Thursday, June 30, 2011

It's not my imagination.

I am trying to be brought to heel, and so also are you.

What is wrong with these ersatz masters of creation? Do they honestly believe they can compel the elements to dance before them? What madness makes them think they can control their fellows?

I know why, and so do you.

They like being bitten!

So let's gnaw on the ankles of Atlas! Let's make the dog pound shake like a quake! Let's give these tyrant whisperers a scar their egregious egos can wear like an endorsement!

It's not my imagination! To be human is to be insane!



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
Pride is fatal.



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
Try to live an honest life, and they'll arrest you for civil disobedience.



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

so here I am

feeling like a carbon copy of myself

smudged in blue powdery print

(anyone out there remember carbon paper?

the simplest things I've know will be footnotes

to some inaccurate record of these times--

should the world last long enough to receive)



imagine how many of this generation

will feel this way when their youth is past

and they'll howl from their trash basket

about how no one can get help with their medical bills

because drug and insurance companies have raised

their costs beyond any vouchers you can wave at them

with or without Obamacare

and they who mocked with be mocked

by their sociopathic children more rude and ill-bred

than they ever were (and that's saying a hell of a lot)


me? I don't care much

each day brings me closer to rejoining

all I've loved

gone now but for the ring of powder left

on the memories of those who will also soon pass

and I will be a memory on the 'net or in fading print

and whatever I had to say

will be said by others who will also be forgotten in time



embrace your living minute

to hell with notions of greatness or earthly immortality

no one listens because all have their own understanding

and could care less for anything that will not give them

a few forgetful hours

I myself feel like the body's chalk outline

at a crime scene

with that miserable perpetrator Time

in plain sight as forensic investigators

call in experts to figure out

what these powdery carbon traces are...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito

Thursday, June 23, 2011

'dark nights of the soul' have become tiresome--

no one listens to this drivel any longer

when everyone is equally at the mercy

of common daily travails--

so the schoolyard failure--the one who couldn't

make it in gym or at the proms

sees visions on the bedroom ceiling

and twists in hormonal rage

while the world outside considers him

for nothing but ridicule--

what vanity did he think would be excused?

what self-regard parading as sacrifice and suffering

on the behalf of us all?

the dark humid Age of Pisces is over--

the clean clear detachment of the Aquarian Age spreads

and even here some mischief of intractable human nature--

some tyranny of righteousness needs be addressed

before anybody is in any position to go forward--

so let the sensitive ones whose contrition is just another

form of selfishness and their active sunlit counterparts

comfortable with objects and delusions of control

alike mount step on step to some misapprehended glory--

alike they will pay in their objective worth--regardless

of what and how much they think they are about--

'dark nights of the soul' drive away people in droves

when the midnight inherent in every noonday sun

manifests in every sharp edged shadow

people take refuge in...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

what a day to be reborn--

gray heavy air tinting the street

a damp pale silver--

the air itself like a curtain of plaster

you must push your way through--



as if the axis already shifted

and the world flipped over

and Memphis's atmosphere soaks now through

the New York summer which is in

itself a swamp of roiling bodies and rippling velocity--



what a day to wipe mucus

from the eyes and nose and throat

and breathe afresh and see anew

the world as it always is--

thick and ponderous but for these renewed

channels of perception--



the actual sense-memory of a womb

suspended in the dank June afternoon--

coming to be what I already am--

what a day to be reborn

as if I rose from a humid surf of bed sheets

to leave the Aphrodite in her momentary sweat

to run to the store for a cold six-pack--



what a day I perceive

when my own immortality I believe



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
little by little

the future manifests in the now

and all we had with us

turns to dust in the hand

an outline of the intention



inching in what can be called a direction

toward what can be called a destination

we stand still

and watch bug-eyed at the passage of everything

we think we need



but little by little

what is to be reflects what has been

and we're nowhere near

the perfection we deceitfully claim

the reality beyond every convention that conditions us



so we watch the worldly reality with which

we torment each other with our own "purity" of notion

collapse around our agendas

and yet another age soils its start and winds us

into its place in the flux of actuality



and even at that the tomorrow we waited on yesterday

is today and will be tomorrow's yesterday

before we even realize the passing

of what could be called now


we control nothing but our own grief and this only because


we cling to an imagined today

that was today yesterday and will be again tomorrow




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Monday, June 20, 2011

quiet is the horrible aftermath

of ruined pride--

but loud the celebration as the ones

your vanity made to suffer

see you looking for a curtain behind

which to hide and finding none--

with this changed state being for the duration--

much time to ponder in what little time there is...


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
echoing in sorrowful cooing

the heart itself speaking



uttering of

wet closed eyes hid under the wing



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
tears and vacancy--

the night extra dark--

the finish that begins--

the closure that opens--

does so without

a blessing from me--

I am left with who I am--

tears and vacancy..



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I've been wrestled to the ground again--

God's half-nelson brought me low--

and now I wait for where and when

contrition will let all my anger go



I've been corrected--that is plain--

shown again the wreckage by my pride--

I've nothing to do but yell "Uncle!" and then

let the hold loosen leaving me on my side



I stared up from the canvas of the world

the One invisibly staring down--

at least no grandstand on my curled

body as humility glorified some forgotten crown...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
avoid "haloed voids" where you can--

you'll only fool yourself into thinking

they're genuine portals to some other here and now--

while you're at it don't build a paradise

of sunlight through sheer curtains either--

all it is is all it is

and will not be strong enough for the freight

you'd heap on it--

other worlds needn't be looked for--they are here--right here--

you needn't construct another cell

to worship your attention to common ephemera

when you could be off this screen you stare at

and touch those things as they pass you on their way...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


I find my word bent 'round again--

someone didn't get it

and now mouths a parody of me

that is only their misunderstanding--

and others who don't know better

will know this--

but then I have no idea what I say half the time--

I write this as if to explain to myself

what the hell just happened? and other

such marvels of this game of telephone

we call expression--

I am not what they'd think I am--

and have no idea who they think they are--

but even knowing myself better

I'd have a tough time recognizing myself

in their description...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


time to get serious

now that time is almost gone--

years of awaiting no more perfect moment

than the appearance of an 'in' somewhere

dwindle and I kick myself clear

of the quicksand of Time just to show it

who means business--

whatever some judge might say--

no more perfect moment than now

to go 'in' and keep on going...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

when you've lost all your freedoms

then you'll know

all you did contributed to the end of

the life you've known--

you couldn't believe anything

would upset your plans--

that you were entitled to be treated

as some fake god infested by parasites

with no other host to feed upon--

exalted by the glory of human lice

who think you'll offer them endless sustenance--

when you have nothing left of yourself

but a chewed-up corpse on an examiner's table

then you'll be gone and your parasites will have moved on

to the next manna that will give them some life--

all who hunger for their flimsy fame

will wind up in this body bag--

but who will hear of it?

none will accept that it could happen to them--

and then you will be free--

free to die slowly from the blood-letting--

free to be remembered until the last parasite

who tasted your brand will die away

in whatever way parasites have of running out of hosts--

then you'll be be one holy rotted cadaver

with no one to remember your religion--



and the life you've known

will be gone in any case--

new generations of hunger and ignorance

trying to go against their fates

and be what no one before has been

(except in terms of this vain belief)

and yet another generation will die its common death--

no pity no mercy no forgiveness no grace--

nothing but the ways of the world

as God has constructed it

and as we continually ruin it--

then you'll know the hoax of freedom--

then you'll know the delusions of the self--

then you'll know the end that commenced with your beginning

this time in the earth--

this gone time in the world




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


Friday, June 10, 2011

the long night is almost over--

no one who saw me come

is around to see me go--

I rejoin who was parted from me or not--

there is no reason to hope

when certainty will suffice--

if you know where you've been

you will know where you're going or not--

I saw stars fall but they came too thick and too fast

to wish on any of them--but that is also

a useless endeavor--think of all you could have done

and you will cry or not--

but the long night is drawing down

and if it's dawn you've been hankering for

then know I have awaited it also

and you can join me here or not--

even if it's darker than night--blacker than pitch--

or pure nothingness aware of itself--

you will know that I know that you know that I know

and it will matter to some other one's day or not--

but for us the long night is ending--

ready or not...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I'm at the mercy of lawyers and doctors--

the scummiest professions--

they want to protect you and help you--

they want you to live--

long enough for them to rifle your pockets

before leaving your corpse

on the roadside where other parasites

like judges and insurance men

can pick the remains clean--


and who will give succor?--nasty nurses?--

imbeciles in billing offices?--

bad luck of the draw shyster keeping his mouth shut?--

how about yourself--losing in small claims court

because the judge has a brother-in-law in the business--

or you didn't lick his nuts clean enough?


no succor--no mercy anywhere--and don't wait on God--

God weeps with us--isn't that comforting!--is that

a tower of strength and a shield for protection for you!

besides this is the way God wants it--it's how the whole damn thing

is built--God's Will is Vengeance--and he'll let you

dangle--ears stopped and immortal unlimited eyes shut tight!

God doesn't wish us to perish--but if we do the job to each other--

well...


I wasted a life loving the One--but no punishment

God could think up would beat my own pain of error

the unstoppable ache of consequence

or the utter death of faith--ashes to leave with these ashes--



and no hope for where I'll end up...


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
another waste of time and life

to pray to a god who is only vengeance

who has no mercy or pity or love

who is nothing but the scum

out of which we rise up



as if this were a holy thing

a marvelous thing

a wondrous thing

as if transcending this

would have us blossom

some imaginary elsewhere


another waste of time and life

to squander the hours and minutes and seconds

just being alive


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I gave all I had

but it wasn't required

it wasn't my fate to live

I withdrew from living

and let events just roll all over me

I thought grace superceded karma

but I gave away all my critical faculties

on a chance to win heaven

and break the circle of death and rebirth

but at some point you must confess

it cannot be done without the One's help

and help only

the rest of it

the whole of it is up to you

and what you are willing to concede

in the way of mistaken life goals

and strength of will to begin yet again

to get where you need to be

to get where you want to be

to get to where you have to be

having given all without fear

it was for nothing


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
the sun rages down on stone and water

not only am I exhausted

but I'm emptied out

flat under the hammering beams

I ask what the hell

and what the hell

I ask but still the sky is blue

but so hazy it's a shade of slate

and silence is the first buzzing (early)

of cicadas punctuating the humid tent

of summer air under the boughs of bending branches

I ask what the hell

and what the hell

I ask but no answer tells me all I've heard before

I know it I am crushed beneath it

and I become aware that the time of fortunate turns is done

I am brought down to the earth one last time

and I say what the hell

and what the hell...



Contengt (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

in time

it won't be an issue

whether you did

all you could

or just feigned distraction


in time

this very thing

will return to watch

you sliding off your rescue rope

the judgment glazing your eyes with panic


as the fatal outcome

claims you

lesson learned

price paid



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
heavier than heart at the loss of its love

a mood crushes out all hope

a mood as tenuous as hope

as unreliable as the word of a partner

and as deluded as the aspiration to higher being



oh fool that believes he can slip past all conflict

to find a clear path to the cosmos

not knowing the stresses of process

will tear him apart as it does all matter

to recreate all matter again



oh fool that doubts his partner and himself

no teacher can show that one on his way

here where the twain will being to separate

heavier than love at the heart of its loss


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Monday, June 6, 2011

in a sundown-darkened valley

I see my tribe gathered

they look up their canyon

to the coppery sunset cliffs

and formulate the thought

on which they will depart the earth--

whether 30 seconds or 30 years

they will be gone--

I sense spirits flying up out of the valley

as I descend--

wondering when will be my time

as I ride into the camp

exchange greetings--

fill a bowl of soup

then fill a bowl and fire it up

dreaming with the others

of all we've known

and will shortly join

under these first stars of evening



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
pardons are scarce--

try not to screw up

in the meanwhile--

no excuse or explanation

will be accepted

and you are truly

at the mercy

of God or fate or what name you have

for this process



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I thought little on what I would need

toward the end of my sojourn--

which is o.k. since so much I had in mind

is impossible now with all the changes

the human race's greed and mendacity have wrought--

this is rather late to be awakening from a lost childhood

only to find myself starting fresh at the time the body

begins to check out--but at least I'm free

to be grateful for what I can gather--

since I had no plan to begin with--


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


why would you want to if you can't?

you read too many inspirational books--

you put too much faith in soap bubbles--

if ashtrays can't fly and lampposts can't dance

what (but your own vanity) makes you think

the Universe will fall into place

around your visualization--here's a news flash--

have you tried just rolling up your sleeves

and dealing as it is with the matter at hand?

amazing idea--isn't it?--

just plain old 'doing' and not waiting for

a specific outcome--


oh meditate on it--if you must--

but not too long--happenings

happen and are gone sometimes before

you even know there was a decision--

that you even had a choice--



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
no it's not just you--

we are all stumbling through

the wrecks of our self-regard

and some will make it to higher ground

and some won't--



so easy to say in the light

of all that roils around us--

and our positivity and good faith

an indulgence to those who survive

and a last cursing of the sky

otherwise



Conten t (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
another crucial turning point--

and I'm as unprepared as ever--

no good turn delivers me

a foundation on which to stand--

I feel like I'm hoisting sandbags

into place as the river rises over the top

of the levee and I become

part of the debris



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
dead in the water again--

Jesus--how the hell did I wind up

here again?

a rising crest subsiding

into a surging dip of water

under an arching wave

carrying everything to shore--

except for me in my karmic dinghy



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

unsolvable world--

I turn

from the spectacle

I know I am empty--

know I am finished--

a long-celebrated theme

finally closed

after seriously many

previous attempts--



full rendering pure and true

to a fugitive notion

in my stream of consciousness--

I turn tail--mutter "enough!"--

it is a map for our very world

of dislocations and emanations

unsolvable world

in its choicest presentation--

a swirling blue

splotch of common chaos--

daily tossing up against

the eye insistent as dust




I'd gladly leave this bullshit behind--

but how? but when?

or even if!

the played out effort will halt

abrupt as a nuclear flash

and then

the consciousness

that knows it knows

will be

happy to forego

any daily therapy

of disappointment--

to abandon puzzling over the

unsolvable world...



Content 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


lost a little less than I thought I would--

oh God will give me hell for that tomorrow

but for now I savor the escape

the narrow miss

that released me to forward progress

and another anecdote

I may or may not tell



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
you didn't know

and I didn't care

no harm

no foul



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I don't know what you thought

I wanted from you

you idiot

much wasted

much lost

but you moron

must be thanked

you saved me such heartache

that the little losses were as nothing


I simply believed you

when you said we were friends

but knowing you lied

gave me such relief

another silly fool vanishes

nothing knowing how much trouble

I was spared


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
you will not believe what I have been through

which makes me wonder why I'd want to tell of it--

I certainly wouldn't believe anything you had to say to me-

let us keep quiet and smile silently to ourselves

imagining the daily annoyances we've avoided

by being wise enough to understand

we are incapable of doing fundamental 'good' for each other--

we civilized ones--have such worldly wisdom to spare--contented--

oh that you could well believe--

and after all we'd been through...


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.




I do not know what they are saying--

I see corruption and evil

on either side of their ideological fences

their emotional and mental walls--


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
if you cannot win it all

let the guy behind you take his shot--

if he gets it--stand by--he may need help

carrying his winnings from the table--

or you may benefit from the excess he spills--

but never take it on yourself

to help yourself to it...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Friday, June 3, 2011

you will be away while I'll be remaining

here where our world has sunken thick roots

into the soil of our matrimonial pledge--

you gone over our fields where battles and picnics

would jostle for time on this distended plain

eager for the time and the expansive loosening of bonds--

you absent from the rituals of morning kiss and cuddle

which greeted every grainy ray of lifting sun

with our own emanations of love and concern--

you leaving to see where they have gone

while I remain here where only I seem to see

the ground that upheld us--



I here in this thicket along side the orchard we inhabited

and you flown to search again for new seed



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


whatever voice you hear

telling you advice you didn't ask for

make sure you listen hard

in any case

something of value may be realized

something useful heard



but be sure the voice you listen to

is not too strictly obeyed

you might hear something misleading

and wind up so off your path

you're cutting a new one forward

good if that was your intent


not so good if you were trying otherwise

all you'll know or need to know

is that each and any voice

you hear or listen to or learn to translate

into your own understanding

shall be your own voice


whatever voice you hear will direct you

far as you need to go until the next voice...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
making trouble

where there is none

is the sure sign of attempted domination--

to impose to enforce to hobble

all opposition--which is usually just

quiet people not looking for trouble

but getting it because the weak tyrant

thinks they are so easy--

whether it be cop priest president pope wedded mate

or vengeful fate--all tyrants are strong

only in comparison to those weaker...


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
the day is shot--

I'd do better to leave everything

for tomorrow (which may never come)

rather than continue to ruin the this moment I'm in

(which is here and now--)

and anyone else is welcome to his comments--

killing his time in a likewise

inauspicious waste of the day...


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

the nervous man never shuts up--

gives up the game over and over

and is lucky to be still breathing--



the arrogant man

consumes himself as well as others--

dominates all--even himself--



the nervous man draws his mate to him--

tendrils of auras enticing the boob

while the wild woman flashes like a porn star--



while the arrogant man plays the goat

with every cougar 'friend'--running sacred

from the gentle fatally-sensitive honey at home--



who sees who in the morning mirror--

empty ring where a groggy face stared

amazed at its own dark depths?



who sees who in a passing glance

while sweeping away down to the limo--

the carriage--the ambulance?



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
refreshed by the sun itself--

you walk down avenues of craned necks--

the whistles and other appreciations

sparkle on the street in your wake

as naturally as air carries your desire--

it could be any time in the life of this world--

nature bends to your beauty

and your beauty supplants vision...


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
with a common history lost--

some will fall into permanent reverie

draining the immortality of the notion of forever

into their neurotic tactile compulsions

while others will heave a relieved groan of joy

as if lifted in time from under the descending slab

on another's alter of sacrifice--

all we've known slides away from us



to find who we actually are under that completed guise--

to see in the dirt and dust all it was and will be--

and some will haul themselves up that cord

to their level--their fullness--their measure--

and some will lift and scatter on a breeze

to their embrace--their diffusion--their measure..



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

when your time is passed

look forward to the realms beyond earth--

if your work is finished--withdraw--

if your love is spent--rest in your own weariness--

if your life is going--and it is--instant by instant--

then prepare for a longer haul you either

don't believe in while you're in flesh--

or mistaken for some comfortable picture

you have in mind--

truth may be relative and you'll feel entitled to your belief

but there is a place where all will be leveled

before an Absolute Reality--

the wise will let go of their imaginings and accept--

others will cling tighter to them and perish--

and the Ineffable--that King of the Disclaimer--

will do what you had no power to do--

for me--each sunset recalls so many others

each dusty day a continuation of One Ultimate Summer Day--

and high-piled thunderheads

glimmer darkly at the end of day--

for me--each moment brings me closer to an ultimate

and that is only the fruit of this earthly perspective--

whatever we go on to--it is still a long trek

to get back to from where we went out--

we keep going--knowing no other way...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.