poems for posting

Chapter 01: quotestitch #1
Chapter 02: indecision bell
Chapter 03: violet folds
Chapter 04: market square
Chapter 05: commonality
Chapter 06: sentence #1
Chapter 07: sentence #2
Chapter 08: diamond viral
Chapter 09: quotestitch #2
Chapter 10: quotestitch #3
Chapter 11: hashtag feminism
Chapter 12: novel safeties
Chapter 13: quotestitch #4
Chapter 14: sentence #3
Chapter 15: bellicose belligerence
Chapter 16: love as a gravity
Chapter 17: quotestitch #5
Chapter 18: universal thread
Chapter 19: gimmick #1
Chapter 20: gimmick #2
Chapter 21: gimmick #3
Chapter 22: quotestitch #6
Chapter 23: redemptive ills
Chapter 24: spaceless block
Chapter 25: taylor street
Chapter 26: quotestitch #7
Chapter 27: quotestitch #8
Chapter 28: sentence #4
Chapter 29: new age god
Chapter 30: quotestitch #9

A wise man once told me: "I grew up Catholic, so I have a wonderful sense of guilt." He also told me that "silence is tacit permission," which is...quite something, and that "anything that is symmetrical stops the idea of hierarchy." That last one...I like that.

Who let these children grow up? Who let the angst of adulthood, the pragmatism of maturity, infect and assassinate their loving dreams? Would you go that way? All signs say shouldn't, don't, won't. And yet you go. Take it, whatever it may be. Stay not here in silence. Expanse inspires fear, but oh, how it can inspire.

be not afraid of the world around you
let it wrap you up in violet folds
contrarian men, oh they do not suit you
let yourself fall in peace and surely grow old

sing what the people say
cry when the children play
who is your home and kind
what's it like inside your mind?

coming to a place of commonality
one might see what you see
some might decide not to
but underneath is the choice
of whether they will even try

I'm sick and tired, and I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired of the life that I lead.

They said forever; I look around and see no leopards, only chameleons. What is forever but a little while?

you cannot kill loneliness
for it was never alive
(that's the secret - it must be loved away)

Youth has no choice in the matter of heart. It's something out of chaos...and therein lies the rub. Life is an ongoing situation. We are the product of our experiences. Own your mistakes, for it's better late than never. Really, you can say anything, but try to do what's right. You can get there, you can always be better. It all works itself out in the end.

Look at them. Infinite planes in three dimensions, all connected by a maze of steps. When the corn is cut, the breezes change...that's an opportunity for intent. And yet, a lot in the long run amounts to nothing in the short run. Today we trip, tomorrow we fall. This is such a silly game, played in the container of life.

maybe i'm hurt
my afterglow red
a woman walks in beauty
did you hear what she said?

the people whose arms you stumble into
the ones you talk to when you can't sleep
those are the people to have around
the ones worth fighting to keep

Don't make your bed. It's not going to stop you from laying in it, and then you have to make your bed twice. In other words, once you've been sent to the garbage, you can't get out.

Maybe you excite an atom, and it doesn't emit light. But who's to say that it's ready tonight?

I've crossed you over and over again, but by what you will I'll do what I can. If you let me run then there I will walk. If you let me speak then so I will talk. ...is what I would say if I were even half so repentant as this world expects of me.

in confusion we return to the basest truth
"i love you," we think, and cast that out into the ether
in it there is desperation and resignation and sorrow and shame
yet it is all we can cling to as the last coherent thought
for it could never be untrue

Please, I'm a magician! The mistakes you make thrill me! Time for something wonderfully related. First we're teaching you the aesthetic, this is the aesthetic. Then, we learned this aesthetic, but we can discard this aesthetic. And you know, I think that's great, you wanna have flexible minds. You can do almost anything, and I would try almost anything.

Ah, see, this result is so weird, it must live in an alternate reality.

Are you coming back?

...

Please, are you coming back?

if you were given the chance to steward out the universe in its time of dying, would you take it?

what price ignorance? what value that gentle, misguided bliss?

go knowing, created creature. go taking the wisdom a higher being deigned to give. oh, there is free will, there are things human holier than any lofted cloud, but this sees no equal. before you is the paragon of experience, and if you refuse it out of foolish fear, your first glorious gift of free will, so treasured, so revered, was a mistake.

alma mater
almond matter
milky way
do almonds matter?

are we too old to say i love you?
energy is matter is distance is time is money
the energy that always manages to run between us
no matter what
inverse of distance as it is
periodically functional over time
is priceless

empty space
there's always some
for any among us
should be at least one
so i shall go
spelunking
for a place to be
i'm sure
somewhere
there's a place for me

The smaller we are, the more certain we can be in our rejection. The larger we are, the more plausible we become. That's the spirit of hypothesis testing. Disagreements for equality can be positive or negative. That's right, nobody knows the truth. And failure? It's its own random variable.

it's peace and it's comfort and it's come after so long
and if you spent a thought to wondering if you deserved it
well, by then, it'd probably be gone

heartbreak can be a physical, visceral thing
the feral gunshot thunder outside preemptively echoes the howling
you're not young anymore, and what if you're never whole?
they were your youth and they are gone

it seems as in a dream
but not even a dream could open out
to be as surreal as this
ground me, that i might not collapse

the air is bizarre, fragmented
that smile doesn't belong there
two of me walking side by side
all are here but none are present

walk with me, in this night
death bears down but we are unafraid
we are already half gone, anyway
does this street run one way or two?

If you're going to break the rules, do it for a wonderful aesthetic reason. Perhaps don't approach any damn way you please, it's just that...sometimes you have to do something that's beautiful. I think it's quite sophisticated, and at the same time quite simple. One might even say simple by virtue of its sophistication, and vice-a vers-a.

Perfection is theoretical and only theoretical. Rarely will you find a phenomenon wherein it's either true all the time or not true ever. But one can try, can they not?

Intelligent men, intelligent fighters. They tried to cut corners, he tried to cut miters. Maybe I dodged a bullet...but maybe I wanted it to put me out of my misery.

One might imagine that the creator said to his children, "If I can teach you to be bold, that's a wonderful thing."
But some of the children cried back, "I want to be my own person. I want to be a real person."
And the creator in his forlorn, misshapen love said, "Oh but darling, aren't you?"

Now, see, did you do that by intuition or intellection? We'll never know? Nonsense! If you can't tell, surely it must be the former! It's rather like the stark sound of rain without the mollifying effect of clouds, isn't it? That's good! Screw all those other methods, send them to jail! Say it with me: the heart knows best.