amor fati

the passing -
the vagabond

wolf moon


that huge, whitest of whites


brought my world closer
to the world envisioned
since the fall
since i found myself

a separation
a disparate object
among a seeming mass
a satisfied, assimilated community


i wont ask her to stay
it wouldnt make a difference
tho i dont decide against from impotence


the moon will always be there


whether covered in sunshine
one with a cloud
or highlighted by a black back expanse


i know she's there

open
running
howling
blinding
blazing


and i know she knows im here


thats all i need to know







so i tell myself as i exaggerate psychospiritual rot

e-p-i-l-o-g-u-e

when you meet the moon
don't look both ways

there will always be night
blanketing our candles n bulbs

we need the moonlight
else we shall wander
in thorns n deep waters always
unknowing till submerged till pricked

unable to see neither feet nor dreams

nothingness is something we create because sometimes somethingness is just too much (of whatever it is)

thinking about Possible Greatness/Heroism/Excellence/Divinity churns the balsamic bile, swirls it around with tenderness, sends it up against gravity, lines my esophagus while my nose bleeds from the too swift descent, away from clouds, and seeing charon wisps thinking its Time, thinking its time to rest and not particularly caring, not particularly feeling anything particular except the lacking which is its own bizarre feeling which is a feeling. which is a feeling that i can't reject. its all thats there. nothing but nothing.

a woman vacuums in the apartment above. it's 9 a.m. on saturday. nothingness is better than this something.

there are cans and cans lining shelves, blockading books, keeping them safe from forgetful hands, stuffed into the pocket of available space directly above my penis, formed from a tight fetal position greg louganis would envy. my hand is protected by a wondrous piece of elastic encircling my waist and giving me the only pride that seems worthwhile in this time. the pride of a limbless man dependent upon others to thrust him.

the pillow covers the left eye. the right eye is losing to the crust. the right eye is throwing bricks at the sleepies window, putting flaming feces at its doorstep, and it wont go. disgusting when inanimate objects have a full voicemail. i stare through the window as i call, my hand cupped like im in a movie peering into my locked-out-of-home where i will find dead my beloved wife whom i wooed for 40 years. the red, archaic landline voicemail light blinks and i think it's telling me to never come back.

nonono, the rocks n stones n trees n branches n wind are not disgusting.

i am disgusting. my will matters not. i peer into my own windows. i throw bricks at my own windows. i light feces at my doorstep'n'runaway. smiling. the soles of my feet smacking my own ass. and i will run for hours this way round my childhood neighborhood. reaching out to 12 year olds on dads lawnmower like marathon bystanders. but they don't smile at me. they don't have water for me. i am crying as the distance grows. i am crying as i run away and yell dont ever stop. dont. dont ever ever. dont ever care less or more than you do right now. dont leave this place.

i stop at a corner, t-intersection, and sit indian style. it is brighter than i thought. families on tandem bicycles ride around me. 14 year olds smoking cigarettes slink by, sneering, wearing the fashion du jour, trying so hard to be anything and therefore becoming nothing. a little girl comes over and asks if i would like lemonade. i give her 5 dollars and decline. she brings me the lemonade and smiles. i smile back at her and accept it with two hands, wanting so badly to run far away from her, or just sob on her shoulder and beg her to never get old, to always love the world and people as much as she does right now. she walks away unchanged.

i sip n think about how to treat this tremendous ass pain.

i will sit on cold kobe slabs later.

i will then cook these slabs.

i will then eat these beautifully coached, beautifully cut, beautifully cooked meats with clean silverware and napkin emerging from oxford cloth button down shirt, protecting my father's favorite tie.

two days later, i shall perish since i cannot wipe my own ass.

a parade of elephants pound pavement centimeters away
sharp fucking tusks thirsty, erect
those huge fucking enwombing ears

i am prefontaine
i am bolt
i am looking to run off into my own orbit

the elephant is on the treadmill next to me
huffing
puffing
blowing my every house down

i am running

i am running fast like a three-legged antelope to elysium’s gates
while the elephant stands 20 first downs away
from my hot open carcass
a free buffet for approaching famished lions
that will soon bring hyenas like stoned hung over college kids on saturday afternoon

i put on my latex gloves and snap them to scare myself away

i want to move to custer south dakota buy up the town demolish everything build a nice 100 square foot shack for myself import 2,000 indians buy vintage indian gear dress the indians up in said vintage indian gear rile up them by insulting their ancestors then turn tail and run.

prospective portfolio poetry (edit two)

greatest day that i have known:
how do you look in the morning?

mouth dry
yellow tongued
crusty eyed . . .

you are beautiful


still

even after insomnia
even after looped replays

you are ponce's love
you are my dear, dear friend


_____________________________

shaving my permanently adolescent beard
smiling an infants smile

putting on my big boy jammies
smiling an infants smile

i curl up in my still cold bed
twenty-five years old and
sleeping so tomorrow is here

______________________________

your back hurts

once a weight's been lifted

it aches out of habit

as it's last wisps leave

it's fingers outstretched

and then

you're able to realize the tremendous pain you'd gotten used to

the overwhelming sorrow

so ingrained

we didn't even know there were walls

___________________________________

reasons n reasons
pile up round the frame,
like,
kids on stairs on christmas morning

but we're mom and dad, too:

scurryin round in dead dark night

to keep the secrets safe

to keep god's will pure

when we should really merge lanes

_______________________________________________

pedal to the me d/t al

there isnt a moment to lose

i can't stop thinking about

what has to be done
what has to be done
what has to be done
what has to be done

i know and
then i don't
i won't and
then i will
i will and
i don't wait
for the kids to go to bed

rough amalgams
of Christmas' Past
line my longjohns
i'll never escape them
don't want to escape them

constricting . . .

. . . invigorating

like,
some psychic primae noctis,
i can't help but bow to my Lord.

_____________________________

i haven't sat in the dark

if we write about ourselves,

let's not lie please
let's not dress it up
shred it
make it carouse with others

i haven't sat in the dark in months

since ive moved to the city
not one night in complete darkness

or at least not many
none memorable

what in darkness(')ence
brings me closer to myself

unifies, silences:

is it the illusion of anonymity,
the basking in self-obscurity,


like lovers that think
it's always best when the lights are off


like the stuttering beauty
discovering her brain


like an elderly leper finding jesus
or happening upon sorok island

likelikelikelikelikelike
like

something else at all times
and never pavement
only a breeze, a whisper
an abstract's abstract

mounts me
and carries me through the day
desperately seeking a night
in which no one can see me
in which my own dissident, diurnal critics
can't intrude on the small

fractious yet fracturing

dense morsel of beauty
living somewhere off the grid

yet there, too,

among the fears,

the scientific studies

left unpeerreviewed

(dubbed peerless)

prior to canonization.

___________________________________________

writing, please meet the drug I-can’t-seem-to-quit-long-enough-to-determine-the-effects-or-intensity-of-usage-but-suspect-that-I’m- addicted-to-in-a-maybe-innocuous-but-certainly-more so-than-most drugs-sort of way.

cannabis sativa, please meet the drug that I can’t become addicted to. No matter the syringes, hands, and opiate flushed pockets.

-I was completely naked and alone
sitting in my deskamong many desks
at work today.
External impassivity; internally, raptly, watching my own personal horror flick: I spoke with estimators and secretaries while my mind hemorrhaged from this unique, rarely reported, domestic abuse. Domestic abuse
of the most possible proximate cause. Domestic abuse,
the resolution of which is a(n ethically ambiguous) kind of career for the modern alchemist,
the psychologist.

for, like the alchemist, what strong foundational knowledge does the

psychologist stand on besides a more contingent, individual pragmatism:
where is psychology’s attainable
(ok; kind of, maybe attainable)
theory of everything?
(the origin of origin . . .
who is
this
. . .
speaking
. . .
now
. . .
now
. . . now)

I was completely naked and alone
sitting in my desk among many desks
at work today.

The crime is typically rife with battered wife syndrome:

"No, no. You don’t understand: I deserved it
I-
I-
I-
I was weak.

He has a point.
The horizon is here
The sun has set.

No, he doesn’t mean to hurt me.
Really.
He doesn’t.
He really just loves me
Too much."

--I sat at my computer today and whipped myself
like the Jesus I would all too certainly love to become
messianicnflagellated
[why

we know not
best guess is fertile offspring

borne of passion,

some(

archaic god complex
modern, conditioned, rat-in-cage, karm police begging, pop culture metaphor regurgitating
victim)]

- The boy stands at the chalkboard, his legs and his back hunched. His words ring out as his hand scrawls.

I will remember my dreams at all times.
I will remember my dreams at all times.
I will remember my dreams at all times.
I will remember my dreams at all times.
I will remember my dreams at all times.
I will remember my dreams at all times.

I will remember my dreams at all times.

(ad infinitum – or relative infinitum:
a life reduced to second and minute watching)

The young man looked at us all with his mouth sewn shut and his eyes pleading:


“Throw me on the fire. Please, let me thaw out. Don’t make me go back there. I promise, I won’t forget my dreams anymore. I won’t. Never. Never again. Please. No. No.No.NO . . . NO!!

I will remember my dreams at all times.
I will remember my dreams at all times.

I will remember."

"forever." *

*This poem w/could not have been written without radiohead's 'melatonin', an ok computer era b-side, lyrics by thom yorke.

don't forget that you are our son
now go back to bed

we just know that you'll do well
you won't come to harm

death to all who stand in your way
wake my dear

________________________________

i want to end the inner monologue.

i want to end the inner monologue that kills.

i want to end the inner monologue that kills with a ruler.

i want to end the inner monologue that kills with calibrating second thoughts.

i want to kill this judas, this calibrating inner monologue before it kills me.

IWANTTOENDTHISMIRROREDMENTALTREADMILL
IWANTTOWANTTOENDTHISMIRROREDTREADMILL
IWANTCONTROLOFCONTROL
IWANTAPIECEOFMIND
NOTEVERYTHING
GRASPABLE

the gun slung over his shoulder, his
body perpendicular with the ground
neither his loose shoelaces
nor his fraying cuffs - no,

NOTTHE MOON SLIVER-

can rouse facticity's flatlining stoicism

_____________________________________________

"when i think
that i can't blink
without writing:
nothing happens.

the meaning-stuffed-mind
sits satiated
upon its toilet-throne -
erm, chair
- in consternation
linguistically, neurally, constipated:
where's the _________ fiber?
so that my feelings may pass
so that i may feel the cleanliness and solitude
of an enematic colon.

alas -
more marination needed
more time for the parts of my whole
to write their reports,
talk to witnesses -
or: more time.
just: more time."

"what is the sheer passage of time
but the heroic villain,
the will to ignorance?"

"NO!

we must choose -
whether sedentary, on a paved road or
with a machete in the brush.

And so it is with my salty blue pen and blood-lined paper:

I can't control that
I can't write when
I think I should.
But I can accept it,
Waiting for release,
Enjoying the suffering,
That only precedes meaning."

"... "

"No,
We can."

____________________________________________

i'm not a man for all seasons:
springs and summers are bottoms up
even falls mostly enthrall;
but winters have long, spitefully introspective youths
producing terribly meaningful
brief bursts of awareness,
acceptance,
immediately preceding paradigmatic shifts;
but this:

winter-but-not-winter,
spring-but-not-spring,
fall-but-not-fall,
this clipped wing, peg-legged sprinter,
modernity,
where our mental bris stays for dessert
until we look down and see sags

where:

instinct's under quarantine and observation
outta fear
their superiority is originarily arbitrary,
their morphogenesis obsequious,
their self materially, annoyingly, inchoate

it strangles everything natural
in favor of artificial nothingness

relativity frightens,
absolutes somnambulate

_____________________________________

you cant fall in love with every pretty girl you meet:

a voice that runs marathons through tires
and a microwave smile;

Or, induces insanity-infused storytelling at the
FIRST IMPRESSION,
nuking our lamb shank-hearts;

Whilst holding
the heavily foot trafficked
street corner's
street bum's sign:
Will Be Honest/Weird For (soul) Food
like a Doubting Thomas begging,

begging

that:
you might string a supple sentence:

inside my mind as your word play spins normatively
eye up their incorporeality
just past your nose
- in between us.
spit those language loogies sincerely
and:
i may forget beauty ends me
so i may remember.
so i may remember
i ripple the water
so that i may forget not remembering.

must find actualizing, not paralyzing:


my dreams, my ideals
leave me a motherless white elephant,
contextless
without hands that live in iceboxes

__________________________________

theres a space in the light of hindsight
that winds and acquiesces
with the shuffling feet and
darting, pensive eyes
in a man struggling for perspective:

understanding beyond words,
across mountain ranges,
from peak to trough
he lives as a man, finally

or, rather,
will finally live when the god within
accepts his fate as creator and destroyer:
a paradox only afforded the partially divine.

ca. 1/6/10

single greatest day that i have known:
how do you look in the morning?

mouth dry
yellow tongued
crusty eyed...

you are beautiful


still

even after insomnia
even after looped replays

you are ponce's love
you are my dear, dear friend

a double negative's utility

dont you wanna

never

not remember again?

a road bisects

where there was one
there is now two

a road bisects

where there were two
there is now three

a road bisects

where there were three
there is now four

or walk down the road forever
take the andes to the rockies

or push an elevator button

an umbrella won't deter a cyclops
the wind catches all

a straight line is (not) the shortest distance between two points.

shaving my permanently adolescent beard
smiling an infants smile

putting on my big boy jammies
smiling an infants smile

i curl up in my still cold bed
twenty-five years old and
sleeping so tomorrow is here

your back hurts

once a weight's been lifted

it aches out of habit

as it's last wisps leave

it's fingers outstretched

and then

you're able to realize the tremendous pain you'd gotten used to

the overwhelming sorrow 

so ingrained

we didn't even know there were walls

2009 retrospective (metashit)

2009 was your most productive year, steve(n) - is it immature for a 25 year old to have not made a clear decision on a preferred name? 39 "published" pieces. and tho it is certainly not the same as being published in an actual publication, external to me, it's definitely not a meaningless feat. i'm neither an easy, nor a nice editor. but you've begun to really take a firmer hold in the moment, steve (you will be the pragmatic version, the dynamic, actual self; steven, you will be the ideals. the mother and father that gave birth to the idea of 'steve', the idea to go out into the world and cultivate a particular persona.)

but yeah: steve, you've been doing a bang up job, fella. real top-flight growth. it hasn't been easy, but you've really stood up straight and exercised control in the moment course, steven: don't want to leave you out here. classic dreaming, nothing different than what we've come to expect from you. just real quality stuff. those clouds look fun from down here. ...but, buddy, same old problem: you gotta let steve do his thing. really and truly: this fear tantrum act like we're icarus every time steve acts. it's exactly the sort of thing that you denounce, the opposite of what you support

but steve: 39 entries. not bad, dude. tons of poetry. love the imagery and metaphors most of the time. let's try to break it down some more this year. make it even simpler. you can still reduce that fraction. har har har. also: more fiction. go for some short stories. like we have noted previously, your writing legs need time to develop. it's ok that you can only take the moist womb of creation for a few fleeting moments right now. it's ok that you can't help but lose yourself in the moment so quickly. those small moments are yoursustenance right now. they have merit. poetry is the perfect platform for this wi the norms, trends, traits, whathaveyou allow, provide for this brevity. but youll get used to the ecstasy of creation and be able to produce longer works. just be patient. it will come. so on a related noted, let's try for some more expansion outside your pure individuality. that's a problematic phrase - because we can never get out of our self. we can change...but what i mean is: let's try writing more about other people.

"..."

i know, i know. you think it's a futile exercise. 'you' are your own best shot at knowledge. i know this seems like the truth right now - and i even know that you're not dogmatically obedient to that conclusion, but all the same..just saying..a little more in the attempts-to-understand-others - or, even, the wider social commentary angle - would be great..just something outside this "what its like to be steve" background and the general philosophizing, social commentating in the foreground..thing.

...i know you think there's something universal in your subjective experience. noted.

but, like i said: 2009 was a great writing year for you, steve(n). you transmitted very well, steven. you weren't too overbearing. mostly, reigned from above. limiting yourself to derailments. you do need to improve your stickwithitness. sometimes, like we've said, you've become quite shrill with paranoia etc, but, alternately - and this is something we really need to reiterate with you, steven, tho, we know you know it as well as we do - you can't fall asleep on the job. steve is in The Shit while you're on the hammock. don't lose sight of that. he will need you when he's gotten sucked out on the river, when he's alone and bears seemingly no connection to the external world. don't forget your role as parent.

steve, you didn't falter as often as you might think. you're growing as a writer. you know this. don't beat yourself up for not continuously spewing yourself onto the page. it's ok to not have something meaningful to write about. go out and live at these times. just run out there.

but..(looks at notes, pushes glasses down bridge of nose) you wrote best when it was dark..which you have noted, but also mostly in the winter. hemingway concluded that he wrote better in the winter bc it was so hard to escape the fact that we're all slowly dying, that his function was to write, and that the reminder of creeping death was the greatest environment for his writing. and this seems to be the case for the achievement of any goal or decided on life function. an acknowledgment of our finitude. this also seems to be your gasoline. the knowledge that you are going to die. and that you're not afraid. that you do believe in yourself, in your philosophy. who you want to become. but most importantly: who you already are.

cheers to you man! to your continued attempts to understand yourself, others, and the world you both created and occupy!

(raucous cheersing)

on borrowing and lending

i wish that i had known in that first minute we met the unpayable debt that i owed you

the opening line to 'kettering', the opening track to the antler's stunning, beautiful, terrifyingly sad album, 'hospice.' it brings up an interesting way to look at human relations. there are countless, little, seemingly inane things we do for one another - that mostly go unnoticed. the little bits of charity, of empathy. and i won't go so far as to include pity. pity is empathy without the compassion; it's more an expression of superiority than anything else; it's inherently absorbed with one's own situation: the attempt to reach out and understand another is blocked by smug satisfaction.

but i think that this line is an excellent example of what is right in music and art today - and, 'course, human beings. at it's best, art bowls us over, knocks our pins down, shifts paradigms.

what is the effect of this line, so painfully conscious of the debits and credits we accrue with one another, unknowingly? how does life change? how can life change? with this acknowledgment of a tremendous debt owed that is incapable of payment? it could make us more conscientious? or it could make us too obsessive over debts and credits, over equal treatment. it seems dangerous to lean too far past conscientiousness..

because of course these debts between us are unpayable. there is no currency or method for measuring the effect we have on one another. we can't put our best scientists on it in hopes of putting a firm number on what is mindfulness, what is empathy returned?

and in fact i think the problem is that we are not inclined to sully the discussion with thoughts of repayment. or maybe we shouldn't be. does it stop being empathy if we're chalking up our compassion, ranking it, balancing it? it seems like it does. there's far too much 'self' involved in this ranking, balancing, thinking about what i have received, for a true connection to the Other's problems to survive.

with all this said, it is clear this is yet another aspect of the idealism vs. pragmatism debate. are we basing our actions upon a primary view to our conception of what the world is, or how it should be? how much do we expect back from people? do we act with our future, continued action contingent upon reciprocation? because certainly much of life is adaptation to reality.

it all comes back to the fundamental question and tension of human existence:

what should be changed?

what should be accepted?