Fallen

so there really is no end to this
faded snapshots, fleeting bliss
all i’m left with is desire
this my hell, and that my fire

archer shot too high and far
borrowed moments from the stars
now my time is free for all
never fall free from the law

my muse a slave, i sold my rights
in one too many stolen nights
moth to flame for city lights
a god has fallen slain tonight 

ca. 2014

Eulogy

renaissance
San Francisco, a whisper in the wind tonight
tells of rebirth
not Beat
or beaten down
not beatific simply being

it is whispered that soon
we will all see our visions and dream our dreams
amidst the microchip mindbending screams
can you really, really believe? 

The true dawn begins tonight
at which I woke, and was alight
and the wind rushed through me like 
the rustle of dead leaves

San Francisco, I never knew
you but I hear of your deeds of renunciation and renown
they have echoed across time and space like starlight
that is evergreen

I have seen, I see, I will continue to see
me in you
you in me
I was born
not anachronistically
but just in time
just in time 

ca. 2011

Dry Drunk

i was born
to a mother who always is
trying to destroy me

my father
left
long before
i was born
i can never seem to find
where he’s at

i’m so dry
such a dry, dry drunk
white knuckle sober

ca. 2011 – 2012

Hexakosioihexakontahexaphobia

i insist on suffocating slowly
still
i refuse to die
imposing my will to weakness
avoiding applying the “why”

implications are closing in, oppressive
my mind is open, fluid
suggestive
interposing meaning and form with
the spoken and written letter

the light source filtered through all this
wreckage
the squeaking moving in, oppressive
regressive, the way my vantage remains
a disjointed unit-whole

you persist, and i suffocate quickly
you ask so nicely for me to die
deposing my God damned will to power
why do i seem to avoid the “apply”?

THE SYMBOL ON MY HAND IS BURNING

into the flesh, and back out from inside
illuminates Prison, a chasm, a prism
dividing a spectrum of impossible light

we wholly refract the soma, the psyche
The Panic transforms into beauty inane
compulsion, obsession, redemption, addiction
we know we’re alive
we perpetuate pain

ca. 2006

Grown

i’ve grown weary
of this story
growing
weary
of this frame
oh so weary
of this cosmos
in which I got this name

and I can’t remember why I came

I’m fearful for the leaving
can’t seem to quit the game
oh how I love this loathsome body
I carry with me night and day

and when I look into the mirror
I see a stranger face

sweet solace sought in speaking
my wearisome refrain
no rest foreseen in sleeping
if I must wake again
in lukewarm purgatory
on waves that toss and strain
in sitcoms just repeating
weary lines and jokes again

and again 

~ justin aptaker, 1/6/2018

totality

momentary clarity
seeing i’m human after all
grandeur drowned in mortality
i am all totality

i’m nothing at all
yes, feeling small
the largest of feelings
the hardest for telling

foretelling my futures
complexity looming
chaos consuming
hope always blooming

at the last minute
not done till i’m finished
never give up the ghost
just because you’ve lost hope

over the horizon
fixing my eyes again
flesh spirit battle weary
soul, hold me, onward dreary

love, you’re a mystery
a curse and a gift to me
the wind that keeps lifting me
the waves always drifting me

connected to feeling
in body, in realness
ethereal madness
fading some, can i grasp this

can you grasp?
i don’t ask this
my last breath, my life passed then
never to ask when
in an age, in an afternoon

breath fleeting leaving soon
inspiration the gentle moon
good night sweetly gripping me
i am all totality

ca. 2017 – 2018

not i

Beneath your vast oceans of sky
i trembled in wonder
And the veil was torn asunder
And for a time, standing still
I could see: oh, all my blindness to reality

The gears clanged together, shifting again
I was in the world of other men
And everything seemed so pretend
And even then
just when

I felt crushed to the crumbling, time would flow
Your oceans of time move fast, then slow
The currents in our minds that drift and blow
Listless so

Like our ego and spirit kaleidoscopes
Today we’re high, tomorrow
Low
And time, and time just seems to go,
And all the while we know
We know

That when we bid our loves farewell
Time can be our only hell
Time, on which our minds will dwell
Wasted years, and love grown pale
Life is never our story to tell
I don’t want to end this not so well
These lines are not my story to tell
They rush from under your waves who swell
And creatures beneath the deep who dwell
My spirit is stretched in the wind, my sail

Walk between worlds I know so well
Knew so well, unfamiliar now
Revolving doors to worlds abound
And feet never can stay on the ground
Not forever

Nothing is
Nothing could have been, or could ever be
Nothing at all, no, nothing should be
How could anything ever be? I shake my head in agony
Discarding others’ philosophy

That’s the glory!
Nothing compels to tell this story
Nothing, the natural state of things
From which something pure and holy sings
From which life and love and beauty spring
From which all this sorrow and suffering

From which come these broken and holy rhymes
And discords, and tempos
And faltering times
And wars and egos the size of dimes
That yet tread down the earth
Like Jehovas, endless lines

I cannot
My ego press on
My spirit stretched thin
I cannot
I cannot begin again

I can’t begin to make you see
I can’t begin, for even me
I can’t
I can’t
Not I
Not I

ca. 2016 – 2017

Invocation

come now
i welcome you
and as the sign of my invitation
i’ll smear some of my blood over my thoughts
before i write them down

come burning
like the ember at the end of my cigarette
which i burn ritualistically
like a sacrifice for sin

come, i’ll slay swine and serpents
to lay out for you
forgive me, it is all i have to give
but i understand that it is the sincerity of the giving
and not the gift
which you desire

and for your thirst
i’ll give a bitter gall
that is all
i have, for your thirst or for mine

but come
come in time
i pine
away
like every day
you ever made

i ask for no angels to herald your arrival
lest wiser men arrive
and present you with better gifts
than i can afford

come Lord

ca. 2011 – 2012

The Four Corners

this four-cornered cave, i’ve been calling my home
the sun has dried up
and left bleached like a bone

this bone i’ve been living in, like an old woman’s shoe
but i have no children
and i have nothing to do

this deed that i’ve done, it has been done for me
but I was condemned
and condemned to be free

this freedom is nothing, not like freedom at all
i sit staring at shadows
shadows play on the walls

ca. 2006

Sermon From Under the Earth

blessed are the fools
who call themselves fools
for others will call them wise

blessed are those who cry out to the world with stammering tongues
crouching aching and sweating
over endless lines of gibberish that fall like drum beats from the tips of their frantic pens
for they will be called Earnest

blessed are the ones who suffer withdrawals
dope-sick
shaking and sweating
desperate for a drink or a fix
for I will make them High indeed!

blessed are the sexual “deviants”
cast away by the “holy” as unclean
for they know that no man or woman may call unclean
anything that God has declared clean

Blessed are those who shake their fists in rage
at the heavens, cursing them
for they will dance in the pouring rain

ca. 2013