Notes on the Author

My room is a collection of dust and dirt and hair and sickness. Everybody's hair; in colours and contortions of red and gold and black; blonde and auburn and long and short, men's and women's, curly or not; my own, and not. Looking down at my toes, I think how I used to bite my toenails as a kid. Now I pick them, pull and tear a little, causing catechisms on my fingernails to appear. Half black and full of grit and gristle and jerkily protruding like sick splints of wood- my nails on my fingers and toes, both. I'm filthy. Not necessarily, nor exclusively, in that adolescent, hormonal and lusting way, either; just plain dirty. I feel old in my unwashed self- a thick layer of fresh on top of old, dried, sweat stuck to my skin like a penetrable shield as I slide my fingers down my self and scratch off a flush layer of grime. Little spots cover my face and my uncut facial hair hides all manner of pocks and scars, and my chest burns as it forms a concave indenture and I cough up a small wad of phlegm. Sweat trickles across my upper lip. It's 20 past 4, and I'm still sat on my bed in just my boxer-shorts, stuck on myself as a figure of some dirty old man- a cheap booze-hound, and I like it. It appeals to me. There is an appeal to the dirt and the grime, the catarrh, the fabricated smokey setting like an ethereal haze and the bin full of used condoms which suggests sex.
   And then it becomes a masturbatory act to be sat in the dirt and the grime and the human gristle, and so I prepare to take a shower, and vacate this little, filthy, room of mine that I've hardly left in 4 days.

Notes on the Author

As time goes on passing regularly, the way it does, or rather; the experience of sequential change/movement that we opt to call 'time', for ease and posterity's sake, occurs to be emblematic of 'shifting', 'movement' or continuance, I ruminate on all the articles I have lost, have left me, or am losing, until, surely and unavoidably, there will be nothing left to lose, at all; I will embody, and thus, own nought.
   In the past few weeks, in pursuit of work, much as 'time' is in pursuit of chasing its own tail, I have lost several things, supposedly dear to me. Initially, I recognised, amidst sobering up, that I had lost the eponymous sunglasses that had formulated part of my 'summer' image- both the resultant present from a memorable trade with my kin, and being of some expense- made them, in some way, irreplaceable. Soon, I realised, that the complimentary gold tie pin I had worn them with was also amiss. Little things, but they make for big changes, sometimes. (Or else a big dip in one's bank balance)
   A week later, in due circumstance, I lost my bag in a sprawling crowd of jubilant, near-maniacal, idolaters. I acceded to its loss and continued to 'lose myself', then, in the situation. Nevertheless, the bag was found and returned to me by kindly members of agency and the torpor of mixed emotions was replaced with happiness- only too soon. Making a quick, mental, itinerary, it was revealed that the bag was devoid of all its most precious content; the inks for my pen, my passport for being and a book of my writing. Consolable about all but the last, it was curious that, as I ran through every conceivable page within the book to know what I had written within it- of what was lost and what was not- this book; worth nothing, monetarily, had affected me so much more profoundly than anything else- than any insignia stamped by the governing bodies, or the gold that acted as functional decoration... But words, so incredibly intangible, that had once existed and belonged to me (if such a thing can ever 'belong' anywhere or to any person), and were then glimpses of my self; my exposition to the world; my own stamp that reflected I had lived and thought and was as such, and in being gone, had lost with it all my thoughts and feelings throughout this period of 'time' where I once was... This made me feel that I had lost a little of my self, so much the greater than any solid thing, and so much more the greater than any amount of money would take to recover.
   Just a month ago, or less, I had lost in unfortunate circumstance a golden chain that I wore around my neck. It, too, was a present from my father. It weighed heavily upon me- the sorrow of losing something that had been trusted to me; the guilt, the feeling of never having another, the lost physical presence of my father's love, but in time I had learned to do away with such things; to know that the self is not manifest in articles of gold, and a chain that wears around one's neck will slowly weigh them down further, beyond the emotional, and into the material and then, the avaricious. But what of words? If I choose to forgo them now, then I must forgo all that had come before, and so, never to be will they follow.

Reflections after work

I've sat servile; still,
for so very long, long
enough to watch the sky
turn at once from its
very darkest hue
unto a most serene
sort of blue.

So long as to watch
the descent of Sun be
succeeded by the rising,
crescent moon, which shone
a sort of ghostly white
and later, upon tall blades
of grass; a sliver of silver
cased in dew.

And sitting, always, always
wakeful, with nothing else ado
but wait, my body frigid,
freezing cold and vainly
striving for warmth: I shake,
meditatively, my vigil keeps
me watching as the world
moves by; I see the flight
of birds and bats flit
loftily in the night time sky.
I stare at holes within
the floor; those both
natural and made by man,
and gazing deeply into
nothing, am consolidated
on what I am.

Crime and Punishment

The human condition is the only guillotine; sin does not exist but for in the mind's 'eye', and there is no God to punish thee; no Hell wherein to suffer an eternity. No penance and thus, no redemption; man is his own gaoler. Remember this, as you commit against your fellow neighbor.

My eyes drag me down;
they will have their
justice-
Condemned to
surrendering ground.

For Elise

Something about secrets; the grand unveiling of them, the clandestine whims of another to hide that which can only be recovered and illuminated, and consequently, (in the vein of The Bloody Chamber) those who cause the upheaval are often left 'bloodied' for it. The search for a supposed truth which we understand will be our ruin, and yet feel strangely only the more allured towards; the fire that immolates the paper wings of the moth. Elise is the object of Amor but the titular reference also suggests a rhythm.

Relentlessly
and timorously,
so begins the conflagration
of the soul.
It is prepared by you
as you take great breaths;
the opening steps
to approaching that
dreadfully endearing
door. As always,
you continue to go
ahead, without digress,
though it provide you
no rest;
just as fools always
know best.
Never too penitent,
one sees signs
but never considers to stop,
just as fallen rocks
are never to gather moss
upon rolling,
until they are finally dropped.
One makes dreams,
we soon dream too much
we debase it, dilate it, make
it a nightmare, it seems-
Perverted; our fancies, soon
make way to reality and
it's clear there's been bleed-
Sanguine is one,
with the other's regime
while the other is destitute
that one is as one seems.
We step to the lock,
still the door is shut,
but we peep through the hole
to see that which is what,
and there are our nightmares
and dreams so enshrined
that when we fancy we've
suddenly cashed in on our debt-
we begin to realise,
ours was indeed the wrong bet.
We place our hearts on our plates
then proceed to dine.
Our blood overfills glasses
as we glut on more wine.
And though we see it's our
ruin, we'd rather die
than not know;
the type that picks itself,
repeatedly, just to watch
water flow-
curiosity condemns us
into the hands that will
rend us;
we dream our undoing
and towards it, must go.
Rarely deterred once in flight,
and not wholly unlike the
moth with a frenzied
monomania for light, we
pester and tinker though are
continually scorched
and for every war raised
lose only more-
So deep is our concern
that by it, we are submerged.
And though you might think
that such character,
this 'characteristic', to it
there must be a chance,
a turn of hand to this
trick? Nothing at all, not
a little positive?
To this there is only
to open the door,
and then discuss what
good is restored.

Space

There was something here;
it's not any more,
I removed it,
replaced it,
and I hope you don't mind
the silly rejoinder.

God Exists

I have been living, for the life I've lived; I have been writing.
Within each, tiny, fractured moment there is the semblance of surreptitiousness.
With a maddened mind, I have deified all things that have come to pass;
It has made of me, at once, both a stoic and a man in love.

This fabric called love;
I make a rope of it;
I wring my hands and I
mope from it,
and when at last it seems
that it just might end-
I put my neck through the noose
and fall right down again.
                                                                            *
God Exists;
God needs must exist
because
Life is Good
                                                                            *

The world is meant for thee-
O, man-
who may walk upon most
restful ground
and freely pick those fruits
which grow
four seasons of the year
(except in Rimbaud's Hell)
with never a fear nor worry
that one must caulk the bulwarks, or,
otherwise will drown.
Neptune hid his many secrets
deep below horizon's surface,
and Chronos
made way for matter to
fill that dark blanket sky
with stars for thee
to look upon.
Stay here and rest with passive motion;
as you lift your feet,
the world doth turn
and as you sit; the apple
falls for your contemplation.
Those who war will one day
be apocryphal, and
in your final moments of
a most exact and beauteous
quietude; then,
shall your spirit soar.