Awakenings

When your skin lifts up in prickly peaks,
and your fine hairs shiver straight
like antennas receiving
some anonymous transmission,
that's when you know.

When you see something inexplicable
out of the corner of your eye,
and you turn twice just to verify its origins,
that's when you...

When you experience a knowing
that goes against your logic
and the screaming siren inside you bleats:
PAY ATTENTION,
that's when...

When the word coincidence
is a glass with no bottom,
and fails to contain the water of experience,
that's...

When patterns emerge like intricate ice crystals
from the random downpour of reality's rain,
...

When all things in life seem like vertices
on some extravagant spider web,
separate yet connected by silver strands,
that's when...

When hidden meanings leap
from the dry text of life...
when you hear not what was said
by what was meant...
when the impossible becomes possible
and straight lines become spirals,
that's when you...

When the totality of these mere moments
becomes a weight reality can no longer shoulder,
that's when you change.

Excerpt: The Whole Package Deal

Jules was sitting at a poker table in a well-lit casino. He knew he was dreaming. He could feel the players looking at him, waiting for his play. He could taste the sour leftovers of a cocktail on his tongue and smell the aroma of expensive cigars in the air. He had yet to check his hand and everyone was waiting for him to bet or fold. Turning over his cards he was aghast to see that the pictures on the cards were not Kings, Queens, and Jacks, but rather mutilated children, and the suites were implements of torture and death. Looking over the top of his cards at the table he realized that the chips in the pot were circular pieces of skull, some of which were spider-webbed with thin dark veins. He wasn't sure how to react. A part of him was horrified, while another part of him was concerned about his facial expression giving away his hand. A man directly across the table smiled a wide toothy grin. Jules noticed dark, brown chunks between the man's teeth. His eyes darted down to a small portable tray near the man, where a plate of steaming severed fingers was piled like some kind of macabre Halloween appetizer. The man eagerly gobbled the flesh from a finger which he had fished from the plate, taking time to first pry the fingernail loose with his front teeth. After licking the bone clean he tossed it back onto the plate and cleared his throat.

Excerpt: "Emails from Infinity"

Squeezing into a space between two walls, shimming sideways I become shrink-wrapped in cobwebs, a cocooned figure dusted with pulverized plaster raining down from above. Deeper still I notice an opening in the wall space ahead, a hard lean and push and I’m in a clothing rack at a shopping mall. Stepping from the hanging clothes I’m surrounded by bustling customers and blinded by bright halogen lights. Recoiling at the hordes of people and the normalcy of the surroundings I venture back into the clothing rack. This time there is no wall space, rather a vast defunct nuclear power plant perched on a polluted shoreline, where silvery water laps against soot-colored sand.

One Song

This ever-present moment that is now 
waits for nothing - 
neither struggle nor sickness, 
nor disease or dysfunction
can change this...
this moment is all there is.

This moment cannot be placed on hold,
eagerly awaiting a time in which
we are more prepared for its presence.

This moment persists 
whether we are aware of it or not;
recognized or overlooked, celebrated or shirked,
this ever approaching, always fleeting moment
is immutable...
this moment is everything.

The more we grapple and cling for control,
the more this moment begs our surrender - 
the calm horse that doesn't buck
as we throw ourselves to and fro.

We do ourselves no favor
by projecting forward, by regressing back,
for these apparitions of the mind
are neither here nor now.

For all our avoidance and creative contrivances,
for all our procrastination and self-pity,
the inevitable we must face.

Beyond the illusion of space and time
there is one song - 
we sing and are sung simultaneously.

Hold this moment,
this one song dear,
for it holds no judgment,
it holds no fear. 

Unvoid

Dogs sleep 
like old mens' hands feel,
somewhere on the brink
between life and death,
somewhere in the void. 

Unvoid...
where ghost framed 
silken images hang
like treasures to be worshiped.
Where antenna ears
filter beats from the now.
That ageless wonder,
that ever-existent instant that is now 

Cold black noses
tether teeth and lips,
and yet
the beast is not here,
not in skin or bone.
But again she breathes so softly -
gallivanting in that mind malleable realm,
the place where we've met
time and time again.
Sharing soft sweet kisses
painted with the sun.

Eyelids closed be beam inward,
where emotions speak images.
That ageless wonder,
that sweet dream taste.
   
 
    

Borderland

There's a dog that's not there,
there's a man with no hair,
there's a rhyme
that shouldn't be spoke.
There's a dump that's on fire,
and blood they perspire  
in a wasteland
where we try not to choke.
The plants have all died,
there's something rotting inside
in a warehouse
where chemicals leak.
And I stumble the fray,
broken hands held to pray,
but I'm awake 
and alas
I feel bleak.