4v291o

HANDWRITING

This campfire, crafted to life to bring a civil order to the wilderness
Unfed destruction, bridled to boil from within its boundary’s pit

Warmth for comfort
To stave the numbness from encroachment
Heat for feeding
To set decay to moving backwards, until it becomes nourishment
Light for prescience
To throw it’s rays unto the murky cloud of blindness, shining veracity upon each pensive ponder

All for the price of smoke and spark
Smoke, its trail tracing a pathway up, along the wind, into the stars
Spark, combustion’s refugees that spring for cover, and evangelise the grass they land upon

Judgment, the obligation of the call to stomp upon the ember’s wiles
Audacity, the wild temptation to see how far the charing circle grows

COLD ENGINE

Old data
stands guard over the present that my guilt gives
Tin foil
starts peeling from the helmet where my head lives
Ice water
to cool the sins they don’t forgive

This author
sneaks jokes into the places where the plot sits
Snap punchline
has been designed in ways to give my heart fits
Ghost writer
just never knows when he should quit

Rust orange
in small freckles dotting where the water set
Round rivets
for sealing up the seams at where the lines met
Warm thunder
the kind of roar you don’t forget

STONIC

The broken glass appearing
A drop of dye goes hiding
The only hint is in the shade it draws
Voicemails are spilling into solubles
Goes down easy, like repenting
A grail brimmed with tired trying
Premonition of taste before the tip begins
Toss back the oil with the water, in one go

HABITAT

I sink, until the carpet’s up around my ears
You know the thrill I get, that only you can give
My fearful cries, accumulated in the dark
You’d grab a tape to record every scream and whimper
So you can play back all your favorites, every day
All for a laugh, and to remind yourself
How much I need you

From time to time, I’d have enough
To try and run away
I don’t know why I ever bothered
You’d look me up in all the places that you knew I’d need to be
I’d try my best not to show my relief, when you’d arrive
Cause I don’t need anything else when I have you
I hate to say

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SUBSCRIBE BUTTON

His last one got eight hundred thousand views
when he began to giggle
about the way
someone pronounced
the seventh planet from the sun

Before that, he would never get a tenth of that
despite asking the internet
about the way his grandparents might treat him
if he told them
he was
gay

So which
do you suppose
that he might focus on
the next time that the light turns red?
and do you think
he’ll ever know
if his grandparents
would have tried
to understand?

YOUR FEELINGS PLUS A QUARTER COULD BUY YOU A GUMBALL

It may have been a single night or several, based on my intermittent recollections
The fingerprints upon the pristine veneers of all the furniture began to pressure me
So we took turns to keep ourselves from shouting over every exclamation
It was too warm to see my breath, so I guess that I was smoking something
We tried to move, to make sure it was done before we thought too long
Arrangement’s sterile insanity began to ricochet around the traffic circle
I saw my chance to recommence my rant once my eyebrows reappeared within the rearview mirror
Until my sleeping fingers finally ed right through the steering wheel, like a mirage

Previous Review:
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THE KAISER SAYS

The Kaiser says
The Kaiser says
The Kaiser says I’m fortunate to be born where I was
A nation of made of little towns, lit pridefully by candlelight
Who burn their hopes into their prayers, and float each word with care into the pensive skies
Their heartbeats trembling up the trot of every soldier’s driven tread
Such joy, the leaping honor to become the evidence of all the Kaiser says

The Kaiser says
The Kaiser says
The Kaiser says our nation’s women hate a coward more than anything
But yearn to trace their fingertips along the feldgrau stitches
Buttoned upon backs of weary men, who dream of them from distant ditches
Emboldened by their futures, wished into the gentle scent of handkerchiefs and letters
Such love from nation’s waiting ones shall always be the promise of duty’s retort

The Kaiser says
The Kaiser says
The Kaiser says that battles earn its citizens the right to age
Our elderly, so topped with pride of generation’s toiled, brilliant conquests
Who stare and point at maps towards the territory counted as inheritance of nationality
Attributing the losses down to fear, timidity, and lack of effort
Such patriotism, funneling their grandsons into meat-grinders, infirmaries, and morgues

The Kaiser says
The Kaiser says
The Kaiser says our land has taken great offense against its neighbors
That nation's anger burns against such aggressors who’d unseat us from our great dominion
Begging its sons towards tipping both the bottles and the bodies down from tabletops
The land, now pockmarked along her every mountainside with craters, shells, and unmarked graves
Was surely better off before it pleaded with its parasites for any such defending

DON'T YOU GO LOOKING

When someone calls you on the phone, and asks you if you’re sitting down
they’ll tell you all about the reasons that I’m not gonna be around
Yes, I'm sorry
but one day, I’m not gonna be around
Not anymore

and
please,
now, don’t be mad,
but when you hear that I’m not gonna be around
don’t you go looking

I won’t be there, in the wind that cools you when it’s warm
I won’t be there, in the sun that warms you when it’s cool
I won’t be there, in the old house where we drank, and fell asleep, so long ago
I won’t be out fishing, or watching the TV

I won't even be there, sitting at the grave that you might buy for me
(So maybe don’t bother with one of those, at all)

I’ll be somewhere you can’t find me
I’ll be somewhere you can’t wish me back
I’ll be leaving out the window you left open in your mind
I’ll be thinking all about the ways you’re gonna be just fine
don't you go looking

HAZARD

When shall courage mark return?

Her absence heralds harsh despair and vivid gloom
Valor is frozen, paralyzed in breathless wait beneath its fragile cover
Blindness, but for searching torchlights
Quiet, but for distant drums

Hunger peals at harm’s fierce toll, alerting every shadow to resolve’s sharp lapse
No courage here, to stave the slaughter
Respite’s forlorn initiative will prompt retreat to starlight’s safety
but there is only violence waiting

When shall courage mark return
to restore relief at comfort’s side?

BALEA LAKE

Pick a fight somewhere, tonight
Tack the words down from the smoke
Swim along the river’s edge
Disregard the regal ends
Trace the arc of goodwill’s flight
Pick it up from where it lands
Sing until the lights go dim

RETROSPECTIVE

Purple ink upon the yellow pad
Sung together makes our voices glad

Cashing out so we don’t hurt no more
Maybe that’s what all the dreams were for

Time can make the romance disappear
So, it’s best if we can stay right here

Age will bring us to ourselves, again
We can tell them how much fun it’s been

BEEN THINKING

Can’t count, Can’t talk
Can’t answer your question without taking a second

Can smile, can punch, can work hard, can drink
Can make a guy think there’s nothing to worry about

Can keep from asking stupid questions
Too dumb to find the better answer

Can keep from making scenes
…when someone takes the cheap shot

Can tend to wonder if he almost made it
Took his shot. Swung for the fences.

Can keep his mouth shut.
Deaf and dumb.
Real dumb.

Can start to wonder
if the good things happening to him
are something that he earned
or something that he cheated for

Can change things now
Take a hit, and get back up

Show em what he’s made of
Show em he’s not scared
Show em things are changing
Show em he’s the change

He’s decided that he will be
Somebody
who was dumb, but got to thinking

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CHERYL-LYNN MASSIE

Cheryl-Lynn Massie, timid and kind
Sweetest old lady you’ll ever find
Church every Sunday, singing out loud
Voice like an angel, hair like a cloud

Upstanding woman. Dutiful wife
Serving Lord for all of her life
Patient and kindly. Loving and good
Always so willing to do what she could

Cheryl-Lynn Massie, timid and kind
Sweetest old lady you’ll ever find
Church every Sunday, singing out loud
Voice like an angel, hair like a cloud

Never found frowning, always upbeat
Helper to any person she’d meet
Never a stranger, always a friend
Loving her neighbors, all through the end

Cheryl-Lynn Massie, timid and kind
Sweetest old lady you’ll ever find
Church every Sunday, singing out loud
Voice like an angel, hair like a cloud

Everyone living in her hometown
Thought of her fondly, with true renown
Always so eager to volunteer
Filling their town with gladness and cheer

Cheryl-Lynn Massie, timid and kind
Sweetest old lady you’ll ever find
Church every Sunday, singing out loud
Voice like an angel, hair like a cloud

Couldn’t believe it, when they found out
All of their fondness, heavy with doubt
Cheryl-Lynn Massie, nice as could be
Murdered her husband. Poisoned his tea.

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TRAUMATIZE

Years after, I will hear an echo, rooms away
The kind that once would have been stifled, but now repeats in softness
They round back, together
Competing with the quiet, instead of one another
There’s too much time to think
Wishing the rebounded voices weren’t my own
Their gentle company, upended
Gone without goodbye
I’ll use this time to scrawl their names and shapes into the oak
make attempts at their remembrance
asking what it means to help each other
by yourself

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BARTON

Come away
Come away, my dear
Wait out the fog of the rejection til it disappears
Private promises scratched into the marrow of your fears
Until your eyes can clear
Come away
Come away, my dear

Steel yourself
Steel yourself, my heart
Songs in a hopeful key that flip the scarring into art
A careful charm sang sweet for favor cherished from the start
Do not be torn apart
Steel yourself
Steel yourself, my heart

Cry no more
Cry no more, my love
Between the thunder peals you’ll hear the murmur of the dove
Flying for tunnels in the tempest we are victims of
To clearing air, above
Cry no more
Cry no more, my love

SPARE TIRES

The mail delivered, wrong
The neighbors get all of the bills meant for the resident
Who never stays home long enough to see how much he owes
The independence
It hasn’t been the same since the Pony Express closed
Thousands of horses suddenly looking for work
She isn’t texting
The news will strike impatiently against a silenced phone
The tub is filling faster than the truth sinks in
Smoke in the canopy
The words go tumbling from his mouth each time he tries to breathe
Turning to leave before he sees it’s even more crowded outside
Mistakes make great dates
The price of bourbon spikes to meet demand
No use in waiting for the tablecloth to draw a smiley face upon itself

THE HECKLER

The patronage was solemn, but their mood matched the decor
The tired roof, addled with leaks, had cried onto the floor
Their vagrancy was welcome in this tavern, set in hell
The window screens, like honeycomb, a hive for them to dwell

But deep within that shabby shack, they took turns with the mic
Projecting from that crooked stage, just how they were alike
As different as they appeared, they shared a single dream
Escaping from that barren hive, with every plot and scheme

They’d tell of all their plannings t’wards the grasping of this goal
Of all their tired toil, scraping cash into a hole
They’d write themselves the hero, who would triumph over fear
And when each drifter finished, that old room would grant a cheer

For every bum and miscreant, the dreaming was a drug
A myth that they could sing about while ing ‘round the jug
The favor bounced around the room, with reverie and fun
And every man was ing in, excluding only one

A heckler in a orange suit, who’d slyly shake his head
and wait until the chorus died, to share grim news, instead:
“You’ll struggle with the truth,” he’d say, “For Kismet is my name.”
“With all your might, and effort spent, I’ll rob you, all the same.“

FLORENCE

Weeds are growing in between the wagon wheels
A peace that prompts to calm and settle down
Makes you furious

If home means rest, and rest means letting go, even a little bit
Then pain will lead to blame that hurts you, that much more
You’re not invisible

This city’s winding tunnels, writing jokes for you
The cobblestones ring laughter in your mind
Could you reside?

Your restlessness won’t be solved by itself
They’re asking if there’s anything that they can do to help
Just reply

LADY SYBIL LAZENBY

What any mother’s wish for son
should put them in such sad despair?
What’s left of life, I’ll even out
some justice earned for mother, fair

My somber folly falls a wreck
what loveliness lies in her grave
a palace for her only son
to store what kindness left to save

All love that’s left is trampled down
beneath the might of class’s boot
the wealthy winding through the wood
break kindly for a country shoot

Deception’s malice trophy true
so stapled to my heart, and then
the fortunes fills me to my brim
til vengeance bests success, again

BYSTANDER BLUES

Anything that you love
they gonna take from you
Yeah, anything that you love
they gonna take from you
Oh, yessir
Unless you get some money,
ain’t nothin that you gonna do

They gonna wait
until we all tear ourselves apart
Yeah, they gonna wait
until we tear ourselves apart
Oh, yessir
They just like the color
of the blood that we weaved into our art

So, I got a song,
gonna tear a hole in the sky
Yeah, I got a song,
it’s gonna tear a hole in the sky
Yes, I do
So you best learn the words, now
or else all us sinners gon’ die

Yeah, that’s right.

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VARIATION

From down here, all to hear are steady hums of hurried engines
Subtle motors
Squeaking bus brakes
Concrete covers steel
Stretching high, to bounce the sun back down, along the alleyways below
Trains are running, slightly higher
Just to circumvent
The cautious choreography, that calculates whose turn it is to proceed

After several days of walking past the interlocking, charged arrangements
You’ll become a fitted piece, and an important one, you'd hope
One that pushes progress forward
Along this line
Upon the grid
One that makes itself invisible among the other gears
One that asks for help whenever the unforeseen should occur
Before receding into streamlined disappearance within machination
Melting back into the traffic, once again

Wake up, child

Don’t be fooled
The truth is that you are not wired for the grid
You are a variation
At your particular intersection of those solid, sharpened lines
You are a twisting, scrambled, splendid alteration
Where others walk, you’ll crouch and spring, and leap
Those dangers you’d resigned into shall now become a form of delegation
They’ll be rerouted, now, to fall into your lap
From time to time

By now, you’ll feel it ing through your synapses
Thrill, and rush, and courage
Rumbling down your fingertips
Alerting them of threat’s cruel presence
Gifting you a unique station in the resolution of dilemma
To help the people turn the page upon the pressing of their pillow’s scares
You are awake for long enough, to see the grid from elevated heights
And wonder how you never saw it sooner

It may take some time to grasp this
But worry not
You will be given several seconds

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BYSTANDER BLUES

Anything that you love
they gonna take from you
Yeah, anything that you love
they gonna take from you
Oh, yessir
Unless you get some money,
ain’t nothin that you gonna do

They gonna wait
until we all tear ourselves apart
Yeah, they gonna wait
until we tear ourselves apart
Oh, yessir
They just like the color
of the blood that we weaved into our art

So, I got a song,
gonna tear a hole in the sky
Yeah, I got a song,
it’s gonna tear a hole in the sky
Yes, I do
So you best learn the words, now
or else all us sinners gon’ die

Yeah, that’s right.

Previous Review:
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LIFESTYLES

Wrong as rain
That’s my pain

Someone call the doctor
Someone call the maitre d
Someone made an error
Trying to get the best of me

Wrong as rain
That’s my pain

Their name spelled in show lights
My name spelled in bullet holes
Blood behind the bandage
That’s the part the hate controls

Wrong as rain
That’s my pain

Ticking like a time bomb
Singing like a clarinet
Apathy’s persuasion
Is the best that I can get

Wrong as rain
That’s my lane

JURY DUTY

We decide

All the bones we picked from the mud
We regret to stack them up
Once upon a time, there were people who believed enough to die
But the pile’s getting high

We decide

If it happened anywhere, it will happen here
Clerical disguises
Green ink stains from the blindfold
It's not "ability" until they start to sweat

We decide

If it’s shame, the font’s not big enough
If it’s fear, then they just aren’t afraid enough
If it’s the same, then it all goes away
If it’s a change, then they’ll print every name

We decide

Victims have graves, just like anybody else
Those in charge have bad dreams, just like anybody else
Reputation has a heart, just like anything else
Justice bleeds, just like anything else

We decide
We decide

SERIOUS PEOPLE

Serious people always know how to spell
Every word that comes to mind for them, arrives with shapes they can recall
They need only scrawl the corresponding writ into the memory of outline’s form
Making learned inference of each and every outlying detail
Until correction fills the vacant meaning’s relation with implication
The definitions, synonyms, and nomenclature, soon to follow
Becuse seriuss peeple always no how to spel

NOW, AND AGAIN

Should you hear a sound around our time of night
Believe the song that burns the dark into star light

Should the earth’s strikes knock you down to heartbreak's reach
Recall the timbre in the ardor of my speech

Should your dreams begin to fade, and plummet, low
I’ll turn world upon it’s head to make them so

Should the morning sun arrive with shadows, too
That’s just me walking through the fog, til I reach you

BYSTANDER BLUES

Anything that you love
they gonna take from you
Yeah, anything that you love
they gonna take from you
Oh, yessir
Unless you get some money,
ain’t nothin that you gonna do

They gonna wait
until we all tear ourselves apart
Yeah, they gonna wait
until we tear ourselves apart
Oh, yessir
They just like the color
of the blood that we weaved into our art

So, I got a song,
gonna tear a hole in the sky
Yeah, I got a song,
it’s gonna tear a hole in the sky
Yes, I do
So you best learn the words, now
or else all us sinners gon' die

Yeah, that’s right.

INQUILINE

Stale air, rounding down into a breath
It drives itself into the windmill blade, to split the illness, wide
Floats along the pressing gust into the canyons where the hidden lie
Ash catches its ride
Intestines like catacombs, wherein reside a winding line
Offspring starts unraveling from deep inside the putrefied
Call to the top
The copy is enough
Incinerate the particles until they’re cinder kites
Smokestacks to pump what’s left of empty cries into the sky

MANIPULATION

She wants me to quit. She’s had enough of it.
I’m quiet while I rehearse my response.
It's been two nights of work. It's just my migraine.
If only she could read hostility without it being said.
We could just go. No one would know.
The two of us could talk it out.
She’s having doubts. I’m out of heart.
A lie that she’ll believe might be enough to get us by.
Maybe she’s right. It’s too late, outside.
The empty road’s the only one she’ll ever learn to drive.

DISS ORDER

Control holds Chaos from its rage
With arms like bars of havoc’s cage
Perhaps the Chaos can be quelled
With consequence’s stay, upheld
A modicum of reason’s peace
To see that comfort shall increase
Control will root, in steadied stance
But Chaos only wants to dance

The angles, bending in its soul
Shall test the limits of Control
Fastened grip until it latches
Locks, now clawed by inmate scratches
Control makes dreams of grand designs
But color won’t stay in its lines
There is no warden ruling Hell
Just Chaos, laughing in its cell

PLANTED

old man counts the trees still standing in his yard
matches the total to the number that he’d got, the night before
has to be sure that none of them made a run for it
while he was slumbering
he’s the kind of man that has to know
that somewhere on the earth, there is a portion of its surface
he can off
as dominion

SO, NOW

Where we’ve been, they’re baking nicotine into the bread
Gassing your favorites in formaldehyde until their dead
The way to stop the people standing up
Is selling them a comfy chair that holds a cup

So, Now.

Now.

Where we’re going is a gunfight with disease
Firing bullets that backfire in the breeze
Reading the signs upon our ceilings, in the night
Get scared that maybe all the preppers might be right

So, Now.

Now.

Where we are is scribbled clumsily in pencil on a bathroom stall
Change what you can before resentment slows you to a crawl
The nagging question all our bandwidth will allow
In all of space and time, how did we end up, here and now?

So, now.

Now.

Now.

DIRT

People dig
into the dirt
in hopes that down there, deep enough
they’ll find something, of precious worth
to turn their fortunes
craft their comforts,
and earn themselves a lofty view
where they can see, from vaunted heights
the little people
digging
in the dirt.

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KILL SOME TIME

From when its now until its then
what little notions, counting down
will tumble, aimlessly
their splash against the ancient cobblestones, expanding suicidal reach
the mind forces eventualities until its at capacity
so few, still left to count another round of season’s bottom deal
ripe turns and cold delays, with apprehension cast the thief, again
where waiting vast expenses may outlive the benefactors
all that is planned, routinely lapped by what is left
social half-measures, bolstered by eternity
someday, but not surely not tomorrow
time enough to hold reserved affection in the lobby for a little longer
time enough for chance or shame to steal some seconds from the future’s games
time enough to put off every daring cost demanded of
entirety

MISGIVINGS

Nationalities are drowning, deep beneath stale water's surface
Green with sweat and plague and smog and spite
Too tired to distinguish all the scratches from the lacerations
How many stitches shall they rivet ‘round the bandage holes?
The mud soaks through resolve, until all confidence dissolves
One part ideal, of goodwill presiding over wildest boundaries
One part venom, portioned towards enmity’s severe binding
The second, pressing it’s thumb upon the scale until the righteous crack and fail
Long enough to watch the insects final swarm, reduce and separate
Bones picked, finely clean
Finally clean

A GOOD QUESTION

Narrator needed.
A voiceover, providing exposition
on the origin of phantom clods of dirt and grass
sprinkled, with anonymity
towards the center of the sidewalk Barry uses for his walk, each morning.
Birds? No birds!
Bugs? No bugs!
Without explanation, poor Barry’s doomed to pause his walk
in thirty degree weather
to look in anguish, and in every possible direction
for the fiendish agency
of this
brazen
untidiness.

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SELECTIVE

I must be colorblind in recollections
Painted the gray walls blue in my recounting, that it might suit you, all the better
Colors, but even more than colors, too
Could have swore that silver dress you wore
The one that pulled the moonlight’s dear attention from my idling, in the courtyard
Has has it painted, cusped with gentle teasing to your shoulder, in a bow
But there is, venerably retired deep within our closet, after these many years
Resigned, in victorious leisure, without any such delighting folderol
Ah, well
If you find the need to tell me that your hair was down, instead of woven high, into a halo
Maybe, just keep that to yourself
What little good knowing an accurate of the events has ever served me
So yes, that’s how we met

REASONABLE MISTAKES

Other people with my name
vote for the opposite party.
If I find them, I can ask them
if we can both agree
to sit the next election
out.

Other people with my name
got through high school with a perfect GPA.
If I find them, I can ask them
why the only thing that I
is that Eli Whitney made the cotton
gin.

Other people with my name
are with their second wife.
If I find them, I can ask them
how much of their savings rides
on getting this one absolutely
right.

Other people with my name
hit the snooze button four times before they leave the bed.
If I find them, I can ask them
why they need to start each day
by multiplying
pain.

Other people with my name
have confidence enough to air their grievances with people in the service industry.
If I find them, I can ask them
why they aren’t afraid
that this will get them
shot.

THE WORK

Arrivederci, Mr. Pominville
Your classroom began to evacuate
the moment that you turned your back, to write your name upon the board
You’re figured out,
a little sooner than you’d like
Too much softness got detected
in the impacts of your consonants
Expertise:
you pulled it, like a punch
Strip mines scraped clean of clear particulars
These kids!
They smell the artifice, upon you
like your ambition got left out, to spoil in the sun
Your last derivatives directed towards the empty chairs
where no one stuck around for long enough
to see the sunrise in your banal glare
There’s just the matter of your syllabi,
which never lies
but tries
to boil out the chloride
cleansing the sincerity from audacity
A slow, insulting death at sea

"I SLEPT UNTIL 1PM" JUST DOESN'T LOOK AS BAD AS "I SLEPT UNTIL 13:00"

Angle, Angle
Keeps the mud room out of view
Hallway’s holding to its word, today
If this keeps up, I shouldn’t have to go outside, at all

Bottle, Bottle
Wears my finger like a necktie
Breathes the sadness with a cooling steam
Empties just in time to tell me I should probably head back home

Copper, Copper
A medal with a bleeding smell
The muted celebration, plying to the hopeful mold
Gathered, twisting in a nest where every avenue’s escape has ed

Jacket, Jacket
Every pocket drops a reservation
Scanning for credentials qualified towards the occasion
Where it’s hung is where I’ll go once it’s made clear that not welcome

RIGGING

Fight the air if it helps stop the fear
Honest words are a lottery, here
Fight the sea if it suits your last stand
Courage won’t be found in high demand
Fight the dark til it tears you apart
The heinous write the end from the start
So, resign to the spite, as you fall
Perhaps might equals right, after all

Previous Review
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/akabanerowsdowe/film/lifeboat/

THE NAME OF HARVEY

I recall the janitor,
who worked, for many years,
cleaning the preschool, I attended
and once agreed
to stand-in as my grandpa
on Grandparents Day
so that I wouldn’t have to be
all by myself

N

The time for contemplation ticks away into the past.
The seconds left
will be bereft
of countenance, amassed.

Acceleration rushes to its place at the controls,
and caution thins
while instinct wins
the triumph of its goals.

Discretion takes a beating at the hands of thrill and chance.
The body learns
how patience burns
to fuel its fervent dance.

So, “Faster” is the klaxon call, its bellow loud and true:
“For how I hate
to sit and wait.
when there’s so much to do.”

IMPARTIAL

Our inspiration
ran out
somewhere
in the parking lot

The empty bottle’s
dance routine
cartwheeling
out the window

Jutting movements
blurring,
fast enough
to keep the shatter
out of earshot

Cause and effect
don’t tend to factor
when attention’s redirected
downwards
towards the rumble seat

Avert your eyes from where the rear view warns

Chagrin still charging in the lighter port

Let’s get this car back home
before
the two of us
take longer looks
at one another

AND CAN'T LET GO

Exit wounds
start turning up, all over town
looking for dance partners

Striking down into the ground
cracks in pavement besting knuckles
water that whittled in, with age

The clicking seconds ring like bells
remainders, sing until they cry
left to wait, and hope they even out

Fractions of humility, arranged
like flowers, standing guard
formations, crafted in reply

The dwindling pages that remain
uneasy, counting down the days
get just a little codependent

SURVIVOR'S GUILT

Our two departures from reality were isolated incidents
The glib retelling of the tragedy, repeated to ourselves
Until the shorthand was enough to get us by

For me,
nervous delusions of capacity
Finding the words with filed edges I can poke you with
Maybe eventuality will settle in if we just wait here, long enough
Well, what’s the harm?
Well, what’s the point?

For you,
deduction’s tightrope dance is balanced on the bottom line
Make sure we save enough to see us through some scarcity
A little further, just until we’re out of worry’s sight
Well, not my kid
Well, not so bad

SANCTUM

Stand up
Turn without a sound
Look slow across the woods
See between the branches,
those rays of yellow light
That’s not the sun
That’s someone approaching through the green
Balanced in the boughs

Clear pond
Deep, and still, and cool
The crystal waters
The chill within the air
They’ve been here, waiting all along
To refresh and to heal

Make ready
Resolve your every edge
Tie down your hatred to your bones
Your conflict decays you
It isn’t welcome, here
Cast it aside
It’s of no use to you, anymore
Leave it out there, on solid ground
You’ll be surprised how fast you will forgive

Wade down
Then lay back your tired head
Rest in the quiet
Of their ancient, silent steps
Slow your breath down
So you can feel the moments
Floating with a sigh.
Take in their voice
Hear them when nothing makes a sound

You’ve traveled so far
Sadly, there’s still further to go
But no more, by yourself

Previous Review:
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/akabanerowsdowe/film/princess-mononoke/

Movies that are important to me:
letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/akabanerowsdowe/list/movies-that-are-important-to-me/

THE FRAUD

Applause, it’s chiding echo still resounding in the rafters
arrives, unwelcome at the orchestration of your lofty strivings.

She comes to goad the spirals of the dancing doubts into your inspiration’s sanctum
and sets your will askew, with vain unease.

This holy keep, wherein your wits would otherwise attempt their vital rest
attempt upon attempt
that they might still relieve your eyelid’s long patrol
before success must start again

well, the pitiless impermanence of glory’s brief trajectory.

What little time you have, while it is in the air
to make, and make again.

THE TERRITORY

Heat, the pull of power’s call
Bloodstains decorate the walls

Warm, the skull beneath the crown
Lungs that fill until they drown

Dull, the cut of rising curve
Allies, only as they serve

Weary, draws the leader’s face
Paranoia rules this place

Plotting, from the trusted few
Blades, to kill before they do

Steady, comes the wood’s approach
Castle’s solace to encroach

Cold, ambition’s cruel demand
Bloodstains set into our hands

PINBALL

Oh, I love the manic ways you break malaise
You’re kind enough to keep the sunlight from my eyeline
It’s only that I sometimes need it quiet when I sleep
Perhaps I said that too rough
Maybe I shouldn’t talk, at all
Oh, I can’t do anything right.

No, its my fault when you can’t find what you want
I leave your things in places I don’t want them
Thought you wouldn’t really mind
Perhaps I could make it easier, on you
Maybe focus isn’t my style
No, I can’t do anything right.

So here it is, plain so you listen
I don’t want to say it twice, cuz once is hard enough
Your winding up might take the conversation somewhere I don’t want it
Perhaps you should just stay home
Maybe we’re better off apart
Just can’t do anything right.

If we go on crying, you and me
This stage were standing is gonna drop, beneath our feet
So I’ll just say my peace, and leave
I can’t do anything, right?

• Sinners
• Ne Zha 2
• The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie
• Black Bag
• Companion
• My Dead Friend Zoe
• Paddington in Peru
• Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
• Novocaine
• Mickey 17

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Ghostlight
2. Challengers
3. Dune: Part Two
4. Dìdi (弟弟)
5. A Real Pain
6. Anora
7. Sing Sing
8. Conclave
9. Lisa Frankenstein
10. Nickel Boys

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
2. M
3. Duck Soup
4. The Wizard of Oz
5. Holiday
6. Dodsworth
7. The Invisible Man
8. All Quiet on the Western Front
9. Stagecoach
10. The ion of Joan of Arc

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movies that are not quite at the point that they would qualify for my Movies that are Important to me list:

letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/akabanerowsdowe/list/movies-that-are-important-to-me/

I still love these movies, and they might make it back, but at this moment these movies are not watched with the same frequency as the other list.

1. M
2. The Little Foxes
3. The Maltese Falcon
4. All Through the Night
5. Lifeboat
6. Out of the Past
7. Strangers on a Train
8. The Killing
9. Throne of Blood
10. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

...plus 41 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This is a list of movies I love. This is not necessarily the best movies ever made, but movies that are incredibly important to me, or that I want to be watching with some level of regularity.

Once this list hits 200 movies, I may freeze it at that number so that any new movie would have to bump one from the list. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
• The Invisible Man
• Duck Soup
• A Night at the Opera
• Holiday
• Rebecca
• Citizen Kane
• Casablanca
• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
• Double Indemnity

...plus 182 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. No Country for Old Men
2. Spirited Away
3. The Royal Tenenbaums
4. Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
5. Inglourious Basterds
6. 3 Idiots
7. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
9. A Serious Man
10. The Darjeeling Limited

...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My favorite movie genre

• Sinners
• Blue Giant
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
• Coco
• Call Me by Your Name
• Inside Llewyn Davis
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• School of Rock
• A Mighty Wind

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. 12 Angry Men
2. All About Eve
3. Wild Strawberries
4. On the Waterfront
5. Harvey
6. Rear Window
7. Seven Samurai
8. Ikiru
9. The Night of the Hunter
10. Sweet Smell of Success

...plus 25 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. My Dinner with Andre
2. Stand by Me
3. Raising Arizona
4. Field of Dreams
5. Do the Right Thing
6. After Hours
7. Come and See
8. Kramer vs. Kramer
9. The Empire Strikes Back
10. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Fargo
2. Reservoir Dogs
3. Good Will Hunting
4. The Big Lebowski
5. Three Colours: Blue
6. The Silence of the Lambs
7. Magnolia
8. Before Sunrise
9. Schindler's List
10. Hands on a Hardbody: The Documentary

...plus 37 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Apartment
2. To Kill a Mockingbird
3. The Graduate
4. The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer
5. High and Low
6. The Haunting
7. Rosemary's Baby
8. Persona
9. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
10. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Blue Giant
2. Barbie
3. Killers of the Flower Moon
4. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
5. Asteroid City
6. Godzilla Minus One
7. The Boy and the Heron
8. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
9. The Holdovers
10. Poor Things

...plus 53 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Third Man
2. Citizen Kane
3. A Matter of Life and Death
4. Casablanca
5. Notorious
6. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
7. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
8. The Red Shoes
9. Rebecca
10. Double Indemnity

...plus 26 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
3. RRR
4. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
5. The Menu
6. Aftersun
7. Women Talking
8. The Fabelmans
9. Top Gun: Maverick
10. The Black Phone

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Coco
2. Ratatouille
3. Up
4. Toy Story
5. Inside Out
6. Toy Story 2
7. Inside Out 2
8. WALL·E
9. Toy Story 3
10. The Incredibles

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Nashville
2. The Godfather
3. Star Wars
4. Sholay
5. Kramer vs. Kramer
6. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
7. Life of Brian
8. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
9. Alien
10. Chinatown

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Inside Llewyn Davis
2. Little Women
3. Lady Bird
4. Moonlight
5. The Grand Budapest Hotel
6. Coco
7. Interstellar
8. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
9. Inception
10. The Tree of Life

...plus 41 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Power of the Dog
2. Mass
3. The Tragedy of Macbeth
4. tick, tick... BOOM!
5. The Worst Person in the World
6. The French Dispatch
7. Pig
8. Dune
9. Licorice Pizza
10. Bergman Island

...plus 18 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Promising Young Woman
2. David Byrne's American Utopia
3. Nomadland
4. I'm Thinking of Ending Things
5. Palm Springs
6. The Invisible Man
7. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
8. Hamilton
9. My Octopus Teacher
10. The Trial of the Chicago 7

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.