Climbing: A Childhood Memory
I squeezed as hard as I could squeeze
My arms around that big, fat tree
Unable to get a good grip.
I wanted to climb
Out of my shoes
Out of my dress
Out of my skin
Above and beyond
me.
Leaf
Brittle brown leaf knocked,
Smacked, bumped, banged wind-creaked tree-bones.
Autumn’s leaf – March wind.
Brothers in Distress
My brother
and another
But not my brother,
hovers in ethereal shimmer
veiled in aborted memories.
Dead and Gone.
Bradley at 57, now William at 55,
derailed, assailed by unspoken torments
like desert sun rays scorching sweat beaded brows
wanting hydration for parched dried up souls
Sought oases of green seen as a mirage housing cool refreshment.
The sucking pop of aluminum can ran through ear canals
as refreshing hopefulness to end harsh struggles
bubbled and fizzed froth of poured golden joy
down gullets of youthful desperation to succeed.
Drink up from an empty cup of fresh brew,
a malty, hoppy, intoxicant to keep minds ignorant.
Accolades gained and sought after fame
cannot tame the soul’s need to believe in itself.
From the womb manifests a dynamic potential undiscovered
unknown and shown only as warm throbbing vulnerability
that can shiver and wail in cold or coo in warmth
but can achieve neither independently.
You and I and all infants,
small increments to flourish or die,
rely on others’ choices
to hoist upon us plenty
or empty our world of certainty
to see the next step to be the best me.
To feed upon the breast and rest upon her chest
Confidently free from fear and hear soothing sounds
surrounding my world with assurances
to grow and explore more than I know
Are gifts to lift the weak ’til strength and wisdom matures
into contours of muscle tissue from which issues
the force that cuts a course through the greedy horde
to score a secure place for new infants to grace.
But from the first small form to strong muscle and brain
is the exchange between us and the world of developed humans
who are predators of the weak, who seek all for their own,
who bemoan kindness and generosity as wrecking the gene pool
while hypocrisy used efficiently makes for dominance and supremacy.
Brothers in distress self-confessed in dark silence
their diminishing exuberance in their confidence
to heed the creed required to succeed.
The Wedge
In the quiet time
When all the world sleeps
creep to the kitchen;
seek your finest Sheffield.
From thick to thin,
The Wedge
will mark clean divisions.
Simple perfection
of a simple tool,
The Scalpel
will move apart skin layers
and tissue.
Move aside the ribs
and hold the beating heart.
Where lies my love?
From shaved head
glean the scalp,
cleave the skull,
gaze upon gray convolutions.
Where lies my soul?
Upon black velvet
lay the smooth brilliance
of dissected truth,
The point where western eyes curse
seppuku.
Zombie
There is a darkness
in my heart
that stalks
like monsters under the bed,
ghouls in the closet.
A deep blackness
born from Mammoth Cave
without cold or heat.
Wide-eyed and blind,
no sense of space,
no smell,
no sound,
no air,
entombed alive,
surviving
the dull ache
of withered
emotions.
I cannot feel
yet I live.
Thinking
I surmise
to contemplate the righteous life
enthusiastically preached with passion
from childhood visions:
Towering
Cowering
in the corner
before Vengeance
I stood.
The crack to the face
of boyish hands in pockets
stings alive
protective postures.
“Put your hands down!”
Childhood obedience
Mystifies.
SMACK,
the second slap,
stings more.
At fifty-four
I feel
no rage.
Banished to Oblivion
Parental brutality
for the good cause
like strikes across the face
hastens maturity
but deforms the young soul
transformed in the anguish
of perceived disgust
and absolute
rejection.
As sons
I have come to believe
that we
survive the family tree —
you in denying
and I in defying.
Hedgehog Empathy
Oh that I could grow steel quills,
barbed and surgically sharp,
mini spikes of pain
to drain the enemy’s blood,
to flood the floor red.
Tightly I curl nose to knees
squeezed into a fetal ball
protected, vicious,
a flesh slicing, razored sphere
of quivering fear
in tight young boy’s white undies
that tease an old man’s fingers
slick with blessed oil
wanting, needing, to coil
around virgin skin.
Holy art thou who speak not
to shame and refrain from aid.
I would if I could
lacerate his groping hands
and wash them in blood.
The Belt
Brass and new leather
freshly stained medium brown,
lacing through dark loops
Is functional attire,
Unobtrusive Elegance,
for masculine wealth
in straight-legged, pinstriped suit,
Once Poverty’s youth:
Sticks and stones, wild energy,
in innocent ignorance
Folds that leather strap
(Push in to open its mouth,
Pull to crack a smack).
A woman’s small, warm, soft hand
Lulls the male-child to sweet dreams.
Arise blazing son
Day’s adventures are wanting
free flowing child’s play.
Climb that mountain of knowledge
eight shelves high to the ceiling.
In the wooden heap
of processed trees and bound leaves
blinks astonishment.
Anticipation lingers.
Reconstruction’s completed.
Mother’s eyes were brown
And the boy’s buttock was white,
sumptuous beauty.
Unfastened Belt slid away
To reign in feminine touch.
Tender flesh exposed
tightens beneath the swift sting
of hard learned lessons
And corporate mergers surge
From proper face and finesse.
Dress for subdued strength
with subtle accessories.
Always groom your belt.
Love Amid Abuse
A race to feel bliss
A kiss slipped between two lines
A missed step tumbles
like laughing child in summer
rolls over right shoulder once
to find his lost feet
to pop upright to speed on
down green grassy hill
’til before her shinning face
he stands on firm level land
“Hi,” a bright smile.
She quickly presses soft lips
to touch his warm cheek
then she flees free abruptly
running ahead giggling.
My brief life with you
was blue sky and bright sunshine,
the eye of my storm.
Mother’s Milk
Soft, warm, wailing flesh
Newly grown (five pounds and six)
wants a mother’s milk.
Cradled support gently lifts
Dependency’s needy lips.
“To my breast, my child
and suckle what is ours.”
Sustained lives embrace.
Centuries pass in good grace.
We flourish unabated.
Cultivated mounds
Swell with vital sustenance
before steward hands.
Concrete dwellers civilize
into large corporations.
Hail Los Angeles,
Detroit, Boston and New York,
Ancient tribes are gone.
Anemic, emphysemic,
Starving mothers have no milk.
Shriveled, dry females,
toxic crack and urban smog
(Hungry children race).
White sugar, energy’s speed,
sustains no muscle nor bone.
Ancient libations
procuring Earth’s pristine milk
eludes today’s child.
Without a robust mother
How can Life’s lust be sustained?
Seeing the Light
Sulfur’s stench beckons, ‘Turn ‘round’
as Hades’ wisp waifs behind
gaunt, keen, scrapping limbs
whose face smirks contemptibly.
‘Engage now or flee?’
A mouse scurries; a cat plays
Delighted by fright consumed.
Smoke’s vagueness transmutes
into variegated fear,
sumptuous terror,
Cinematic, hyper-sensed,
Vivacious, heinous frenzy.
“Blood tongued dark demon
enmeshed in my mortal flesh
unable to free,
I see your oozing green eye.
I will stay your talon’s grip,
Your pin needle probe,
Anxious for urbanite skin.”
Virgin tissue throbs.
Charmed frailty heeds no loss;
Time scribes the dark demon’s mark.
Acid etched groin bares
One, thin line hieroglyphic
Singed by Shiva’s touch.
Melancholy’s scar festers
Deep below congenial smiles.
Phantom Pain
The week was too long
Too strong with stress to keep straight
my gait to my goal.
Friday night’s silent dark place
needs bright lights; boisterous noise.
I need song and dance
Libations to enhance chance
flirtations with smiles.
Off to Tom’s Tavern’s ruckus
to focus on gaiety
to share sympathy
with loyal friends’ souls laid bare
to the week’s torments.
Jamie’s here with the others
A beauty marred, scared with loss —
a slim limb taken
from young perfect proportions.
Courage required.
Boldly forth we go to hold
true to our place in this race.
“A beer for me, Tom
and whatever Jamie wants.
Run a long tab, please.”
Pleasantries sent all around;
likewise reflected in kind.
Glasses clinked, hoisted,
emptied, re-ordered and sipped.
Off to the dance floor.
Jamie and I sit.
“How goes it with you?” I say.
“Fine. Work was busy.”
“Are you in much pain?” I ask.
“You know it’s funny; I feel
my leg still. It hurts
but in places that aren’t there.
Doc’s say that’s normal.”
Jamie left to relieve strain
gained from pain eased with fluid
transports to alter
hard realities made true
to undeserved youth.
Music and flickering lights
dissolved behind empty chairs
leaving me to stare
blankly dissolved from resolve
to relate freely.
Varied forms of quiet drinks
stink of medicative fumes
consumed by the sick
to be healed by learned men
who fight with demons,
microbes that attack the norm.
Damn the holy-man-disguise
donned by predators,
consumers of small boys’ souls,
to fatten egos,
bloated spirits’ infectious
need to breed poisoned child’s dreams.
Dance of the Iron Man
Hammer slams anvil
Iron to iron kisses
Flat, lipless, cold smacks.
Barren space between wants life,
soft flesh, a finger, to smash.
Test my life’s metal;
Come down hard crashing cubed maul.
I bend with the blow.
Slow ascending, massive arm
Grows to bulge with more power.
Rise to your glory
Lift your bone crushing burden,
Servant of the Forge.
Linger at your full zenith
Savor your pleasure in work
in the lull I love.
From anvil to orange-white coals
Thrust my stiff resolve.
Fireball heat bathes my skin
Prostrated nude on boulders
beneath high noon sun
that sparkles on dark water
of the quarry’s bed.
Molecular excitement
urges fluids to riot
with flesh wrapped in flesh
folded in mucus layers
to burst forth alive.
We are singed, sheared, cauterized,
Fused into quivering goop,
melted resistance
spent atop hot island rock
Clutched in primal tongs
Plunged below frigid wetness
Shocked to congeal surface strength.
Lay me down once more.
Ring out the ping of impact
that flattens my joy
To deform my proportion
into a gleaming, sheer edge.
Razor sharp am I
That none can embrace but bleed
Tears for lost deceits.
Muscular, pounding biceps
Are naught but my self floggings.
The Mirage of Emancipated Consumerism
Every potential reality possible
regardless of rivalries
are seeds from the same source
without remorse for which course is taken
though human religiosity is shaken
as heretics are forsaken to the fire
hired to purge ignorance and evil.
Yet all potential realities possible
regardless of rivalries
are seeds from the same source.
Hyperbolic geometry or Euclidian,
Borellian logic and the con man’s rhetoric
are known and therefore exist
to kiss my frail psyche
like the multi-faced street whore
looking to score my favor and coin.
Would that my groin could know better.
Cause-effect chains strain to explain
reductionists’ pursuits to reveal truth
as plotted paths of chance enhanced
by adaptation to breed to exceed
the pack of mundane mass
of crass inferiors
doomed for extinction
beneath the expanse of superiors
whose true distinction
is to be the new mediocrity.
In Baltimore
The Lexington Market
bustles with its daily racket
of hucksters and consumers
swapping coins for fruit
or fish, roots and breads to suit
parameters of family pallets
ballots for weekly menus
that provide our cells’ energy revenues.
To eat the orange or the apple
to grapple with decisions of taste
for sweet potato or white
to bite into beef or sheep
or keep to the kingdom of plants
can’t be excluded as trivial pursuits.
Yet selling your daughter
or your son
alters the enormity of choice.
The Greyhound bus
delivers girls without fuss
from its internal, narrow corridor
with labia-lip-like door
spread wide open before
the hard concrete floor
oiled and stained
while the night air remains obscured
blocked by pungent, carcinogenic exhaust
as small cost for diesel power at rest.
She emerges in light blue sweater
with the better part of eighteen years
revered in new blue jeans
transported atop her sporty Nikies.
With suitcase firmly in hand
She stands as a brand, new, city commodity.
Runaways are best when they’re fresh.
Yet predatory lust is ancient lore
born from male-female separation
under dominance over emancipation.
A quarter, a dime, a nickel, one copper penny:
Many bipedal hominoids dressed in tie and suit
comply with means to recruit more loot,
holy paper blandly painted with sacred ink
linking founding-father images with ether
worshiped as real matter
counted, sorted, catalogued and reported
then scattered among the populace
with purpose and intent to invent order.
Render unto Caesar as Caesar shall render unto you
the few
in favor
for support and homage to the demigod regime,
An ancient scheme of kings to keep barons
like harems from which to feed when in need.
Ladies attired in business, conservative blue
chew salad lunches and rue their days as kitchen slaves.
Male knaves who dug graves for female aspirations
to bury all assertions of self rule
school her to place and graceful servitude.
But some refused to be undone
and struggled in time to unbind their lives
to strive now among money changers and contenders.
Rebels, law abiders and kings in sheep’s clothing
regardless of rivalries
are seeds from the same source
without remorse for which course is taken.
Disheveled beggar, repulsive trash picker
or beautiful youth disrobed on www dot expose_her
are from Plato’s Socratic world of purity
hurled through human insecurity into imperfect reality.
Sweet, barely legal smile with braces
sighs and embraces the profiteering lens
with her brown eye defiant of shame
reliant on her firm, youthful form to gain
all that she needs and wants and more
to secure a domain apart from real chores
with fashionable apparel and regal cuisine.
But in this sensual scene of girlish flesh squirming
her first-harvest skin with round, brown-crested breasts
confirming her maidenly ability to consume
anyone’s lustful flush
Is the slender, manicured, small hand
entering the framed foreplay array
of supple legs and cooing cries for partnership
without hardship while moistened fingers linger
wooing internal tides of mounting tension by soft tissue touches.
“Feel the velvet pleasure,” whispers motherly, gentle warmth.
“Let go. Let go. Let go. Yes. Yes. Explode.”
“A a a a a a h h h . . .”
Those manicured fingers stroked softly her wet beaded thighs.
“Well done my darling,” directed motherly lips
as she kissed her foot wanting her praise.
Raise a toast to emancipated women
who boast their triumphs and just rewards
that afford them opportunities of equality
in a male world of commerce
immersed in procurement of currency.
Feminine lawyers and doctors,
senators and managers
of very young whores
Regardless of rivalries
are seeds from the same source
without remorse for which course is taken
For justice is never forsaken
and choice should not be mistaken
for freedom to succumb
to lower levels of evolution.
Musing Over Dinner Alone
Virgin fruit to jams consumed,
as Shiva’s Tandava looms
over kitchen smells
of raspberry fruit preserved
then served or bartered
for parties or wrapped favors,
Waits quietly in cupboards.
Vacuum seal cracked, Pops
beneath tight tops twisted hard
to yield soft spreads barred
from external corruption
to mangled fruits freshly crushed
rushed to gentle flame
that warms and simmers flavors
to be savored once
spread upon hot buttered bread
fed to sleepless souls wanting
nourishing delights
to relieve scratched skin’s raw sting
sustained in Life’s fights
to gain sustenance and clutch
much loved virgin existence.
Huge Hindu Himsa,
heavy in all human cells,
haunt food’s pleasing smells.
The Universe that I am
moves through space and time confined
between finger tips,
head to toe, growing to know
undulating hips
equipped for merging bodies
into pools of viscous ooze.
I hunger and thirst
and curse the hearse that will come
when all days are done.
See the first light touch of lips
of teens who deem childhood trips
void of sustained joy.
Skin exploration’s delight
with gentle sanctions
to pursue stimulations
of biochemistry’s creed
to breed and breed more
without heed to feed birthed needs
freed from woman’s womb.
The Universe that I am
moves through space and time defined
by parental flaw
and biological law
enthralled with urges
to eat, nagged to satisfy
all unrequested surges
to pursue beauty
with fine hopes to copulate.
Yet imposed restraints
raise complaints of wenching woes
when yearnings fester below
surface smiles contrived
for polite, civil faces
that strive to survive.
“When his earned money is scarce
your pantry is pretty bare.
So fair well, my dear,
and snare well a wealthy man
who will command strength
and power which he’ll expand
for a grand security
for your sweet children,
their health and education;
their presentation
to the finest progeny
for their wedding remedy.”
To my mind I find
the Universe that I am
moves through space and time
to be and see swirls hurled free
from constrained aims to govern.
When men spend their days
in crazed pursuit of women
consider closely
Why wars raged through every age.
High school fools review old rules
in their sport and class
to sort the vast human mass
into the prized few
and the despised common horde
whose servitude is ensured
through well bred standards
of educated control,
high grades and good schools
which yield smart, dynastic jewels
to fuel the coffers of kings
who rule the State’s wealth
for the health of the chosen,
smug Oligarchy.
Father’s advice nicely said
to young boys bred to be men
will know how to show
strength, congeniality —
sincerity’s face:
“Make no mistake don’t forsake
cleverness, but speak clearly;
Deceive honestly.
All agendas are hidden.
Truth is forbidden
when seeking to win assets
to beset well dressed rivals
in the market place
of narcissistic finance
to enhance your life
with money and luxury
and every amenity
for dear wife and child.
Riled by poverty’s ghost
a host of men scheme
and preen charity from soul
to shun street beggars unmarked
by tax break status.
Take care. Do likewise. Don’t share
unless you can gain
advantage through civic pride
where many agendas hide.
Others are assured
with generational wealth
shamelessly amassed
then sheltered from tax and passed
to the detached, privileged few.
Son, don’t be undone
by good deeds, but always be
very good indeed.”
The Universe that I am
moves through space and time refined
by self reflections
tempered with imperfections,
fused by erections
of conceits to defeat myths
made to control pagan souls.
I hunger and thirst
and curse the hearse that will come
when all days are done,
But for now I’ll eat slain meat
from the butchered cow cooked pink
and drink hearty wine
and dine under subdued light
alone with my muse
hopefully to be infused
with delightful new insights
into Life’s function.
Breathing, the rhythmic heaving
of the human chest
can’t rest from its given quest
to sync with the human heart
to oxygenate
my corpuscular transports
that infiltrate cells
to deliver nature’s fuel
to burn star stuff’s tasty gruel
that formed what is me
and now earns energy’s boon
from chewed nutrients
swallowed with intent and sent
down with tongue-tickling tastes.
I live to consume.
I can consume only life.
Thus evolved this knife
We are creatures of carbon,
Amino acid heads bred
by chance circumstance?
Random crashing and bashing
of cosmic substance
fast fused as a consequence
if chance grants the circumstance
to form new atoms
to enrich this bedlam’s odds
to prod more mutants.
But unstable elements
bent with their purpose corrode
to fizzle to death
or explode from tight tensions
wrenching apart bonds
of would be chance permanence
but for some performance based
cosmic conclusions
of solutions to support
and those not to court.
So, with my fine cutlery
polished nicely and sharpened
I contend with lust
for life to defeat and eat
to control and own.
Like the cosmic dark hole feeds
My lust receives all matter
trapped by influence
from solid, core confidence
and my pronouncements,
charm and cunning, advancements,
prosperous entanglements
and well nurtured greed
that heeds nothing but this creed:
More matter and mass.
But what of your shining light,
Muse of mine, with bright, fair face?
I hunger and thirst
and curse the hearse that will come
when all days are done.
Must I listen to you, Muse?
What substance are you, really?
You say much, too much;
but confuse and flaunt pleasure.
You defuse my joy.
“Fair friend, eat your feast, drink wine,
dine in fine fashion. Don’t speak.
Caution and passion
are not dire enemies.
See delicately.
Poet, do not loose your way,
to be swayed by human greed
and the need to leave
the struggle to recover
the sound truth you’ve found.
Earthlings loyal to countries
don’t see cosmic remedies
to ill favored gains
that constrain nature’s movement
toward self improvement.
Your elements are star stuff
formed long before you were born.
First torn from The Core
in an explosive uproar,
minute fragments soared
far to reality’s edge
stretching Its new boundary
of infinity
finitely defined again
to extend beyond
Its known probabilities
to fresh possibilities
of future journeys
to embrace graceful wonders
or endure more grief.
A long circuitous path
of slamming and ramming parts
charts the aftermath
as bonded stability
or destined collapse.
This random hodgepodge display
is camouflaged persistence
that leads to green trees
from algae or land mammals
from pale amebas.
You and him and her and all
whom scientists call human
are past formations
of Future’s new dominions
or fallen rubble
toppled from preset trouble
that’s inherently coupled
with polarized bonds
binding desire and goals
with publicized roles
to be what’s thought to be best
but hides your personal quest
to ingest and feed
beyond your need to exceed
any conceived threat.
So let’s toast the host of change,
the spirit to rearrange
energy packets
stacked in crystal formation
as a foundation
for future combinations
that build more complex structures
first of passive mass
before primitive proteins
ooze forth from white ice
or liquefies from brown clouds
of toxins electrified.
Then consciousness blooms
as proteins transform to form
scribblers of strange runes
that hold thoughts fraught with wonder
about thunder and lightening
and dark shadow things
from down under that snatch souls,
or brave, bold deeds told
to future youth caged in time
blind to the line that binds all.
Let’s not curse the hearse
when all of your days are done
but toast the most change
for our self improvement
through our flawed involvement
with innate movement
to arrive only to leave
once we have survived.”
The Universe that I am
moves through space and time defined
by parental flaw
and biological law
enthralled with urges.
Too much red wine when I dine
leads to empty, random rhymes.
I hunger and thirst.
I curse the hearse that will come
when my days are done.
Theology
Born in Western Civilization
I travel in hesitation to the East
in their thinking of The Way, The Tao,
How to live my life amid predators and prey.
Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucius and The Pope.
All offer hope to cope with loss and suffer one’s cross to carry
to Calvary bravely to gain absolution from pain.
How can I refrain from distain for the Popes
who ruled the ordained shame of holy men’s claim
upon little boys’ innocence to be drained
under intoxication and humiliation
from slick probing fingers drenched in holy oil
consecrated to heal sick souls with tender touches?
Western Greek Socrates Speaks
Of searing light’s cave shadows.
But the Yin and Yang
Merge dark and light’s stark contrast.
Hence the pang of guilt.
A pure virtue void of vice
permeates Plato’s advice.
But the East knows blows
on Shiva’s drum and the hum
of the Tandava.
Disembodied Lucifer
At large, is my pain’s main blame?
The relentless quest
to best challenging dark torments
rests with yin-yang tests.
In the breast of human flesh
resides the daily struggle
to abide by the light or hide in the dark
recesses of what we want over what might be right.
Contrite hearts may feign contrition to petition forgiveness
that they may remain unconstrained to reign
Under the cloak of the new moon night out of sight
to conspire and hire others of the same cloth.
Storms are congregating clouds
once white that block the sun’s light.
In each and all souls
the yin-yang tension unfolds.
Dark there Light must hold.
Seek not the disembodied
in conquest to best another.
The power of good
is ours to wield to yield strength
by binding our yin.
Motivation Precedes Action
Agape lays beneath Earth’s
hearse for tangible transports
that support the sting
of golden rings broken from
sensual feelings
tantalizing human flesh
pressed in ecstasy’s pleasure
enticing the need
to feed and procreate more
life that must endure
the uncertainty of not
knowing the right life to live.
Whipped black backs bleed red
and white woman’s broken bones
heed the awful pain
that reigns down from husband’s fists.
Dumb animals reflect less
and therefore missed love’s
gentleness in the soft kiss
that flows over souls
to show deeper laws to call
forth support for philia
to comport kindness
and cooperation’s flare
for harmony’s fair
solutions for less painful
resolutions to problems
that spare animals
from starvation as well as
from their extinction.
Upon reflection, disdain
to obtain sustenance and
compliance to rules
through brutality is best
wrested by feeling
both the deeply piercing hurt
and the penetrating joy
of fleeting comfort
in seeking reality’s
living harmony.