understand, just knowing the inexhaustible authenticity of beauty... of challenging every sentence and move I make...of never accepting anything less than the best from me...somewhere out there your seething as I do, in our failed attempts to reconcile the missing fragment. Until then the veil is lowering to a diversity of thoughts and experiences(may I not blind myself from the earnest viscera of true nirvana).

So oh nine, you treated me well, abused me some, but ultimately slapped me around enough to inject some clarity into my pompous notions of grandiosity. For that I thank you, and subsequently hate you, alas our love/hate relationship stays in tact. Oh ten, you flighty bitch, on the eve of your arrival I imagine I’ll be a similar catastrophe to the previous year, only a shade wiser, a year older, and considerably more scarred in experience. A cheers to that then; to the inevitable rollicking river of time taking another year, and brining us all along for the ride.

Seasonings

There’s so many varying takes on life; on its complexity, its ever-varying nuances that throw you along in that whip-lash roller coaster madness. I doubt I’ll ever understand every rational philosophy out there, so conflicting, yet simultaneously so alluring. It all boils down to wants, desires, and goals. They all vary, yet each person harbors a similar basic necessity(at least I’ve noticed), in the guise of wanting stability in some form. Whether it be steadfast companionship, or copious amounts of steady income, either way you slice it, the dream is the same. It’s a desire to be whole, safe, content, and existing in some form with the dreary static of reality while simultaneously embracing the fleeting rays of sunshine that make up your happiness.

I’ve found a beauty in some companion’s rustic outlook on it all. Disregarding the material haphazard demolition zone of corporate America( life becoming about success in any fiscal form), and in turn, focusing on the simplicity of white-fence dreams that will arise contentment in the hard-working bones of your earth. It’s a dreary mundanity that belies the true essence of our DNA. So often it seems we get lost in the marathon of “wants” and forget about “needs”, and even more so, the line between the two blurs, and perception becomes a Rubik’s Cube that retains its enigmas. Embracing the roots of being, the simple wife, kids, and work, while not for everyone(myself included), rollicks in a visceral contentment. Who am I to disabuse a fellow man’s ambitions? All we can really do is acknowledge the multifaceted spectrums of a life, and more importantly, knowing that what matters most to each individual will denote a truly happy, and self-made successful life.

Cloudy are the future days, wrought thick in smoky haze of unknown choices and mistakes made. Each second creeping towards the void, and ebbing thought lost in the inception of genius, it’s what makes humanity the supple, volatile entity that it is. The solitary ruminations shall wither minutes after their creation, resonating in their future discovery, yet in each minute that we strive for more, those goals fuel our depleting cells. If only to know life was a war well fought–- the eternal sleep deserved after an existence spent restless.

Shards

Tearing apart familial seams,
lost threads in America’s tapestry.
War-strewn shrapnel;
smoldering, fragmented debris.

Caustic Dreams,
Euthanized Clarity.

Shard-splintered solace,
mutely burning North Stars.
Wayward lattice-work eyes,
threading fate amidst passion’s dying ire–
vows in America’s dirgeful verse.

River’s meandering flotsam,
drifts tumultuously onward.

Trellis

Air breathes yuletide confetti,
Imbuing all with hearthy wonderment.
Shared serenity in the reassembling,
Individual adhesive of the family mosaic.
Coalescing from stormy leagues away,
Braving woes and plights of infernal nights—
Arriving at last to evoke familial birthrights.

Fleeting from commencement;
Goodbye in the greeting kiss,
Sorrow mounting in reunion’s bliss.
Emptiness encroaching the eves,
Sentinel reminder of impending evanescence.

Commiserating in foreign lineage,
Rebranding bonds to last season’s span;
Re-run memories feeding the flame.
Brief birth of happiness;
Family’s voracious survival pleas—
Germinating anew amidst time’s scythe,
Blighted by distance, ripe with strife,
Rugged indestructibility(flushed with life).

Lonesome Holiday Eves

Well we’ve done it again,
breaking thoughts into microcosms,
turning worlds up-side-down.
Loving hearts turned to mocking farce,
beat slowly to thrum the blood-spurts far.

Imagine life as a simple jog,
mild panting in the dismal fog.
Reaching for the shrouded truth,
black and blue in tarnished absolute.

Loving the unknown broken portions,
asking for stolen wishes of damned promises.
Seemingly ridiculous in repetition woes,
life in your eyes wavers on the bulls-eye.

Lets sink this ship in fashion crimes,
speak devilish woes and watch them cry.
Burn our lies in gasoline truths,
ask forgiveness for being me and you.

Deployment

Baby night coos a seductive tune,
One of booze and dim-lit rooms.

Pump the volume to a battle cry-
Arm yourself for war.
A soldier in this bout of loneliness,
Get yourself ready to deploy.

Don’t forget your armor-
A drink or two will not suffice.
Keep sating this endless thirst
Until you question day from night.

A stop-watch blares,
Time to form ranks.
Men of the cause your time is now-
a brave platoon destined to lose.

Soldiers in the endless fight,
To find love in the long, hard night.

Whiteout

Sore shoveling woes,
burdensome back toils
reverberate wintry souls.

Blowing famously cold,
frostbitten desire sputters
in an icebox hearth.

Aching complete,
muscles meat-grinder torn
sweating pain’s release.

Two feet pearl piles,
tower over dying husks
enveloped in white wonderment.

Homes become solace,
morph into window locks,
stare as white bleeds into brown.

Browning the once pure,
corrupting Gaea’s innocence,
trapped human futility.

Conifer

Water the evergreen,
Impervious nettles everlasting;
Persevering harsh winter wastelands.

Doll it up in light explosions,
Festive cartoon ornaments,
Flickering faces of phosphorescent emotion—
Paint the yuletide canvas.

Watch nettles fall like strangled tears,
Reluctantly succumbing to gravity’s allure.
Splayed like broken bones,
This crime scene bleeds sappy evergreen.

Fragile boughs quiver in knowledge of demise,
Used like the world’s insatiable desire—
A greedy centerpiece that serves its role,
Glammed up for display, then tossed away.

Writ of Conquest

In those witching hours of the night,
masquerading in our drunken guises;
delirium termoring for attention.
Mutual loneliness vying against the other–
pathetic little caricatures.

False swagger bloating grotesque,
wax sincerity melting macabre.
Stick figure passions snapping,
broken-limb dreams–
these twisted pleasure principles.

Hormones bubbling in corrosive excess,
scouring bonds of sentience.
Anesthetized of emotion’s toil;
visceral kinesthesia on doomed auto-pilot.

Beauty In Bondage

Passing into shadow,
eclipsed in routine–
mundanity spawns
restlessness.

Solitary star smolders,
aching in cocoon woes–
suffocating in simplicity.

Yawns replace breath,
inhale recycled air–
Stale desire.

Crunching spiders,
never feels right–
minute distractions,
infectious plights.

Gnawed constantly,
fears bubbling bile
coats sweetness.

Pace into sediment,
aimless resolution.
Sob in stutters,
exult in surreptitiousness–
afflicted in existence.

Throne of creation to
execution stool.
Woes transcribed,
regurgitated to fallacy–
catharsis, a fleeting dream.

Per Libri Verum

Hermit-stooped in library dust atmosphere,
headphones roaring on repeat(drowning in the sound abyss).
Ravenous mind-tinkering rifling through worn sheafs,
feet expertly tapping knowledge’s impatient insatiability–
wear thin the grail quest of wisdom.

Hours play magician tricks(setting sun clouds eyes),
tourniquet stop the imminent brain fry.
Shuffle back dejected in blustery reality scenes,
hatred and harshness dominate morality.
Knowledge turned to refuse for greed’s shiny prize,
left the sanctuary for wasteland lives.

December

A multitude of life batters my senses as I enter through frosted doors. Lights that would put the most rambunctious circus shows to shame. The sound of children’s laughter fills my ears. The smell of holly and cinnamon overwhelm me as I dazedly make my way through this assault. An assault on my senses that has rendered me into a stuporous ecstasy. Once a year we encounter such a magnificent display. A display of the death of seasons and the rebirth of spirit. A unifying force that mends all but the fiercest wounds that we inflict upon one another. Silence is broken, families are reunited. Through death or pain we unify for one glorious month of festivities. The death of fall, the birth of winter, the month of December.
I immerse myself in it and let in enfold me. That fleeting feeling that wishes to escape your grasp right as you capture it. Slipping like sand grains through your fingers. So therefore I cherish it as though it were diamonds slipping through the cracks of my fingers. That feeling called life.
Before the barren wasteland that consumes us during the latter parts of winter, we have December. A rejoice in family and season that allows us to forget the impending storms and hassles of being snowed within our homes. We have mistletoe and gingerbread houses to occupy our thoughts. Therefore as I enter through these doors, I cherish every moment I can feel life ebbing within my veins.
People swarm before my vision and within each of them I see a mad desire to succeed. A desire to find the perfect something for that perfect someone. To find that quintessential something that will bring their loved one the utmost happiness. Though, it is not that mad desire to please that strikes me the most. It is that hollow space within all of us that wants to feel contentment. Contentment in giving someone else happiness. That feeling that seizes us when we’ve done a truly great thing. A miniature miracle that we somehow produce when we can look outside ourselves and see that other people are in need of us. That feeling that immerses us all within this web called the holidays.
Therefore I propose a toast to a month that far outshines the other eleven. Not with great weather or a dazzling display of flowers but with a sense of spirit. Spirit that permeates our senses much like the chill of the oncoming winter. Therefore I thank you for reminding me every year that there are things worth living for. Those sights and sounds that fill me with the greatest joy I’ve ever known and dull the pain of living the lives we live. So here I am within the mall on the 2nd of December and I am soaking it all in as though I were the sponge cleaning up that spilt eggnog.

Midnight Ghosts

Jacks’ speaking again,
rapturous wild whispers.
Painting infinities in verse,
king of wayward pilgrim souls.

Ensnared in jailbreak dreams,
slicing tethers in reckless abandon.
Asphalt fueling faraway paradises,
churning in exultant pavement screams.

Branding souls in vagabondry,
onerous El Dorado searches.
Haystack happiness– a fleeting kiss,
moist eternity scarring lips.

Cocoon

Masses of forms huddle inebriated,
churning restless in stuporous snores.
Lined like a mass grave,
filled with unspoken liquid condolences.

Solidarity in shared schisms,
coping via diseased mechanisms.
Wrought the self-tied noose,
angelic ascendence in the fall.

Daylight creeps in revelatory ink,
exposing decadence’s bittersweet hue.
Eyes seek solace in bleary companions,
shattered-mirror souls scorn reflections.

Fountain

Stick arms swing the pendulum,
Knobbly knees leading the way.
Life’s bazaar, secret fig succulence,
Cadence swayed to the donkey bray.

Squinting naivety’s myopia,
Shadowy truths regressing in the shade.
Porcelain-crisped bag o’ bones,
Erupting in the chuckling hive world.

Innocence’s compass never wavered,
True to the north star of inquisitive zenith.
Burbling boreal ambrosia from mountains’ heart;
Fountain of life’s hidden purities.

Twiggy seraph bathed precious soul,
Absolution’s roots entrenching deep.
Sopped in Gaea’s nourishing blood flow,
Shivering undulations of righteous epiphany.

Granite to Gavel

Self-wrought manacles,
Veiled eyes to plugged ears,
Blank minds to cold hearts—
Somnambulists.

Concrete lives, eternally downcast.
Shuffling mediocrity scraps,
Futile plebian conformity—
Bleating in the aimless graze.

Sheared to commodity,
Hapless internal plagues.
Myopic tunnel-syndrome,
Tethered in faux afflictions.

Relinquished of diaphragm woes;
Stop to go, force-fed propaganda.
Incarcerated head to toe,
Bled freely in heaven’s verse;
Sputtering fumes, deplorable hearse.

The Bookmark

End looms promising,
finish line basks in Eden glow–
its all worth it we said,
these sleepless nights.

Exhausted in normalcy,
precognitive at this point,
reading fight’s creation,
basking in misery’s commiseration–
its all worth it we said.

Capture the still life,
past perfection in a moment–
a sugar-coated facade of love,
soured on a wonky tastebud.

Its all worth it we said,
pulses race the marathon,
too tired to turn frantic–
prodding like strange pets,
sniffing for familiarity
where none remains.

Sharing the anchor,
a drowning symbiosis.
Forget breathing long enough,
an airless prayer to absolve worry.

Faces read like books,
pains a permanent genre,
lost our place–
frantic bookmark search.
Love stories never end this way–
its all worth it we said.

Saline Solution

Stood in the middle of the road,
nowhere Kansas horizon kissed the cheek.
Arms splayed on some invisible crucifix,
head reclined to pondering skies.

Felt the burning caress of August heat,
crisping through the core.
Swaying in America’s kernel,
scouring for the center of me.

Miles ranged in the thousands,
salty breeze tickled lips.
Longing’s twin manifested,
emerald eyes across eternity’s sea.

Roasting in the expanse of the unsaid,
tears escape incarceration.
Dribbling slowly like a quavering babe,
boils to steam on the ravenous asphalt.

Sodium mist of the unrequited,
enshrouds youthful cardiac arrests.
Solitude parched these withering lives,
yearning in damp cheek memories.

Just As I Am

I’m a heart that doesn’t beat right,
stutters its desires in fright.

I’m a wall that doesn’t crumble,
bemoans the faults in its design.

I’m a pen that can’t write,
parches in the inkwell mind.

I’m a soul that never settles

Stop-Motion

Black tresses splayed across chest,
metronome breaths–
diminutive form encapsulates;
primal four-lettered perfection.

Puckered plump bow-tie lips,
trail the expanse of this canvas.
Writhing rhythmic gyrations,
pure angelic indecency.

Melding the destructive creation;
chaos– volatile cherubic offspring.
Toeing climax’s ephemeral line,
mere vermillion light in hindsight.