Nathaniel T. Hughes

As old men in our mid-twenties, let's be rebellious, let's stay up past ten, let's put down the good ol' book we can't get away from, and denounce sleepy eyes. We'll give it up to reading outside the lines of our circumpolar stars, page-fold the space in-between and hold it out 'til dawn. Don't breathe here! Just wait... for the august of another sunrise.

We were amazing beyond worldly definition, cosmic rivers of suffering settling as oceans of desire in pitted bellies. It was tempting waves, an alcoholic thought of reverie calling on us, two polar opposites as tides, as separated light that blinds. We drank from each other then bathed until our souls caught fire, our consciousness momentarily becoming one. Shirtless, we glowed; our essence: a raging silence that deafened, a home of impermanence escaping the world. We set fire to the mirage and ideas separate of ourselves. We fell asleep on warm concrete pillows; transcending compassionate form, it was OK to say goodbye to the dream, OK to awake to the fading imperfection of the loving Yasodhara and Siddhartha we'd become.

Restless mind, just listen, like you know no better: the days aren't days, or minutes that are fragmented seconds of the infinite. It's a suchness of life not separate, a song that pervades us in all directions, yet only touches us when we're carefully sober, not praying for sun or rain, nobly resting unattached in a middle way. Why not oblige the stillness? Everything else has been wonderfully set in motion We have nothing to do But to not have something to do. It's only when we sit still that we feel; we are truly being moved.

If I squint hard enough, the snow storms outside appear as a dust-bowl in your eyes - dry and thirsty for the taking. It's a comprise, and, we'll accommodate each other in great stretch of middle ground, arms drawn for what still lies inside: My half for your half as we become whole.

The mind shuts off, and you forget who you are - where you've been and where you're at; It's hard to define the places, panicked like laughter, the cool wave that will always come as ice on Sundays - you left it all behind for a kiss, a matted silence in a room of fears, as you realize nothingness isn't a bliss when you can't function where it is.

I've commoditized my life and now I'm bored enough To see through the trees that stripped naked in the speed of things; It doesn't please me, the empty veins that fell now singing for home, singing for a grave under sunflowers feeding birds that sing some more, so deafening they flutter streetlights to a deadening whim, it has the jam of getting things done in the worst way - a division lost for good, bitter as it always was, rooted under full moon tongue and spit to get right; the cogs spinning my life, I had enough: my connoisseur the earth, welcome barefoot feet, re-sow the seeds of interconnectedness, entertain me like you used to under an orgy birthing stars in the further clouds of newer things to come.

Her hula-hoop sombrero-ed like spirals of galaxy dust, a hippy hue that held train-wreck breath for burgeoning slacks in the room, a catalyst of reactions that made the universe wait for her stop. He watched as if she didn't know his atoms had birthed the chemicals of sex. And, just for that it was unbuttoned, the barefooted pride of exposed skin - her hips often rolled the clocks of time like that two at a time, heedless as the fermented wheat gems that bounced around the planets in her gut. It was the bursts of orgone energy that ripped wormholes in her pants, the ratcheting gears of dawn that lured a morning suck and fuck, her endearing laugh that lead to tingly shotgun highs billowing there in the night as a culmination of his and her' auras spinning webs of light across the room: They both held out for the belly of the keg to burst For inebriation to drive them back to together For bees to pollinate a sticky affection so they'd never leave They...