Step
Thorns
Ouch!
As far
As I
Can
Step
Forward
Step
Thorns
Ouch!
Some
Blood
Flows
From my
Skin
Step
Forward
One more
No end
To blood
In sight
Step
Step
Step
Torn
Up
My fear
Of
Blood
On endless
Pain:
Yes
But how
Long
Will
I
Complain
About
It
The wind
May carry
A leaf
On twists
And turns
Sudden rises
And falls
And seem to
Promise
Forever
…
Sometimes
The leaf
It falls
…
And the wind
It
Cries
…
And
Cries
Oh, dear reader, what can compel me to share the tale of what this man saw when I know how horrible it is when related, and what a giant mistake it is to take it so lightly to describe it in prose? Can ever written communication be taken in any light but that illuminated by the reader herself, and what human can see what this man saw as I relate it without the eyes of an animal? For all of us see as animals–bristling skin, beating heart, rising temperature–and you and I would shudder to know that we who observe the observer of the observed are cyclically imposing ourselves on the ravaged. How could this person–the object of deadly inhumane cruelty–be completely forgotten in our telling? It is because we all see ourselves–man and woman alike–as possessors of that victim.
How can I aver such specious diddle-daddle?
If it were not for the reflection before him, Narcissus would simply be another man who disliked people who liked him.
“Since I already have what I give,” N-man said, “since I already have it,” he has this way of repeating himself, “what do I think of you who wants it? If you don’t have it, and I know it through and through, then what do I want with you?”
High opinion, low opinion, so?
“As in, if you think I’m beautiful, then the tale you tell is old and stale, and the tale, therefore, is not worth hearing.”
And if the tale is old, and if the tale is stale, then the tale, thus stated, must have been told, and the hearer of it was he.
As in, Narcissus must have had a mirror. And what he saw was plain. Always plain. Always owned. Always normal.
And what do you do when you think of yourself as less than? Image up. Image up baby. Put on some funky lipstick.
What happens when this image, programmed, conjured, reflected, and disseminated, is seen from afar as the object denied, the vision refused, the tale untold, the prize unclaimed…because, you know, lipstick is lipstick?
“For my eyes, you say, are not your eyes, I see, and our minds, therefore, work together to place a Thisbe on the opposite side of Pyramus’ Demonic Hate.”
They know what they are doing. They do not see it as an animal. They see it as dead. As unworthy. As flawed. As evil.
And, as I said, do you feel how you and I tiptoe through the bushes to see what that man saw? If I told you what he heard, and described his horror…
Hell, if I said, “nails on a chalkboard,” you’d feel more horror than if I related this tale in anyway whatsoever.
Let it remain that way then. No description. Just the horrible act committed and left to be sorted out by those who never heard the tale.
And though you reject this conclusion as a storyteller’s whimsy, let me tell you that it is I that sees he that sees them that sees her, and even at that distance, I cannot help but wish they were all me. I cannot see the horror. I cannot feel the pain. I cannot understand the nightmare. I do, as we all do when faced with another’s nightmare, have a distinct lack of empathy. She who was blocked from his vision by many jumping excitable bodies. She who was shielded from him while he stood on in shocked paralyzed arousal.
There are some acts of cruelty that are so painful to watch that we are compelled to watch until we are thrust away by our own deep refusal to believe in what we witnessed for ourselves. And this man carried this moment with him as he watched them leave. He stood there in silence hoping that he would not be witnessed. He moved not a muscle the entire time, and even she could get up and walk away while he stood dead to the moment and tried to shut his mind off cold dead off but it would not stop.
You cannot stop corn from growing when you’ve planted corn. You cannot stop oil from flowing once you’ve drilled a well. You cannot stop the sun from shining when there are no clouds and you are standing outside. The moments’ thoughts are the product of a lifetimes’ habituation. And he, in all of his life, had seen lipstick lipstick lipstick.
In short, you would be shocked to know that this man, and you, and I, and all, would first identify with the rapists.
And describing her pain would be futile, because I can already feel your blood burning, and it is not because of fear, anguish, or horror.
Because what I want is for you to feel what she felt.
I want you to be strapped into a car that has flipped over and your arm is broken at the shoulder, and you are wrapped in the seatbelt that was supposed to save you but now pins you helplessly as you think you smell burning and you cannot pull your way out. And the metal of the door is CRUSHING your ribcage, and the people in the front seat are silent and bleeding on your face, and you cannot breathe because you cannot move your neck and you are choking on their blood.
And from there, from that fear, from that disgust, I want you to see 6 men come toward you with faces filled with hate–hate not lust not desire HATE–and as you desperately try to reason somehow by saying something in someway you have absolutely no control over what is happening to your body because you are SHOVED and sent flying through the air, and you hit your head hard, and your vision blurs, and an indescribable pain shoots through your shoulder as you are pinned to the ground, and you think you are screaming, and as the car burns and the world burns and you burn you fight the horror and the nightmare and the sickness by pulling pulling pulling away so hard that you think you’ll detatch yourself from your own body but no matter what you do there is that seatbelt holding you there and you cannot break free and you cannot speak because you are choking and the smell of a hand pressing so tightly on your face that you think your teeth are breaking and if you could you’d use your spine and rip out of this place, off the earth, out of the mind, gone forever from this searing HORROR NIGHTMARE and as you burn you die a million times and nothing ever again will look the same because you will see only HATE from those eyes, everywhere, all the time, in every eye in every face in every gesture in every crude walk up and what’s up and you don’t know where to go or who to tell or what is wrong with your body because you hurt basically everywhere and you weep and weep and weep and weep and you don’t know if you can stop ever again and who can you ever tell and was it even real and what the HELL HAPPENED TO YOU!?
And after all that, there is a man who saw the entire thing and didn’t say a word, and didn’t make a sound, and didn’t approach you, but just watched and watched and watched–paralyzed.
And maybe, after all that, maybe you see just for a moment how tremedously EVIL, AWFUL, and TERRIBLE is the narrator who dares to relate such a tale.
And I have done it, to my own dismay, because I love that woman with every ounce of my being.
The Mess
Sits
There
And
Says
Melt
I acquiesce
Hear that?!?
I acquiesce
Mess
“Capital sum!” said Porr Smithe, “My good man you have broken the bank!”
Young Yanish responded well, “It is not with reverence we should be so delighted! It is the noble mind and action that brought us this fantastic weather!”
Porr tapped his cane, and smiled a wrinkled fat smile, “So it is, my boy, and if by weather, you mean wealth, so am I in agreement!”
The two walked hand in hand as they swept past the spying gables whose eyes sprang from the poor who knew their houses would burn.
Yanish glowed: “I delight in this day. Simply delight in it. Simply and profoundly. What do you think of that Smithe? Do you now glow as well? For we are to correct the wrongs, right the plight, and undo the undone!”
Porr walked along with a spring in his step to match the leaps of his younger companion. “Like I am not a day older than twenty my good man!”
By way of an alley, a cat exposed himself to the view of the men by crossing the street, thinking better of it, running back into the alley, thinking better of that, returning to the street, and moving with grace and speed in the same direction of the two men–toward Betterton, with an ‘e’ not a ‘u,’ and thank you very much for coming all the same could you keep your fur off our lawn. Cats don’t know how to go unnoticed when confused or respect the boundries of the inhabitants of the towns they are escaping to.
Yanish wondered what first they should do with the property they had attained. He pondered not completely blindly, but wondered just the same. Before demolishing things and starting anew, should the people who lived there be given temporary homes, or should they be moved out of the village entirely, making way for clean, educated wealth? Yanish’s face took on a gloomy cast while considering this, a testament to his gracious and kind nature that no more betrayed his beauty than the cold winter rain besmirches the warm summer sun.
Porr, on the other hand, was delighted to see his protégé (and lover) on his way to success. No more a father to Yanish than a tree the father of an otter, Porr still felt the bubbles of delight of a father seeing his son do something profitable and meaningful. His gamble had paid off when no one else said it would. Give a man a chance to profit, and profit he will; keep his hands out of the penny jar, and he will never make anything of himself. “A man needs capital!” Porr said outloud. “And capital finds a way!”
Yanish smiled. That beautiful, handsome smile. He kissed Porr slyly and said, “And capital without friends is like milk without honey. Thank you for all of your help.”
Porr blushed. Though he was almost in love, he was, and would never be, able to handle sentimentality. He slapped Yanish on his ass and laughed. “Keep things tight there my boy, we’ve still got work to do.”
“Oh, don’t I know that! Get rid of the filth, the poverty, the rats, the decay! But the people! What shall be done with the people!?” Even whining he was utterly charming.
Porr smiled, “They shall join us my boy, they shall! Every last one of them!”
In fear, contorted face and all, Yanish recoiled, “An orgy with the poor!? You are sickening! I mean only to move them from their homes and give them another place to go!”
Yet again, Porr smiled, but this time at the ignorance of his companion. “I meant the same as you. Where has your mind gone boy o’ boy o’ boy?! Have I had such an effect on you? The next thing you know, you’ll be telling me that by buying the homes of these poor souls, we are trying to make them ho–!”
To be continued…
Blessing 1: typing sounds sound like working sounds
Blessing 2: time to practice whateveritis
Blessing 3: silence
Blessing 4: we mostly agree
Blessing 5: smart computer people make complicated programs based upon shared human logic and if you believe that you can learn to use anything made by a human you learn that you can because we are all that shared logic
Blessing 6: the wisdom that led me to bring two sandwiches instead of one
Blessing 7: “Are you sure?” on a post-it mocking me.
Blessing 8: When you are wrong, you are never entirely wrong, for example, I was not wrong to condemn people for planting the seeds of alcohol in a house soon to be filled with children and for watering those seeds nightly for 5 weeks, but I was wrong for not saying something at the exact moment it started (I saw it happen and could have).
Blessing 9: Everything has led, leads to, and is part of right here. So, all those things that I did that were wrong, stupid, and misdirected, all led to me typing this right now, and I have never been separate from anyone or anything at any time. For example, if I did not not stop people from drinking, I would never have felt so confused that I was suicidal, which would never have caused me to reach out, which would never have introduced me to Buddhism, which would never have led me to see the way to correct what I saw as incorrect in some other similar situation of which there may be millions in millions of lifetimes everywhereandallover.
Blessing 10: Another day to consider having a portable hot liquid container for use at this office (free? tea!)
Blessing 11: I can, at any time, do this.
Blessing 12: I haven’t needed to, even though I cannot, see a doctor.
Blessing 13: Big bags of pretzels are possible from bigger bags of pretzels.
Blessing 14: I wasn’t getting paid to do this when I was applying to do this thing I am getting paid for now that is completely unrelated to this.
Blessing 15: Any form of who-can-wait-longer game.
Blessing 16: That you’ve read this much.
Blessing 17: Shit.
Blessing 18: The sleep that I dearly love to partake of on train rides is only possible because all of NYC and many more all agree that that is possible and even the Native American Indian tribes dying are part of what led me to be sitting on the subway sleepy-like and also the deer that have gone somewhere else and all the trees and everything else that had to make way for that tiny moment so I should be less selfish in saying things like “I need my sleep,” because the universe is and is not made for me to not recognize that I am not a solo human fighting against this universe but a product and part of it always.
Blessing 19: Heteronormativity is reinforced obsessively, but this means homosexuals have a chance to live their own stories, and that is a blessing, because Hollywood writes such horrible love stories, and in them nothing much of value is said in terms of being in love and all that and even tends to confuse and mislead poor heterosexuals into always falling in love with the wrong people.
Blessing 20: The wisdom to accept what is totally and completely strange and be right about your perception even if it is totally foreign to you and to be given the gift that allows you to do something with your day like post blessings.
Blessing 21: Standing calmly in front of many people and speaking honestly and having them listen.
Blessing 22: People who forgive and are not offended when they could have been (offended).
Blessing 23: Counting.
Blessing 24: Plastic: even though I know people throw it out and it pollutes everything, it is still wonderous, and really people should just reuse it until it gets holes in it, because, by that time, it is starting to fall apart, and that’s what we want it to do, right?
Blessing 25: The sun. I mean, not just for its beauty, but because without it being EXACTLY where it is, and without us being EXACTLY where we are in relation to it, and without this PRECISE rotation of the earth on its axis and PRECISE orbit around the sun, none of this would be happening right now, and tomorrow would not exist either.
Blessing 26: Nude people.
Blessing 27: Our sleep cycle is so similar to our life cycle.
Blessing 28: Cycles are compelling to wonder at.
Blessing 29: Conscientious people.
Blesssing 30: Search engines that know how to correct your spelling so you can post it in your writing without having to get a dictionary.
Blessing 31: Touch.
Blessing 32: Fruits and beans and clouds.
Blessing 33: Teeth.
Blessing 34: Having not been ready in love and being let go to be ready later for someone else.
Blessing 35: The way I get tired after working like this interspersed with working like something else.
Blessing 36: The way my body responds to light touch especially on my neck.
Blessing 37: Small, simple computers that do their simple tasks better than my large, complex computer does those simple tasks.
Blessing 38: Large, complex computers that play computer games on Ultra on giant television screens used as monitors.
Blessing 39: For a brief minute in the afternoon, sun shines in my kitchen as if it were the sun directly shining into the room when it is really just the reflection off of the window of some building far from me.
Blessing 40: Women who I no longer know that I’d be ready for now.
Blessing 41: The many uses of an unfolded paper clip.
Blessing 42: 30 minutes of morning meditation that let’s you see how wild your brain is in the morning.
Blessing 43: The wonder to see yourself before you don’t.
Blessing 44: Is there any other way to see/know/understand without seeing confusion first?
Blessing 45: Precarious things.
Blessing 46: Doing something you completely fucked up the first time again and doing it correctly the second time.
Blessing 47: Seeing people who kicked you out, wanted you to leave, and hated you as people who were to be overcome (and posthumously loved).
Blessing 48: Animals whose ignorance allows us to live because we kill them and eat them, and they don’t seem to know it’s coming.
Blessing 49: Yuck.
Blessing 50: The possibility that someone might get divorced sometime soon amusing me disgusts me slightly but delights me too and makes me feel like a bad person but an honest one as well.
Blessing 51: Many things that I type here will be seen as an advertisement, but what is an advertisment anyway if misspelled?
Blessing 52: When time to kill is accompanied by a large distance to walk.
Blessing 53: One woman who acted as a Golden Sun before I knew there was one without her.
Blessing 54: Not being sure.
Blessing 55: Stopping when it feels right.
It works like this:
Boom!
Vision, not the focus
Of perception
(But if it were
It would see
But visions of
Fiery Death-Fueled
Retribution),
As it is
(Perception)
Sees the fire
In the chest
And the rising
Of righteous energy
But is stuck there
And cannot escape
Like a Fire God
That gives and damns
And ties us up
And binds us to
Our Selves
and Our
Ideas
And is fed
By our breakfast
Our work ethic
Our faith
Our politics
Our genius
Our energy
Our give and take
Our love
Our Fear
Our everything
So cutting
It’s energy is one
That strikes
And stands strong
and Tears
Peace
Asunder
But it is
And should be
Guided
A horse that kicks
Can kill but
Can still be mounted
Just be certain
To rise above
It
As you ride it
Into the
Seething
Painful
Air
Compressor
Mutessor
Mutilator
Tyrpebor
Rominator
Trimestor
Lemtonator
Symplifitor
Or
Bugs
That
We
Should
Leave
Alone
If you try to
Walk across the
Earth
You will have to cross
A highway
River
Or Mountain Range
That’s not too hard
But walking across
The ocean
You forgot to expect
Because the
Ground always
Looked so
Hard
Oops.
So the poem
Should read:
You discovered the ocean
When your right foot
Unawares
Crossed the flowing seal
And
Oops!
There’s an ocean there!
Hi.
Oh, hi. How are you?
Thing’s are fine
I’m in pain
How are you?
Didn’t something happen to you
Like you were in the hospital
or something? Twice?
Oh, it was silly,
I just had a couple of drinks,
And a pack a cigarettes,
And I was about to walk home,
And they picked me up on the beach,
I don’t know why,
I was close by,
I was coming home.
Uh huh.
Yeah, it was silly,
I just had a couple of drinks,
And a pack of cigarettes,
And I was walking toward the bushes,
To put the fifth of whiskey there,
And I guess I fell asleep.
Uh huh.
Yeah, it was silly,
I just had a couple of drinks,
And I called the cop
A nigger.
Uh huh.
Yeah, it was funny,
I’ve been high for three days,
And my baby screaming
Mommy in the background
Is something I’m not even able
To register while I’m talking to you
High as a rainbow.
Uh huh.
I just went down to the emergency room for a second
My elbow is killing me
These pain killers will help.
Uh huh.
Yeah, really funny
I passed out in a bathtub.
Uh huh.
Hilarious, I was paralyzed
On a rooftop.
Yeah?
At least mine are legal.
Yep.
I slept with some guy
I didn’t even know
And it’s your fault.
Sure.
I was naked and screaming
And carrying a box cutter and
Threatening to kill myself and
Fighting my own paralysis
And that was the other time
But everything’s ok
And I still don’t know why they put me in there
Because the people who were there
Have drug problems.
Yeah.
Trust me, he’s ok, he told me so.
Uh huh.
He said so.
Yea?
Yeah. He told me. He said, everything is ok, and he loves me.
Did you believe him?
Yeah.
You did.
Yeah, and I had to take four sleeping pills.
I see.
Not in love
Enjoy life
And the
Weather
And
Friends
And I want to throw a ‘but’ in here
To make the end of this ironic
Or funny
But I’m not going to
Broadly speaking
Chicks
Are Baby Chickens
Where did
We Learn
to Press F6?
No one
Loves
Capacitors
(Whom I know)
Jerrymandering
Is a word
I had to look up
After I typed it
Pop’t
I’m a little tea pot:
Will you sing that song
With me?
Several moments have passed
And now you are done 
I’m cold
Hence my shake
Cold
Not nervous
Though
I
With Blue-Gold Fur
and Tannish Hair
Wish I were
Shaking
Because
You were
Here
you tried
you tried
you tried
then
you turned
your back
ran away
and drowned yourself
in the oakey-finokey
drink
leaving behind
a wife
three kids
a grandson
two sisters
one brother
your church
and the great
sun
that spread its
glorious wisdom
over you.
you were scared
of facing
yourself.
i know how
it feels.
but come back
come back
come back
leave that foolish
liquid
and
walk with me.
I’ll be waiting.
love.
bobby.
You’d rather have
Alcohol
Than your kids
Alcohol
Than your
Wife
Alcohol
Than Your
God
You said,
“I’ll leave you
If you don’t let me drink
As much as I want,”
And,
“If I don’t get to drink,
I’ll just kill myself,”
And,
“No, I don’t
Have a problem
With alcohol.”
You prefer
Death
You prefer
Zombie-Stare
You prefer
Mumbles
You prefer
Painkillers
Sleeping pills
Morphine
Heroine
Cigarettes
Over
The guy who called you
Every other day
To ask you
How you were doing
Get in line
Bub
Been there
My Whole Life
You Can’t Win
You are going
To Stop
And
I don’t like
Crying at Work
Thank you very much
