The Human Neurosis

A man had a relationship like no other. We’ll call him Adam.

He loved a woman who was so close to him she was a part of him.

We’ll call her Eve. Together they shared a garden of delight created for them alone.

Their time in Eden was paradise, unparalleled delight.

But someone else entered their garden and then there were three.

Eve was beguiled by this someone and soon was drawn 

to a part of Eden no one was allowed to visit.

There she gained a type of knowledge she wasn’t supposed to have.

She shared the location of this knowledge with Adam

and he too had his eyes opened and knew the forbidden.

Nothing was the same after that.

The knowledge made it impossible for either of them 

to remain in Eden and have the life they enjoyed before.

Outside of Eden they struggled to regain the feeling they once had.

But he knew that she knew that he knew that she knew.

Their counselor told them it was neurotic to dwell on it,

simply let it go, but how do you let go of a dream

that was more than a dream for once it was true and you lived it?

How could they let go of wanting Eden?

What in goddamn creation could they try to put in its place?

And the rest is history.

 

After the End

Razor future, sticky past.

A fuzzy now where nothing lasts.

Delusion of reference for all that matters,

Hallowed veil now in tatters.

Knot of eternity pulling tighter.

Light in shadow, darkness brighter.

Music swells, drowning the wails.

Memories to forget, lingering tales.

Making no sense, emotions strong.

Stuffing the soul, just go along.

Nothing to do to make it better.

Anima runs, so let her.

 

Dark Lightning

There’s nothing but cold silence after the battle. It rattles the heart.

Something ended and something is left eternal. Something has moved apart.

No one survived and only me, a ghost of myself, passes over the scene.

Not long ago there was passion and fury here,

passion of the body, fury of the spirit.

Both existed joyously before the battle started. 

Both continued achingly when hostilities commenced.

Both sides were right, both sides were wrong,

In the end neither side got what they wanted,

for war is not about redemption no matter what anyone says.

Each side had fervent soldiers who rallied and 

each side had civilians who hid away at home.

The soldiers were activating complexes of a feeling-toned drive,

they needed to risk all for the loftiness of their mythic cause.

The civilians prayed for peace in the now but remained conflicted

by a troubled past at odds with an idealized future 

that hope alone could not reconcile.

The two combatants were once united as close as can be,

they identified as one, they relished being together.

But then a dark wedge fell between them,

a bolt of black lightning, a crippling charge of horrendous fate.

It was nothing either of them could foresee,

but it was also nothing they would ignore.

A down spiral of attacks and traumas, reopened wounds 

and strategic retreats led them from argument to mortal combat.

They prayed they were fighting to restore the union they once had.

They felt they were fighting for the truth each held within. 

But their union and their truth simply could not coincide

with the dark wedge gouging out a space between them.

Overnight each night, traces of hope mixed with exhaustion between skirmishes.

They dreamed that victory or divine intervention simply had to appear

to rescue the situation, make a truce, and affect a miracle restoration.

But the stinging glare of morning always reappeared 

and the stone-faced ramparts were engaged again.

As before, slings and arrows were hustled into the fray.

Rage and shouts and bloody chaos escalated beyond all defenses.

Eventually, both sides outflanked the other and struck swift and true.

And now there is silence. No passion or fury to be felt.

The battlefield lays fallow. A dank afternoon fog rolls in.

Only ghosts are left to wander and dream of a love that once was. 

Shank Rainbow Fugue

My God, this is really happening!

In a flash, rancorous lucidity reveals the world as it is, as never seen before.

Crass illusions in this place are solid in a way that sticks to your bones.

Prescriptive Goo smeared on delicate private parts by strangers in lab coats 

fulfills wishes for deliverance, or so the television says. 

Clarity flows through cracks in fluid objectivity in search of transparency. 

There are bars on the dirty windows of belief and someone is scratching to get in.

Why do the dead keep making noise on the stage where we rush to have our encore?

Individual core meaning is stranger than can be supposed.

Certainty in intellect lacks the odd seminal attractor, the necessary opening

to the creative option. An open heart’s pathetic sensitivity as holy mission pales

in the glare of brass facts. Only fools cast aspersions on the insanity 

of the thornless hybrid rose. Dare to fathom the shallowness of daily reality. 

Stroll among deep fake constructs grooming feckless souls for their blessed seduction.

They will never realize they’ve been seduced until they lie bruised and bewildered

oozing spunk and blood from places they usually hide from the world.

To save themselves from admitting shame they will proclaim the violation love.

They’ll harbor that love in a dear and wounded part of their shadow’s heart 

then shout the same guttural love into the face 

of the one who dares to bear witness to the crime.

There is no healing for the prescient divine madness of proclaiming 

psychotic profane indulgence as the standard role-model for a feared future.

Genuflect before the horny false idol of loving embrace. 

Revel in the phantom appreciation you make yourself believe in.

Feel how complete all of it turns out to be after being so completely a romantic delusion.

Rub your nose into yourself, six square inches of fetid shadow soil tumbling 

through a bottomless hole in route to a fabled Source advertised as everywhere. 

If something touches me I must go to the root of it, chasing a complete picture 

of attaching to non-judgment with subject matter that fails to logically focus. 

Allow the cut from the fine edge of allowing, a surrender of disassociation.

Wallowing is not finding balance yet off-center creative immersion be praised, 

be brave enough to assault your variations in valueless social toxicity.

The sympathetic magic of mercurial mood countermands an epidemic 

of boundary thickening spasms in light of finally found but wounded hidden places.

A whisper becomes a fading call to moral responsibility no longer recognized.

The insight is stark – fabled individuation is but the first step of shamanic initiation.

When achieved, one’s wholeness must next attempt to discover something authentic.

If nothing lasts then the value of seizing the authentic is a genuine distraction. 

My Self as Soul, if it dares to reflect on itself, is eagerly remanded to a clique of experts,

their cleverness abounds in the ruined temple of reflexive self-absorption.

If we’re all asleep and need to wake up then we risk losing the dream.

While sleeping we watch, while dreaming we expand,

deep magic or madness appears as tragic love held too close within.

Soul becomes a vacuous character in a passion play bent by delusional trauma.

The third eye looks within into spaces made from dimensions unable

to be understood by a wandering mind confined to itself and its projections.

Push where there is mush commands the manipulator.

Double-down-on-stupid rolls up and loops on the teleprompter.

The Ergriffenheit of dictated ideology is stamped on hypnotized consciousness.

We’re ruled by damaged children playing God with their genitals

as instruments of manifested will. Sacred predilections of our once holy magic 

disappear with formulation of an ego equation too long 

for people who live in the now to follow into their unconscious.

Teleology asserts quips from bygone sages, “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”

Delysid hits a glide path along 5HT2A in stormy crosswinds of delayed panic.

Shock impacts the cortex. Simplicity is realized as being most complex, 

complex in manifesting a removal of all that is not simple from its process. 

There is no easy way to affect simplicity and so easy is not simple, 

therefore simplicity is out of reach. Nothing remains but false starts of everything 

randomness has in store in another timeline we once wished for.

You can’t go back but nothing will let you leave it behind.

Try telling yourself you merely stray into your destiny as you rationalize your impulses.

Believe it simply because it’s absurd. Resurrect your hope that hope is more than wishful thinking.

Analogs of enlightenment only require a synthetic litmus test of faith.

Shout into the void where past lovers wait for you with eager sweat and groping satisfaction.

There is no escape from fate when we relish the prison of our desires.

Turn back to your future, make the attempt to leave the eternal now.

Now is the sticking place where all that you were makes you the one who loses yourself

when you succeed in letting go of the pain and bother in shame and regret.

Nowhere in this place exists the star that guides to the ideal state of contentment.

Cast aside your romantic illusions that one day such things can be realized.

Everything here is intent to prove the opposite. Everywhere time moves you

reflects the folly of your dreams. Give into the resistance pulling you apart.

Only by letting life have its lustful way with you will you have a chance to feel its love.

Life will convince you that such love is real and if you surrender your intimacy to it

you might be allowed to journey through your days in a mirage most pure.

For purity in life is coarse and raw, it exists only as a joyful euphemism that’s expedient.

It feigns as the hidden magic no one speaks about for it has no use here 

except when making wishes. It flows in jagged channels of sticky desperation. 

It feeds our dreams but starves our experience.

It gleams as a shard fallen from a rainbow and lodged in the heart.

It will stake you to the ground of being even as you feel chosen by it

as if sacred grace was destined to make you feel so complete.

There is nothing more special than desire fulfilled when the fulfillment is believed.

While belief is the key, believing ourselves is the magic trick without purity,

for however we manage to make ourselves believe in the elusive magic is good enough

to spark the illusion alive in a place such as this, a tortured realm 

of make-believe for everything that pretends-for-real something it wasn’t.

In time even the illusion fades and passes away. Passing days steal precious meaning 

from painful memories of that pure love in life that haunts us as the source 

of our neurotic tears. Of course we have no choice but generate it all again. 

A slave to wishes, we hold onto the new belief that the magic was real.

No no, it couldn’t have been oozing spunk and blood on the spreadsheets of our ecstasy,

It was true love connection (that wasn’t lasting), 

it was tremendous intimacy (that retained no depth).

Each wish begets another as the shard of purity falls from the sky above us.

Whisper to ourselves – the rainbow was real, for a while it truly was a part of our now.

Turn your back on where it went and why it faded even if the wound in your heart persists. 

Try to realize, one dwells on anything but the shard at their peril. 

There is nothing to do but await the penetration of belief again, the piercing of the veil, 

the promise of the joyful euphemism striking the heart in a way only life can manage, 

a moment when bruised and bewildered you slide on icy roads and shout inside 

to the manipulating ghost of your ironic wish crashing over you,

My God, this is really happening!

Imago Guilty Soul Innocent

I enter an elevator on the 66th floor only to find 

a complete criminal court 

squeezed into the space and awaiting my arrival.

The proceedings are clear – I have to represent myself, 

no one else will stand up with me.

In the time it takes the elevator to descend to the lobby

I must make my case for why I feel about my life the way I do.

Feelings need to be justified, 

thoughts need to be analyzed, 

actions reviewed in gory detail.

I stammer through an opening statement, 

mumbling to myself, overwhelmed and dismayed.

I try to explain – my life has been a one-legged ballet in a war zone,

a muddy operating room at a country carnival, 

a bad psychedelic trip atop fornicating hippos,

a sacred initiation in a pirate ship’s rape room, 

a delirious pixie flight into a supernova,

a spinning waiting room without furniture, 

a fiery tornado at the eye of a hurricane,

but that’s not the half of it, my life has been so much more, 

the chaotic motion of it took me by surprise, 

so much energy, I don’t know where to start.

I only have dozens of faded 3-by-3 black and white photos

tossed haphazardly in a moldy cigar box to present as evidence.

There is no way to convey my story, 

not so the sweep and impact of all those years is felt by others, 

not with such blurry snapshot trivia, not in the time allowed.

I fumble through the faded photos; they drop in bunches at my feet.

Part of me braces with anxiety as I call myself to the stand.

I cross examine myself and trick the truth out of me.

The irony of it is raw – this world honors no oaths 

yet I cannot find it in me to perjure myself.

Part of me wants to go to the roof alone and gaze at the sky.

I feel a sinking feeling, going down, the quickening reminds me

of a repeating theme in my dreams, a haunting motion sickness

of dropping into a dark void where things appear, 

they interact with me in confusing but heartrending ways.

I know when I get to the lobby nothing will change.

I will still be guilty of not being understood, 

not by others and not by myself.

I will still have to face the verdict of blind and deaf and dumb justice.

The elevator stops, the doors open, 

my debit card is swiped for the use of the court,

I’m forcefully ushered out of the building and given a warning 

– follow the rules, you’re under house arrest.

But I have nowhere to go, no place that’s home.

I stand on the sidewalk and start singing a song, 

my upturned hat in hand.

People pass every which way, they can’t be bothered.

As I sing I try to translate the words to my song.

It’s no use – I don’t understand them even if I feel them, 

it’s just something in me I have to sing.

Some clown across the street snaps a photo of me 

then hands me a print on his way by.

I stuff it in my hat. He’s laughing with a sad painted face. 

Immediately the image starts to fade.

I don’t know why I feel I need to keep it. 

It’s a pale imago without a soul.

It doesn’t prove anything. It’s not evidence of anything.

It’s a snapshot of me singing, an idealized specter hinting at a meaning.

I might as well be dancing in the dark on an alpine ridgeline.

I might as well be making love to one who shouts at me they love another.

I look to the sky. It’s still striking blue for now. But night is coming. 

Soon stark neon will burn the darkness into starless ashes. 

The elevator doors will open once more.

Then it will begin again.

 

Bleach In The Gravy  

The roadside guru said life is a meal,

a banquet in a take-out box meant for on the go,

a portable super-sized snack too big to finish,

best enjoyed fresh with all your senses, 

feel how good it is going down.

You have to be willing to get dirty,

warm grease and hot sauce on hands and face,

savor or gulp, it don’t matter, it’s all good.

Sure, there’s gonna be some bones

and raspberry seeds in the wisdom teeth,

you might even get scalded when you’re in the soup

and some things mixed together just won’t sit right,

But who thinks of that when they get icing on the cake?

Who’s gonna complain about that when the caviar arrives?

There’s only one problem that’ll turn your stomach good,

that’s when one dish becomes your gotta-have favorite,

something you absolutely need or why eat at all,

the prime delight that gives meaning to the whole shabang.

If you find you just have to have your favorite, say it’s gravy,

or you’d rather not eat at all, it just wouldn’t be special,

then you’re gonna starve when one day you find

somebody put bleach in that gravy.

It’s still gravy of course, but it’s not the same,

and just forgetting about the bleach, putting it out of your mind,

won’t take it out of the gravy, you’ll smell it a mile away.

Some things leave a bad taste in one’s mouth, the guru confessed,

some things aren’t even edible and yet they fall on our plate,

but sooner of later you’re gonna have to decide,

what are you here for – gravy or a meal?

 

More Evidence COVID is Smart  

Incredibly, the COVID virus can count.

It knows the difference between 99 and 100.

It switches off and becomes incommunicable in companies of 99 employees or less.

It switches on and threatens the safety of everyone everywhere when one employee is added.

COVID is smart enough to know the reverse too -- fire the 100th employee to make it 99

and immediately there's no need for the previously applied preventative action or a safety alarm,

despite the fact we're in the worst pandemic in the history of humanity

according to those allowed to speak.

Thankfully, those in power know this. This makes sense since they also know the smart COVID virus is so deadly walking through a restaurant but it becomes incommunicable when you sit down and take your mask off to eat, or when you take it off to take a bite or sip but then put it back on in-between bites. Smart COVID also is insidious in targeting certain buildings, like county government offices or Social Security Administration offices, so extra cautions and closures need to be taken there, but smart COVID isn't so concerned about what goes on in Walmart or Costco so they never need to close.

This also applies in airplanes - masks on when smart COVID is deadly during boarding and normal flight but masks off when normal flight includes a served meal. Smart COVID also knows when you're in an airplane terminal too, so social distancing plus masks are mandatory, but get on the plane minutes later and you can sit close without distancing as long as you have the mask. COVID is smart enough to respect the need to keep the nation moving, and the airlines in business.

The COVID virus is also smart enough to take into consideration social and political nuances. A wedding or a church meeting or a birthday party is a condemnable super-spreader offence but the USPS, a company of 495,000 employees, can be exempt from mandates, even though its employees spread out across the nation and go to everyone's house and business daily. Of course, they also are part of a union that represents large campaign donations. 

And for sure, smart COVID knows to attack a gathering of motorcyclists during their yearly get-together and spread far and wide so this kind of activity must be banned, but it shies away from riots in the name of fighting systemic badness so as long as the cause is deemed just, smart COVID is on the side of justice and won't attack, so the riot or demonstration may proceed as densely packed and maskless as need be.

And if you are an ex-President, then smart COVID knows better to show up at your birthday party when the Secret Service is around, so the ex-President can have as big a party as he wants and only the service staff need to wear masks, naturally, because they are not elite enough to be passed over by smart COVID.

Continuity of government is so vitally important during a global deadly crisis, and yet the COVID virus is smart enough not to affect Congress so they can be exempt too. That also goes for the congressional staff, the Judicial branch, and the White House staff, all of whom are essential to government and yet not essential to be inoculated due to smart COVID's discriminating intelligence.

And of course, smart COVID is too wise to hang around the very scientists and Big Pharma goliaths tasked with controlling and out-smarting viruses, so the following entities also get exemptions from the 100 employee mandate -- CDC, FDA, NIAID, Pfizer, and Moderna.

Smart COVID is also sensitive to the difficulties of collective bargaining. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) have encouraged all teachers to get vaccinated but their policy leaves room for local unions to negotiate these requirements with their school districts. Both organizations say they support vaccine mandates but they stop short of demanding it. This is because it’s very rare for national unions to do anything that would tie the hands of their local chapters. National unions don’t want to usurp local bargaining power—if they come out in favor of a mandate, that could weaken the locals’ positions in bargaining. Regardless of the science of epidemics or the threat of death for millions of school children, the national teacher's unions are not included in the 100 employee mandate. It's a very involved, sensitive matter and of course smart COVID is insightful enough to back off its deadly scourge in response. 

And naturally, the smart COVID virus has a social conscience and switches itself off for the more than 1 million immigrant crossings of the US-Mexico border in the first seven months of 2021, so all border crossings without due process or medical screenings can be exempt too, even though great numbers of these people will be distributed by the federal government for settlement in communities throughout the country. But smart COVID knows better than take advantage of this as a super-spreader event.

But what about the 40 million Americans who have had COVID and have natural immunity? Israeli researchers discovered that natural immunity is 27 times more effective than the inoculation. So should natural immunity be an exemption? Well, in fact -- no, since COVID is smart enough to detect you haven't received an inoculation so it will attempt even harder to infect you.

And if you work at a company of 100 employees or more, you'll either have to be vaccinated or test negative weekly in order to work; of course, getting vaccinated does not prevent you from catching the COVID virus and getting sick or spreading the disease, so one might wonder why aren't all employees -- vaccinated or not -- required to test weekly. But no, the COVID virus is smart enough to know that you've been vaccinated AND that you work for a company of 100 employees or more, so it will just pass by those vaccinated employees while regular vaccinated people could still become sick and spread it to others.

It'll be a lot easier if you realize how science and smart COVID work together. Just remember -- the protected need to be protected from the unprotected by forcing the unprotected to use the protection that didn't protect the protected.

It just makes sense when you follow the science and realize just how smart the COVID virus really is. It's amazing how in so many ways COVID appears smarter than the people it infects.

And that's the most worrisome thing of all.