1.
White shining beautiful sea
inland roads of streams to be.
Vast shores on acreage stretch,
Great Basin drained in steppe.
2.
Pure snow, falling from the clouded sky
lake effect nature, dozen’s feet high.
Ecology’s difference, in salt water’s cast
unknown to human, except First Nations’ past.
3.
Salt jumpers and quicken quacks,
the ducks fly for their bug snacks.
Brine shrimp stole their way
where gulls dance at play.
4.
See floating men and women
breeding Deseret kinsmen.
Boats, oaks, rutters, stir the pot
while Saltair peaks, open for a spot.
5.
Water gleaming on surface salt
dried an eon ago, in land’s fault.
Mines of Morton dot the land,
reminds us—modernity’s grand.

Jutting out,
swirling onto the lake.
Spiral Jetty shapes the salt
and gives pleasure with its wake.
 
Stooping low,
over the rocks on the hill.
Passersby swing past the Jetty arm,
for the algae red shoreline on the sill
 
Meditative walk,
I set feet in the path.
Gone are the people before,
taken up what the Lake’s given, hath.
 
Ancient sea,
Bonneville remnants seen.
No more crabs and kelpien fishes--
simple sand, wind, and the brine shrimp, keen.
 
Deadman’s work,
Smithson’s hands shaped the born legatee.
A beach day, where the adults play--
earthen sculpture serving entropy.

Yashica-Mat TLR
Kodak E100, Color Reversal 120 Film
Saturday, September 17, 2022, 6pm.
Spiral Jetty, UT.”

​“Water, water,
water everywhere,
and not a drop to Drink.”
 
Not here, not there,
not the salt water said Coleridge--
let it go to the sink.
 
Such waste,
when fresh water flows freely.
Dropping down, flying around
making its way, slipping down slink.
 
Let it dry.
Let it make haste for the lawns!
More for our alfalfa fields,
and more to wash our stink!
 
Great Salt Lake,
bounding freely eons ago.
Cascading on the Snake River,
into the big brine dink.
 
Drained dry
in a mere 170 years.
Dying too late—not enough tears,
to cry in sync.

Yashica-Mat TLR
Cinestill 50D, 120 Film
Saturday, September 17, 2022, 12pm.
Antelope Island State Park, UT”

​The Terror Begrudgined
Uninvited,
it seems,
finds it way around the gates.
 
To be in the terrored home.
There is no door closed for the
Uninvited.
 
Shadows and space,
dark foreboding in its place,
finds it way around the gates.
 
Mystic take--
Of the give and rake—of the
Uninvited.
 
Terror bringer
of the shamed past—making sins anew,
finds it way around the gates.
 
Flee before the presence
of a guest begrudgined, seen--
Uninvited--
find its way around the gates. 

The flame rose hirer
And the sound of heat, gushed.
The button was pushed with fire
As the closed door shut, hushed.
 
The leaves unfold
As the paper burned.
And the crisping sound untold
through the centuries traveled, learned
 
A simple Herbological specimen
arrived in the collection of Louis XIII.
But kept from Australia, as dead men
Do keep their secrets, grave born still, 19th.
 
What Labillardière gathered so carefully
survived through the revolutions aim.
The World Horrors of 20th century passing merrily
yet, be so tossed into the consuming delights of flame.
 
Jardin des Plantes,
Tagged, boxed, shipped from bureau
Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, France.
Colhelper, No 71250:
 
Tony Bean, botanist,
Queensland Herbarium, Australia.
Asking des Plantes “where are my catalyst?”
the government answered sesquipedalia.
 
Olearia, flowering plant, Asteraceae family
Daisies and sunflowers alike.
To identify and classify, happily
Seed, stem, leaves, and pit to strike.
 
In the notes of a book now closed
the package of Australian history, embers.
In the oven of biosecurity, disposed
the job done, security officers unhindered.
 
The only comfort to centuries of dead gone by
an email, no sugar, no feeling.
Government empathy, thought, and lies
fingered the send button, bureaucrat’s willing.
 
 
References

1. O’Malley, Nick. “Would you burn the Mona Lisa if it was sent?': Our horror bureaucratic bungle.” The Sunday Morning Herald, Lifestyle, 23 Feb, 2018. https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/would-you-burn-the-mona-lisa-if-it-was-sent-our-horror-bureaucratic-bungle-20180213-h0w0w3.html. Accessed 28 Feb, 2018. 

Southwest, pp. 159-60
 
On iron red tipped mountains high,
heat and scorched earth cracked in rays,
waves brought by arid death--
beams shooting through salt flats barren an age ago,
cracking the range as Earth splits the crust westward through
basin voids—billow currents of air as
red rock and sand falls down the river beds, dry.
 
2
Spice and pepper,
sliced chilés to garnish the dish:
cumin, chipotle,
jalapeño, corn,
purslane, and black frijole
served with the flare of rustic ranches.
Piñon Pine drops the seed of coffee from green branches,
simmered in the kettles, while
Prickly Pear cactus reaches for sun raised long,
purple flowering light-soaked edibles as
red rock and sand falls down the river beds, dry.
 
3
Big Brown Bat, sonar silence in the night of cool relief, while
Great Basin Rattle Snake slithers in waves of shimmering glass.
Desert Recluse burrows deep in layers webbed,
Cattle ranches in sage brushed valleys,
and cowboys lasso and tie.
Buffalo roaming the valleys where ancient Ute bones lie,
symbol of First Nation Elder Peoples,
on iron red tipped mountains high.
 
4
Stillness protrudes the Desert Solitaire into holes deep gorging.
Arches float in mountains ancestral.
Smoke reaches the sky above, while
canyons gorge the earth deep and wide,
painting the rainbow of time for all to see--
pride and transparency--
homes dug deep in Ancestral Puebloan sandstone and
beans that fill the stomach, and the cooking pot above flamed mesa.
Spiritual desert dreams the weaver of tomorrow,
As Bear’s Ear rise above Grand Staircases,
red rock and sand falls down the river beds, dry
 
5
Southwest, living
lives in a places that splay life barren.
Flourishing among the four corners--
Copland and settler
the land reveals it secrets.
Welcome horn and home
eastern and first nation, love.
As the Golden Spike transnational is one,
the red rock and sand falls down the river beds, dry
From Iron red tipped mountains, rising high. 

Online reference:
​https://adelaidemagazine.org/2020/06/20/southwest-by-daniel-cureton/

Raspberry Pie, page 160
​
Power surging,
Body open
ready to receive.
 
The heat fired
And the gun lifted
The metal from the board
 
expert hand steady
gliding across my insides
the thrill and fun
 
I was unplugged
For safety
as you felt me up
 
felt my parts
felt me shutter
as you touched me again
in only the way you could
 
You pulled me apart
And it was no work
But for my own good
 
MOS 6510
Become Raspberry Pi
Circuits breaking
 
You screwed me after you finished
Tempting me again
Making me hot in ways only electric can
 
Old to new, now I emulate
Commodore-64
As the 8 bit world turns, I’ll always be your computer whore. 

The Universe Set Free, page 161

The Bekenstein-Hawking formula is given as Sbh = A/4 X kc3/Gћ
Emanating from space, from the precipice of the ultimate curve
The event horizon of holes in black, blackened fabric of positive density
 
The universe of the mind, In a Nutshell
seeing the beginning and the end of sun stars, moon bodies, nebulas and nurseries
Euclidean math and imaginary time, evaporation spheres and negative energy
 
The devotee of Physics and Cosmology, On The Shoulders of Giants
Taught us how to peel the sky, understand the ends
And find our place in the cosmos.
 
Great brain of the ages, locked away
freer than those caged in bodies of flesh
Traveling on the currents of the multiverse in 11 dimensions
 
Lucian Professor of Physics, conversing with Newton
Running free and rowing home
On the rivers of space-time
 
You were here, A Brief History of Time
Humanity will miss you, science will Saint you,
the Bang will never forget the name Stephen Hawking

Brazil National Museum Fire September 2018, pp. 162-63
 
The rush of hot wind on the men,
hands furiously grabbing what they can hold.
From a collection of 20,000,000 gems
oh what can’t be retold!

bombeiros spray with blasted guns
fail the 92% gone.
They grow limbs as beast of the realm
save what can be lifted before the flicker drawn.
 
Science legacy, 200 years of collecting,
serving as the reference for the world.
Exist now in journal photos,
precious research items in embers hurled.
 
The rush of hot wind on the men,
hands furiously grabbing what they can hold.
From a collection of 20,000,000 gems
oh what can’t be retold!
 
The flame creeps along the wall--
Baking, breaking, bashing, burning.
Cooking dead knowledge consumed,
stomachs full—churning.
 
The insects pinned to posts
so carefully recorded and displayed.
Brilliant colors, shining as the light dances,
fly away in the sweeping winds unbraid.
 
Art woven by indigenous hands,
feathers float on the waves.
Adorned with delicate history
greedy heat stealing down-caves.
 
Masks hide their faces no more,
exposed in the cold heat.
Melting, cracking, splitting, caving
embers on memory beat.
 
Mollusks, 40,000 specimens slow to move,
stuck in the shell of time.
Gazing death in fire’s eye, succumbed not through,
the saving hands of curators’ line.
 
Continents joined—village planes beyond the Amazon rivers,
the twist and rounds of throats that rose from the twangled jungled roads.
Egyptian and Latin, wrapped in linen preserved,
corpses entombed an epoch ago explode.
 
Civilizations out of time--
Crackling sounds, drowning rhythms of drums.
Wars, plague, politics forgotten--
Bones rattle their hums.
 
Museum cured of the forever backlog,
reels shrink, bubble, and pour.
Exu consumed with delight,
voices crinkle and crackle—ash tapes of analog speak no more.
 
The rush of hot wind on the men,
hands furiously grabbing what they can hold.
From a collection of 20,000,000 gems
oh what can’t be retold!
 
The flame kisses and the roof falls,
the tongue—forked—speaks.
Higher it rose, deeper into history,
all-consuming death, bleak.
 
Fresco of Popei,
buried and removed from the eruption of Vesuvius.
Escaping time, heat, ash, dust, and dirt, 2,000 years late,
swept into the bin by consuming flame at Rio, lugubrious.
 
Pages fly past on hot current, blackened as the Earth,
return from whence they came.
Manuscripts so delicate,
disintegration’s famished spark to blame
 
Bubbled brain,
the lobotomized Brazil.
Mourn for the loss, and living unknowable
countless millions still.
 
Specimens sent around the world,
gone from the drawers of tomorrow.
Labels charred—files smashed—cases crushed,
Science forever blind, hands full of sorrow.
 
The rush of hot wind on the men
Hands furiously grabbing what they can hold
From a collection of 20,000,000 gems
oh what can’t be retold!
 
Cabinets of potential covered in the wake of collapse,
heat tempered to survive.
Offering hope to us where there was no sprinkler
No insurance-Nature may revive.
 
Dearest Luzia, we thought you gone,
12,000 years born, your skull tells of life.
Unborn to Europeans and the Far East,
You cut through Nature’s crematorium as the carbon-steeled knife
 
Bendegó stands tall, symbol of hope,
among collections that lye dead there.
Meteor fallen so long ago, you withstood the bend, will, and crack,
Pedestaled you remain—dispel our despair!
 
References

1. Belen, Nelson. “Brazil’s National Museum Staff Save Irreplaceable Items During Fire.” The Rio Times, Local Politics, 4 Sept. 2018, https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-politics/national-museum-staff-saves-irreplaceable-pieces-during-fire/. Accessed 2 Dec. 2018.
2. “Brazil museum Fire: Prized ‘Luzia’ Fossil Skill Recovered.” BBC News, Latin America, 20 Oct. 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45926733. Accessed 3 Dec. 2018.
3. Gomes, Luciani. “Museum Artefacts Saved from Brazil Fire.” BBC News, Latin America, 10 Sept. 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-latin-america-45463948/museum-artefacts-saved-from-brazil-fire. Access 3 Dec 2018.
4. Gorman, James. “The Brazil Museum Fire: What Was Lost.” The New York Times, Science, 4 Sept. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/science/brazil-museum-fire.html. Accessed 3 Dec 2018.

America the Vile, page 164

When did we forget what it means to be American?
How cold did our hearts turn to other's situation, not like our own?
 
When did we ignore the flailing dreams of those seeking better,
and chill ourselves on the ice of greed?
 
We dream the dreams of today for a better tomorrow,
but we leave those who are most vulnerable behind.
 
We seek to further our own money, letting the elderly die unattended.
We pass children lying in the streets, starved of futures.
We cast the poor asunder, saying they are lazy workers.
We call the youth insouciant, labeling them as entitled millennials.
We accost the minority, profiling them as thugs and illegals.
We close our doors to the immigrants escaping wars, marking them as radicals.
We let the Corporation fill our bellies with swill and our minds with hate,
placating us so that even Nazis march in our streets.
 
Yet we call ourselves, American.
 
Liberty stands hollow in the East, face shrouded in shame, torch snuffed by narcissists.
Our Lady invites the poor, the tired, those yearning to be free, to pass by
 
not the America of dreams, but of condescension and tyranny.
 
The lands of the Earth shake, blackened with living dead,
corpses on the tit of capitalism,
stained by the blood of soldiers in Uncle Sam’s’ forever wars,
thickened like the paint of doom by the talon of the Eagle
moving slowly toward the abyss as the bison in the plains.
Hope is but a memory, and freedom a passing lark.
 
Columbia dies on the doorstep of the nationalism, calling us to remember
“We are a nation of immigrants”

Anxiety's Bane, page 44

You ever felt it:
the uncertainty and distrust?
Your own self a stranger
not knowing who to trust.
 
Fade in, fade out
the focus is so hard.
Bright lights, enemies--
soul wretched and marred."

​Alone IN A CROWD: A Short Film by OCD, page 56
 
"CUT TO BROKEN PERSON
BROKEN PERSON is filled with intense panic. Fright appears on their face, they fall to their knees.
                         BROKEN PERSON
                               NO...NO
                        OCD (V.O)
                  Lade dah, let’s try the old plate to the head! Better yet, hammer to the                                  temple instead.
Sharp jolted camera angles zoom onto BROKEN PERSON’S face with angled sunlight illuminating their terror.
                      OCD (V.O)
               Maybe we can hack off the limbs and pretend it’s Dicken’s little Tims.
              Or smash in the face, just like the show,  and find relief, with the killing blow." 

A Day in the Life of Compulsion, page 78       

Brain Trippin', page 113

​"I said oh well!! Don’t care.” he said nonchalant as the anxiety welled inside. The mental struggle was exhausting, the unrelenting grind of obsessive compulsive disorder never relented on the organic machine.             
“Well Daniel, how about try this fry pan on for size. See how hard it hits the brain with ease?” said OCD
“I don’t care. I don’t want to care about fry pan weights on skulls.”
“Now, let’s try to see the exploding brains that fly out when you strike.”
“Ugh, disgusting. Too bad it’s a watermelon now.”
“Problem solved” smiled OCD. “We’ll just reset the loop.”"

Heteroflexibe?, page 126

​"You could suck off every jock in this locker room and swallow their loads like horchata!
*startle* “WTF!?”
Every dick I suck means I’m gayer than the rest.
“What, I don’t suck dick!”
Yeah bro, it’s the hottest thing.
“OMG, what are you talking about.”
Why don’t you try it, you might like it enough to switch."

Hue of Blue, page 148

"With hue of blue, Clonazepam.
You sit on the shelf each night,
eyeing me with your tranquil plot.
I resist like I know I ought.
But, can’t help to think you’re right.
 
You land inside so easily.
Taking you is so breezily.
I close my eyes before the ride,
with hue of blue.
 
Sleep comes as the fairy dreamland.
No better feeling than dreamsands.
I, in wake of anxiety,
escape OCD quietly.
O, there in sleep I make my stand,
with hue of blue."

​Fiend of the night
you came to Deseret
for the deeds
with saccharin charm
 
The University too easy,
the Saints let you in their doors-
Elders and girls so trusting
blind to bludgeoning psychosis.
 
As you hit so hard.
The cracking,
deep,
in the skull
The glorious ideas.
The succulent sounds.
The warm feelings-
that coursed inside.
  
The ease of strangle.
The rush of the beat.
The thrill of the feel-
as the feet kept still.
 
oh Ted-
 
The push of your thrust,
into the hard body
throbbing against my walls
balls shrinking deep,
 
as you came inside
within my stiffened space
fulfilling the corpse desires
screaming ecstasy of compulsion
 
loving me to death
the art of murder-sex
I never knew love
before you corded me
Ted
 
Exhibition for one
The truest love
like the kind you gave
in my filth laden grave

I’m yours
Forever in the cell
your memories electrified
never forget the high
as you stiffen, bulge, and die

Response to “In Noctem” and the cut scene in which it is used from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince film. The sound track should be played when reading aloud the poem, completing the reading by the end of the song.
     *Times indicated are seconds on soundtrack
 
The utter despair.
The absolute knowledge of what is to come.
 
Not seeing a way out,
 
Not seeing the light that is around.
 
(Pause. Begin again 0:21*)
 
Angst is little comfort.
Hate was my constant.
Disdain my sleeve.
Scowl my outlook,
as I walked into the shadow.
 
(Pause. Begin again 0:36)
 
How did it come to this?  
 
(Pause. Begin again 0:41)
 
I was careful.
I was strong.
I was closed to the dark impulses.
Yet I agreed,
to take on what needed to be done.
 
(Begin as music arrives at 0:48)
 
To do what no other could.
To out pawn the pawn master.
To master the manipulator.
To show him the wrong of his way
in the final moment of his defeat
 
(Pause. Begin again 1:00)
 
Even after my body is cold.
Was it all worth it?
(Pause. Begin again 1:05)
Will the memory of Lily live on?
 
I can walk away.
 
(Pause. Begin again as verses begin duo coupling at 1:11)
 
The clouds form and there is time
as the shadow passes.
It’s not too late to leave in an instant.
 
But why have I stalled?
Why I have I forsaken myself?
 
(Pause. Begin again 1:23)
 
What is love?
This thing I could never purge…
 
(Pause. Begin again 1:28)
 
even with the darkest acts
 
(Pause. Begin again 1:38)
 
I know... 
 
I know what it is…
 
(To be finished as the second half of the last “Never will forget” begins at 1:45)
 
It is…death.
 
 
References
Học viện HogwartsV. “In Noctem (Into the Darkness)-Hogwarts Choir-Half Blood Prince Deleted Scenes.” Youtube, 24 July, 2016, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9By0u8CoV0.
Hooper, Nicholas. “In Noctem.” Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). New Line Records, 2009.