Much In The Same Way That Bricks Don't

reptiles born in the wind, brown scales in white snow

white snow in grey brick

grey brick in brown earth

.

See the mud twist into and around their torso, see them flip belly-up in the sand

the two of them, see their radial symmetry

four thick appendages and an awkwardly protruding head

they curl in now

scales slide across and split showing pink, a grapefruit in a taffy-puller

.

see them write absentmindedly, brain elsewhere

the limbs of limbs moving as an afterthought in anticipation

thin lines almost parallel, a loop almost circular

others more precise, these erratic

disciplined by the sharp winter

stowed away in denim, dark blue

My hand like a snake

fingertip tongue protruding, twisting

feel the sharp ends

.

My hand like a lotus

remove my petals one at a time, two, three, four, five

spread the growing bud

.

My insect palms,

thick chitin layer, rough and hard

see it pull and crack

.

My hand like a snake

twisting,

   like a head

turning,

   like a dog,

retreating

.

turn the coins over, tails glinting

turn them back,

and:

.

My hand like a snake, dying

            my hand like a snake, emerging

                      my hand like a snake,

returning

.

reptiles born in the wind, brown scales in white snow

white snow in grey brick

grey brick in brown earth

A sun dying:

and its breath draws in

-

-collapse-

-

and its breath blows out.

He slopes down

and a cart of charcoal on his spine

running to the back of his neck

and his back arching keeps up the charcoal

but he bends to cough, but he bends to touch

soil and grass-leaves with his face

to rub the side of his cheek, his right nostril

on the wet roughness

.

The charcoal running now and pushing

at the base of his skull, three times now

three coughs drawn out and lingering

the brittle flesh sponge trapping some

letting some out, keeping a memento

.

It holds down his neck bent,

his cheek on linoleum and

the grass is gone

no wet rough but flat

featureless hard, bits of dirt

here and there to pinch the skin

cold but tolerable, nothing to draw into

each lump of crumbling soil a point of reference

nothing to reference to

.

The floor is hard in its own way,

unmovable hardness, not steel but stone

.

And he concludes:

grief is flat and hard

hard like the ground

.

And he infers:

the ground is unmovable.

I.

They keep talking about this glass ceiling

half a lifetime under a window pressing

air trapped building and up-pressing

and red boiling into nothing in the vacuum

in the space below and no air to rush in

and our arm ballooning around and

.

slowly skin pulled tight against

and away from and away and

space between the muscle and the bone

and the white calcium, brittle and expanding

and our bones stretching and

bleached white taffy pulling through and out

through pores open tight like

eyelids pulled open in sleep, ours

and we can’t help but look

but hide our eyes in our palms

to keep them, to keep them ours

.

II.

It keeps going rising

and the sky now where the air

outside is thinner but below nothing

almost nothing but bodies drawn out

pulled long between the ground and sky

and “up” we say “up” and just a little bit farther

just a little bit farther and we’re there

and there is never here but it has to keep rising

.

III.

And we forget that to rise was never

and what is- is the act of disappearing

like magicians a deft hand to draw our eyes down

and how high over the earth now with our knees towering

and we thank the hand, thank the hand for

showing us how tall we are and

how terrible we remember that push

down when we could almost feel our noses in the dirt

the stones in our nostrils how terrible when

but always the vertigo always the painful

stretch of cartilage lonely floating and soon

too high to pull back down and soon our feet leave

.

And we forget that to rise was never the point

that two feet square on the ground and a neck extended

and the expansion of a spine so long compressed

that simple original desire for an arched back

.

IV.

And I’m shouting

and no air to carry my words

that up is not that it cannot

that it was never enough to push up

but it was our motive to remove the object

that as long as there is a push for them

a push for us

.

to the others we are one and the same,

and their fear on breath like cheap vodka and cologne

and we blind to it, palms firmly pressed

we forget the scent and push

and soon away

Just written, very rough. Unfinished. No idea where I’m going…

Only a decade ago and my stare was water running

in fishless rivulets, in the streams barely as big as the stones between

to me life-size, to me big enough to warrant a dam

.

I remember the summer I became a civil engineer

mud up to my elbows, up to my waist

The distraught counselors, worried I might drown in a swamp

looking for frogs, or in the knee-high lakes

behind our makeshift walls of fallen branches

.

I remember being almost as tall as mom

dad’s height being unreachable

.

I remember him telling me how he would spend all his summers in the streams,

in the lake, in the mud, in the water,

words that slid around my fish-spawn mind

Telling me how he would cry when they called him away

and comprehension

.

And now, drunk on a rock

and a stream going down the driveway

my hands are clean

my hands are clean

He mumbles when he walks

in his head, inaudible

until a vowel low and rising

embarrassment in the parking lot

and on the path by the dumpsters

.

He forgets the stick in his neck

and the tugging at the vertex of his eyelids,

absentminded stabbing packed into a box

and the styrofoam peanuts run up and down

burning like stomach acid in his throat

.

Until he has no reason to hum inaudibly

and he can feel the space where the stick was

and there is a comfortable hollow in his chest

where the box opened, until

his shoulders roll back and his back straightens

If ways were had I wouldn’t

.

the sterility of glass sheet looking

out on our forest, of latex hands

and shielded eyes, of lenses

and a bunsen burner

.

the maneuvering of jean shorts

and rainbows, of the high

pitch and square chin,

of the boldly meek and

the stubble that fears them

.

the disregard of pages,

sacred leaves printed in

the same direction we walk

without them, the disregard

of pages and no pain in their absence

.

wouldn’t have me do,

I wouldn’t have you

tear skin but

have you drag feet

and sit in gravel

large enough to turn up

to the branches and the

leaf obscuring the clouds

above obscuring the sky

above and blank

leaves.

Awaken to one’s own

esophageal eggs

to caviar adhered below

the root of a jaw

to the up pushing and down piercing

of a swallow, of a water tap

left running dry

to the groans of empty pipes

to pipes burst in the freeze-thaw

to an itch at the back of the mouth

to an itch at its ceiling

to ears hung deaf while

pressure balloons behind,

awaken to one’s own

lips open and eyes open

hard and sticky in the afternoon light.

You are a brick.

But do you remember the

time when

soft mud between

our hands in the summertime

when you were all but

soil, dead leaves

for us to jump in, dig in

.

then a rock, so I could search

for insects, the little ones

that rolled up into tiny

armored spheres

when I could still lift you

pry you up with one hand

.

now a brick

and your edge

rough against the skin

of my palm and crumbling

dull red in the grass

.

and now edges and corners

and flat sides defining

the kind of geometry

I was never very good at.

.

I wanted mud,

I wanted soft soil and

dead leaves to pile up.

And you gave me a baked concrete

and cinder blocks

and, I don’t know how to build a wall.

The worm in my shoulder-blade hurts today,

the sudden cold weather contracting its home of tissue

and causing muscle to pull back against bone

against poriferous wing arching

against worn edge and smooth

against my left side.

.

And it pulls itself up to the place

where muscle and tendon attach

to the base of my neck behind,

runs up the channel parallel

to the ultimate vertebrae

to the hollow nook where begins

my head, to the hollow nook where

begins my headache

tightly over the top, making a canvas

of a scalp, and deep into the temples

safe behind the armor that is my forehead,

and my eyes feel claustrophobia in the presence

of their new neighbor.

AKE TIME TO READ. It’s worth reading it. Trust me :)



Admittedly Douchey Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?



Student : Absolutely, sir.



Admittedly Douchey Professor : Is GOD good ?



Student : Sure.



Admittedly Douchey Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?



Student : Yes.



Admittedly Douchey Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?

(Student was silent.)



Admittedly Douchey Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?



Student : Yes.



Admittedly Douchey Professor: Is satan good ?



Student : No.



Admittedly Douchey Professor: Where does satan come from ?

Student : From … GOD …



Admittedly Douchey Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?



Student : Yes.



Admittedly Douchey Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?



Student : Yes.



Admittedly Douchey Professor: So who created evil ?



(Student did not answer.)



Admittedly Douchey Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?



Student : Yes, sir.



Admittedly Douchey Professor: So, who created them ?



Student : Well, sir, there is much debate over the issue of evil, but to take one explanation, St. Augustine described evil as a lack of god, or a lack of good in things

Admittedly Douchey Professor: Well said. Now answer me this. Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?



Student : No, sir.

 But lack of evidence does not disprove existence.

Admittedly Douchey Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?



Student :  No, sir.

 But lack of evidence does not disprove existence.



Admittedly Douchey Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?



Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t. But I already told you that this does  not disprove the concept of god.



Admittedly Douchey Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?



Student : Yes.



Admittedly Douchey Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?



Student : Nothing. I only have my faith. And what I fucking just said like five times.



Admittedly Douchey Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.



Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?



Professor: Yes.

Student : And is there such a thing as cold?

Professor: No.



Student : Oh right. I forgot you are a fucking scientist and know enough fucking chemistry to know that cold does not exist. 
(The lecture theatre became very quiet with this turn of events.)



Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
 But you fucking know that because you are the fucking person who probably fucking taught it to me. 
(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)



Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?



Professor: No, simply the absence of light.


Student : Oh right you aren’t a fucking idiot and know how fucking photons work because you are a fucking scientist and had to take physics at some point.


Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?



Student : Sir, my point is your a douche and so am I.



Professor: A douche ? Can you explain how?



Student : Well you are being a complete dick forcing your own lack of belief on me when you should know, as any real scientist would, that a lack of evidence does not prove absence of existence, yet at the same time I, as the rhetorical conduit of the person writing this, am acting like you have not taken high school science and that all scientists are pompus asses. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?



Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.



Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?



Professor: No, because I cannot live for millions of years, but I have seen the wealth of empirical evidence that exists on the subject.

Student : Oh right, I forgot, we can use our brains and evidence to figure things out and eyes are not the only fucking way to prove something. 
(The class was in uproar.)



Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?

(The class broke out into laughter. )



Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?




Professor: But they have seen pictures of brains, and I assure you that if you smashed my head open a brain would fall out. You might as well bury your head under the ground and deny the world exists. There is a difference between a reasonable assumption based on evidence and a simple assumption with no evidence or logic behind it.



Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! I better shove my head up my own ass so I can make pretend whatever the fuck I want.



P.S.

I believe you have enjoyed the conversation. And if so, you’ll probably want your friends / colleagues to enjoy the same, won’t you?

Forward this to increase their knowledge … or FAITH.



By the way, that student was not EINSTEIN because einstien wasn’t an arrogant asshole. 



Note: Some say it cannot be Einstein because he was Jewish. Indeed, his family was Jewish, but back in the day if you remember Germany had many people who had strong views against Jewish people. So, at that time it was a fairly common practice to lie about one’s faith if one wasn’t Christian. The student here was indeed Einstein. Furthermore, Einstein himself also attended a Catholic school when he was growing up. <= I didn’t modify this because it’s just fucking too hilarious

Note: I personally believe in god, but I also am currently majoring in science and plan on making a career out of it. Science and religion are not incompatible. I dislike atheists who shove their beliefs in my face just as much as I dislike religious people who do the same. So believe what you want and fuck off, it’s none of my business and I don’t want to hear it. My main issue with this hypothetical situation (in its original form) was the negative light in which it portrayed scientists. We are not all douchebags. Yes, we think evolution should be taught in school, because most modern biology has that theory at its foundation, but that does not mean we are going to fucking attack the faith of students blatantly in class. Grow a fucking brain.

Seasick in moonlight

as the linoleum shifted

I yelled

.

Ask me in a bottle.

.

Ask me,askme, ask meina bottle

but don’t you dare

not with palms-stretched,

fingernails down.

.

Nothing more disappointing than our smile,

exquisite let-down

so I told you we told them

.

Ask me in a bottle.

Cold,

the second week of January,

too soon in the year.

.

Red ovals,

sterile light on

the concrete steps

and wooden siding

and red ovals.

.

And no,

no

no

no

.

no

.

Shaking in the

cold immovable.

“Prohibits the expenditure of Federal funds to any organization which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style.” -H.R.7955 ”Family Protection Act” (1980)

Ron Paul was the one and only sponsor of this bill. I’ve heard a lot of people commending him recently for his supposed view that associations between two individuals, whether gay or straight, are nobody’s business (and especially not the government’s). This bill seems to tell a different story. It explicitly bans federal funding to any organization that presents homosexuality as acceptable. Not only does this demonstrate extreme hostility towards lgbtq individuals, but it specifically picks out and discriminates against any and all organizations trying to help those individuals.

Full text of the bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d096:HR07955:@@@D&summ2=m&