Rain falls like morse code tapping the Earth.

.-. / .- / .. / -.

Cars with white ovals in their windows
Flash past you on the street.
Puddles on the sidewalk below
Mirror the sky’s uncertainty at your feet.

.-. / .- / .. / -.

Rain washes away the resolve
That the sun once tried to instill.
Apathy is a hard problem to solve,
Alleys teach lessons classrooms never will.

.-. / .- / .. / -.

Graffiti is a city’s diary, it tells a story;
A story of social decay.
Every underbelly has its inventory,
Not all bean counters work in cafés.

.-. / .- / .. / -.

In a world where purpose is said to be derived from pain
Romance is realism with its collar turned up against the rain.

Pluie du matin n’arrête pas le pèlerin. 
(Translation: Morning rain doesn't stop the pilgrim.)

Footnote: .-. / .- / .. / -. spells RAIN in Morse Code.

clack. clack. clack.
ding.

Every keystroke of the typewriter
Hammers another nail
Into the coffin of public memory.
Every headline is a headstone. 
Every byline is occupied by a hitman.

clack. clack. clack.
ding.

Truth never makes the morning edition;
It shows up later
As a chalk outline in the editor’s column;
A body of work riddled with lies, 
Cut down by the Chicago typewriter 
Of a crooked journalist
Whose sentences spill more blood
Than bullets ever could.

clack. clack. clack.
ding.

By the time truth hits the print
The blood has already dried.
The Overton Window
Is what forms when it clots.
Only then do the coroners,
Who call themselves “critical thinkers,”
Arrive to sift through the guts of a problem
They never had any intention of solving.

clack. clack. clack.
ding.

The average person's mind
Is a collection 
Of platitudes and contradictions
Dumped on them by their newsstand.
Each time this landfill
Accumulates enough trash
To form a new layer
They call it "personal growth".

clack. clack. clack.
ding.

The typewriter's bell is a flatline;
It is the last breath of truth
Struggling to escape
Before the page is torn out,
Forgotten. 

Justice in a courtroom is theater.
Justice on the street is consequence.
The law bends,
But a moral spine should not.

When facing murderers, rapists, drug dealers,
Corrupt politicians, and corporate embezzlers,
Doing things by the book means
Having your name removed from the yellow pages.

Good, like light, changes shape
When confronted by darkness.
Light’s shadow is good’s resilience.

The brim of a pulp adventurer’s fedora
Casts a shadow over the wicked
In a way a comic book hero’s cape cannot.

Morality isn’t something you find
In a Saturday morning cartoon
Or in a display case for twenty-five cents.

Morality is a shadow that grows
In proportion to the evil it confronts.

The comedian is a clown
Whose nose is a pomander
And whose circus tent
Is a fumigation tarp
Filled with laughing gas.

N₂O

The comedian is not an apothecary,
He is a mortician. 
Irony is formaldehyde
In a world dying from a lack of sincerity.
The punchline is the time of death.

N₂O

"Lighten up."
"Life’s too short to be serious all the time."
"Learn to laugh at yourself."
Laughter is the final sickening crack of the soul
In a noose pulled tightly by a smile.

N₂O

Perhaps if more people died laughing
The rest might learn to live by thinking.

Footnote: N₂O is the chemical formula for nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas. 

She’s sitting in her office,
Leaning back in her chair,
Stilettos propped on her desk.
She has two magnums on her desk:
One’s a .44 she keeps loaded.
The other’s a bottle;
It keeps her loaded.
I stand in her doorway,
And she tells me,
“It’s pointless to try drowning your sorrows
In a river of whiskey;
They’ll just learn to swim.”

A cigarette dangles
From the corner of her mouth.
Her red lipstick matches the neon sign
Bleeding through the blinds.
She crooks her finger, and I come in.
She tells me about her troubles,
Leaning in close.
Her breath is hot on my ear,
But her words are cold.
Life has thrown her punches,
But she’s no coward;
The only thing that runs is her nylons.

She’s a musician at the local nightclub.
She’s still wearing her dress from tonight’s performance,
And if all goes well for me,
She’ll still be wearing it tomorrow morning.
Her body type?
An hourglass with a few extra minutes.
And I certainly don’t mind the wait.
I like my women
The way I like my coffee and cigarettes:
Full-bodied.
My fingers long to dance across her white blouse
Like a pianist over ivory keys.

She moves in closer,
Her lips are a ligature on my reed. 
When she breathes, 
My body vibrates, 
And music escapes from my mouth. 
She sight-reads the half notes in my pupils
As our hearts beat in a syncopated rhythm. 
Our lovemaking is like bebop.
Love begins with a rhythm
And becomes an improvisation.
Love is proof 
That the heart has its own sheet music. 

𝄞
------------------------------------------------------------

What is music?

------------------------------------------------------------

Combustion.

------------------------------------------------------------

A mind darkened by the pitch of music

------------------------------------------------------------

Is easily set ablaze by the spark of reason;
A Zippo lighting the tip of a dame's cigarette.

------------------------------------------------------------

𝄞
------------------------------------------------------------

Lucifer was Heaven's greatest musician 

------------------------------------------------------------

 As well as its wisest philosopher.

------------------------------------------------------------

The fallen angel whose charred wings 

------------------------------------------------------------

Left behind a smoke signal for every genius not yet born;
A neon sign calling out to a nocturnal crowd.

------------------------------------------------------------

𝄞
------------------------------------------------------------

Genius adheres to no sheet music

------------------------------------------------------------

Only pages of melody

------------------------------------------------------------

That create conversation

------------------------------------------------------------

To follow or branch from;
A improv session from the brass.

------------------------------------------------------------

𝄞
------------------------------------------------------------

Jazz is the aesthetic synthesis 

------------------------------------------------------------

Of the Apollonian and the Dionysian 

------------------------------------------------------------

That arises out of the spirit of music. 

------------------------------------------------------------

Jazz is proof that order can fall in love with chaos;
A detective and a femme fatale can become husband and wife.
------------------------------------------------------------

𝄞 
------------------------------------------------------------ 

Jazz is Luciferian

 ------------------------------------------------------------

 Because in jazz there is no conductor or fixed score.

------------------------------------------------------------ 

Every ensemble is a dialogue

 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

Or a debate between musicians;
A speakeasy where great minds come to jive.

------------------------------------------------------------

𝄞 
------------------------------------------------------------ 

In a classical orchestra, the collective precedes the individual. 

 ------------------------------------------------------------

You are an instrument of the band. 

------------------------------------------------------------ 

In a jazz ensemble, the individual precedes the collective.

 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

You are a musician in the band;
A name in lights instead of a name in credits.

------------------------------------------------------------

𝄞
------------------------------------------------------------

Jazz versus classical is stream of consciousness versus MLA.

------------------------------------------------------------

However, many in the swing era were guilty of holding a blue pen

------------------------------------------------------------

Until one wayward alto sax composed a certain ornithological piece

------------------------------------------------------------

That allowed those whose wings had been clipped
To fly again.
------------------------------------------------------------

She's an ebony hourglass that walks the sand 
In a white linen dress as sheer as her soul.
She whispers secrets to the waves,
Secrets washed away,
Along with the traces of her soles.
The cool of the ocean breeze
Gives her goosebumps
That rise on her skin like verses
And my hands long to read her body 
As if it were a poem written in Braille.

⠗ ⠕ ⠉ ⠉ ⠕⠀⠧ ⠁ ⠇ ⠑ ⠝ ⠞ ⠊ ⠝ ⠊

Women with full figures
Hold deep truths 
And sometimes the truth 
Is too deep
For water that is shallow.
We exchange minds
As effortlessly as the wind 
Trades grains of sand
And her smile is like aloe vera
For my sunburned soul.

⠗ ⠕ ⠉ ⠉ ⠕⠀⠧ ⠁ ⠇ ⠑ ⠝ ⠞ ⠊ ⠝ ⠊

Like the Queen of Sheba,
She questions my manhood
With a gaze as sharp as her wit,
Laying me down
On a dune by the shore.
The white linen dress
Now draped around her ankles
Is not a flag of surrender;
It is a banner;
And I kneel beneath it.

⠗ ⠕ ⠉ ⠉ ⠕⠀⠧ ⠁ ⠇ ⠑ ⠝ ⠞ ⠊ ⠝ ⠊

Beneath her, I tremble,
She steadies me with her hands,
Her voice,
Her weight.
Between exhausted sighs
And beads of sweat mingling with saltwater,
I come to the realization that I am hers.
I kiss her seal
And rise, not a king or prince,
But her devoted subject.

⠗ ⠕ ⠉ ⠉ ⠕⠀⠧ ⠁ ⠇ ⠑ ⠝ ⠞ ⠊ ⠝ ⠊

I move into her castle and discover the hallway
Lined with portraits of her former lovers.
Other men had clung to her flesh,
But never to her spirit.
They had been jesters in her court,
They had entertained her; 
She had played with their bells, 
They had entered her many times, 
But their names were never written on her
As mine is, in Braille.

The Earth exhales;
Its breath thick with sun.
Beneath my Panama hat
I see waves of heat
Rippling like the embroidery
On my guayabera.

I spot her by the cabana,
Her eyes are like ports
To a cool island oasis.
I long to take the ferry to her soul 
And chart a topographical map 
Of her body;
Welcoming and rich with terrain.

I approach her and journey on
Through peaks of conversation
And valleys of silence
Until night falls upon us.
The moon is like a skilled metallurgist
Forging a sea of silver beneath its light,
Illuminating her raven hair and bronze skin.

We retreat to a Havana
Of pastels, linen and sandstone.
Lust opened the door,
Love guided me through it,
Loyalty closed it behind us;
Now we live together
In our own private paradise. 

El amor entra por los ojos, pero se queda en el corazón.
(Translation: Love enters through the eyes, but it stays in the heart.)

Sex is not a performance art,
It is not Cirque du Soleil;
You cannot film the beat of two hearts
And turn their rhythm into a public display.

Love cannot be captured in a photograph,
It cannot be performed on stage;
A heart’s content cannot be detected on a sonograph,
Intimacy should never be confined to a glass cage.

Sex is the form that love embodies
And its practice should never be maligned;
However overeating leaves stretch marks on the body
And casual sex leaves stretch marks on the mind. 

Love is seeing someone’s mind as your scripture, 
Lust is seeing someone’s body as your church, 
In a loving relationship sex must be a fixture,
For love without sex is like faith without works.

Should the tree have its branches bound
Or its trunk cut down
For the sake of the acorn on the ground?
Is a fetus a baby before it crowns?

Should every leaf, like a ballot,
Be cast away
To appease those with a different palate?
Can the collective carry the individual away? 

Should the shade of a forest
Serve as cover
For the schemes of an unscrupulous florist?
Should the politician come before the mother? 

Society is an arboretum
And rights are the roots that let us grow.
We can't let them uproot our freedom
The way they already overturned Roe.

In today’s sea of discourse, it’s easy to get seasick;
It feels like you’re a carpenter in a ship’s hull,
With a hole expanding under pressure so quick
It threatens to drown the contents of your skull.

You’re a seafaring Sisyphus - a maritime martyr;
Bailing out the whirlpool of Poseidon’s throne;
Struggling to keep your tricorn from becoming a marker
For an underwater tombstone.

Don’t seal your will in a bottle and cast it ashore;
Make your final stand against the tide;
Drop your anchor to the ocean floor
And let Davy Jones decide.

To your greatest fears you must never succumb;
You needn’t outrun the fates, you need only run out the rum. 

N 0°

The mind is the phantom limb of the brain,
Emotions are the reflex hammer of the mind;
They are the mechanism for pleasure and pain,
Allowing our values and senses to be intertwined.

E 90°

Thought without feeling is a ship dead in tide,
Conviction is the keel that keeps course and guide;
Emotions let us sense the depth where truths hide,
The waves that push us forward also rock us side to side. 

S 180°

The mind is a vessel charted by the will of man,
His heart the wind that drives toward distant land;
He must consult his compass and make a plan,
Lest he be lost at sea, a weathered hand.

W 270°

Il n’est pas de bon vent pour celui qui ne sait où il va.
(Translation: There is no favorable wind for he who does not know where he is going.)

Sharp minds wear hard faces,
Strong arms bear calloused hands;
Both are examples of the traces
Left by the spirit of a great man.

A great man is no grave robber,
He doesn't stake his reputation on dead kin;
Be a man of integrity and honor,
For your birth is where your frontier begins.

Don’t abandon your part,
Resist the call of sirens;
Never trade your ace of hearts
For an ace of diamonds.

Even if you ride as a lone ranger,
Never throw away your star;
For you are always in danger
From desperados bearing their own scars.

There will never be peace,
Crooked men must learn their lesson;
Iniquity will only ever cease
When you draw your Smith & Wesson.

There is nothing beyond this town,
No heaven or hell - death is a desert of night;
Don’t let desperados turn your town
Into a desert of daylight.

Dawn bleeds over the Mojave
As a raven circles overhead. 
A sandstorm
Large enough to bury Ozymandias
Approaches a lone rider
Who's as ancient as the desert he explores.
His obituary is written by Thoth 
In hieroglyphs. 

𓄿 𓅓 𓃀 𓂋

The old man sags in his saddle.
His face as leathery as his boots.
His joints as loud as his spurs.
Yet his vision endures,
Despite the cataracts.
His soul remains untouched by time,
Bottled in amber,
Like the whiskey he drinks.

𓄿 𓅓 𓃀 𓂋

A relic with a revolver, 
The scent of gunpowder clings to him
Like a Ka that never left. 
He doesn’t hesitate to pull the trigger,
Though he’s no longer quick on the draw.
Even as the gunslinger’s gait
Slows to a geriatric shuffle,
The cowboy never forgets the trail.

𓄿 𓅓 𓃀 𓂋

His sun-bleached hat is like an Ankh. 
The desert doesn’t bury legends;
It simply waits for them to retire;
But they never do,
Not until the sand covers them.
And when that sand turns to glass
You can still see it;
The amber of their soul.

الطبيعة لازم تاخد الراجل العظيم وهو نايم،
معندهاش القوة تاخده وهو صاحي.
(Translation: Nature must take the great man while he’s asleep, it does not have the strength to take him while he’s awake.)

Footnote: 𓄿 𓅓 𓃀 𓂋 is an Egyptian hieroglyph that roughly translates to amber. 

The sheriff’s name is spoken easily in saloons,
A cattle baron with a crown made of fool’s gold.
He watches to see which way the crowd leans first,
A snake-oil salesman whose pitch has been sold.

His badge shines bright, but it’s plated thin,
Bought with smiles and borrowed praise.
The window to his soul
Is a mirror made of other men’s gaze.

The outlaw’s name is spoken low, if spoken at all,
A convict crowned with thorns.
He’d rather break than bend,
And so he endures their scorn.

A black knight, they say;
He’s stubborn, cold, and proud.
He will not trade his coat of arms for comfort
Nor bow to appease the crowd.

A man’s greatness is forged on the anvil of adversity;
He approaches his quest like a knight upon a wagon.
For there can be no hero without a trial,
No Arthur without a dragon.

All of your vices cannot be kept at bay.
You have seven sins but only six bullets in your gun.
You must decide which of your demons you will slay.
For if you do not, you’ll spend your life on the run. 

Vice is abundant while virtue remains elusive.
Thus, chaos must be reined in by order’s hand.
This is why Heaven’s pearly gates are so exclusive
While Hell’s open borders welcome every man.

Would you rather be a lone god in a wooden church
Or one among many gods in a Parthenon of marble?
Are material or spiritual goods the heart of your search;
Do you seek that which is sacred or that which is carnal?

If you choose to stand alone
Your prayers won’t be heard.
You’ll keep your pride but lose your throne;
A heart of gold has a wallet of myrrh. 

Will your robes be made of silk
Or worn and tattered with holes?
There’s a cost to defying your ilk;
How much will you pay to keep your soul? 

武士道

勇 Ride alone across the open prairie, 
And let your spurs be caked with mud;
A testament to the burdens you carry,
義 Your duster stained with blood.

名誉 A life without honor brings endless strife,
As does a death without purpose;
For chivalry is the poetry of life,
忠義 And to your ideals you pledge your service.

仁 Bend like a reed that sways in the wind,
Yet stand firm like a rock against the tide;
Strike forward until your enemies rescind,
礼 Such is the way of the samurai.

誠) Bearing seven virtues and a six-shooter’s weight, 
The Western Ronin stands guard against fate.

Don’t buy into the delusions of youth;
There is only victory, not compromise.
For every white flag raised by truth
Is another red flag raised by lies.

Don’t bother trying to run,
Your problems will just get bigger.
Placing a flower in the barrel of your enemy’s gun
Won’t stop them from pulling the trigger.

There is no dichotomy
Between a clenched fist and an open mind;
Fighting is necessary to retain your autonomy;
Be a warrior and a scholar combined.

Aristotle said that pride is the crown of virtue;
Honor and integrity must be its jewels.
For excellence must have no curfew,
Greatness is not a sweepstakes for fools.

 𝄞
------------------------------------------------------------

What is music? 

------------------------------------------------------------

Combustion.

------------------------------------------------------------

A mind darkened by the pitch of music

------------------------------------------------------------

Is easily set ablaze by the spark of reason;
A Zippo lighting the tip of a dame's cigarette.

------------------------------------------------------------

𝄞
------------------------------------------------------------

Lucifer was Heaven's greatest musician 

------------------------------------------------------------

 As well as its wisest philosopher.

------------------------------------------------------------

The fallen angel whose charred wings 

------------------------------------------------------------

Left behind a smoke signal for every genius not yet born;
A neon sign calling out to a nocturnal crowd.

------------------------------------------------------------

𝄞
------------------------------------------------------------

Genius adheres to no sheet music

------------------------------------------------------------

Only pages of melody

------------------------------------------------------------

That create conversation

------------------------------------------------------------

To follow or branch from;
A improv session from the brass.

------------------------------------------------------------

𝄞
------------------------------------------------------------

Jazz is the aesthetic synthesis 

------------------------------------------------------------

Of the Apollonian and the Dionysian 

------------------------------------------------------------

That arises out of the spirit of music. 

------------------------------------------------------------

Jazz is proof that order can fall in love with chaos;
A detective and a femme fatale can become husband and wife.
------------------------------------------------------------

𝄞 
------------------------------------------------------------ 

Jazz is Luciferian

 ------------------------------------------------------------

 Because in jazz there is no conductor or fixed score.

------------------------------------------------------------ 

Every ensemble is a dialogue

 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

Or a debate between musicians;
A speakeasy where great minds come to jive.

------------------------------------------------------------

𝄞 
------------------------------------------------------------ 

In a classical orchestra, the collective precedes the individual. 

 ------------------------------------------------------------

You are an instrument of the band. 

------------------------------------------------------------ 

In a jazz ensemble, the individual precedes the collective.

 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

You are a musician in the band;
A name in lights instead of a name in credits.

------------------------------------------------------------

𝄞
------------------------------------------------------------

Jazz versus classical is stream of consciousness versus MLA.

------------------------------------------------------------

However, many in the swing era were guilty of holding a blue pen

------------------------------------------------------------

Until one wayward alto sax composed a certain ornithological piece

------------------------------------------------------------

That allowed those whose wings had been clipped
To fly again.
------------------------------------------------------------

She’s sitting in her office,
Leaning back in her chair,
Stilettos propped on her desk.
She has two magnums on her desk:
One’s a .44 she keeps loaded.
The other’s a bottle;
It keeps her loaded.
I stand in her doorway,
And she tells me,
“It’s pointless to try drowning your sorrows
In a river of whiskey;
They’ll just learn to swim.”

A cigarette dangles
From the corner of her mouth.
Her red lipstick matches the neon sign
Bleeding through the blinds.
She crooks her finger, and I come in.
She tells me about her troubles,
Leaning in close.
Her breath is hot on my ear,
But her words are cold.
Life has thrown her punches,
But she’s no coward;
The only thing that runs is her nylons.

She’s a musician at the local nightclub.
She’s still wearing her dress from tonight’s performance,
And if all goes well for me,
She’ll still be wearing it tomorrow morning.
Her body type?
An hourglass with a few extra minutes.
And I certainly don’t mind the wait.
I like my women
The way I like my coffee and cigarettes:
Full-bodied.
My fingers long to dance across her white blouse
Like a pianist over ivory keys.

She moves in closer,
Her lips are a ligature on my reed. 
When she breathes, 
My body vibrates, 
And music escapes from my mouth. 
She sight-reads the half notes in my pupils
As our hearts beat in a syncopated rhythm. 
Our lovemaking is like bebop.
Love begins with a rhythm
And becomes an improvisation.
Love is proof
That the heart has its own sheet music. 

It’s a hot day,
The Earth exhales;
Its breath thick with sun.
Beneath my Panama hat
I see waves of heat
Rippling like the embroidery
On my guayabera.

I spot her by the cabana,
Her eyes are like ports
To a cool island oasis.
I long to take the ferry to her soul 
And chart a topographical map 
Of her body;
Welcoming and rich with terrain.

I approach her and journey on
Through peaks of conversation
And valleys of silence
Until night falls upon us.
The moon is like a skilled metallurgist
Forging a sea of silver beneath its light,
Illuminating her raven hair and bronze skin.

We retreat to a Havana
Of pastels, linen and sandstone.
Lust opened the door,
Love guided me through it,
Loyalty closed it behind us;
Now we live together
In our own private paradise. 

El amor entra por los ojos, pero se queda en el corazón.
(Translation: Love enters through the eyes, but it stays in the heart.)

Should the tree have its branches bound
Or its trunk cut down
For the sake of the acorn on the ground?
Is a fetus a baby before it crowns?

Should every leaf, like a ballot,
Be cast away
To appease those with a different palate?
Can the collective carry the individual away? 

Should the shade of a forest
Serve as cover
For the schemes of an unscrupulous florist?
Should the politician come before the mother? 

Society is an arboretum
And rights are the roots that let us grow.
We can't let them uproot our freedom
The way they already overturned Roe.

clack. clack. clack.
ding.

Every keystroke of the typewriter
Hammers another nail
Into the coffin of public memory.
Every headline is a headstone. 
Every byline is occupied by a hitman.

clack. clack. clack.
ding.

Truth never makes the morning edition;
It shows up later
As a chalk outline in the editor’s column;
A body of work riddled with lies, 
Cut down by the Chicago typewriter 
Of a crooked journalist
Whose sentences spill more blood
Than bullets ever could.

clack. clack. clack.
ding.

By the time truth hits the print
The blood has already dried.
The Overton Window
Is what forms when it clots.
Only then do the coroners,
Who call themselves “critical thinkers,”
Arrive to sift through the guts of a problem
They never had any intention of solving.

clack. clack. clack.
ding.

The average person's mind
Is a collection 
Of platitudes and contradictions
Dumped on them by their newsstand.
Each time this landfill
Accumulates enough trash
To form a new layer
They call it "personal growth".

clack. clack. clack.
ding.

The typewriter's bell is a flatline;
It is the last breath of truth
Struggling to escape
Before the page is torn out,
Forgotten. 

Dawn bleeds over the Mojave
As a raven circles overhead. 
A sandstorm
Large enough to bury Ozymandias
Approaches a lone rider
Who's as ancient as the desert he explores.
His obituary is written by Thoth 
In hieroglyphs. 

𓄿 𓅓 𓃀 𓂋

The old man sags in his saddle.
His face as leathery as his boots.
His joints as loud as his spurs.
Yet his vision endures,
Despite the cataracts.
His soul remains untouched by time,
Bottled in amber,
Like the whiskey he drinks.

𓄿 𓅓 𓃀 𓂋

A relic with a revolver, 
The scent of gunpowder clings to him
Like a Ka that never left. 
He doesn’t hesitate to pull the trigger,
Though he’s no longer quick on the draw.
Even as the gunslinger’s gait
Slows to a geriatric shuffle,
The cowboy never forgets the trail.

𓄿 𓅓 𓃀 𓂋

His sun-bleached hat is like an Ankh. 
The desert doesn’t bury legends;
It simply waits for them to retire;
But they never do,
Not until the sand covers them.
And when that sand turns to glass
You can still see it;
The amber of their soul.

الطبيعة لازم تاخد الراجل العظيم وهو نايم،
معندهاش القوة تاخده وهو صاحي.
(Translation: Nature must take the great man while he’s asleep, it does not have the strength to take him while he’s awake.)

Footnote: 𓄿 𓅓 𓃀 𓂋 is an Egyptian hieroglyph that roughly translates to amber. 

The comedian is a clown
Whose nose is a pomander
And whose circus tent
Is a fumigation tarp
Filled with laughing gas.

N₂O

The comedian is not an apothecary
He is a mortician. 
Irony is formaldehyde
In a world dying from a lack of sincerity.
The punchline is the time of death.

N₂O

“Lighten up.”
“Life’s too short to be serious all the time.”
“Learn to laugh at yourself.”
Laughter is the final sickening crack of the soul
In a noose pulled tightly by a smile.

N₂O

Perhaps if more people died laughing
The rest might learn to live by thinking.

Footnote: N₂O is the chemical formula for nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas. 

She's an ebony hourglass that walks the sand 
In a white linen dress as sheer as her soul.
She whispers secrets to the waves,
Secrets washed away,
Along with the traces of her soles.
The cool of the ocean breeze
Gives her goosebumps
That rise on her skin like verses
And my hands long to read her body 
As if it were a poem written in Braille.

⠗ ⠕ ⠉ ⠉ ⠕⠀⠧ ⠁ ⠇ ⠑ ⠝ ⠞ ⠊ ⠝ ⠊

Women with full figures
Hold deep truths 
And sometimes the truth 
Is too deep
For water that is shallow.
We exchange minds
As effortlessly as the wind 
Trades grains of sand
And her smile is like aloe vera
For my sunburned soul.

⠗ ⠕ ⠉ ⠉ ⠕⠀⠧ ⠁ ⠇ ⠑ ⠝ ⠞ ⠊ ⠝ ⠊

Like the Queen of Sheba,
She questions my manhood
With a gaze as sharp as her wit,
Laying me down
On a dune by the shore.
The white linen dress
Now draped around her ankles
Is not a flag of surrender,
It is a banner,
And I kneel beneath it.

⠗ ⠕ ⠉ ⠉ ⠕⠀⠧ ⠁ ⠇ ⠑ ⠝ ⠞ ⠊ ⠝ ⠊

Beneath her, I tremble,
She steadies me with her hands,
Her voice,
Her weight.
Between exhausted sighs
And beads of sweat mingling with saltwater,
I come to the realization that I am hers.
I kiss her seal
And rise, not a king or prince,
But her devoted subject.

⠗ ⠕ ⠉ ⠉ ⠕⠀⠧ ⠁ ⠇ ⠑ ⠝ ⠞ ⠊ ⠝ ⠊

I move into her castle and discover the hallway
Lined with portraits of her former lovers.
Other men had clung to her flesh,
But never to her spirit.
They had been jesters in her court,
They had entertained her; 
She had played with their bells, 
They had entered her many times, 
But their names were never written on her
As mine is, in Braille.

Justice in a courtroom is theater.
Justice on the street is consequence.
The law bends,
But a moral spine should not.

When facing murderers, rapists, drug dealers,
Corrupt politicians, and corporate embezzlers,
Doing things by the book means
Having your name removed from the yellow pages.

Good, like light, changes shape
When confronted by darkness.
Light’s shadow is good’s resilience.

The brim of a pulp adventurer’s fedora
Casts a shadow over the wicked
In a way a comic book hero's cape cannot.

Morality isn't something you find
In a Saturday morning cartoon
Or in a display case for twenty-five cents.

Morality is a shadow that grows
In proportion to the evil it confronts.

Rain falls like morse code tapping the Earth.

.-. / .- / .. / -.

Cars with white ovals in their windows
Flash past you on the street.
Puddles on the sidewalk below
Mirror the sky’s uncertainty at your feet.

.-. / .- / .. / -.

Rain washes away the resolve
That the sun once tried to instill.
Apathy is a hard problem to solve
Alleys teach lessons classrooms never will.

.-. / .- / .. / -.

Graffiti is a city’s diary, it tells a story—
A story of social decay.
Every underbelly has its inventory
Not all bean counters work in cafés.

.-. / .- / .. / -.

In a world where purpose is said to be derived from pain
Romance is realism with its collar turned up against the rain.

Pluie du matin n’arrête pas le pèlerin. 
(Translation: Morning rain doesn't stop the pilgrim.)

Footnote: .-. / .- / .. / -. is Morse Code for RAIN.

In today’s sea of discourse, it’s easy to get seasick;
It feels like you’re a carpenter in a ship’s hull,
With a hole expanding under pressure so quick
It threatens to drown the contents of your skull.

You’re a seafaring Sisyphus—a maritime martyr;
Bailing out the whirlpool of Poseidon’s throne;
Struggling to keep your tricorn from becoming a marker
For an underwater tombstone.

Don’t seal your will in a bottle and cast it ashore;
Make your final stand against the tide;
Drop your anchor to the ocean floor
And let Davy Jones decide.

To your greatest fears you must never succumb;
You needn’t outrun the fates, you need only run out the rum. 

Sharp minds wear hard faces;
Strong arms bear calloused hands.
Both are examples of the traces
Left by the spirit of a great man.

A great man is no grave robber;
He doesn't stake his reputation on dead kin.
Be a man of integrity and honor,
For your birth is where your frontier begins.

Don’t abandon your part;
Resist the call of the sirens.
Never trade your ace of hearts
For an ace of diamonds.

Even if you ride as a lone ranger,
Never throw away your star,
For you are always in danger
From desperados bearing their own scars.

There will never be peace;
Crooked men must learn their lesson.
Iniquity will only ever cease
When you draw your Smith & Wesson.

There is nothing beyond this town,
No heaven or hell—death is a desert of night.
Don’t let desperados turn your town
Into a desert of daylight.

武士道

勇 Ride alone across the open prairie, 
And let your spurs be caked with mud;
A testament to the burdens you carry,
義 Your duster stained with blood.

名誉 A life without honor brings endless strife,
As does a death without purpose;
For chivalry is the poetry of life,
忠義 And to your ideals you pledge your service.

仁 Bend like a reed that sways in the wind,
Yet stand firm like a rock against the tide;
Strike forward until your enemies rescind,
礼 Such is the way of the samurai.

誠) Bearing seven virtues and a six-shooter’s weight, 
The Western Ronin stands guard against fate.

All of your vices cannot be kept at bay.
You have seven sins but only six bullets in your gun.
You must decide which of your demons you will slay.
For if you do not, you’ll spend your life on the run. 

Vice is abundant while virtue remains elusive.
Thus, chaos must be reined in by order’s hand.
This is why Heaven’s pearly gates are so exclusive
While Hell’s open borders welcome every man.

Would you rather be a lone god in a wooden church
Or one among many gods in a Parthenon of marble?
Are material or spiritual goods the heart of your search—
Do you seek that which is sacred or that which is carnal?

If you choose to stand alone
Your prayers won’t be heard.
You’ll keep your pride but lose your throne—
A heart of gold has a wallet of myrrh. 

Will your robes be made of silk
Or worn and tattered with holes?
There’s a cost to defying your ilk—
How much will you pay to keep your soul? 

N 0°

The mind is the phantom limb of the brain,
Emotions are the reflex hammer of the mind;
They are the mechanism for pleasure and pain,
Allowing our values and senses to be intertwined.

E 90°

Thought without feeling is a ship dead in tide,
Conviction is the keel that keeps course and guide;
Emotions let us sense the depth where truths hide,
The waves that push us forward also rock us side to side. 

S 180°

The mind is a vessel charted by the will of man,
His heart the wind that drives toward distant land;
He must consult his compass and make a plan,
Lest he be lost at sea, a weathered hand.

W 270°

Il n’est pas de bon vent pour celui qui ne sait où il va.
(Translation: There is no favorable wind for he who does not know where he is going.)

Sex is not a performance art,
It is not Cirque du Soleil;
You cannot film the beat of two hearts
And turn their rhythm into a public display.

Love cannot be captured in a photograph,
It cannot be performed on stage;
A heart’s content cannot be detected on a sonograph,
Intimacy should never be confined to a glass cage.

Sex is the form that love embodies
And its practice should never be maligned;
However overeating leaves stretch marks on the body
And casual sex leaves stretch marks on the mind. 

Love is seeing someone’s mind as your scripture, 
Lust is seeing someone’s body as your church, 
In a loving relationship sex must be a fixture,
For love without sex is like faith without works.

Don’t buy into the delusions of youth;
There is only victory, not compromise.
For every white flag raised by truth
Is another red flag raised by lies.

Don’t bother trying to run,
Your problems will just get bigger.
Placing a flower in the barrel of your enemy’s gun
Won’t stop them from pulling the trigger.

There is no dichotomy
Between a clenched fist and an open mind;
Fighting is necessary to retain your autonomy;
Be a warrior and a scholar combined.

Aristotle said that pride is the crown of virtue;
Honor and integrity must be its jewels.
For excellence must have no curfew,
Greatness is not a sweepstakes for fools.

The sheriff’s name is spoken easily in saloons,
A cattle baron with a crown made of fool’s gold.
He watches to see which way the crowd leans first,
A snake-oil salesman whose pitch has been sold.

His badge shines bright, but it’s plated thin,
Bought with smiles and borrowed praise.
The window to his soul
Is a mirror made of other men’s gaze.

The outlaw’s name is spoken low, if spoken at all,
A crucified convict crowned with thorns.
He’d rather break than bend,
And so he endures their scorn.

A black knight, they say;
He’s stubborn, cold, and proud.
He will not trade his coat of arms for comfort
Nor bow to appease the crowd.

A man’s greatness is forged on the anvil of adversity;
He approaches his quest like a knight upon a wagon.
For there can be no hero without a trial,
No Arthur without a dragon.