OH I FEEL ILL

we're the last ones to know

where we will end up


we are the center of universes

that collide with the  universes


of others and the silent judgment from on high

keeps silent...will judge with nothing to say...


while worlds collide and lives are over turned...

I just ate a whole box of chocolate chip cookies


and feel like vomiting...yes...even in this little

worldly scrimmage of appetite and transcendence


apocalyptic yowlings attend a belly-ache

and relief is contingent on relief


we're the last one to know and add to our grief

because we disavowed repentance and clung to our hungers...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

NO ONE IS EXEMPT

I learned my lesson years ago


and now those who belittled me

know what I'm talking about


you thought you were were blessed

you thought you were loved


and it didn't matter

to the agendas of the kings of the world


when they came to tear out your hearts...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

DID SOMEONE SAY 'ANTI-CHRIST'S KINGDOM?

people take it easy

under their own sense of security


they know the deal

and if no one's bothering them


it's because they did nothing to

piss the powers-that-be off


but let them become complacent

and that arrangement will turn on a dime


"who me?  I ain't done nothing"

"yes you did...you lived...


and sold out your freedom"

be a victim if you must


but know it didn't matter to the masters

who rely on your vanity and your fear...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE BASTARD

the whole town's in lock down


I farted briefly before a camera

hidden somewhere on the street


and now the cops are pouring in

to track this offender down


Big Brother won

and enforces his right


to be the head of the gang


his mercy unfathomable

his power the vanity of an oldest child




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

A SMALL POINT

a small point on an infinite curve—

this is your life—

your being—

and all you deserve—


you make its space

on your own—

and you inhabit it


with all you wish you had known




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

ZZZZZZ...HUH?

my

world

ended


when

I

woke

up…

Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

MOVING MARVEL

I am renewed!

fresh input from those I love

—and who love me

has finally sunken in


I know what to do

and what I need to learn

to do it

and to do it despite


whatever fate demands...


I do not fear what is to come

but I am apprehensive

and ready to see just how renewed


to stand in this awareness

and still be a moving marvel to myself...

Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

IS WHAT IT IS...DOES WHAT IT DOES

I tell you—there is nothing to do but obey—

freedom is an illusion that kills—


everything moves in the vectors of its being—

and when we forget that and go off the rails—

that’s when the hoax of freedom

catches us up in the snares of perfection—


and we are bound tight to our own wreckage—

I tell you—there’s nothing to do but obey

and in that—is freedom…






Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

NAVIGATING PAST BREAKFAST

elevated by

little more

than a shred of fantasy—


a tiny flapping web of tatters

from the masts of some metaphoric ship—


versus the fact

of distress to have

Cap'n Crunch at the wheel




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

ROCKS IN A CAVE

even the ones I love best

have told me

to shut up and go home


they are gods and goddesses

in their own minds

and will brook no lesson


no confession and no acquiescence

to the objective facts

of an external objective Reality


and why should they hear me or anyone?

I too am a fool who thought

he brought Light when all he did


was shine a dimming flashlight

under some rocks in a cave...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

CRYPT

you thought I died...

well I did

but only to myself...


the world spins on

everybody does their worse

and I've taken my place


in the crypt of

folly and belief...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

PURITY 101

oh how easy to play the fool


just open your mouth

and care enough


and see how seriously

you'll be (mis)taken...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

MISUSES OF SELF-AWARENESS

no ears to hear

what has to be said

everyone thinks

they're gods and goddesses

in their own right

and would rather live

in the safety

of a holy delusion

than see their own part

in the hell we all

make of the earth...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

SOMEWHERE BEYOND THE LIMITS

we are gathered by starlight

each time we commune with the night


they hold our eyes

as the focal point


of where the heart never ceases

to want to be...


somewhere beyond the limits

of our sight


where awe bleaches the Unknowable

into brilliant light...


none believe this but fervently wish it

bathed in the dim shine of the stars...


so soothing after the exasperating day

of molten sunlight that scatters us...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE LOVES I'M GRATEFUL FOR NOT HAVING LOST

I’ve lost track of how many times

I’ve backslid into former ravings after a peek…

a foretaste…of all the sweetness sustaining me…

the loves I’m grateful for not having lost

in the solitary pinches of my hurt…


I don’t feel blessed in most of my waking life…

but I am fortunate beyond words to be surrounded

by those who have forgiven me my vices

and overlooked my shortcomings…

and given me the strength and wisdom and bravery


(if only for an instant) to love them…

and to know I am not apart in some merciless void…

in that fleeting instant I know…

and feel…what it is to be blessed…




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

TELL ME THAT STORY AGAIN

not a clue how this atonement will go

but I know it involves an uphill rock

or even a fruit-laden branch lifting up

out of reach or some such tease


that others have previously endured

but had equal face to accept

(acceptance...oh that hardest of things)

and relate as a myth or a joke...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

SUCH IS THE TRIAL

if love and life

continue past our physical bodies

then why the worry and sorrow?


oh but then again

it's the not-knowing-how-

anything-will-turn-out


that belittles trust and

makes it almost impossible

to retain the higher perspective…


such is the trial of souls wearing skin…

minds veiled…true identities forgotten

for this and all earthly terms…


and this despite the whispering feeling

that done wrong shouts its dismay

if love and life


entail some forgiving then how hard

and strained that forgiving...a should-have-

known-better that you didn't...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

before I knew the whole scene was over

another one grew into all the old spaces


and I choose not to cling

to the old identity that was defined


by what had been...

I shook the strangeness off my mind


and carrying the wealth of memories that became

the content of my being


I went down the street

(age appropriate since those splendid creatures


I lusted for were young enough to be

daughters to me...but their mothers...


oh I remember them as fresh and mischievous

as their offspring now are...and still not so tame...)


and felt as though I entered a rift in time

where I was always charged to the full in my hungers


and ever ready to slice a piece of the sun off as my sweet fruit

and the nectar of blooming as my killer wine...


oh past my prime I may be

but a greater prime holds me now


and all the full fading of richness has its own

last fire through the veins in the vineyard of old


I no longer recognize except in the aromas

of the fresh buddings of these new scenes


that make all thing new...as given...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

ALL THAT LIES BETWEEN AND BEYOND

And here at last—facing the Ultimate Reality—

The life and death I cannot comprehend—

The life that is dying

The dying that is life

And all that lies between and beyond

That I cannot control

But for my own choice

Chosen for me—by me—from the imperatives of the One—

Nowhere near as merciful as we imagine

But All That Is—and that is All—

Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

IT'S ALMOST TIME

it's almost time to cry again


see sweet hopes fade

and sour truths entomb


the will that vainly tries

to do right and be holy


and winds up wrong

and at the mercy of his folly


and grows used to the wet cheeks...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

HOW LETHAL

how lethal

the little daily pains


we all expect some

catastrophic eruptions of the heart


but really it is

just the tiny little pricks and depletions


that wear us down

and bear us away




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

BRIEF AND FINAL EARTH

though we may have planned it

pre-womb

in some dark damp cave 

poised to plunge

to the glowing hole 

at the bottom of rippling pools

and emerge

cold and crying 

held up like the Hanged Man

and slapped on the ass

to make sure the thing runs...

still in all the ensuing years

we do not remember when some cord

will be cut and we will descend once again...done...

Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE ACTUALITY OF THE REALITY

waking up from your childish religious beliefs

the hardest thing is realizing that 'God'

is not some loving forgiving being

but a cold hard unforgiving judge

who gouges all penitence out of you

like a steam shovel uproots the ground

of an old mansion to make way for a mall

and leaves all liability on your fear and ignorance

without one word on 'His' responsibility

for making creation as it is...


who created all beings to satisfy 'His' own vanity

then demands an absurd unquestioning obedience

to the impossible strictures of 'perfection'

and if you want to live forever you damn well better

lick the Divine Balls or else...


so much for lies of freedom

so much for our sincere stumblings trying

to realize the good mandated by such insane imperatives

and oh what hell this alleged 'God of Love' will give me

for daring to tell this crushing truth...


and the joke is all of us have a notion of right and wrong

that our personal daily trials task sometimes

beyond what we can rightly bear


and the only problem is that our sincerity is not 'perfect' enough

for this tyrant of love even when our very hard-earned humility

would incline us to adhere to those divine demands anyway...


and oh how the actuality of this ineluctable reality

makes one sorry for awaking up and leaving behind

the childish religions that gave such false comforts


to face such true privations stripping the soul to its bare acquiescence...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

ALL COMPOUNDS ARE BY NATURE UNSTABLE

everyone worships money and power

now that earthly law has ruled their mendacity legal


they cursed God and nothing struck them down

so they feel brave now to send families to their ruins


now they have joined the Control and can track

everyone's habits and indulgences


to a memory bank

(the ancient schoolmarm's threat


of a permanent record realized and fulfilled)

when you can be denied whatever you took to be


freedom and if no one knocks on your door

at midnight it only means you haven't pissed someone off


and this whole generation of automata think

this is absolutely wonderful and right


every generation it's own brand of idiocy and self-regard...

and the ancient fools like me of the old faith


those of us ever waiting for some deliverance from a just merciful God

we just sit dissolved in our lesson of what it truly means


to be liability for our own actions...oh fools...all of us...

we who cling to this era's illusion of evil as a given


and we who wait for a God to send plagues to show our enemies

we meant business...we all jerk off in a mirror...


whether claiming matter as our prize

or performing obeisance to the Original CEO...


the Original Gangster...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

ALL BETS (SHOULD BE) OFF

people empty their pockets

hock their goods

hold hostage their families


for an attempt

at some big score

they think will solve their problems...


imbeciles...

they'd hold all their winnings

in their very hands


if they didn't throw

so much on this crooked table...

wear a barrel home if you must


but you'll never realize if you must gamble

you're ahead if you break even...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

LONG WAY

it's a

long way

to get back


if you

don't know

where you've been...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

TOOK A CHANCE...SORRY I DID

complex and unsteady

so are the worlds we make


compared to the unfathomable

mysteries of life that sustains


our confusion when we're unready

for corrections we cannot take


our grief of acceptance unstable

and the emptiness all that remains




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

EARTH VS. WORLD

another day digging on the shit pile

at the mercy of everyone except myself


but the layered slabs of cloud

on this gray morning


invigorate me like little else does...


I have no hatred of the earth

but only of the world we make of it


and God knows there's plenty of that to dig through...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

CONTEMPLATING A FINISH

my narrator is quiet today...


even he knows I'm done

and is at a loss for words

to be my mouthpiece


to bewail the stupidity

that passes for my life...


and worse I'll outlive none

that know me


oh how the tales will fly...

all my evidence on me

like grave clothes


and not one other will know

how it looked to me...just see who critiques this


with all their echoes also fading...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

EVER A TOMORROW UNTIL THERE IS NOT ...

oh tomorrow I'll regret

all my blasphemous rages


I'll be softer and kinder

and calmer than today


but even then

all damage underlies


the pitiful vows to amend

underneath every repentance


is still a pile of dirt

waiting for a shovel to inter you


and all the good you thought

you were doing is the crass joke


of souls who do not wish you well...

the Light too far away to be seen or to matter...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. all rights reserved.

THERE'S A CONFESSION FOR YOU

I hate it that assholes run the world

and I hate it that God lets them...


and I'm no better for being this way...

fuck 'em.. I know I have too long a way to go


to fix this or any attitude

but I believe in the impossible


and fuck the assholes who run this world

and screw the god that lets them...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE DISGUSTINGLY RIGHTEOUS

how brave and principled

the hard-hearted and the stiff-necked

are when they can hide

under the name of 'anonymous"...


how easy to wreck lives

or take vengeance

when the smug and self-entitled

decide to get holy


pray not to God

He says He's responsible for nothing

(we'll leave that in a decent obscurity

before this bastion of Love destroys us...)


but your choice of how to handle this iniquity

will show you better or worse than your subject...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Phiulip Milito. All rights reserved.

MY OTHER HALF

I knew I was going to love you


red flags flapped fiercely

a wind blowing from past lives


but what did we know?

what did we care?


we obeyed our present hungers

conditioned from so long ago


and ignoring all cautions

took that plunge


and joined with fingers and lips and tongues

to explore the old mystery


of lust and ecstasy to lead us

to an answer of paradise that could not match


the reality I would know in loving you...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

SURREAL ENOUGH

the world is surreal

enough on its own

to give reassurance

that we live in the deep


trickster imagination

of some God

who laughs too much

at our expense


but silently

unobtrusively

prods us to laugh also...

not quite getting the joke


but sure as shit tired enough

to go on being the butt...





Contwent (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

LEONARD AGAIN

saw Leonard Cohen last night

at Radio City in New York


an amazing show

an unbelievable show


like the previous three times I've seen him

through the years


three plus hours at full vigor

but this show was deeper...more resonant...


the musicianship beyond superb...

each player a virtuoso


and his back-up girls

what angels should look and sound like


without driving the hearer deaf and blind...

how can a 78-year-old man


have so much energy

kneel on the carpet of the stage


and spring up like a man less than half his age...

and spry as he was who knows when the last tour will be?


God and women have been good to Leonard

and all I could do was follow as I've always done


eyes on the heavens and my neck in my hand

and my heart down some wistful healing chute...


Bravo Leonard...the fellowship of last night

is permanent in the soul...and another incentive


to take heart...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

NOT IN MY CONTROL

it's not in my control


if I could I'd live more joyously

but I have this thing about the world


that it is a pale imitation of what life

really is


and it leaves its marks on your very being

and this bit of writing is mine


all liability...but no real control...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Miltio. All rights reserved.

WERE YOU EXPECTING 'DIFFERENCE'?

I came so close

to figuring my place

in the scheme of things


that I'm sure I was mistaken...

the scheme of things nothing like

any imagining I or mine possess


except that I'm always 'so close'...



Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

FAINT COMPASSION FOR AN OVERGROWN CHILD

hapless to rage

useless to curse


may your current stage

not get any worse




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved

INSULT

thou art

a blast

from the dark

of the moon





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

SELF

indefinite

the ache

vague

the treatment


but so certain

the despair

of needing

to deal


with all that

can be dismissed


no excuse

for this timidity

but every reason

for it




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

WHAT WAS ALWAYS KNOWN

as people age they feel wiser...steadier...


have they really learned wisdom

or have they just finally forgotten all the bullshit


and let them acknowledge at last what they've always known?




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

AWAKE YET?

so you've awoken...


and?...


don't go thinking anything's been solved once and for all...

this much amendment you haver managed

because life can do nothing but impress its lessons

on you...like it or not...


and the sooner you like it the sooner you'll get over

your childish resentment and see

no one in the world has a clear shot at anything

and if anything humbling yourself to another's sorrows


will let you help them the more and help yourself

because you finally see the connection between you...


yes it's hard to give up what entraps you in your habits

but it's easier than you know to leave it and go on...awake...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

SPRING HAD FINALLY POPPED

spring has finally popped around here...


the tiny struggling buds'll bloom

outright in the next few days


and once again again

the cycle renews and we'll either love it


or stay in our private winters...

and wish for a death that is nonexistent...


you'll pop in your own spring...whenever it will come...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

NOTHING IS EASY

oh nothing is easy in the earth...


if you're looking for guarantees

of success for your spiritual endeavors


then you've missed the point entirely

but nothing is fatal or final


unless you'd have it so

but it's all on you...on each of us...


and choosing which way is not easy in the earth...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

NO NET

oh the wonder and the glory...


we're not off our own hook

but we know now it is our own hook


no God sitting in judgment

on our follies


we call ourselves out

and either clinging to the delusions


that got us into our fixes

or we see the chance to break out


not following any agenda of self-reform

but being a little wiser


about our moment by moment moral choices

and your choice is to perpetuate your nonsense


or go the way of wonder and glory...well?





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THIS IS WHAT IT IS TO BE...

alive!

ALIVE!!!


whatever the Divine Nature

and how I hate it sometimes


whatever the human outcome

of tending to such impossible concepts


whatever Reality morphs into its ultimate actuality

with every move we make by all the energy


and essence of God

this is the heavy consciousness of being


this is the wistful awareness of our teetering sorrows

buoyed by joy that is the substance of being


alive! ALIVE!!!

Goddamn it! this is what it is to be alive...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

BEING A PROPHET AS A CAREER CHOICE

oh happiness for all


the times of the raging prophets is over


no more stinking wild men

coming out of the desert


to declare doom on the unholy


stating the obvious to the lost

who do not care  and see these prophets

as the homeless whom they pass...eyes averted...

on their way to their money gigs


which as far as I'm concerned speaks for

the authenticity of these bringers of the Word


and even then while I contemplated a change of message

I saw Jeremiah trying to cut in front

of Isaiah on the soup line yesterday


and I thought

"what new dispensation?"



Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

NO TIME FOR ANYTHING

the days and nights are one now...


a day feels like a second

a week feels like a day


a month like a week

and a years like a couple of weeks


and things that would take no time to finish

seem like an unending process of no resolution...


the days and nights no longer matter

when you're working in an "ever-now"


that sees the arcing of the sun in the sky

as race against itself


sunset a few moments until sunrise yet again

and what is always now is an end of a race instead of


an outgoing process...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

PRIDE AND WHAT OF IT?

none of us has anything to be proud of...


as long as the veil of forgetfulness endures no tear

and the shield of flesh armors us against cold fact


we'll blame everyone but ourselves

for the lies we've wrought


and the acts of commission

that vouchsafe our destruction...


what good pride then that so easily falls?




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

"NOT ME..."

not so easy is it?


the template of creation is the Reality

but our acts make it the Actuality


so if it all fucks up

(as it always does)


we act like children

with dirty hands denying we made


a mess of the cookie jar...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

IDEAL VS. REAL (AND WHAT IF THE REAL IS IDEAL...)

as a woe-ridden Pisces

one astrologer assures me

"this is official your new...and better beginning..."


a break from the past

fresh new starts in directions

I feared or only dreamt of previously


and yet I'm still up to my eyeballs in shit

and somehow what I hope is above

is not reflected below


and if it truly is

then it is something I wish not to acknowledge

lest I lose all hope and further delay


any enlightenment that could

illuminate the way...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE TEACHINGS VS. THE ACTUAL REALITY

tell someone you're alright

and they'll bust a hump

looking for ways to prove you wrong...


if people weren't such

pains in the ass

our Oneness wouldn't be such a trial


oh now what are you crying about?

it's a level field and we all have our stratagems...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

AFTER YEARS

after years of turmoil

regret and loss


things seem to be settling down...

now I'm really nervous




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THEY SAY

they say I'm too sad

too angry

too too


well maybe they're right

and maybe they're wrong

but the way I figure it


the world is such tref

that even a gamble seems reasonable

so what if I'm over-aware


of all my wrongs

I laugh long and hard

when the joke is smart


it's not an evasion

it's a confrontation...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I WONDER WHAT THE QUEEN IS DOING TONIGHT

wonder all you like...


she

(or he)

is doing things


the rest of us would still be hung for

even in this day and age...


having the same fun

but paying on an unequal scale...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

RUNNING OUT OF WORDS

back on earth...


everything's different

though nothing has changed


poets are running out of words

to express divine turds...


those leavings that are creation

which contains within it its own destruction


back on earth

or up in the higher dimensions


nothing is different

yet everything's changed


damned if I or anyone in skin

could figure it out beyond wondering


how to play it...



Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

FAKE FACE

quiet now...


I am wet sand

on a wind-swept beach


feeling the breeze pass over me toward the sea


oh what poetic nonsense...

I'm sitting at a keyboard


putting a fake face

on my inertia...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE LITTLE KING

kattzenjammer


christ

you'd think this cat never ate...


please oh yowling master

let me finish this post


before I stuff your maw...

your genetic memory of ancient Egypt


is a modern day annoyance...


(think little walnut brain

how it would be


if you weren't

loved...)




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All right reserved.

HOPING THE ONE HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR

oh Song of Songs

oh dance in the vineyards


oh matrimonial vows

oh loving under the new moon


I'm spiritual enough to be

at peace with my true wives


and earthly enough to love it

when the Bible tawks dirty...heh...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

OH HOW ROMANTIC

oh sweetie oh deary oh better half

cummy cummy licky cunny


the opportunities are few

and the pleasures fewer


unless we steal outright

each other's affections


and the less society knows

the better for us who have no need of it...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE ODDS EVER 6 TO 5

raving one moment

calm and understanding the next


the Plan is ridiculously hard

and the liability on each of us untenable


but so it is decreed

it is the permanent dispensation


and each of us throw metaphysical dice

in some metempiric crap shoot





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

JOYFUL IN ALL DISASTERS

joyful in all disasters...


life has always been tenuous at best

but nothing happens

except in the moment of its happening


and when it's gone it's forever yours in spirit anyway


fear death and the boulders will fall to block you

embrace life and the boulders will roll away

Christ Almighty...how many times must you be told this?





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

ORPHAN

come to me orphan of my mind


the faded childhood bleeds through

the apparent dotage


and the golden sunlight through the shades

mists like a shade of some determinative happening

now preserved as memory


a hurt from mother

an apprehension of some math test at school

or just a blank instant when there was nothing

but the instant with no other appendages


come to me now

whoever I was then


an orphan of my own mind

who now years later is different

and yet the same


old soul of youthful slights

niggling at any delusions of finality


come to me now


and lo...here I am...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE BAD GUYS WON...FOR NOW

the bad guys won...for now...


it may take a few hundred years

for the pendulum to swing backward

("what's a pendulum?" many may ask...)


and worse...what conditions that we set

by our actions will receive us in future earth lives?

meeting ourselves by suffering


that we caused others to suffer this time?





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE NEW AGE OF FAUX TOGETHERNESS

what hell will my last days in this life

be subjected to?


and who complain to

when all of my time are dying off


and the cogs of this infernal machine

are offended that I won't turn and mesh


the way they do? is there anyone out there

who remembers what it is to be human?




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

IT'S BUSINESS CHARLIE JUST BUSINESS

once again I have a sense of being followed


tracked to my lair by someone's malevolent software


Christ Almighty

you can't even take a shit

without Interpol knowing about it...


and I refuse to think about

all the spam that will load my email

with offers of laxatives and acquiescence...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

BELIEVING

believing in

the pre-existence of the soul

makes earthly living tough...


you're aware of more than

you can handle

and stymied by any attempts at action


for fear of what worse you can manage...

like a Hitchcock movie

where the camera pans over a scene


showing a calm surface of some gathering...

all the action a part of some mosaic of 'normalcy'

until the camera draws close to heavy drapes


and spots the tips of a pair of shoes

jutting out slightly from under the drapes...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

IN MY HEAD

I'm almost where I need to be

in my head...


but my head lives in a comfortable abstraction

while the rest of me


slogs through the world

like an ambulatory corpse


awaiting release into all I have to contend with

but more profoundly...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

LOVE-LORN

old man

looking for his

hot young soulmate...


a dream...


like criminals in prison

sending out personals

for companionship or complicity...


the word 'incarcerated' appearing with

unfortunate frequency...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

NO PROFIT

no profit in being high-minded...


it's so easy to call out

the self-entitled

as being as clueless

as those they profess to oppose


smugness is not unique

no one has the market cornered on arrogance


nor a notion that one's actions are their own reward...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

SICK OF DOCTORS

health stable

after many misadventures

ignoring many restrictions

and having a tasty hell of a time...


tell me God doesn't have a worse fate in store for me

heh heh





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

TAKING IT ON YOURSELF

everybody has rights...

there's the sin and the shame of it


we act like gods and wind up

blinded like Phineus





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

NO DISGUISE WORKS

always I longed for escape

from where and who I am


imagine my self-consciousness

to discover (or finally admit


to be more accurate and honest)

there is no escape ever


there's nowhere else

and I'm always me...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

TEACHERS AND PUPILS

let some other fool school you


I'm too busy at the blackboard

writing 1,000 times


"oh what a fool I am oh what a fool I am oh what a....."




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

APRIL FOOL

April Fool's Day

is for snarky amateurs

coveting the dim who covet

low-hanging fruit


maybe the outlanders

who didn't know the Georgian Calendar

moved the start of the year

to January (early evidence of humankind


imposing its power-mad ignorance

onto a natural harmony) were denounced

as dunces by those in on the switch

but what foolishness ever disregarded


justifies the cattle-like adherence to some ersatz king's

delusion...all fools equal in size...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE CIRCUS IN WHICH WE LIVE

to have no other life than gossiping

about others

or adore the preening of non-entities

to fill a void while you clamor

for their blood the minute

they resemble you in a pathetic fall


oh I cannot count how many of you

can be stuffed into a tiny car

joy buzzers and squirt flowers

fall off you as you pull yourself

out of the not-so-smart-car


at center ring (nowhere else suitable

for your likes...or the hucksters

who accommodate and build you up

until they're done with you)


I'd be ashamed to eat cotton candy in front of you

it might remind you of your own shortcomings

or the schoolyard you endured in agony


as the ringmaster blew a tardy whistle

and everyone else limped back to class


with you in some bushes pants down around your ass like a clown...




Contenbt (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.