Dimanche

Misty air envelops each movement
Skipping carefully from tile to tile
Choosing the lesser of the ice bricks
   on the way out
Substitute steam and towels for morning attire

Turn the knob and wait, for the turbulence to begin
Hissing and clanking--a morning monster awakens
Elegantly pause the picture to reset the playlist
   that fills the room with drums and strings
Dancing with the speakers, the coffeepot rises
   to tempo with the beat
Shaking and whistling, screaming perfection
A fresh cup joins the scene, along with a glint
   of bright winter dawning
Aromas of comfort, joined with circadian serenity

Disembodiment

[Three years old. This poem started a need to write]

Cackling winds and rustling leaves motion past the portal to an external world,

            Awakening the inner mongrel from its child-like slumber,

            Tearing each sentiment from its coupling utopia

Remove myself from this relaxing, recumbent rest

Make no haste warming bony fingers over 2 putrid smelling candles—as preparation for the trial

that lies ahead

Ease into these instances; …freeze, rather, seize them for yourself—

Amidst the solemn outer atmosphere a Corvidae shrieks out,

            Alerting the day of its eminent dominance

So I glare out into its hellish glass eyes and…, it plummets from the tree—dead

            With sudden relief

And I transpire—again

14 times oblivion will shroud my maniacal mind…today

Tomorrow never arrives, a Penrose triangle remains uniquely impossible, and

            …time stands still on Thursday

Yearning to shatter the mold that is every day routine, you march to the front line with Dreams

and Emotions and Collective spirits at your back, only to see the enemy—Father Time,

Mother Nature, the Angel of Death, and Cousin Chaos

Defeated without contact, yet all is left intact

you drag yourself out from under the mattress of misery

Post dinner party, you host a Ménage à trois with neighbor palliative and sister loneliness.

Longing to live like King, Gandhi, or even Churchill

            we adapt idiosyncrasies of addict musicians, ditsy celebrities, and spineless politicians

but denial claws up through the fissures in modern autonomy and the cannons blast their

defensive projectiles, separating the boys from men and the ideal from reality

Thus far, nothing that can’t be replaced has perished, no one that grows distant sits missed,

            and nowhere recently traveled prevails in our memories 

[This poem, I feel, fits in with my previous position on my writings, described further in "my attempt at a stream of consciousness". A view in which, as I see it now, is an attempt to be able to simplistically write something profound by first beginning with the opposite--shallow words and meaningless phrases from which greater depth 'appears' by use of my highfalutin vocabulary and disconnected imagery.]

Chem Poem

Au-en  BaNa₂(s)  Ar,

now  I  LaC  K.

Golden bananas are gone,

now I lack potassium

Perpetual Host

Locked away in a cell, wallpapered with Star Wars posters and thick eggnog paint

A jail from which I could travel freely as commander of the keys, a perpetual host

in my own home. Frequent visitors come and go; friends seeking enjoyment,

peers of pleasure and mirth. Pleased, they stay for a spell, and oft remain past welcome

Guests of mine: eat and drink and laugh; annoyed when I tire of entertaining.

Companions with minute awareness of the ticking clocks of their placation limits

Personal relaxation is their boredom—never content with a company of one

Chef, tutor, housemaid; bro, teammate, weekend chaperon

Trapped among all too familiar strangers

Overrun with no place to seek refuge, or peace of mind

These festive giants wander back to apartments and beds more comforting then

recessed couches and stale basement air,

only to return again—freshened, and energized to restart the cycle

and interrupt their uninteresting lives,

confining me to a cage, built by walls but fortified with ignorant friendship

smothering the source of satisfaction

A hideaway turns to quicksand and solace becomes a distant dream

Infographing

just a black cloud inside my head; a tumbleweed of thoughts

.coming to terms with satellite friends and routine perspectives

re-cycling through the cataloged index cards of personalities,

finding those stored deep away, from past scholastic ages.

each multi faced complex, illusionist, and trite disposition,

revealed after sophomoric levels of education.

gone to this place, for other reasons, but intent to leave behind such singularities

reached the doors and pushed past the gates

  to social pyramids and woven networks

infographically, each persona can be placed and linked to the expected groups.

interesting are those familiar facades of facetiousness and fraudulent natures

each exists, and forever will, in an ambient plane of coinhabitants

while internally mapping and organizing each uniquely common character,

  curiosity levels surface.

in a society--or yet, an atmosphere clustered around higher learning--

  individuality becomes scarce.

like an outfit, many customize their potential attributes by role modeling

  and selectively shopping

for the piece of another, found to be most enticing.

a desire--not for discovery of the overall tessellation,

  but for unearthing the true selves--sprouts.

following a checklist and slowly building to the culmination of reducing people to a phrase:

    blithe, childish phony;  

    narcissistic douchebag;  

    independent, submissive flirt;

mentally linking each characteristic trait to the owner,

realization occurs. that, aside from the few translucent masks most see through, 

few people identify

and categorize the true essence of a person.

A fragment

[One from the past...]

in yesterday's world i died and woke up this morning. everything progresses, uninterrupted

and forevermore. life doesn’t seem to break out from the television-esque framework

until you find that “time-stopper” and soulful embrace of happiness. holding on—just breathing in, and

out—to the peace feels more than satisfying; but then, of course, self-pity seeps through the pores.

i've tried to cleanse the cracks and lie back; somehow, though, stress manages to chain

itself to my wrist. burdened in a sea of similarity, it pains me that i cannot openly express

these feelings to another. for one, claiming that i have such problems leads some [of those persons

left over in the pool of people who show a potential interest] to instinctively argue that they:

have it worse; know what I’m talking about; and (continuing in this line of psychological

order) --because it's insignificant to them--that [my 'problems'] are no big deal.       

now seems an ideal time to clarify that i have no expectations of the reader to follow this

thought but to even actually understand it, because if that were possible for them (you?,

someone,...) then my whole stream would relate to the sole topic i've been passionately

condemning for being so...   and for another, how the minority of those remaining take it

upon themselves to act like they care, implore themselves as help, then completely give up

when i proclaim my 'fine'-state-of-mind; thus assuming that i either: am fine (you missed my

serious sarcasm) or that am lying and just wish no help. one such thing i desire is that someone won't

choose one of many options and, rather, pursue a mysterious, unidentified possibility and seize the

opportunity to care about something unselfish. anyway, maybe my problems are just so.

they could just be an over-exaggeration of nothing more than a commonality that i construe as an

unfathomable wrong so that i too may suffer internally and have an explanation to this perpetual

dissatisfaction.

Staring; Up

Staring up, holding a conversation with a light fixture.  Sharing your thoughts while it lets you read it. How the light from the windows nearby casts perfect shadows, completely opposite the highlighted arcs. Thinking, not thinking at all, just looking for insight. The moment when you feel yourself go. On the edge of consciousness and sleep. Unable to tell when it will set in. you continue to keep focus, maintain eye contact. Then your focus dims. You start blinking more than usual. Your mind wanders because you let it, you know you couldn’t leash it if you wanted. You are past that point now,  drifting. Supremely ephemeral, all surrounding events. Only you, and your thoughts—thoughts about nothing, about you thinking about thinking, about conversations of you explaining yourself and what you are trying to do here to people who very well will never come by or ask such things; but you digress, and speculate, creating a dream reality of all the possible scenarios that can fit into your brief schedule. And suddenly those thoughts aren’t thoughts anymore. For they aren’t controlled by a thinker—they hold the power. What once was your seed, your brain-child is now the puppeteer, allowing you to go on believing that your thoughts are still your own. Your eyes get heavier, blood slowly fills your head, as it lies flat and un-elevated on a communal couch. One second—or so you estimate, because time is irrelevant and undeterminable when left to the solitude of one’s own psyche, regardless of how tranquil this place actually fares in comparison to the often immeasurably hectic life of social reality. For so often the mind is a more chaotic place, largely more bustling with overlapping paths of individual identities. So then, here you are, for I once was. Lying down, staring up. Feeling yourself fall asleep, not knowing when it happen, only that it is inevitable. Several times you catch yourself, opening your eyes wider to make sure that the image—which by now has burned itself into your brain is really the light that you see and not a memory—for when you no longer see it, but picture it, you are gone. Your eyes are shut and dark. Your mind has wandered too far.  But you haven’t reached that point yet, you’re still lying there snapping yourself back every chance your get. You try to resist it. So that you will know when it actually come about. You want to catch it in the act, but for that to happen, you must be vigilant, and awake.  And there it goes again, some distant part of your brain triggers a thought, one you did not initiate. And this thought is the start of a dream.  Not quite but similar. It happened, your eyes clouded over and  you transition from thinking about thinking and seeing a light housing on the ceiling to thinking you see the same light—a trick of misdirection—and seeing your thoughts as actions ever so seamlessly. Eyes closed, head slightly throbbing from your general choice of positions to begin this session, and your mind is gone.  

Until a noise, a door slam, footsteps, any sound—and not one you might expect—snaps you back and you’re awake; lost with no memory of how you drifted off and how your wandered so aimlessly astray. Because now you see the light again, still dark, because no one feared to walk past and turn the switch on as you lie there staring at the ceiling. And you wonder, how it happened, and how you could have thought that first stray thought that triggered this event. But you can’t. memories are unreliable. Especially when you are on the verge of sleep. So you say to yourself that you will replicate the entire scenario, start from scratch and be more aware this time. But you can’t. you are too awake now. That brief sleep, probably no more than a few seconds, set you into a relaxed state. Rejuvenated and refreshed when your finally snapped back. It’s over, a lost opportunity, blown because you spent it napping in a state of subconscious. And now you have a headache, from all the blood slowly accumulating in your skull. Fitting, because as you look out the window you see a grey sky and a grayer world.