FOUR LETTERS

Love: A temporary Insanity cured by marriage.

--Ambrose Bierce

Love, a four lettered word that drives out another four lettered word when that four letter word lead to a finalizing four letter word – LOCK, as in wed-lock.

Now the driven out four letter word, I’ll leave to your imagination.

Imagination is the part that can become detached from the driven out four letter word,

when “love”,

our fiery four letter word

gets stabilized and secured and

so-dulled by that finalizing four letter word.

If love is insanity

then our driven out four letter word,

or rather the feverish passionate act of that word

is a mad man’s cadence.

That finalizing four letter word is the breath thereafter.

Not that intoxicating

barely breathing breath

that stoge in the mouth

reach for the lighter

eyes glazed over

click click kshhh -- cigarette lit

inhale slow

– imagination of the moment’s sweaty predecessor – breath.

But the one with bills and kids and yeah – we’re married.

Take a breath.

Love

mODEz

The old blind bastard's trying to sing to you, listen as the Isley Brother’s say, to the music. You must learn to do that before you can expect to understand. Slowly, slowly, a few licks at a time.
--John Edger Wideman


Reality is a blinding blaze of incandescent light – bright and efficient. She’s a butch type dike of a bitch. She gnaws perception and feeds you bit by bit of her truth, past satiation and pleasure, past the it is until you complete her circle of charity on the throne, the porcelain one, with a moan and a grunt. Reality is your best friend, though that two timing broad has ran away with your wife.
--Ron-el Greaves

Hmmmmm

Why ask questions I ain't gonna answer....

Why waste time on the preponderance of reality...

The diaspora of your vision defined scarce and few,

The spectrum of my eyes see way beyond you...

Look into my soul and have it swallow you whole,

Gorging its famine on your ignorant soul,

Try as you might, my dept shall surpass,

Beyond my present life's cycle for your spawns to amass,

Not a threat, though you may take it as such,

Not a promise, though it means just as much,

Simply a prescription,

Of benediction, encryptioned by me...

Peek into my heart's core...and tell me what you see...

Am I?

There was once a time when questions were easier to come by than answers, but I have learned now, that I already know the answers to questions which have yet to be disclosed.  I have seen the solutions within the mouths of disparaging complications.  I have watched these solutions suckle on the tit of dilemma and fervently coo on with gurgles of wisdom, but all to befall deaf ears.  I mistook it for clamor though my innards listened close.

                The problem we all seem to agree on in race relations is the deficit of physical sameness.  I preclude that it is much more than that and ambiguously indifferent to scalar quantification.  It is an irony of such magnitude that it blooms implosively, folding in on itself finding never-ending detail to its detail.  It is OK.  For I’ve heard words yet to be spoken and have seen the pain in the eyes of those who’ve sought to humble me, but my humility lacks not.  Please understand that what you choose to halt is in essence awaiting such attempts, attempts which breathe fiery life into the pools of kerosene blood that we have collectively harnessed.  You sought to destroy, but did not know – you sought to know, but did not understand.  And and but when you sought to understand, all accrued knowledge was destroyed by non-acceptance of the simpler facts and the disbelief of things which needed not be questioned.

                You were merciless, be proud.  You were a force to be reckoned with, accept that valor.  You were the czars of conquest, the monarchs of mayhem, the liege of lies and bloodlust, I commend you.  Please, revel in that glory, I entreat you to that.  I thank you, and stand erect, with your brand on my chest.  I accept that I am as your child.  You made me.  You made a man who’s bones have grown dense to withstand the gravity of the plights you have made my everyday habitat.  You have rounded my shoulders in muscular in muscular mass to support the burdens you’ve heaped upon them.  You have sharpened my eyes so that I may see through the guise of mortals and unveil the cloak of demigods.  I thank you for these things.  I understand and respect and accept and perhaps modestly exemplify all that you were, but pay heed to who I AM. 

I am not me, I am we.  I am the consciousness that cannot be compromised.  I am the word which needs not be spoken.  Iam where you do not look.  I have risen.  It is my time now, as your dusk is upon you.  You thought that I would subtly rear my head, giving time for resistance.  No.  I am.

You need not fear me, for I do not bring death.  I bring life to the lifeless.  I have suffered deprivation of the unalienable, still I am.  I have understood degradation and fastened my feet inot the soil so that I may not buckle.  In the stage of my life, of first conception, you denied me, you said that I did not exist.  Throughout my embryonic development within your womb, you poisoned me by gorging yourself on the perversions of irony: giving God to the godly, giving wisdom to the wise, chastening the chaste and freeing the free.  You took the liberty of redefining language at whim:  protection, discovery, the law, the holy; and I turned in the belly of the earth waiting to be birthed.  And when the time, by natures choice, arose for me to swallow my first taste of air, you would not release me from the womb.  You held me there hoping that I would be unborn; that the defiled uterus of your malice would contract about my throat and that I would stifle on the indignations coiled around me.  An attempt, but still I am.  With macabre resolveI tore through the recess of my maternal prison, and of time and of continents and of islands and seas and fields, haciendas, yoke and suffering.  My initial travail was an onerous one, but never the less, I am.

                On my outset into the world, I was misled and exploited.  You took my trust and mangled it, you took my gratuitous insight and called it ignorant, only to peddle it at a later date for profit.  You bled me and allotted me only the barest portion of this gore to dampen my parched lips.  Still, for this minute amount, I showed gratitude.  You see I am no longer that child, but a man I am.  Reaching throughout the expanse of space and time, touching those far and near.  My mind rages with all the fury of an encaged bore, craving, lusting knowledge that was once beyond my grasp.  You would not allow me to come into manhood, still, I am.  As I entered adolescence you said with a smile and kind gesture, “No, here my friend you may not be”, and I replied, “But, I am”.

                Then as for insult to injury, you said, “No, my friend, these things are not for you to understand,” and I replied, “Relinquishing my ignorance, I am”

                Because of such audacity, such tenacity, you smiled and said, “My son, you are ready to be a man, I accept you as I am, and love you equal to the kin of my loins, : and I lavished the adoration and sat with you, and feasted with you and laughted with you, and slept, full of food and mirth, as you slept awake, creeping over my slumbering form, an ax in hand above your head – you struck, with all of the desperation of a fish on a fisherman’s hook, beating about, choking on the dryness of the air, at my sleeping form, hacking it to bits, sullying your home with the carnage of my corpse.  You did not like me, you did not love, you did not want me, you did not accept me, and I did not sleep.  Please look again at the slain, it was not me.  Please examine close to see blood of your blood, instead of mine, upon your sleeve and face.  I am here, I am awake, I am alive, I am aware, with sarcasm I say, “My friend, I am.”

For this guile and wit you hated me, but for the lessons our shared history has taught us, I adore you.  I credit you and chortle at you.   Once again, the men deemed prtectors, protect the fragile weavings of a society built on the foundation of contempt, synchronously, making efforts to strip me of my manhood, all failed.  I am.  Displeased I am – abhorred I am, all of this ingrained in my heart, but standing fast I am.

Have you yet understood who I am?

                I am the inertia of the universe, turning about itself, within itself, on the axis of itself.  I am the essence of what is feared and cherished, I am the moment between life and death, I am what cannot be stopped.

For each time I am disassembled, there will be ten to replace me, equally fortified and palatial.

I am a tower, erected in the midst of desolation, my base deeply fixed in to the soil – my mobility at angst with my endeavor to remain perpendicular to the despair about me.

I will not stand forever, my form will be deconstructed.  I will not fall, but my shattered pieces will descend onto the ground to lay dormant, however, impromptu to the blackening of the sky, a darkness caused by the ashes of my smoldering figure.  A tower whose peak once punctured the sun – glistening as the sun’s dew seeped through this accidental orifice, dribbling down my lateral.  I will appear beaten and broken, into many pieces which have all descended onto the ground to lay dormant, however, impromptu, to the rain that falls from this blackened sky.

Each piece of I will soak up the airs’ moisture, the dampness of the clay it lay on, the clay it came from.  At that moment, not subtly, giving time for resistance, those pieces shall explode into the sky standing to replace me, equally fortified and palatial.  You, my friend, will be forced to tread between the mountains and caverns that these new factions have formed.

But it is not important that you understand or respect or accept or even modestly exemplify these facts, it is for you to know simply – that I am.

War is God

War is God or rather God is war. War of the soul's damnation vs. the pleasure of the flesh. War of the mind's righteous, do it right, it'll work, just…like…that vs. impulse and spontaneity. War is God or rather God is war. Man vs. Man vs. Woman vs. future bearings.


War is God -- what love won't chase let hate pursue. From the fake-working but raking in six figures to the back-breaking, hourly pay, you can count on six fingers -- to the trigger of the barrel of a gun to the woman jumping from hung to who's more hung to the next CEO rising from the slums to the last CEO who is today's plain old bum.

War is God, no, God is WAR -- children feasting on the bones of children in their hood, no meat left on their carcass -- abuse, malnutrition and a twisted system took their share first. God is where silence dwells; where knees meet concrete and no final remittance of a guilty life is waged. War, the purgatory of closing eyes, blind to decency.

War is God, NO God is WAR.

IN FLUX: A Gruff

There once sat a man, his arms in fold,

His hair of weeds and teeth of gold,

His eye a diamond, splintering gleams,

His other a hole, where one had been,

Seven digits, mismatched

But not one thumb...

His clothes a rag

Tied front to back

His once bronze skin a blemished black...

This old man of nothing nice,

Spoke to me once sullen, thrice

A Gruff...

He said, "...Boy this life,

Is to live,

Be not fooled, but what to give,

Of oneself, to gain a glory?

Bequeath your heart for fabled pleasures...

Stolen from your youth of life...

Days beneath a swollen sun,

Nights among the playful stars,

Working, slaving...Day and Night...

All to give unto a wife...

Friends and dogs

Both one and same...

Will give you loyalty true...

Till one day when such darkness comes...

They'll ask of you enormous sums,

But think of it not true to form or friendship gained...

Without regards of living lame,

You'll follow through both, both leg and thumb,

For fear of canine jaws untamed...

You'll surely choose o share your crumbs...

And family, such a cursed gift,

Through pestilence’s rift,

Exiled with taunt,

They'll dare not drift...

For fear of want,

In future gains and garb and care

And you the lame, say,"Fear not fear!"

And they, the priests and flock about...

Laugh and smile with righteous shouts,

Flame and liquor bought with your hand,

Engulf the heat of concession’s lamb,

You my friend, the sacrifice,

Shed garment, to shelter your family's life,

And that night

That very night...

They'll feed said garment to the light

The one you sit upon and roast...

Toast not toast, but be a host,

Of your Life of which to live...

This counsel I SHARE

For son, I fear

And bid

You'll forgive,

But I've got nothing left to give.

THE BIRTH OF CAUSALITY

Everyone in the building survived.  Fathers will go home to their children, to raise them and protect them; mothers will return home to their children, to nurture them and guide them.  Bosses will return to their places of employment and will work hard in fits of execution, enforce policies and double check their prospectuses, while assuaging their board member’s apprehensions and inspiring confidence in their shareholders.  

These Executives will win new contracts and execute those contracts, and close those contracts.  They will pay their senior managers, who will pay their middle managers.  These middle managers will check and double check the timesheets and work product of their line-staff and will disburse checks to them, in a bi-weekly fashion, minus taxes and deductions, such as FICA – which includes payments to Social Security, not their own, but for those drawing on it at the moment.  Some of those employees will receive their checks by direct deposit at their bank, where the bank will float the aggregate sums of all of the accounts held at their branch and will invest in stocks and bonds and investment properties.  The bank will float loans to first-time homebuyers, and will refinance the mortgage of a family who has a new child.  The bank will give an elderly couple a reverse mortgage to supplement the couple’s combined Social Security checks.  Other employees will wait on line at a check-cashing location, will pay fees to cash their checks, and will purchase paltry items while there, such as, public transportation cards, and money orders, and a movie sold by the booth off to the side.

  The sum of all fees paid for these transactions by the whole lot of employees who do not have direct deposit will combine into the salary for the cashier of the check-cashing location, as well as, pay the month-to-month lease to the property owner of the physical property.

Doctors will survive because everyone in the building survived.  Among hundreds of others, there are three doctors in the building, twenty-five nurses, and one airline pilot.  There are six people working for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, one of them drives a bus, two of them drive a subway train, three of them are administrators, one high-ranking decision maker and two line-staffers.  There are seven cooks, two of which are chefs in well renowned restaurants, five of which work in the fast food industry and so we can hardly call them chefs.   Of the five of these fast food workers, four of them have, the misguided notion hitched to a pure-hearted aspiration to start there and work their way up to chef of their very own restaurant –real restaurant.  They dream of owning the type of restaurant where men propose to women and fathers eat with their families.  Where hard working men go to have a home cooked meal when away from their homes.  Of these four dreamers, one dreamer will learn from his ignorance and will go on to work as a cook in a diner.  He will do more than just reheat frozen beef patties, and he will work there for several years. 

When the owner of the diner dies, his daughter will be at a loss when trying to figure out how to keep the business running and she will offer the dreamer chef partial ownership of the restaurant.  Our dreamer will seed his legacy here, his family will take pride in ownership and several generations down the line this partial ownership will grow into a multi-billion dollar, international franchise.

The building has nine computer engineers, three of which are telephone “help-desk”-type operators, two of the nine work tirelessly on hardware, repairing broken components, explaining to customers that using a computer as surface-area to perch liquids on, is a “bad idea”.  Four of those nine engineers develop software -- from video games to websites to operating systems.  Of those developers one will seed the industry with a new way of looking at artificial intelligence, several iterations later – as this seed breeds new seeds in the minds and computers of other developers and those breeds seed new breeds into yet other developers around the world – several computer generations later, true artificial intelligence will be born. 

Everyone in the building survived.  The doctors who will save lives, beautify the deformed, and rearrange the mental state of the mentally deranged will continue to do so in full capacity.  For this the world will be healthier and more beautiful and more sane.  The pilot will safely land a Boeing 747 carrying over 200 passengers, under emergency conditions, with no engines and damaged landing gear.  He will keep the nose up long enough to glide the steel bird onto a semi-cushioned, make-shift landing strip.  All of his years of experience will allow him to navigate without use of the computers, and though some passengers will be slightly injured, they will all survive.

A little boy named Darius was born on October 13^th, nine years ago, to a crack addicted mother.  Darius, miraculously, was born relatively healthy given the condition of his mother.  However, his heart had an irregular beat.  It would palpitate in an unnatural pattern and so the doctors warned that any beat could be his last.  Sadly, his stability was more luck than lore. 

Darius was separated from his grandmother in the mall, and so he wandered across the courtyard into an office building.  Innocently and quite by accident, he slipped by security, and onto an elevator which went to the 23^rd floor.  The passengers all looked at the child oddly, wondering who he was with, but each quickly dismissed it in their minds, assuming that he was with one of the other passengers on the elevator.  In the selfish, self-absorbed fashion that most elevator passengers board and eventually exit the lift, each of the passengers filed out, paying no mind to Darius, who lingered behind and exited last.  Young Darius wandered over to the cafeteria on the 23^rd floor and picked up candy and cookies because children like these things.  Darius did not intend to steal – the open fashion of the strange corporate cafeteria would give a child, foreign to its interior, the impression that all this “stuff” was free for the taking.  Darius was not greedy, he only took a small piece of “this” and a little bit of “that”.  Darius concluded his full circle about the oval cafeteria and as accidentally as he wandered in, began to wander out. 

“Hey, excuse me little boy,” a cashier who happened to be walking by said to Darius. “Who are you with?”

Darius began to answer but was interrupted by the cashier, who had just happened to be walking by,

“Excuse me sir”, the cashier said to a gentleman punching minutes and seconds into the cafeteria’s microwave.  “—open that up, let me see what you’ve got in there.” 

The man obliged the cashier who had just so happened to be walking by, who stopped for a moment to address Darius.  The microwave man opened the microwave without hesitation, with a sort of – dopey, I didn’t have my coffee yet, I work too hard, and I’m going through a divorce – look on his face. 

“Sir, you can’t leave that pot pie in the aluminum container when you put it in the microwave,” said the cashier, who just happened to be walking by, who stopped for a moment to address Darius, who just happened to catch a glimmer of foil in his left eye as the morning sun shone through the window of the oval cafeteria. 

The dopey man obliged again by removing the pot pie and placing it back on the refrigerated shelf near the microwave – too much work – the dopey man thought.  What the dopey man did not know, was that the placement of the microwave was one of poor choice, next to the refrigeration unit.  The refrigeration unit’s placement was one of poor choice, on the wall that housed the main gas-line to the kitchen. 

What the cashier, who just happened to be walking by, who stopped for a moment to address Darius, who just happened to catch a glimmer of foil in his left eye as the morning sun shone through the window of the oval cafeteria, which in turn prompted him to address the dopey man, did know was that the aluminum on the pot pie would have a bad reaction in the microwave. 

What none of them knew, including Darius, who had momentarily became separated from his grandmother, and then walked passed security, and then was ignored in the elevator by self-centered passengers, and who thought he was taking a little bit of free stuff, was this – had the dopey man been just a little less dopey, had he been faster on the draw, he would have pressed “start”  on the microwave.  After pressing start, the aluminum of the pot-pie container would have began sparking, those sparks would cause sparks to jump out at any metallic object nearby, including the refrigeration unit.  The refrigeration unit’s Freon container would have been heated and the super compressed gases inside of that container would have exploded, punching a whole through the wall, rupturing the main gas line that ran through to the kitchen.  The sparks from the microwave and explosion of the Freon container in conjunction with the sudden rupture of the main gas line would have compounded into the ignition of those gases, which would have traveled both up and down the main gas line, which ran through the entire spine of the building.  The building would have exploded right up and down the center, with a final, secondary, devastating explosion at the base of the building where the gas line receives its accidental incendiary, and which housed a cacophony of other incendiaries.  The final explosion would have burned to death, crushed to death, dropped occupants from heights to their deaths, blew apart bodies, limbs – strewn about, internal organs propelled out of their bodies -- finalizing bloody deaths.

No one in the building would have survived.  The fathers would have burned.  Mothers would have been crushed.  The bosses would have been propelled from high places.  Sometimes God births a child in subtlety, no one knows of the child’s birth, she is a secret.  At other times, God births a child in fanfare -- it is a celebrated occasion.  Still, at times God births a child in tumultuous contexts, the child is born in the middle of war, of a great disaster such as an earthquake, a hurricane, moments after a tsunami has struck or levies have broken.  However, there is another type of birth, wherein God births the child in a notion -- he thinks it up, and loosely strings together a destiny, and deconstructs it a bit, drafting and redrafting loose odds and ends.  Sometimes parts of this notion may be unnatural with a broken, half-conceived rhythm to it.  A palpitation that lands on the odd, unhealthy 109^th second instead of the perfect, health reinforcing 110^th second – this is the meaning between life and death. 

Darius, at birth – his heart had many beats -- over one-hundred of them.  It was God’s notion that tailored the context of his birth -- the fate of his mother to promise herself to a glass pipe and white rock; and to a man named John, or perhaps he was a john named man.  It was God’s notion that she would carry Darius for seven months and that one night, after “turning a trick” she would hop out of a station wagon on a cold winter day and would slip on a patch of ice.  Her frail frame seemed to carry a three month-old fetus and not the seven month child, which she did.  Her water would break, and if not for the fact that her leg had broken as well, she would not have been taken to the hospital, as her attentions toward her pregnancy took a back-seat to her thrill of the chase, the elusive race to capture the feeling of that first “hit” of crack.  In the doctor’s hands, he held the little crack-baby, who seemed to slip out from her gnarled crotch effortlessly, almost dry as a desert, his flesh matching the wavy, and wrinkled grainy texture of the Sahara.  Barely any amniotic fluid found.  His heart beat its final irregular beat on the 109^th second instead of the 110^th second.  God’s notion, a fate reconstructed – the difference between life and death.  Darius died.

Therefore, no one in the building survived.