fisher king's wasteland

what does my love mean to you i ask myself as we lie here a small glass heart pressed between my palm and your breast as we lie here in the bottom of our fragile little boat being tossed around on a stormy sea that suddenly materialized out of someone else's cliche to become our reality what does my love mean to you after months of trial by fire that began in glorious phoenix flames and has since been reduced to a slow simmering months of screaming my love for you through someone else's hoarse throat months of carefully limping across the tightrope of mindfulness on broken legs, with you my crutch and me gripping tightly to all your splinters who am i when my truth becomes your whore my blindness your betrayal when i find myself screaming as i fall out of the window of pain you threw me through because i failed because i hurt you because i always hurt you as i dig the way to our salty seawater grave with my rusty good intentions spade and your hurt is a stor

it's not nearly winter yet but it's warm in the metro it's heat-wave warm outside too, and i rush downstairs on my way to work only a little late, not too much my frozen dinner condensing in my bag at about the same rate as i am in my shirt horrified, i realize that it's the second of the month and i still haven't renewed my pass just - like - everyone - else standing sweating and on edge in the stupidly long line snaking to the machine of course the cashier only takes cash once again i step in to the factory line bottle myself up and do everything in my power to distract myself from that gnawing uneasy feeling that whoever's at the front is wasting time *they're* not on the clock, *they* don't have a boss to worry about, they've never used the machine before and they certainly don't need to speak any of the languages they could use to ask for help but this time i'm wrong, it appears, and every minute or so we all shuffle for

suddenly, i realized that when i take my coffee i flick my brown sugar packets just like a junkie flicks the needle though i flinch to see parents feed their kids to pennywise the clown, referring to him as ronald while they're consumed by their meals to make him happy for a hundred years we've been lied to about the meaning of "healthy", because what's good for the economy isn't what's good for our bodies rather we stand strapped in to our factory line in industrial paradise while waiting for the animals on theirs to be chopped into shapes and sizes that we don't recognize before being fed into ours we're hooked up to suction cups to be milked for our money as we're drawn into the mouth of the medical machine that connects asses to hearts so that we can last just a little bit longer that connects tubes of little pills to our pockets as we pass on by keeping us drugged as we circle around back to the beginning again kafka hims

for fourteen years i wished my father dead at the age of eighteen i buried him it would take another six years to be rid of his physical body it's been a decade since he died, but he still sneaks his whispers through my throat whenever you and i fight grips my vocal cords and squeezes tight strangling tones i wonder sometimes if he thinks that he's defending me or if this is his revenge exposing himself to *my* loved ones sliding his arrogance and his violence beneath words that i'd intended to use soothingly the horror that i feel when i hear myself overridden and see my own responses reflected in yours is the stomp of his feet on my steps the thump-thump-thumping that says a beating's coming it's in the tightening in my chest when you put me in my place when you hold up a mirror for me to see his angry, desperate, lonely face but i'll never be like him i'll never burn myself to set fire to others never revel in the type of winning t

everything in fighting is technique and conditioning. i beat up a woman tonight i'm not proud of myself, but she was asking for it provocatively standing against the wall in her tight tank top and short shorts with her i-can-play-with-the-big-boys look trying to cover up her doe-like eyes i hate hitting women i avoid doing it as much as i can my first time was with a fifty year-old who laughed as she taunted me laughed with a grimace as i almost made her pee when i punched her in the bladder my second time was with a girl so short that all i could see was her head and breasts and she was convinced that i was aiming for them when i was really swinging for her gut my third time was with a girl i really had the hots for and when i refrained from kicking her too hard in the chest she turned a bright shade of red thinking i'd intended to sexually assault her instead of merely physically i've since succeeded in knocking out girls who thought they were tougher

here i stand before you an emptied vessel pleading with the muses for inspiration infusions i'm never careful what i wish for... *** oedipus rex sits in the captain's chair wearing a gold shirt and a visor that painfully injects data projections directly into his visual cortex antigone in front of her small navigation console feels her brother's presence through the force the stars whizzing by as they fly back towards the dawn of humanity when they will crawl out of their crash-landing crater to tell the oracle their tale *** achilles' shield is being smuggled through a worm hole in a firefly class ship to be dropped off near a small tribe on the planet of the apes to - the - sound - of - a - mo-no-li-thic - drum - beat *** a descendent of paul muad'dib enjoys brunch at the restaurant at the end of the universe he listens with half an inner ear to muad'dib and both agamemnons debating ethics as he stabs his still-live soup with his spork *** mos

source: shakespeare's ovid being arthur golding's translation of the metamorphoses (edited by w.h.d. rouse.) Page 71 The first that of his soothfast wordes had proufe in all the Realme, The first in all the realm to receive proof of the truth of his words Was freckled Lyriop, whom sometime surprised in his streame, Was freckled Lyriop, who was once taken by surprise in Cephisus' waters The floud Cephisus did enforce. This Lady bare a sonne The flood god took her by force, and the lady bore him a son Whose beautie at his verie birth might justly love have wonne. whose beauty from birth justly deserved all love. 430 Narcissus did she call his name. Of whom the Prophet sage She called him Narcissus, and asked the wise Prophet Demaunded if the childe should live to many yeares of age, if the child would live many years, Made aunswere, yea full long, so that him selfe he doe not know. And he answered, Yes, a long life, as long as he does not kn

i have a date with destiny just two days ago i was engulfed in icy winter and i thought i was happy but on sight of her fire my will to fight reignited and the icicles on my eyelids melted and my heart resumed beating beating beating like my wings will when i flap them as they dry and catch fire and i now see the future i'm engulfed in a flame that will leave me in ashes and out of those ashes i will be born me again

i wrote this piece because i want to make peace with the fact that the act of standing before you must fit with the rhyme scheme and theme that seems to be what we poets call slam i stand up and recite what took many a night to engrave on my brain which to you might seem plain but that's because i accidentally buried the spice and i've got to get you to bite in order to taste it slam a form of poetry where the art is in showing depth on the surface, because you can't press pause, nor silence applause, nor show subtitles or cute diagrams with notes in the margins the only notes i have to share will tell you that i'm a writer, not a singer here i'm forced to wear a heart on my sleeve but what happens i want to touch with the untouchable love with the unlovable so like a lyre bird i mimic all i hear i'm a thief who steals belief by hiding honesty in hospitable-seeming holes and i sing i sing to play the game i sing to be heard i sing a so

i. i sit quietly watching the man seeking my soft spots with nimble fingers sliding in the needles, head, neck, belly, arms i'm frozen in perfect meditation gently, he pushes me onto my back then disappears slowly, steadily, an agonizing burn begins in my core spreading outward, hitting every nerve it's a death knell i'm hemorrhaging alone frozen in the dark ii. the tool will keep digging but i'm definitely feeling something in my belly hot metal spikes bring me to auralgasm and i scream silently as i implode filling my empty spaces with the solace of shattered solitude play it again please let me feel that again

[or, "possibly one of the reasons why you're my ex"] i love watching you fall though you bare your clenched teeth and breathe seething disbelief at my mirth as if i've just given birth to the ugliest baby, that can't possibly be yours your scowl as you crawl back up makes me howl inside knowing that you're not giving up only because there's no getting off this ride and you're still not having any fun in spite of yourself but don't listen to me just like the time when you were mad at me for when you hid the cookies on the highest shelf because you began some new diet that i warned you myself was a mistake just another misdirection by some guru that you saw on the television transmitting an all-knowing, omnipotent, telling-you vision that happiness and self-satisfaction can only be achieved through martyrdom then, you tuned me out because the man in the studio convinced you that i know nothing worth saving as i preach consumption

i select my filter, snap and send but it's not enough to transmit the sharp dry cold air stinging my nostrils as i inhale warm hands hidden in warm gloves in warm pockets while the chilly breeze bites my cheeks nor is it enough to share the trail of pedestrians that i've passed each gift-wrapped smile or nod a simple pleasure as we hug ourselves and face this weather together i can capture the far-away fairy-tale tower beneath a tuft of cloud visible between the quiet street buildings, sparkling in the morning sun so sweetly that i position myself in the shade to get the shot although there's a sunny spot right beside me later i'll use filters and effects to share the feeling i get when i look into my net to see what i've caught but it's not what i want because what's missing is me and what's left is a lack of a sense of my experience

3... 2... 1... throw! clap! each month i come in purifying myself in pleasurable sin hoping that after the last time my womb will still bleed words that rhyme because my silence would tell you that something bigger's brewing that i'm hewing and i'm sewing and i'm suing my muses for damages and pride for taking me for a ride, no, a glide then a slide, slipping in and out as we spun around on a roundabout the score cards waving up and down to make the riders smile or frown it was against my will, you see though i never said "no", just a soft "maybe" as i heard the staged rage leave the page and felt the smug words, some quite sage seep across the crowded floor now here i am, i'm back for more

words make reality never has this simple statement meant so much to me as when i walk out inspired by some poetry and realize that all i have worried about for months are words all i have worked towards words all i have talked about words unpretentious, unimaginative, first words my future a split infinity of highlights and downward spirals each silver-tained shard reflecting a fantasy and i can only choose if i use the right words how absurd, that i've been caught up in this war that i've been brought up to see as sheer folly like most wars but here i am forced to hold a gun up to my own tongue and "speak! don't be nervous, that'll only make this worse be clear and precise and concise would be nice" with my ear that sears the edges of each sound ground out by the machine that will spit out a "pass" or a "fail" "free parking" or "go to jail" and so i pull the trigger but there's no &quo

my socks all went in two by two, hurrah, hurrah my socks all went in two by two, hurrah, hurrah my socks all went in two by two, and that's precisely how i knew the machine had eaten one, it'll never be seen again