burning the white candle.
    he remembers when he used to feel that what happened mattered.
    he's broken the rhythm.
    he has fallen.

    he waits beside the bedroom window.
    he waits as he has always waited except now he no longer believes in what he waits for. there just nothing else to do.

    he remembers the fire.
    he used to feel warm.
    now others dance around its light.
    he waits beside the kitchen window.
    too much is mystery.
    he is sure of nothing.
    he doesn't even feel the pain anymore, but not because it went away.
    into another dawn here, and he wishes he could say a thousand things. he wishes he could open his mouth but it's clamped tight as he holds onto anything that's left.
    as another dawn comes in perfect silence that makes the birds sing praise songs.
    underneath anything.

    and does he care?
    does he feel anything anymore, if ever?
    besides desire.
    he knows he feels desire. the question was, does he care?

    a little more time.
    a little more hope.

    does he care?
    in some ways he cares more than he thinks anyone else can imagine or comprehend - even him.
    yet survival is not dependent on caring. functioning is survival. caring is a luxury.
    is this anything new?

    he opens up one of the shuttered windows. just a crack. and the searing pain that is outside burns him and he locks the shutter tight again.
    this world is a desert shimmering with the pain. it causes one to see mirages in the distance. hope. oasis promise that only leads one further out into the heat and blinding pain.
    he prefers to hide. dying in his own cool darkness. he sees others crawling for the horizon trying to make it past the skeletons.
    he has spent enough nights crying into the void that doesn't even echo back his own cries. nothing.
    he's looked into the hollow shadows behind this world. he's looked into the mirror and not seen a reflection of either himself or anything around him.
    he is not alone in this.

    listen
    to the noise of silence
    or
    tip-toe out the door
    clock
    drop
    the ear to the ground
                to the heartbeat
    the radio air
    tingling hair
    dance

    the tower in the shadow night in the imperfect world.
    the witch is dead.
    the witch has returned to wherever.

    later...

    and it does happen sort of.
    it was something.
    imagining.
    in and out of this world again.
    too much of small doses.
    unhidden.
    even the touch.
    even the joyride to hell.
    because he said so - what?
    blow mind.
    blow the shadows away.

    from one level to another.
    dancing.
    he doesn't know if it's him.
    how does one tell?
    some sparks in a organ in his skull drive his hand to put this dada down.
    now black is white.
            white is black.
            freedom is slavery.
            war is peace.
            plausible deniability.

    maybe never.
    forever is never.
    eternal faith.
    pushing buttons for the elevators going nowhere with nowhere to go.
    talking to himself as himself and whoever else he is, he is, he is...
    just a bunch of these circles doing hoop-dee-hoop and looping loops kinda a little sideways a bit.

    and one, of everyone, should know something.
    so far away in another time he lost.
    he doesn't live there and the him who did is quite dead except for ghosts back there.
    and about one who he knows who can talk to him. does one know how rare for him that is? maybe one does.

    and it's gone.
    a moment flashing here and gone.
    now another memory.
    playing another fool on his face.
    maybe this is too much.
    he'll be the last to know whatever he feels.
    he'll fall over it some time in the dark.
    in the dark.
    songs on the radio.
    all that kinda stuff.
    strung along on some lonely street. walking out in the rain and watching the dawn seep through the wet black.
    down in dark flames burning inside somewhere in a hole in his soul.
    mystery dog.
    mystery.
    try to catch on.
    it slips away.
    how dumb can one get?

    7/18
    all the days that pass alone one after the other slow as a funeral procession.
    time hums to itself looking the other way.
    if he could talk with someone forever.
    words.
    words he cannot send.
    would you...?
    how can he express anything either mundane or spiritual?
    does either matter?
    dog plasma.

    it goes on till tuesday and keeps going after that. a bunch of monkeys under the covers.
    there really isn't that much more.

    monkey junkies.
    up in trees.
    up in the glass office buildings.
    static control.
    the jets in the sky.
    the missiles in the ground.
    the money in the bank.

    7/19
    and what is the name to his addiction? what is it he has been denied that he craves?
    himself?
    he must feel himself as being real - more than real - as being reality.
    he laughs at those around him. they are not him. he spits at them.
    he has feelings for no one else. remember this.
    he takes up space but has no substance. he is void. he is a hole in the fabric.
    he has no name.

    and whatever time may pass. he may see another once more for another brief moment against the hours of loneliness. a spark, then darkness.
    how long after that will it be? maybe never.
    words written over distance. he imagines the other. he will call up his memory of the other and have it speak to him as his mind speaks to itself. he's done this before. as the late hours wind around the clock and he sits in the dream shadows of people who sleep all around him. he can call up anyone he wants.
    he usually doesn't admit this. others would look at him and see him as a little mad though he can see that it's the doubt of their own sanity they don't want to face.
    he's always lived in a strange world. he wasn't born, he was shipwrecked. he still has trouble with the local customs. they are not natural to him.
    these are the lives we lead in a different place in a different time. but this is here and now. he shuts his eyes.

    7/20-21
    to face another day of madness in this world. the mad world.
    crashing reality.
    sparking mind.
    he doesn't know where to look anymore.
    he sleeps.
    he dreams.
    he wakes.
    he dreams.
    one becomes the other turning into the other.
    zero equals infinity.

    he wants to understand.
    he is told he cannot understand because he is human - mortal. a vessel that is too small to contain all that understanding is.
    is this his fault?
    is he to blame for being what he is?
    he does not recall asking to be human. this was decided for him. he can only ask, why?
    if he cannot understand as he is, then make him something else. make him into something that can hold understanding.
    he wants to understand.

    following the tide.
    not much choice when there is nothing else to hold onto.
    zippity-doo.
    zippity-doo-wah.
    zippity-doo-wah-wah.
    zippity-doo-wah-wah-bam!

    cry under the love of the sky. wishing to fly.
    eating sandwiches with the director of the cia.

    7/26
    he doesn't wish to complain, but he always does.
    life is a bitch.
    and so on.
    nothing is all that important.
    he waits for something better or for what is here to just go away.
    he is a prisoner.
    he is the prisoner.
    he is their prisoner.
    he is his own prisoner.
    he is imprisoned by life. all the things he cannot do - he can barely dream about.
    and life goes on.

    down by sea horses tripping on yesterday's acid. let's see that great big smile. smile until your teeth hurt but you can't stop because there's so much to smile about because you're insane for awhile.
    and then...
    remembering memory. flipping through the files. ticking down the stairway.
    into the folds to lay down and sleep.
    and then...

    fold up and lay down again and maybe remember all forgotten logic beyond the logical truth foreseen by ancient minds and dispelled with reason. but the reason has been cast aside.
    everything is lost in the total process and how.
    why we see everything.
    why we see nothing.
    down the trail eyes knowing what to look for already. a thread for escape. a thread of mind. a thread of thought.
    by a thread of thought they escaped into and out of the great unknown out of and into another even greater unknown. so there.
    a young monk bitten in youth where youth belongs to be bitten. and once bitten the young monk was bitten.

    get it all down now.
    look into ahead of time.
    check it.
    don't be afraid of circumstances. they can neither hurt you nor help you beyond what they may or may not do for themselves.
    unleash gravity welling around you.
    good-bye, mr. jones.
    walk back out.
    breakfast in pre-dawn dark light. the heads are heavy and talk slides liquid around our faces laughing still with the basic noise undertone.
    get it?

    8/2
    out of balance.
    absolutely out of balance.
    the hungry and the dead.
    greed destroys all including the destroyer.
    the pain.
    the screaming silence.
    the end.
    no end.

    understanding.
    breathe.
    waiting for the time to be right.
    knowing.
    breath.
    mind.
    soul.
    god.
    it.
    i.

    dear ed:
    as you might have guessed there are many things wrong. do you know what they might be? please advise.
    everything is being exposed.
    everything has temporarily been discontinued here. we are regrouping. everything is now being directed into the imaginary city project. the time is right.
    cut up magazines.
    send no money.
    dogs and cats.
    everything is possible.
    we lost the test but as we remember it you got almost all the questions wrong. you're in.
    do what you must do.

    and how many people are dead who are still living?
    someday someone might care.
    but for now it doesn't matter.
    all the words of poets cannot yet crack the walls.
    the walls around us.
    the walls through us.
    the walls we are and will become.
    the walls.
    the walls.
    and the walls.
    and...

    8/3
    "heroes for ghosts"
    keyboard chords in the summer night.
    it's all gone away.
    "wish you were here"
    someone to talk to and maybe hold onto.
    he's old enough now, he's supposed to stand on his own.
    but he's down on his knees head bent low before the images of nothingness around him.
    confusion his only companion.
    and they want to tell him it's just a joke, get up and laugh.
    get up and play.
    he's got chains on every part of his body. he cannot get free. his chains are linked to the chains of others.
    you wander the wilderness, mr. antler, and pretend in a fantasy of long ago poets. poets whose words were tramped under the feet of an army following orders.
    he is part of that army now. he is pulled every way it goes. he cannot not obey.
    his disobedience is too easily ignored and unheard. he is trampled under and his body is still dragged chained to the chains of others.
    yes, he can see your vision.
    your poems are poems he's written himself. poems that never stop being written.
    a factory of poems.
    he has felt the pain of punch press machine guns shooting product bullets into the wonderful great mother of us all.
    he has seen the blood stink in the rivers from wounds that may never heal.
    you are not alone.
    even out in your mescaline wilderness you are not alone.
    you can never get away.
    you can never get free.
    so long as he wears chains his chains are linked to your chains no matter how far they may reach.
    yes, you are still in the factory. they have given you the drug that lets you believe you have escaped.
    you have not escaped.
    you have only reached a critical point of solipsistic madness.
    he's just about to reach that point himself. when pretending becomes real.
    does it matter?
    as long as the machines roll on they don't care how far away you go.
    they know you cannot ever break the chains as long as one of us is chained all of us are chained.
    that's the trick.

    we are everywhere.
    we are the dead who cannot sleep.
    we are the living who cannot stay awake.
    we rise and fall between space and time.
    we look out and see nothing and everything.
    we are one and we are all.
    we are no one and we are everyone.
    we come and we go.

    it's easy to write about all the impossible things.
    if it were only as easy to do them.
    as if we were flying.
    as if we were living.

    signaling the sky for our dream come true.
    the key in our heads refuses to turn and unlock the door.
    maybe it's not a door at all.
    maybe it's a white horse.

    the poet does not not speak in silence.
    does the poet know it?
    what does the poet know?
    what points is the poet trying to make?
    are these questions you should/should not be asking?
    yes?
    speak up.
    it's your turn.
    speak something or remain silent.
    who is who here?
    who is the poet and do they know it?
    the poet who knows it please give rise and speak unto us.
    or be silent.
    or with your silence answer us.
    is this your way?
    is this what we are to learn?
    silence?
    then if we speak while you are giving lessons of silence what do we learn?
    what are we even doing daring to transgress the master's way?
    we speak into the silence.
    we speak with the silence?
    we speak at the silence.
    who are we speaking?
    who are we to dare?
    we dare.
    we speak.
    we are afraid to speak what we might speak in speaking.
    we speak in silence.

    don't look beyond the edge into rooms which are not there anyhow.
    logic never fails.
    you can reason your way out of anything.
    sit up.
    beg.
    lie down.
    play dead.

    familiarize yourself with something unfamiliar.
    let it go.
    away.
    down and down and down.
    or
    up and up and up.
    like a saxophone played by someone really good.
    or something.
    don't let go of letting go.
    or something.

    gotta kinda lay it down.
    kick it into a dream under the rug.
    or under the rug into a dream.
    whichever fits.
    much too loud and tasting sour twisting alive and dancing like some kinda fugitive from some place you don't ever wanna see again.
    down on the floor under the rug into a dream.
    into the main dark experience crawling to the other side of no place ever been before.
    everything lies in the morning.
    animal beginning awake to a weird dawn light against the eyes looking for some location or another.
    nothing here at all that wasn't the same as it always was except now it's kinda backward and sideways a bit.
    kinda kicking under the dream into the rug.
    or into a rug under the dream.
    mistakes happen.
    look out.
    one could be you.
    a fluke in the eye of god blinking as we would blink out a flake of dust.
    god sure is a big fella.
    we feel so small and helpless under the weight inside a life that in the truest realities doesn't happen because god forgets it as soon as it happens because it doesn't fit into the cosmic bliss lifestyle.
    so how come we get stuck with it?
    hello?
    good-bye and bye.

    formulations of being. existence. eyes opening to the vision of world. experience of world.
    what?
    what keeps his eyes focused here? how come he can't look away?
    and people want him to think of himself as some sort of freak. someone who isn't worth nothing.
    what is he worth?
    he is worth his own being. his own existence. at least.
    and it is argued that that is exactly what he has. or does he?
    is this his being? is this his existence?
    a spot?
    a dot?
    a not?
    and here he is with all the other thimkers.
    thimk.
    thimk.
    thimk.
    and after all, what is done is done. and done exactly. or we suppose it is.
    is it?
    who decides?
    did he?
    did we?
    was this some sort of mutual consensus? - the mean of all possibilities?
    zip.
    and so it is that it is. this is it as it is.
    he is him. or you. or them. or anyone who he could be or could have been.
    once.
    twice.
    then and again.

    and i would like to read a poem, she read, about myself being in a poem, reading a poem that is the poem i am in. she grinned with scary wit. can such a poem be written?
    and to this replied a missile launched moments ago bursting the room she read the poem in apart into countless directions.
    instant death.
    ka-pow!
    here - there - everywhere.
    a moment to a moment to all moments.
    or was it she who exploded?
    did she turn her head just that way to release herself to bits?
    no one lived to be a witness.
    whoever (if anyone) launched the missile refuses to confess.
    whole governments.
    whole generations.
    whole civilizations.
    whole histories.
    whole evolutions.
    whole universes.
    and he is to explain?

    the ice cuts his eyes again. he dives below the frozen surface to look again at possible beginnings.
    he stimulates.
    he envisions.
    he recalls something here once. was it him? was it you? was it anyone?

    and into a great unknowing we rise and fall.
    and into a great unknown we come alive.
    and with our breath we speak.
    otherwise we are absent.

    and as he watches his life pass before his eyes.
    is he somewhere dying?
    an old man in bed breathing ever shallower breaths - letting go?
    or lying in a freeway wreck losing reality?
    or shot in a war by some scared kid soldier who shoots at his own shadow - anything that moves?
    or whenever...

    memory.
    it's only memory.
    we as god play back the film of our lives and dreams.
    laughing.
    oh yeah, i remember this part. watch. it's hilarious.
    nirvana.
    look at me as many me doing many things to myself.
    it's only a memory.
    there is no pain.

    8/4
    some time out of somewhere.
    dreaming of a dream.
    put together bits of nonsense into a shell of dreaming of itself abandoned on the lonely shore of stars. twirling dance galaxy. out in the dark and into the light. folding unfolding waves in unity function being alive.
    it takes a thousand years - a million. forgetting and remembering again.
    crying and laughing again.
    is this the hope we hope for?
    hope being by definition something that can never meet its end.

    in tunnels becoming more and more itself crawling toward existence.
    destroying each moment as it begins another.
    not without thought.
    not without care.
    love without preference that falls into ice cold.
    is this what we remember?
    is this what we are told to remember?
    the victims become the victims.
    the hero is another victim.
    you are another victim - a victim of a pronoun.
    to force the teeth bare back growl.
    the moon. the moon.

    being one too many.
    let me explain, he writes.
    no, let it explain itself.
    yes, that is the way we are always thinking.
    explanations.

    being from a far place.
    information.
    plain.
    regular.
    normal.
    it's hardly worth it.

    turn on, mother blue, turn on, turn on.
    turn us on.
    tune us in.
    drop us out.
    ah-ha-ha-ha-ah! we laugh unexpectedly. we turn toward the door...
    the door opens.
    we step out without moving a toe.
    we drop out into a clear blue void spinning slowly, first one direction, then another.
    or are we the ones spinning?
    or is it the void sky?

    just more make believe.
    pretend.
    no one and nothing is there.
    false.

    8/5
    vague sunlight.
    glowing gray sky.
    he wants to go back to bed but he can't because he's gotta finish waking up to go to work.
    work.
    we all work.
    work for the promised day when all the work is done.
    why can't that day be today?
    some kind of radio tv broadcast newspaper headline announcement: go home. we're done. no more work.

    the shapes of nothing.
    the nothingness of shapes.
    the confusion of both.
    waves and waves and waves.
    he still understands none of it and here he is halfway through what could be his life.
    when does it come?
    does it come?
    or will he die into the same darkness he was born out of?
    where is the light?

    too much time to think and not enough time to think.
    going crazy and not going crazy enough.

    it's truth and not truth.
    it's love and death.
    it's here and now.
    what matters?
    what doesn't matter?

    burning through our hearts.
    burning through our brains.
    we begin/not begin.

    a poem/not poem
    warm and cold.
    inside and out.
    upstream and down.
    all that is and is not.

    uninspired.
    tired.
    helpless.
    useless.
    not god.

    an empty carnival.
    spaces littered with left behind dead excitement.
    faces.
    arms and legs.
    dried spots of blood.
    worms.
    seesaws.
    airplanes.
    a tree that has been there from long before.

    8/6
    another day gone by with nothing discovered.

    8/7
    and another...

    so good-bye mars.
    so long and good luck.
    we won't miss you. in fact, as they say in the cartoons, if we never see you again it will be too soon.
    take your sword and helmet and armor with you. we have no use for it. we have enough plowshares, thank you.
    and with the trouble you always get yourself into you'll probably be needing it soon.
    so good-bye mars.

    8/8
    in the deepest darkest hottest pits of hell where nothing ever sleeps, where anger flows like molten lead in pools of metallic energy turning slowly around and around bubbling hotter than heat itself burning in frustration with pain so quick no scream can release it.
    eyes dry and lidless cannot stop seeing this vision. the image experimentally etched into the synapses locked open sparking like jacob's ladders.

    8/11
    will the time come?
    will it ever come?
    if not today, then tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow?
    next week?
    next month?
    next year?
    a decade?
    a century?
    a millennium?
    when?
    how long do we have to wait?
    how long do we have to suffer?

    to realize that we all share the same basic fears. that we only give them different names and thereby make each other the enemy.
    all share the same basic fear.
    black and white.
    man and woman.
    the capitalist and the revolutionary.
    the christian and the moslem and the jew and the hindu and the buddhist and the pagan.
    everyone of us.
    yet we point our finger at someone else when we should point it at ourselves.
    listen to one's fear.
    don't give it a name.
    find out that it is oneself and not someone else.

    he wishes he had the words to free you.
    he wishes he had the words to free himself.
    but he doesn't.
    what are they?
    where are they?
    how can he find them?
    there are thousands - millions - of books filled with words in countless combinations - yet here we still are.
    killing each other - killing ourselves.
    maybe it's not the words.
    it's the understanding of the words.
    he doesn't understand them.
    do you?

    not much to write about.
    what's been written has been written.
    the river flows on as the fish float belly up and the people go madder than ever.
    keep walking away with a broken heart on and on.

    some say there are better times ahead. how long have they been saying that? everybody talking about the signs coming true. he doesn't know. it sounds like the same old story to him. he'll wait and see.

    how many more tears?
    96?
    how many more mothers and fathers crying for their children?
    how long are we going to keep this up?
    so much is lost and nothing is gained, yet we claw each other down forever.

    zero time and words that go nowhere.
    looking out the windows for the weather to change.
    lay down and sleep hoping to wake up to a brand new day. it never changes.

    take it all away.
    see if he cares.
    he doesn't need or believe in any of it.
    what lies beneath it all?

    8/12
    and nowhere to go except stay around here and put up with all the bullshit everyone's into. it all comes down. he doesn't blame them so much. everyone's overworked and can't think straight. no time to think.
    the same day over and over again for 10,000 years or more.
    the same day.
    "nothing's gonna change my world".

    time and emptiness forever.
    on a planet of broken hearts and dreams.
    only those who streamline themselves into non-stop panzer blitz machines can get through it.
    the rest are overcome in the wake. sink or swim. and, of course, it's their own fault...

    time and emptiness forever.
    on a planet of broken hearts and dreams.
    look at us walking around like zombies stunned by life.
    look at us hardly knowing what to do.
    look at us crying without showing a tear.
    we can't stop for each pain until the pain reaches up and pulls us down.

    time and emptiness forever.
    on a planet of broken hearts and dreams.
    shattered pieces of real people's lives no amount of imagination can put together again - only gloss them over with fantasy.

    and onward.
    and on and on.
    the madness never stops.

    bring on the dreams.
    let us all forget who we are.
    it doesn't matter.
    none of this is going anywhere.
    no one's going anywhere though some spend their lives chasing their tails around and around.
    rosebuds.

    the fantasy of our fantasies clouding over our minds. who sees the world as it is? who cares?

    and 10,000 years ago the first walls were built. and they've stayed up ever since.
    the walls around each and everyone of us. the walls that never come down, though some are invisible.

    and the overwhelming silence of self where a million thoughts...

    and the silence inside ourselves.
    we hide within cocoons wrapped in layers of fantasy - layers of bullshit.

    and what always happens.
    and what doesn't happen at all.
    and whatever in-between.
    and all on and on...
    so what?
    what of it if any of it matters?
    nothing...

    bringing down the very stars and all that stuff of the imagination.
    mind over mind.
    mind over nothing.

    sing all the songs of freedom and in the end we're still in the cage. we've only shaken the bars for awhile. the guards laugh. but they don't know that they're in a cage too.

    open up all the doors.
    open up the sky.
    we could know more freedom than we can possibly imagine now.
    we know nothing now.

    babylon.
    babylon.
    babylon will fall.
    international chains will break. we will stop hating people, brothers and sisters, in other lands and our own.
    the words of the prophets cannot be wrong.
    hear the people sing.
    babylon.
    babylon.
    babylon will fall.
    its ashes will fertilize the growth of the new world.
    we all know death supports life.
    babylon.
    babylon.
    babylon will fall.
    it will come crashing down by its own weight.
    how far will you have to fall or do you already have your feet on the ground?

    come on.
    come on.
    laugh at him - call him fool.
    but what other future do you propose?
    look around at the world that surrounds you now.
    look at all the hatred and suffering.
    and know -
    babylon.
    babylon.
    babylon will fall.

    now everyone hates everyone else.
    but what we should hate is the system that makes us hate each other.
    aren't you tired of hating?
    doesn't it wear you down?
    wouldn't you like to let it go?
    he knows he sure would.
    that's why -
    babylon.
    babylon.
    babylon is doomed to fall.
    too many people tired of hating.
    too many people around the world and right next door.

    and hope for nothing.
    and hope for everything.
    reach out and touch everyone.
    you can.
    you can.
    you know you can.
    try.
    aren't you tired of hating everything that moves?
    let the others keep killing and destroying.
    what's more important is that you yourself stop - even if it's no one else.
    let it all fall around you.
    sure you're going to keep getting ripped off.
                                                         raped.
                                                         abused.
                                                         knocked down.
                                                         kicked in the head.
    no one said you weren't.
    but everyone's expecting the same from you.
    won't they be surprised when you just smile away.
    they'll wonder what you got.
    but you got nothing they don't have themselves.
    and they can get it too, anytime.
    it's so simple but it sure isn't easy.
    everyone trying their best to get over you and under you - to get you to hate them.

    yeah, you can scream and shout about how everyone's got you down.
    now tell us something new.
    you know how long people have been bitching about how shitty their lives are?
    now tell us something new.
    sure, this world is the ugliest thing that ever came into existence.
    now tell us something new.
    you think you're the first person up against the wall?
    now tell us something new.
    your baby just walked out on you.
    your boss is an asshole.
    the banks hog all the money.
    the government is a police state.
    religion is for junkies.
    now tell us something new.
    we've lived this long and haven't heard anything that wasn't said 10,000 years ago.
    you think that by shouting louder than everyone else that your complaints are more valid.
    it's all old.
    now tell us something new.

    8/13
    what is truth?
    what is fiction?
    which is stranger?

    the myths upon myths upon myths. the system of myths we believe in.
    how is it broken?
    how do we know what lies beneath it? - if anything at all - if not more lies.
    when will our eyes be opened?
    when will we know what is and what is not?

    gates folding into gates.
    the zebras are dancing.
    follow the color heavy face tasting blood on brow.
    bye and far.

    one of the diamond boys hopping out of the tune.
    zing-o.
    pop-ran-dog.

    on the stick ape.
    on the nose of hell driving berserk pantomind upward into the czark planetoid beingk moobaby.
    let's call.
    let's be there.
    nobody home instead.
    reptile - come in - reptile.
    driving rhythm noise.
    just a gang now for awhile. then comes more.