Browsed by
Category: Poems

I’m used to it

I’m used to it

I’m used to the hurt and the disappointment.
I’m used to being alone with this.
I’m used to having had enough.
I’m used to walking down the street, trying to yell the hurt out.
You make a deep gutteral bellow yell from inside the pocket of your gut out through all of you.
It is like a shockwave with a moment of peace after the emanation.
Stand up straight!
Chest out!
Head up!
Pull the light in at your shoulders, head, neck, chest, back, naval, everywhere.
Move free and easy, limbs flowing like water.
Fill up with light!
I’m trying, I’m trying.
But if there was just someone who would hear me out. Who would have the space to let what I know is true be true.
Yeah yeah, sure sure.
I’m not a baby.
The hurt is getting worse.
I’m not crazy.
It is from way back and is lodged in way deep.
It is too much.
I need help.
I’ve been disappointed when I’ve tried to be real.

BW / AMW

Invincible Anti-Weapon

Invincible Anti-Weapon

[Anti-Weapon / New Manhattan Project]

Introductory Ode to the Invincible Anti-Weapon

Because war and strife have been done and done.
We’ll end them with an anti-weapon against which no violence can stand.
I like to be healthy and free, with spending money and time to stroll the lanes and greens.
Or while me awhile on wharfs with freighters spilling over overhead — for example.
And let our minds be beautiful and our art hilarious as God’s patience!

This anti-weapon sucks the hardness out of every heart
without even trying.
We win without moving,
So we can use movement to work the infinite space of creative thought.

No one can resist the ageless, pre-idea, pre-feeling Truth;
It screams within and without each human outline.
No one’s immune. No one!

And thus the anti-weapon advances, claims us all everyone.
No longer cramped and torn in illusions of zero sum me vs you,
we move free on earth as in heaven.

What anti-weapon?
Love?
Yes, but infinite:
a ruthless compassion
whose relentless expansion
is actually just a change of perspective — a turning towards the how-it-is.

Turn me round, let me see. Turn us to see, help us see.
Fill me up. Stand me up straight and tall.
Help me push out from within.
Please!
I don’t want to keep limping along like a wet noodle all the livelong day.

A bright light that laughs merrily, kindly, all is well.
Something like that.
An anti-weapon of great power.

AMW/BW

If you like our essaying, First Essays has a lot of essays.
And of that lot, A Readable Reader has a selection of the most readable ones.

We’d love it if you’d
[Buy a Books]
Books So Far: Superhero Novella, A Readable Reader, First Loves, First Essays
Books Coming Summer 2020: Fixing Frankenstein, NYC Journal Volume 1
&/Or, sign up for our mailing list:
[mc4wp_form id=”6431″]
&/OrVisit our Pure Love Shop
&/Or write to us at Editor@PureLoveShop.com

[Anti-Weapon / New Manhattan Project]

[NYC Journal – Politics Page]

[Something Deeperism Institute]

[NYC Journal]

Original Version:
Because war and strife have been done and done.
I’ll end them with an anti-weapon against which no violence can stand.
I like to be healthy and free, with spending money and time to stroll the lanes and greens. Or while me awhile on wharfs with freighters spilling over overhead–for example.
And let our minds be beautiful and our art hilarious as god’s patience!
This anti-weapon sucks the hardness out of every heart without even trying. We win without moving; so we can use movement to work the infinite space of creative thought.
No one can resist the ageless, pre-idea, pre-feeling Truth; it screams within and without each human outline. No one’s immune. No one! And thus the anti-weapon advances, claims us all everyone. No longer cramped and torn in illusions of zero sum me vs you, we move free on earth as in heaven.
What anti-weapon?
Love?
Yes, but infinite: a ruthless compassion whose relentless expansion is actually just a change of perspective–a turning towards the how-it-is.
Turn me round, let me see. Turn us to see, help us see.
Fill me up. Stand me up straight and tall. Help me push out from within. Please! I don’t want to keep limping along like a wet noodle all the livelong day.
A bright light that laughs merrily, kindly, all is well. Something like that. An anti-weapon of great power.

AMW / BW

The Evil Lingering Here

The Evil Lingering Here

He was a child of his times–
and who can stand completely above his time?
It was a child’s game–
and who are we to judge?
Ah me, oh my–
I’m getting older.

These smooth river pebbles
testify loud and clear, call him by name.
The droop and drip-drop of this plywood ceiling
and the rotten plywood flooring
where a soft, well-arched beginner’s foot
fell splintering through–
they testify against his heart,
drag ‘im undertow down
to the red-brick, oak-plank
gallows
centered in the cobblestone,
green-benched town square.

I’ll help him
meet his maker!
I’ll fight for his right
to sail up
gizzardfirst
into the morning light.

Children, children, watch your elder,
mind my wobbly bow-legged step,
mind my crooked, o’er-knobbed staff
grinding sharp thuds into stone
and slipping soft gooshes into the cracks
overgrown with moss
cobwebbing these hefty pavers.

Mind my thought, mind my spitting speech
and dogged, screwed-up topmost eye!
Mind you not follow him
down the path that leads
to that putrid, self-defacing
sun salute!

Mind my wisdom.

Evil lingers here.
It drips like dewdrop-scattered light
off the beautiful, peach-soft,
taut cantaloping,
sweet, shadow-groving
young, bright-eyed women.

Evil keeps home here.
It fumes–
a green, cadaverous
spreading, cool, stale
smoke–
around the sturdy thighs,
and nut-cracking biceps,
of these thick-necked,
loud-laughing
lossless adventure lads.

It works its way into the clever calculations,
the industrious organizations,
the perfumy poesie
of science, business, art. .

It infects the whole,
which rots from the inside out
puking itself out onto the ground
like a long-gone pumpkin
that, after months of sag slouch twist,
finally spills its guts.

We’ve built such mighty,
such complicated,
such ornate
structures!

Atop this rancid crime.

Terrible!
Makes one shudder and shake
to suppose, to merely suggest!

And yet this too,
this evil too pleases us,
rubs our belly,
excites our thick, bored, boxy nerves.
We love to shake our heads,
cluck our tongues,
wiggle in disgust like pigs
pink, with fine white hairs,
jiggling in anticipation
when some generous leather hand
fills the trough.

BW / AMW

Was kann ich dafuer?

Was kann ich dafuer?

Ich kann nichts dafuer.
Ich kann nichts dagegen.
Es soll an mir nicht liegen.
Es ist nicht meine Schuld.
Ich habe es nicht getan,
wuerde sowas nie tun–
koennte es nicht einmal wollen.

Reiner Zufall, reiner Zufall,
dass das Schlimme und meine Taetigkeit
zusammen zu finden sind.

Es tut mir Leid,
echt Leid,
soviel Leid.

Man muss sich daran erinnern,
man muss zuruekdenken,
man muss nach der verschwundenen Zeit greifen,
um es zurueck zubekommen.
Auch wenn es zu spaet ist–
man weiss nie!–,
ist es vielleicht nicht zu spaet–
also wuerde ich erraten,
energisch danach zu ergreifen.

Naja.

Ich spazierte allein in Le Havre.
Nacht.
Hatte vor, das Englisch sprechende Ich
zu toeten.
Also fand ich mich in Le Havre
ganz allein,
spaziergehen im Stadtpark in der sommerlichen Daemmerung.

Auch ging ich–
am hellichten Tag–
schwimmen.
Ja!
In Le Havre.

Grosse Frachtschiffe rings herum;
und danach,
Kaltwasser tropfend,
Flying Saucer Rundsteine
unter meinen Fuessen,
ging ich an das Strandhaeuschenrestaurant
wo ich eine Pizza mit einem Spiegelei
bestellt und gegessesn habe.

Ich vermisse jeden Augenblick.

AMW / BW

Diner meeting

Diner meeting

Big fat man in shimmer-shine polo;
Walk and slosh from side to side;
Strange lined threads shake and spray
the yellow diner light.

Little head blond round and wise
Aging tortoise mouth and eyes.

Slap back, handshake-hug
a short, jive suit fellah–
a dark skin boy in sheer flattop;
these two guys: men upon the scene.

“Can you believe this?
Yuppies flood’in the place!–!”

Slide together in a booth
To meet across a faux
blue marble tabletop–
plastic over composite ply.

Old school blinking cool.

Earlier, to the tan kid
sprawled along old countertop,
who’d said it was like that here five years ago:
“83 homicides!–83 homicides the last year I’s here!”

Earlier earlier, to the 50-and-some
broad dropjaw overarch nose
local team sweatshirt counterman
leaning forward–arms as struts,
palms pushed against his countertop:

“What’s happened to this place!?”
And Then:
“I worked here 25 years ago–
neighborhood’s completely changed–
who are these people?”

The 90 year old woman, with still a dab of slav
at the bottom of her Brooklyn,
who lived for 60 years down the street a bit,
who stays now above the diner
a small place she shared
with her son,
who’d worked at the diner
before he died–
“but he died”–,
said, after open-arm head-back
“neighborhoods completely changed”
and wrapping weakly ’round frog-faced
“who are these people?”:
“I think its nice.”

Further frog-pout,
and an unconvinced,
but peaceable unconcerned
mountain-sloshing shrug.

AMW/BW

The murder

The murder

The murder
The sin
The hate
The rape
The crime

That undid your philosophy
and showed everybody
where you really were.

It had been
a nice idea.

BW / AMW

Another one bites the dust

Another one bites the dust

Keep in mind
that I’ll die.

I used to suppose,
and who can blame me?,
that the gods would make something of an exception
in my case.

Not so much that I’d never die;
I want to die eventually–
so I can go to the next level.

But I thought,
well,
all things considered:
the extreme violence in my soul,
the laughter all through my thought,
the slowness of the my head-turn;
I thought the gods
and blessed influences
such as they are,
which isn’t to say
that I can enumerate them.

Would go ahead
and let me turn to magic energy,
and change from form to form,
skipping from body to body,
from joke to joke,
but all the while
keeping these memories,
even the childhood in the snow
and the scraggle dry air sunlight overlook between vans with a cousin and some wooden guns
by my side.

Maybe–maybe!
Hard to say,
the future being what it is;
but it also seems likely enough
that,
well,
I’ll just inhabit this body
and it will collapse,
and I’ll go down with
the sinking
ship.

Oh dear!
Oh no!

Still,
we do all rise again.
But I didn’t want to forget anything.
And the way it usually goes
is that you forget everything
except the memory of the soul–
before idea,
before feeling,
before perception.
The memory of the soul.

It’s not that big a deal;
after all,
I don’t remember that much of my life anyway.
So I may as well let these
you know
intellectual
and emotional
memories
go
and
sure, whatever,
start fresh.

I guess.

AMW / BW

The Loneliest Boys in the room

The Loneliest Boys in the room

That’s their thing.
That’s their distinction.
Having swallowed the razor.
And forgotten the story.
Having sank to the bottom
and looked up through
layers of waters.

I suppose it is true,
what they say,
that after this life
you live again
in a new body
in a new way
with a new mind
but still holding
the essential
wisdom
learned
this time around
which slowly builds up on the back of your soul like light
building up on the back of a slow exposure camera
that you make out of a shoe box with a pinhole.

Surging forward,
but ah yes
my friends
Surging forward,
like energy pushes up into a wave,
filling the wave,
being that moment.
Again and again.
From before through now to after.

These lives,
these deaths,
over and over,
easy as that,
easy as waking up,
falling asleep,
waking up;
forgetting everything
but the most essential thing,
which you don’t forget,
which keeps on growing,
on the backlights,
getting brighter,
overtaking you.

You say no way,
can’t be,
so many souls
is too many,
and even each cockroach
has a little flash of
awareness within
its panic stream.

But it can be done;
it is done;
there’s no problem here;
it keeps surging forward;
and the Light overtakes the darkness.

BW / AMW

Memo from the Otherside

Memo from the Otherside

What is it like to be dead?
Your body turned to wood then mush then bones then dust?
What is it like to be just a soul up in the great heaven?
It’s fine.
I was worried I wouldn’t have any thoughts or feelings because I’d be without my brain and my body. I’d thought that the brain/body did reasoning and feelings. So that left me with pure awareness. I thought maybe I’d have that, and I’d just be like a goldfish: always watching but not remembering anything, just watching but not holding any experiences. Or actually, worse than a goldfish–at least they get to see the watery wonderworld. Without senses and without ideas and feelings, I thought I’d be just watching emptiness. Doubtless–I figured–it would be great enlightenment because without all the distractions of ideas, feelings, and perceptions, I’d be constantly aware of what really is: that everything/nothing at the back of one’s conscious experience that–like water to an ocean-going goldfish–holds all experience and yet you can’t quite stand back and notice. I was worried–can you believe it!?–that it would be boring to sit all day in the bliss of pure awareness of the True Good that exists prior to all specifics, that creates them and shines through them and rescues them from themselves.
But it isn’t like that at all anyway.
I have no physical form, but there are other ways to think and feel, and my naked soul hooks easily into them. I am smarter, more deep-feelinged; gentler; calmer; more at ease as I drift through the years always still and yet casting my mind anywhere I please so long as it pleases God, who turns out to be rather lenient with us dead people.
Born again?
Into another body on the old world or a new one?
Well, yes–I’ve been putting off those offers for some time. I just can’t see the point.
Granted, it would allow me to work on faith better. Here it is obvious. Here I clearly perceive that honest joyful creative kindless is the only way to go. Once in possession of a body/brain that truism becomes less obvious, so you’re forced to either realize it deep within better and better each day, or slouch around town with a yucky taste in your mouth. Here it is I suppose a little too easy, a little too pleasant, a little too obvious. I guess I really should go to earth again. Hmmm, well–
I could just wait for the endtimes, when all souls melt back into God, which is a happy ending anyway. Of course, one endtimes just hiccups up into another reality, and in the deepest sense, there’s no time anyway and all happens at once. I’m pretty sure no matter what I do, all will be well with my soul and all other souls. Because God’s all set no matter what and just creates and sustains realities as a joyful little bonus. Not that God can choose to do otherwise; God must follow God’s way, which includes infinite creation and caring. But it also includes the knowledge that that’s just for fun, for delight, for the sparkle on the water mirrored in the gull’s eye.
Still, I should make the most out of my existence. I should push myself to become as wise and good as possible. That’s my calling, as a soul afloat in God, which of course I am with or without a body/brain.
Ah well, let it pass, let it pass; I’ll stop in on some old friends and talk about the good old days, maybe even remembering wine so well that we seem to have a couple glasses around an old oak table in a well-lit tavern a thousand years ago.

BW / AMW

On the couch

On the couch

My biggest problem?
It’s gotta be that I already have a girlfriend.
When a man–especially a relatively youngish-looking man with a tidy haircut and clothes that hang well–is single, he always has a brighter future to look forward to. Every time he sees an attractive young woman, he can feel like she just may be the girl for him, that he just may be about to land. A man–at least as far as I can tell–always feels like an old space ship that’s journeyed for a million years and is falling apart at the seams but that is desperately keeping it together to rattle just a little bit further so that it can finally reach its destination: a rich, lush, green, watery, fecund world where he can start fresh. The wager will have paid off! He gave up everything to hold the ship together and push it forward to the end; now he’s old and exhausted and he’s long been bored and depressed and disappointed and lonely and ashamed and confused; but it is all OK, because now he’s touching down and soon he’ll be the infinite expansion of joyful thriving that he always knew he should be, could be–if he could just settle himself into the right woman.
All well and good, all plausible enough: a likely enough story and a workable enough path to salvation–as long as you’re single. But the existence of a significant other seriously vexes the storyline. You see a pretty woman, and the hope-hope motor kicks in, but then you remember you’ve already got a girlfriend.
Do I love my girlfriend?
That’s beside the point.
The point is that I cannot be just about to find my girlfriend, and from this point of view my girlfriend–charming though she may be–has ruined my happiness. Though it would be reductionist and cruel to say she is nothing more than a reminder that I’m not about to enter into infinite pleasure and joy, nonetheless she is such a reminder, and that reminder is enough to shut my life down.

BW / AMW