30 Days, 30 Poemas ....

day 4

enjoy the rain for the droughts come soon

i pity the man who complains of monsoons

and he pities i for daring to pity

his laugh at the circle like sounds from the city

they banter, they banter

they jest, they jest

my fever is cooled by the warmth of my chest

and picture the man who cant picture himself

no one knows a thing like the poor man knows wealth

30 Days, 30 Poemas ...

Day 3

A Free in the Day World

Walk outside

nice night

a little chilly but sometimes a breeze feels good

complements the fire of the human spirit nicely

Lily's with me

we have hula hoops

makes me feel like a dance

she gets angry because I have headphones in one ear

i'm chilling, the music is delicious

Walk in the store

deli groceries populate the Bedstuy corners

Guy at the counter says they're from Yemen

Admire their beautiful language

even though it's coupled with suspicious looks

pull money from my pocket

their faces soften

... they are not their confusion

Walk outside with new plastic bags

Mine's containing

honey bun

dollar water

& blueberry poptart

sugar makes hunger temporarily leave my doorstep

tobacco smoke

feels good while you're smoking

not so good afterwards

living in moments

A park

Lily suggests we go in

Good suggestion

Sit down, exchange dreams

She thinks my calm is a phase

I think that's cute

Cops.

Fuck

...they are not their confusion

Medina & Wolfe

their badges shine in the street light's soft glance

Wolfe takes the lead

pointless questions

writes down our names

Gives the usual Babylonian response to mine

A stutter coupled with, "can you spell that?"

I'm used to witnessing this matrimony

asks where it's from

I tell him I was named after Patrice Lumumba

first prime minister of the Congo, murdered by our government

He seems uninterested

I giggle inside

Medina seems disturbed by my stare

I can tell she doesn't know what to make of me

"Perhaps he's trying to intimidate me"

...they are not their confusion

Lily doesn't have I.D.

Wolfe runs my name in the computer

comes back with court summons

and handcuffs for Lily's wrists

She struggles, I feel useless

Lily doesn't dig the situation

She lets Wolfe know that

Wolfe doesn't dig Lilly

I run to the house to get her I.D.

while running, i tell my soul to stop crying

...they are not their confusion

we are our own victims living with drama as our sustenance

death is necessary and we fear it

God, we fear it

as we suck on the dark tit of society

i throw the key in the lock

it's so lonely in this world where money is God

i throw the contents of her bag on the floor

it's so lonely in this world where money is God

i grab her passport and rush out

it's so lonely in this world where money is God

running back now

They let her go after much deliberation

As the cops pull off

I hear my father's laughter in my head

I smile

Just another free in the day world

Just another

free in this cold and lovely world

30 Days, 30 Poemas ..

Day 2:

Woman

why is it you can't see

that my body was made for you

and your beauty made for me

Hey, Hey baby, can I talk to you for a second?

Who taught you that you were meant to be fucked?

Stop.

Denial is useless

I've been watching you watching me watching you

for this entire train ride

You've expected me to approach you

You don't even question why that task falls upon me

Perhaps you secretly prefer it this way

Or do you recognize choice

Timshel

Thou Mayest

Why do you take a backseat in your own sexuality?

Shall I clamber into your open driver's seat?

Why is it that you don't see the value of your own noble steed?

Stop.

Denial is useless

If you knew the price(lessness) of your love

You'd, without hesitation, take the reigns that were made for your grasp

Do you understand what I'm saying to you?

I was meant for your grasp

Woman

I wonder if you know

that I see infinity in the sway of your backside

Your desire resides in the unfounded depths of my chest

And your refusal to be aware

Pains me

Woman

do you know this pain bores into me

and turns my pleasure to boredom

Woman

You're turning my pleasure to boredom

Woman

You are not your fear.

You are not your confusion

Even in my boredom I can see that

Even in my boredom I can see you

Woman

30 Days, 30 Poemas

Day 1:

On the birthdate of my memory

my father gave me a bucket made

equally of the outer layer of his soul,

hardened by the friction of his dreams rubbing against reality,

and the soft, malleable parts within

My mother poured the milk from her breasts

into my father's gift until it was filled to the brim

And they asked me to look inside

I obliged

Gazing into the depths of their present

I laughed at my presence

As my father witnessed my mirth, a shiver went up his spine

and, perhaps without realizing it,

he began to cultivate a solid distrust of me

On the day I began to nurture my perception

my father gave me the gift of his laughter

From that gift sprung the ability to doubt my mind

to listen to that doubt like a musical note

to sit back in the throne, separate of me only because I think so,

and truly be aware

of my Being

I'm going to die soon

and it feels, well...

it feels like the tingling of an orgasm

thank you

i like to masturbate to my compliments.

The Glory

Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep drawn breath is sweet. It's beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then -the glory- so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from all other men.
I don't know how it will be in the years to come. There are monstrous changes taking place in the world, forces shaping a future whose face we do not know. Some of these forces seem evil to us, perhaps not in themselves but because their tendency is to eliminate other things we hold good. It is true that two men can lift a bigger stone than one man. A group can build automobiles quicker and better than one man, and bread from a huge factory is cheaper and more uniform. When our food and clothing and housing all are born in the complication of mass production, mass method is bound to get into our thinking and to eliminate all other thinking. In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, and even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God. This in my time is the danger. There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point and men are unhappy and confused.
At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?
Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.
And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerbows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.
And this I believe: that free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a patter must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.





-John Steinbeck, "East of Eden" pg. 130-131

journal entry

Wednesday, August 10th

"judgement is either to confuse someone's unconscious behavior with who they are or to project your own unconsciousness onto another person and mistake that for who they are"

eckhart tolle

i can see myself behind everyone's eyes. i'm back, it feels like. aware of my presence. aware of the fact that it is all mine, that i am all it's. it happened while i was reading tolle, he said dont mistake the unconsciousness of others as who they are. then it all clicked. i wasnt just lacking presence myself. i was confusing the identity of everyone as they confuse it themselves. with that realization, i almost can't stand to look at people, they're so beautiful. it's all me. i feel so connected with them. i am aware that they are aware. while it is true that most have been taught, and continue teaching themselves, to hide from their consciousness, becoming their fears, their judgements, their beliefs, and their lies, it does not change the fact that that is not who they are. my back is straight again. i'm supremely aware of my body. i can feel my stomach full with the food i just ate. my breathing is like music. it's like everyone is born as a spirit, and as they enter this world they begin playing dress-up with grotesque costumes that they confuse ffor self. i am no longer afraid at this moment. they are beautiful. if they dont know it, it's merely because they don't know self. and that's alright, because they are not their confusion. they just... are. everything is. i am. fuck.