graffiti gandalf and god

29.1, round three, for the win.

I love this and I killed with it. That's it.

I. love. graffiti. whether it's on walls or towers,
trucks buildings bus stops it's got this power

of someone who can't take it who makes their mark
in deviant art with primal and pain and heart

certain slices of society split hairs and call fair foul
since it's not theirs and they don't know enough to care

but I see it – history is a weapon so read it, arm yourself
push your mind past the definitions divined by wealth

when somehow a woman or man with spray can
is given the handle vandal, but the banner spangled
protects ads and jangles of
“you're ugly, you're fat – that is why you should buy, buy, buy”and there's no scandal

how sad we call it free speech

look underneath what happens when someone starts clapping or tapping chisel into stone or slapping paint onto canvas – the act of creation spans this and pulls us together

so I put words down and aim them at forever

as a kid, you see I found this light inside of me, and decided to scratch at it assiduously

I found it out it was the bright shine of creativity shimmering in harmonious symmetry that I see when I pursue the activities I pursue in eccentricity, scribbling the songs thoughts sing to me so I can link to the connectivity running indivisibly like white-hot electricity through all of you, and me

this light shone bright through my chest, in cold defiance of the unknown of death – like a bellyful of beautiful

this light was all mine to have, and I could shine and plant diamonds deep in the grit and the grime that compose what we suppose is reality

I don't know what the meaning of life is, or what happens in the chapter after

but all you can do is choose what to do with the time given you, and I feel a duty to spread the beautiful, to grace to this life with time spent thinking of ways to say thank you
- so let's let our lights out to plant diamonds and pearls in the world

physics insists that we are twisted quantum strings forming things that think they're things, bringing us things to think life has no meaning – so?
all you can do is decide what to do with the time that is given to you – so no matter what else is true about you, don't you want to be glad you knew you?

don't you still want to make it more beautiful?

I say, whatever comes next, why bother caring about red herrings and our fathers to stay blessed

because surely you can agree with the idea that beauty si quite simply good, and even when misunderstood is an aim to be pursed at all times as the quest for sublime

that light that shines inside you and I is beautiful

we've got a duty to spread it, like love

if I apply for a job
and it matters not who I am or am not
but only who I am friends with
then that boss is probably an asshole

on a day that may come when one judges the living and the dead, if it matters not what I did but that I picked the right judge then I don't want to be right

I know what to do with the time given to...me

say thank you to life for this breath
let my light shine from the hole in my chest
love is what we need and beauty brings us together
so I put words down – and I aim them at forever

creativity's electricity manifests in me lyrically – I love graffiti because it means someone else gave their beauty wings

disney revolutions

started writing it at home last week, using necrophilia and a night at a hookah bar. did it round 2 last night, and got a 26.1 with a 1 point time penalty.

I get to thinking on things when I'm cruising on my bike
potentially thinking exponentially cuz I am riding like a kite
do you ever wonder why the movies
we show our kids fresh off their Similac
have so many men who just so happen
to be calmly yet passionately necrophiliac?
You'll never guess what happened today, dear diary
I'm out kissing dead girls, one sits up and smiles at me!
She's all “hey there handsome, my name's Snow White
- and I say we get married, it just feels so right
me? my luck is tight, and so is my man Charming's
last we week he went and tied the ball and chain
with that smoking undead Sleeping beauty dame
of course, my corpse-humping self said yes
it's a shame White has breath in her breasts
but I just jumped from perverted peasant to kinky king
forget the royal ring, those chilly catacombs
got so many places for my ding-a-ling!
What? Disney, come on, think about what you're portraying
there are so many things you could but you're just not saying
I'm cruising kite on my bike and maybe I'm thinking exponentially
but I'm thinking about things that are strange or changed, like
stockades - I did not know why they were a big deal
in Beauty and the Beast, Belle's father gets wheeled in
locked head and hand in the stocks right in the town square
people all around throw lettuce and tomatoes I'm thinking that's not fair
this is me in 2nd grade, so fat 4th graders hit me with my own tits
fruit and vegetables do not seem that bad by comparison
until I read about the real problem – people are rotten
if you do not have friends to watch your bottom all night
then you might end up the town bicycle
the image of Belle's father, moustache whiskers quivering
while Gaston and his merry men all ride him like a river
I can see why Disney shied away from historical accuracy
but if we're gonna get outside the box factually
then let's rock some serious revisions
get a little more optimistic with our Jiminy Cricket dreams
you notice a few things not right when you're riding your bike
whether or not your thinking is shot cause you're cruising kite
when you get low enough to see what the sidewalk cracks show
you can look inside and find the saddest crimes of our times
where the people that mind don't matter, those that matter don't mind
and everyone watching Disney sees fit to ignore it just fine
I'm ready for Pocahontas, part three – the end of the trilogy
where dreams might finally come true, where me and you are sick
of seeing the sap at the bus stop with shoulders slumped since
the shadow of the shelter is not high enough for him to stand tall
not when the sun beats 110 degrees, please, that's a well-paid week
not when this is the probable peak of his broken-hearted journey
we know exactly where it started, where it starts, and starts, and starts
I find it less obscene that Smith was thirty and Pocahontas thirteen
than I do the glossy sheen we drew over their honeymoon
where the Navi swung like elegant, blue, strange fruit
Jake Sully may have killed the colonel but a country of colonists
kicked ass, erased names and left remains rotting in piles
while the credits roll up and we roll out to skip on the bill
of the scalps we swung from Florida to Oklahoma and all points west
their tears run a river to waterfall on deaf ears, because the best
freedom we bequeath them is the choice of huffing or meth
we have a special place reserved, just for them, and when
they try to leave we know just where to lay out the
welcome to the table, dinner is at the seventh street soup kitchen
with cheerfully blunt concrete walls which callously call out
“Bienvenidos a Phoenix!” if you slow down to read them
history is not in books not when we took it and cooked it up all shitty
so colonists with cars could skip nimbly over the static in a city
riding a bike at night shows you the grit in the cracks we swept them into
if we're going to use history to come up with Disney movies
let's make a tape where dreams really do come true

Independence

This is a poem from one of my students from last year, who just popped by to show me.

Humans aren't meant to die
Science can't understand our complex designs
They say we come from monkeys
Now who is believing in fairy tales
We are made of dust
That's why when we burn we turn to ashes
Our treacherous hearts weren't made to stop beating
Our lungs shouldn't take their last breath
The thought of living forever claims our mind
And our souls knows the truth

taxes

Here's another poem I started months ago. I'd been sewing pieces and rhythms together for forever; I finished a functional draft during Friday professional development. The presenter actually called me out - "...and [blank]'s just working on his taxes poem!"

This is my final, non-slam version, I think - which is silly, because I think forcing myself to cut these pieces to three minutes has only made them better by far.

This thing clocks in at 3:20, 3:30, I think - I opened with it at the March qualifier, and they didn't say anything about time constraints - but I haven't decided where to get line chopping. Input appreciated on things that may fall dead.


taxes
taxes are the price we pay for organized society
for our police and firefighters
for our schools and soldiers
for our prisons and fences
let me spell it out for you
there is no u or s in we
when we must cinch our belts
U.S. us is a foreign idea
one suited for fascists and Swedes
when we must cough up taxes
when we must pay for organized society
we has a silent e
it's not we, but wee, the little people
the U.S. of us cannot possibly handle
the back breaking burden
of Boomers blossoming beyond retirement
see, these higher numbers of tired elderly
made dire this situation, social security's on the fire
it's gotta go
we can not cover unemployment
we can not get you health insurance
we need to pay up for the bullets and bombs
to bailout the banks and grant the Party ranks
tax deductions for training us at burger flipping
paper pushing to pretend like we got some meaning
I think you and I are worth way more
than cigarettes and sad-ass sixpacks to cope with
sick days with no pay and shit jobs with low wages
all this shit makes sense if you just buy the logic, but
I'm too broke to afford these trickle-down economics
if whatever goes up must come down
I wouldn't still be sitting here on the ground
with my tongue out and a bad case of cotton mouth
there's no us here, not in this U.S., not today
not when we pay our taxes
it's just little ol' wee paying for organized society
no taxation without representation, huh?
ain't no tattooed broke ass smokers on Capitol Hill
nobody with bike locks and bus passes in they pockets
nobody there looks like me or you
you wonder why we want better minimum wage
but we're still waitin'
we're looking for healthcare and pensions
but we're still waitin;
we're looking for a break
and wee with this little silent e
we're still waitin
while watchin banks blow our life savings
and get billion dollar bailouts
but I should stop hating
because I'm not gonna do shit
and neither are you
we used to die for what we believed in
we used to die
for the right to speak our minds
for the chance to decide for ourselves
for the simple respect represented
by no taxation without representation
now we're only willing to die for our dreams
if the respawn time is under ten seconds
we hate these taxes and plenty other economic facts
but we're not going to die to fight these things
we're sycophants for the new world kings
what percent of mankind
in the last five hundred years
has had the utter privilege
of complaining about the water pressure?
Servants with copper water buckets
heated over roaring fires
could get ancient emperors a steam bath
I spend ten minutes scratching my ass in the shower
and 600 gallons get pissed down the drain
I drank orange juice this morning
most the world still lives and dies
on less than a dollar a day
I spent a buck thirty nine at Circle K
to get fresh squeezed OJ
from groves thousands of miles away
it was delicious.
It used to take an army and a fleet of ships
to provide the luxury of fresh fruit year-round
it still does
we just don't get to command em personally
we are merely expected to pay the fucking bills
the maintenance costs on sniper scope rifles
filling the gas tank on supersonic aircraft
room and board for the people
who will not get with the program
they keep interrupting our nice neat organized society
it's better to die on your feet than live on your knees
no one ever said that
who had a full refrigerator
I like Lennon, but we are not all going to be happy
most of us are going to be hungry
not us, or we, or wee
we're lucky enough to think all you need is love
and to hate paying our taxes
the price of organized society

happy fucking tax day

contaminated

This is not finalized; it's longer than three minutes. But after a couple months, it's got a finished draft. I slammed it at the March qualifier - low score: 9.9.


I could fuck your brains out – if I don't blow mine out first
the saddest thing about it I don't know which is worse

I've made enough mistakes that I'm finally gotten clarity
and I want to be clear, you, you should be scared of me
I used to be a fat kid, low self-esteem, and it shows
now I put in work so I know you'll like what I got in these clothes
and I swear, I'm burnin' inside, so I ride red lined, ready to explode
if you're ready to go, I will touch the bottom and curl your toes,
and show you things you did not know you didn't know
see, if I'm focused and stroking, I don't feel broken
I feel whole if I can leave your body lying smokin
we can can get dirty, nasty, raw, just spanking and choking
or we can keep it clean and sweet but its still just mean
because I am in some way shape or form contaminated
I have alienated every single girl I have ever dated
I can call em up but they just never seem to be home
it's always “please leave a message after the tone”
-look, I'm not calling stalking I don't care who you're screwing
I just, want to talk – I want to see how you're doing
I don't understand caring about each other so much
and somehow now we don't even keep in touch
but I get it, I know why you're gone, and don't talk back
I'm filled with filth, I spread poison, and that is a fact

so I could fuck your brains out, or just kill myself
both of these choices seem as good as anything else

I've got this evil toxic pollutin confusion, similar to when
usin slides inside and turns into abusin, because by then
you're drowning in poison that's drip drop pooling in my mind
I can't swim and there's nicotine chimes keeping tar and oil time
to the crackling of all the black oil fires and funeral pyres
my gray matter is stinking toxic nauseous burning tires
so inside I am obscene, all festering sores and gangrene
marijuana masochism and meditation are just smokescreens
to hide the dark I carry locked up inside, and I spread it
I think it's under control, but I let it out and infected
everyone I care about, like my presence is an injection
of misery and madness that sends everyone running, I get it
my temples are pounding with the sound of all the people
I care about thinking it's better when I'm not around
I didn't mean to burn bridges with my old flames, it's proof
of the truth – that I'm a dirty martini with no vermouth
missing something basic – it's obvious when I face it
I don't trust, I'm not happy, and I can't fake it
so I'm a human fucking infection, and I can't take it


sure, I could fuck your brains out, but I should blow mine out first
and I'm so sick of myself that I don't even know which is worse

I stand up here pretending that I'm some kind of poet
but I'm just a freak of nature fuck up, and I know it
the poisons in my own brain are driving me insane
they make me into a crazed spider trapped in chains
so again and again, I spread love and spit venom
into anyone who lets me past their protective denim
I'll pull you in with my style, and drive you wild
but you better run like hell from the cracks in my smile
I'm not ready for love, I'm matches to a gasoline kiss
and I gotta go before I explode, because something's gotta give
I can't keep all this bullshit bottled up inside myself
but I don't want to spread this shit to anybody else
and I only feel right when you come so hard you're beside yourself
so let's pick a third path, and try a little something else

I won't kill myself, or fuck your brains out if you let me know
you're loving the fucking you're getting from my mouth

February Tombstone Qualifier

It's been awhile!
April 29th is the Southwest Shoot-out - top four poets from the shoot-out are in the nationals competition in Boston, in August.

Getting to the shoot-out meant either taking one of the top two spots in a qualifying slam - there were three, January, February, and March - or having a high enough cumulative point total from those slams that you rank in the top 10 (which automatically includes winners from those slams).

I was sick in January. February, I took first. After a bull session with friends at BFG, the best advice came from t-hawk: "Come out strong, show 'em a sensitive side in the middle to show your range, and then shove it down their fucking throats."

Sound advice.
I slammed "Amazing at football," toned it back with "irrational numbers," and finished with tears, screaming, losing my hat, and "countdown."

Hehehehe.

Slam - the final countdown

The sub 3-minute version of the final countdown.

a reading from the verses of the totally fucked
once more into the breach
one more day, and we will be released
we, we lie a lot
we have to
together, two by two
with red eyes like taillights
blown corneas, swollen veins
driver's eyes alike
streaming everywhere you don't want to be
twice, Visa, two signatures
a white towel and a titty fuck
in a bar outside the airport
three numbers on the back
that security feature
never prevents you
from taking last call
and pounding it unconscious
sixteen ounces at a time
four hours later, four lanes wide
red lights flying two at a time
all staring backward and bleary
glaring, hungover, hating hearing
the clock toll in the morning
five o'clock roll call
snap to attention
time to go everywhere you don't want to be
five fingers gripping the wheel
wrapped around a glass
do you drink and drive?
do you really live and thrive?
is this what we live for
to barely survive until we die
I'm confused. I keep paying dues
but the world stays cast in stone gray hues
except for the red eyes, streaming, two by two
six feet tall
green throwback, shoulder holster
scribblin' deathbed thoughts at the Big Fat Greek
irony – I almost met my end in the street
zero difference
six hours later
seventy-fifth at seven AM
the HOVA lane officially exists
but it's so early no one's at the party
even God slept on the seventh
I'm still streaming straight coffee when I piss
eight beats in a bar
count 'em
count 'em to keep yourself steady
at eight when you're already topped off
already been home stepped out to step off
I pretend I don't need 'em
just chug 'em and breathe 'em
nine exits
gotta hustle, gotta go
don't feel great, can't be late
hate feeling this way
hate that I don't even feel alone
maybe this is what it's like to be grown
miserable red taillights, drivers' eyes alike
glaring staring hating hearing
the clock toll in the morning
five o clock fuck it all roll call
you're everywhere you never wanted to be --
good things come to those who wait,
but I have never been a patient person.
Let my Toyota's tiny ten-inch speakers
bump this final countdown
nine thousand more yards
I can already see the bridge pylon
eight legs, spiders on my windshield
there's sanity in their slime
seven levels of hell
the darkest part of depression
the deepest secret of the bells
don't ask, don't tell
six sibling's I'll fail
all angels I hailed in dreams
so I could tell them tall tales
five thousand miles, for six month spells
round trip
is more than Scheherazade could fill
I slipped, I need, I miss
my baby sister's kiss
never put a razor to my wrist
but there's a beauty burning in this
four cylinders in my car, all aching
four chambers in my heart, all breaking
three seconds to impact
this is understanding in a car crash
too exhausted to ask why
two hands on the wheel
turn to the side, and do it right
everybody will know
just one, all alone
it's my time - I’m sick of driving in the lines

Slam - Amazing at Football

Slam rules require a piece to be 3 minutes or less; there's a ten second grace period, and then points start coming off. "Amazing at Football" was one of the pieces to get some razorblade shaving.

There's a kid
who carves swastikas
into his eyelids
and his cheeks
he's pretty creepy
but I can talk to him about you
he understands
all the things I want
to do to you
not really, I suppose
neither of us do
we're both in 4th grade
we don't really know what it means
to tie someone up
out in the woods
cut them a thousand times
add salt and vinegar
and let them lie there
for a few weeks
we talk about it
I, I dream about it
it's monstrous
but for you
it's more than you deserve
my mother doesn't scream
not when you put her 
through the shower door
not when you wrap your hands
around her throat
not when you're stringing nooses
in the backyard
there's thuds and grunts
but she only screams
when you come after us
my sisters are not sluts
my brother and I are not pieces of shit
you could've worked for Pinochet
you know every spot on the body that hurts
from the web of the ears
to the nerves in the armpit
they cry, they scream
so Mom screams
I don't
not anymore
I don't scream
I don't cry
thanks to you
I do not feel pan
I'm aware it exists
but I can turn it off
like a switch
I will say this
it makes me amazing at football
and glad I'm the oldest
that I'm big, that I'm a boy
it means I piss you off the most
it means I can take the heat
off the others
I can handle the fists
and the belt 
and the boots
it means I can endure
it means I'm gonna be awesome at football
but 
it doesn't mean I'm strong enough
to stand up to you
to feed you a steak knife 
while you sleep
to Mark McGwire a cast-iron skillet
at your temple
while you're busy
with someone else's neck
to end you and our suffering
I'm sick of it
sick of the question
"what does your father do?"
and making up some new story
so sick of hearing
"he's such a great father"
and biting back the truth
so sick of the salt
In tears and blood
the flavors of my home sweet home
so sick of being terrified
there's blood on the walls
when I call the house 
and no one picks up the phone
I'm sick of making more money than you
I'm in high school
it's not my job
to put food on the table
I'm sick of all this
and it makes me fucking amazing at football
because I run on rage
I channel fire and hell
run raw fuck you all across 100 yards
and it scares the fuck out of me
because I look like you
I sound like you
and my biggest fear
is that I am you
that this fire
is yours
I know you were amazing at football
I grew up watching where that goes
I can take and toss girls
like the Band-Aids they're not
it's so much easier to break someone else
than to fix yourself
I know you were amazing at football
but my model for life is everything you are not
my to-do list is everything you were too afraid to try
there's a water to quench this rage
wine and work, ink on skin and page
I don't need this fire
fuck being amazing at football
I'd rather be a man

Tombstone Poetry Qualifying Info

(Taken from a post by Klute!)

There will be 3 monthly slams before the slamoff - January 28th, 2011, February 25th, 2011, and March 25th, 2011.

10 poets will make it to the slamoff on April 29th, 2011. Here's how they will qualify:

1. The winner and runner-up of each slam will automatically be qualified for the slam-off. If there six unique 1st and 2nd place poets, six slots within the 10 poet lineup are considered filled. If there are only 5 unique 1st and 2nd place poets (let's say Poet X wins the January slam and comes in 2nd in February, but the remaining 1st and 2nd place poets are different people), then only 5 slots are considered filled), and so on. It is possible that only 2 slots will be filled before the slamoff on April 29th.

2. The remaining 4 to 8 slots will be filled by poets cumulative scores for the three slams. If Poet X scores a 72 in January, a 82.3 in February, and 84.9 in March, but did not win a slam, he will have a cumulative score of 239.2 for the season. The poets with the most points will make it into the remaining slots available.

3. If a poet hosts a slam, they will be given a score for that slam that is the average of scores for that slam. A host who wishes to qualify for the slamoff will be required to compete in at least one of the three slams.

The slamoff will be seeded with the poets who won first place in three slams ordered by score. Second place poets will then be ordered by score. The remaining slots will be ordered by cumulative score for all three slams. Ties will be broken by a spirited game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. The top ranking poet will choose the order of the slamoff. If they choose go first, then the slamoff is ordered with the top ranked poet going first, the 2nd ranked poet going second, so on. If they choose to go last, then the lowest ranked poet goes first, and so on.

Top 4 poets from the Slamoff will make it onto the Tombstone Poets NPS team. If any poet drops off or is removed by the coach, the coach may select any poet who competed during the slam season to fill the vacancy. The coach is NOT required to select a poet who competed in the slamoff, regardless of rank in the slamoff.

iWPS season will be from May to July, the slamoff in August.
WoW season will be from September to December, the slamoff in January.

Direct any questions to the Tombstone Poets slammaster, The Klute, at therealklute@yahoo.com.

irrational numbers

It's been a long time. I posted "the final countdown" with the claim that it was less autobiographical, but that was a crock of shit. I was miserable for months. I started carpooling, so I wouldn't risk driving alone.

My apartment was so infested with bedbugs that I was hallucinating. Apparently that's a side effect of the damn things. My roommate was never around, and accordingly gave so little of a shit that two months' worth of warning that I wanted to break the lease and peace meant he was surprised when that day finally came. He demanded I pay the penalties, and rather than end up tearing him limb-from-limb, or calmly debate the issue, I paid and left.

I wrecked my car in the middle of January, so I guess I don't have to worry about kissing bridge pylons anymore. The irony here is that I had been trying to write a poem combining love with mathematical terms since summertime, when I started writing "all's fair." The concept of combining love with military terms proved a much easier one to finish than one combining love with mathetmatical ones - go figure. In December, I received an out-of-the-blue email from my ex, with the link to a youtube video detailing the Fibonacci sequence in a Tool song. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS7CZIJVxFY)

It was a great, seismic click within myself. I watched the video, and I allowed myself to smile, to remember (or realize) that there was something great, good, and powerful that kept that relationship running for so long. I also realized that to make this poem work, I would need to put myself under the constraint of writing the whole damn thing in a Fibonacci spiral. I spent winter break writing and deleting syllables and circles; two weeks after I crashed my car, I finished the poem.

I spent the afternoon standing on my front porch, practicing performing in my underwear as the sun set. I felt alive inside for the first time in weeks - months - or at least, in a way I hadn't felt alive in so long. I felt like I was "back," like I had found myself again, in some healthy way.

Life, of course, had other plans. It is always far more convoluted than you would think.

I went to Fair Trade that night, to find that it was Tombstone - the first of three tryouts to prove myself worthy of a slot in the Southwest Shoot-out. The Southwest Shoot-out determines the members of this year's nationals team at the National Poetry Slam in August. This was what I had heard about last year, and that I had wanted to be a part of; here was my dumb self showing up too late to sign up for the slam, and already reducing my chances to be on the team.

Then, the cough I had had for the last week developed into bronchitis, and as I kept trying to go to work, deepened into pneumonia. I've spent the last two weeks wheezing instead of breathing, coughing until I vomit (or shit myself), and unable to muster the energy to put together a new slam, or edit my older poems into three-minute versions.

Three doctor visits have got me tentatively back on my feet, and breathing almost normally again. I just spent the last two hours working on cutting old poems down, trying to get them lean, tight, and inside of three minutes. I'll put up the new slam versions as soon as I finish them - some are down to 3:10, others are further away.

But as I'm sitting here, feeling this energy again, I thought I'd put up "irrational numbers." Its incubation - from a poem about the faith needed where numbers fail, as a love/math counterpart to a love/war poem, to something boosted by an email from someone who has spawned no small amount of inspiration has been a long one. It seems to tie into the beautiful cosmic coincidence that occurred the day I wrecked Tiny Car that this poem went through that incubation - and especially, the initial idea - to develop into an upbeat poem.

I write few enough of those, and Michelle pointed out that it seemed like I was changing (for the better), and rebuilding myself. I don't know. I thought I was feeling better, and then microbes and viruses started skullfucking me with renewed vigor. I do like having this poem on my arm (metaphorically, to clarify for those who know my penchant for needles). And the cosmic coincidence? I crashed my car - which I dearly loved - and in the same hour, ran into a girl I loved, the one who was there when I bought the car. She offered me a ride home. We never got a beer - life is not *quite* that easy - but I made it home, laughed it off, and finished a poem that started in sadness with smiles. I'd written about killing myself in Tiny Car; now she's gone; and on the same day, I saw (and felt happy about seeing) a person who I hadn't seen in years.

Oh, fuck it. I can't put it all into some nice, neat timeline. I felt like there might be one there, but who knows. Point is, the poem feels beautiful. Around the same time, I had a beautiful coincidence, meaning unknown. :-)

Here's the poem:

so
it
seems that
I’m moving
in perfect circles
I think I learn, yet I repeat
the same storylines
same mistakes
thinking
that
love
has power
and therefore
is predictable
there must be formulas for it
these laws of nature
please your man
nineteen ways
keep her
steps
rules
must
exist
we crave touch
so powerfully
the gravity of abdomens
naked and heaving
lust and love
are strong
must
be
rote
written
equations
the heart charting paths
predictable with complex math
the limits foreseen, but gravity wins, thirteen
sobbing down the graph
knees acute
again
still
trying
to compute
the impossible
because it seems so logical
we launch satellites
calculate
their flight
start
to
finish
but in love
we loft blood, hopes, hearts
and watch them burn like shooting stars
no navigation, just burning in terminal arcs
Cupid, we have got a problem
separate
eject
brace
again
one
again
shattered
should have known
the damn math was off
the equations are all awry
attraction has rules
if only
they are
found
mapped
understood
we could stop searching
for the meaning in our meetings
mayhap grasp our lines obtuse, make ‘em right, and fly
one problem
one tiny problem
more of a monkey wrench, really
you cannot calculate that which is irrational
things get fuzzy around the edges
you work around it
ignore it
but you can’t solve it
it gets quietly set aside
but I knew
something was missing
a certain needed energy
entropy, really
pure chaos
simple
just
let
go
harness
the power
of the infinite
and hold on
we are drawn to touch
by laws of nature
what you do with that
is not up to you
it is up to us
one and one
make two
and something
extra
infinite
so stop
breathe
in
out
accept
embrace it
just ride that chaos
that sends one and one together
out beyond anything numbers could ever predict
past the gravity of bared abdomens to a never never land of pure flight
ride right past that second star on the right
to boldly go where no one has ever gone before
together
the point
is that you do not know
you cannot know
the essence of what makes us tick
is unknown
bend it shape it twist it pull it
the best you can do is round it
and that
just traps you in circles
burning halos with angels
shattered at Vitruvian angles
predictable
capture fireflies
and you watch ‘em die
let em go and watch em fly
the point is that you do not know
you gotta believe
I do
believe in fairies
so spread your wings
think some happy thoughts
and ride wherever the light may lead you