the blushing blood

advice

the time is time, ready set:
what makes you stronger
[floods of regret]?
the tougher you get
(i’m not ready yet!)
the conscience tool is dated
it coughed:
[you’re going nowhere
you’re just too soft]

get out of it
he’s not your
enemy
his injuries indicate – what exactly?
(i’ll hate any-bandaged-body)

if i’m only his friend
separate entities – no voice of reason –
my conscience soaks in friendship’s
poisoned needles and the distance
fails to mirror in me
neither good nor bad: a soft neutrality
at the center of
my mortal soul
i never know where it goes

where will he go
when all my loving mental
energy, rejected, i still send?
self restraint does not
commend
a power that watches all die similarly
how can you not feel bad about it?
how can you not feel scared about it?
in that, it’s the loved ones who have it rough

[that’s enough, kid
you said enough.]

© 2011, J. W. Fife

interestingly enough

dimensional
travel
which i can do

discovered
dimensions which i create
how terrifying
inside my skull, infinite space
words into
universes
i created
as a god within a blood-filled
porcelain teacup

i know the next step
i know it
i know
i know
i
know it

there’s still a crystalized blankness in
what i
haven’t
understood

yet

© 2011, J. W. Fife

the opposite

i make mine a whisper
serenely assuming
the system is correct
safe lines direct decision, i’ve studied and
my knowledge has the opposite
effect

frequency is increasing
my mistakes are driving stakes in
hearts

in a perfect world, i receive
my reward, a beam to guide
never toil pointlessly
my goodness is a diseased animal, i am
sleeping nightmared inside

frequency is increasing
my mistakes are collecting bones in
ditches

in a perfect world, i can have everything
the opposite of
which is a curving line
i’m bending towards myself
(why can’t i have it all? (the gap is
part of the design))

© 2010, J. W. Fife

chores iii

i am stirring the search
for

confusions

the daydream, a parallel
reality and
i am master of reality’s illusions

why am i here?
though – THANK GOD
i am

the film spirals
lights are a shadowy
exam

nothing is blamed
pleasure hits directly and
i am persuaded

simultaneous screens

thank

god
my private world is invaded

© 2010, J. W. Fife

flum-mox

everything can be good
to your
kingdom
camaraderie is a secret key

it doesn’t arrive easily
the prison is a glorious silver pendant on
the earth’s fat, green neck

no tendrils of affection, no
loving octopus that embraces my sad spine,
pulls my expectations into inky
cloisters
i am regressing back to the safety of
quietly thinking

but who could say i’m not progressing?
when the finish line is not clearly defined?

i don’t want to hide the
thoughts
i don’t want confusion to bury my
chance, an eternity rusting
underwater

© 2010, J. W. Fife

saint

all the gears are catching
sulfuric
waves of trepidation,
rusting as it drowns:
the process claims a methodic
dyspepsia.

he is smiling brilliantly,
photosynthesis.
human teeth are clattering out
a careful, cautious voodoo.
mentally i am crowded and
pushed further inside.

the internal clockwork clicks
a heartbeat drowned
in indifference.
if i can stop the universal machinery, 
i can suspend time inside
my confused moment and smooth
it out to exegesis.

© 2010, J. W. Fife

chores ii

my days are drying up and
tying up and they disintegrate,
collected in piles, and
i keep coughing up
basic excuses concerning my
happiness – which makes
me feel loneliness more
intensely –
why bother feeling happy at all?

give happy things up
until the world is getting smaller,
in a corner,
my heart attached to silver.

experience drives a mirror between
my mind and reality, and i am split.
i am an image which
i cannot touch, and when i reach for
you,
i am paralyzed, but my reflection
gently brushes its fingertips
over your
mouth.

i am separated from my
wants and
confronted with the absurdity
of my daily tasks.
what was born with me and
what was
manufactured artificially? firmly
i believe i am reunited
with myself in dreams,
and i choose the reality which
fills our grey
stomachs with adoration.

© 2010, J. W. Fife

chores i

we taught you well so
pleased in
progress
i hanged so touchingly it
pained my express
filthy fragrant from the knocks
dripping mud on the doors
i answered angry, i
tended bitterly to my chores
my greenish leaked curtains
over strain and cover sweetened blisters
yeah, i’m bummed in
my inept
bleeding on my silly blissful sisters

© 2008, J. W. Fife

viscid

where is
your mood leading
your ideas about
reality?

there are times
when
your mind is infinite

sometimes life
is an illusion and the real
world is an
eternity spent in death

you can’t be sad or
worried
or allow doubt to weigh
down your
imagination into a painful
slow motion

you share your meaninglessness with
the world;
we celebrate it
daily

© 2010, J. W. Fife

the air is thicker here

the elevation accelerates
time
the lights pump hot
blood into the air
“take your time.”
keep my breath low
make my mind slow down

what seconds i perceive
time is
viscous
internally, time is
what makes my mind fast

take my time, it is
malleable
if i could touch the
shaking train
which is my life line
make my mind slow down
keep my breath low

make my effort
understood

© 2010, J. W. Fife