L’appel du vide

The air lies still.

A docu-series rambles on, recanting memories of generations past.

A storm batters the trees outside with violent gusts, endless rains ravage the view beyond my closed windows.

I close my eyes for a long few seconds. A familiar light bulb clicks on in an old dusty attic bathed in bright moonlight on a clear, chilly evening – emitting an aqua blue hue, suspended from the center of the ceiling.

I travel here when I think of death and the afterlife, either on my own or from external stimuli – sometimes a dangerous daydream scene emerges from a quaint reality:

For instance – I’m waiting for a bus and wonder what would happen if it hit me, resulting in death on impact – how do my five senses respond?  Where does that leave ‘me’? Or maybe a plane goes down on a trip and before I know it I’m on a new found post-life trajectory.

Be it a heart attack, something else sudden, or a terminal expectation that everybody sees coming, I’ve thought about what death would be like here and there as far back as I can recall. I remember looking out my window as a toddler, and wondering if I fell and died where my mind and soul would come to reside, where I would travel to, where would my soul wander – where does consciousness go after this life?

The aqua blue lightbulb in the attic is in my mind’s eye, on a different plane where all my inner imaginings lie – I have an old journal as thick as a small brick. Pages frayed, leather-bound.  I flip to the nearest blank, past thousands of older hand written engagements, I write it all down in the aqua blue-lit attic while imagining another possible path or experience that may come to pass when this life is finished.

In those few seconds with my eyes closed on that  dark, stormy evening, I visited the attic where the blue light glimmers – opened my old journal, and  wrote down my latest vision. – RSM

A Note for The Gardener

Know that you did your best, and it showed.


The love by your side is what grounds you, she is your earth;


how else could you rediscover these roots and water the tallest trees while planting new seeds?


El jardinero – you did your part, and more.

Think of yourself less as the bridge – a hard, flat, steel, man made vessel that gets run over in both directions.


Think more of yourself as the garden and the gardener, cultivating your growth, and the growth of those around you, just the same.

– RSM

Bad Bitch, Part 2 (About Damn Time!)

It’s Bad Bitch, Part 2, she’s thick, curvy…

our first year’s on lock, wheels still turning…

another week away down on South Beach,

flashy, classy, sassy, she’s a damn Queen,

wearing all her hubbies’ sunglassies,

looking hotter, than the sunset now..

She’s been so down and under pressure

she’s way too fine to be this stressed, yeah

I’m used to her, and now she’s used to me…

So let’s grow together!

Turn up the music…let’s celebrate

It’s been a year now… a lot more on the way

Okay… alright… it’s about damn time!

In a minute, we’ll be chillin’,

tanning, drinking, margaritas, along the coast,

We’ll be grinning, reminiscing, a little kissing,

Beach babe with the matching Coach –

Admiring her nails, laying on the sand,

Gazing at the water with a drink in her hand,

the baddest bitch around, on water, air, land,

got everybody looking at her like ‘oh, damn!’

She’s been so down and under pressure

But she’s a Bad Bitch, there’s no question

She’s looking fine, no glasses needed to see…

It’s about damn time!

Turn up the music…let’s celebrate

You’re very welcome – happy anniversa-ray!

Okay… alright… it’s about damn time! – RSM ❤

Inspired by ‘About Damn Time’ by Lizzo

Hydro-Electric Chemical Mind Maintenance

It’s a chemically engineered substance intended to ‘hold back the dam,’

with these damn chemicals that build up in your body and brain

to prevent other ones building up in your body and brain.

In circles we go, to obtain these little circles that are meant to

quell the rapid cycles that spiral within the mind,

and ’round these parts, you better have some funds flowing

to keep up with the up-keep and keep this dam damn flowing..

Sometimes it feels like a maze that keeps changing.

Make all the right turns, and you’re left back at square one, gazing –

into the void, with an old, folded, yellowed hydro-electrical manual,

and the poor foreman is expected to fix all the innerworkings,

but the methods and materials keep changing, re-arranging

the arrangement made on how to maintain the body and brain.

Trying to read the manual, the foreman gets lost in words that repeat, repeatedly

as these treacherous whirlpools pool words into destructive spirals with infinite curves:

“We have the best tools for hydro-electric concrete retention, pushing back on the water’s natural forces and pressures of the body of water it holds back, to regulate hydro-static pressure…” 

Word soup boils hot while the dam cracks, but doesn’t break,

for the consequences are just too great for it to take; given, say,  another sudden earthquake.

The dam bares it all with repairs to the walls.

As another new expensive method starts at phase one,

and the foreman begins to question whether any of these new materials help at all.

Maybe it’s all just in the foreman’s head? The dam might be holding up fine, instead –

but the thing is, I’m the foreman in the walls, making sure the water goes,

and whenever it feels like walls are closing in or ‘the veil is thin,’

it feels like another referendum on the synthetic circles, these,

things that-are-supposed-to-combat ‘rapid cycling,’ or ‘feelings of worthlessness.’

But what does the foreman know? The dam walls are concrete, but sometimes feel hallow.

Nevertheless, I refer to the dam’s manual to make sure it all-flows. – RSM

Keyboard Rapper, Vol. 11

Critics claim I’m ‘creatively bankrupt,’ but I got mad mental guap under my Uncle Tony’s mattress

I dig a few bills out, write what’s on my mind, and pray that my prey still thinks I don’t have shit,

I got multiple mind-cores from the ceiling to the floor, third eye disguised, I let you think I’m a halfwit

but I’m emptying banana clips into this rough draft, I’m tuff with the craft, which –

I’ve been proactively practicing since-I-was-a-damn-kid;

I’m on chapter eleven but my credit is untouchable

I ruffle feathers like windy weather while my words go out and hunt for you,

my writtens got you smitten, these scales are always tipping

with my heavyweight phrasiesz,

I’ll put you in a daze for several days until you’re pushing daises, I’m

ur flow wolf, Ru; reverse-unorthodox, my words give birth to pregnant ladies –

In my world: all the shoes wear socks, workers know their worth, and creatives aren’t written off as ‘crazy,’

The best people are bonkers, bro, I’ll bet mad hats on it,

my rhymes’ll black swan your whole dance hall and grind you all the way down

while scoring 100 easy on your most difficult scantron –

my creative currency is off the books, just crypto-palabras

put your mind on a rollercoaster, drain your brain like a hungry chupacabra;

Volume’s on Eleven, even Jane Hopper couldn’t help you,

I’ll let your mind catch up, before my words melt you. – RSM

PLUR x Hydration <3

We’re all friends, and have a collective jump that shakes the tarmac beneath us,

girls on shoulders, kandi traded along sweaty wrists

as the bass permeates our skin, we feel it in our bones –

a wave of loud cheers erupts from stage to stage,

dozens of countries’ flags on display,

makeshift kandi masks donned as hundreds of shufflers scrape the floor with their sneakers,

a pounding of sound calls you from every direction.

Wavy, euphoric vibes, and dilated eyes all around

About 10 giant bananas are running around together

But the most beautiful thing are the water bottles being passed around.

Smiles, glistening bodies of all shapes, sizes, genders, colors, 100,000 faces

And when one falls, there are 10 to catch them,

We check in with our crew and pass the water bottles around –

We all vibe out, some like to smoke, and some won’t,

Some like to jump and scream, and some roll, and some don’t,

but everyone passes the water bottles around.

Some shuffle, some head bang at the front, some crowd surf,

some just sit back and kick back toward the back,

some throw up the peace sign and the duck face,

some are on the ‘gram, while their favorite DJ goes HAM,

taking snaps and videos and selfies with selfie sticks-

Some even start passionately kissing, or give sweaty, glitter-filled hugs

and rave hands, glow sticks, LED gloves dancing in the air,

some make new friends, and some stick to their tribe,

some are wearing next to nothing, some are dressed like batman;

and some are so lost in the music that they’re in their own zone…

and they’re all passing the water bottles around. – RSM

Conveyor Belt Woes

Run, walk, move, the conveyor belt keeps you going,

the travelator pushes us along until we’re pushing daisies;

to conform and put yourself last is to “be strong”

as we trudge along around the black an yellow tarred lines

while looking at our rectangular mind magnets, our attention – occupied,

worrying too much about these crazy times instead of the curvature of our spines.

Factory errors are laughed at, pointed out by the products

because to not be ‘in line’ is to be ‘out of order,’

how free are we if we still have to be like the bees

of a hive that work until our wings no longer flutter?

The puppet masters at the top reference a utopian time and place

that seems long gone, but never actually existed,

and the average Joe from yesteryear

would probably be more appalled than proud of how much

the oligarchs have chipped away from the working class –

basic needs are a privilege, our principles have been twisted.

People locked out of basic shelter are dying,

spikes installed to keep them off polished windows and away from old money limestone walls,

Instead of humans helping humans we have a space race exploding off the blocks,

top 10 money hoarders trying to be like “I’ma head out,” hopping from penthouse to cockpit,

Union-busting tech barons don’t mind leaving the earth sweltering, melted, and barren.

Jump off the conveyor belt – life is more than just numbers and industry –

we’re not just the products, we’re the power that electrifies this grand machine.

Look around, look toward the future, and don’t forget to remember suppressed history. – RSM

Brother Zachariah’s Journey

Walking off the ship that brought him along,


the sun is strong, he hasn’t had water in a long –


Time as the clock slows down while it ticks forward,


Another headache, lower back’s screaming from yet another heavy sleep’s bed ache;


Tasked with the duties that God gave him,
Brother Zachariah put on his old robe and prayed again


to his favorite patron saint, Anthony, to pray for him;

Along the S.S. Italopram it’s been a rough trip,


Sea sickness so severe, the young friar wanted to jump ship,


but he’s come a long way since his days in the monastery,


retaining the teachings, and now refraining from reaching


for the devil’s hand as his bare feet presses on the wooded plank beneath him;

Coming off of the vessel he had traveled on for months, he’s on a different island, and,
learning a different dialect,


The friars of his new mission welcome the well-traveled monk, they exchange rosaries and call him “Bro-Zach” for short,


“Lord, I’m trying to do right thing, and play the long game,” is the prayer he recites when he feels out of sorts. – RSM

Let ’em Know When The Party’s Over

I kinda want one of those sarcastic banners I’ve seen in a meme somewhere-

A string of gold letters that usually says something like

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY”

or

“CONGRATULATIONS”

but instead it says

“PLEASE LEAVE BY 9”

Yes. Perfect.

It’s been a cathartic, nostalgic space for my mind lately
as every turn of the year compels me to rewind and review
the last 365ish spins of the Earth –

As the cosmos rotate around our skies I recall
so many more Earth spins before,
when I was having ‘mind parties’ and heard knocks on the door –

All the homies came through with gifts and fun things,
some of them had horns on their heads, hoofs for feet, or huge, bat-like wings-

Badass mfs who like their music bumping, minds wavy, and their lettuce dank,
Stomping on the floor with me, getting the neighbors mad, making the whole hallway stank,
Music getting loud, ganja getting louder,
Bass vibrations emulating such a buzz that the friction made an old lady downstairs drop and spill her hot bowl of clam chowder,

Louder – my mind’s house got even crowded,

LOUDER – more otherworldly party animals found it,
LOUDER!! – I shared my location with my multiversal wild ones,
Passing all the fun around until 8:59, but,
Me and my demons go all the way back, jack,
So I’ve sat them down before and set some clear boundaries –

They know when it’s time to have fun and make scary sounds, but,
When I tell ’em it’s the last call, they know to turn it down, and
Get a broom and mop and clean up all the mess,
Cuz, there’s no point to partying if you don’t get any rest,
nothing to celebrate if you don’t work hard enough to pass your life’s tests.

I always liked the idea to “Treat death like a friend,” from Harry Potter the Deathly Hallows,

I have my own angle to add, though –

Have fun in life, party with your demons, but, let’ em know when the party’s over.

My winged, scary-looking friends know the deal –


The time has come to help me clean up this place and “Until next time,” I tell them, “It’s been real.” – RSM

Breathe Vol. 2

Been there and back but the panic attacks clap with the sound of deep thunder and return with the whiplash of a well-thrown boomerang,

Random and abrupt these emotions emerge, the flood’s surge suffocates, a work-stoppage in my mind and I’m unable to produce words

Energy sparks like a super saiyan transformation, but all the wild hair and screaming is on the inside,

‘Alive and well’ turns to a silent hell at the blink of an eye’s notice,

The day’s events’ recap just kindles the flames, stimulating the flight/fight response, my

Heart rate goes off the charts, looking just
like this poem, when you rotate your screen 90 degrees to the left –

Engaged in a battle with the heavy, inner winds, but I win all these bouts when I just follow the first letter of every line, and remember to breathe. – RSM