These Bones

These bones of mine keep me mobile
and prim, and proper, and tall
They hold all of the guts inside of my skin
to blacken out the Sun
A big ol' pile
A structured mass
That are seldom ever seen
Until they twist and break and penetrate
The soul that is within me

These bones...
They play with fire and wane under the moon
In some naked dance of permanence
Be it in soil, wood, or tomb
I swear they're getting sharper
Unlike most that wear out smooth
Other bones...

This skull is drunk with knowledge
These hands are getting old
These feet crack when they're walking
Those obscure and dirty roads
A spine,
With force I straighten up through my cranium
That with age I'm sure will weaken
But for now... Well...
It's good
The bones of Tchaikovsky are somewhere FAR from here
But the music they made still lives inside a hollow near my ears

I hand the pen over now to this skeletal form and pray
These bones will deliver a poem
Before my essence fades away

The Voice

Just another night out on the railroad
running behind trains
Believing, sincerely that you'd never have to follow them back again
There's a tangy, copper tongued taste of surprise
every time your eyes shoot down to your feet
and you keep telling yourself that somehow you haven't yet tripped once
on any of the stiff, rooted, wooden ties, leading their way from the tips of your toes
to the faint and perplexing reaches of god knows where...
But it's somewhere
and the reflection of that dream
keeps your legs running
and the sweat pouring
and you know that she's out there
Just minutes away from the very untouched, sanguine pathway
that the calloused hands of hope levelled out the first time
you both said hello
and when the goodbye came
You thanked the sky for not crashing down on your head like bad luck
You cursed the velocity of time for giving up
You held your soul up by its throat, told it where to go, and hit the open road
and I'll be damned if there wasn't a certain amount of respect in doing that

Just another night out on the highway
chasing cars, and trucks, and tail lights
Smelling the fiery, searing rubber of all the wheels on the asphalt
The scent of victory over the pretence of distance
Drinking down memories like gasoline
Pushing, pushing you further toward the enchantment of a better day
You marvelled over the thousands of miniature, bright, bulb like, stars up in space
and rapped off some compassionate prose about how she is present
in the same universal positioning that you are,
Yet also the same spot that none of us really quite understand anyway
and even though you've been running around with empty, untouched hands
The sound of her voice through the telephone makes all of the flowers in the world stand up
and the purpose of gunning it out alone, at least for a little while,
worth it in the long run
So you keep chasing that thing down
Doing everything you can to make good time
and all the cars on the road know you by name now
and you gotta know that... That's alright

You've gotta dream, dream, dream while sitting on the clock,
or hounding trains, or rushing cars
and, without exception, squeeze the delectable juices of experience into your cup
and drink it on down to the soft linings of your heart
which should be located right below everything that tore you up in the past
and in turn made you weary of the unforeseeable future,
(Somewhere just behind your left lung, if I'm not mistaken)
But it's not of any concern now
Just try, try, try not to prick your finger while you're smashing the moon on that long drive back home
and her voice should be there when all the flowers begin to start dying again
or when the colour on the walls take to bleeding
When the music burns you out
When the muscles start to burn
When the dreams overflow
When the words are no good
When your bike won't unlock
When bulldog's leap up
When ceramic tile's are for sleep
When you'd rather not sleep
When every breath you take grabs for air
Her voice should be there...

I Found Out Just The Other Day What Love Feels Like When It Is Dying

Its when all the windows in the world are laughing at you
Hissing at you
Telling the doors not to let you in
The stories you once immersed yourself into,
Have been submerged
Soaking in tar and alcohol
and the ink is dripping from their pages
but you never really cared for the colour red anyway so you let them go
Red like roses
Red like that anarchy poster you used to hang up in your little apartment above the shoe rack
It hung there like a militarised welcome mat
and for some reason it always reminded you of the cigarette burns on your forearms
The ones you could never figure out where the fuck they came from
That flesh you wish would have made you stronger
With time... With time...
But time is just a marathon we run until we are totally empty
Just to get a sneak peak ahead to the finish line
Where we see:
Car crash's
Tight knot's
A raging fire
The kiss of cancer
Get your tongue ready
Saliva thick
and have everything shoved straight into your mouth
No holds barred
Become the champion of the disease
The fly on skin
Get sweat and sugar and then get swatted away
That's love!
A trophy
That is what it's all about
True humanitarianism
But
Muzzled
With its hands tied back and bleeding
Buckets of blood
That are then dried to soot and rubbed on foreheads for smiles

Rip open your heart
Ashes of Christ
Eat your words
Peace be with you

You Know Nothing

You do not know anything about earning a buck
Until you've worked the factories
12 hour night shifts
Empty stomach, hangover, gut rot
10.50 an hour

You know nothing
and you went to school
For a 9-5, ass grab position
Behind a desk on the 30th floor of some
21st century, post modern social club
With 500 friends online and the ego
of a pampered pre-teen pop star

You do not have it rough and
You don't know anything about smoking a pack of cigarettes and
pouring the rest of yesterday's whiskey
Into your 4th cup of coffee on break at 4:30 in the morning
and your line supervisor comes over to ask if you want to go home early
and you say
"Hell no!"
Why?
Because your mental state is like a steam engine now
You need that scratch to keep the body afloat
In this ammonia filled ocean of a world
Determination turbine
and that's tough

So... You took a media arts course in college
Professional writing?
and had your parents buy your intelligence?
Well, it didn't work and I'm not impressed
You just keep writing about broken hearts
and subconscious psycho babble that only oafs
cling on to because they think your stuff is great
Yet they hardly think at all
It means nothing

Not until you give up a piece of every part of your soul and body
dollars for breath
dollars for sweat and blood and time
money for staying quite and getting the job done
night after night after night
Until you finally understand that hell isn't a place you go when you die
but it's fully alive in those last 3 hours
when even the clock hands are too tired to count down

Not a single coworker opens their mouths to talk
The pallets and conveyor belts and machines keep moving
Until they break
The machines break often
so these men in hard hats and shiny orange vests
Who are paid double your salary
go to the machine and try to put it back together

They do so romantically
by playing with all of its parts
They stick wrenches, and hands, and tools into it
and look at each other awkwardly with wide open mouths

When the thing starts back up again they walk away like hero's
and everyone else is left with a bunch of extra work and emotional trauma
but I guess that's how all love making goes

You know nothing
Know nothings...
You do not know anything about giving up day light
and you are not strong until you realize it was already ugly to begin with

The Fear

She said she was afraid of losing her dad
He said he was afraid of losing her...

The guy who lived next door
Woke up every morning at 6 am
Got in his car, buckled in, just to make sure he got a coffee before work
Did the same routine everyday and worked at a boring office job
He was afraid of spiders

His mother
Well, she was afraid of commitment but she's long since passed now

This beautiful girl I met at a party one night back in the city
She took me outside to have a cigarette and we talked for a while
She told me she was weighed down and absolutely terrified of failure
and then she kissed me

My old friend Dominic was afraid of clowns
He was an asshole

When we were children my brother used to cover his eyes with a pillow
anytime I put on a horror movie
He'd scream at me to "Turn it off! Turn it off!"
and then he'd just end up watching it anyway
But he still covered his eyes
Whenever he felt a real sense of fear coming on
His face would be buried deep in that pillow

I saw a bum on the street just outside of the mission in downtown Ottawa last year
He was skinny, and withered, and bruised, and he had track marks in his arms,
and a bunch of tattoo's that had faded and appeared as though they were becoming the texture of charred, burnt leather
He was crying
I think it was because he was afraid to die
I'm sure it was probably coming soon
Or
Maybe he was hungry
Or
Maybe he just needed some smack

There's these guys in bars
They brag about how tough they are
They go out with their friends
Their carbon copy friends, who also brag about how tough they are
They gel their hair and dye their hair
and they slam back shots and look for fights
This is how they stay tough
It's how they get by
These guys,
They are afraid that their penis' are too small

This bomb went off yesterday in Boston
A big fiery thing
It was detonated near the finish line of a big marathon run
The explosion killed three people and is said to have wounded 170 others
I saw all of these pictures of people with their body parts askew
and their limbs blown off
and blood like graffiti on the streets of Boston
The bomb scared everyone through television sets and computers
and through radio's and cell phones
It may as well have gone off right in our living rooms
Primed by media detonators
Scary

Ergophobia is the fear of work or functioning
Ombrophobia is the fear of rain
Papaphobia is fear of the pope
Chronophobia is the fear of time and of time moving forward...
It seems we're all a little chronophobic these days

The Prime Minister, Man
He must be afraid of everyone
and rock stars are afraid of losing crowds
and doctors are afraid of losing patients
and lawyers are afraid of losing money
and children are afraid of the boogeyman

What scares me most is that everyone around me is so goddamn afraid of so many things
That they don't realise the fear is of themselves
and of each other
Progression scares them and so does death
and communication
and I feel as though I'll never be able to have a normal conversation again
Without scaring the shit out of somebody...

Social Networking: To Much Progression. Not Enough Reflection.

Social Network
noun
1. a network of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts: Strong social networks can encourage healthy behaviours.
2.
Computers.
a. an online community of people with a common interest who use a Web site or other technologies to communicate with each other and share information, resources, etc.: a business-oriented social network.
b. a Web site or online service that facilitates this communication.


Also known as a place to dispel meaningless information, self gratifying jargon, senseless provocations, and personally pleasing images. A place where you can argue with other 'interwebbed' socialites about whether or not Aladdin is the best "before bed" movie choice that one could possibly make. A place where what I like to call 'cyber stalking' was the very basis of its animation and if ever there were a finer example in the processes of the lethargic psychological framework all the way up to the genuinely strategical use of a medium made by observant intellectuals, you certainly could not show me better. I would even go as far to say that social networking has become a step in the evolution of our species. What the big question mark over our heads is asking is; Progressive or regressive? Instead of evolving physically we are absolutely evolving outwardly. We are feeding all of our feeling's, emotions, dream's, fear's, and so on into this ever growing social machine... and let me tell you, the thing is hungry and is getting it's fill. It stores our lively hood's in a massive database with which it can look back on and analyse with great precision. It's now integratable with any piece of modern technology, visa vi; cell phones, game consoles, television sets, tablets, laptops, home PCs, etc. Making it portable, accessible at any desired moment,  prominent, and remarkably efficient. Possibly more so then us. One is now considered an outsider or unusual if they do not at least dip their hand into the social networking pool, so of course the fascination to do so is ever present to the minute few that have not.

Where did the fascination come from? I think deep down at the core of every human being is the active need to feel a sense of adoration or at the very least a need to be heard. Who can blame us? We've been raised in a culture and society that is virtually conditioned to adhere to the consumerist ploy for your pockets, follow the plot line laid out by the wealthiest lineages whom of which are also the least noble among us, and we must admire and respect these grandiose figures. This conditioning has taught us to hold figures like politicians, the heads of corporatocracy, religious preachers, models, actors, what have you, in high regards because of their attractive and appealing lives. They live with seemingly endless platforms to be heard and seen from. In fact when you look back on human history, we think of or were taught mainly, of these people who have either made a positive or negative impact on the advancement of humanity. We talk about the accomplishments of hero's or the devastation brought on by evil foe. The performance so and so gave in that film or how Christopher Columbus saved savages from the perils of their primitive ways. We don't have discussions about the uneventful existence of Joe Simpleton, his wife, and his 2 children who all lived mediocre lives in the farm house down country rd.3. No. Throw that family into the Great Depression or better yet have Joe die after acting in a few movies or recording a couple of albums in the turn of the 20th century and you have yourself a story for the ages. Joe Simpleton is then suddenly admired, loathed, praised, what have you, but he is spoken about none the less. We were taught to behold these individuals with such dedication that we end up discerning very little toward the man or woman content with the bare minimum. Hence we are put in a state of perpetual competition with one another. A battle with the mass collective to be more different, extreme, famed, loved, more, more, more, than the last. We aren't admired unless we are heard, seen, read, or spoken about.

What social networking employs is a platform in which one can express whatever opinion (however important or meaningless) to a mass group of people at the click of a button. This gives us a tangibility of importance. I say it gives us a 'sense' of importance because obviously our degree's of substance vary from person to person. I can't count the number of times I've held my head in my hands after reading some of the seemingly endless vapid posts that clog up my social 'wall'. Now, I'm not excusing myself from the senselessness of this attention scouting tendency because I'm sure that not everything I consciously decide to submit to the network is full of sustenance and importance but I AM undoubtedly aware of the reason's I am posting these things. I mean the entire premise of doing that is to seek out attention from someone. To aspire to wake up in the morning and post thing's such as "Just woke up" or "Shower then breakfast" or "Way too early" is just astoundingly alien to me. Just the other day someone had posted "Beep. Boop." as their status. It presents a whole other kind of civil division between how much commitment is dispersed into ones 'web personality' as opposed to ones everyday personality.

'Web Personality'. I chose these words to define this kind of newly adapted system of cognition. I like the term for a few reasons. The word 'Web' is defined as such:

noun
1. something formed by or as if by weaving or interweaving.
2. a thin, silken material spun by spiders and the larvae of some insects, as the webworms and tent caterpillars; cobweb.

It is also an English short form word used often to refer to the Internet or World Wide Web.

 "Something formed by or as if by weaving or interweaving." This is exactly what is happening to the way we regard our personalities with the presence of social networking. We have conflicting personalities. The way we choose to act in the social network environment is seemingly in an extreme and unconstrained fashion. We eternally have something to say, we feel the need to express gratitude for others, we argue for the sake of arguing, we are quick witted (or apparently so), we befriend people we don't know, we act, we lie, we put on a show. It relieves any sense of judgement or feelings of wrong doing whilst looking deep into random or familiar people's lives, which has subconsciously developed into second nature for most of the general population. "Have you seen the new picture Megan posted?" (If you haven't of course you will be shown). "Can you believe what so and so said to so and so on that status they posted?!" Then the picking apart happens... "It's hideous!", "it's beautiful!", "I can't believe someone would say that!", "Loser", "Sadist", "Blah, blah, blah." and this judgement takes effect because one has no emotional obligation to be kind in a situation of that domain. The person in question is not physically present therefore, anything goes.

So... If you are feeding so much of yourself into this 'Web Personality', does it eventually start leaking into your everyday interactive persona? The answer is decidedly, yes. Many conversations in the present date end up revolving around how one acts or conducts themselves through this medium. It does lend a lot to the novel significance of self reflection and intellectuals have harnessed this creation marvelously. Social networking for many of them is used for artistic or creative growth and in many cases monetary gain. With the competency of prolonged self reflection before action we are all given the opportunity to craft our liveliness. I find, personally that my mind often precedes the rate of my speech in most cases so given the opportunity to reflect upon which I am inclined to say is ideally appealing. If I were to be having a conversation about this very topic in the flesh I might have a few slips of the tongue or I might get caught up or preoccupied with certain positions I am trying to take or idea's that I'm trying to form but not in a social networking environment. However, not everybody exercises this tool in the corresponding way. Much like the invention of the automobile people seem to jump at the chance of progression rather than fundamentally instilling reflection. In lieu of considering the safety of themselves or others, they postpone the possibility of accidents or hazards to grab on to something new. With that proposition at hand I am assured that the use of social networking for several people may be ultimately destructive or in the long run, damaging.

It will not be destructive in the sense that it will physically hurt you, that's impossible. The way in which it will be damaging to certain people will be (if it hasn't been already) effectively psychological. Social networking is consistently nurturing that burning desire to have the admiration of ones peers at the click of a button. Several folk often toss their emotions onto a social networking website hoping for reactions or answers as an alternative to facing them head on. They may get hundreds of responses corresponding with the exact backlash that they were looking for, they may get nothing, or in a worst case scenario they could receive multitudes of negativity. Any of these circumstances effect the psyche antithetically. The social network reality is creating a false sense of importance within the minds of man. It's almost as if you are now balancing the presence of two corresponding realities. Your conscious, physical, day to day, and one that is solely web based. Each influencing the other.

Another introspectively terrifying thought is what this network is utilizing with the knowledge it is provided. It flourishes with you. It learns unquestionably and swiftly about who you like to talk to, what your interests are, and what appeals to you. It provides links based on its interpretation of what you might enjoy. It correlates to your needs. It becomes a friend or a sort of background ally to aid you with the betterment of your social networking experience. So in retrospect the website is discovering for itself what it is like to co-exist with humanity. Soon enough, with the perpetual advancements in technology, I'm sure it will start to express harmonizing emotional responses fixed with the appropriate groove of what you are feeling based on the information you constantly nurture it with, of course. Would that be tolerable? Would the birth of something like that shock people for a week or so and then just become another 'shrug of the shoulder' update that's too far out of our hands to control anyway? Or is privacy something we are willing to give up in order to attain the ability to infringe upon the privacy of others? Food for thought, I guess.

The Drink He Had To Buy

"There's gotta be some easier way to die!"
Tony blurted out after staring at the bottom of his empty glass for some time.
He had been sitting at the bar all night long moping about and trying to suck sympathy out of anyone who thought for a second that they gave a damn.
"Yeah. Yeah. Tony." Jake mumbled.
Jake had been bar tending there for 5 odd years now. He'd seen it all. All walks of life crawled into that bar. Bum's, cheat's, Guido's, harlot's, angel's, stranger's, musician's, mother's, father's, liar's, business folk of all kinds, etc. Lefty also crawled into that bar.
   Lefty was a hard looking man. A real drunk. They called him Lefty because one of the only stories he liked to tell was about an obsession he had with beating his dick off with his left hand. Lefty was right handed but he'd say "25 years... 25 years with my right hand. Longest relationship I ever had and within' keepin' up the tradition of things I thought I'd pay a little more mind to my left."
He was a regular at the bar back when Jake was still wearing pull ups. It seemed as though his
age had been beaten into his face with a meat mallet. His eyes were all sunken in and hollow but there was wisdom in there...
Somewhere.
He normally kept to himself. Had the casual conversation with Jake, and some of the oddities that rolled into the bar but he went in there night after night for the booze and if they would have him, he'd take a woman back to his $500 a month bachelor apartment. The apartment consisted of a bed with stained old sheets, empty, cheap beer cans resting on his decade old television set and dresser, and scattered boxes of macaroni and cheese beside their powder packets. If he had taken a woman home for the evening he would walk into the bar the next day just as broken as he was the night before and Jake would always say something like "How was she Lefty?" and laugh a bit to himself.
Lefty always had the same meaningless response.
"Jake...She was a cold bitch and a warm fuck."
 
"Tonight's the night! I'm sick of this shit" Tony yelled out.
"So get it done ya coward!" Lefty howled.

You see, This was Tony's routine. He'd stumble into the bar around 4 o'clock in the afternoon everyday. Right as rain. Calling out to everybody. Shaking everybody`s hand's and buying people drinks. There were some regulars who would make sure they were there for Tony's arrival just to siphon off a couple of the free shots of whiskey but they would always make sure to leave after Tony would hammer down about 6 or 7. This is when the act would start to take hold. Tony would get quieter and start to shy away from the people at the bar and grab a seat. Always somewhere near Lefty. Lefty didn't usually mind. He was to hard and didn't care for fools like Tony, until that night.
"He does this every god damned night." Lefty spoke up.
"Yeah so what! The timing just wasn't right Lefty. I'm going to do it and nobody's going to stop me."
"Nobody is going to stop you because nobody gives a GOD DAMN! Asshole." Lefty's temper had drained from his alcohol withered body, finally. You could almost see his pale face turn a subtle shade of beige.
"Alright. Alright." said Jake trying to keep as much peace between the two as he could.
"Buy me a round and I'll show ya Lefty. Well... How bout' it?"
    In all his years Lefty had never seen a man die. He was asked to go to war when he was just a teenager but got out of it due to a serious case of asthma. It was about a year or so after that he started drinking, and with the drinking came the smoking only further worsening his condition. He woke up some mornings coughing up handfuls of deep purple blood before his beer and toast with peanut butter. Lefty didn't give a shit. He knew he was going to die. He just hadn't the slightest idea of when it would happen. He thought of Tony's request as not so much of a cry for help but as a gift of insight he could give.

"You're on hot shot. Get him a scotch and water..." Lefty demanded.
"Now Lefty are you so sure that this is a good idea?" Jake asked.
"Hell! He's not going to do the damn thing. The man's just trying to sucker me into buying him a free round. I'm just pissin' my money away on this deal." Lefty said to Jake reassuringly.

        So the three of them had a round of scotch and water's wondering what exactly Tony had up his sleeve to get out of this one. There was a younger couple at the end of the bar drunk and blissful, kissing each other and staring deep into their partners eyes. There were two or three other fellow's that had popped in the occasional time for a few drinks sitting at a booth in the quite bar as well. Lefty, Jake and Tony finished their drinks.
"Everybody! Follow me." Tony yelled out to the whole bar.
"This should be rich." Jake proclaimed.

They all put on their coats and walked out into the cold winter air. It had been snowing for a few weeks now and everyone was just settling in to their new winter skin. They trudged through the snow, up three or four blocks to where the overpass just above the highway was.
"Come on man! Lets go back inside. I'm freezing my balls off!" Jake yelled to Tony who was just up ahead of the group.
Lefty was first in line about ten feet behind Tony. They got to the overpass. Without saying a word or a final goodbye of any kind Tony threw himself over the railing. His body fluttered through the air, weightless and at ease. It was at that moment that Lefty felt time stand still. He thought Tony looked like an angel, or a mystical bird just flying through the snowflakes in the winter cold before the aggressive... Thud.
    Lefty had never seen a man die before that day. He thought about the war he could have been sent to and all of the years he had spent coughing blood out of his lungs. He even thought about all of those women he cared so little about and that shitty littered apartment he used to never want to go home to. They all stood there at the top of the overpass with their cigarette's and their beer in silence looking down at what was left of Tony's body on the pavement below. Jake, Lefty, the drunk men from the booth, and the happy couple from the end of the bar. They all stood there in silence and the only thing that passed through Lefty's brain in the strange silence was that suspended moment in time. The fool of a man that he could not stand had now become something else, at least in his eyes. He saw something real, something that even beauty itself probably could not feel. He saw an angel that night and it was worth every penny of the drink he had to buy.