Poem/rambings

This is something that essentially wrote itself. It began with a single sentence, which transformed into a specific setting, then ultimately led to the entrance of a character that I had never before known or conceived. I had no idea of a direction in which I wanted to story to travel, and even less of an idea of he who would travel it. I guess that's what I meant by: the story wrote itself. I just thought that I would share the short journey with you...I hope you find something within the story that means something to you....


Christmas candle window glow through fractal frozen crystal forests,
invading white pine incense coals and the sweaty shivers to match
the mystery of buzzing angelic voices through gargled nutmeg eggnog rum.
"Oh Silent Night" mumbles down the empty snow banked streets
caked in solid slippery black icing, holiday jingles muffled behind bolted doors
with cracks illuminated by private crackling fires, garnished with red string
and misshapen oversized socks.

The vagabond drags his crooked feet across the shadowy barricaded glass highway in silence,
never taking the shoveled exit ramps leading to gated drives and the inevitable backtrack.
The 6 to 10 member caroler packs pick up his scent from a hundred yards off
and dart like fish into the sanctuaries of neighbor's snowmen graveyards.
The old man doesn't even notice this instinctual flight, never taking his eyes off the delicate
oscillating broken steps of the dangerous snail crawl leading into an endless oblivion,
or at least until he's out of the suburbs.

His only prayer to that baby king adorned in his
birthday crown is that the frozen black and white parkway of singing family electric streetlights
will end at a cliff so that the memories of his lost song will die along with his body.
But instead he is met with another crossroads that will lead him back to where he already stands.
Now the mounds of salty gravel and loose white flakes seem as good a place as he'll ever find
to close his eyes that final time, crawling up their crumbling wall till debris touches every inch
of shredded cloth, his own fleeting heat letting the cold poison makes it's way through to the skin.

That muffled tune makes it's last cycle just far off enough to reach his ears while the drums still throb.
And with that awaited breath when the soul escapes, skipping across the white hot air
into the nothingness from which it came, it will truly be a silent night.

New posts comming soon

I have recently been going through difficult/stressful times, which have significantly reduced my ability to post new content on this blog. I wrote me first poem in over a month the other day, so needless to say, I have been distracted. There were some family issues with a stalker who was using this blog to gain personal information about me to use against the rest of my family, so hopefully you can understand why I have been hesitant to post new material in a public forum/blog. We thought that things had settled down with the disturbed and obsessed mental case of a disgruntled worker who was slightly more than upset about losing her job for being one of the sliest, laziest workers I've ever heard of while collecting a paycheck from her non-profit organization who's duty is to provide a service to those who are mentally incapable of financially surviving on their own. So naturally someone who took this position was so dedicated to their work they would exploit whatever off time they could swindle at the cost of mismanaging the accounts of the people in need they were supposed to be helping. This world, or rather many of the human inhabitants, depresses me every day. Why people spend more time trying to get things for free by the least amount of contribution when that time could be reallocated to excelling at whatever job you currently have and therefore translated into higher pay, more responsibility, and more free time is just beyond me. People can come up with all sorts of reasons for why our country's economy is in the shitter, but whenever they point fingers at "illegal" immigrants (most of whom that I've worked with have had better work ethics then 90% of American citizens I have worked with) my mind is boggled as struck by a tranquilizer dart. If only we could push ourselves to excel to the same level as those who killed themselves working during The Great Depression, we might one day re-earn the honor of the title The Great American worker.

That is it for me for now. Obviously this conversation is one that can and will go on for decades, but those are my two cents, I'll save the rest of my bank account for the reactionary "Patriots" who can't see beyond their own cultural upbringing toward the new globalized economic conditions.

Take care everyone, and as I said, new stuff will be coming along shortly.

I hope everyone has a great thanksgiving and that family dynamics don't ruin what is meant to be a joyous occasion.

I will sign off with my new blog cover name, one that has been inspired by two of my largest influences,

 Much Love to you all,

Arthur Steppes

Ramblings 1

So I was reading this book called "Illuminated Poems," a collection of Ginsberg poems matched with art works by Eric Drooker. It's a really sweet book in case you are interested in experiencing Ginsberg's poems in a new way. The art along with them is really intense, worthy of being coupled with the brilliance of Ginsberg. Anyway, so I finished reading that book and started reading Naked Lunch for the second time. "Illuminated Poems" put me in a better state of mind than the last time I picked up Naked Lunch, because this time I felt in rhythm with Burroughs. I guess the right frame of mind, for me at least, is outside normal comprehension of cohesive mathematical statements, but somewhere in the beautiful and electrifying chaos of colliding abstractions. Well, after reading for awhile, I took a break, but was still stuck in the rapid stream of poetic ramblings and  couldn't stop my train of thought from continuing them. So this is what I ended up with before resuming my reading...

Words as broken and formless as an armless man scribbling verse with a shattered pencil clutched between mud-plastered feet, splinters digging into the ones left festering beneath the skin...
Visions that invade his erasing consciousness without hands to grasp them before disappearing into graveyard mist hovering over the back of the mind like a tumor eating away at whatever identity was given to you...
and your only hope of salvation rests in the fantasy that putting them down on already burnt paper might give them back to the self...
But as the dream fades into a hunger as insatiable as a virus, the splinters suffered during the meager attempt at transcendence burst with black pus to cover the incomprehensible scratching made by feet too weak to follow their own dirty footprints...
If only you could muster up the strength to hurl yourself out the window into the streets too busy to notice the body they have to step over, you might just make the newsreel scroll as it streams away across the bottom of the screen too quickly for the mind to care what it has to say, just a flash of lightning life only to be swept away before anyone even knows you were there...

Poem

My newest poem about forbidden childhood games, and the dreams left in the secrets places where we once felt safe. This is very personal to me, so it means a lot to me to share it with you. Getting into the harder stuff has opened me up to a lot of new things to write about. I hope you like it, especially if you had a secret place like this when you were but a child, a place you shared with that first special friend. Enjoy...




You never could keep a secret.
I should have known before I asked,
before I invited you into my treehouse,
the one my father built.

Like so many things,
he never finished it.
Maybe that's why what we did
seeped out.

Or maybe it's because it wasn't yours,
you were only a guest
in this foreign place,
a place where you had
no intention to stay,
you just wanted to take a peak,
so I gave you one.

I still don't know
why you asked for another,
then another and another.
I only know that it was nice
to have the company,
even though it was just
for a little while.

I showed you the miracle of skin,
a class I was taught
before I was ready to learn.
I suppose you weren't ready either.

But I know that within
that unfinished box of wood
you accepted my touch
as readily as you accepted each dare.
You never took a truth,
it had no place in this tree.

Five feet off the ground
you learned the magic of the mouth,
even though you never tasted it,
the power still made you tense.

I remember your legs
as they began to tighten,
and the breeze rolled over us
like a wave.
My moisture, my warmth,
a vacuum in the daylight.

This unknown caress
that I gave upon my knees
and the eleven year old heart
willing to suffer the splinters,
I gave you them freely
and desired them more,
ready to give everything
to continue our games.

To you it was just play,
to me it was the way.
I mistook you as a brother
since I felt the way you quivered.
Only a child's mind could think
that this would go on forever.

But the sunlight inevitably
fell into night,
and those lips of yours
that touched so gently
spilled all the secrets of our fun.

You left me there alone
in this place raised off the earth,
so I sat there waiting,
thinking one day you might return.

I sit here still,
with nothing to look at
but the sky obscurred
by swaying branches.

I am lost here forever
in these forests we used to roam,
the one's we used to think
were our own.
You never came back,
never cared that I'm alone.

Poem

I see you,
as clearly as I see my own hand,
as I see the eyes in the mirror
that know me completely.
I wouldn't dare hide anything from you,
not before a face I know as my own,
not before a soul that feels the stabs
that were left in my heart,
as if it were theirs that were being cut,
and I know that it was.
I see you!
I know the reasons why you ask if you are beautiful.
They are the same questions I ask myself.
If only I could answer you
and you answer me,
maybe then we would feel loved tonight!
I dare ask you what you see in me,
if you dare to answer me honestly
and I will do the same for you,
for you are me

I see you!
I see that heart the breaks
as the history of your life
shatters into innumerable tears.
I would catch them if I could,
but they are my own!
I'll hold onto you,
for as long as you hold onto me.
I love you!
I see you!

Poem

So this is my most recent poem. For any gay kid who grew up playing sports, this is dedicated to us. I am the youngest of 3 sons. Both of my older brothers were college pitchers. My dad is an ex-major league pitcher. And my mom is a bit of a female super-jock. Needless to say, I was bred into sports since my hands could grip a baseball, or in this case, a hockey stick. My parents were bringing me out to the pond since I was two years old, literally, skates so small you could fit them in your pocket. I have an intense connection with the ice. I don't think I could ever explain it, but maybe it's worth writing a poem about. I'll get back to you on that one. This poem is about what it was like off the ice, specifically in the locker room, where the intimate moments of straight male camaraderie were witnessed and admired by eyes that weren't meant to see them, where behind a mask of reflective assholery, I managed to see their world from the inside, and I marveled at how easily they seemed to exist without shame. This poem is about shame, about the struggle of hiding the truth of what we feel, and about hot naked guys! I have no doubt that if any of them read this, they would be more uncomfortable than they were when I first came out. But fuck them! (no pun intended). If I could suffer through every moment of hiding how much I wanted to touch them, leaving me cold and empty, as formless as a ghost, then they can suffer through the supposed embarrassment of having their cocks admired by a gay guy! And their asses, depending on the individual. If they could only understand how freeing it is to finally let go, maybe they would feel a little flattered, but I doubt it. So to those of you that shared this harsh reality of perpetual stimulation, anxiety, and shame, and to the memories of those beautiful bodies that hang like paintings in my mind, this is for you!


Pheromones of a Hockey Locker Room


Their sweat sets me on fire!
Ultraviolet rays of desire
that radiate upon the landscape of my body.
No eyes can see it,
but my peninsula acts accordingly.

The rivers rage through whitewater canyons,
the reckless flow rams against my stiffening dam
as I untie my skates.
The twenty bodies,
each moist and shimmering,
surround my bunker, and I can't help
but peak through the porthole.

The screams inside leave me silent
and shaking.
Their laughter drives me mad
as they take off their shin pads.

One by one, they strip before me,
oblivious to the eyes that watch
from behind a mask. I take my time,
like a doctor with his patient,
examining each glory from head to toe.

As the jockstraps drop like a gateway to heaven,
the burning light calls forth a quiet shudder
and my twitching sword
pierces through its sheath!

I have to look away to hide from this sun
that its atomic heat makes my forests grow wild.
For if you stare too long at this cosmic wonder naked,
a volcano might erupt with liquid plasma.
And the blindness that it leaves
could extinguish the life of my entire planet.

Now one, then two, then five, six, and seven,
the nuclear reactions fuse into galaxies,
and the mortal flow of blood
rushes to my fountain of life.

I have to stop and breathe,
and focus on the frost,
hoping that its chill will shield me
from this reign of fire.

And so I grab my towel,
wrap it tight around my waist,
but even this double-layered cloak
can't hide the throbbing as it ripples.

I can't believe they don't know by now,
as this 1000 act play
draws its curtains once again,
and I step before the crowd
into the steaming mists.

Concealed by a corner,
the anxiety brews with shame,
and the alchemy yields
yet another broken dream.

If I can hide it till their gone,
till the solitude returns,
then the mask will be preserved,
and judgment day postponed.

But the burning will leave scars,
a melanoma of the mind,
sunspots on your eyes from
having stared too long
at the face of god.

Only in the emptiness of my bed,
silhouetted in shadows,
when the act has come to halt
and the crowds at intermission,
only then can the dam,
almost broken by the river's force,
release the whitewater tides
in an avalanche of tears.

Poem

A Love that set me Free

You taste of an ocean of sugar,
garnished by a whipped cloud from heaven,
a nectar that intoxicates my memories
into dancing to the tune
I used to hear when you laid your head upon my chest.

I indulged upon those lips,
that kiss that felt like falling.
Your warmth thawed my eyes
allowing me to see love again
and in that love I slept,
till my heart became as pruney
as out fingers in the tub

But you are as wild as the bush
that adorns itself with thorns,
preparing for the primal feed
that exhausts you of your honey.
I could only stay awhile before
my hunger would die beneath your pricks.

I stayed so long that your branches grew around me,
forming a cage of endless sweetness and death.
Each attempt to fly away
fell prey to my addiction.
Your nectar was of the gods,
and I knew I would never find it again.

So this cage became my nest,
and as much as I hated it,
I loved it!
I gnawed upon your bark as the panic set in,
and from eyes that could only see my pain,
I hurt you more than you hurt me.

One more taste of this sugar that drove me insane
would give me strength enough to say goodbye.
But since I had damaged you so,
broken through your bark to the thickest of the sap,
you would no longer grant me a sip.
I had become your enemy,
a leech upon your artery of beauty,
and so I do not blame you for cutting off the flow.

I don't know if I have it in me to fly away,
on to a different nest that doesn't captivate me so.
For your taste has become a memory,
and as it ages, my desire becomes stronger
than the whiskey can mellow.

One more taste and I'll take to the wind,
and all you'll hear is the echo of a farewell
as it lingers in the autumn breeze,
a goodbye to a love that almost killed me,
a goodbye to a love that set me free.

Poem

Forbidden Flesh


My heart is a wind chime
Your voice is a breeze
I dance in the forests of a place without time,
just an echo through the rustling of branches
and a child's voice asking, "Is it in yet?"
In this jungle that grows thicker with each passing minute,
only the chaotic tune of flowers swaying in the wind
makes me want to breathe.
The sky splits into letters never sent
and the rain spreads their ink
into blotches of bleeding life.
I rendezvous between the dreams of Eros
and the girl who first taught me how to kneel.
I feel her cuts as the draw fresh blood
with every fractured memory,
and every moment dawns with the
forbidden flesh of a touch
I always prayed to forget.

I see them now, those children
whose faces were my own, and
somehow the dream reminds me
of climbing a tree.
And should you dare to speak
as if words were more than the embodiment
of my devil, only a silence tells me
I am loved,
the silence that breaks into darkness.
I want no more of this heroin of ecstasy.
I let the flames burn till the nerves die together,
which is all I asked for in the first place.
If only god could sing through the rivers of my body,
I long for the letting go that within your presence,
permission is granted.
To fly was just a dream,
now I'm left with nothing but the earth,
a mud that seems thicker than raw oil.
All I want is to see your face with my own eyes,
not through the foliage
that has grown around my soul.
As I cut my way through,
the light reveals your smile.
Grant me but a taste of your lips,
and I will sleep at last.

Poem

Okay, so this is the first poem I'm going to re-post. This poem is about a lot of things. Part of it is about drugs, and how they tore my life to pieces. Some of it is about drugs that opened me up to a new way of seeing reality, of seeing myself, of seeing other people, of seeing the world. Some of it is about the therapy I have been through, and trust me, I have been through more than most people, and not just your once or twice a week one hour session shit, but a 15 month intensive therapeutic boarding school preceded by a really intense temporary intervention wilderness program for 2 months where I only showered twice and came out looking like a mountain man. So some of it is about that and the way it changed my perception of myself and people. Overall it is just about what I have seen in life, hence the name. This is one of my first poems, and right after I wrote it, the very same day, I stumbled onto Arthur Rimbaud, the poet that changed my life with his poem "The Drunken Boat." I always thought it was ironic that I wrote this poem right before reading "The Drunken Boat," given that both poems are so visual and talk about things we have seen. The lines "And sometimes I have seen what men have imagined they saw!" will always stay with me. And with that, here's the poem...

I Have Seen!


I have seen the snow-capped mountain
dance among the stars of my brain,
and beat my drums and drain my veins,
and leave me lying in a gutter in the rain.

I have seen the moon explode into fireflies alight,
and descend upon my rolling hills
into darkness oh so bright!

I have seen in mystery, awe, and splendor,
unknown creatures in my mind so tender.
They slither and fly, and dance around the fire,
and remind me that this time we have
is exactly what I desire!

I have seen the sun silhouetting a swirling cloud
and the angel wings of tiny things
Scream their dreams out loud!
While the flaming eyes of the devil's wolf
stalk me in a moonlit field,
and hunt me down and burn my ground,
until my shaking soul is healed!

I have seen rainbow crescents refracting from diamond eyes
in the paralleled madness of splitting-light lullabies,
while the clouds dissolve into shafts of light,
and a golden dusk of eagle light
flies me home through an endless night!
Through shrieking cries of trembling fright,
to pounding laughter of delicious delight.

Ongoing

Obviously this is an ongoing process. I literally just created this blog today, so there is a lot more work I want to do on it before I am satisfied. After reading the issue of Ganymede I was just published in, "Ganymede Unfinished," I realized that I was one of the few people in the issue that didn't have a website/blog, so here I am, making my mark within digital space. Beyond Just my poetry, I will add personal thoughts, topics for discussion, controversial statements that should lead to some interesting commentary, as well as adding my unique perspective of existence in the mix. I welcome any and all opinions, although if you bring bigotry into the equation, well that's just not acceptable. Ultimately, I am just a 21 year old kid who wants to make more of himself, meet some new friends along the way, maybe some hot guys if they happen to find what I say interesting. This is the beginning of my expanse outward, beyond the current social limitations I find myself in. I hope people give a damn, but if you don't, then just pass on by and no hard feelings. For a topic of immediate discussion, my first offering for conversation, What is Time? Is it a concept? Possibly nothing more than a social tool necessary for higher orders of organized civilization? Does it holds its place within the natural sciences as its own dimension? Something that inevitably shares a direct relationship with the concept of spacial existence? What are your thoughts? Lets discuss

The Steps

This is my first officially published poem, included in Ganymede Unfinished.

THE STEPS

Walking over my fields, like palace rugs,
never stopping to try their taste,
I scurry before the ancient temple steps.
No song to sing, only whispers in time,
make real the clamoring of children's hearts.
Under willow leaves we dare to dream
of countries without shade,
of seas adrift in hurricane tide
marching onward into swirling parade.
The horizon hanging in silent prayer
opens the gates too bent to hold the food,
and all at once I disappear into cloudy noons
never quite so still.
Before I breathe the essence of silk,
a hand waves to the boy who is gone.
The steps are now all that is left
in this land of fairy games and battlefields.
Once atop the hill, the oceans unfold
sweet flower scent in autumn's gaze,
while the river folk line up and share
on banks as dry as a desert bone.
But the winds blow me to a lonely shore,
where swallows weep under falling stars.
The waves wash with withered rain
till my steps have lost all form,
and the trailing tears of all my years
wrap me in blankets of twisting gears.
They chew me up till none is left but
the aching of my soul, and just like before
my raging fire is reduced
to but a coal.