#0145 - Fool's Errand

"It's a fool's errand."
But a fool's errand
was never so sincere.

Climb that gargantuan mountain
with naught but the clothes
on your back.
Cross those vast plains
without a pause.
Swim along the turbulent river,
for it may lead
to the Spring of Eden.

By considering your steps boundless,
discover where a flourishing mind can lead
when guided by wandering feet
and unnamed limits.

#0144 - An Imagined Forest

The crowd of trees
and shrubbery
and bushes
uproots itself
and dances
to a soundless groove.

The splendorous landscape,
the immersive soundscape:
they're already engaging.
But when one walks along the forest path
with a healthy dose of
imagination,
life can feel more alive
than ever before.

Footsteps echo:
the crunch of dirt
that might lead to a fairy's grove.
Riverwater
trickles down rocks and logs
and tickles the eardrums
like the tapping fingers of a
playful drummer.

The mind's eye
can invigorate the simple scene
with a routine practice
of perfect perception
and ambitious imagination.

#0143 - Six Strings

Vibrations rebound off the walls:
richochet.
This makeshift echo chamber
—cheap carpet,
stained mattress,
leaky faucets—
holds a boundless symphony.
The six strings
are seduced to synthesize
a universe of sound.

Silent passersbiy
with averted gazes
when he sits on the edge of the sidewalk:
a silent expectation
to divert attention.
But an extraordinary soundscape
radiates from this solitary soul
when he brings the strings
out to the streets.

#0142 - Everything is...

Everything
is as elementary
as you elect to make it.

Everything
is as deep
as you decide to dive.

#0141 - A New "Order"

This cement, these bricks:
they seem odd to me.
They are the atoms of stones
and sand
and sediment,
cleft apart
and glued together in patchwork.
They represent a rough approximation
of the resplendent order
of the natural world.

Machines and mechanistic manipulations,
though uniquely utilitarian,
forget the aesthetic efficiency
of a scheme
that has permeated
the sum of sensation
for centuries upon centuries.

...Da Vinci
studied flight
by drawing birds.

#0140 - Opened

The bellicose beast within
was shattered apart by the beauty of existence.

An immensity of experience arose
and crashed upon animosity
like a diluvian flood.

#0139 - A Story of Seeking Warmth...

{Written as part of Sextravaganza 2018, hosted by a number of poetic/literary enthusiasts on Tumblr}

The frozen Arctic wastes were cold and white.
That endless nothing streched from near to far—
a vapid vastness reaching past our sight.
...For friends, we only had the nightly stars.

A night spent hiding from the howling wind
gave birth to new ideas for warmth...and fun.
At first just hesitation: winks, a hint.
And then our hands were hunting pleasure und-

-er walls of cloth. And four together found
desire: reckless lust behind a blush.
The night then found salacious sounds, and dark-
-ness hid the scene of flesh exploring flesh.

Thus, miles apart from any sight: we found
new comfort, joy in something warm and white.

#0138 - Reinvigorating a Dimming Memory

It's been too long since I've written here,
or, for that matter, anywhere.

Here's a toast to the forgetfulness inherent to my humanity:
that which leads me to forget just how beautiful free-flowing words are.
And here's a "thank you" to music:
the enlightening beats and chords and walls of sound
that remind me why I picked up my six strings in the first place.
And an offed hat to those people that have bothered to say
"that's incredible" or even just "wow,"
for they remind me that my story and existence is not just for me,
but for everyone else as well.

As immersive as this life can be,
what makes it divine and beautiful is not that it's fun,
but that nothing you do is in a vaccuum.

Pursue your limitlessly expressive words,
and your infinitely explorative notes,
and your traveled, choreographed footsteps,
and your inimitably powerful eyes,
and your endlessly vibrant colors,
and your uniquely enlightening perspectives,
and your secretly immersive euphorias,
and your aesthetically magnificent designs,
and your perfectly precise constructs.

These are the multifarious and intimate hues
which color the simple base and outline of your live.

...Your mind, heart, body, and soul all seek exploration.
Do not feed them with routine or mundanity.

#0137 - "...a sinful aesthetic..."

Cerberus suggests a sinful aesthetic:
salacious suggestions
amid incinerative incitations,
screaming "Anarchy!" in shallow-minded tones.

Oh, the frothing fiends that our forefathers feared:
they've emerged from the shadows
and dropped their masks
and now eagerly rush
towards devious tasks.

Bullets let fly:
      more small, bloodied hands
      lay still on the pavement.
Grand masses of currency
      fuel isolation
      and fuel the insurgency.
And as growing pains are injected
into our weakening lifeblood,
we take on more willingly
our addiction to anger:
an anarchic scream to drown out
      the pained scream.

All tortures end
      in acquittal
      or death.
And the decision draws near
      as to which end we'll get.

#0136 - Месте

Это не Россия.
Здесь не русские горола.
Здесь нет русских домов.
Здесь не русские люди.

Однако,
Если ты не думаеш
Я русский шпион,
Это может быт мое место:

Как Россия,
Как Америка…

#0135 - Return

Ah, the return!

For, though those neverending adventures,
meandering or maestro'ed,
bring into focus
a far-fetched reality
of unreal (or too real) proportions,

it is this place of seven-year-old covers
and unchanging hallways
that draws us back into historical routines
and coveted familiarities.

Here,
where the baggages lay in the closet,
and where the distant memories gather
from ganders and passings
to pleasurely pastimes
and eternal empathies.

#0134 - Day 1

A toast to the New Year!

Herald a new stretch of time:
unwritten words wait upon wisping nibs,
and as the gym memberships are dished out
(like Halloween candy)
the far-off future (background)
flies into focus, now foreground.
Some fear,
some fly.

This opportunity feeds off of the
audacities and intricacies of before:
those memories that are now
antiquity, but which now
pave the path to posterity.

#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.