Thawing

From cracking jaw,
to hyper-sensitive knees;
bleary-eyed morning beauty,
to deadpan hilarity—
fear never gnawed so voracious.

Happiness fights civil war upon scales,
tipping to fear in guilty deprecation.
Each roller coaster roar (up to down)
euphoria lies erratic—
rapturous if only evanescent.

Forever breeds naivety,
tempered by mutinous heart.
Committed to wild accelerations,
beat
beat to burst in the moment.

The Caustic Commitment Clause

Everyone is married to one thing or another,
copulated to notions of eternity.
Passions lingering myriad guises,
obfuscated through Time’s filthy lense.

Wax if only to wane,
Median jests of normalcy.

Emblematic of existence,
harbinger of bequeathed freedoms.
Defined in tattoo’s permanence,
commitment pontifcally leers.

Patriotic Fibers

Time to weep,
the dollar sign shadow
looms larger than an onyx sun;
blight out prosperity–
premature interment

Cellulose asphyxiation,
debt digs loaded graves–
doggedly nipping heals
‘cross styx’s muddy waters.

Born pure to bent-back;
Atlas Strangled.
Burdens consort with nooses;
innocence flees from baby derma,
corrupted by every cent–
greed’s birth annuls life.

Feed the glutton
that grips your throat.
Smile tighter,
where it goes—
fodder fuels the flames.

Substantiality

It feels like I’ve spent so long trying to hide myself behind words and characters; as opposed to expressing the emotions, thoughts, and ideas that germinate them, they’ve been an escape from the fact. From trying to say it compact and loaded, or long and elegant, it’s never been honestly said; just said. I’ve tried to be clever, ingenious, droll, urbane, satirical, and witty; only to be rewarded with mere ghosts of a person. The pretensions of writing are that you are a contradiction yourself. Drawing up people from real life or ghost memories; coaxing up situations that have never arisen; feigning emotions that haven’t truly been felt. Having to see words reflecting back at you, words I wrote in claimed truth, and knowing that that’s a truth I can’t even feel. There’s such a travesty in it, even in this, where I’m roving the mind for clever attempts and metaphors to appease some creative spark within, yet each line of attempted catharsis never hits home. What is writing if not an exegesis of yourself?

I read lines back to me that seem so petty and unlived. Who is that naïve soul that is spouting such holy commands? Did I ever live the words I’m reading, did I ever love the countless phantom lips I said I’ve kissed; has there ever been a substantial moment worth recording, or is this life all a big melodrama of mangled literary grandiosity?

What is this search, this bildungsroman? Can I ever come of age, become a man, look at the world and not be afraid at how horridly wrong it feels…I’m getting tired of never knowing and always hoping for the answer in the writing, but I’ll keep going I suppose, because it’s all I know---there I go again with the pretension. It seems I can’t help but hate being a writer—if that’s what I am--- because there’s no imminent glory in knowing words and using them at your whim. What good is expression if it isn’t earnest, but feigned, for art’s sake. There’s always a question fueling it; the manic musings and proclamations, warnings, or warring advice that I’m more prescribed to take. If transposing my woes on the world, on all the countless people I claim to know and don’t, and the millions of others I will never; who am I to demand their attention?

All I can say is that I’ve lived more privileged than I deserve. I’ve tried to find kindness in the world, though have succumbed to the follies. Where perfection walks I’ve vainly attempted to trod, yet maturation is a gorey process. I’ve tried to understand and failed; grasped some and then never fully seized what it yielded. I’ve yearned for love, foolishly worn stoicism as armor, and am now reaping the harvest of such idiocy; I’ve no idea how to conduct relationships with anyone anymore. I don’t know what these words can say or what power I can give them (if any)….I suppose this whole rant is about what I don’t know.

There’s no glory in feeling pathetic for yourself, if anything you’re more despicable for it. I guess this is all warranting some worthwhile sagacity, some wisdom to be gained from this, if only to be run amiss at the next attempt to showcase it. This quest, the road that never ends, it’s all in attempt to do something substantial. To have a legacy of something, a body of worthwhile contribution or statement; like the narcissistic desire to procreate and carry on your name. I’ve no desire for a son to bear my name, nor its flaws and strengths into the next age; I’d rather a lesson or viewpoint or realization that I’ve yet to reach; an epiphany righteously earned, deserving of contemplation and deep meditation. Perhaps the ego deserves deflating; hang up the pen and plug away until I’ve a miniature life to spread my name, maybe then I’ll feel substantial.

Gutta Percha

Bore a hole, born of decay,
weaned negligence,
decadent abuse.

Rotten core,
crumbling shell,
infected root;
life-flow withers.

Cracked foundation,
holy excavation,
extract the dying;
regal void.

Fill to seal,
manufacture machinations,
plastic substitute;
enameled forgery.

Withered crown,
abused gamut runs,
left for disrepair;
a broken throne.

Hole that is whole,
artificially alive,
ribbon-tied to eye;
never again pure.

Infirm(worries)

Been away awhile,
lost in doldrum whirls;
kept haze-induced,
spent screaming agony–
brain bled oozy méconnaissance.

Trapped soul raged,
body machine tethered in blight.
Corpse pose etherised,
self-destruction usurping inside.

Carcass flies buzz about eyes
-mock sunlight’s creep-
through curtain’s side.
Panting hallucinatory,
begging time;
strike fleshy epiphany at midnight.

7:10

It was the vulnerability in those eyes.
Staring, imploring in heart-breaking sincerity
For the respect you more than deserve.
It was then I saw the fathoms of your hurts.

Arms became makeshift tourniquets,
Staunching wounds buried in time;
Perseverance became not weakness but strength.
Not breaking fortified the heart;
Left it open and scarred—
Armed to weather another assault.

Vows have no credence in word,
Stale to brittleness once told.
If promises swear to hold ardently true,
Only actions sow solace anew.
What comfort is to be given but hope,
Repaving the worn roads of woe.

Contradictory Hearts

We’re all filled with what we wish we could say.
Our tongues stumble on emotion,
Bumble when the heart is even remotely involved.
We bunker down, arm the walls of our selves,
Vulnerability is something we’re not well versed in.

For all the grand romantic gestures we gestate in our minds,
We imagine the cold aftermath of rejection’s sigh.
We court love’s duplicity;
Tempting our own daring with denial’s doldrums.
It’s a lesson never learned
A pain rightly earned,
Ultimately
A scar on our hearts we’re loathe to see heal.

Every broken dream takes a face,
We’ll hate it for a time,
Commiserate with the stale air—
Though we’ll muster up the merit to try again.
Who will be next, we always ask,
The answer lies in the spark of kindness;
Generosity's glean glinting in the eyes,
Every shallow thought we harbor is quick in demise,
We’d gladly throw it all away to be wanted.

On nights when the winter steals our warmth,
Leaves the blankets as our only solace,
The reveries of past romance shall warm our toes.
The fumbling kisses and wild ecstasies,
The rapturous highs and intolerable lows;
We hate what we love,
Though another life we could never know.

When the Color Fades

You’d gray naturally,
Scoff at painting your face.
Wake up clear-eyed,
Imbue faith just by breathing.

When I dream of who you’ll be,
If you’ll ever be
I’ll fast-forward to the gray.
That’s when I’ll really love you--
When the color fades,
But not the beauty.

The Gender Of Tears

At five years old I knew the world was a cruel place. I saw my father grasp his chest and scream in a rattling way. I remember the thump of his carcass on the floorboards, the wild fear in his eyes, and when his eyes locked onto mine I remember clearly for the first time that I saw a man cry. That was the last act those eyes would commit. When I sobbed in the alien air of the funeral parlor, the river pooling down my face, I was awarded asylum—youth was a forgivable weakness.

From that moment on I was embroiled in a battle against the legacy of man. For every routine hurt that would sabotage my youth, I had to fight back the tears that yearned for release. I was terrified. If to let my eyes water was to embrace the moments before death, I was sure I didn’t want to go quite yet. This persisted into my teens, when hurts became possible through words and broken dreams. I let these trials pass through, I often felt like a stone statue wearing away. My eyes felt like a martyr at the stake, I was withholding this pain for a great cause, at least I thought, the vivid thrush of life.

I grew older still. I felt romance smolder in the pit of my stomach, retching acid burns through my heart. The pangs of life pockmarked me like a dart board, still I soldiered on. Eventually I realized that women were able to cry without retribution, even freely. There was something hidden in that additional “X” chromosome, a free pass of sorts. I was envious of every magnanimous hurt that rattled through their fragile frames. The earth shattering quakes as they fell into the fault-lines of their personal despair. I was a ghost, an emotional vampire; I could merely stare in envy, living vicariously through their emotional release.

A girl I would later realize I loved was afraid of me. She battered me with passionate munchkin fists, demanding I spout those burning tears for her reassurment. She was leaving me. She wondered how I could stare blankly at the fathomless depths of the floor and not feel anything. If only she knew then that I was a cataclysm in the making. I stared into her eyes, they were pitifully drenched, I saw my reflection back in them---the watery sheen of her irises felt like damnation. I couldn’t summon the decency to tear up and commiserate the misery of our demise. It was at that moment she told me that only real men cry.

I managed to make my way to middle age. I encountered the slow burn of time tethering me to the grave. Somehow women were drawn to me like moths to a parasitic flame. Every tear they shed at the expanse of a man emotionally dead cracked the foundation of my terminal wall. Their wailing sobs became the soundtrack of my middle years. I was hoarding despair to satiate the barren desert in my eyes. I was told I was broken.

A century halved tormented my flesh; I grappled with the demons that refused to escape. If gravity were a palpable essence I would’ve sworn the earth was reclaiming me. I stumbled through the broken halls of my life breathing woe at the empty frames that gazed listlessly back at me. My eyes found their damnable twins in the dust-coated mirror that haunted my days. The orbs staring back resembled caked-dry madness---it was around this time I began courting madness. For every morning I would spend broken, willing anything to reflect back, I remained a withered simulacrum of a former man.

I woke up in the necrotizing cold of a December day feeling my father’s ghost breathing down on me. Inexorably drawn to my spectral face, the mirror whispered my swan song that day. A new light gleaned in my eyes, a holy infusion spilling out from my desecrated shell. Suddenly I felt fire coaxing brimstone through my veins. Collapsing within the heap of my sorrows, I began contorting the tangled strings of my frayed life-line. A slow explosion was gaining fervor within my heart; I felt my jaw scrape my chest as I punctuated the air in vocal duress. Those screams reverberated in the halls of desolation; I writhed in the mute horror of a body’s mutinous curtain call.

Was it the light fading that usurped me? I felt more than saw my vision blurring. For every diminutive fist that attempted to beat a response out of me, I couldn’t help but wonder why in this moment of finality. Gasping crimson, I lurched myself towards the tenuously shaking glass. Staring back was the corpse of a man. I felt it stop, the rhythmic thump of life’s beat.

The requiem began with a sole drip of saline.

Tablet

There were equations involved. Recipes and meticulous algorithms which constructed reason from the nebulous white noise. Answers lay hidden in plain sight, if only to taunt those voluntarily blind. When choice was an option, you chose to deny.

When roads forked you wanted to die. Half of you went one way, the rest wondered why. Divergence became your tyrannical soul.

Handshakes were the blueprints for deconstruction. Rugged niches and calloused caverns spoke their sermons to the mass spec of your brain. Sizing up was a mere refrain–-greeting was a study in coalescing what the world decided to maim.

Gazes could never be cold, merely soulless. Eyes became spheres of analytical dissection; names a mere pleasantry, desire not even registered.

What stood before was a matter of flesh and blood. Breath circulated the carcass, buoying life into a shell seemingly unliving. Cadaverous in stance, warm to the touch; a doppelganger of incipient sentience. Versed in the diametrical maxims of its kind; love bled to hate as peace in wartime.

There existed the corrupted tabula rasa–- birthed into existence with predisposition.

Affection For Affectation

Would you deem me cretinous for negligence,
or find endearment in the faux paus?
Demand I wreath myself in crimson as proof,
suffocate you in flower’s sweet perfumery?

Would these letters satisfy that cavernous void,
spell love loud enough without uttering the word?
Can these hands build a world big enough,
While still being well versed in rapture?

Must I cleave the shadows from my face?
What’s underneath palls to that within.
Shall every dance burn our loins,
drench the stench of conquerment?

Would you have me be everything I’m not,
forsake the only road this heart has trod?

Vestibule

Weariness warps the day’s color scheme,
stuporous haze conjoined on dream’s cusp.
Wake to phantom memories, talk reverie to the air.

Dregs of normalcy swirl defunct,
retaining flavor of evening’s past.
Amorous hues color the filament.

While dreams may coax the wilderness forth,
body harbors the prisonous soul.
Left free to roam the vestibule of fate.

Amongst the wild abandon exulting,
eternal bonds coalesce from the mist.
Bound ethereal hearts in the unbound whirl.

The Tinsmith

In that bumbling quest of self-discovery that may take any of us leagues across the volatile greenery of America; hop-scotching through the cow shit and granary; lost betwixt the state lines and time zones created by some invisible council to catch the sun’s fleeting brilliance in our own dimming greatness….It is the Tinsmith, the lost father, the absentee figure of manhood that drives our testosterone bones into the husky horizon of the setting sun. We are scouring the barrows, the hobo dens. We become denizens of the night searching in the old the hidden nooks of the world, for the forgotten, the damned, the scorned visage of manhood we’ve desecrated into battered mosaic; the coping mechanism of volatile adolescence, forming our own tablets of manhood, yet forever searching for the greater truth. The bristling hoary beards of fraternity, etched down in the hereditary blood of generations, the graveling voice of masculinity that passes on the wisdom of becoming whole.

The street signs wear, the lanes swerve around the bend, the dust catches up to the eye as the sun eclipses the distant land; what we scour for in the physical world is the reconciliation of our souls. These Tinsmith woes are a lifetime of excavation. The lure of freedom, absolute decadent sultriness in the unrestrained experience; no tether to scour desire nor quell the raucous abandon; the untamed mania of burgeoning manhood bubbles the cauldron of decency into the icy waters of reality. We search and search for who it is we are to become, how it is we are to become, and the only answer lies in the chromosomes passed on without advice on how to grow into those shoes. So we take to the road fleeing our internal damnation; for the mirror plagues us with the truth of our creation, and thus forsaking, we attempt to lose ourselves wholly in an attempt to find anything in its entirety.

Can the Old Moriarty ever be found? Somewhere in the pool halls and wino bars of Denver he seethes in his own lost quest of fatherhood. How can we be fathers if we don’t know how to be sons? How can we ever be men if we can’t escape boyhood? Lost in the wino thoughts and infinity dreams that the wind screams on the road, the broken mantle of responsibility shall lie shattered for as long as we continue to flee. The abrupt about face is the brake wearing catastrophe called truth. Where we end from there is the trial by fire within us all, on the cusp of looming doom, the end of the road (so to speak), where truth can no longer be outrun nor found, where the woes of home become the fabric of existence, and miles no longer mean distance but feigned instances of introspection….it is at this pivotal moment we must all confront the ghost of our own Tinsmith. Stare into those ethereal orbs and reclaim the volatile entity of our existence, the full grandiosity roaring through our veins; and in that very moment cross the threshold of fear and uncertainty, and hang up the road-time escapism.