There's a keening wind
Blowing lonely through my door
Grey the sky outside

There's a keening wind
Blowing loneliness through me
Grey and howling sky

There's a keening wind
That haunts me like a banshee
Tears fall from the sky

The sky--grey chaos
A keening wind blows through me 
Lonely is the storm

I am under spiritual attack by my government. The so-called “poison” they used on the roaches has only made them stronger, increasing their predatory weight by more than 155.341%. Bastards even used trained bed bugs on me. I knew it was them because they scanned me in the second grade to procure future infobytes and ways to re-format me. That’s how they found out I was terrified of bed bugs, and the reality of that demonic, government infestation was far more terrible than my childhood imaginings.

I went deep though. I flipped the script as I heard someone cool say once. –on them. I flipped the script on them. I never was good at being cool. The bed bugs tried to eat me, but I ate them first. They’d grow fat on my bloody essence, and I’d replenish my vitals by trapping the fattest, most alpha bugs in-between my molars, which I used to grind them into distasteful chi. O, how they feared me then! Fuck you, police state; I know how you operate. Often you ensnared my bedazzled wits with your psychic propaganda. You even recruited my friends to the CIA for an evening to force me to believe aliens were using LSD to speak to me through the TV.

And they were!

But I had no use for believing that, and it haunts me periodically still.

The Priests of Judas revealed your Eye In The Sky; revelry led to revelation and putrid inner revolution, but the real solution was all illusion. I know, a bit confusing, somewhat amusing, and it’s why for so long I kept right on using. A crazy person accused me of being interested in what she was saying, and I tell truthfully I absolutely was not going to tell the truth because the Truth doesn’t need me to. It’s fine without my spurious help. I always felt bad for Wile E. Coyote, and I know for sure why Charlie Brown kept trying to kick that fucking bitch in the pussy.

Caveat: taking any of these meds seriously is an emotional metal disease infusion, and should be avoided if one feels like being dodgy. And always remember: even if you study as hard as you can, I still won’t understand.

I sat down to share this haiku, and then realized the one friend who subscribed to my blog (I don’t know how to tell—I just know he did) is dead now because of a fentanyl overdose. Like so, so many. Anyway, I love and miss you Matt. I think you would’ve enjoyed this poem.

Reno Regency Haiku

Stoned I smash a roach 
With my boot not a lighter 
High-disrupting fuck

I don’t know if I’m more irritated by the trite, common sense advice well-meaning yet ignorant “normies” hand out (e.g. “pull yourself out of it” and “change who you hang out with”), or by the fact that they’re right. What most lucky, non-addicts, point out is, well, kinda fucking obvious. Yeah, I realize my life is a burning car crash. I know it’s better not to be on fire, believe me. But I also understand your confusion when you see a person who you thought was mostly brilliant (I kid, but the smartest people I know are addicts) keep burning his or her hand on the metaphorical stove top. And there’s the rub…. addiction is a fiendish motherfucker. I wish I had better answers. Imagine playing a nasty, manipulative game–the prize is your life and sanity–against someone who is exactly as smart and trickerous as you, all while you’re high as giraffe pussy.

I’m not trying, I don’t think, to defend addiction. And the normies are right, fuckers. All I guess I’m saying I think I’ve said before: if you have an addict in your life, before you give ’em the ol’ buck up, stiff upper lip there lad (lass), maybe educate yourself a little about how truly difficult living with addiction is, and be compassionate. Junkies got it tough enough already without the tough love. I raise a middle finger to that kind of love. Don’t need ya.

I love all you folks who have to deal with my stubborn, addicted lot. I know it’s not easy. Real love rarely is though. Thank you to those who stuck it out or are in the process of. Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up. That goes for everybody.

How do I be a dad, when I grew up with such a poor example? My mother, God rest her soul, did all she could, loved so much sometimes I wonder if that’s what really killed her, yet a mother can’t teach a boy to be a man, much less a father. And my father? I don’t want to inflict that example on my sons; I love them too much.

So I draw from the behaviors of my male mentors who guided me through my troubled youth. I observe life as it interacts with my heart, and I learn what I can. I stay as steadfast as I can in practicing what I believe. When I fall, I get back up. I promise myself I’ll never give up, and sometimes that promise is the only hope I know.

I tell my children the truth–I’m transparent in my parenting–perhaps I tell them too much at times, forgetting they are children. But I love them above all else, and I feel my unconditional love perhaps makes up for some of my many shortcomings as a parent.

I embrace labor as a sound foundation for a flourishing life. I continually cultivate positivity and happiness within my mind, knowing how bleak life can appear when experienced through the living lens of apathy or stagnant sorrow. I fill myself with buoyant laughter to avoid being pulled under by swirling currents of black depression. I refuse to drown in that too-familiar sea.

I strive to always do the next right thing because I know I’m being ever studied by my pair of sons. Children will brook no hypocrisy, nor should they. When I teach them to question authority, I can hardly grow angry when they eventually question mine.

Mostly I just follow my gut. I follow the Tao as best I can and parent accordingly. Perhaps no example was the best example after all.

Cold ashes swirl in the hearth
Animated by a frigid gust
   ghosting through an unlatched door
 from the moon-haunted night without

Feeble, they spiral uselessly in a pantomime
  of living energy 
 as if recalling their burning dance
in an ecstasy of warmth and light

Again they fall
  to gather on the concrete slab
        still—-
                and silent
   as the heart within the grave

It’s graduation time: students from preschool to high school are transitioning to something new, exciting, worrisome, just to name some of the host of emotions. I remember feeling both relieved and benumbed by the surreality of no longer having to contend with the complex and, to me at least, socially terrifying juggernaut that was public school.

            I watched my youngest son graduate from middle school. I noticed there were a group of students who received wild cheers, like they were returning victorious heroes or some shit, and mostly this behavior irritated me. My irritation soon gave way to thoughts of how proud my mom would’ve been of her grandsons, but she’s dead instead. It was one hell of a sucker punch. I kept the sobbing back just long enough to get out of there.

            A good friend of mine also noticed this phenomenon of greater applause for some, but the experience triggered an epiphany for him. The thought occurred that the withholding of applause (or love, resources, protection, food, whatever) for “me and mine” is one of the reasons our culture is so diseased (if you don’t think it is, I doubt you’ve been paying much attention.) He then made it a point to clap and yell as much for every student as he did for his own. Perhaps this changes nothing, right? We’re talking about applause after all, but if we apply the same principle to things other than just applause and treat all people as we would our beloved (and this is where it starts getting difficult for me), then perhaps we could help more than hinder.

            I have a gnawing misanthropy, which seems to be growing more savage as I age. I try to give people basic respect, at least until they piss me off. When my friend spoke of his experience, it resonated so strongly with me, I actually felt my total disgust with most humans receding.

            Yet, as I sit here writing what I hoped would be an optimistic and possibly even lightweight inspirational piece, I can’t shake 47 years (fuck I’m getting old) of experience. That’s why “Shoot, Knife, Strangle, Beat, and Crucify” is in my liked songs list and “Age of Aquarius” or whatever the fuck is not.

            Try, I guess, and so will I, to be brotherly or sisterly. Believe me, I know not everyone deserves it. But, then again, who are we to judge anyway?