The way it curves upward

 The enlightenment Duchy
I see these ambassadors walk out through the magestic gates
Onto the platform bridge above paradise valley
Their garments flow and glow elegantly in the glare 
In these blue skied days that eternally rise and fall
between confortable nights

They flaunt their smiles that spread and rise to perfect dimples
The few clouds that are born on the horizon show symmetry
Dancing in slowmotion until dusk muddles their forms
But nothing muddles the ambassador's form
For an empire emerges that holds each day as sacred

Not one minute, not one hour is in vein
for it expands it advances
Those that tried to slow it were trampled
Rotting in it's wake above ground
Flags and trumpets blew to turn our attention from the stench

The ambassadors called in the remnants from every corner
And made great infantries from them
Curating the next millenia of  trade and violence
Curating the human smile
The way it curves upward like a knife

The mysticism of the scrapyard

 Backyards to the city's big factory estates
Overgrown weeds, papayas and banana palms
Long path stretching along the length of the day
Along the length of stretch of abandoned grass corridor
Along the wall holding up the hill behind it all 

Along the ugliness of the industrial dereliction
Rusted fences and aggressive parrots perched
Old machines never properly decommissioned
protruding from stems of the common herbs
old metal skeletons of a bygone age

Somewhere in it all hid a treasure
Not one men and women could see
Something the spirit of the land sought
Through all that was abandoned
A mystery inside the contrasts of old and new

Inside the rust along the surfaces of the steel folds
Inside the spiderwebs set within massive iron cogs

Pick see Arizona

 The local pharmacy ran out of your medicine
You suffered there in the shared house for the disabled
Family had left you there a little container for your seizures
I saw you in your trouble and your pain

The dry heat of Arizona leaving you slow and exhausted
Now you have come along a lost child in the street of my word
The teddy bear hangs from your hand close to the pavement
Your national health card sticky and sweaty in your hand

You will smoke sometimes to smooth the edges
It hangs in the air the pill holders are empty
Stacked and waiting to be recycled
I saw you in state of stress

I send a blessing as you enter your new crisis
The internal and external thoroughly abrasive against you 

Gratitude behind the nothing

 God I love you behind the nothing
If you were to take me today I'd sing
I would still be thankful albeit solemn
I'd thank you for every moment

Even the shittest

God I love you and adore you for giving my life wonder
For making me this way through my father and mother
I will love you behind the nothing or in strife
For every year of my fortunate life

Even those shit ones

God I will love you behind the nothingness
I will not search for evidence in the roughness
I will wait at the bus stop after death
For you to pick me up no fuss

Even on one of those shit buses

I'll get on and ride to wherever we go next
Purgatory always vexed, I'll still love you from behind it.
A dark hell of unkindness, I'll still love you through the pain.
Thank you for this life each hourglass grain.

It was not shit. i would live it again.

Master Matheus and the slope to ascendance

 Matheus within the popularity.

His face had hardly aged. His hair and eyes shone. It is with this man I thought I might get answers.
There is nothing as self destructive as a desperate heart I heard myself murmur.
Passing cliques with their strange scents and shared sentiment.
Walking slowly over the polished pavers inside the mall of enlightenment.
I approached him and embraced him. His own disciples ignored me.
They looked upon me as if they had recognized me. I had never seen them in my life.
A certain envy was ready to spring up within me, the sense they knew not just who I was, but my questions for Matheus the popular.
The mall was dazzling with huge deocrated alcoves and recesses.
His disciples continued following along as Matheus tolerated my presence. He knew my feelings about life before I could speak. I was exposed before I opened my mouth. I was vulnerable before I knew I was in a vulnerable position.
We got to the part where he would explain to me how I would traverse myself into God.
We reached the steep incline at the back of the mall open to the skies.
Matheus walked up gracefully and steadily. I could find no traction and slipped.
I felt like that five year old again hauling my brother along.
Being blamed by him and my parents for my shortcomings.
My shoes were worn and so I slipped, my face smacked against the slope as I slid down.
The disciples heaved me up again. I wanted to applaud them. To embrace them.
But I was dead weight for their hands and arms. their faces already showed strain.
There was not a miligram of goodness inside me, despite my attempts.
Attempts, oh how important it is to try.
Teach me to love my failings, so as to make amends for countless examples of them.
So I slid down and simply watched Matheus and his followers ascend into some form of rapture awaiting them above.

Thank God for this short meeting with master Matheus.
Leave me behind, below. In the chambers of gossip and flattery and meaninglessness.
This family has too many children abandon this useless child that I am in the thickest part of the forest.
I will lose my way and perish away from your caring eyes.
What a burden I have become.
 

On the hills of enlightenment

 In the park of high enlightenment
I beheld the families of perfect alignment
Smiles of symmetry
Acoustically harmonious laughter

A Pristine Lake exposing large colorful gliding coy 
Emerald green grass that never required cutting
I meandered toward the lower hills
Hoping to set eyes on the noble families

There they were a top the tall grassy mounds
Catching a breeze and giggling and holding hands
As if the mere state of being alive was ecstacy
The joyous laughter caught and echoed down those hills

I made it half way up to them
My determined grin
My own self image
Balancing on top of one of those tall mounds

The mound cracked at the base and slowly came loose
I ran along it as it fell down narrowly avoiding my death
None of the perfect families who sung and dance noticed me fall
Up there where they stand time is different

They understand love fully
They can take a moment to live fully

Farewells for a piece of my shadow

 My ears long for that patter of rain across the eave.
That I can hear, that will lull me to sleep.
Somewhere in the peace of it's consistency I will rest
Along that flowing slight beat

Somewhere some part of me departs
I tell it goodbye and it leaves in the dark wet night
It treads toward the park I try to keep clean
It finds the carboard remains of local homeless

It follows roads to the stained motorways
Then to the bare fields where rice once grew bountifully
Walking up toward the mountain where this rain seems to migrate from
Slipping between ridges like an imposter

Always an imposter

My ears long to hear it's footsteps on the rocky ground
Up into nowhere, where jokes make no sense
Spirits stirr and unknown things occur
Along that flowing slight beat

I see that part of me turn and vanish
The part I had so much hope for
That would awaken my tastebuds
Such a world is left where savory and sweet don't exist

They have been absorbed by waterlogged grounds
Shallow floods the physical me avoids at all costs
Walking straight on to the pretenders of this little kingdom
Who are you they ask me straight

Always an imposter, I say