#0133 - Violence

Sometimes,
all you need is a little violence
to get through the day.

But fire your shots into the void,

for neither the light
nor the darkness
will appreciate an assault.

Published

This week, Déraciné magazine​ published their début issue—Volume I, for Winter 2017—and I have the honor of being published in this issue with a previously unseen poem, “Waterfall.” I thank Déraciné sincerely for their hard work, and for allowing me to be a part of the project and community that they are introducing.

But I am not the only person to be published in this issue. My work appears alongside the works of 27 other individuals, each offering their own art form forward in an outstanding phantasmagoria of words, images, emotions, and ideas. Anyone who has some moments of time on their hands (and everyone does) should be happy to head over to their site to take a gander at this début issue.

Cheers,

J.B.

#0132 - Keyboards and Ink

You are as a keyboard is to ink on paper.

Tactile
—easy to handle—
and predictable.

Words run off of you
like the flow of displaced water:
overflowing cup.
And so many pages
and stories
and memories
and images
have been written off of you.

But you lack that uniquity
and that run-your-fingers-along-tangible-words quality.
You stare back from a harsh screen,
while ink
—dimly framed by candlelight—
does not settle,
but speaks.

#0131 - Standing Over

{Prompt: "Like a bridge over troubled water," from Refined Poetry on Tumblr}

Look down.

Below me, those waves crash against each other—
reminder of Ivan the son, murdered by Ivan the father;
               of antiquity’s titans, pitted in senseless brawls;
               of troubled minds, frantic words, brusque scrawls…
No ripples here. No liquid ambiance.
Primal fear; even nymphs won’t dance.

Below your feet…

First thought? Precarious.
This is vicarious
suspense—reminder of that movie
where the entourage is afraid of moving
across the roped-together planks
that connect the steep banks
of a bottomless pit.
One wrong move, that’s it—
after a long fall, the sun,
the moon are replaced by oblivion.

No landing.
Just falling.

This—below my feet—isn’t ragged rope
but the cracks in the wood don’t motivate much hope.
At least a fall meets a landing here…
Not much of one, though… Petroleum: much fuel for fear
in those troubled waves.
But for now? Safe;

Maybe this will still last a short time more.

#0130 - Haiku XIV

You will never fly
if you do not jump first; just
don’t forget your wings.

#0129 - Wires

Today,
the telephone wires connect us.

Across the road
sit obelisks of cement,
casting shadows and casting lines:
Those cables travel across
a phantasmagoria of forests
and fields
and factories.

Beneath the earth
—amidst the burrows of
little-seen critters—
they extend their tendrils,
traveling onwards.
Across the floor
of a trillion tons of tepid water
—the ocean offers no obstacle—
electricity has flown
for over fifty years.

They sprint across a continent
to reach where you now sit.
And when you look at that bit of cable
—suspended seemingly insignificantly—
I look at the same bit of cable
right here.

#0128 - Early Mornings

Before the alarm even hits,
my mind jolts me awake.

Sigh,
as I recognize that it's still closer to last night
than tomorrow morning...
(today morning?)

Ah, the familiar fatigue and hunger...
maybe it will leave sooner rather than later.

Or,
maybe,
this moment in the dark-skies cool-fog oblivion
will last for longer than I'd like.

#0127 - Birds and Bottles

J’ai observé une mode:

Écrivains ont les titres françaises
mais écrire ses poèmes en anglais.
C'est comme sa poésie
et rimes sont affichés.

Je présent mon contraste.

Maintenant: un poème
écrant en français
(mais le titre? anglais)
concernant ces sujets:
les oiseaux et bouteilles.

Le oiseau:
liberté.
Il est la insigne
de sa facilité.
Un grand chiffre de personnes
—leur regard vers le ciel—
souhaitent pour les ailes...

Parfois,
les bouteilles
peuvent lever.

Mais beaucoup des personnes
sont noyé en ses bouteilles;
ils sont seuls,
sans les ailes.
Ses breuvages, dur comme la pierre,
les confiner sur la terre.

#0126 - Suppertime Evasions

Meat and grains and vegetables:
Grandpa's cooking on the table.
From the lawn, the kids arrive
and, seated, scheme and duly try
to eat as little as they can.
They try to reach the frying pan
to get their food back off their plate—
return it to its rightful place;
they wait for Pa to leave the space—
to Grandma they will plead their case!
Success! Success! They quickly leave,
for they have fin'lly found their peace.
     They come back to their sleeping racks,
     where they have hidden candied snacks.

#0125 - We will dance

through fires,
and frostbite;
‘neath sunlight
and starlight.

We will leave footsteps
—pellucid relics
of spirits lifted high
and worries hung to dry.

There’ll be paths where we’ve been:
Waltzes in the frost of snow,
Polka ‘pon the coals of fire,
Charleston in the sands of time.

The world will tell
a simple tale:
Entranced,
we danced.

And everyone will wonder
how, in darkness immured,
we laughed in the night
as we kept our sights centred
on the light of our gaze
and our endless embrace.

#0124 - Drawing Board

{Prompt: "Back to the Drawing Board," from Poetry Riot! on Tumblr}

“Back to the drawing board?”

No: the drawing never stopped,
and the board is in my back pock-
-et. Don’t imply that I fell into
this with a printed
plan and a presumption of surety.
I’d like to think I’m a step closer, surely,
or have at least kept from falling be-
-hind,

          but don’t assume of me
that even a color-coded spiderweb,
three layers deep, of connec-
-tions and free-associations
could allow me to ascertain
what the hell I can expect
from this, or any, aspect
                of spontaneity.

#0123 - "My bed without you"

A little too cold,
a little too small,
a little too quiet,
a little too empty.

No one to steal the covers,
No one to steal the pillows,
No one to approach,
No one to accompany.

Nothing but inanimate covers
laying like forgotten rags.
Nothing but inanimate cushions—
fabric instead of skin.

That's my bed without you.

But I'll think of your company
and maybe you'll think of mine:
I'll make do for the night,
'til we're again side by side.

#0122 - The Non-Pains of Solitude

Solitude?
Sure.
But not sullen isolation.

Moments between moments,
when the mind is free to wander,
when I divine to take a gander
at this little pause in time,

here I think
of long-past memories
and evolving realities
and revolving thoughts:
breathing and living
and observed from each corner.

Should I be lonely?
separated from 7.5 billion people
by only a hair’s width in the span of the universe
and spew out appeals
to other lonely hearts reveling in lyric and verse?
Should I be wary?
gaze at ubiquitous verdure
as a diaphanous armour
against the world of unknown
to which I’ve been born?
Apoplectic?
at hate and injustice
when the reality is:
in the world there’s more peace
than there ever has been?

As the pessimistic news rolls through the television,
I remind myself of one important omission:
that for every act of violence or hate in the world,
a million happy occasions have also occurred.

As I hear of pain and sadness and loneliness
I remind myself that these disconsolate voices
arise only because they’re no longer obstructed
by labour, survival, and the novelty of action.

Lift your spirits my friends, and don’t be afraid
of a world seemingly filled with multifarious pain.
What you feel is not strange: many others have felt it.
You just have the freedom and time to think and evolve it
and the freedom and time to create change and effect it.

#0121 - Attachment

Some will only bivouac,
And others mean to stay a while.
Neither’s ever out of style,
So when you are to be attached

Be sure to know if this will last
a century, or pass too fast.

#0120 - Haiku XIII

Give forty men guns,
and one might actually
drop his to the ground.

#0119 - A Moment Amongst Sunlit Waves

The sun-streaked waves, they roll across
the ocean's tranquil, sapphire blues.
The sun, while watching many ac-
-res, colours skies with splendid hues.

All moments turn to memories;
although they're gone in rapid time,
their lucid shadows never cease
to paint a landscape in your mind.

So take your senses, dive within
the sky, the sea, the sun, the rain—
they won't again, while you still live,
appear the same as on this day.

#0118 - Moments: 11.6.17

"Je t'emmerde."
"Je t'emmerde."
"No, you're rolling the r. Don't roll the r."
"Je t'emmerde."
"Closer, but you're still trying to roll the r. And make sure you don't pronounce the d too hard. 'Je t'emmerde'."
"Je t'emmerde."
"Closer, but still..."


Teaching my friend to curse in French,
I stand on the beach
—the sand is littered with remorseless spiked seeds;
learn to cope with them—
and we watch
as white sheets,
held rigid by the racing wind,
propel katamarans through the water.
As the sky clears,
the sun shines brightly upon the joyrides
maneuvering across an infinite expanse of
blue
barely separated from the sky
by the vague line of the
horizon.

These friends I've known only for weeks,
and in only weeks we will again be apart.
Try hard enough, and you only need a moment
to cement a spontaneous bond.
Bare feet dig cozily into warm sand
as we compare the redness of our skin,
laugh our rears off at those
a little too close with the waves,
drop jaws at the audacity of a certain daredevil
(how does one manage to sheer in half a metal pole?).
One might think us eternal friends.

Racing across Neptune's domain,
stand and salute to these passerbies
whose evanescent presence
forges permanent memories
and stupendous stories.
Quell the worries of 3 months away,
and live to laugh another day.


Mission Bay Aquatic Center
San Diego, USA
SoCal Summertime

#0117 - Tears

Implying that tears of joy and tears of woe
are different.

The smallest speck
of the expansive ocean:
saltine water falling indifferently
and unnoticed
in the span of the universe.

Yet, the consequence of their arrival:
as if their weight alone
plummets into the ground,
creating endless earthquakes
and tumultuous tsunamis.

These calamities will occur.
The question remaining is
whether they will drown out the world,
or if they will lift it all up
with the rising tide.

#0116 - Amoureur

Sans frontières,
voyage entre
cœ urs solitaires.

#0115 - "Blind"

Blind,
he began to hear
and smell
and feel.

He uncovered a world
which had always been there,
but whose presence he had never felt—
never thought to perceive.

#0114 - Child's Play

It wasn’t as if you could call it child’s play.

I didn't think it was haphazard.
I didn't think it was spontaneous.
I didn't think it was usual.

I didn't think it was that in-the-moment grace
that, yes, I love
but that kind of depends on how you interpret it,
and on the context.

This situation didn't need that in-the-moment grace—
it should have lasted longer than a moment.

#0113 - “Finding Meaning in the Face of Death”

“Finding Meaning in the Face of Death.”

That was the title of an article I came across recently,
and I'll admit I don't like that title.
Here's why:

I'll grant we live in a society
where motivation is scarce.
(Disagree? Look at space travel, Cold War to now;
voter turnout in the *perfect* democracy of the US;
the fact that procrastination is so prevalent it's become a joke.*)
Even so, I would argue that if you need death to arrive at your door
before you find meaning,
you probably haven't taken a good look around.

More importantly, it implies we're not all dying every day:
"In the Tibetan philosophy, Sylvia Plath sense of the word,
I know we're all dying, right?"
Right.
If you want death or lack of time as your great motivator,
consider that every second past is a second forever gone,
and that you live through 30 million seconds
every year.
That ought to give you a good running start, no?


* Google search: "procrastination memes"

#0112 - "Defenestrating"

Defenestrating
this pessimism and cynicism
like a rusted bucket
of malodorous sludge
that I wouldn't feed to a pig.

There it goes,
sailing through the air
like a free-flying bird,
or rather freeing me of its weight
and smell.

Let's hope it doesn't hit someone on the way out.

NaPoWriMo 2017: Retrospect

For the second time now, throughout the month of April I wrote one poem every day in recognition of National Poetry Writing Month.

I first wrote for NaPoWriMo soon after I initially began to write poetry, meaning that, with the completion of NaPoWriMo 2017, a milestone of 1 year of writing poetry has been reached. That is, for over 365 days I have been phrasing words in a prolonged attempt at creative writing, and I am happy that I have lasted this long. In any case, NaPoWriMo was a wonderful literary challenge—it certainly got more difficult to keep up with the cyclic passage of the sun as time went on, especially when I ended up being on an out-of-country that ripped me away from the wonderful (addictive and desensitizing) realm of the internet. Cheers to the passage of April 2017, and I'll be waiting happily for the arrival of NaPoWriMo 2018.

                

#0111 - 30 Days

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 30}

These varied rhymes
'cross 30 days
have found their way
through different styles.
The month has gone,
but coming times
should soon bring on
new written lines
continuing
to sing like songs
or strum like strings.
Rights and wrongs
     will always ling-
     -er 'mongst these things.

#0110 - Musings

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 29}

I

I wouldn’t say I’m sober now,
But neither am I liquored up.
I guess I’m just preoccupied
With existential thoughts.

And that is why I seem distraught:
While part of me’s awaiting death,
The second part is clinging on
To this simplistic life.

I’m floating by and trudging ‘long,
I’m hoping that a glimmer of
Enlightenment will find its way
To this imprisoned mind.

I wish I were a bird because
I’d have to move through air instead
Of trudging through these expecta-
-tions, sorely overwhelmed.

II

You’d think that air would rightly be a breeze to travel through.
But something ‘bout these sounds and stares keeps holding back my feet:
These horrid expectations that are always finding me
I’d rather have replaced with clubs or knives of crimson hue.

This populace is filled with people that refuse to care:
A massive presentation of this world’s fatuity.
These ersatz feelings pave the way for thoughts that torture me:
That everyone is simply waiting for my mind to tear.

The stares devoid of any thought replace the dreams of past;
Forgetting what they once lived for, these people are now grey—
Their dull indifference seeks to spread its deadly grip to me.
I’m chained and beat by glares and stares, but hold my ground, steadfast.

III

There are a million paths through life, and e-
-very one is forked to form a million more.

At every gateway there’s a second door
To lead you faster to your final end.

It offers you a short respite, an end
To all the gloomy things that may assault

Your mind and propagate your countless faults,
Which never cease to bring torment and doubt.

Thus, Death is there, awaiting your last bout,
Which drives you grimly, quickly ‘cross the edge—

That ever-present scythe with sharpened edge,
That cloak of darkness standing motionless.

Don’t let yourself be drawn by what Death says;
It’s easy to be happy when some nic-

-eties find you, but not so otherwise.
If life were not made up of darker times,

The better times would not be so sublime.

#0109 - Światła

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 28}

Światła,
jak les Simples Soldats
maszerują przez czarną pustynie.
Niecierpliwi, ale wolni,

oni przez sto lat już
formują kręcące trasy
przez urbanistyczne mokradła
i polowe niezwykłości.

#0108 - Silhouettes

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 27}

Silhouetted against the night sky,
stars form shapes—
patterns and contours—
in a puppet-show display.

White Rorschach splatters
perform their artistic stillness
on a pitch-black canvas
of infinite vastness.

This is white shade
creating analogous long ears
and slender muzzles and showing
that shadow is a point of view.

#0107 - Haiku XII

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 26}

You can’t attempt to
Hide your own shadow without
Creating more shade.

#0106 - Stockholm Syndrome

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 25}

Do you remember when,
upon a successful landing,
the passengers of a given flight
would give a round of applause to the pilot?

It's that type of unconditional respect
that is progressively becoming extinct;
it is that mutual altruism
that's being replaced with stoicism.

It's Stockholm Syndrome.
People like acknowledge each other
only when they are held inescapably
captive by one another's company.

Unequivocally self-centered
they will remain
for as long as they're offered
any means of escape:

Blasting beats,
ductile displays,
or just something to stare at
in infinite space.

But give them the motivation
of more pay or a better place,
and they'll suddenly will themselves
to speak with someone else.

#0105 - Cinquain IV

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 24}

Lód

Jest jak
Płynące szkło;
Czysty, naturalny...
Jakoś zaprasza, ale zim-
-ny—mróz.

#0104 - "Phobias...haze"

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 23}

Is society so anarchic
because it's people are anarchic?
Or because everyone's view is laser-focused,
but on a superficial goal?

Xenophobia, homophobia,
amongst many other phobias,
are the perpetual insomnia
of society, keeping people awake at night.

Aspirin, Aderall might help a little,
but only for a one-time headache.
If the migraines persist perpetually,
will you just keep yourself doped up perpetually?

I guess the "doped up" makes sense:
everyone sees the problem,
but they only ever stare at the elephant
in the room as if in a cloudy haze.

#0103 - Student's Plight

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 22}

This massive flood of texts and books, so bland
Cannot prepare a student to go on
Or even just to start to understand

The things in which they wish to play a hand.
With frantic grip they must for life cling on:
This massive flood of texts and books, so bland—

It threatens, makes one wish to quick aban-
-don hope and with their tired wits abscond
Or even just to start to understand.

If we say knowledge, wisdom, are both land
On which we must survive, then is it wrong,
This massive flood of texts and books, so bland?

Or is it for each woman and each man
Required to within this life move on,
Or even just to start to understand

The shifts, changing, always moving sands
That form this life's eternal, abstract song?
This massive flood of texts and books, so bland,
Is nigh-impossible to understand.

#0102 - "Patience"

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 21}

If patience lasts for centuries
and rashness lasts for only days,
then which of these is always bound
to go a longer way?

#0101 - 420

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 20}

So strange a day
to commemorate
to getting high
on smoke divine.

If days were so readily
committed to steadily
elevating family/community/society
rather than one's doped-up psyche
we might be in a better place,
pummeling ignorance with steady pace.

"Blazing it" is fun, sure,
but I propose a day for,
instead of burning toxic seeds,
planting convalescent seeds

of knowledge.

#0100 - Haiku XI

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 19}

The poet's tired;
He writes a brief haiku in-
-stead of a sonnet.

#0099 - Haiku X

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 18}

Darkness of the night:
The world changes when shed in
A different light.

#0098 - Kickstart

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 17}

Acres of mire and
pitchers of fire can't
shift my direction much
more than a breeze. || The
day's here to seize so I
make it my mission to
thrive in this grind and to
leave doubts behind.

#0097 - "J'ai rencontre un homme"

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 16}

J’ai rencontre un homme:

En un café rempli des démons et monstres
il était assis, espérer que le temps
passé avec sa peur, son stress
restaurerait sa innocence épatant.

«Je sais que je suis une proie,» il a dit.
«Je me demande seulement qui
me chasse maintenant; je fais face mes peurs,
mais je trébuche sur formes nouveaux des douleurs.»

Mais il craint quoi; ses vices voulusses?
Son humilité, ou caché égoïste?
«Tous et tous; ces et plus—
c’est l’espoir, c’est la vie.»

#0096 - Haiku IX

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 15}

Dry cacti, cool pines;
Vast natural opposites,
Yet each grows sharp spines.

#0095 - Cinquain III

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 14}

Hindsight:
Something passes.
One vainly wishes to
Revisit once more that which is
Long gone.

#0094 - "Deconstructing diligent diversions"

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 13}

Cogitating cognitive conundrums—
abrasive, abstruse abominations
deconstructing diligent diversions
satiating simple succours
warding worrisome wishes
undeniably unattainable. Unreasonable:
pulchritude pervading pigsties.

#0093 - To Know

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 12}

If I could know a hundred million things,
I don't know if this craving would abate;
or even if an end to these stirrings

can truly come... Can I myself satiate
this cursèd cluelessness? Or am I, now
and always, doomed—wisdom's prison's inmate—

to only, always humble, lowly bow
and, seeking, pray to some enlightened mind
and hope that I can grasp some knowledge? How

am I to keep from staying dully blind?
Or am I to be with this void aligned?

#0092 - Tire

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 11}

Tire.
But not like rubber.
Not malleable.
Not heat-retardant,
crack-retardant,
split-retardant,
force-retardant,
paper-holding
hair bun-holding,
spandex,
latex
thing that we somehow pull out of trees.

Tire like lethargy.
Tire in keeping with the light of sobering stars
moving slowly across the sky
as you slowly succumb to sobering sleep.
Situational: somber street lights lining
asphalt streets that linger in your line of sight
as you leave one place to find
another.
Leave the lights;
lie down lavishly (or lumpily)
and learn to list off little sheep
that lollygag across
a lay-er’s sleep.

#0091 - ode to your beauty

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 10}
{Prompt: "Bad Poetry," from THATRANDOMPROMPT on Tumblr}

O, how beautiful your beauty is;
O, how wonderful your wonder is;
O, how amazing your amazement is;
O, how pulchritudinous your pulchritude is...

To attempt to describe your beauty—
whether your face or hair or booty—
Would be nothing but a sin.
but, I can try; and in
My attempt to commit this sin
I relate you to a metal trash bin:

Like the polished metal of the waste-holding can,
You reflect the gleam of stars and plan-
-ets, and the tar-colored irises of your eyes
are as black as the bin's residual grimes.

To truly find words that
can describe your beauty would take so much thought that


























I need to pause
before I can describe your jaws
or describe your hair,
Which flows like air,
Or describe your legs
which are as long as pegs
that are long.

And don't think that I jest!
you are more beautiful than anyone could have guessed,
So that I feel like I'm under a hex
Such that I only think about se-
-lling my heart and soul to you
so that you won't be blue—

You being blue I never want to see
Because, although your eyes are blue like the sea,
I never want you to be
the bad kind of blue, if you know what I mean

(If you don't, then what I mean is that I don't want to see you
     sad; I relate sad with the color blue—
Now see, do you?)

So, I again raise my glass to your beauty
And hope that you can stay with me
As we stand on the snowy ridge of an overlooking
     mountain range buffeted by a windy breeze
and see.

#0090 - Thought 19

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 9}

Harsh, bright lights;
          Now slumber—

Straining eyes and weathered mind
          Meet thoughtless void—unique respite.

#0089 - Haiku VIII

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 8}

Movie ending scenes,
Unlike our reality,
Tie up the loose ends.

#0088 - Cold Mornings

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 7}

Reminders of times past;
Nostalgia;
The blitheness of a child revisited.

At a time when darkness still reigns—
too late in the night for anyone to be awake, or
too early in the morning for anyone to be awake—
tata (father) rouses us to consciousness.

Lethargy
like superglue keeping our eyes closed;
Cold
like waterfalls of ice on our feet
when they poke out from under the covers.

"Come on, time to wake up;
you can sleep in the car."

Pillows, blankets huddled in our arms:
mementos of the paradise of slumber.
We stumble wherever that familiar voice leads us,
vision fuzzy,
feet shuffling,
comprehension nonexistent—
just get to the car,
where rest awaits.

Step out the garage door,
cold morning air hits us like the gust of a blizzard.
Still black as ink outside;
the sun makes a feeble effort to light our way:
the faintest glimmer of blue—
hue inspired by the glacial air—
streaks along the Eastern horizon.
And the air:
As if winter concentrated all it has
into this single morning;
As if we are living in a fridge
and the fridge door just slammed shut;
As if Antarctica has come to visit us,
but without the snow.

Oooooh it's c-co-old.
Where's the car?

We shuffle begrudgingly to the open door and dive in,
creating our personal nests faster than any bird
out of pillows and covers and anything warm.

Darkness:
sleep returns.

As tens,
dozens,
hundreds
of miles of asphalt pass beneath our metal chariot,
the sky grows gradually brighter
and through holes in the sheltering veil of Hypnos
we listen to snippets of grown-up talk:
something about planning,
something about money,
something about home,
something about travel,
…something about us...

In retrospect, it was all probably important,
but, to the infinite indifference of childhood,
irrelevant.

That indifference is gone now—
it could not follow me through the years.
Like Blankie
and action figures
and Gameboy cartridges,
it’s in the attic now.
I can visit it,
but I can no longer have it back.

#0087 - Thought 18

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 6}

One true difference exists between wilting and shedding:

Either way, the bad stuff falls away.
In shedding, a better you manifests;
In wilting, there is nothing left when the detritus falls away.

#0086 - Forbidden

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 5}
{Prompt: "Taboo," from Poetry Riot! on Tumblr}

Perpetual Earth:
our home and our hearth.
The disk of our sun
not turning 'round us?
Forbidden.

A dark-coloured man:
him, owning the farmland
that's littered with soil
upon which he toils?
Forbidden.

A woman well-dressed
and clever, no less:
her, raising her hand
or taking a stand?
Forbidden.

A man and a man
to walk hand in hand?
A lady and lady
in shared bed asleep?
Forbidden.

So many things that have been labeled taboo;
are you still surprised that the judgement continues?
Not surprised, I would say,
just a little irritated;
Saddened.

#0085 - Rhetoric of Numbers

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 4}

These numbers and dry formulæ may be,
By blasted inexplicability,
A better piece of poetry to read
Than any word or phrase written by me.
If words in poems are indeed to veil
A meaning that by pond'ring eyes' assailed,
Then digits can be easily availed
To cause these ardent ponderers to fail:
Replace a thought with π or e or 4
Or any of a frankly endless score
Of varied symbols rarely used yet more
Elucidating than one's lingual lore.
     But, rather than with maths be so enraged,
     I'd like to just read poems off a page.

#0084 - Spare Time

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 3}

Who could know what you do in your spare time?
Do you dance with angels?
With devils?
Are you searching for affection
or, faced
s d r a w k c a b,
just direction?

These moments, these times,
do you find to be sublime
or do you simply lie
in everlasting wait
for this lifetime to abate
its slings and arrows?

Perpetual love,
perpetual sleep,
perpetual hate,
perpetual peace.
With which endless path
do you hold your allegiance?
Or do you rather sit in indifference
as moments pass, silence
as your reaction to nascent
cataclysms or confused parlance?

I won't take the time
to guess;
I'll only be half-right
at best.

#0083 - Thought 17

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 2}

Sometimes we attempt to mask our emotions
from being interpreted by the inquisitors surrounding us,

And sometimes our emotions are masks that we can’t even interpret ourselves.

#0082 - Thoughts

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 1}

Flowing through the crevices within my mind
Establish reality, which I survive;
To fall or to thrive is
A question of mine and
Whose answer is lost in some ditch of my mind.

#0081 - Rain

Rain:
the smells and sounds of another plane.
Pitter patter;
raindrops splatter
upon the windshield of my car.

The gleam of city lights
amidst restful dreams and asphalt streets
reflects through spheres of falling water
as curbs shift surges down canals.
This sound: waterfalls.

Is there even a question whether these showers
are tears from angels residing in heaven?
No;
only, are these tears somber
or of laughter?

#0080 - Haiku VII

We are all absorbed
In our life goal of demon-
-izing the different.

#0079 - To Celebrate

Celebrations are nice,

but I've never liked committing a yearly day

to something that deserves commitment every day.

A race can't be won by ramping up your effort

when finally in sight of the finish line—

for victory, a lifetime of effort is the best guarantee.

And if you think a benevolent castle you build in a single day will stand,

remember that while you may build it better each time it crumbles away,

the deep-reaching foundation is what will keep it upright.

One day may be for the one Mother Earth,

one day may be for the many mothers of Earth,

but today is for every mother and mother's mother and every not-mother in the world.

There are more women in the world than days in a year—

more women than there are days to celebrate them—

and you want to fit them all into one day?

But, a single day is infinitely better than none,

so let's put all the appreciation this year deserved

into these 24 hours, flowing unrestrained into dawn.

Happy International Women's Day, all. Have you celebrated well?