As-salamu alaykum

I went to bed with scant details of your deaths,
"3 Killed in Shooting in Chapel Hill,"
a shocking tragedy in its own right.
I woke and read, through clouds of tears,
"Three Muslim-American students killed near North Carolina university campus."
How could this happen here?
The reality of this tragedy is surreal.
Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23
Yusor Mohammad, 21
Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19
Three young lives,
full of promise,
with dreams of serving others,
shot dead by some "anti-theist" zealot with a gun.
For what?
"over a parking dispute,"
the report says.



Even in the best, worst case scenario, this is another example of an avoidable tragedy involving mental illness and guns. At the absolute worst, these three were targeted for their faith and this is a hate crime.

My heart breaks for these families.

Craigslist Personals

casual encounters
  with the lonely
phishing bots and dick pics.
 where everyone's hoping
 to find their
missed connections
 or some nsa ass,
  something on the side,
a warm body to lay beside,
    discrete indiscretions.

 a funny exhibit of voyeurs
trading pictures of naked strangers
   with strangers
making strange requests
   in this post-'84 world...
"i'm disease free, you be too"

  "anybody want this erection?"
just look at how many m4m posts
     there are and you have your answer.

nobody's getting laid
                here tonight.

This posting has been flagged for removal. [?]

January 20, 2015

Today I turned 31.
  It was 60 degrees and sunny.
     This only adds to my anxiety.

Notes on the end of a three year love affair...

Our silence spoke in volumes,
    lies of omission and all.
   In whispers and double-talk, we
 stayed out of step
   on our toes.

Questions and passive-aggressive curses
  held at the tip of the tongue:
     Was I just your time spent slumming it?
   Were you just another woman?

If we could have been as easily honest
     with each other as we were naked,
   ours could have been a love for the ages.

i'm sorry i never wrote you love letters or poems.

1400 and 56.

I weap for the memories of you,

Daughters of Zion.

Whose God of Abraham will endure?

Whose will show mercy?

The chaff is for the fire.

     The Holy Land burns.

Lenny

"How the fuck are you?"

up by the coat collar
and off to jail...

"Well, goodnight, folks."

In the vicinity of obscenity
be careful what you say.

Choose your words,
use your words wisely, because
you can't say "fuck the government,"
if you can't say "fuck."

But these were different times,
after we had lost our innocence,
but before the Crook stole
our naive faith in the fundamental
goodness of our Nation.

The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed
from time to time
with the Blood of Patriots and Tyrants.
And the First Amendment demands
its fair share of martyrs.

Born Post '84

Paranoia is par for course
when it's known they've tapped every phone.

Haven't you heard?

Net neutrality was
sold off by old men who'll
be long gone by the time the
effects (they can't comprehend)
are felt.

Edward Snowden is running scared
Chelsea got 35
and Aaron Swartz is dead.

Speaking Truth to Power
is a Patriot's duty;
but it is not without its cost--
just ask Malcolm and Martin...
Exposing corruption and abuse
is a thankless job--
just ask Mumia.

current events

propaganda of the bomb
propaganda of the bomb
propaganda of the bomb
it doesn't work.

Children shouldn't be maimed casualties.
They should be outside,
bored,
beating a tree with a stick,
battling pretend super-villains
like the kid rocking the super-man costume
outside of my apartment.

Your kids need boredom.
Boredom builds imagination.
Imagination breeds creativity.
Creativity is the search for Truth—
              All else is distraction.

in truth there is no hate

***

"The President has been assassinated in a bomb attack on the White House"
#pisspoorjournalism

I remember when reporters had their ears on the streets.

What's to protect when what
passes for Press exercises
Free Speech as repeated tweets?

ALL MEDIA IS SOCIAL!!!

McLuhan's Metaphor
or
The Curse of Cassandra?

I can't tell.

We stand poised, as a planet, on the verge of achieving greatness;
but too many fevered egos pull too many
strings and levers and cocks, and
too many heavy thumbs hover over too many buttons
linked by miles and miles of wire
to too many bombs.

And still so much Hate
              so much Hate
             so much Hate

In truth, there is no Hate.

***

to offer an anecdote of a personal
experience with "social media":
a friend liked one of her friend's,
but not a mutual friend,
 picture of someone's small graffiti.
on a green wall in thin yellow white letters it read,
"satyagraha"
i liked it, too.

it made me think of how many years it had been
since i read that word,
said it outloud,
thought it in my head;
and i realized how lazy i've become.
i am impatient.
i am angry that
i am powerless to change the world around me because
i have forgotten
i can only change myself.
i can only change myself.
i can only change myself.
        in Truth there is no hate.

sad and angry

my heart goes out to everyone hurt by the bombings in boston.
it breaks for everyone who lost a loved one, a limb, or sense of security.
this is an unfathomable crime. i hope there can be justice.
i hope the culprit is found. if they had reason...
who has reason to attack people at an even that simply and apolitically celebrates humanity?

if they are sick, how did they fall through the cracks?

i hope to god it isn't a veteran.

this stinks to high heaven like #the world doesn't make sense sometimes and can also be deadly.

my heart breaks for all families who lost loved ones, fathers, brothers, daughters, aunts, yesterday
April 15th,
in boston, in baghdad, in zahul...

"no more hurting people. peace."
amen.

we're better than this

Book of Lost Worlds

Centuries in the future, a smuggler and a stowaway set out on an epic journey to find a carbon planet; a planet made entirely of diamonds...

Written by +Hudson Sullivan

December 14th

A crazed man with a knife

stabbed 22 children half-a-world away…

Only survivors carry scars and grief.

Nancy loved guns and

her son was a loner,

they say.

All I hear is the ringing out…

those sharp echoes

off painted cinderblock and brick

and tile

hallways stretching what the intercom

blared
chaos

violence and terror

pointless

incomprehensible

tragedy

and just as sudden,

over and silent.

And even before the smoke and bodies were cleared

from this family drama made

public,

these lost lives were made policy pawns:

Guns don’t kill,

people do.

But handguns and assault rifles

make it a hell of a lot easier.

And only survivors carry scars and grief.

Excuse

Excuses are like assholes—

    we all got ‘em;

  they all stink.

Maybe, I’m just an excuse (asshole)

I hate my desk job;

   it’s why I now sag

         and chafe

               and

           jiggle…

I’ll start working out to

        work on that

           tomorrow

   or next week when

               this rain breaks—

   or in the Fall when

                    this heat breaks—

or when i have more time

  and I’ll get to your email when

              I’m not so tired

    But I’m tired

       tired of being a sloth.

We are a planet on cutting edge science—

     yet our education system (in the states)

                  gets dumber every year?

Bill Johnson just got 44 million—

    but there’s kids starving in

                North Carolina?

Sometimes, I look around

     and it’s all too much

            too big

              too fucked—

and that’s just another excuse.

So,

  what’s the solution?

            Strike Anywhere

I sent this from my Blackberry, excuse any typos. Excuse.

imaslackass

due to a lack of things to say, i won't be posting for a while. thank you guys who read, i greatly appreciate having an audience. there's plenty of old crap you can sift through if you feel the itch; if you comment, i'll respond. i'll continue reading and commenting on your blogs, so keep writing!

behaving like teenagers

What was that little ditty?

  We all become what we most

                       dislike

hopping picket fences

and that pack of

               reds

      has me mouth-breathing

suffocating in her hair.

  We are boring people

hungry for more

 cliché

beautiful

hopeless

helplessly hoping for places

    to hide our faces and

tempt Fate

      with broken mirrors

  and chipped teeth,

        fresh scars to forget—

    We are anachronisms.

She said

  we were destined to

destroy each other;

then she asked me my sign,

starry eyed

   lust drunk enamored

 by distraction

Bang Bang

  I shot her down.

Red fish

Blue fish

Bad fish

What kind of fish are you?

                …and she adjusts her skirt.

right way

and wrong way, a

  silk thread tightrope

     stretches from saturday savior

  across

  sunday remorse

and mirror reflections

      on the fact

               that,

           goddamnit,

                 i am that guy.

At least

   I still feel

        smart

      stealing another line from another song.

It's all in good fun.

a boy can dream

Bill Moyers apparently has some guaranteed free time, now. It may not be popular among Democrats to suggest any alternatives to Mr. Obama for 2012, but hey, democracy is about voting for who you want, right? Here's a major party ticket I'd vote for: Moyers/Kucinich. Could you imagine it? A cool-headed progressive powerhouse. Granted, Jon Stewart would be mostly out of a job; but I guess we must all make sacrifices. And hey, stranger candidates have tossed their hats in the ring on the other side, so why not?

Topical

YEEEEEHAW!  A symbol of fiscal waste.

hey hey we're the junkies

two poems spin could publish for napomo

About Kurdt

I already felt like a junkie, so...
but there's a difference, so I've been told,
between playing the Blues and
living them,
the difference between a mindset
and chord structures
and a style that's not so fashionable.
ain't it a shame shame shame shame?
The spinning pages dig up your corpse every April,
as the money keeps rolling in,
and she's what she always was, a drugged-out whore and
a narcissist,
a coattail rider, made over media show...
Speed by, just slow enough not to get noticed,
runny nose hunchback,
in drag and sunglasses and sharp skin-rotting stench,
bleached white,
like a snow-pure prostitute scrubbing
blood and bone
flesh raw
to hide the blemishes she's sure give her away...
like the son she purged
with the umbilical scar of a hangman's knot.
Yet, still holy, in spite,
like the tourettes sermon of a preacher.
All services rendered and
it paid well, and along came boredom and age;
and the true tragedy is the little girl left with Pete's
now trite line
haunting her for the rest of her life;
maybe it's not so tongue-in-cheek,
but look on the bright side
and milk it for all it's worth...
Not to be sappy,
    my generation forgets as quickly as they buy
and shit breaks—
the value of the flea market is lost on us...
so here's a deep thought, or perhaps
one more quirky cliche phrase,
you were never a rock god, to me;
you were what i wanted to be.
it was comfortable to be not yet
ten, and safely stuck in my head,
smashing my self in beautiful reckless abandon,
through peaks and troughs.
"I think I'm dumb,
                     but maybe just..."




4/20

*bubbling bong rip*
shp shp shhure god's all-powerful;
but does he have lips?
whoa...

 It was on the fifth—
     a day stained grey
        by Seattle
               April rain showers...
    Asked around
          and found out
        where the junkies
                                    applied.
   Needle and the speedball
                        damage done.
Bargain basement
                               Junkhead;
  and they still sing like him,
                                  fucker,
      'cause he's dead;
         but what the hey?
            hey
                     my
                           my
dead man in his box for
              two weeks
                   putrid rot
         empty room sets the scene
     starving cats picked slow,
                            slumped
                                         fiend.
She willed the rain. So?
                  So, are you defamed?
20 hours...
no milk carton photos
         But what the hell?
               Gotta rest—
        escape
             hate to feel the
                               creeping head,
  the aching pain in the chest.

The godsmack act is
      fun and games
   tongue in cheek
("This song is about pain.")
            schtick;
'til that shit's sustenance.

Welcome to the machine,
                                     boy.
Did you think it wasn't
                      a sludge factory?
Do you feel a little
                            bitter, now?

Bearing true witness to
   this barrel of monkeys,
this dude came down to
  touch the mother...
Dude ain't here no more.

On a personal note, Facelift
was my first musical purchase.
That was sometime around '93.
Nine months from now,
       I'll be 28.
              I'm still young.

cop out

so, it's national poetry month (which seems to be widely publicized this year, oddly—the academy of american poets have been posting things on their website since about the ides). i guess i should be posting some old poems, or writing some, or posting poems that inspire me—i'm lazy, sorry. i'll do more later in the month. in my defense, i have written an epic, as in a long narrative poem telling the heroic happenings of a happening hero. the first five people to click on my profile and send me an email will be invited to a blog i'm using to workshop my epic. that's an epic prize.

sorry, marian. you'll just have to wait for me to quit being lazy and start writing, again.

Hand-Me-Downs:

Threadbare, With Corduroy Patches

And the young, they can lose hope 
'Cause they can't see beyond today,
The wisdom that the old can't give away.
Hey, constant recoil...
Sometimes life don't leave you alone.

It's a cop-out to say
   the wait
     drove me mad...
  I was already a wreck
   when she appeared.
I took the vermin's path;
        ended up alone
     just like before.

  The Yellow Sun retreated
        from me,
      taking with her
    warmth.  In rushed
  the chill of solitude
       and vacuum loneliness;
     weak willed,
   I did little to resist
 the bottle hanging over
    my head by a frayed thread...
  I found the carrot,
          got beaten by the stick.
   Oh, if
 I could have been just fun...

This behavior's not unique.
 I figured myself damned to
   end up alone, like I began:
single in Carrboro, stumbling
   blind rage, foolishness.
 Fuck or Fight.
Touch me, I'm Dick.

 I'm sober, again, now...
             everything has chains;
    absolutely nothing's changed.
 I cannot take back
    her entrance;
   cannot chase her out of my head.

  The lights are out on these
     quiet streets,
quiet dark houses where
    clear conscience sleeps.
  I tread lightly,
      listless,
           aimless,
     an insomniac mouse,
             alone
        just like before.

Today on to another today;
   but this place is not so
                       God forgotten?
First comes Love,
       then comes Pain...
    Such is the game.
   I accept my insignificance.

I've put away my sledgehammer
    and my wrecking ball.
   I will be okay; and
     I have faith—
    it's been said
           a million times over,
   "All you need is Love."

arrogance is bliss

 or
I Stole This From Kurdt

The point creates space
and all of infinity
collapses to a point.
Singular Being: Existence exists.
   identity or blasphemy
 not condescension
   only transcendental consequence—
              who am I?
           I am who I am.
But me and not me,
         self and not,
    play complements
   in
    quantum coincidence...
 Perception keeps life
           reacting   to the now—
     My hand wringing over
            yesterday
        brings neglect
                  and entropy,
                              today.
I understand that
                  it makes more sense
                  to live life
                  in the present tense.
True words,
        and not my own.

     I sit,
         cigarette lit (I know I should quit.),
      sipping my coffee...
               have I learned
                  to accept some friends
               of ridicule?
      Can I be a disciple of The Clown?
"My whole existence is for your amusement
   and that is why I'm here with you."
          Follow him to nirvana;
      The Jester's only
                    satirically
                  a lonely character, right?
Does Enlightenment
     silence the dull
        and constant
      hum
             of being alone?

Tongue in cheek,
      foot in mouth,
   head up ass,
does that make me a yogi contortionist?