the nail shingles

standing next to you in the subway this afternoon, I looked over your shoulder and saw a scribble on your leafy, brown text-book page. is it healthy to be jealous in the event of a relationship? your cursive hand, coal black ink, outlined in varying shades of pencil gray, made me think of your reminiscences. in what event were you jealous? who have you loved? what made you love? did you lose the one? the one you thought was the comfort-rendering, potion apothecary, belching and bowing in the valley, in smokes of love, tears, and rough allusions of an insidious heart-crackle? i kept looking at your face, the flowers on your ears, gentle, red and ashamed. tracing an outline of your pale nose, your fluffy nostrils, a bounce on your mahogany curls, a slight convexity rippling across your lashes, i felt a fullness tingling on my nail tips, manicured in oil and animal wax. over and over again, like a dead poetry automaton, i asked myself in molten visuals of the anthropomorphic. a monstrous jealousy, a heinous hideousness, a hindrance, perhaps, to judgment, to understanding, to the width of tolerance, clouding over and over again the logicality of thought. the rationalism of unwariness and over-exposure quenched and bleached in pre-suppositions, in hatred, in a wringing pain of imagination, a modicum of peace; broken, and shattered in a billion flecks. in the cave of a pessimistic hallucination, shrouded in doubts, conceptions and a make-believe reality. is it healthy, to be jealous?

in conflict, of course. how does it feel to think, over and over again, this person you are with today was a utility, used over and over, in consensus of course, in different homes, in different rooms, settings, feelings and scents. the thought behind thought of the sexual deliberation, the exposed encounters, philandering, mongering, haggling in pleasure, squirming with lust, writhing in slime, twitching and beseeching, craving the plenitude of checkered erotics, swelling with arousal -the orgasms and fetishes of the wing multiples, the anti-traditionalist in whoredom, in what we call sexual experimentation. in the multiplicity of experience and the need to establish the temporariness of your encounters, i am to gloss over your historical biography, apparently, of being passed around, homeless, on beds of peers for fun flavors. to dissolve your past night stands in my mesh of ignorance, and pretend, over and over, and smile, over and under, as you continue to talk about how they fucked, casually, nonchalant. how drunk you were, and high you may have been, when you experienced your most intense orgasms in the dank, steamy, red rooms of ballet and weed. how you interrogated and eye-flicked, posts and posts of seemingly quiet professionals, and blew them in their hotel rooms, no strings attached. the novelty of room service, to overcome the threat, to give in to the rage and cold, wax and wane of hormones, emotions and desire; scarlet, ocher and diffuse. loosening your genitals, little by little, in sync with your host, in shades of craze, your thumb prints, toe art and lubrication. and while you fucked, bolder and bolder, your teeth clenched, your fist pumped, your face crimsoned and seared with the warmth of your body pulse, you released and wrote your story. your multiple facades of sexual experience, the pinnacle of your pleasure, your gratitude or ignorance of peeling ignorance, fading shame and dying doubts. you did as you pleased. in experience of humor, it felt so good. no strings attached.

narrating this story of sheer utility, of your uninhibited feeling of control and empowerment, of your juvenile crush on and violent sex with the person i hate, the person i beseeched but never had the chance, and your humor about your promiscuous life, leaves me dry. for my understanding, it is not an insensitive issue. it is not about the number of your past encounters, in hundreds i presume, but the casual tone around your storytelling drives me to a point of anger, where i cannot maintain my calm, i cannot uphold my smile, i cannot cherry-pick a cosmetic calm. to ask me to be in love, with the object of use, is jealousy healthy?

a theory of distraction

 

at the very first, you say to me charles, i went to jail. age 18 to thirty-four. you know why? because i murdered. it was the era of the civil rights, the critical wars and the motion for paramount literature. you look at me, roll down your peach-colored crinkled socks, remove your vest and continue. it was the era of mathematics. i stole books from the library. books they brought for white boys. the fact i stole, the fact i ate paper, no one ever suspected. why would they? was the black supposed to be literate? furthermore, you say, you came up with proofs and algorithms, design and blueprint of the elaborate. taught yourself a portion of the dynamics, mechanics and the magic of discrete mathematics, advancing in thought, chiseled in logic, sharpening your wit and capability to blurt out the complexity of the number theory. they tried to distract me. over and over again. i fought. i murdered, without regret.

if they call you, if they talk to you, or laugh at you -it is the tragedy of distraction. don't fall into that trap. you say something quietly to yourself, and scratch the edge of an old burn injury, scarred on your chest. you ruffle your hair, and fold your shirt, hiding it in a narrow, dark corner of your unhinged locker. as a general quietness permeates across the room, you burst out in a hysterical fit of rage and laughter. calming down in fourteen minutes by the clock, you resume your story of murder. of your semester as an innocent, before you robbed and looted, and tore away the peace off your peers. the bad guy allegory of the love fetish. murder was my new fetish. my enhancer. to take my time, to over-think, to change a segment of the crisis, the frozen agility of progress, the enhancement of care, the provisions and the provincials -you say to me, to love the stir of violence. in confusion and haste, i say good bye, and walk away from your tremendous face. kicking away a pattern that you create and re-create. i don't have friends. and don't have any. i'm the pollinator of enemies.

but i tell you charles, in the midst of the confusion, the disappointments, the inconsiderate burns of the love distraction, there is a superiority in belonging to a union: a duet, a pair, a togetherness, a saccharin emulsion of entities, blending and re-creating to a part-self, a half-self and a poly-beneficiary. in that saturday kiss, the morning sweat, the terrific lust of madmen and playdolls, when we slip back into a painful powerless devolving cobble-track, holding hands, and bones and hearts and souls, washing the tears and honey milk songs, to be there. no matter what. isn't that a power troupe? is that a sympathy you suppress when you see us walk across the narrow park by the riverside? is that a remorse, an incapacity, a debilitating inability that you wrap in your translucent foliage, hiding and howling in the steaming showers, burning your inseparable ego? with respect to your philosophy, and your belief in non-intersections, in parallels, i suggest, you supplant your bitterness for me and x, the novelty, the frailty and our botany.

 

sleep no more

the way you walked on stage, with an edge, an oomph, a mild jitter, made me nervous for you. a semi-bow, a casual wave, and an applause behind, you sit at the piano stool with a semi-hunch. you are my jazz maestro, an imagination of blues, a '60s metaphor. a dazzle in your bow-tie, corduroy and pink velvet embrace your unused, fragile axis. you pat yourself, say a prayer, look at me and smile. uncontrollably, like a demonic maniac. and hiss at me. and snarl, and thump your chest, and scream from the edge of your musicality, your blood jazz genesis, your honky-tonk. everyone in the wide rotunda settles down. the lights dim, the breathing stops, and all you hear in the cerebral dark is a heavy drone of air-conditioners. in repetition, and kink. maniacal, with paranoia of the uneven reciprocity of a humanized parasitism. as the lights turn on, and poke your eyes, you begin your art. so chaotic, so obscure, so romantic and lyrical. the music you make, the category of your creative compositions, dazzle and charm in the summertime rooms, the springtime blooms. the mechanical biz of a snare composition, of a hybridized tom-tom melancholy, of a swoosh and caress of your unapologetic cymbals, of the magnetic metaphors of black and white wood-sticks, of pain, and fear, and frills and yells, of your inner soul howling in the glitterati of nostalgics, awake and asleep in a cross-revolution, in cross-continuity of a pediatric obsession, and a childhood mockery of separation anxiety. of your background of warmth, of your country child, of your black incest, and above all, the range of your limitless talent, made me swell up and purge in the midst of a binding audience. to a point of gratitude and respect, to the imagination of your febrile pulsating imagery, to the understatement of your poetic compositions, and inspirations, your life story of native distress. they wanted to burn the care edge of my fingers, so i may never have made my song. to the cowardice they shared, the fear of your fame, to the schizophrenics on the song boats, and the psychotics and neurotics that beat you to paralysis, you never spoke your words. but you sang to them, the cogent hymn, st james infirmary. the entertainer of louis. of the rock-and-roll, the hymn and blues, the peak of a drum-rolling, eye-boggling, mind-chilling, bone-grilling spectacular display of parallel utopias. in a musical whir of the harmonaboard, with the clanging, cluttering, chuckling, giggling bell oracle, spin pinnacle, levitating potency of creation crafts; this is the faculty of your birth. this music, your chorus, your name definition, your soul perforate. J x. sleep no more. 

consciousness

more often than not, it is about living each day. breathing each moment, consciously, controllably. you were standing outside Memorial Hospital. on the phone. talking to someone about surviving. asking someone why doesn't she just die? heaving, uncontrollably. crying, innocently. your fingers trembling, your lips quivering, your eyes, a burnt red. she can't stand, she can't eat...she can't live like this. i slow down, and walk with heavy steps. i want to hear the rest of your telephone conversation. at the end of it, i want to walk up to you, turn around, and give you a very long hug. i want to ask you, will you tell me who is dying? how can i help you, without murder? and you will tell me, why does it matter? who are you? or may be you won't, and release a shrill, violent cry. maybe you will clutch on to my shirt collar, and dispassionate, talk about a peculiar discomfiture. ask yourself, in the name of god, or the wave of your fatalism, why did this happen to me? i do not know, and i will not have an answer. but i will wish you the best. and touch your heart, and blow at you a ribbon kiss. you will squeal out loud, it's my baby. she's three. and i will mourn the handicap. the void. the spin of your anger, disdain and antipathy. your indecision and hesitation to suffer in your admittance. it is time. to set her free. on these thoughts, you will choke on your cigarette smoke. coughing violently. half teary-eyed. and call your ex-husband. your ex-spouse. the one you hate. and say to him or to her. why the fuck do i pray?
this is the nature of tragedy, i want to say. this is the platform of human bereavement. starts with a bud, unpleasant, insignificant. and bit by bit, day by day, engulfs your mind. your belief in love. your sylvan composition, and steady composure. cracks with weight. breaks in bits. tears in strips and rips in shreds. and in the dramatics of your inward tragedy, you explode your soul. the pressure of vulnerability, occupied and laced, encroached and succumbed to the trilogy of death. frida, who died. eliot who lay. and plato's whores. it is the nature of helplessness, it is the nature of immobility. limited in enterprise and syncopated, drenched in a rhythm of modernism. in the architecture of legends, in the belief of the glass house, you live in a trapezoid. carved and etched in turquoise crystal. like the thorn petals, and paraffin, bear in your heart, the trickery of love, the pacific of art, the finesse of death. in red hills, and the eddy arts, lay to rest. the anime of sex.

the flower cycle 1

mahogany and your sulfur boats. in hisses and kisses, in chirps and wheezes. of a cold summer dandelion. trampled to the ground. perished. in the origami of a flower, and the technology of aesthetics. there was a Darwinian coalescence of geometry and rhyme. theory of the mate. the perturbations of ecology, the mutability of a clockwork botanist. the machinery and mechanics of the bleeding peal, reverberated in the cause of a neuro-literate. it really is, the delicacy of a rhythm genesis. asking, why did the flower arrange in dance, in perfection of shape and angulations of trims, to attract, in kineses of the pollinating tricks. what if your flower of the wild could mate like you, in synchrony and harmony of wildness and heat? what if the mere quiescence of a temporary magnitude, of a solitude in community, did not exist? in clusters of the flora, so beautiful it makes me cry. calling with it, the poetry of spring, the thrust of an electromotive, magnetized perfection. the diversity, the variegations, the imprint of an inchoate evolution. or the epitome of the nano-mutagenesis in its elementary, raw, coarse rubric. attached to the floral, the punctuate design. who conceived, in faculty and art, the blemish of the palette? color x at the wrinkle edge, color y at the tip and brims, color z at the center of the reproductive, contraceptive whirl. to attract, to produce, to continue, to re-live in centuries of a buried phenomenon. why is all of life, in the house of trees or gods of bliss, designed or evolved to attract, to perpetrate, to continue, into a clockwork progression. one down, four up. seven down, nine up. in odds and evens, in divisions of the laborious, the sacrosanct process of the co-evolution, the co-dependence of man, of mammal, of the lineage of the family tree rose and rose, spread and spread in a ten-dimensional vacuum. to the crustacean, the exoskeletal, i wonder, what sympathy is evoked, what lyric is unsung, what reminiscence, what obligation, what emotion is triggered at the sight of the flower. about the completion, in agency, in carrier, in vector, of the continuity of your race. mahogany, my love of words, my sulfur rings, my breathing brute, my solder god, my underworld, sit down with me. by the shade, the river side, to fondle with your yellow voice the anatomy of a dream libretto. to break in song, from lull in love, to seep in cheer and tears of your broken anguish -you say, dear valkyrie, dear valkyrie, absolve the curvature of the begotten, trespassed, and the un-belonged.

thought 15

sometimes. a lot of the times. i tell myself. i remind myself. t, do something more. the more-complex. the more-aspect. comes with an overcoming melancholy of being tied-down, through loops and structures. limitations of intelligence, right moves, the right chance. to cause the change. it is like a row against the trilogy of determination, of aspiration, of diagnosis of the self. what are the things i would love to want? a completion, a closure. it agitates my soul, sometimes, to think of accomplishments. am i absurd to rethink how i define a life purpose, a life goal a life reach. it is like a grip. a grab. over and above to a vehement outsource. a resource din. to mobilize change. to cause change. and like money, it's cumulative capacity, is there an endpoint, a threshold, a pinnacle of satisfaction to the domain of charity? the purpose of my life will NOT be a fat paycheck. i live by the Wall. walk through miles and miles of beautiful brownstones, opulence and extravagance, stardom and fame. trickery and economics. build and rise in the pit of the worlds center of procurements and bills. L. said to me...i go places to check if my apartment is nicer than my friends. a McKinsey consultant, suited in allurement. this is the lifestyle that befits a plethora of my shimmering city. a competitive streak in trade and sell, in lies and dope, in between the smoke and flexibility of the accounts. not my life, never mine. a broad delirium roused and doused on the wheels, the mechanics, the fulcrum of a social revolution. to say breathe on the soil of a vapid course, to instigate, to re-expunge a doleful agony. to revolve, and evolve, to unearth and un-sheath, to molt a wax tragedy of the civilizing, the tantalizing, the titillating reconnaisance of a nervous experiment. in death, in remorse, groups after groups, souls and soils in your lands and ours, on the riverside, come to a pause. come to a frustration of an inability to rise above the predicament of bare-necessity. what survival-vantage you have and purvey, drifts from the society at a mile. at a distance, there is the need to fight. there is a need to sew together a hope for the hopeless, the real hopeless. not the wiggling Wall-er banking from count to count. that is a mere repository of complaint that stretches to a deep abysmal. to have a non-deterrent, concurrent goal. concrete in its skeleton, reconstructed, unpulverized, undisguised. this is a core desire. step 1 rolling, step 2 falling, step 3 is a dream filter of the copious twins and pairs of languishing souls, of bleeding wounds, of fading hearts. let us all, one by one, you and i, and i alone, bring hope and love through songs and dance, through heart and love, through peace and smile, deliverance and confidence of a Braille miracle of dots and phrases and jargons and gerunds of a dream cycle, of a love cycle, a valentine ballet tulle, a fluorescent tide, a beam gazing, hungry, mystery myth of an orphan heart. to rebuild a man, to rebuild a love, to rebuild a hope, to rebuild a smile, in origami arts and craft of life, in souls and trills of real and trues, in hues of green and smiles of blue, one by one, in song and love, i want to give, as much i may, to the rehearsal of a life.