Geinos Äotsch

Giants

Guttural sounds came up from the ground
Bellowing out and roaring around
The rules of the planet are changing
And the stars are sending messages
To the mechanics of the underworld
Rearranging the shapes of the seeds
And the roots and the flowers of things

Giants that shake the earth from inside
The quakes and the rattles all the
Cracks that come out hold a message
Much longer and stronger and purer
Than tiny human ant like minds
That can only concentrate and
Conceptualise how to do surface
Level analysis unlike moving the tides
Of the oceanic atmosphere or shifting
Revolutions of the days on Mars
Neptune or Saturn as the universe
Has the strategy to do the rumbling
Continues to shatter and jangle
A plan for a future the flesh
Cannot wrangle considerations
For what we pretend to control
Makes laughter for the Gods
Like jelly on toast no more
Powerful than raking leaves

Push your pennies around
Make your constable proud
Do the things that you think
Are worth doing if paperwork
And recording your silly decrees
On differently colored notepads with
Stamps and seals ignite your appeals
Go ahead with this

For the atomic energy of a nuclear
Existence that catastrophically outweighs
The bureaucratic persistence beyond
Even the ideas and concepts of our
Minuscule minds can conjure has the capacity
Of that which no creature crawling
On dirt could predict and derelict
Is the actuality of any vital creation
Or essence to be of importance
When nature expresses her gift

Contending

There was a war going on tending
Over a peaceful land full of roses
That was once mostly fruits and vegetables
A small crop of edibles plentiful enough
Shared to produce and feed a few families
Though the garden was peaceful
And the caretakers loving the
Overseers that taxed the property
And issued all of their hear ye hear ye’s
Didn’t really care about what the
Land was for; looked like, whether it was
Beautiful or loved it was stone cold emotion
Most of the villagers living there
Played by their rules and paid
All their taxes and swept all their porches
But everyone was still putting up their
Precautionary dukes for fear that another
Battle would surely ensue left to endure
At any moment on any day the magistrate
Trumpet would blast and blare
Stridently a new proclamation to
Shake the knees of the humble town beware
And then the officials would all
Send their minions out somewhere else
To set tiny fires ablaze on someone else that collectively
Could effectively incinerate the hearts of
All the people who were just trying, crying
To live their lives right peacefully, civilly
And in harmony but there was no
Beautification or manifestation
That would aid the peppery proprietors from
Experiencing emotions of compassion
Attacks were practiced which would disrupt and
Enrage the sanctity of this precious plot
Inevitably on an outside space no one cared about
Before until someone finally did
And it became a war zone a rock to fight for
To be sparring on by tyrants who showed
No appreciation or gratitude for
What the village had become in self contributions
For it was not about the whole of
Humanity but the financial sum
Fuming inside the farmer pledged not to
Take it personal for his own mental reprieve

Chirping

Red blanket wrapped around his
Shoulders in the windy air outside
What is culturally okay there
May not fly here so where are we
When we’re both in a different
Part of the world entirely
Multicolored lights together
Chocolate and coconut on my tongue
Half a universe away the stars
Are blurry observing from behind tears
There is a palace in this heart
That is eager for your visit
No timeline or privilege
Easy to know that you’re coming
Difficult to predict when it will be

I took a bicycle with spokes
Full of intentions pinging
And rode it through the house
The hardwood floors were creaking
There was a God standing in the kitchen
And the cat chased me into the yard
Out the back door in between
Two cherry trees stoically unpicked
Rustling the fruit I was urgently
Splashed with the sweet blood from its pulp
On my face like love spent
From the pit hiding in the edible flesh
Rich with delicious possibilities
The stone beating with zest

In that painting a fire burns the canvas and
Linen ashes float flaming cotton into the sky
Orange embers on almost olive pale skin
Tell the truth of frogs hiding in the grass
All chirping with certainty to the cosmos
As a testament to descry our future and beyond

Chastise Me

Knock knock bang bang
We come clanging at your gate
Said the imperial voices
Every astronomical element
Standing at your corners
Unsure if yet to open the door to see

The more that we dug in
The closer we got to the core
It was like saying it’s not you
He didn’t like you because you are
Gentle avid and kind

Several castigates moved into
An empty room to decide the eerie fate
Of what was once an alarmingly
Charming fellow who had been
Bent over a knee or two and upbraided

Tiny drops of water with mirror like
Reflections told the story he couldn’t see
In his obsidian balled future
What to behold the light and dark
In one glance was to be also
Awake and asleep simultaneously

Though there was no excuse for the walls
Or the invisible prison bars that
Castrated the milky fogged portal in a
Breathing space around him
There was also an answer to why
He could feel it peeling away
At his spirit euphemistically speaking in tongues

If they want what you have
But they don’t understand what it is
No one will be able to confiscate it
However certain devices to stretch
The origin out of you might appear

All the solutions for salutary guidance
Hovered overhead while the eclipse
Of his karmic gifts rattled the sky
Like ancient maracas from a colonial
Africa that held the key to forbearing
A doorway to a path that persisted
Not to continue to create contention
By walking towards the obvious
Fateful intersections of demise
Dressed in colorful garlands attracting
Footsteps towards the imperceptible plank
Instead to scatter mythological roses
On the ground in the opposite direction

So he turned around

Imaginare

In love with the imaginary
Making the most love to anybody
I don’t even know…
I could swelter you with
Hot momentary pulsating
Delicious majestic lust
No harbor for hate
To dock our boats in

Standing in the traffic of a busy sidewalk
I plaster myself against the concrete wall
Behind me stands a bigger building
For stowing people away when they need
Rest and rejuvenation in their condos
Hardly affordable these days
What a lifestyle planted next to the water
People walking around barefoot
With sand on the bottoms of their feet
You could journey from here and achieve
That shoreline destination with ease

All the accents traveling around his head
Korean and Chinese spoken in the same
Breath from breakfast to sock shops
Fiery red hair passes by like an emblem
Something should be signaling his legs
To follow that embered light but he doesn’t know
Them at all and it isn’t his neighbor
But to make acquaintances would be nice

The fallen limbs from two days of rain
Are reminiscent of the unused well of
Love that’s been swallowed whole
Useless arms unclaimed and flailessly
Hanging around wanting to be useful
Like the branch that smacked down against
Raw concrete was to its tree prior

So many new faces and no one to
Be concerned about meeting who he
Hasn’t yet nor seen; no facial recognition
The ground is sloped and the air
Is calm here stands a quiet moment in a big
City this is a treasure like the fantasy
Hunt that keeps dragging his eyes
Into the cars from across the street
Enamourer to the unknown aphrodisia

Returner

I am the harbinger
For those around me I seek the message
To return with what happens outside
Of the village we live in Mon Dieu,
Je suis vieux, je commence à être aigri !
Says the man who cannot stay up
Past midnight or wakes up with
A dehydrated tongue and warm brain
Will he be lenient with himself he asks?
A debt of treason to behold yourself
On the shadows of your heart
Without the clever memory
Of recalling that we are not only
Our thoughts from today
We are also our memories of tomorrow
I woke up yesterday believing
There was one way to do things
But today feels like the body is
Vibrating at a different frequency
How are we surviving and in what color?

Curiously displaced he pushed his way
Out of the sadness and nothingness
Into the reason for continuing on
Without the pressure of something
Coming up behind him
Was it an echo effect of a past lover
Of the silhouette of some other
Emotion that was hanging in the air
From time spent in old bars
That had seen the life of writers like
Kerouac and Ginsberg?
If their ghosts were keeping him company
There was no need to disinvite them
Some say it was only the sun casting
Shadows on his back before the return

Resistance

Stubborn body obstinate soul
What happens when we don’t
Want to budge are we resisting
Or listening to our best selves
Frozen feet no need to meet
Someone in a rendezvous
If the destination doesn’t appeal
What’s the point of showing up
For bad dough when there’s
Delicious bread to be had
In some other place on some
Other occasion in the listless abyss

Phones ringing should be unplugged
Or at least turned down so that the
Sound isn’t trying to bait us over and out
Who’s calling? I don’t remember
Making a phone date or even
Giving out my number huh?
Someone has it but when did they get it?
Funny how they always find you…

One might think the goal was isolation
When really the concept is a peaceful moment
He wasn’t trying to get away from humanity
Only to break free from the reality
That there was nowhere to go where
Someone wasn’t anymore
That’s what they said without saying
Anything at all and the tender thing was
Always waiting for the best one
Even though there was no regard for
His feelings before or after
We didn’t have to drag it out thankfully
The right one comes along when it does
Something about letting sleeping dogs lie

Junkyard Heart

People maurading through the streets
Every dance floor in the city
Has seen his feet seagulls cry
In morning light and ferris wheels
Are tempting stories of making out

We aren’t going anywhere
But we aren’t children anymore
The water is only one hundred
Feet away and the dream of
Remembering how to kiss a stranger
Is an easy one to stake

In the tree there were so many birds
Small and large tiny ones too
I was chasing insects up the bark
To feed them all when I noticed
That their size was comparable to
Some of the smallest fledglings
At first I was nervous that
The bugs might score but then
I witnessed the birds enjoying one bite
After the other they were winning!
Had it never occurred to me
However that everyone needs to eat?

The wharf was kind of perfect on
Mornings like these observing
All the wildlife filling up their gullets
With a cool drink of rainwater
While nothing stopped the harbor,
Ever pressing courageous sensitivity
Was showing up at every corner of his heart
Starting from the north point

There was evidence of a struggle inside
But the gentleman driving the vessel
Hadn’t quite given up on the want for
And desire to abridge his destiny in love
When his brain came to it was
A waking life of friendly misbehaving
That enticed a little memory of adventure
Something he never quite gave up on
But somehow lost sight of in his masonry
To build a safe home inside his heart

Ducks

He was forgetting because
Change was pretty stupid
After finding the formula
And being perpetually bad at math

No one stopped to ask him
How things were coming along
Everything looked so put together
Peering in from the outside
There was no need to wonder
If it was working just how he did it

Maintaining a smile while
Keeping the peace he had
Perfected his ability to find reverie
Stepping around, not beyond bounds
As well careful not to mince words

No more questions to others
About how people end up so guarded
Now that he was older the reason
Made presently obvious
Yawning was even a pleasure

He could see the grass crawling
Up in between the cracks of the sidewalk
It felt like nature was winning
In some way though the human intrusion
Was grossly apparent

No lobbying for amnesty
Just a brush on a canvas
Chatter from any bird
A duck’s quackery
Could answer his call
In the lifelike pond he faired

Morocco

Tenaciously pulling at the heart
You can hear the echoes of
An unresolved clash
And then the all encompassing
Hammer comes down
Like a steel blanket
Over his head

When the rules start changing
The arrow seems strategically pointed
Always at him even though the intention
Is for everyone it feels very personal
But the boundaries are for everyone

The art of ignoring is a daily practice
Breathe in, breathe out, ignore
Don’t do this, don’t do that, ignore

It’s like there’s a timeline ticking
Just as the months of the seasons
Go round and someone realizes
We haven’t issued any new warrants
In awhile or we haven’t exercised
Our rights to relay innocuous notices
For quite some time let’s annoy them

Meanwhile the neighborhood is
Actually getting worse and the trash
Keeps accumulating but the focus
Hangs on policies and procedures

His intentions turned to assume that none of it
Was for him though the best thing to do
Always seemed to comply that’s why
Writing it out and licking a stamp
Behaved in such a necessary manner

Not like living in Morocco where
Almost no one cared about what he was doing
How to be living, just that you are
How to be breathing, just that you are
Here in America we are free to live
Under someone else’s tirade
Under someone else’s laws
Understanding all the rules
More threatening paperwork

It’s a brigade on the way to ignore
If we wait long enough
Something else will clamber

The pushback is to exist