Hidden Message.

falling further from a rEality that never was,
i twiSt my body To rendezvous with a frigid mAss of resentment.
Lies turn smiling eyes into daggers that pierce deep.
twist.
bleed.
joints cracK as brittle promises waIl of sweet nothiNgs.
a mind Grasps for air that IS not existent.
Blunt traumA of a Docile creature.
Yet the idea is found in the mountains and large masses
among the small ideas.
Search.

Broken

Pushed too far,
She falls toward the rock hard surface at the heart
and looks to an image of what never will be.
The Man of Fells Point won't speak.
His tongue tied in a meeting of shattered minds,
and two souls stand bewildered: one in pain, the other numb.
A dancing shadow moves across his face
as intentions are laid bare on the backs of
pestilent promises.
A turbulent walk out of empty and screaming halls of nowhere
The echoes betray the footsteps and the feelings of honor
A constant battle between Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki and William Harvey.
In the end, one face alone rises and then sinks back into the dark...
Waiting, watching, loving...
but it is not mine.

Changes (a Haiku Variant)

If the blue silence
Takes my breath to heaven
Will I still be here?

Find me a new way
To deliver my own soul
To its rightful place

She will drink in life
Protected by her true god
A divine woman

I cannot see her
I cannot feel her hand yet
but I love her so

May the infinite
Guide me to a true healing
For him and for her.

Namaste.

Deeds

Impossible black hook taunts the dancing metacarpals.
Slow.
Numb as the cold bites in and turns red to blue.
Help is asked for and granted.
Cold fire as the hook laughs.
A break.
Teeth flash in surprise and the cold swallows the sound.
Grateful eyes stare in disbelief and question why it was done.
The soul merely shakes and moves on into the bitter landscape
like the cowboy searching for the sunset.
Like the moth searching for a candle.
And still those eyes watch.

Other Children

Chasing Amy flirts with me to be Better Off Dead.
No Braveheart here, Jake. It's just Chinatown.
A Backdraft to As Good As It Gets for Citizen Kane
goes Home for the Holidays.
I might be F for Fake, but Mr. Arkadin will leave me Unforgiven.
A veritable Metropolis for the People Under the Stairs who need a Lifeboat.
Vertigo takes over as I am Leaving Las Vegas, and the Last Waltz makes
me the Man with One Red Shoe.
"M," she calls...then The Lady Vanishes.
Triumph of the Will helps the Real Genius overcome a Raw Deal.
"Run, Lola, Run," the floor cries out as The Salton Sea turns Sideways and
motions for a Quick Change.
Children of Men stuck in a Permanent Midnight think, "One, Two, Three," and
attack the Rabbit-Proof Fence.
But it is the Quiet Man that will make you Scream.

Friday

Trapped.
Like the duck in the bottle,
my anger rises in clouds that burst forth
breaking glass.
There are passing moments of distraction
but my mirror image never lets me go.
"Leave me be. Let me have my peace."
Under a frozen mound
sleeping
waiting
watching
five became two
one stands out
Yeats grabs my lapel and screams at me.
I can't hear
Take your snow
Take your moments
Fenrir comes to move me
You have your apocalypse
I have Ragnarok.
Fleeting
Never-ending.
A pain and sorrow that binds me.
Precise as the scalpel
Sharp as the vows
Quixote steals my soul and rides.
Trapped
in my own vengeance

Truth

A stabbing pain in my side is replaced by the pain in my heart.
Your words fly out on silver strings.
They dig.
Iustus
Deeper than loss I begin to feel.
servo
The wall grows higher as the family burns.
Sors
A picture torn asunder as one becomes five then two.
volvit
The father becomes a phantom.
suus
The mother evolves.
tergum
And Orff moves the wheel.
in
Stand like a stone and wait until the voice pierces the air.
mihi.
A dead language that saves the soul.
Propinquus vestri pectus pectoris pro is exuro.

Carry the Line

One foot slides.
A limp.
The hand moves into the arm's crook and holds the line.
The next foot stumbles.
Hold the arm in place.
A red swatch moves in and out of view.
The lion in winter looks to the summer winds to carry the scent and rage.
Two hearts, one damaged, move through an antiseptic wilderness.
"It's not so bad," the old lion tells the wind as he surveys the landscape.
Burnt flesh and tattered dreams litter the floor as the lion stumbles.
The foot slides again.
The lion seizes his mortality and attempts to assert his position with a roar,
but the wind cannot keep holding the lion and brings him home.
"It's not so bad," the lion weeps as his eyes slide back.
The wind can only watch.

Push

Round and round,
moving like Obree.
Breathe, lean in, take the punishment.
It's only a few moments, a breath in a circling hour.
They don't get it. The mind plays tricks.
Keep moving.
Pedal harder.
The world will blur.
The pain will melt.
The people will fade.
No matter what they say, you keep moving.
No one will understand....
The shadows move into your eyes as you lean against the wind.
Finish.
The hour ends...and the demons come with the night.
Push back. Lean in.
Lean in....

Charlie Don't Surf

There are times I wish I could be like Kilgore.
Forget that I care to the point of hurting myself.
Forget that maturity and the mind develop so slowly.
Sliding into a corner and placing the heavy thoughts on the desk
is how I become Jacob Marley.
To see the dead piling up in front of me and blink with nonchalance.
But I can't.
"Nothing in the world smells like that," he says.
Perhaps the true meaning is that it can't be like that.
Expectations too high, product too low.
I'm failing. Myself and them.
And my heart will give out if my liver doesn't first.
There are times I wish I could be like Kilgore.

Float

Tread.
Breathe.
Never stop moving or the dark, briny deep will swallow me whole.
Tread.
Breathe.
Which is worse: the rain pouring down on me or the siren call of the depths below me?
If Odysseus had not heeded his heart, he would have let go of the mast, but I'm not that strong.
Visions of what's to come begin to slide into my mouth with each salty taste.
Nine circles dance to the forefront...icy cold, but replaced by the burning in my arms and legs.
Tread.
Breathe.
An amorphous figure in the distance. Land? Hope? Fate.
Can't stop while so many need me.
Pain proves that my paucity of energy has not forced me into the whirlpool.
Tread.
Breathe.
Alone but with the ghosts of those who have come and gone, I circle and cut the water over and over.
Have to keep going. How many angels dance on the head of the pin? Can't stop until I know. The pain continues into my side, but I can't stop. Won't stop.
I will float toward salvation in the hope that this water will spill out of the bottle and free the duck trapped inside.
Tread....
Breathe....
Tread....

Logic

To be the center of happiness
is to be the calm in the middle of a maelstrom.
Wishing for daylight, wishing to understand a flawed logic.
A diamond that sparkles in all the wrong places.
Perception becomes reality, and reality is the nightmare of lost hope and broken dreams.
The rock begins to shatter and fall into the deep ocean of question and solitude.
Like an empty lamp, like a star in the sunshine, the idea begins to fade and is lost in the
hustle and bustle of a never-ending mob.
You are you. I am I. There can never be a We. That much is clear.
Quietly whistle a tune for a smile that is nothing more than a shared knowledge of God's universal language.
I cannot trip the light fantastic when the moon is my constant.
Fall.
Fade.
Forget.
And in the end...finality.

Rotation

He smiled, because she is beautiful.
She smiled, because she likes being noticed.
He wanted to get to know her.
She wanted to get to know him.
He stared at the golden strings attached to her heart and began composing.
She sang the song of the siren to lure him into a false sense of hope.
He stayed because of love.
She strayed because of convenience.
He picked up the pieces of his broken heart and placed them in Pandora's Box.
She played off his insecurity to obliterate her own.
He crumbled.
She rose.
She left.
He lost himself in the fog of ether, corn, wheat, and rye.
She returned to him with veiled intentions.
He fell again, like a newborn soldier, like a child's dream.
She broke him with a double-edged sword of malicious love and pain.
He turned for help and found a vast emptiness in urban jungle of dreams and fantasies.
And the world spins spins hope and heartache into all that is, all that was, and all that will ever be.

SOLIPSISTIC by IT (ML)

If I fall toward an opaque future,
quietly questioning the coursing surges in vein,
and forsake time and space
to again be with her, will choices be undone?
With a whim lives remade.
As illusions are rebuilt, reality crumbles,
and past dissolves with the wind.
Time unfolds.
I find her waiting in the most turbulent depths of dreams.
A line in the sand returns to her, and
the dark veil of air covers desires,
but there they are clear...damasked romantics,
and the ephemeral resolve of her face.
Her love becomes no more than a whisper,
solace and solitude become my ravens,
flying, swirling irritants of what could be.
A false promise of hope... of love... of water to the dying man,
yet it is nothing more than a drop of rain in the ocean;
a petal in a valley of lillies.
Unmistakable.
Unforgettable.
Untouchable....
And so I return... alone ...to the stasis of being,
to the peace of no promises, no hope, no love...
just living.


Namaste.