apacolyptic pleasures

The world ended in a grotesque burlesque
Where masks were held more tightly than clothes
And broken toys led the dance
I dared make eye contact with the King of Dreams
Before He slipped out the door
And released me to my purpose
Retrieving my dropped emblem of fealty
From the narcissistic skeleton
I woke to find 
The world remains
Painted black and 
Ringing
With carols of good cheer

overturning tables in the temple (wish I could)

I have been absent from this blog for awhile. I cannot keep these thoughts silent though.

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I have read some responses to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that have really, really made me angry!

I have actually read people writing foolish things like: "if someone walked into a school and killed 20 children with a knife, people would call for a ban on knives" I have even read a comment along the lines of "if someone really wants to kill people, they can make bombs... it's been done before"

These things I have seen are written!!! WRITING! This means the people who type in these words have time to look at what they are communicating. They are able to see and read their own thoughts. The thoughts may be flowing out of a spontaneous place, but they have the ability to edit themselves, to catch themselves in error; but they don't. They don't recognize the callousness of their words. They do not see the folly in their logic. As if they are a spray of bullets bursting into a public space, their words go out unchecked, unconsidered from the muzzle, without a care of where, what, whom and how they impact.

I offer this rebuttal to those who think knives and guns do the same amount of harm in the hands of a killer, a man with a gun can do more killing of strangers in 30seconds from across a room than a man with a knife can do from the same distance in 30minutes.

For the ones who say, "They can use bombs. McVeigh used fertilizer", I respond, a man making a bomb thinks about what and why he is doing what he is doing. He plans. He takes more time creating his weapon than a man who can express such an opinion takes to consider his thoughts. Guns can be used spontaneously. As soon as a violent thought is conceived, it can be acted upon. Cleaned, assembled, loaded, at the end of a man's arm- Death.

During the election, we had some politicians saying things like, "access to voting should be more difficult so people will appreciate it." I say, access to options for killing should be more difficult, especially those options that make killing multiple people as easy as squeezing an index finger.

dropped anchor

Shot gun blast
Shattered glass
How many moments pass
Until I wake from the fog at last
 
Glistening splinters
One thousand selves
Staring blank as sky
Crackling into place
I do not sink
I'm standing
I am alive

Then blossoming
Swelling
Beautiful
Beads richer than I've ever seen
Liquid deep
Berries of blood
And I realize I'm leaking

You have called me beautiful 
Inside and out
Was this what you mean?

the gift

The velvet ribboned box
Hiding hollow heart
Greeted me in a most demure way
Distracted I thought you a book
A book of which I already possess 5

But leapfrogging timelapsed conversations
Half a day away
Has me relishing my certain quietude
I knew it would come
The weightless feeling again
I can exist in this bubble
Suspended
It has all the air I require
I leave no footprints and I only occasionally
Snap photos
Some say be bold
When I am bold
I am prone to folly
So instead I hide
Hollow inside a festooned box
Three names imprinted upon me
Typewriters are objects for the nostalgic
I like the clickety clack
Clickety clack

But I am of a mind to purchase a fountain pen and a leather bound journal
I wonder would those inspire me more than the beribboned box inviting me to be filled?

I am a skilled rationer
Rationalizing is an art as well
But I am speaking of chocolates in buckets’ small supply
The only discipline I possess
I can make it last

But there are times I squander
I engorge to sad result
Though my slim-hipped form is still boyish in many ways

And like a stubborn boy
I will not give up my dream of you
The belief that you will never leave
Though you left long ago and sent me away
More times than I can remember
Like a child I lie badly
I remember every time
There were just more than I like to admit

In this you are more the boy
You forget what is least convenient to remember
I go out of my way to record
And perhaps this is precisely why I require a leather bound journal
A pen and a bottomless heart-shaped fountain 
Full of blackest blue
 

starlet

I reveal too much to be a mystery
There are scarce few rewards for humility
So I am packing my words in musty old trunks
And sparingly offering them in bite sized chunks
Let them eat petit four and have it too
I am learning what it is that I must do
You can't get to the top in comfortable shoes
Because sometimes I win but most times I lose
It has too much to do with knowing the who’s whose
So I dropped a name and I added a face
But the higher I climb I'm farther from grace
She waits at the lowest rung of the ladder
For my repentant return
Even though I have told her there is still so much
So much more I have to learn

beachcomber

Silent
I walk the shores of my waking
And spend quiet hours
Gathering bits and pieces of once beautiful things
That broke against my barriers in the moonlight

The rock that shattered
And the salt that polished
Have left only fragments
Glittering remains of great worlds and deeds
Ages old

I scoop them up
And spread them on the mantel
Where I hope they will remain
Until I return to them

On my next vacation

Some are lost but a few wait gathering dust
I blow them off and sneeze and sigh
Over my inability to understand what once they were

I carry them to a more scenic setting
With the hope of stirring memories of these
Now meaningless emotions
Their intensity fades under the brilliant scrutiny of the sun
And I know only that though their moment has passed
Still they remain

I pluck a silver strand from my temple
And string them together
The necklace with which I adorn myself
Is heavy

a sort of reconciling

You prepare your confession online
The only green patch left
There is life here
Stuffed into these vertices
With a razor-edge knife
You can scrape it out
From under the baseboards
Hide it in your cheek pouch
Before anyone notices
And slip quietly out of the box
And into the square
The host is meant to share

You marvel that the squirrels remain so fat
In all this snow!!!
You tried to feed them
But their palate is... selective
And fennel in snow is more suspicious
Than heiresses sunning themselves on the upper deck
But these aren't Riviera squirrels
They need heartier stuff to satisfy
The hunger that leads them to scrape electrical wire
Snow plow-like

And I need more than words
To satisfy